Why the left was wrong

[Violet_Crumble]

A dictator is captured and his people freed. But if the left had got its way, this would never have happened, writes Gerard Henderson.


Iraq, December 14, 2003. At a news conference, Iraqi journalists loudly cheer the formal announcement that United States forces have captured former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein near Tikrit. Some shout in Arabic "Death to Saddam"; others express in English their gratitude to the US for liberating their country.

Australia, April 6, 2003. In his Sunday Age column, ABC Radio National presenter Terry Lane, declares: "I want the army of my country, which is engaged in an act of gross immorality, to be defeated" by Saddam Hussein's regime. Lane adds that he does "not want a single soldier killed or wounded". Previously he had expressed the wish to "have seen a Scud fall on (the) cruel, sanctimonious head" of a US Army spokesman.

The debate over the Gulf wars of 1990-91 and 2003 tends to overlook two central facts. First, many of those who opposed the present commitment were also against the previous one, even though this was endorsed by the United Nations. The list is a long one. It includes academic Robert Springborg (who became ABC TV's in-house expert the first time around and was the recipient of a soft interview by Radio National's Life Matters presenter Geraldine Doogue on December 2), journalist John Pilger and many more.

If those who opposed the US-led military action in 1990-91 had succeeded in their advocacy, Saddam would have achieved his aim of annexing Kuwait. Almost certainly, this would have cemented Saddam's rule for the remainder of his life and led to a situation where he was regarded as a hero on what is sometimes called the Arab Street.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/15/1071336885594.html

[izzie]

1. I think we could have got him out with out war. No one had really tried

We pushed the people to push him out and then did not back them after spending years giving and selling him stuff so he could go to war with people we did not like.Bush needed a war and a base for the army in the Middle East and it has turned out to be one big mess.This is that old thing. Getting what you wished for. Our govt acts like the mob.

[Old and In the Way]

3. seems a well placed bullet could have avoided the mess and

loss of lives this invasion created. But, then, there'd be no justification for occupying those oil wells, would there? WMD? No.
Saddam Evil? Sure! Now we'll be there until security gets better....that will happy only when the last barrel is sucked from Iraq.

[TheDebbieDee]

29. A well-placed bullet in SH's head would have saved thousands of lives,

but we needed to have dozens of bridges and roads and hundreds of buildings destroyed so Halliburton could overcharge the US taxpayer billions of dollars to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure.

[forgethell]

90. Isn't that like the

'targeted assassinations' that all decent people condemn in the Israeli/Arab conflict?

[drdon326]

269. Good point.

.

[Old and In the Way]

2. This apologist seems to be overlooking some rather obvious facts.

Should Reagan, Bush Sr, Rumsfield, Cheney, et al be indicted for enabling Hussein to become this tyrant? And why not have taken Hussein out when he was using our weapons to fight Iran as our proxy?

Hussein's fatal mistakes were (1) trusting George Bush Sr. when he told Saddam, thru April Gillispe that we'd take no side in his war with Kuwait....a war started because they were slant drilling into Iraqi oilfields. and (2) making plans to move his oil sales in Eurodollars.

Saddam was ruthless, no doubt. But let's see how many people die and how Iraq survives as a secular state before we write the final chapter of this very sordid story.

[factroid]

151. good post! - I might also add . . .

Another fan of Mark Zepezauer's perhaps? Yes, I understand there were a couple of contributing causes to inflame Iraq and Iran - the New American Century's tact to divide and conquer for ME high grade oil (65% of global oil reserves). Notice the "freeze-dried" US - Saudi state of the art military bases that Bush Sr. was really protecting from the errant erstwhile Rumsfeld-snubbing (see as Reagan envoy in 1983) MIC business partner - Saddam. Notice the directional drilling from Kuwait into Iraqi oil reserves, while Saddam was heavily indebted to Kuwait already - from - guess who? Hallibuton? Noooo...... Notice reactions to the pipeline project to get that prize of oil reserves in the Caspian region. Notice 14 old Soviet basis being taken over by the U.S.. A lot to notice that some news services don't seem to take much note of, eh?

Yes, anyone that kids themselves about 1) the aganda of the post-Reagan "Team B" chickenhawk war mongers reincarnate, and 2) the importance of the middle east to the wealth and power of vested military industrial complex interests - is not really playing with a full U.S. foreign policy deck - especially wrt the middle east.

See, among many references, "The Trials of Henry Kissinger."

Then, there is: "Boomerang" and "The CIA's Greatest Hits" - Zepezauer
"Tinderbox" - Zunes
"Sleeping With The Devil" - Baer
"Forbidden Truth" - Brisard
"American Dynasty: Deceit and the House of Bush" - Phillip

Many facts are not publically obvious yet - many have been popping up now and then; often ignored. Should be interesting as time goes on . . . Guess we'll see how the laws of karma work . . .

Saddam - the evil tyrant that Cheney and Bush must rid the world of? How convenient for Wolfowitz, Cheney, Bush, Perle, Bolton, Feith, etal, huh?

[Bozola]

4. We are wrong because we opposed

spending hundreds of billions of dollars to get rid of a two-bit tinpot evil dictator that we helped install and support, with another evil tinpot dictator?

Are these people trying to convince me that I was wrong because I feel that blowing the entire fiscal future of our country on the annihilation of a has-been politician because he, like the vast majority of the US allies in the second through sixth world, was a "bad man"?

Boy, O boy, don't I feel chagrinned!

[Starlight]

290. What Bozola said

:toast:

Not to mention the 100,000+ lives lost...and the explosion of anti-Americanism all over the world...and the creation of many generations of bad blood in the Arab world...

...yes, the world would be MUCH better off if we'd left Sadam & Iraq alone.

[library_max]

5. Lumping the two wars together is nonsense.

It's like saying that some of the people who opposed Vietnam also opposed World War II. True, but that doesn't make Vietnam equivalent to World War II.

Before Desert Storm, Iraq had invaded and conquered a sovereign nation and member of the U.N., without provocation. The April Gillespie thing was a screwup - she thought he'd asked if we were going to side with Kuwait in negotiations over oil issues, nothing was said about military actions. Maybe it flies as a diplomatic "gotcha," but Saddam couldn't have been fool enough to think that April Gillespie's very vague statement was a greenlight from the U.S. to invade Kuwait. Wars of conquest are intolerable - in 1990, Saddam really was acting like an early Hitler, and he had to be stopped and contained. Which, with nearly the entire world on our side (including almost all of the Islamic world), we did.

Cut to 2003 when Iraq had done nothing, nothing at all, to provoke an invasion. The Bush administration tried to sell the U.N. on WMD accusations that turn out to have been lies and damned lies but not statistics. The U.N. said no. Most of the world, other than a few allies we bought and paid for, said no, but we invaded anyway. The two wars have nothing in common except the identity of the opponent.

[Liberal Classic]

118. Frankly, how can they be separated?

There was no peace with Iraq during the Clinton Adminstration.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

6. Nine Red Herrings: How the Western 'Left' has Misread Iraq...

http://www.marxist.org.uk/htm_docs/comm12.htm

[cantwealljustgetalong]

8. ouch...

(1) The Ba’ath regime was in some sense “progressive”: It is very revealing that few western “leftists” ever went beyond ritualised, purely verbal opposition to the “excesses” of the regime, even in the midst of their efforts to hijack the leadership of the anti-war movements from the pacifists, Muslim fundamentalists, “Not in My Name” solipsists and other malcontents with whom they made such opportunistic alliances. Meanwhile, a horrifyingly large number of “leftists” actually praised the regime – for its “secularism”, disregarding the Ba’athists’ praise for Islam as the “soul of the Arab nation”, Saddam’s fictional claim of descent from the Prophet and the addition of “Allah is great” to the national flag; its “socialism”, disregarding the whole sorry history of tyrannies deploying empty leftist rhetoric; and its sporadic defiance of the western powers, disregarding the fact that it happily cooperated with those powers whenever it suited it and them to do so. The western “left” has evidently become so habituated to denouncing the hypocrisy and cynicism of western governments – which we also denounce, though more consistently – that it is now incapable of discerning the hypocrisy and cynicism of nonwestern governments. Any organisation that can call, as the Socialist Workers Party did, for “Victory to the Resistance”, as if the Ba’ath regime’s last remaining loyalists, and those it imported from other Arab countries, resembled the French Resistance rather than the Vichy regime’s Milice and their Nazi friends, has not just deserted Marxism, it has taken off into a world of fantasy from which it looks unlikely to return.

(2) The suffering of the Iraqi people was mainly due to the effects of UN sanctions: If that was true, how was it that, on all the standard indicators – infant mortality, standards of literacy, public health provision and so on – the Kurds in the Northeast were measurably better off than the rest of the Iraqi people, despite being subject to the very same sanctions? The suffering of the Iraqi people was mainly due, sanctions or not, to the misgovernment and brutality of the Ba’ath regime, which, unlike all too many such regimes in former colonies, was not installed with aid from the West, or the former Soviet bloc, or China, but was entirely indigenous in origin, apart from its borrowings of ideas from the writings of various western fascists. The western “left” bears a heavy responsibility for its utter failure to recognise the regime for what it was: the rebirth in the Middle East of Nazism, in opposition, not just to “Jews, Persians and flies”, as a notorious Ba’ath pamphlet proclaimed, but to all the heirs of the Enlightenment, from liberals and social democrats to revolutionary socialists and anarchists. The people of Iraq tried to tell the western “left” what it was inconvenient for them to hear, but their pleas for aid, just like those of the people of Bosnia and Kosova, fell on deaf ears. Thus, yet again, an oppressed people who had a right to expect help from the western “left” were compelled to turn to western capitalist states for help instead, with all the reactionary side-effects that that implies.

(3) Hostility to Saddam’s regime was “really” hostility to the “Arab world” and/or to Islam: The West is undeniably permeated by suspicion and distrust with regard to Islam, which is reinforced by widespread ignorance of, and contempt for, the countries in which Islam is dominant. What is also undeniable, however, if Islam is what you claim to care about, is that the western powers did more than any Muslim government did to help the largely Muslim peoples of Bosnia and Kosova; that Saddam’s regime killed more Muslims than any other regime in history; and that Muslim minorities in western countries are treated at least as well as, and often much better than, non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries are. But so what? Religious affiliation is no more reliable a guide to political and economic relations now than it has ever been, and the “Muslim world” is as internally divided as the “Christian world”. As for the “Arab world”, only a fanatic (such as Robert Fisk of The Independent) could believe in such a mirage, not only in the face of the obvious political, economic and social differences between (say) Iraq and Kuwait, Egypt and Bahrain, Algeria and Jordan, but also in the face of the presence in almost all these countries of non-Arab peoples (Kurds, Berbers, Turcomen and others, not to mention the slaves of Mauritania), whose mistreatment the western “left” has been silent about for too long. Just as 19th-century Pan-Slavism degenerated from its liberatory origins into being a vehicle for Russian imperial expansionism and Serbian ultranationalism, so Pan-Arabism fragmented long ago into traditionalism (as in Saudi Arabia), fascism (as in Syria) and Stalinism (as in Libya), and now has nothing to offer to the Arabs or the other peoples of these countries as they start to move against the assorted regimes that currently control their lives. In that respect the liberation of Iraq has at least the potential – which, of course, may not be realised – to assist the process of democratising and modernising Islamic countries in general, and Arab countries in particular. Compromise and collusion with any nationalism, or any religion, in these countries or anywhere else, can only delay and undermine that process, and give comfort to fanatics and reactionaries.

(4) The western powers kept Saddam in power, armed his troops and funded his foreign ventures, so they cannot be trusted now: The left used to have a better grasp of history, and of its importance in shedding light on the present: this highly slanted, selective version of the recent past sheds no light at all. For a start, which western powers are being referred to? While Britain had virtually no contact with the Ba’ath regime up to 1979, and the United States had no diplomatic relations with Iraq until 1984, France (and the Soviet Union) started making deals about oil and arms in 1972, and none other than Jacques Chirac himself first visited Baghdad as long ago as 1974. In any assessment of the 35 years that Saddam and the Ba’ath were in power, the French (and Russian) record of 31 years of continuous and very close relations weighs a lot heavier than either the US record – six years of cynical and ineffective collaboration against Iran versus 29 years of hostility – or even the British record of 11 years of opportunistic trade deals versus 24 years of hostility. The behaviour of Jimmy Carter, Margaret Thatcher and their colleagues was certainly hypocritical and repulsive, but taking the present governments of the United States and Britain to task for the crimes of their predecessors is analogous to blaming Winston Churchill for the errors of Neville Chamberlain. Meanwhile, what adjectives are left to describe the French government’s wholly unprincipled objections to the war, which attracted the wholly predictable support of the depressingly gullible western “left”? As for trusting any of the western powers, that is not even a serious proposition: our concern as historical materialists is to judge states, political movements and individuals alike not by what they say but by what they do. From that perspective, liberating Iraq from barbarism, whatever the motive for doing so, counts as a greater good than helping the Ba’ath regime to carry on, which is what the French government and its allies, including the western “left”, were effectively doing for as long as they could.

(5) The war against the Ba’ath regime was a violation of international law: The British Liberal Democrats demonstrated the sheer silly irrelevance of this claim by asserting before the war that it would be “illegal” without a second (in fact 18th) resolution of the UN Security Council, and then, during the war, that its legality could be determined only by an international court once it was over. We expected this kind of unprincipled opportunism from that party of shallow, complacent, vaguely left-leaning but ultimately timid petit-bourgeois idiots, but we are still baffled by the readiness of those who regard national laws as bourgeois illusions to treat “international laws” as if they are any different. In this internecine dispute between some bourgeois lawyers and politicians and others of their kind, the US and British interpretation was probably right, and the French and German side was probably wrong. The willingness of such lawless dictatorships as China’s to go along with the latter merely confirms that conclusion. But that is a problem for liberals (and Stalinists) to sort out, and should have nothing to do with socialists’ attempts to assess the rights and wrongs of the war. Some day in the unknown future, a democratically elected world authority may perhaps be in a position to make and enforce genuine, socialist international laws. Until then Marxists need to be at least as realistic about relations between states as those states’ own policy-makers are. If that means making temporary alliances with bad capitalist regimes against even worse ones, then so be it.

(6) The war was opposed by majorities of the populations of Britain, the United States, Australia, Arab countries, Muslim countries, the whole world, and, if the Pope can be trusted, Heaven as well: The western “left”, having spent years denouncing opinion polls as just another part of the capitalist propaganda machine, suddenly took to citing them when they briefly seemed to go their way, then just as suddenly took to denouncing them again when they showed large majorities in many of the coalition countries supporting the war. Equally inconsistently, the British “left” dropped all their hostility to “parliamentary fetishism” for as long as it looked as if the House of Commons might vote against the war, then reverted when the Commons voted in favour of the war, twice. But who really knows what most people support or oppose? Are demonstrations really more reliable guides to popular feeling than parliamentary votes or media campaigns? What if the government, in any of the coalition countries, had called their critics’ bluff and arranged a snap referendum on whether to go to war? The chances are that they would have won a convincing majority – and that the “left” would have denounced it as manipulated and unreliable. Why can’t the “left” simply argue its case strictly on its merits, regardless of whether it has majority support or not? It might then gain some more respect, and possibly a larger audience, than it does at present with all its lies and bombast.

As for claims to be able to discern Arab or Muslim public opinion, either in general or within any one country, they must all be regarded as highly suspect. These are societies controlled by regimes that do not permit free media (even Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV are by no means as “independent” as they or their new fans claim they are); that impose severe restrictions on political activity; and that give religious fundamentalists privileged positions from which to spread their poison. There is thus no genuine Arab public opinion to be discerned, and not much in most other Muslim countries. Perhaps most Arabs do feel humiliated by the coalition’s actions; perhaps they feel far more humiliated by the actions of Arab regimes; perhaps they are much less concerned about the fate of Iraq than we might wish them to be. In the absence of reliable evidence we refuse to trust any of the self-appointed experts, especially when their reading of Arab public opinion just happens to coincide with their own views and/or depends on applying monolithic stereotypes to millions of people – if that isn’t racism, what is?

(7) The war was “really” all about US control of the world’s oil supplies: Of course the US ruling class is as capable of stupidity and ignorance as any other ruling class, but historically it has shown a keener sense of self-interest than this crass economistic nonsense suggests. If the fate of the oil industry was the overriding concern then the US government and the oil companies with which it is closely connected could and would have carried on as before, collaborating with the Saudis and others to keep the oil flowing. The fact that US oil companies are now being awarded contracts for work in Iraq indicates only that they are the leading players in the industry, their only serious rivals being French and Russian – and is it any surprise, or cause for indignation, that US and British decision-makers prefer to deal with US companies rather than companies from two of the countries that were close to the Ba’ath regime before and during the war?

Meanwhile, we are not so naive as to suppose that, because oil was not the main motive, the liberation of the Iraqi people was. The US administration and the other governments in the coalition, with their customary cynicism, exploited that goal, and the issue of weapons of mass destruction, to promote their shared vision of an international order that is safer for capitalism, implying, among other things, more liberal democracies, with more compliant governments; more “free” trade, in oil as in other commodities; and more effective joint action against terrorism. There is every reason to think that they are insincere about much of this programme, and that their definitions of such terms as “democracy” or “terrorism” differ from ours. There is no reason, however, to think that they are insincere about all of it – the western “left” has no monopoly on self-deluding idealism – and it makes more sense to assess each scene in this continuing drama on its own merits, by the light of the doctrine of the lesser evil, than to either buy into the whole deal or reject it out of hand simply because it isn’t revolutionary socialism. Given the widespread popularity of capitalism and the vanishingly small support for socialism in the contemporary world, it would be stupid to expect anything more radical. On the other hand, as long as we are to be ruled by capitalist states, which would you rather be ruled by: a coalition of liberal democracies that pay at least lipservice to free speech, or any number of ruthless genocidal dictatorships that want to revive the worst aspects of the Middle Ages (and we don’t mean folk songs or William Morris wallpapers)? If you can’t or won’t answer that question, how can you claim to be interested in contemporary politics, as opposed to useless dreaming about the politics of the distant future?

(8) Invading a country in order to remove its regime from power was an unprecedented violation of “state sovereignty”: Like the fake “left”, we few remaining adherents of the real, Marxist left can easily list all the bad precedents, from Vietnam onwards, although we utterly reject the selective approach that allows ageing Stalinists and “Trotskyists” alike to go on and on about the Bay of Pigs, an invasion that failed, while evading discussion of the invasions of Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968, or the Serbian campaigns that first destroyed the Yugoslav federation, and then came close to destroying Bosnia and Kosova. But what about the good precedents, that is, the invasions that genuinely liberated millions of human beings from barbarism and helped them to establish replacement regimes that, though inevitably falling far short of Utopia, were certainly significantly better than what went before? Well, now: Italy and France in 1944, Germany, Austria and Japan in 1945, Uganda in 1978, Cambodia in 1979, Afghanistan, paradoxically enough, in 1979 and 2002 ... If “state sovereignty”, or any other piece of rotten bourgeois rhetoric, stands in the way of liberation from barbarism, then let it be disregarded. But what on Earth is such rhetoric doing in the mouths of people who still insist, despite all their posturing, inconsistency and laughable arrogance, on deluding themselves and others that they have anything in common with genuine Marxism?

(9) The coalition forces have met with stiff resistance from the Iraqi people: “Stiff resistance”, if it means anything at all, suggests months or even years of sustained and at least sporadically effective opposition to an invading force. That was not what happened in Iraq, where deserters (wholly to their credit) heavily outnumbered those few conscripts who stayed at their posts, while a few fanatics, many of them not even Iraqis, spent a few weeks killing and injuring a few American and British soldiers, and trying to avoid being killed or injured, not only by the coalition forces, but also by the people they had helped to oppress for decades. The “Iraqi people” means some 23 million human beings, about one fifth of whom, namely the Kurds, have indeed been putting up stiff resistance for decades, not to any western forces, but to the Ba’ath regime, which tried to eliminate them from the planet while most of the western “left” either ignored all Kurds or romanticised the struggle of the Kurds in Turkey, who have certainly been mistreated but have at least not been gassed.

Yes, of course, except for a day or two in Basra the Shi’as chose not to rise up against Saddam when the coalition forces arrived. But then, they had been betrayed back in 1991, and they had also been told not to rise up by their imams and by the coalition forces this time round. Accordingly, the only people who were surprised at their passivity were the western “left”, once again caught out confidently making useless predictions on the basis of shallow dogma rather than sober analysis.

Yes, of course, many Iraqis, both during the war and since it ended, have visibly expressed at best wariness and at worst outright hostility towards the coalition forces: who but a western “leftist”, vocally antiracist but unconsciously deeply in thrall to racist stereotypes, would expect a uniform response, favourable or not, from so many human beings with so many different interests, backgrounds, hopes and fears? Nevertheless, it is equally plain that many Iraqis have expressed joy and gratitude for their liberation, although the western “left” has been quick to deny their existence even so, partly because so many “leftists” belong to that tribe of self-satisfied bourgeois pseudointellectuals who regard it as beneath their dignity to watch television at all, and so missed what everyone else saw. We do not know which response represents the feelings of the majority in Iraq and, unlike those commentators who deliriously predicted the course of the next few years within a week of the war ending, we do not claim to be able to know. Suffice it to say the following. First, whatever they are feeling now, the majority of Iraqis would certainly not want to see the Ba’ath regime restored, and it was the coalition forces that removed it. Second, we shall all know what they are feeling when the first democratic elections in the lifetimes of most Iraqis are held in their country – yet if the western “left” had had their way those elections would never be held at all.

It sticks in the throat to have to admit that for once the western powers have done more to promote justice than the western “left” has. It is nauseating to find “Marxists” trying to ensure that any human beings should go on living under a dictatorship. Such are the contradictions of advanced capitalism.

So much for the festival of fools and liars that erupted in the West in March and April 2003, and that presented such a pathetic spectacle compared to the magnificent festival of the formerly oppressed in the cities of Iraq, where thousands engaged in freelance redistribution and creative recycling, only to be denounced by the fools and liars as “looters”, and vilified by being wrongly equated with the much smaller numbers of opportunistic thieves who stole hospital supplies or ancient artefacts. What, by the way, does it say about the western “left” that some of them got much more indignant about the alleged disappearance of Mesopotamian treasures from museums in the course of a few days than they ever did about the actual disappearance of thousands of Iraqis from their homes between 1968 and 2003?

As for what happens next, we refuse even to engage in debate with, still less apply the just about honourable epithet of “socialist” or “Marxist” to, anyone who defended Saddam’s dictatorship, ignored the pleas of the Iraqi people or gave any other form of comfort to the Ba’ath regime. To aid such a regime’s campaign of lies and intimidation is to desert the cause of human progress altogether. In wartime every individual must necessarily, and regardless of intentions, end up helping one side or the other. In the centuries-long conflict between enlightenment and barbarism, the possibility of progress and the certainty of reaction, of which the war in Iraq was just one more skirmish, the western “left” has shown which side it is on. Just as Stalin’s “Communist” dictatorship destroyed the lives and hopes of so many socialists of an earlier generation, the complicity of the “left” in the growth of Ba’athism, “Pan-Arabism”, Islamic fundamentalism, “Third Worldism” and the other anti-democratic ideologies that have brought us to this point has helped to destroy all prospects of any advance beyond liberalism for another generation at least. We cannot forgive these charlatans and renegades their betrayal of the very tradition they pretend to uphold, and we are confident that the working class will go on seeing them for what they really are. Then again, given their remoteness from any contact with working-class people, their embedding in academia, journalism and other marginal outposts of the capitalist system, and their total incapacity to realise that they have made stupendous errors, let alone learn from them, it is already abundantly clear that the western “left” no longer has anything in common with the working class – and that, somewhere behind their smug masks, they know it.

[bemildred]

10. I had no idea you were a marxist, Sir.

Do you agree with this babble? All of it?
Or just some?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

11. does one have to be a marxist...

to agree with valid points that are made by a marxist?...

is there some kind of uniformity of thought requirement that I am not aware of?...

no matter, alas, yes, it contains enough actualities to satisfy me...

and, like most else put forward for general agreement or disagreement, contained within will be bones to pick...

here is mine - the marxist overtone...:evilgrin:

[bemildred]

12. Of course not.

It was sort of a joke, I know you are not.

I found this statement telling about the general level of
dispassionate thought on display here:

Like the fake 'left', we few remaining adherents of
the real, Marxist left

although I will admit they make some valid points.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

13. of course,...

and mine was sort of sarcasm, as I knew you did not really require uniformity of thought, etc...

as for the statement you present, where you regard a non-dispassionate fault, I observe a purist unwilling to be tainted with the folly of 'associate voyagers'...

some valid points, indeed...in fact, several...

good to have your recognition of them as such...

[bemildred]

14. I have a low opinion, in general, of purists.

I find the world is messy and has lumps in it.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

15. absolutely,...

nonetheless, I don't have a particularly high opinion of messy lumps...

[bemildred]

17. Ah, we agree, good.

[The Magistrate]

20. There Is Some Good Invective In The Piece, My Friend

This bit is a true gem:

"We expected this kind of unprincipled opportunism from that party of shallow, complacent, vaguely left-leaning but ultimately timid petit-bourgeois idiots, but we are still baffled by the readiness of those who regard national laws as bourgeois illusions to treat “international laws” as if they are any different."

It is a little odd to see doctrinaire Marxists fetch up in a position not too different from that of a pragmatic, just a little right of center fellow in a sports bar, but inexorable pursuit of a logical framework can have intruiging consequences....

[bemildred]

21. To be sure.

And many good points, e.g. the Baathists were indeed Fascists.
It can be as much fun watching partisans on the left eat their
own as the ones on the right. It's rather like watching Pat
Buchanan tear into George Bush. Anyone with some knowledge of
the history of the left will recognize the rhetorical mode.

I considered for a bit that it might be a parody, but decided not.
I also considered it might be a plant or some such, and still
consider that possible. But on the whole, I think it is what it
appears to be. So much the better.

And he does have a talent for invective, one might almost think
he is enjoying himself.

[Vladimir]

62. Not many marxists I know

in the UK would agree with any of that analysis. I don't particularly want to get into a point-by-point on it, just thought I'd give you some perspective.

Easily the largest Communist organisation in Britain, the CPB, opposed the war, as did the main Trotskyist organisation, the SWP.

V

[bemildred]

64. I thought it was a parody or something at first.

But you must admit that their "analysis" is pretty
funny in retrospect.

[Vladimir]

65. No parody sadly

The 'Marxist' organisations they link to do indeed exist, the AWL in particular is a notorious Trotskyist splinter group, whose only complaint about interventionsim is that there isn't enough of it. But you are right - I should laugh instead of getting my blood pressure up.

V

[bemildred]

66. World Socialist Web Site is Trotskyist too.

I can't really fathom that, but at least they offer
some interesting commentary, and if they want to revere
old Leon, I guess it's harmless now.

[Vladimir]

67. For every left wing organisation

there are 10 Trotskyist splinter groups. They are so bloody annoying... DU people who think that greens are purists really ought to listen to some of that stuff... hehehe.

V

[cantwealljustgetalong]

16. By the left... about turn

...

The Left, which has been formally committed to the Enlightenment ideal of universal freedom for two centuries, couldn't bring itself to be as honest. Instead millions abandoned their comrades in Iraq and engaged in mass evasion. If you think that it was asking too much to expect it to listen to people in Iraq when they said there was no other way of ending 35 years of oppression, consider the sequel. Years after the war, the Kurdish survivors of genocide and groups from communists through to conventional democrats had the right to expect fraternal support against the insurgency by the remnants of the Baath Party. They are being met with indifference or active hostility because they have committed the unforgivable sin of cooperating with the Americans. For the first time in its history the Left has nothing to say to the victims of fascism.

Defeat explains much of the betrayal. The past 20 years have witnessed the collapse of communism, the triumph of US capitalism and the recognition of the awkward fact that many Third World revolutions are powered by a religious fundamentalism so strange the traditional Left can't look it in the eye. The result of the corruption of defeat is an opposition to whatever America does; a looking-glass politics where hypocrisies of power are matched by equal hypocrisies in the opposite direction.

The contortions are almost funny. In the Eighties, when the US and Europe were the de facto allies of Saddam, the Left wept rivers for his Kurdish and Arab victims. The concern dimmed when Saddam spoilt everything by invading Kuwait and turning himself into America's enemy. In the Nineties, the tyrant of Iraq was no longer responsible for conditions in the tyranny of Iraq. Its suffering was the fault of UN sanctions. By the spring of this year, evasion had reached outright denial as the reflection in the looking glass completed its about turn and opposed the only means of overthrowing Saddam.

Noam Chomsky is the master of looking-glass politics. His writing exemplifies the ability of the Western Left to criticise everything from the West - except itself. He is immensely popular; but his popularity is mystifying on the first reading. His work is dense and filled with non sequiturs (here he seeks to use the Cuban missile crisis to explain the Iraq war, which is a little like using the first Moon landing to explain the dotcom boom). He claims to confront the comfortable with uncomfortable facts they don't want to face. Yet his audience is primarily a comfortable Western audience.

...

He wasn't always so coy. In his younger and better days he condemned the dishonesty of intellectuals who went along with America's crimes in Indochina and South America. It would be heartening if he could apply the same standards to himself. Just before the war, Jose Ramos-Horta, one of the leaders of the struggle for independence of East Timor, looked on the anti-war protesters and asked: 'Why did I not see one single banner or hear one speech calling for the end of human rights abuses in Iraq, the removal of the dictator and freedom for the Iraqis and the Kurdish people?'

Perhaps Professor Chomsky would like to carry on his campaign against hypocrisy by answering him.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,1106445,00.html

[Vladimir]

63. But the Communists in Iraq

originally opposed the invasion, as did the underground independent student unions. I know, because I saw first hand a communique from a congress that was held about a year ago now. The Communist party of Iraq has now lent its support to the interim admin, but that wasn't their position at the time that war started.

V

91. The communists in Iraq are revisionists

Of course they had a different position when hussein was around, how else were the cowards going to survive? And if that logic was operable then it goes doubly for the situation where the US is in charge. The CP in Iraq is an embarassment to revolutionaries everywhere.

[Vladimir]

92. Sadly

you ain't far wrong. Their original opposing of the invasion was entirely correct, but their subsequent actions have been disguisting.

V

[Liberal Classic]

119. Putting Chomsky aside, this was interesting

While I don't necessarily agree with the author of this essay, it has struck a chord with me. Some of my friends seem to have traversed from progressivism into simply being anti-establishment. I never thought in all my days I would ever get to use the word disestablishmentarianism but for the verbosity it is appropriate in every sense. I do not mean opposition to the CoE I mean in the general sense. I'll qualify my post by saying not all of my friends have made this shift, but some of them certianly have, and as they are my friends I am disturbed.

There seems to me that there is an undercurrent in some progressive circles that the U.S. can do no right, and any opposition to the U.S. in particular or the much vaunted "West" must be lauded as brave, intelligent, and legitimate. Of course we're not always in the right, either, and I'm not saying we are. However, I get the gut feeling that there is a growing subculture which roots for any underdog to fight us and to prove us wrong, without looking too closely at just who the underdog may be.

Again to qualify my statements, I work with Muslims and I have a Muslim neighbor two doors down; I do not fear Islam as a faith or hate Muslims as a culture. I do not believe there is anything in Islam intrinsically incompatible with democracy, certainly no less intrinsically incompatible with the idea than Christianity and Judaism are. However, these things having been said, there are some extremist pseudo-islamic movements who desire to capitalize on the general anti-establishment sentiment among left-leaning people in Europe and the U.S. However, in pursuing anti-establishmentarianism one must be careful not to get duped by some other group who wants to turn your dislike of George Bush to their ends.

Is it a banning offense to suggest there are worse human beings in the world than George Bush? From my viewpoint, a strange sort of black and white thinking has infected the left. Progressives as a general rule ascribe this sort of absolutist thinking to morally or intellectually questionable people on the right. You know, the kind with bad teeth and vehicles on concrete blocks. However, we must always be on guard against such absolutist mindsets because they are forms of self-censorship. Thoughtcrimes you know. Even on DU lately I've seen more of this, lots of people accused of being freepers or conservatives despite such blatant accusations being considered poor manners. Ironically, it is the same, or at least the complement to Bush's 'with us or against us" speech. Certianly, there's room for more than one or even two different opinions on the matter.

[bemildred]

120. A Kick for Mr. Along.

I may have to jump in an engage this fellow myself before long.
WRT the "about face" article, it is nice to see someone that knows
how to spell "non sequitur".

[cantwealljustgetalong]

121. good to see someone else around here noticed...

...a strange sort of black and white thinking has infected the left...


Saddam's very own party
Monday 7th June 2004

D-Day for British politics - Respect, the alliance between the Muslim Association of Britain and the Socialist Workers Party, shows how ugly the far left in Britain has become, writes Nick Cohen

Just before the war against Iraq I began to receive strange calls from BBC journalists. Would I like information on how the leadership of the anti-war movement had been taken over by the Socialist Workers Party? Maybe, I replied. It was depressing that a totalitarian party was in the saddle, but that's where the SWP always tries to get. Why get excited?
Oh there are lots of reasons, said the BBC hacks. The anti-war movement wasn't a simple repetition of the old story of the politically naive being led by the nose by sly operators. The far left was becoming the far right. It had gone as close to supporting Ba'athist fascism as it dared and had formed a working alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain, which, along with the usual misogyny and homophobia of such organisations, also believed that Muslims who decided that there was no God deserved to die for the crime of free thought. In a few weeks hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, would allow themselves to be organised by the opponents of democracy and modernity and would march through the streets of London without a flicker of self-doubt. Wasn't this a story?
It's a great story, I cried. But why don't you broadcast it?
We can't, said the bitter hacks. Our editors won't let us.

...

Not much has changed since then. Read the liberal press and you will find that the rage of middle-class liberals and British Islam burns as brightly as it did in February 2003. As I have argued before on these pages, that rage is morally ambiguous. Disgust at the Bush administration has pushed liberal opinion around the world into the shameful position that it would not back the opponents of Saddam Hussein. The result of the breakdown in international solidarity is that an Iraqi or Kurdish socialist is more likely to get a fair hearing from the Wall Street Journal than the New York Times; the Daily Telegraph than the Independent.
You might predict that Respect would benefit from representing in extreme form what patriotic Tories, Liberal Democrats and a large chunk of Labour supporters believe. It is foolish to pre-dict election results in the week before polling day, but if the opinion polls are a guide, Respect has blown its big chance. George Galloway may just scrape a place in the European Parliament if turnout is very low. But I wouldn't count even on that.

...

For a start you would have thought that a principled anti-war movement would have done everything it could to distance itself from Saddam. A first and essential step would have been a decision to have nothing to do with Galloway. He had flown to Baghdad and greeted a tyrant who modelled himself on Stalin, while emulating the racial extermination campaigns of Hitler, with "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability". Yet there he was on stage as the star speaker at last year's anti-war rally in Hyde Park, and no one in the crowd booed or threw an egg. Since then, this modern Mitford sister has published his autobiography, I'm Not the Only One (unfortunately he's right on that), which is packed with apologetics for Saddam's slaughters of Kurds, Shias, democrats and socialists.

...

As for gays, well, they are being told that they must know their place. A few weeks ago, there was a nasty incident when members of Peter Tatchell's OutRage! group joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration. Their placards read: "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine. Palestine: stop persecuting queers". The slogans had been inspired by the arrest and torture of Palestinian gays by Hamas and Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. When the demonstration went into Trafalgar Square, the gay protesters were surrounded by an angry crowd of Islamic fundamentalists, Anglican priests and members of the SWP, and were variously denounced as "racists", "liars" and "Zionists". Say that Palestinians should be freed from theocratic tyranny as well as Israeli occupation and you're an American, or, worse, a Jew.

...

An optimistic sign amid the gloom is that increasingly, people on the left are realising the moral and intellectual barrenness of the strategy, and are walking away. Globalise Resistance, a hard-core anti-capitalist group, has had its independent members resign in protest at SWP domination. There is a long-running scandal on the Birmingham left about the treatment of Steve Godward, a working-class socialist who was sacked by his managers for his part in the firefighters' strike, and then hounded by the SWP because he would not parrot the party line. Most significant of all has been the decision of the Green Party to reject all invitations to form an electoral pact with Respect on the grounds that it did not want to throw away years of building an "open, democratic" organisation to ally with people who weren't too keen on openness or democracy.

...

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:A-bVDx29fkwJ:www.newstatesman.com/site.php3%3FnewTemplate%3DNSArticle_NS%26newDisplayURN%3D200406070018+saddam%27s+new+statesman&hl=en

[bemildred]

127. Don't see much to quibble about there.

Orwell elucidated the similarities of the totalitarian left
and right 60 years ago, and little has changed, they both desire
power about all else, lots of it, and they assume political
clothing as they think most likely to get it for them. But that
has little to do with the anti-war movement as such, which was and
is about the war.

[Liberal Classic]

132. I've always believed

If you go too far down extremism any direction, you tend to come out the other side.

[bemildred]

128. Your comments seem well-taken to me.

1.) We all tend to prefer simple explanations, the simpler the better.
The world is not in fact simple, at all, but it's more comforting
to pretend that it is, and a lot less work mentally. One form of
this simplification is faith in leaders, who are assumed to have a
handle on the complexity as we ourselves do not. One of the great
secrets of leadership is to maintain that illusion.

2.) We all tend to take sides, and once having taken a side, we tend
to simplify our view of the world (see #1) so as to support "our" side.
This seems almost instinctive in humans, it requires real effort to
maintain emotional neutrality.

I must point out that the left-right political distinction is probably
the wrong one here, they seem very much the same in these regards,
and equally blind to their own clannish muddleheadedness.

[Liberal Classic]

131. I honestly believed

That they would have been taken as controversial, though I tried to avoid being inflammatory. It could be that people who oppose my position do not want to give it legitimacy by answering my post. Or it could be that are actually agreeable, or perhaps no one noticed. It's difficult to draw conclusions from a negative in any case. Also, I am working purely from anecdotal evidence. I have done no studies, take no polls of a representative sample of the left. The only certian thing is these observations are mine along, in rightness or wrongness.

Here is an anecdote. I'm a United Statesian as an aside, and my city has good-sized immigrant populations from both the near east and the far. The last large anti-war march that occured in my town I was able to attend, as it occured on a Saturday. There were attendees from several nearby universities, and a few folks from out of state. Over a thousand people were there I heard, and I saw a few of my co-workers there, and some of my friends. A good time for all.

I was not suprised to see people of Muslim faith represented there. I was somewhat suprised to see a large group of people wearing keffiyeh-like masks carrying Palestinian flags shouting "death to Israel." Again with the qualifications, they had every right to be there. I'm a strong supporter of free speech even speech I disagree with, especially speech I disagree with. I was under the impression that their presence would be controversial, but I was wrong. As it would happen, they set up a booth next to what I assume were the anarchists. They're the ones carrying black flags, wearing black masks, shouting "death to America." These two groups seemed to find common cause and got along famously.

It would be unfair for me to say that no one accosted them to ask them about their views or to challenge them. Many people did so, but when challenged these people retreated to namecalling and profanity. In the interest of decorum I won't repeat what they said here. While I do not believe organizers of the march countenanced their views in all particulars, the most articulate of this group was invited to the stage to speak. His speech was a much watered-down version of what he had been saying all afternoon. Clearly he was softening his message to be more readily palatable by the general audience. The general audience responded favorably, and why not? The fellow's speech was most reasonabe, unlike his private behavior earlier.

The relevant conundrum for me is who is using whom?

[bemildred]

133. There was a good deal of that in the 60s too.

There were the political lefties - who divided further into those
who wanted to get it on (radicals) and those who wanted to work
for political change by non-violent methods - and the sex-drugs-
and-rock-and-roll crowd (mazola parties) who mainly showed up for
the demos to yell and throw rocks etc. There were also a lot of
much quieter resisters who just refused to obey, and they were the
important ones IMHO. The "right" at that time was much like it
is now too, some of the underpinings of political theology have
morphed a bit, but not much. It was still anger and an ill-repressed
desire to punish those who disagreed with them. Self-righteousness
seems to be attractive to both the left and the right I suppose you could say.

I agree with Orwell, I find the whole left-right political spectrum
to be a sort of dog-any-pony show the public is given to distract
it from the real issues which lie more along the line of totalitarian
societies vs personal and political autonomy.

[bemildred]

7. Fishing for arguments, are we?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

9. sure looks that way...

well, glad I could help out with post # 8...

guess my work is done here...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

18. Wielding Pens as Swords, Arabs Finish Off Hussein...

If U.S. soldiers did not kill Saddam Hussein last weekend, Arab columnists finished him off with vengeance, felling the myth of the former Iraqi president as a brave hero and savior and savaging him as a cowardly capitulator.

The poetry once used to lionize Hussein turned poisonous. In one of the most remarkable transformations in Arab commentary, the torrent of venom this week did not single out the United States or U.S. troops, but focused on the deceptive legends Hussein had spun to fuel false pride among sympathizers.

"He is the man who killed his nation twice, once in his ruling days and again the day his recklessness facilitated the occupation of his country," wrote Ghassan Charbel, a columnist for the Arabic-language Al Hayat newspaper, based in London. "The lord of bullets could not spare one for his temple, while he was extravagant with those targeting others . . . foes and friends."

...

The London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper published an interview with the son of Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister. ZeiyadAziz told the newspaper that his father, who has been sending letters to his family via the Red Cross, asked that his youngest son, named Saddam after the deposed leader, change his name to Zuheir.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13706-2003Dec18.html

[Jack Rabbit]

19. The left was wrong?

That's news to me.

Saddam's capture does not make the invasion right, either morally or pragmatically. The fact that Saddam was a brutal dictator was merely a pretext used by colonialists amid bald-faced lies about a biochemical arsenal that didn't exist and ties to al Qaida that weren't there. Iraq was invaded to seize oil, not Saddam. That Saddam is taken is good news, but the only good thing that will come of this unless Bush is pushed out of the way.

The left was right on all counts. As it turns out, Saddam was a paper tiger; there was no immanent threat. Insofar as he was a threat, Saddam was contained; for twelve years since being expelled from Kuwait, all his saber rattling was nothing but bluster. Saddam had no ties to al Qaida, let alone any part in the September 11 attacks. What Islamic fundamentalist terror organization operated in Iraq operated in Kurdish regions beyond Saddam's control. The left said there was no justification for the war, and there was none. The left was right.

The left said talk of the Iraqi people welcoming the invaders with open arms and roses was nonsense. The Iraqi people know the difference between liberation and colonial occupation. They are resisting occupation. Also decried as nonsense was talk of going into Iraq to democratize the Middle East. Bush loses and election and seizes power, tramples on the Bill of Rights and human rights treaties, operates what should be an open government in secret and sends troops into combat after giving false justifications for the act. The idea that such a man would be interested in bringing democracy and the rule of law to Iraq is ludicrous. The colonial regime represses freedom of the press, the right to assemble and the right to petition for redress of grievances. The Iraqi Governing Council is a group of quislings handpicked by the US colonial viceroy, not a body representative of or responsible to the Iraqi people. The invasion has not brought democracy to Iraq. The left was right.

The left said that Bush's cronies would profit from the invasion. Halliburton and Bechtel received contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure without having to bid competitively. The left was right.

The left said the occupation following the invasion woulb become a quagmire. Since the invasion, Islamists have come to Iraq to fight Americans. They weren't there before, but they are now. Half of the US army's combat divisions are in Iraq on occupation duty. They are not protecting Americans from terrorists; they are protecting Halliburton. Once again, the left was right.

Mr. Henderson's piece is merely another vein attempt to use Saddam to justify Bush's lies. This is nothing more than typical rightwing, colonialist obfuscation and propaganda. Now matter how many tons of steer manure the right wing reprocesses into ink, it will not change the truth. The left was right.

[dave46]

22. I guess the real question is

are the Iraqis better off now than they were before? Time will tell.

[Darranar]

23. I doubt it...

The "liberation" of the Iraqi people has hardly brought them freedom or security. For the most part, the "humanitarian war" argument seems to be another of Bush's lies, considering that the given basis for the war was WMD, not "liberation", and that other regimes not known for their human rights record are US "allies" in the war on whoever we happen to disagree with.

Clearly, Saddam was a criminal and a brutal dictator. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis perished under his rule (most while he was still a "good guy" and a US ally) and I am most certainly happy that his regime is done with.

However, the war was a war to secure US oil interests. People who would (and are) selling away Iraq to powerful multinational corporations care little more for the Iraqi people than Saddam did, and a nation where the major industry is controlled by foreign corporations has little hope of being a true democracy.

Additionally, Iraq is an extremely unstable country. The mix of ethnic and religious groups is, expectantly, causing much chaos and trouble and has been for years. Its borders are outdated, coming as they do from colonial decisions made by people with little concern for the welfare of the inhabitants, and that is part of the problem. Turkey, a major US ally in the region, will of course do all within reason to prevent a Kurdish state, and this will likely cause tensions if efforts are actually made to aid ALL the Iraqi people, a rather unlikely case.

In the meantime, more US soldiers are being killed, more Iraqi civilians are being killed, resistance against the occupation is growing, more tax dollars are being spent, and this country remains in a quagmire with no good options. As Jack Rabbit pointed out, the Left was right.

[Jack Rabbit]

24. There's more than one question

Are the Iraqis better off under occupation than under Saddam? (That seems to be your question.)

Are the Iraqis as well off under occupation as they should be?

Would the Iraqis be better off if an international reconstruction effort were to take over from the Bushies?

Is the United States better off in terms of the war on terror? (I would answer that with a resounding No. Other than being used as a pretext, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror.)

[number6]

47. as of Jan 08 , 2004 its lookin bad

:smoke:

[cantwealljustgetalong]

25. Lessons of Libya...

...

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are entitled to claim a large share of the credit for Libya's surprising announcement. To an extent that cannot be precisely measured, the fate of Saddam Hussein, who was ousted from power by the American military with British backing after endless prevaricating about Iraqi weapons programs, must have been an important consideration in Libya's decision.

...

Over the past five years, by turning over two suspects for trial, acknowledging its complicity in the Lockerbie bombing and paying compensation to victims' families, Libya finally managed to persuade the United Nations Security Council to lift the international sanctions that had shadowed its economy and its international reputation for more than a decade. Those sanctions were lifted in September. This page recommended lifting American sanctions as well, but President Bush left them in place pending further steps, most notably Libya's decision to end its unconventional weapons programs. It is now clear that he was right to do so. The added American pressure worked just as intended.

In that sense, yesterday's announcement also demonstrates the value of diplomacy and United Nations sanctions as a tool against weapons proliferation. Combatting current proliferation dangers in North Korea and Iran, and future threats elsewhere, will require a deft combination of approaches. Ideally, as in the case of Libya, solutions will be reached well short of war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/opinion/20SAT1.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fEditorials

[cantwealljustgetalong]

26. Better no ‘safe havens’ than sorry in the Middle East...

On three separate days earlier this month, the world and the people of the Middle East read about three similar news developments.

In early December, Iraq’s Governing Council decided to expel the Iranian opposition Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO) from Iraq, branding them terrorists. The following day, the Iranian government announced its willingness to expel Al-Qaeda members currently in its custody. And two weeks later, President George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act under the pretext that Syria was harboring “terrorist groups.” The objective of the legislation was to pressure Damascus into expelling Palestinian factions present on its territory, some of them in the country for more than 35 years.

Spokesmen for the Iranian government and the Iraqi Governing Council dismissed suggestions that the decisions on the MKO and Al-Qaeda were part of a deal between the US, Iran and Iraq. Syrian President Bashar Assad, meanwhile, quickly proposed a constructive dialogue with the United States after the act was signed. In all these cases what seemed to be particularly important was the new phenomenon they illustrated, and that may herald a new era in the Middle East.

...

The MKO and Al-Qaeda episodes, as well as Bush’s signing of the legislation on Syria, could be the last blow to the “safe haven” theme that was once so prominent in oppositional politics in the Middle East. This development might help activate Arab civil society to push for changes from within and force violent opposition groups to engage in more peaceful political activity. One reason is that violent opposition groups now risk being branded “terrorists” by the United States, which may lead to the imposition of punitive measures against their countries of asylum.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/22_12_03_c.asp

[cantwealljustgetalong]

27. Newsmaker: View from the Left...

"It is an open secret within the European Parliament and the European Commission that EU aid to the Palestinian Authority has not been spent correctly," Ilka Schroeder said during a recent address in New York.

The parliament, in which she has served in since 1999, "does not intend to verify whether European taxpayers' money could have been used to finance anti-Semitic murderous attacks. Unfortunately, this fits well with European policy in this area."

Nearly a year ago, Schroeder, 25, a German Green who began her political career protesting the war in Kosovo and denouncing globalization, set her sights on an issue long shunned by radical Left: the diverting of some of the 250 million in annual aid for the Palestinian people to corrupt officials and terrorist groups bent on Israel's destruction.

Faced with strident opposition from her fellow anti-racism activists, whom she derides as "simple-minded anti-Semites," and EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, whom she has accused of "winking approval of terrorist attacks funded by the EU," Schroeder, along with French parliamentarian Francois Zimeray, nonetheless managed to initiate an inquiry by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) into the issue.

...

For Schroeder, the funding issue points to a larger problem: Europe's misuse of the Middle East conflict to challenge US hegemony.

"The primary goal of the EU is the internationalization of the conflict in order to underline the need for its own mediating role," she argues, warning that renewed European calls for a multinational force in the region - heard most recently by the head of the largest political bloc in the parliament - combined with heightened levels of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Arab world, could spell disaster for Jews everywhere.

"The Palestinians are playing the ugly role of being the cannon fodder for Europe's hidden war against the US," she adds.

...


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1072066380683



related thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=38280

[bemildred]

28. "simple-minded anti-Semites"

I expect that will bring them to their senses. Suggests "useful
idiots" a bit.

This woman is quite funny, she reminds me a bit of the "Marxist"
stuff you posted above, the same paranoid style, the same flair
for insult. I expect she has a bright future on the fringes of
European politics.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

30. "bright future on the fringes of European politics" ...

is right...(but, nothing to be proud of)...


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/377000.html

The press briefing held this month by the French government spokesman at the end of the first session of the special Interministerial Committee to Fight Racism and Anti-Semitism included a recommendation to teach more Holocaust studies, as an educational tool to fight this harsh phenomenon. The panel was established to conduct the war against increasing anti-Semitism in France.

...

As attorney Arno Klarsfeld wrote (Jerusalem Post, December 12) - the moment is fast approaching when the Jews will have to leave Europe or live as "political Marranos."

That is the essence of the new anti-Semitism. No French scientist has ever been required, even at the height of the Algerian war, to issue a condemnation of his government's policy to be accepted among his colleagues. No Oxford professor has announced that he won't teach any Belgian student who served in the army, even after the responsibility of Belgium and its army for the 1994 Rwandan genocide became clear. But the very identification of an Israeli as such already spells trouble.

The chair of Amnesty-Israel, Miriam Shlesinger, was expelled from the editorial board of a British linguistics periodical; they wanted to take away the Nobel Peace Prize from Shimon Peres. From here it's a short distance to signaling the Jews: Keep your distance from Israel, or you won't be able to go on living as you did till now. Your safety is at risk.

These signals come from the heart of the Western European cultural world, from circles that are in no need of any lectures about the Holocaust. These people, the educators of the next generation and the symbols with which the young people identify, are now the greatest threat to the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe. It is very doubtful whether increased Holocaust studies will solve anything in this tragic situation.




http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/376203.html

...

"Every day I see movers taking the goods of people who are immigrating to some other country. Because today in France to attack Jews is fashionable. I feel very bad that the Jews have again become a target of attacks, and I see no future here. We were never liked here, but now our schools and shops and even the synagogues are under attack. The Jews in Sarcelles are walking a thin line and so we are thinking about leaving."

Israel is undoubtedly the primary destination of those who leave and of those who are contemplating emigration. "Israel's prestige is rising in our view," admits Shlomo Guez, who is responsible for maintenance in the "Sha'arei Rahamim" (Gates of Mercy) synagogue in the Garges les Gonesse neighborhood, a migrant suburb not far from Sarcelles. "That's because the moment your country is in danger, the more you love it. We have become close to Israel, because we feel that we are under threat because we are Jews."

About a year ago, youngsters of North African origin attacked the synagogue, running amok outside the gate and throwing stones at the worshippers. Immediately afterward a firebomb was thrown at the synagogue. No one was hurt. Following that incident, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, ordered guards to be posted outside the synagogue. An iron wall was built around the entire structure, and closed-circuit security cameras monitor the movement of passersby day and night.

Some 600 Jewish families still live in this neighborhood, alongside thousands of Muslim families. The wave of return to religion by the Muslims in the past few years is obvious everywhere. There is hardly a woman or young girl without a head covering, and the immigrant shop owners have added an Arabic name to the French one. The living conditions are harsh and the unemployment rate among the migrants is 2.5 times the national level. The distress has heightened religious belief, and in the titanic struggle for the soul of the newcomers, the stream of those turning to religion has apparently overcome the stream of those leaving the faith. At least for now.

Origins of anti-Semitism

The incidents against the residents of the neighborhood have tapered off lately, but have been replaced by fears about the future that awaits them in France. The anti-Jewish attacks have left scars and trauma. On Shabbat a month and a half ago the anxiety level rose again. The Jews of Paris awoke to shocking images broadcast on television of the remains of the Jewish school in the Gagny neighborhood, a migrant quarter that lies not far from Garges les Gonesse in the Seine-Saint-Denis region. The building was razed to the ground.

Interior Minister Sarkozy, who visited the scene immediately, asserted that the arson attack bore a "clear racist and anti-Semitic context." Two days later, President Jacques Chirac convened Jewish leaders at the Elysee Palace and told them that "every attack on Jews is the same as an attack on France."

What worries the Jews is the normalization of the anti-Jewish acts. A decade ago, hundreds of thousands of people - Jews, Arabs and Christians - would take to the streets in the wake of an anti- Semitic incident. In 1990, the desecration of Jewish graves at Carpentras in southern France jolted the entire country and led to one of the most impressive marches ever seen. Some 300,000 people joined the protest procession, led by the president, Francois Mitterrand. Today the Jews feel that the envelope of solidarity and protection no longer exists.

In the first year of the intifada, the municipality lost no time in sending workers to erase anti-Jewish slogans that were scrawled on walls across the country. These days the pace has slowed down - perhaps because of the banality of the graffiti or perhaps because the French have grown weary of the outcries of the victimized Jews.

"When you hear `sale Juif' in your own country, you do not forget it quickly," noted Philippe Elyakim, a senior editor on a highly regarded economic journal published in France. He always considered himself a Frenchman in every respect; he had not experienced an anti- Semitic event since his parents emigrated from Salonika in the 1940s. Three weeks ago his 13-year-old son returned from school visibly upset. During recess, he related, one of his classmates had called him a "dirty Jew."

Shocked, Elyakim reported the incident to the principal of the school in the prestigious Monmartre quarter, who quickly suspended the offending girl, who is from a good family, for three days. "There is something insane about the ease with which people in France call you `dirty Jew,' as though they wanted to say `idiot' or something," Elyakim added. "There was a time when a jibe like that would have generated articles in the papers and the school would have been denounced. Today you hear anti-Semitic remarks and you feel like raising heaven and earth and telling the French: What has happened to you? Look at what is going on in our - I almost said your - home."

...

Thoughts of leaving

"It is impossible to say that there is no anti-Semitism in France today," said Jean-Jacques Wahl, fidgeting uneasily in his chair, as though forcing himself to come out with this explicit statement. Wahl is the director-general of the Alliance network of schools, which has about 25,000 students worldwide, half of them in Israel. "Take me, for example," he went on. "You will not find anyone who is more French than I am, because my roots lie many generations deep in this land. I am even more French than Jean-Marie Le Pen. I have always considered France a natural country for Jews, but now I have to admit that things have changed."

He always took pride in his Jewishness and in his ancient Jewish roots in the Alsace region. He always felt desired by the French elite and an integral part of it. "I never believed I would encounter anti-Semitism," he said, raising his voice, "and certainly not in my children's generation. I am now 55, and unfortunately I have discovered all kinds of indications attesting to a return of anti-Semitism. But contrary to the past, the French government is not anti-Semitic and President Chirac is not anti-Semitic. I am certain of that."

...

In 1995 President Chirac recognized France's responsibility for the Holocaust of the country's Jews, and two years later the French church asked for forgiveness from the Jews for having been silent during the war period. A poll conducted that year found that 90 percent of France's citizens considered the Jews to be French in every respect. "Today that has changed, says Haim Musicant, director-general of CRIF, the umbrella organization of French Jewry. "We have entered an age of uncertainty. At the same time, France is not an anti-Semitic country: there is no anti-Semitic policy and President Chirac is not anti-Semitic. France is going through a crisis, and it is our obligation to lend a hand and help the country emerge from the crisis."

...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

48. European Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism:

http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-16.htm

[cantwealljustgetalong]

31. Journalist fired for book critical of French newspapers...

...

Hertoghe's book covers the performance of four national newspapers and France's largest regional daily over a three-week period in March and April. It contends that the coverage was ideological, in line with the French government's position opposing the United States, and that it was desirous of portraying a great catastrophe for the Americans.

Largely ignored in the newspapers that it finds at fault, the book fits into an emerging series of critical analyses in Europe of the European news media's treatment of the war. In Britain, attention has focused on what has been described as the British Broadcasting Company's biased position against British participation.
In Germany, an independent media watchdog group, Medien Tenor, has produced a report, to be released next month, on the performance of television reporting of the conflict in Germany, Britain, the United States and other countries. It focuses notably on Germany's two main state-financed channels, finding that the United States was treated negatively.

...

In the book, Hertoghe explains what he considers the press's unanimity not as the result of some kind of explicit understanding but coming from a combination of factors. He regards the single most cohesive element as French anti-Americanism.

The two other central motors, in Hertoghe's view, were France's nostalgia for its lost status as a great power and what he described as "the Arabophilia that reigns among France's deciders and in particular among the journalists specializing in this part of the world."

...

Last week Hertoghe said that his "problem" was not "anyone's opinion on the war, but that there were no diverse and opposing views on its legitimacy. Readers were not offered a debate."
"What bothered me more," he continued, "was that reporting, when it was uncertain what was going on, fell into predictions of disaster because there were so many who wanted for everything to go wrong. As soon as there were problems on the ground for the United States, it was Vietnam."
Hertoghe said newspapers ignored reports from journalists traveling with U.S. forces, including those from Agence France-Presse, when they did not indicate insurmountable difficulties.
"The papers wanted disaster, and when the reporting didn't reflect it, they predicted it," he said.
"Le Monde went the furthest," he added. "I wrote that Le Monde became 'Saddam's Gazette.' It gave a picture from Baghdad of Saddam's units perfectly controlling the situation. The difference between Le Monde and Le Figaro was that Le Figaro insisted that American tanks would operate easily on Baghdad's wide streets."
"Then when the Americans made their move, we read how they were massacring the Iraqis. The explanation for the collapse was that Saddam's fedayeen had so much compassion for the population that they stopped fighting."

...

http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=122993

[cantwealljustgetalong]

35. French favours...

The business of uncovering corruption is not for the faint-hearted. In France, Eva Joly, the country's best known magistrate, lived under 24-hour police protection for six years: six years spent in the knowledge that someone out there was being paid to track her and, given the opportunity, kill her. Joly didn't investigate Colombian drug barons or mafia networks - her work took place in a country which is one of the world's most civilised. She was investigating corruption among French politicians, lawyers and company directors.

Corruption is usually a crime of the elite, of those with access to money and power. Since the mid-1980s, France has been intermittently convulsed by scandals which have crept ever higher up the country's social ladder. Those tainted by, if not convicted of, corruption have included Jacques Chirac, Alain Juppé, Roland Dumas and (godfather of them all) François Mitterrand. These are people who are educated in the same schools, and are bound by common values and ideas. They also, according to sociologist Pierre Lascoumes, share a conviction that they are above the law. Those who have actually been sent to prison for corruption (Bernard Tapie, Loïk le Floch-Prigent, Alfred Sirven) may have been government ministers or company directors, but they did not belong to that charmed circle of the French elite. It follows that those who fight corruption are usually outside the elite, and Eva Joly was the epitome of the outsider in the fight against French corruption.

...

For a period, the press loved her and the country united behind her. A handful of examining magistrates - young, dynamic warriors - were purging the corrupt old guard. Then Joly flew too high. As she opened what was to become France's biggest and most complex corruption case, the Elf investigation, she uncovered enormous bribes being offered by the then state-owned oil company, with government approval, to guarantee contracts with certain African heads of state. This had been a long established practice under governments of both left and right, but Joly found some hard evidence. Elf's business practices also brought Joly closer to home: some of the bribes paid by Elf during the 1992 purchase and construction of the former East German refinery at Leuna had apparently gone to the German CDU, Chancellor Kohl's party. It was alleged that Mitterrand, seeing Kohl slipping in the polls, ordered Elf to pay $15m into his election fund. Such accusations were too much for the French government, which lowered a curtain over Joly's work: the matter was declared secret défense, a state secret.

...

One of the key factors in public perception of corruption - for good and bad - has been the press. The French press is in theory freer than the British or American, since it is not bound by sub judice, but in practice it is less free since it owes greater allegiance to elected leaders. The French press receives grants, direct and indirect, from government. Until the mid-1980s there was tacit complicity between journalists and elected politicians - and, at a higher level, between media owners and government. Tentatively, a few journalists broke the silence. In 1983, Pierre Péan wrote about the unhealthy relationship between Paris and west Africa; and in 1985, the blowing up of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, by French agents could not be ignored. But as long as they kept a respectful distance from President Mitterrand and his family, particularly his illegitimate one, the young journalists were tolerated. Then shared interests began to bring magistrates and journalists together and their idealism gave the anti-corruption cause its impetus. Tales of corruption sold copy; fame brought the magistrates strength. For a while both sides prospered.

At the same time individual press titles - Le Figaro, L'Express, TF1, Paris Match - were bought by big industrial groups: Lagardère, Dassault (armaments) and Bouygues (construction). "Businessmen, some of whom had already been fingered for corruption, moved their money into the media, knowing that no editor will publish defamatory material about one of the group's major shareholders," Gaudino told me. Articles began defending the poor victimised businessmen, attacking the unpatriotic magistrates (although some publications did continue digging, despite the change of ownership).

But even at their most powerful, journalists were only printing what the magistrates had told them. Rocking the boat with independent investigations is not part of the salaried journalist's job, and those working freelance lay themselves open to being sued - Denis Robert's recent book Révélation$ about the Luxembourg-based clearing house, Clearstream, has 20 libel cases against it, Gaudino's second b
book, The Mafia of Business Tribunals, has 43.

...

But corruption weakens a state. France is a major influence in the world, yet the honesty of many of its leaders is questionable. In the last decade, 900 elected representatives and 34 ministers have been summonsed by judges (although far fewer convicted). Chirac may claim the moral high ground on the Iraq war, yet he strains the interpretation of his own country's constitution to evade prosecution for corruption at home. (The constitution rules that presidents are immune from prosecution for actions in office, but it is silent on actions before coming into office. Roland Dumas and the constitutional court ruled that immunity applied to the past too. Dumas is a political opponent of Chirac but knew he might need his help over the Elf trial.) Disregard for the law has become a national habit - as we have seen this autumn with France's attitude towards the EU stability pact. There is also the current case of France's largest bank, Crédit Lyonnais, which is facing charges in the US for lying about a takeover bid in the early 1990s when it was state-owned. Corruption in the French construction industry, too, means that the EU's "level playing field" public procurement policy - in which companies from any EU country should get equal access to contracts - is a joke which infuriates building companies in Britain and elsewhere.

...

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/ArticleView.asp?link=yes&P_Article=12357

[cantwealljustgetalong]

40. Beagle 2...

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/analysis/toons/2004/01/lang/index.html

[cantwealljustgetalong]

32. Paper Trail Shows Syria as Iraq's Main Weapons Link...

DAMASCUS, Syria — First of two parts

A Syrian trading company with close ties to the ruling regime smuggled weapons and military hardware to Saddam Hussein between 2000 and 2003, helping Syria become the main channel for illicit arms transfers to Iraq despite a stringent U.N. embargo, documents recovered in Iraq show.

The private company, called SES International Corp., is headed by a cousin of Syria's autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, and is controlled by other members of the president's Baath Party and Alawite clan. Syria's government assisted SES in importing at least one shipment destined for Iraq's military, the Iraqi documents indicate, and Western intelligence reports allege that senior Syrian officials were involved in other illicit transfers.

Iraqi records show that SES signed more than 50 contracts to supply tens of millions of dollars' worth of arms and equipment to Iraq's military shortly before the U.S.-led invasion in March. They reveal Iraq's increasingly desperate search in at least a dozen countries for ballistic missiles, antiaircraft missiles, artillery, spare parts for MIG fighter jets and battle tanks, gunpowder, radar systems, nerve agent antidotes and more.

The Bush administration accused Damascus in March of sending night-vision goggles and other military equipment into Iraq, but U.S. officials now say the White House was unaware of the extent of the illicit weapons traffic.

Other gaps in Washington's efforts to stem the flow of black-market weapons and missile technology to outlaw states emerged this month when Libya revealed that it had procured medium-range missiles and prohibited nuclear technology despite U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-iraqarms30dec30,1,7925533.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[cantwealljustgetalong]

33. Nuclear Program In Libya Detailed...

...

The Libyans displayed dozens of centrifuges, the devices required to develop weapons-grade uranium, ElBaradei said at a news conference here. By comparison, Iran -- which opened its secret nuclear arms program to IAEA inspection this year -- possesses thousands.

"What we have seen is all the equipment they have imported," said ElBaradei, who declined to specify the origin of the imported centrifuges, steel piping and other equipment. He said the paraphernalia so far does not point to former Soviet republics, frequently prime suspects, as a source.

A sophisticated black market, he said, has been refined since the end of the Cold War and extends through Europe and Asia. Countries do not have to purchase complete systems from a single source to enrich uranium, but instead can buy pieces of equipment from many suppliers and cobble them together.

...

Nonetheless, by setting up the clandestine program and importing equipment, the Libyans were in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Gaddafi's government had long ago signed. "There were some imports and some activities they should have reported," ElBaradei said.

The veteran inspector said the findings highlighted the inadequacy of international inspections. IAEA teams have been visiting Libya for years and knew nothing about the equipment they saw Sunday. Some of it was found along dirt alleys in urban neighborhoods.

Even permission to allow surprise inspections would not guarantee discovery of a nuclear weapons program. "Low-level programs like this are difficult to detect. They can be run in a garage," ElBaradei said. "You would have to be lucky or have very good intelligence to run across it. We're doing a lot of soul-searching."

...

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition on anonymity, said Libya's program appeared to have been pursued on an ad hoc basis. The Libyans did not systematically shop for equipment, but seemed to pick up pieces where and when they could, said the diplomat, who estimated the overall price tag to be in the hundreds of millions rather than billions of dollars.

"The technology is out of the bag. There are not just one or two suppliers, but many," the diplomat said.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38591-2003Dec29.html

[cantwealljustgetalong]

34. Libyan project exposes 'cartel' in nuclear arms...

LIBYA’S decision to reveal its secret nuclear programme has exposed an inter-national “cartel” responsible for smuggling atomic weapons technology to regimes around the globe.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said yesterday that a “sophisticated network” had helped Libya to acquire technology to build a secret atomic weapon.



Officials from the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) said that its investigation into Libya’s programme could offer clues into who had helped Iran to develop its nuclear programme. Both countries have said that they purchased uranium enrichment equipment on the black market. Investigations are already under way in Pakistan into allegations that some sensitive technology was sold by its nuclear experts.

...

IAEA inspectors have already uncovered evidence that the same people, or countries, were responsible for arming Libya and Iran, which has also agreed to UN weapons inspections.

...

He said that “a number of different people in a number of different places, a network which you can call a cartel” was responsible for selling the equipment, which was similar to technology found in Iran.

Libya is hoping that its gesture to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction will lead to the country’s readmittance into the community of nations. In particular it wants its name to be removed the US State Department’s list of terrorist states.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,1-946685,00.html

[Violet_Crumble]

36. Just curious...

While I think it's quite an achievement for a thread I start in the FA/NS forum to get even 5 posts in reply, let alone over 30, I really have to ask if there's some reason why yr posting a whole bunch of articles in this thread rather than starting new threads with them? It's no biggy, but it looks a bit weird and disjointed, that's all...

Violet...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

37. 2003: Year of epochal progress...

...

Only those who have become thoroughly corrupted by cynicism -- as is a majority on the liberal left in North America and Europe, seduced by a juvenile, self-righteous loathing of the United States -- will continue to deny the world is a better place with one less tyrant terrorizing people he holds captive while mocking others.

Among such cynics are those who never saw a dictator they did not admire, who never hesitate to be apologists for despots, such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, and who endlessly berate the shortcomings of free societies to mask the horrors of totalitarian states.

For the rest of us who seek decency and mutual recognition, honour traditional values based on faith and respect for human rights, recognize the virtues and limitations of democracy, 2003 was another reminder that evil cannot be confronted by platitudes, and cynicism cannot substitute for public policy at home or abroad.

The capture of Saddam as a fugitive should be the final nail in the politics of self-delusion, resentment and denial that has left the Arab-Muslim world as a backwater in the progress of humanity.

...

The immediate outcome of the war for Iraqi freedom has already borne fruit. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, another Arab despot, did not wait long following Saddam's capture to announce his regime will dismantle all weapons of mass destruction it has acquired, under international supervision and verification.

Libya's announcement was preceded by Iran's agreement to sign the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreeing to abide by the full inspection and verification of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

These are significant steps forward in containing the spread of weapons of mass destruction to countries with unstable regimes and with no record of democratic responsibility and respect for human rights.

It is also obvious the swift responses of Libya and Iran to abide by rules of international inspection and verification would not have come about without the example set by the United States and its democratic coalition partners in Iraq.

...

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_london.html

[drdon326]

38. Interesting...

.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

39. yes it is...

Report: Israeli delegation to visit Libya later this month

Following the announcement by President Muammar Gaddafi last month that Libya is willing to forego its weapons of mass destruction, Israel has initiated diplomatic contacts with Tripoli.

...

The head of the Foreign Ministry's diplomatic team, Ron Prosor, met some two weeks in Paris with an Arab diplomatic, in order to establish a channel of communications with Tripoli. The meeting was coordinated with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

A high-ranking Israeli delegation is expected to visit Libya with the aim of reaching a mutual understanding on the signing of a peace agreement, Kuwaiti newspaper A-Siyasa, quoted on the Al Bawaba website, reported Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in comments published Tuesday, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi was quoted as saying he is ready to compensate Libyan Jews whose properties were confiscated. He also said he is prepared to allow Libyans to travel to Israel, according to Arab press reports.

According to Al Bawaba, the delegation, comprised of officials from the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and the Mossad, will visit Tripoli toward the end of this month, with the aim of discussing the end of a formal state of hostility between Libya and Israel, and building normal ties between both countries.

...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/380134.html

[cantwealljustgetalong]

41. Arab states warm to Iraqi council...

BAGHDAD – They groused that the US invasion of Iraq was a violation of international law and their secretary general warned that the US might be opening the "door to hell" by alienating its member states.
But that was back during the April invasion. This week the 22-state Arab League - so dismayed and angry at the US last spring that it seemed meaningful cooperation on Iraq wasn't possible - signaled a change in attitude by sending its first official delegation to the troubled country.

...

For many months, it appeared the Arab League wouldn't work with the Governing Council, dismissed by many in the Arab world as US stooges. But a confluence of factors, ranging from US military successes against insurgents to a growing reputation for independence among the council has changed that tune. The shift appears to go beyond the Arab world.

On Tuesday, the European Union contributed $9.9 million to an internationally managed trust fund for Iraqi reconstruction. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly told visiting members of the Governing Council that Moscow would write off 65 percent of the $8 billion that Baghdad owes its largest creditor.

...

The US has repeatedly asserted that Islamist fighters have been entering Iraq over the Syrian border. But now, Syria "is cooperating with us to stop the terrorism the terrorist groups," Mr. Hakim said.

...

While the occupation may not be going as well as US war planners had expected, it is going much better than some of Iraq's Arab neighbors had publicly hoped. Some said an occupied Iraq could erupt into a civil war or a much hotter insurgency that would have made the US think twice about future invasions or lead to an early pull-back.

Instead, it has increasingly looked like the US will be leaving on its own terms. "The Arab League has come to realize that their interests are better served by engaging the Governing Council, because that's the only game in town,'' says Hafadh Humadi al-Dulami, an Iraqi political scientist. "They're also well aware of President Bush's attitude that you're either with us or against us."

Indeed, the visit to Iraq this week is one of a number of short-term US political successes in the Middle East recently, which some analysts attribute in part to the fear of more regional muscle flexing. Iran has opened up to more substantive inspections of its nuclear programs while Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi repudiated all weapons of mass destruction last Friday.

...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1226/p06s01-woiq.html

[SorryRepublican]

286. that is good news

[cantwealljustgetalong]

42. Underlying motives to Iran's U-turns...

PARIS - The Islamic Republic of Iran, feeling the chilling contact of the American knife at its throat, is seriously considering its reintegration into the international community by dramatically changing its policies.

This process of transformation is set to begin with the shelving of some of the 1979 Islamic revolution's fundamental principles, as highlighted by accepting humanitarian relief missions from the United States for the earthquake-stricken people of Bam, followed by the resumption of relations with Egypt - the first Arab state to have officially recognized the state of Israel, while considering seriously the possibility of resuming open dialogue with the United States, aka the "Great Satan".

...

Of the three American preconditions for normalizing relations with the Islamic Republic, namely giving sound assurances that they are not after weapons of mass destruction, stop supporting terrorist groups and stop supporting Arab and Palestinian organizations opposed to peace with Israel. Tehran has directly and indirectly fulfilled two of them by signing the protocols and normalizing ties with Egypt, leaving the issues surrounding hostilities with the Jewish state.

The surprise decision of Libyan maverick President Muammar Gaddafi last month to abandon all projects for building an atomic arsenal and open the nation to unrestricted international inspections as well as granting Libyans the freedom to travel anywhere, including Tel Aviv - moves that quickly won him international acclaim, including from Washington - did not go unnoticed by the Iranian leaders.

"As things are unfolding in Tehran, maybe Khamenei might become an ally to Washington, as Gaddafi is becoming, just in order to survive," the Iranian analyst suggested.

But it is speculated that such efforts by Tehran to gain Washington's approval will be counterproductive - particularly in terms of enhancing the lives of the Iranian people.

"It is an irony of history that for 25 years the gentlemen that have ruled Iran have suppressed freedoms and imprisoned dissidents in the name of hostility with the United States and foreign threats, and now they try to continue oppression and opposing freedom by buying American's friendship," said Ali Keshtgar, editor of the Paris-based monthly Mihan (Motherland), adding that the change of policy by Iran was "dictated" by the fear of drawing the same fate as disposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA08Ak03.html

[cantwealljustgetalong]

43. David Brooks: The neocon cabal and other fantasies...

WASHINGTON: Do you ever get the sense the whole world is becoming unhinged from reality? I started feeling that way awhile ago, when I was still working for The Weekly Standard and all these articles began appearing about how Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Bill Kristol and a bunch of "neoconservatives" at the magazine had taken over U.S. foreign policy.

Theories about the tightly knit neocon cabal came in waves. One day you read that neocons were pushing plans to finish off Iraq and move into Syria. Web sites appeared detailing neocon conspiracies; my favorite described a neocon outing organized by Vice President Dick Cheney to hunt for humans. The Asian press had the most lurid stories; the European press the most thorough. Every day, it seemed, Le Monde or some deep-thinking German paper would have an expose on the neocon cabal, complete with charts connecting all the conspirators.

The full-mooners fixated on a think tank called the Project for the New American Century, which has a staff of five and issues memos on foreign policy. To hear these people describe it, PNAC is sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Commission, the nexus of the sprawling neocon tentacles.

...

In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") travel in widely different circles and don't actually have much contact with one another. The ones outside government have almost no contact with President George W. Bush. There have been hundreds of references, for example, to Richard Perle's insidious power over administration policy, but I've been told by senior administration officials that he has had no significant meetings with Bush or Cheney since they assumed office. If he's shaping their decisions, he must be microwaving his ideas into their fillings.

It's true that both Bush and the people labeled neocons agree that Saddam Hussein represented a unique threat to world peace. But correlation does not mean causation. All evidence suggests that Bush formed his conclusions independently. Besides, if he wanted to follow the neocon line, Bush wouldn't know where to turn because while the neocons agree on Saddam, they disagree vituperatively on just about everything else. (If you ever read a sentence that starts with "Neocons believe," there is a 99.44 percent chance everything else in that sentence will be untrue.)

...

You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good. You can ignore inconvenient facts so rigorously your picture of the world is one big distortion.

And if you can give your foes a collective name - liberals, fundamentalists or neocons - you can rob them of their individual humanity. All inhibitions are removed. You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue. You will find books, blowhards and candidates playing to your delusions, and you can emigrate to your own version of Planet Chomsky. You can live there unburdened by ambiguity.

Improvements in information technology have not made public debate more realistic. On the contrary, anti-Semitism is resurgent. Conspiracy theories are prevalent. Partisanship has left many people unhinged.

...

http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=123888&owner=(NYT)&date=20040106184103

[bemildred]

44. Interesting piece.

A couple of nuggets in there:

"segmentation of society"

"Improvements in information technology have not
made public debate more realistic"

A rough translation:

"Drink the Kool-Aid. It's grape, I put some sugar in it.
There, that's good, now just hold my hand and soon we'll
be in the ship behind the comet".

Or as the Gropinator would put it: Trust me.

A useful indicator that the state propaganda organs are
not having the desired effect. If they feel the need to
whine about it, it must be a problem for them.

Edit: the links broke, I had to mickey it, but if you get it all
it works.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

45. there are several flavors of Kool-Aid...

and just about everyone seems to be partaking one of them...

it's the ones that drink the Kook-Aid that are worrisome...

[bemildred]

46. Oh, but you can have so much fun with your imagination ...

:tinfoilhat:

[mr_pique]

49. Where are calls for impeachment?

I would expect every Democratic congressman to be issuing statements calling for the impeachment of G.W. Bush. How can people vote for Democrats when none will speak out about the nation being taken to war on false pretenses? Have the Democrats become nothing more potent than
Repuglican Light?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&e=11&u=/oneworld/4536764471073659268

Report Rebuts U.S.' Pre-War WMD Claims

Fri Jan 9,10:00 AM ET

Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan 8 (IPS) - The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) ''systematically misrepresented'' the threat posed by Iraq (news - web sites)'s weapons of mass destruction (WMD), three non-proliferation experts from a prominent think tank charged Thursday.

In a 107-page report, Jessica Mathews, Joseph Cirincione and George Perkovich of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) called for the creation of an independent commission to fully investigate what the U.S. intelligence community knew, or believed it knew, about Iraq's WMD program from 1991 to 2003.

The probe should also determine whether intelligence analyses were tainted by foreign intelligence agencies or political pressure, they added.

''It is very likely that intelligence officials were pressured by senior administration officials to conform their threat assessments to pre-existing policies,'' Cirincione told reporters.

The Carnegie analysts also found ''no solid evidence'' of a co-operative relationship between the government of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and the al-Qaeda terrorist group, nor any evidence to support the claim that Iraq would have transferred WMD to al-Qaeda under any circumstances.

''The notion that any government would give its principal security assets to people it could not control in order to achieve its own political aims is highly dubious,'' they wrote.

In addition the report, 'WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications', concluded that the United Nations (news - web sites) inspection process, which was aborted when the agency withdrew its inspectors on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last March, ''appears to have been much more successful than recognized before the war.''

The report, the most comprehensive public analysis so far of the administration's WMD claims and what has been found in Iraq, will certainly heat up the simmering controversy over whether Bush and his top aides might have deliberately misled Congress and the public into going to war.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

50. Terror cells regroup - and now their target is Europe...

...

Mahdjoub's arrest was a minor victory in a major war being fought, bitterly and secretly, in cities from London to Warsaw, from Madrid to Oslo. It pits the best investigative officers in Europe against a fanatical network of men dedicated to the prosecution of jihad both in Europe and overseas. It is a war security officials know they cannot afford to lose - and that they know they will be fighting for the foreseeable future.

Previously seen as a relative backwater in the war on terror, Europe is now in the frontline. 'It's trench warfare,' said one security expert. 'We keep taking them out. They keep coming at us. And every time they are coming at us harder.'

An investigation by The Observer has revealed the extent of the new networks that Islamic militants have been able to build in Europe since 11 September - despite the massive effort against them. The militants' operations go far beyond the few individuals' activities that sparked massive security alerts over Christmas and the new year. Interviews with senior counter-intelligence officials, secret recordings of conversations between militants and classified intelligence briefings have shown that militants have been able to reconstitute, and even enlarge, their operations in Europe in the past two years. The intelligence seen by The Observer reveals that:

...

Investigators stress that most of the European cells are autonomous, coming together on an ad hoc basis to complete specific tasks. To describe them as 'al-Qaeda' is simplistic. Instead, sources say, the man most of these new Islamic terror networks look to for direction is Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian Islamic militant who some analysts believe was behind the recent Istanbul suicide bombings against British targets and synagogues. Though he follows a similar agenda to Osama bin Laden, the 37-year-old Zarqawi has always maintained his independence from the Saudi-born fugitive. Last week, his developing stature in global Islamic militancy was reinforced when he issued his first-ever public statement, an audiotape calling on God to 'kill the Arab and the foreign tyrants, one after another'.

Zarqawi is believed to be in Iran or Iraq. However European investigators have discovered that one of his key lieutenants is an Iraqi Kurd known only as Fouad, a cleric based in Syria, who handles the volunteer suicide bombers sent from Europe to launch attacks in Iraq.

...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1120629,00.html

[bemildred]

51. Well, I don't doubt it's true in some part,

but this does read a good deal like the spiel for
a new TV show, and one does have to wonder why all the
secret agents are eager to bandy about all their sensitive
and secret information in the press. This might even,
horrors, have the effect of warning the terrorists that
the bloodhounds are on their trail.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

52. Bin Laden's losing bet...

The United States' global "war on terrorism" has clearly entered a new phase. Regardless of how one feels about the US-led war in Iraq, the results of that war, and especially the increased capability that US forces have shown in fighting terrorism, capturing Saddam Hussein and gaining valuable intelligence thereby, have had a decisive effect. Even if there has never been any connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden placed a strong wager in terms of resources and men on Iraq, and he appears to be in great danger of losing his bet.

The tape bin Laden released early this month indicates his sense of gloom and of failure that the Arab states remain in power and have not actively resisted the Americans. In fact the exact opposite has happened, particularly once Saddam was captured. Libya has not only announced the termination of its nuclear and other programs for weapons of mass destruction, Muammar Gaddafi has also invited foreign inspectors into Libya and has now publicly put out feelers to Israel. Egypt has tried to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians - and has duly become the latest recipient of the Palestinians' usual gratitude for such endeavors, so it is unlikely to persist very strongly in its efforts. But it is likely that its ties to Israel will improve, even if only slightly. And in any case Hosni Mubarak, not the Muslim Brotherhood, still reigns.

Syria not only improved ties with India - for bin Laden a leading enemy of Islam - it has also found reason to make similar gestures to Turkey, another of bin Laden's betes noirs and principal targets. Clearly it too feels the US heat and pressure as more and more revelations of its duplicity and conniving with Iraq to evade sanctions become clear. The United Kingdom and the US have both told President Basher al-Assad that he too must give up his weapons of mass destruction at once and do so unconditionally without any regard for Israel's supposed possession of such weapons. Iran too has announced its willingness to have inspections and apparently to make a rapprochement with the US and Europe. And we should probably assume that those elements of al-Qaeda who have found a refuge in Iran are first of all under very tight wraps and, second, probably can sense the ground shifting beneath their feet.

All these defeats signify the failure of bin Laden's quest, and the tape reveals that his response, an entirely predictable one, is to call for more violence and to exhibit more signs of the megalomania that figures like him usually possess. For here he casts himself as the only true defender of the faith against a sea of infidels, betrayers, etc.

However, his worst defeat has taken place, or is about to take place, in Pakistan. Here again the terrorists overreached. By trying and failing twice to assassinate President General Pervez Musharraf, they apparently convinced him that the risks of terrorism outweigh those posed or allegedly posed by India. Therefore the conflict with India must be at least suspended. Moreover, it is clear that the future of Pakistan is at stake and that the terrorist blowback is too great to ignore any longer. Thus Musharraf has acceded to enormous external pressure, much of it but hardly all of it from Washington, and has announced his unconditional readiness to begin consolidated negotiations with India over all outstanding issues, including Kashmir. At the same time, on Thursday Pakistani forces launched a new offensive against al-Qaeda's troops and followers. Very likely there will also be a domestic crackdown on them as well.

...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FA14Df05.html

[drdon326]

55. Good article

.

[mac2]

59. CIA Productions of Bin Laden not even consistant or

of good quality. Bin Laden can get a good camera crew and VCR just like us.

Forget about Bin Laden...he was puppet to bring us to war. He said,he didn't do it and I believe him. It was an insider job because of the defence systems,etc.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

53. What Makes a Terrorist?...

...

By contrast, nationalistic and religious terrorists are a very different matter. The fragmentary research that has been done on them makes clear that they are rarely in conflict with their parents; on the contrary, they seek to carry out in extreme ways ideas learned at home. Moreover, they usually have a very good idea of the kind of world they wish to create: it is the world given to them by their religious or nationalistic leaders. These leaders, of course, may completely misrepresent the doctrines they espouse, but the misrepresentation acquires a commanding power.

...

But Islamic terrorism poses a much more difficult challenge. These terrorists live and work among people sympathetic to their cause. Those arrested will be replaced; those killed will be honored. Opinion polls in many Islamic nations show great support for anti-Israeli and anti-American terrorists. Terrorists live in a hospitable river. We may have to cope with the river.

The relentless vilification of Jews, Israel, and Zionism by much of the Muslim press and in many Muslim schools has produced a level of support for terrorism that vastly exceeds the backing that American or European terrorists ever enjoyed. Over 75 percent of all Palestinians support the current intifada and endorse the 2003 bombing of Maxim, a restaurant in Haifa. With suicide bombers regarded as martyrs, the number of new recruits has apparently increased. The river of support for anti-Israel terror is much wider and deeper than what the Baader-Meinhof gang received.

Imagine what it would have been like to eliminate the Baader-Meinhof gang if most West Germans believed that democracy was evil and that Marxism was the wave of the future, if the Soviet Union paid a large sum to the family of every killed or captured gang member, if West German students attended schools that taught the evils of democracy and regarded terrorists as heroes, if several West German states were governed by the equivalent of al Fatah, and if there were a German version of Gaza, housing thousands of angry Germans who believed they had a right of return to some homeland.

...

Matters are worse when one state sponsors or accommodates terrorism in another state. In this case, the problem is to end that state support. To do that means making clear that the leaders of such a state will suffer serious pain as a consequence of that accommodation. Though many people take exception to it, I think President Bush was right to condemn certain nations as being part of an “axis of evil,� putting leaders on notice that they cannot fund or encourage Hamas, al-Qaida, or Hezbollah without paying a heavy price for it. Iraq has learned how high that price can be.

The Israeli government is trying to impose a high price on the Palestinian Authority because of its tolerance of and support for terrorist acts in Israel. It is too early to tell whether this effort will succeed. Arrests or deterrence, after all, cannot readily prevent suicide bombings, though good intelligence can reduce them, and seizing leaders can perhaps hamper them. The presence of the Israeli Defense Forces in Palestinian areas almost surely explains the recent reduction in suicide attacks, but no such presence, costly as it is, can reduce the number to zero. As Palestinian hostility toward Israel grows, reinforced by what is taught in Palestinian schools, recruiting suicide bombers becomes much easier.

The larger question, of course, is whether ending terrorism requires a new political arrangement. Ideally, the Palestinian people must grant Israel the right to a secure existence in exchange for being given their own country. There may be popular support among both Israelis and Palestinians for such an arrangement, but it is not obvious that political leaders of either side can endorse such a strategy. As the level of terrorism and state action grows, the opportunities for dialogue diminish, and public confidence that any new dialogue will produce meaningful results declines. No one has yet found a way to manage this difficulty.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_what_makes_a_terrorist.html

[drdon326]

54. Shocking

.

[drdon326]

56. kick

.

[Jack Rabbit]

57. !!

It is amusing to see how much right wing propagandists embarrass themselves. In addition to the root article, several of those posted on this thread demonstrate the extent to which those who think that some people have some sort of natural right to rule over others will attempt to rewrite history, even recent history, as if we have forgotten what happened yesterday.

Right wingers believe that they are superior owing to some factor like race, religion, some arbitrary standard of civilization, or "intelligence" demonstrated their position in society. Yeah, right! Like George W. Bush and Dan Quayle are the paragons of humanity.

They would have us believe that westerners should rule over Arabs for one of those reasons. We must enlighten them for there own good. White man's burden and all that rot. And of course, for such great services rendered to enlightening the dark quarters of the world, the people whom we are benefiting should be happy to turn over there natural resources to US transnational corporations.

Some of these pieces even point to some fleeting minor diplomatic breakthrough as evidence that the invasion was justified. Wow, it turned Qaddafi into a good guy! For how long?

No matter how many right wing morons repeat the same pack of lies over and over again, no matter how often they repeat them, it won't validate them. The facts remain that Saddam was not a threat and had no association with al Qaida, let alone the September 11 attacks. The fact remains that those of us who demonstrated against the war knew this and pointed it out before the first missiles were fired. How were we wrong?

We also warned of a quagmire that would result from the invasion. In a post-colonial world, native populations will resist colonial occupation. Well, guess what? We are in a quagmire.

We warned that the occupation would cost more than advertised. Bush came hat in had asking for $87 billion. It looks like we were right about that.

We warned that one should not trust Bush's motives. We said that the real reason for the war was to create business opportunities for Bush's cronies. That seems to be the only thing the war accomplished. All the stated reasons for the war have proved to be false, leaving this as the only valid one. We weren't wrong about that.

Ever since the war ended, Bush, his aides and his allies on the political right, who have written several pseudo-scholarly opinion pieces of which several are linked in the posts above, have changed their justifications to suit every new revelation. All the stated reasons given to justify action prior to the war have been exposed as lies, so now we get a steady diet of "when we said this, we really meant that" logic. It reminds one of Nixon and his spokespeople explaining Watergate. Why shouldn't it? Given that there seems to be no other motivation for the war than fattening the pockets of have foot the bills for Bush's political career, this scandalous war, like that scandalous burglary, can best be explained in terms of campaign financing.

None of the pieces by right wing pundits to which are linked on this thread change anything in the least. Prior to the war, the right told lies in order to drum up support and the left correctly called them on it. Today, we see that the results of the invasion look a lot less like the glowing predictions of a prosperous, democratic Iraq we heard from Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney and other pathological liars than what speakers at anti-war rallies said we would see.

All the right can do is keep telling lies about how well things are going. We on the left will keep being right.

[mac2]

60. You bet....they've been on the wrong side of right all along...

We wouldn't even be in the ME if it weren't for the "righteous".

[cantwealljustgetalong]

70. The dilemma the left must confront...

Those who opposed the Iraq war can't ignore that Iraqis feel better off, writes George Monbiot.

The survey the BBC conducted recently in Iraq is shocking to those of us who opposed the war. Most respondents say life is now better than it was before the invasion. Those who thought the United States was wrong to attack are outnumbered by those who thought it was right.

We know that the Bush and Blair governments lied about their motives for war. We know that humanitarianism was used as a cover for imperialism. We know that thousands of civilians were killed. But we do neither ourselves nor the Iraqis any favours by using them to ventriloquise our disgust. We can say without contradiction that the war should not have happened and that it has been of benefit to the Iraqi people by ridding them of one of the world's most abhorrent dictators.

...

But to document the lies that led to the war and the dangers that arose from it is to answer only half the question. The other half - what should have been done instead? - still hangs above our heads. If we are not to be torn to bits by the hawks then we have to provide an answer.

Let us picture a small, comparatively weak nation, governed by someone who commits any number of atrocious crimes to stay in power. Let us assume that the citizens are incapable of overthrowing her by themselves. Let us assume, too, that all non-violent means have been exhausted, that the dictator shows every sign of living for another 30 years and has children to succeed her. What, if anything, should the people of more powerful nations call on their governments to do?

...

Is hypocrisy always worse than cynicism? Chomsky would appear to say yes. But I would rather a flawed power intervened in a flawed manner in the Congo than no one intervened at all.

...

Faced with this dreadful choice, a sort of moral numbness comes over us. To accept that force can sometimes be a just means of relieving the suffering of an oppressed people is to hand a ready-made excuse to every powerful nation that fancies an empire. To deny it is to tell some of the world's most persecuted peoples that they must be left to rot.

It seems to me that there is no instant or reliable answer to this dilemma. But one thing is clear: the present framework of international law is incapable of resolving it for us.

...

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/25/1079939782621.html

[bemildred]

72. It's an ill wind that blows nobody good.

But seriously, I agree with George, we need a World
government, or perhaps just a World police department.
If there was one World government, than all wars would
be civil wars. :-)

[Jack Rabbit]

74. Response

In the long run, Iraqis are better off without Saddam. That isn't the real question. They would have been without Saddam soon enough. He is 68 years old.

The question is are the Iraqi people as well off as they can be under Bush's colonial regime. They are not. This is not for them the best of all possible worlds. It is far from it.

Let us not delude ourselves with high minded talk about invading Iraq to bring democracy. Bush's democracy has a great deal in common with Saddam's biochemical arsenal. It is a non-entity. Bush destroys democracy in America because the concept of popular government conflicts with his ideals about privilege for the elites. Iraq was invaded to benefit western elites, not Iraqi commoners.

The effect of the invasion was to replace a gang of murderers with a gang of thieves. That in itself cannot justify the loss of even a fraction of the lives expended.

I, for one, accept the fact that Saddam would still be in power had Bush not invaded. That is, as Monbiot points out, not a palatable choice. While the Iraqi people may not be being murdered by Saddam, they are having their country's sold out from under them. The task before them is no longer to be rid of Saddam. It is now to be rid of Bush and Bremer. Until they do that, they are not free. As Monbiot says:

Surely then we need a new UN charter, not just to save the oppressed from the likes of Saddam, but to save both humanitarianism and world peace from the likes of George Bush.

Meanwhile, there is this little matter that the invasion was not only unnecessary in its announced goal of disarming a country that had already been disarmed, but failed miserably in its implicit goal of making the world safe from terrorism. Since Bush announced the end of combat operations last May 1, al Qaida has uncorked four major attacks, most recently in Madrid.

Monbiot's piece is far superior to that of the right wing apologists that have pervaded this thread. It was a tough choice. However, some of clearly saw that there was no urgency in ridding the Middle East of Saddam and that there is an urgency in ridding the world of al Qaida. Monbiot, it should be pointed out, opposed the invasion and still does not believe it justified. In the end, those who celebrate Iraq's invasion merely promote the black-or-white fallacy on which Bush's propaganda and lies rest: that one is either with him or with Osama (or was it Saddam?).

Most of us know better than to think we have to stand with any of those thugs. We will, like the Europeans are now doing in the wake of the attacks in Madrid, plot our own course.

[mac2]

58. Suddam - dictator picked by US and still one of two actors....

in the "dog and pony Bush show for war in the ME".

They didn't have to destroy the whole country to get rid of Suddam or even make the country more unstable for a religious war. Civil war is about to break out. Suddam was a secular ruler. The others won't be.

We should have allowed the UN to settle it. The left was right about it all along.

The terrorists of 9/11 still are unknown. The FBI admitted the identity of the terrorist was wrong..some are alive and others named had their ID stolen. DA!!

The "Righteous" still won't allow us to investigate who, what, why, when, etc. of 9/11. We know for sure, there was a stand down.

[bemildred]

61. Using some intelligence

Seemed to go here.
(To clarify, I don't "support" this, or not.)

ANYONE with a modicum of intelligence knows now that the governments of Australia, the United
States and Britain got it wrong.

If only they would accept responsibility for misleading their countries over Iraq they could get on
with the clean-up.

There is no question that getting rid of the brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, who oppressed his people
and threatened regional stability, would on its own have been sufficient justification for the war.

The intelligent thing to do now would be to call a halt to recrimination. But as the ethnic and
religious violence continues, the three leaders are still finger-pointing.

(more)

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,8849902%255E24218,00.html

[drdon326]

68. kick

.

[Jack Rabbit]

69. The left was proved right once again in Madrid last Thursday

I wish that were not true, but it is.

Since the invasion of Iraq, al Qaida has again made its presence in the world known. On May 12, 2003, a bomb went off in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, killing 34 people. Another bomb in Riyadh on November 8 killed 18 people and injured over 100. On November 15, bombs exploded outside two synagogues in Istanbul, killing 23 and injuring over 300. Last week, bombs blew up in three train stations in Madrid, killing 200. Al Qaida either has claimed responsibility or is suspected in each of these attacks.

The war on terrorism is being lost. Al Qaida is no less able to inflict harm with a dramatic attack where and when it desires today than it was on September 11, 2001.

This was predictable. It was pointed in in many speeches at anti-war rallies last year that invading Iraq would do nothing to alleviate the problem of international terrorism.

Since Saddam had little (it turned out, in fact, that he had nothing) to give to terrorists and since Saddam had no close associations with any terrorist organization, least of all al Qaida, it simply was not possible to address the problem of terrorism by invading Iraq.

The invasion had nothing to do with terrorism. Whether Mr. Bush and his aides knew this is another issue, but it is almost certain that they did.

Once again, the left was right.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

71. Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee...

So I went up to the antiwar demonstration in Central Park this weekend, hoping to hear some persuasive arguments. After a couple of hours there, listening to speeches, reading the hate-America literature, I still don’t know what to think about Iraq—will an attack open a Pandora’s box, or close one?—but I think I know what I feel about this antiwar movement, or at least many of the flock who showed up in the Sheep Meadow.

...

But of course! What a brilliant point he’s making in the course of preening his anti-Americanism before his audience of U.K. intellectuals. What does Sept. 11 remind him of? The way Americans are killers. Sept. 11 becomes, in his lovely leap of logic, really about Americans being pure-hearted killers capable of "no end of mayhem," infinite evil deeds. Doesn’t everybody think that way? (Everybody in his little circle, I imagine). Sept. 11 reminds them that Americans are first and foremost murderers, so let’s not spend a moment acknowledging that little matter of Sept. 11 being a day on which 3,000 Americans were murdered by the "pure-hearted killers" of Al Qaeda. Who, when not committing mass murder, stone women as punishment, torture gays, crush free thought by executing dissidents. No, they get a pass (and the 3,000 become non-persons). Because they hate America, they must be for liberation, and so we can’t blame them; we must accuse ourselves of being killers. In fact, we should thank them for providing our witty writer with an occasion for reminding the world that the "American everyman" is a killer.

That one paragraph is a useful compression of the entire post-9/11 idiocy of one wing of the Left. That’s what Sept. 11 has come to mean to much of the Left: a wake-up call for American self-hatred. Mr. Hitchens was one of the few who challenged that consensus.

But when I say goodbye-to-all-that, it’s a goodbye that’s been brewing ever since the Really Big Idiocy, the one I encountered barely a month after Sept. 11, from a more illustrious figure on the Left, an academic Left paragon.

It was a mixed gathering with a heavy representation of Left academics, and people were going around the room and speaking about the attacks and the response. Over and over, one heard variations on the theme of, "Gee, it’s terrible about all those people who died in the towers and all"—that had already become the pro forma disclaimer/preface for America-bashing—"but maybe it’s a wake-up call for us to recognize how bad we are, Why They Hate Us." The implication was evident: We deserved it. It would be a salutary lesson. It was the Pat Robertson wing of the Left in full flower: Sinful America deserved this Judgment from the sky. Crocodile tears could be shed for those people who died in the towers, but those buildings were so ugly, they were such eyesores, they were a symbol of globalist hubris—it was as if the terrorists who flew the planes into the towers were really architectural critics, flying Herbert Muschamps, not mass murderers.

No, we must search for the "root causes," the reasons to blame the victims for their unfortunate but symbolically appropriate deaths. And on and on, until I felt myself already beginning to say goodbye to the culture that produced this kind of cruel, lockstep thinking. Until finally, the coup de grâce—the Big Idiocy, the idiocy di tutti idiocies. It came from the very well-respected and influential academic, who said that there was at least one thing that was to be welcomed about 9/11: It might give Americans the impetus to do "what the Germans had done in the 60’s"—make an honest reassessment of their past and its origins, as a way to renewal.

Reassessment of our past: Clearly he was speaking admiringly of the 60’s generation in Germany coming to terms with its Nazi past, with Germany’s embrace of Hitler.

...

"Isn’t there an implicit analogy you’re making between America and Nazi Germany?" I asked. "It’s just an analogy," he said. Well, goodbye to all that, goodbye to the entire mind-set behind it: the inability to distinguish America’s sporadic blundering depradations (dissent from which was sometimes successful) from "Germany’s past," Hitlerism. It was "just an analogy." O.K., then, let me make an analogy here, one that I believe goes to the "root cause" of Left idiocy of this sort.

The analogy that occurred to me grew out of a conversation I had several years ago with the philosopher Berel Lang, author of Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide, a talk that took place in the course of researching my book, Explaining Hitler. Mr. Lang is an extremely thoughtful and meticulous thinker on the question of degrees of evil, and the role of intentionality in determining them. He was speaking about the question of whether one could say there was "a history of evil"—whether Hitler represented a new fact, a new landmark in that history, and if so, what the next step might be.

I suggested the "next step" might be Holocaust denial, because the deniers had found a diabolical way to twist the knife, compounding the pain of the survivors by negating and slandering the memory of the murdered.

...

Recently I saw the strangest documentary, a film with a title that sounds like a Woody Allen joke: Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary. It’s a New York Film Festival pick and well worth seeing, just for the example of willed, obtuse blindness on the part of the secretary when she claims that she was insulated from all the terrible things happening during the war. But even Hitler’s secretary—unlike Heidegger, unlike the knee-jerk anti-American Left—feels the need to make some gesture of dismay at her "blind spot" in retrospect. But not the know-it-alls of the Left, who have never been wrong about anything since they adopted Marxism as their cult in college. What would the harm be in admitting that one didn’t know as much at in college as history has taught us now?

But noooo … (as John Belushi liked to say). Instead, we get evasions and tortuous rationalizations like the Slavoj Ziz^ek zigzag: This extremely fashionable postmodern Marxist academic will concede the tens of millions murdered by Stalin, etc., but it’s "different" from the millions murdered by Hitler, because the Soviet project was built on good intentions, on utopian aspirations; the tens of millions dead were an unfortunate side effect, a kind of unfortunate, accidental departure from the noble Leninist path that still must be pursued.

It’s sad, though, because one senses that Mr. Hitchens forced a lot of people on the Left to confront their blind spot, their on-bended-knee obeisance to anyone in the Third World who posed as a "liberator," from Mao to Castro to Arafat and the Taliban. This was why Mr. Hitchens was so valuable and hopeful in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, hammering away at the point that the Islamo-fascists weren’t friends of the oppressed, they were oppressors—of women, gays, poets and all dissenters.

But now, a year later, it seems that despite Mr. Hitchens and a few other voices, such as Todd Gitlin’s, the blind-spot types have won out on the Left—the blind spot to Marxist genocide obscuring any evil but America’s. You could see it at the Sheeps Meadow. You can see it in the hysterical seizure on Enron and other corporate scandals: See, we were right all along—corporations and businessmen are (surprise!) greedheads. This excuses averting their eyes from anti-American terrorism—from people and regimes preparing to kill Americans rather than merely diminish their 401(k)’s. Enron was the fig leaf many on the American Left needed to return to their customary hatred of America. Because America isn’t perfect, it must be evil. Because Marxist regimes make claims of perfection, they must be good.

So, for my part, goodbye to all that. Goodbye to a culture of blindness that tolerates, as part of "peace marches," women wearing suicide-bomber belts as bikinis. (See the accompanying photo of the "peace" march in Madrid. "Peace" somehow doesn’t exclude blowing up Jewish children.)

Goodbye to the brilliant thinkers of the Left who believe it’s the very height of wit to make fun of George W. Bush’s intelligence—thereby establishing, of course, how very, very smart they are. Mr. Bush may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer (I think he’s more ill-informed and lazy than dumb). But they are guilty of a historical stupidity on a far greater scale, in their blind spot about Marxist genocides. It’s a failure of self-knowledge and intellectual responsibility that far outweighs Bush’s, because they’re supposed to be so very smart.

Goodbye to paralysis by moral equivalence: Remind me again, was it John Ashcroft or Fidel Castro who put H.I.V. sufferers in concentration camps?

Goodbye to the deluded and pathetic sophistry of postmodernists of the Left, who believe their unreadable, jargon-clotted theory-sophistry somehow helps liberate the wretched of the earth. If they really believe in serving the cause of liberation, why don’t they quit their evil-capitalist-subsidized jobs and go teach literacy in a Third World starved for the insights of Foucault?

Goodbye to people who have demonstrated that what terror means to them is the terror of ever having to admit they were wrong, the terror of allowing the hideous facts of history to impinge upon their insulated ideology.

Goodbye to all those who have evidently adopted as their own, a version of the simpering motto of the movie Love Story. Remember "Love means never having to say you’re sorry"?

I guess today, Left means never having to say you’re sorry.

http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6434

[bemildred]

73. A bit dated, but nevertheless,

let us hope the door did not hit him in the butt
on his way out.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

80. some things are timeless...

and let us hope that on the back swing, the door hits all the Pilger-types in the head...it couldn't do any harm...

[bemildred]

83. Certainly I do not wish to defend Pilger.

But anti-Pilgerism does not somehow make this
half-wits' argument stand up, it is classic
propaganda drivel whose function is to discredit
a certain point of view, not to enlighten.
Pointing out that the left is populated with
the wit-challenged does not somehow make the right
intelligent.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

86. to quote JR in a current post here...

the left is not monolithic (and, by default, neither is the right)...

while that should be intuitively obvious, the way the terms are used, the categories of left and right are one-dimensional and overly simplistic, or as the French would say, tres simplisme...

are Stalin, Mugabe, Pol Pot, Arafat, Saddam Husein, the Pope, on the left or the right?...what about Tony Blair, Gerhard Shroeder, Jacques Chirac?...

the social classifications of libertarian and authoritarian needs to be considered along with the economic dimension of left and right...

so one can be varying degress of...
economically to the left but socially authoritarian...
or economically to the left and socially libertarian...
or economically to the right but socially libertarian...
or economically to the right and socially authoritarian...

and it's a good bet that each have their dim-wits more often than not...

[bemildred]

88. Excellent, we agree.

Better to chuck the whole simplistic set of pigeonholes.
As I said before, reality is messy and, like oatmeal, it has
lumps in it. Simple minded descriptions rarely work well.
Political categories are a bit like "signs" in astrology,
they don't offer much predictive power, but provide plenty of
after the fact "explanation".

The interesting question, to me anyway, is always: "what should
be done next?", and one greatly improves one's chances of finding
a good answer by considering a problem in all it's complexity.
Here, simplification is the enemy. It provides only a comforting
but inferior sort of pseudo-thought.

And certainly, most people are by definition "normal" or average,
but that does not make them dumb. What makes one dumb is the
failure to treat the world with the respect and attention it
deserves, the assumption that it is really a well understood and
not too complicated sort of place that one is the master of.

[Jack Rabbit]

75. Facts are stubborn things

Al Qaida has still launched four major attacks since Bush announced the end of combat operations last May. The invasion did not alleviate the threat of terrorism.

It failed for a simple reason: it had nothing to do with fighting terrorism.

The right can't come to grips with that. All they can do is repeat the same lies they've been spewing all along.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

82. four attacks since Bush had his premature ejac...

but, how many would there have been if he didn't invade Iraq?...

no way to know...

[Jack Rabbit]

85. No way to know

I seriously doubt al Qaida would have attacked Spain. It probably wouldn't have occured to them to attack Spain.

Of course, they could have attacked some other target.

The fact you can't get away from is that the invasion of Iraq did not weaken al Qaida. Since Saddam had no real associations with al Qaida, invading Iraq could not have achieved that goal. It was an irrelevant misadventure; it was a complete waste of time.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

76. This anti-war movement is led by fools...

In the wake of the Madrid bombing and the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, it might be argued that the anti-war lobby has been vindicated. Its bleak predictions of a year ago seem to have been brutally borne out in the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East and a new terrorist front opened in Europe. But then it made so many predictions - from Armageddon to American defeat - that some of them were bound by the law of averages to come true.

...

As much as the likes of George Galloway and Yvonne Ridley are an excellent disincentive to spend a day standing in the rain, I would guess that what kept many people away from the march was an unwillingness to be seen to give any succour, however unintended, to the terrorists who blew up 200 innocent Spaniards. Unfortunately, few of the leading figures against the war, not least in Spain itself, have taken the same care to avoid actions or words that might encourage the bombers.

The response of some in the Stop the War coalition to the Atocha atrocity is reminiscent of the Eloi in HG Wells The Time Machine, who assumed a position of abject defeatism when attacked by the Morlocks, thinking it better not to get involved. The statement, however, that almost makes me want to campaign for George Bush's re-election was published in last week's New Statesman. It reads: "The current threat of attacks in countries whose governments have close alliances with Washington is the latest stage in a long struggle against the empires of the west, their rapacious crusades and domination. The motivation of those who plant bombs in railway carriages derives directly from this truth."

No, that wasn't the latest tape message from Bin Laden, that was written by John Pilger. As George Orwell wrote about a previous generation's blind spot: "One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

...

But such awkward realities have seldom been the concern of the anti-war movement. Instead it has busied itself with myth production - a war for oil, a war against Muslims, and now a war that is responsible for the bombs that everyone seems to think are inevitably going to explode in this country.

Just for the record, the Bali bomb, which killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists, happened six months before the invasion of Iraq. The motive, as Clive James has said, had nothing to do with Iraq, much less Palestine. It was because the bombers didn't like the way westerners danced.

As Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief counter- terrorism adviser has just confirmed, post-September 11, the US administration tried in the face of all available evidence to conflate al-Qaida and Iraq. Now, post March 11, the anti-war movement is guilty of attempting to do exactly the same. It's time to accept that the battle against the war in Iraq has been lost. Instead, attention should now be turned to winning the battle for the peace. And in that struggle we must be clear that the people who blow up commuter trains are very definitely on the wrong side.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1175603,00.html

[frankly_fedup2]

77. Before we invaded Iraq . . .

can anyone remember the last time they had suicide bombers killing people in Iraq? I can't personally.

We brought our Military to help them; however, by doing so, Al Quada has moved in to kill as many of our young men and woman as they can. So why should they care if their suicide bomber kills an Iraqi or two.

Yeah, we took the war to them alright. And the terrorist followed us and after all the "Shock and Awe" (yawn), the terrorist moved in right behind us. Now they do not even have to travel anymore to kill Americans. Bush sent our young men and women, Over 100,000 Americans, that they can pick off a couple every day. That's all they want anyway, dead Americans. Afterall, what else do they have to do?

[bemildred]

78. Getting funnier and more desperate for an argument all the time.

First the "keep pounding yourself on the head because otherwise
the enemy will notice that it hurts" argument. Then an utterly
specious comparison of the Islamic Fundies to the totalitarianisms
of the early twentieth century, a gratuitous dragging in of Orwell,
who - however little he would have cared for the Islamic fundies -
would have had little use for the US and it's economic and military
empire either, and the tried and true "they hate us and bomb our
subways because of the way we dance" arguement.

[Jack Rabbit]

79. Principles for legitimate debate

The question of whether the invasion was justified is a dead issue. It wasn't. Saddam's tyranny is the best reason put forward to justify intervention. It is the only good reason by default since it is the only one with any basis in fact. However, that by itself was not sufficient reason to invade. Recognizing that Saddam was a brutal tyrant and that he still be ruling in Baghdad had Bush not invaded, it would still have been better to leave him there than to waste time and resources ousting him when fighting real terrorists was a more pressing matter.

However, the invasion is a solid fact and the more important question is: What now?

One thing that must be done is to move toward a resolution of the present situation in favor of the Iraqi people. Toward this end, we must still observe that the real reasons that Bush and his right wing allies invaded Iraq had to do with creating business opportunities for Bush's corporate cronies at the expense of the Iraqi people. Iraq was invaded to force neo-liberalism down the throats of the Iraqi people. As Naomi Klein said about the same time Saddam's statue was pulled down:

The process of how they will get all this infrastructure to work is usually called "reconstruction". But American plans for Iraq's future economy go well beyond that. Rather than rebuilding, the country is being treated as a blank slate on which the most ideological Washington neo-liberals can design their dream economy: fully privatised, foreign-owned and open for business.

Some may ask: What's wrong with that?

Two things.

First, in the nineteenth century, when a white country sent troops into a brown, yellow or black one in order to impose an economic structure that was stacked in favor of the white country, it was called colonialism or imperialism. It was no more morally justifiable than slavery. That is still true today. It is the Iraqi people who should be deciding how the resourses of Iraq are to be used and it is they who should profit from those resources.

Second, neo-liberalism has been an abysmal failure everywhere it has been tried. Where there is anything resembling free elections in developing nations, voters have chosen leftist candidates over those who would Petain to today's neo-liberals. Elections in Brazil, Peru and Venezuela have borne this out. In order to impose neo-liberalism on developing nations, the Bushies must now resort to force and subterfuge. Force can only be used against brutal tyrants like Saddam; subterfuge worked recently in Haiti, where the popular and legitimately-elected Aristide was ousted in a coup with Bushie fingerprints all over it. The attempts to oust Chavez in Venezuela are no different.

The pattern of neo-liberalism has always been capital coming from the global North to the global South and products and profits going the other way. This is initially marginally better for workers and small farmers, but in the long run the small farmers can't compete against foreign produce that was dumped on their market as a result of a free trade agreement and the workers are still paid inadequate wages. They will have nothing to say about it.

If the Bushies have their way, that is Iraq's future.

No true progressive should tolerate this. The purpose of the left in this debate is stand up for the interests of the Iraqi people. They were silenced under Saddam and they are now silenced under Bremer and the Bushies.

Therefore, the first order of business in the debate about what to do now in Iraq is to exclude the Bushies and their corporate allies from it. They're in it for their interests, not those of the Iraqi people.

The right is still wrong and the left is still right. However, the left is not monolithic. We should now discuss the best ways to turn a sovereign Iraq over to the Iraqi people not just in name but in fact. We must discuss ways in which the Iraqi people will enjoy the bounty of their land and control the destiny of their nation.

Let this discussion begin.

It is a difficult matter with few good options. Civil war in Iraq will be difficult to avoid. If it is to come, the presence of foreign troops will not prevent it. A Shia-dominated Islamic Republic is most likely part if Iraq's future. however, an Islamic Republic is not a prospect a progressive should welcome; its principles are contrary to democratic principles. The goal is to establish a democratic Iraq, not an Islamic Republic.

In good leftist fashion, we should be discussing a process, not merely objects frozen in time. The question becomes: How do we move from colonial occupation to Islamic Republic in a way that the seeds of democracy are sown? And then: How do the Iraqi people move from an Islamic Republic to democracy?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

81. wthout the overthrow of Saddam's regime...

that discussion would be moot...

nor is much of it actually occuring, rather more recrimination than illumination...

[Jack Rabbit]

84. Both points are true

However, that does not change the fact that the invasion was foolish in pragmatic terms. Resources that should have been used to combat terrorism were wasted in an operation that was irrelevant to the goal of ending al Qaida's ability to and that those resources are now tied down occupying Iraq instead of being used against al Qaida.

Overthrowing Saddam was a worthy goal. However, it was done the worst way possible. It created more problems rather than solved existing ones; moreover, it exacerbated existing problems rather than alleviated them.

Okay, Bush's invasion of Iraq will go down as one of history's great follies. Case closed.

On your second point, I agree. That is something only we can remedy. However, we need to determine what our goals are in Iraq. As far as I am concerned, the goals I wish to achieve in Iraq are not the same goals that Bush and the neo-liberals wish to achieve. As a leftist, I want the liberation of the Iraqi people; they want a kinder, gentler oppression.

On the pragmatic plane, the two points converge. Fighting two wars at once is unwise. We still need to fight al Qaida. With our resources tied up in Iraq, that's not happening. Therefore, we need to get out of Iraq as soon as possible and leave the situation as stable as possible. The situation needs to be left stable simply because outlaws thrive in chaos. An Iraq in the midst of a civil war could present an opportunity of al Qaida to set up bases there. That is something they were not able to do in places Saddam controlled.

The best all around option may be one that is really not terribly palatable to either Bush or the left. That would be an Islamic Republic. That would be stable enough to permit western forces to leave without worrying about al Qaida getting a foothold. However, it would achieve none of the goals Bush and the neo-liberals desired. That is why today we hear curious pronouncements about plans to turn over sovereignty to Iraq this summer, but not withdrawing troops. The troops will remain in order to keep Bush's puppets propped up and continue to sale of Iraq to transnational corporations. Iraq will be sovereign in name only.

The only conclusion we can draw from that is that Bush still cares more about enriching his cronies than about fighting terrorism. For Bush, al Qaida continues to be not something to be destroyed but a pretext to carry out a nefarious agenda. That isn't going to change until he is out of office.

Personally, I don't like the idea of an Islamic Republic any more than I liked the idea of leaving Saddam in power. Unfortunately, a democratic Iraq is not an option on the table. It never was. If allowing a Shia-dominated Islamic Republic is the best way to leave Iraq and not allow international terrorism to get foothold there, then that should be seriously considered.

[thebigidea]

87. as opposed to the warmongers, led by liars

[bemildred]

89. Kick. nt

[rman]

93. why does the right leave other dictators be,

or even does business with them (china),
or even installs them (including saddam)?

And why does such an old tired RW pro-Bush argument get this much attention here on DU?

Also, if the US would have made it clear to Saddam while he was posturing/threatening to invade Kuwait, that his invading Kuwait would not be tolerated, instead of proclaiming that the US 'has no plans wrt the Iraq/Kuwait dispute', then probably Saddam would not have felt encouraged to invade Kuwait.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

94. Will the Opposition Lead?...

The war in Iraq may end up going well or catastrophically, but either way, this war has always been central to the broader war on terror. That is because terror has never been a matter of a few hundred crazies who could be rounded up by the police and special forces. Terror grows out of something larger — an enormous wave of political extremism.

The wave began to swell some 25 years ago and by now has swept across a big swath of the Muslim world. The wave is not a single thing. It consists of several movements or currents, which are entirely recognizable. These movements draw on four tenets: a belief in a paranoid conspiracy theory, according to which cosmically evil Jews, Masons, Crusaders and Westerners are plotting to annihilate Islam or subjugate the Arab people; a belief in the need to wage apocalyptic war against the cosmic conspiracy; an expectation that, post-apocalypse, the Islamic caliphate of ancient times will re-emerge as a utopian new society; and a belief that, meanwhile, death is good, and should be loved and revered.

A quarter century ago, some of the extremist movements pictured the coming utopia in a somewhat secular light, and others in a theocratic light. These differences, plus a few other quarrels, led to hatred and even war, like the one between Iran and Iraq. The visible rivalries left an impression in some people's minds that nothing tied together these sundry movements.

American foreign policy acted on that impression, and tried to play the movements against one another, and backed every non-apocalyptic dictator who promised to keep the extremists under control. The American policy was cynical and cruel. It did nothing to prevent those sundry movements and dictators from committing murders on a gigantic scale.

Nor did the policy produce anything good for America, in the long run. For the sundry movements did share a common outlook, which ought to have been obvious all along — the paranoid and apocalyptic outlook of European fascism from long ago, draped in Muslim robes. These movements added up to a new kind of modern totalitarianism. And, in time, the new totalitarianism found its common point, on which everyone could agree. This was the shared project of building the human bomb. The Shiite theocrats of Iran pioneered the notion of suicide terror. And everyone else took it up: Sunni theocrats, Baathist anti-theocrats of Iraq and Syria, the more radical Palestinian nationalists, and others, too.

The Sept. 11 attacks came from a relatively small organization. But Al Qaeda was a kind of foam thrown up by the larger extremist wave. The police and special forces were never going to be able to stamp out the Qaeda cells so long as millions of people around the world accepted the paranoid and apocalyptic views and revered suicide terror. The only long-term hope for tamping down the terrorist impulse was to turn America's traditional policies upside down, and come out for once in favor of the liberal democrats of the Muslim world. This would mean promoting a counter-wave of liberal and rational ideas to combat the allure of paranoia and apocalypse.

...

The whole point in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, from my perspective, was to achieve those large possibilities right in the center of the Muslim world, where the ripples might lead in every direction. Iraq was a logical place to begin because, for a dozen years, the Baathists had been shooting at American and British planes, and inciting paranoia and hatred against the United States, and encouraging the idea that attacks can successfully be launched against American targets, and giving that idea some extra oomph with the bluff about fearsome weapons. The Baathists, in short, contributed their bit to the atmosphere that led to Sept. 11. Yet Iraq could also boast of liberal democrats and some admirable achievements in the Kurdish north, which meant there were people to support, and not just to oppose. Such were the hopes.

As for the results — well, in one respect, these have turned out to be, in spite of everything, almost comically successful. Baathism's super-weapons may have been a figment of the universal imagination; but as soon as the United States elevated this figment into a world crisis, astonishing progress was made in tracking down weapons programs and trafficking in Libya, Iran, Dubai and Pakistan. Some people will go on insisting that sudden progress on these matters has nothing to do with Iraq, and the dominoes tumbled simultaneously by sheer coincidence — but some people will believe anything.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/15/opinion/15BERM.html?pagewanted=all&position=

[Jack Rabbit]

95. Berman is full of baloney

The thesis sets up all the errors that follow:

The war in Iraq may end up going well or catastrophically, but either way, this war has always been central to the broader war on terror. That is because terror has never been a matter of a few hundred crazies who could be rounded up by the police and special forces. Terror grows out of something larger — an enormous wave of political extremism.

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism. What part of Saddam had neither associations with al Qaida nor WMDs to provide them do some people simply not understand? The invasion and occupation of Iraq, far from being central to the war against terrorism, is a senseless diversion of resources that could be used to fight real terrorists. Those resources are now being used to perpetuate an occupation of a foreign country against the will of the people of that country.

Some people argue that anti-totalitarian revolutions can never be brought about from outside. The history of World War II says otherwise. Some people respond with the observation that Germany, Italy and Japan are nothing like the Muslim world. In Afghanistan, the American-led invasion has nonetheless brought about an anti-totalitarian revolution. A pretty feeble revolution, true — but even feeble progress suggests large possibilities.

The analogy with the post-World War II occupations is false for several reasons. In World War II, Germany and Japan were crushed after starting a war; there was no resistance to occupation in the aftermath. The sole purpose of the postwar occupation was to revitalize the economies of the occupied nations in the interest of peace. The quarrel during the war was with the fascist governments of those countries, not its people.

In Iraq, the war was started not by Saddam but by the Bushies on a pretext that it had something to do with terrorism when it did not. The Iraqi people are right to resent that from the start. Mr. Berman is right to say that terrorism grows out of an enormous wave of political extremism, but he neglects to add that such extremism does not come out of a vacuum. Political extremism cannot be alleviated by giving masses of people valid grievances, like invading and occupying their country and running it for the profit of the invaders.

The occupation is not designed to rebuild Iraq's economy for the benefit of the Iraqi people but for the benefit of transnational corporations based outside of Iraq. The Bushies practically telegraphed their desire to take Iraq for the purpose of selling the country's assets to foreign interests when they proclaimed, even before the first missiles were fired, "Iraq can shoulder the cost of its own reconstruction." Unlike the occupations of Germany and Japan, the occupation of Iraq is being run solely in the self-interests not really of the US but of Bush's corporate cronies and it should surprise no one that as a consequence, again unlike Germany and Japan, a serious resistance movement has risen.

Finally, the analogy is false because the enemy was not crushed. The enemy was not Saddam, it is the Iraqi people. It's not that Saddam embodied their hopes and dreams or that he was an enlightened dictator; he was certainly none of that. However, it isn't Saddam whose future Bush is stealing.

As for the results — well, in one respect, these have turned out to be, in spite of everything, almost comically successful. Baathism's super-weapons may have been a figment of the universal imagination; but as soon as the United States elevated this figment into a world crisis, astonishing progress was made in tracking down weapons programs and trafficking in Libya, Iran, Dubai and Pakistan. Some people will go on insisting that sudden progress on these matters has nothing to do with Iraq, and the dominoes tumbled simultaneously by sheer coincidence — but some people will believe anything.

Mr. Berman offers no evidence that the tracking down of weapons programs is any real consequent of invading Iraq. It's like saying observing that the streets are wet and simply adding whatever antecedent one wishes to a given fact. Those who have taken a class in elementary logic know that if the streets are wet then if it rained then the streets then the streets are wet is a true statement, but so are if the Martians have landed then the streets are wet and if Saddam had a biochemical arsenal then the streets are wet. There is no real cause and effect.

The efforts to uncover weapons programs in the other named countries were ongoing long before Mr. Bush and his gang of thieves seized power in America. That they would bear fruit at this time had little to do with the downfall of a paper tiger, whose demise came at about the same time. That doesn't mean there is any cause and effect between the two events. The attempt to associate them is rank sophistry.

(T)he bigger problem has to do with public understandings of the war. People around the world may not want to lift a finger in aid so long as the anti-totalitarian logic of the war remains invisible to them. President Bush ought to have cleared up this matter. He has, in fact, spoken about conspiracy theories and hatred (including at Tuesday's press conference). He has spoken about a new totalitarianism, and has even raised the notion of a war of ideas.

Mr. Berman engages in yet more sophistry. It is Mr. Berman who is misunderstanding the war, not the people around the world. The ten million people who demonstrated against Bush's plans prior to the invasion had it right, in spite of all the post-invasion spin on display in this thread. Mr. Bush is speaking in terms of conspiracy theories and hatred because he has nothing else to say. The reasons given for invading Iraq are false; the real reasons not given have nothing to do with making the world safe from terrorists.

Mr. Bush can't seem to admit a mistake. Perhaps Mr. Berman should admit that he's made one -- several, in fact -- in writing this piece.

[bemildred]

96. Get out now

...

That a nationalist uprising has been under way in Iraq for more than a year, uniting at least 15 major groups, most of them opposed to the old regime, has been suppressed in a mendacious lexicon invented in Washington and London and reported incessantly, CNN-style. "Remnants" and "tribalists" and "fundamentalists" dominate, while Iraq is denied the legacy of a history in which much of the modern world is rooted. The "first-anniversary story" about a laughable poll claiming that half of all Iraqis felt better off now under the occupation is a case in point. The BBC and the rest swallowed it whole. For the truth, I recommend the courageous daily reporting of Jo Wilding, a British human rights observer in Baghdad (www.wildfirejo.blogspot.com).

Even now, as the uprising spreads, there is only cryptic gesturing at the obvious: that this is a war of national liberation and that the enemy is "us". The pro-invasion Sydney Morning Herald is typical. Having expressed "surprise" at the uniting of Shias and Sunnis, the paper's Baghdad correspondent recently described "how GI bullies are making enemies of their Iraqi friends" and how he and his driver had been threatened by Americans. "I'll take you out quick as a flash, motherfucker!" a soldier told the reporter. That this was merely a glimpse of the terror and humiliation that Iraqis have to suffer every day in their own country was not made clear; yet this newspaper has published image after unctuous image of mournful American soldiers, inviting sympathy for an invader who has "taken out" thousands of innocent men, women and children.

...

The real tragedy of soldiers policing a colonial occupation is also suppressed. More than 58,000 American soldiers were killed in Vietnam. The same number, according to a veterans' study, killed themselves on their return home. Dr Doug Rokke, director of the US army depleted uranium project following the 1991 Gulf invasion, estimates that more than 10,000 American troops have since died as a result, many from contamination illness. When I asked him how many Iraqis had died, he raised his eyes and shook his head. "Solid uranium was used on shells," he said. "Tens of thousands of Iraqis - men, women and children - were contaminated. Right through the 1990s, at international symposiums, I watched Iraqi officials approach their counterparts from the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence and ask, plead, for help with decontamination. The Iraqis didn't use uranium; it was not their weapon. I watched them put their case, describing the deaths and horrific deformities, and I watched them rebuffed. It was pathetic." During last year's invasion, both American and British forces again used uranium-tipped shells, leaving whole areas so "hot" with radiation that only military survey teams in full protective clothing can approach them. No warning or medical help is given to Iraqi civilians; thousands of children play in these zones. The "coalition" has refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to send experts to assess what Rokke describes as "a catastrophe".

When will this catastrophe be properly reported by those meant to keep the record straight? When will the BBC and others investigate the conditions of some 10,000 Iraqis held without charge, many of them tortured, in US concentration camps inside Iraq, and the corralling, with razor wire, of entire Iraqi villages? When will the BBC and others stop referring to "the handover of Iraqi sovereignty" on 30 June, although there will be no such handover? The new regime will be stooges, with each ministry controlled by American officials and with its stooge army and stooge police force run by Americans. A Saddamite law prohibiting trade unions for public sector workers will stay in force. Leading members of Saddam's infamous secret police, the Mukhabarat, will run "state security", directed by the CIA. The US military will have the same "status of forces" agreement that they impose on the host nations of their 750 bases around the world, which in effect leaves them in charge. Iraq will be a US colony, like Haiti. And when will journalists have the professional courage to report the pivotal role that Israel has played in this grand colonial design for the Middle East?

Entire Article (New Statesman)

[cantwealljustgetalong]

97. Monumental Rip-Off?...

April 20 — At least three senior United Nations officials are suspected of taking multimillion-dollar bribes from the Saddam Hussein regime, U.S. and European intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS.

...

Most prominent among those accused in the scandal is Benon Sevan, the Cyprus-born U.N. undersecretary general who ran the program for six years.

...

The United Nations, at first, dismissed the allegations about Sevan, but this week, Secretary General Kofi Annan said there would be a full investigation led by the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Paul Volcker.

"We are going to investigate these allegations very seriously," Annan said during a press conference.

In addition, Congress is scheduled to begin hearings into the bribery scandal this week.

As for Sevan, when news of the scandal first broke earlier this year, he took a long vacation to Australia.

...

A U.N. spokesman says Sevan, who makes $186,000 a year, has submitted his retirement papers, effective May 21. The spokesman said Sevan would remain on full salary through the course of the U.N. investigation, which is expected to last at least three months.

...

Oil vouchers were allegedly given either as gifts or as payment for goods imported into Iraq in violation of the U.N. sanctions.

The following are the names of some of those listed as receiving Iraqi oil contracts (amounts are in millions of barrels of oil):

Russia
The Companies of the Russian Communist Party: 137 million
The Companies of the Liberal Democratic Party: 79.8 million
The Russian Committee for Solidarity with Iraq: 6.5 million and 12.5 million (two separate contracts)
Head of the Russian Presidential Cabinet: 90 million
The Russian Orthodox Church: 5 million


France
Charles Pasqua, former minister of interior: 12 million
Trafigura (Patrick Maugein), businessman: 25 million
Ibex: 47.2 million
Bernard Merimee, former French ambassador to the United Nations: 3 million
Michel Grimard, founder of the French-Iraqi Export Club: 17.1 million


Syria
Firas Mostafa Tlass, son of Syria's defense minister: 6 million

etc.

...


http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/oil_for_food_ripoff_040420-1.html

[bemildred]

98. I must say discovering this sort of corruption in high places

is most distressing. I may have to take a pill to settle myself
down. It is comforting to know that our own leaders would never
resort to this sort of trickery.

But seriously, I wonder why they are teeing off on the UN now?
You aren't going to convince me it's because of a principled
opposition to corruption, so what are they after? The only thing
I can come up with off-hand is leverage for the bailout we are
requesting in Iraq.

[Jack Rabbit]

99. Corruption in high places? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you

This shows the invasion of Iraq was justified how?

Does it show that Saddam really had a biochemical arsenal at the time the invasion started or even shortly before that? No. Does it show that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama? No. Does it mean that what the Bushies are going to turn over to Iraq on June 30 is really sovereignty? No. Does it mean that the Iraqi people have embraced Bush's "democracy"? No.

As far as corruption goes, does it mean that there isn't something crooked about the way Bushies award reconstruction contracts to their corporate favorites? No.

As red herrings go, this one is way to weak to cover the stench of the war itself.

[bemildred]

100. I thought it was perverse to be bashing the UN while begging for help.

My point was that all persons in high places can be assumed
to be skilled dissemblers, and most can be assumed to be at
least a bit corrupt. You don't get there without playing
along. There are exceptions, but not many, and even then
it must be treated as an ephemeral state, or perhaps a matter
of relative integrity. The real problem is the tendency that
people have of treating political adherence like a religion,
as a matter of faith rather than practical self-interest.

You covered the red-herring aspect of it nicely.
:thumbsup:

[Jack Rabbit]

101. It is perverse to be bashing the UN when begging it for help

My response to cantweall was intended to reinforce yours.

Back at ya: :thumbsup:

[bemildred]

102. ALTERMAN: SOMERSAULTS FOR BUSH

Link from Editorials, credit to dArKeR.

If these smart fellows who advocated the war in Iraq had listened to people who really knew something about warfare in that region they would not be doing
intellectual somersaults attempting to explain why absolutely nothing that they said would happen has happened and yet, it was still a great idea.

In my recap of the "liberation" of Baghdad a year ago, inspired by all of the Iraq hawks? non-mea culpas mea culpas I left out two telling details.

As I prepared to give an early morning talk at the Hudson Institute in Washington, the great Josh Marshall reminded me, my friend David Brooks
introduced me with the words, "I'm happy to introduce Eric on the day his worldview collapsed." When I got back to my hotel around midnight that night,
Little Roy (on one of his "Little Joe" days), was doing what he thought was a little victory dance over on his site and demanding to know why I was not
singing the praises of George Bush over here. I spent much of the rest of the next few days with my photo plastered on cable TV for my having questioned
the brilliance of Paul Wolfowitz's claim that, "We would be greeted as liberators."

I bring this up not only because I enjoy being right, but because it is typical of the entire fashion many of the war's supporters treated those who sought to
question what they believed to be their superior wisdom. Look at what they did to Scott Ritter, who turns out to be one of the few people who accurately
gauged the state of Hussein?s weaponry. Look at what they did to Hans Blix. Hell, how many times did those tough guys at the Weekly Standard and Co,
the New Republic and Christopher Hitchens' apartment, demand the resignation of Colin Powell, who ransomed his public honor on behalf of men and
women he knew to be in the grip of an irrational fever. Hell they even called General Brent Scowcroft an "appeaser."

DU

[bemildred]

103. Reboot. nt

[Name removed]

104. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bemildred]

105. Only the UN can save us

Just when things could not get any worse in Iraq, they do. The
Washington Post's disgusting new pictures yesterday presage as
many more horror stories as there are civilians randomly killed and
people imprisoned or disappeared without explanation. Desperate
families outside jails, waving bits of paper with names and begging
for news, have had their pleas ignored for a year by the powers that
invaded on a promise to bring the rule of law and human rights.

The systematic torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere is
so poisonous in its symbolism that not even America's mortal
enemies could have devised such a PR coup. Sexual abuse and
humiliation of naked Muslim prisoners, urinated on and sodomised,
and orders from US intelligence to "soften up" victims in Saddam's
old torture chamber almost defies belief.

Except it doesn't. Atrocities are entirely predictable wherever
absolute power holds the utterly helpless in secret: that is a
universal law of human nature. In peace, that is as true of old
people, the mentally ill and children in institutions hidden from view.
In war, degraded captives bring out an instinctive disgust, contempt
and violence in the captors who degrade them. That is why habeas
corpus was the founding principle of British justice, even before
Magna Carta, banning the holding of people uncharged, unseen
without trial.

"Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people,"
said President Bush plaintively. Indeed, but it is in the nature of the
circumstances that Bush has authorised for holding 10,000
prisoners without trial, many in unknown, secret prisons. "That's not
the way we do things in America," he says. Indeed, it is only the way
America does things when it goes abroad; the American constitution
protects its own citizens. The self-blinding American myth is that a
"freedom-loving nation" built on the ideals of Thomas Paine,
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson could never do such
things.

Guardian UK

[php1949]

106. What about the 13,000 women and children that have been killed?

...and the 768 American soldiers? If you think that price was worth getting rid of Saddam, I think you should go down to the local Marine Corp headquarters and enlist. But people like you never actually want to fight. People like you are armchair warriors who expect the children of the less fortunate to fight and die; just like Cheney who had other priorities. You sicken me you coward.

[primavera]

107. Typical conservative myopia

Sure there was resistance to the first Gulf War, in any pluralistic society, there will always be some differences of opinion, that's only natural. But the level of support for waging war against Iraq when a.) Saddam had actually done something universally recognized as unlawful, b.) the international community and international law supported military intervention, and c.) there was a specific and attainable goal to be achieved from military action, i.e., the expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, was both quantitatively and qualitatively greater than it was for our more recent foray into Iraq when none of those conditions applied, and appropriately so.

The author alleges that the world should rejoice because Saddam is no longer in power. So what? Does the author have any notion at all of how many authoritarian dictators there are in the world? Great, one down, hundreds more to go. And for the marginal benefit of having eliminated one of the hundreds of dictators in the world, what costs have been incurred? Well, we could fill several volumes discussing that, so suffice it to say, we have paid, are paying, and are likely to continue paying, a very high price indeed.

And how has our ability to influence the world's remaining authoritarian regimes been affected? Well, for one thing, we can no longer credibly rebuke anyone for violating human rights, since we've become ourselves violators of human rights. We can no longer chastise other states for failing to observe international law, since we plainly are not willing to be constrained by it ourselves. We cannot criticize other states such as Isreal for using military force to solve their security dilemmas, including using force against civilian populations, since we've now legitimized that as well through our own example.

Great, one step forward, about a thousand back.

[bemildred]

108. War, the God That Failed

Thinking back to the scandals of the Clinton years, when all of America was supposedly shocked and horrified at the
thought of the president and the intern, the 1990s seem to be the Age of Innocence.

The Oval Office was relatively unstained as compared with the torture-sex scenes from a Bush administration-run prison in
Iraq, documented in pictures and movies being viewed in an imperial temple by US elected officials in the imperial capital.

It is actually hard to think of a precedent for this: perhaps the Roman Empire under
Caligula, whose rule combined claims of godliness with militarism, imperial marauding,
political paranoia, fiscal profligacy, and extreme decadence.

---

People say that the problem is too complicated, that the mess is too extensive to be
repaired. That's not true. The US could pull out today. It could stop its imperial policies. It
could end the insane levels of military spending. It could seek peace with the world. The
Bush administration still has time to apologize to the world. The US could seek friendship
and reconciliation and trade, and genuinely mean it and stick to it. We could become again
the country that the founders wanted us to be. Now that's an ideal.

LewRockwell.com

[cantwealljustgetalong]

109. Iraq: New Strategies...

...

The Mission

The United States' invasion of Iraq was not a great idea. Its only virtue was that it was the best available idea among a series of even worse ideas. In the spring of 2003, the United States had no way to engage or defeat al Qaeda. The only way to achieve that was to force Saudi Arabia -- and lesser enabling countries such as Iran and Syria -- to change their policies on al Qaeda and crack down on its financial and logistical systems. In order to do that, the United States needed two things. First, it had to demonstrate its will and competence in waging war -- something seriously doubted by many in the Islamic world and elsewhere. Second, it had to be in a position to threaten follow-on actions in the region.

There were many drawbacks to the invasion, ranging from the need to occupy a large and complex country to the difficulty of gathering intelligence. Unlike many, we expected extended resistance in Iraq, although we did not expect the complexity of the guerrilla war that emerged. Moreover, we understood that the invasion would generate hostility toward the United States within the Islamic world, but we felt this would be compensated by dramatic shifts in the behavior of governments in the region. All of this has happened.

The essential point is that the invasion of Iraq was not and never should have been thought of as an end in itself. Iraq's only importance was its geographic location: It is the most strategically located country between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush. The United States needed it as a base of operations and a lever against the Saudis and others, but it had no interest -- or should have had no interest -- in the internal governance of Iraq.

This is the critical point on which the mission became complex, and the worst conceivable thing in a military operation took place: mission creep. Rather than focus on the follow-on operations that had to be undertaken against al Qaeda, the Bush administration created a new goal: the occupation and administration of Iraq by the United States, with most of the burden falling on the U.S. military. More important, the United States also dismantled the Iraqi government bureaucracy and military under the principle that de-Baathification had to be accomplished. Over time, this evolved to a new mission: the creation of democracy in Iraq.

Under the best of circumstances, this was not something the United States had the resources to achieve. Iraq is a complex and multi-layered society with many competing interests. The idea that the United States would be able to effectively preside over this society, shepherding it to democracy, was difficult to conceive even in the best of circumstances. Under the circumstances that began to emerge only days after the fall of Baghdad, it was an unachievable goal and an impossible mission. The creation of a viable democracy in the midst of a civil war, even if Iraqi society were amenable to copying American institutions, was an impossibility. The one thing that should have been learned in Vietnam was that the evolution of political institutions in the midst of a sustained guerrilla war is impossible.

The administration pursued this goal for a single reason: From the beginning, it consistently underestimated the Iraqis' capability to resist the United States. It underestimated the tenacity, courage and cleverness of the Sunni guerrillas. It underestimated the political sophistication of the Shiite leadership. It underestimated the forms of military and political resistance that would limit what the United States could achieve. In my view, the underestimation of the enemy in Iraq is the greatest failure of this administration, and the one for which the media rarely hold it accountable.

...

Strategies

...

This means the goal of reshaping Iraqi society is beyond the reach of the United States. Iraq is what it is. The United States, having performed the service of removing Saddam Hussein from power, cannot reshape a society that has millennia of layers. The attempt to do so will generate resistance -- while that resistance can be endured, it cannot be suppressed.

The United States must recall its original mission, which was to occupy Iraq in order to prosecute the war against al Qaeda. If that mission is remembered, and the mission creep of reshaping Iraq forgotten, some obvious strategic solutions re-emerge. The first, and most important, is that the United States has no national interest in the nature of Iraqi government or society. Except for not supporting al Qaeda, Iraq's government does not matter. Since the Iraqi Shia have an inherent aversion to Wahabbi al Qaeda, the political path on that is fairly clear.

The United States now cannot withdraw from Iraq. We can wonder about the wisdom of the invasion, but a withdrawal under pressure would be used by al Qaeda and radical Islamists as demonstration of their core point: that the United States is inherently weak and, like the Soviet Union, ripe for defeat. Having gone in, withdrawal in the near term is not an option.

...

Iraq should then be encouraged to develop a Shiite-dominated government, the best guarantor against al Qaeda and the greatest incentive for the Iranians not to destabilize the situation. The fate of the Sunnis will rest in the deal they can negotiate with the Shia and Kurds -- and, as they say, that is their problem.

...

Cutting Losses

...

What does affect me is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is trying to kill me. Countries such as Saudi Arabia permitted al Qaeda to flourish. The presence of a couple of U.S. armored divisions along the kingdom's northern border has been a very sobering thought. That pressure cannot be removed. Whatever chaos there is in Saudi Arabia, that is the key to breaking al Qaeda -- not Baghdad.

The key to al Qaeda is in Riyadh and in Islamabad. The invasion of Iraq was a stepping-stone toward policy change in Riyadh, and it worked. The pressure must be maintained and now extended to Islamabad. However, the war was never about Baghdad, and certainly never about Al Fallujah and An Najaf. Muqtada al-Sadr's relationship to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the makeup of the elders in Al Fallujah are matters of utter and absolute indifference to the United States. Getting drawn into those fights is in fact the quagmire -- a word we use carefully and deliberately.

But in the desert west and south of the Euphrates, the United States can carry out the real mission for which it came. And if the arc of responsibility extends along the Turkish frontier to Kurdistan, that is a manageable mission creep. The United States should not get out of Iraq. It must get out of Baghdad, Al Fallujah, An Najaf and the other sinkholes into which the administration's policies have thrown U.S. soldiers.

...

http://www.stratfor.com/corporate/index.neo?page=basicsample

[teryang]

110. Stratfor: bullsh*t disguised as iconoclasm

Iraq is not the most strategic piece of real estate. Iran is. Iraq is virtually land locked. But is was an easier target and conveniently provides base replacements for those recently eliminated in Saudi Arabia. It will provide a convenient jumping off point when the time comes to overthrow Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Invading and occupying Iraq had nothing to do with al qaeda. Al qaeda is a myth for the most part, carefully trotted out when necessary to meet the political needs of the four regimes who sponsor it.

The key to al qaeda is in the white house situation room.

The American mission in Vietnam was to destroy Vietnam, much as the American mission is to destroy Cuba and any sovereign or social organization which defies the hegemony of American economic interests. Iraq is on the do do list, because they dared to nationalize anglo american franchises and set up an independent foreign policy. Aggregation of resources by such a power is ill regarded and to be undermined and converted at every opportunity.

One could readily steer the future of Iraq without such a massive intervention, by conventional CIA means. The armed forces are not necessary. It is evident at least from my perspective that riparian nations are on the menu for destabilization and destruction if not actual takeover.

As far as the "arc of responsibility" goes, I am reminded of our African strategy. An archipeligo of military missions ready to foment civil war and invasions for the momentary perceived advantage of some market interest. The great game on the arc cannot be considered strategic, although some have fooled themselves into thinking so, because the American Armed Forces are not a viable land power in Asia. Iraq has proved that.

[Jack Rabbit]

117. The occupation has been defeated

All this is doing is asking us to believe that, with 82% of the Iraqi people believing it would be a good idea for the Bushies to give up and go home, there is something the Bushies can do besides give up and go home.

Somewhere in this piece we hear the "White Man's Burden" justification for the invasion. Nevermind what the Iraqis think; we westerners are civilized and know what's best for them. If they don't trust us, we'll just force our goodwill down their throats. All we ask in return is that they don't hate us and sell us their oil cheap.

The Iraq project failed. It could not have made things better, and it in fact has made things worse.

How could the Right have been so wrong?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

123. made things worse?...

Amir Taheri in the Sunday Times:

Iraq today is no bed of roses, I know. I have just come back from a tour of the country. But I don't recognise the place I have just visited as the war zone depicted by the Arab and western media.

It is true that Saddamite leftovers and their allies have stolen enough money and arms to continue their campaign of terror and disruption for some time yet. But they have no popular following and have failed to develop a coherent national strategy. The Iraqi civil defence corps has gone on the offensive, hunting down terrorists, often with some success. At the same time attacks on the Iraqi police force have dropped 50% in the past month.

There is also good news on the economic front. In the last quarter the dinar, Iraq's currency, has increased by almost 15% against the dollar and the two most traded local currencies, the Kuwaiti dinar and the Iranian rial.

Thanks to rising oil prices, Iraq is earning a record £41m to £44m a day. This has led to greater economic activity, including private reconstruction schemes. That money goes into a fund controlled by the United Nations but Iraqi leaders want control transferred to the new interim government, when sovereignty is transferred at the end of this month.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/login.php?grid=15,28&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.timesonline.co.uk%2Fnewspaper%2F0%2C%2C176-1135081%2C00.html%3Fgavalidate&gareason=login

[Lithos]

124. Notice: Copyright violation

DU respects copyright usage and asks that people follow accepted practice for fair use, 3-4 paragraphs. Please remember this in future posts.

Lithos
FA/NS Moderator
Democratic Underground

[Jack Rabbit]

138. Yes, made things worse

In terms of the war on terror, invading Iraq has only made a bad situation worse. Bush and his lieutenants tell Americans and anybody else who still willing to listen that Iraq is “the central front in the war on terror.” This is nonsense on it face, since Saddam had no associations with terrorists. Consequently, there was no possible way invading Iraq could have made Americans safer from the likes of Osama. On the contrary, since the invasion, al Qaida has regrouped and staged a number of attacks. Terrorists strike not only in Iraq but against western targets in Saudi Arabia. They have become stronger, not weaker. As Richard Clarke, the former US counterterrorism chief, pointed out, Osama’s propaganda always asserted that the US wanted to invade and occupy an oil rich Arab state. Now it has done so. This can only be a good recruiting point for al Qaida.

[bemildred]

111. The End of Appeasement

Do not overlook the date on this.

Bush's opportunity to redeem America's past failures in the
Middle East.

FOLLOWING HANS BLIX'S devastating report and President Bush's
compelling State of the Union address, Saddam Hussein looks more and more
like a dead man walking. In all likelihood, Baghdad will be liberated by April.
This may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history--events like the
storming of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall--after which everything is
different. If the occupation goes well (admittedly a big if), it may mark the
moment when the powerful antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into
the diseased environment of the Middle East, and began to transform the region
for the better. For the United States, this represents perhaps the last, best
chance to do what it has singularly failed to do since World War II--to provide
the Middle East with effective imperial oversight. It is not entirely America's
fault, but our mismanagement and misconceptions have allowed a backward,
once insignificant region to become arguably the main threat to the security of
the United States and the entire West.

In centuries past, the wild and unruly passions of the Islamic world were kept
within tight confines by firm, often ruthless imperial authority, mainly
Ottoman, but, starting in the late 19th century, increasingly British and French.
These distant masters did not always rule wisely or well, but they generally
prevented the region from menacing the security of the outside world. When
the pirates of the Barbary Coast (as Europeans called North Africa) could not
be dealt with by the payment of ransom, the new American republic, and then
the Europeans, took matters into their own hands. Ultimately, Algiers, Tripoli,
Morocco, and Tunis were colonized, and thus ended their piratical threat. When
a group of Egyptian army officers led by an early-day Nasser named Arabi
Pasha tried to seize power in 1882, the British occupied the country, and wound
up administering it from behind the scenes for decades to come. When a
fanatical Islamic sect led by a self-proclaimed Mahdi (or messiah) took over the
Sudan, and threatened to spread its extremist violence throughout the Islamic
world, Gen. Horatio Herbert Kitchener snuffed out the movement in a hail of
gunfire at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. When a pro-Nazi regime took
power in Baghdad in 1941, the British intervened to topple the offending
dictator, Rashid Ali.

Weekly Standard

[cantwealljustgetalong]

113. while you're browsing over there, might as well read this...

From the June 7, 2004 issue: Not so long ago, the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda were conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom was right.


http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp

[bemildred]

114. I think his other book is funnier:

The Brain : Paul Wolfowitz and the Making of the Bush Doctrine

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060723467/ref=pd_sbs_b_1/103-1691492-3063825?v=glance&s=books

Wolfowitz is an arrogant half-wit, it's sort of a requirement for
Straussians, you have to be arrogant and a half-wit or Strauss'
theories just look like drivel.

Mr. Hayes does seem to be prolific.

I don't actually spend time over there, I was doing a search and it
turned up, and I thought it fit, and I wanted to kick the thread.

I don't really care if Saddam was helping al Qaeda or not, I can see
arguments both ways, but my tendency is to think they didn't really
like each other very much. But, all you get from that is that up to
the point where we took Baghdad we did the right thing. If we had
arranged elections and then got the hell out, I would say OK, and I
imagine a large majority of Iraqis would have too. We are quite a
ways down the road and quite a few rationalizations from that point.

You will notice that the Sarin bullshit sank like a stone, I was
hearing about that six times a day, and then suddenly nothing.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

122. Wolfowitz responds...

The Road Map for
A Sovereign Iraq
Our plan for security and democracy after June 30.

BY PAUL WOLFOWITZ
Wednesday, June 9, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT


http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005192

[bemildred]

129. Thanks, I don't usually got to WSJ opinion.

It is good to see Wolfowitz in his own words.

[Jack Rabbit]

116. This one's a real hoot

It's little more than Rumsfeld's "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" argument reduced to a whimper. Now Mr. Kristol begs us to believe that it still could be true.

Next, the Weekly Standard will stoop to publishing Laurie Mylroie's conspiracy theories.

Kristol's article isn't even good conjecture. There was no justification for the invasion of Iraq. PNAC is busted.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

112. top ten reasons...

http://www.sotaliraq.com/thenewiraq/article_Baath.html

http://www.sotaliraq.com/prisoners-abuse.html

[Jack Rabbit]

115. Another red herring, sir?

We know that Saddam tortured prisoners.

How does that justify US torture of prisoners? Because Bush's torture is kinder, gentler torture than Saddam's?

All Bush had succeeded in doing in Iraq is stooping to Saddam's level. Saddam is a war criminal. So is Bush. Saddam should stand trial before an international tribunal and, if found guilty, thrown into an 8 x 10 cell to which the key has been thrown away; that should also happen to Bush.

Prior to the invasion, the Left stated that the invasion was colonial in nature and predicted that the Bushies would resort to brutality in order to maintain it against the will of the Iraqi people. The seige of Falluja and the torture of detainees in Iraqis validate that prediction.

Once again, the left was right.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

125. the left are quite the fortune tellers...

good that not all their predictions came true like that the oil fields would be torched, that there would be a massive refugee crisis, and that there would be a civil war...

and something the left did not predict -

The Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday in favor of an American and British resolution to end the formal occupation of Iraq on June 30 and transfer "full sovereignty" to an interim Iraqi government.

Along with giving international legitimacy to the caretaker government and outlining the United Nations' role in a post-June 30 Iraq, the measure authorized an American-led multinational force, now at 160,000 troops, to use "all necessary measures" in "partnership" with Iraqi forces to bring peace.

The 15-to-0 vote on the measure, co-sponsored by the United States and Britain, gave President Bush a major diplomatic win as he gathered with leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized powers for a summit meeting at Sea Island, Ga.

It provided stark contrast with the bitter division that arose at the Security Council last year over the American campaign in Iraq. "Today we are united on Iraq," said Lauro L. Baja Jr. of the Philippines, the Security Council president. "Yesterday we were divided on Iraq."

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/international/middleeast/09NATI.html?hp

[Jack Rabbit]

126. Interesting post

There has in fact been strikes against oil fields in Iraq by those resisting the colonial occupation. There has been ethnic violence in the last year.

Oh, and the Security Council vote? Do you really take that seriously?

Of course the June 30 "deadline" for turning over Iraqi "sovereignty" is going to be met. That's because no sovereignty is being turned over to Iraq, nor was that ever planned. Even with the concessions made by the US in the resolution, the idea that this is full sovereignty is a joke. The interim government got a few rights on paper, but it's still made up of neocon flunkies who won't do anything but lick the masta's boots. The Prime Minister is still the author of the missiles-ready-in-45-minutes fable.

When an Iraqi government that is responsible to the Iraqi people rather than neocons in Washington takes control of affairs, passes laws without consulting the American embassy, sells its national resources to whom it pleases and can tell foreign troops to go home, then Iraq will have full sovereignty. Right now, a government of quislings sits in Baghdad that cannot repeal the decrees of the colonial viceroy and won't tell foreign troops to leave.

Some sovereignty. Eighty percent of the Iraqi people want the occupation to end and even after June 30 a US-led multinational force of 160,000 troops will use "all necessary measures" to bring "peace" (i.e., continue to enforce the neocon's will on Iraq). As occupation goes, that still passes the duck test.

The Left has said that the Bushies would never allow democracy in Iraq. The arrangement authorized by the Security Council does nothing to promote democracy. It was another self-inflicted wound by the UN. Like Congressional Democrats after September 11, the UN has no spine.

There is no sovereignty. The occupation continues. So will resistance to it.

Nothing has changed.

[bemildred]

130. Oil infrastructure attacks:

(useful site, like lunaville.)

http://www.iags.org/n060904.htm

Of course, they will not trash there own wells, as Saddam did
to Kuwait. They want to own them, not destroy them. Infrastructure
on the other hand is easily replaced.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

134. well, let me just say that...

I take the Security Council vote as seriously as I take the Security Council...

and now you got me wondering, since the more things change, the more they stay the same, then, if nothing has changed, has anything stayed the same?...

maybe the decades-old business-as-usual stability-at-all-costs status-quo is being changed right back to the point of staying the same...

or, maybe not...


G8 launches Mid-East reform plan

World leaders at the G8 summit endorsed a watered-down version of a US proposal on democratic and economic reforms in the Middle East and North Africa.

...

The leaders of the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US said that ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was a priority, but should not be used as an excuse for not seeking reform.

"Our support for reform in the region will go hand in hand with our support for a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict," the statement said.

The BBC's Jill McGivering in Georgia says earlier drafts of the statement originating from Washington made no mention of the importance of the conflict and proved highly controversial in the Arab world and Europe, and the inclusion will make it more palatable to critics.

And in an attempt to deflect criticism from some Arab leaders, the statement noted that the reform should not and could not be imposed from outside.

"Our engagement must respond to local conditions and be based on local ownership," it said. "Each society will reach its own conclusions about the pace and scope of change."

G8 endorsement of the plan was a top priority for Mr Bush, our correspondent says, mentioning as it does the need for democracy in the Middle East as an important weapon in the war on terrorism.

Many Arabs have been cynical about US motives in the region - and Egypt and Saudi Arabia are shunning the talks altogether.

But newly-appointed interim Iraqi President Ghazi Yawer was in attendance, and pledged to build democracy in Iraq.

"Mr President, I'd like to express to you the commitment of the Iraqi people to move towards democracy," he said in a meeting with US President George W Bush at the sidelines of the summit.

Wednesday's G8 declaration on the Middle East gives its backing to the new Iraqi government.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=87a0d4588577eca1

[Jack Rabbit]

135. Let me just say this

You can put lipstick on a sow and call her Monique, but she's still a pig.

I don't care if the UN and the G8 give this new Iraqi government their blessing. It wouldn't matter if the Pope and the Dalai Lama were to approve. Allawi is still a US puppet and the government which he heads still has little popular support. It's still a government imposed on the Iraqi people by a foreign power propped up by foreign troops.

Meanwhile, the news from the G8 wasn't as rosy as your clips make it sound:

(T)here were signs of division over Iraq, with French President Jacques Chirac rejecting President Bush's suggestions of an expanded role for Nato.
At the summit closed, Mr Bush admitted that his proposal had been for Nato to send troops to Iraq had been "unrealistic".

-- G8 summit ends with show of unity, BBC Online, Friday June 11

Tony Blair conceded last night that the Iraq war had cast a "shadow" over Labour's campaign for today's local, London and European elections.
Speaking as the polls closed, the prime minister said: "Iraq and the worries over Iraq have been a shadow over our support, but in the end you have to take decisions that are right and you have to see them through."
He was speaking at the close of the G8 summit in the American deep-south state of Georgia, where he also admitted that he did not expect "more troops from Nato to be offered up" to serve in Iraq.
Iraq is seen as having played an key role in yesterday's poll, with the controversial invasion expected to cost Labour seats in local government and in the European parliament.

-- Labour braced for Iraq protest vote, Guardian Utd., Friday June 11

It sounds like that multinational force the UN approved will be as multinational as the country it occupies is sovereign.

[bemildred]

136. Let me just say this.

Those diplomats are each and every one lying dishonest swine
who would not know truth and equity if it walked up to them
and clubbed them over the head with a two-by-four, and it might.

The notion that peace and democracy for Iraq will come from any
weasel-worded statements that they have all "agreed" to is as
funny and wrong as the idea of fucking for virginity or making
war for peace.

This meeting is like a gathering of the CEOs of the 8 largest
corporations in the World and having them come out with statements
about workers rights and how their employees can get ahead in life.

I'd rather watch a B movie, at least the movie admits it's fake and
it's less predictable.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

137. except that...

it's not like a sovereign democratic nation was invaded and it's elected government overthrown, but, rather, a fascist despotic tyrannical murderous psychopathic criminal and his henchmen were clumsily removed from power...

Galloway to Saddam Hussein: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability".

now THAT is putting lipstick on a pig and then some...



Saddam's earless victims find hope
Wed 9 June, 2004 13:39

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - In a stiflingly hot and crowded corridor of Baghdad's al-Wasati hospital, Nofal Dawoud is waiting nervously to be made whole again.
Ten years ago, shortly after defecting from Saddam Hussein's army, Dawoud was captured by members of the Baath party and hauled into a state hospital in the southern city of Basra.
His hands were bound behind his back, he was blindfolded, injected with almost enough anaesthetic to cover the pain and had his left ear cut off by a surgeon acting on the dictator's latest whim. But that wasn't the end of it.
Realising that they should have removed his right ear not the left, the doctors promptly turned Dawoud over and had the surgeon slice off the other ear, too.
"I was taken to the hospital in the morning, and in the afternoon I woke up to find that I had had both ears cut off," said the 29-year-old, as if not quite believing his own hideous misfortune.
"After that, I just wanted to die. I was depressed, I didn't care about life. I wanted them to kill me, but they wouldn't."

...

He took to wearing a traditional keffiyah scarf bound tightly around his head, pulling it low to cover the place where his ears once were and every day longing for Saddam to go.

And then one day Saddam was gone.

NAZI-STYLE MUTILATION

In all, an estimated 3,500 Iraqi soldiers had the whole or part of their ears cut off following Saddam's 1994 edict, an effort at using fear to clamp down on increasing army desertion.

...

Ten years on, and in the wake of Saddam's fall, the victims of mutilation are gradually emerging from their pariah existence, looking for jobs and a normal life, while holding out the hope that their deformity might one day be corrected.

Six weeks ago, that hope became a reality.

...

Since Saddam's fall, Waheed's life has already changed. Unable to work for years because of his mark of shame, after the war he got a job as a driver for a human rights organisation.

...

"Before people would discriminate against me and treat me badly, but now that's changed," said Waheed, showing off the cap he says he's worn every day since 1994. "I'm so glad I didn't kill myself. I nearly died, but I thank God for keeping me alive. Life is normal now and it's such a relief."

...

http://reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=526221§ion=news

[Jack Rabbit]

139. Response

it's not like a sovereign democratic nation was invaded and it's elected government overthrown, but, rather, a fascist despotic tyrannical murderous psychopathic criminal and his henchmen were clumsily removed from power...

The key word is the adverb “clumsily”. The attempt was clumsy. It was so clumsy that it made a bad idea worse. The effort was also dishonest. That, too, figures into why the neoconservative attempt to rebuild Iraq is doomed to failure.

I will make no attempt to defend Mr. Galloway’s remark. It was not typical of what the speakers at anti-war demonstrations I attended said about Saddam. We may agree that the only good thing that came out of this sorry affair is that Saddam is gone. However, Saddam’s tyranny does not by itself justify intervention in Iraq.

Moreover, simply overthrowing Saddam does not necessarily lead to a qualitatively better life for the common people of Iraq. The dishonest nature of the Bush administration’s case against Saddam should indicate that they don’t care about the Iraqi people and the clumsy nature of the effort all but assures that no benefit will be derived from it.

The invasion on Iraq was justified with lies. These were not honest mistakes; these were deliberate lies. The charge that Saddam was somehow responsible, partly or wholly, for the September 11 attacks is based on reports that Mohammed Atta, one of the principle hijackers on September 11, met in Prague with an agent of Iraqi intelligence. This report was debunked before the invasion began. Only disreputable conspiracy theorists like Laurie Mylroie continue to push the idea that Saddam even had associations with al Qaida. The secular Saddam saw Islamic fundamentalists as a threat to his hold on power; he was not a natural ally to one such as Osama. Osama, in turn, regards Saddam as a socialist and a secularist who is harmful to the cause of Islam. The only thing they had in common was a hatred of the United States. There is no reason to believe that Saddam had any association with Osama or his network. Another justification advanced by the administration for invading Iraq was that Saddam was heavily armed and posed an immediate threat to world or regional peace. However, Scott Ritter, the former chief UN weapons inspector, challenged this assumption months before the invasion began. Ritter, who was in a position to know, stated that almost all of Saddam’s biochemical arsenal had been destroyed by the time weapons inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 and that any material that had not been destroyed would have lost its potency by the time the administration was building its case for invasion (Autumn 2002). This should have given pause to those who were stating Saddam was a threat. It certainly goes a long ways in explaining why UN inspectors admitted back to Iraq in late 2002 under UN Security Council 1441 found nothing of significance and that American authorities have found nothing at all. Saddam did not have any vast biochemical arsenal, let alone one that constituted a threat, immediate or otherwise. Mr. Cheney was fond of saying that Saddam was rebuilding his nuclear arsenal. This was based on the evidence of a document that was represented as an agreement by the government of Niger to sell Iraq yellowcake uranium for the purpose of making nuclear weapons. The document is a fake. The forgery is crude and easily detected. Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, chairman of the International Atomic Energy Administration, told the UN Security Council two weeks before the start of the invasion that the document was a fake. There was no reason to believe that Saddam was rebuilding his nuclear arsenal.

If these were honest mistakes, the Pentagon would not have commissioned the Office of Special Plans to cull intelligence for facts supporting the rationale for the attack and discarding facts contrary to it. That intelligence was being cooked in this was known months before the war. We also now know that administration officials visited the CIA and that the increase in these visits correlates to a change in tone of the CIA’s reports about the rationale for the invasion from one of ambiguity to one of certainty. Finally, we know that General Powell in order to support the case for war relied on the testimony of the late General Hussein Kamel given in 1995 in secret to UN weapons inspectors; yet in that same document, General Kamel testified that he had ordered Iraq’s chemical weapons destroyed following his nation’s defeat in the First Gulf War. Powell omitted any mention of this, although it is certainly an important fact bearing on whether or not Saddam possessed threatening weapons. These facts are not consistent with a pattern of making errors in judging facts. They suggest that those disseminating the information were selecting what information to release and what information to withhold based not on its relevance but on whether it was consistent with or a contrary to their case for war. In short, the evidence and the pattern of behavior suggest strongly that members of the administration had made up their minds to invade Iraq and employed deceit to support the war. To put it more succinctly: they lied.

There was one piece of truth given in the administration’s case for war. This was that Saddam was a brutal tyrant and that the invasion was justified on the need for a humanitarian intervention. However, if that had been a fact strong enough to drum up national and international support for the war, then Bush and his lieutenants would not have behaved in the way they did with respect to the other facets of their case. The fact is that Saddam was not the only brutal dictator in the world. Should we not also engage in military action to overthrow the dictators of Burma, who have never permitted the legally elected president of that nation to assume power? Or Sudan, whose leaders look the other way as ethnic Arab militias terrorize and ethnically cleanse the non-Arab population of Darfur?

The situation in Darfur today presents a better reason for humanitarian intervention than the situation in Iraq in the Spring of 2003. As Human Rights Watch pointed out in its World Report 2004, while Saddam had been guilty of many heinous acts and there were times in his long reign that humanitarian intervention might have been justified, there was no immediate humanitarian crisis in Iraq for which Saddam was responsible at the time the invasion began of the kind that now exists in Darfur.

Thus, the invasion is not justified on either security concerns or under any theory of humanitarian intervention.

Nevertheless, since Saddam’s tyranny is the only reason given for the invasion with a basis in fact, it is that reason upon which those who planned the war elaborate in their further attempts to justify the invasion and continued occupation. This only results in more lies. In less than three weeks, they won’t even admit that the occupation is still an occupation, although that is just what it will be.

The neoconservatives now assert that Iraq was invaded to bring democracy to Iraq and to make Iraq self-governing. They care about the Iraqi people and wanted to make them free and prosperous. The invasion is a selfless act of American good will.

Horsespucky.

The neoconservatives don’t give two bits for the real people of the global South; they care only for artificial persons of the global North. This is a resource war. This was gunboat diplomacy with Cruise missiles. The invasion of Iraq was carried out to place that which rightly belongs to the Iraqi people in the hands of private western interests. If Iraqi life is better now than before, perhaps it is only because being under the power a thief is preferable to being under the power of a murderer.

If one doesn’t believe this and wants to believe instead the fable that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is a selfless act, one need only consider that when American troops entered Baghdad they allowed hospitals and museums to be looted but secured the oil ministry. What does that indicate about their priorities? Even before the invasion, reconstruction contracts were being awarded to the Bush administration’s favorite corporate contributors.

If they were really interested in helping the Iraqi people, they might have given priority to Iraqi businesses. However, that would cut into the business opportunities for firms like Halliburton, Bechtel and DynCorps. One might think that the Iraqi people could solve their own problems better than these clumsy corporate dinosaurs. Since the invasion, gangs of shiftless young men have taken to kidnapping and raping Iraqi women. The Iraqi people may try to do something about it, but not if the American viceroy has anything to say about it. Any attempts by the Iraqi people to take such concerns as public safety into their own hands is not tolerated. No, DynCorps is to be solely responsible for public safety, even though they are obviously doing a lousy job of it. The same can be said about US efforts to get the electric grid working over a year after the invasion. As the oppressive Iraq summer approaches, electricity is unreliable. The US taxpayer is shelling out an awful lot of money to rebuild Iraq, but there is very little to show for it.

One might think that some democracy or self-government might solve this, but there will be none of that if the neoconservatives can help it.

In the nineteenth century, when a powerful nation took control of a weaker country in order to take control of its resources and force open markets for the stronger nation’s business interests, it was called colonialism or imperialism. Foreign troops would enforce the will of the imperial power in the colony. The stronger country would also put in power its own government to serve its interests; sometimes the stronger country would place its own people in direct control of the colony and other times they may allow a native puppet government to rule on their behalf. Under no circumstances were the natives to govern themselves. If they did, they might assert their interests and welfare over those of the imperial power.

Imperialism, like slavery, presumes that some people a natural right to rule over others. It is inherently anti-democratic and can permit no real self-government of the colony.

If imperialism is a good name for this arrangement in the nineteenth century, it is no worse of a name in the twenty-first. Since Saddam’s overthrow, foreign troops under foreign command are in Iraq, western firms get all the business, an American administrator has given the orders and the natives have nothing to say about it. After June 30, things will change. Foreign troops under foreign command will remain in Iraq, western firms will get all the business, a puppet regime responsible to the Americans will be in power and the Iraqi people will have nothing to say about it.

Will June 30 bring democracy to Iraq? No. Is there any government by consent of the governed? No. Is this sovereignty? Don’t make me laugh.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Colonial occupation is sovereignty.

In terms of the war on terror, invading Iraq has only made a bad situation worse. Bush and his lieutenants tell Americans and anybody else who still willing to listen that Iraq is “the central front in the war on terror.” This is nonsense on it face, since Saddam had no associations with terrorists. Consequently, there was no possible way invading Iraq could have made Americans safer from the likes of Osama. On the contrary, since the invasion, al Qaida has regrouped and staged a number of attacks. Terrorists strike not only in Iraq but against western targets in Saudi Arabia. They have become stronger, not weaker. As Richard Clarke, the former US counterterrorism chief, pointed out, Osama’s propaganda always asserted that the US wanted to invade and occupy an oil rich Arab state. Now it has done so. This can only be a good recruiting point for al Qaida.

Invading Iraq has brought no benefits to the American people. While it arguably leaves the Iraqi people better off than they might have been under Saddam’s rule, it still does not leave them as well off as they could be under self-government. However, a truly self-government Iraq is not in the interests of the transnational corporations that support Bush and the neoconservatives; therefore, we should not expect any real moves towards Iraqi sovereignty, only more of the kind of Orwellian rhetoric inherent in the UN resolution passed in the last week.

The left was not wrong. The right was wrong. The invasion of Iraq was based on lies and continues to be justified with lies. It has not brought democracy or self-government to Iraq and is not intended to do anything like that, in spite of neoconservative rhetoric to the contrary.

The invasion has brought America into international disrepute. Those few allies who supported Bush in his ill-advised affair are being punished at the polls. In spite of the UN resolution authorizing a multinational force, no one is willing to assist. Worst of all, the invasion has not made terrorists weaker, but stronger.

This is a mouthful, but it can be said with a straight face: The invasion of Iraq may be the greatest single foreign policy blunder in the history of mankind.

[Jack Rabbit]

141. Important correction ot post 139

In paragraph 6 replace:

There was one piece of truth given in the administration’s case for war. This was that Saddam was a brutal tyrant and that the invasion was justified on the need for a humanitarian intervention.

With:

There was one piece of truth given in the administration’s case for war. This was that Saddam was a brutal tyrant. The neocons said that this justified the the invasion as a needed humanitarian intervention.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

179. Intelligence backs claim Iraq tried to buy uranium...

Illicit sales of uranium from Niger were being negotiated with five states including Iraq at least three years before the US-led invasion, senior European intelligence officials have told the Financial Times.

Intelligence officers learned between 1999 and 2001 that uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq.

These claims support the assertion made in the British government dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme in September 2002 that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from an African country, confirmed later as Niger. George W. Bush, US president, referred to the issue in his State of the Union address in January 2003.

The claim that the illicit export of uranium was under discussion was widely dismissed when letters referring to the sales - apparently sent by a Nigerien official to a senior official in Saddam Hussein's regime - were proved by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be forgeries. This embarrassed the US and led the administration to reverse its earlier claim.

But European intelligence officials have for the first time confirmed that information provided by human intelligence sources during an operation mounted in Europe and Africa produced sufficient evidence for them to believe that Niger was the centre of a clandestine international trade in uranium.

...


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373295002

[cantwealljustgetalong]

180. Iraqis, Seeking Foes of Saudis, Contacted bin Laden, File Says...

WASHINGTON, June 24 — Contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990's were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq.

American officials described the document as an internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service detailing efforts to seek cooperation with several Saudi opposition groups, including Mr. bin Laden's organization, before Al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization. He was based in Sudan from 1992 to 1996, when that country forced him to leave and he took refuge in Afghanistan.

...

Iraq during that period was struggling with its defeat by American-led forces in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, when American troops used Saudi Arabia as the base for expelling Iraqi invaders from Kuwait.
The document details a time before any of the spectacular anti-American terrorist strikes attributed to Al Qaeda: the two American Embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998, the strike on the destroyer Cole in Yemeni waters in 2000, and the Sept. 11 attacks.
The document, which asserts that Mr. bin Laden "was approached by our side," states that Mr. bin Laden previously "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative," but was now willing to meet in Sudan, and that "presidential approval" was granted to the Iraqi security service to proceed.

...

The Iraqi document states that Mr. bin Laden's organization in Sudan was called "The Advice and Reform Commission." The Iraqis were cued to make their approach to Mr. bin Laden in 1994 after a Sudanese official visited Uday Hussein, the leader's son, as well as the director of Iraqi intelligence, and indicated that Mr. bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan.

A former director of operations for Iraqi intelligence Directorate 4 met with Mr. bin Laden on Feb. 19, 1995, the document states.



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/politics/25TERR.html?pagewanted=1&hp

[Saeba]

140. Really?

it's not like a sovereign democratic nation was invaded and it's elected government overthrown, but, rather, a fascist despotic tyrannical murderous psychopathic criminal and his henchmen were clumsily removed from power...

I think that it's a perfect definition of the US government. That it means that it’s right to invade USA?

BTW, nice of you to give us a summarization of US propaganda, it’s instructive. But the matter with propaganda it that it doesn’t grow old very well. Time is a stern judge.

[Name removed]

146. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bemildred]

142. Iraq Still Too Dangerous To Return, Says UN Chief

New York, June 18 (NNN): Iraq is still too violent for United Nations staff to return, Secretary General Kofi Annan has said.

The statement came even as car bombs killed at least 41 people and injured nearly 150 in the capital, Baghdad, and near the town of Balad to the north.

A UN resolution championed by the US last week foresees the return of the UN to take a "leading role" in Iraq. But Annan said he was "very worried" about the
security situation and said circumstances did not permit a return.

The UN withdrew its international staff after a bomb devastated its Baghdad headquarters last August, killing envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 22 others.

IndoLink

[cantwealljustgetalong]

145. the UN staff...

ought to see if they can help out in Darfur then...

(good if they refrain from raping the local victims...)

[Jack Rabbit]

148. Indeed, something should be done about Darfur

Something should be done to protect Iraqi resources from neocon pirates, too.

[bemildred]

149. They definitely ought to avoid raping any local victims too. nt

[cantwealljustgetalong]

181. no need to hurry, vanquish the neocons first...

Oncoming Catastrophe

The United Nations’ continued inaction could lead to 1 million deaths in Sudan

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/oncoming_catastrophe/

[Jack Rabbit]

199. What are you suggesting?

That doing something about genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur is somehow excludes doing something about the threat posed by neoconservatives?

That's like saying we should enforce laws against murder, but not armed robbery.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

204. what I am suggesting is that...

prioritization of limited resouces is an indicator of interests over righteousness...

[Jack Rabbit]

210. How does invading Iraq demonstrate that?

It would seem that the interest here would be to defeat terrorists. Invading Iraq did nothing to further that end; it probably set back the struggle against terrorism.

One more time with feeling: Saddam had no working associations with al Qaida. Therefore, ousting Saddam at the very least would not affect al Qaida and possibly could open opportunities for them that did not exist before.

That was the pragmatic argument against the invasion. The neoconservatives should have listened, because that is exactly what happened.

Instead of admitting that invading Iraq set back the war against al Qaida, the neocons just get righteous and point to Saddam being gone as if that is going to bring back the dead in Istanbul, Madrid and Riyadh.

Far from being a point to show that the invasion was the right thing to do, the any assertion of a pragmatic approach of prioritization of limited resources and of interests taking priority over righteousness is one that blows up in the neocons' faces.

[Jack Rabbit]

143. 911 Commission says more terror attacks likely

From the San Francisco Chronicle
Dated Sunday June 20

Overriding concern: more terror attacks
Al Qaeda strike a question of when
By Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief

Washington -- Perhaps the most alarming finding of the commission examining the Sept. 11 attacks, after more than 1,000 interviews, 16 months of investigation and 12 public hearings, is the broad consensus that those who struck in 2001 are poised and determined to kill again.
The commission heard chilling recounts last week of the moments leading up to the murderous crashes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside.
They also heard from numerous experts who testified that the al Qaeda terrorist network remained a dangerous threat, as well as disturbing details of earlier schemes to pump poison into air conditioning systems, crash airplanes onto crowded city streets and take over a Russian military installation in order to fire a nuclear missile at a U.S. city.
"It may strike next week, next month or next year, but it will strike,'' a top official at the CIA's counterterrorism center identified only as "Dr. K'' told the panel.

Read more.

I repeat the thesis expressed in several posts above:

Since Saddam had no terrorists ties, the invasion of Iraq in no way addressed the problem of international terrorism. Either Mr. Bush and his aides are completely incompetent or they cynically used the September 11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq for reasons other than those given.*

In any event, the invasion was and the continued occupation** is a waste of human lives, time and money. That invading Iraq would do nothing to address the problem of terrorism was one among many predictions of the political Left that have turned out to be correct. Among others are that the occupation would be met with a popular resistance movement that would require brutality to even attempt to subdue, that Mr. Bush's aides would behave more in a manner consistent with colonial than democratic principles, that American credibility would suffer and that world public opinion would continue to scorn the US as a consequence of the invasion.

We must therefore conclude that the Left was right. Anybody who says otherwise either does not know what he is talking about or is deliberately obfuscating the facts.

*The cynical use theory is the better one. If Bush and his people had any real confidence that the data they had before actually supported a case to invade Iraq, they would not have constituted the OSP in the Pentagon in order to discard inconvenient bits of intelligence and make ambiguous bits of intelligence sound less ambiguous than the facts warranted.
**The occupation will continue after June 30. The authority being given to the interim government under the arrangement with the CPA is not sovereignty. In terms of sovereignty, it fails the duck test.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

144. Clinton defends successor's push for war...

Says Bush 'couldn't responsibly ignore' chance Iraq had WMDs
Saturday, June 19, 2004 Posted: 10:36 PM EDT (0236 GMT)


Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq but chastised the administration over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

"I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over," Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book "My Life."

Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe that Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction remained unaccounted for.

Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."

"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.

"So I thought the president had an absolute responsibility to go to the U.N. and say, 'Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process.' You couldn't responsibly ignore the possibility that a tyrant had these stocks," Clinton said.

...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/index.html

[Jack Rabbit]

147. Clinton is human. He has been known to be wrong.

He is here.

Scott Ritter was willing to testify to Congress that most of Saddam's weapons had been destroyed by late 1998 when weapons inspectors left Iraq and that what remained would have been worthless by the Autumn of 2002, when hearings were being held over the IWR. Unfortunately, Congress decided to stack the deck and call only witnesses who supported war.

Clinton's views notwithstanding, the case for war is bankrupt. It was at the time the IWR was passed.

[bemildred]

150. Do you consider Mr. Clinton part of "the left"?

Just wondering, I consider him part of "the right",
or maybe "the center right".

Mr. Clinton, like Mr. Kerry, is part of the ruling political
oligarchy, or wants to be, and he shares their values. They reject
the idea that invading another nation without any casus belli
other than speculative future harm is a bad idea. Their thesis is
that it was a good idea, it's just that Mr. Bush has fucked it up.

They have ulterior motives in taking this postion, their maintenance
of political power requires suitable external political activities to
distract and explain to the voting public the incompetent way
the country is governed.

They take this position despite the historical record, which suggests
that for countries larger than say Grenada, these sorts of things
always get fucked up, witness Korea and Vietnam to name two, now we
have Iraq to make three. But one can also point to Russia's little
excursions into Afghanistan and Chechnya, to Israel's investigation
of the Lebanese political environment, to the US seizure of the
Phillipines one hundred years ago, and the French invasion of Spain
two hundred years ago, to name a few more. There are plenty more,
for that matter, and historically, the success of these things gets
worse as you go along, with the exception of some of the European
colonial ventures against vastly inferior technical means. Some of
those did quite well for a century or two, but now they are almost all
gone too.

In the case of Iraq, there was simply no reason at all - other than
herdlike shared fantasy - to think that the matter could be carried
off with the means applied, and many of us here and elsewhere said so
well before it started.

But as I said, the US political ruling class, as a class, cannot and
will not admit anything of the kind. There are a few voices howling
in the wilderness, but Cassandra-like they are usually punished
promptly for their good sense.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

154. I consider Clinton to be more or less a left leaning centrist...

and too astute to be anything but...

(note that I mean the American version of center left which I assess translates roughly into center right in the more sophisticated political parlors...so then, kudos to the center right for having Clinton in their camp...)


They have ulterior motives in taking this postion, their maintenance of political power requires suitable external political activities to distract and explain to the voting public the incompetent way the country is governed.

that theme has a familiar ring to it in the form of the Arab dictatorships vis a vis their positions on Israel...

[bemildred]

155. You give greater credence to the American political soap opera

than I do, but thank you for being candid.

The use of threats to the body politic in one form or another
is common to governments almost everywhere. Certainly the Arab
stooge governments in the Middle East use it, but so does Mr.
Sharon, and so does Iran, and even clowns like Mr. Ghadaffi do.
It is a universal idiom of political life. Mr. Bush is using it
in spades, and it has been extremely popular in US political
circles at least since Mr. McKinley and the Spanish-American War.

The point of my raising it was to point out that it is fundamentally
phoney, and that we so-called citizens of so-called democratic societies
should stop swallowing it whole.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

156. OK, forget I ever mentioned that right wing reactionary, Bubba Clinton...

how about those ever fascinating neo-progressives over at the OIC then?...



Draft resolution: OIC to back Iraq's interim government...

Delegates at a meeting of the world's largest Islamic organization debated a resolution Tuesday that would give Iraq's new government the key support of the Islamic world and call for help in rebuilding the nation.
An interim government in Baghdad -- put together by U.S., U.N. and Iraqi officials -- is trying to establish its own legitimacy as it takes sovereignty June 30, and support from Islamic countries would be a boost to the incoming Iraqi administration and the United States.

Delegates at the 57-country Organization of the Islamic Conference began discussing the resolution late Monday and met again Tuesday to go over details. Several delegates said it is expected to be endorsed without major changes as early as Tuesday.

...

"Our support will help the new government to move beyond this critical and perilous transition period and guarantee the sovereignty, independence, security and safety, and national and territorial integrity of Iraq and Iraqi citizens," Belkeziz said in his address to the meeting.

"We must meet any needs formulated by the new government for the purposes of running the country and its reconstruction -- and extend our financial, moral, and diplomatic support to its political, economic and social projects," Belkeziz added.

...

Many speakers at the conference addressed U.S. calls for increased democracy in the Islamic world, where autocratic rule is common. Many Muslim leaders regard the U.S. calls as interference in their domestic affairs.

"It is of vital importance that the members of the OIC clearly lay out their will to accelerate political, social and economic reform to catch up with the times," Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said in his opening address to the conference on Monday.

The OIC's Belkeziz also said it was "high time for the Islamic world to take a decisive position on democracy."


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/06/15/international0704EDT0459.DTL

[bemildred]

157. Don't put words in my mouth.

Bubba is not a "right wing reactionary", and I didn't say he was.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

163. it was not meant to imply...

that you said anything of the sort...

I was just having some fun with political labeling...

sorry if that was not clear...

[bemildred]

165. Yes, well, it's so easy for people to get confused, one has to be sure.

WRT the OIC, it's hard to say anything in general, they are
a fairly diverse group, but I can say that a fair number of
them would fall under the "stooge government" rubric I used
previously, and most of the others are, ummmm, "imperfectly"
democratic, you know, hereditary democracies and the like.

[Jack Rabbit]

158. Yes, how about those ever fascinating neo-progressives over at the OIC?

How does the endorsement of Iraq's interim government of quislings by a bunch of crooked, electrode-wielding thugs (other than the ones in the White House and the Pentagon) make a case that this is the dawn of a bright new era of peace and democracy in the Middle East?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

162. bright new era of peace and democracy in the Middle East?...

hey, have I ever given you the impression that I believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy?...

how about it makes the case that it is the dusk of an old era, namely the end of the pan-Arabism of Saddam Hussein and the Islamism of the Taliban...

my emotional side would like to see crooked, electrode-wielding thugs hanging from lamposts...

my practical side tells me to take what I can get for now...

[Jack Rabbit]

164. Brief response

Ending an old era does not necessarily usher a better one. So far, it seems the best thing that can be said for Bush's invasion of Iraq is that it's better than Saddam. Some high standard, that. Do you really think it's worth spilling this much blood just so somebody can boast "Gee, I'm better than Saddam"?

Saddam was dictator imposed on the Iraqi people with the support of the US; Allawi is a dictator imposed on the Iraqi people with the support of the US.

Saddam maintained his rule with torture and terror; the occupation maintains itself with torture and terror.

Saddam was a brutal torturer; Bush is a kinder, gentler torturer.

Saddam was a murderer first and foremost, and a thief as well; Bush is just the opposite -- he's a thief first and foremost, and a murderer as well.

You can take what you can get for now. The problem is that for the blood spilled, the invaders have nothing to show for it.

Bremer has cut taxes and opened the country to foreign investment.

Power outages are frequent.

Personal safety is precarious.

Unemployment is high.

Half of the Iraqi security forces side with the insurgents.

As predicted by the Left, the occupation is a failure.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

167. Iraqis Back New Leaders, Poll Says...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3433-2004Jun24.html

[Jack Rabbit]

169. To which I will refer you to a post on another thread today

Please click here for context.

Posted by SOS on Newt Gingrich recites Frank Luntz's talking points in General Discussion at 11:47 PDT:

On McLaughlin, Moonie Blankley parroted the new "poll" that says 75% of Iraqis support the new government.
McLaughlin challenged the poll, Blankley looked up the source, which was some RW/Bush poll and McLaughlin laughingly dismissed the poll saying "I'll wait for the Pew poll".
Om MTP McConnell and Gingrich referenced the same "poll", but Timmy Russert must have been instructed not to question the source of the poll.
Amazing how they all get the same sheet of propaganda for the Sunday shows.

I, too, will wait for a more reliable poll. Even iof they confirm such numbers, I will also wait and see if they hold up after a few weeks. By that time, the Iraqi people will come to realize that this "sovereignty" doesn't pass the duck test and that the occupation, by any other name, continues.

[Lithos]

171. I've decided that the Neo-Cons must have one hell of a script writer

Who posts out the message of the day.

If you doubt me, look no further than Faux and ClearChannel, who both distribute a memo each morning detailing the conservative memes of the day which must be adhered to in news and editorials. This type of discipline only happens when part of a plan.

I just wonder who is the small group who make this decision each and every day. Karl Rove, Grover Norquist?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

175. oh, no, Mr. Bill...

the neocons have infiltrated the Economist...



Iraq's sovereignty restored, up to a point...

...

The prime minister, and the Iraqi president, Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Muslim tribal leader, will have to convince one set of doubters that they are not just the puppets of a continuing American occupation in all but name; while convincing other doubters that they are not just a staging post to a comeback of the repressive Baathist regime. They will have the backing of the American-led forces—though they will not have operational command over the foreign troops. They will also have Iraq’s oil revenues. There are also signs that Iraqis are turning against the insurgents, angry at seeing so many of their compatriots being slaughtered in their attacks. This may give Mr Allawi the popular backing to launch the severe crackdown on the insurgents that he is now promising.

Though Iraqis may now give Mr Allawi and his ministers a chance to prove themselves, any such “honeymoon” is likely to be short-lived and fraught with dangers. Though Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical young Shia cleric, has called off a revolt by his militia after suffering heavy casualties, the new government faces serious threats from a number of other private armies, linked to political and religious factions. Paramilitaries from another Shia group, linked to the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have been a visible presence in parts of Baghdad in recent days. Sunni militants control the towns of Fallujah and Baquba, after American forces gave up trying to crush them. In the north, Kurdish leaders have refused to disband their peshmerga fighting forces, forcing Mr Allawi to backtrack on his demand that all militias be incorporated into the re-formed Iraqi security forces or return to civilian life. Somehow, Mr Allawi will have to co-opt Iraq’s various, mutually hostile armed factions to pull together instead of pulling the country apart.

Foreign insurgents will continue to do their best to bring the new government down, especially the Tawhid and Jihad group, led by a Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which has claimed responsibility for a series of recent suicide bombings and shootings, and the beheadings of an American and a South Korean hostage (though on Tuesday it released three Turkish hostages it had threatened to kill). The coalition forces have recently taken casualties at a much lower rate than at the peak of the insurgency in April. If Mr Zarqawi could now be captured or killed, it might go some way to convincing Iraqis that the uprising is finally being brought under control.

...

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2812317

[factroid]

152. Analysis of Clinton's policies

My psychological analysis of Clinton is that he HATES to be seen as too far 'left' or 'liberal.' He is a natural bridge-builder, but I think he OFTEN goes too far, as he, with his bright mind, cleverly deceives himself and silopsistically justifies what he wants to do to avoid criticism from the right (despite his deferance/transferance attempt at feeling the 'victor' as he claims to have 'won' against Starr and the right wrt the Lewinski debacle; maybe that is why he did it? - to give himself something to 'win' at to deflect from what he was sellling out on?). Anyone with any brains can see that there were very likely NO WMD's or WMD projects anywhere near active in Iraq, according all decent intelligence analysis.

This is like signing off on NAFTA, to give WTO and Corps. free reign to plunder cheap sweatshop labor for Wallmart, Nike, etc. And, giving the DOD more B-2's than they even wanted. This is typical Clinton; and why we need . . . KUCINICH! - somebody that has some real 'liberal' backbone! Someone not a republicrat for a dang change! I don't like partisan politics, but with this bunch we have no margin for a waffler!

And human rights abuses are a global problem; from Tibetan genocide by the Chinese to Hutsus and Tutsis in Africa. You don't invade the country and bomb out their infrastructure to 'liberate' the 'victims' - as you kill many innocents with Geneva-violating 20% dud cluster bombs that should have been improved anyway by the DOD. The Pentagonian priorities are VERY skewed. Notice many troops never getting decent body armor and missing many other supplies and defensive equipment sorely needed and not real expensive.

No, there are too many 'irregularities' and evidences of mis-placed and bad judgements and priorities concerning middle east foreign policy. Then, we see the legacy from Kissinger, like the Allende/Pinochet/Nixon saga, Vietnam, etc., etc.. We need a house-cleaning in congress, and we need it soon!

[Darranar]

159. Bush couldn't possibly ignore a chance?

There's a "chance" that Kerry might decide to nuke the US if elected, too.... After all, he has never said for certain that he WON'T. His position on the matter is unnaccounted for.

Let's invade Massachusetts and have some "regime change" fun! After all, if we don't the US may get nuked....

[factroid]

160. Kucinich

Not sure what you are referring to about the US being nuked, but I'm a Kucinich supporter also, and often make the same (general) point I THINK you are making... that Kerry may be a little safer than Bush, but he apparently may appoint a couple of Bushite types in his cabinet. I don't think we need these warmongers - at all. And, we need to pull out of Vietnam-Iraq ASAP. The provisional rule-by-proxy by Negroponte will be of no use in reducing the terrorist breeding grounds over there. Only Kucinich makes much sense (and Nader - and John Edwards to some degree).

[Darranar]

161. No, that's not what I meant...

but I do agree.

My point was that you can't act on a "chance" just because it's a chance. Kerry was only an example; almost anyone else who hasn't proved that he or she wouldn't nuke the US if he or she had access to nukes would also serve as one.

I probably should have put a :eyes: in there to show that it was sarcasm.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

168. Panel finds al-Qaida, Iran link...

WASHINGTON – While it found no operational ties between al-Qaida and Iraq, the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has concluded that Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network had long-running contacts with Iraq’s neighbor and historic foe, Iran.

Al-Qaida, the commission determined, might even have played a “yet unknown role” in aiding Hezbollah militants in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, an attack the United States has long blamed solely on Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors.

The notion that bin Laden might have had a hand in the Khobar bombing would mark a rare operational alliance between Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups that historically have been at odds.

That possibility, largely overlooked in the furor of revelations released last week by the commission, comes amid worsening relations between the United States and Iran, which announced Thursday that it would resume building equipment necessary for a nuclear weapons program.

The Sept. 11 panel’s findings on Iran have been eclipsed by the continuing political debate over Iraq, which the commission said had not developed a “collaborative relationship” with al-Qaida despite limited contacts in the 1990s. That appeared to conflict with previous characterizations made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other administration officials in their justifications for launching the war against Saddam Hussein.

...

The commission’s Republican chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, also said in a TV appearance last week that “there were a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq.”

...

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/nation/9019907.htm

[Jack Rabbit]

170. Very interesting

Now, you might like to tell us how al Qaida's ties to Iran justified an invasion of Iraq.

While you're at it, you might like to tell us exactly what justified an invasion of Iraq. We are now 170 posts into a thread that has been up for six months and you haven't succeeded at it any better than Dick Cheney has.

[bemildred]

172. I just convened a "panel" in my kitchen.

And we decided that Saddam was thick as thieves with
a bunch of Martian invaders, and they are going to snatch
him away to the ship behind the comet soon so we won't get
to try him ...

But seriously, anybody can convene a "panel" with anybody they
want on it, it's a variation on what is called the "third party
technique" in Public Relations circles. Set up an "independent"
and "credible" third party to parrot your current line.

[Jack Rabbit]

173. Oh, I get it . . .

Set up an "independent" and "credible" third party to parrot your current line.

Like the neocons setting up the interim government of "sovereign" Iraq.

[bemildred]

174. I think you have it.

Some of the rhetoric coming out of the new government is
quite interesting in a demented sort of way. Where is
Howdy Doody when there is a real need for him?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

176. Howdy Doody...

is busy working his f911 shlockumentary...

[bemildred]

182. Charlie McCarthy maybe?

But really, whatever Moore is, I would not think a puppet
is the right idea. Clown, propagandist, attack-dog, something
like that might be fair given my slur on Mr. Allawi, but not a
puppet. (Although he does suck up to Kerry shamelessly, but I
suspect that has more to do with his dislike of Shrub than Mr.
Kerry's personal magnetism.)

[cantwealljustgetalong]

183. why am I not surprised that "Europe" would adore...

a parody of the fat ugly white trash American redneck clown...

you cannot make this shit up...

[bemildred]

184. The left's very own Limbaugh.

It cracks me up. But having listened to the attack-drivel
coming from the "right" all of my life, it's hard for me to
get worked up about Moore. When he's richer than Rush I'll
think about it. Meanwhile he has at least diversified the
propaganda stream.

Hmmm. Do you think he's richer than Rush already? There is
a lot to be made in a successful indy movie.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

177. arguing that...

peace and democracy has not been microwaved into existence in Iraq is raising the bar to a standard that the left certainly had no ingenious plan for accomplishing - leaving Saddam in place to continue on with the free-for-all corruption of oil-for-palaces was hardly going to result in Saddam abdicating control of his police state...

[Jack Rabbit]

186. That's not what I said at all

And if you think it is, it only shows that you haven't understood a thing I've said for six months on this thread.

The theses, which you have failed to disprove, are:

• The US would have done better to leave Iraq alone Yes, that would have meant leaving Saddam where he was. Yes, that is a unpleasant choice.
• Saddam did not have ties to terrorists, therefore the invasion of Iraq is unrelated to the war on terrorism. Corollaries:
  • Resources used to invade Iraq (138,000 American troops) would have been better used to find and capture or kill Osama and his lieutenants. They, not Saddam, are the immediate threat to our security.
  • By neglecting the real war on al Qaida for this misadventure in Iraq, the Bushies have allowed al Qaida time to regroup.
  • Therefore, in terms of US security goals, the invasion of Iraq was a waste of time, resources, money and (least we forget) human lives; it was a monumental blunder.
  • The Bush doctrine is not designed to to fight terrorism; it is designed to build empire. It is nothing less than a pretext to invade any sovereign state any time for any reason or no reason at all.
• Democracy is not on the table in Iraq. It never was.
  • Bush is no more interested in promoting democracy in Iraq than was Saddam.
  • Bush is no more interested in promoting free and fair elections in Iraq than he is interested in free and fair elections in Florida.
  
  
  • Bush is interested in opening business opportunities for his cronies at the expense of the Iraqi people.
  • Bush needs a government in power in Baghdad that is responsible to the US embassy, not to the Iraqi people.
  • If any Iraqi government that had any responsibility whatsoever to the Iraqi people came to power, it would ask US troops to leave and take the transnational corporations with them.
• It follows from the above that US troops are needed in Iraq to assure compliance of the Iraqi government with the US will. As long as that is the case:
  • Iraq is not a sovereign state but, in contradiction of democratic principle, a colony of a foreign power.
  • The interests of the Iraqi people are subordinate to the interests of the imperial power.
  • The Iraqi people will resist colonial domination and brutality is required to subdue the resistance.
• Whether within a democratic framework or not, the interests of the Iraqi people are better served by taking responsibility for their own destiny without meddling from the Bushies.

Restated simply:

While the overthrow of Saddam should have been an occasion of unreserved celebration, it was carried out in the worst possible manner and made a bad situation worse in two ways: first, by neglecting the terrorist threat and allowing al Qaida to regroup; second, by introducing a corrupt colonial system to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq and wasting money with very little to show for it except fattened corporate coffers (see Naomi Klein's piece, post 166); notwithstanding the purely anecdotal evidence presented post 178, the post-war effort has earned the US the distrust of the Arab peoples and most of the rest of the world simply because it has been for the benefit of the occupiers rather than for the Iraqi people. In this, the occupation has been a disaster because, while often sold as an occupation in the sense of America's efforts to rebuild defeated foes after World War II, it in fact more closely resembles the British Imperial Raj in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century India.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

194. I've understood...

you did a nice job on the summary (I love bullet points!), as well as the earlier essay...

but even if everything you've said is more or less true...


nonetheless...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/middle_east_iraqis_react_to_handover/html/2.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/middle_east_iraqis_react_to_handover/html/4.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/middle_east_iraqis_react_to_handover/html/5.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/middle_east_iraqis_react_to_handover/html/7.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/middle_east_iraqis_react_to_handover/html/8.stm

[Jack Rabbit]

196. More anecdotal evidence

Visual this time, while the other was quotes in print.

Even if there is some optimism today, it will soon be washed away by the lack of progress on other fronts.

And Iraq is still not sovereign.

And the US neocons still insist on making Iraq a model for a vision of the world that will not work.

We have replaced an Iraqi regime of murderers with a foreign regime of thieves. It wasn't worth the price in blood.

[Jack Rabbit]

197. . . . and a few more anecdotes

From the BBC Online
Dated Friday July 2

Mixed Iraqi verdicts on Saddam in court
Thursday was a bittersweet day for Iraqis.
By Dumeetha Luthra
BBC correspondent in Baghdad

The country's former leader who had once dictated the law now faced an Iraqi judge.
Iraqis crowded around, debating the whole process and watching mesmerised as Saddam Hussein appeared on TV . . . .
In Kurdish areas, where Saddam Hussein is accused of gassing thousands in Halabja and carrying out a programme of ethnic cleansing, people have already decided what the sentence should be.
The widow of one of Saddam Hussein's Republican guards was ambivalent. Her husband had been arrested and killed when he tried to break with the regime - but her reaction reflected the confusing relationship Iraqis have with their former president . . . .
For many Iraqis Saddam Hussein was finally facing justice, but they felt a sense of humiliation. The man they had once feared now looked vulnerable at times.

Just as anecdotal as your "evidence", but far more balanced.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

203. on balance...

some Germans lamented that Hitler made the trains run on time...

some Germans still do...

likewise, some Iraqi's will always miss Saddam...

[Jack Rabbit]

207. Who said any Iraqi should miss Saddam?

No Iraqi should miss Saddam. Enough said about that.

No Iraqi should miss the Bushies once they're gone, either. Iraq was not invaded with the interests of the Iraqi people in mind. It made for good rhetoric, but such claims just more neoconservative lies. Iraq was invaded to fatten Halliburton's bank account and, indirectly, Dick Cheney's retirement fund.

The fact is that the Iraqi people could run Iraq in their interests better than the Bushies are running it in the interests of transnational corporations. The fact is that the Left knew that and said so. After months of occupation, unemployment is still high, street crime is still rampant and electrical power is still unreliable. All this while funds intended to assist Iraqis are diverted to grandiose projects like converting Saddam's old palace into an American embassy with all the imperial trappings.

The fact is that the 138,000 or so US troops are on occupation duty in a country where 80% of the population thinks things would improve if they leave. They are being killed by Iraqi nationalists instead of finding Osama and his lieutenants.

Do you want to talk about priorities of interests over being righteous? Fine. That's the very point that is made when one says that invading Iraq at this time was not in our best interests because those resources could have been better used on more important matters. Even if the occupation of Iraq were a success story like the Marshall Plan, there would still be that problem.

By invading Iraq, the real problem of terrorism was neglected and, as a result, al Qaida was able to regroup and stage attacks in Turkey, Spain and Arabia. The real problem was not addressed and, like a festering sore, became infected.

The Left said prior to the war that ousting Saddam would be the only thing remotely resembling a benefit to the neoconservative project in Iraq. The Left said that any benefit to the Iraqi people to ousting Saddam would be cancelled by corporate greed and official corruption. The Left said that the reconstruction of Iraq would resemble colonialism, not the Marshall Plan. The Left said that the problem of terrorism would get worse as a result of invading Iraq.

And that is exactly what has happened.

The Left was right, Mr. Along. Deal with it.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

221. from the bullies of Durban to the cowards on Darfur...

the left couldn't find right if it got bit in the ass, made a u-turn, and asked for directions...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

230. silence of the cowards on Darfur...

Arab women singers complicit in rape, says Amnesty report...

While African women in Darfur were being raped by the Janjaweed militiamen, Arab women stood nearby and sang for joy, according to an Amnesty International report published yesterday. The songs of the Hakama, or the "Janjaweed women" as the refugees call them, encouraged the atrocities committed by the militiamen.

The women singers stirred up racial hatred against black civilians during attacks on villages in Darfur and celebrated the humiliation of their enemies, the human rights group said.

" appear to be the communicators during the attacks. They are reportedly not actively involved in attacks on people, but participate in acts of looting."

Amnesty International collected several testimonies mentioning the presence of Hakama while women were raped by the Janjaweed. The report said:"Hakama appear to have directly harassed the women assaulted, and verbally attacked them."

During an attack on the village of Disa in June last year, Arab women accompanied the attackers and sang songs praising the government and scorning the black villagers.

According to an African chief quoted in the report, the singers said: "The blood of the blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be in their land. The power of al-Bashir belongs to the Arabs and we will kill you until the end, you blacks, we have killed your God."

The chief said that the Arab women also racially insulted women from the village: "You are gorillas, you are black, and you are badly dressed."

The Janjaweed have abducted women for use as sex slaves, in some cases breaking their limbs to prevent them escaping, as well as carrying out rapes in their home villages, the report said.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1264901,0...

[Jack Rabbit]

234. This justifies the invasion of Iraq how?

I raised the issue of Darfur to show that, unlike Iraq in 2003, it is an example of an immediate humanitarian crisis that could justify a humanitarian intervention. As Human Rights Watch pointed out, while there were times during Saddam's rule that a humanitarian intervention could have been justified, the Spring of 2003 wasn't one of them.

I take it you are as appalled as I about what is going on in Darfur. I have posted some threads about the subject on the main FA forum, as have some other friendly members of DU. Perhaps you would like to affix this to one of those threads, where it would be more relevant.

[Jack Rabbit]

241. Interesting report on NPR's marketplace (Thurdsday July 22)

For the audio, please click here (Real Player).

At about 1:45 into the program is about the how foreign workers are being kidnapped and executed and about the use of cheap foreign labor to reconstruct Iraq. At about 4:30 into the program, Adam Davidson reports that the US promoted the reconsturction effort as one that promised hundreds of thousands of jobs to Iraqis that are in fact going to workers from places like the Philippines, India and Kenya. These people are employed by US transnational corporations like Bechtel. At its peak, the reconstruction employed about 25,000 Iraqis and is currently employing about 11,000.

The reconstruction of Iraq has not delivered the prosperity to the Iraqi people promised.

Now, let's admit that left didn't predict this. Even I thought that these transnational corporations would exploit cheap Iraqi labor to reconstruct Iraq rather that transport in cheap foreign labor.

So in this case, the left missed something and things have worked out to be even worse than expected, if that was possible.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

178. this justifies it...

Iraqis Rejoice on Talk Radio Airwaves...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi voices filled the airwaves of the nation's first independent talk radio station Monday, applauding a surprise move by the U.S.-led coalition to return sovereignty to Iraq two days early.


The callers clogged Radio Dijla's telephone lines to congratulate interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, urging him to be strong, while warning insurgents against continued violence.


"I send my congratulations to all Iraqis and every Iraqi home," a woman who identified herself as Um Yassin gushed, her voice choked with emotion. "I want to tell Dr. Allawi to be bold, to be strong. We need him to build up the army because we need them at a time like this."


...

But in the midst of adulation for the new government, callers urged that all must be vigilant for insurgents seeking to sow more chaos in a country plagued by violence since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled.


"I send all the Iraqi people my blessings," said Ali, a caller from Baghdad. "But I warn these terrorists, all the Iraqis will rise up and strike them with steel."

...

"People have been calling in all day, sending their greetings to the new government," said Ahmed al-Rikabi, who founded Radio Dijla about two months after working for years with broadcasters in Europe. "There is a feeling of joy among the listeners. But they are also expressing hope that the day will pass with no problems and no explosions."


"But we've also had calls from people pleading with the terrorists to let Iraqis live this day in peace."

...

On Baghdad FM, another channel that also hosts callers as well as music, Um Ali, a woman from Hillah, recalled the twin car bombings that struck the heart of her city Saturday night. The blasts claimed 17 lives in the predominantly Shiite city 60 miles south of the capital and injured about 40 others.


"It was nothing short of murder," she said. "Nobody wants any more incidents like this."

...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040629/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_radio_reaction

[Jack Rabbit]

187. Two points

First, as Lincoln said, you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. That some people in Iraq are optimistic tonight is not surprising. I wonder what these same people will be saying weeks from now when the streets still aren't safe, the power still isn't reliable and US corporations are still taking money out of the country.

Second, since you didn't respond to my request to demonstrate how an connection between al Qaida and Iran justified an invasion of Iraq, I will assume you found no way to demostrate it.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

193. I was not trying to demonstrate THAT, I was just wondering...

if the 911 commission's findings on the lack of a connection between al Qaida and Iraq is one of the things that negates the justification for regime change in Iraq, then, conversely, (or is it inversely?), is the 911 commission's findings on a connection between al Qaida and Iran one of the justifications for regime change in Iran?...

I'm just sayin...

and on that note, this just cracked me up (in bold)...


We must face up to Iran's real ambitions...


NINE months ago, three European Union foreign ministers returned from a mission to Tehran with a "peace-in-our-time" sheet of paper that they hailed as a triumph for soft-power diplomacy. The paper brought back by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, Dominique de Villepin, France’s foreign minister, and his German counterpart, Joschka Fischer, was presented as a solemn accord committing Iran to strict limits to its ambitious nuclear programme.

Now, however, we know that this was not the full picture. The mullahs thought they were signing a purely procedural agreement to allow more inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. They had no intention of giving the EU or the IAEA a droit de regard on a key aspect of the Islamic republic’s energy policy and defence doctrine.

The "three wise men of Europe" have only themselves to blame for their real or feigned disappointment at what they see as "erratic Iranian behaviour". How they came to believe that a regime that violates its own constitution every day might honour an agreement signed with "infidels" remains a mystery.

As far as the "Iranian nuclear challenge" is concerned, we are back where we were nine months ago - while Iran’s nuclear programme has advanced by nine months. A string of statements from the ruling mullahs in Tehran show that the Islamic republic no longer feels committed to a moratorium on its uranium-enrichment programme. Nor will the new Islamic majlis (assembly), dominated by radicals, be in a mood to approve additional protocols to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of which Iran was one of the first signatories three decades ago. Despite recent statements to the contrary by the "supreme leader", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the talk from Tehran is that the Islamic republic should be accepted as the latest member of the "nuclear club".

...

Anyone with any knowledge of Iranian politics would know that the present regime in Tehran is strategically committed to developing a nuclear "surge capacity" if not a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. The real question, therefore, is whether the region and the rest of the world feel comfortable with the idea of a revolutionary regime, claiming a messianic mission on behalf of Islam, arming itself with nuclear weapons.

A peaceful Iran with no ambitions to export an ideology or seek regional hegemony would be no more threatening than Britain, which also has a nuclear arsenal. The real debate on Iran, therefore, can only be about regime change. And this is precisely the issue that the Europeans are loath to acknowledge as a legitimate topic of discussion.

...

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=750812004?

[Jack Rabbit]

198. Response

if the 911 commission's findings on the lack of a connection between al Qaida and Iraq is one of the things that negates the justification for regime change in Iraq, then, conversely, (or is it inversely?), is the 911 commission's findings on a connection between al Qaida and Iran one of the justifications for regime change in Iran?

This question is framed like most arguments in favor of the invasion have been. It assumes a black-or-white answer. Nothing in the world is so simple.

Does the lack of a connection between al Qaida and Iraq negate the justification for regime change in Iraq? The question is loaded and I choose not to answer it as put. There are actually two questions implied: (1) Is a connection between al Qaida and the Iraqi regime a sufficient justification for invading Iraq? and (2) Is the desire for a regime change sufficient justification for invading Iraq?

By sufficient cause is meant one that requires no other reason to justify war. In the case of Iraq, answer to the first question is clearly negative. It doesn't matter whether a connection between al Qaida and Iraq is a sufficient cause for invasion or not; there was no such connection. The lack of a connection between al Qaida and Iraq negates the use of a connection between al Qaida and Iraq as a justification for invading Iraq.

As for the second, clearly the mere desire for a regime change in one state by those in power in another is not sufficient cause for an invasion. The best argument that those in favor of invasion put forward is the humanitarian intervention argument. However, as pointed out elsewhere on this thread, that would require an immediate crisis of great proportion; humanitarian intervention would be better used as a justification for regime change in Sudan right now than in Iraq 14 months ago.

Therefore, both a connection with al Qaida and the urgent need for humanitarian intervention are negated as possible justifications for invading Iraq. That leaves you with the only other reason given, Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Will you be so absurd to assert that one?

As far as Iran is concerned: Does a connection between al Qaida and Iran constitute a sufficient cause for an invasion of Iran? Certainly it is a possible rustication for one. I don't think it is a sufficient cause, but it comes close.

The answer to that question would depend on what you mean by Iran and whether whatever ties between Iran and al Qaida could be broken by means short of war. If by Iran, you mean not the government of Iran but some rogue criminal element of the country, then it becomes a matter of whether the Iranian government will act against this element or just look the other way while the terrorists plan the next September 11. Then it would be a question of whether it would be necessary to remove the Iranian regime in order to remove the al Qaida presence.

One could use the invasion of Afghanistan to illustrate the point, except that the Bushies didn't do that right and may have had ulterior motives there as well. Personally, I opposed the invasion as it was done, but not in principle. Getting al Qaida was necessary, but I was never convinced that the Taliban couldn't be bought off (it was never tried). One could also point to the fact that the Bushies lost interest in Afghanistan once the regime change was effected, leaving al Qaida free to regroup, as they have. Was the construction of a pipeline the real goal and a war on terrorism just a pretext there as well? But I digress.

The turnover of Osama and his lieutenants and the demolition of al Qaida camps were reasonable demands; any American administration would have made them. It was also reasonable under the circumstances to impress upon the Afghan regime that time was of the essence. Had honest negotiations taken place between the US and the Afghan regime and come to nothing, then Bush would have been perfectly justified to do his worst.

It is quite possible that negotiations would have gone nowhere. Saddam certainly didn't need terrorist ties in order to maintain control of Iraq; he didn't have any. It is doubtful that the Iranian mullahs would be in any danger if they cracked down on al Qaida. The situation in Afghanistan may have been different. The Taliban's control of Afghanistan was tenuous and whether they could have held on if al Qaida was removed is a fair question.

Of course, that's why Bush may not have done Afghanistan right, either, but he still gets less heat for it than he gets for Iraq. In Afghanistan, there were at least possible justifications for war that were not negated. In Iraq, there was nothing that constitutes a possible justification for war. While both were governed by regimes that no person of goodwill will miss, one act was at least possibly justified; the other was simply an out-and-out criminal act of aggression.

[bemildred]

153. Chasing the Pot -- By Lewis H. Lapham -- in July's edition of Harper's Mag

I've been trying to find this for a while. This poor sod
seems to have typed it into his blog.

Poker players who win more often than they lose obey a rule of thumb
expressed in the phrase "never chase the pot." Were the United States
to apply the same policy to the cards it has been dealt in Iraq we
would fold the hand sooner instead of later--without conditions or
complaint, accepting the loss as a fact beyond the hope of rescue by
Commander James Bond or the ace of hearts.

President George Bush apparently doesn't know the game (doesn't know
it or believes himself too rich to care what any of the numbers mean),
and so in the news from Washington and Baghdad these days we see the
squandering of the country's fortune (its wealth, the lives of its
young men and women, its character and good name) on the vanity of a
feckless commander in chief who holds the equivalent of five low
unmatched cards--a bankrupt theory of world domination, a collection
of lurid snapshots from the Abu Ghraib prison, a botched military
occupation of the Mesopotamian desert, a delusionary secretary of
defense, few allies in western Europe and none in the kingdoms of
Islam. Undetterred by circumstance, well pleased with his persona
as the last, best hope of mankind, the President smiles his spendthrift
and self-congratulating smile and bets another Marine division on the
chance that it will save Mel Gibson's Jesus from a mob of bearded
terrorists in Najaf.

I can understand why some people might find the performance terrifying,
also why some otehr people might see it as darkly comic, but what I
don't understand is why anybody continues to think that the man knows
what he's doing. Presumable they're unacquainted with the lessons of
the poker table; maybe they don't know that the President imagines
himself in a game with John Wayne, Omar Sharif, and the Devil.
Important personages in the news media, sources well informed and
highly placed, acknowledge the mess that the noble heir has made of
the American gamble in Iraq, but when I suggest that the President
would do well to heed the advice of the historian A.J.P. Taylor, the
tribunes on the jingo right accuse me of cowardice or treason (not a
true American, no friend of our soldiers in the field); representatives
of the conscience-stricken left draw my attention to the geopolitical
reality of the international oil price and Woodrow Wilson's high-minded
notion of making the world safe for democracy. But no matter what the
provenience of the correction or the rebuke, all present in the chorus
of responsible opinion (Senator Kerry as well as President Bush) offer
sentiments identical to the ones that for twelve years bankrolled the
American losses in Vietnam--the United States must "stay the course,"
discharge its "moral responsibility," protect the Iraqi people from
the scourge of civil war, maintain its "credibility" as the all-powerful
wonder of the world. The sales pitch is as disingenuous now as it was
in 1968:

America must finish the job

What job? Instead of going to Iraq with plans for military occupation,
we went with the script for a Hollywood western, and we have done as
much as we know how to do--captured the bad guy, discovered that he
didn't possess weapons of mass destruction, expended large quantities
of ammunition, reduced to rubble a substantial weight of antiquated
architecture, killed or maimed 4,000 American troops as well as an
unlisted number of Iraqi civilians. Begining with the plotline of High
Plains Drifter and similar in both disposition and result to the
American expeditions to Cuba and the Philipines at the turn of the
twentieth century, to Haiti in 1915 and 1994, to Vietnam in 1962-75.

more (may need to scroll down, may be ephemeral)

[Jack Rabbit]

166. Naomi Klein: The multibillion robbery the US calls reconstruction

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Saturday June 26

The multibillion robbery the US calls reconstruction
frenzy in Iraq is fuelling the resistance
By Naomi Klein

Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4bn in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below pre-war levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted the British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and" - get this - "embarrassment". I don't know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame.
In the run-up to the June 30 underhand (sorry, I can't bring myself to call it a "handover"), US occupation powers have been unabashed in their efforts to steal money that is supposed to aid a war-ravaged people. The state department has taken $184m earmarked for drinking water projects and moved it to the budget for the lavish new US embassy in Saddam Hussein's former palace. Short of $1bn for the embassy, Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, said he might have to "rob from Peter in my fiefdom to pay Paul". In fact, he is robbing Iraq's people, who, according to a recent study by the consumer group Public Citizen, are facing "massive outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, nausea and kidney stones" from drinking contaminated water.
If the occupation chief Paul Bremer and his staff were capable of embarrassment, they might be a little sheepish about having spent only $3.2bn of the $18.4bn Congress allotted - the reason the reconstruction is so disastrously behind schedule. At first, Bremer said the money would be spent by the time Iraq was sovereign, but apparently someone had a better idea: parcel it out over five years so Ambassador John Negroponte can use it as leverage. With $15bn outstanding, how likely are Iraq's politicians to refuse US demands for military bases and economic "reforms"?
Unwilling to let go of their own money, the shameless ones have had no qualms about dipping into funds belonging to Iraqis. After losing the fight to keep control of Iraq's oil money after the underhand, occupation authorities grabbed $2.5bn of those revenues and are now spending the money on projects that are supposedly already covered by American tax dollars.

Read more

[cantwealljustgetalong]

185. Hating America...

...

Though focusing predominantly on Norway, Stian Bromark and Dag Herbjørnsrud’s Frykten for Amerika (Fear of America) does a splendid job of illuminating European anti-Americanism generally.18 The authors begin by examining the geographical distribution of anti-Americanism, which, while low in Asia, South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe, is widespread in the Islamic world, is even higher in Western Europe, and is highest of all in France. (53% of Frenchmen “take a negative view of American democratic ideas,” while 64% of Czechs, 67% of Venezuelans, and 87% of Kenyans are positive.) Though fewer than 14% of Frenchmen have visited America, “most have strong views” of it; indeed, “Europeans who have not been in the U.S. . . . have the strongest opinions” about it, and malice toward America is inversely proportional to the amount of time individuals have actually spent there. Another illuminating statistic: contrary to the notion that anti-Americanism is a reflection of opposition to Republican presidents and U.S.-led wars, French sympathy for the U.S. stood at 54% in 1988, during the Reagan administration, but dropped to 35% by 1996, when Clinton was in office. Why the decline? Simple: in 1988 the U.S. was a protector; in 1996, after the Berlin Wall fell, it was a resented “hyperpower” (to employ French politician Hubert Védrine’s gratuitous term).

Asked their view of the U.S. from several perspectives (politics, society, foreign policy, etc.), Western Europeans give a thumbs-up only to American popular culture. Why? Because they’ve experienced American movies and music firsthand and can judge for themselves, whereas their social and political views are based on what they’ve been taught in school and told by their media. This gap between negative views inculcated by educators and journalists and positive views founded on personal experience is perhaps nowhere vaster than in Norway, where school textbooks give bogus “materialistic-capitalistic explanations” for one U.S. action after another—presenting as fact, for instance, that America’s motive for invading Iraq was oil—but where teenagers, according to a BBD&O study, boast Europe’s highest “Americanization index.” (The Norwegian press sneers about Americans’ devotion to McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, but both corporations have bigger market shares in Norway than in the U.S.)

To be sure, Western European intellectuals often claim, as Norwegian author Jens Bjørneboe did in a 1966 essay, “We Who Loved America,” that they once were pro-American but, owing to some social change in America or some U.S. government action, have altered their position. The current claim is that Europeans loved America until the Iraq War; before that, it was a truism that they loved America until Vietnam. But Bromark and Herbjørnsrud state flatly that “It wasn’t the Vietnam War that made European intellectuals, authors and academics anti-American. The truth is that they had been anti-American all along.” As early as 1881, the Norwegian author Bjørnsterne Bjørnson argued that Europe’s America-bashing had to stop; even earlier, in 1869, James Russell Lowell complained that Europeans invariably saw America “in caricature.”19 Indeed, nineteenth-century European aristocrats despised America as a symbol of progress, innovation, and (above all) equality, ridiculing it as a mongrel land of simple-minded Indians and blacks; later, avaricious Jews were added to the list. These stereotypes soon spread to Americans generally, resulting in today’s European-establishment view of Americans as materialistic morons.

If privileged Europeans of generations ago quaked in fear because they knew that America, and American equality, represented the future, so too did many of the Continent’s leading authors and intellectuals. Bromark and Herbjørnsrud examine the rather sorry Norwegian record (to which that nation’s twin titans, Ibsen and Bjørnson, were honorable exceptions): in 1889, Knut Hamsun denounced what he considered to be America’s sexual equality; in 1951, Agnar Mykle sneered that American mothers “raise children, not as boys and girls, but first and foremost as people who will become adults, with clean souls, well-scrubbed teeth, well-ordered hair, clean hands and a big smile.” (America’s excessive cleanliness was long a European theme: Hamsun whined that in the U.S. you couldn’t “spit on the floor wherever you want.”) But the main flash point was race: in America, complained one Norwegian writer, one “had to fight for one’s blond scalp in conflict with bloodthirsty natives.” Bjørneboe wrote in his teens that the physiognomy of immigrants to America changed after three years (“Northern and Central Europeans become Indian, Southern Europeans become Negroid”); Hamsun grumbled that the U.S., by allowing blacks to work in white restaurants, had created “a mulatto stud farm”; Mykle, spotting a mixed-race couple in New York, had “the same uncomfortable feeling as when you see a bulldog mate with a birddog.” Note that these writers were not marginal cranks: they were major literary figures. Nor were these Norwegian writers very different from their colleagues south of the Skaggerak. For an appalling number of them, America’s supreme iniquity was, as Bromark and Herbjørnsrud put it, its “project of blending.” Such views, which remained in the European mainstream well into the 1950s, had by the 1970s, however, been supplanted by reflexive, supercilious condemnations of American racism, the implication usually being that racial prejudices of the sort found in the U.S. were utterly foreign to Europeans.

Envy and insecurity have played a role in anti-Americanism, too. Over the generations, men who saw themselves as metropolitan sophisticates traveled to America and were suddenly confronted with their own provinciality. Mykle, we’re told, “felt humiliated as a Norwegian from the moment he arrived in New York”; days after a customs official asked him how to spell Oslo, the question still rang in his ears.20 The beloved Norwegian author Rolf Jacobsen, who wrote several anti-American poems before finally visiting the U.S. in 1976 (when he was nearly seventy), complained in a postcard home that “There’s not one mountain here—not one mountain ridge.” Away from familiar surroundings, these men felt uprooted, robbed of their souls; this personal disorientation, alas, led not to enhanced self-understanding, but to defensive attacks on America as rootless and soulless (a charge that is now, of course, a cliché).

Even in Revolutionary times, fear of America meant fear of the modern. Throughout the twentieth century, many Europeans regarded technological progress not as a natural development but as Americanization and considered such phenomena as canned food to be symbols of American dehumanization. Even Sigmund Skard, Norway’s leading postwar “expert” on the U.S., who was instrumental in shaping the way Norwegian students were (and are) taught about America, admitted that “the modern scares me” and projected this fear onto the United States. “Consumer civilization,” he charged, threatened “our old civilizations . . . the roots, the simple, classic life.” As distorted as Skard’s account of modern America, note Bromark and Herbjørnsrud, is his sentimental idealization of “traditional Norway,” whose history of grim poverty, isolation, and deprivation he turns “into something . . . exclusively positive.” It would appear, then, that when the Norwegian media, in June of 2001, chose to represent my rural experience in Telemark as a face-off between homely, traditional Norwegian virtues and American “McDonald’s culture,” it was only following in Skard’s footsteps.

New wrinkles were added in the 1960s, when, bizarrely, the longstanding reactionary critique of Americans and American popular culture was supplemented by, and combined with, socialist vitriol about the U.S. political system and the American state. Americans were now not only stupid and vulgar; they were also arrogant, power-hungry imperialists. The terms of this new critique, of course, were lifted largely from America’s own counterculture; as Bromark and Herbjørnsrud succinctly put it, “American artists’ imaginations, knowledge, and quality . . . have seduced Europeans into thinking that Americans have no imagination, knowledge, or quality.” This practice has continued to the present day, when major European newspapers eagerly fill page after page with nonsensical anti-American rants by the likes of Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky.

When European journalists and intellectuals aren’t relishing the latest windy jeremiad by one of these cranks, they’re busy congratulating themselves for their appreciation of nuance. That’s their term of choice for what they have and America doesn’t. Americans, they argue, are possessed by naïve, simplistic ideals, while Europeans are more aware of real-world complexities. Actually the opposite is closer to the truth. Yes, America is built on an idea, namely liberty; but far from being divorced from reality, it is an idea that Americans have realized, developed, and successfully exported for more than two centuries. We have demonstrated the depth of our commitment as a people to this idea by waging a revolution, a civil war, two World Wars, several smaller wars, and the Cold War in its name. It is, in short, an idea that is utterly indissoluble from our own living, breathing, everyday reality. By contrast, much of Western Europe is founded on an idea of itself that is significantly, and dangerously, divorced from reality. That idea, as Robert Kagan explains so adroitly, is that the world has moved beyond the necessity of war. It is a pretty fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. And keeping it alive requires that one ignore dangerous realities—such as the growing problem of militant Islam within Europe’s own borders.

Europeans mock American religiosity. But American religion, for all its attendant idiocies and cruelties, has never prevented Americans from acting pragmatically. Secular Western European intellectuals, however, have their own version of religion. It is a social-democratic religion that deifies international organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and, above all, the U.N. Not NATO, which is about waging war, and which has for that reason been the target of much European criticism in recent years; no, the NGOs are about waging peace, love, brotherhood, and solidarity, and, as such, are, for the elites of Western Europe, beyond criticism, for they embody Western Europe’s most cherished idea of itself and of the way the world works, or should work. The elites’ enthusiasm for these institutions, whether or not they are genuinely effective or even admirable, is a matter of maintaining a certain self-image and illusion of the world that is intimately tied up with their identity as social democrats; America’s unforgivable offense, as Kagan notes, is that it challenges that image and that illusion; and the degree to which the reality of America is distorted in the Western European media is a measure of the desperate need among Western European elites to preserve that self-image and illusion. It sometimes seems to me a miracle, frankly, that America has any friends at all in some parts of Western Europe, given the news media’s relentless anti-Americanism. There is no question that the chief obstacle to improved understanding and harmony between the U.S. and Western Europe is the Western European media establishment. It is an obstacle that must somehow be overcome, for Western civilization is under siege, and America and Europe need each other, perhaps more than ever. More sane, sensible European books along the lines of Revel’s L’obsession anti-américaine and Bromark and Herbjørnsrud’s Frykten for Amerika can help.



http://www.hudsonreview.com/BawerSp04.html

[Jack Rabbit]

188. No so interesting

What, pray tell, does this have to do with the subject?

[bemildred]

191. Mr Bawer is an interesting fellow.

http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/bawer/

Apparently he is a sort of Sully wannabe:

http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/bawer/

This piece is propaganda, better than the usual drivel, way better
than Coulter for instance, but still filled with loaded terminology,
straw men, tu quoque fallacies, solecisms, and bad logic. But at
least he took to time to research it and provide references, and
in between the blathering there are some interesting bits.

[bemildred]

192. Munged the second link:

Corrected: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684827662/independegayforu/104-1750559-8874342

[cantwealljustgetalong]

205. your review of this piece...

would apply to 98% percent of anything in print, with the exception of DU, where it would apply to 99% percent...

[bemildred]

211. Sturgeon's law says 90%.

Which seems about right to me in the general case.

Propaganda is distinguished by the dishonesty of the
arguments made, not merely by the omission of elaborate
examination of the arguments for other points of view.

Certainly the noise level at DU is high, but it's unfiltered,
or at least not very filtered, and that's both a strength and
a weakness, depending on what you are looking for ...

Nevertheless, I agree with the spirit of your post, one is
well advised to not believe in much ...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

195. Three-nation alliance trampled by 'rogue elephant' Chirac...

Britain has concluded that its three-nation alliance with France and Germany is in effect over after a series of rows between Tony Blair and the French President, Jacques Chirac.

Ministers believe President Chirac has become impossible to work with, and one government source described him as a "rogue elephant". The strategy of "trilateralism" has now given way to limited ad hoc co-operation on specific issues.

Asked if the three-way approach was dead, one Blair aide replied, "yes". The Prime Minister's change of tack emerged as he accused France and Germany of watering down moves to ensure stability in Iraq and Afghanistan and warned that this week's Nato summit had not faced up to the threat of global terrorism.

...

At the Nato summit in Istanbul, M. Chirac watered down plans to increase Nato's presence in Iraq, criticised President George Bush over his support for Turkish membership of the EU, and objected to plans to deploy a Nato rapid reaction force to Afghanistan. The UK believes M. Chirac is lashing out from a position of weakness and is playing to a domestic audience.

The Government sees the appointment of Mr Barroso as an important turning point because it proved the French and Germans could not push through their choice of Commission president. The end of trilateralism will come as a relief to many smaller European nations, which feared the three most powerful countries in the EU would set up a directoire.

...

In a Commons statement on the Istanbul summit, the Prime Minister said Nato was starting to understand the threat of terrorism, but added: "I worry that our response is still not sufficient to the scale of the challenge we face." Mr Blair questioned whether in "some quarters" in Nato there was the willingness and sense of urgency to meet the challenges it faced.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=537001

[Jack Rabbit]

200. Chirac is an asshole

When it came to opposing the invasion of Iraq, he was an asshole who happened to be right.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

202. happened to be right?...

more like concerned that his rolodex file of baathists would become useless...

very few are right...most have interests...

[Jack Rabbit]

209. Yes, he happened to be right

The invasaion was a bad idea. No one has shown otherwise.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

219. perhaps this will help...

I THINK IT WAS after the first Gulf War - technically, the second, if you count the Iraq - Iran conflict - when it became clear the times were definitely a-changing. Something was different; you could feel it. When George Bush Sr visited Australia in 1993 to thank his old friend Bob Hawke for Australia's support during the war to liberate Kuwait (only to find himself greeted by Paul Keating), the demonstrators were predictably out in force, but there was some-thing new in the air.

Large-scale organised protests against visiting US leaders were nothing new; but something about these demonstrations was. The tone was new: not merely strident, but shrill, vindictive, intemperate; but most noticeably, the real target was new. The object of the massed demonstrators' fury was not America's foreign policies, nor its alliance with Australia, nor, it seemed, even the recent war. The target was the United States itself. It was not what the USA did that was the problem; it was what the USA was.

In some ways this was strange and to a degree unexpected. America had led the multinational coalition that had routed the forces of a ruthless dictator and liberated the horribly traumatised Kuwaitis. At the time, local rumour had it that Australian medical staff deployed to Kuwait refused to tell their friends what they had seen; but horrifying stories circulated about the discovery of buckets full of eyeballs.

It was the retreating Hussein who fired Kuwait's oil wells in an act of malignant spite, raising fears of environmental catastrophe - exaggerated, as it turned out, as so many others before and since. But it was coalition troops and America's specialist firefighters who put them out, not Greenpeace activists.

Back at the fort, with UN endorsement, and with consummate political skill, President Bush had put together a coalition that included Arab nations - the first time in the modern era that Arab states had fought against one of their own. And, honouring the commitment he made at the war's start, he refused to allow coalition troops to set foot on the territory of Iraq. The Arab states had made it clear from the beginning that if any did, they would pull out of the coalition. Bush agreed, even at the cost of an "unfinished" war whose resolution, ironically enough, fell to his own son, ten years later.

Conceivably, then, Bush should have been on a roll when he visited Australia in 1993. The war had been an astonishing success. A small, defenceless country had been liberated, civilian casualties had been minimised through the use of precision weapons, Arab sensitivities had been respected, and Hussein was, as was then thought, well on the way to being comprehensively disarmed of his WMD munitions (years of playing cat-and-mouse with the UNSCOM weapons inspectors still lay ahead). Bush's own leadership of the whole enterprise had been greatly praised, especially in Asia, where it was viewed as a model of international statesmanship.

But in Australia, the Left reacted to his presence not with opposition or reasoned objection, but with visceral, unremitting ideological hatred. The particular circumstance was irrelevant; any old excuse would do. America was the world's whipping boy, simply because it was America. That's what was different then, and it stayed different.

This hatred has been the hallmark of the Left's attitude to the USA throughout the ten years since, steadily strengthening, not at all mitigated - on the contrary, noticeably sharpened - by the events of September 11, and hugely exacerbated by the recent, second, war against Iraq, about which there was some real moral ambiguity. Today, it has reached the proportions of an epidemic, with disturbing additional characteristics.

Anti-Americanism has become a superstition. Fear, loathing, fury and resentment have combined to produce something that resembles nothing so much as a new form of virulent anti-Semitism. Within the USA and without, tirades are daily directed against America, its values, its founding fathers, its policies past and present, its very being. Intellectuals as notable as Gore Vidal have allowed themselves to descend to conspiracy theories about September 11 that would shame even an undergraduate. "Bush knew about it in advance and allowed it to happen in order to give him a pretext for invading Afghanistan and seizing its oil" - this summarises, I think, the startling truth Vidal unleashed on the world. Such a construction would do the authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion proud. And Vidal didn't even have to forge anything; his audience was never going to ask to see the evidence.

As Alice once remarked: "What on earth is going on?" The reasons are not all that hard to find. It's about an ideology in defeat and retreat, yet not acknowledging either.

...

http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=749

[Jack Rabbit]

224. So what?

Let me provide you with some relevant points:

1. The war had no practical justification.
   • Saddam was not a threat. He had no weapons. Claims to the contrary were false and continue to be false.
   • Saddam had no ties to terrorists. Claims to the contrary were false and continue to be false.
   • There was no immediate humanitarian crisis in Iraq to justify humanitarian intervention.
2. The war was illegal.
   • There was no immediate threat to justify a preemptive attack.
   • A resolution authorizing force was never passed by the UN Security Council. One was withdrawn when it faced certain defeat.
   • An viable alternative to armed conflict was in place, namely, weapons inspections. Of course, the inspectors didn't find what the Bushies said were there because, in fact, there was nothing to find.
3. The invasion was justified by a pack of lies. This damaged US credibility.
   • If action against Iran is deemed necessary (I mean really necessary), who is going to believe the Bushies when they say so?
   • As Richard Clarke pointed out, Osama's propaganda from long ago stated that the US wanted occupy an oil-rich Arab nation; now the US has invaded and is occupying an oil-rich Arab nation and for no good reason. This played into Osama's hands.
4. The occupation of Iraq is not part of the war on terror and draws resources away from the war on terror.
   • American troops on occupation duty are not pursuing Osama and his lieutenants.
   • If action against Iran is deemed necessary, whose army are we going to use? Ours is tied up in Iraq. Occupation of a larger and more populous nation would be more difficult.

The above piece addresses none of that.

These points were made by the Left (and even some pragmatic non-Leftists) prior to the war. Events since the invasion have shown that those who raised these points were right and those who pushed the invasion were wrong.

[Jack Rabbit]

189. David Hackworth: Sack 'Em and Rack 'Em

From Military.com
Dated Monday June 28

Sack 'Em and Rack 'Em
By David Hackworth

America would be a whole lot safer if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, was flying for Virgin Airlines, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was competing on "Survivor." Both war leaders have done so miserable a job honchoing the military side of our critical conflict against global terrorism, and in the process so jeopardized our national security, that they should be sacked for dereliction of duty.
Contrary to continuing political spin, Iraq and Afghanistan both are running sores with little promise of even a long-term turnaround, and our world today is far more dangerous than it was before 9/11. Unless there's a 180-degree change in overall strategy, the USA is doomed to follow the same bloody path through these two brutal killing fields that the Soviet Union took in Afghanistan.
The mighty sword that Rumsfeld and Myers inherited four years ago - the finest military force in the world - is now chipped and dulled. And the word is that it will take at least a decade to get our overextended, bone-tired soldiers and Marines and their worn-out gear back in shape.
Top generals like former NATO commander Wes Clark and a squad of retired and active-duty four-stars warned long before the invasion of Iraq: Don't go there. It doesn't involve our national security. It's not the main objective in our war with international terrorism. Even retired four-star Colin Powell said that if we go to Iraq and break the china, we own it. But know-it-all Rumsfeld and go-along-to-get-along Myers totally ignored this sound military advice.

Colonel (Ret.) Hackworth, the most decorated officer in the Vietnam War, is not a member of the Left, but he's still right about the invasion being a strategic blunder.

This article is also discussed on the Editorials Forum.

[Jack Rabbit]

190. Contrite comments by William F. Buckley, Jr.

From The New York Times
Dated Tuesday June 29

National Review Founder to Leave Stage
By David D. Kirkpatrick

. . . . As for conservatism today, Mr. Buckley said there was a growing debate on the right about how the war in Iraq squared with the traditional conservative conviction that American foreign policy should seek only to protect its vital interests.
"With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."

Even some conservative ideologues realize this whole thing was a bad idea.

[Jack Rabbit]

201. BBC (July 3): Mistrust breeds resentment in Iraq

From the BBC Online
Dated Saturday July 3

Mistrust breeds resentment in Iraq
By Hugh Sykes
BBC correspondent in Iraq

The removal of Saddam Hussein may have been welcomed by many Iraqis. But attitudes to the coalition forces have hardened and, it seems, the coalition's lack of trust in the Iraqi people is at least in part to blame . . . .
The coalition didn't trust the people they'd set free.
The Americans, especially, retreated behind rolls and rolls of razor wire, pointed their revolvers and their rifles at passionate but peaceful crowds, and barked orders in English at people for whom courtesy is one of the essential qualities of life . . . .
There are two continuing failures which my Iraqi friends most deeply resent.
They still feel unable to walk the streets of their capital city in the relative cool of the evenings because of crime, kidnapping and suicide bombers.
And - above all - they cannot comprehend how the richest and most powerful nations in the world have been in Iraq for 15 months now and still the electricity supply is unreliable.

Read more.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

206. BBC reports 'littered with errors'...

A significant number of BBC news reports are untrustworthy and littered with errors because the corporation's journalists fail to check their facts, according to e-mails sent by one of the BBC's most senior news managers. His messages reveal that the credibility of the news service is "on the line" because of a climate of sloppiness.

The internal memos, which have been obtained by The Telegraph, highlight concerns about the standard of journalism on local BBC television and radio, as well as on the BBC's flagship News Online service. They suggest that the corporation is struggling to keep its promise to improve the standards of its news services following damning criticisms levelled against it by the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly.

The BBC was criticised by Lord Hutton after it emerged that Andrew Gilligan, the Radio 4 Today programme journalist - whose flawed story about the background to the Government's claims on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was at the centre of the inquiry - had filed his report without it being checked by station managers.

The leaked e-mails sent by Hugh Berlyn, an assistant editor of BBC News Online, show that despite the furore surrounding the Gilligan report, dozens of "unvetted" stories appear on the internet every day. The result is a string of stories that are, at best, littered with errors and, at worst, inaccurate and potentially libellous.

...

Although his memos were addressed to staff at BBC Online, they highlight concern about local studios, which provide the internet service with much of its material. He said that it was no longer acceptable for News Online staff to justify mistakes by saying: "That's what was in the radio and TV copy." He wrote: "We have to accept that the standard of journalism in local radio and regional TV is not the same as that required by News Online."

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/04/nbbc04.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/04/ixhome.html"

[Jack Rabbit]

208. Is that so?

From The Scotsman (Edinburgh)
Dated Monday July 5

WMD report shatters Blair's credibility
By Alison Hardie,
Political Correspondent

TONY Blair’s credibility over weapons of mass destruction is set to face its sternest test after his special envoy to Iraq conceded yesterday Saddam Hussein had stockpiled none.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock’s remarkably frank admission came as speculation mounted that two of Britain’s top spymasters and the government’s most senior law officer will be criticised by an official inquiry into the handling of intelligence on Saddam’s WMD.
The 100-page draft of Lord Butler of Brockwell’s report, according to the Sunday Times, will criticise MI6 after it admitted its intelligence on WMD - at one stage Mr Blair’s basis for the conflict to remove Saddam - was wrong.
Downing Street is braced for a fresh storm of controversy over Iraq as the report raises serious questions about its dossier which included the infamous claim that Saddam could deploy the weapons within 45 minutes.

It sounds like "sexed up" was a pretty good characterization of Blair's dossier after all.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

218. and it looks like Joe Wilson...

"sexed down" his findings since Iraq was trying to get uranium from Africa after all...

[Jack Rabbit]

223. Wilson

Wilson's report concerned one document that was being pushed by the Bushies as evidence that Saddam was attempting to buy yellow cake unranium. Wilson reported that it was a fake. It was also exposed as a fake by the IAEA chairman. It was a fake. Wilson has nothing to "sex down".

What this kind of use of a crudely forged document shows is that the Bushies were unconcerned about facts.

Even if Saddam was attempting to buy yellow cake uranium, and it shouldn't surprise anybody that he was, there were ways of dealing with that short of a bloody and costly war. Moreover, the fact that he was attempting to buy enriched uranium not only does nothing to refute the fact that the Niger document examined by Wilson was a forgery, but does nothing to establish that Saddam was even close to being an immediate threat of the kind that would justify a preemptive attack.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

231. Iraq intelligence probes prove Bush, Blair weren't fibbing...

When President Bush and Prime Minister Blair agreed to official investigations into the intelligence failures in the runup to the war, they did so reluctantly. They had to assume that there just might be something in the files that, once exposed, would damage them. In fact, the two reports -- the Senate Intelligence Committee Report in the United States and the Butler Report in Britain -- have rescued both leaders.



What tipped observers off to the fact that the Senate report would help Bush was that Democrats on the committee began undermining their own report as soon as it was published. They had signed unanimously onto two conclusions that exculpated the president. First, that all the other intelligence services, including the French and the Russian, had believed Saddam Hussein to be building a WMD arsenal. And, second, that the Bush administration had not put pressure on the intelligence services to conclude that Saddam had WMDs. Democrats, such as Illinois's Dick Durbin, attached notes to the report, effectively retracting the latter conclusion. They advanced such ingenious arguments as the administration's public statements on Saddam constituted pressure on the CIA in themselves. Or that the administration should have pressured the CIA -- but been more skeptical of reports of Saddam's arms control violations!

...

Thus, the famous MI6 is praised for operations that revealed and destroyed the secret nuclear cooperation between Libya and Pakistan -- but damned for relying on single-source, dubious, out-of-date and thus false intelligence on Iraq.

Similarly, Blair is cleared of any deliberate exaggeration of Saddam's WMD stockpiles before the war, but implicitly criticized for treating highly uncertain intelligence data as definite and certain. (In the House of Commons Blair produced a brilliant riposte: How was it that critics thought that Washington and London were wrong to act on fragmentary and uncertain intelligence in the case of Iraq -- and wrong NOT to act on fragmentary and uncertain intelligence in relation to Sept. 11. It is a line Bush might want to memorize.)

...

These conclusions may be excessively modest. Saddam's restoration of his WMD threat would likely have been even faster than Butler thinks since, as we know from the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal, the sanctions regime against Saddam was extraordinarily porous -- if porous is the right word to describe a system where the sanctions enforcers accepted a cut of the profits in return for assisting in the sanctions-busting.

And it may be the case that Saddam did possess WMD at an early stage of the crisis and that the intelligence services were not wholly wrong. Some new evidence suggests something along these lines. A report to the U.N. Security Council in June this year by the acting executive head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission claims that before, during and after the war, Saddam shipped WMD and medium- range ballistic missiles to countries in Europe and the Middle East.

U.N. officials say they do not yet have a full accounting of exactly what weapons passed out of Iraq in this way, but that entire factories were among the items transported abroad. If that is so -- and this report may turn out to be exaggerated -- then our current conventional wisdom will have to be overturned.

...

But maybe we have to qualify the belief that Saddam's WMD stockpiles never existed as well. As a result of two official investigations and recent U.N. discoveries, we have reason to believe that if Saddam did not possess WMD at the moment of the invasion, he had possessed them only months beforehand and was in a position to do so a second (or third) time if he had succeeded in bluffing himself out of trouble.

...

http://www.suntimes.com/output/osullivan/cst-edt-osul20.html

[Jack Rabbit]

233. See post 116

Do you expect us to take seriously the neocons' wishful thinking that Saddam's arsenal really, really does exists, we jest haven't found it yet? Maybe if we shut our eyes and believe in Saddam's WMDs hard enough, they will materialize before us.

This piece is presents the same nonsense you posted from The Weekly Standard several weeks ago and it's no better from the pen of John O'Sullivan than from that of William Kristol. In fact, as pointed out at that time, it's just an updated version of Rumsfeld's "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." At least Rumsfeld is witty and original.

You've got as much chance of finding Saddam's arsenal as you have of finding the Fountain of Youth. If Mr. O'Sullivan thinks otherwise, he should be given a spade, put on the next plane to Baghdad and told to start looking.

Oh, yes, and one more thing: Bush and Blair were fibbing. They knew very well Saddam wasn't an immediate threat.

[bemildred]

212. A Growing Muslim Identity

Increasingly, Arabs define themselves in terms of Islam.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - One of the most
stunning moments after the collapse of
Saddam Hussein's regime was the rush of
tens of thousands of celebrating Iraqi
Shiites into the streets in response to the
call of their most revered leader, Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani. It was a stark
demonstration of Shiite power, one that
may have unnerved those Americans who
believe in the possibility of a secular,
democratic Iraq. The moment was also a
harbinger of a larger trend across the
Middle East, one that poses difficult,
long-term challenges for U.S. foreign
policy: More and more Arabs identify
themselves as Muslims first.

This trend is evident in a survey I
conducted last month in six Arab
countries - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco,
Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab
Emirates. It is related to another, more
enduring phenomenon: the Arab public's
perception of their mostly authoritarian
governments. Respondents to my survey
believe that the war in Iraq has made the
region even less democratic. A possible -
and remarkable - consequence of this
perception is that most Arabs polled said
that they wanted the clergy to play a
bigger role in politics.

---

Historically, Arabs have had three political options: Islam,
pan-Arabism or nationalism linked to individual states.
Hussein's appeal in the Arab world, such as it was, principally
flowed from his embrace of secular Arab nationalism. After
the death of Egypt's pan-Arab leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, in
1970, secular Arab nationalism never regained the influence it
had in the 1950s and 1960s. But it still had adherents and
government advocates, most notably the Baathists in Syria
and Iraq, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. But the
demise of the Baathists in Iraq, the weakening of Syria's hand
and the paralysis of the Palestinian government and its leader,
Yasser Arafat, have further eroded the movement's appeal.
One consequence has been evident in Iraq. Once the Baath
institutions collapsed, the primary organizations capable of
mobilizing large crowds were religious.

LA Times

[cantwealljustgetalong]

227. Muslim Voters in No Mood for Fundamentalism...

In the past few months, a number of majority-Muslim countries have held elections and, in every case, the people have shown that they don't want Islamic fundamentalists to take power.

In Malaysia, Islamists suffered a crushing defeat in the March 21 elections. The Islamic Party of Malaysia, led by Islamic clerics, lost 75% of its seats in parliament and one of two state governments it controlled.

In Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, the April 5 polls brought a resounding victory for secular parties.

On April 8, 85% of Algerian voters cast ballots for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has fought to defeat Islamic fundamentalist militants and bring closer ties with the West. The radical Islamic candidate received 5%.

The size of his re-election victory brings a whiff of the rigged show-votes so common in Arab countries, but election observers declared that the results fairly reflected the will of the people.

...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

[bemildred]

228. "Islam" is not "islamic fundamentalism" as such.

This is quite true. Certain observers have pointed out Malaysia
as one of the first countries where one sees the high tide of
islamic fundamentalism turn and fall back. There are quite a few
others, Iran among them. Emmanuel Todd ties this to democraphic
changes, literacy, urbanization, and falling birth rates. Islamic
culture, on the other hand, is rather communitarian, egalitarian,
and puts a high emphasis on personal action, both a strength and
a weakness. The peoples of the Ummah seem reluctant to just dump
the whole culture overboard with the fundies. A number of islamic
states have yet to make the transition, hence are still hotbeds of
fundamentalism etc, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for example. It seems
likely to me that the decline of fundamentalism would be moving
along faster were we not meddling so vigorously in these states
in pursuit of our "geopolitical interests".

[Jack Rabbit]

213. It seems not even all the neocons were wrong

The strange case of Dr. Francis Fukuyama has been brought to my attention:

Fukuyama is still angry at the Bush administration since they refuse to admit to the mistakes they have made. Fukuyama had warned that after the war, Iraq would be dragged into an internal conflict and would export terror to the world.

As Mr. Mildred and I have pointed out in numerous posts on this thread, this was part of the Left's case against the war and one which facts have not refuted, in spite of the best efforts of some others posting here. It should be noted that this argument against the invasion was not ideological but pragmatic. Even a neocon is open to streaks of pragmatism.

[bemildred]

215. Dr. Fukuyama has serious intellectual credentials

and is a different proposition from most of the PNAC crowd.
I don't agree with him all that much, but he's not just some
shallow twit in it for the money and power, as this shows.

[bemildred]

214. Iraq: A Failure Without Borders

It seemed this belonged here too ...

How are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going?
Perhaps the best way to answer that question is to
look at what is happening in Saudi Arabia. Until
about a year ago, Saudi Arabia was one of the safest
countries on earth. Crime was rare, and everyone,
including Americans, was secure almost anywhere in
the kingdom. In a world where the most important
distinction will increasingly be that between centers
of order and centers of disorder, Saudi Arabia was a
center of order.

That is no longer true. War has come to Saudi
Arabia, Fourth Generation war waged by Islamic
non-state forces. Battles are almost a daily
occurrence. Foreigners, on whom the Saudi oil
industry heavily depends, are frequent targets for
assassination. A number of incidents suggest the
Fourth Generation forces have penetrated Saudi
security forces - not surprising in a strict Islamic
country where the non-state elements represent an
even stricter Islam. They have the moral high ground.

In Washington, the "bouffesphere" whispers
nervously about Saudi Arabia's future. It is obvious
that the trend-line is not favorable. When will the
House of Saud fall? What will replace it? Will the
cheap oil on which America depends continue to
flow? Schemes abound - send the Marines to "secure"
the oil fields and exporting facilities, impose
democracy (including, of course, feminism) on the
Saudi monarchy, give Mecca and Medina back to the
Hashemites - but the debacle in Iraq effectively
makes it impossible for us to act elsewhere. Plus,
invading the homeland of Wahhabism would make
Iraq seem like a walk in the park. What Washington
cannot understand is that the crumbling of Saudi
Arabia is part of the war in Iraq, and that in
Afghanistan as well. We still think of wars as
delineated by state boundaries, because we still
envision a world made up of states.

more

[cantwealljustgetalong]

217. chicken or egg...

Al-Qaeda support foils Saudi security pledges...

SAUDI ARABIA’s intelligence services are so infiltrated by al-Qaeda sympathisers that the Kingdom’s counter-terrorist campaign is failing and militant operations are spreading into neighbouring states, according to senior Arab and Western officials.



The main Saudi intelligence organisation responsible for combating al-Qaeda at the Ministry of the Interior is riddled with agents linked to the militants, the officials said.

“Their staff is 80 per cent sympathetic to al-Qaeda,” one senior Arab source with first-hand knowledge of the counter-terrorist operation said. “All Saudi intelligence agencies are compromised. To fight al-Qaeda they will need to start from scratch. I am not hopeful the Saudis will win this one.”

...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,1-1168349,00.html

[bemildred]

220. Interesting piece, thanks.

I don't believe Mr. Lind would find much to cavil about in it,
except the last five paragraphs or so, which are filled with a
mindless optimism that he does not share. His core point, as I
interpret it, is that the US being tied down in Iraq is allowing
the islamic fundies to conduct operations elsewhere, with a large
measure of impunity. This is classic guerilla tactics, and the
core reason that it was a bonehead idea to get tied down in Iraq.

It seems reasonable to think that the war in Afghanistan by itself
was not sufficient to do the job, but the combination with the huge
fuckup in Iraq seems to be up to it, expecially since the US "security"
elites seem unwilling to face up to the magnitude of their failures
just yet. This is historically not that unusual of a situation,
elites are typically not used to being accountable.

The problem in Saudi Arabia has existed for a long time, the lid
is coming off now because we have created a giant terrorist picnic,
barbecue, and training camp in Iraq, where there is no effective
central government control and hence the flow of arms and "terrorists"
is free in all directions.

Mr. Lind has another point, which you can find in more detail
elsewhere in his writings, which is that there is no central authority
or control in the islamic resistance, hence there is nobody to
negotiate an overall peace with, hence no quick neat way to clean
up the mess.

People who are hot to go in and attack Iran might well consider
the possibility of another failed state with no central control,
plenty of guns and RPGs, and no way to negotiate a peace.

[Jack Rabbit]

225. Yes it is interesting

Of course, Saudi security forces were infiltrated with al Qaida prior to the invasion. Invading Iraq didn't address that and didn't change that.

Evidence has already emerged in Iraq that Saudi Arabia is becoming al-Qaeda’s regional hub for recruiting, training, funding and arming its cells. Several Saudi volunteers, who slipped across the border into Iraq, have been killed fighting US forces in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Again, this is a prediction the Left (and even some non-Leftist pragmatists) made prior to the war: that while al Qaida and other international terrorist organizations had little influence in those parts of Iraq that Saddam controlled, a US invasion and occupation would provide them with an opportunity in the country of which they would be foolish not to take advantage. They have indeed taken advantage of it. Bush played into Osama's hands.

[bemildred]

226. Saudi Arabia has always been prime recruiting territory.

Idle hands and fundamentalist religion and all that. Information
on what is really going on inside the Kingdom is hard to come by,
however, and that is why this was a good read.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

216. Clinton for post-9/11 Iraq action...

Bill Clinton says that no government could have failed to act against Iraq after the 11 September 2001 attacks in view of intelligence provided.

...

The British intelligence, whatever Lord Butler says about it, was clearly even more forward-leading than the American intelligence in believing that Saddam was trying to get nuclear materials, in believing that Saddam had some kind of relationship with al-Qaeda," he said.

...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3893501.stm

[Jack Rabbit]

222. See post 147

It still stands.

This "but Clinton support it" canard is really old.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

229. OK then, let's move on to Kerry and Edwards...

Kerry and Edwards both voted to authorize Bush to invade Iraq.




Edwards wrote an op-ed article published in the Washington Post, in which he stated that Iraq, was "a grave and growing threat", and Congress should therefore "endorse the use of all necessary means to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction" (it apparently impressed the Bush administration so much that they posted the article on the State Department website)...


Edwards on Hardball...

...

EDWARDS: I think that we were right to go. I think we were right to go to the United Nations. I think we couldn't let those who could veto in the Security Council hold us hostage.

And I think Saddam Hussein being gone is good. Good for the American people, good for the security of that region of the world, and good for the Iraqi people.

MATTHEWS: If you think the decision, which was made by the president, when basically he saw the French weren't with us and the Germans and the Russians weren't with us, was he right to say, "We're going anyway"?

EDWARDS: I stand behind my support of that, yes.

MATTHEWS: You believe in that?

EDWARDS: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you - since you did support the resolution and you did support that ultimate solution to go into combat and to take over that government and occupy that country. Do you think that you, as a United States Senator, got the straight story from the Bush administration on this war? On the need for the war? Did you get the straight story?

EDWARDS: Well, the first thing I should say is I take responsibility for my vote. Period. And I did what I did based upon a belief, Chris, that Saddam Hussein's potential for getting nuclear capability was what created the threat. That was always the focus of my concern. Still is the focus of my concern.

So did I get misled? No. I didn't get misled.

...

MATTHEWS: OK. I just want to get one thing straight so that we know how you would have been different in president if you had been in office the last four years as president. Would you have gone to Afghanistan?

EDWARDS: I would.

MATTHEWS: Would you have gone to Iraq?

EDWARDS: I would have gone to Iraq. I don’t think I would have approached it the way this president did. I don’t think-See I think what happened, if you remember back historically, remember I had an up or down vote. I stand behind it. Don’t misunderstand me.

MATTHEWS: Right.

EDWARDS: I stand behind it. But if I were president of the United States, instead of going to the United Nations as an afterthought, which is how this president did it-If I had been president of the United States, I would have been building the case over a long period of time, bringing an international pressure on Saddam Hussein.

I think the result of the way he built up to this war was he made it virtually impossible to get United Nations support.

...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3131295/






John Kerry's Statement on Iraq Before the War
TEXT FROM THE SPEECH JOHN KERRY MADE ON THE SENATE FLOOR
October 9, 2002

http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/kerry-iraq.html

[Jack Rabbit]

232. OK then, let's move on to Kerry and Edwards . . .

One argumentum ad Verecundiam is as fallacious as the next. It doesn't matter if you substitute the name of God Himself in the blank where you have Clinton, Kerry or Edwards. It won't change the fact that invading Iraq is colonial piracy and that it diverts needed resources from any real effort against international terrorism.

I am voting for Kerry not because I agree with what he says, but because he a pragmatist rather than an foolish ideologue, like Bush and the neocons who brought us the invasion of Iraq. He may try three or four other things first, but I am confident he will get around to doing the right and practical thing and withdraw from Iraq. That will free our forces to fight a real war against terrorism. What the Iraqi people do with Allawi and his quislings after that is their business.

[Jack Rabbit]

235. George Monbiot (Guardian Utd): Our lies led us into war

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Tuesday July 20


The press must also be held to account for falsehoods we reproduced before the invasion
By George Monbiot

So Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter who claimed that the government had sexed up the intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, was mostly right. Much of the rest of the media, which took the doctored intelligence at face value, was wrong. The reward for getting it right was public immolation and the sack. The punishment for getting it wrong was the usual annual bonus. No government commissions inquiries to discover why reporters reproduce the government's lies.
All journalists make mistakes. When deadlines are short and subjects are complicated, we are bound to get some things wrong. But the falsehoods reproduced by the media before the invasion of Iraq were massive and consequential: it is hard to see how Britain could have gone to war if the press had done its job. If the newspapers have any interest in putting the record straight, they should surely each be commissioning an inquiry of their own. Unlike the government's, it should be independent, consisting perhaps of a lawyer, a media analyst and an intelligence analyst. Its task would be to assess the paper's coverage of Iraq, decide what it got right and what it got wrong, discover why the mistakes were made and what should be done to prevent their repetition. Its report should be published in full by the paper.
No British newspaper is likely to emerge unharmed from such an inquiry. The Independent, the Independent on Sunday and the Guardian, which were the most sceptical about the claims made by the government and intelligence agencies, still got some important things wrong. Much of the problem here is that certain falsehoods have slipped into the political language. The Guardian, for example, has claimed on nine occasions that the weapons inspectors were expelled from Iraq in 1998. Embarrassingly, one of these claims was contained in an article called Iraq: the myth and the reality. Even John Pilger, who could scarcely be accused of dancing to the government's tune, made this mistake when writing for the paper in 2000. It's not that the Guardian believes this to be the case: it has published plenty of reports showing that the inspectors were withdrawn by the UN, after the US insisted that they should leave Iraq for their own safety. But the lie is repeated so often by the government that it seems almost impossible to kill.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

236. Ooops, I guess we need a link

Sorry, people. I was having some difficulty with my connection last night and wasn't about to see this when it posted.

Please click here.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

237. How Saddam Failed the Yeltsin Test...

Most anyone who's worked in government has a story - probably re-told often these days, given the Iraq debate - about facing a big decision on the basis of information that then turned out to be wrong. My favorite is from August 1998 when, with Bill Clinton just three days away from a trip to Moscow, the Central Intelligence Agency reported that President Boris Yeltsin of Russia was dead.

In 1998 the news that Mr. Yeltsin had died was, of course, no more surprising than the news, in 2003, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It matched what we knew of his health and habits, and the secretive handling of his earlier illnesses. Nor was anyone puzzled by the lack of an announcement. Russia's financial crash 10 days earlier had set off a political crisis, and we assumed a fierce Kremlin succession struggle was raging behind the scenes.

...

When the trip was over, I phoned the C.I.A. analyst who had relayed the false report. He was apologetic - sort of. "You have to understand," he said. "We missed the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests last spring. We're under a lot of pressure not to miss anything else."

Some of the lessons of this episode are the same as those emerging from the Iraq debate: sensitive intelligence is often too weak to guide important decisions; if the information fits what we already believe, or what we want to do, it gets too little scrutiny.

...

Clearly, President Bush and his advisers did not expect Saddam Hussein to cooperate in this test, and might still have wanted war if he had. But even if the administration had handled other aspects of the issue differently, it would still have been necessary to subject Iraq to a test. In our debate about the war, we need to acknowledge that the administration set the right test for Saddam Hussein - and that he did not pass it.

...

Some may object that this approach treated Saddam Hussein as guilty until proved innocent. They're right. But the Bush administration did not invent this logic. When Saddam Hussein forced out United Nations inspectors in 1998, President Clinton responded with days of bombings - not because he knew what weapons Iraq had, but because Iraq's actions kept us from finding out.

A decision on war is almost never based simply on what we know, or think we know. Intelligence is always disputed. Instead, we respond to what the other guy does. This is how we went to war in Iraq. The next time we face such a choice, whether our intelligence has improved or not, we'll almost surely decide in the very same way.


Stephen Sestanovich is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University. From 1997 to 2001 he was United States ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union.



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/opinion/21sest.html?ex=1248148800&en=594c17bb11299754&38;ei=5090&38;partner=rssuserland

[Jack Rabbit]

238. Historical revisionism at its finest

From the San Francisco Chronicle via CommonDreams
Dated March 17, 2004

Lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction Comes Back to Haunt Bush
by Keay Davidson

Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, which served as the prime rationale advanced by President Bush for the war that began a year ago this week, have vanished like a desert mirage, and the issue has become potentially troubling for a president seeking re-election . . . .
Still, before the invasion, a few independent U.S. experts did question the Bush administration's interpretations of the intelligence data. Even the CIA's reports on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) contained caveats.
Oddly, the most aggressively skeptical of the war's well-qualified observers was not an intelligence officer at all. He was ex-Marine Maj. Scott Ritter, the former lead inspector for the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) Concealment and Investigations team in Iraq. "There simply is no evidence of a factual nature that sustains the allegation by the Bush administration or British government that Iraq today possesses weapons of mass destruction," Ritter told The Chronicle in late March 2003. He stuck to his guns later, when U.S. officials or troops incorrectly reported finding possible WMD sites early in the conflict.
In retrospect, says Jonathan B. Tucker of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies' Washington office, "I guess (Ritter) can claim vindication: He was right when everyone thought he was simply an apologist for the Iraqi government." Tucker recalls Ritter as being "probably the toughest or the most gung-ho of the (weapons) inspectors involved in trying to penetrate the Iraqi deception system during the early 1990s."

Mr. Sestanovich's piece in The New York Times is historical revisionism at its finest. As the piece from the Chronicle correctly points out, while many experts were wrong about Saddam's arsenal, there were some with impeccable credentials who ran counter to the prevailing group think. Some of us found Ritter a more credible source than the fiction Judy Miller was writing for The Times.

It appears that Mr. Sestanovich was so busy reading Ms. Miller's stories about Saddam's arsenal that he didn't see other events going on around him. In addition to Mr. Ritter's testimony, which the group thinkers in Congress refused to hear, there was the little matter of the UN inspectors who returned to Iraq in late 2002.

Mr. Sestanovich would have us believe that Bush's demands that Saddam produce his weapons or "face serious consequences" was the act of a noble statesman. What utter and complete hogwash!! If you think Bush is a man to be trusted any more than was Saddam, I've got bridge to sell you.

Sending weapons inspectors back to Iraq under the auspices of UN Resolution 1441 was a perfectly rational method of dealing with the game of liars' poker between Bush and Saddam with world peace held in the balance. The best way to prove the Mr. Bush's assertions about Saddam's military capabilities were wrong was to send in a third party to find out.

Thus, from Mr. Sestanovich's piece:

(The Bush administration) challenged (Saddam) to prove that American intelligence was wrong, so that the responsibility for war was his, not ours.

This is nonsense. No matter how it is sliced and diced, the demand was on Saddam to do the impossible: prove a negative. Thus, no matter how it is sliced and diced, the burden of proof was on the Bushies to show Saddam had weapons prohibited to him under UN resolutions passed in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. In Saddam's defense, the best that could be done was to allow inspectors to return. A reasonable person would conclude that if the inspectors found nothing, then there was no cause for war.

Did the inspectors find anything? Yes, they found some missiles that under ideal conditions that would have made them useless in any real combat situation flew a few miles too far. The missiles were ordered destroyed, and they were destroyed. This showed that there was a minor violation of UN resolutions could be resolved without resorting to combat. Mr. Bush's case for war was seriously undermined.

Of course, Mr. Bush wasn't going to accept any other answer than the one he wanted to hear. That Saddam only had a few missiles in violation of UN resolution and that they could simply be destroyed without resorting to armed conflict wasn't what he wanted to hear. While a reasonable person would conclude that the UN inspectors found no cause for war, the man with the plan was not a reasonable person; he was G. W. Bush.

What the Bush administration produced in the case against Saddam was almost entirely fabricated. As a case for war, it was certainly convincing than Mr. Sestanovich would have us believe. A British-sponsored proposed resolution enabling the use of force was withdrawn from consideration from the Security Council for lack of support. In short, it was determined that Bush and his aides did not prove his case.

Nevertheless, G. W. Bush went to war without any evidence other than what he and his aide manufactured that there was a causus bellum. There is a word for someone who makes up facts to get something he wants: liar. That is what Mr. Bush and his aides are. There is another term for someone who goes to war, claiming there is an immediate threat without the slightest genuine evidence that support that claim: war criminal. That is what Mr. Bush and his aides are.

The Left saw through this charade and called Bush on it in protest marches around the world that drew ten million participants on the weekend of February 15, 2003.

And the Left was right.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

239. Lies and human blunders...

...

Back to the present. There have been many articles on the failure of US intelligence: not knowing that there might not have been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, overestimating Iraq's military capacity and underestimating the willingness of dictators and their entourages to brag and exaggerate, and inferring links to al-Qaeda where there were none found. Were these "lies", a pretext for war, grave incompetence, overconfidence, or could they have been a sequence of honest human mistakes?

Iraq did possess a few years ago weapons of mass destruction. It did attack Kuwait, and did fight with Iran. It did bomb Israel. Saddam Hussein did subsidize suicide bombers' families, and did not keep such transactions secret. And though the world agreed on sanctions against Iraq, it became clear to all that the sanctions didn't quite work, and that in a country sitting on vast oil riches, a ruthless dictator would not be easily deposed. The revenues from oil, even if somewhat limited by sanctions, were enough to pay for a ruthless police state or bribe many into obedience and flattery, and pay for scientists to work on weapons, and for terrorists to spread them. There would still be money left to pay for an entourage who would tell the dictator what he wanted to hear, exaggerating the country's military prowess, playing poker and bluffing with a weak hand.

These things have happened before, with a series of dictators from Adolf Hitler to Nicolae Ceausescu, until someone dared to call their bluff. If there was a grave mistake, it might have been the failure of foreign policy to get across the principle that one has to rely on preventive care when one deals with dictators sitting on piles of natural riches to avoid making the situation far worse. If there is one lesson that history offers it's that appeasement in such circumstances has never worked. It did not work with Hitler, and it did not work with communist Russia, as the commentaries by Ronald Reagan's friends and foes alike after his death agreed. Maybe communism would have been destroyed internally. But it is silly to make statements such as that in a recent editorial in The Economist, that it would have taken 20 more years if Reagan had appeased the Soviet Union rather than speeded up its demise. One could have made the same observation on Hitler. But what if Hitler's scientists had stumbled on the atom bomb first, as they were not far from it?

Could then the intelligence services have gotten Iraqi exaggerations all wrong, mistaking them for fact? If they did, it would not be the first time such things have happened, as the above shows. All this does not imply that everything is okay, and nothing should be done to improve intelligence services and the efficiency of making military and political decisions. But it is clear that even with the best institutions and the best communication, even when survival is at stake, political and military leaders with strong track records can seriously misinterpret what's happening.

When the public is in the mood for appeasement, political leaders can take the road of least resistance and declare war based on what the public accepts, rather than getting first into a time-consuming "education campaign" on the dangers. This may not sound politically correct, but if faced with the choice of being politically correct and dead, most would choose the unarticulated alternative of being alive. In time, a foreign-policy doctrine of "preventive war" against dictatorships sitting on vast natural resources may be articulated.

...

Reuven Brenner lectures at the Faculty of Management, McGill University. He is the author of Betting on Ideas: Wars, Invention, Inflation and Force of Finance.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FG23Aa01.html

[Jack Rabbit]

240. Let's not overrate the nature of the 'bad' intelligence

The intelligence was bad because the Bushies wanted it bad. If they allowed the chips to simply fall, as an honest policy maker would do, their case for war would not have been made. Instead of pursuing Saddam, 138,000 American troops might have done something useful, like pursuing Osama. The Bushies couldn't let a good opportunity for war profits slip by over ambiguous and nuanced intelligence, now could they?

As Ray McGovern points out, there was no National Intelligence Estimate ordered up by the White House prior to the war. They didn't need one. NIEs are used to decide whether or not the nation should go to war, but the Bushies had already decided that the nation was going to war and they didn't need no stinking facts to support or contradict the wisdom of their decision. The NIE was ordered by Senator Graham, not the White House. Mr. McGovern goes on to say:

It does not speak well for a Director of Central Intelligence to shy away from serving up the intelligence community's best estimate anyway ("without fear or favor," the way we used to operate). But better no NIE, I suppose, than one served up to suit the preconceived notions of policymakers. But the pressure became intense late last summer after the Bush administration decided to make war.
The marketing rollout for the war was keynoted by the vice president, who in a shrill speech on Aug. 26 charged, "Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." A NIE was then ordered up, essentially to support the extreme judgments voiced by Cheney, and its various drafts were used effectively to frighten members of Congress into voting to authorize war.

In addition to Mr. McGovern's views, a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published in January states (pp. 50-51):

From the currently available material, it appears that two distinct periods will emerge—before 2002, and from then until the outbreak of the war.
In the earlier period, the intelligence community appears to have had a generally accurate picture of the nuclear and missile programs but to have overestimated the chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. Access to and within Iraq was, of course, limited.
Other possible sources of error suggest a failure to track the degradation of what was known to have been in Iraq after the 1991 war, including quantities of weapons and agent and their lethality. These errors may have been due to an incorrect extrapolation that production and capabilities would continue to grow regardless of inspections and sanctions, and/or to the assumption that anything for which there was not absolute proof of destruction remained and remained active. It is also possible that views of Saddam Hussein’s character were allowed to drive technical assessments.
In the second period, the shift, described in Part II, between prior intelligence assessments and the October 2002 NIE suggests, but does not prove, that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers’ views sometime in 2002. Although such situations are not unusual, in this case, the pressure appears to have been unusually intense. This is indicated by the Vice President’s repeated visits to CIA headquarters and demands by officials for access to the raw intelligence from which analysts were working. Also notable is the unusual speed with which the NIE was written and the high number of dissents in what is designed to be a consensus document. Finally, there is the fact that political appointees in the Department of Defense set up their own intelligence operation reportedly out of dissatisfaction with the caveated judgments being reached by intelligence professionals. Although some of those who were involved have claimed that analysts did not feel pressured, it strains credulity to believe that together these five aspects of the process did not create an environment in which individuals and agencies felt pressured to reach more threatening judgments of Saddam Hussein’s weapon programs than many analysts felt were warranted.

Was intelligence being cooked? What was the Office of Special Plans about? In his expose of the OSP published in the New Yorker magazine in May 2003, Seymour Hersh quoted a former DIA officer:

The Pentagon has banded together to dominate the government’s foreign policy, and they’ve pulled it off. They’re running Chalabi. The D.I.A. has been intimidated and beaten to a pulp. And there’s no guts at all in the C.I.A.

Hersh's expose tells of how the OSP uncritically used stories from Iraqi defectors associated with Ahmed Chalabi to buttress the case for war. Never mind that defectors are regarded as notoriously bad sources of raw intelligence in any circumstances. Chalabi's people told the Bushies what they wanted to hear and so it was passed on as fact.

The neocons were at first not even gathering facts, then they were strong arming intelligence analysts into framing those facts a certain way and even selecting dubious information from unreliable sources and passing that off as fact. This isn't the behavior of someone trying to engage in an honest discussion. This is the behavior of someone attempting to manipulate and deceive. The neocons were lying about Iraq and they knew they were lying.

That intelligence was being politicized in this way by the neocons was known before the war. Unfortunately, it was one of those facts that those who relied exclusively on American mainstream news outlets didn't know. We on the left had grown suspicious of US corporate media some time ago and had taken to augmenting our information with that from foreign sources and alternative media.

People who relied on CNN and Judith Miller's reports in The New York Times (also sourced by Iraqi defectors close to Chalabi) turned out to be badly misinformed. So did members of Congress taking the neocons' bogus intelligence reports for the real deal.

We on the left, on the other hand, marched against the war as informed citizens. Good information is invaluable and facts are very stubborn things. As infuriating as some defenders of neocon politics may find it now and as much as some may still try in vain to deny it, the left was right.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

242. The Case for George W. Bush...i.e., what if he's right?...

...

As easy as it is to say that we can't abide the president because of the gulf between what he espouses and what he actually does , what haunts me is the possibility that we can't abide him because of us—because of the gulf between his will and our willingness. What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion.

The people who dislike George W. Bush have convinced themselves that opposition to his presidency is the most compelling moral issue of the day. Well, it's not. The most compelling moral issue of the day is exactly what he says it is, when he's not saying it's gay marriage. The reason he will be difficult to unseat in November—no matter what his approval ratings are in the summer—is that his opponents operate out of the moral certainty that he is the bad guy and needs to be replaced, while he operates out of the moral certainty that terrorists are the bad guys and need to be defeated. The first will always sound merely convenient when compared with the second. Worse, the gulf between the two kinds of certainty lends credence to the conservative notion that liberals have settled for the conviction that Bush is distasteful as a substitute for conviction—because it's easier than conviction.

...
...

We were attacked three years ago, without warning or predicate event. The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about death—that honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and global—and if it does not warrant the expenditure of what the self-important have taken to calling "blood and treasure," then what does? Slavery? Fascism? Genocide? Let's not flatter ourselves: If we do not find it within ourselves to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evil—and to pronounce ourselves morally superior to it—then we have lost the ability to identify any evil at all, and our democracy is not only diminished, it dissolves into the meaninglessness of privilege.


YEAH, YEAH, I KNOW: Nobody who opposes Bush thinks that terrorism is a good thing. The issue is not whether the United States should be involved in a war on terrorism but rather whether the war on terrorism is best served by war in Iraq. And now that the war has defied the optimism of its advocates, the issue is no longer Bush's moral intention but rather his simple competence. He got us in when he had no idea how to get us out. He allowed himself to be blinded by ideology and blindsided by ideologues. His arrogance led him to offend the very allies whose participation would have enabled us to win not just the war but the peace. His obsession with Saddam Hussein led him to rush into a war that was unnecessary. Sure, Saddam was a bad guy. Sure, the world is a better place without him. But . . .

And there it is: the inevitable but . Trailed by its uncomfortable ellipsis, it sits squirming at the end of the argument against George Bush for very good reason: It can't possibly sit at the beginning. Bush haters have to back into it because there's nothing beyond it. The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein, but . . . but what ? But he wasn't so bad that we had to do anything about him? But he wasn't so bad that he was worth the shedding of American blood? But there are other dictators just as bad whom we leave in place? But he provided Bush the opportunity to establish the doctrine of preemptive war, in which case the cure is worse than the disease? But we should have secured Afghanistan before invading Iraq? But we should have secured the cooperation of allies who were no more inclined to depose Saddam than they—or we, as head of an international coalition of the unwilling—were to stop the genocide in Rwanda ten years before? Sure, genocide is bad, but . . .

We might as well credit the president for his one great accomplishment: replacing but with and as a basis for foreign policy. The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein, and we got rid of him. And unless we have become so wedded to the politics of regret that we are obligated to indulge in a perverse kind of nostalgia for the days of Uday and Qusay, we have to admit that it's hard to imagine a world with Saddam still in it. And even before the first stem-winder of the Democratic convention, the possibility of even limited success in Iraq has reduced the loyal opposition to two strategies: either signing up for the oversight role they had envisioned for the UN, or else declaring the whole thing a lost cause, in their own war of preemption.

Of course, Iraq might be a lost cause. It might be a disaster unmitigated and unprecedented. But if we permit ourselves to look at it the way the Republicans look at it—as a historical cause rather than just a cause assumed to be lost—we might be persuaded to see that it's history's judgment that matters, not ours. The United States, at this writing, has been in Iraq fifteen months. At the same point in the Civil War, Lincoln faced, well, a disaster unmitigated and unprecedented. He was losing . He didn't lose, at least in part because he was able to both inspire and draw on the kind of moral absolutism necessary to win wars. Bush has been unable to do the same, at least in part because he is undercut by evidence of his own dishonesty, but also because moral absolutism is nearly impossible to sustain in the glare of a twenty-four-hour news cycle. In a nation incapable of feeling any but the freshest wounds, Bush cannot seek to inspire moral absolutism without his moral absolutism becoming itself an issue—indeed, the issue. He cannot seek to engender certainty without being accused of sowing disarray. And he cannot speak the barest terms necessary for victory in any war—that we will stay the course, through good or through ill, because our cause is right and just, and God is on our side—without inspiring a goodly number of his constituents to aspire to the moral prestige of surrender.

...


http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Esquire/2004/08/01/505604?page=2

[Jack Rabbit]

243. What if Bush is right? Dream on.

It is almost axiomatic that Bush is wrong. To parody the title of this thread, how could he and the neocons have been so wrong about Iraq?

The author of this piece is also wrong: not because terrorist don't need to be defeated (they certainly do); but because Bush and his motley crew don't have the slightest idea how to go about defeating terrorists and have only used the September 11 attacks for the most cynical purposes.

Saddam was taken prisoner seven months ago. Mr. Bush got only a temporary bounce from it, since it soon became obvious that Saddam wasn't the enemy in the war on terror. Iraq was not the proper focus on the war on terror. Those who still believe in the wisdom of the invasion may never be convinced: What part of there were no weapons or there was no association between Iraq and al Qaida do they not understand?

It is simply foolish or dishonest to continue to justify the invasion of Iraq. The invasion was justified by lies; those lies have long since been exposed as lies.

I'd only be repeating myself if I went into the details, so I'll spare the reader. The posts which refute the case for the invasion are all up and down this thread. Some of us knew before the war that it the given rationale were false. Characteristically, we came from the political left. We were right.



Tonight, G. W. Bush looks again like a political lightweight. This is in no small part due to his blunder in Iraq.

Months ago, Tom Friedman of The New York Times shrilled for the war, although he admitted that it was a war of choice. In many posts in this forum, I and others lambasted Friedman. How could a war of mere choice be justified?

It is no longer just the political left that sees the light now. Tonight, a political moderate who stained his record by voting for the IWR said:

As President, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as President, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

Senator Kerry gets my vote in November. I may not agree with everything he says, even about what to do next Iraq, but I am persuaded that if he had the same unfiltered intelligence before him that Mr. Bush and his thugs had, he would have elected not to go to war against Iraq. It would have been the wiser choice. I'll settle for that.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

244. dream on?...it's more like a nightmare...

(well, at least we know that... if :crazy: the US is attacked,
Kerry will meet it with a swift and certain response...:bounce:)



THE TERROR WEB...

...

On a splendid April day in Paris, I went to lunch with Gilles Kepel, the Arabist scholar, and Jean-Louis Bruguière, the doughty French counter-terrorism judge. Despite the beautiful weather, the men were in a gloomy frame of mind. “I am seriously concerned about the future,” Bruguière said, as we sat at a corner table under an arbor of lilacs that shed blossoms onto his jacket. His armor-plated Peugeot was parked on the street and his bodyguards were discreetly arrayed in the restaurant. “I began work on this in 1991, against the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. These groups were well known and each had an understandable structure. The majority were sponsored by states—Syria, Libya, Iraq. Now we have to face a new and largely unknown organization, with a loose system and hidden connections, so it is not easy to understand its internal functioning. It appears to be composed of cells and networks that are scattered all over the world and changing shape constantly.”

Bruguière pointed to the Istanbul bombings in November, 2003, and the March 11th bombings in Madrid as being the opening salvos in a new attack on Europe. “They have struck in the east and in the south,” he said. “I think the next stop will be in the north.”

“London or Paris,” Kepel suggested.

“The principal target is London,” Bruguière declared.

Chechnya is playing a larger and more disturbing role in the worldwide jihad, Bruguière said. At present, Al Qaeda and its affiliates operate on a rather low-tech level, but in Chechnya many recruits are being trained to exploit the technical advantages of developed countries. “Some of these groups have the capacity for hijacking satellites,” he told me. Capturing signals beamed from space, terrorists could devastate the communications industry, shut down power grids, and paralyze the ability of developed countries to defend themselves.

...

I asked Bruguière if he thought that the Madrid attacks represented an evolution in Al Qaeda’s operational ability, or suggested that the organization had lost control. He said that Al Qaeda was now little more than “a brand, a trademark,” but he admitted that he had been surprised. “It was a good example of the capacity and the will of these groups to adopt a political agenda. The defeat of the late government and the agreement of the new government to withdraw troops—it was a terrorist success, the first time we have had such a result.”
Later, Kepel and I discussed the reason that Europe was under attack. “The future of Islam is in Europe,” he said. “It has a huge Muslim population. Either we train our Muslims to become modern global citizens, who live in a democratic, pluralistic society, or, on the contrary, the Islamists win, and take over those Muslim European constituencies. Then we’re in serious trouble.”



"I doubt whether anyone can seriously suggest that Spain has not acted in a way that suggests appeasement,” Ramón Pérez-Maura, the editor at ABC, told me shortly after Zapatero had announced plans to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq in May, without waiting to see if U.N. peacekeeping troops would become involved. Pérez-Maura recalled a recent lunch he had had with the Iranian Ambassador to Spain, Mortez Alviri. According to Pérez-Maura, Alviri said that Miguel Ángel Moratinos—Zapatero’s pick for Foreign Minister—had approached the Iranians to negotiate with Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, whose militia was engaged in savage urban warfare with Coalition troops. (Moratinos has denied this.) According to Pérez-Maura, Alviri passed Moratinos’s message along, and, less than a day after Zapatero announced the withdrawal, Sadr said from Najaf that Spanish troops would be allowed to leave Iraq unmolested. That was a false promise. American and Spanish forces had to shoot a path through Sadr’s militia in Najaf, which repeatedly attacked them.

...

On another site, islah.tv, a writer calling himself “Ya Rab Shahada” (Oh God, Martyrdom) picked up on the theme: “The Sheikh speaks these words as the Caliph of the Muslims and not as a wanted man. . . . This is the sign to begin the big strike on America.” Another writer said, “Here we have the lands of Al Andalus where the trains were struck. The Sheikh is isolating America now . . . and it will be seen who will choose peace from those who chose suicide.” A writer calling himself “@adlomari@” added, “The Sheikh has . . . proved to the world that Europe does not want peace with Muslims, and that it wants to be a partner in the Crusader crimes against Muslims. The coming days will show that events in Europe are coming if it does not respond to the Sheikh’s initiative. Tomorrow is near.”


Appeasement is a foolish strategy for dealing with Al Qaeda. Last year, many Saudis were stunned when the terrorist group struck Western compounds in Riyadh—shortly after the U.S. had announced that it would withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia, fulfilling one of bin Laden’s primary demands. The Saudis now realize that Al Qaeda won’t be assuaged until all foreigners are expelled from the Arabian Peninsula and a rigid theocracy has been imposed. Yet some of the countries on Al Qaeda’s hit list will no doubt seek to appease terrorists as a quick solution to a crisis.

Intelligence officials are now trying to determine who is the next target, and are sifting through “chatter” in search of a genuine threat. “We see people getting on the Internet and then they get on their phones and talk about it,” a senior F.B.I. official told me. “We are now responding to the threat to the U.S. elections.” The idea of attacking before Election Day, the official said, “was born out of Madrid.” Earlier this year, an international task force dubbed Operation Crevice arrested members of a bomb-making ring in London. During the investigation, officials overheard statements that there were jihadis in Mexico awaiting entry into the U.S. That coincided with vague warnings from European imams about attacks before the elections. As a result of this intelligence, surveillance of border traffic from Mexico has been increased.

Even though Al Qaeda has been weakened by the capture of key operatives, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, it is hardly defunct. “There is a replacement for Mohammed named Abu Faraj,” the F.B.I. official said. “If there is an attack on the U.S., his deputy, Hamza Rabia, will be responsible. He’s head of external operations for Al Qaeda—an arrogant, nasty guy.” The official continued, “The most dangerous thing now is that no one is in control. These guys don’t have to go back to bin Laden or Zawahiri for approval.”



One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11th bombings is that the planning for the attacks may have begun nearly a year before 9/11. In October, 2000, several of the suspects met in Istanbul with Amer Azizi, who had taken the nom de guerre Othman Al Andalusi—Othman of Al Andalus. Azizi later gave the conspirators permission to act in the name of Al Qaeda, although it is unclear whether he authorized money or other assistance—or, indeed, whether Al Qaeda had much support to offer. In June, Italian police released a surveillance tape of one of the alleged planners of the train bombings, an Egyptian housepainter named Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, who said that the operation “took me two and a half years.” Ahmed had served as an explosives expert in the Egyptian Army. It appears that some kind of attack would have happened even if Spain had not joined the Coalition—or if the invasion of Iraq had never occurred.

...

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040802fa_fact

[Jack Rabbit]

245. Yes, it is a nightmare

I have no problem with a "swift and certain" response to to an attack. I have a problem with using the attack to launch a colonial misadventure that is irrelevant to the attack itself. As Richard Clarke said, invaiding Iraq in response to September 11 would have been like invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor.

From the article:

Spain, however, presented a striking opportunity. The war was almost universally unpopular. Aznar had plunged his country into Iraq without seeking a consensus, unlike other Coalition leaders.

What other "coalition" leader sought a consensus? I can't think of one. The British people were also opposed to the invasion and only fell into line when the invasion started. Since then, and with the so-called jusifications exposed as lies, the British people have been punishing Mr. Blair whose party has lost one by-election after another. The only reason Blair isn't more worried is that the Tories are even worse and the LibDems haven't come into their own yet. Otherwise, Blair would be toast. Labour would do better to give him the boot sooner rather than later.

[bemildred]

246. Yes, they all had plenty of warning, they just chose to ignore it.

Shrub, Aznar, Bliar, Bertousslini, all of them.
They thought they were invulnerable, masters of the universe.
Hubris will get you every time.

[Name removed]

247. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[biggles1]

249. and let's not forget our eager beaver

"deputy of the South Pacific" John Howard in his manic zeal to be part of Uncle Sam's bold venture.

[bemildred]

250. An inexcusable ommission on my part.

I do hope you will forgive me. It does look like you
who live down in OZ will soon be sending Mr. Howard and
his policies to the dumpster; perhaps even before the others
mentioned get their walking papers.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

260. regarding hubris and walking papers,...

The Jig Is Up For Kerry...

John Kerry surrendered the election to George W. Bush this month when he finally came out and said exactly what he would do in Iraq. After months of equivocating over how the president misled the American people with all those phony WMDs and teasing us that he had a secret plan for Iraq, the Democratic candidate for president said he still would have given the president the authority to go into Iraq even without any evidence of WMDs. Wow, what an admission!

...

That comment probably sealed the coffin for his presidential hopes, and the Lefties are squealing in contortions with this latest declaration. because so much of the leftist wing of the Democrat Party is made up of Deanie-weenies, who are both Saddam appeasers and unabashed peaceniks. This latest and startling revelation, that Kerry would also have pushed for a war of liberation in Iraq whether or not any WMDs were there, now means he should lose a good 10 percent of the vote -- those of the peace-at-any-price voters who have been turned off now that they realize there isn't a great deal of difference between the two major candidates. These people won't cross over and vote for Bush; they just won't go to the polls at all. Why bother? Kerry is now more gung-ho than Bush. He must have taken that Vietnam thing at the convention just a bit too seriously.

...

Veteran Kerry watchers should not be surprised. As a member of the U.S. Select Senate Committee on Intelligence during the Clinton years, he repeatedly warned Americans about Saddam's WMDs before Bush was elected -- a minor detail left unmentioned during the Kerry campaign. I guess that makes him the original WMD liar.

...

Cockeyed Response

By their actions you will know them; forget the campaign promises. Let's look at Kerry's leadership in the Senate. New York's World Trade Center (WTC) was first bombed on Feb. 26, 1993; Americans remember that this event was a precursor to 9/11. Fortunately, the bomb did not go off with as much strength as the terrorists had planned; if it had, thousands of people would have died. As it was, during this first disaster, eight lost their lives, and 1,000 were injured.

Kerry swung into action. Not immediately, but soon. OK, maybe it took him a year to make the decision -- but, hey, better late than never. Unbelievably, in 1994, Kerry's response to the WTC bombing was a proposal to cut $6 billion in the budget for the nation's intelligence agencies. Most Democrats panned the bill, including Dennis DeConcini, then chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who warned that it made "no sense for us to close our eyes and ears to developments around the world which could ultimately save U.S. lives and resources." Sen. Daniel Inoue, D-Hawaii, also a member of the committee, said Kerry's proposal "would severely hamper" intelligence efforts.

Fortunately, it was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 75-20, with even old lefty Sen. Ted Kennedy voting against the measure. That's gotta hurt. Of course, Kerry still whines that we don't have enough human intelligence on the ground. Is he referring to himself?

...

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/08/23/asparks.DTL

[bemildred]

262. Wishful thinking.

Although this fellow is obviously having fun writing his
polemic, it's not very deep. I'm not fond of Mr. Kerry or
his positions myself, but I will turn out to dump Bush, and
my name is legion this time around. As the returning GWII vet
said, I would vote for a dead rat before I'd vote for George
Bush. It's so bad that Dukakis would win this time.

Kerry seems to me a slightly better than average typical
American political hack; I do have some hopes he will show
better instincts in office, but they are quite modest.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

276. nope, Dukakis lost again...

n/t

[bemildred]

283. Eh, Dukakis is supposed to lose.

Still, I was too optimistic. But there is no point in talking
your candiate down now, is there?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

275. hubris?...

n/t

[bemildred]

284. Mr. Howard does seem to be in a strong position for the time being.

Bertolussini and Blair remain to be seen. But you know, you win a few,
you lose a lot in these things.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

356. I am going to be magnanimous here and say that...

I hope that you finally get one right out of the three (Bush, Howard, Blair)...

[Name removed]

377. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

274. you were saying...

n/t

[bemildred]

285. I'll stick by that one, time is on my side. nt

[cantwealljustgetalong]

378. you are down to...

Blair and Berlusconi...

do you feel lucky?...

[bemildred]

380. I feel patient. nt

[bemildred]

248. "Bremer Walls"

Naomi Klein has a piece named "Baghdad Year Zero" in the current
(September 2004) Harper's. I recommend in on many grounds, it
explains concisely how Iraq got where it is today, who Garner,
Bremer, Chalabi, Allawi, and so on are, what the "thinking" was
that went into the current mess, but best of all it tells us what
the colloquial name of the ten-foot tall $1000-a-pop blast walls
that now litter Iraq protecting the carpetbaggers and quislings
from their supposed subjects is: "Bremer Walls".

Edit: Also what the "Handover of Sovereignty(tm)" was for, and
how Bremer's policies enabled al Sadr's rise.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

251. here's hoping Naomi is better informed about the subject...

than The Economist thinks she is about economics...


Ms Klein's harshest critics must allow that, ..., she writes rather well. It takes journalistic skill of a high order to write page after page of engaging blather, so totally devoid of substance. What a pity she has turned her talents as a writer to a cause that can only harm the people she claims to care most about.


http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=1429429

[bemildred]

253. I doubt Ms Klein needs me to defend her from this sort of babble.

It is telling that it consists almost entirely of bald assertions
of the neoliberal catechism and name-calling of various stripes.

My favorite fragment: against companies, free trade and global
integration-in effect, against capitalism. One hardly knows
where to start with that. Fellow almost sounds like one of those
crazy one-worlders, for instance, with that global-integration stuff,
and I had thought that Capitalism was about ownership of the means
of production.

(Edit: usage.)

[cantwealljustgetalong]

259. the only problem with neoliberalism...

is that it has never been implemented in a pure enough form...heh...


well then, would Ms Klein need you to defend her from this sort of babble?...

The Miseducation of Naomi Klein...

http://www.counterpunch.org/shivani1125.html

[bemildred]

261. "the only problem with neoliberalism..."

Is that it did not work, or at least the results were not what
the sales brochure indicated; some argue that the results
were exactly as intended.

CounterPunch has a tendency to wander into sectarian Marxist
theological disputes, a consequence of Cockburn's tendencies.

I shall have to read Ms Shivani carefully and get back to you,
she does not look - on a casual scan - to be the sort one can
dismiss out of hand. Stay tuned.

[Jack Rabbit]

263. Good post. And now, in an attempt to bring this back to the subject

Defending neoliberalism is a bit like defending feudalism. It just doesn't work, at least not for the masses. For the ruling class, it works very well.

Neoliberalism is nothing more than trickle down economics on a global scale. As trickle down doesn't work, neither has neoliberalism wherever it has been tried. In Latin America, voters have rejected whenever possible and embraced populist leaders like Chavez and Lula.

Since neoliberalism has failed at the ballot box, the only way remaining to impose it is through force. Iraq (remember Iraq? that's the subject of this thread) is an example of this. No doubt much of the civil strife we are seeing in Iraq today would have taken place on Saddam's passing, except that the neoliberal elements would be absent. That could only have been imposed from the outside. The invasion of Iraq was not to bring democracy to that country, but neoliberalism.

Writers like Fukuyama equate neoliberalism with "democracy". However, the fact is that neoliberalism and democracy are antithetical. Neoliberalism, like colonialism and slavery, is about the "natural" right of some presumably superior people to rule over others. The vehicles used are debt, laws concerning private property, the employee-employer relationship and, finally, the police power of the state. Elections are held, but the candidates are all beholden to the upper classes, who foot the bill for the candidates' election campaigns. Information is disseminated, but only after it is approved by those members of the upper class who own the communications outlets.

Democracy is a more open system than this. In democracy, citizenship is universal and all citizens have an equal right to participate in and influence civic affairs. Anybody, regardless of race, religion or social class, can be the leader. Information flows freely. The government is responsible to the people at large, not just to certain segments of society.

How well has neoliberalism worked in Iraq? It would appear that it has worked as well in Iraq as it has anywhere else. It is an abysmal failure.

With unemployment high in Iraq, one might think that all of these transnational corporations "reconstructing" Iraq will solve that problem. Wrong. Redirecting the friendly readers of this post back to post 41 (above), we see that the holy capitalists sent to save Iraq's heathen soul are more likely to import cheap foreign workers than employ Iraqis. The promise of jobs to Iraqis is one that has gone unfulfilled.

I believe it was George Monbiot (like Naomi Klein, a strong critic of neoliberalism) who pointed out that one of the inconsistencies of the global free market regime is that it allows capital to flow freely across borders, but not labor. Perhaps the example of the importation of cheap labor to post-Saddam Iraq is how the global capitalists respond to that objection. As long as they can control it and it can be done in a way that drives wages down, they'll go for allowing labor to cross borders just as easily as frozen hamburgers.

Of course, if Iraqis have anything to say about neoliberalism, they will reject it just as have the people of Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia. However, since a neoliberal regime has been imposed on them by force, they will have to expel it from their land it by force.

[bemildred]

264. OK, I read it all the way through.

A rather long piece of blather, but interesting and
educational in spots. Not the tightest piece of reasoning
either. However, she criticizes Klein for a certain lack
of focus, for being clearer about what is bad than about
what the prospective utopia is to look like, for sharing the
values she claims to oppose, for being shallow in certain ways.
These criticisms seem valid, at least in their own terms. It
must be said that since Ms Klein did not set out to do some of
the things she is criticized for not doing, it's a bit trumped
up, too. It would be interesting to see what Ms Klein had to
say in the way of self-criticism and then compare.

On a personal note, I find these sorts of expeditions across
vast expanses of reified abstractions tiresome, they eat ones
time and leave you empty when you are done. Ms Klein and Ms
Shivani both seem to share this fault of logorrhea, but then
it is a disease of academia.

To answer your question, I suppose she could need me to defend
her against these criticisms, but I'm not sure that she would,
and in any case she will have to do without, as I am not
sufficiently motivated. I would make the one point that it
appears to me that Ms Klein does function as a reporter, in the
heat of the moment, contrary to Ms Shivani's dismissal of that,
and that explains much that Ms Shivani later criticizes.

[Jack Rabbit]

257. Even if Ms. Klein is 100% wrong about economics (and she's not)

Does that mean that Saddam was a threat in the Spring of 2003? No.
Does that mean that Saddam had ties to al Qaida? No.
Does that mean that a country whose government is appointed by a foreign power and which depends on foreign troops for its power is sovereign? No.

So does it have anything to do with the subject of this thread? No.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

252. Where have all the children of the left gone?...

Three mementoes of a steamy summer which prove, if proof were needed, that the principled left was a 19th- and 20th-century phenomenon.

1) The hit of the season is Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a sort of Fox News for liberals. Among the many clunking contradictions and honking errors, one unforgivable scene stands out. Moore brushes aside the millions forced into exile and mass graves by Saddam Hussein, and decides to present life in one of the worst tyrannies of the late 20th century as sweet and simple. Boys scamper to barber shops. Merry children fly kites. Blushing lovers get married.
At the end of the film, leftish audiences in America and Europe show they are more than prepared to forgive and forget. They rise to their feet and applaud.

2) In July, Yusuf al-Qaradawi arrives in London to meet the leaders of the Muslim Association of Britain - co-organisers of the great anti-war demonstration of February 2003 - and Ken Livingstone, the "left-wing" mayor of London. Al-Qaradawi's Islam Online website is available for the world to read. It supports the murder of Israeli civilians and declares that "on the hour of judgement, Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them". Homosexuals, the website continues, are depraved and abominable and should be put to death to cleanse Islamic society of its "perverted elements". As for women, they must be kept in their place. Wives are forbidden to rebel against their husbands' authority. A husband may beat his wife "lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive parts". Rape victims must carry a portion of the guilt if they dress "immodestly".
The liberal media treat al-Qaradawi's views with tact and circumspection. BBC News Online barely mentions them, and instead describes al-Qaradawi as an "articulate preacher and a good communicator". If Livingstone has qualms about al-Qaradawi's endorsement of murder, racism, homophobia and misogyny, they don't show. He sends the limousine anyway.
When they meet, the mayor embraces the priest as a fellow dissident. "Those who raise uncomfortable truths are denounced by those who would rather not consider them," he says.

...

The obvious conclusion to draw at the moment is that we are living in a rerun of the 1930s, and the liberal left is once again sucking up to tyranny. It is easy to think that way. Look at how the democratic left in Britain proved its futility and played into Tony Blair's hands when it allowed the Marxist-Leninist Socialist Workers Party to lead the anti-war movement. Look at the Independent, which has abandoned its founding principle of separating news from comment, so its front pages can imitate the manners of the Mail and scream at readers that the troubles of the world are the fault of democratic governments.

...

The ineluctable answer is, I'm afraid, that there no longer is a left with a coherent message of hope for the human race. The audiences at Michael Moore films don't look at his propaganda images of kite-flying kiddies and pull themselves up short by thinking of what happened to their comrades in Iraq. They have no comrades. They don't support Saddam. They don't support his foes. They have no policy to offer. The noise of their self-righteous anger is merely a cover for an indifference bred by failure.

Marxist-Leninism is as dead as any idea can be - it made the fatal blunder of putting its ideas into practice and died of shame. Fifty years ago, there were revolutionary socialist movements in dozens of countries ready to take power. Today there isn't one, and the world is a better place for that. The nobler traditions of the social-democratic left are also under enormous strain. It seems that Tony Blair or Gordon Brown is about as good as it can get in Britain. Europe has leaders who appear more left-wing on paper, but to date they have failed to pull the Continent away from stagnation.

Unless you believe that the failure of the world's peoples to look leftwards is all the result of brainwashing by the corporate media, you have to conclude that the left is dead. The anger that propelled it is still there, and although it won many battles, some of the oppressions it fought against remain as grievous as ever.

The pity of the aftermath is that while the honourable traditions of the left are forgotten, the worst flourish and mutate into aberrations that would have made our predecessors choke.


http://www.newstatesman.com/site.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_NS&newTop=Section%3A+Front+Page&newDisplayURN=200408160014

[bemildred]

254. I suppose it's a job for Mr. Cohen.

At least he is consistent. From 2002:

Referring to the prospect of yet another U.S. assault on what is left
of Iraq, Nick Cohen wrote in last Sunday's Observer:

"I look forward to seeing how Noam Chomsky and John Pilger
manage to oppose a war which would end the sanctions they claim
have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of children who otherwise
would have had happy, healthy lives in a prison state (don't fret,
they'll get there)." (Blair's just a Bush baby, the Observer, March
10, 2002)

We have sometimes admired Cohen's work in the past but are
dismayed by this comment.

First, the "claim" that sanctions have slaughtered hundreds of
thousands of children is not Chomsky's or Pilger's; it is the claim of
aid agencies, the United Nations Children's Fund, and of senior UN
diplomats Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck (unmentioned by
Cohen in the Observer since September 1998), who have
described sanctions as "genocidal". In 2000, Pilger reported
estimates by Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, that the
number of children under five dying every month in Iraq was 4,000
higher than prior to the imposition of sanctions, totalling some half a
million extra child deaths over eight years. Pilger quoted Unicef:

more

[cantwealljustgetalong]

255. and what does the Chomsky/Pilger left recommend...

in lieu of sanctions which are genocidal or military intervention which is even worse than genocidal for the genocidal child slaughering in Darfur?...


DYING IN DARFUR...

...

When the janjaweed came, Abbas told me, her oldest child, a boy, had run ahead of her. She had carried her infant on her back, and she had taken one of her girls in each hand. This hadn’t left her with a free hand for either of her younger sons, five-year-old Adam Muhammed and seven-year-old Hassan Muhammed. They trailed behind as the Arab soldiers threw matches onto the roofs of the huts. An Arab militiaman suddenly grabbed the boys, and Abbas pleaded that they be released. The gunman warned her that if she didn’t shut up, all of her children would be killed. She backed away as instructed, but as she did so the man threw five-year-old Adam into the fire. “Mama, Mama!” he shouted, as the flames consumed him. Hassan, his older brother, briefly escaped his captor’s grasp, but as he ran toward his mother he was shot in the back twice and died instantly.

...

http://newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040830fa_fact1



New atrocities in Sudan as UN deadline looms...

DAMNING new evidence of fresh atrocities in Sudan has emerged with less than a week to go until the United Nations’ deadline for a halt to the killing.

Refugees have been attacked, women raped, villages burned, and Sudanese government forces have fired on their own people in support of attacks by the Janjaweed.

It means that while the world has waited for it to keep its word, the Sudanese government has seized the opportunity to press ahead with its campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

...

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=987952004

[Jack Rabbit]

256. If you want to discuss Darfur, Mr. Along, there are threds about it

You can bring it up there.

You don't need to bring it up on a thread about whether the invasion of Iraq was justified. What's going on in Darfur has no bearing on that.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

295. yes it does,...

the UN was supposed to provide the justification for the Iraq invasion but due to corruption that was never going to happen and in Darfur...



Genocide out of control yet still the UN refuses to act

...

"Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated. And hundreds of UN personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens."

However, the chances of the Security Council taking decisive action against Sudan over the Darfur crisis are remote. China and Pakistan abstained from the original resolution. China relies heavily on Sudanese oil exports; in turn, it sells large quantities of arms to the African country. China has made it clear that it will veto any attempt to impose sanctions on the Khartoum regime. And, given that China is a permanent member of the Security Council, that veto will count.

Critics of the UN’s handling of the crisis - and there are many - say that it has failed to grasp the urgency of the situation in Darfur. They say that, as in Rwanda, the genocide will be over by the time the UN raises itself from its torpor.

...

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1326812004

[Jack Rabbit]

297. And this justifies the invasion of Iraq how?

Perhaps the Security Council should take action in Dafur. I'm not saying it shouldn't.

The Security Council was right not to urge further action against Iraq. The inspections process was working and no banned weapons were found. No weapons were found for the most obvious of reasons: there weren't any. Consequently, there were no violations of UN resolutions and no threat from Iraq. That leaves what as a reason to go to war?

During the election campaign, Mr. Bush kept saying that the US shouldn't need "a permission slip from the UN" to defend itself. I agree. Under the UN Charter, neither the US nor any other country would need a permission slip to defend itself; the right of self defense is recognized. However, since Iraq posed no immediate threat to the US or anyone else, there was no question of self-defense. The point is moot.

That leaves the question of violating UN resolutions. Of course, one should need a permission slip from the UN to go to war to enforce UN resolutions. The Security Council would have certainly voted down the enabling resolution before it in the Spring of 2003, so Bush didn't get that permission slip.

In short, the invasion was illegal. In addition, the reasons given for it have been exposed as a pack of willful lies. If the UN is showing any cowardice in Iraq, it is in not taking action against the US and Britain for waging a war of aggression.

[bemildred]

258. I'm not interested in defending the Chomsky/Pilger left.

Whatever that is. It is somewhat interesting that Mr. Cohen
dislikes them so intensely, another example of "the left" eating
its own; but that is nothing new, we had a little sub-thread about
the Trotskyists and -ites and so on above. It's really a folly of
simple-minded purists to indulge in these little theological-
political disputes in any case. Moral posturing solves little,
either in Sudan or Iraq.

Edit: punctuation

[bemildred]

265. The coming conflagration in Iraq

Kick, and because it belongs here.

BEIRUT: Iraqi insurgents are slowly but surely extending
their control over key cities in the notorious "Sunni
Triangle" north and west of Baghdad, a creeping
consolidation of their influence that bodes ill for the
fumbling transitional government and the U.S. forces
propping it up. Continued uprisings by Shiite irregulars of
the Mehdi Army militia, led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,
scion of a revered religious family, point to the possibility of
Shiite militants seizing and holding other "no-go zones" in
southern Iraq, further undermining the putative central
government in Baghdad.

Whether this phenomenon deepens the rift between the
Sunni minority, the pillar of Saddam Hussein's grotesque
regime, and the long suppressed Shiite majority and pushes
Iraq toward the long-feared fragmentation remains to be
seen. The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London
concluded in a briefing paper published on Sept. 1 that with
the way events are unfolding in Iraq, the country will be
fortunate if it manages to avoid a break-up and civil war, a
development that would have dangerous ramifications for
the entire Middle East.

"The fragmentation scenario goes to the very core of the
identity debate within Iraq, and is related closely to the
issue of 'who rules' the country in the future," the institute's
assessment said. "It is, sadly, a not unlikely scenario."

Eighteen months after the U.S. invasion of March 2003, the
fighting in Iraq is getting worse rather than waning, and it
will get worse still as general elections scheduled for
January 2005 loom closer. The U.S. military death toll
passed the grim milestone of 1,000 on Sept. 7 - 988 soldiers
and three civilian employees of the Defense Department -
while the number of wounded exceeded 7,000 since the start
of the war in March 2003.

Daily Star(Lebanon)

[bemildred]

266. Klein: Baghdad Year Zero

It was only after I had been in Baghdad for a month that I found what
I was looking for. I had traveled to Iraq a year after the war began,
at the height of what should have been a construction boom, but after
weeks of searching I had not seen a single piece of heavy machinery
apart from tanks and humvees. Then I saw it: a construction crane.
It was big and yellow and impressive, and when I caught a glimpse
of it around a corner in a busy shopping district I thought that I was
finally about to witness some of the reconstruction I had heard so
much about. But as I got closer I noticed that the crane was not
actually rebuilding anything - not one of the bombed-out government
buildings that still lay in rubble all over the city, nor one of the many
power lines that remained in twisted heaps even as the heat of
summer was starting to bear down. No, the crane was hoisting a
giant billboard to the top of a three-story building. SUNBULA:
HONEY 100% NATURAL, made in Saudi Arabia.

Seeing the sign, I couldn't help but think about something Senator
John McCain had said back in October. Iraq, he said, is "a huge pot
of honey that's attracting a lot of flies." The flies McCain was
referring to were the Halliburtons and Bechtels, as well as the
venture capitalists who flocked to Iraq in the path cleared by Bradley
Fighting Vehicles and laser-guided bombs. The honey that drew
them was not just no-bid contracts and Iraq's famed oil wealth but
the myriad investment opportunities offered by a country that had
just been cracked wide open after decades of being sealed off, first
by the nationalist economic policies of Saddam Hussein, then by
asphyxiating United Nations sanctions.

Looking at the honey billboard, I was also reminded of the most
common explanation for what has gone wrong in Iraq, a complaint
echoed by everyone from John Kerry to Pat Buchanan: Iraq is mired
in blood and deprivation because George W. Bush didn't have "a
postwar plan." The only problem with this theory is that it isn't true.
The Bush Administration did have a plan for what it would do after
the war; put simply, it was to lay out as much honey as possible, then
sit back and wait for the flies.

The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most
cherished belief of the war's ideological architects: that greed is
good. Not good just for them and their friends but good for humanity,
and certainly good for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates
growth, which creates jobs and products and services and
everything else anyone could possibly need or want. The role of
good government, then, is to create the optimal conditions for
corporations to pursue their bottomless greed, so that they in turn
can meet the needs of the society. The problem is that governments,
even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to prove
their sacred theory right: despite their enormous ideological
advances, even George Bush's Republicans are, in their own minds,
perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions,
and alarmist environmentalists.

http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/view/855

[leesa]

267. Utter nonsense. We have murdered 30,000 Iraqis to depose one

powerless tinpot dictator and have replaced his rule with something 1000x worse. Is this American logic these days??

[RFKHumphreyObama]

268. Gerard Henderson -former key adviser to Prime Minister John Howard

Who was a willing participant of the "coalition of the willing". He is actually quite moderate -dare I say it "liberal"-when it comes to domestic policy and social issues such as race relations and multiculturalism and has criticized Howard quite extensively for his outdated views on domestic policy. He's also quite an interesting non-fiction author -I've read two of his books and I thoroughly enjoyed them

But on foreign policy he tends to take a very conservative and pro-US line that aligns himself quite closely with his former boss. When it comes to his articles on foreign policy, he has a gentler tone than some of the other RW sycophants but he still nevertheless seems to echo RW talking points and engage in what he knows to be misrepresentations of left wing positions.

Actually three years ago he was an excellent writer and analyst. But since around the time that * started threatening Iraq, his articles have become increasingly partisan and have declined in terms of quality and substance. I don't usually read his columns anymore -which I used to make a point of doing every time one appeared in the days when he was an interesting and thought-provoking columnist

[Forkboy]

270. Fascinating,though not suprising,contortions being made in this thread

[bemildred]

271. Rumsfeld at Sea

At one point, Donald Rumsfeld is said to have become a little testy. It was October 10 and the U.S. Secretary of Defense had just landed on the deck of the USS John F. Kennedy aboard a C-2 Greyhound twin-engine propeller-driven cargo plane accompanied by 18 defense ministers from 18 "coalition partners" in the Iraq war. When someone from the accompanying media asked about the possibility of an increase in the number of U.S. troops fighting the insurgency there, he reportedly shot back, "There's a fixation on that subject! It's fascinating how everyone is locked on that." However, en route to the shipboard huddle Rumsfeld told U.S. commanders in Iraq that he may yet decide they need more U.S. troops over the next two months. He also complained about the inability to convince countries to send additional forces to provide security for an expanded U.N. presence in Baghdad.

According to the Associated Press, the session aboard the Kennedy convened "amid mounting concern in some quarters that the insurgency in Iraq is so widespread and violent that full and fair elections in January might not be able to go on as scheduled."

Troop strength was very much the subject of the gathering. The war is escalating and the secretary was looking for help.

It wasn't easy finding out which "Coalition" defense ministers met with Rumsfeld Oct. 10 in a windowless room in the bowels of the U.S. John F. Kennedy in the middle of the Arab Gulf. A number of the major media reports following the meeting gave the number -- 18 -- but didn't list them. They are: Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Iraq, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mongolia, Poland, Qatar, Romania, and Ukraine and Iraq. Nicaragua, Spain, Dominican Republic, Honduras, the Philippines, Thailand and New Zealand have already withdrawn their forces. For some reason South Korea which provides the third largest military contingent in the war wasn't represented aboard the Kennedy. The British Defense Ministry also wasn't there but, as we shall see, it had already received the message: we need help.

ZNet

[doctorus]

272. Where to save democracy?

After the 2004 US elections... after the Russion supression
of democracy and civic rights - the progressively thinking
people can not be indifferent to the future of democracy
throughout the world!
We suggest to create the international democratic
party of internet-users, because internet is the only place
where the democratic principles are realised really.
It must be the democratic party without national or state borders,
with no obstacles to join it for everyone.

http://psihi.ru/funny/english/demonet.htm

[bemildred]

273. A fine idea Sir. Who knows what might emerge from that? nt

[cantwealljustgetalong]

277. Bush's Secularist Triumph...

...

But all faiths are not always equally demented in the same way, or at the same time. Islam, which was once a civilizing and creative force in many societies, is now undergoing a civil war. One faction in this civil war is explicitly totalitarian and wedded to a cult of death. We have seen it at work on the streets of our own cities, and most recently on the streets of Amsterdam. We know that the obscene butchery of filmmaker Theo van Gogh was only a warning of what is coming in Madrid, London, Rome, and Paris, let alone Baghdad and Basra.

So here is what I want to say on the absolutely crucial matter of secularism. Only one faction in American politics has found itself able to make excuses for the kind of religious fanaticism that immediately menaces us in the here and now. And that faction, I am sorry and furious to say, is the left. From the first day of the immolation of the World Trade Center, right down to the present moment, a gallery of pseudointellectuals has been willing to represent the worst face of Islam as the voice of the oppressed. How can these people bear to reread their own propaganda? Suicide murderers in Palestine—disowned and denounced by the new leader of the PLO—described as the victims of "despair." The forces of al-Qaida and the Taliban represented as misguided spokespeople for antiglobalization. The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as "insurgents" or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. If this is liberal secularism, I'll take a modest, God-fearing, deer-hunting Baptist from Kentucky every time, as long as he didn't want to impose his principles on me (which our Constitution forbids him to do).

One probably should not rest too much on the similarity between Bin Laden's last video and the newly available DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11. I would only say that, if Bin Laden had issued a tape that with equal fealty followed the playbook of Karl Rove (and do please by all means cross yourself at the mention of this unholy name), it might have garnered some more attention. The Bearded One moved pedantically through Moore's bill of indictment, checking off the Florida vote-count in 2000, the "Pet Goat" episode on the day of hell, the violent intrusion into hitherto peaceful and Muslim Iraq, and the division between Bush and the much nicer Europeans. (For some reason, unknown to me at any rate, he did not attack the President for allowing the Bin Laden family to fly out of American airspace.)

George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but he—and the U.S. armed forces—have objectively done more for secularism than the whole of the American agnostic community combined and doubled. The demolition of the Taliban, the huge damage inflicted on the al-Qaida network, and the confrontation with theocratic saboteurs in Iraq represent huge advances for the non-fundamentalist forces in many countries. The "antiwar" faction even recognizes this achievement, if only indirectly, by complaining about the way in which it has infuriated the Islamic religious extremists around the world. But does it accept the apparent corollary—that we should have been pursuing a policy to which the fanatics had no objection?

Secularism is not just a smug attitude. It is a possible way of democratic and pluralistic life that only became thinkable after several wars and revolutions had ruthlessly smashed the hold of the clergy on the state. We are now in the middle of another such war and revolution, and the liberals have gone AWOL. I dare say that there will be a few domestic confrontations down the road, over everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the display of Mosaic tablets in courtrooms and schools. I have spent all my life on the atheist side of this argument, and will brace for more of the same, but I somehow can't hear Ralph Ingersoll or Clarence Darrow being soft and cowardly and evasive if it came to a vicious theocratic challenge that daily threatens us from within and without.


http://slate.msn.com/id/2109377/

[bemildred]

278. I won't comment on Mr. Hitchens attempts at "thinking", but

the problem is this, violence and war do not reduce extremism and
fundamentalism, rather the opposite. This may be easily observed
out there in the real world, you don't need to take my word for it.
There are plenty of long drawn out grinding conflicts to pick from,
all based in a refusal to consider honest political solutions that
respect the rights of self-determination of one or more of the
disputant parties.

There is, to be sure, room for police work, but the policies Mr.
Bush is pursuing are having the opposite of what is claimed to be
the desired effect, ie. reducing fundamentalism and increasing
secular politics.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

279. tell it to the French...

those mavens of diplomacy appear to have gotten a little trigger happy...



French Troops Fire Into Ivory Coast Crowd...

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - French forces opened fire Tuesday as thousands of angry government loyalists massed outside an evacuation post for foreigners, reportedly killing seven people and wounding 200 in violence pitting France against its former prize colony.

The bloodletting erupted at a onetime luxury hotel French forces have commandeered as an evacuation center for 1,300 French and other foreigners rescued from rampages across the commercial capital, Abidjan.

An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of three demonstrators outside a hospital, their bodies draped in Ivorian flags.

The chaos in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and West Africa's former economic powerhouse, broke out Saturday when Ivory Coast warplanes killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike on the rebel-held north.

France wiped out the nation's air force on the tarmac in retaliation, sparking anti-French rampages by thousands in the fiercely nationalist south.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4605431,00.html

[bemildred]

280. What's your point?

You think this is going to lead to something good?
It looks like another fucking mess to me.
Or am I supposed to defend French colonial policy?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

281. my point is that, other than naive platitudes,...

you don't have a point, whereas, Hitchens does...

as do the Dutch...


Crackdown on radicals as Dutch mourn film maker

The Dutch government declared war on Islamic terrorists yesterday as mourners gathered in Amsterdam for the cremation of the murdered film-maker Theo van Gogh.

Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, said the brutal killing of van Gogh last week by a Moroccan-Dutch terrorist was a grave assault on freedom of speech and Holland's tolerant way of life. He promised a relentless crackdown on extremist cells.

The immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, unveiled plans for a law allowing the deportation of Islamic radicals even if they are Dutch citizens.

She said the intention was "to take away their Dutch passports if a person is suspected of planning or being involved in extremism or serious crimes", adding that Holland would no longer be so "naive" in dealing with its enemies.

...

Van Gogh, a fierce critic of Islam and the multicultural nostrums of the Dutch Left, was shot and stabbed as he cycled through the centre of Amsterdam last week.

The alleged killer, who studied computer science before being influenced by jihad videos, cut through van Gogh's neck with a butcher's knife then used the weapon to pin a letter in Dutch and Arabic on his chest.

The letter foretold "disaster" for Holland and contained an explicit threat to kill Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee and Islamic apostate elected to the Dutch parliament.

Ms Hirsi Ali, now in hiding, co-produced an inflammatory film with van Gogh to draw attention to what they see as the oppression of women in Islam.

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/10/wneth10.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/11/10/ixportal.html



Film-maker's funeral sparks violence

Mr van Gogh, a distant relative of the painter Vincent van Gogh, was shot six times and nearly decapitated with a butcher’s knife in daylight as he cycled down a street in Amsterdam last week. A five-page letter declaring holy war and threatening death to the critics of Islam was fixed to his chest with a knife.

At the funeral, crowds waved banners demanding: “Let’s protect our freedom of speech” and “No to fundamentalism”.

A woman wore a T-shirt with pictures of Mr van Gogh and his friend, Pim Fortuyn, the assassinated politician who called for a halt to Islamic immigration, with the words “The lords of the free word” and asking: “Who is next?” She said: “In the Second World War under Nazi occupation you were killed for speaking out, and now it is happening again.”

Carel Mayer, an insurance manager, carried a sign which said: “Silence is deadly. If you speak you will be killed. To be able to speak out is the most important thing.”

He said: “Van Gogh has died so other people have to speak up. People have to be able to say what they mean if we are to live together.”

Hans Bethlehem, an associate of Mr van Gogh, said: “All the problems were covered up for such a long time, they are now all bursting out.”

...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1352092,00.html

[bemildred]

282. And the French evacuating Ivory Coast supports that opinion how? nt

[cantwealljustgetalong]

307. violence, French style...(warning graphic)

http://radioci.embaci.com/englishdownload/frenchsoldiersshootingcivilians2.mpg

[bemildred]

308. What's your point? nt

[cantwealljustgetalong]

309. selective outrage...

n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

310. Which proves what about invading Iraq?

There is nothing about the crisis in Darfur that proves that Bush's invasion of Iraq was justified any more than it proves that Caesar's invasion of Gaul was justified. None of those issues has anything to with the others. It is another red herring.

You can prove that the invasion of Iraq was justified by presenting Saddam's biochemical arsenal (not merely vague plans for one) or demonstrating his working relationship with al Qaida. Anything else is irrelevant.

WMDs and terrorist ties were the reasons given by the Bushies for invading Iraq. Those reasons were false and I believe that those who advanced them knew that they were false.

There are two good ways to tell if a Neoconservative is lying. First, the best way, is that his lips are moving; the other is to see if there is printed verbiage under his by-line.

[bemildred]

311. Thank you.

I really had no clue WTF you were trying to get at.

I assume it's the selective outrage of the French?
It seems a common habit of most governments; and I don't see
what it has to do with Iraq. Unless it's some sort of inverted
ad hominem argument, that is: "The French opposed the Iraq
invasion and the French are hypocrits, therefore the Iraq
invasion was a great idea.", or something like that.

Nevertheless, I will concede that the French government are
every bit as much hypocritical swine as the US government, and
the two situations are alike in that the respective intervening
Western governments have bungled the situation, and the situation
they have now bungled is the result of earlier bungles.

[Saeba]

312. Well, by the way, why the left was wrong?

Because until now, it seems that the anti-war predictions are, sadly, almost exact.

And the sorrowfully example posted only shows that the presence of foreign troops in a country (even with the full support of the international community, USA included, as it's the case in Ivory Coast) is a source of conflict, and, generally, death. The problem is to determine which, from the intervention or no-intervention, will be the lesser evil.

Anyway, no intervention should ever be done without the full approval of UN, the only legitimate world assembly. With all its qualities and defaults, the UN is able, at least, to give, by its diversity, a minimum of neutrality, and a semblance of legitimacy.

Nevertheless, as it's demonstrated that the left was not wrong, may be this thread should be renamed "Why the left was right".
Although "The thread that never die", or"Welcome in fantasy world" (nice article about The Theory of "Cognitive Dissonance) could be nice.
But my favourite name would be "The answer to all questions, blame the French" (France New U.S. Enemy 31% Americans).

Well at least, some will be relieved to don't be alone :crazy:

[cantwealljustgetalong]

318. throw out enough predictions, some will come to pass...

and some won't, like that no intervention should ever be done without the full approval of the UN if the UN is this corrupt:

UN knew of Saddam's oil-for-food thefts: BBC...

The United Nations knew that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was stealing from the oil-for-food program - and, by extension, starving his own people - but did little to stop it, according to a special report by the BBC at the weekend.

After a six-month investigation, the BBC said it had evidence that Saddam took billions from the oil-for-food program, and that "these abuses were widely known about at the time". The BBC said there was evidence that Saddam demanded a kickback from companies that wanted to do business with Iraq under the oil-for-food program.

...

The BBC sent a reporter to Iraq and Jordan to track down people involved in the oil-for-food program, which has been described as the largest financial swindle in history. Virtually all said that Saddam took kickbacks from companies who sold goods to Iraq, and that the UN knew this. The businessmen - most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity - said it was standard to pay commissions, that nobody complained, and that was the price of doing business with Iraq.

A Jordanian banker said it was an open secret that contracts were inflated so Saddam could take 10 per cent. "We knew it was there," he said. "(But) actually, it's not our business, you know. Banks are (only) interested in their money, and to make money."

The allegations have left the UN fighting for its reputation. The oil-for-food program is being investigated by six US congressional committees and by the UN itself.

...

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, evidence has emerged that Saddam found many ways to skim billions from the program. Some of that money allegedly went to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. It is also alleged that Saddam paid foreign journalists and sympathetic foreign officials, as a way of getting them to campaign to get the sanctions lifted. Around 270 people are alleged to have received vouchers to sell oil for millions of dollars in profit.

Among the people accused of taking these bribes are the former president of Indonesia, Megawati Soekarnoputri, and, most explosively, the head of the UN's oil-for-food program Benon Sevan.


http://www.theage.com.au/news/Iraq/UN-knew-of-Saddams-oilforfood-thefts-BBC/2004/11/21/1100972255082.html?oneclick=true


(btw, the cognitive dissonance article reads like someone's defense mechanism for rejection with shades of it's own cognitive dissonance, and, oh, is poor, weak France being unfairly criticized by the strong, mean bullies? :nopity:)...

[Saeba]

323. And by the way why the left was wrong?

throw out enough predictions, some will come to pass...

It’s your strategy? Because practically all (and not some) anti-war predictions became true, sadly. But it’s the advantage of predictions based on knowledge and reasoning, in contradiction with ones based on faith, like expecting people would love invaders because invaders are Americans by example.

and some won't, like that no intervention should ever be done without the full approval of the UN if the UN is this corrupt

Great, the UN is in some way corrupted. Great news! And? First I don’t know one government that is not corrupted in a way or another (will you dare pretend that the American one is exempted of all corruption?). Secondly, I’m more than sceptical about the inquiry done by the USA. Not that I don’t believe that the UN is corrupted (I’m even sure of it) but do you know, even if the American’s inquisitors would forget it, that the USA are also involved in this “scandal�?
And on the same subject, it seems that the management by Halliburton is far more suspicious by the way, and it’s the present.

Anyway, when I say that no intervention should ever be done without the full approval of UN, it’s not a prediction, it’s a fact. Because however my opinion of UN may be (and you could be surprised of how low I consider UN, there are more serious crimes that your pseudo-scandal), it’s happen that it’s what we have closer from a world assembly. With all the default associated with democracy I agree, but may be are you uncomfortable with democracy?

btw, the cognitive dissonance article reads like someone's defense mechanism for rejection with shades of it's own cognitive dissonance, and, oh, is poor, weak France being unfairly criticized by the strong, mean bullies?

Let’s start with France, it’s the easiest point. First, don’t assume that the fact that I find your systematic attacks against this country a bit ridicule means that I’m a defender of it. As you said, it’s a poor and weak country, isn’t it? It’s only that first, as for the UN, you miss the forest for the tree in your critics. Secondly, I don’t understand why you always try to relate everything to France (in fact I never figure out why RW people hate France so much). It’s like France is some kind of superpower…

Finally, about cognitive dissonance, as it’s happen also that I read RW forum (BTW, I was disappointed to find your post about the Ivory Coast incident in them, I’ve believed for a time that you have made some research), I’m not surprised that you could be sincerely convinced that I’m the on out of touch. And once again I will probably surprise you by saying that I would love it. Honestly, your world seems far nicer and easier than mine. And it would be more convenient for me, as the USA is the principal customer of Japan, that every thing would be right for the USA (in contrast with my own opinion that the USA is a falling power that will cause a world economical depression). It would be very nice, but useless as the facts have a tendency to prove the opposite.

I could encourage you to prove me of the contrary but I need more than RW newspaper’s opinion articles. It’s not that I dismiss them (as I’ve said I read RW forum too sometimes), but they are only a part of the puzzle. Various sources of information (and I mean diversity in opinion and geography) and reasoning are necessary to form an opinion (from my point of view). And as I fear that you don’t care very much about what people outside USA think, it seems that the discussion will be difficult.

However, as I wrote a long and detailed reply, it would very nice from you to explain to me:

- Why you hate France so much?
- What are you expecting in posting on a board that manifestly is opposed to your opinion?
- Why do you always post in this thread particularly?

In fact I’ve my opinion about the answers of these 3 questions, but it would be very nice to confirm it (well, I like check my opinions with facts). Let say that it’s a matter of politeness between gentlemen.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

355. response...

no, I am not uncomfortable with democracy, thanks for asking, so as to your singing the praises of a world assembly being required to provide approval of interventions, I would insist that this decision-making world assembly consist of democratically elected governments only...and, the US gov't may have it's share of corruption, however, at least it's not always as useless as the current form of the world assembly that you favor...and, the decline of the US has been predicted since 1776, that prediction will be with us until it comes true...and, I don't make a distinction between opinions originating from outside or inside the US, it's about worldview and motives...


- Why you hate France so much?

it's not about France per se, it's about self-righteous arrogant hypocrisy especially when coupled with back-stabbing betrayal...nonetheless, if France goes with Sarkozy, all will be forgiven (if not forgotten), at least until their next obnoxious or unfaithful dalliance...

- What are you expecting in posting on a board that manifestly is opposed to your opinion?

I am expecting that I am providing my opinion on a board that is manifestly opposed to my opinion...

- Why do you always post in this thread particularly?

because I believe that while mistakes and miscalculations can be turned into predictions of being right in the short tem, in the long term view of history, regarding the benefits to overthrowing the Saddan regime, the left is wrong...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

385. Accept U.N. for what it isn't...

...

The blunt reality is that far too much is expected of the U.N., especially when it comes to upholding global security and intervening in individual nations. The U.N. embraces a number of agencies. Although some are duds, some, like UNICEF, are highly respected and full of wonderful and dedicated people who do immense good in relieving human suffering round the world.

The U.N. is also by far the best collective forum at which to address, if not fully solve, such crucial world issues as water shortages or weapons trading. Optimists thought that once the Cold War was over it would also become the guardian of world security, driven forward by a united Security Council and, in particular, by unity among the five permanent council members who have the veto. But the prospect of a new liberal world order was always a pipe dream.

China, for example, has made it crystal-clear that it doesn't care at all for U.N. resolutions demanding intrusion within national territories, regardless of the horrors said to be going on. Russia is not much more enthusiastic. While the British and the Americans have tended to be on the same side since the U.N.'s inception in 1945, the French have their own awkward agenda, as was demonstrated before the Iraq invasion.

This is the dysfunctional grouping at the heart of the U.N., thrown together by circumstances after World War II and unreformed ever since. Would changing the membership, and possibly the powers, of this central group improve matters?

Obviously, Japan and Germany should be part of any lead grouping, and India as well. A recent high-level panel as suggested two alternative ways to expand the Security Council. But whatever the reorganizational maneuvers, the basic reality has to be faced: The U.N. is a useful discussion forum and may be adding real value in persuading more nations to respect democratic values, but it is not the Parliament of Man, nor the sole source of international legitimacy, nor the guardian of global security. It never could be, and to expect its secretary general and staff to deliver on these fronts, and worse still, to attack them personally when they do not, is expecting far too much and quite unfair.

For maintaining global security and for addressing specific and destabilizing affronts to human rights, the world will continue to have to rely on coalitions of nations coming together and agreeing on common action. If the disparate U.N. can be brought to endorse such actions, well and good. If not, that should be no surprise. But nor should it be an excuse for lambasting this well-meaning organization and its managers.

...

David Howell is a former British Cabinet minister and former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. He is now a member of the House of Lords.

The Japan Times: Feb. 11, 2005

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20050211dh.htm

[cantwealljustgetalong]

405. yes, of course there are worse scandals, much worse scandals...

most of which don't and won't ever see the light of day, and so, however low you consider the UN, you are still being generous...


Explicit Photos Fan U.N. Sex Scandal
The French staffer they implicate says that the Congo mission harbors a pedophile network.


UNITED NATIONS — A scandal about the sexual abuse of Congolese women and children by U.N. officials and peacekeepers intensified Friday with the broadcast of explicit pictures of a French U.N. worker and Congolese girls and his claim that there was a network of pedophiles at the U.N. mission in Congo.

ABC News' "20/20" program showed pictures taken from the computer of a French U.N. transport worker. The hard drive reportedly contained thousands of photos of him with hundreds of girls. In one frame, a tear can be seen rolling down the cheek of a victim.

...

Bourguet's case is the only one that has been prosecuted among 150 allegations against about 50 soldiers and U.N. civilian officials who have served in the Congo peacekeeping mission. At least seven cases of sexual exploitation and abuse have been documented against peacekeepers based in Bunia, a northeastern town. One civilian has been suspended until the investigation is complete, and another has resigned. The U.N. is conducting further investigations and expects to find more cases.

...

The harsh new measures also illuminate how difficult the problem has been to solve and the challenges ahead. A report by U.N. investigators last summer noted that there had been "zero compliance" with the "zero- tolerance" policy instituted in October 2003, and that peacekeepers had traded favors with colleagues to withhold reports of policy violations.

The U.N. has no power to prosecute peacekeepers or civilians. The organization can only repatriate individuals and waive their immunity so they can face trial at home. Whether they are punished depends largely on the politics and culture of their home country, and U.N. officials acknowledge that they have been lax in following up cases.

...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-unsex12feb12,1,308473.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

[Jack Rabbit]

406. I seriously doubt any missiles involved in this scandal belonged to Saddam

Really, Mr. Along, this has nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq at all, let alone whether it is right or wrong.

And this sort of thing no more impugns the UN's peacekeeping mission than a sex scandal involving a priest impugns the Catholic Church's mission of charity to the poor. It means that there are people in the world who abuse their power, nothing else.

Have you nothing better to post to defend your case than a red herring of prurient interest? Even I think you do.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

416. my response...

is appropriate in regard to Saeba's holding the UN up as a moral arbiter for determining when an intervention should take place...



"It means that there are people in the world who abuse their power, nothing else."

so, I take it then that your generous words apply no less to the US military then it would to the UN and the Catholic Church?...

since the left holds the UN up as the arbiters of morality and justice (as some on the right hold the Catholic Church), in order to be so, those institutions are required to rectify the abuse of individuals within their institutions, and not promote, ignore, or cover it up, as that is how the morality of the institution can be judged - not by the abuse of individuals which I agree with you is unavoidable, but, by the response to the abuse...in that regard, both the UN and the Catholic Church have corrupted their moral authority...

[Jack Rabbit]

434. My response

in regard to Saeba's holding the UN up as a moral arbiter for determining when an intervention should take place

The UN establishes a process by which it can be determined after debate and deliberation whether an intervention should take place. Although far from perfect, that is a far better process than leaving it up to a tyrant like Bush to make that determination.

I take it then that your generous words apply no less to the US military then it would to the UN and the Catholic Church?...

Absolutely. I think it is grossly unfair to place foot soldiers on trial for the torture that took place in Abu Ghraib and is continuing at Guantanamo that results from administration policy. Mr. Bush and Mr. Gonzales, not our troops, should be on trial.

From Democratic Underground
Dated May 11, 2004

Who is responsible?
By Jack Rabbit

In light of the revelations of abuse of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers and civilians at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, many have called for the resignation or firing of Donald Rumsfeld and others. The outrage has been bi-partisan and should be. No matter how one felt about the wisdom and morality of invading Iraq, the barbarism that took place in Abu Ghraib cannot be defended. This is an affair that brings dishonor and disgrace to Americans.

To merely call for the resignation or firing of the Defense Secretary misses the point. He is responsible, but not simply because he failed to oversee the problem or inform either Congress or the President in a timely manner. The buck no more stops with Donald Rumsfeld than it stops with Lynndie England.

The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison is deeper than one prison in Iraq. To dismiss this as nothing more than a "few bad apples" acting like drunken pledges at a frat house party insults anybody's intelligence. Major General Anotonio Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib cites "systemic" abuse of detainees and faults several field-grade officers, including a Brigadier General, along with several senior NCOs and some civilian contractors (called OGAs or employees of Other US Government Agencies in the report) for flagrant violations of army regulations and the Third Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners of war and other detainees.

Read more.

since the left holds the UN up as the arbiters of morality and justice (as some on the right hold the Catholic Church), in order to be so, those institutions are required to rectify the abuse of individuals within their institutions, and not promote, ignore, or cover it up, as that is how the morality of the institution can be judged - not by the abuse of individuals which I agree with you is unavoidable, but, by the response to the abuse...in that regard, both the UN and the Catholic Church have corrupted their moral authority...

First of all, I believe the UN often fails in its mission, and it certainly did in Iraq. After having done the right thing by refusing to pass an enabling resolution allowing Mr. Bush to go to war against Iraq when the members of the Security Council were unconvinced of Mr. Bush's case (rightly, as there was no case to make), the UN should have taken the next step and brought war crimes charges against Bush as soon as the first missiles were fired. It's not too late. The crime of the invasion itself -- an unjustified war of aggression -- is compounded by war crimes of collective punishment in Fallujah and Mosul and by crimes against humanity, such as the aforementioned torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other sites around the world. However, like the US Congress, the UN continues to give these war criminals a free pass.

Institutions are abstractions. They really don't exist in themselves, but are merely made up of human beings, who real and fallible. Over time, the institution -- meaning those human beings who succeed the criminals -- may rectify the crimes and failings of those who were in positions of responsibility. Although I am not a Catholic, I will trust that the Church -- which is also respected and admired by many other than those on the right, I might add -- will survive the soiling of its name at the hands of a few corrupt priests and weak-kneed bishops. I am an American, and I also have faith that America's name will rebound from the dark crimes of Bush and his aides.

As for the UN, it has provided a process for deliberating matters of war and peace. In spite of its failings, I still believe in that process. I am not going to stop believing in the United Nations any more than I am going to stop believing in free elections in America just because, by hook or crook, they failed to stop the unfortunate ascendancy of G. W. Bush and the neoconservatives.

[bemildred]

407. Not exactly restricted to the UN or to the Congo:

United Kingdom: "Trafficking - A Transnational Organised Crime"

This article looks at the trafficking of women and children.

After explanation of the crime and background, the writer explores ways in which UK businesses can hide this illegal activity behind a legitimate business. It flags up some methods of discovering the activity, using standard fraud investigative methods. It explains the technical accounting transactions that hide such activity and discusses the UK’s Proceeds of Crimes Act and how it will prosecute any trafficking crime. Recent research in the UK has shown that, despite journalistic reports such as the Economist’s September 2004 article on pornography and trafficking, which stated that there is an extremely small amount of trafficking crime in the UK, academic research reveals that there is a large and growing problem of children, aged 13 to 16, brought to the UK to supply the pornography market, clothing sweatshops and restaurant businesses.

The police in the UK deny that there is trafficking of women and children for prostitution in the UK. They have said that the foreign prostitutes in the UK are here because they wish to go into prostitution. In 2003, the UK police raided some brothels in the north of England, arresting most of the prostitutes and deported all those with inadequate immigration documents, viewing the problem simply as one of illegal immigration. The demand side of prostitution is never addressed so the problem has remained

The writer estimates the trafficking of women and children for prostitution as being near to two million women trans-nationally trafficked for prostitution. The writer calculates that, using secondary sources, the number of child prostitutes is also about two million. The writer estimates that four million women and children are trafficked each year for prostitution.

This article shows that there is a gap in the statistics in that there has never been any statistics on prostitution in the UK, but that by a method of deduction and a search of secondary evidence, a good estimate can be made for sex trafficking to the UK The article concludes by recommending business methods to indicate suspicious businesses connected to human trafficking for prostitution and recommending policy solutions to eradicate this society disease.

http://www.mondaq.com/i_article.asp_Q_articleid_E_30923

[bemildred]

408. Impure Tactics

Then, of course, there is abu Ghraib. Expediency is such a
slippery slope. The thing that is really impressive is that these
"interrogators" were reprimanded, but their "superiors", and I use the
word loosely here, were not sanctioned at all.

Sunday, Feb. 13, 2005
The prisoner, held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, was believed to have taken flying lessons in Arizona before 9/11, just like one of the hijackers. The female Army interrogator repeatedly asked the shackled Saudi, "Who sent you to Arizona?" but the 21-year-old said nothing. The interrogator and the translator for the session took a break and stepped into the hall. When they returned, the interrogator shed the top of her camouflage battle-dress uniform, revealing a tight Army T shirt. The prisoner looked away. She rubbed her breasts against his back, taunting him about his erection. She stood in front of him touching her breasts. He spit in her face.

During another break, the interrogator said she wanted to shame the devout Muslim captive in order to break his connection with God, which was giving him the strength to stonewall. After asking advice from a different translator, this one a Muslim, she went into the bathroom, taking a red marker with her. When she and the first translator re-entered the interrogation booth, she told the detainee she was having her period. She stuck her hands in her pants, then withdrew a hand and showed the detainee what appeared to be blood on it. She asked again who had sent him to Arizona, and he glared at her silently. When she wiped the red ink on his face, he let out a shout, spit at her and lunged forward so forcefully that an ankle came loose from its shackle. The Saudi began sobbing uncontrollably, and the interrogator left, telling him the water in his cell had been shut off. He would not be able to wash, as Muslims are supposed to do before they pray.

---

Initially, military officials tried to prevent disclosure of the Saudi's story. When Saar, who spent 6 1/2 months at Guantanamo as a linguist and intelligence analyst, submitted the early draft of his manuscript to the military, as the confidentiality agreement he signed requires, Guantanamo officials marked the section about the Saudi for redaction, stamping it secret. The account, they advised the Pentagon, revealed interrogation methods and techniques that were classified. The Pentagon wrote back that if the Guantanamo officials could not cite solid legal grounds for censoring the material, the document would be cleared. The memo from the Pentagon noted that the authors' lawyer had previously sued the Defense Department successfully over a manuscript that contained classified information and might do so again. The section was cleared for publication with very few changes. But last month the nine pages at issue were leaked, apparently by someone within the military, since the Pentagon memo, an internal document, was attached.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1027459,00.html

[cantwealljustgetalong]

417. Jack and bemildred...

Jack, this is what you might categorize as prurient, not UN peacekeeping paedophilia...I look forward to you admonishing bemildred accordingly...and, bemildred, I am in wonderment of how this is equates to the depravity of UN peacekeeping paedophilia...

[bemildred]

418. I put them up as examples of "selective outrage" as in post #309.

Glass houses and all that. Sexual misbehavior is so much more
"discussable" when it's someone else doing it.

I will gladly admit it's off the topic of why the left was wrong in Iraq.

[Name removed]

419. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bemildred]

420. Oh, I see the difference.

It's just the selective outrage that I was interested in.
To be sure the pedophilia is more reprehensible.

I disagree however with the idea that it is OK to mistreat anyone
because of ones self-appointed "military" status, or for speculative
information extraction, or for any reason at all. You have human rights
or you don't, there is no such thing as "expedient human rights".

Rules don't mean shit unless they are applied objectively. Once one
allows the subjective opinions of the government's hired stooges to
decide who has rights and who does not, one merely has government
controlled privileges.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

421. viva la difference...

questioning priorities is not the same as saying it is OK...


either you have human rights or you don't...

and with China, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Vietnam and Zimbabwe on the UN Human Rights Commission, you don't...

Human Rights Commissions don't mean shit if the rules are applied by human rights violators...

[bemildred]

424. You forgot the United States of America. nt

[bemildred]

427. Ex-U.S. Official in Iraq Says CPA Was 'Wild West'

Ex-Coalition Provisional Authority official Franklin Willis cited examples of this "chaos" at a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and said he believed most abuse and waste could have been avoided.


Willis showed a picture of himself and other U.S. officials holding up plastic-wrapped 'bricks' of $100 bills worth $2 million to pay security contractor Custer Battles, which the Defense Department has since suspended due to billing issues.


"The Custer Battles case, which while anecdotal, reflects a general pattern of waste and inefficiencies which could have been avoided," said Willis of contracting abuses in Iraq.


"In sum, inexperienced officials, fear of decision-making, lack of communications, minimal security, no banks and lots of money to spread around. This chaos I have referred to as a 'Wild West'," Willis, who was a senior aviation official for the CPA, told the hearing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1237447

[bemildred]

428. Former spy claims Australian government covered up Iraq prisoner abuse

A former Australian spy contradicted government claims that no Australian was involved in interrogating Iraqi prisoners, saying he himself witnessed and reported the alleged abuse of Iraqis by their US captors.

Rod Barton, a former senior analyst for the Defense Intelligence Organisation (DIO) and a long-time Iraq weapons inspector, said he personally interrogated an Iraqi detainee at Camp Cropper, a US center which held so-called "high value" prisoners.

"Someone was brought to me in an orange jumpsuit with a guard with a gun standing behind him," Barton told Four Corners, a news program to be broadcast later Monday on Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.

"Of course I didn't pull any fingernails out but I think it's misleading to say no Australians were involved, I was involved," he said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1237114

[bemildred]

429. Australian terror suspect says he was beaten, sexually humiliated

Now, who is it that is sick here?

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - An Australian terror suspect released from Guantanamo Bay says he was beaten, given electric shocks, sexually humiliated and nearly drowned while under U.S. supervision.

Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born former coffee shop owner and father of four, returned to his hometown of Sydney last month after being held for more than three years without charge. snip

He said three weeks after his capture, he was transferred to Egypt where he was tortured daily for six months before he was sent via Afghanistan to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He told Nine that an interrogator once lied to him that his family had been killed. He also claimed he was stripped naked and threatened with a dog he was told was trained to have sex with humans. Nine did not say where this treatment took place.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1235761

[Name removed]

432. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jack Rabbit]

436. Really?

Do I take it from this post that you find no fault with this sort of thing?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

439. I see the fault in it...

it does not make me hysterical, as some other things might...

[veronicarose]

443. some glass houses and all that need some windex---

It's a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice-cream and a quart of dog faeces and mix 'em together the result will taste more like the latter than the former. That's the problem with the UN. If you make the free nations and the thug states members of the same club, the danger isn't that they'll meet each other half-way but that the free world winds up going three-quarters, seven-eighths of the way. Thus the Oil-for-Fraud scandal: in the end, Saddam Hussein had a much shrewder understanding of the way the UN works than Bush and Blair did.

And, of course, corrupt organisations rarely stop at just one kind. If you don't want to bulk up your pension by skimming the Oil-for-Food programme, don't worry, whatever your bag, the UN can find somewhere that suits - in West Africa, it's Sex-for-Food, with aid workers demanding sexual services from locals as young as four; in Cambodia, it's drug dealing; in Kenya, it's the refugee extortion racket; in the Balkans, sex slaves.

But you get the general picture: on a UN peace mission, everyone gets his piece. Didier Bourguet, a UN staffer in Congo and the Central African Republic, enjoyed the pleasures of 12-year-old girls, and as a result is now on trial in France. His lawyer has said he was part of a UN paedophile network that transcends national boundaries.

Now how about this? The Third Infantry Division are raping nine-year olds in Ramadi. Ready, set, go! That thundering sound outside your window isn't the new IKEA sale, but the great herd of BBC/CNN/Independent/Guardian/New York Times/Le Monde/Sydney Morning Herald/Irish Times/Cork Examiner reporters stampeding to the Sunni Triangle. Whoa, hold up, lads, it's only hypothetical.

But think about it: the merest glimpse of a freaky West Virginia tramp leading an Abu Ghraib inmate around with girlie knickers on his head was enough to prompt calls for Rumsfeld's resignation, and for Ted Kennedy to charge that Saddam's torture chambers were now open "under new management", and for Robert Fisk to be driven into the kind of orgasmic frenzy unseen since his column on how much he enjoyed being beaten up by an Afghan mob: "Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi," wrote Fisk. "No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash."

Who's straining at the leash here? Down, boy. But, if Lynndie's smashed to pieces our entire morality with just one tug, Bush's Zionist neocons getting it on with Congolese kindergarteners would have the Independent calling for US expulsion from the UN - no, wait, from Planet Earth: slice it off from Maine to Hawaii and use one of those new Euro-Airbuses to drag it out round the back of Uranus.

But systemic UN child sex in at least 50 per cent of their missions? The transnational morality set can barely stifle their yawns. If you're going to rape prepubescent girls, make sure you're wearing a blue helmet.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;sessionid=EWMD2C5GC5G1PQFIQMFSM5OAVCBQ0JVC?xml=/opinion/2005/02/15/do1502.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/02/15/ixopinion.html

[bemildred]

445. We're not as bad as the UN?

Plus a lot of angry inchoerent rhetoric?
That's our defense? That's it?
Everybody else does it?

http://www.ecpatusa.org/military_invol_cp2.asp

http://www.preda.org/archives/1997/r9706181.htm

The US Military are trying to get a wider coverage of immunity from prosecution for US troops who commit crimes while visiting the Philippines. According to Karen S. Heath, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Manpower and Reserve Affairs, US forces already have limited immunity. The US military want to be able to issue their own Duty Certificates that will enable them to protect their men no matter where or under what circumstances they commit a crime. If the offender is abusing a child in a motel the navy could sign a piece of paper saying the man was on official assignment at the time and was therefore immune from prosecution. What new levels of absurdity and depravity have these officers descended to now?

Philippine officials who are inviting back the US Navy to our ports and are willing to grant all embracing immunity to US troops are already part of that depravity. They are giving away chunks of Philippine sovereignty, dignity and self-respect. No other nation would give up their women and children as prostitutes to foreign troops and a certificate of immunity to boot. The U.S. has no other need for access to 22 Philippine ports other than to get access to the brothels.

http://humantrafficking.com/humantrafficking/client/search.aspx?q=US+Military&start=0&count=100

http://www.newint.org/issue205/sex.htm

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11598

[bemildred]

446. It is the US and the UK that live in glass houses.

If you claim the right to be the moral arbiter of the World and it's
sole policeman based on your supposed dedication to morality,
democracy and human rights, then you have to walk the walk, not just
spout purple rhetoric while bombing the shit out of people that happen
to be in the way.

Arguments in the nature of "he started it" and "it was johnny's idea"
may work in the sixth grade, but in the adult world, it's the same rules
for everybody, and you are responsible for your willful acts.

If the US isn't willing to discipline itself or take a look outside its
own solipsistic vision of reality, it can and will be treated as the the
childish tyrant that it is.

[Jack Rabbit]

435. I considered admonishing him, but . . .

. . . since you are asking the question about how it relates, he seems to have made his point.

Here's a further lesson for you: learn it well.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

441. ah, so...

his was a point, mine was a red herring...

there's a logical fallacy in there somewhere...

[Jack Rabbit]

287. What point do we have here?

What part of "there were no WMDs" or "there were no ties to al Qaida" do some people not understand?

What does Theo Van Gogh's murder have to do with the invasion of Iraq? He was murdered by Islamic extremists. It has been well established by now that Saddam didn't have ties to those people. So what did the invasion of Iraq have to do with it? And, if it has nothing to with it, as it does not, how did invading Iraq make Theo Van Gogh safer?

Those still arguing for the justification of Bush's war crimes are the ones who have no point. All they can do it raise red herrings about French hypocrisy (yes, it exists) and the horror of Islamic extremings (yes, it exists). None of that will magically produce Saddam's biochemical arsenal. He still didn't have any weapons to give to people with whom he was not on speaking terms.

No matter how you slice it, the invasion of Iraq is what the Left said it was two years ago: a diversion away from any real war on terror; a colonial misadventure justified by a pack of lies.

And when we see the "Prime Minister" of Iraq relying on US troops slaughtering Iraqis for his hold on power, how can we say there is anything right with this picture? Tell me again Allawi is not a quisling or a colonial puppet.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

294. standard leftist same-old same-old...read this and weep...

...

Writing in the Financial Times, James Mann, a former Los Angeles Times reporter and author of a book about the Bush administration, dismissed neocon doctrine as a "spent force" and said that the foreign policy realism of big shots such as Henry Kissinger is "again ascendant."

The editor of Foreign Policy magazine, Moises Naim, scoffed that neoconservative ideas "lie buried in the sands of Iraq." On the right, Patrick J. Buchanan gloated that the "salad days" of the neocons were over.

There is only one problem with the critics' scenario: The opposite of what they predicted is actually occurring. Bush hasn't retreated an inch rhetorically and is stepping up the battle in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney is ensuring that the neocons are being promoted everywhere in the administration.

With Secretary of State Colin Powell gone, Cheney no longer faces even token opposition. Far from being headed for the political graveyard, neoconservatives are poised to become even more powerful in a second Bush term, while the "realists" — those who believe that moral crusading is costly and counterproductive in foreign policy — are sidelined.

The strengthening of the neocons' position begins but does not end with Bush's appointment of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of State. Though Rice is not a birthright neocon — indeed, she began her political ascent as a disciple of realist national security advisor Brent Scowcroft — she has burnished her credentials by championing Bush's sweeping push for democracy in the Middle East.

...

Will the continued sway of the neocons lead Bush into fresh disasters? Hardly. I predict Bush will successfully stabilize Iraq, and that the election there will surprise the world by being conducted openly and fairly. In all, he is far better off relying on the neocons than a crabbed, amoral realist doctrine. Abandoning Iraq and Afghanistan, as the realists counsel, would be a prescription for disaster.

In fact, the administration is in the process of creating the most harmonious foreign policy team in decades. Rice, who will be a formidable secretary of State, has a golden opportunity to insist on competence, not just utopian dreams, in implementing the president's pro-democracy vision.

Bush will face most opposition not from the Democrats but from moderate Republicans, who recoil at nation-building and human rights. They loathe the neoconservative stance, seeing it as a new incarnation of liberal interventionism. Big deal.

No doubt the new conventional wisdom will be that the longer Bush sticks to his hawkish course, the more disastrous his second term will become. But that prediction may prove just as false as the conviction that the neocons were headed for the ash heap of history.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-heilbrunn17nov17.story

[Jack Rabbit]

296. Horsepuckey

True, this is far from the Neocons last gasp. It would be a more positive sign if it were.

The Neocons are claiming a mandate to do as they please. You'll find that mandate in the same place you'll find Saddam's biochemical arsenal. It's a lot of hooey made up by the Neocons to justify past, present and future crimes.

No doubt the new conventional wisdom will be that the longer Bush sticks to his hawkish course, the more disastrous his second term will become. But that prediction may prove just as false as the conviction that the neocons were headed for the ash heap of history.

The writer of this piece, Mr. Heilbrunn, appears to be granting Bush his dubious claim of a mandate and says "ah, ha! it proves he was right!" Bush may have won this election -- perhaps even honestly, but we'll never know for sure -- but that doesn't prove that invading Iraq was a good idea any more than it proves the earth is flat.

Indeed, it should be the conventional wisdom that things will grow more disastrous in Bush's second terms. I certainly share that wisdom. He's already celebrating his "re-election" and his "mandate" by committing fresh war crimes in Fallujah and appointing fellow war criminals to head the Justice and State Departments. Mr Heilbrunn even names Elliott Abrams as a second-generation Neocon, omitting that he was convicted of lying about the Iran-Contra affair in the Reagan years. Perhaps he's also a second-generation war criminal. Lying to achieve foreign policy aims seems to be Bush's modus operandi.

In fact, the administration is in the process of creating the most harmonious foreign policy team in decades. Rice, who will be a formidable secretary of State, has a golden opportunity to insist on competence, not just utopian dreams, in implementing the president's pro-democracy vision.

Where does Heilbrunn get off calling Bush's vision "pro-democracy"? He stole one election (at least), pushes a law that makes public librarians into unwilling agents of a secret police and wants to strengthen it with legislation that will allow him or the AG to strip an American of his citizenship, operates the government in a veil of secrecy and lies to drum up support for a war of aggression. Is this how one promotes democracy? Give me a break.

Of course, he's promoting democracy the best way he knows how. Torturing prisoners in Abu Grhaib and Guantanamo and murdering the residents of Fallujah.

And competence? Talking about Bush or Dr. Rice and competence in the same sentence is risible. Yes, these two are so competent that they can look at a briefing entitled "Bin Laden plans to attack inside the US" that even talks about how (hijacked airplanes) and where (New York) and still not see anything specific. Again, give me a break.

There is only one problem with the critics' scenario: The opposite of what they predicted is actually occurring. Bush hasn't retreated an inch rhetorically and is stepping up the battle in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney is ensuring that the neocons are being promoted everywhere in the administration.

Bush hasn't retreated because he is a fool. Iraq is still a quagmire and it will still require brutality on a massive scale, such as we have witnessed in Fallujah, in order to "win."

Of course, the whore media, personified here by Mr. Heilbrunn, will tell us that it was all worthwhile and that Bush won a mandate. And Saddam really was a threat who had a vast biochemical arsenal and the world is flat after all.

Yes, I'm weeping as I read this nonsense. You should be, too.

[bemildred]

298. Mr. Heilbrunn doesn't seem to be whore media exactly.

He is an academic and think-tank sort of guy from what I can tell.
There seems to be a sort of arcane academic dispute between "realists"
and "neocons", there are some strange (to me) arguments out there
which Heilbrunn seems to be deeply engaged in, and this is part of
it. I suppose if you accept that Bush is a moral idealist the rest
follows, in fact most anything follows. I propose that rather than
argue about this, we just wait and see what the course of events have
to tell us about Mr. Heilbrunn's predictive capabilities. If they
pull off the election I will be impressed.

I consider both the "realists" and the "neocons" to be morally and
mentally deficient, but I suppose that is just more naive platitudes.
In any case it seems useless to argue.

[Jack Rabbit]

299. Since you bring up the 'moral vaues' of the invasion

From Heilbrunn's piece:

Will the continued sway of the neocons lead Bush into fresh disasters? Hardly. I predict Bush will successfully stabilize Iraq, and that the election there will surprise the world by being conducted openly and fairly. In all, he is far better off relying on the neocons than a crabbed, amoral realist doctrine.

It does seem strange to juxtapose the neocon world view, which justifies lying, torture, colonialism and war, with anything that might be called "amoral".

I won't be impressed if they pull off the election. They may pull off something resembling an election and call it one, just as they declared Iraq "sovereign" while installing an US-appointed "Prime Minister" who depends on US troops to remain in power and a legislative body that is forbidden to repeal the decrees of the American governor general.

[bemildred]

300. Eh, prediction is a mugs game.

We may get a Potemkin election, if fact you can guarantee it if
the COW remains in Iraq long enough, and it's clear the US' political
"leaders" are yet far from throwing in the towel.

On Capitol Hill, Military Warns of Being Under Strain

WASHINGTON — Continued fighting in Iraq is straining U.S. forces nearly to the breaking point, even as the Pentagon pumps more than $5.8 billion per month into sustaining its forces there, the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines told Congress on Wednesday.

---

For the Army, which has 110,000 soldiers serving in Iraq — five times as many troops as the Marine Corps — the strain is particularly acute, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said. Despite racing over the last year to install heavy armor on its fleet of more than 8,000 Humvees in Iraq, it has so far manufactured the armor for only half, he said. And not all of that has been installed on the vehicles.

The Army has sent more than 400,000 sets of body armor to its forces in Iraq but needs 373,000 more this year, Schoomaker said.

---

With the Iraq war approaching the two-year mark, Hunter suggested that continuing to fund the overall U.S. military on a peacetime basis — with periodic "supplemental" war spending — may no longer be sufficient.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-troops18nov18,0,5365123.story?coll=la-home-headlines0

Notice the talk about "peacetime basis".

==============

We've been hearing this stuff about "strain" from the beginning.
"The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get."
The core issue is manpower, and how they are going to redress that
shortage, and also the ability of the Iraqis to ramp up the rate
of attrition sufficiently to force the issue sooner.

Anyone with a memory who is paying attention will see that NOTHING
these fellows have predicted has come to pass in Iraq. The question
is will the American people support a transformation to "wartime
basis" in the Iraq war?

[NCN007]

291. last time i checked

the US has defeated a considerable number of social ills that threatened us with military force, like slavery, fascism, and communism. While Iraq may or may not be the right place to test this, should we not try to defeat militant islamic fundamentalism, considering it's one of the top national security threats we face today?

[DireStrike]

292. Sure...

But Iraq (a secular state) is not the place to do it, and dropping 200k troops off in the middle east is not the way to do it.

This is a war that needs to be fought in policies, information, and diplomacy. Not naked military conquest.

Anyway this Iraq war is about whether the Dollar or the Euro will become the worldwide oil standard. The dollar has been there for decades and now that there's a viable alternative... it could be a real problem for the US economy. In '99 Iraq changed their oil for food program over to Euros, and we've been looking for a way to shut that down ever since. Actually I'm not that knowledgeable about this, and I'm just parroting some articles I've read recently. But it makes perfect sense to me.

On another note I'd like to point out that communism is not inherently militarily threatening to the US. Plenty of governments and people backed that threat.

[Jack Rabbit]

293. Response ot NCN007

The brief answer to your question is Yes, we should attempt to contain the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. That still has nothing to do with why Bush invaded Iraq.

Saddam represented a number of evils, but not an immediate threat to the US or even his weakest neighbor. We have better things to do with 140,000 troops than keep them on occupation duty in a country that doesn't want us there.

[DireStrike]

289. LOL!

"George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but he—and the U.S. armed forces—have objectively done more for secularism than the whole of the American agnostic community combined and doubled."

All I have to do is point out the faith based initiatives to show that this claim is false.

1) Your point is off topic.
2) It's wrong.

[leesa]

288. His people are far less free than when Saddam was in control.

Pure propaganda.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

301. The Truth About Iraq...

Ask Iraqis about the country's situation, and you get a hopeful picture.


John Kerry is playing the prophet of doom in the most important foreign policy initiative of our generation. In Pennsylvania, Kerry described Iraq as "the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time." In New York, he opined that murderous cleric Moqtada al-Sadr "holds more sway in suburbs of Baghdad than the prime minister." In Columbus, the senator claimed to have a more accurate perspective on the situation in Iraq than did interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, whose job-approval rating of 66 percent among Iraqis, it's worth noting, is higher than Kerry's 46 percent among Americans. Kerry, of course, has never set foot in Iraq.

I spent nine months there, conducting some 70 focus groups, working on about a dozen public opinion polls, and advising the former Administrator, Ambassador Paul Bremer, on the state of Iraqi public opinion. Whatever you might hear from Kerry, Michael Moore, the mainstream media, and anyone else whose desire to defeat President Bush is more important to them than the fate of the Iraqi people, those who know best what's going on in Iraq—the Iraqis themselves—are optimistic about the future. (To help Americans understand what the Iraqi people already know, I recently founded TheTruthAboutIraq.org, which conducts statistical research in Iraq.)

Iraqis consistently say in nationwide polls that the situation in their country is improving. In polls conducted over the course of the summer, for example, more than half of Iraqis said that their country is on the right track. (Compare this with Michigan, where Governor Jennifer Granholm, a rising star in the Democratic Party, has inspired only 34 percent of residents to say that their state is on the right track.)

Other polling data are equally promising. The vast majority of Iraqis—72 percent—see the same benefits in democracy as Americans do: the hope of peace, stability, and a better life. Most polls show that a no less sizable majority of Iraqis (75 percent) are moderate democrats and want to vote for their leaders rather than have religious clerics appoint them.

In a recent speech, Kerry charged that Saddam's brutality "was not, in itself, a reason to go to war." Iraqis disagree, as should any supporter of human rights. More than 60 percent of Baghdad residents think that any price they are paying now is worth it to be rid of Saddam—a percentage that increases to 74 percent among the Shi'a sect of Islam, those most oppressed by Saddam.

These figures are easy to understand when you look at another set of statistics. In an op-ed circulated earlier this year among the more than 200 independent newspapers now published in Iraq, an Iraqi democratic activist observed that Saddam tortured and killed as many as 750,000 of his own people—more than five times the number of Japanese killed in the Hiroshima blast. Iraqis don't understand the debate about whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was a weapon of mass destruction, in their view.

UNICEF, hardly an apologist for the Bush administration, estimates that 5,000 Iraqi children a month died of starvation and malnutrition while Saddam siphoned funds from the UN's Oil for Food program to build Superdome-size palaces and enrich French politicians. Americans are only now learning of the extent of Saddam's corruption of this humanitarian program; the Iraqis have known about it for quite some time. When asked on a poll to rate their confidence in the UN, Iraqis gave the organization a 2.9 on a scale of 1 to 4, with a 4 meaning absolutely no confidence. In contrast, the Iraqi people do have confidence in their own institutions. More than 60 percent of Iraqis tell pollsters that the government has done a good job since the June 28 handover.

..

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_sndgs01.html

[Jack Rabbit]

302. About the author

Steven E. Moore is a political consultant and partner in the Sacramento-based firm Gorton Moore International. He advised L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

He is currently listed as the executive director of the website truthaboutiraq. According to his own bio on the site "for most of the last year, California political consultant Steven Moore advised Ambassador Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority on Iraqi public opinion."

-- Disfinopedia

[Saeba]

303. May I ask you a question?

Why do you argue with someone who refuses reality?

I mean that even the official propaganda doesn’t dare anymore to push such fantasy as presented in post 301. I’m no surprised by this post as its writer keeps the same unreal discourse from the beginning, but I’m wondering what you are expecting from someone who wrote sincerely “Bush's Secularist Triumph�.:evilgrin:

[Jack Rabbit]

304. Well, consider my hero . . .

http://www.dur.ac.uk/modern.languages/depts/spanish/Year4/quixindex.htm

[Saeba]

305. Well, it's an interesting answer...

That invites to a lot of reflexions.

Anyway, thank for your reply, and to quote a famous French author:

“-Have you read 'Don Quixote'?
-I have! And doff my hat at th' mad knight-errant's name.”

:hi:

[Jack Rabbit]

306. Welcome to DU, Saeba

!!

[cantwealljustgetalong]

319. "why argue with someone who refuses reality"...

sounds like Saeba is Sancho...

[Jack Rabbit]

313. Editors of The Nation (November 18): No Victory in Falluja

From The Nation
Dated Thursday November 18

No Victory in Falluja

After a week of fighting, US military commanders have proclaimed victory in the battle for Falluja. Yet with this military success has come an even larger setback for the United States and the Allawi government in Iraq. No sooner had American forces begun to enter Falluja than the insurgency escalated in other cities across central Iraq, and the predictable political backlash within the Sunni community began. As a result, Sunni participation in the elections is more uncertain than it was before the attack, and US forces face an even more hostile population in this region of Iraq and yet another humanitarian crisis.

The purpose of the Falluja campaign was to pacify the strategic Sunni triangle in time for the elections planned for January. By ridding Falluja of foreign fighters and hard-core Saddamists, the Pentagon believed it could blunt the insurgency by denying it a key staging center. It also believed it could help the Allawi government lure disgruntled Sunnis back into the political process. On the basis of what we've seen so far, the campaign has failed on both counts. By the Pentagon's own admission, a large number of the insurgents, including many key leaders, filtered out of Falluja before the battle began. And as US forces concentrated on Falluja, insurgents increased their attacks in other parts of the country. Indeed, insurgents' gains arguably outstripped their temporary loss of Falluja, as they reoccupied the city center of Ramadi, renewed their attack on previously pacified Samarra and left government authority tottering in the key city of Mosul.


The Allawi government's strategy of bringing more Sunnis into the process has been damaged. The initial response of the Sunni leadership was overwhelmingly negative; the most prominent Sunni party threatened to withdraw from the interim government, and leading Sunni clerics called for an election boycott. Public outcry over the Falluja attack may make it difficult for Sunni groups to cooperate with Allawi in the run-up to the elections or to participate in a government over which he presides.

In short, contraty to the nonsense of Mr. Heilbrunn (post 204) and the outright propagand of Mr. Moore (post 301):

• Iraq is a mess;
• People in Iraq are discontent;
• Allawi is a screw up;
• The Left was right.

[Jack Rabbit]

314. David Corn (The Nation, November 22): The Road to BIAP

From The Nation
Dated Monday November 22

The Road to BIAP
By David Corn

Days ago, I was speaking with a security consultant freshly back from a trip to Iraq, and I asked for his prognosis. It's terrible, he said. We're not winning. "What about Fallujah?" I inquired. "Hasn't the city been retaken?" "Forget Falluja," this former military officer said. "All you have to know is the road to BIAP cannot be traveled safely."

BIAP--that's the Baghdad International Airport. And since the invasion this six mile stretch of road has been insecure, a hair-raising and dangerous strip of territory. When my friend was making arrangements to travel to Baghdad--he's in search of small-scale reconstruction contracts that can be fulfilled using Iraqi workers--he jokingly told his partners in Iraq that when they pick him up at the airport they should bring an AK-47 he could use. Well, upon his arrival at BIAP (pronounced BYE-APP), he was met by two cars packed with armed bodyguards, and someone did toss him a gun. Then off they went, practically flying down the BIAP road--which he says bears an uncanny resemblance to the Dulles airport road, which meanders through rolling hills of suburbia--at 80 miles per hour. A ride to the airport these days, he was told, can cost up to $6000. (That's not a typo.)

He encountered no trouble. But he had in his mind an ambush that happened a few months back on the BIAP road. Two SUVs were carrying private security contractors who work for Blackwater Security Consulting. (In April, four Blackwater employees were killed in Fallujah; the bodies of two of them were burnt by mobs and hung from a bridge.) A van came flying down an access road and pulled alongside the lead SUV. The door to van opened and machine-gun fire blasted the SUV, which came to a halt. The rear SUV was forced to a stop. A pitched battle ensued, with the Blackwater employees firing back until the fuel tanks of their vehicles exploded. At least three Blackwater employees were killed. My source says he was told four were killed. (There was little media coverage of this incident.) And all the insurgents escaped. "This was in the afternoon!" my friend exclaimed. "Nothing stops them from attacking. Nothing stops them from getting away. Imagine this on the road to Dulles. There must have been at least fifteen of them, pulling off a classic L-ambush. Now what does this tell the Iraqi people? That the Americans cannot secure a small stretch of highway. It runs straight from the airport to the entrance of the Green Zone. And it's not secure. That says it all."

It does--to be polite about it--raise questions. In the aftermath of the Fallujah offensive, military commanders have told reporters that the United States has the insurgents on the run. But the "win" in Fallujah has sparked fighting elsewhere: Mosul, Ramadi, Samarra, Baghdad, and Baqubah. And this "win" has prompted talk that the US military may need an extra 3000 to 5000 troops because securing Fallujah and overseeing reconstruction there will tie up a large number of American soldiers. As The Washington Post reports, senior military officials have predicted a gap in desired troop strength over the next two to three months--which is, of course, the period leading up to and including the scheduled January 30 national assembly elections.

And, in addition to the points raised at the foot of post 313, American colonialists have failed to secure Iraq and cannot assure anyone's safety. The Left was right when it predicted that the colonialists would face an intense popular uprising.

[bemildred]

315. That says it all, doesn't it? nt

[cantwealljustgetalong]

316. no, this says it all...

Murder by Any Other Name
The rest of the world may be tiring of jihad, but The Nation isn't.
By Christopher Hitchens

...

When I quit writing my column for The Nation a couple of years ago, I wrote semi-sarcastically that it had become an echo chamber for those who were more afraid of John Ashcroft than Osama Bin Laden. I honestly did not then expect to find it publishing actual endorsements of jihad. But, as Marxism taught me, the logic of history and politics is a pitiless one. The antiwar isolationist "left" started by being merely "status quo": opposing regime change and hinting at moral equivalence between Bush's "terrorism" and the other sort. This conservative position didn't take very long to metastasize into a flat-out reactionary one, with Michael Moore saying that the Iraqi "resistance" was the equivalent of the Revolutionary Minutemen, Tariq Ali calling for solidarity with the "insurgents," and now Ms. Klein, among many others, wanting to bring the war home because any kind of anti-Americanism is better than none at all. These fellow-travelers with fascism are also changing ships on a falling tide: Their applause for the holy warriors comes at a time when wide swathes of the Arab and Muslim world are sickening of the mindless blasphemy and the sectarian bigotry. It took an effort for American pseudo-radicals to be outflanked on the left by Ayatollah Sistani, but they managed it somehow.

http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2106324/

[bemildred]

317. Jingo name calling is not an argument.

It is rather an evasion of having to come up with one.
Mr. Hitchens has none that I can see, he just belabors everyone he
dislikes with pejorative labels. His introduction says it all:

"Not to exaggerate or generalize or anything", which is all he does
from there on out. His writing sucks too.

---

The piece Jack posted does have an argument, that is: that since
we cannot even secure the road to the airport, what chance is there that
we will be able to secure Iraq? And implicitly, if you cannot in fact
set the place in order, were it not better to at least not fuck it up
any worse than it is already?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

320. worse than...

leaving the status quo as it was under Saddam with the UN food-for-oil pilfering at the expense of the Iraqi people indefinitely?...

worse than mass killings, summary executions, detentions, attacks on minorities overlayed with economic sanctions, no-fly zones, and periodic military attacks...

as opposed to ending the collateral damage inherent in containment and the chance of creating a functioning democratic type government in lieu of all that?...

[Name removed]

321. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jack Rabbit]

322. Let's give Bush credit where credit is due.

Gee, and we think Bush is an idiot. However, it takes genius to screw up Iraq more than Saddam did. So let's hand it to the Frat Boy!!

The Nation was also kind enough last week to draw our attention to this piece from the Washington Post. Perhaps Mr. Along and the neocons whose self-serving propaganda he has been posting to this thread for almost a year should read it, since they seem to be unaware of these facts. Ari Berman in The Nation sums it up nicely (scroll down to the Daily Outrage for 11/24):

Epidemics

** 400,000 Iraqi children suffer from chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein, according to a UN development report. Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi--a war-torn central African nation--and is far above both Uganda and Haiti.

** 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access to nothing but contaminated drinking water.

** Hepatitis outbreaks have doubled since the war began.

Casualties

** One hundred and six US soldiers died in November, making the not-yet-completed month the deadliest since April's 135 deaths. Forty-one Americans died and 425 were wounded in the battle for Falluja, raising total US killed to 1,227.

** Iraqi civilian casualties range from 15,000-100,000. John Hopkins University estimates the figure at over 40,000 with 90 percent certainty.

Resistance

** According to military statistics, the number of insurgents has quadrupled since last year, from 5,000 to 20,000. A British general places the insurgency at 40-50,000 fighters.

** A confidential Marine report predicted that the insurgency would continue to grow in the run-up to the January 30 election. According to director of reconstruction William Taylor, security "is worse today than it was, and we are having greater difficulties" compared to six weeks ago in cities such as Bagdhad, Falluja, Ramadi, Samarra and Mosul.

Oh, about the reconstruction effort:

** Of the $18.4 billion in reconstruction funds allocated last year by Congress, the US has spent only $1.7 billion.

** Nationwide electricity levels are down 25 percent since the prewar days, and 66 percent lower in Baghdad.

** The value of the Iraqi currency--the Dinar--dropped 25 percent compared to the US dollar in the past year (which didn't have a great year itself!)

And finally, there is the little matter of how this is going down in Iraq:

** Only 33 percent of Iraqis think they're better off now than before the war, as a Gallup poll discovered.

** Just 36 percent believe the interim government shares their values.

** 94 percent say Baghdad is more dangerous than it was before the war.

** 66.6 believe the US occupation could start a civil war.

** 80 percent want the US to leave directly after the January elections.

How does that jive with what Mr. Moore (Bremer's old buddy) says in post 301?

This mess was predictable, and was predicted by the Left prior to the invasion. So how was the Left wrong? After nearly one year, Mr. Along has failed to answer that question.

Mr. Along continues to hold out hope for the high-sounding talk about bringing democracy to Iraq. We might call that the great neocon-game. As American troops entered Baghdad, the oil ministry was secured and hospitals were looted. That should tell anyone who has been wondering where the neocons' priorities lay in Iraq, and it isn't with the people (in case Mr. Along has forgotten, that is what the demo in democracy means). It was plain to the Left before the invasion that resources, not democracy, was the concern of the neocons.

If the Left had been wrong, we wouldn't have this state affairs. But we do have this state of affairs, brought to you by bone-headed right wing ideologues. The Left was right.

[bemildred]

324. Car bomb damages two buses; temporarily closes Airport Road ...

in Western Baghdad.

Notice the "buses".
Notice the "no casualties reported" too.
Then look at the "buses" again.

http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=31875

[Jack Rabbit]

325. Very interesting; let's be thankful they weren't really 'buses'

The "buses" are security vehicles. It should make one wonder if this attack on US-trained Iraqi security force wasn't another inside job; that should in turn make one wonder if the the Iraqi security forces aren't something like the US Communist Party during the Cold War, when it would have dried up if the FBI informants simply resigned their membership. Would there be any Iraqi security force if the resistance's infiltrators just left?

If they were really buses, they couldn't credibly state "no casualties reported," as they do. Note that the end source of the information is CenCom (click the link on the post that accompanies the photo). Why do they want us to think that Iraqi security vehicles are "buses" and that no one is hurt or killed when Iraqi buses are bombed?

[bemildred]

326. Well, they didn't say: "no casualties".

Just "no casualties reported". No doubt they will get around
to "reporting" them in due course.

[Jack Rabbit]

327. Oh, I don't know. You know how the neo-cons operate

What they don't know won't outrage us. Until we find out. Then they'll blame those who didn't tell us for not telling us sooner, even though they were told not to tell us at all.

[Jack Rabbit]

328. BBC (Nov 30): Iraq health care 'in deep crisis'

From the BBC Online
Dated Tuesday November 30, 2004

Iraq health care "in deep crisis"

Iraq's health system is in a far worse condition than before the war, a British medical charity says.

Doctors from the group Medact conducted surveys with international aid groups and Iraqi health workers in September.

They exposed poor sanitation in many hospitals, shortages of drugs and qualified staff and huge gaps in services for mothers and children.

Medact, which monitors healthcare in post-conflict areas, called for an inquiry into the situation.

My, my. What would Mr. Heilbrunn and Mr. Moore have to say to this? How about Mr. Hitchens?

[Lithos]

330. Had the feeling that was the case

Hard to rebuild a country when you are destroying it every day with the world's most advanced military machine.

L-

[bemildred]

329. From Guernica to Fallujah

The facts of the occupation
The "success" of US counterinsurgency efforts can also effectively be measured against the occupation record so far.
# Dead Iraqi civilians are estimated to be anything from 15,000 to 100,000 (the British Lancet report). Johns Hopkins University is 90% certain there are more than 40,000 dead civilians.
# The resistance was around 5,000 strong in late 2003. Now it is at least 20,000 strong. Some British generals put them at 50,000 strong - and counting.
# Of the US$18.4 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds, Washington/Baghdad has spent only $1.7 billion. Our Baghdad sources confirm the capital has degenerated into a giant, hyper-violent slum, getting worse by the day. There's 25% less electricity now compared with Saddam times in early 2003 - 66% less in Baghdad.
# At least 400,000 Iraqi children suffer from chronic diarrhea and have almost no protein, according to a UN development report. Sixty percent of rural Iraqis and 20% of urban Iraqis are forced to drink contaminated water.
# According to a Gallup poll - taken before the Fallujah massacre - only 33% of respondents thought their lives were better than before the war. Ninety-four percent said Baghdad was more dangerous. Sixty-six percent believed the occupation could degenerate into a civil war. And 80% wanted the occupation over right after the January 30 elections.

One thousand Guernicas
What Americans and US corporate media seem incapable of understanding is that counterinsurgency operations - however massive and deadly - simply are not enough to break the back of wars of national liberation. The Fallujah offensive was a typical demonstration of the power of which Washington "chicken hawks" are fond. But if they had read their Che Guevara (Episodes in the Cuban Revolutionary War) and their General Vo Nguyen Giap (Writings) of the Vietnam resistance correctly, they would have seen that instilling fear and terror is useless as a strategy of capturing hearts and minds. No wonder the majority of Sunnis (the "water") keep supporting the resistance (the "fish") with weapons, cash and shelter, and are inclined to boycott the elections.

Much more than grieve over the dead and the rubble to which Fallujah was reduced, they took note of two very important facts. Not a single government agency, be it American or Iraqi, offered any kind of assistance to the 200,000-plus residents who in a flash were turned into refugees: instead they turned off water and electricity in the city. And the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was nowhere to be seen - as well as any other representative of the "international community". The real story of what happened to Fallujah is being told by these 200,000-plus new refugees, and a few lucky hundreds who managed to escape during the battle. They are the Picassos who will paint the new Guernica for future historians.

As soon as these thousands of refugees return home, so will the bulk of the resistance: after all they are residents of Fallujah themselves, enjoying total local support; and they will certainly attack any US-trained kind of force left behind to protect whatever US-installed puppet government is put in place. So the Americans may leave the "house of Satan", and then the Fallujah mujahideen Shura (council) that was running the city since last April inevitably will be back to power; or the Americans may stay in Fallujah, and the resistance will continue to wreak havoc in a string of other cities in the Sunni heartland. The result will be the same: the new Guernica sacrificed for nothing.

Asia Times

[Jack Rabbit]

331. Sunday Herald (Dec 5): US admits the war for ‘hearts and minds’ is lost

From the Sunday Herald (Glasgow)
Dated Sunday December 5, 2004

US admits the war for ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq is now lost
Pentagon report reveals catalogue of failure
By Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor

The Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy” of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East.
The mea culpa is contained in a shockingly frank “strategic communications” report, written this autumn by the Defence Science Board for Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld.

On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds”, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended”.

“American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.”

Read more. See also discussion in Latest Breaking News

Now we know what people like Mr. Heilbrunn and Mr. Moore say when they're not writing the kind of nonsense posted on this thread.

By the way, where could one have heard a prediction that the invasion of Iraq would backfire on Arab public opinion, especially that in Iraq itself? At anti-war rallies prior to the invasion.

The Left was right.

[Fitz_G]

332. If you view this war as a liberation

Then you are exactly right. The far right. This war is a desperate attempt for the U.S. to cling to a position of dominance in the world. As the Tennessee Guardsman proved in his rebuke of Rumsfeld, the U.S. no longer has the ability to mobilize its manufacturing as needed. With that, come some precarious situations indeed. Most notably, the ease at which critical supplies and resources can be impeded. With the added vulnerability of a manufacturing base abroad, our need to intervene militarily will likely increase. The only other alternative is to control the one resource every country needs to be competitive--oil.

Even with the control of oil, our need to frequently engage militarily is still likely to increase. Our trade deficit now means that 22 cents from every tax dollar are going to pay that debt off. The only way for our tax base to remain the same is to retain current consumption levels, yet that wealth is being sucked out our system. As our economy continues to deteriorate, our need to secure other financial stability will likely increase as well--all while we try to maintain current levels of protection for our present assets and necessities abroad.

Long story less long, U.S. military action is likely to increase, giving further wind to the sails of our enemies and their pools of recruitment. It's a position that can only end, and begin again, with the United States as the world's latest evil and the world united against us.

[Jack Rabbit]

333. Happy birthday to this thread

This thread is one year old today.

As a birthday present, I dust off my piece from the one-year anniversay of the massive peace marches of February 2003; this thread was the inspiration of much of it.

From Democratic Underground
Dated Saturday February 14, 2004

The Left Was Right
By Jack Rabbit

One year ago this weekend, an estimated ten million human beings marched world wide against Mr. Bush's planned invasion of Iraq. They marched in major cities such as London, Madrid and Canberra, capitals of Mr. Bush's military and diplomatic partners in what passed for a broad coalition; they marched in Paris, Berlin, Tokyo and other major capitals of the world; they marched in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities of the United States, including San Francisco, where this writer marched with an estimated 200,000 others.

The message was clear: on one side stood George W. Bush, presumptive President of the United States, his aides and PNAC think-tankers, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his aides and a small handful of other world leaders, set to invade a sovereign state with no provocation; on the other stood the people of the world, a teeming mass of humanity, led by the political Left to oppose them . . . .

One year later, we have every right to hold our heads high. We of the Left were right.

The left was right on all counts. As it turns out, Saddam was a paper tiger; there was no imminent threat. Insofar as he was a threat, Saddam was contained; for twelve years since being expelled from Kuwait, all his saber rattling was nothing but bluster. Saddam had no ties to al Qaida, let alone any part in the September 11 attacks. What Islamic fundamentalist terror organization operated in Iraq operated in Kurdish regions beyond Saddam's control. The left said there was no justification for the war, and there was none. The left was right.

The left said talk of the Iraqi people welcoming the invaders with open arms and roses was nonsense. The Iraqi people know the difference between liberation and colonial occupation. They are resisting occupation. Also decried as nonsense was talk of going into Iraq to democratize the Middle East. Bush loses an election and seizes power, tramples on the Bill of Rights and human rights treaties, operates what should be an open government in secret and sends troops into combat after giving false justifications for the act. The idea that such a man would be interested in bringing democracy and the rule of law to Iraq is ludicrous . . . The invasion has not brought democracy to Iraq. The left was right.

The left said that Bush's cronies would profit from the invasion . . . The left was right.

The left said the occupation following the invasion would become a quagmire . . . The left was right.

Read more.

[bemildred]

335. "One year ago this weekend, an estimated ten million human beings marched"

And they were correct, and they get more correct all the time.
(I just can't call them "right" somehow ...).

Here's to the thread that would not die.
:party: :party: :party:

[Jack Rabbit]

334. Happy birthday to this thread, part 2

Since the subject of this thread is the left being wrong about the capture of Saddam, let's see what this lefty had to say about that one year ago.

From Democratic Underground
Dated Wednesday December 17, 2003

The Downfall of Tyrants
By Jack Rabbit

Saddam Hussein was one of the major criminals of his time. He can be charged with waging one war of aggression against Iran and another against Kuwait and genocide against the Kurds of his own country. He was guilty of mass murder, religious persecution and of organizing and operating a brutal police state. He personally profited from the diversion of oil revenues that were supposed to be used to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people following the 1991 war and the imposition of sanctions.

Should he ever face justice, either in an Iraqi court or a duly constituted international tribunal, the trial could conceivably take years. The evidence that could be presented against him is voluminous. Plato defined a tyrant as one who is ruled by his passions rather than reason and will break every sacred bound in order to satisfy his appetites. That is a good description of Saddam.

Saddam has fallen. However, as a result the world is not a safer, better place, as one should expect. It is a more dangerous one. Indeed, even American citizens are less safe now than before as a result of the action of their own government. How could this have come about?

The truth is that the monster Saddam was not vanquished by a hero, but simply devoured by a more powerful monster. There is a right and wrong way to go about any task, including the ousting of a brutal dictator, and the overthrow of Saddam was brought about in the worst way possible. The operation was motivated by no real desire for justice, but by greed and a lust for power.

The ouster of Saddam should have been a clear call for universal rejoicing; instead, the cheers must be tempered. The Iraqi people are not free. They have had the yoke of one tyrant lifted from their shoulders, only to be replaced with the yoke of another. If the new rulers of Iraq are morally superior to the old ones, it is only because must of us hold theft to be less of a crime than murder. Nevertheless, both murderers and thieves should be locked up somewhere remote, where they can do honest men and women no harm . . . .

The Bushies should spare us the talk of invading Iraq to make the lives of Iraqis better. It was fought to line the pockets of Mr. Bush's cronies. If Iraqi lives got better as a result, so much the better; but if not - well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Iraqi lives will not get better until this set of priorities change. As of now, we have only succeeded in replacing a gang of murderers with a gang of thieves. That's only a marginal improvement.

Consequently, the Iraqis are resisting the occupation. Those who believe Saddam's capture will alleviate Iraqi resistance will be disappointed. The Iraqi people want none of the past that was Saddam, but neither do they want the future which Bush would impose on them. They can run their country in their own interests better than Bush and his friends can and they know it. If Saddam's overthrow is to have any positive meaning, then we need to get out of the way and let them run it. Freedom and self-determination is their natural right. A new, international team is needed to transition Iraq to self-rule.

Read more.

Since this was written, events in Abu Ghraib and Falluja have served to show that this gang of thieves is also willing to murder. There is precious little difference between dropping poison gas on a dissident population and dropping fire bombs on a dissident population. Bush and his aides deserve to be brought to justice every bit as much as Saddam and his.

Prior to the war, the left predicted that the resisistance to the occupation would be widespread and fierce and that the means to put it down would be brutal. This was an accurate prediction. In this article, this lefty dismissed any idea that the capture of Saddam would put any dent in Iraqi resistance to occupation, since most of the resistance is aimed at removing Iraq's present colonial regime, not in restoring a past tyrant. This, too, turned out to be accurate.

The left was right.

[Jack Rabbit]

336. Naomi Klein (The Nation, 12/22/2004): You Break It, You Pay For It

From The Nation
Issue of January 10, 2005
Posted online Wednesday December 22

You Break It, You Pay For It
By Naomi Klein

So it turns out Pottery Barn doesn't even have a rule that says, "You break it, you own it." According to a company spokesperson, "in the rare instance that something is broken in the store, it's written off as a loss." Yet the nonexistent policy of a store selling $80 corkscrews continues to wield more influence in the United States than the Geneva Conventions and the US Army's Law of Land Warfare combined. As Bob Woodward has noted, Colin Powell invoked "the Pottery Barn rule" before the invasion, while John Kerry pledged his allegiance to it during the first presidential debate. And the imaginary rule is still the favored blunt instrument with which to whack anyone who dares to suggest that the time has come to withdraw troops from Iraq: Sure the war is a disaster, the argument goes, but we can't stop now--you break it, you own it.

Though not invoking the chain store by name, Nicholas Kristof laid out this argument in a recent New York Times column. "Our mistaken invasion has left millions of Iraqis desperately vulnerable, and it would be inhumane to abandon them now. If we stay in Iraq, there is still some hope that Iraqis will come to enjoy security and better lives, but if we pull out we will be condemning Iraqis to anarchy, terrorism and starvation, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of children over the next decade."


Let's start with the idea that the United States is helping to provide security. On the contrary, the presence of US troops is provoking violence on a daily basis. The truth is that as long as the troops remain, the country's entire security apparatus--occupation forces as well as Iraqi soldiers and police officers--will be exclusively dedicated to fending off resistance attacks, leaving a security vacuum when it comes to protecting regular Iraqis. If the troops pulled out, Iraqis would still face insecurity, but they would be able to devote their local security resources to regaining control over their cities and neighborhoods.

As for preventing "anarchy," the US plan to bring elections to Iraq seems designed to spark a civil war--the civil war needed to justify an ongoing presence for US troops no matter who wins the elections. It was always clear that the Shiite majority, which has been calling for immediate elections for more than a year, was never going to accept any delay in the election timetable. And it was equally clear that by destroying Falluja in the name of preparing the city for elections, much of the Sunni leadership would be forced to call for an election boycott.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

337. Linda McQuaig (Toronto Star, 12/26/2004): History will show U.S. lusted af

From the Toronto Star
Dated Sunday December 26

History will show U.S. lusted after oil
By Linda McQuaig

Decades from now, historians will likely calmly discuss the war currently raging in Iraq, and identify oil as one of the key factors that led to it.

They will point to the growing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, the importance of oil in the rising competition between the U.S. and China, and the huge untapped store of oil lying unprotected under the Iraqi sand. It will all probably seem fairly obvious.

Just don't expect to hear this sort of discussion now, however, when it might actually make a difference.

In fact, a year-and-a-half into the U.S. occupation of Iraq, with the carnage over there spiralling ever more out of control, don't expect media discussions of Iraq to stray much beyond the issue of "fighting terrorism."


Indeed, while ordinary people around the world apparently suspect Washington was motivated by oil, not terrorism, there continues to be a strange unwillingness in the mainstream media to probe such a possibility.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

338. Joseph Galloway (Knight Ridder Press): Neo-Cons Can't Escape Responsibilit

From Knight-Ridder via CommonDreams
Dated Wednesday December 29

Neo-Cons Can`t Escape Responsibility for their Iraq Miscalculations
By Joseph Galloway
Senior Military Correspondent, Knight Ridder Newspapers

The most curious turn of the worm this season is the attack by the neo-conservatives on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the failures in Iraq.

It should be noted that until now Rumsfeld was the darling of that same bunch. He hired a batch of them as his most trusted aides and assistants in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Paul Wolfowitz as his undersecretary. Douglas Feith as his chief of planning. He installed the dean of the pack, Richard Perle, as chairman of the Defense Policy Board for a time . . . .

Now, suddenly, the voice of the neo-conservative movement, William Kristol, editor of The Standard, suggests that Rumsfeld has fouled up everything in Iraq and ought to be fired for his failures. Ditto, writes Tom Donnelly of the right-thinking American Enterprise Institute.

Rumsfeld himself was never a neo-conservative. He just found them useful as he took over the Pentagon for the second time. Clearly the neo-cons found Rumsfeld useful as well as they pushed their ideas on transforming the Middle East.

Read more.

[bemildred]

339. A Mire of Death, Lies and Atrocities

Which leads us to the one clear fact about the last year of chaos and anarchy and brutality in Iraq. We still do not know who our enemies are. Save for the one name, "Zarqawi", the Americans--with all the billions of dollars they have thrown into intelligence, their CIA mainframe computers and their huge payments to informers--simply do not know whom they are fighting. They "recapture" Samarra--three times--and then they lose it again. They "recapture" Fallujah and then they lose it again. They cannot even control the main streets of Baghdad.

Who would have believed, in 2003, as US forces drove into Baghdad, that within two years they would be mired in their biggest guerrilla war since Vietnam? Those few of us who predicted just that--and The Independent was among them--were derided as nay-sayers, doom-mongers, pessimists.

Iraq is now proving all over again what we should have learned in Lebanon and Palestine/Israel: that Arabs have lost their fear. It has been a slow process. But a quarter of a century ago, the Arabs lived in chains, cowed by occupiers and oppressive regimes. They were a submissive society and they did as they were told. The Israelis even used a "Palestinian police force" to help them in their occupation. Not any more. The biggest development in the Middle East over the past 30 years has been this shaking off of fear. Fear--of the occupier, of the dictator--is something that you cannot re-inject into people. And this, I suspect, is what has happened in Iraq.

---

The American columnist Tom Friedman, in one of his less messianic articles, posed a good question before the 2003 invasion. Who knows, he asked, what bats will fly out of the box when we get to Baghdad? Well, now we know. So we should repeat Lawrence's chilling remark--without the quotation marks and the date 1920. We are today not far from a disaster.

The Dreaded CounterPunch/Fisk Combination

[forgethell]

340. Will this

thread never die?

[bemildred]

341. Not if you keep kicking it.

Have you seen the porn thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2874684&mesg_id=2874684

[Jack Rabbit]

342. Dahr Jamail (TomDispatch.com): Iraq -- the Devastation

From TomDispatch.com via CommonDreams
Dated Friday January 7, 2005

Iraq: The Devastation
By Dahr Jamail

The devastation of Iraq? Where do I start? After working 7 of the last 12 months in Iraq, I'm still overwhelmed by even the thought of trying to describe this.

The illegal war and occupation of Iraq was waged for three reasons, according to the Bush administration. First for weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found. Second, because the regime of Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda, which Mr. Bush has personally admitted have never been proven. The third reason -- embedded in the very name of the invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom -- was to liberate the Iraqi people.

So Iraq is now a liberated country.

I've been in liberated Baghdad and environs on and off for 12 months, including being inside Fallujah during the April siege and having warning shots fired over my head more than once by soldiers. I've traveled in the south, north, and extensively around central Iraq. What I saw in the first months of 2004, however, when it was easier for a foreign reporter to travel the country, offered a powerful -- even predictive -- taste of the horrors to come in the rest of the year (and undoubtedly in 2005 as well). It's worth returning to the now forgotten first half of last year and remembering just how terrible things were for Iraqis even relatively early in our occupation of their country.

Then, as now, for Iraqis, our invasion and occupation was a case of liberation from -- from human rights (think: the atrocities committed in Abu Ghraib which are still occurring daily there and elsewhere); liberation from functioning infrastructure (think: the malfunctioning electric system, the many-mile long gas lines, the raw sewage in the streets); liberation from an entire city to live in (think: Fallujah, most of which has by now been flattened by aerial bombardment and other means).

Iraqis were then already bitter, confused, and existing amid a desolation that came from myriads of Bush administration broken promises. Quite literally every liberated Iraqi I've gotten to know from my earliest days in the country has either had a family member or a friend killed by U.S. soldiers or from the effects of the war/occupation. These include such everyday facts of life as not having enough money for food or fuel due to massive unemployment and soaring energy prices, or any of the countless other horrors caused by the aforementioned. The broken promises, broken infrastructure, and broken cities of Iraq were plainly visible in those early months of 2004 -- and the sad thing is that the devastation I saw then has only grown worse since. The life Iraqis were living a year ago, horrendous as it was, was but a prelude to what was to come under the U.S. occupation. The warning signs were clear from a shattered infrastructure, to all the torturing, to a burgeoning, violent resistance.

Read more.

[Lithos]

343. Some good points in this article

I've yet to see a strong case that we are acting much better than the strongmen that Iraqi's have lived with for the past 50+ years.

L-

[cantwealljustgetalong]

354. on the one hand...

the Iraqi's had Saddam's horrific totalitarian police state where the Shi'ites, the Marsh Arabs, and the Kurds were brutalized and oppressed, not to mention gassed in the case of the Kurds, whereas "we" just provided the blood and treasure so that they could participate in an election where they had a slate of candidates to vote for who are expected to run their affairs in their own interests rather than Saddam's (and France's)...do you see it now?...

[Jack Rabbit]

357. I wish I could believe that

No, they had an election yesterday so that enough quislings could ask the Frat Boy to keep his troops there to protect the Iraqi government from the Iraqi people.

The last thing in the world Bush wants is an Iraqi government that will run Iraqi affairs in the interests of the Iraqi people.

[tomkertes]

344. The purpose of this war was not to depose Hussien

The left was not wrong to oppose a war that (1) was advanced based on total lies (2) had nothing to do with US defense (3) violated international law (4) makes America less safe and (5) exploited terrorism in much the same way that the terrorists do - to advance a radical cause where the ends justify the immoral means.

http://draftfreeom.org

http://dailydraftdispatch

I support freedom from the draft.

[Jack Rabbit]

345. Paul McGeough (Sydney Morning Herald): Voter Turnout Won't Be Enough

From the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) via CommonDreams
Dated Thursday January 20

Voter Turnout Won`t Be Enough to Legitimize Election
As the US tries to cook the books, Iraq may be heading for civil war
by Paul McGeough

There is something truly remarkable about the Iraqi human spirit. Cast around for a comparison of the numbers that might vote next Sunday and Afghanistan is a good choice.

There, more than 10.5 million signed up last year in a security environment that made a mockery of the international observance of fragile polls when only a handful of monitors was brave enough to set foot in the country - but was not courageous enough to go beyond the capital.

Iraq does not have the same voter registration process because Saddam's old food-distribution register is being co-opted for this fraught experiment . . . .

True to form, the Americans and the puppet regime they have installed are cooking the books. Senior US officials and interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi repeatedly insist that all is well because insecurity will restrict voting in "only four of Iraq's 18 provinces".

Read more.

Still, one may wonder if cooking the books will be enough to keep Allawi and his fellow quislings from going down in flames.

[Jack Rabbit]

346. Editors of the Nation (1/20/05): Iraq's Lost Election

From The Nation
Posted Thursday January 20

Iraq`s Lost Election

In the run-up to the January 30 election in Iraq, the prospects for a fair and credible outcome have steadily diminished. As Dexter Filkins of the New York Times reported, rather than the normal democratic ritual of voters and candidates, what Iraqis know is "a campaign in the shadows, where candidates are often too terrified to say their names. Instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they meet them at all. Instead of canvassing for votes, they fend off death threats." Filkins further reported: "Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run, only a handful outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified themselves. The locations for the 5,776 polling places have not been announced, lest they become targets for attacks."

As conditions deteriorated, it became harder for the Bush Administration to spin the upcoming poll to choose an Iraq National Assembly as a major step toward restoring security. Gen. George Casey, commander of coalition forces in Iraq, predicted more violence on election day and "for some time" thereafter, while a new US intelligence estimate foresees the elections being followed by more violence and possible civil war.

The June 28 handover of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi failed to bring order to the country. The Allawi government was unable to achieve legitimacy, to woo disgruntled Sunnis into the political process or to recruit a reliable Iraqi security force. The insurgency has grown to an estimated 200,000 fighters, with most of Baghdad now hostile terrain. Offensives that military commanders claimed would crush Baathist strongholds produced at best a fleeting success while further damaging the US image. Falluja was destroyed and most residents have become long-term internal refugees.

Iraq's largest mainstream Sunni Muslim party has already pulled out of the elections, saying that the violence plaguing areas north and west of Baghdad makes a free and fair vote impossible. The Kurds and the Shiites will make up the majority of voters, skewing the results and leaving the Sunni Arabs underrepresented in the new National Assembly, which will choose a temporary government and draft a constitution. Sunnis will have little incentive to turn against the insurgency and to join the political process. Even if the victors in the election are unusually magnanimous in their treatment of the Sunnis and far-sighted in their vision for the country, the occupation will remain a rallying cry for insurgent forces and thus an obstacle to national unity.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

347. Human Rights Watch: Torture Continues at Hands of New Government

Press release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline Baghdad, Tuesday January 25

Iraq: Torture Continues at Hands of New Government
Police Systematically Abusing Detainees

Iraqi security forces are committing systematic torture and other abuses against people in detention, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 94-page report, The New Iraq? Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees in Iraqi Custody, documents how unlawful arrest, long-term incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees (including children) by Iraqi authorities have become routine and commonplace. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews in Iraq with 90 detainees, 72 of whom alleged having been tortured or ill-treated, particularly under interrogation.

While insurgent forces have committed numerous unlawful attacks against the Iraqi police, this does not justify the abuses committed by Iraqi authorities, Human Rights Watch said.

“The people of Iraq were promised something better than this after the government of Saddam Hussein fell,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. “The Iraqi Interim Government is not keeping its promises to honor and respect basic human rights. Sadly, the Iraqi people continue to suffer from a government that acts with impunity in its treatment of detainees.”

Read more.

Meet the new boss . . . same as the old boss . . .

[Jack Rabbit]

348. HRW Report: Torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Iraqi custody

Report from Human Rights Watch
Dateded Tuesday January 25, 2005

The New Iraq?
Torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Iraqi custody

Summary

Iraq is in the throes of a significant insurgency in which the Iraqi police and other security forces are prime targets. The threat to the lives of police is real. In just the last four months of 2004, approximately 1,300 Iraqi police and scores other Iraqi security forces have died at the hands of insurgents. This insurgency is occurring against a backdrop of general insecurity within Iraq that began soon after U.S.-led forces captured Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s government crumbled. The United States and its allies chose to stand by as widespread looting – driven by a multitude of motives – engulfed Baghdad and other Iraqi cities and towns.

The initial days following the fall of the Saddam Hussein government set the tone for what turned out to be a devastating and violent occupation and political transition. Common criminals terrorize Iraqis with kidnappings and extortion schemes. Insurgents daily target vulnerable civilians, as well as military targets, with suicide bombers and roadside bombs. Revenge killings started slowly but grew to be virtually daily events with perceived Ba’thist supporters, and later those identified as supporting the U.S.-led occupation, caught in the crosshairs. Cities once cited as evidence of the success of the U.S. led coalition’s occupation such as Mosul have become bloody battlegrounds. U.S.-led military operations against insurgent forces have resulted in unknown numbers of civilian casualties and destroyed property.

During the U.S.-led military occupation following the fall of Baghdad, the United States and the United Kingdom, in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions, had primary responsibility for the terms of detention, conditions of detention, treatment of detainees, and due process and fair trial protections of both captured insurgents and suspected common criminals. Thousands of Iraqis were detained, and most released, during this period. Following the transfer of sovereignty on June 28, 2004 under Security Council resolution no. 1546, the so-called Multinational Force-Iraq (essentially U.S. forces and its allies) have maintained responsibility for the apprehension and detention of captured insurgents and other security detainees, including “high value detainees” such as Saddam Hussein and former government officials and foreign terror suspects. The Iraqi Interim Government has assumed responsibility for the detention and prosecution of common criminal suspects and insurgents apprehended by Iraqi security forces.1

Considerable international attention has rightly focused on torture and other abuse inflicted on detainees by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq. Accountability for these violations, and confidence that they are no longer occurring, has not been achieved. At the same time, far less attention has been focused on the treatment of persons in the custody of Iraqi authorities. In its February 2004 report to the U.S. government on conditions in 2003, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) found that Iraqi authorities had “allegedly whipped persons deprived of their liberty with cables on the back, kicked them in the lower parts of the body, including in the testicles, handcuffed and left them hanging from the iron bars of the cell windows or doors in painful positions for several hours at a time, and burned them with cigarettes (signs on bodies witnessed by ICRC delegates). Several persons deprived of their liberty alleged that they had been made to sign a statement that they had not been allowed to read.”2 Public follow-up on this issue has been insufficient.

Read more.

[Scatamooch]

349. Why The Left Is Right!

The US-led military action in 1990-91 ousted Iraq from Kuwait. I did not have a problem with the United States DEFENDING Kuwait. The US-led military action in 2003 against Iraq was far from the same thing. Iraq was contained, and no threat to anyone but Iraqis. You hear of the over 250 mass graves found in Iraq with as many as 400,000 corpses. What the article fails to mention about those mass graves, is that about 150,000 were from the war in 1991...Over one million people were killed between Iran and Iraq in their bloody eight year war...Where do you think those bodies went? The article seems to indicate that the left is anti-war...I would hope every human being in the world is anti-war, but sometimes there are no other options. This was not the case with Iraq.

After September 11th, 2001, this administration preyed on the emotional state of our country, and used al-Qeada as an excuse to invade the Middle East. Bogging us down in a war that will last years, while al-Qeada regroups, has to be one of the dumbest things our country has ever done. Never mind the lack of evidence of WMD, or the fact that Iraq did not attack us, we are suppose to be at war with al-Qeada! The President will go before Congress and ask for another 80 billion dollars to pay for the next year of our war on terrorism...most of it will be for the war in Iraq. The war on terrorism once again takes a backseat. Do you really feel any safer? You shouldn't!

[Jack Rabbit]

350. Welcome to DU, Scatamooch

It looks like you've been reading my articles from the last couple of years.

[Scatamooch]

351. Thnx For The Welcome You Silly Wabbit

Actually, last night was my very first night on DU...SooOOOoooo I guess I have allot of catching up to do. I have been wasting my time on the Classmates' message boards for the last few months, trying to talk some sense into those conservatives...what a joke!

Scatamooch

[Jack Rabbit]

352. John Nichols (The Nation, January 29): Occupation Thwarts Democracy

From The Nation
Dated Saturday January 29, 2005

Occupation Thwarts Democracy
By John Nichols

Under pressure from the Bush Administration, political parties campaigning in this weekend's so-called "election" in Iraq did not proposed timetables for the withdrawal of US troops from their homeland.

This constraint upon the debate effectively denied the Iraqi people an honest choice. Polls suggest that the majority of Iraqis favor the quick withdrawal of US forces, yet the voters of that battered land were cheated out of a campaign that could have allowed them to send a clear signal of opposition to the occupation.

Despite this disconnect, when the voting was done, Administration aides declared a victory in President's Bush's crusade for "liberty." And thus was born the latest lie of an Administration that has built its arguments for the invasion and occupation of Iraq on a foundation of petty deception and gross deceit.

That democracy has been denied in Iraq is beyond question. The charade of an election, played out against a backdrop of violence so unchecked that a substantial portion of the electorate-- particularly Sunni Muslims--avoided the polls for reasons of personal safety, featuring candidates who dared not speak their names and characterized by a debate so stilted that the electorate did not know who or what it is electing.

Read more.

[Name removed]

353. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jack Rabbit]

358. Juan Cole: First Impressions on the Iraqi Elections

From the History News Network via CommonDreams
Dsted Monday January 31

The Iraq Election: First Impressions
by Juan Cole

I'm just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage of the so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday. I said on television last week that this event is a "political earthquake" and "a historical first step" for Iraq. It is an event of the utmost importance, for Iraq, the Middle East, and the world. All the boosterism has a kernel of truth to it, of course. Iraqis hadn't been able to choose their leaders at all in recent decades, even by some strange process where they chose unknown leaders. But this process is not a model for anything, and would not willingly be imitated by anyone else in the region. The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic, as were the 2002 elections in Bahrain and Pakistan.

Moreover, as Swopa rightly reminds us all, the Bush administration opposed one-person, one-vote elections of this sort. First they were going to turn Iraq over to Chalabi within six months. Then Bremer was going to be MacArthur in Baghdad for years. Then on November 15, 2003, Bremer announced a plan to have council-based elections in May of 2004. The US and the UK had somehow massaged into being provincial and municipal governing councils, the members of which were pro-American. Bremer was going to restrict the electorate to this small, elite group.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani immediately gave a fatwa denouncing this plan and demanding free elections mandated by a UN Security Council resolution. Bush was reportedly "extremely offended" at these two demands and opposed Sistani. Bremer got his appointed Interim Governing Council to go along in fighting Sistani. Sistani then brought thousands of protesters into the streets in January of 2004, demanding free elections. Soon thereafter, Bush caved and gave the ayatollah everything he demanded. Except that he was apparently afraid that open, non-manipulated elections in Iraq might become a factor in the US presidential campaign, so he got the elections postponed to January 2005. This enormous delay allowed the country to fall into much worse chaos, and Sistani is still bitter that the Americans didn't hold the elections last May. The US objected that they couldn't use UN food ration cards for registration, as Sistani suggested. But in the end that is exactly what they did.

So if it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship under Chalabi, or would have had stage-managed elections with an electorate consisting of a handful of pro-American notables. It was Sistani and the major Shiite parties that demanded free and open elections and a UNSC resolution. They did their job and got what they wanted. But the Americans have been unable to provide them the requisite security for truly aboveboard democratic elections.

Read more.

I, too, feel that those who voted in the election yesterday in spite of threats deserve to be congatualted for their courage. In light of this information from an Iraqi blogger, I think congratulations for courgae are also in order to those who refused to vote because they believed there was nothing for which to vote.

Let us not delude ourselves as the apologists for neoconservatives do. An election in which the voters do not know who the candidates are is no honest election. A government that must rely on foreign troops to remain in power is no sovereign government.

The two most publicized choices yesterday were a slate of quisling puppets answerable to neoconservatives in Washington that included Allawi and a slate of Islamic republicans drawn up under the auspices of Ayatollah Sistani that included, among others, the quisling Chalibi. Well, perhaps that slate didn't want to appear too holy. Were I an Iraqi, it would have seemed like a choice between being shot or hanged.

Nevertheless, I might have been reluctant not to cast a vote lest that be construed as an endorsement of Zarqawi. Now that Saddam has been written out of the script, Zarqawi may be the one character in this sorry drama for who deserves less respect than Bush and his henchmen.

Cry, beloved country! Iraq has no better options today than two years ago.

[Jack Rabbit]

359. Robert Fisk: Triumph and Tragedy for Iraq

From the London Independent via TruthOut
Dated Monday January 31

Triumph and Tragedy for Iraq
By Robert Fisk

Baghdad - Even as the explosions thundered over Baghdad, they came in their hundreds, and then in their thousands. Entire families, crippled old men supported by their sons, children beside them, babies in the arms of their mothers.

The Shi'ite Muslims of Baghdad yesterday walked quietly to polling stations, to the Martyr Mohamed Bakr Hakim School in Jadriya, without talking, through the car-less streets, the air pressure changing around them as mortars rained down on the US and British embassy compounds and the first of the day's suicide bombers immolated himself and his victims, most of them Shi'ites, 3km away.

The Kurds voted, in their tens of thousands, but the Sunnis - 20% of Iraq's population, whose insurgency was the principal reason for this election - boycotted or were intimidated from the polling stations.

The turnout figure, estimated at perhaps 72% of Iraq's 15-million registered voters, represented both victory and tragedy. For while the Shi'ites voted in their millions with immense courage, the Sunni voice remained silent, casting into semi-illegitimacy the National Assembly whose existence is supposed to provide the US with a political excuse to extricate itself from its little Vietnam in the Middle East.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

360. Salim Lone (Guardian, January 31): An election to anoint an occupation

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Monday January 31

An election to anoint an occupation
Had it been held in Zimbabwe, the west would have denounced it
By Salim Lone

Tony Blair and George Bush were quick to characterise yesterday's election as a triumph of democracy over terror. Bush declared it a "resounding success", while Blair asserted that "The force of freedom was felt throughout Iraq". And yet the election fell so completely short of accepted electoral standards that had it been held in, say, Zimbabwe or Syria, Britain and America would have been the first to denounce it.
Draconian security measures left Iraq's cities looking like ghost towns. The ballot papers were so complicated that even Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader, needed a briefing on how to use one. Most candidates had been afraid to be seen in public, or to link their names to their faces in the media. The United Iraqi Alliance, identifying only 37 of their 225 candidates, explained: "We offer apologies for not mentioning the names of all the candidates ... We have to keep them alive."

The millions of Iraqis, as well as the UN electoral team and the Iraqi election commission staff, who did participate in the process despite the grave risk, deserve our respect. But it was a risk taken in vain. The election was illegitimate, and cannot resolve the rampant insecurity resulting from the occupation. The only way to stop the destruction of Iraq is to end the occupation and enfranchise the Sunnis, who are leading the resistance because they see the US as systematically excluding them from the role they deserve to play in Iraq.

Indeed, this so-called election, with its national rather than provincial voting rolls, was designed to reduce Sunni representation and to anoint US-supported groups who will allow this occupation to continue. A high turnout does not change the fact that this is an illegitimate, occupier's election.

Read more.

Salim Lone was director of communications for Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative in Iraq, who was killed in August 2003

[Jack Rabbit]

361. Robert Scheer (February 1): Now, the US Must Get Out of Iraq's Way

From The Nation
Dated Tuesday February 1

Now, the US Must Get Out of Iraq`s Way
By Robert Scheer

The election in Iraq, though flawed, is terrific news. Any time a people get to use the ballot box instead of guns to make history, they, and the rest of the world, benefit immensely.

That more than 60 percent of those eligible are estimated to have voted despite the dreadful conditions in war-torn Iraq is a testament to the enormous courage humans so often display under extreme duress.

It appears, too, that the election will be something of a rebuke to those who preach a toxic blend of fundamentalism and nihilist violence, as was the case in last month's Palestinian election. But the test now, in both occupied regions, is whether the will of the voters will be allowed to be more than a symbolic gesture.

It is hard to imagine how the Kurdish and Shiite parties are going to finesse the fact that the Sunni religious minority that ruled Iraq off and on for centuries largely boycotted the election.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

362. John Nichols (The Nation/February 1): Images vs. Reality

From The Nation
Dated Tuesday February 1

Iraq: Images vs. Reality
By John Nichols

The images of Iraqis crowding polling places for that country's first free election in a half century were both moving and hopeful. The voting, while marred by violence, irregularities and boycotts, went off more smoothly than even the most optimistic members of the Bush administration had dared predict.

Unfortunately, President Bush and his aides could not let the images speak for themselves. The White House spin machine had to declare, even before the last votes were cast, that what happened Sunday was a "turning point" in the painful history of that battered country.

The claim is another example of the sort of wishful thinking that has so frequently trumped reality when it comes to the administration's approach to Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general.

Invariably, when the Bush administration tries to tell the world how to interpret images from Iraq, it leaps to conclusions that are far removed from reality.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

363. Jack Shafer (Slate): Together Again, Judith Miller and Ahmad Chalabi

From Slate via TruthOut
Dated Monday January 31

Together Again, Judith Miller and Ahmad Chalabi
By Jack Shafer

How did the New York Times botch the weapons of mass destruction story so magnificently? According to the editors' mini culpa of May 26, 2004, many of the stories the Times published during in the run-up to the war shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations in particular, this one.

The most prominent of those exiles was Ahmad Chalabi, "an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991," who "introduced reporters to other exiles" and "became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles." And one of the most prolific chroniclers of Chalabi's views and those of his Iraqi National Congress camp was Times reporter Judith Miller, who wrote or co-wrote at least nine of the "problematic" stories the Times cited in its mini culpa.

Miller was detailed to the oil-for-food scandal by the Times after its self-examination, but she emerged from the woodshed yesterday (Jan. 30) to appear on Hardball with stunning news that, if true, belongs in the New York Times, not on cable TV as talk show filler.

Citing unnamed "sources," Miller claimed that the Bush administration had recently made "belated and sudden outreaches" to Ahmad Chalabi, "to offer him expressions of cooperation and support." She continued, "And according to one report, he was even offered a chance to be an interior minister in the new government. But I think one effect of this vote is going to be that the Iraqis themselves will decide who will hold."

One would think that the Bushies do not even know who is going to make up the new Iraqi government and already they are saying things like "It would be unwise to ask for a troop withdrawal or a timetable for withdrawal."

This report suggests that the Bushies indeed know who is going to be in the new Iraqi government. One wonders what business they have determining that Chalabi, a crook by most accounts, will be in the new Iraqi government. Have they counted the votes?

Let's hope Ms. Miller has her facts wrong. Again.

[Jack Rabbit]

364. Juan Cole: The Shiite Earthquake

Form Salon via TruthOut
Dated Tuesday February 1

The Shiite Earthquake
With non-Sunni Muslims poised to take power for the first time, a new Iraq is being born. Will it survive its infancy?
By Juan Cole

The elections held on Jan. 30 in Iraq were deeply flawed as a democratic process, but they represent a political earthquake in Iraq and in the Middle East. The old Shiite seminary city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, appears poised to emerge as Iraq's second capital. For the first time in the Arab Middle East, a Shiite majority has come to power. A Shiite-dominated Parliament in Iraq challenges the implicit Sunni biases of Arab nationalism as it was formulated in Cairo and Algiers. And it will force Iraqis to deal straightforwardly with the multicultural character of their national society, something the pan-Arab Baath Party either papered over or actively attempted to erase. The road ahead is extremely dangerous: Overreaching or miscalculation by any of the involved parties could lead to a crisis, even to civil war. And America's role in the new Iraq is uncertain.

Despite the loftiness of the political rhetoric and the courage and idealism of ordinary voters, the process was so marred by irregularities as sometimes to border on the absurd. The party lists were announced, but the actual candidates running on these lists had to remain anonymous because of security concerns. Known candidates received death threats and some assassination attempts were reported. So the voters selected lists by vague criteria such as their top leaders, who were known to the public, or general political orientation.

Late in the election season, several politicians discovered that they had been listed without their permission and angrily demanded that the lists withdraw their names. So not only were the candidates mostly anonymous, but some persons were running without knowing it. These irregularities made the process less like an election (where there is lively campaigning by known candidates and issues can be debated in public) and more like a referendum among shadowy party lists.

Nevertheless, enough was known about the major party and coalition lists to allow most Iraqis to make a decision. The United Iraqi Alliance was one of six major coalitions, grouping the most important of the Shiite religious parties. Shiites, although they constitute a majority of Iraqis, had never before had the prospect of real political power. Formed under the auspices of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who appointed a six-man negotiating committee in an attempt to unite the Shiite vote, the UIA used the ayatollah's image relentlessly in its campaign advertising. Religious Shiites got the word to vote for "No. 169," the number given the UIA on the ballot, and were carefully informed that it was represented by the symbol for a candle. Its constituent parties, such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party, had in the past struggled to create an Islamic republic under Saddam's harsh repression. Most of them were more used to the technique of the clandestine cell and the paramilitary strike than to the hurly-burly of public campaigning.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

365. BBC (February 3): First partial result in Iraq vote

From the BBC Online
Dated Thursday February 3

First partial result in Iraq vote

Iraq's electoral commission says 1.6m ballots have been counted at its headquarters over the past two days.
The ballots represent about 10% of registered voters, poll officials said.

Partial results show the United Alliance, backed by Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, leading with more than one-million votes.

The Alliance's nearest rival so far is the list of candidates led by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, with about 360,000 votes.

Read more.

While these elections were far from perfect, the discontent with the occupation made them beyond fixing. Bush and his quislings appear to be repudiated by the Iraqi people.

[Jack Rabbit]

366. Paul McGeough (The Age/February 3): Shiite Leaders to Challenge Allawi

From The Age (Australia) via CommonDreams
Dated Thursday February 3

Shiite Leaders to Challenge Allawi
By Paul McGeough

Iraq's religious Shiite parties are challenging an attempt by supporters of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to slide him into the post-election leadership as a consensus candidate.

In the absence of any breakdown of Sunday's national voting, List 169, the religious coalition blessed by the spiritual leader of all Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, claimed a "sweeping victory".

One of its most likely challengers to Dr Allawi's claim to the top post, Husain Shahristani, branded the Allawi interim Government as the most corrupt in Iraq's history.

Dr Shahristani, a nuclear scientist, was jailed by Saddam Hussein for 10 years and is one of four List 169 contenders for the prime ministership.

Bush can kiss the quisling Allawi good-bye. One remaining question is whether Bush can pressure the transitional government to not demand he pick up his troops and go home.

[Jack Rabbit]

367. Haroon Siddiqui (Toronto Star): A colonial take on Iraq vote

From the Toronto Star via CommonDreams
Dated Thursday February 3

A Colonial Take on Iraq Vote
By Haroon Siddiqui

It's gloating time for George W. Bush and those who supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Given that nothing else has gone right in the last 22 months, they deserve the moment.

Yes, there would have been no election without the invasion. And the dawn of democracy is indeed glorious. But 100,000 Iraqis are dead, according to a Johns Hopkins University study.

Is there anyone, even among the warmongers, who wants to argue in favor of killing that many people in some other nation to make them free?

Iraq was not invaded to give the locals the right to vote. That retroactive rationale, one of many, is so patently false that its logic stacks up thusly: If Iraqi insurgents killed hundreds to stop the vote, Americans killed 20 times that many to get to it.

In fact, the insurgency hasn't so much been about derailing democracy as ending the American occupation. Don't expect it to end overnight.

Read more.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

391. BBC and Iraq minister dispute civilian death stats...

...

"The BBC claims that the statistics indicate that 'Coalition troops and Iraqi security forces may be responsible for up to 60 percent of conflict-related civilian deaths in Iraq'," Alwan said. "Our statistics do not support this claim."

He said the source of fire was not identified nor recorded by health institutions.

"But it is clear to independent observers that the majority of Iraqis who have been killed in military operations were either killed by terrorists or were themselves insurgents," Alwan said in the statement.

He said the BBC report was based on the difference in numbers between the two categories of "terrorist incidents" and "military action" in the ministry's statistics.

He said the BBC chose to ignore a statement put out by the ministry on Friday which said that those recorded as killed in "military action" included Iraqis killed by terrorists, not only those killed by coalition forces or Iraqi security forces.

Alwan also said those recorded as killed in "military action" included "terrorists", security forces and not simply "civilians".

...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29408138.htm

[Jack Rabbit]

368. Ibrahim Kazerooni (Denver Post): Iraq Kudos Misplaced

From the Denver Post via CommonDreams
Dated Thursday February 3

Iraq Kudos Misplaced
by Ibrahim Kazerooni

Deprived of promised security, reliable electricity, jobs, proper sewage treatment, water and gasoline, the Iraqi people took charge in Sunday's election after nearly two years of disastrous and incompetent mismanagement of their country by the Bush White House.

While the Bush administration and the mainstream American media lather themselves in congratulatory self-adulation over the election, let us not forget that it was the threat of full-scale, armed rebellion from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the Shiite community that brought about Sunday's direct election.

"Al-Sistani, the country's most influential Shiite leader, has rejected a U.S. formula for transferring power through a provisional legislature selected by 18 regional caucuses, insisting on direct elections instead," according to an Associated Press report from more than a year ago.

The original White House plan was to appoint a constitutional assembly made up of members selected by U.S.-approved committees in regional districts.

Seemingly, we have forgotten the hundreds of thousands of Shiites who protested this plan last year in Baghdad and Basra, chanting, "No, no to America! Yes, yes to al-Sistani!" It was only after the White House realized that al-Sistani and the Shiite community were prepared to follow through on their threat that President Bush grudgingly acquiesced to repeated Shiite demands for early, direct elections.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

369. Time Magazine (Feb 3): New Political Storms in Iraq?

From Time Magazine Online (Web Exclusive)
Dated Thursday February 3

New Political Storms in Iraq?
The power struggle between the Shiite coalition and prime minister Allawi may present tough choices for the U.S.
By Tony Karon

Even as President Bush celebrated the Iraqi election on Capitol Hill this week, the jockeying among Iraq's contenders for power suggested that new political storms may be fast approaching. Although the arcane process of forming a new government even after the election results are announced means that many weeks may pass before its makeup is known, it will, nonetheless, be the first post-Saddam government not handpicked by the U.S. And early indications are that it may be led by political groups who do not consider the U.S. as natural allies, which could pose complex and unforeseen challenges for the Bush administration's Iraq strategy.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, the last U.S.-appointed leader, is behaving as if he won Sunday's election, calling for national unity and magnanimously reaching out to various parties to propose compromise and consensus arrangements for a new government. Not so fast, say the leaders of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), who by early indications appear to have taken the lion's share of the vote. The first 3.3 million votes counted (of an estimated tally of around 8 million) give the Shiite list a commanding 67 percent of the vote, compared with just 18 percent for Allawi's list. So, the Shiite leaders say they, not Allawi, will be leading the next government and drawing in the smaller parties.

Asked to respond to Allawi's overtures this week, the top candidate of the Shiite list, Abdelaziz al-Hakim told an Arab newspaper "there is no room for power sharing ... because (our) expectations indicated a sweeping victory with a large majority (voting) for the United Iraqi Alliance list." Instead, Hakim spoke of reaching out to the Kurds and drawing in minorities, including the Sunnis who for the most part appear to have stayed away from the polls. And his coalition has already begun negotiating a coalition arrangement with the Kurdish alliance, which is expected to win around 20 percent of the vote.

Allawi does not expect to win a majority, or even a plurality of the vote. To stay in power, he appears to be attempting to trade on fears of clerical and Iranian influence in the UIA and even hoping to cherry-pick allies from within the improbably broad Shiite coalition. The goal would be to use the provisions of the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) governing the process to parlay a minority share of the vote into a leading role in government. That's because the TAL, drawn up by U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, essentially requires the support of two thirds of the National Assembly for a new government. The process begins with the Assembly choosing, by two thirds majority, a president and two vice presidents, a troika that must unanimously agree on a prime minister. So, the thinking goes, even without a plurality or a majority, as long as Allawi can assemble a coalition that exceeds one third of the Assembly members, he can filibuster himself a place as a "compromise" candidate for prime minister.

Read more.

I find these reported maneuvers by Allawi and, presumably, his US neoconservative sponsors cynical in the extreme. Not only is Allawi losing, he is losing big. The Iraqi people clearly don't want any part of him or Bush's occupation.

[Jack Rabbit]

370. Response to above article from Time Magazine

The article from Time was brought to my attention on another thread in Editorials/Other Articles. My response to the article from that thread:

The Time piece is interesting. I don't agree with it.

Nobody who thinks Mr. Bush and his neoncoservative aides invaded Iraq to bring democracy to that country has anything on Pollyanna when it comes to being naive. The only thing from which they were interested in liberating the Iraqi people was their mineral rights.

In the beginning, Bush and his aides didn't want these elections, preferring instead a process in which they would make the rules and determine who could play, the popular opinion of "liberated" Iraqis be damned. It was a process less democratic than found in Iran, where a elite group of stuffy old mullahs decides who is a good enough Muslim to run for office. It was Sistani who demanded the elections because he knew his people could win them. The neocons only agreed because Sistani was ready to send his followers out into the streets if they didn't.

The Time article speaks of Allawi maneuvering behind the scenes to stay in power by pealing off support from other factions, even some within the United Alliance. This is risible in view of the present reported election returns. Allawi, whose Iraqi List slate has failed to garner 20% of the vote, is no position to dictate to the leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance, who have about two-thirds of the vote, who is going to be in the transitional government or what its policies will be. It is like a 98-pound weakling telling a defensive lineman he's going beat the crap out him. Allawi and his interim government never had any credibility with the Iraqi people, and these returns underscore that.

There is no getting around what these results mean: it is a popular repudiation of US occupation. Allawi was perceived as the neocons' water boy in Baghdad and Sistani's slate as opposed to the presence of US troops.

There is no doubt that new transitional government under the United Iraqi Alliance will have to share power under the rules drawn up by the former American proconsul, Mr. Bremer. However, they will have enough power in the new government to determine with whom they want to share it. Moreover, they won't have to share a lot of it. If they want to exclude Allawi and his quislings, they can. If they want to tell your favorite Frat Boy and mine to set a timetable for withdrawing his troops from their country, they can do that, too. They can even make noises about selling oil in Euros, if that pleases them.

The neoconservatives can only helplessly watch as their boy Allawi goes down in flames. If the Shiites feel that Bush and his aides are attempting to rob them of the power they have won, then they, too, will take up arms against the occupation. It would just be too stupid for the neocons to try to dictate Iraq's domestic affairs to a transitional government that won by being perceived as opposed to the occupation. Unfortunately, as The Magistrate pointed out in a discussion about Iraq policy a few weeks ago, the too-stupid-to-try test fails when predicting the behavior of Bush and his neoconservative aides.

[bemildred]

371. Exit, by the left

Even before the recent national elections in Iraq there was increased talk in the United States about when and how the US should pull its troops out of that country. And although the White House has not publicly spoken on the issue, which was noticeably absent in President George W Bush's February 2 State of the Union speech, troop withdrawals have been announced.

Last Thursday, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said that Pentagon authorities had decided to start reducing the level of US forces in Iraq next month by about 15,000 troops, down to about 135,000. Currently, the US has about 116,000 army soldiers in Iraq and about 42,000 soldiers in Kuwait.

The reduction involves about three brigades of army soldiers and marines whose tours were extended last month to bolster security ahead of the January 30 elections, and an additional 1,500 airborne soldiers who were rushed to Iraq for a four-month stint.

---

For those who support keeping US troops in Iraq, any suggestion that they be withdrawn is usually derided as "cutting and running". But according to Carpenter, "'Cut and run' is just a slur by people who have no strategy. If they have their way we will be in Iraq for several years, if not decades to come."

Asia Times

[Jack Rabbit]

372. George Monbiot (Guardian Utd): Fraud and corruption

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dted Tuesday February 8

Fraud and corruption
Forget the UN. The US occupation regime helped itself to $8.8 bn of mostly Iraqi money in just 14 months
By George Monbiot

The Republican senators who have devoted their careers to mauling the United Nations are seldom accused of shyness. But they went strangely quiet on Thursday. Henry Hyde became Henry Jekyll. Norm Coleman's mustard turned to honey. Convinced that the UN is a conspiracy against the sovereignty of the United States, they had been ready to launch the attack which would have toppled the hated Kofi Annan and destroyed his organisation. A report by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US federal reserve, was meant to have proved that, as a result of corruption within the UN's oil-for-food programme, Saddam Hussein was able to sustain his regime by diverting oil revenues into his own hands. But Volcker came up with something else.

"The major source of external financial resources to the Iraqi regime," he reported, "resulted from sanctions violations outside the programme's framework." These violations consisted of "illicit sales" of oil by the Iraqi regime to Turkey and Jordan. The members of the UN security council, including the United States, knew about them but did nothing. "United States law requires that assistance programmes to countries in violation of UN sanctions be ended unless continuation is determined to be in the national interest. Such determinations were provided by successive United States administrations."

The government of the US, in other words, though it had been informed about a smuggling operation which brought Saddam Hussein's regime some $4.6bn, decided to let it continue. It did so because it deemed the smuggling to be in its national interest, as it helped friendly countries (Turkey and Jordan) evade the sanctions on Iraq. The biggest source of illegal funds to Saddam Hussein was approved not by officials of the UN but by officials in the US. Strange to relate, neither Mr Hyde nor Mr Coleman have yet been bellyaching about it. But this isn't the half of it.

It is true that the UN's auditing should have been better. Some of the oil-for-food money found its way into Saddam Hussein's hands. One of its officials, with the help of a British diplomat, helped to ensure that a contract went to a British firm, rather than a French one. The most serious case involves an official called Benon Sevan, who is alleged to have channelled Iraqi oil into a company he favoured, and who might have received $160,000 in return. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, has taken disciplinary action against both men, and promised to strip them of diplomatic immunity if they are charged. There could scarcely be a starker contrast to the way the US has handled the far graver allegations against its own officials.

Read more.

. . . and you're no doubt wondering why Iraqis won't vote for the US water boy in Baghdad.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

373. moonbat monbiot says forget the UN...

is he being prophetic? (sinister music)...


er, looks like "Iraqis" voted for the neocon (sinister music) water boy instead of the CIA water boy...

goodbye Alawi, hello Chalabi...

[Jack Rabbit]

379. Oh, come, Sir

You know as well as anybody do that Chalabi has kept a low profile and that the Hakim slate is precieved as opposed ot the occupation.

The election refuted the last refuge that the Iraqis view the occupation as a positive force in their lives.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

390. occupation as a positive force is a straw man...

the election fell along sectarian divisions and was not a pro- or anti- occupation referendum, if anything, it showed that, contrary to claims by the left of a broad based resistance, the insurgents come from a marginal segment of the population...

edit: sp.

[Jack Rabbit]

395. Incorrect

First of all, there is not one insurgency but many. The Shia insurgency took the form of this election, while the Sunni insurgency is more violent. As far as the election was concerned, the Sunni insurgency took the form of non-participation.

It was Sistani who demanded the election because he knew his people could win it. Bush and his pirates balked at holding them for exactly the same reason.

The Shias demonstrated their opposition to the occupation by choosing a slate whose program includes demanding a timetable for withdrawal. Overall, that slate, the United Iraqi Alliance, received three and a half times more votes than Allawi's Iraqi List. I'd call that a repudiation of the occupation.

Or perhaps you would like to give us a better explanation for this phenomena?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

374. The Real 'Arab Street'...

The turnout in last Sunday's Iraqi elections surprised even the most optimistic observers in the Middle East. Reading Arab newspapers during the weeks before the vote, one could hardly escape the expectation that the adventure of holding elections in Iraq was certain to be a fiasco. The bulk of Arab intellectuals and journalists foresaw a minimal turnout and possibly devastating results, such as an outbreak of civil war between the Shiite and Sunni populations and the emergence of an Iranian-controlled Islamic republic of Iraq.

Operating from Pan-Arabist and Islamist credos, they could not envisage the elections as at least a step toward political normality in a country long ruled by a brutal dictator and currently under foreign occupation. Commentators emphasized potential voting irregularities, asserting that no free elections would ever take place under occupation and implicitly urging Iraqis to stay away from the polls.

Because Arab writers normally see themselves as embodying an imaginary "Arab street," they had no trouble, in the absence of independent public opinion surveys, in representing their own quite ideological views as those of the Iraqi majority and as those of Arabs generally. They took this line even though their rhetorical warnings at the time of the initial invasion of Iraq -- exemplified by the slogan "the Arab street will explode if the Americans invade" -- had proven incorrect. These writers were taught a hard lesson by the Iraqi voter turnout in a way that should lead to questions about their claim to represent Arab public opinion.

...

Looking at readers' comments in these newspapers on the Iraqi elections during the past two months, one is first of all struck by the diversity of views and voices. One finds an unpredictable assortment of conspiracy theories and objective assessments, ranging from critical analyses of what went wrong in Iraq and anti-American tirades to poetic appreciations of Western values, Kurdish separatist ambitions, Sunni claims to Iraq's unity, and a host of other sectarian and secular views on society and politics.

...

But within this very wide spectrum a mainstream perception of Iraqi political developments can be discerned that runs counter to the main tide coming from prominent intellectuals and journalists. A clear consensus exists among the majority of commenting readers on the moral and political rightness of the elections and a hopeful attitude toward the democratization of Iraq. Mistrust of American intentions and lamentations on the fate of pan-Arabism are to a large extent pushed aside by a more pragmatic understanding of events.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64963-2005Feb4.html

[Jack Rabbit]

381. When did the Washington Post . . . .

. . . begin the employ former Hallmark Card writers to do their editorials? This one very elegantly says nothing.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

389. it elegantly says that...

Iraq has a diversity of views and voices...

unlike the monolithic doom and gloom left...

[bemildred]

375. Kuwait warns terror could spread through Gulf

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait's Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah warned Monday that Islamist violence which has rocked the emirate over the past month could spread to other oil-rich Gulf Arab states.

Saudi Arabia, the biggest Gulf Arab country, has already been battling a wave of deadly attacks by suspected Al-Qaeda extremists for the past 21 months.


---

Four security officers have been killed and 10 wounded in gunbattles with Islamist militants over the past month. Eight suspects have also been killed and at least 19 others arrested.

---

Kuwaiti officials have linked the militants operating her to the Al-Qaeda network and counterparts in Saudi Arabia, where more than 220 people, including 92 suspected militants, have died since the violence began.

Daily Star

[bemildred]

376. Iraq: spinning off Arab terrorists?

In fact, there's evidence it's already happened in Kuwait. In the past month, the tiny Gulf state has been rocked by a series of shootouts with Muslim militants, some of whom learned their craft by working alongside Iraqi insurgents.

"We found during the interrogations that about four of the suspects had learned how to make explosives in Iraq," says Col. Khaled al-Isaimi, who heads the Kuwaiti delegation at a four-day global counterterrorism conference which ends Tuesday in Riyadh. Some 40 terror suspects have been handed over to Kuwaiti prosecutors in the past month.

Saudi security expert Nawaf Obaid agrees that Arab fighters returning to Saudi Arabia from Iraq is an issue. "This is a major concern in the sense that some people have gone to Iraq and have been getting training but there's no indication that they've come back . We know fighters have gone but we don't know how many exactly," says Mr. Obaid, a Saudi security consultant.

CS Monitor

[Jack Rabbit]

382. Robert Scheer (Los Angeles Times): The Law of Unintended Consequences

From the Los Angeles Times
Dated Tuesday February 8

Law of Unintended Consequences
Careful what you wish for in Iraq.
By Robert Scheer

In a heightened display of saber rattling, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been saying nasty things about Iran's "unelected mullahs."

This is apparently so we'll be able to tell the difference between the theocracy in place in Tehran and the one coalescing in Baghdad. Although things are looking slightly brighter for Iraq after its debut election, it is still not clear why the United States has spent incalculable fortunes in human life, taxpayer money and international goodwill to break Iraq and then remake it in the image of our avowed "axis of evil" enemy next door.

In his State of the Union address, Bush denounced Iran as "the world's primary state sponsor of terrorism." At the same time, he celebrated an Iraqi election that handed power to Shiite ayatollahs who were sponsored for decades by their co-religionists in Iran and who share much of Tehran's vision of religion and politics. Does this make sense to anybody outside of the White House?

The final returns from the Iraqi election are not in, but it seems clear that the slate headed by the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution is going to have a clear majority in the new constitutional assembly. This is a classic example of how, in the real world, there is a lot more gray than an administration that sees everything in black and white wants to admit.

Read more.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

388. unintended consequences...

Scheer and his like-minded colleagues' plan for "crafting a culture of freedom for another people" did not have unintended consequences mainly because they did not have a plan period, unless you consider maintaining Saddam's tyranny as a plan, which in itself would have had it's own unintended consequences...

in any case, if my understanding is correct that Sistani believes that until the 12th imam returns to lead the entire Muslim world, that the state should be governed by non-clerics, then that alone would make Sistani a kindler gentler ayatollah than the mad mullahs of Tehran, not to mention a threat to Tehran's mullahs continuing their heresy...

[Jack Rabbit]

394. Response

1. If "Scheer and his like-minded colleagues" had no plan, then they had no workable plan. That makes them worse than Bush and the neocons how?

2. Get used to Sistani. He is what this process has wrought. Your characterization of him as "a kinder gentler ayatollah than the mad mullahs of Tehran" is one of the few things you've said on this thread with which I can agree. That's still better for the Iraqis than colonial occupation (and, yes, better than Saddam).

Nevertheless, I still believe that the best thing for America would have been leaving Iraq alone, even if that meant leaving Saddam where he was, and using our military resources on more immediate concerns, like pursuing Osama and al Qaida. Remember them?

[Jack Rabbit]

383. Naomi Klein (The Nation/Feb 10): Getting the Purple Finger

From The Nation
Dated Thursday February 10

Getting the Purple Finger
By Naomi Klein

"The Iraqi people gave America the biggest 'thank you' in the best way we could have hoped for." Reading this election analysis from Betsy Hart, a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, I found myself thinking about my late grandmother. Half blind and a menace behind the wheel of her Chevrolet, she adamantly refused to surrender her car keys. She was convinced that everywhere she drove (flattening the house pets of Philadelphia along the way) people were waving and smiling at her. "They are so friendly!" We had to break the bad news. "They aren't waving with their whole hand, Grandma--just with their middle finger."

So it is with Betsy Hart and the other near-sighted election observers: They think the Iraqi people have finally sent America those long-awaited flowers and candies, when Iraq's voters just gave them the (purple) finger.

The election results are in: Iraqis voted overwhelmingly to throw out the US-installed government of Iyad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance; the second plank in the UIA platform calls for "a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq."

There are more single-digit messages embedded in the winning coalition's platform. Some highlights: "Adopting a social security system under which the state guarantees a job for every fit Iraqi...and offers facilities to citizens to build homes." The UIA also pledges "to write off Iraq's debts, cancel reparations and use the oil wealth for economic development projects." In short, Iraqis voted to repudiate the radical free-market policies imposed by former chief US envoy Paul Bremer and locked in by a recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

Read more.

More evidence that, much to the chigrin of the neocons, the election was insurgency by other means.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

386. how unoriginal of Naomi...

the purple finger 'logo' is already taken:

http://www.cafepress.com/hakmao.17460852?zoom=yes#zoom

[Jack Rabbit]

396. Original or unoriginal, she's right

The Iraqi people have given Bush the finger.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

392. another Naomi Klein eye roller...

her epiphany that, in her words, there is a lot of skepticism in Iraq about the international anti-war movement, in part, because anti-war forces were not critical enough of Saddam, (and, more than likely, because the anti-war left's dream of the election being an unmitigated disaster did not materilaize), she now, subsequent to her infamous swooning for Moqtada Al Sadr and his fascist militias, has backpedaled all the way into neocon territory by voicing the idea that rather than the anti-war left just standing against the war, that they stand for something, namely, get this, "deep democracy"...talk about going from bringing Najaf to New York, to bringing New York to Najaf (the neocons beat the anti-war left to that idea, Naomi - I suppose that's the purpose of differentiating the new improved anti-war democracy as deep as opposed to the shallow neocon version)...

[Jack Rabbit]

397. No matter how you slice it, it still amounts to this

1. As Ms. Klein points out, the United Iraqi Alliance, which calls for the US provide a timetable for withdrawal of foreign troops and other planks that fly in the face the colonial goals of the occupation, received about 52% of the total vote cast; the Iraqi List, featuring the US-appointed interim "Prime Minister", received only 13.6%. That is a repudiation of US occupation, and for good reason.

2. Some on the left predicted an unmitigated disaster. Others merely said there would be problems such as violence (there was) and a significant segment of the population abstaining from the process (there was). Personally, I expressed misgivings about the absence of a truly democratic choice, as neither the United Iraqi Alliance nor the Iraqi List represents democratic principles, but, respectively, Islamic republicanism and submission to colonialism. Furthermore, there is a concern that the Sunnis will feel alienated as a result of the election and exacerbate ethnic tensions and lead to more inter-Iraqi strife. Whether that materializes remains to be seen; I, for one, hope it does not, but cannot say that it won't.

3. When it comes to democracy and freedom, the neoconservatives don't "beat" anybody to anything. The only kind of democracy they believe in is the kind where authorities torture the opposition and the only kind of freedom they believe in is the kind where, for the benefit of Monsanto, farmers are prohibited from saving their seed.

[Jack Rabbit]

398. Exacerbated ethnic tensions

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Saturday February 12

Sectarian massacres shake Iraq
By Rory Carroll in Baghdad

Violence swept Iraq yesterday as insurgents switched the focus of their attacks from the security forces to Shia civilians, killing at least 12 in a bombing outside a mosque and gunning down nine in a Baghdad bakery.

The massacres appeared designed to raise sectarian tension as the country prepared for the results from last month's election which will cement the ascendance of the Shia majority and the political marginalisation of the Arab Sunni minority.

In the bombing, a pick-up truck laden with vegetables parked in front of a Shia mosque in Balad Ruz, a town 45 miles north of Baghdad. As worshippers emerged on to the street, Iraqi troops approached the vehicle to investigate when it blew up. The police reported 13 dead and 40 wounded while the national guard reported 12 dead and 23 wounded.

In a brazen assault in the capital, several car-loads of gunmen sealed off a street in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood and opened fire at a crowd inside a bakery, killing at least nine. Witnesses said walls plastered with posters of Shia clerics were splattered with blood.

No sooner than I said I hope such ethnic strife doesn't materialize than it does.

[Jack Rabbit]

400. Much the same take on the election as Ms. Klein's, but from the Right

From the Chicago Tribune
Dated Thursday February 10

After the Iraq election, self-congratulation abounds
By Steve Chapman

The Bush administration wanted to put off a vote for several reasons. One was the supposed lack of reliable voter rolls. Another was the fear the Shiites would win and demand an Iran-style Islamic regime.

Finally, no one in the White House wanted an Iraqi election during the American presidential campaign, for fear it would go badly and impede Bush's re-election. The administration obviously had doubts about how democracy would play in Iraq. You might even say the president was defeatist . . . .

It's also wishful thinking to suppose that the Iraqis who voted share President Bush's shining vision of a free democracy friendly to the United States. A poll in August found that 70 percent of Iraqis want an Islamic state.

As for the prevailing attitude toward America, the leader of the Shiite coalition that finished first in the election said afterward, "No one welcomes foreign troops in Iraq." Writes Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan, "Most Shiites who voted on Sunday thought they were voting for an end to U.S. hegemony in their country."

In addition to the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Chapman's work appears in in such leftist, anti-colonialist publications as The Weekly Standard and TownHall.com.

[bemildred]

401. Yes! Yes! Jack gets the coveted 400th post!

:party:

[Jack Rabbit]

402. I take note that number 300 belonged to you, on November 18

See above.

[bemildred]

403. It's only fair.

Although that does indicate things are moving right along here.

[Jack Rabbit]

384. Jonathan Steele (Guardian Utd/Feb 11): The cheers were all ours

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Friday February 11

The cheers were all ours
Iraq's illegitimate election did not justify the invasion, nor did it make occupation popular
By Jonathan Steele

Iraq is a "totalitarian state", and that's official, according to the logic of Condoleezza Rice this week. Maybe it was because she was in carefree Paris. Maybe it was because she was having breakfast with a bunch of French intellectuals. But the new US secretary of state let down her political hair and stunned the company with the looseness of her terminology.

She was talking about Iran, the latest Bush administration target for regime change. She used to call Iran's Islamic republic "authoritarian", she told them, but since the parliamentary polls last spring, in which candidates at one end of the spectrum were off the ballot, Iran had moved to being "totalitarian".

She did not draw any comparison with Iraq, of course, let alone with Saudi Arabia (which embarked on a men-only, no-parties election yesterday). But the similarities are obvious. If Iran qualifies as totalitarian because it holds an election in which voters had only a limited choice, then the same is true of Iraq, where parties and movements which want an immediate end to the occupation were off the ballot.

Queues of voters are not the defining issue for a decent election. In Iran last year they were so long that in many places polling stations had to stay open an extra four hours to give everyone a chance. Nor is turnout the decisive marker. Voters take part for a host of reasons.

Read more.

Democracy is about more the right to vote. It is about having a meaningful choice. It is about having a full and informed discussion of issues. It is about the right to participate on an equal footing with all others, regardless of race, religion or social class. It is about the freedom to voice one's views, no matter how unpopular or even ridiculous, without fear of retribution.

Iran is not a democracy because the choice of candidates for public office is limited to those approved by a council of mullahs. America is less a democracy than in the past because major news outlets have fallen into fewer and more homogeneous hands, suffocating meaningful public discussion of issues with lack of information or even disinformation. America is even less a democracy in the dark days since the terrorist attacks, when repressive legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act eroded civil liberties.

Democracy was not on the table in Iraq two weeks ago. What people voted for in Iraq was independence from rule by alien forces. The Shias voted for a slate whose plank calls for a timetable for American withdrawal; the Kurds voted for autonomy and even, in a non-binding resolution, to form an independent state; the Sunnis, wishing to be dominated by neither US neoconservative colonialists nor a Shiite majority, largely abstained from the process. It is not clear what kind of Iraq the Iraqi people want, but it is clear that they want to decide that issue among themselves without neoconservative interference.

It would appear that the slate favored by the Americans failed to gather a significant portion of the vote. We can safely say that continued foreign occupation of Iraq and economic domination by western transnational corporations was repudiated by the Iraqi people.

Prior to the war, the left said that although Saddam was a tyrant and Iraqis would be best rid of him, the invasion was a colonial misadventure that had, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, no concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people. The tyrant Saddam and his murderous cohorts would merely be replaced by the tyrant Bush and his pirates. It would seem that the Iraqi people saw it that way, too.

The strife we see among the Iraqi people today is the strife we would have seen in any case with the passing of Saddam. It is only made more complicated by the introduction by force of American colonialism into the equation.

Two years ago, that is what the left predicted would happen. The left was right.

The only question now is will Bush and his allies respect the election results and provide a timetable for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and stick to it. If these elections are to have any meaning, then he will.

However, Mr. Bush's past history does not give us cause for optimism. Iraq was invaded for the benefit of transitional corporations. Overthrowing Saddam was merely a by-product of what was, in fact, a war against the sovereignty of the Iraqi people. Should Bush maintain American troops in Iraq against the wishes of the people, then the fact that the invasion of Iraq was an operation against the Iraqis and not against Saddam will be more blatantly obvious than ever before.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

387. hold on, you're going to fast for me...

I'm still working on how an illegitimate election could be a legitimate repudiation of an unpopular occupation without which the illegitimate election that legitimized the popular repudiation of the occupation could not have taken place and would not have been legitimized...

[Jack Rabbit]

393. Because, my dear sir

The occupation is so unpopular that the election was beyond fixing, even with all the problems it had. If one supported the occupation, one could always vote for Allawi and his Iraqi List. The Iraqi List got 13.6% of the vote. Do you want to interpret that for us? Perhaps you'd like to tell us how Steven Moore (see post 301) would interpret that? Mr. Moore was telling us how much support the interim government has. Of course, that was in November. Perhaps all that support collapsed since then?

I would say Mr. Moore is a liar. If I were more charitable, I would say he was simply mistaken. Badly mistaken.

The biggest problem with the election, apart from it was held under a foreign occupation, is that a large segment of the population, the Sunnis, abstained from voting. Of course, I suppose that the neocons would spin that as saying that if they did vote, they would have voted for Allawi. Would you believe that? I wouldn't.

In fact, I would argue (and have) that if the Sunnis fielded a slate, it would have been opposed to the occupation and reduced the overall size of Allawi's already feeble showing. In fact, it would probably have brought Allawi's showing in line with Zogby's figures for support for the occupation.

It's hard to tell from this election what the Iraqis want, but it's pretty easy to tell what they don't want. Therefore, whatever problems one may have with this election, it is a resounding repudiation of the occupation.

Or perhaps some neocon or a neocon dupe would like to tell us how Allawi's showing really reflects the love and respect the Iraqi people feel for their colonial oppressors? The same way they continue to explain how the war was justified even though the justifications were long ago shown to be deliberate lies?

[Jack Rabbit]

399. Souheila Al-Jadda: Elections are Over, Iraqi Women Feel the Heat

From CommonDreams
Dated Thursday February 10

Elections are Over, Iraqi Women Feel the Heat
By Souheila Al-Jadda

On January 30, 2005 a woman in Iraq gave birth to a baby girl. "We named her 'Elections' because she came at the same time as the elections," the mother told Abu Dhabi TV, referring to Iraqi's first historic, democratic and free elections.

But when the elections dust settles, baby 'Elections' could be growing up in a country that is not much different than before she came into this world. In fact, she may find more, not fewer, obstacles in her path towards freedom.

Following the elections, little has changed. Fearing rape, murder and kidnappings, many Iraqi families, especially women, have fled Iraq to neighboring Syria, where close to 350,000 Iraqi refugees reside. My own female relatives fled there, fearful of what the future Iraq may look like.

Aside from the security breakdown, women in Iraq have other major concerns regarding their political and social future, but if they play their cards right, Iraqi women still have hope as all the country's various factions attempt to rebuild their nation.

While we're feeling some schadenfreude over the defeat of Allawi and his neocon-backed slate, let's not forget that an Islamic republic, represented by Sistani's allies, is no paragon of democratic virtue, either.

[bemildred]

404. Bombs Hit Mosque and a Shia Bakery

---

Earlier in the week, fighters killed four policemen and 20 truck drivers who had been captured when a convoy was attacked. It was carrying sugar for the Ministry of Trade to government warehouses in Baghdad. The rotting bodies of the dead men, which nobody dared to touch for two days, were found near Salman Pak, 12 miles south-east of Baghdad.

Insurgents stormed the police station at Salman Pak yesterday. They were only dislodged when US helicopter gunships arrived; 10 policemen and 20 insurgents were killed.

One of the main roads from Baghdad to Basra, Iraq's second city, passes through Salman Pak. Several Sunni tribes who adhere to the Wahhabi version of Islam prey on traffic using the road. On election day on 30 January they stopped cars. If the fingers of drivers or passengers were marked with the blue ink used to show that a person had voted, the insurgents chopped off the finger.

---

The US is continuing to stress that it aims to hand over security duties to rapidly trained Iraqi army units. This has been tried repeatedly by the US military over the past 18 months but with a signal lack of success. Where US soldiers have withdrawn or taken a back seat the result has usually been a power vacuum which has swiftly been filled by resistance fighters.

CounterPunch

[Jack Rabbit]

409. Robin Wright (Washington Post): Iraq Winners Are Opposite of US Vision

From the Washington Post
Dated Sunday February 13 8:54 pm EST

Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are Opposite of U.S. Vision
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago this month, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.

But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.

Today, the White House heralded the election and credited the U.S. role. In a statement, President Bush praised Iraqis "for defying terrorist threats and setting their country on the path of democracy and freedom. And I congratulate every candidate who stood for election and those who will take office once the results are certified."

Yet the top two winning parties -- which together won more than 70 percent of the vote and are expected to name Iraq's new prime minister and president -- are Iran's closest allies in Iraq.

Read more.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

410. Power Check: Verdict Is Split in Iraqi Election...

NYT
Published: February 14, 2005


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 13 - The razor-thin margin apparently captured by the Shiite alliance here in election results announced Sunday seems almost certain to enshrine a weak government that will be unable to push through sweeping changes, like granting Islam a central role in the new Iraqi state.

The verdict handed down by Iraqi voters in the Jan. 30 election appeared to be a divided one, with the Shiite political alliance, backed by the clerical leadership in Najaf, opposed in nearly equal measure by an array of mostly secular minority parties.

According to Iraqi leaders here, the fractured mandate almost certainly heralds a long round of negotiating, in which the Shiite alliance will have to strike deals with parties run by the Kurds and others, most of which are secular and broadly opposed to an enhanced role for Islam or an overbearing Shiite government.

...

The results of the balloting appeared to leave Kurdish leaders, whose party captured more than a quarter of the assembly seats, in a particularly strong position to shape the next government. The Kurds are America's closest allies in Iraq, and most of their leaders are of a strong secular bent.

Among the demands that the Kurds and other groups will put to Shiite leaders as the price for their cooperation will be an insistence on a more secular state and concessions on Kirkuk, the ethnically divided city that Kurdish leaders want to integrate into their regional government. Kurdish leaders also say they will insist that the Iraqi president be a Kurd.

The prospect of a divided national assembly, split between religious and secular parties, also appeared to signal a continuing role for the American government, which already maintains 150,000 troops here, to help broker disputes.

As the final vote totals were being announced Sunday, Shiite leaders appeared to be scaling back their expectations, and preparing to reach out to parties in the opposition to help them form a new government.

...

The vote tally, which appeared to leave the Shiite alliance with about 140 of the national assembly's 275 seats, fell short of what Shiite leaders had been expecting, and seemed to blunt some of the triumphant talk that could already be heard in some corners. The final results seemed to ease fears among Iraq's Sunni, Kurd and Christian minorities that the leadership of the Shiite majority might feel free to ignore minority concerns, and possibly fall under the sway of powerful clerics, some of whom advocate the establishment of a strict Islamic state.

As a result, some Iraqi leaders predicted Sunday that the Shiite alliance would try to form a "national unity government," containing Kurdish and Sunni leaders, as well as secular Shiites, possibly including the current prime minister, Ayad Allawi. Such a leadership would all but ensure that no decisions would be taken without a broad national consensus.

One senior Iraqi official, a non-Shiite who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the slim majority won by the Shiite alliance signaled even greater obstacles for the Shiite parties in the future. If the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the election, decide to take part in the future, they would almost certainly dilute the Shiite alliance's already thin margin.

"This is the height of the Shiite vote," the Iraqi official said. "The next election assumes Sunni participation, and you will see an entirely different dynamic then."

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/international/middleeast/14assess.html?pagewanted=all&position=

[Jack Rabbit]

411. Razor-thin?

United Iraqi Alliance: 48%
Kurdish Coalition: 26%
Iraqi List (Allawi): 14%

It must be the razor Sistani uses to shave.

The UIA will need to reach out to other groups to form the government, but I would not characterize that margin as razor-thin. Nor would I characterize the Iraqi List's showing as a great success that justifies the quisling Allawi acting like he's important. If he's lucky, he'll get a mid-level portfolio, which is more than he deserves.

[Jack Rabbit]

412. BBC (Feb 14): Iraq Shias move to form coalition

From the BBC Online
Dated Monday February 14

Iraq Shias move to form coalition

Moves to form a new government are under way in Iraq after the announcement of full election results.

The Shia United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) says it wants to name a new prime minister after it was confirmed as winning nearly half the vote.

However the bloc will not have a parliamentary majority on its own. Kurdish groups, which came second, are seen as potential partners.

The process of forming a coalition is likely to take several weeks.

Read more.

This story has the Shias forming a coalition with the Kurds. It only mentions Allawi as finishing a distant third. This would relegate him to the status of also-ran, which is better than he deserves.

The concern may be Madhi becoming Prime Minister. Naomi Klein reports that he may be a part of a sinister plan by the neocons to frustrate the Iraqi people's desire for real sovereignty. She her piece in post 383, above.

[bemildred]

413. Bad math, or whorishness?

From post #409:

The vote tally, which appeared to leave the Shiite alliance with about 140 of the national assembly's 275 seats ...

Last I studied the subject, 140 is > 50% of 275.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

414. bad math..

what does not add up to me is the left's interest in the vote tally when they had 3.14159265 squared minus pi squared* to do with the election occurring in the first place...

*for the non-mathemetically inclined, that equals less than bupkis...

[bemildred]

415. Well, there is the 2/3 requirement for appointing grand poobahs ...

But I assume the "parliament" as such is run on a majority of votes basis.

I can say that I personally have little interest in the vote tally.

I assume the "leftists" that you refer to are out to de-legitimize the
occupation and the "election" as they have been all along. Somewhat as
their opponents on the "right" are trying to show the "election" was
and is a great success and the occupation a sterling effort at democracy
building, or imposing democracy on a people, or something.

I don't believe that the blathering of media whores has that much effect
outside their own imaginations, whether they are "leftists" or "rightists".
And I consider that the "election" was and is primarily a media event,
a propaganda fandango, which is about the level of control that the
occupation exerts in Iraq at this point, but I'm willing to let the
matter play out. It would be a good thing, to be sure, if peace, order,
and working water, sewage, and electrical power systems were to come
to Iraq, and I would not begrudge them that merely so the "left" could
be right again. (Pun intended.)

[cantwealljustgetalong]

422. the left being right boils down to the following...

...

Imagine we had followed the UN line and not gone to war. The corrupt oil for food programme would have continued, while pressure to remove sanctions increased. Saddam would have gradually rebuilt the ability to threaten the region and the world. Hundreds of shady businessmen, lobbyists and bureaucrats would have seen their bank accounts padded with lucrative oil contracts.

The Iraqi people would have continued to live in a fast-collapsing police state, kept barely alive by medicine and food supplies from the UN that were also the means to keep them under Saddam’s thumb. How on earth would this have been anything but a disaster and an injustice? Yes, critics of the war are right to say that we now know the WMD threat was greatly exaggerated. But it is equally true that we now know that the status quo the war critics preferred was inefficient, corrupt and deadly to the Iraqi people.

I’m not one of those who think the UN should be abolished. We need something like it. We need a forum in which the world can sometimes come together and discuss world problems. Where genuine peace exists it can make sense to send UN peacekeepers to police it. When international disaster strikes the UN can be a useful instrument for delivering aid.

But precisely because it has to represent all nations, it cannot represent justice or even any meaningful definition of the word “peace”. As long as Saudi Arabia is determining what human rights are, it’s a joke. Yes, it can be useful as a mechanism for the great powers to enforce their will in less naked and more consensual a fashion. But without those great powers, it’s useless. Remember Srebrenica? Or Rwanda? If the UN is powerless before genocide and corrupt in the face of dictatorships how can it be relied on to do anything of real significance in the world? That kind of work is left to the despised leaders of the West — the George Bushes and Tony Blairs and Michael Howards. They are accountable to voters, whereas UN bureaucrats are accountable once in a blue moon to Volcker.

We have learnt a lot since the liberation of Iraq. Western leaders are fallible. They even occasionally preside over serious crimes in pursuit of their policies. But without these western leaders and military powers, the Taliban would still be in power and Saddam would still be skimming off UN dollars. And Annan would be making excuses.

...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1481651,00.html

[bemildred]

426. We had to destroy the country in order to save it?

But this is tiresome, for us both I would suppose. If you really
think the USA is in the business of spreading peace and democracy and
human rights in the World, I don't expect we are going to get far
with a discussion. One cannot paper over incompatible premises.

Regards.

[Name removed]

437. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jack Rabbit]

438. Spreading democracy with an assembly of puppets?

That's good.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

440. hey,...

I'll be here all week...

[bemildred]

430. Scientist says US censored Iraq WMD report

CANBERRA: An Australian scientist involved in the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq said the CIA censored his reporting so that it suggested the weapons existed, according to an interview on Monday.

Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, told Australian Broadcasting Corp television’s “Four Corners” public affairs programme he quit the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) in disgust at the censorship of its interim report presented to the US Congress in March last year.

...

“We left the impression that, yes, maybe there were ... WMD out there,” Barton said. “So I thought it was dishonest.” Barton, an experienced weapons hunter who joined the UN search for Saddam Hussein’s illicit arsenal in 1991, said the censorship in the US investigation began after Charles Duelfer became the new head of ISG in February 2004.

Barton said Duelfer wanted “a different style of report altogether” which he had discussed with US President George W Bush and the CIA.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1237923

[cantwealljustgetalong]

423. A Liberal in Damascus...

...

For the last half-century, the Islamist movement and Arab regimes themselves have pushed Arab liberals to the sidelines. As a result, the Arab world's democracy activists and intellectuals do not enjoy the same advantages their Central and Eastern European counterparts did back in the 80's: whereas the generation of Havel and Walesa was backed by the Catholic Church and its Polish-born pope, Arab activists enjoy no such solidarity with any established Muslim institutions. Indeed, while militant Islamist leaders have called for elections in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, they typically see liberal, secular reformers like Abdulhamid as a threat to the traditional foundations of their authority.

Even so, the liberals seem to be gathering a little momentum. Recently, intellectuals from Iraq, Jordan and Tunisia petitioned the United Nations for a tribunal to prosecute both terrorists and the religious figures who incite violence. In Egypt, two new publications, Nahdet Misr and Al Masry Al Youm, fault the region's leaders and clerics alike for keeping Arabs from joining the modern world. The Iraqi election posed a stark challenge to regional autocrats. While Abdulhamid harbors mixed feelings about the United States' decision to invade Iraq, he says he believes that the American presence in the region is vital to the prospects for reform. ''We are an important part of the world,'' he says, ''and our inability to produce change on our own terms invites people in. The world is not going to wait for us.''

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/magazine/13ENCOUNTER.html?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

425. Election results elating for Iraqis...

Local expatriates see nation as making progress

...

The election results and the reaction did not surprise Eastern Michigan University sociology professor Mansoor Moaddel, who has been surveying residents of the Middle East for the past couple years - on religion, politics and the presence of coalition forces.

Moaddel's survey indicates that nearly 85 percent of Iraqis believe democracy is the best form of government. And when it comes to deposing Hussein, the vast majority said they were better off without him.

Moaddel said the inclusion of every group in the government is important for the country's future. He also said he expected the religious parties to do well in the election because they were endorsed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the supreme authority for Iraqi Shiites.

Although most Iraqis consider themselves religious, they want a government that will serve everyone, Moaddel said. Besides, Sistani has endorsed a constitutional form of government, he said.

But the Shiites, whose winning margin was less than what they expected, may now have to compromise more than anticipated.

...

Al-Hakim, who lost 19 family members to Saddam Hussein's executioners, wept as he heard the results on Sunday. He later told Iraqi television of the need for cooperation with disenchanted Sunnis already alienated in postwar Iraq.

"We believe in the need for participation and will seek harmony among all segments of the Iraqi people," he told Iraqi television.

The results highlighted the sharp differences among Iraq's ethnic, religious and cultural groups - many of whom fear domination not just by the Shiites, estimated at 60 percent of the population, but also by the Kurds, the most pro-American group with about 15 percent.

...

Iraqi Kurds danced in the streets and waved Kurdish flags when results were announced in the oil-rich, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk.

...

Moaddel said feelings of expatriates living here are reflected in the findings of his survey of Iraqis still living in their native country. He surveyed 2,325 Iraqis in November and December and found that foreign occupation is the second-most important problem facing Iraqis, behind the absence of security.

He also found that when it comes to deposing Saddam Hussein, 91 percent of Kurds and 84 percent of Shiites said they were better off without the former dictator. However, only 21 percent of Sunnis said they were better off. Hussein and the minority Sunnis ruled Iraq for more than 30 years.

The survey also found that most Sunnis now feel powerless and hopeless. If the new government includes a fair representation of the Sunni population, it would improve that sense of hopelessness, Moaddel said. If the government fails to do that, it could drive more people toward the insurgency, he said. Members of the minority Sunnis who largely boycotted voting have supported the insurgency.


http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1108395620174801.xml

[Jack Rabbit]

431. Juan Cole: Shiites Take Absolute Majority in Parliament

From JuanCole.com via CommonDreams
Dated Monday February 14

Shiites Take Absolute Majority in Parliament
Iran Scores Victory in the Iraqi Elections
By Juan Cole

Lebanese Broadcasting Co.'s satellite television news is reporting that the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), comprising Shiite religious parties, has won an absolute majority (141 seats) after adjustments were made in accordance with electoral procedure. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the list leader, expressed his pleasure at this 51 percent outcome for his coalition. The UIA still needs a 2/3s majority, and therefore a coalition partner or partners, to form a government (which involves electing a president and two vice-presidents, who will appoint a prime minister). But it can now win votes on procedure and legislation without needing any other partner.

Robin Wright of the Washington Post points out that an electoral victory of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party, both of them close to Tehran, is not what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Neoconservatives had been going for with this Iraq adventure. The United Iraqi Alliance is led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite cleric who lived over 2 decades in exile in Iran. I point out that the likely coalition partner of the United Iraqi Alliance is the Kurdistan Alliance, led by Jalal Talabani, who is himself very close to Tehran. So there are likely to be warm Baghdad-Tehran relations.

Likewise, it is worth pointing out that the new Shiite government in Baghdad will support the Lebanese Shiites, including Hezbollah.

One of the Neoconservatives' goals had been the installation of a pro-Israel government in Baghdad. But at Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution rallies and Friday prayers services, crowds have been known to chant "Death to Israel!"

Read more.

The Iraqis should be delighted about their election. It gave them a chance to give the neocons a finger in the eye. I'm glad they took full advantage of it.

I can't say I'm too pleased about the prospects of an elected Iraqi government supporting Hezbollah. Didn't we go into Iraq because Saddam had ties to terrorists? Only he didn't have them?

As the wise man said, "be careful what you wish for; you might get it."

[Name removed]

433. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

442. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[veronicarose]

444. Juan Cole's ideological slant has been known to be at odds with reality---

Iraq's Electoral Balance

THE 8.5 MILLION Iraqis who turned out to vote two weeks ago have elected a national assembly more suited for the task of nation-building than many would have expected. An alliance backed by the Shiite clergy won a plurality of the vote, and it may command a bare majority in the 275-seat body. But fears that Iraq's new government will be monopolized by pro-Iranian factions bent on religious rule seem unfounded. The Shiite block will be balanced by an almost equal number of secular legislators, and its leaders acknowledge the need to compromise with Kurds, Sunnis and other groups. It is likely that the new prime minister will be secular and Western-educated, and his cabinet may contain some of the same politicians handpicked by the United States for Iraq's first postwar government.

There is a greater danger that Iraq's new regime will collapse than that it will lurch toward extremes. The dire consequences of such a breakup, including partition and aggression by neighbors, should provide a strong incentive to the various parties to stay together, but no one can predict what will flow from the empowerment of Iraq's Shiites and Kurds for the first time in the country's history. It also remains to be seen whether the mandate and political momentum provided by a 58 percent voter turnout will make it any easier for the Iraqi government to combat the Sunni insurgency, which is based in a community that largely didn't vote.





President Bush's commitment to the Iraqi mission, and the continued sacrifices of young American soldiers and Marines, mean Iraq's newly elected politicians will have a chance to write a constitution that balances majority rule with federalism. The timetable laid out for the new assembly -- a new constitution by August, a referendum in October, general elections in December -- is daunting. It's not easy to imagine how agreement on issues such as the role of Islam in government may be reached, or how it will be possible in just eight months for a new constitution to be approved by majorities in Sunni-dominated provinces. If there are reasons for optimism, they are that Iraq's newly elected leaders appear to understand that the alternative to compromise is catastrophe, and that a decisive majority of Iraqis have, at risk of their lives, chosen to support them.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24757-2005Feb14.html

[bemildred]

447. Iraq's story is one of hope and surprise

Two years on and Iraq has had its first elections, but little else has turned out as expected.

The country is on the edge of civil war. For almost two years a Sunni-led insurgency has fought United States and Iraqi security forces. The new Shia-led government looks destined to wage a bloody war of repression in Sunni tribal areas, while pushing for an Islamic-based state. Secular, moderating voices have been bullied into silence by bombings and murders.

Many of these problems were the inevitable outcome of the invasion of the country, although they have been magnified by a series of American mistakes and miscalculations. At the heart of Iraq's failings is the extraordinary fact that when US and British troops streamed across the Iraqi border, they did so without a workable plan.

There was originally a plan. In the months leading up to the invasion, the US state department held discussions with Iraqi exiles, resulting in a 2,000-page document called the Future of Iraq. It foresaw the need for a massive US troop presence to prevent looting and an Iraqi-directed reconstruction process which would take years – precisely the sort of findings to make anyone rethink the wisdom of an invasion.

Telegraph UK

[bemildred]

448. The war's silver lining

Incoherent explanation number 1246 ...
(Story stolen from Jack Rabbit)

Tony Blair is not gloating. He could - but he prefers to appear magnanimous in what he hopes is victory. In our Guardian interview yesterday, he was handed a perfect opportunity to crow. He was talking about what he called "the ripple of change" now spreading through the Middle East, the slow, but noticeable movement towards democracy in a region where that commodity has long been in short supply. I asked him whether the stone in the water that had caused this ripple was the regime change in Iraq.

He could have said yes, insisting that events had therefore proved him right and the opponents of the 2003 war badly wrong. But he did not. Instead he sidestepped the whole Iraq business.

Perhaps he was simply reluctant to reopen a debate that came to define, if not paralyse, much of his second term. Or maybe he calculated that it was best to keep the current democratic shift in the region separate from the Iraq war, so that people who opposed the latter might still rally to support the former.

But if he had wanted to brag and claim credit - boasting that the toppling of Saddam Hussein had set off a benign chain reaction - he would have had plenty of evidence to call on.

Guardian

[Jack Rabbit]

449. Discussion in editorials

Please click here.

[bemildred]

450. 'We are living in a state of constant fear'

Hafid al-Qadhi is one of the most precarious places in the new Baghdad. Gangs, brothels and piles of rubbish fill its dark, unelectrified alleys, where kids play around lakes of green sewage. It has been known for decades as the crazies' neighbourhood, not only for the eccentricities of its inhabitants, but also because since the late 50s it has been home to the country's most celebrated psychiatrists.

One of Baghdad's best-known shrinks has his clinic in a crumbling, two-storey building there. The stairwell leading to his clinic is a dark, sinister space. Lighters in hand, visitors tread carefully on the steps, plaster falling in big lumps on their shoulders as they climb to the upper floors. The letters on the doctor's nameplate have been lost a long time ago. In the small waiting room, men and women crowd around a small table where a young woman struggles in the darkness to find patients' history in three big volumes of names and details. An old TV sits idle in the corner, and a piece of cloth separates the waiting room from a small, stinking toilet, lit by a candle.

Beneath the doctor's British diploma hanging on the wall, Fatima Aziz, a thin, tall woman in her 40s, is sitting with her sister on a pair of threadbare green armchairs. Her black scarf is falling back from her head, her hand held firmly by her sister and her eyes fixed on the floor. The doctor, an old man in his 60s, pleasant, soft and reassuring, sits behind a big wooden table. The only light in the room comes from the big window behind him, making his white hair glow and giving him the air of a genie. He glances at the white card passed to him by a male nurse and whispers "ECT".

Iraqis these days like to look back and tell each other stories of the good old days when everyone was happy and people weren't at each other's throats over every issue. Clearly the memory is a rosy one, but there is no doubt that depression and psychiatric illness are on the increase in today's Iraq. The worsening security situation has led to more and more people with serious mental health problems, though the withdrawal of the UN and international aid agencies means information about the scale of the problem is elusive; both the International Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières say they have no data on the psychiatric effects of the war and its aftermath on Iraq's population. (A 1999 report by MSF into psychological damage in Sierra Leone after a period of intense violence found that 99% of respondents showed levels of disturbance equivalent to severe post-traumatic stress in Europe.)

Guardian UK

[bemildred]

451. Afterthoughts : Desperate Martians now wooing Venusians

Also in Editorials, but it really belongs here too.

Despite the recent US-sponsored elections in Afghanistan, the Karzai government effectively controls only parts of Kabul and two or three other cities. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said, despite the elections, "without functional state institutions able to serve the basic needs of the population throughout the country, the authority and legitimacy of the new government will be short-lived." And so long as this is the case, Afghanistan will tie down 13,500 US troops within the country and 35,000 support personnel outside.

• The US war on terror has backfired completely, with Al-Qaeda and its allies much stronger today than in 2001. The invasion of Iraq, according to Richard Clarke, Bush‚s former anti-terrorism czar, claims, derailed the war on terror and served as the best recruiting device for Al-Qaeda. But even without Iraq, Washington‚s heavy handed police and military methods of dealing with terrorism were already alienating millions of Muslims. Nothing illustrates this more than Southern Thailand, where US anti-terrorist advice has helped convert simmering discontent into a full-blown insurgency.

• With its full embrace of Ariel Sharon’s no-win strategy of sabotaging the emergence of a Palestinian state, Washington has forfeited all the political capital that it had gained among Arabs by brokering the now defunct Oslo Accord. Moreover, the go-with-Sharon strategy, along with the occupation of Iraq, has left Washington’s allies among the Arab elites exposed, discredited, and vulnerable. With the death of Yasser Arafat, Tel Aviv and Washington may entertain hopes of a settlement of the Palestinian issue on their terms. This is an illusion, and we probably will see this in growing support for Hamas among the Palestinians at the expense of Mr. Abbas‚ PLO.

• Latin America’s move to the Left will accelerate. The victory of the leftist coalition in Uruguay is simply the latest in a series of electoral victories for progressive forces, following those in Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil. Along with electoral turns to the left, there may also be in the offing more mass insurrections such as that which occurred in Bolivia in October 2003. Speaking of the turn towards the left and away from the empire, one of the US’ friends, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda, assesses the situation accurately: "America’s friends are feeling the fire of this anti-American wrath. They are finding themselves forced to shift their own rhetoric and attitude in order to dampen their defense of policies viewed as pro-American or US-inspired, and to stiffen their resistance to Washington‚s demands and desires.

http://news.inq7.net/viewpoints/index.php?index=2&story_id=29338&col=65

[bemildred]

452. Buck Up, The World Hates Us More Than Ever

Why the Left Was Right After All

Liberals have their faults, but no one can accuse them of being pigheaded. Two years after left-of-Bush Americans marched against the invasion of Iraq and a year after the Administration admitted it had lied about Saddam's non-existent weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda, the sprouting of a few protodemocratic weeds in the microscopically-cracked cement of Arab dictatorship has prompted them to wonder whether the neoconservatives maybe did the right thing after all by going into Iraq.

---

As far as I'm concerned, Bush deserves to be impeached for lying to his employers--us--about Iraq's WMDs. He should face prosecution at a war crimes tribunal for the murder of the 100,000-plus Iraqis he ordered killed by U.S. troops. He deserves life in prison for ordering the torture, and allowing the murder under torture, of countless innocent Afghans and Iraqis. Nothing, not even if the Iraq war sparked the transformation of the entire Muslim world into peaceful and prosperous Athenian-style democracies, could retroactively justify such murderous perfidy. I'm not convinced a Riyadh spring is about to bloom. It will take a lot more than male-only Saudi municipal elections held in half the country, in which six of the seven winners were illegally promoted by the kingdom's extremist Wahabbi religious establishment.

---

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has eased somewhat, largely thanks to an event that had nothing to do with Bush, Arafat's death and replacement with Mahmoud Abbas. But even the Palestinian Authority's own polls show that fewer than half of Palestinians accept recent elections as legitimate, while 84 percent of the population say they live without safety or security in their daily lives. Basic issues, such as Israeli colonies on Arab land, remain unresolved. Peace with Israel? Not in the near future.

---

Even the stirrings of electioneering in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the Muslim world cold. Both contests, held amid pervasive fraud, violence and corruption in active war zones where millions are too afraid to venture outdoors, are interpreted as ersatz democracy imposed upon puppet regimes created by a hostile occupation force. And the stooges are disorganized. Iraq's fractious parties haven't been able to form a government; Afghanistan's elections have been delayed until the fall owing to the continuing war with the Taliban. A BBC poll taken in Turkey, a staunch American ally and the model secular state in the Islamic world, finds that 82 percent of Turks consider the United States under George W. Bush to be the greatest threat to world peace.

Common Dreams

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453. BELAFONTE WAS RIGHT

Poor Colin Powell. The only cabinet member who was a thorn in the side for Bush’s wanting to take over the world. The only moderate. Horse merde! Powell was as aggressive as anyone else in the administration, but he ran afoul of some of the methods Bush used.

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Don’t forget that former Secretary of State created the "Powell Doctrine" of "overwhelming force." Its results were diabolical in the first Gulf War: destroying the entire infrastructure of Iraq while killing about a quarter of a million human beings. Militarily, the Iraqi troops could have been forced to leave Kuwait with much less loss of life and life-supporting items such as drinking water and electricity.

---

Let’s get back to Powell. He is now concerned that his legacy will be less-than-honorable. He stated, "Hundreds of millions followed it (his presentation) on television. I will always be the one who presented it. I have to live with that."

How ridiculous. His delivery of lies caused the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the destruction of a country that can no longer provide even the most meager of items necessary for daily existence. Yet, he has the audacity to be worried about his legacy. He has not uttered one word of sorrow for the dead or the families of the Iraqi dead who suffered because of his lies. Not one word.

La Gauche Is Right

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454. The shadow Iraqi government

Reality had intervened two days before Rumsfeld arrived, when about 300,000 Shi'ite nationalists occupied the same Firdaws Square of "liberation day", April 9, 2003, but this time with no Saddam-toppling photo-op intent. Their messages were clear: out with the occupation; and Bush equals Saddam Hussein.

By organizing this huge, Shi'ite mass protest - the largest popular demonstration in Iraq since 1958 - young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was not just occupying a political vaccum: he was daring the new prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari of the Da'wa Party - who appeals to the same Shi'ite constituency - to reveal his true colors.

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Highway to hell

The occupation is worse than an economic tsunami: it managed to plunge Iraq - once a beacon of development in the Arab world - into Sub-Saharan poverty. There's less electricity each day than in 2003 or even 2004. Without electricity, the whole country is paralyzed: nothing - communications, industry, the healthcare system, the educational system - works properly. All water plants "reconstructed" by Bechtel and co are breaking down. With weekly, sometimes daily attacks on pipelines, oil production is pitiful, still inferior to Saddam-era, pre-war levels. Sixty percent of the total population survives on food stamps.

Baghdad is a hellish labyrinth of concrete walls and barbed wire, where a BMW is "the kidnappers' car", 4X4s are favored by candidates for suicide attacks and there's no safe place to hide. Reuters staff survive barricaded behind sandbags and concrete walls; the only one able to venture out to collect images by motorbike is Abu Ali, a kind of local hero. Gas lines are endless. The resistance is relentless. The al-Batawiyyin district has become a Dantesque hell of criminal gangs, drug trafficking, prostitution and trafficking of human organs. Western Iraq is totally out of US control. Mosul is infiltrated by the Iraqi resistance. Ramadi, the resistance capital of the Sunni triangle, is controlled by - who else - the resistance.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD21Ak02.html

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455. Ed Naha: 'Reality check'

You'd never know it by watching network and cable news, but we're still involved in two wars that are, for all practical purposes, going down the crapper. Thank God "The Runaway Bride" is still planning on exchanging marital vows, because now a few hundred more armchair shrinks are free to gas-bag about her mental state 24/7, thus keeping her at the top of the vaudeville review sometimes called the news. And if the wedding goes bust? Well, we still have Michael Jackson's circus to entertain us.

As I write this, 1594 American troops have been killed in Iraq. 180 American troops have been slain in Afghanistan. Democracy is on the march…or on the run, as it were.

A little over a week ago, at a press conference, George W. Bush stated that we're making "really good progress" in Iraq. Two days before the press conference, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Iraqi insurgents were as strong as ever. Since Bush's happy talk, 250 Iraqis have been killed via suicide bombings, assassinations and gunfire. I guess you could call that "really good progress," in that nobody was beheaded or set on fire or died a death of a thousand cuts.

---

If you’re winning a war, you don’t lie.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=21006&mode=nested&order=0

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456. Iraq insurgency in 'last throes,' Cheney says

The vice president said he expected the war would end during President Bush's second term, which ends in 2009.

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Cheney was among the Bush administration's most forceful advocates of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Bush, Cheney and other top officials said war was necessary because Iraq was maintaining illicit stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and concealing a nuclear weapons program from U.N. weapons inspectors and could have provided those weapons to terrorists.

No banned weapons were found after U.S. troops deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government, though U.S. inspectors said Iraq was concealing some weapons-related research from the United Nations.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/index.html

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457. Twelve more years

In Iraq, the Sunni Arab resistance insists on being on a roll, thus disturbing the Pentagon's plans of quietly building its 14 military bases. In Iran, the new game has not even started, but Tehran and Washington are already at each other's throats. Only one day after his victory, Iranian president-elect Mahmud Ahmadinejad said at his first press conference in Tehran, "Iran is on a path of progress and elevation, and does not really need the United States on this path." A few hours later, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was snarling on Fox News, "I don't know much about this fellow ... But he is no friend of democracy."

Double standards rule. Imagine the fury in the US if, for instance, an Iranian government official in 2000 said, "I don't know much about this cowboy Bush. But he stole the American elections."

Karl Marx may be rolling (with laughter) in his Highgate, north London grave. Talking about classic class struggle: in Iran, a left-wing, working-class hero (Ahmadinejad) has beaten a super-bourgeois, millionaire mullah (Rafsanjani). In Iraq, the local, deposed, militarized Sunni Arab bourgeoisie is fighting a national liberation movement against an imperialist occupation. According to one of the current running jokes in the vast Iranian blogosphere, Ahmadinejad is already doomed because Bush will never be able to pronounce his name. On a more serious note, as much as for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the election result is a "humiliation" to America. Yet a much harsher humiliation is being inflicted by a few thousand Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq, bogging down the self-described mightiest army in the history of the world.

---

Now growing numbers of Americans seem to have had enough of all the plot twists - and would rather switch to a Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise vehicle where the bad guys always lose and the good guy always gets the girl. People around the world are always bemused by the fact that American society is a strictly winner-takes-all universe. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld may end up being branded as losers - the ultimate insult (or "unknown unknowns", in Rumsfeld doublespeak). Rumsfeld has finally admitted that the Iraq war is unwinnable. No amount of Washington spin can have it packaged and sold to the American people - again.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF28Ak05.html

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458. Cause and consequence

Tony Blair appears to be on the brink of a Brechtian moment, in which he will need to dissolve the people who have lost his confidence and elect another.

Certainly, if he claims that anyone who believes there is a connection between the government's foreign policy - above all, Iraq - and the July 7 massacre in London is a "fellow traveller of terrorism", then he has his work cut out. Fully 85% of the public do, according to a Daily Mirror/GMTV poll. The government's refusal to associate cause and consequence, which would be child-like were it not so obviously self-serving, is sustained only by hysterical warnings against the new evil of "root-causism" from the residual pro-empire liberals.

This attempt to close down debate as to why Britain - London above all - is now fighting the misbegotten "war on terror" on its own streets, is doubly dangerous. Not only does it block the necessary re-evaluation of foreign policy, it also places the onus for preventing any repetition of July 7 on the "Muslim community", which - in a form of collective responsibility - is accused of breeding an "evil ideology" in its midst.

Guardian UK

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459. So we're going to bolt from Iraq. Where are the cries of complaint?

The game is nearly up: not the military game, the psychological one. We can no longer take the strain in Iraq. We are going to make a bolt for it. You know that, don’t you? I suspect most British people do. It’s bearing down on us with a terrible inevitability.

Well? I am waiting. A number of us are waiting. We were expecting an angry chorus from a particular quarter. So why the silence? You could hear a pin drop. Why don’t they sing out, the armchair warriors of Fleet Street? George W. Bush and his friends are preparing to scuttle Iraq, and nobody’s complaining.

Where are they, those editorialisers whose confident “Tally-ho!” cheered our lads into Basra and Baghdad and whose cry was that we were “in this for the long haul”, to “finish the job”? Finish the job indeed — do they really think, does anybody think, that the job is finished? Does anyone seriously suggest that a free and democratic Iraq is now heading into the home straight?

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This should be their moment. Anyone can cry “Forward!” when the tanks are rolling. It’s when the operation gets bogged down, when people are dying, when the end looks further off than ever, that the voices of the prophets are needed to rally morale. If hearts are growing faint in Washington and resolve is faltering in the capitals of the Coalition of the Willing — if the whispers of “time to start scaling back the commitment ” are growing more insistent — then where, when their instincts should surely tell them they are needed most, are the bugle-boys of the British media?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1065-1732779,00.html

[Violet_Crumble]

460. The thread that keeps on keeping on...

Even with a broadband connection it takes a while for this monster of a thread to load!

Violet...

[bemildred]

461. I should probably save it to disk and let it go.

:think:

[Violet_Crumble]

462. Nah, I'm attached to this thread...

I've been meaning to find a quiet printer at work and print out a copy of it to share with someone who I suspect supports Australia's role in the invasion of Iraq...

Violet...

[Lithos]

463. Wonder about this thread now

Three years later.

L-

[Name removed]

464. Deleted message

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