The Mote Archive - Conflict in the Middle East, pt.1a

Conflict in the Middle East, pt. 1a

2550. jexster - 1/26/2003 2:23:37 PM

FYI ANSWER does not have "members". ANSWER is a coaltion, a Mighty Coalition of the Willing if you will.

It has "endorsers" not members to be precise.

Ramsey Clark - former U.S. Attorney General

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton - Auxiliary Bishop, Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, Michigan

American Muslims for Global Peace

Al-Awda Palestine Right of Return Coalition, NY & NJ

Barbara Lubin -Executive Director, Middle East Children's Alliance

Jews Against the Occupation

Rev. Lucius Walker - Pastors for Peace

Rev. Graylan Hagler - Senior Minister, Plymouth Congregational Church, Washington DC

Rev. Curtis Gatewood - Durham, North Carolina

Rev. Cecil Williams - Glide Memorial Church, Washington, DC

Robert Meeropol -Executive Director, Rosenberg Fund for Children*

Teresa Gutierrez -Co-Director, International Action Center, NYC

Karen Talbot -International Center for Peace & Justice
Trades Union International of Building and Wood Workers, Finland

LEF Foundation, St. Helena, California

SEIU Local 1877, San Francisco, California

Vanguard Public Foundation, San Francisco, California Bündnis Global Gegen Krieg (Global Alliance Against War), From, Germany

Robert Franck - professor, Catholic University of Louvain*, Belgium

Thomas Claesson - Teachers League of Sweden*, Skärhamn, Tjörn, Sweden

raindog - earthling, California

jexster

2551. jexster - 1/26/2003 2:23:41 PM

2552. jexster - 1/26/2003 2:26:09 PM

Next time UR in Skärhamn, Tjörn say hi to Thomas for me

2553. jexster - 1/26/2003 3:01:51 PM

From Iraq - What Next? - Carnegie Institute

Iraq: What Next? | 12

8. Does Iraq pose a threat while inspections are under way?

Not under current conditions.
Saddam is in an iron box. With tens of thousands of troops around Iraq, an international coalition united in support of the inspection process, and now hundreds of inspectors in the country able to go anywhere at any time, Saddam is unable to engage in any large-scale development or
production of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. It would be exceedingly difficult to import significant quantities of proscribed materials or to manufacture longer-range missiles or missile components.
Thus, while there may be legitimate concerns about the ability of the inspection regime to discover hidden caches of weapons, there should be no doubt about its ability to prevent militarily significant industrial production.
Even if inspections fail to provide evidence supporting Iraqi claims that no weapons of mass destruction remain in the country, the inspections will serve a vital monitoring and verification purpose.

2554. jexster - 1/26/2003 3:10:33 PM

Iraq: What Next? | 16

IN CONCLUSION
Initially, the aim of U.S. policy was to prevent an imminent threat of attack by Iraq against the U.S. and allied forces, territory, and friends.
That goal has, for now, been achieved.

The crucial issue before the United States at this moment then is on what grounds it would terminate inspections in midcourse in favor of an immediate invasion. Iraq’s failure to produce a complete declaration does constitute a material breach of Resolution 1441.

The question, however, is whether it constitutes a wise, compelling, and necessary causs belli. We believe that it does not. Only if the administration’s true aim is to remove the current government of Iraq as a matter of principle would a turn to war at this moment make sense. If that is the case, of course the inspection and disarmament process now underway is irrelevant.

2555. jexster - 1/26/2003 3:27:07 PM

Its the OIL Stupid!

Iraq has the world's second largest proven reserves - some 112 billion barrels, and at least another 100bn of unproven reserves, according to the US Department of Energy. Iraqi oil is comparatively simple to extract - less than $1 per barrel, compared with $6 a barrel in Russia. Soon, US and British forces could be securing the source of that oil as a priority in the war strategy. The Iraqi fields south of Basra produce prized 'sweet crudes' that are simpler to refine.

only the oil majors based in Britain and America - now the leading military hawks - that don't have current access to Iraqi contracts.

2556. jexster - 1/26/2003 3:29:11 PM

Richard Lugar, the hawkish chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggests reluctant Europeans risk losing out on oil contracts. 'The case he had made is that the Russians and the French, if they want to have a share in the oil operations or concessions or whatever afterward, they need to be involved in the effort to depose Saddam as well,' said Lugar's spokesman.

A delegation of senior US Republicans was in Moscow last Tuesday trying to persuade Kremlin officials and oil companies that a war in Iraq would not compromise their concessions. A leaked oil analyst report from Deutsche Bank said ExxonMobil was in 'pole position in a changed-regime Iraq'.

2557. jexster - 1/26/2003 3:30:24 PM

Two sets of meetings (re: Iraq Oil Plunder) sponsored by the State Department and Vice-President Dick Cheney's staff have been attended by representatives of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhilips and Halliburton,

War stands to give control over the oil price to 'new Iraq' and its sponsors, with Saudi Arabia losing its capacity to control prices by altering productive capacity.

Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Defence Secretary, and Richard Perle, a key Pentagon adviser, see military action as part of a grand plan to reshape the Middle East.

The neo-conservatives plan a market structure based on bypassing the state-owned Iraqi National Oil Company and backing new free-market Iraqi companies.

Five years ago the then Chevron chief executive Kenneth Derr, a colleague of Rice, said: 'Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas - reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.'

2558. jexster - 1/26/2003 9:10:41 PM

'The Last Jihad'

Right-Wing Talk Radio Helps 'Christ-Salted' Book Rise on Best Seller Lists

"A well-connected conservative activist/writer develops a storyline 'ripped from today's headlines' featuring simultaneous terrorist strikes on the US, London, Paris and Saudi Arabia, an oil deal between Israel and the Palestinians that threatens to unleash a war with Iraq, and a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike. Largely written before 9/11, Joel C. Rosenberg's new novel, 'The Last Jihad' is charging up the best-seller lists -- with help from right-wing talk radio...A business jet, packed with thousands of pounds of fuel and explosives, attacks the presidential motorcade outside of Denver. At the same time terrorists strike targets in London, Paris and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. U.S. forces go on alert and the CIA traces the attack to Saddam Hussein. Simultaneously, a secret oil deal is being negotiated between Israeli and Palestinian officials. Hussein gets wind of the deal and threatens to use weapons of mass destruction on Tel Aviv, New York and Washington if the deal is consummated."

Sounds like a Bush dossier.

2559. jexster - 1/26/2003 9:11:51 PM

Bet Zan has a copy

2560. concerned - 1/27/2003 2:14:17 AM

From Radio Liberty:

30 June 2000, Volume 3, Number 21

GORE REPEATS THAT SADDAM MUST GO.

U.S. Vice President Al Gore told Iraqi opposition leaders that Saddam Husseyn "must be removed from power," AP reported on 26 June. Among his audience at the Washington meeting were representatives of the Kurdish Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Iraq National Congress (INC), and the Constitutional Monarchist Movement.

London's "Al-Hayat" on 27 June said that the Iraqi participants in the meeting had pressed for a change in the way the U.S. administration now deals with the INC and specifically for the release of funds appropriated by the Congress. The paper added that the INC leadership also called on the United States to change the current rules of engagement given to U.S. forces so that they can strike other targets as well as to continue enforcement of the existing no-fly zones.

Following Gore's meeting with the Iraqi opposition groups, the two sides released a joint statement reiterating the U.S. commitment to removing Saddam Husseyn from power and arguing that Saddam's removal "is the key to the positive transformation of Iraq's relationship to the international community." (David Nissman)

Let's see. Maybe it's that Jexster has no problem with the US removing Saddam. He just wants to wait for a Democrat Administration to do it.

2561. concerned - 1/27/2003 2:41:53 AM

Who believes the world will be a better place if Sodamn is not deposed, but the US is humiliated?

2562. concerned - 1/27/2003 3:35:49 AM

concerned To be honest, when I read those sorts of inflammatory claims about any group, I tend to be sceptical.

So, basically, you're discounting them because of the source.

2563. concerned - 1/27/2003 3:44:20 AM

The new House Minority Leader's two reasons for not taking any action against Iraq (as told to ABC's This Week):

1) The Iraqis have no weapons of mass destruction.

2) The Iraqis will use biological and chemical weapons against our troops.

2564. Dubai Vol - 1/27/2003 3:47:19 AM

no, concerned I'm just not going to play games with you. Say what you mean and I will happily discuss it with you, but sniping and pulling cute debating tricks doesn't interest me. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, why are you trying to put words into mine?

The point of rational discussion isn't to "win" the debate, it's to increase understanding. So far you aren't making that effort with me, and to be honest I don't even know what your position is. I've skimmed through the thread, but there are 2563 posts, after all.

Just to recap my position: Dubya's a moronic menace, and a puppet for the power brokers in the GOP and big oil, but Saddam still needs to be removed; it should have been done a dozen years ago. I say do it now and get it behind us. The region, and ultimately the world, will be a better place for it.

I think that's what they call Realpolitik. Whatever.

2565. Dubai Vol - 1/27/2003 3:52:57 AM

2566. Dubai Vol - 1/27/2003 3:55:39 AM

Oops

Re: 2563

Sounds like typical partisan rhetoric. You're not the only one resorting to cheap debating trick, eh, concerned

2567. concerned - 1/27/2003 3:58:18 AM

You talk about 'being sceptical' of the content of the link you provided. When I asked you to be more specific about one particular paragraph, to either back up your stated skepticism, or otherwise, you become quite coy.

I need to know more, in practical terms, about what you believe merits discussion and what you think is 'extreme' before I can discuss these points with you.

2568. concerned - 1/27/2003 4:02:09 AM

Re. 2566 -

I see you're resorting to unprovoked swipes now, Dubai. I now wonder if you are too prone to personal attacks for me to have a reasonably amiable discussion with.

2569. Dubai Vol - 1/27/2003 4:11:52 AM

Unprovoked? Hardly.You are playing games. I say again: say what you mean and I will discuss it with you. Try to put words in my mouth and I will ignore you.

The quoted editorial is just that, an editorial; a statement of opinion, an attempt to prove a point, not an unbiased news report. That's fine, but when people start calling names and playing games it doesn't impress me.

One bit of the article I do agree with, that a lot of anti-war types just seem to be anti-anything American automatically. As a veteran living in a society full of anti-American sentiment, I tend to be pro-American automatically, but neither stance is really rational, and at least I try to recognise that. (English spelling tend to creep in here what with all the Brits, including the one in my bed.)

I also have a sense of humor, you should try it. All debating tricks and no play makes concerned a dull boy

:p

2570. concerned - 1/27/2003 4:15:10 AM

I ask you, once again, whether you find any factual points with which you disagree in the paragraph I cited from your link several posts back.

2571. Dubai Vol - 1/27/2003 4:26:42 AM

OK, concerned, no, I don't have any problem with the facts. But facts can be slanted, by stating only the ones that agree with your position, and I am not going to bother researching every detail of an obviously opinionated article to get to the bottom of what is and is not strictly true. Yes, there are extremists on both sides of the issue, what else is new? I already said I disagree with the anti-war crowd, what more do you want? Do I have to hate them as well before I am sufficiently on your side?

I say again: demonising the opposition is fun but it is not constructive.

2572. concerned - 1/27/2003 4:32:58 AM

No, I don't agree with the overall tone of the article you linked to, as a matter of fact. But, obviously, that paragraph has provoked a lively debate among other posters in this thread and was also news to me (I'd only heard of ANSWER a few days ago). I am more sympathetic to GWB than you apparently are, and sometimes getting down to cases in such situations can lead to some surprising differences in interpretation of some fairly basic items. So I apologize if you think I was trying to put you on the spot & I have enjoyed reading your posts in this thread.

2573. Dubai Vol - 1/27/2003 4:50:37 AM

Well thanks at last for actually making a statement rather than just cross-examining me.

Yes, I am a freak of nature, a pro-war Democrat. As an American living in the Middle East, I thought I might be able to contribute some different insights, to stir the pot as it were. But I thought it might be polite (or at least politic) to stir it gently, at least at first!

FWIW I have not yet begun to give my reasons WHY Saddam should go NOW. Maybe tomorrow, as my lunch break is over.

2574. judithathome - 1/27/2003 7:49:24 AM

Thanks, DubaiVol, for expressing your views. I look forward to reading your posts and appreciate your approach. Most people run screaming from some of the "debate technique" that is so prevalent here. ;-)

2575. concerned - 1/27/2003 10:51:39 AM

Re. 2573 -

Ha ha ha. I've hardly 'cross examined' you. You're pretty sensitive for somebody who is so free with the invective.

2576. marjoribanks - 1/27/2003 10:53:21 AM

Just to recap my position: Dubya's a moronic menace, and a puppet for the power brokers in the GOP and big oil, but Saddam still needs to be removed; it should have been done a dozen years ago. I say do it now and get it behind us. The region, and ultimately the world, will be a better place for it.

Well said, dubaivol.

This is exactly the correct and rational position to take given the mountains of evidence on both counts.

It's interesting to see hard-core big-business supporters of the dems take exactly the position that you have (one which I support). It reflects a maturity that is welcome, and it will benefit the US stance. I appreciate a principled stance against War in Iraq. Americans who are unwilling to get into an imperial relationship on good historical grounds also have a sympathetic ear in me.

But, for very good reasons, this projection of US power in a crucial region must be supported by hard-headed realists, especially those who live under and benefit from the American Imperium.

2577. marjoribanks - 1/27/2003 10:56:12 AM

dubaivol,

Welcome to this forum.

Also, take it from the collective wisdom - the buffoon known as concerned is no more than a cartoonishly stupid (racist) right-winger, the worst kind of automaton partisan hack.

Ignore, and post away from your best instincts.

2578. marjoribanks - 1/27/2003 11:00:10 AM

Yes, I am a freak of nature, a pro-war Democrat.

You are not a freak of nature, look at Congress.

In fact, you have correctly identified the two key issues that must engage any intelligent person.

1) Bush is a simpleton puppet who is fucking the American people over.

2) Yet, effecting regime change in Iraq is the correct thing for the US to do now, given its global position (and needs) and given the constant threat Hussein is to world order and peace (and his own benighted people).

2579. marjoribanks - 1/27/2003 11:02:29 AM

By the way, I have (and some others have) some considerable experience of and in the UAE and I'd love to discuss some non-political matters with you over time in other threads.

2580. alistairConnor - 1/27/2003 11:18:44 AM

But, for very good reasons, this projection of US power in a crucial region must be supported by hard-headed realists, especially those who live under and benefit from the American Imperium.

Put nakedly like that, Marj, it puts European opposition to the war in clear perspective.

I don't consider (or I don't like to consider) that I live under the American imperium, nor do I believe that the majority of the world's population benefits from that imperium.

And I don't deny that there are excellent reasons for moving Saddam. But there are also very, very bad reasons for doing so.

2581. marjoribanks - 1/27/2003 11:28:00 AM

Connor,

You do live under the American Imperium, and should consider the fact that your particular shire has not been messed with for very many decades now because of it.

--

The majority of the world's population does not directly benefit from it. However, the majority of the world's population has done better under this particular empire than any previous global-minded regime because the American ethos is founded on some very solid and universal principles which bear international scrutiny - as well as a dynamic commercial reach.

--

Please give me one good reason for not removing Saddam Hussein (by targeted force or otherwise) from office. Give me one viable scenario where the US can be shown to have blundered.

2582. concerned - 1/27/2003 11:28:17 AM

Re. 2577 -

marjoribanks -

Your post is nothing better than a tissue of lies, which is about par for a self-deluded partisan bigot such as yourself. I have never made any pejorative comment based on race, and I have proved you wrong time and again wrt your foolish predictions and bigotry. Frankly, your grasp on reality or even being hold to a consistent interpretration thereof is quite often tenuous, and you have a vile tendency to engage in personal smears and namecalling without provocation.

Dubai Vol -

Among other fatuosities, marjoribanks has advocated 'taking away' guns from 'right wingers' in the aftermath of 9/11 because he, in the depths of his bigotry, thought that they might possibly stage some sort of an insurrection, he claimed he was 'all but certain' that the DC Sniper was a 'right winger' and wrongly proposed that there was an extensive Israeli spy ring in the US that turned out not to exist.

Furthermore, his basis for unconscionably flinging the term 'racist' around, in the present case, is based on comments I have made regarding Islam no more prejudicial than you yourself have recently posted. IAC, Arabs do not belong to a different 'race' than myself, a fact that a divisive Leftist like Marjoribanks is more than happy to ignore to take cheap political shots.

2583. concerned - 1/27/2003 11:33:37 AM

....being held....

2584. concerned - 1/27/2003 11:38:10 AM

Why all this talk of an 'American Imperium' now, when the last administration acted in a much more arbitrary and unilateral fashion than the current one?

One is ineluctably led to the conclusion that such terminology is inspired by nothing more profound that political bias.

2585. concerned - 1/27/2003 11:39:40 AM

2586. alistairConnor - 1/27/2003 12:05:13 PM

Message # 2581 Marj,
I live in a republic, thank you very much. The question as to whether American military hegemony is currently beneficial to that state of affairs is an open one.

If I believed that the war was being prosecuted in order to promote the ideals of freedom and democracy shared by the US and Europe, I might be sensitive to the argument that Europe owes it to the US to participate in it.

As I believe that it is being prosecuted, not only for the exclusive benefit of the US, but for very narrow sectional interests within the US... I think we should sit this one out.

Bluntly, I think the US would be better off in the long run without the oil.

2587. concerned - 1/27/2003 12:14:30 PM

AC -

I happen to believe that a democratic Iraq, bordering both SA and Iran, greatly increases the impetus for loosening the strangle hold that neighboring theocracies impose on their peoples, cultures and economies.

Efforts by the Left to keep Saddam in power are diametrically opposed to this effort.

2588. concerned - 1/27/2003 12:19:20 PM

Oil is, once again, a fungible commodity. I find it humorous that the Left persists in ignoring that it's European and Asian countries that rely most heavily on the Middle East for their oil, as well as their blindly making the baseless assumption that US access to oil can be restricted without affecting that of any other country.

2589. judithathome - 1/27/2003 12:22:17 PM

Oh get off it...being opposed to Bush's actions isn't the same as making an effort to keep Saddam in power.

Your house must be a vision of one color. No subtlies in your decor at all, I'd bet. Anything short of black or white just scares you to death.

2590. concerned - 1/27/2003 12:25:36 PM

JAH -

Somebody needs to lend balance to the discussion when the anti-US accusations are getting past hip boot level.

2592. judithathome - 1/27/2003 12:26:57 PM

Anti-US...I suppose you think because I oppose the war, I am anti-US? It can't just be different philosophical thought?

2593. concerned - 1/27/2003 12:28:01 PM

Sorry, JAH, you're not invited to be anti-US at my party.

2594. judithathome - 1/27/2003 12:28:16 PM

You've bought that "you're either with us or against us" BS hook, line, and sinker, haven't you?

2595. judithathome - 1/27/2003 12:29:32 PM

Lucy, Wolf Blitzer beat him by a week.

2596. concerned - 1/27/2003 12:31:03 PM

Not in the least. I'm just pointing out that actions have consequences. You seem to agree with my case in point regarding Iraq, since you don't reject it specifically. Unfortunately in a spirit of opposition, you seem to be going for the ad-hominem as a fallback.

2597. concerned - 1/27/2003 12:45:42 PM

France: Iraq Has WMD

excerpts showing the total disingenuity and self interested motives driving French actions relating to Iraq:

From the beginning, France has consistently undermined the UN economic sanctions against Iraq. France, after all, is looking out for French interests, and they are Iraq's major western trading partner. Once President Bush escalated the Iraq issue to a war footing, the French forgot about undermining the sanctions and began pushing for continued stalling through the failed inspection process.

In 1996 the French, who now are championing inspections and the no-fly zones, then backed out of its UN obligation enforcing the Northern no-fly zone that protects the Kurds.

In 1998 they left the southern no-fly zone, abandoning the Shiites.

Leftists like the World Worker's Party and A.N.S.W.E.R..
...oddly have nothing to say about France building Iraq's first nuclear reactor or the French political activity designed to keep trade with Saddam wide open. The French are the largest contractors in the UN oil for food program with Iraq. The French seem perfectly satisfied that the money they pay Saddam for oil goes toward WMD programs and supporting the military. Iraq owes France over $8 Billion in oil IOU's and France has huge oil development contracts with Saddam that require cessation of the UN Sanctions to come to fruition.

What the French, and for that matter the Russians want is peace for oil - as long as Saddam is in power the current French and Russian oil contracts remain intact.

2598. concerned - 1/27/2003 12:58:25 PM

Times of London, December 15, 1938:

The war-mongers [Churchill and his supporters], those who would make war against another country without having counted the cost, ought to either be impeached and shot or hanged. There has never been a prime minister in the history of England who has in nine months achieved such agreements as those Mr. Chamberlain has made with Czechoslovakia, Italy… and with Hitler at Munich.

2599. judithathome - 1/27/2003 12:58:42 PM

You seem to agree with my case in point regarding Iraq, since you don't reject it specifically.

In what parallel universe am I doing this? ;-)

2600. Trouble - 1/27/2003 12:59:59 PM

THE BEST CASE: I've been trying to understand better the groundswell of anxiety about the coming war. Leaving aside the extremists, it seems to me that the undecideds simply hold an assumption I don't share. The assumption is that 9/11 was an isolated event that portended nothing more than itself and only legitimized a police operation in self-defense targeted precisely at the group that perpetrated it. If that's your position, then I can see your point about Iraq. It must be baffling to see the U.S. subsequently (and simultaneously) pursuing a target apparently unrelated to that awful event. I think one of the key points the president must therefore make tomorrow night has to relate to this assumption. He should say: look, there are two ways to approach this problem of international terrorism. The first is roughly the strategy of the 1990s: you tackle groups that specifically attack you. You play defense. You take one group at a time. You don't go after the governments behind them. You try and soothe feelings of resentment around the world and stay out of trouble. You don't go around stirring up hornets' nests of state-sponsored terror. The occasional cruise missile attack or covert operation, combined with a hefty increase in domestic security and tightening of civil liberties, is enough.

--andrewsullivan

2601. judithathome - 1/27/2003 1:02:55 PM

Well, Andrew, I guess it IS better to approach it in a way that pisses off half the world and brings even more attacks over to our shores. Yeah, that makes much more sense.

2602. concerned - 1/27/2003 1:44:09 PM

excerpts from Hans Blix's UN testimony:

Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

As we know, the twin operation declare and verify, which was prescribed in Resolution 687, too often turned into a game of hide and seek.

While we now have the technical capability to send a U-2 plane placed at our disposal for aerial imagery and for surveillance during inspections and have informed Iraq that we plan to do so, Iraq has refused to guarantee its safety unless a number of conditions are fulfilled.

As these conditions went beyond what is stipulated in Resolution 1441 and what was practiced by UNSCOM and Iraq in the past, we note that Iraq is not so far complying with our requests.

While UNMOVIC has been preparing its own list of current unresolved disarmament issues and key remaining disarmament tasks in response to requirements in the Resolution 1284, we find the issues listed in the two reports I mentioned as unresolved professionally justified.

These reports do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq, but nor do they exclude that possibility. They point to a lack of evidence and inconsistencies which raise question marks which must be straightened out if weapons dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise. They deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq, rather than being brushed aside as evil machinations of UNSCOM.

Regrettably, the 12,000-page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that will eliminate the questions or reduce their number.

2603. concerned - 1/27/2003 1:44:43 PM

Even Iraq's letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the president of the Security Council on 24th of January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tons, and that the quality was poor and the product unstable.

Consequently, it was said that the agent was never weaponized.

Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponized. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.

I would now like to turn to the so-called air force document that I have discussed with the council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi air force headquarters in 1998, and taken from her (ph) by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs

by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I'm encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.

2604. concerned - 1/27/2003 1:45:08 PM

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi air force between 1983 and 1998; while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assumed that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122-millimeter chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at the storage depot, 170 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved here in the past few years at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding.Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve, but rather points to the issue of several thousand of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for. The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate.

I turn to biological weapons. I mention the issue of anthrax to the council on previous occasions, and I come back to it as it is an important one. Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

2605. concerned - 1/27/2003 1:45:19 PM

Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared and that at least some of this was retained over the declared destruction date. It might still exist.

Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was indeed destroyed in 1991.

In response to a recent UNMOVIC request for a number of specific documents, the only new documents Iraq provided was a ledger of 1,093 pages which Iraq stated included all imports from 1983 to 1990 by the Technical and Scientific Importation Division, the importing authority for the biological weapons programs. Potentially, it might help to clear some open issues.

The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the lacing enrichment of uranium, support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side which claims that research staff sometimes may bring papers from their work places.

On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes.

There's much more than what I've excerpted, and even the transcript I'm working from is partial.

2606. PelleNilsson - 1/27/2003 1:47:13 PM

The more thoughtful commentators on this side of the Atlantic seem to agree that (1) the point of no return has passed; (2) the inspectors will be given more time, perhaps 4-6 weeks; (3) France will eventually get on the train.

There is some dissent on (3), though. Some do not exclude the possibility that Chirac will actually do a De Gaulle in order to demonstrate l'independance and la gloire de France, but most think that France's cirrent position is a tactical gambit to secure a favoured place at the post-war picking at the carcass.

2607. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:07:17 PM

I raised a few questions, problems I see with Cheney's scheme to grab Iraqi oil that came to mind when I read the Gaurdian's article above, with an old friend who works in the Unocal exec offices on these sorts of ferrin affairs -yes BIG OIL has divided the world in to spheres of influence

Posed as hypo - Got an offer from Chevron to triple salary..

Real cute she dodged "there are laws on the books against erl and gas plays with EyeRAK"

Which means that she didn't want to answer my question - bitch and also means that there is a Congressional as well as international legal firebreak which means that Bush cannot decide this one all by himself

2608. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:09:24 PM

Good PELLE...I sent the following to a Frenchie friend just this am:

What do you make of the French/JC's latest stuff.

Specifically there are two views bandied about...the first is the cynical one - the French are conniving doubledealing untrustworthy arrogant grandstanders. They are never to be trusted and they will leave you high and dry. This is a German view primarily but also Brit would have been mine in most circumstances because it has solid history behind it (what those scumbags did pre-WWI especially to the Russians). Frankfurter Allegemine Zeitung thinks for instance that Chirac is going to trade his dislike for Bush & Blair for bucks 0- a slice of Iraqi carcas just like they did in mandate days.

I would have bought that but my view

He hates Blair and wants to fuck the brits for EU purposes
he hates Bush and his unprecented hostility to Allied interests
he WOULD be open to a deal if the thought he could get something significant BUT he is now of the mind based on Bush's record with others (Blair) that no matter how much ass you kiss you will wind up giving bush everything he needs and get shit on
He is now too far out publically. Politically it would not be easy at this point for him to backpedal (sense from a Le Monde Editoria)..he managed to jack public opposition up into the 75% range and it would cost too much even if he wanted to.
Now I have no idea. My alternate is more fact based - the other more emotional

Which do you think?

2609. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:11:22 PM

I wish Jacques Chirac was president of the US..

He could be...if Scalia wanted it, the Constitution is no probleme

2610. PelleNilsson - 1/27/2003 2:16:50 PM

God forbid. His illusions of grandeur coupled with the military might of the US would be a deadly cocktail.

2611. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:19:12 PM

Can't trust a Communust as far as ya can spit

Here I thought that ANSWER had me down only as a volunteer lawyer...(gotta have some cover story for when Herr Trashcroft's SS knock at my door!)

Now they say I am also a member of their Front Group "Vote No on War!"

Shit..I am a dead man...nice knowin yall..probably name already on transport manifest to concentration camp in Idaho

NO BLOOD FOR OIL! NO BLOOD FOR BUSH!

Dear VoteNoWar Member,

We are now in a countdown to a US war against Iraq. The next few days - and possibly weeks -- are crucial. The people of the world are organizing with great energy to prevent a needless catastrophe.

On January 18, 500,000 people marched in Washington DC and 200,000 demonstrated in San Francisco. There were coinciding anti-war activities in over 35 other countries that day called in solidarity with the anti-war movement in the U.S..

What all of us achieved on January 18 is without historical precedent. That such a massive anti-war movement could emerge before or prior to the outbreak of full-scale war is a sign that something new is happening. No demonstration of similar magnitude occurred during the Vietnam war until 1969, five years after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and after thousands of U.S. GI's, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, had been killed.

The outpouring of the January 18 demonstrations is a measure of the depth of opposition to a war of aggression and it is a global reaction. The limitless arrogance of Bush's foreign policy has created a whirlwind of opposition in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and here at home. Governments around the world have not been able to ignore the anti-war political climate created by our global movement...Let us not hesitate for a moment as we mobilize public opinion into a powerful political force that can restrain the warmakers.

2612. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:20:32 PM

Yea he's a Gaullist but at least he has brains

On second thought...

2613. Trouble - 1/27/2003 2:44:37 PM

"Mr. Blix will no doubt confirm that Iraqi scientists thought to be involved with weapons of mass destruction have been refusing to talk to inspectors. Mr. Wolfowitz says "we know from multiple sources" that the scientists and their families have been threatened with execution if they do so. Meanwhile, two would-be defectors have jumped from the streets into the hands of U.N. inspectors, who have turned them over to the tender mercies of Saddam's police."

(from today's WSJ)

SHAME, Mr. Blix! SHAME, UN!

2614. concerned - 1/27/2003 2:47:41 PM

I should mention that somebody like Marjoribanks, who has called GWB a 'chimp' and other similar terms and who disparages blacks, has no right to fabricate false charges of 'racism' out of whole cloth against other Motiers such as myself.

2615. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:51:09 PM

FUCK THE RIGHT WING THOUGHT POLICE OF WSJ!

I think it is the opinion of most of the members [of the UN security council] that since we have started this process [of weapons inspections] and there is no clear reason to stop it, that we should continue.
The Chinese deputy UN ambassador, Zhang Yishan

"I don't think that [Wednesday's UN security council] debate will necessarily be conclusive ... most members of the security council if not all members ... regard this as a part of an ongoing process."
Britain's ambassador to the UN, Jeremy Greenstock

"You'll declare war against an Iraq that that has surrendered and that has taken out its white flag ... Iraq right now is saying peace. Iraq is in a position that it has surrendered everything ... Why are you going to make a war like this against someone who has surrendered? What are your interests in this war?"
Turkey's deputy prime minister, Ertugrul Yalcinbayir

2616. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:54:24 PM

On September 13th the day before Bush's Phoney Baloney speech to the UN I stated without reservation the view that this was all "a charade b4 the crusade"

And so we now know it was....

The Bloodlust War Party that rules the roost of the Bush Empire Builders always planned to ignore world opinion, didn't give a rat's ass about Resolutions 1441 or any lower number for that matter because the goal was something entirely different, one they didn't have the guts to state honestly.

2617. jexster - 1/27/2003 2:58:45 PM

To understand the Administration's motivation, it is necessary to appreciate the breathtaking scope of the domestic and global ambitions which the dominant neo-conservative nationalists hope to further by means of war, and which go way beyond their publicly stated goals. There are of course different groups within this camp: some are more favourable to Israel, others less hostile to China; not all would support the most radical aspects of the programme. However, the basic and generally agreed plan is unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority, and this has been consistently advocated and worked on by the group of intellectuals close to Dick Cheney and Richard Perle since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.Anatol Lieven, The Push for War

2618. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:02:37 PM

The Dilemma of Sustaining American EmpireLieven, The Financial Times

Since September 11 2001 and the expansion of US military power that followed, Americans have begun to feel more comfortable with the idea of their country as an empire - something that previously most would have fervently denied. Talk of America as the "new Rome" is common on comment pages. At the same time, Americans have always been anxious to believe that theirs is a new kind of empire and uniquely beneficial.

In the words of Elihu Root, secretary of war, "the American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the world began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order and of peace and happiness". Root was speaking in 1899 but one could imagine his words in the mouth of George W. Bush. As a result of this belief in American exceptionalism and singular benignity, the US foreign policy and security establishment is not very good at drawing lessons from the experience of former empires.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a distinguished former US officer, addresses this deficiency with striking success. He debunks the notion that the US has been historically averse to using armed force to expand its power and spread its values - with that power and those values usually seen as identical.

But empires come in different forms and US power is exerted not by direct rule but by indirect influence backed up by military force when necessary. As Bacevich points out in a chapter entitled "Gunboats and Gurkhas", this follows one old imperial tradition. Like America today, most of the European empires of the past at least began by trying to run empires on the cheap.

2619. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:02:52 PM

This was especially true after the rise of mass democratic politics in 19th- century Europe, when it became politically impossible to send conscripts to die in far-off campaigns in places their families had never heard of. For Bacevich, America's cruise missiles and stealth bombers are the contemporary equivalent of 19th-century gunboats.

The other way of saving money and avoiding domestic protest is to use not your own troops but native auxiliaries such as the Gurkhas. As Bacevich points out, this is essentially the strategy the US followed in the former Yugoslavia and ...
The question is whether the US can go on fighting wars in this way, or will have to employ its own troops in long-running wars of conquest and occupation; and, if the latter, whether the American people will tolerate it.

Beyond this lies a wider question: whether the US can go on exercising hegemony by indirect means, or will be inexorably drawn into the business of direct imperial rule. For up to now, one of the reasons there has been so little real opposition to US hegemony in most of the world is precisely that this hegemony is distant and indirect.

2620. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:06:50 PM

The inflammation of US nationalism since 11th September has blinded it to the potential strategic disaster of a split with Europe. If an American strike against Iraq were to go badly wrong, the resulting international discord could spell the end of the cultural entity known as "the west"

The End of the West - Lieven

2621. concerned - 1/27/2003 3:09:38 PM

Re. 2616 -

What say we get France back to honoring its obligation to enforce the Iraqi no-fly zones, for starters.

2622. concerned - 1/27/2003 3:10:43 PM

Then let's make sure that an opposition political party or two is established in Iraq - give the people a real choice, and hold free and fair elections in Iraq. Sound like a plan?

2623. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:12:00 PM

The Wilsonian Veneer of US Foreign Policy

Hypocrisy a better term

2624. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:16:34 PM

Now that Bush's lies and cheap hyposcrisy have been laid bare and beyond doubt..time to hit the streets!

The notorious communist front org ANSWER has put out the call...

- emergency action the day the first cruise missile is launched in the War of Bush Agression

- 11 am UN Plaza Saturday following - Mass Mobilization

2625. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:17:43 PM

Idiot - there is no obligation to enforce no fly zones another charade and lie

2626. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:19:59 PM

Then let's make sure that an opposition political party or two is established in Iraq - give the people a real choice, and hold free and fair elections in Iraq. Sound like a plan?

Sounds like a joke!

Nation builder social engineer...

The Imperium hasn't got a plan....they haven't even got a front like Stalin had to give a veneer of legitimacy..

2627. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:20:54 PM

What Bush is about to do and what the Soviets did in Eastern Europe is about as tight an historical analogy as you can find

2628. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:21:58 PM

Thank YHWH we're moving past the nonsense about threats to US security on to the crux of the matter and into the shit

2629. concerned - 1/27/2003 3:28:09 PM

Jexster the jokester.

2630. jexster - 1/27/2003 3:38:13 PM

Running for Cover: Bush Warmongers Frantically Scramble for Allies and Contributors to 50 Billion a year dictatorship OE

2631. jexster - 1/27/2003 6:28:09 PM

Welcome to Life in The New Empire of Greater Moronia - A Taste of Things to Come

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks sagged on Monday, sending the Dow index below 8,000 for the first time since mid-October, as investors ignored upbeat data on brisk home sales, opting to sell amid growing uncertainty over Iraq

2632. jexster - 1/27/2003 6:28:43 PM

"Uncertainties"???? What are they UNCERTAIN about?

2633. jexster - 1/27/2003 8:54:48 PM

Time's Up - Bush More Isolated than Ever Following Blix Report (Before the Lofty Mast)

"First we're gonna isolate it then we're gonna kill it"

That's how that famous PantyWaist line goes from GWI right?

Think of it as a "Time OUT"

2634. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/27/2003 9:59:02 PM

2635. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:43:19 AM

Leave No Child Behind:Death, Disease for Iraqi Children With Arrival of BloodLust Bush, Butcher of Baghdad

(AP)...The grim picture of Iraqi children dying in a war gained added impact from new NGO Report

No Dead Babies for BUSH!

2636. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:50:40 AM

Why you can almost hear the little shit now...

I grieve deeply grieve for these young victims and I want the world to know that they didn't die in vain. Let us pray

2637. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:58:04 AM

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

2638. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 3:40:09 AM

A question for you jexster

Who's to blame for the Iraqi children dying now? I think you know my opinion, Saddam is.

And another Q if I may: just what WOULD you do about the Iraq situation? Lift sanctions, pull out the troops and leave Saddam to do as he pleases, and his neighbors to deal with him?

It's all well and good to criticise current policy, but I am interested in your ideas for alternate policies.

2639. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 3:42:15 AM

And please remember, I hate dubya even more than you do. I am SO not looking forward to his state of the union address tonight: he's just painful to watch.

2640. joezan - 1/28/2003 8:16:55 AM

Fareed Zakaria Sees Many Upsides to Whupping Saddam

Of course, not everyone would be helped by a successful war. The ruling elites in the Middle East—particularly those that remain stubbornly set in their old ways—will be challenged, threatened and eventually overturned. For these potentates and their courtiers it would mean the end of one of the richest gravy trains in history. That is why they will fight change as fiercely as they can. But for the people of the Middle East, after the shock of the war fades, it could mean a chance to break out of the terrible stagnancy in which they now sit.

There are always risks involved when things change. But for the past 40 years the fear of these risks has paralyzed Western policy toward the Middle East. And what has come of this caution? Repression, radical Islam and terror. I’ll take my chances with change.

2641. RickNelson - 1/28/2003 8:29:30 AM

Joe the article mentions the "oil for food" failure. Mr. Zakaria suggests that Saddam has built palaces instead. To your awareness, can this be corroberated somewhere?

2642. joezan - 1/28/2003 8:52:14 AM

Rick:

Saddam has built at last count something like 27 palaces since the end of the Gulf War. No one disputes this - google it.

But this fact has become parable by now - much more egregious imo is how he has continued building up his military, keeping his crony system intact, etc. -which has cost many times more than his palaces.

As for the oil-for-food program implemented by the UN: in December of 2001, an Iraqi ship was stopped in the Gulf with a huge load of food. Which would be nice if it were heading for the stomachs of starving Iraqis. Unfortunately though, it was being exported - most likely for more weapons.

2643. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 9:42:35 AM

Wow, there are actually people who don't know that Saddam has used the money he has to build his military and palaces instead of feeding and caring for his people? You mean nobody knows that he sells the humanitarian aid for cash to buy guns?

Probably nobody knows that GM sells trucks to Iraq under the UN oil for food program, either, huh? Am I the only one who thinks these trucks will be used by the military then?

Saddam is deliberately starving his own people as a propaganda tool to argue for the lifting of sanctions. Duh.

2644. joezan - 1/28/2003 9:48:15 AM

Here's a USAToday article which mentions at least 78 palaces.

The push for inspections of the palaces — there are as many as 78 by one U.S. estimate — stems from diplomatic as well as military concerns. Inspectors want to establish the principle of unrestricted access to Iraqi facilities. And the Bush administration wants to humble Saddam, who regards the palaces as symbols of Iraqi sovereignty, off limits to arms inspectors.

...and a quote from a UN official:

"The fact that Saddam Hussein is spending hundreds of millions to build palaces and refusing to use the humanitarian programme the United Nations has authorised shows the hypocrisy of his claims that he is concerned about his people's suffering." - UN official

2645. judithathome - 1/28/2003 10:07:37 AM

I don't think anyone disputes he is indifferent to his people's suffering; that's obvious. But the war isn't going to be waged because of that...it's because Saddam is a threat to the United States. So let's not throw in points that aren't being made as reasons for the war this late in the game. Stick with the arguments you first made and don't keep changing the arguments. It looks too much like grasping at straws.

2646. joezan - 1/28/2003 10:51:58 AM

1. It is not my argument - I have merely answered Rick's question.

2. You have no idea what you're talking about. The conditions set at the end of the Gulf War were put in place specifically to keep Saddam from continuing a military bulld-up with which to continue threatening others. The oil-for-food program was put in place specifically to insure that the sanctions put in place to prevent a military build-up would not impact too negatively on the people of Iraq. He has circumvented nearly every one of the conditions for the sole purpose of retaining power and building up his military. The fact that his people have suffered as a result does not mitigate any of that. It's just a bonus argument.

You will see, once we have gone back in there and bombed him out, that his palaces - and perhaps even these "mosques" he is suddenly so fond of building - are concealing some very nasty stuff.

If anything, he is more of a threat now than he was in '91.

2647. judithathome - 1/28/2003 11:08:05 AM

I was speaking of the "editorial you" not you personally.

You know, like speaking to the UN or GW. I don't think I'm addressing them personally but I can still address them in the editorial sense. Sorta like you when addressing "peacefairies".

I do know what I am talking about; you simply refuse to believe anyone who thinks differently than you do can't possibly understand.

2648. joezan - 1/28/2003 11:11:01 AM

You're babbling, judith.

2649. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/28/2003 11:15:10 AM

Now how would you or Ronald Reagan be able to know, joey?

2650. joezan - 1/28/2003 11:25:40 AM

First item on Mr. Zakaria's list of reasons why whupping Saddam is a good thing:

A major producer of weapons of mass destruction would be eliminated. Since there are very few states that have set out to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, taking one off the list is a big step toward safety. Other would-be weapons producers will likely think twice before going down a similar path.

Are you trying to say that preventing Iraq from continuing development of such weapons is not a stated goal (the MAIN goal, in fact) of a potential war? Or are you saying you don't accept that?

2651. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 11:25:47 AM

Oh meow. Handbags at dawn, then?

I really would like someone to propose a viable alternative to getting rid of Saddam. OK, stipulating that current policy is flawed, suggest an alterantive.

2652. jexster - 1/28/2003 11:33:13 AM

This Time He Isn't Convinced
Schwarzkopf is Skeptical About U.S. Action Against Iraq
But not to worry - In effort to boost war support, Bush will make intelligence on Iraq public.

Aaaah some more freshly half-baked intel from Mama Rummy's Oven - wonder how many lies the Little Emperor's gonna tell us this time to MAKE THE CASE!

How long have we been making cases and connecting the dots?

Been so damn long I've forgotten.

2653. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/28/2003 11:33:28 AM

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Some of [the present attitudes of France and Germany], however, I think is the product of some of the rather demagogic, almost warmongering statements that were coming out of the administration periodically. The president made a very good speech to the U.N. on September 12. But some of his off-the-cuff remarks may go over well in the United States, but they seem to convince the Europeans that he's really eager for war and that he doesn't give a damn about anybody else. And I think that fed into the equation and created a sense of resentment and maybe even conviction that the whole U.N. business is a charade, that we are seeking an excuse, almost at all costs, to go to war. Now this may not be justified on their part, but we have to take it into account. --Lehrer News Hour, 01.26.03

2654. jexster - 1/28/2003 11:34:13 AM

Hey Zan lets go kill some kiddies for krist eh?

Fuckin loons

2655. jexster - 1/28/2003 11:36:59 AM

78 palaces joey?

Sheesh that'll take til June...I hear Bush plans to swear in his new dictator, be sleepin in those palaces by then

2656. jexster - 1/28/2003 11:38:52 AM

By June we're gonna have an opposition political party or two is established in Iraq - give the people a real choice, Dictatorship or Puppet regime - free and fair - Sound like a plan?

2657. jexster - 1/28/2003 11:39:44 AM

GOOOOOD MORNING BAGHDAD!

How y'all doin out dere!

2658. jexster - 1/28/2003 11:42:11 AM

"First we're going to cut it off. Then we're going to kill it."

2659. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:04:46 PM

question for you jexster

Who's to blame for the Iraqi children dying now? I think you know my opinion, Saddam is.

A: I have been of that view myself against all the complaints. But with all the horsehit we now know that Bush has fed us low these how many months (????? - question for you!), I am not so ready to accept at face value anything that is said by the War Peddlers. The burden of proof is on them and damn well past time that we held them to it and not accept what they tell us. For instance, there is now a growing body of evidence that many deaths are the result of the UN sanctions program itself (the debate about smart sanctions was both to stop Saddam from skimming funds AND to improve the food distribution program - recall that the food exception was not in the original resolution). There is also information now coming out that a large number of child deaths were caused during post GWI rioting between Shiites and Shia's and also by depleted uranium (why so much cover up about Gulf War Syndrome???)

The long and short of it is this -yes with an asterisk. I haven't looked into that matter because that's not the issue now. The issue is how many children will WE kill and to that I say

2660. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:13:22 PM

2. And another Q if I may: just what WOULD you do about the Iraq situation?

I have said it before - circa 12/1998..I support a coercive inspection process. I said it again recently when the Carnegie Institute for International Peace released early last September Iraq: A New Approach

But since the inspections have achieved the objectives of assuring against any grave or imminent threat (prescinding from the fact that there never WAS such a threat to begin with) for the time being we can proceed exactly as we are doing now and do indefinitely at vastly lower cost in lives lost, persons maimed, property destroyed, US tax dollars saved, returning our focus to the guy who Bush forgot, to North Korea, to a rapidly deteriorating relationship with our allies, to a domestic economy in the tank, and to crying domestic needs not addressed.

2661. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:20:53 PM

Only if the administration’s true aim is to remove the current government of Iraq as a matter of principle would a turn to war att this moment make sense. If that is the case, of course the inspection and disarmament process now underway is irrelevant.

Iraq: What Next? - CEIP

No Blood for BUSH!
No Dead Babies for The Bush BASE!

2662. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2003 12:24:05 PM

I am glad to announce that The Friends of Appeasement (a member of the ANSWER coalition) has awarded jexster of the Mote the Joseph Chamberlain medal with gilt edge.

2663. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:24:06 PM

Lift sanctions, pull out the troops and leave Saddam to do as he pleases, and his neighbors to deal with him?

That's rhetorical a statement not a question.

So I will ask you a question: what threat did Saddam pose during the 12 years before Bush's Imperial Army arrived and what did his neighbors have to do to deal with it?

2664. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:29:07 PM

The Friends of Appeasement (a member of the ANSWER coalition) has awarded jexster ..

Oh joy we're now getting redbaiting and Munich, two for one historical nonsense.

Puts me in mind of a scathingly scarcastic blast at George Will...

From "The Third Reich Syndrome: George Will and the Collapse of Historical Knowledge":

As the conservative political scientist Michael Oakshott wrote, historical analogies must be drawn with sensitivity and attention to historical facts, because an analogy is not a mathematical proof or a logical syllogism:

There is no process of generalization by means of which the events, things and persons of history can be reduced to anything other than historical events, things and persons without at the same time being removed from the world of historical ideas … In history there are no "general laws" by means of which historical individuals can be reduced to instances of a principle, and least of all are there general laws of the character we find in the world of science.

Let us heed Mr. Oakshott's caution. Otherwise, a tendentious or partisan reading of history could derive any number of Third Reich analogies. For example, future generations of shallow and ill-educated people might conclude that since both Josef Göbbels and George Will never served in the military, and both wrote tirelessly in favor of war, and both practiced the lower forms of journalism, there must be a functional equivalence between the two. But who would now suggest such a far-fetched analogy?

A shallow, ill-educated Swede whose father, grandfather and uncle served so well in Viking SS

2665. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:30:56 PM

Since we're playing 20 questions, here two for you:

1. How is anything I have urged appeasement?

2. What threat precisely from Saddam are we appeasing?

2666. judithathome - 1/28/2003 12:31:57 PM

Dubai Vol, I have said before I think we should send in operatives to assasinate him. Since we need to get rid of him, get rid of him nad spare the Iraqi people and our people.

But since our goal was to get Osama Bin Laden, dead or alive, and we seem to have run into a few roadblocks there, I guess my suggestion is not going to be implemented. Mainly because if we did do that, it would be illegal and bad and we might bring the hatred of the world on our heads for being underhanded....hmmmm.

2667. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:32:01 PM

"a tendentious or partisan reading of history could derive any number of Third Reich analogies"

Partisan Pelle goose steppin his way into the shit

2668. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:36:02 PM

Don't play with the big boys Pelle, you'll just get hurt.

Why don't you and Wombat go off to some corner and tell yourselves how fuckin smart you are- rövhål

2669. jexster - 1/28/2003 12:38:31 PM

Everyone I am sure will be delighted to learn that classes started yesterday and that I am carrying a bitchin course load this semester.

2670. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2003 12:47:51 PM

You are getting neurotic jexster. I post a joke and you respond with cites from learned authorities. By the way, my father was a Master Sergeant in the Swedish air defence during WWII. My grandfather (paternal) was a communist.

Concerning the children. The high mortality among Iraqi children is not an US propaganda piece. If it is, indeed, propaganda it has been disseminated by Iraq and various UN agencies like WHO and UNICEF.

But there is a wider issue at stake. More than half the population, at least in the cities, depends on food rations distributed by government. A few days ago they got rations for two months. If the war is not very short and sharp, the distribution dystem will be disrupted. The warehouses will probably be taken over by hoarders and prices will rise beyond the means of the poor. This is a very real problem.

2671. Cellar Door - 1/28/2003 12:49:04 PM

Not if Dubbya uses nukes. They'll all be dead. No problem.

2672. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:02:31 PM

But Duhbya IS planning to use nukes! Nukes the world for peace.

It is not surprising that crackpot analogies like [Pelle's] have gained traction in the United States anno 2002. A recent National Geographic survey found that in the dumbed-down post-literate age "only about one in seven—13 percent—of Americans between the age of 18 and 24, the prime age for military warriors, could find Iraq" on a world map. (3) The adage says that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. Accordingly, a half-educated discourse on the Weimar Republic by a kennel-fed establishment literatus like [Pelle] sounds like real erudition to people who can barely find Canada on a map.

2673. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:03:28 PM

What's even more scary, our Dear Imperious Leader couldn't find Iraq on a map until he hired condo rice

2674. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2003 1:03:48 PM

jexster's preferred solution is to allow Saddam to continue, for the indefinye future, to oppress the Iraqi people politically and economically while the UN inspectors criss-cross the country in their white jeeps vainly searching for Something.

This, in jexster's view, is a price the Iraqis will have to pay in order to minimize Bush's chances to get re-elected. But then we all have our priorities.

2675. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:08:49 PM

Had a conversation last nite with a young guy who just landed a nice job with GAO through the new director of Homeland security investigations ....watercooler talk at GAO is that Bush is goin down on Iraq

2676. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:11:55 PM

Friends Committee on National Legislation writes that in Tuesday's State of the Union, Bush "is expected to put forward the case for why the U.S. should invade Iraq (but not North Korea), increase spending for the military and homeland security, cut taxes further for the wealthy, and yet maintain 'fiscal discipline' (i.e., frozen or reduced funding) in most other areas of discretionary federal spending. He will likely call upon all the U.S. public (except the wealthiest) to sacrifice in the face of continuing threats at home and abroad... Please contact your representative and senators. Let them know that you think Bush is leading the country in the wrong direction. Tell them that you do not want the U.S. to go to war with Iraq and urge them to communicate this to the President."

National Friends Service - First we're gonna cut it off, then we're gonna kill it

2677. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:13:16 PM

Neville Chamberlain we hardly knew ye

2678. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:17:32 PM

January 29 Protests Will Answer Bush's State of the Union

International ANSWER writes, "Bush's State of the Union address will be a 'war speech.' The speech has one function: to prepare the population for war. That night, Bush will dominate the air waves and the media coverage. The very next day, however, it is crucial that people demonstrate in cities and towns throughout the United States in coordinated actions to show that the people reject Bush's State of the Union message. Possible locations for rallies include the Federal Building, other federal government facilities, or in a crowded central shopping area (actions can be held during the day or in the evening). High schools and college activists should plan actions at their school on January 29." http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/j29/j29events.html
target=new>Here is a (growing) list of J29 events

2679. joezan - 1/28/2003 1:17:40 PM

...post GWI rioting between Shiites and Shia's...

????

'Nuff said.

Idiot.

2680. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:19:00 PM

Maybe the RNC ought to organize another of its "spontaneous booboisie riots"

There were only 15 of em at the last SF march, mostly militia in fatigues

2681. jexster - 1/28/2003 1:20:14 PM

Well its been gay folks..off to class

2682. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 1:55:04 PM

Thank you, Jexster for giving straight answers to straight questions. For that you have my respect. As I stated in my initial posts, people of good conscience can disagree. Which I do. But we can talk about that tomorrow, as it's late here.

Meanwhile, I would relate a quote from the former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler:

"I am astonished at the nonsense taking place about whether or not Iraq has a weapons of mass destruction program. It does.That's beyond doubt. Anyone with any expertise in the field knows that."

From today's local paper, the Gulf News.

Somehow, I tends to hold his opinion in higher regard than that of people who have never been involvd in the field. Considering that Hans Blix has said essentially the same thing, that Iraq has not accounted for weapons known to exist, and is not cooperating to his satisfaction, I think it's clear that Saddam is playing hide and seek as he did during the last round of inspections.

And I for one am not very happy about being within SCUD range of Saddam with chemical and bio weapons. If you were, maybe your attitude would be different.

FWIW I was a prime target in my Army days (half a mile from half the tactical nukes in Europe), and feel a lot safer here, as Dubai is no target for any Arab: this is where all their money is.

2683. jexster - 1/28/2003 2:13:29 PM

he's Baaaaaaaaaaaaaackkk!

In Econ lab waiting for the stats prof to show..ooops here he is..

Finally a way to shut me up!

2684. jexster - 1/28/2003 2:24:27 PM

I may get in trouble for this but this is too good to pass up...

Joshua Micah-Marshall, is also having doubts about his pro-war position...

among his reasons -

4. It's hard to ignore the fact that Norman Schwarzkopf isn't convinced we should go to war right now. And believe me, he speaks for lots of career officers at the Pentagon who's job it rightly is -- since they're still in uniform -- to give candid advice in private but follow the orders of their civilian superiors.

2685. jexster - 1/28/2003 2:32:12 PM

Syllabus

I must confess that the current state of affairs on Iraq fills me with equivocation and no small bit of uncertainty

2686. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 2:34:33 PM

One last thing jexster, because it's keeping me awake:

You stated that his neighbors don't consider Saddam a threat, or words to that effect. FYI, the UAE (the country I live in) had virtually no army to speak of before 1990. Since the invasion of Kuwait the UAE has engaged in a massive military build-up, to the point that the UAE now has more French main battle tanks than the French army, with comparable numbers of F-16s (they are still negotiating for block-60 versions) and I have personally laid eyes on one battalion of self-propelled howitzers, although my guess is that they don't have nearly enough artillery, it's not glamorous. But as Napoleon said, an army without artillery is a mob.

Point is, they consider SOMEBODY a threat, eough to spend billions on defense.

What's the difference between the US Army and the Boy Scouts? The Boy Scouts have adult leadership! Oh, and the Army welcomes atheists....

Econ lab? Stats? "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics...."

2687. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 2:35:56 PM

oops

2688. joezan - 1/28/2003 2:37:47 PM

Not your oops, Dub.

Just jasper, leaving his usual mess.

2689. jexster - 1/28/2003 2:57:13 PM

Statement of Senator Dianne Feinstein

on U.N. Report on the Iraq Inspections

Washington, DC – The U.N.’s Chief Arms Inspector, Hans Blix, today gave a report on the status of inspections into Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations Security Council. The following is Senator Feinstein’s statement on the Blix Report:

“The report released today by Hans Blix on Iraq inspections contains many different shades of gray. It seems that Iraq is cooperating on the process of inspections, but not on the substance. Given the stakes of a potential war with Iraq, however, I believe the inspectors should be afforded more time to continue their investigation.

At this point, I believe that it would be a tremendous mistake for the United States to unilaterally attack Iraq. The U.N. inspectors have not finished their job, and the United Nations has not fully considered the matter. It is my hope that the Administration will show patience and allow the weapons inspectors more time.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence committee, I have seen no intelligence that suggests that the threat from Iraq is imminent. The United Nations has inspectors on the ground, and more are on the way. For me, this means that Iraq is essentially contained. War should be a last resort, and I do not think we are at that last resort at this time.

2690. jexster - 1/28/2003 2:58:16 PM

Just jasper, leaving his usual mess.

Thanks Z for cleaning up after me...you have some use around here after all

2691. jexster - 1/28/2003 3:01:07 PM

Message # 2682 I believe that the ~16 pp. Carnegie Report linked up thread answers your points decisively

2692. jexster - 1/28/2003 3:04:56 PM

Thanks to Blix/Baradei we know:

There are no nukes now nor are there any procesess in place related there to.

there maybe chem bio weapons but there is no evidence one way or the other-

Bush has repeatedly lied on each point

Saddam does not threaten anyone with either

there is no grave or imminent threat from Iraq now and there hasn't been since 1991

2693. jexster - 1/28/2003 3:14:57 PM

Coercive inspections - take for instance the flap over U2 flights...Iraq claims it cannot assure safety given the US increased bombings and CAP's in no fly zones...

Now if Bush was REALLY interested in chem bio, if this whole thing wasn't a poorly constructed pretext for the installation of a Bush dictatorship we could fly CAP in protection of the UN U-2's

Why hasn't that been proposed?

Because Bush is lying through his teeth

2694. jexster - 1/28/2003 3:57:45 PM

The Global Conspiracy of Chicken Littles, Communists, Appeasers and Old Europeans Claims Another Victim

TAMPA--Norman Schwarzkopf wants to give peace a chance.

The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq.

And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Start me up
if you start me up I'll NEVER stop

2695. jexster - 1/28/2003 4:00:59 PM

Message # 2686

1. The Emirs now have an army to keep them in power thanks to the USA

2. The USA now has a bunch of emirs beholden to it for its largesse.

3. Saddan is a tin pot dictator who is not a threat to UAE because the emirs are armed to the teeth

Why do I and other US taxpayers have to cough up 200 billion dollars down payment and the privilege of dumping 50 billion more a year for the next 20 years?

2696. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 7:56:31 PM

Um, jex, are you under the impression that the US gave those F16s to the UAE? Or that France donated the tanks?

And you are now footing the bill for Dubya's daddy' mistake a dozen years ago. Of course if you don't like paying for it you could do what I did :p

I would argue that without the large military buidup and the convincing saber-rattling, UN weapons inspectors would almost certainly not be on the ground today. And if you want to argue cost, well, I think it's cheaper in the long run to get rid of Saddam now than to have to keep watch over him indefinitely. While you may think the UAE could stop Iraq, I don't; they have the same problem Saddam has, his tanks and planes are manned by Arabs. And we've all see how bravely they fight.

Fun fact: the rank and file of the UAE Army are not UAE citizens, they are Omanis. Emiratis are too good to be soldiers below the rank of major.

2697. concerned - 1/28/2003 8:01:39 PM

I don't believe that Sodamn should be assassinated. My preference is that he be captured and then be displayed in a cage by some traveling Yurrupeon circus for a period of time after undergoing a trial for war crimes by an international tribunal.

2698. concerned - 1/28/2003 8:05:04 PM

Dubai - have you yet noticed what jexster's primary objective appears to be in the Mote?

2699. concerned - 1/28/2003 8:08:48 PM

I mean, I might have it wrong here, but I don't really think so.

2700. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 8:25:02 PM

Hey, I'll argue with anybody; I argued with you didn't I? You should hear me and my mother when we get together.

Jex is goofing off in class, that's what he's doing here! :D

And yes they should have got Saddam for war crimes during the last war, but Bush senior wimped out. And now let's all go hear what dubya has to say (shudder)

2701. jexster - 1/28/2003 8:44:39 PM

Tell us concerned...tell us

2702. jexster - 1/28/2003 8:48:54 PM

No they were sold for sure...you can't get em at Walmart..I suppose you could have bought some from Russia..naaaa..

I would be less worried about Saddam if I were you and more worried about democracy in that region...of course only a real Pollyanna would believe that Bush is interested in that either but the day may come when the people of the Middle East will be able to vote and we'll see what they think of current governments and unfortunately the US....

Schwartzkopf knows what's what... Bush is a liar, a megalomaniac and a menance and don't get him started on Rumsfeld.

2703. jexster - 1/28/2003 8:50:50 PM

Send some of the emirate youth into Iraq...into the streets of Baghdad to kill fellow Arab soldiers, women, children THEN I'll be convinced that Saddam's neighbors are afraid of him and not Bush

2704. jexster - 1/28/2003 8:53:25 PM

I was goofing off in class...got me there TD...the central limit theorem...didn't understand it the first time, didn't understand it the second time, and this time I've one of Marj's countrymen teaching me...couldn't understand a word he said....they'll let anyone into this country these days..

That's a joke Marj ....Sudip CHATTOPADHYAY ROCKS!

2705. jexster - 1/28/2003 8:56:29 PM

I was joking too Pelle...Its a cultural thing ya know loud brash rude Americans....

2706. Dubai Vol - 1/28/2003 11:01:56 PM

What me worry?

To be honest the UAE has made me a believer in the effectiveness of a benevolent dictatorship. I think democracy in the Gulf would result in a lot of theocratic regimes, which would be a bad thing IMO. As it stands the ruler of Dubai can just do the right thing and not worry about opinion polls. And because the rulers are enlightened men of vision, it works pretty well.

Democracy in a country without intelligent well-informed voters is mob rule, America being a perfect example.

Off to work. :)

2707. jexster - 1/29/2003 12:53:23 AM

Warning to Pelle - I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like....like victory"

2708. jexster - 1/29/2003 12:57:07 AM

Counting the Dead

In the event of war, how many Iraqi civilians will die? And how many will starve, or be displaced? In secret, the UN has been doing the sums

With as much secrecy as the Pentagon, the United Nations has been busily counting the likely casualty toll of a war on Iraq. While the Pentagon focuses on its troops, the network of UN specialist agencies is trying to estimate what would happen to Iraqis.

The assessments are dramatic, though for reasons of internal diplomacy or because of American pressure the UN is unwilling to go public with the figures. But a newly leaked report from a special UN taskforce that summarises the assessments calculates that about 500,000 people could "require medical treatment to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries", according to the World Health Organisation.

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

2709. jexster - 1/29/2003 12:59:23 AM

2710. jexster - 1/29/2003 1:00:40 AM

Smells pretty fine in the evening too.

2711. jexster - 1/29/2003 1:08:09 AM

If the Dilletante in Residence felt so fuckin strong about being a savior of the Iraqi people, write the god damned king of sweden whatever the hell his name is have him send a few of those spiffy jets no one wants to buy to Incirlik PDQ - must have a surplus these days eh?

Frankly, though be cause Pelle is a rat fuck of a dilletante he thinks he can hold forth inflicting his insufferable ego on the nation that is really going to shed blood and treasure and it doesn't cost him a thing.

So I am ready to increase Pelle's marginal cost of useless palaver by inflicting what pain I can.

2712. Cellar Door - 1/29/2003 1:08:13 AM

Fait Divers: The State of the Bush

2713. RickNelson - 1/29/2003 8:35:20 AM

Dubai Vol,

Your nickname; before I guess, if it has one will you give its meaning?

Interesting comments you've made regarding the UAE rulers. Continuing you make a parting remark about intelligence and voting (taking a joking jab at US voters). The jab aside, and not looking at the US, I've had the same thoughts you have now presented. Do you have some further insite, studies, learned consideration for the topic?

2714. Dubai Vol - 1/29/2003 10:09:26 AM

Learned? That's a bit much, but I am very opinionated, as you notice.

As for the screen name, that's the one I use all over the net, so you never have to wonder, yeah, that's me on the VW sites, and the F1 sites...but my first post was on a Tennessee football site, where I picked the unimaginative name "Dubai Vol," and I've just stuck with it. For those not familiar, Tennessee is the "Volunteer State," and the university sports teams are known as the "Vols" for short.

Kinda dull, but descriptive. Sorry to cut it short, but it Australian comedy night tonight, and the start of the weekend, so I'm outta here. You all play nice while I'm gone:p

2715. alistairConnor - 1/29/2003 10:26:34 AM

Vol :
Um, jex, are you under the impression that the US gave those F16s to the UAE? Or that France donated the tanks?

France damn near does donate those tanks. The region where I live has been famous for arms manufacturing for at least five centuries : originally swords, then rifles, lastly tanks; and the industry is thrashing around in its death throes. The Saudis and the Emirates, who are practically the only clients left, seem to take endless pleasure in delaying and renegotiating the contracts, which has the effect, I suppose, of driving the prices ever downwards. The French government, desperate to avoid losing the contracts and throwing thousands out of work, ends up accepting all their conditions.

2716. concerned - 1/29/2003 10:55:38 AM

Which also explains the French govt.'s antipathy to US actions re. Iraq. Economics, as I have maintained.

2717. judithathome - 1/29/2003 11:16:43 AM

Ha! Like economics is the furthest thing from this country's mind...military contracts, oil money, jobs jobs jobs!

2718. concerned - 1/29/2003 11:18:59 AM

2719. concerned - 1/29/2003 11:21:42 AM

That looks like jexster with the 'God Bless Iraq' sign.

2720. concerned - 1/29/2003 11:24:22 AM

2721. concerned - 1/29/2003 11:28:18 AM

2722. jexster - 1/29/2003 12:45:31 PM

Anyone who believes anything Bush says about Iraq ought to have his head examined. The man is pathologically obssessed.

Asked about flight's of democracy fantasies, Joe Biden said "I don't see any Thomas Jeffersons crawling out from behind the rocks"

2723. jexster - 1/29/2003 1:15:57 PM

After removing the super-rat, Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Libby and their fellow hawk Richard Perle can turn his country into a laboratory for democracy in the Arab world — creating a domino effect to give Israel more security. Once they have planted Athenian democracy on Mesopotamian soil, they envision orchestrating more freedom throughout the Middle East — as long as the region plays ball with the new sheriff. They'll put pressure on Syria and Iran to abandon their support for terrorism. And then, with an American spigot, the oil will flow free — except to the French, who will pay dearly. Mo Dowd

This would be funny if these clowns weren't so mental.

2724. jexster - 1/29/2003 1:49:12 PM

CAIRO, Jan. 29 — President Bush's belligerent recapping of the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power sounded to Middle Eastern ears today more like a domestic pep rally for war than a convincing argument to validate such a drastic step.

Those Arabs actually paying attention to the speech found troubling both the lack of damning evidence against Baghdad and the lack of any articulated plan for postwar Iraq, leaving them bracing for yet another American misadventure in a region they think has seen far too many.

Arab Nations Unconvinced by Bush's Reasons for War

a domestic pep rally

That's all you're ever going to get from an ex-pep squad leader....

Boolah boolah

2725. jexster - 1/29/2003 2:04:29 PM

"In the Name of..."

An online music project organized by Eclectic Connection - listen to over 50 music tracks contributed by artists in support of Not In Our Name.

2726. PelleNilsson - 1/29/2003 3:04:33 PM

Former prime minister of Sweden and High Representative in Bosnia Carl Bildt:

Regime change in Iraq isn't optional

Excerpts:

Let's face it: There can be no going back when it comes to the confrontation over Iraq.

The policy (although that is a generous name for it) that has been pursued since the end of the Gulf War has been a miserable failure both for the people of Iraq and for the international community.

As they normally do, sanctions have solidified support for the local dictator, brought suffering to ordinary people and destroyed some of the foundations for a normal economy and society in the possible post-dictatorship period.

Thus, the only way to get out of a policy that has failed is to remove the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad.

The alternative of just backing down, returning to the profoundly failed and damaging policy of the past and waiting for the next eruption of tension could not be seriously contemplated by any sensible actor.

2727. jexster - 1/29/2003 3:31:11 PM

Count on Pelle to produce piffle. More cheap rhetoric from a kennel fed literatus.

Now for the beef...

Al Gore - Right again!

In Paris, France's top terrorism investigator said today that Islamic extremists are winning recruits in Europe because of tensions over Iraq.

Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, one of Europe's most prominent anti-terrorism fighters, also said the risk of new attacks "will be one of the costs" of war against Iraq.

"It cannot be excluded that in the next few months there will be a chemical attack, with hundreds of dead," said Bruguiere, who has broad powers of investigation and arrest and is well-known for tracking down the infamous Venezuelan-born killer Carlos the Jackal

2728. jexster - 1/29/2003 3:31:45 PM

Pelle conqueror of strawmen

2729. jexster - 1/29/2003 3:38:29 PM

Two supreme questions still demand convincing answers: "Why war?" and "Why now?" The reasons that have been offered collapse under scrutiny.

The threat posed by Iraq is contained for now. Any attempt at external aggression would be instantly overwhelmed. Inside the country, the inspection teams preclude any significant advance in weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.

A war at this moment, however, regardless of the outcome, will bear one of history's harshest judgments: an unnecessary war

Jessica Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

2730. joezan - 1/29/2003 3:49:35 PM

jasper considers anti-war pronuncements from international peace agencies worthy of posting?

2731. Wombat - 1/29/2003 3:50:53 PM

Jex:

Did you read the whole Mathews article, or just the parts that you cited?

2732. concerned - 1/29/2003 4:30:00 PM

Re. 2725 -

Any metal, or is it all corn pone pabulum and whiny rants?

2733. jexster - 1/29/2003 5:06:00 PM

While picking up textbooks for my courses, noticed "WALZER -
JUST and UNJUST WARS" for Poltical Science 561 -Jurisprudence
Description: Philosophy of law. Relationship between law, morality, social and political institutions. Various schools of jurisprudence.

How timely.

2734. jexster - 1/29/2003 5:13:24 PM

Sure I've read the entire article. I have read just about every Carnegie policy brief and op ed published since August and quite a number published before then.

The only criticism I have of any of them is that they do not acknowledge the obvious to wit that none of this charade, this folderol about weapons has anything to do with the intentions and objectives of the Bush regime.

Her comments are useful only for the purpose of putting paid to such nonsense.

I note too that CEIP has moved their Policy Brief #20 up to the top of their list no doubt in answer to Wilsonian naif's such as yourself...

I have linked before but in case you missed it

2735. jexster - 1/29/2003 5:15:55 PM

Here it is

Democratic Mirage in the Middle East

Policy Brief 20

Marina Ottaway, Thomas Carothers, Amy Hawthorne, Daniel Brumberg

Summary
The increasingly popular idea in Washington that the United States, by toppling Saddam Hussein, can rapidly democratize Iraq and unleash a democratic tsunami in the Middle East is a dangerous fantasy. The U.S. record of building democracy after invading other countries is mixed at best and the Bush administration's commitment to a massive reconstruction effort in Iraq is doubtful. The repercussions of an intervention in Iraq will be as likely to complicate the spread of democracy in the Middle East as promote it. The United States has an important role to play in fostering democracy in the region, but the task will be slow and difficult given the unpromising terrain and lack of U.S. leverage over key governments.

About the Authors
Marina Ottaway, senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment, is the author or editor of more than ten books on comparative politics including the forthcoming Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semiauthoritarianism (Carnegie Endowment, January 2003). She is also the coauthor of Rebuilding Afghanistan: Fantasy versus Reality (Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief No. 12)

Enuf of the cheap rhetoric and bunk about poor oppressed Iraqi people, wars for peace, democracies blooming like flowers in the desert, mushroom clouds and manifest destiny

Its all so much manifest hokum

2736. jexster - 1/29/2003 5:17:26 PM

I didn't want to toot my own horn again but since you raised the point, nota bene her reference to the U2 overflights, a question I addressed at length in yesterday's lecture....

2737. jexster - 1/29/2003 7:08:13 PM

Emperor Moron Fails to Sway Former US Allies on Security Council
Snickers Heard at Pep Rally

GIMME AN M....

2738. jexster - 1/29/2003 7:40:23 PM

Thinking About Iraq (3)
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
A memo to President Bush, from a pro-American Arab leader: Would you consider a deal for Saddam Hussein's exile?

2739. jexster - 1/29/2003 7:41:24 PM

Dear Pelle Pollyanna:

That's what's known as a pre-emptive piffle strike

2740. concerned - 1/29/2003 7:49:35 PM

Enuf of the cheap rhetoric and bunk about poor oppressed Iraqi people.....

About par for the Left - after all, the Iraqi and NK people can't vote Leftist candidates into office, so fuck 'em, right?

2741. concerned - 1/29/2003 7:59:38 PM

From Arabicnews:

France, Saudi Arabia stress objective of disarming Iraq, not regime change

In conclusion of the talks held by the Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal with high ranking French officials, France and Saudi Arabia yesterday stressed that the objective concerning Iraq remains to dismantle its weapons, rather than change its regime.

What clearer demonstration could be asked for that Old Europe has no higher objective than its own economic interests to justify its stance wrt Iraq? They wouldn't care in the slightest if Saddam murdered half the Iraqis and attacked all his neighbors once again. Their motives are corrupt and their plans are deceitful.

2742. jexster - 1/29/2003 8:29:44 PM

No all you've established you idiot is that France opposes Bush's war....

Again, with Sen Lugar and a high-level GOP delegation - the only way France can lose is to do what it is doing now

2743. jexster - 1/29/2003 8:34:59 PM

Reductio ad absurdum

Since I also oppose Bush's aggressive war, I must stand to gain ....help me figure out how TD, I need the cash.

Truth Squad Alert!

Two sets of meetings sponsored by the State Department and Vice-President Dick Cheney's staff have been attended by representatives of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhilips and Halliburton, the company that Cheney ran before his election.

While the State Department is mindful of cynical world opinion about US war aims, officials do not always stick to the script. Grant Aldonas, Under Secretary at the US Department of Commerce, said war 'would open up this spigot on Iraqi oil which certainly would have a profound effect in terms of the performance of the world economy for those countries that are manufacturers and oil consumers'.

The US economy will announce zero growth this week, prolonging three years of sluggish performance. Cheap oil would boost an economy importing half of its daily consumption of 20m barrels.

But a cheaper oil price could have been reached more easily by lifting sanctions and giving the US oil majors access to Iraq's untapped reserves.

Instead, war stands to give control over the oil price to 'new Iraq' and its sponsors, with Saudi Arabia losing its capacity to control prices by altering productive capacity.

Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Defence Secretary, and Richard Perle, a key Pentagon adviser, see military action as part of a grand plan to reshape the Middle East.

To this end, control of Iraqi oil needs to bypass the twin tyrannies of UN control and regional fragmentation into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish supplies. The neo-conservatives plan a market structure based on bypassing the state-owned Iraqi National Oil Company and backing new free-market Iraqi companies.

2744. jexster - 1/29/2003 8:36:02 PM

Now THAT is evidence from which you can make a credible inference but TD has always had problems stringing two thoughts together coherently.

And why is this?

Gimme an M!

2745. Cellar Door - 1/29/2003 8:46:46 PM

Following connie's logic, since jex opposes Bush's war -- he must be French!

2746. jexster - 1/29/2003 8:51:48 PM

C'est bon!

The second half of President Bush's State of the Union speech Tuesday night, about Iraq, was a model of moral seriousness, as it should be from a leader taking his nation into war. Bush was brutally eloquent about the cause and—special points for this—about the inevitable cost. It may seem petty to pick apart the text. But logical consistency and intellectual honesty are also tests of moral seriousness. It is not enough for the words to be eloquent or even deeply sincere. If they are just crafted for the moment and haven't been thought through, the pretense of moral seriousness becomes an insult..

Mountebank of Moronia - Morally Decrepit Kinsley

2747. jexster - 1/29/2003 8:52:40 PM

Affirming the Consequent
AKA:
Asserting the Consequent
Affirmation of the Consequent
Type: Fallacy of Propositional Logic
Form:
If p then q.
q. Therefore, p.

Similar Validating Forms: Modus Ponens: Modus Tollens:
If p then q. p.
Therefore, q. If p then q. Not-q. Therefore, not-p.
Example: Counter-Example:
If it's raining then the streets are wet.
The streets are wet.
Therefore, it's raining. If it's snowing then the streets will be covered with snow.
The streets are covered with snow.
Therefore, it's snowing.

2748. marjoribanks - 1/30/2003 9:17:56 AM

Another diplomatic coup for Powell and the Bushites -

Euros formally shuck off Germans and French.

Europe has no quarrel with the Iraqi people.

Indeed, they are the first victims of Iraq's current brutal regime.

Our goal is to safeguard world peace and security by ensuring that this regime gives up its weapons of mass destruction.

Our governments have a common responsibility to face this threat.

Failure to do so would be nothing less than negligent to our own citizens and to the wider world.

The United Nations Charter charges the Security Council with the task of preserving international peace and security.

To do so, the Security Council must maintain its credibility by ensuring full compliance with its resolutions.

We cannot allow a dictator to systematically violate those Resolutions.

If they are not complied with, the Security Council will lose its credibility and world peace will suffer as a result.

We are confident that the Security Council will face up to its responsibilities.

Jose Maria Aznar, Spain
Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, Portugal
Silvio Berlusconi, Italy
Tony Blair, United Kingdom
Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic
Peter Medgyessy, Hungary
Leszek Miller, Poland
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark

2749. marjoribanks - 1/30/2003 9:22:42 AM

So, the stage is set. The UN is over a barrel and the European community is under the threat of being broken.

Within two weeks, perhaps less, you will see the Security Council issue an imprimatur for war with Iraq on the lines of the 15-0 vote on the first resolution. France may abstain - it will not veto - and the US will then have everything it needs to satisfy its own people (and mollify some Euros) as it moves to war. I predict that Hussein will flee some time soon after and the Yanks will have Iraq and I promise that there will be Kabul-like scenes featuring a riotous welcome for Allied troops.

2750. marjoribanks - 1/30/2003 9:24:54 AM

More from the letter:

Thanks in large part to American bravery, generosity and far-sightedness, Europe was set free from the two forms of tyranny that devastated our continent in the 20th century: Nazism and Communism.

Thanks, too, to the continued co-operation between Europe and the United States we have managed to guarantee peace and freedom on our continent.

The transatlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security.

In today's world, more than ever before, it is vital that we preserve that unity and cohesion.

A masterpiece of coersive politics, complete with good cop/bad cop acts, produced this document. Give full marks to Powell and the Bushites, having the SoS make those warlike noises this week was a masterstroke.

2751. alistairConnor - 1/30/2003 9:37:01 AM

15-0 on the security council?

Rant away, Marj.

It has probably escaped your attention, but...
Germany is currently chairing that august institution.

They seem to have bought off Putin, he's making bellicose noises; but what about the Chinese?

2752. marjoribanks - 1/30/2003 9:39:43 AM

I have given up domestic political prognostication ever since I completely misread the debates between Bush and Gore. I thought at the time that Gore thrashed Bush, showed him to be a simpleton, and that the American people would seize on this and kill off Bush's candidacy. Turned out that most Americans thought Bush actually won those debates, something so far from my conception that I decided that I do not, at all, have my finger on the pulse of the American electorate.

However, recent events in this country, and the political repercussions lead me to start to think I have the picture after all. What I see is that the Bushites have very cleverly manouevered into a position where they are trusted (and no one else has nearly the gravitas necessary) to be strong for and in America and to provide security. This, combined with the lack of viable-looking Dem candidates, could well set the Republicans up to mirror Blair's situation in the UK. That is, they will be unassailable for at least a decade, holding both Congress and the White House pretty much indefinitely. It's not a healthy picture, just as Blair's stranglehold in the UK is not healthy, but it is certainly realistic.

2753. marjoribanks - 1/30/2003 9:43:08 AM

On the lines of 15-0, AC, and I'm not ranting.

How about 13-0 or, at worst, 12-1?

The Chinese are one of the biggest collateral beneficiaries of this whole 'War on Terror', as I've pointed out repeatedly since 9/11/01. They get to be totally left alone, no one fucks with them or their own criminal internal record, and they can squash dissent without a peep from the powers in the West.

In other words, they will sign on or abstain, I don't have the slightest doubt.

2754. marjoribanks - 1/30/2003 9:46:52 AM

By the way, lest my comments here be misinterpreted, I am not at all gung-ho about War in Iraq and cannot be included among the hawks.

I can see that there are very positive scenarios that can emerge from the conflict at this time in history (given US military hegemony, the global political climate, etc) and I am convinced that the US can, effectively, take Iraq very cheaply at this juncture. But I simultaneously deride Bush and his mendacious argumentastion and shallow, even juvenile, manner in calling for a serious move from America's natural ethos, and I can see a scenario or two where this effort may be a disaster for the world and for the US both. The potential benefits, at this point, outweigh the potential costs. That is all.

2755. RickNelson - 1/30/2003 9:50:20 AM

Did anyone get out of Jex's link yesterday, that if the US goes to war to remove Saddam as its sole purpose that the Eruopean and other countries and councils will view this as having wasted the efforts of the UN. Quite obvious, but stated within the contents of the piece Williams wrote it read well.

2756. RickNelson - 1/30/2003 9:55:42 AM

It was also noted that the councils, we're led to believe, have unanimously stated the UN needs a minimum 6 mos and perhaps 1 year or even 2 years to be satisfied with this new round of inspections.

When I consider concerned's cartoons of yesterday, where Saddam yells through a window at the UN, Germany and France that he'll work with the inspections and Bush is characterized variously, then yells about it having been 11 years already! The consideration is that Saddam has already had his day in court, Iraq is wasting all this money, time and people. This is rediculous.

I say kill the fucker and be done! But, then what, will that create more trouble than being there in force to control things? I think so. So, I back down. Step away from murder and think about the war. Damn war!

2757. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:17:30 AM

Al-Qaida and Iraq: how strong is the evidence?
Freshly Half-baked
Sources say case pushed by Bush and Blair linking Saddam and Bin Laden is not based on hard facts

President Bush used his state of the union address to paint a terrifying picture for the American people of another attack like September 11 - but this time with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Tony Blair reinforced the message yesterday by telling the Commons: "We do know of links between al-Qaida and Iraq. We cannot be sure of the exact extent of those links."
However, a number of well-placed sources in Whitehall insisted there was no intelligence suggesting such a link. "While we have said there may possibly be individuals in the country [Iraq] we have never said anything to suggest specific links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein," said one.

2758. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:19:57 AM

Bush will say anything, do anything to sastisfy his lust for blood.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's renewed assertions of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda are based largely on the murky case of a one-legged Al Qaeda suspect who was treated in Baghdad after being wounded in the war in Afghanistan Los Angeles Times

2759. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:35:56 AM

Europe "Old" and "New" Is Wary of Bush War
Los Angeles Times

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's catchy phrase "Old Europe" had the French and Germans apoplectic last week. It was hard to fathom the reaction. After all, blithe belligerence is a hallmark of the Bush administration style. It's been provoking transatlantic discord for more than two years.

2760. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:36:35 AM

From the standpoint of an American living in Europe, I would suggest that French and German opposition to rushing into a U.S.-led war against Iraq is hardly Old Europe. Old Europe is two world wars and a continent left in deprivation and shock. Old Europe is Cold War paranoia for 50 years, relying on the United States' nuclear threat to hold back the Russians. European war dissent is actually New Europe. New Europe is united under a currency that's stronger than the dollar. New Europe is filling up with an influx of refugee Muslims. New Europe is where Mohamed Atta and company hatched their plot, and where Islamist terrorists are even now stirring up batches of poison in suburban London and hoarding weapons in the banlieues of Paris.

In France, the home of 8 million Muslims, Islam is the second religion, demographically speaking, right after Roman Catholicism. French culture is infused with Arab influences, from couscous shops to the Arabic dance and protest music called rai.

European countries, historically homogeneous, have their own social and political problems with Islam. The difference is they live cheek by jowl with it. The Paris suburbs are crawling with armed North African gangs, and the Parisian police are said to fear entering the high-rises. The politics of Germany, Holland, even Britain, are profoundly affected by their growing Islamic communities.

2761. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:37:02 AM

Europeans also hold in living memory the real effects of wartime on their own soil. They might have learned a little about bombs, occupation and the dogs of war. Perhaps that is what Rumsfeld meant by Old Europe. These people are in no giddy rush to sign on to a conflict that will surely bring suffering to the Iraqi civilian population, if not other parts of the world.

To Europeans, the United States looks like the Old World. Instead of cultivating negotiation and patience and a sense of global impact, everyone knows the Bush administration has been "hellbent," as one magazine cover put it, on war for months now. Aside from terrifying Americans with vague notions of imminent nuclear or bioterror attacks on U.S. soil, the Bush administration has done nothing to assure anyone that it fathoms the structure of Islamist terrorism or cares about the concerns of moderate Muslims.

A retrograde pall prevails at the White House. According to Newsweek, the elder George Bush was seen wandering through the offices of the chief advisors last week ("I'm just here to give a little adult leadership," the former president cracked), while former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger "sat patiently in the West Wing lobby."

We Americans living abroad are constantly confronted by people who stop us to opine about what a disaster this war will bring to the world. In the United States, even though "the war on terror" is a logo in every newspaper and on every television news show, the topic of war feels muted. People go about their business, pacified with the Bush administration's indifference to dissent.

2762. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:37:15 AM

During a brief trip to New York this month, I caught a few minutes of the "Today" show. Katie Couric was with the troops somewhere in the Middle East and regaling Matt Lauer with her high-energy pep via satellite. Standing before a backdrop of American servicemen and servicewomen ripped from their families, Perkosaurus rex described an F-16 flight she'd experienced. "Let me tell you, Matt, it was a two-bagger!" Gales of giggles. She proceeded to hold up a camouflage apron with the "Today" show logo, made specially for the cooking segment, "coming up next!"

Living abroad, I had forgotten the deliberate lack of gravitas that infuses morning television; it was appalling to behold. Couric and her peers are forbidden by ratings to disturb bleary-eyed Americans with the bitter, hard truth about what war is. As Rumsfeld pointed out last week, ugly images like that belong to Old Europe now.

2763. Wombat - 1/30/2003 11:04:59 AM

Jexter:

Finally, you've got it! I am quite happy to be labled a Wilsonian Naif. Congratulations! It also beats partisan hack and pseudopacifist.

2764. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:17:14 AM

"partisan hack and pseudopacifist" I reserve for myself, proudly so...hehehe

2765. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:22:23 AM

I also reserve JoeZ's ass for myself

For your information the World Health Organization is not a peace agency

But aside from the obvious, it speaks volumes that Zan would think peace agencies incredible!

jasper considers anti-war pronuncements from international peace agencies worthy of posting?

You damned right I do! Damned straight you half wit. We've been harangued with lies from GWB for six months that would make Sad-am green with envy, and little Zanie soldier boy trots his sorry ass in here with a question that answers itself.

What a moron

2766. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:24:58 AM

and don't get him started on Rumsfeld

Stormin Norman's got it easy....he doesn't post on this thread.

2767. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:25:28 AM

Where's Pelle, that kennel fed literatus....

2768. magoseph - 1/30/2003 11:26:02 AM

Jex, how about a link for this, please?: Europe "Old" and "New" Is Wary of Bush War
Los Angeles Times

2769. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:30:40 AM

White House Lashes Out at Critics

Bush Presidency Consumed by War

Bush Plans Use of Nukes in Iraq

we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men

Sound mental to you?

2770. concerned - 1/30/2003 11:31:24 AM

The success that the GWB Administration has had to date with Afghanistan and Iraq would not have materialized under a Bore presidency. Albert would still have been 'negotiating' with the Taliban amidst a backdrop of increasing Islamist terrorist activity against Western targets, probably have abandoned all efforts to control Sodamn as 'futile' by now and would still have been concealing NK's extensive violations of the 'Agreed Framework' at this juncture, and the International Left, amongst whom would be jexster and marjoribanks would have been cheering him on all the way as a great international statesman.

Muwahahahahaaa!

2771. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:33:31 AM

(Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela lashed out at U.S. President George Bush's stance on Iraq on Thursday, saying the Texan had no foresight and could not think properly.

"It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing in Iraq," Mandela told an audience in Johannesburg. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust," he added, to loud applause.

2772. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:34:32 AM

As Bush grovels before the Mighty Dear Leader Concerned tells us what Al Bore would do....

mental as anything

2773. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:36:10 AM

Couldn't link mags..LAT told me it was $$$ so I picked it up from Lexis...I think that's odd because the article isn't that old but..that's what their site said..

2774. Macnas - 1/30/2003 11:40:42 AM

The international left, go on you wanker.
I cant decide which is worse, Marjoribanks making out that Bush and co are some kind of far-seeing Machieavellian stratagists or Concerned just being himself.

2775. concerned - 1/30/2003 11:40:53 AM

It's actually quite predictable, jexster. I'm not saying anything but that Bore would have been fully as effective as Clowntoon against rogue states.

2776. concerned - 1/30/2003 11:43:45 AM

Macnas -

I apologize for not specifically mentioning you in 2770.

2777. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:45:16 AM

Remember those rockets everyone got excited about....well buried in the back pages as it were

"U.N. arms inspectors have concluded that the 122 mm chemical rocket warheads found in an Iraqi bunker earlier this month did not contain any chemical agents. The inspectors had sent one of the warheads that appeared to be filled to a laboratory for tests that turned out negative, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix told U.N. Security Council members, the envoys reported. Iraq said the rocket warheads were overlooked from a 1991 batch of some 2,000 warheads." Will Fox News apologize to its viewers for hundreds of hours of hyperventilation about these warheads? Don't bet the house on it.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/29/sprj.irq.un.rockets.reut/

2778. magoseph - 1/30/2003 11:46:18 AM

Thanks, Jex.

2779. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:51:25 AM

We don't know about Gore. We do know, however, that Gore's prediction that Bush's "monomaniacal" obssession with Iraq would lead to an increase in terrorism as Europe's main anti-terrorist agent confirmed within the past few days.

We also know that Bush has failed to capture OBL alive or dead. Ditto Mullah Omar. We know that Al Qaeda has bombed a French tanker and killed hundreds in Bali since Bush began his WOT. We know that Saddam is still in power. We know that the US is more isolated than ever. We know that NK is more dangerous than ever.

What we DON'T know is that bush has been even partially effective against any rogue state.

But at least Afghan women don't have to wear burkas and their men can give each other BJ's in Afghan bathhouses even as the country teeters on the brink of civil war.

2780. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:52:25 AM

And the Mad Hatter is still looking for the anthrax mailman

2781. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:53:50 AM

And We Know Bush is Mental and Mendacious

ElBaradei stood by his inspectors' findings that aluminum tubes the Iraqis had tried to import were for rockets and not for a nuclear program, as [Bush insisted] Tuesday. 'We believe the tubes were destined for the conventional rocket program,' ElBaradei said. He said the tubes could be modified for uranium enrichment but that the process would be expensive, time-consuming and detectable. Bush [also] said: 'Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say, and intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.' ElBaradei said it was unlikely his inspectors 'could be fooled in the nuclear area on who is a scientist and who is not. We know all the scientists from the past and I think our people could easily detect if that person is a scientist or not.'"

2782. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:54:58 AM

And this morning we know that undercover GAO agents repeatedly penetrated US borders at a Canadian crossing, at San Ysidro and at Miami.

2783. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:55:49 AM

using fake documents

2784. concerned - 1/30/2003 11:58:05 AM

What we DON'T know is that bush has been even partially effective against any rogue state.

*ahem*

Regardless of ones position in the political spectrum, Bush Administration policy in Afghanistan has been inarguably successful. No quantity of fanatical spittle can change that.

2785. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:58:30 AM

And we also know that our 50 year alliance with Europe is seriously frayed.

And we know that anti-US sentiment has increased worldwide

The list of what we know is too long to recall in one shot...

2786. jexster - 1/30/2003 12:00:34 PM

I just told you how "successful" the Afghan adventure has been in detail..THIS is "spittle"

Regardless of ones position in the political spectrum, Bush Administration policy in Afghanistan has been inarguably successful. No quantity of fanatical spittle can change that.

2787. jexster - 1/30/2003 12:02:27 PM

I must confess that I didn't bother watching SOTU....why waste time listening to more lies from GWB?

So tell me TD, did Bush mention OBL in the speech?

2788. jexster - 1/30/2003 12:03:20 PM

the anthrax mail man?

Mullah Omar?

2789. jexster - 1/30/2003 12:06:25 PM

And the Little Emperor has just begun to fuck things up...Iraq will be a geopolitical blunder of unimaginable proportions...

2790. jexster - 1/30/2003 12:37:43 PM

On The Eve of Iraq W-ar, Afghan Rebels Send Reminder that Occupation Creates Resistance
As Every Would Be Emperor of the World Sooner or Later Discovers

NY Times reports, "In the heaviest fighting in nine months, American and coalition forces are battling a large group of rebel fighters in a mountainous region of southeastern Afghanistan. Col. Roger King, a spokesman for the U.S. military, said at least 18 rebel fighters had been killed, while no coalition casualties were reported. The fighting began on Monday while U.S. and Afghan forces were searching a compound near Adi Ghar mountain. They came under fire and in the firefight one attacker was killed, one wounded and one detained. Under questioning, the detained man said there was as many as 80 fighters commanded by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fiery Islamic fundamentalist who has vowed to overthrow President Hamid Karzai's government, in the mountains near the compound."

This is a timely reminder that anyone who thinks an invasion of Iraq will magically bring about peace and democracy (are you listening, Tom Friedman?) is delusional.

2791. jexster - 1/30/2003 2:16:52 PM

Disarming Iraq is important enough to fight for. But is war necessary now?

According to the Bush administration and the United Nations Security Council, the problem we are trying to solve is disarmament. For our own security and that of our friends, we rightly insist on knowing that Iraq does not possess biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

The initial report from Hans Blix and his UN-backed inspectors indicates that this disarmament process is neither succeeding nor failing at this point. It's too early to tell. But the physical threat from Iraq is contained. The powerful military force massing around Iraq and the inspectors beginning to probe wherever they wish have forced Saddam Hussein to lay low. He knows that if he moves to strike or to augment his arsenal, he would be whacked immediately, thanks to the determination of the president.

From a security standpoint, then, the force in the region makes war unnecessary right now. It provides time to let the agreed inspection process proceed. Nevertheless, elements in the Bush administration say they've seen enough. The inspections are a failure; it's time for war.

If you consider the facts, you see this is a rash leap to judgment and war.

Newsday:
George Perkovich - vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Seen any mushroom clouds lately Zan?

2792. jexster - 1/30/2003 2:19:37 PM

But AGAIN Wombat, NOT if this charade has nothing to do with WMD as I have said repeatedly for six months

2793. jexster - 1/30/2003 4:13:03 PM

Up thread I have linked an article from the Guardian (UK) that discusses the conspiracy among the ChickenHawk Warmongers (Cheney Rummy et al) ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco to steal Iraqi Oil.

Powell as the Guardian noted is opposed to these efforts but recall that he has ulitimately failed to prevail ulitimately in each and every battle with the ChickenHawk Neo-Imperialist crowd.

The Guardian is the most comprehensive and least biased source of information on this crisis. Once again the paper leads the field as AP is now catching on to the Bush/Cheney Oil Scam...

Its the OILY EMPIRE STUPID!

2794. jexster - 1/30/2003 4:22:57 PM

Bush Bacillus Buries Blair

Labour MEPs: war is not justified

Thursday January 30, 2003 Guardian UK

Labour MEPs were accused of defying the prime minister this afternoon by backing a resolution declaring that Iraq has done nothing yet to justify war.
Conservative MEPs refused to support the European parliament vote condemning Saddam Hussein, emphasised the need to remove Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and insisted that everything must be conducted through the UN security council.

British MEPs were deeply split on one sentence in the cross-party resolution, which declared that "breaches of UN security council resolution 1441 currently identified by the inspectors with regard to weapons of mass destruction do not justify military action".

The Conservative leader in the European parliament, Jonathan Evans, said: "Labour MEPs' support of this resolution can only be seen as a deliberate snub to the prime minister, weakening his diplomatic and political credibility on the eve of his visit to Washington.

"Today's vote reflects not just a rebellious party but one in open revolt against the government.

THAT is Chirac's game - BLAIRS BALLS....not oil...not some half-assed Charles de Gaulle imitation..Chirac is setting up a European power center in opposition to Bush and undermining Blair's position is the key to his plan.

2795. Cellar Door - 1/30/2003 4:33:29 PM

VIVE LA FRANCE!

2796. Cellar Door - 1/30/2003 4:34:21 PM

Just keep repeating the mantra:"It's not about oil."

2797. concerned - 1/30/2003 5:02:30 PM

Just keep repeating the mantra: "Sqwawk. Sqwaaaaawk. It's all about oil. It's all about oil. Commie want crackdown on freedom. Sqwaaaaawk!"

2798. jexster - 1/30/2003 6:13:30 PM

Bush Violates God's Law - Methodist Church
National Council of Churches Commerical to Air

2799. jexster - 1/30/2003 6:14:16 PM

Sure its about oil unless you are either too stupid to read or to moronized to think. The facts are all there....

2800. jexster - 1/30/2003 6:16:48 PM

The Moronic Mountebank is about to trot out another freshly baked batch of horseapples for Connie's consumption, including the BIG AL Qaeda connection, based primarily on the coerced testimony of a "shadowy, one legged" operative who received medical treatment in Baghdad.

What a fuckin little imbecile you are TD

2801. jexster - 1/30/2003 6:19:17 PM

Hell Fortune Magazine and the WSJ editorial page have been saying it for months. FreeRepublic.com has been saying it for a year.

Fuck WMD, fuck silly assed propaganda about poor suffering Iraqis, fuck nukes - they're in north Korea....

ITS ABOUT OILY EMPIRE

2802. Cellar Door - 1/30/2003 9:59:13 PM

Yesterday's parody is today's reality.

2803. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:04:00 PM

A combination of 11th September, the Israeli lobby and older trends in American history and culture have contributed to a resurgence of American nationalism, directed in the first instance against the Muslim world, but also against Europe and any state or group which resists US policies. To this mixture, 11th September has added justified fear and anger, but also that most intoxicating of all spirits-a sense of righteous and unique national victimhood.
But no one with a sense of history should support aggressive nationalism on the part of any state, whatever the attacks to which they have been subjected. Many nations can claim to have been the victim of unjustified aggression; it does not mean that they are exempt from being judged on the proportionality of their response. We know too well from the history of Europe in the 150 years before 1945 where nationalist machtpolitik can lead. As for "pre-emptive unilateral retaliation," this is a phrase worthy of Orwell. A. Lieven Death of the West

"launching a pre-emptive war is like committing suicide to escape death" Otto von Bismarck

2804. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:05:21 PM

I'd forgotten that CLLR...going to post as SOTU in US Politics thread

2805. jexster - 1/30/2003 10:14:41 PM

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

Oh my Gawd, bring on the Morons!

2806. jexster - 1/30/2003 11:44:36 PM

Blair/Bush v. Chirac/Shroeder - Its Beyond Personal Now

2807. alistairconnor - 1/31/2003 3:51:44 AM

Unless I'm missing something...
Aside from Blair, none of the other 7 signatories of the Times letter are actually offering troops. And there is nothing in the text that Chirac couldn't have signed.

The whole thing is a stunt, orchestrated by Bush's minders, via the Wall St Journal, apparently.

2808. concerned - 1/31/2003 4:36:34 AM

That's a pretty wild surmise, AC. Even jexster might be embarrassed to publicly fabricate that lie.

2809. alistairconnor - 1/31/2003 5:59:35 AM

The Franco-German front in the matter of Iraq has little or nothing to do with personalities. The two governments have a common interest in avoiding the war, and are well in tune with their public opinion.

It also happens to coincide with a crucial period for the EU, where France and Germany are attempting to provide leadership to avoid the thing becoming a formless tepid mass with the arrival of the 10 new candidates (which Blair, on the contrary, is in favor of).

So Chirac will be in no hurry to back down, leaving Schroeder isolated.

2810. joezan - 1/31/2003 7:40:10 AM

Actually, I pray France, Germany and a few others would just continue to bite the hand that's pulled their flaccid, useless wienies out of the fire time and time again.

In the first Gulf War the "coalition" was more trouble than it was worth. Saddam played the weaknesses in that coalition like a fiddle. In fact, his whole purpose in bombing Israel was simply to make it impossible for any of the Arab/Islamic countries to continue as part of the coalition, and maybe even turn against the US.

Can you imagine the wailing from the Old European countries when the first bomb goes astray this time?

Screw 'em.

2811. Wombat - 1/31/2003 8:16:38 AM

In fact, Saddam's actions in the Gulf War did nothing to prevent Egyptian, Syrian, and Gulf State forces from participating in the fighting.

2812. joezan - 1/31/2003 9:01:52 AM

So what?

If Israel had responded with even one retaliatory strike - which is precisely what Saddam was attempting to provoke - every Arab/Muslim country in the coalition would have fallen off like tics off a dead deer, turned around and headed straight for Israel.

2813. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 9:28:34 AM

This Blix interview is the first thing I've seen that could actually give pause to the US in its so-far successful attempt to steamroller the UN Sec Council into another resolution giving an imprimatur to War.

I suppose the jury will be out until after Powell speaks at the UN next week. The US is going to War, we all know that. But is the US going to get the UN to back it with a resolution that actually goes against the core values of that body? My bet is still yes, but the odds are a little steeper today.

The question, starkly put, is as simple as this. Will China or France veto? It comes down to Chirac, and you will see considerable heat brought to bear on him about his govt's relationship with Hussein, and we will see how far he bends and if and when he finally breaks.

2814. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 9:31:01 AM

Connor is correct about Germany being in tune with its public opinion. I can appreciate Germany's stance under Scroeder. He said all along he opposed War, he was voted in on that basis, and he is keeping his word. But Chirac has no such principle to stand behind, is vulnerable to public opinion because of his own personal record wrt Hussein, and is very very likely to merely be playing for a better deal for France in the post-Hussein scenario.

We'll see.

2815. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 9:38:36 AM

Zan's blovaiting is exactly the kind of emptyheaded jingoistic rhetoric that turns off potential supporters of this reasonably just War across the world and in the US.

I often consider that there would be a far more coherent and supportive coalition if there wasn't a simpleton cowboy in the Oval Office, if the US had a more sympathetic character at the helm, someone who could make a persuasive and articulate case for this war (there is one to be made) without struggling to get simple cartoonish sentences out even with the assistance of a teleprompter.

In fact, if the popular vote in the last election were reflected in the leadership, the US would not have idiotically, moronically, short-sightedly, pissed away the tremedous wellspring of global sympathey it rec'd after 9/11/01 and would most likely be head of a righteous coalition taking on Iraq right now. For the simple truth of the matter is that global public opinion (especially in Europe) isn't so much anti-American (though there is some of that) or anti-War (though there is quite a lot of that) but anti-Bush-the-offensive-moron. Frankly, I sympathize.

2816. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 9:40:58 AM

Did you see Bush refer to Hussein's elite cadre as "henchmen" the other day? I bet you his daily briefings aren't written or even verbal but in the form of luridly colored comic books. I mean, his rhetoric is so ridiculously third-grade.

2817. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 9:45:17 AM

Re2807:

Havel has contributed crucial troops, and more are on the way. For some reason the Czechs have the world's crack anti-chemical-weapon squads and they are already in Kuwait and signed on to the Bushite War.

2818. joezan - 1/31/2003 9:47:59 AM

Yeah yeah, marj.

We all know about your "sympathies" since 9-11.

Refute anything I've said.

Explain how any country that has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a coalition is going to be of any use, whether it's GWB or Roger Moore in the White House.

2819. Wombat - 1/31/2003 9:52:09 AM

The Czechs were the designated chemical warfare specialists under the Warsaw Pact.

2820. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 9:56:27 AM

Explain how any country that has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a coalition is going to be of any use, whether it's GWB or Roger Moore in the White House.

First and most important, Mullah Zan, is that it spreads the accountability around. It may not be a concern to you in your backwater, but those of us who live in potential (and proven) US target cities do care that the US is looked at as a unilateral actor even in a relatively just war.

Sign on France, Russia, etc and the picture changes.

Buffoons like you will still imagine the US as a single sheriff acting out your half-baked power fantasies on a global stage but realists will acknowledge that it is the global community acting.

2821. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 11:00:37 AM

The Czechs were the designated chemical warfare specialists under the Warsaw Pact.,/i>

Interesting, Wombat, thank you for the insight.

2822. marjoribanks - 1/31/2003 11:01:02 AM

Ugh.

2823. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:11:32 AM

This is sure to light a fire under the Wombat...

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."

The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.

2824. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:11:46 AM

A War Crime or an Act of War?
By STEPHEN C. PELLETIERE (NYT)
Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, we shouldn't be picking on Iraq on human rights grounds.

Smells like one of those Rape of Belgium, Baby in the Incubator number that the Brits are so adept at.

2825. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:22:58 AM

Pelletiere's closing sentence raises several questions that Kinsley raised and not a few that I have...

Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?

Why didn't we wage war two decades ago when Saddam destroyed those villages and the United States looked the other way because our bone of contention back then was with Iran?

Why don't we topple other governments around the world that torture their own citizens and do other despicable things?

Bush administration prepared to enforce the no-torturing-children rule by force everywhere?

what happens if Saddam decides to meet all our demands regarding weapons and inspections?

is he then free to torture children and pour acid on innocent citizens without fear of the United States?

If Saddam's human-rights practices morally require the United States to act, why are we waiting for Hans Blix?

if the danger that Saddam will develop and use weapons of mass destruction against the United States justifies removing him in our own long-term self-defense, what does torturing children have to do with it?

And tell us again why we're about to invade Iraq but we're "working with the countries of the region" to pinion North Korea, which is further along the nuclear trail and can't even be bothered to lie about it.

2826. Wombat - 1/31/2003 11:25:56 AM

I can see you now, Jex, in 1938, sneering that Churchill's warnings about Herr Hitler were overblown, and citing the exaggerations and lies put out about the "Hun" in World War I to support your case.

2827. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:31:00 AM

Oh puhleeze can't you do any better than that?

You asked for it....

It is not surprising that crackpot analogies like Mr. Wombats have gained traction in the United States anno 2002. A recent National Geographic survey found that in the dumbed-down post-literate age "only about one in seven—13 percent—of Americans between the age of 18 and 24, the prime age for military warriors, could find Iraq" on a world map. (3) The adage says that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. Accordingly, a half-educated discourse on the Weimar Republic by a kennel-fed establishment literatus like Wombat sounds like real erudition to people who can barely find Canada on a map.

As the conservative political scientist Michael Oakshott wrote, historical analogies must be drawn with sensitivity and attention to historical facts, because an analogy is not a mathematical proof or a logical syllogism:

There is no process of generalization by means of which the events, things and persons of history can be reduced to anything other than historical events, things and persons without at the same time being removed from the world of historical ideas … In history there are no "general laws" by means of which historical individuals can be reduced to instances of a principle, and least of all are there general laws of the character we find in the world of science.

Let us heed Mr. Oakshott's caution. Otherwise, a tendentious or partisan reading of history could derive any number of Third Reich analogies. For example, future generations of shallow and ill-educated people might conclude that since both Josef Göbbels and George Will never served in the military, and both wrote tirelessly in favor of war, and both practiced the lower forms of journalism, there must be a functional equivalence between the two. But who would now suggest such a far-fetched analogy?

2828. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:32:40 AM

Your case consists exclusively in the HE GASSED HIS OWN people horseshit.

Saddam isn't hitler. God knows Bush isn't Churchill and this isn't Europe 1938

So where were you in say 2000? Where were the Wombat calls to arms then?

2829. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:33:19 AM

I expect that out of Zan but not you and Pelle.

2830. Cellar Door - 1/31/2003 11:34:40 AM

Mark Morford

2831. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:38:01 AM

Ah, for the halcyon days of a year ago, when we fretted about why Arabs hate us. Now the question is: Why does everybody hate us?

Flogging the French
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
The macho notion that we'll do what we choose and if the world doesn't like it, it can go [insert expletive here] is both ludicrous and dangerous

I suggest that if you do not wish to be lumped in with the Morons around here or how did you put it, "Bush and his cohorts" you start producing something that sets you apart there Wombat.

2832. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:38:25 AM

If I may be so bold.

2833. jexster - 1/31/2003 11:49:10 AM

Hans Blix: Seen Nothing to Justify War

2834. jexster - 1/31/2003 12:20:10 PM

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has called on the United States to hand over any evidence of illegal weapons at once to U.N. arms inspectors, so that they can check the claims, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

As required by Resolution 1441

10. Requests all Member States to give full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including by providing any information related to prohibited programmes or other aspects of their mandates, including on Iraqi attempts since 1998 to acquire prohibited items, and by recommending sites to be inspected, persons to be interviewed, conditions of such interviews, and data to be collected, the results of which shall be reported to the Council by UNMOVIC and the IAEA;

2835. vonKreedon - 1/31/2003 12:36:52 PM

The US needs to pull out all the stops in sharing its intel with the UNSC. My hope is that the UNSC will then authorize the use of force to support effective discovery and destruction of WMD and associated production resources. I am very fearful of the consequences of unrestricted warfare waged to effect regime change in Iraq and hope that a restrictive UNSC mandate will avoid this while destroying the Iraqi WMD capabilities.

2836. vonKreedon - 1/31/2003 12:37:37 PM

Marj - Yeah, "henchmen", cute bit of comic book jargon for a comic book view of the world.

2837. concerned - 1/31/2003 12:54:59 PM

A sign that those who indulge their predilections toward flowery language are running up against the Peter Principle wrt realpolitik is when they feel obligated to personally attack those who are capable of successfully applying direct action in a way that they find they cannot.

2838. Cellar Door - 1/31/2003 1:03:17 PM

says the man who perpetually refers to our last duly elected president as a rapist.

2839. Wombat - 1/31/2003 1:28:21 PM

Jexter:

My position on Saddam and Iraq hasn't changed a bit since about 1985. Can you say the same?

2840. jexster - 1/31/2003 1:35:24 PM

Yes.

2841. jexster - 1/31/2003 1:38:48 PM

Forty one nobel laureates, 100 ethicists, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Methodist Church (Bush's Church), the National Council of Churches....Unprovoked pre-emptive war is "against God's law"..

So Wombat you have supported removing Saddam by force of arms followed by a 5, 10, 20 year occupation by US forces since 1991 eh?

Too bad we never heard anything until a year ago.

"Forty-one American Nobel laureates in science and economics issued a declaration yesterday opposing a preventive war against Iraq without wide international support. The statement, four sentences long, argues that an American attack would ultimately hurt the security and standing of the United States, even if it succeeds. The signers, all men, include a number who at one time or another have advised the federal government or played important roles in national security. Among them are Hans A. Bethe, an architect of the atom bomb; Walter Kohn, a former adviser to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon; Norman F. Ramsey, a Manhattan Project scientist who readied the Hiroshima bomb and later advised NATO; and Charles H. Townes, former research director of the Institute for Defense Analyses at the Pentagon and chairman of a federal panel that studied how to base the MX missile and its nuclear warheads."

NyT

2842. jexster - 1/31/2003 1:43:04 PM

Time is Running Out, So is the BullSHit
NyPost

"A one-legged Jordanian terrorist is the man the Bush administration believes could be plotting a biological attack on the US for Saddam Hussein if war with Iraq erupts. He is Abu Mussab al Zarqawi... the mastermind of the London ricin plot, as well as the assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan last October. Intelligence officials said Zarqawi is the man Bush was referring to when he warned the nation in his SOTU Address Tuesday night that terrorists could 'bring a day of horror like none we have even known'... Zarqawi was badly injured during U.S. bombing raids on Kabul last year and fled Afghanistan to Iran. Last August, Zarqawi ended up in Baghdad, where he stayed in the hospital for several weeks following the amputation of his leg by Iraqi doctors. U.S. intelligence learned of Zarqawi's presence in Iraq through intercepts of phone calls he made to his family in Jordan."

2843. jexster - 1/31/2003 1:47:17 PM

Since JoeZ seems to have problems with posts citing "peace groups" (war groups are AOK), this from >The Navy Times

"Death, disease and starvation await Iraq's children should war break out, and casualties in the thousands or even in the hundreds of thousands cannot be ruled out, according to a report by... 10 experts from the International Study Team, an independent group of academics, researchers, physicians and child psychologists founded in 1991 to examine the effect of military conflicts on civilians. The report, 'The Impact of a New War on Iraqi Children,' expressed concern not only about casualties among children as a direct result of combat, but more importantly as a result of the results of war - including disruptions of food supplies, lack of medicines, the flight of refugees. Some 500,000 children are already malnourished or underweight, and Iraq currently only has a month's supply of food and three months' supply of medicines. If a war - especially a lengthy one - cuts off supplies or damages Iraq's already decrepit medical infrastructure, then children would see the most suffering."

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

2844. jexster - 1/31/2003 2:27:14 PM

The Anti-Europeans
Anti-Americanism has an evil twin: the neocon campaign to malign the West’s other democracies - The American Conservative

2845. jexster - 1/31/2003 2:28:26 PM

Actually, I pray France, Germany and a few others would just continue to bite the hand that's pulled their flaccid, useless wienies out of the fire time and time again.

Actually it was the USSR that whipped Hitler but what the fuck are you talking about anyway?

2846. jexster - 1/31/2003 2:29:53 PM

At the risk of simplifying, it goes something like this: Churchill good, Chamberlain bad; Democracy good, Tyranny bad; Israel good, Palestine bad; America good, Europe bad; Cowpokes good, Redskins bad; and, listen up, if it hadn’t been for “muscular and unsophisticated Americans,” you Euroweenies would now be speaking Kraut.

2847. Cellar Door - 1/31/2003 3:40:07 PM

Charles Pierce says

"That wasn’t a speech given by a democratic politician. That was an oligarch’s stern lecture, every single miserable syllable of it and every practiced Marlboro Man stare. Was there a word in it that would lead you to believe that this was-don’t start-an elected official speaking in front of a co-equal branch of government and to the people for whom he works? Was there a single gesture that might indicate that he recognizes any limitations, or that he recognizes any imperatives beyond his own increasingly petulant assertion of his own prerogatives? Was there even an inkling that he’d ever take no for an answer?
Find one. I dare you.
Listen how pleased he was at his skill at manipulating the levers of authoritarian power. Listen to a president of the United States take obvious public pride the efficiency of his assassins. (At least Nixon and Kissinger had the good grace not to brag to the country about the murders they orchestrated.) Gaze in awe at the sheer gall of the man, daring anyone to gainsay him, and watch the putative opposition go off mooing idly in response to the biggest wagonload of OK Corral imperial bushwah that ever rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue.

2848. Cellar Door - 1/31/2003 3:40:22 PM

This nation goes reluctantly to war? The nation may, but this administration has been turning handsprings in promiscuous anticipation of it ever since it slimed into Washington two years ago. And I certainly have fait in whatever “the intelligence community” tells me. Do they know the USSR has fallen yet?
And how about that long, touching passage-purse lips, feign concern-about how well “we” know the sacrifices and pain of war? When in hell did he or any of his cabal of chickenhawks learn anything about sacrifice, or pain, or even war, for all that? When he was ducking out of his National Guard duty? When he was getting passed along as the family drunk through the business world? When he slid into Yale and then Harvard Business School on the Idiot Nephews program? When have Wolfowitz or Perle or Cheney or any of them sacrificed anything for any cause greater than the profits of the people who pay their honoraria, and the exercise of power for its own sake?
And there’s no check on them. The press? God help us, no. (Someone please find a derrick and get Howard Fineman off his knees.) The Democrats? Thank you for playing, Gary Locke. We have some lovely parting gifts. The people? Nice Madisonian notion, but nobody’s listening to them.
Maybe Dos Passos was right-we are two countries. I’m just not in the right one, I guess."

2849. concerned - 1/31/2003 5:19:22 PM

What I think is really hilarious about this is that if only as much oil could ever be extracted out of any country as amounts to the barrel or two full that could be pressed out of jexster's and cllrdr's greasy carcasses, they immediately obsess about it being the only motive for US foreign policy to the exclusion of all rational discussion.

2850. concerned - 1/31/2003 7:48:09 PM

The role the French want the Allies to play in Iraq:

What are the benefits of the French way in Iraq? Look at events in the Ivory Coast:

excerpted:

Abidjan - A 5 000-strong stone-throwing mob invaded Ivory Coast's main airport on Friday, storming planes on the tarmac and taunting, slapping and spitting at terrorised French families in flight from their onetime prize West African colony.

"Never come back!" young men, spewing profanities and spitting, shouted after one woman and three children running sobbing under a gauntlet of blows from parking lot to terminal.

France - its decades-old influence in West Africa's economic hub crumbling fast over anger at a French-brokered peace deal here -reluctantly urged its citizens out. The United States, Britain and others did so weeks ago.

2851. concerned - 1/31/2003 7:51:12 PM

Now, who really believes we need the French telling the US what to do in Iraq?

2852. jexster - 2/2/2003 4:29:53 AM

Me.

And what does the Ivory Coast have to do with Iraq or "the French way"?

2853. jexster - 2/2/2003 4:36:34 AM

Lies, lies, more lies - a rerun

Notice how whenever Our Dear Imperious Leader needs to go to the well he never fails to trot out the Al Qaeda lies?

Bush has indulged his obssessions for so long he's become unstable.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — The Bush administration's efforts to build a case for war against Iraq using intelligence to link it to Al Qaeda and the development of prohibited weapons has created friction within United States intelligence agencies, government officials said.

Some analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency have complained that senior administration officials have exaggerated the significance of some intelligence reports about Iraq, particularly about its possible links to terrorism, in order to strengthen their political argument for war, government officials said.

At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, some investigators said they were baffled by the Bush administration's insistence on a solid link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden's network. "We've been looking at this hard for more than a year and you know what, we just don't think it's there," a government official said.

2854. jexster - 2/2/2003 4:36:56 AM

Osama Who?

2855. jexster - 2/2/2003 4:52:55 AM

TD raises the larger question though "who is any one to tell Emperor Moron I anything?" And why bother when he only seems to respond to is "fuck you" and "let's play soldiers"?

As North Korea frantically pulls out fresh plutonium rods from Yongbyan, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, said it might be a matter of only "weeks and months" before North Korea began turning its stockpile of nuclear fuel into weapons.

2856. jexster - 2/2/2003 5:53:31 AM

Start praying for Iraqi people Toronto Star

George W. Bush has conferred an aura of inevitability to a war on Iraq. The only questions are how and when and at what price for whom.

The powerful always have their way. That's not new. The scandal here is that there is no longer even the pretence of a nod to the rule of international law. If the United Nations won't legitimize the war, the U.N. may be dispensed with. That's what the president said Tuesday.
Lost in the stampede for war is its Orwellian rationale:

"Iraq is defying the will of the United Nations," says Powell, so there must be war — in defiance of the majority wishes of the United Nations.

There must be war to bring democracy to Iraq — defying the democratic and popular will of the peoples and governments of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Far East.

There must be war so Saddam Hussein and his murderous coterie can be charged with crimes against humanity, even if the U.S. does not recognize the International Criminal Court.

There must be war because Saddam Hussein cannot be trusted, even if Bush [has to lie to get it]loses his own credibility in the process.

It didn't have to be this way.
.

What lies ahead?

.... start praying for the poor Iraqis, for whom Bush has just thoughtfully set aside the princely sum of $15 million "for any humanitarian emergency."

2857. jexster - 2/2/2003 5:55:09 AM

War for Iraq who has inspectors and no nukes, but grovel before the Dear Leader who told the inspectors to take a hike, has nukes is making more nukes, and plans to open a plutonium Costco
Nuclear bombs to destroy possible chem bio sites
Aid for Busharraff who sponsored NK's nuke progrm and kill Iraqis
Aggressive unnecessary war for peace
"War for democracy" which will install a puppet military dictatorship

2858. jexster - 2/2/2003 1:47:02 PM

the WashPost reports that Win Without War, a coalition of organizations opposed to invading Iraq, is "accelerating" its ad campaign for TV, radio, and print.

"In the latest ad, actress Janeane Garofalo says she keeps
wondering: Does the US have the right to invade 'a country that's done nothing to us?'

Bishop Melvin G. Talbert, the chief ecumenical officer
of the United Methodist Church, answers: 'No nation under God has that right. It violates international law, it violates God's law and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Iraq hasn't wronged us. War will only create more terrorists and a more dangerous world for our children.' Talbert...
decided to make the commercial only after Methodist leaders failed in several attempts to obtain a private meeting with Bush. More than 40 bishops and pastors of Protestant and Orthodox churches will issue an open letter today imploring Bush to meet with antiwar religious leaders,"
but Bush refuses.

Bush Fears Avenging Judgment - Refuses to Meet Religious Leaders

"Day of wrath
day of mourning
heaven and earth in ashes burning" Dies Irae

2859. jexster - 2/2/2003 2:06:00 PM

I doubt Bush is ready to rule Mesopotamia
By Lord Patrick Wright, head of the Diplomatic Service from 1986 to 1991 and previously HM Ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia

2860. jexster - 2/2/2003 2:30:16 PM

Easy
Sampurna Chattarji

Death is easy to pronounce.
He deserved to die.
They ought to be shot.
Hanging’s too good for him.
The words fall glib.
Throwaway lines
sentencing them to death.
Distant observer,
you speak without guilt, or fear
of misplaced allegiances.
You just need something to say,
that’s all.
The right sentiment, rightly declared
whichever way your loyalties blow
in the gust of the smoke?lled air.
A country burns.
The death-dealers deserved to die, you say.
Death is easy to pronounce.
It’s the smell of burning children that’s hard.

January 2003, Mumbai, India.

2861. concerned - 2/3/2003 11:15:06 AM

Re. 2858 -

Ms. Garofalo could have more intelligently phrased her question: 'Does the UN ever have the right to authorize military action?'

But then again, Win Without War appears to be pandering to the shallow end of the intellectual spectrum.

2862. concerned - 2/3/2003 11:30:04 AM

Schroeder weighs anti-war stance

This, now that it contributed to his SPD experiencing "...one of its bitterest defeats. At least the bitterest which I have experienced in my political career,", according to Schroeder whose party relied on an anti-US stance to sway voters during the runup to the election.

2863. jexster - 2/3/2003 1:03:54 PM

With polls showing 80%+ support for his position I seriously doubt that CNN is a reliable source..

War Will Produce "One of the Biggest Oil Shocks Ever" -Goldman-Sachs

2864. jexster - 2/3/2003 1:07:27 PM

'A war could drive crude oil prices up by an additional $10-$15, or 30 to 50 per cent [to $46],' says Goldman's report, 'More Perfect Storm than Desert Storm'.

The oil market is currently factoring in a far more benign outlook for oil prices, based on the experience of a rapid drop in prices as soon as US air strikes on Iraq began in 1991. But Goldman points out that there is less excess production capacity now, and that the market is overconfident in the capacity of strategic reserves to bring oil prices down. Use of strategic reserves may dampen near-term prices but will 'prolong price pressures', says the report.

The economic consequences of war

LibDem trade spokesman and former Shell Chief Economist Vincent Cable warns that an attack on Saddam could play havoc with oil prices and create global recession

2865. jexster - 2/3/2003 1:15:43 PM

Yet the potential conflict must be, in significant part, about oil and economics. It is neither irrational nor unworthy to put them at the centre of the debate. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has acknowledged as much. The futures of Iraq and its Gulf neighbours are important, because of oil, in a way that those of Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe and Peru are not.

Not of course to our Iraqi expert-in-residence, the Wombat who believes that the Iraqi people will welcome the neo-colonialist Butcher of Baghdad with open arms and ululating tongues!

The recolonisation of Iraq cannot be sold as liberation

Of course most Iraqis don't want their country invaded and occupied

Well gag me with a spoon Wombat

2866. jexster - 2/3/2003 1:16:54 PM

Tony Blair's government is running scared of the British people and their stubborn opposition to war on Iraq. The latest panic measure is to try to ban what has been trailed as the biggest demonstration in British political history from Hyde Park, where a giant anti-war rally is planned for February 15. As the US administration accelerates its drive to war, its most faithful cheerleader is having to run ever faster to keep up.

Never mind that every single alleged chemical or biological weapons storage site mentioned in Blair's dossier last year has been inspected and found to have been clean..

2867. jexster - 2/3/2003 1:18:23 PM

That's February 15th in Hyde Park. Here in SF we hit the streets on Sunday 2/16 out deference and respect for the Chinese New Year's Parade on the 15th

Gung hay fat choy!

2868. jexster - 2/3/2003 1:49:28 PM

Sent "Easy" Message # 2860 to a friend of mine on the staff of Grace Cathedral...

thanks, John

We've taken to the streets here in protest. We continue to speak out. We've mailed rice packets to Bush with the verse from Romans about feeding your enemy. I took a pilgrimage group to Palestine in Oct and will do so again this Oct.

God bless this planet.

The Rev. ----
Canon Precentor and Associate Pastor

www.gracecathedral.org

2869. jexster - 2/3/2003 1:55:24 PM

Romans 12:17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"[4] says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."[5] 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

2870. Dubai Vol - 2/3/2003 9:42:41 PM

Saddam's bodyguard says:

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5921220%5E663,00.html

2871. Dubai Vol - 2/3/2003 9:47:37 PM

Sorry,I'm spoiled, let's try again shall we:
Herald Sun

2872. arkymalarky - 2/3/2003 11:37:25 PM

Jex?

2873. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 12:31:48 AM

Dubai - That's great stuff. I assume that the Isrealis will allow him to talk with the UN inspection teams. Hopefully the UNSC will authorize the use of force to inspect/destroy these facilities and to secure interviews with other Saddamite apparatchiks under similar circumstances as this Mahoud.

It is sort of too bad that the Isrealis announced this instead of the UN, as the info is likely to be de-legitimized by much of the Islamic world.

2874. alistairConnor - 2/4/2003 9:37:23 AM

VK - well of course, that's exactly why the Israelis probably won't allow him to talk to the UN inspection teams.

Does Sharon want to legitimize the UN to the Islamic world? No he doesn't. He wants an "us and them" war. That's hardly surprising. What is tragic about the whole business, is that the US has taken the same "us and them" road.

2875. Wombat - 2/4/2003 10:26:58 AM

VK:

The Arab "street" will believe what it wants to believe, regardless of the source. As to Dubai vol's link, I would like to see it run in a few more media sources, before I believe it (much as I would like to).

2876. PelleNilsson - 2/4/2003 10:52:12 AM

That's the feeling I have too. I haven't seen it reported anywhere else. I doubt it's genuine.

2877. concerned - 2/4/2003 11:10:54 AM

Chicks getting it off for war. Don't catch cold now, hear?

2878. concerned - 2/4/2003 11:16:35 AM

Re. 2871 -

I read that yesterday. Now, if France & Germany vote for enforcing 1441 or abstain from voting in the UNSC, Sharon may be able to claim bragging rights for influencing their positions.

2879. concerned - 2/4/2003 11:25:48 AM

Does Sharon want to legitimize the UN to the Islamic world?

There are few people in a poorer position to legitimize anything to 'the Islamic world' in this sense than Ariel Sharon.

2880. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/4/2003 11:30:26 AM

"Chicks?"

Cool, Daddio!

2881. concerned - 2/4/2003 11:30:31 AM

So why should he expend his time in a worthless show?

2882. jexster - 2/4/2003 11:39:32 AM

Thoroughly bogus case for war
Chicago Tribune

2883. jexster - 2/4/2003 11:46:28 AM

Take the Pledge Against Bush War!

Fellowship of Reconciliation
Voices in the Wilderness
American Friends Service Committee,
Episcopal Peace Fellowship
Lutheran Peace Fellowship
Education for Peace in Iraq Center
Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

2884. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:13:48 PM

All this pro-Saddam bloviation never ceases to amuse coming from somebody who was such a gung-ho sabre-rattling out and out dog of war in Kosovo.

2885. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 12:16:54 PM

What was your position on Kosovo, concerned?

2886. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:19:39 PM

I was opposed to our unilateral involvement which was in direct opposition to international law and without any UN sanction whatsoever.

Don't take me for some Leftist hypocrite.

2887. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:20:20 PM

I made my position quite clear in the Mote, or perhaps its predecessor, btw.

2888. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:23:42 PM

And to forestall any further misreading of my position wrt Iraq, I would rather not see an armed conflict, but replacing the oppressive Iraqi dictatorship with a responsible democratic government is a higher priority than indulging in mere verbal harangues and worthless UN non-resolutions.

2889. PelleNilsson - 2/4/2003 12:32:42 PM

So, now we see quite clearly that concerned's and jexster's respective stand on crucial international issues has nothing to do with objective realities but solely with considerations arising out of US domestic politics.

2890. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 12:33:31 PM

concerned,

I don't take you for a leftist hypocrite. I take you for an on-message member of the right, part of the vast virtual conspiracy. Everything Clinton did was wrong, everything Bush does is right. And you obviously have not read Wesley Clark's book about Kosovo.

It has really struck me lately how on-message the right is. Not just the politicians, but the media commentators as well. Take joezan's epigraph at the top of the thread. I've heard that countless times from the right wing politicians and mass media commentators. Nobody seems to notice that it's meaningless, unsupported by any evidence, and a distraction from the question at hand.

Yet I read and heard it over and over again.

2891. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 12:34:34 PM

And what Pelle said, too.

2892. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:35:26 PM

Re. 2889 -

Pelle -

My positions regarding US policy in Kosovo and Iraq have nothing to do with domestic concerns.

2893. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:36:18 PM

I wanted US troops out of Bosnia when GHWB was still president, btw.

2894. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:47:12 PM

Re. 2890 -

jayackroyd -

You post nothing that is apposite or particularly true here, in your zeal to categorize me. You cannot create credibility for an administration's failed foreign policies by the shallow subterfuge of claiming that its detractors are automatically part of a 'virtual conspiracy'. In fact, the very recourse to such an attempt is as much evidence of a form of 'groupthink' as is generally seen.

You yourself would admit, if you were honest with yourself, that the last administration has been singularly ineffective wrt most of its foreign policy initiatives. Haiti, Kosovo, Iraq, Mideast Peace Process, Ireland, war on terror, - none have been successes, but many of these have seen serious set backs during the last administration. Given this, one should certainly dismiss such a baseless attempt as you make to deprecate informed dissent.

How about bringing something real to the table instead of simply impugning others without reason?

2895. concerned - 2/4/2003 12:59:04 PM

To see objections to US actions in Kosovo blithely dismissed as merely being the 'talking points' of some 'virtual RW conspiracy' is actually quite an amazing thing to see.

2896. PelleNilsson - 2/4/2003 2:28:20 PM

concerned is scrambling to hide his nakedness.

2897. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 2:31:34 PM

Okay, explain how the Condeleeza Rice quote is meaningful, offer some evidence in support of it and explain how it is relevant to the question of invading Iraq.

2898. concerned - 2/4/2003 2:35:30 PM

Re. 2896 -

Having a bad day, Pelle?

2899. PelleNilsson - 2/4/2003 2:36:55 PM

I'm striving to fill my posts with a rich irony content.

2900. concerned - 2/4/2003 2:38:18 PM

Re. 2897 -

Since the assumed tenets of the requests you make don't really apply to me, I'm not sure I can comply.

2901. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 2:39:13 PM

Fine. Then explain how a NATO action in the Balkans was unilateral.

2902. jexster - 2/4/2003 2:55:55 PM

Powell Won't Republish Bush's SOTU Lies Re: Al Qaeda

2903. concerned - 2/4/2003 2:59:49 PM

Start with the fact that only one country besides the US was peripherally involved in Kosovar military action, that the US violated Section 2 of the UN Charter, that Clowntoon could not have got a vote of approval from the UNSC nor Congress due to the unjustifiable nature of preemptively launching a military assault and thusly broke international law by doing so, plus given the duplicitous nature of the Rambouillet 'Accord' (I use the term loosely) which in actuality allowed Serbia no chance whatsoever at a negotiated resolution of the situation.

Then consider that nearly a million Kosovars were displaced, at least temporarily, by this action, destabilizing the entire region, that thousands of private citizens were killed by the aerial bombardments, that the government that succeeded in Kosovo enacted ethnic cleansing against any remaining Serbs in Kosovo as NATO idly stood by, and that the Kosovo has become a hard drug and white slave distribution conduit and distribution center for the West and probable Islamist hotbed, then it is indeed difficult to discern anything positive that has been achieved in Kosovo by the US action.

2904. jexster - 2/4/2003 3:05:43 PM

The Condo quote is a plagiarism of a quote by Ken Adelman which is now proved to be hokum. Therefore, the condo quote is plaigiarised hokum

2905. jexster - 2/4/2003 3:09:40 PM

that only one country besides the US was peripherally involved in Kosovar military action, that the US violated Section 2 of the UN Charter, that Clowntoon could not have got a vote of approval from the UNSC nor Congress due to the unjustifiable nature of preemptively launching a military assault and thusly broke international law by doing so, plus given the duplicitous nature of the Rambouillet 'Accord' (I use the term loosely) which in actuality allowed Serbia no chance whatsoever at a negotiated resolution of the situation.

All NATO countries were involved it was a NATO action - it was not pre-emptive it was launched after Slobo started mass murder.

You are a simple shit

2906. PelleNilsson - 2/4/2003 3:12:34 PM

The fact is of course that the Security Council road was blocked because Russia, which hadn't then achieved its present level of coziness with the west, would have vetoed any decision that went against its Greek-Orthodox, Slaviv brethren in Serbia.

What concerned is arguing here is that the proper course of action for the US would have been to subordinate its foreign policy to the whims of Russia.

2907. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:15:19 PM

It's been well established that there never was any Serbian 'mass murder' in Kosovo. The only premise for the aerial assault was pure, willful fabrication by x42 and his cronies. And only one NATO country besides the US was involved at all with the military action. There's a reason that NATO was roped into this by x42. Because the UNSC would never have allowed it, nor should they have.

2908. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 3:22:11 PM

Concerned - I'm afraid you're going to have to document for me the establishment that there never was any Servian mass murder in Kosovo, as I am unaware of such a well known fabrication.

My problem with the Kosovo intervention was largely the same problem I expect to have with the Iraqi; we are not willing to risk military casualties in order to reduce civilian casualties. We bomb rather than insert infantry to lay eyes on the potential target.

The other problem that I had with the whole former Yugoslovia mess was that the Europeans should have taken the lead on resolving it, not the US, but they wimped out.

2909. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:22:41 PM

Re. 2906 -

Is Pelle's position so indefensible that he must put words in my mouth in an attempt to form a straw man? It appears so.

There should have been a series of serious negotiations (that never occurred, incidentally) to peacefully resolve the situation wrt Serbia and Kosovo. Unlike Iraq, Serbia posed no particular threat to any of its neighbors and was not a terrorism sponsoring state, nor did it ever have WMD.

As I have already shown, the WH Rapist administration fabricated from mere hearsay a false justification to jump indiscriminately and without a clear sense of what it was trying to accomplish into a completely counterproductive war.

2910. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:24:13 PM

Re. 2908 -

The x42 adminstration was claiming that Serbia was in the process of killing tens of thousands of Kosovars as a justification to bomb Kosovo. Of course, no such ethnic cleansing had occurred.

2911. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 3:27:32 PM

Concerned - You've made that statement twice, at least, now, but I need some citations other than an "Of course, no such..."

2912. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 3:28:08 PM

Concerned - You've made that statement twice, at least, now, but I need some citations other than an "Of course, no such..."

2913. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 3:29:59 PM

Ooops, freaking refresh bug.

Oh well, while I'm here:

Not that I dispute that Clinton engaged in several bouts of vigorous dog wagging, but I'm unaware that actually nothing at all was occurring in Kosovo.

2914. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:32:53 PM

VK -

There turns out to only have been a few hundred deaths (at most) of Albanian Kosovars during Serbian rule of Kosovo that haven't been accounted for by the usual result of insurgent activity.

2915. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 3:33:50 PM

Con - I'm still looking for some citations rather than declarations.

2916. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:35:49 PM

Tell you what. You find me any documented proof whatsoever that I'm wrong about this.

Bet you can't do it.

2917. judithathome - 2/4/2003 3:38:53 PM

Concerned, that is your usual tactic. For shame. You are the one making the claim; show him the cites!

2918. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 3:39:43 PM

Dude, that is a total cop-out. You make a declaration of fact, I ask you for citation of this "well established" fact and then you challenge me to prove the fact's non-existence! Please.

2919. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 3:45:36 PM

At any rate:

Human Rights Watch
US Information Agency
Guardian

Your turn.

2920. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:52:11 PM

Well, geez Louise, VK. This really is old news and everybody should be up on these facts by now.

But just for you, I found this link in about 30 seconds, using Google.

As you can see, I was giving the WH Rapist the benefit of the doubt. The actual lies bandied about by NATO and the Clowntoon administration for his little war were in the 100,000 to 500,000 range, when the article states that the actual evidence shows that 2,500 Kosovar deaths are attributed to Serbian forces, total, not particularized into genocide or firefights.

As can easily be seen, my objections to the US actions in Kosovo in 1999 are well grounded in many areas and depend not at all on domestic politics.

2921. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:54:13 PM

VK -

Two out of your three links are part of the actual early 1999 disinformation, and should be discounted up front, and the third can manage no more than about 3500 total Kosovar deaths, not specifying genocide.

I win.

2922. concerned - 2/4/2003 3:55:15 PM

But thanks for playing.

2923. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 4:08:16 PM

Thank you, yes the citations I provide show ~3,500 deaths, but deaths do not ethnic cleansing make. The citations I give show that approximately one third of the Albanian population was displaced as a result of Serbian para/military actions. They also state that The 593-page report by Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, lists 3,453 Kosovo killings said to have been carried out by government forces; but it also believes the toll was higher.

Now, please cite your claim that it was claims of deaths "in the 100,000 to 500,000 range" that was used to justify NATO intervention in Kosovo. I am sorry to be so misinformed, but I do not remember claims that deaths of such magnitudes had occurred.

2924. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 4:13:13 PM

On a related note Yugoslovia ceases to exist

2925. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 4:14:01 PM

Dang, where's my link?

Yugoslovia ceases to exist.

2926. judithathome - 2/4/2003 4:19:25 PM

I am sorry to be so misinformed, but I do not remember claims that deaths of such magnitudes had occurred.

I don't recall this, either. But I suppose it is enough that concerned does, right?

2927. magoseph - 2/4/2003 4:28:53 PM

From concerned's World Socialist Web Site,this interesting article:
"The war against Iraq and America’s drive for world domination"
The following is a report given by David North, chairman of the World Socialist Web Site editorial board, to a well-attended public meeting at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on October 1, 2002.

On September 17, 2002 the Bush administration published its “National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” So far, there has been no serious examination of this important document in the establishment media. This is unfortunate, to say the least, because this document advances the political and theoretical justification for a colossal escalation of American militarism. The document asserts as the guiding policy of the United States the right to use military force anywhere in the world, at any time it chooses, against any country it believes to be, or it believes may at some point become, a threat to American interests. No other country in modern history, not even Nazi Germany at the height of Hitler’s madness, has asserted such a sweeping claim to global hegemony—or, to put it more bluntly, world domination—as is now being made by the United States...

2928. concerned - 2/4/2003 5:49:12 PM

Re. 2926 -

Oh, come on, JAH. Are you so ashamed of the behavior of your favorite administration and so craven as to try to pin their lies on me?

It's fact. The Clowntoon administration and NATO not only made those outrageous, fallacious, unverifiable claims, they justified a war based on them. Now, just take the truth like an adult and move on, hopefully a little wiser.

2929. judithathome - 2/4/2003 6:28:22 PM

Jesus, get over yourself, Comcerned. You ought to write for Harlequin Romance...I am neither ashamed nor am I craven and I most definitely am not trying to pin anything on you. I certainly wouldn't expect YOU to have to carry the burden of Clinton's and NATO's nefarious lies and evasions. Heaven forfend! I said I don't recall those numbers, period. I don't.

But you seem to have such a high opinion of your memory and interpretation of almost anything you read, hear, or see that I said it must be enough that you recall it that way. I hardly think I am the one who should be told to take anything like an adult. I'm not the one acting like a child. People ask you for verification and you sneer and tell them to prove you wrong. Very mature.

2930. concerned - 2/4/2003 6:43:44 PM

Re. 2929 -

Well, I admitted my memory wasn't quite accurate, either. I recalled a lower number myself than checking resulted in. There's just something about supposedly responsible adults getting up on their hind legs and evoking 500,000 imaginary deaths.

2931. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 7:02:13 PM

VK wrote:

Not that I dispute that Clinton engaged in several bouts of vigorous dog wagging.

What's funny is that Clinton loses both ways. At the time the cruise missile attack on the Al Qaeda camp was dismissed by the vast virtual right wing conspiracy as a wag the dog attack. And now it's dismissed by the same folks as too little, too late.

The latter, of course, is the proper Monday morning quarterback position. But the VVRWC partisan and unpatriotic refusal to support the president at the time of concerted terrorist attacks against this country's embassies and warships doomed him. Better had he the courage to just ignore the ruckus, but he never really had the courage of his convictions (or perhaps had no convictions) on foreign policy issues. I don't know if that is better or worse than the current administration's lack of principle and reason.

2932. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 7:08:28 PM

concerned wrote is his normal, distant analytical tone:

The Clowntoon administration and NATO not only made those outrageous, fallacious, unverifiable claims, they justified a war based on them.

Better be careful. Substitute "Bush Administration" for your balanced characterization of the last administration, and you may find egg on your face. Weapons of mass destruction, indeed.

2933. vonKreedon - 2/4/2003 7:21:31 PM

Jay - I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the VRWC, but I do hold the views that you ascribe to them as contradictory.

I believe that at least much of Clinton's use of force was dog wagging. I also believe that the military action was too little and I ascribe this to the fact that it was dog wagging rather than actual military action. In dog wagging one has to be careful that there are no politically damaging US casualties and so the most expedient thing to do is throw cruise missiles, and this was Clinton's favorite military action. If cruise missiles won't do the trick then the next best thing is bombing from above AAA range, and this was what Clinton did in Kosovo. If the mission was actually destroying Al Queada or putting an immediate stop to ethnic cleansing then ground troops would have been the means, but this was dog wagging first and military operations second.

2934. concerned - 2/4/2003 7:25:54 PM

American invaders 'will be eaten like rabbits' Mmmmmm-MMMMMMM! Rabbit Stew! Love it. Love it! Loo-ove it!!!

2935. judithathome - 2/4/2003 7:26:22 PM

Well, what do you think the Republicans would have done to him had he decided to follow your advice and sent in troops? They weren't exactly champing at the bit to do so, either.

2936. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 7:28:13 PM

No, VK, it is not the case that holding a view of the shared by the VVRWC makes you a member.

And I take your point that those two positions are not entirely inconsistent. But I do think, in a less vituperative way of putting it, that he would not have been able to accumulate the political capital without a disaster closer to home than the Cole and the Kenyan embassy to have support for a strong enough action to get the Taliban out.

I also think that his inability to accumulate that capital was in part caused by the incessant efforts by the VVRWC to undermine his authority. It is ironic that these are the same people who treat any disagreement with the current president as treasonous.

2937. concerned - 2/4/2003 7:33:12 PM

By sidestepping negotiations and rushing into war, x42 not only completely ignored the diplomatic option, but alienated Russia, and even China when an errant bomb hit the Chinese embassy.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

2938. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 7:36:47 PM

Again, you gotta be careful with these formulations. This administration is in the process of sidestepping negotiations and ignoring the diplomatic options and alienating the Chinese as the North Koreans go into to production mode of actual weapons of mass destruction. Not mustard gas shells. Not biological stockpiles.

Nuclear warheads. Ballistic missiles.

2939. concerned - 2/4/2003 7:40:00 PM

There's no question that NK presents a potentially much touchier situation. However, if NK, for instance, provokes Japan to rearm by its truculence, it will quickly find itself in an arms race it cannot possibly win and without the US having to be significantly involved.

2940. jayackroyd - 2/4/2003 7:43:36 PM

So the principle the administration if following here is?

Is it in American interests to rearm Japan? Do we want the Chinese to have a justification for more nukes? We aren't negotiating because we want to see extended nuclear proliferation in eastern Asis? That's the administration's thinking?

Stupid stupid stupid?

2941. concerned - 2/4/2003 7:57:56 PM

I believe it is short sighted and counterproductive for the US to negotiate unilaterally with NK at present, since doing so tends to perpetuate the Stalinist state's reason for being, i.e. the propagandistic 'great struggle' against the perceived world capitalist power.

Since NK has pulled out of the NPT and violated UN resolutions regarding WMD, including expelling arms inspectors, this is a matter that should be addressed internationally, much preferably under the aegis of the UN.

IMO, the US should make it a non-negotiable precondition prior to any US/NK face to face talks that NK start respecting international law and start guaranteeing basic human rights for its people.

To take this route will make it significantly more difficult for Kim Jong Il to maintain his isolationist path and also score cheap propaganda points with his bluster. He may then find it necessary to do better for his people rather than posture on the international stage (for that is what he is really doing, nuclear arms or no).

2942. concerned - 2/4/2003 8:07:17 PM

Notice how my approach differs dramatically from the Clowntoonian one.

2943. Wombat - 2/4/2003 10:50:43 PM

I love how Concerned uses a world socialist publication to back up his assertions viz. Kosovo.

2944. PelleNilsson - 2/5/2003 11:46:55 AM

What Powell needs to do today is not to convince world opinion but to provide a ladder for the French to climb down on. They are alone now. Schroeder is a spent force after the elections.

2945. jexster - 2/5/2003 11:50:37 AM

Still producing "evidence"....this is like Power Rangers not Adlai Stevenson...

2. When war winged its wide desolation,
And threatened the land to deform,
The ark then of freedom's foundation,
Columbia, rode safe through the storm:

With her garlands of vict'ry around her,
When so proudly she bore her brave crew,
With her flag proudly floating before her

Hard to be a spent force when 70-90% of the voters agree with you Pelle.. fascist cretin

2946. jexster - 2/5/2003 11:53:17 AM

No Causus Belli? Invent One

Been doin it now for 15 months

2947. jexster - 2/5/2003 11:55:28 AM

Jacques Chirac delivered a blunt warning to Tony Blair yesterday that Britain and the US will have their work cut out to persuade France to back a military attack on Iraq.
Laying bare Anglo-French divisions, the French president declared that war was the "worst possible solution" as he called for UN weapons inspectors to be allowed to continue their work.

"I note that the inspection system has proved very effective in the past," Mr Chirac said at the end of yesterday's Anglo-French summit in Le Touquet. "I note that in the first round, more arms were destroyed than in the Gulf war. Therefore the inspection system is very effective."

Chirac Shoves Pole Up Blair's Ass

Pelle you fuckin moron....it Blair that best worry about poles and you better read more Pepys

2948. jexster - 2/5/2003 11:58:39 AM

Can We Justify Killing Iraqi Children?

2949. jexster - 2/5/2003 11:59:19 AM

· Jonathan Glover is director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College, London, and author of Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century

2950. wabbit - 2/5/2003 1:07:03 PM

Transcript of Powell's address to the UN

The above link is to my one-page version of what CNN is putting up - I'll update it as they update their site. I just prefer to have it all on one page.

2951. jexster - 2/5/2003 2:08:13 PM

Signs Seen at Last D.C. Peace Rally
As reported by a friend who attended...

1) These colors don't run the world.

2) One nation under surveillance.

3) How did our oil get under their sand?

4) Go Solar, not Ballistic.

5) Who would Jesus bomb?

6) Start Drafting SUV Drivers Now.

7) Don't blame me, I voted with the majority.

8) Buck Fush!

9) It's NUCLEAR, not NUCULAR, you idiot!

10) Patriots are idiots - Matriarchy Now!

11) Resistance is Fertile.

12) (Pictures of sheep carrying flags) Stop Mad Sheep Disease
Now.

13) (UFW sign) Pick Fruit, not Fights.

14) (On a five year old) More Candy Less War.

15) Say can you see my democracy?

16) (With pictures of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld) Asses of Evil.

17) It's the oil, stupid.

18) War is expensive, Peace is priceless.

19) Read between the Pipelines

20) No More Bu.Sh.

21) Smart weapons, Dumb president.

22) The only thing we have to fear is Bush himself.

23) How many Lives per Gallon?

24) Peace Takes Brains

25) Anything War can do, Peace can do better.

26) Negotiation Not Annihilation.

27) Make touchdowns, not war - Go Raiders!

28) Another patriot for peace.

29) Oh Say can You Cease?

30) Star Spangled Bummer

31) Don't Arm a Son of a Bush

32) Don't do it, George, Dad will still love you.

33) Power to the Peaceful

34) The last time we listened to a Bush, we wandered in the
desert for 40 years.

35. Drunk Frat Boy Drives Nation into Ditch. Starts War to Cover up.

2952. jexster - 2/5/2003 2:20:23 PM

UNITED NATIONS - France maintained its opposition to war against Iraq despite Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites)'s presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, instead proposing that weapons inspections be strengthened.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin suggested tripling the number of inspectors and placing a full-time monitor in Baghdad to oversee the process.

"The use of force can only be a final recourse," de Villepin told a special U.N. Security Council session attended by 12 other foreign ministers. "We must move on to a new stage and further strengthen the inspections."

De Villepin said France would carefully review the evidence provided by Powell, but he emphasized that inspections were working and had resulted in major achievements.

Amour sacré de la Patrie
Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs
Liberté, Liberté chérie
Combats avec tes défenseurs!
Sous nos drapeaux, que la victoire
Accoure à tes mâles accents
Que tes ennemis expirants
Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire!

Aux armes citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons

La Demoiselle D'avignon

2953. jexster - 2/5/2003 2:29:18 PM

A nation may not go to war unless its security is threatened imminently and gravely. A nation is not morally justified in attacking another just because it considers the leader of an adversary "a bad guy" who has announced his bad intentions. If that were so, Iraq would have been justified attacking Kuwait, London, and Crawford months ago

2954. jexster - 2/5/2003 2:29:26 PM

2955. PelleNilsson - 2/5/2003 2:46:12 PM

'fascist cretin'......'fuckin moron'

Aaaah. The wit. The ingeniousness. The sparkling, brilliant intelligence that is able to coin those immortal terms.

What gem can we expect next? 'Eat my runny shit'?

2956. judithathome - 2/5/2003 3:22:01 PM

No, for that you have to go to another forum.

2957. PelleNilsson - 2/5/2003 3:43:32 PM

jexster posts elsewhere too?

2958. judithathome - 2/5/2003 3:53:37 PM

I have no idea...but I thought that line was one Ace's faves.

2959. jexster - 2/5/2003 4:57:29 PM

"The information provided today by the US secretary of state once again convincingly indicates the fact that the activities of the international inspectors in Iraq must be continued." - Igor Ivanov, Russian Foreign Minister

I poop all over the place

2960. jexster - 2/5/2003 4:59:26 PM

What gem can we expect next

Vvedä vittu päähän

Finnish for I am told "Pull a cunt over your head"

2961. concerned - 2/5/2003 6:46:25 PM

Re. 2943 -

And why not? It could hardly be accused of being either pro NATO nor pro RW, now could it?

2962. concerned - 2/5/2003 7:16:55 PM

From AP News: Mandela says Powell is undermining United States

Talk about confused.

Starting with the author of the news item, it's the UN that Mandela is accusing Powell of undermining.

Then there's Mr. Tire Necklace himself who has apparently rotted from the neck up during all those years in prison. Ol' Nellie gleefully shows the world what a puerile, provincial intellectually bereft Marxian racist bigot he really is, fulsomely disseminating his lunatic ignorance based on the apparent belief that the less he knows about something, the more he is compelled to rant at the world about it.

In actuality, Colin Powell is trying to save the UN from marginalizing itself to the point where its use of terms such as 'serious consequences' in binding resolutions mean exactly nothing. GWB may well assist in that effort by applying UN Resolution 1441 to its fullest extent, thus doing the UN a great favor.

2963. robertjayb - 2/5/2003 7:35:06 PM

...fulsomely disseminating his lunatic ignorance based on the apparent belief that the less he knows about something, the more he is compelled to rant at the world about it.

...there's a lot of that going around..

2964. jexster - 2/5/2003 7:36:03 PM

No doubt GWB will do what he has always intended to do - "marginalize" the UN.

Resolution 1441 is working just fine. The Bush Regime had all of the intel it presented today, available months ago, months before it voted AYE on Resolution 1441 which it now says cannot work because of the intel that Bush had all along.

Sounds like a crock of shit to you?

Does to me...

war for peace
unilateral enforcement of UN resolution
nuclear weapons planned to be used to take out chem bio weapons
military dictatorships = democracy
world crusader for democracy ignores 70-90% of world opinio9n

2965. jexster - 2/5/2003 7:36:57 PM

But those little Tonka Toy Trucks we're devastating didn't you think?

A REAL Adlai Stevenson moment if I do say so myself.

2966. judithathome - 2/5/2003 7:37:49 PM

Robert, you took the words right off my keyboard!!

2967. concerned - 2/5/2003 7:45:03 PM

Actually, he took them off of mine. But, at least he had the excuse of making a self referential comment.

2968. jexster - 2/5/2003 7:56:56 PM

When war winged its wide desolation
And threatened the land to deform,
The ark then of freedom's foundation,
Columbia, rode safe thro' the storm:
With the garlands of vict'ry around her,
When so proudly she bore her brave crew,
With her flag proudly floating before her,
The boast of the red, white and blue,
The boast of the red, white and blue,
The boast of the red, white and blue,
With her flag proudly floating before her,
The boast of the red, white and blue

2969. judithathome - 2/5/2003 8:05:30 PM

Concerned, you are grasping at straws when you accuse Robert of anything; he is above all that.

2970. jexster - 2/5/2003 8:11:23 PM

Yes Judith, isn't it maddening! He won't even indulge in a concerned cuffings....what a killjoy

Powell Gets A POLE from UN Security Council - Toy Trucks Flop

2971. jexster - 2/5/2003 8:51:39 PM

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition - organizer of mass protests in San Francisco & Washington Jan. 18 - calls for intensified effort to stop the war

San Francisco mass march set for Sunday, Feb. 16

"The only thing that Secretary of State Colin Powell proved in his speech at the U.N. today was that the Bush Administration is hell-bent on launching a new war on Iraq,"said Richard Becker, a member of the National Steering Committee of the International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Coalition. "Instead of any 'smoking gun',Powell's 'irrefutable and undeniable' evidence was a series of murky slides, dubious audio tapes and 'testimony' extracted from detainees, many of whom the CIA has boasted of torturing. Powell's case would have been laughed out of any court of law," Becker continued.

Powell's targeted audience today was obviously the people of the U.S. and the world who are growing increasingly doubtful of the unbridled militarism bristling out of Washington,said union and anti-war activist Gloria La
Riva. "Today's charade by Powell was an insult to the intelligence of the broad section of the U.S. population who are in increasing numbers expressing their anti-war sentiments in the streets of cities and towns, coast to coast."

2972. jexster - 2/5/2003 8:53:14 PM

"What Powell didn't mention today was the word 'oil' which the majority of people know is really behind Bush's war drive, stated Student & Youth ANSWER activist LeiLani Dowell. Nor did General Powell mention the fact that the U.S. that has been bombing and blockading the Iraqi people for the past 12 years, not the other way around."

"At the same time that Powell and other administration officials relentlessly promote their fear-mongering campaign regarding Iraq's hypothetical, and in any case much-diminished, weaponry, the Pentagon is preparing to launch a devastating attack on Iraq using very real weapons of mass destruction, possibly including nuclear wapons," Becker pointed out.

Once again on February 16 the streets of San Francisco will be filled with people protesting as part of the world community to say no to war, now, next month or next year. The protest will start at 11 am at Justin Herman Plaza and march to Civic Center at 1pm where notable speakers will include author Alice Walker, actor Danny Glover and many others. This event is being sponsored by International ANSWER, Not In Our Name, Bay Area United for Peace and Justice and Bay Area United Against War.

2973. jexster - 2/5/2003 9:06:50 PM

British Intelligence: BUSH LIED IN SOTU,Blair Gov't Foundering
Insists There are No Links between Saddam and Al Qaeda

Since September 2002, Tony Blair has publicly insisted there are NO links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. But Blair's foreign minister, Jack Straw, has sucked up to Bush by insisting there are links.

Now a top secret British intelligence report has been leaked, confirming Blair's position. "It says al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden views Iraq's ruling Ba'ath party as running contrary to his religion, calling it an 'apostate regime. His aims are in ideological conflict with present day Iraq,' it says. [BBC correspondent Andrew] Gilligan says that in recent days intelligence sources have told the BBC there is growing disquiet at the way their work is being politicised to support the case for war on Iraq. He said: 'This almost unprecedented leak may be a shot across the politicians' bows.'"

2974. jexster - 2/5/2003 11:42:38 PM

Post-War Scenarios: How Many Troops?
Force Requirements in Stability Operations
JAMES T. QUINLIVAN

A 1995 article by RAND asserts that stability operations can demand substantial peacekeeping forces and such commitments can compromise the general readiness of U.S. forces....

2975. jexster - 2/6/2003 12:15:27 AM

San Francisco State University
A.S.P.A. & The Associated Students Incorporated,
of San Francisco State University

PRESENT

"The Coming War with Iraq: How Did We Get Here?"
Scott Ritter

Wednesday, February 26 2 pm
McKenna Theatre

2976. concerned - 2/6/2003 12:29:38 AM

re. 2969 -

JAH -

re. 'being above it all': get real. You and rjb know that jexster owns this thread and yet neither of you ever reference anything he posts for other than acclamation.

2977. concerned - 2/6/2003 2:26:34 AM

Interesting factoid: Sodamn's Baath Socialist Party is never fully named by the mass media.

2978. Macnas - 2/6/2003 3:21:27 AM

And dont forget those lefty labour types as headed by bolshie Blair. How the hell does GWB manage to sleep at night with those reds in the bed, nevermind under it.

2979. alistairConnor - 2/6/2003 6:45:33 AM

It's a pity I didn't watch Powell's razzle-dazzle show on TV. Maybe it would have convinced me.

Didn't seem to impress the important people much though. Three of the five permanent members of the Security Council are saying the same thing : interesting evidence; hand it over to the inspectors, and give them the resources they need to verify it and effectively disarm Iraq.

After all, that is the stated aim of the whole business, and the only issue on which there is concensus on the security council. However much some of the parties may wish for a regime change, democracy, military bases, and/or control of the oil, these are not issues which can justify a UN-sanctioned military operation.

Moral of the story : if the US is in a hurry to go to war, then it will be a US war, not a UN war.

2980. judithathome - 2/6/2003 7:55:54 AM

I don't know why they are bothering with any delays at all...it has always been a US war and Bush intended to have it on from the very first; he is just giving lip service to the UN and once slipped and called them "so-called inspectors". He's never meant for the inspections to work and has enough press behind him to convince this country, anyhow, that he in the right on this.

It has been a foregone conclusion from Day One. And rarely does anyone in his administration speak of the "need" for this war without prefacing it with the words "especially after 9/11". It's like a memo went out insisting it be tied in the minds of the vast unwashed with the Al Qeada attacks on the WTC whether they were in fact and deed connected to Iraq or not.

2981. Trouble - 2/6/2003 8:06:06 AM

Like WWII, it will the American and British military who defeat the enemy. Let the Germans pay for it.

And the big winner will be the Palestians who, with a different government, get their country back.

2982. Trouble - 2/6/2003 8:12:48 AM

will be

2983. judithathome - 2/6/2003 9:20:08 AM

Let the Germans pay for it.

Fat chance. It's going to be our treat, as usual. Stuck with the tab AND the tip.

2984. alistairConnor - 2/6/2003 9:46:40 AM

But you'll get the oil, you lucky people. Enough to keep those SUVs running, for an extra decade or so.

2985. Macnas - 2/6/2003 10:06:43 AM

Or until Big oil manages to monopolise viable alternative energy. A la Shell.

2986. jexster - 2/6/2003 11:55:01 AM

2987. jexster - 2/6/2003 12:01:20 PM

Dear VoteNoWar Member:

Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations was an example of Alice in Wonderland-type propaganda. Reality has been turned upside down. At the very moment that Iraq, hobbled by 12 years of devastating sanctions and ongoing U.S. bombing, is surrounded by a heavily-armed invasion force of more than 100,000 troops, fighter aircraft, warships and high tech conventional missiles, and is threatened with a nuclear strike, Powell argued that Iraq poses a great threat to "peace."

2988. jexster - 2/6/2003 12:01:29 PM

The Pentagon has disclosed its plan to maintain peace by carrying out an opening blitzkrieg on Iraq of more than 3000 bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours. This plan is titled "Shock and Awe" by the administration. 300 to 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles will rip through Iraq on the first day of a U.S. assault, which is more than the number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War. On the second day, another 300 to 400 cruise missiles will be sent.

One of the authors of the Shock and Awe plan stated the intent is, "So that you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes.'" (CBS News January 27, 2003, New York Times, February 2, 2003)

Is there justification for war? What Bush's war places in jeopardy is enormous. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis may be slaughtered. Tens of thousands of service members will be sent to risk their lives. The economic cost, estimated between $200 billion to $2 trillion will loot the U.S. treasury and mortgage future generations, depleting funds that could provide essential human needs such as education, healthcare, childcare and jobs.

Powell claims that if the U.N. does not support U.S. military aggression and conquest of Iraq, in violation of its Charter, that it will lose its "relevancy." History will remember with great irony Colin Powell's statement that we must stop the leader who "has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows, intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way."

The Bush Administration is not racing to deter an imminent danger posed by Iraq. They are racing to prevent our movement from becoming an insurmountable obstacle to war. Let's all pledge to intensify our work in these crucial coming days and weeks.

In solidarity,

All of us at VoteNoWar.org

2989. joezan - 2/6/2003 12:43:12 PM

Powell claims that if the U.N. does not support U.S. military aggression and conquest of Iraq

Wrong from the gitgo. Agitprop for fevered minds.

2990. jexster - 2/6/2003 12:57:45 PM

I taught him that word!

2991. jexster - 2/6/2003 12:58:27 PM

ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
ACNS 3291 | MIDDLE EAST | 6 FEBRUARY 2003

Cyprus and the Gulf issue statement on Iraq

The Synod of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf met last week and unanimously affirmed the following statement about Iraq:

The Synod of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, representing the Anglican Churches within the region, can find no theological or humanitarian justification for the proposed invasion of Iraq. We strongly disagree that is the solution to the present stance of the Iraqi regime or for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf encourages people of all faiths within the region to work together for lasting peace and justice for Iraq.

2992. jexster - 2/6/2003 1:00:39 PM

Pelle's Greasy Pole
Powell Leaves Jury Unconvinced

2993. Cellar Door - 2/6/2003 1:06:19 PM

Terry Jones finds Bush's Iraq policy to be inspirational.

2994. jexster - 2/6/2003 1:07:01 PM

The Case for Not Invading Iraq

By David R. Henderson*

“Saddam Hussein is a madman with weapons of mass destruction, and therefore we need to get rid of him.” We have heard words to this effect from various advocates of invading Iraq. But none of these advocates has ever laid out convincingly why they think Hussein is a mad man. In fact, I know of no evidence that he is insane. We do have a fair amount of evidence that Saddam Hussein is a bad man. I think he’s also a rational man, in the narrow sense of that word. That is, he responds to incentives. And his rational response to the dangerous incentives President Bush has set up for Hussein should make us afraid.

*David R. Henderson is economics professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. This article is adapted from his presentation at The Independent Institute seminar forum, “Secrecy, Freedom and Empire

2995. jexster - 2/6/2003 1:09:46 PM

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

Two supreme questions about Iraq: "Why war?" and "Why now?" collapse under scrutiny.

2996. Trouble - 2/6/2003 1:28:38 PM

KUWAIT CITY - Iraq is moving troops and artillery closer to its southern border with Kuwait and deploying them astride highways in preparation for U.S. attacks, according to military officers with access to the region. Iraqi forces also are increasing intelligence activities along the demilitarized border, sending tough-looking "civilians" to visit the area, the officers said

2997. Trouble - 2/6/2003 1:51:56 PM

INACCURATE HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: "Asia unswayed by Powell’s data." The first sentence of this International Herald Tribune story seems to buttress the headline:

"Initial reaction from Asian countries on Thursday indicated that most remained unmoved by Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation of Iraq's noncompliance with United Nations mandates."

If true, this would certainly be newsworthy. Read the story, however. Malaysia is the only country with officials quoted as being unconvinced. In contrast, foreign policy leaders from Australia, Japan and the Philippines are all quoted with expressions of solid support for the U.S. position. The story acknowledges the extent of Japan's policy shift:

"Moving as close as Tokyo has come to backing the use of military force against Iraq, [Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi added: 'Iraq holds the key to whether this matter can be resolved peacefully or not.'"

By my count, then, shouldn't the headline read, "ASIA SWAYED BY POWELL'S DATA"?

To attribute this to the recent New York Times takeover of the International Herald Tribune would just be paranoid.... or would it?

2998. judithathome - 2/6/2003 2:00:05 PM

101st AirBourne Division receives deployment orders for Persian Gulf.

It's on.

2999. jexster - 2/6/2003 2:17:14 PM

Actually Judith, its never been "off"....Charade b4 the Crusade as I said in September!

But as for definitive index of invasion, the Marine Expeditionary Force got its orders a month ago.

3000. jexster - 2/6/2003 2:20:11 PM

U.S. Economy in Worst Hiring Slump in 20 Years

If you cannot find Osama, Bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, Bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is far too risky, Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, Bomb Iraq.
If we're thinkin' someone's dissed us, Bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions, Bomb Iraq.

It's "pre-emptive non-aggression", Bomb Iraq.
Let's prevent this mass destruction, Bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's good enough for me
'Cos it's all the proof I need, Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, Bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, Bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he tried to kill your dad), Bomb Iraq.

If your corporate fraud is growin', Bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', Bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy, Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, Bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, Bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason, Bomb Iraq.

Hey! The Christian God's on our side, Bomb Iraq.
Bless the weapons, take the ride and Bomb Iraq.
Let the innocents be killed,
And lots of heathen blood be spilled,
To get our fuel tanks cheaply filled, let's BOMB IRAQ!

3001. jexster - 2/6/2003 2:22:28 PM

3002. jexster - 2/6/2003 2:36:27 PM

As Powell knows from his Vietnam experience, lies have a way of catching up with you. Years from now, if the U.S. is still spending billions trying to micromanage the Middle East and reaping its rewards in blood, Bush will be marked indelibly, like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon before him, as a leader who went to war on a lie.

Making Up the Case for War

3003. Cellar Door - 2/6/2003 3:09:59 PM

"Shut up! Shut up!"

3004. jexster - 2/6/2003 3:34:55 PM

"New" Europe:

Romania

Bulgaria

Slovakia

Slovenia

Latvia

Lithuania

Estonia

Croatia

Macedonia

Albania

Killer Powell's Killer Flop

3005. Cellar Door - 2/6/2003 3:50:09 PM

Plagarism!

3006. vonKreedon - 2/6/2003 4:57:01 PM

Judith - Would you give me a link to your source for the 10st's deployment orders? Not asking for a cite, just where I can find more information on troop movements for my mast...I mean, to satisfy my curiosty.

3007. judithathome - 2/6/2003 5:11:23 PM

I heard it on CNN...it was on their Breaking News segment at the half hour, around 1pm central time.

Might be on their website.

3008. judithathome - 2/6/2003 5:15:55 PM

Cite

Here ya' go!

3009. Trouble - 2/6/2003 6:20:52 PM

By BARRY SCHWEID
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 6, 2003; 5:05 PM

In the face of stiff opposition from allies, President Bush said Thursday that world leaders "must not back down" from Saddam Hussein and demanded quick action to disarm Iraq.

"The game is over," he declared. "Saddam Hussein will be stopped."

Bush said he would be open to a second U.N. resolution on Iraq, following up one approved last November, but only if it led to prompt disarmament.

"The Security Council must not back down when those demands are defied and mocked by a dictator," Bush said. If the U.N. fails to act, "The United States, along with a growing coalition of nations, is resolved to take whatever action is necessary to defend ourselves and disarm the Iraqi regime," he said.

Bush spoke after meeting with privately with Powell to discuss efforts to win U.N. approval of a resolution specifically authorizing use of force. Powell, who laid out the U.S. case to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, told lawmakers Thursday that the Iraqi situation would be brought to a conclusion "one way or another" in a matter of weeks.

Sticking largely to the case outlined by Powell on Wednesday, Bush said there is no doubt Saddam is not complying.

3010. judithathome - 2/6/2003 6:24:49 PM

"The game is up!"

3013. judithathome - 2/6/2003 6:56:02 PM

He just got one vote from me! ;-)

3014. wonkers2 - 2/6/2003 7:22:25 PM

Clinton was better because he could be relied on to do the smart thing rather than the ideological thing.

Powell did a masterful job with the UN Security Council. But nothing he said convinced me that attacking Iraq without running out the string on inspections and enlisting the support of the international community is the smart thing to do. (1) Iraq apparently is not close to being a nuclear threat, so we can forget Condolezza's Madison Avenue "mushroom cloud" exaggeration. (2) Iraq's chemical and biological capabilities aren't enough of a threat to the U.S. or Europe to outweigh the downside risks and certain disadvantages of an unsanctioned, largely unsupported U.S.-UK attack on Iraq. There is little or no downside of continuing the inspections until they find something or decide further inspections are futile. Or until we have the support of the Security Council. Iraq is not in a position to harm the U.S. and is unlikely to harm its neighbors.

3015. magoseph - 2/6/2003 7:35:19 PM

Clinton Live on Larry King show tonight.

3016. wabbit - 2/6/2003 7:44:10 PM

3011 and 3012 have been deleted.

Cllrdr, try again...without the name, please.

3017. vonKreedon - 2/6/2003 8:21:56 PM

When I listened to the French Foreign Minister's response to Powell's case I thought that he edged toward endorsing coercive inspections/disarmament, but then he backed away. I'm hoping that this is positioning for the negotiations and that the French are actually signalling that they would go along with a UNSC resolution authorizing force to ensure effective work by the inspectors, but I don't have much faith in any of the parties at this point.

3018. jexster - 2/6/2003 9:25:32 PM

"If Saddam Hussein agreed to let weapons inspectors into Iraq, what grounds would we have for attacking? The United States does not go around making war on countries just because we don't like their rulers." USN Admiral, Naval PG School - Summer 2002.

"Our policy is regime change in Baghdad. That policy will not be altered no matter whether inspectors go in or not - Asst. Secty of State John Bolton, BBC Interview, Summer 2002.

So would someone please tell me what's this big whoop about Weapons of Mass Destruction (chem/bio) and the UN when the plan all along was to render the UN superflous?

3019. Al D - 2/6/2003 11:22:25 PM

Only the U.N. can render the UN superflous?. They screwed up when they passed a resolution they were not willing to enforce. Bush has made foold out of the S.C. He will have his war and destrtoy the U.N.

3020. Cellar Door - 2/7/2003 12:04:35 AM

The Game is Up for Tony Blair.

3021. Macnas - 2/7/2003 3:28:10 AM

Good old Paxman.

3022. judithathome - 2/7/2003 9:17:51 AM

I think the person transposing to print in the Paxman Q&A was listening with half an ear. I just find it hard to believe Blair sounded so...ungrammatical.

Must be all that time he spends with Bush.

3023. Macnas - 2/7/2003 9:44:02 AM

judithathome

I watched some of it last night, and thats pretty much how it happened. Mr.Blair has some great PR/spin people, but in a situation where you have a sartorial fiend like Paxman deconstructing you in front of the nation, they cant put the words into his mouth, much as they want to.

3024. judithathome - 2/7/2003 10:11:34 AM

Well, that's good to know...he sounds so silver tongued in speeches but I guess that's because he's reading them, as Bush does.

Blair does seem to read better than Bush, however. ;-)

3025. Macnas - 2/7/2003 10:12:44 AM

Public school and all that.

3026. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/7/2003 11:32:51 AM

Fascinating! Click on the RealAudio link for excerpts that give a flavor of the verbal/visual intercourse . . . and a very interesting post-broadcast analysis of issues.

Christ, what a contrast between a genuine democracy with a press doing its job with an alert citizenry and our corporatation-rigged version with its pathetic excuse for a free press and a mostly complacent populace!

3027. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/7/2003 11:33:51 AM

3028. Macnas - 2/7/2003 11:47:04 AM

Wiz,

Its an interesting subject, your quality of media reportage vesus others. Looking as I do at CNN and other Big Press organisations, I do not get the same depth of information or alternative view/interpretations that I can get here and from the English media.

Indeed, I find more of interest in the smaller (U.S.) local news and press, as there seems to be more room for in-depth discussion and investigation.

3029. Cellar Door - 2/7/2003 11:48:37 AM

Everybody Loves a Dead Iraqi

3030. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/7/2003 12:35:20 PM

Mac, where are you located?—in England?

With regard to local media, are you familiar with the word: "meretricious?" It comes for the Latin word meretrix =prostitute "tawdrily and falsely attractive" —something done solely for money.

3031. jexster - 2/7/2003 12:49:19 PM

AL QAEDA TO CELEBRATE HAJ WITH ATTACK ON AMERICA

Obergruppen Fuerhrer Trashcroft Has Declared

CONDITION ORANGE

that is all

3032. jexster - 2/7/2003 1:02:00 PM

They asked Trashcroft the question "Is this Al Qaeda threat related to our buildup in Iraq"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

There's no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq!

Now when did Bush lie to us...today or the other day?

3033. jexster - 2/7/2003 1:02:51 PM

Maybe our moderator or little Eddie Dantes can help me out here....

come here Eddie..come git some

3034. jexster - 2/7/2003 4:42:40 PM

BBC: America's Tainted Image

the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

3035. Trouble - 2/7/2003 5:42:05 PM

Many hawks are inclined to celebrate the fact that yesterday some liberal columnists and editorialists announced themselves convinced by Colin Powell's speech - Mary McGrory in the Washington Post most directly, the New York Times editorial page a little more indirectly. The Times wrote, "Mr. Powell's presentation was all the more convincing because he dispensed with apocalyptic invocations of a struggle of good and evil and focused on shaping a sober, factual case against Mr. Hussein's regime. It may not have produced a 'smoking gun,' but it left little question that Mr. Hussein had tried hard to conceal one."

McGrory wrote she "heard enough to know that Saddam Hussein, with his stockpiles of nerve gas and death-dealing chemicals, is more of a menace than I had thought . . . Colin Powell has convinced me that [war] might be the only way to stop a fiend, and that if we do go, there is reason."

"Three cheers for McGrory," Andrew Sullivan said yesterday on his Web site.

I understand the impulse to cheer. But McGrory and her ilk don't deserve it. They deserve raspberries, not cheers. They deserve ridicule, not praise. We hawks shouldn't feel vindicated by their conversion. Rather, they should feel embarrassed by how long it took them and how patently silly the cause of their conversion is.

A single speech by Powell made all the difference? Whom are they kidding? That would be acceptable for a regular citizen who doesn't read four or five newspapers a day, who doesn't attend panel discussions on world topics and who doesn't make judgments on matters of national import for a living.

Can the editorialists of The New York Times really expect the world to swallow the contention that until Colin Powell spoke, there was no evidence of Iraq's defiance of U.N. resolutions? That there has been no ready evidence of its program to make and hide weapons of mass destruction?

3036. Trouble - 2/7/2003 5:42:47 PM

Every interpretation of the data offered by Colin Powell is a confirmation of the arguments the hawks have been making for more than a year. Much of the information was new. The truth about Saddam Hussein isn't new at all.

In American political terms, the only really new thing is that Colin Powell has emerged as the voice of gathering war when for a year we were told he had been serving as the voice of diplomatic restraint. He was supposedly, the "liberal" in the administration.

So, in essence, liberals in the media are using a liberal fig leaf. Because of a contempt or hatred for George W. Bush that is nothing short of demented, they simply refuse to believe the truth when he speaks it.

So they wait for Colin Powell to speak it, at which point they can use his words as a fig leaf and give in without looking like they are in agreement with President Bush.

This is intellectual dishonesty of the highest (or lowest) order.

Podhertz

3037. Macnas - 2/7/2003 6:24:08 PM

Wiz,

I'm in Ireland.

"Meretricious", thats a good word. Don't know how I'll be able to work it into my day to day conversation though.

3038. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/7/2003 6:28:33 PM

Mac, just call 'em what they are . . . whores!

3039. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/7/2003 6:31:42 PM

Although . . .

3040. Macnas - 2/7/2003 6:34:15 PM

The Mirror still has some traces of its old socialist traditions.

3041. Macnas - 2/7/2003 6:34:52 PM

Not much though, thank you mister Murdoch.

3042. jexster - 2/7/2003 8:15:26 PM

Join 10 Million Worldwide in the Streets to Stop Bush's War
Feb 15-16

3043. jexster - 2/7/2003 8:16:44 PM

Empire Sells Iraqi Kurds to Turkey NyT

3044. jexster - 2/7/2003 8:18:15 PM

NATO Opposition to Aiding Turks

3045. jexster - 2/7/2003 8:40:26 PM

Not in MY Name
Different Man, Different Moment
By ADLAI E. STEVENSON III

CHICAGO — Pundits and officials in Washington have dubbed Secretary of State Colin Powell's attempt to make a case for war against Iraq in the United Nations Security Council an "Adlai Stevenson moment."

I couldn't disagree more. My father was Adlai Stevenson, who in 1962, as President Kennedy's representative to the United Nations, presented the Security Council with incontrovertible proof that the Soviet Union, a nuclear superpower, was installing missiles in Cuba and threatening to upset the world's "balance of terror."

That "moment" had an obvious purpose: containing the Soviet Union and maintaining peace. It worked, and eventually the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight. This moment has a different purpose: war.

3046. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/7/2003 8:51:12 PM

3047. jexster - 2/7/2003 8:52:35 PM

Foreign Policy in Focus
Addressing Iraqi Repression and the Need for a Change of Regime

While the repressive nature of the Iraqi government is all too real, it must not be used to justify increasing the suffering of the Iraqi people through war

3048. jexster - 2/7/2003 8:54:51 PM

Nice likeness of Zan there Wiz!

3049. jexster - 2/7/2003 9:08:03 PM

"Specter of Lebanon Haunts Iraq Occupation Plans"

They better call for some expertise...call for Wombat...what a sorry joke.

3050. jexster - 2/7/2003 9:09:50 PM

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

3051. Al D - 2/7/2003 9:21:56 PM

The Mirror still has some traces of its old socialist traditions.

No problem for the RDDB Wiz who is left of left and a great lover of Cuba, China, and wishes he had Stalin and Pol Pot back.

3052. jayackroyd - 2/7/2003 9:26:24 PM

This afternoon, I spoke with a friend whose father just came back from Saudi Arabia. She said that he said (and I would like to hear corroboration from anyone in the region) that there is nightly gunfire, that there are no daytime air landings, and that night landings are without running lights.

3053. PelleNilsson - 2/8/2003 4:22:38 AM

jay

I would be surprised if that is true. Right now two million pilgrims are pouring in to Saudi for the Hajj.

3054. PelleNilsson - 2/8/2003 4:24:20 AM

Trouble's Message # 3035 and following are again an unattributed copy and paste job from a post by Ace in another forum.

3055. jexster - 2/8/2003 4:42:22 AM

U.S. Tells Diplomats to Leave Mideast

3056. jexster - 2/8/2003 4:46:11 AM

Downing St admits blunder on Iraq dossier

Plagiarism row casts shadow over No 10's case against Saddam

3057. jexster - 2/8/2003 4:48:15 AM

A Coalition of the New Vassals

Iraq has exposed both the splits in western Europe and the ease with which former eastern bloc states have been drawn into the US orbit

3058. jexster - 2/8/2003 4:53:38 AM

Powell fails to convince Nato waverers

Rift Deepens

America's hawkish appeal to the UN security council has more effect at home than among its erstwhile European allies.

3059. Trouble - 2/8/2003 7:57:22 AM

Not Elegant Enough for Hans Blix

The Times of London has identified the Iraqi man who ran into a U.N. inspectors' truck shouting "Save me!" before being handed over to Saddamite goons two weeks ago. He is 29-year-old Adnan Abdul Karim Enad. "Abidalrahim Al-Nuimi, a relative living in America, said the family was involved with the Iraqi opposition abroad and Adnan may have feared retaliation by Iraqi authorities," reports the Times:

"I believe he did that to get refugee (status) because he cannot wait too long. I know this guy very well. He is aggressive. He ran away from the Iraqi army because he did not think he could serve Saddam. They put him in jail for two years.

"We just want to make sure he is alive. We tried to call. Our relatives in Baghdad cannot say anything." Mr AlNuimi, who asked that his precise relationship with Adnan not be disclosed, said the family feared not just for his well-being but also for the fate of other family members in Iraq. They have written to President Bush and Amnesty International seeking their help.

Inspector in chief Hans Blix was "flummoxed" when asked about the incident, the Times says. "He added that Iraqi scientists could find 'more elegant ways' of approaching UN inspectors."

SIC!

3060. jexster - 2/8/2003 12:04:16 PM

Annan Warns Bush Against Unilateral Attack on Iraq

Bush, Rumsfeld Warn Against Delay on Iraq

The same headlines were seen last August. Can there be any doubt that Bush's UN charade was of a piece with his >12 lies about WMD in Iraq and can there be any doubt that Bush never gave a rat's ass, then or now, about the UN, about WMD, or indeed about anything other than his pathetic obsession with Empire?

3061. jexster - 2/8/2003 12:08:06 PM

France and China Just Say No To Bush's War

Sturmbannfuehrer Rumsfeld Pissed at NATO for Blocking Aid to Turks

Hell they need it to make good on the Empire's gift of the Iraqi Kurds.

3062. jexster - 2/8/2003 12:44:44 PM

More Bush Lies Exposed

Iraq took journalists to a missile production site in Al Moatassem to rebut Powell charges that it was developing long-range missiles in violation of a U.N. ban.

3063. jexster - 2/8/2003 3:36:50 PM

JOURNALIST Sean Boyne and student Ibrahim al-Marashi have attacked Tony Blair for using their reports to call for war against Iraq.

Mr Boyne, who works for military magazine Jane's Intelligence Review, said he was shocked his work had been used in the Government's dossier.

Articles he wrote in 1997 were plagiarised for a 19-page intelligence document entitled Iraq: Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation to add weight to the PM's warmongering.

He said: "I don't like to think that anything I wrote has been used for an argument for war. I am concerned because I am against the war."

The other main source was a thesis by post-graduate student, Ibrahim al-Marashi, the US-born son of Iraqis, who lives in California. His research was partly based on documents seized in the 1991 Gulf War.

He said: "This is wholesale deception. How can the British public trust the Government if it is up to these sort of tricks? People will treat any other information they publish with a lot of scepticism from now on."

REAL AUTHORS OF IRAQ DOSSIER BLAST BLAIR
Don't Trust Anything Bush or Blair Tell YOu
The Daily Mirror Excloo

3064. Edmund Dantes - 2/8/2003 4:48:43 PM

We are all aware of the fact that French companies and the French state are owed immense sums of money by Saddam Hussein. We all very much hope that no private gifts to any French political figures have been made by the Iraqi Baath Party, even though such scruple on either side would be anomalous to say the very least. Is it possible that there is any more to it than that? The future government in Baghdad may very well not consider itself responsible for paying Saddam's debts. Does this alone condition the Chirac response to a fin de régime in Iraq?

Alas, no. Recent days brought tidings of an official invitation to Paris, for Robert Mugabe. The President-for-life of Zimbabwe may have many charms, but spare cash is not among them. His treasury is as empty as the stomachs of his people. No, when the plumed parade brings Mugabe up the Champs Elysees, the only satisfaction for Mr. Chirac will be the sound of a petty slap in the face to Tony Blair, who has recently tried to abridge Mugabe's freedom to travel. Thus we are forced to think that French diplomacy, as well as being for sale or for hire, is chiefly preoccupied with extracting advantage and prestige from the difficulties of its allies.

Christopher Hitchens

3065. jexster - 2/8/2003 5:51:28 PM

Of course not.

As pointed out several times by none other than Richard Lugar, Richard Armitage and Colin Powell, the best course for the French to follow is to follow the Emperor. Take the deal he has offered the Russians -"We will honor all prior agreements of the Iraqi State"

The very worst thing that the French or nation could do, assuming that protection of their financial interests was paramount, would be to do exactly what Chirac is doing.

3066. jexster - 2/8/2003 5:51:56 PM

BAGHDAD/MUNICH (Reuters) - Chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix called new disarmament talks with Iraqi officials on Saturday "very substantial," as the United States rebuked European allies for their reluctance to back war on Baghdad. U.N. atomic expert Mohamed ElBaradei opened two days of talks in Baghdad as they prepared to present a fresh report to the U.N. Security Council next Friday that could start a countdown to war.

In Germany, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a security conference the world was serious about disarming Baghdad. He rounded on France, Germany and Belgium for "inexcusable" stalling of NATO (news - web sites) moves to help protect Turkey from any war in its neighbor Iraq.

Apparently undeterred, Germany announced a new Franco-German initiative to try to avert military conflict. A German magazine reported it involved sending thousands of U.N. peacekeeping troops to Iraq and trebling the number of arms inspectors.

3067. jexster - 2/8/2003 5:59:10 PM

Of course the German proposal for coercive inspections is is exactly that recommended last August by the Carnegie Endowment, and similar to that which I proposed in December 1998 right here on the Mote.

Of course the German proposal is a non-starter because the Bush Regime couldn't be less interested in WMD.

3068. jexster - 2/8/2003 6:01:34 PM

It is only the oil majors based in Britain and America - now the leading military hawks - that don't have current access to Iraqi contracts.

Richard Lugar, the hawkish chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggests reluctant Europeans risk losing out on oil contracts. 'The case he had made is that the Russians and the French, if they want to have a share in the oil operations or concessions or whatever afterward, they need to be involved in the effort to depose Saddam as well,' said Lugar's spokesman.

A delegation of senior US Republicans was in Moscow last Tuesday trying to persuade Kremlin officials and oil companies that a war in Iraq would not compromise their concessions. A leaked oil analyst report from Deutsche Bank said ExxonMobil was in 'pole position in a changed-regime Iraq'.

3069. jexster - 2/8/2003 6:02:38 PM

Washington is split along hawk-dove lines about the role of oil in a post-Saddam Iraq. Two sets of meetings sponsored by the State Department and Vice-President Dick Cheney's staff have been attended by representatives of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhilips and Halliburton, the company that Cheney ran before his election.

The dovish line, led by Colin Powell, places the emphasis on 'protection' of Iraq's oil for Iraq's people.

While the State Department is mindful of cynical world opinion about US war aims, officials do not always stick to the script. Grant Aldonas, Under Secretary at the US Department of Commerce, said war 'would open up this spigot on Iraqi oil which certainly would have a profound effect in terms of the performance of the world economy for those countries that are manufacturers and oil consumers'.

The US economy will announce zero growth this week, prolonging three years of sluggish performance. Cheap oil would boost an economy importing half of its daily consumption of 20m barrels.

But a cheaper oil price could have been reached more easily by lifting sanctions and giving the US oil majors access to Iraq's untapped reserves.

3070. jexster - 2/8/2003 6:02:53 PM

Instead, war stands to give control over the oil price to 'new Iraq' and its sponsors, with Saudi Arabia losing its capacity to control prices by altering productive capacity.

Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Defence Secretary, and Richard Perle, a key Pentagon adviser, see military action as part of a grand plan to reshape the Middle East.

To this end, control of Iraqi oil needs to bypass the twin tyrannies of UN control and regional fragmentation into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish supplies. The neo-conservatives plan a market structure based on bypassing the state-owned Iraqi National Oil Company and backing new free-market Iraqi companies.

But, in the run-up to war, the US oil majors will this week report a big leap in profits. ChevronTexaco is to report a 300 per cent rise. Chevron used to employ the hawkish Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Adviser, as a member of its board.

Five years ago the then Chevron chief executive Kenneth Derr, a colleague of Rice, said: 'Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas - reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.'

The Guardian UK

3071. jexster - 2/8/2003 6:04:27 PM

What Will Happen to Iraq's Oil

3072. jexster - 2/8/2003 6:07:03 PM

Iraq dossier assembled by junior aides
By Rosemary Bennett and Elaine Monaghan - Times of London

Downing Street's embarrassment over its Iraq “intelligence” dossier deepened yesterday with the disclosure that key sections were cobbled together by junior communications unit staff

3073. Marc-Albert - 2/8/2003 7:47:24 PM

jexter, jexter, jexter, jexter, jexter, jexter, jexter, jexter,

3074. Marc-Albert - 2/8/2003 8:01:36 PM

I though it was the US, and its lone British 'puppet', who were supposed to be 'isolated' on the Iraqi business, or on everything for that matter.

"La France et l'Allemagne sont de plus en plus isolées dans l'Union européenne (UE), et surtout dans l'Otan, dans leur opposition à un recours immédiat aux armes contre l'Irak, mais continuent à résister aux pressions pour faire fléchir leurs positions." (Le Monde, 2/8/03)

France lost the Ivory Coast this week, but it still has "le véto" ("As long as we have le véto, we're still somebody")

3075. jexster - 2/8/2003 8:16:51 PM

Coincidentally, CBS MarketWatch.com's Weekend Show carries a feature basically confirming the Guardian's analysis above as well as the point that I have made - Cheney and Bush are out to give their cronies at Chevron Texaco, ExxonMobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell the Basra Oil fields BUT NOT at a free market price of $10/bbl when the both of them repeatedly exhorted OPEC to RAISE prices that were substantially NORTH of that figure.

No indeed. They're gonna sell that $1/bbl shit for 25-30.

You can take that to the bank.

Unless of course, Weenie Powell, Porch Monkey, prevails with his case that such thievery is against international law.

Fat chance. That would be a first for the Lawn Jockey of Foggy Bottom

ITS THE OIL STUPID!!!

3076. jexster - 2/8/2003 8:18:21 PM

Why all the self-flagellation over at Le Monde? They worried about Estonia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Rumania?

3077. jexster - 2/8/2003 8:20:57 PM

Marc - Je vous assure que Chirac pas le soin.

3078. jexster - 2/8/2003 8:25:42 PM

La Gloire, La Gloire, TOUJOURS La Gloire!

Que veut cette horde d'esclaves
De traîtres, de rois conjurés?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés?
Français, pour nous, ah! quel outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter?
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer
De rendre à l'antique esclavage!
Rouget de Lisle (25 Avril, 1792)

3079. jexster - 2/8/2003 8:42:49 PM

Piteously ripping out your mère's womb MarcA..

Ou sont tes couilles Marc Albert?

AUX ARMES!

Français, en guerriers magnanimes
Portez ou retenez vos coups!
Épargnez ces tristes victimes
À regret s'armant contre nous

Mais ces despotes sanguinaires
Mais ces complices de Bouillé
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié
Déchirent le sein de leur mère!

3080. Edmund Dantes - 2/8/2003 9:05:41 PM

Toy check

3081. Edmund Dantes - 2/8/2003 9:06:44 PM

US and Britain will give Saddam just 48 hours to leave Iraq

Britain and America are drawing up plans to give Saddam Hussein as little as 48 hours to flee Baghdad or face war, if UN weapons inspectors report this week that the Iraqi dictator is still refusing to disarm fully.

The proposals will form the framework of a long-awaited second resolution, which could be put before the Security Council by next weekend.

3082. robertjayb - 2/8/2003 9:50:00 PM

Vote France off the island...Thomas Friedman

Sometimes I wish that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council could be chosen like the starting five for the N.B.A. All-Star team — with a vote by the fans. If so, I would certainly vote France off the Council and replace it with India. Then the perm-five would be Russia, China, India, Britain and the United States. That's more like it.

3083. jexster - 2/8/2003 10:47:54 PM

Why Britain? Why any country that doesn't please Tom Friedman?

What an arrogant bag of gas.

3084. jexster - 2/8/2003 10:48:38 PM

Why not Japan?

Germany?
plus India and China?

Kick Britain and France off.

3085. jexster - 2/8/2003 10:52:01 PM

Paris et Berlin s'opposent aux Etats-Unis

Divergences profondes entre Américains et Français

3086. Edmund Dantes - 2/8/2003 10:54:40 PM

Why Britain?

Maybe because Britain hasn't had its head handed to it in every war in which it's engaged since the advent of the repeating rifle.

3087. jexster - 2/8/2003 10:54:59 PM

Message # 3081

And ChickenHawk emeritus Frank Gaffney (of the Perle lunatic claque) predicted flatly that if Bush went for a Saddam exile and of course in the unlikely event that Hussein agreed, there'd be "mass resignations" among the DoD Freikorps, which, when you think about it, would be a REAL boon to world peace.

3088. jexster - 2/8/2003 10:56:08 PM

Is that what constitutes a requirement for membership, in your mind Eddie?

Macho macho man?

Freak

3089. jexster - 2/8/2003 10:58:00 PM

France's ace in the hole of course is that its is that of anywhere from 70 to 90% of the people of Western Europe.

3090. jexster - 2/8/2003 11:36:54 PM

A war's likely toll on Iraqis

One UN report forecasts widespread hunger and disease among civilians
Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD HOSPITAL: Iraqi mothers sat with children, described as malnourished, as European Parliament members toured this week.

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

3091. jexster - 2/8/2003 11:44:46 PM

tsk tsk...Marc A don't you Europeans know how to act like proper little vassals before your Emperor's emmissary?

Rumsfeld Rebukes U.N. and NATO on Approach to Baghdad

We'll not long tolerate such insolence from WorldHistorical Losers such as the French.

3092. Cellar Door - 2/9/2003 12:48:44 AM

Unless The Count of Monte Crisco kills an Iraqi with his bare hands he should consider himself a Terrorist!

3093. Cellar Door - 2/9/2003 12:52:05 AM

The count can't countenance the True Bravery of the British people!

3094. jexster - 2/9/2003 12:53:39 AM

Porch Negress Condo Rice, the mushroom cloud lady whose quote only JoeZ currently takes seriously - the rest either snicker or howl - well Condo isn't pushing that hokum anymore...no siree, the lady with the Chevron Tanker named after her is tellin us that the Bush War is get this - part of US tradition of helping the less fortunate!!!!

Whaddya think of that Boba?

That's a hoot isn't it.

3095. jexster - 2/9/2003 12:56:08 AM

So's this dontcha think?

3096. jexster - 2/9/2003 5:29:08 AM

3097. jexster - 2/9/2003 5:30:30 AM

Who is this Ace of Spades that has appeared around here and is the moniker's appearance some sort of battle standard?

heheheheehe

3098. jexster - 2/9/2003 11:52:04 AM

Colin Powell cited a "fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities" in his Adlai Stevenson "un-moment".

It of course was pure bunkum, a plagiarised fraud, bad grammar and all.

But there's more, there's Powell's speech itself. A couple of weeks back I listed about 11 lies that Bush made in or in the run up to his September speech. Well now we have caught Powell in two lies and if they give us another four months we'll get him in nine more. First the missile factory lie, now

A Real Edmundo Dantes Weapons Grade Whopper!
Revealed: truth behind US 'poison factory' claim

Sunday February 9, 2003
The Observer

If Colin Powell were to visit the shabby military compound at the foot of a large snow-covered mountain, he might be in for an unpleasant surprise. The US Secretary of State last week confidently described the compound in north-eastern Iraq - run by an Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Islam - as a 'terrorist chemicals and poisons factory.'

Yesterday, however, it emerged that the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind - more a dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a grassy sloping hill. Behind the barbed wire, and a courtyard strewn with broken rocket parts, are a few empty concrete houses. There is a bakery. There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere - only the smell of paraffin and vegetable ghee used for cooking.

3099. jexster - 2/9/2003 12:01:39 PM

last Wednesday Powell suggested that the 500-strong band of Ansar fighters had links with both al-Qaeda and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. They were, he hinted, a global menace - and more than that they were the elusive link between Osama bin Laden and Iraq.

This is clearly little more than cheap hyperbole..

A Bush/Republican especialidad de la casa

3100. jexster - 2/9/2003 12:11:18 PM

Marc Albert, Jacques n'est pas seul!
1/2 Million Expected on Icy Streets of London Next Week - Guardian UK

Mass March & Rally:
STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ!
Money for Human Needs--Not War!
No Racist Scapegoating! Defend Civil Liberties!

SUNDAY 02.16.03

San Francisco
Assemble at 11 a.m. at Embarcadero & Market
March at 1 p.m. to Civic Center for 2 p.m. Rally

3101. jexster - 2/9/2003 5:22:15 PM

http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=31139
target=new>Vatican Not Convinced by Powell

Vatican officials turned a skeptical eye on Colin Powell's evidence against Iraq. Further, they questioned why the evidence the United States possessed was held back and not given to the Security Council until February 5, 2003 - almost a full three months after the new resolution
took effect. Such evidence, in their opinion, could have assisted inspectors in their efforts and could avoid war. In another turn of events, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, a Christian, has requested an audience with the Pope which has been accepted. They will meet to discuss the
situation in Iraq on February 14, 2003.

3102. jexster - 2/9/2003 5:25:31 PM

target=new>Russia and Belgium Endorse Franco-German Peace Plan

The BBC reports, "Russia has said it will support a Franco-German plan aimed at averting war with Iraq. The plan reportedly calls for the tripling of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, banning Iraqi flights anywhere over the country and deploying UN peacekeepers. German Defence Minister Peter Struck said the proposal would be presented to the UN Security Council on Friday - the same day the chief UN weapons inspectors present their second critical report. The plan seems certain to deepen a growing rift between the United States and European countries over how to ensure
Iraq disarms. Mr Struck said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would discuss the plan with the visiting Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Berlin on Sunday... Russia's Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said on Sunday that if the plan was presented to the UN, 'I have no doubt that Russia will adhere to it.' Belgium also said it was favourable to the Franco-German plan, according to the French news agency AFP."

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.....

3103. Cellar Door - 2/9/2003 9:33:39 PM

Bush holds a press conference on Iraq

3104. jexster - 2/9/2003 10:01:30 PM

Pope John Paul II Stands With Germany

Vatican Assails Italian Defense Minister in Stepped Up Campaign Against Bush Attack on Iraq

3105. jexster - 2/9/2003 10:03:00 PM

Wonder what the great Republican Slime Machine has in store for Il Papa???

3106. concerned - 2/10/2003 2:03:15 AM

There's no such 'slime machine'.

3107. concerned - 2/10/2003 2:14:05 AM

2984. alistairConnor - 2/6/03 2:46:40 PM

But you'll get the oil, you lucky people. Enough to keep those SUVs running, for an extra decade or so.

2985. Macnas - 2/6/03 3:06:43 PM

Or until Big oil manages to monopolise viable alternative energy. A la Shell.

It's clearly time for Macnas and AC to lead a war of 'Progressives' against the Big Oil oppressors.

Starting with British Petroleum and their heinous solar cell racket.

Sound silly? No more so than their rhetoric.

3108. Macnas - 2/10/2003 3:30:59 AM

Cynical yes, silly rhetoric no.

3109. concerned - 2/10/2003 3:42:30 AM

Why is 'big oil' always wrongly associated with the US by the left when they are primarily international by their very nature and most other countries are replete with their own oil corporations?

3110. Macnas - 2/10/2003 3:50:15 AM

Most folks here are americans, when they say "Big Oil" they mean their own oil companies as they know them I'd suppose.

When I use it, I'm thinking Shell and BP, but it all adds up to the same thing. Or is that just too leftist or "progressive" to make a lick of sense??

3111. concerned - 2/10/2003 4:04:16 AM

Where exactly is merit in preventing so-called 'big oil' from doing energy research? I keep hearing from the left that imposing such restrictions is a good idea but no explanations to justify that unique viewpoint seem to follow.

3112. concerned - 2/10/2003 4:17:14 AM

From the AP:

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Feb 10, 2003
France blocked the start of NATO military planning Monday to protect Turkey against the threat of Iraqi missile attack, further accentuating the deep divisions in the alliance over the Iraq crisis.

NATO officials said France formally blocked the move an hour before NATO procedures would have started the military planning automatically at 4 a.m. EST.

As expected, Belgium backed the French move. Foreign Minister Louis Michel said Sunday it was too early for the alliance to enter into a "war mind-set."

It was unclear if Germany, which had previously backed French and Belgian hesitation, had also supported the latest delay of the planning to send surveillance planes, anti-missile batteries and units specialized in dealing with germ warfare and poison gas attacks to Turkey.

The French move is a blow to the United States which has lobbied hard for more than three weeks for the alliance to start the military planning, backed by 16 of the 19 NATO allies.

The French and Belgian foreign ministers held a telephone conference early Monday and said they would continue to block the automatic start of military planning."They had their talks and they will continue to block," said Belgian government spokesman Didier Seeuws of the telephone talks between his minister Louis Michel and his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin.

Faced with the latest delay, Turkey was widely expected to call for urgent consultations under NATO's mutual defense treaty. A meeting of NATO's policy making North Atlantic Council was possible later Monday, officials said.

Diplomats said they expected France and the other holdouts to drop their objections to the military planning faced with a direct request from the Turks under the treaty.

The dispute over the planning has dragged on for three weeks, causing increasing acrimony among the allies.

3113. concerned - 2/10/2003 4:17:35 AM

At a stormy weekend meeting in Munich, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned continued delays in responding to Turkey's request were "inexcusable" and risked undermining the credibility of the alliance.

Rumsfeld intensified his criticism in an interview Sunday with Italy's La Republica newspaper. "Shameful, for me it's truly shameful," Rumsfeld was quoted as saying. "Turkey is an ally. An ally that is risking everything ... How can you refuse it help?"

In France, officials countered that it was too early to start military preparations while diplomatic efforts continued to avoid war. However they stressed they would help the Turks if they judged it necessary.

"If Turkey was really under threat, France would be one of the first at its side," French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told reporters in Munich. "Today we don't feel that threat is there."

Other NATO allies expressed confidence the doubters would rally to the plan early this week in response to a direct Turkish request.

"I trust the alliance will stick together and we will help Turkey," Norwegian Defense Minister Kristin Krohn Devold said Sunday. "I have a strong belief in common sense."

As well as trans-Atlantic differences, the deadlock has highlighted deep divisions among European allies with the majority, led by Britain, Spain and Italy, backing the tough line against Iraq taken by the United States against France and Germany.

NATO's military commanders say the planning for the limited support for Turkey can be wrapped up within a few days once they get the go-ahead, but actual deployment of the NATO units will need further approval from the 19 allies.

All NATO decisions require unanimous support from the allies.

France (& Belgium & Doucheland) seems to relish misusing its veto power, regardless of the damage that ensues.

3114. jexster - 2/10/2003 6:35:14 AM

Europe Blocks NATO Over Iraq, Bush Throws Another Hissy Fit

The man is mad and everyone knows it now.

3115. Wombat - 2/10/2003 8:59:17 AM

In reading some of the "alternatives to war" articles such as that of the Carnegie Foundation, and the more "robust" sanctions backed by military force proposed by the French, it seems that some of the proponents do not discuss worst-case scenarios with the enthusiasm that they have reserved for the US's larger invasion plans. Let me offer some:

1) While attacking an installation under the proposed stricter guidelines, a U.S. or British (hell, even a French)jet is shot down, and the crew is captured. Hostage drama redux, with a possibility of a larger war increased.

2) Oops! We thought it was hiding WMD, but it turns out to a school/hospital/mosque/old folks home (multiply this by more than one occasion). What say the Moslem "street" to that?

3) Hurray! A large cache of Sarin has been tracked and is confirmed to be in one of Saddam's "palaces." Following the proposed guidelines, the "palace" is leveled by precise air strikes, with the surrounding neighborhoods left intact. To bad it was in Baghdad, and thousands of inhabitants near the site have been killed by the cloud of Sarin released as a result of the strike. But that's OK, because Iraq has not been invaded.

It is a matter of time before scenario 1 takes place, although with increased patrols over all of Iraq as called for by the "robust" inspections regime, it will be more likely to happen sooner. Scenario 2 will occur under any circumstance, although the "robust" inspections regime makes it likely to occur numerous times over a span of months or years. Scenario 3 would be most likely to take place under the "robust" inspection regime, than during an all-out invasion, when WMD would be more likely to used against the invading military forces or Israel.

3116. iiibbb - 2/10/2003 10:18:53 AM

Kind of an interesting article about all the posturing going on in the UN... he draws some interesting historical observations too.

1

although this article erodes the impact of Powell's speech last Wednesday.

2

Of course, even with Powell's credibility eroded slightly, France and Germany lost more in my eye with this stunt. Seems NATO only matters to them when someone is at their border. Quoting someone I read this week "The French are great. I love the French. They're always around when they need you."

3

Very difficult situation we're in.

3117. jexster - 2/10/2003 11:21:11 AM

Very difficult situation BUSH has gotten us into

But perfectly predictable that he would...

Now he's armed and quite dangerous.

3118. alistairconnor - 2/10/2003 11:34:33 AM

Shameful! Disgraceful! France and Germany refuse to come to the defense of Turkey!

Wait a minute... Is Turkey under threat of attack from Iraq?

Well, it wasn't until a few days ago.

Then the Turkish parliament got strong-armed into allowing the US to station troops on its eastern border, in preparation for an intervention in Iraq. The parliament wasn't exactly keen, and the general population is overwhelmingly against.

What was the parliament told during its closed session that resulted in its reluctant, limited agreement?

Well, previously the head of the US military made a "private visit" to the head of the Turkish military...

Completely irrelevant note : long long ago, in the last century, five years ago in fact, the military deposed the elected Turkish government.

That puts the "shameful" lack of "solidarity" into perspective... NATO must protect its member, Turkey, from the threat posed by... the USA.

3119. alistairconnor - 2/10/2003 11:35:52 AM

Alliance with the US :
Doing what the US damn well says, no ifs, no buts.

NATO solidarity :
See above.

3120. jexster - 2/10/2003 11:50:12 AM

I recommended EXACTLY THIS in Winter '98 and again last September

The Guardian UK:
The Franco-German plan to intensify UN weapons inspections and step up spy flights over Iraq is both a calculated snub to the US and an attempt to derail what is seen as Washington's determination to go to war.
This became clear as deep divisions between the US and France and Germany over Iraq exploded into the open at a high level security conference in Munich. According to one unconfirmed report in the German magazine Der Spiegel, UN blue-helmet soldiers would be deployed in Iraq and the number of weapons inspectors tripled. Some 150,000 US soldiers based close to Iraq's borders would remain in place to ensure the "peaceful invasion" of the blue helmets and secure their mission.

French Mirage reconnaissance planes, German Luna-Drohne unmanned planes, and American U2 spy aircraft would fly over Iraq.

The Russian defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, who attended the Munich conference, said his country had highly skilled inspectors and reconnaissance planes that could take part in a reinforced inspections regime if it was approved by the UN security council.

So bad are the relations between Paris and Berlin on one side and Washington on the other, that Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, was not told anything about the plan, even though his French and German counterparts were at the conference in the Bavarian capital with him.

I linked this plan in September....You can read the summary or any chapter here or download the entire report

CEIP

Who says Jexster spams?

Jexster knows what the fuck he is talking about.

3121. iiibbb - 2/10/2003 12:37:51 PM

I'm convinced... Saddam is our friend...

And Germany and France have always shown how they really know how to keep quell dictators and keep really bad situations from escilating... I mean their track record on these sorts of things is just exiplirary in the past century once you discount those 2 world wars.

3122. iiibbb - 2/10/2003 12:38:50 PM

Explain to me why we need to wait for Saddam to _do_ something? Or why we need to wait for him to supply terrorists with materials for waging a behind the scenes war against the US?

3123. Wombat - 2/10/2003 12:46:39 PM

So we would have all the costs of a long-term military committment in the Gulf, the possibility of a war breaking out at any time, Saddam would stay in power, and sanctions would remain in place, except that the US would need to keep more troops and naval and air assets in the region for an indefinite period of time. So who would actually benefit from this? Not the Iraqis, not the Gulf States, not the United States. None of the "root causes" of Islamic terrorism would be addressed, in fact they would be exacerbated.

Jexter is also assuming that Iraq will accept this proposed plan.

3124. robertjayb - 2/10/2003 12:56:07 PM

Filed at 12:25 p.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Iraq sent a letter to U.N. weapons inspectors Monday approving the use of U.S.-made U-2 surveillance planes and pledged to pass legislation next week outlawing the use of weapons of mass destruction, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations said.

``The inspectors are now free to use the American U-2s as well as French and Russian planes,'' Ambassador Mohamed al-Douri told The Associated Press.

Iraq had blocked inspectors from using the planes which inspectors said they needed in their search for any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

3125. jexster - 2/10/2003 1:07:20 PM

This is the issue, the question that the war peddlers cannot answer and the reason they need to go to war ASAP.

Drawing up the battle lines for forthcoming arguments in the UN, Mr Fischer asked why Iraq, rather than the threat posed by al-Qaida terrorists, was the priority now. "We have known Saddam Hussein is a horrible dictator for years," he said. "Iraq is now more controlled than ever."

The Iraqi is not now and for the past 12 years has not been a threat, grave, imminent or otherwise to any country, in fact to any but its own citizens.

That question and the inability to answer it goes to the immoral heart of the war peddler's game.

3126. jexster - 2/10/2003 1:11:42 PM

The French and German gambit has also raised grave questions as to whether the Bush regime is capable, whether, in the words of the just war theory, there is a "reasonable chance of success" given the fact that these people would lead the attack and worse be charged with the aftermath.

Even those accept that this aggression is necessary, must question whether these incompetents should carry it out.

3127. iiibbb - 2/10/2003 2:41:53 PM

giving Iraq 12 years to comply is not ASAP.

Powell's strongest point in his speech was that if the UN makes resolutions, but then will not bind people to them... then it has made itself irrelevant.

How are more inspections going to help? What does France and Germany propose be done as an alternative given the evidence that Powell bought forward? More inspections?

If France and Germany settled on a deadline instead of wholesale defense of Saddam, then they might win me over.

As it is, I'm still sitting on the fense and leaning to the side that it's easier to do something about Saddam now, than to wait for him to build strength (which I'm convince he's trying to do).

Article 1 above Message # 3116 makes some good points that if we don't follow through (as a collective that is) in finding a real answer to Saddam, what's it going to tell N.Korea... who apparently is exceedingly close to having nuclear weapons and a delivery system?

The ball is in Iraq's court now... not the US's.

3128. Trouble - 2/10/2003 2:52:43 PM

Saddam Hussein is stationing his military forces amid civilian populations, President Bush said Monday, accusing the Iraqi leader of using his own citizens as "human shields."

3129. jayackroyd - 2/10/2003 2:57:34 PM

"Powell's strongest point in his speech was that if the UN makes resolutions, but then will not bind people to them... then it has made itself irrelevant. "

Yes, but that sword has a very sharp opposite edge. There are several resolutions wrt Palestine that the United States will not be happy seeing Israel bound to.

I really fear that this administration doesn't see what it is getting into, although a story in yesterday's NYTimes was somewhat reassuting. It said that after military action is completed in Iraq, the Saudis will ask US forces to leave, and will begin a program of democratic reform.

However, the next two steps after a successful campaign in Iraq (That is by no means certain, since getting one guy is among the goals, and we still haven't gotten the other one guy. Also, fighting inside Baghdad, trying to minimize American and civilian causalities also is a daunting prospect.) are 1) stabilizing an Iraqi govt that is not seen as an American puppet, and that has a defined path to democratic reforms and 2) Getting the Israelis out of the settlements, and the Palestinians out of the terror business.

I know they are talking about the former, but the latter is also very important, especially if there is success in democratic reforms in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

3130. PelleNilsson - 2/10/2003 3:10:43 PM

France, Germany and Russia issue joint statement

France, Germany and Russia have released an unprecedented joint declaration on the Iraq crisis, demanding more weapons inspectors and more technical assistance for them.

3131. magoseph - 2/10/2003 3:26:44 PM

France and Russia want the money owed by Iraq back. That is the main reason behind their moves. I wonder if it's the same for Germany.

3132. PelleNilsson - 2/10/2003 3:32:51 PM

But how will they get any money while Iraq is still crippled by sanctions for the foreseeable future? I think that explanation is too facile.

3133. magoseph - 2/10/2003 4:10:57 PM

Pelle,
The French and the Russians have been supplying war materials and other technologies to Iraq for many years. They're owed a lot of money. What they fear is that a new government in Iraq dominated by the Americans will repudiate the debts of the Saddam hierarchy and pour the oil money into the population. This, of course, is obvious because the new government will have a strong interest in survival. The reality is it is all about money and power. The price for Russian and French support of the US will be a guaranty that the debts be honored.

3134. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:13:52 PM

God I hate agreeing with Pelle almost as much as I would with concerned but he is right ma cherie

This is calculated and has nothing to do with current business interests which, as Pelle points out, aren't worth terribly much at present and even less under the Imperium unless the doves do an about face and lick Bush's Tony Lamas

No. This is serious shit.

Latest from the Guardian:

3.45pm update

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Veto deepens Nato rift over Iraq

Mark Oliver and agencies
Monday February 10, 2003

France, Germany and Belgium today vetoed Nato from planning defence improvements for fellow alliance member Turkey ahead of any potential US-led war against Iraq.
The move triggered a crisis for Nato - an alliance founded on principals of mutual protection - and deepened European divisions over the Iraq crisis.

Turkey responded by becoming the first country in Nato's 53-year history to publicly invoke Article 4 of the alliance's mutual defence treaty. This binds the 19 allies to talks when one perceives a threat to its "territorial integrity, political independence or security".

During a break in a meeting of alliance ambassadors, where he called the atmosphere "very heated", the Nato secretary general, Lord Robertson, said: "I am not seeking today to minimise the seriousness of the situation. It is serious.

3135. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:15:23 PM

What makes it even more serious, IMO, isn't the fact that the disagreement occured - shit happens all the time - but that it was aired publically and not handled behind closed doors is amazing.

They even enlisted the Holy See fer Crissakes

3136. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:33:42 PM

Democracy in the "New" Iraq is A Bad Joke - Guardian UK

3137. magoseph - 2/10/2003 4:33:57 PM

Jex,
There aren't going to be any sanctions after the US takes over. The country is going to be flooded with everything they need. This is the only strategy the US can have to play out a winning hand. The oil money goes for consumer goods, schools, etc. and nothing for war materials and debt repayments--especially if the French and Russians don't go along with Bush.

Actually, it is to Bush's interests that the French and Russians don't go along. It makes it easier for Bush to play savior under those circumstances. The horse can't carry double. The French and Russians have become expensive baggage. Bush can raise the standard of living in Iraq very quickly and he certainly can if he doesn't have to carry the French and Russians with him. To him and his hard-core, this is the end game.

3138. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:38:13 PM

No actually the opposite...he NEEDS the French and the Germans and THAT is what they are afraid of or as the German FM put it "Bush is going to go in, shoot up the place and expect US to clean up his mess"

But the politics are even more sophisticated than that. There remain two camps despite Powell's "conversion" to hawk. Roughly, the State Dept has argued that to declare such obligations null and void would violate international law while the hawks have openly said the opposite, ie that no nation that opposes the aggression can hope to share the spoils, the plunder of their war.

This they have said repeatedly, many sources, many months and we know from recent history who wins those battles.

3139. joezan - 2/10/2003 4:38:54 PM

Alliance with the US :
Doing what the US damn well says, no ifs, no buts.

NATO solidarity :
See above.

New World Order, Froggy. Get used to it.

3140. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:41:30 PM

The French Germans Russians etc are coming to the realization based I think on Blair's dismal performance that cooperating with Bush gains nothing, that European interests are at stake, that BUsh will harm those interests, that Bush is not to be trusted and I believe becoming unbalanced.

Chirac et al are acting accordingly...this was not some slip of the tongue nor some gaullist posturing as some glibly predicted weeks ago.

This was a deliberate trap set for very well considered reasons by one crafty fils de chienne(????)

3141. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:50:10 PM

JoeZ as if on cue...we are witnessing the Death of a Hegemon

not a pretty sight...Chirac is out to cause the collapse of the Blair government and Brit support for Bush's War....

But at least we now know what are the objectives of Bush's Bloody war..they have NOTHING to do with Iraq's weapons

They never did.

Time for everyone to re-read three amazingly prophetic articles....time to get real

The Dilemma of Sustaining an American Empire

The Push for War

and

The Eagle Has Crash Landed

Pax Americana is over

Twice now in the past decade, the overwhelming military and economic dominance of the US has given it the chance to lead the rest of the world by example and consensus. It could have adopted (and to a very limited degree under Clinton did adopt) a strategy in which this dominance would be softened and legitimised by economic and ecological generosity and responsibility, by geopolitical restraint, and by 'a decent respect to the opinion of mankind', as the US Declaration of Independence has it. The first occasion was the collapse of the Soviet superpower enemy and of Communism as an ideology. The second was the threat displayed by al-Qaida. Both chances have been lost - the first in part, the second it seems conclusively.

What we see now is the tragedy of a great country, with noble impulses, successful institutions, magnificent historical achievements and immense energies, which has become a menace to itself and to mankind.

Read those articles and you will have a pretty good idea of the Euro leaders view of this

3142. magoseph - 2/10/2003 4:50:59 PM

Jex,
He may very well be unbalanced but he's controlled by his extreme right-wing advisors and they have had their plans for a long time and they don't include France and Russia.

3143. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:58:18 PM

Well that's right and that's what I tried to say.

Chirac, Shroeder, Putin, and I believe soon Blair, have come to realize just that and are acting accordingly.

3144. jexster - 2/10/2003 4:58:36 PM

The question is whether the US can go on fighting wars in this way, or will have to employ its own troops in long-running wars of conquest and occupation; and, if the latter, whether the American people will tolerate it.

Beyond this lies a wider question: whether the US can go on exercising hegemony by indirect means, or will be inexorably drawn into the business of direct imperial rule. For up to now, one of the reasons there has been so little real opposition to US hegemony in most of the world is precisely that this hegemony is distant and indirect.

3145. jexster - 2/10/2003 5:00:19 PM

Meanwhile DPRK has fired up its breeder and Iran has just announced that it is expediting its program...

Once Bush unilaterally invades, watch for what happens between India and Pakistan as well.

The US will be isolated, alone and the American people will have a shit fit

3146. jexster - 2/10/2003 5:05:45 PM

Iran Shocks the World with Uranium Program Announcement

Reuters writes, "The surprise announcement... may alarm Washington, which accuses the Islamic Republic of harboring secret plans to develop nuclear weapons.... He said the uranium had been extracted near the central city of Yazd and processing facilities had been set up in the central cities of Isfahan and Kashan... Washington has long been at odds with Russia over its help in building an $800 million nuclear power plant at Bushehr, which Tehran expects to come on stream at the end of 2003 or early in 2004. U.S. fears over the project were somewhat assuaged by assurances from Moscow that all spent fuel from the plant would be returned to Russia, ensuring that it would not be diverted to a weapons program. But the discovery of its own uranium supplies could, in theory, make Iran independent of Russia for its nuclear fuel needs."

North Korea is reviving its nuclear weapons program, now Iran is starting one. The nuclear arms race has begun again. Do you feel safer yet?

3147. jexster - 2/10/2003 6:42:27 PM

Declaring a Just War????
On the Obsequious Piety of Rev. George

Basic moral and spiritual values are the lifeblood of this country, and without them the American way of life itself is in grave peril. We must not go to war with Iraq.

By Scotty McLennan dean for religious life at Stanford University.

As Garry Trudeau's roommate at Yale, he served as the model for Doonesbury's Rev. Scot Sloan.

3148. jexster - 2/10/2003 6:50:15 PM

The diplomatic endgame over Iraq was always going to be complicated but it has broken down into confusion.
There are divisions across the Atlantic and disagreements within Europe.

These are symptoms of the deep divergence between those - led by the United States and Britain - who think that Iraq's time is up and those - led now by a troika of France, Germany and Russia - who want an extended system of containment.

As a way of insulting the French proposals for sending more inspectors, the Americans have even introduced the image of the bumbling detective Inspector Clouseau into the testy exchanges.

This all might be just a foretaste of the worse crisis which would develop if the United States and Britain went to war without the authority of the Security Council.

Analysis: BBC News World Edition

3149. Trouble - 2/10/2003 7:09:58 PM

i DON'T KNOW WHY IT'S important for the French to help us liberate Iraq from Saddam. They didn't even want to help us get the Germans out of their country in WWII.

3150. jexster - 2/10/2003 7:40:31 PM

You don't know much.

CNN's European Political Editor Robin Oakley said: "Any hopes of France coming on board the so-called 'coalition of the willing' look like being disappointed.

"The gulf between Europe and the U.S. appears to be widening by the day."

3151. jayackroyd - 2/10/2003 7:41:05 PM

3133

I was told by a journalist I know who covers the UN for a Japanese television outlet that it was going the other way, that the US is threatening France with cutting it out of the oil spoils if it doesn't get in line.

I'm not quite sure why there is a NATO anymore, anyway, and certainly don't understand why we have troops guarding western germany from incursions from eastern germany.

3152. jayackroyd - 2/10/2003 7:49:00 PM

But I agree with Alistair's framing of the US position, and the source of the threat against Turkey.

OTOH, it seems to me that the implication is that the US withdraw from NATO, which I think is a good idea. Let the Europeans work out their own defensive plans. The UN is the venue we should be focusing on.

The point iiibbb made above regarding the irrelevance of the security council is a good one. But I reiterate that if you follow that logic, Israel better be withdrawing from the occupied territories, tout suite.

3153. jexster - 2/10/2003 7:50:53 PM

Declaring A Just War? - Scotty Mclennan

Because the president appeared to be referencing "just war" criteria that have been articulated by the Christian Church for almost 2,000 years, it is important to look closely at whether they will be met in a war against Iraq.

Just cause: First of all, is there just cause? Traditionally this has referred to a defensive response to grave and certain harm to the nation. The Bush administration has not made the case that either Iraq's capacity or intention to use weapons of mass destruction is likely, much less certain. There is no more adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature now than there was five years ago. There are no proven high-level Iraqi links to al Qaeda and international terrorism targeting the United States.

Enough of Bush's half witted, hamhanded foreign policy

Enough of his psychotic obsessions

AND GOD KNOWS enough of his freaky theology

3154. jexster - 2/10/2003 9:20:29 PM

PowellKeeps on Lying

But Did it on Fox So It Don't Count

"TONY SNOW: Is it your view that Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq is, in fact, busy trying to put together factories for the manufacture of such things? POWELL: We do know that the facility that I described in my presentation on Wednesday has been used to develop poisons, and not just from the picture of that facility but a lot of other source material we have shows that things have come out of that facility and have transited through various parts of Europe and Central Asia, reaching Western Europe." Ansar leaders took journalists to visit the site yesterday, and they reported there was no poison-making capability.

3155. Trouble - 2/10/2003 9:41:49 PM

please put quotes around "journalists," jexster.

3156. concerned - 2/11/2003 2:22:57 AM

When one gets down to root causes, most of the current Old European anti-Americanism is due to 1) their Socialist state dug-sucking dislike of non Leftist US administrations 2) the widely held anti-Semitic belief among Europeans that Jews are 'running' the US.

Remember that a top selling book in France recently (maybe it still is) claims that the US faked the 9/11 Pentagon plane crash, and that many Europeans believe that either Jews or the Bush Administration itself destroyed the WTC and is using that as a casus belli in order to 'get' oil. This is ample proof of the essential irrationality of most European anti-US sentiment.

3157. concerned - 2/11/2003 2:39:41 AM

Wit Old Yurrup's boisterous anti-Americanism driving their foreign policies, I am now more in favor than I was before of the US quickly deposing Sodamn Insane and allowing a democratic government to take power in Iraq, because that will be the easiest way to discredit the noisy US-haters and their opportunistic governmental lackeys in Yurrup as well as the Middle East.

3158. concerned - 2/11/2003 2:46:53 AM

I don't see any overwhelming evidence that Old Yurrup has even freed itself to this day of its tendency toward the violent ideological and nationalistic excesses that were responsible for both the World Wars of the last century.

3159. concerned - 2/11/2003 2:59:07 AM

As the French would describe their own national character in a fit of lucidity:

" Primates capitulards et toujours en quête de fromages "

3160. concerned - 2/11/2003 3:13:06 AM

Additional proof that Saddam promotes terrorism: Iraq diplomat linked to (Abu Sayyaf) Zamboanga bombing

excerpt:

A Philippine intelligence report has linked a senior Iraqi diplomat in Manila to a deadly bomb attack by the Abu Sayyaf in Zamboanga City that killed an American soldier and wounded another in October last year, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople said yesterday.

Ople made the disclosure to reporters after he summoned Iraqi Chargé d’Affaires Samir Bolus and informed him about the report on the diplomat, identified as Second Secretary Husham Hussain.

Citing a "highly detailed" report from the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, Ople said the NICA had traced cellular phone calls made by the Abu Sayyaf to Hussain.

"It appeared that immediately after the bombing, there was a call to the (Iraqi) embassy" by a man identified by the NICA as an Abu Sayyaf guerrilla, he said.

3161. concerned - 2/11/2003 3:22:13 AM

The irrational anti-US cadre would probably be ecstatic if their hate speech resulted in more anti-US terrorism which most of them would probably regard as being somehow deserved and justifiable. OTOH, these same individuals would probably blame the US for any terrorist acts within their own countries.

3162. concerned - 2/11/2003 4:36:04 AM

How many US allies can you count in this map? We already know that jexster can't find a single one, because of all his hyperbole about 'unilateral' US action.

3163. alistairConnor - 2/11/2003 5:46:18 AM

Message # 3127 The ball is in Iraq's court now... not the US's.

I agree, iii... Bush and Powell don't, of course. They think the game's over.

(To which de Villepin replied : it's not a game, and it isn't over.)
(To which Bush and co reply : Same player shoot again.)

3164. alistairConnor - 2/11/2003 5:54:30 AM

As whatsisface said, if you want peace, prepare for war. Words to that effect.

Germany's stand : no war under any circumstances. This is fine sentiment but rather silly in pragmatic terms.

France's stand : all else being equal, peace is preferable to war.

The US military buildup was crucial to enabling the disarmament of Iraq. If disarmament can now be enforced without war, then that is the best outcome.

So the ball is in Iraq's court. Saddam has a gun to his head, and I don't know what he'll do.

France may indeed come around to supporting a war, if all else fails.

3165. alistairConnor - 2/11/2003 6:18:08 AM

Europeans tend to underestimate the extent to which Americans have a principled position concerning war on Iraq.

The inverse is also true.

One difference is that the US hasn't had a war on its territory for, what, 140 years?

3166. judithathome - 2/11/2003 8:21:11 AM

Concerned, how many of those allies are sending troops to help take the heat when war erupts?

3167. iiibbb - 2/11/2003 8:47:48 AM

AC, I agree with your 3 follow ups...

So the ball is in Iraq's court. Saddam has a gun to his head, and I don't know what he'll do.

good line.

3168. Wombat - 2/11/2003 8:47:56 AM

If contributions are anything like the last time around, Britain will contribute or already has on the scene an armored division, several air wings, and warships. Spain already has warships in the area checking shipping to enforce sanctions against Iraq (a Spanish warship stopped the ship carrying missiles from North Korea to Yemen (Iraq), and could also contribute aircraft. Italy would contribute warships, aircraft, and possibly marines or commandos. The Czech Republic already has chemical warfare troops in the region, and they would remain if war broke out. Allies would also provide medical teams, basing and overflight rights, and would assume roles outside of the region, to allow US forces to be shifted to the Gulf.

3169. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/11/2003 9:01:40 AM

"Meanwhile, here's how it looks from Paris: France was willing to put ground troops at risk — and lose a number of soldiers — in the former Yugoslavia; we weren't. The U.S. didn't make good on its promises to provide security and aid to post-Taliban Afghanistan. Those Americans, they are very brave when it comes to bombing from 10,000 meters, but they expect other people to clean up the mess they make, no?"

The Wimps of War
By PAUL KRUGMAN

3170. alistairConnor - 2/11/2003 9:18:14 AM

Italy would contribute warships, aircraft, and possibly marines or commandos.

Do you have specific info on this, 'Batman? My understanding is that Berlusconi was assured that no military participation was required. Which undoubtedly has nothing to do with his eagerness for war. I don't go for national stereotypes.

3171. Wombat - 2/11/2003 10:43:43 AM

Alastair:

I was extrapolating based on the last time around. Haven't the Italians joined the Germans in providing security in Afghanistan?

3172. Trouble - 2/11/2003 10:59:53 AM

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "If Saddam bows to the UN's demands and co-operates promptly, what is the need for greater numbers of inspectors? If he maintains his refusal to cooperate, how will higher numbers help? Lethal viruses can be produced within an area the size of the average living room. In the absence of Iraqi cooperation, even a thousandfold increase in the UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission's capabilities will not allow us to establish with any degree of confidence that Iraq has disarmed." - Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary, yesterday. Exactly, which is why the Franco-German-Russian gambit is based on nothing but a desire to oppose the United States.

Andrew Sullivan

3173. concerned - 2/11/2003 11:46:29 AM

The only reason that Saddam has budged even the small amount he has is the imminent threat of US military action. There is no way the US will keep 150,000 troops on indefinite Mideast standby as the French, Germans, Belgians and Russians seem to want; it would never work and will have only the effect of tying up a significant part of the US military uselessly - Saddam will soon renege on every small compromise he has made so far if he is not removed soon since he will be quick to ascertain that there is no longer any serious threat to his totalitarian rule, and there is nothing in the plans of Old Europe that will do anything to keep him from continuing to rearm - in fact, they're anxious to sell him the means to do so.

The US should depose Saddam ASAP, by military invasion if necessary, and free both the Iraqi people and the US from what these countries clearly wish and are attempting to turn into an international millstone around the US's neck with their unworkable proposals.

3174. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/11/2003 11:47:02 AM

3175. Edmund Dantes - 2/11/2003 11:53:45 AM

Krapman should stick to writing about economics and leave foreign policy to people who know what they're talking about.

"Meanwhile, here's how it looks from Paris: France was willing to put ground troops at risk — and lose a number of soldiers — in the former Yugoslavia; we weren't.

Bull-fucking-shit. American troops have been on the ground in Bosnia since 1995. Eight years.

What an asshole.

For that matter, why shouldn't the Europeans carry most of the water in Yugoslavia? It is--or was--a European country. When's the last time we asked for European ground troops to help quell violence in the Western Hemisphere?

The U.S. didn't make good on its promises to provide security and aid to post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Another lie, according to yesterday's edition of Krugman's own paper: "Hundreds of American soldiers battled with rebels in southern Afghanistan two weeks ago, and they have spent days since sweeping the mountains and caves to clear the area....The United States has spent more than $840 million in Afghanistan — in aid money, State Department expenditures and some military spending — since October 2001, and Washington would continue the same level of spending through 2003, he said. He added that President Bush would reinforce the American commitment in person when President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan visits Washington on Feb. 27."

Those Americans, they are very brave when it comes to bombing from 10,000 meters, but they expect other people to clean up the mess they make, no?"

Krugman would have you believe that was Bush, when it was in fact his buttboy Clinton.

3176. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/11/2003 12:04:48 PM

Good argumentation, Edmund, if it were true, but guess who'll now be getting the check when the waiter comes?

That's right, the diner with the maxed-out trillion dollar credit card.

3177. robertjayb - 2/11/2003 2:01:31 PM

Mother of God!

The bushies are saying expect a new tape from Osama bin Laden wherein he will declare his partnership with Iraq.

Wow! It's breathtaking...

How much scepticism am I permitted before being hauled off as a traitor?

OTOH, Osama would profit from the the turmoil of Bush War II.

I shall maintain an open mind while being careful of drafts.

3178. jayackroyd - 2/11/2003 2:57:12 PM

Al Jazeera has made such an announcement.

-------------------------------------------------------
DUBAI (Reuters) - The al-Jazeera satellite television channel said Tuesday it had received a statement from Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) urging Muslim solidarity with Iraq and would broadcast it later in the day.

Al-Jazeera said the statement "urged Muslims to show solidarity and defend the Iraqi people."

"We have a statement and we will show it later tonight. It has a message," Editor Saeed al-Shouly told Reuters.

Earlier Tuesday Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) told the U.S. Senate Budget Committee that he had read a transcript "of what bin Laden, or who we believe to be bin Laden, will be saying on al-Jazeera during the course of the day."

Al-Jazeera has often received audio tapes and statements said to come from bin Laden, blamed for the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities. The United States has accused the Arab TV channel of being a mouthpiece for al-Qaeda propaganda.

3179. concerned - 2/11/2003 3:02:35 PM

rjb -

Looks like you've really got your tinfoil thinking cap one. It's Al Jazeera who is announcing the tape, not the 'Bushies', as you put it, unless you believe that the WH controls Islamic terrorism as well as 'big oil'.

3180. concerned - 2/11/2003 3:03:16 PM

...cap on.

3181. concerned - 2/11/2003 3:04:24 PM

I shall maintain an open mind while being careful of drafts.

Well, don't let your brains fall out, although god only knows what you need them for.

3182. robertjayb - 2/11/2003 4:09:46 PM

Pay attention, concerned. What I wrote was precisely accurate. The bushies, CIA man Tennant and Ari the Liar, were saying this morning that a statement from Osama "bin-gone-511-days" Laden would be issued soon via the Al-whatsis TV net.

I have faith that an intelligence "community" that could scheme the unmaning of Fidel by causing his beard to drop could conjure and place a message calculated to bolster dubya's claim of the bin Laden-Saddam connection.

3183. magoseph - 2/11/2003 4:14:57 PM

Vintage Osama, apparently, Robert.

3184. robertjayb - 2/11/2003 4:15:52 PM

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- AP-- An audio tape purported to carry the voice of Osama bin Laden today called on Iraqis to carry out suicide attacks against Americans and defend themselves against a U.S. attack.

The tape was broadcast on the al-Jazeera Arab satellite station today, the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. The speaker also urged Iraqis to dig trenches and engage in urban warfare to fend off U.S. troops.

3185. robertjayb - 2/11/2003 4:18:31 PM

Link to AP report above

3186. jayackroyd - 2/11/2003 4:35:13 PM

Or, perhaps, bin Laden believes that his cause is better served if he can insure that this war takes place. He apparently welcomed the war in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of civilian casualties may be something he is in favor of.

3187. Al D - 2/11/2003 10:20:27 PM

UBL is a great fighter, notice how he stayed in Afganistan and fought the infidels to the death. The man is a complete fraud, willing to send any of his men to certain death, but hauls ass when things get rough. Saddam most likely will haul ass also, but not until he has done more damage to his own people than anyone else. With all of his bluster, those who have sufered most have been Iraqies. Will the Wiz and other patriotic Americans cheer him on?

3188. concerned - 2/11/2003 11:53:41 PM

Re. 3182 -

Your hyperventilation was 'precisely accurate'? You would have done a great deal better to have mentioned Al Jazeera up front as the disseminator of the information, if you were striving for accuracy.

3189. concerned - 2/12/2003 12:04:09 AM

Re. 3177 -

Colin Powell made that announcement to a Senate Panel. Care to actually describe what you find wrong with that?

3190. concerned - 2/12/2003 12:57:16 AM

The problem that Germany, France, Russia and China fail to address here is that their approach has already been tried and it has failed. The only demonstrably workable proposals have been offered by the US.

Perhaps if these four nations talked bout sending peacekeeping troops instead of inspectors into Iraq, things might be different;)

3191. concerned - 2/12/2003 1:10:19 AM

From UPI piece 'US Confirms bin Laden audiotape:

Responding in an interview on al Jazeera following the network's airing of the tape, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said bin Laden "threatens everybody in the Arab world except (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein. He says he wants to fight with Saddam Hussein." Boucher later said this "confirmed that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have common cause."

Don't despair, France, Belgium and Germany. You're already more than halfway over to bin Laden's side. The rest is all downhill.

3192. concerned - 2/12/2003 1:17:33 AM

Btw, are we seeing rjb shifting ground with the Al Jazeera publicization of this tape to insist that bin Laden was worm chow all along?

3193. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/12/2003 1:29:27 AM

3194. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:26:13 AM

Carnegie Analysis:
What are the Inspectors Looking For?

There have been thousands of references to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but what exactly are the inspectors searching for? What does the United States think Iraq may be hiding?

Many expected (and resolution 1441 calls for) the United States, the United Kingdom, or other nations to come forth with specific and detailed information after Iraq released its 12,000-page declaration on December 7, 2002. They did not.

They did not because they never wanted the inspections to work. Bush and his ultranationalist lunatics never wanted the UN involved at all. They always wanted war. They are not concerned about "the integrity of the UN" for they are the ones who are undermining it. They never cared about threats to neighbors because Iraq hasn't been a threat for over a decade now. They aren't interested in Weapons of Mass Destruction which is why the US has not provided information to the inspectors.

The Bushies want war. They have always wanted it. The ever changing "justifications" they offer are deceits crafted because the Bush Regime could never sell the real reasons to the US public or to the world.

Not Kurds - they sold them to the Turks

Not democracy - they only just began work on their "nationbuilding" plan three weeks ago

Not "relief for the suffering Iraqi people" - the 2003 budget allots a paltry 15 million for that and the US has not bothered to coordinate its plans with UN and NGO humanitarian organizations.

Not Al-Qaeda which in point of fact wants Saddam out because he is too secular and because his secret police make it impossible for them to operate there.

for suckers are

3195. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:39:50 AM

Responding in an interview on al Jazeera following the network's airing of the tape, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said bin Laden "threatens everybody in the Arab world except (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein. He says he wants to fight with Saddam Hussein." Boucher later said this "confirmed that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have common cause."

There they go again with their Al Qaeda/Hussein lies. Al Qaeda hates Hussein. Hussein's secret police keep them out of Iraq. Al Qaeda WANTS Bush to invade Iraq. OBL said nothing about fighting with Hussein. He wants Hussein dead.

Why does the Bush regime persist in these lies?

Fifty seven percent of the US public believes that Hussein was involved in 9-11.

3196. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:53:12 AM

The problem that Germany, France, Russia and China fail to address here is that their approach has already been tried and it has failed.

No it has NEVER been tried. Coercive inspections is an idea that first appeared December '98 or early '99; in these pages; in a couple of Jexster posts.

Indeed, the less rigorous inspection regime that has been in place for 12 years has worked quite well. Saddam is weak. He contained. His weapons programs to the extent they exist at all are a shambles. He has NO nuclear program and this even though UN inspectors were gone for four years.

The only demonstrably workable proposals have been offered by the US.

WAR? Demomstrably workable?

3197. jexster - 2/12/2003 5:33:07 AM

allowing a democratic government to take power in Iraq

You just make this shit up don't you TD?
The Regime has no plans for democracy in Iraq. The plan is military dictatorship in a satellite state.

The bumbleboys just began work on their nationbuilding "plan" three weeks ago. Actually its not accurate to call what they have come up with a "plan" as Senate hearings yesterday confirmed.

"Democracy in Iraq" is warpeddler propaganda, pure fiction, a fantasy. Another concocted "justification", the notion that the US will be able to quickly democratize Iraq has no basis in the real.

Its a lie and not even a very good one.

3198. jexster - 2/12/2003 6:08:24 AM

Not so fast shit for brains.

1. US reluctance to committ ground troops is a matter of US policy and military doctrine and historical fact. It has nothing to do with Clinton, indeed it has more to do with Colin Powell, Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney, Cap Weinberger, and GHWB. Now we have a real man in charge tat may change. Lots of bodybags.

2. In fact, the U.S. did not make good on its security and aid promises to Afghanistan. Your quote does not disprove that charge. It doesn't even answer it.

3. The fear that Bush will leave the mess for others to clean up is a very real one. This is the same moron who railed against Clinton's "nationbuilding"???? This is the same Moron whose Regime, on the eve of its bloodletting, doesn't even have a plan for post war reconstruction, doesn't even have a cost estimate on the back of an old envelope much less a budget for the mess it is about to create.

Stick to cheap rhetoric and slime.

Leave foreign policy to people who know what they're talking about.

3199. jexster - 2/12/2003 6:28:39 AM

This article from the Washington Post is but one of hundreds supporting Krugman's conclusion re: Afghanistan.

American diplomatic, military and relief agencies did outstanding reconstruction work in war-torn Bosnia and Kosovo in the late 1990s. In coordination with coalition allies, despite security risks and huge economic challenges, the United States rebuilt tens of thousands of homes, constructed schools and hospitals, restored water and electricity and generated economic activity and jobs for former fighters.

Ten months after the defeat of the Taliban, however, this excellent performance has not begun to be repeated in Afghanistan. The United States has not lived up to either President Bush's Marshall Plan oratory or the misleading claims of achievement by the U.S. Agency for International Development

3200. jexster - 2/12/2003 6:56:33 AM

My visit last month to Kabul, the Shomali plain, the Panjshir valley and Kandahar confirmed the criticisms voiced by Afghans and foreigners alike about the feeble international reconstruction effort. The only reconstruction achievements Afghans reported were about 100 small-scale projects attributed to the U.S. military.

Yet the administration's budget for USAID spending on Afghanistan for fiscal year 2003, which began Oct. 1, is $ 35 million less than that provided to the country in 2001, when it was under Taliban rule.

Extending these dismal trend lines for another 10 months could lead to relapse into radicalism and chaos. An effective reconstruction policy in Afghanistan could, conversely, provide ballast to the Karzai government to revive Afghanistan's unity, national governing institutions and the democratic process that was underway in the 1960s and '70s.

The first step in resolving any problem is to recognize that a problem exists. The effusive praise of American aid programs in Afghanistan, by both White House and USAID representatives, clearly demonstrates their ignorance of the reality on the ground. They appear to be in a time warp, carried by the momentum left from the heady days of military victory. But their failure to implement an effective reconstruction strategy threatens to reverse the impressive military gains and to undermine the Afghan population's welcome for U.S. forces.

3201. jexster - 2/12/2003 7:01:16 AM

As far as "security" is concerned, the US has deliberately ignored the issue against protests from the Afghans, coalition nations with forces in country, NGO's, most of Congress.

Rumsfeld insisted that we chase Talibees and refused to allow US or coaltion peace keepers to operate outside of Kabul providing security. As a matter of fact, Gen Franks announced just recently that the US was reversing policy and would be providing "security assistance" finally agreeing with everyone else on the planet who knows anything about the matter.

Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. Between 1948 and 1951 the US sent $16 BILLION in aid to 16 nations.

How much aid did Afghanistan get? About 300 million out of a worldwide effort of over FOUR BILLION not 850 million as Edmundo would have us believe.

Edmundo would have us swallow more shit for his Buttboy Bush.

We Motiers are more knowledgeable, more intelligent, and decidedly more rational than the psycho Edmundo.

We Motiers (except for concerned) are not Morons. We can tell shit from shinola.

3202. jexster - 2/12/2003 7:08:25 AM

3203. jexster - 2/12/2003 7:21:31 AM

How many US allies can you count in this map? We already know that jexster can't find a single one, because of all his hyperbole about 'unilateral' US action.

One, Britain.

Garbage in garbage out. "Support" for the war in every case on that map means "will not oppose" and that is very different from support. Moreover every nation listed as a supporter except Great Britain has stated that their support is for the UN process and contingent upon specific UN war authorization. These "supporters" look rather more like neutrals.

Allies? Maybe in your Moron Dislexicon but here we speak english not Moronic.

In the Gulf War, we had Egyptians, Syrians, Saudis, French, Brits, etc fighting with us pursuant to Security Council resoltion. Our "coalition partners" picked up 80% of the cost.

Bush's Obssession and Aggression - Turks to take possession of the Kurds that Bush sold for basing rights and Britain with a PM that may not survive Bush's War.

Hyperbole you say?

Camel crap.

3204. jexster - 2/12/2003 7:37:30 AM

Democracy in the new Iraq is a myth

What will the voting system be - first general past the post? - The Guardian

There is, alas, something ludicrous here. The prime minister who brought you Lords reform prepares to bring true democracy to Baghdad; the president of the hanging chads sees Iraq as the Switzerland of the Middle East, exporting freedom's ways to its neighbours. And yet nobody laughs out loud.

I do.

3205. jexster - 2/12/2003 9:07:35 AM

Ed is right about one thing...Clinton did send ground troops to Bosnia and at the same time negotiated the Dayton Accords both of which stopped the Serb massacres.

France and Britain and other EU nations had troops in the UN peacekeeping contingent and France was very active in lobbying for NATO involvement to replace UNPROFOR but could not have mustered sufficient forces to do the job without US help. It was US help that was decisive.

So is the Yugo criticism fair? In specific, as phrased, no. But in substance it is accurate - the US up to the present lunacy has been most reluctant to deploy ground troops anywhere without a demonstrably grave situation and risk to peace. We prefer high altitude sorties and cruise missile attacks as a matter of military doctrine and in Bosnia, it was GOP doctrine as well.

3206. joezan - 2/12/2003 10:33:23 AM

US public backs Bush to go it alone - 'Coalition of willing' more important than UN approval

3207. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/12/2003 11:27:31 AM

That should be: "Complacent and Uninformed U.S. Public backs Bush . . ."

3208. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/12/2003 11:32:27 AM

3209. magoseph - 2/12/2003 11:55:56 AM

What really bothers me about Chirac and Schroder and their stand on Turkey is this: they know the Americans are going irrespective and that the inability to move from the North and South simultaneously will result in a substantial increase of civilian and military casualties on both sides. History will hold them responsible. Ben Laden is cheering them on.

3210. joezan - 2/12/2003 12:02:15 PM

Not to worry, maggie.

We're just gonna go right ahead and place the stuff in Turkey anyway.

Watch...

3211. magoseph - 2/12/2003 12:05:45 PM

In normal times, Joe, I'd worry if you'd agree with me.:-)

3212. jexster - 2/12/2003 3:35:05 PM

b>The Regime Scrambles to Save Bush War
- With duct tape, a funky tape and organge alerts

Did Bush Fabricate the Bin Laden Tape???

3213. Wombat - 2/12/2003 3:38:41 PM

A group of international experts has found that Iraq is building missiles that exceed the 93-mile range specified by the UN. They were called in to investigate by Hans Blix.

Iraq's approval of U-2 and other surveillance flights is contingent upon them receiving advance notice of the flights. Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

3214. jexster - 2/12/2003 3:40:54 PM

Not to worry Mago, Bush has already closed the deal with the Turks selling Kurds for bases.

Chirac & Shroeder aren't trying to stop Turkey's involvement, they're trying to stop Bush from using NATO for his Big Adventure....They don't want to go down with the Moron and neither do the British it seems

ICM POLL - SUPPORT FOR WAR W/OUT UN DROPS TO 9%, ONE THIRD OF OUR ONLY REAL ALLIES CITIZENS BELIEVE THE US A GREATER THREAT THAN SADDAM

Coalition of the willing better not be the linchpin of US public support cause there aren't going to be very many in it and none of them terribly willing.

3215. magoseph - 2/12/2003 4:33:06 PM

Jex,
I don't believe Bush cares anything about the polls at this time. He believes what his military people tell him and perhaps that the British and Irish bookies are laying odds of fifty-fifty that Saddam Hussein doesn't last through the end of March. What Bush believes is that a big win solves everything and he's probably right. Since his advisers are telling him any delay beyond March 1st begins to detract from the probabilities of a quick low casualty win, there exists very little chance for any delay beyond that timeframe.

As a matter of fact, recent developments make an early war move even more probable than a week ago. The tax scheme to deliver huge amounts of money to his likely supporters in the next election has been delivered a knock-out blow by Greenspan. This makes it more imperative that he score a big success in Iraq as his financial hole card for a second term has evaporated.

3216. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:44:11 PM

Oh sure he does! God has yet to make a politician who doesn't care about a 90% approval rating.

His "Big Bye Victory" that Edmundo has been trying to get me to notice now for months, that was won with 3 a day war speeches for months. The UN charade - an election ploy that resolution that the Bushies turned to scrap paper within a day or so after it was adopted (election week).

Spend 10 minutes on any US news website or listening to any US network newschannel noticing the content. Then ask yourself which bad news for bush headline do you think would be prominent were it not for this perpetual war.

He certainly isn't listening to his generals who have been leaking and I have the pleasure of NOT knowing Bush much less what's in his mind but his actions speak loudly.

3217. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:46:07 PM

NATO Allies Stand Firm, Reject Bush Compromise

Just say "fuck you and the quarterhorse you rode in on" is the only way to deal with a Texas con artist

3218. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:47:27 PM

Iraq's approval of U-2 and other surveillance flights is contingent upon them receiving advance notice of the flights. Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

No.

Next dumb question

3219. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:49:38 PM

Unless you want one of their SAM batteries to take a pot shot at the plane you tell them where and when.

3220. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:50:41 PM

Even a half blind Eye-raki can bring down a U-2. Very slow. Not maneuverable. Ask Gary Powers

3221. jexster - 2/12/2003 4:58:02 PM

Iraq: What Next? details concerns over Iraq’s weapons capabilities and assesses the status of inspections. In brief Q&A format, it addresses the effectiveness of intelligence sharing, site visits, use of technology, and Iraq's willingness to cooperate. Far from being exhausted, the report concludes, the inspections process has just begun, and must be allowed a realistic timeframe – without ruling out future use of force.

With Saddam Hussein currently under close watch, there is no need for a rush to war. Helloooo U-2. Overflights might not be necessary if the US and Britain only lived up to THEIR 1441 duty to provide intel and not save it for the next Bloody Dog and Pony show.

Before the United States goes to war, we should consider once more whether war is necessary. The facts suggest that it isn't.

Why? Our current policy is working. Saddam Hussein has been contained. That is, Hussein has not used weapons of mass destruction against anyone who could retaliate with either weapons of mass destruction or overwhelming conventional military power. His use of weapons of mass destruction in the past came when we were supporting him (before 1991) and supplying him with the materials to construct the weapons.

It has been clear to Hussein since he invaded Kuwait and was defeated in the Persian Gulf War that the United States no longer supports him. Since then he has neither threatened to use weapons of mass destruction nor threatened conventional military attacks on his neighbors. So the evidence proves that he has been contained and he can continue to be contained.

Morton Halperin

3222. jexster - 2/12/2003 5:13:18 PM

talk about piling camel crap on top of steer shit Wolf Blitzer with an evident lack of anything to talk about today asks the question....

"If Bin laden is now an ally of Iraq does this mean we are losing the WOT?"

That's a compound shit sandwich

3223. jexster - 2/12/2003 5:16:41 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saying the world was watching the U.S. commitment to post-Taliban Afghanistan (news - web sites) as a sign of what would happen in post-Saddam Iraq, key senators on Wednesday criticized the Bush administration for glossing over difficulties it still faces in Afghanistan.

The chairman and top Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the administration appeared to be losing interest in Afghanistan, even as neighboring countries vied for influence over regional warlords and Afghan President Hamid Karzai struggled to establish a central government.

"I find a sense of quietude about this, as the ranking member pointed out, a sliding almost off the radar screen of the situation," Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, told administration officials after they gave fairly upbeat assessments of progress in Afghanistan.

"This has got to move, it seems to me, into a much more successful, confident pattern," Lugar said. "Our credibility is on the line."

I'll say its on the line.

Look what's left of Edmundo the Butt Boy of Bushville Message # 3198et seq

3224. concerned - 2/12/2003 7:46:45 PM

Oh sure he does! God has yet to make a politician who doesn't care about a 90% approval rating.

I have to

....blecccch......

agree to a certain extent

.....blurrgh!......

with jexster here.

However, one big difference between GWB and x42 is that people won't be making movies parodying this adminstration like 'Wag the Dog'.

3225. concerned - 2/12/2003 8:01:13 PM

Brookings Scholar Says Franco-German Iraq Position "Nonsensical"

Brookings Institution.....ah yes....Left leaning think tank. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

The reason that is a nonsensical position, Pollack
said, is that neither time nor inspectors are going to be able to disarm Iraq.

"A hundred inspectors aren't going to be able to make Saddam disarm," Pollack said. "Nor are 300, nor 3,000, nor even 30,000 inspectors. The only way it will happen is for Saddam to voluntarily disarm," he said. The Franco-German position could only make sense if they were to argue
for more time in hope of a radical transformation of position by Saddam Hussein to one in which he genuinely wanted to disarm, he said.

Moreover, Pollack said, Saddam Hussein has publicly said that he believes that if he can simply string the current process out until the summer, support for the U.S. position will crumble and he will never face the threat of U.S. forces again. He believes, therefore, that he needs only to play for time.

So way to go, France and Germany. Your delusional thrashing of the US and NATO solidarity, not to mention the implicit encouragement of Islamic terrorism thereby, is already being widely recognized as the colossally selfish monumental idiocy it is.

3226. Edmund Dantes - 2/12/2003 11:08:56 PM

Follow up to Joe's link

A majority of Americans support attacking Iraq even without the approval of the United Nations, provided that the United States has the backing of some key allies, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans said they would endorse military action to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein over the objections of the U.N. Security Council if the United States is supported by close allies such as Britain, Australia and Italy....

Bush's job approval rating...has rebounded and now stands at 64 percent. Support for military action is far broader and deeper than opposition to it. A growing majority say negotiating with Iraq won't work. And the proportion of the public that wants the war to begin in a few weeks rather than a few months has never been higher....

The survey shows how the public has rallied around Bush during this time of national crisis. Six in 10 approve of the way Bush is handling the Iraq situation, up 11 points in three weeks....

3227. Edmund Dantes - 2/12/2003 11:27:22 PM

Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. Between 1948 and 1951 the US sent $16 BILLION in aid to 16 nations.

How much aid did Afghanistan get? About 300 million out of a worldwide effort of over FOUR BILLION not 850 million as Edmundo would have us believe.

NY Times says 840 million, pudge, who'm I gonna believe--you or them? They're not exactly a Bushie paper.

The Marshall Plan was five years, we're talking 18 months in Afghanistan.

Western Europe has maybe 300 million people now, say 200 million in 1947. Afghanistan has something like 25 million.

Western Europe had a genuine infrastructure to be rebuilt. Wanna compare GDPs, for example?

You're just being silly, aren't you?

Yuckety yuck.

3228. jexster - 2/12/2003 11:54:20 PM

To quote the Last President of the US

I feel your pain there Boba...

3229. jexster - 2/12/2003 11:57:14 PM

And May the Farce Be With You

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Missile experts called in by U.N. arms inspectors believe the engines for Iraq's Al Samoud missile probably should be destroyed as the rocket's range exceeds U.N. limits, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The Al Samoud 2 rocket repeatedly tested up to 40 km (24 miles) beyond the permissible range according to council diplomats familiar with the experts' report.

Shitfire let's give the bastards a shock and awe on the rocks...make it a double and make it quick before Saddam starts butt fuckin Osama

3230. concerned - 2/13/2003 2:18:46 AM

bin Deadman is becoming positively chatty after his demise:

"I pray my demise isn't on a coffin bearing green mantles. I wish my demise to be in the eagle's belly," he continues.

I believe it was under a rock in Tora Bora.

3231. alistairConnor - 2/13/2003 4:41:21 AM

Schroeder Says World Can Still Avoid War in Iraq

He said a majority of members of the U.N. Security Council backed the view that greater efforts were needed to disarm Iraq by peaceful means.

Come to think of it, even without the three potential vetos, the US would need nine votes out of 15 on the security council. Even with the threats-and-blandishments machine running at full tilt, that looks like a long shot.

I wonder if Marj is around? He predicted 15-0 a week or so ago.

3232. Wombat - 2/13/2003 7:42:29 AM

Jexter:

The UN resolution called on Iraq to allow U-2 surveillance flights, which Iraq has until recently refused.

The strict inspection regime that you approve of so heartily calls for unfettered surveillance flights at any time, anywhere in Iraq, with immediate military action in the event of Iraq firing on the surveillance aircraft.

Iraq, as usual, was acceding to the demand and then adding conditions that would make the demand unworkable (while allowing them to continue evading surveillance). Typical for Iraq, typical for you.

3233. Trouble - 2/13/2003 7:46:30 AM

Secretary of State Colin Powell says he intends to ask France and Germany whether they are opposing war with Iraq in order to get President Saddam Hussein "off the hook."

The confrontations are set for Friday in New York when chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei report on searches that have not turned up what the Bush administration has characterized as hundreds of concealed and illicit biological and chemical weapons.

U.S. and Russian officials on Wednesday said international missile experts this week did find that an Iraqi missile exceeds the maximum 93-mile range allowed under U.N. resolutions. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said it was now up to Blix to recommend what to do about the violation.

In the meantime, Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are pressing for congressional support for action against Iraq.

Powell planned a third consecutive day of testimony, this time before the Senate Budget Committee. Rumsfeld was testifying at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

In addition, Turkey's foreign minister, Yasar Yakis, was holding talks in Washington on basing American troops in Turkey for use against Iraq.

And Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., asked President Bush to consider convening debtor and donor conferences to pay for a smooth, post-Saddam transition.

In a letter to the president, Lieberman said he was "in full agreement that we must put an end to the threat that Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq pose to the U.S., the region and our allies."

3234. alistairConnor - 2/13/2003 8:35:11 AM

Hey Trou-de-balle, perhaps France and Germany could ask Powell if he is advocating war to get Bush off the hook.

He'd be in bad trouble if he didn't have the twin props of war and terrorism to keep the people's minds off the stupid economy.

But that's not just a domestic US problem. The trouble is, all this talk of war is damaging economies all over the world. Economic growth has stopped, and the price of oil is through the roof.

And this is perhaps not entirely unrelated to the massive opposition to a war by Europeans (91% against, in "key ally" Spain). The war talk is hurting us in our everyday lives.

3235. Trouble - 2/13/2003 9:47:20 AM

Attn: Saddam.

Burn your love letters before you die.

3236. concerned - 2/13/2003 10:47:22 AM

Re. 3231 -

Speaking of safe bets, Schroeder has it right that the world will certainly avoid war in Iraq.

3237. concerned - 2/13/2003 10:49:59 AM

I had a good laugh at 3196-3198 when I noticed a minute ago they were directed toward me. I give jexster credit for spinning himself into an alternate dimension of unreality, but my points stand.

3238. jexster - 2/13/2003 11:32:44 AM

Am DE-lighted you had a good laugh but been better if you had the balls to answer the posts.

3239. jexster - 2/13/2003 11:35:33 AM

By 11-4, UN Security Council Majority Wants More Inspections

All but four of the 15 United Nations Security Council members support prolonging U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq, a senior German government source said on Tuesday. The source denied that Germany was isolated in its desire to intensify weapons inspections in Iraq and noted strong
support from Russia.

"The German government in no way stands alone in its position," the source said. The countries supporting the U.S. position that "the game is up" for Iraq are Britain, Spain and Bulgaria, the source said. "But the rest of the members of the Security Council support the position of the German government."

3240. concerned - 2/13/2003 11:41:36 AM

Re. 3238 -

Well, wrt 3196, I cannot agree that the previous program worked 'well'.

Working well would have meant willing cooperation by Iraq in a program of disarmament to the extent that sanctions could have been dropped, and in a time period measured in months, not years.

That's worlds apart from what happened. And what occurred over the last decade were supposed to be 'coercive inspections'. It's hardly the current adminstration's fault that the UN and the x42 administration were cut from a similar chickenshit mold.

3241. jexster - 2/13/2003 11:56:10 AM

Working well means that no body died.

3242. jexster - 2/13/2003 11:57:45 AM

Not that your racist bloodlust was fed

FEAR
Be afraid, they say
soon bombs will explode again
somewhere, sometime.

Close your windows and doors, they direct
trust no one
especially if bearded.

Be prepared, they order
terror will erupt again
ubiquitous, unexpected.

Watch your neighbor, they whisper
he may be a spy, especially
if he speaks broken English.

Stay alert, they warn
disaster may strike again
suddenly, unpredicted.

Have faith, they decree, in your government
even as it seals your lips
and cuts out your tongue.

3243. concerned - 2/13/2003 12:02:07 PM

Re. 3241 -

That's an insufficient standard.

3244. jexster - 2/13/2003 12:07:12 PM

That's what I said!

"Not that your racist bloodlust was fed"

3245. jexster - 2/13/2003 12:09:06 PM

BUSH REGIME BACKS OF OBL BULLSHIT

Trying to Unring a Bell?

Double decker Bush shit sandwich

3246. jexster - 2/13/2003 12:10:31 PM

Maybe the standard is truthfulness, maybe the standard is unprovoked aggression....or nobody's died.

I want my cow pie supersized

3247. concerned - 2/13/2003 12:11:01 PM

Re. 3242 -

But apparently yours was, jex. How about all those starving Iraqi children thru the '90's that died because of the Clowntoon administration dirtbags?

3248. jexster - 2/13/2003 12:12:07 PM

Or perhaps the standard is whether your pathetic Scud missile can miss a target 24 miles further than it should have?

3249. concerned - 2/13/2003 1:00:06 PM

Btw, I've always preferred that Sodamn resign peacefully. So much for any 'blood lust' that others may accuse me of.

Save the children.

3250. jexster - 2/13/2003 1:01:17 PM

You mean you are against the sanctions Poppy Bush negotiated and implemented but for war?

Choose your standard:

A war at this moment, however, regardless of the outcome, will bear one of history's harshest judgments: an unnecessary war. Jessica Mathews, Carnegie

History will not be kind to France and Germany concerned

3251. concerned - 2/13/2003 1:04:59 PM

They are UN sanctions, jexster. Go whining to Kofi Annan if you don't like 'em.

3252. jexster - 2/13/2003 1:08:59 PM

Buffalo Soldier Speak With Forked Tongue

WASHINGTON -Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), on the eve of another faceoff at the United Nations (news - web sites) over disarming Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), said Thursday the American people should be "prepared for a fairly long-term commitment" in Iraq.

Appearing before the House Budget Committee, Powell said he could furnish no estimate of the cost of any war with Iraq. But he did say he thought that Arab nation should be able to adjust quickly after a war — in contrast to the slow pace of recovery in Afghanistan (news - web sites).

o you know?

Who in the early 1990s worried that:

1. "Ruling Baghdad" would come only at "unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships?"

2. Addressing the "inevitable follow-up," who also asked whether Americans would really learn to live with "major occupation forces in Iraq for years to come?"

3. Finally, who argued that, "fortunately for America, reasonable people" would think such a scenario "would not have been worth the inevitable follow-up?"

You shittin us then or now?

3253. jexster - 2/13/2003 1:09:16 PM

Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock Rasta
There was a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival

I mean it, when I analyse the stench
To me, it makes a lot of sense
How the Dreadlock Rasta was the Buffalo Soldier
And he was taken from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival

Said he was a Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock Rasta
Buffalo Soldier, in the heart of America

If you know your history
Then you would know where you coming from
Then you wouldn't have to ask me
Who the heck do I think I am

I'm just a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Said he was fighting on arrival
Fighting for survival
Said he was a Buffalo Soldier
Win the war for America

Dreadie, woe yoe yoe, woe woe yoe yoe
Woe yoe yoe yo, yo yo woe yo, woe yoe yoe
(repeat)
Buffalo Soldier, trodding through the land
Said he wanna ran, then you wanna hand
Trodding through the land, yea, yea

Said he was a Buffalo Soldier
Win the war for America
Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock Rasta
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival
Driven from the mainland
To the heart of the caribbean

Singing, woe yoe yoe, woe woe yoe yoe
Woe yoe yoe yo, yo yo woe yo woe yo yoe
(repeat)

Trodding through San Juan
In the arms of America
Trodding through Jamaica, a Buffalo Soldier
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival
Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock Rasta
Singing, woe yoe yoe, woe woe yoe yoe
Woe yoe yeo yo, yo yo woe yo woe yo yoe

3254. concerned - 2/13/2003 1:13:32 PM

Another reason for Sodamn to have them shot using US weapons....

European 'Human Shield': We're Worth More Than Arabs-

Western peacenik "human shields" in Iraq are so very special. Just ask them.

"We want to stop the war. If they kill one European, the cost is higher. If they kill an Arab, the cost is very low," Marino Andolina, an Italian doctor enjoying genocidal dictator Saddam Hussein's hospitality in Baghdad, told United Press International today.

So, Europeans are far superior to Arabs? If the Iraqis read this, the "human shields" just might see their death wish come true.

3255. jexster - 2/13/2003 1:19:30 PM

Human shields my ass!

Defending one's country against unprovoked and immoral aggression is just per se.

Sure these chickenshit liars and morally bankrupt fascists want the Iraqi army to line up in the desert for death by cruise missile.

How much shit can eat TD?

3256. jexster - 2/13/2003 1:21:24 PM

Of course Bush doesn't want US troops fighting in the streets of Tikrit, Basra, Baghdad...

He doesn't give a rat's ass about human shields...

He is going to kill thousands of em

3257. Wombat - 2/13/2003 1:21:52 PM

Bureau chief of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein`s son defects to west, sez Haaretz.

Try reading what Concerned posted, Jexter.

3258. concerned - 2/13/2003 3:21:04 PM

hey jexster -

Those 'human shields' will be up shit creek without a paddle if the Iraqis get to them before the Allied troops do when Sodamn is out, assuming that Sodamn hasn't had them all executed before then.

And your side will deservedly take blame for all that.

3259. concerned - 2/13/2003 3:24:42 PM

All the blame.

3260. jexster - 2/13/2003 3:45:25 PM

My side - the Pope, the Anglican Communion, the National Council of Churches...me and God

You and the Bloody Moron can take credit for every death in what is the moral equivalent of mass murder

Top Iraqi official Aziz in Rome for meeting with pope, other talks

ROME - Amid mounting fears of war, a top Iraqi official came to Italy Thursday to make a case in Europe against a U.S.-led attack and to hold talks with Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II, one of the most respected and vocal opponents of the possible conflict.

Aziz was also meeting over three days with opposition politicians who have condemned conservative Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's support for the U.S. position on Iraq, and possibly with a government minister.

Most significant was Aziz's meeting with the pontiff on Friday — the day U.N. weapons inspectors were to issue what could be a decisive report to the Security Council on Iraq's cooperation.

The pope has urged both sides to do everything to avoid war, arguing that the United States should not launch a "preventative" war, and that Iraqi authorities must cooperate thoroughly with United Nations (news - web sites) inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction.

The Vatican (news - web sites) has strongly opposed a new Iraq conflict, with the pontiff saying such a war would be a "defeat for humanity." The pope was also a vocal opponent of the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites), and has frequently spoken out in opposition to U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

3261. jexster - 2/13/2003 3:46:58 PM

The pope sent peace envoy Cardinal Roger Etchegaray this week to Baghdad, where he held talks Wednesday with top Iraqi officials, including Aziz. Asked if it was still possible to avoid war, Etchegaray said Wednesday: "Until the end, you must always hope, always. We're in the hands of God."

Aziz's meeting with the pontiff was certain to attract wide international attention, .
Aziz was meeting on Thursday and Friday with opposition parliament members as well as the Lombardy region's president, Roberto Formigoni.

In addition to the papal audience, Aziz was scheduled to hold a news conference Friday and he may meet with Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. On Saturday, Aziz, who is Christian, was to travel to Assisi for peace prayers with Franciscan monks.

3262. jexster - 2/13/2003 3:49:08 PM

Choose Your Standard - Choose Life or Choose Bush Death

2302 By recalling the commandment, "You shall not kill," [Mt. 5:21] our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral.

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war. [Cf. Vatican II, Guadium et spes 81, 4] All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.
However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed." [Cf. Vatican II, Guadium et spes 79, 4]

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

I am very clear about my "side"

3263. jexster - 2/13/2003 3:50:37 PM

If those so-called "human shields", George W. Bush will be the full, sufficient and proximate cause of their death.

Their blood on your hands and his

3264. jexster - 2/13/2003 3:51:13 PM

If...die

3265. wonkers2 - 2/13/2003 4:49:54 PM

I heard a Palestinian point out today that Israel is more bellicose and in violation of far more UN resolutions than Iraq. If we are going to force Iraq to comply why not Israel?

3266. wonkers2 - 2/13/2003 4:52:06 PM

The ambassador from Israel, also on the Diane Rehm show for a half hour came across like a lying apologist bastard. Except he never apologized for anything or acknowledged the slightest contribution by Israel to the current situation.

3267. concerned - 2/13/2003 5:18:57 PM

Re. 3265 -

Maybe we can play 'Let's make a Deal'. If the UN Security Council unanimously supports the US to the hilt re Iraq and NK, the US will vote for French and German Troops to occupy Israel and the Palestinian territories if Israel doesn't comply with relevant UN resolutions.

3268. concerned - 2/13/2003 6:09:33 PM

Jimmuh Cahtuh - step away from that peanut with your hands up - you may succeed the Saddamite as leader of Iraq

3269. concerned - 2/13/2003 6:11:57 PM

We could even work Clowntoon in there somehow to snarf all the oil - that would shut up the Left about 'big oil' pretty fast.

3270. concerned - 2/13/2003 6:13:59 PM

Selling points for Jimmuh: The Baath Party is socialistic, just like the ruling cliques in Cahtuh favorites Cuba and North Korea!

3271. alistairconnor - 2/13/2003 6:19:16 PM

French and German Troops to occupy Israel and the Palestinian territories if Israel doesn't comply with relevant UN resolutions

Sometimes you have brilliant ideas, Conne.

That would make a lot of people happy : the French, the Germans and the Palestinians for a start. The Israelis of course would have a screaming fit. Sold out by the US for oil.

3272. concerned - 2/13/2003 6:27:32 PM

But it should warm the cockles of a lot of cold little socialist hearts in Europe. Constant frustrating interventionist minutiae, no economic interest to dirty socialist ideological purity with and you get to demonstrate solidarity with your growing Muslim minorities by kicking the Jews around in their home state.

3273. concerned - 2/13/2003 6:42:45 PM

A word of caution about turning Cahtuh loose on Iraq: he is the godfather of Islamism, so powers that could be used to encourage Muslim nutburger factions should be kept out of his purview.

3274. Cellar Door - 2/13/2003 8:28:05 PM

Senator Byrd

3275. wonkers2 - 2/13/2003 9:22:11 PM

I'm not a Byrd-lover, but he got this one right.

3276. jexster - 2/13/2003 9:25:03 PM

Yes write your CongressThing - Support the Kennedy/Byrd Resolution requiring Bush to get approval for an ACTUAL war instead of an imaginary one.

3277. jexster - 2/13/2003 9:29:54 PM

THIS IS AN ALERT
ATTENTION: ALL MORONS, BUSH BUTT BOYS & CHICKEN HAWKS
SUBJECT: CHICKEN LITTLES TO EAT

The Council on Foreign Relations and The James A. Baker III Institute @ Rice University have issued a report on Bush's War of Aggression, the Likely Result:

"A U.S.-led attack on Iraq threatens to be a traumatic event throughout the Muslim world. In the Arab world especially, there is a serious risk that war in Iraq will stir up further trouble for the United States, including terrorist attacks against the United States and its partners."

LISTEN UP ZAN YOU DIM WIT:
"Refugee flows toward Turkey and especially Iran of up to 1.5 million people are likely."
"Strong U.S. backing for an emergency government will be needed to fill the vacuum left by Saddam. Without an initial and broad-based commitment to law and order, the logic of score-settling and revenge-taking will reduce Iraq to chaos."
"If a large-scale, prolonged U.S. occupation of Iraq becomes necessary, or if the United States appears to be taking over Iraq's oil sector, guerrilla attacks against U.S. military personnel guarding oil installations are likely."
"Leaving aside immediate humanitarian needs, experts estimate that reconstruction will cost between $25 billion and $100 billion. . . . rebuilding Iraq's electrical power infrastructure could cost $20 billion to restore its pre-1990 capacity."
"There has been a great deal of wishful thinking about Iraqi oil, including a widespread belief that oil revenues will help defray war costs and the expense of rebuilding the Iraqi state and economy. . . . If no facilities were damaged, Iraq's total oil revenues would still only likely average around $10 billion to $12 billion annually."

Looks as if Professor Krugman was fuckin dead on right again, eh Edmundo?

3278. jexster - 2/13/2003 9:35:24 PM

FROM THE BBC:
Powell and the Media Call This a 'Partnership'?
Read Osama's Views on Iraq

"First, showing good intentions. This means fighting should be for the sake of the one God. It should not be for championing ethnic groups, or for championing the non-Islamic regimes in all Arab countries, including Iraq... Regardless of the removal or the survival of the socialist party or Saddam, Muslims in general and the Iraqis in particular must brace themselves for jihad against this unjust campaign and acquire ammunition and weapons... Fighting in support of the non-Islamic banners [like socialism] is forbidden... Under these circumstances, there will be no harm if the interests of Muslims converge with the interests of the socialists in the fight against the crusaders, despite our belief in the infidelity of socialists. The jurisdiction of the socialists and those rulers has fallen a long time ago. Socialists are infidels wherever they are, whether they are in Baghdad or Aden."

3279. jexster - 2/13/2003 9:41:44 PM

NBC-3 San Jose - this Sunday's Demonstration could well be the most massive in Bay Area history

NO War on the World
NO Detentions
& Round-ups
NO Police State
Restrictions

notinourname.net

"We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names. Not in our name will you wage endless war..."

3280. jexster - 2/13/2003 9:42:51 PM

I mean it, when I analyse the stench
To me, it makes a lot of sense
How the Dreadlock Rasta was the Buffalo Soldier
And he was taken from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival

Said he was a Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock Rasta
Buffalo Soldier, in the heart of America

3281. jexster - 2/14/2003 10:45:16 AM

HANS BLIX stands tall before the lofty mast - Inspections Have Revealed Nothing That Substantially Contradicts Iraqi Declarations

3282. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:02:06 AM

Blix: "Powell's TonkaToy Pictures Bogus"

Republic or Empire?

Iraq is the linchpin for a broader assault on the region

3283. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:03:43 AM

"This is NOT the statement that [Bloody Bush Butcher of Baghdad] Wanted to Hear" Richard Butler

3284. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:04:40 AM

Fightin for survival win the war for America....

3285. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:06:39 AM

"If Bloody Bush wants to go to war in a few weeks, this report isn't a good way to start it" Gen Barry McCaffery

3286. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:14:53 AM

3287. Trouble - 2/14/2003 11:17:11 AM

A JUST WAR: This war is a just one. We didn't start it. Saddam did - over twelve years ago. We responded at the time with a restraint and patience and deliberation that would have made Aquinas proud. After victory, we acted with a magnanimity utterly unreciprocated by the dictator we routed - even to the extent of leaving Saddam in power, even to the point of betraying in grotesque fashion the millions who dreamed of freedom - only to see slavery instead. (If only to right that horrifying wrong, we have a moral responsibility to finish the job.) We made a truce with the tyrant, with conditions that the entire world has witnessed him routinely violate. Our enemy, moreover, has no moral compunction whatsoever - he has violated every maxim of a just war imaginable. He has murdered opponents; he has gassed innocent and defenseless civilians; he preaches genocidal hatred and practises torture; he has laid waste to the environment; and made a mockery of religion. He has refused to disarm; and lies through his teeth. When fanatical murderers from that region developed a terrorist network and massacred thousands of Western civilians, we realized that Saddam's weapons couldn't be contained in his lair with any guarantee of security. So we made a belated attempt to live up to the truce of 1991, to finish the unfinished job. We could have destroyed him and his regime at any point. We didn't. We waited; we sent in inspectors; we were forced into sanctions. We went to the U.N. again to beg for help and support. The U.N. complied, provided a clear resolution, with the burden of proof finally on Saddam. Just as clearly, Saddam has violated it, and continues to violate it.

--Andrew Sullivan

3288. concerned - 2/14/2003 11:23:49 AM

If the US is being too 'unilateral' now, how were we not wrong when we were so much more extreme in that direction in WWI and WWII? What say France, Germany and Canada to that?

3289. concerned - 2/14/2003 11:25:07 AM

And when are these countries going to replace the 150,000 US troops that are the only reason that Saddam has budged an inch so far?

Their deafening silence on the matter alone totally discredits their position.

3290. concerned - 2/14/2003 11:25:38 AM

...is the only reason...

3291. Wombat - 2/14/2003 11:28:49 AM

Re 3288:

What the hell are you talking about?

3292. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:31:40 AM

"All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time...I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."
--President Dwight Eisenhower, 1953

Up to 10 million people on five continents are expected to demonstrate against the probable war in Iraq on Saturday, in some of the largest peace marches ever known. Yesterday, up to 400 cities in 60 countries, from Antarctica to Pacific islands, confirmed that peace rallies, vigils and marches would take place. "The internationalism of the opposition is the most powerful weapon people have. It's all we have. We think that Bush and Blair are well aware that global opposition is mounting fast and that they are now desperate to start the war before they are completely isolated by world opinion," said a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, a US coalition.

10 million to Join World Protest RalliesBE THERE!

Andrew Sullivan - What army did he serve in?

CHICKENHAWK HEADQUARTERS
Name Employer YearBorn Conflict Avoided Lame Excuse
Bush, George W 1946 Vietnam A.W.O.L.
Cheney, Dick 1941 Vietnam "had other priorities"

BARKING HEAD BRIGADE

Hume, Brit
Keyes, Alan
Limbaugh, David
Limbaugh, Rush 1951 Vietnam anal cysts

3293. concerned - 2/14/2003 11:35:37 AM

Re. 3291 -

You've probably seen the rhetoric emanating from these nations about how the US is 'not to be trusted'. This is a question intended to place that attitude into historical context, given the events of the 20th Century. It's the kind of question that would be ignored by their governments, but shouldn't be.

3294. Trouble - 2/14/2003 11:35:45 AM

Blix: Prohibited Materials 'Not Accounted For'

FNC
Inspectors present reports that may determine whether U.N. asks for more time or gives U.S. green light to move against Iraq

3295. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:37:20 AM

"Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions."
--Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson,
the American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials,
in his opening statement to the tribunal

I hear there's an open cell right next to Slobo with The Moron King's name on it.

Wanna join him TD, Rose Zan, Edmundo, Wombat?

3296. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:39:33 AM

You've probably seen the rhetoric emanating from these nations about how the US is 'not to be trusted'

Actually those nations never said any such thing and I dare you to look for it.

People in those nations feel that way. Majorties, super majorities feel that way. Many in this country feel that way.

3297. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:41:59 AM

And you will see MILLIONS of them in streets around the world this weekend.

Hell you wanna get your cornpone racist "patriot" hackles up...

I don't trust anything Bush or his people say about anything. I believe that Bush has obsessed and prevaricated so long about Iraq that he has become mentally unbalanced, even psychotic.

3298. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:43:17 AM

Bush and supporters, buttboys like TD are a menace to world peace and should be locked up

3299. jexster - 2/14/2003 12:27:19 PM

When I analyze the stench....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -
"We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

3300. jexster - 2/14/2003 12:31:30 PM

Le Veto in the Bag

France: Force Against Iraq Unjustified at This Time
16 minutes ago
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that U.N. inspections in Iraq were showing results and the use of force was not justified at this time.

"God bless Iraq" Pope John Paul II

3301. jexster - 2/14/2003 1:14:55 PM

VATICAN CITY - Strong war opponent Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II held a private meeting with a top Iraqi leader Friday, urging the government of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) to commit fully to U.N. weapons inspections in hopes of averting a U.S.-led attack.

Latest news:
• Powell Asks Allies to Threaten Iraq
AP - 9 minutes ago
• Blix: No Weapons of Mass Destruction Seen
AP - 9 minutes ago
• Iraq Bans Weapons of Mass Destruction
AP - 29 minutes ago
Special Coverage

The pontiff's hopeful words came hours before chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix reported to the Security Council that his team had so far not found weapons of mass destruction. He spoke at a meeting that could determine whether the United States gets U.N. backing for a possible military action.

The pope met with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz for about 30 minutes Friday, gripping the Iraqi's hand firmly at the end. "God bless you. God bless Iraq," John Paul said.

3302. wonkers2 - 2/14/2003 2:35:15 PM

There will be no Big Iraq Attack. The momentum is running against Bush. The U.S. would have to be crazy to go ahead. Clearly, the best option is strengthening and continuing the inspections. Attacking Iraq without the blessing of the UN would be suicidal for the United States and UK.

3303. joezan - 2/14/2003 2:54:48 PM

Keep dreaming, bonkers.

We will be in country before the end of this month.

3304. magoseph - 2/14/2003 2:59:12 PM

3305. magoseph - 2/14/2003 3:00:21 PM

Oh, sorry, you already answered that.

3306. joezan - 2/14/2003 3:00:34 PM

But you are partially correct: the best option is "strengthening" and continuing the "inspections" - if what you are interested in is gaining the goodwill of the French - who have none themselves.

Or, if you believe -contrary to the actual wording of the resolution - that the whole point is for the inspectors to try and find what Saddam is hiding.

Are you aware that when South Africa agreed to inspections of its WMD, the UN sent a half-dozen inspectors and got the job done in a matter of weeks?

Do you know why that is, bonkers?

3307. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:05:16 PM

God bless you Tariq Aziz and God bless Iraq"John Paul II, Bishop of Rome.

This is end of the line for the Emperor Moron.

Napoleon and George W. Bush: A French Warning for Today’s America
What could the United States learn from French history?

3308. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:08:47 PM

Bush is going to go ahead with his lunatic schemes. Thousands will perish in a war of aggression in a war against God and against mankind.

But even if I am wrong, and the Butcher Boy beats a cowardly retreat, the Bush War against world has already spelled the political death of this megalomaniacal moron..

3309. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:10:27 PM

Are you aware that when South Africa agreed to inspections of its WMD, the UN sent a half-dozen inspectors and got the job done in a matter of weeks?

Do you know why that is, bonkers?

Because they weren't threatened with by a maniac with a pea brain, because it doesn't matter WHAT Iraq does, because Saddam Hussein wants to humiliate GWB

3310. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:11:15 PM

Its time to put paid to Zan and his bloodthirsty, cornpone patriot ilk

3311. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:11:24 PM

Its time to put paid to Zan and his bloodthirsty, cornpone patriot ilk

3312. joezan - 2/14/2003 3:18:29 PM

You're blabbering, jasper.

New meds?

3313. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:20:58 PM

"God bless Iraq" Zan....

Either Bush will retreat or he will invade and in either case he's done for...let's just hope God blesses us and the former happens...

I'd rather not see millions of refugees, thousands of dead, the decency and world standing of our country in ruins because Bush wants an Empire

3314. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:21:55 PM

you cornpone patriot, you counterfeit christian, you bloodthirsty boob

3315. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:27:31 PM

War and rumors of war expose contradiction and bullshit:

By any measure, totalitarian North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons is more dangerous than the mere possibility that Iraq is trying to develop them. The North Korean state, which is hard to distinguish from a cult, is also more repressive and disciplined than the Iraqi state, and has caused the death of more of its own people--through starvation. Yet in the weeks that followed the North Korean disclosure, the Administration, in a radical reversal of the President's earlier assessments, sought to argue that the opposite was true. Administration spokespersons soon declared that the North Korean situation was "not a crisis" and that its policy toward that country was to be one of "dialogue," leading to "a peaceful multilateral solution," including the possibility of renewed oil shipments. But if the acquisition by North Korea of nuclear arms was not a crisis, then there never had been any need to warn the world of the danger of nuclear proliferation, or to name an axis of evil, or to deliver an ultimatum to disarm it.

For the North Korean debacle represented not the failure of a good policy but exposure of the futility of one that was impracticable from the start..

The failure and the futility of an incompetent and menace to the world

3316. jexster - 2/14/2003 3:28:15 PM

When I analyze the stench...

3317. robertjayb - 2/14/2003 3:45:03 PM

OhmiGod! John Le Boutellier (The Boot) is on CNN and I'm agreeing with him.

What about Osama bin-gone-so-long-the-bushies-just-want-you-to-forget-about-him Laden?

3318. wabbit - 2/14/2003 3:47:52 PM

Disarming Iraq

text of the Blix Briefing of the Security Council

3319. wonkers2 - 2/14/2003 4:39:38 PM

Zan, Nobody cares much about the goodwill of the French. We'll never have that no matter what we do. However, I do worry about stirring up 50 million or so fanatical fundamentalist Muslims and providing a recruiting tool for Al Qaida which seems to be alive and well despite our efforts in Afghanistan.

3320. wonkers2 - 2/14/2003 4:56:07 PM

Logic suggests that what is really in American interest would be to grab Sharon by the balls and get him under control and in a frame of mind for peace while keeping Sadaam Hussein pinned down and neutralized by inspections, no-fly zone, a few troops in the area, etc., but WITHOUT KILLING A BUNCH OF INNOCENT IRAQUI WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND EVEN SOLDIERS.

3321. alistairconnor - 2/14/2003 5:23:56 PM

Key allies!

I heard on the news that, all things considered, Italy will only back a UN- approved war.

I haven't laughed so hard in days. Thanks Berlu, I needed that.

3322. alistairconnor - 2/14/2003 5:37:30 PM

Quote from Blix:

We are fully aware that many governmental intelligence organizations are convinced and assert that proscribed weapons, items and programmes continue to exist. The US Secretary of State presented material in support of this conclusion. Governments have many sources of information that are not available to inspectors. Inspectors, for their part, must base their reports only on evidence, which they can, themselves, examine and present publicly. Without evidence, confidence cannot arise.

That's about as blunt as he can get: he's telling Powell to put up or shut up.

I can only see three possible interpretations:

* Powell has red-hot intelligence that he's not giving Blix (why?)
* Blix is actually an Iraqi agent
* Powell is full of shit, he made that stuff up.

Votes?

3323. magoseph - 2/14/2003 5:43:40 PM

Snopes says the quote is true. Interesting!
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. . . . All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

More about Goering...

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

3324. judithathome - 2/14/2003 5:54:26 PM

Oh no Magos, I'm afraid you are wrong. Ace has already decreed in the Politics thread that it is a fake, despite links showing otherwise.

3325. concerned - 2/14/2003 7:12:26 PM

Re. 3322 -

You forgot to add that there's documentation and/or WMD that are still being concealed from US intelligence and the UN inspectors, which would be my first choice. an obvious one since much wmd known extant in 1998 has never been accounted for. And if Iraq is pulling that off, there's no reason whatsoever that they wouldn't be concealing WMD production since that point in time.

Elementary, my dear Watson. Very elementary.

3326. concerned - 2/14/2003 7:16:34 PM

What I think is amusing is that the Left is expending more energy puling about a possible US incursion to Iraq than the incursion itself will require.

Then, when things settle down and the clearly improved situation becomes obvious to even the most narrow intellect, there will be a mass neuronal implosion among leftists and they will emphatically deny that they ever were pulling the shameful stunts or mouthing the idiocy that they currently are.

3327. concerned - 2/14/2003 7:27:53 PM

Tendentious narrow minded Leftist:

Iraq has no WMD because Blix & 400 of his sidekix says he couldn't find any when running up & down & back & forth thru Iraq for 11 weeks.

Reasonable person:

That's no reason at all for jumping to such a conclusion, given the plethora of Iraqi underground and otherwise hidden sites known, suspected & possible as well as the hundreds of never accounted for WMD that existed a few years ago.

3328. jexster - 2/14/2003 8:07:04 PM

The lead-in for the hawkish local news NBC-3 tonight: Will Bush have to invade all by himself?

Nothing like changing the question

Stop Bush's War Against the World - Now 450 cities all over the world this weekend take to the streets against Bush's empire

3329. jexster - 2/14/2003 8:10:51 PM

, given the plethora of Iraqi underground and otherwise hidden sites known

Funny none have been found!

Funny if they are "known" who are they "known" to?

To you?

To Bush?

To Blair?

Funny how every time, EVERY time Bush or Blair have told us there is mischief afoot at this or that place, turns out to have been a lie.

Funny, isn't it, how the US and Britain aren't giving their full and complete cooperation as called for by Res 1441

Funny, how Powell makes a handful of charges and two have been proved false...Funny how they want to go to war before we can find out how many lies they have told us

Funny isn't it?

Can't you smell the stench?

God Bless Iraq

3330. jexster - 2/14/2003 8:12:01 PM

All news channels now carrying "Bush by himself"

God Bless Iraq.

3331. jexster - 2/14/2003 8:12:37 PM

And God Bless M. Dominque of Villepin!!!!!

3332. jexster - 2/14/2003 8:13:24 PM

Hey I see Osama out front! Quick gimme some duct tape, I'll go git him - dead or alive!

3333. jexster - 2/14/2003 8:40:19 PM

A Warning on Iraq - From a Friend - The French Ambassador to the Armadillo Court

and the Council greeted M. of Villepin with a standing ovation

God bless Iraq.

3334. alistairconnor - 2/14/2003 9:28:36 PM

I don't believe Iraq has no WMD.

I think they've probably got some pretty bad stuff hidden, and I think the inspectors will find and destroy them, given time and resources. Even if Powell doesn't co-operate (the UN resolution calls on all parties to co-operate... apparently the rule is, the one who doesn't co-operate gets invaded...)

(Just a joke...)

3335. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:24:08 PM

Ever think of joinin up with the Gaullists AC??

(Just a joke..)

Anyway we don't need Le Veto anymore

A case for war?
· Yes, say US and Britain(4)
· No, say the majority(11)

And with nearly 1,000,000 expected in Hyde Park tommorrow in the dead of winter, Greece setting up an EU ambush for him, well you have to wonder how much longer b4 ole Jexie prediction comes true, how long before Chirac completes casstration of The Poodle????

3336. jexster - 2/14/2003 11:48:25 PM

Turns out one the SF Chronicle's DC correspondents, agrees - on KQED's This Week in NoCali

"as I listened to blix this am I had this picture of Bush and Blair at the end of plank...I could almost hear the sawing....they'll go it alone and the Blair govt will fall"

Jacques you snake!

3337. concerned - 2/15/2003 1:59:39 AM

All these alleged protesters are directing their attention toward the wrong parties. They should be protesting the unwillingness of the Saddam regime to disarm so that the external solution need not be imposed.

3338. concerned - 2/15/2003 2:00:58 AM

Since they aren't, they are effectively pro totalitarian.

3339. concerned - 2/15/2003 3:00:33 AM

Blix: Iraq Not Disarming

Effectively, this is to say that Iraq has done little or nothing to comply with UN Resolution 1441. I don't count playing 'musical WMD' with Blix's sidekix as cooperation.

3340. concerned - 2/15/2003 4:50:28 AM

The US will probably remind France and Germany shortly that 'serious consequences' for Iraqi noncompliance does not mean more inspections.

3341. jexster - 2/15/2003 5:49:57 AM

No doubt Bush will begin his War Against the World soon. The Butcher of Baghdad is really quite mad you know! That'll be the end of The Armadillo Emperor.

3342. jexster - 2/15/2003 5:55:21 AM

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people poured on to the streets in New Zealand and Australia on Saturday to march for peace, beginning a day of global protests against a looming U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The demonstrations are part of massive rallies planned throughout different time zones around the world with the peace movement expected to spread to more than 600 towns and cities stretching from the far south to Iceland in the north.

Organizers expect large crowds in New York and London, while protesters in Rome said they expected more than a million people to attend Saturday's peace march.

3343. jexster - 2/15/2003 6:07:16 AM

From the Guardian UK some helpful hints for TD as he leads the peace protest in Bumfuck, Moron Land....
And the world WON't hold its breath this time!

A beginners' guide to marching
Interactive: New to peace protests? Find out all you need to know with our click-through guide.

Millions to march in hundreds of cities - a global protest begins
February 15: More than 10 million people are expected to take to the streets in 600 cities today as part of global demonstrations against a war in Iraq.

3344. Trouble - 2/15/2003 8:29:22 AM

sTART THE BOMBING

3345. jexster - 2/15/2003 11:22:29 AM

LONDON CALLING

3346. jexster - 2/15/2003 12:11:42 PM

Anti-war protesters gather in London at the start of a demonstration against Bush's war on Iraq, February 15, 2003. Millions of people are expected to take to the streets of towns and cities across the globe to demonstrate against a looming U.S.-led war on Iraq in the biggest protests since the Vietnam war.

3347. jexster - 2/15/2003 12:12:18 PM

What does TD mean these "alleged" protesters?????

3348. jexster - 2/15/2003 12:12:47 PM

The World United Against Bush

3349. jexster - 2/15/2003 12:14:16 PM

The worldwide resources of CNN FINALLY being put to some use other than Wolf Blitzer's war fevered froth

3350. Trouble - 2/15/2003 12:55:34 PM

Yes, CNN realizes its lost its US audience and now reaching out to the dish-antenna maniacs of Europe.

3351. jexster - 2/15/2003 3:53:30 PM

Melbourne - STOP BUSH WARS

3352. jexster - 2/15/2003 3:56:44 PM

Protesters fill St. John Lateran square during an anti-war rally in Rome, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2003. Millions of protesters around the world demonstrated Saturday against Bush plans to attack Iraq

That's the Bishop of Rome's church

"God bless you Tariq Aziz and God bless Iraq"

3353. jexster - 2/15/2003 3:59:48 PM

Boy the worldwide hatred of Geore Duhbya is awesome!

3354. Trouble - 2/15/2003 4:05:45 PM

A real peach march would look like this: Signs demanding: Sadamm disarm. Feed the Children not the army. Equal rights for Kurds. Iraqi Arms Freeze now! Mr. Hussain I don't want to died in a chemical attack. Hussain enviro monster Iraqi flags would burn Students would hold signs like S.O.S. (Student oppose to Sadam) Until I see these I know that the peace marches now are not anti war just anti American

3355. wonkers2 - 2/15/2003 4:40:49 PM

I just got home from the peace march from Grand Circus Park to Cobo Hall in Detroit. The crowd was small but enthusiastic. The turnout probably would have been bigger but for the 15 degree temperature and 20mph wind.

I didn't notice anything anti-American about the demonstration. Why would anyone claim it's anti-American to exercise one's constitutional right to protest a policy that you believe is not in the interest of this country? That's as American as apple pie and Chevrolets.

3356. wonkers2 - 2/15/2003 4:43:48 PM

Opponents of the war could just as easily and more accurately call Bush and Trouble and Concerned anti-American. But we don't so why should you call us anti-American? In fact, none of us is anti-American. We simply differ on what policy is in the interest of this country.

3357. arkymalarky - 2/15/2003 5:35:17 PM

Unquestioning fealty to an administration's policies is un-American (not agreement with them). The real patriotic Americans are those exercising their American freedoms and their duty as citizens to assert their opinions about what a current administration does when they disagree with it. Why, Concerned has done that relentlessly wrt Clinton and he may have been called everything from stupid to pathologically obsessed, but not un-American.

3358. jexster - 2/15/2003 5:57:48 PM

London: One Million and Still They Come
Protest Against Bush War Surpasses Organisers Wildest Dreams, Blair's Worst Nightmares
The Guardian

3359. jexster - 2/15/2003 5:58:37 PM

Blair's choice; Bail now, bail later

3360. jexster - 2/15/2003 6:08:00 PM

The chances of anything coming from Mars
Are million to one they said
The chances of anything coming from Mars
are a million to one
AND STILL THEY COME
Justin Hayward, Moody Blues in
Jeff Wayne-War of the Worlds

3361. jexster - 2/15/2003 7:04:11 PM

LONDON, Feb.15 – Several million demonstrators took to the streets of Europe and the rest of the world today in a vast and unprecedented wave of protest against the prospect of a U.S.-led war against Iraq.

BERLIN - 500,000

GLASGOW

3362. robertjayb - 2/15/2003 8:17:58 PM

The Belgian Protocol...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Belgium offered a compromise Saturday to end a bitter dispute within the NATO alliance over providing military aid to Turkey in advance of a possible war against Iraq.

Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said Belgium, France and Germany would endorse a U.S. proposal for such help if NATO makes clear the aid is defensive in nature and it must not be seen as making the alliance a participant in war preparations against Iraq.

NATO called an urgent session of the ambassadors of its 19 member states for Sunday to discuss the proposal.

Verhofstadt said his government has been consulting with France and Germany on language that would let the three countries drop their vetoes against plans to deploy early warning aircraft, missile defenses and anti biochemical units to Turkey, the only NATO country bordering Iraq.

3363. jexster - 2/15/2003 8:35:22 PM

Well that was the objection. It was clear all along. Why did it take so long for the Bush Regime to recognize that France, Germany, and Belgium whose governments represent the opinion of ALL of Europe weren't going to let the Emperor back door a NATO endorsement of his war?

3364. jexster - 2/15/2003 8:47:58 PM

The latest Bush Regime bribe to turkey:

the Iraqi Kurds
6 Billion in Aid
20 Billion in loan guarantees

3365. jexster - 2/15/2003 9:05:16 PM

Lexis Search 12/15 -

1. The Associated Press, February 15, 2003, Saturday, BC cycle, 11:27 AM Eastern Time, International News, 1062 words, Mass marches in London, Rome, Berlin and Damascus, clashes in Athens on day of global protest, By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer, LONDON
2. BBC Monitoring International Reports, February 15, 2003, 668 words, ANTIWAR MARCH HELD IN LATVIAN CAPITAL; POLL SHOWS MAJORITY OPPOSED TO WAR
3. XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE, February 16, 2003, Sunday, 11:42 AM Eastern Time, WORLD NEWS; POLITICAL, 161 words, Anti-war protest held in Brussels
4. XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE, February 16, 2003, Sunday, 11:13 AM Eastern Time, WORLD NEWS; POLITICAL, 123 words, Thousands march in Paris against war on Iraq
5. Agence France Presse, February 15, 2003 Saturday, International News, 222 words, Thousands in New Zealand march peacefully against Iraq war, AUCKLAND, Feb 15
6. BBC Monitoring International Reports, February 15, 2003, 72 words, UKRAINIAN ANTI-WAR PROTESTERS MARCH ON US EMBASSY
7. Agence France Presse, February 15, 2003 Saturday, International News, 574 words, London braces for huge march against Iraq war, PETER KONONCZUK, LONDON, Feb 15
8. Agence France Presse, February 15, 2003 Saturday, International News, 469 words, Australia facing weekend of mass anti-war protest, SYDNEY, Feb 15
9. BBC Monitoring International Reports, February 15, 2003, 276 words, CROATIAN ANTIWAR PROTESTERS BURN US FLAG WITH FASCIST INSIGNIA AT ZAGREB RALLY
10. Agence France Presse, February 15, 2003 Saturday, International News, 275 words, Thousands rally against Iraq war in Thailand, BANGKOK, Feb 15

Documents 1 - 15 of 200

3366. concerned - 2/15/2003 9:51:39 PM

As jexster enumerates the Leftist idiots and blockheads....

Aziz: Destroying missiles would be 'unacceptable'

Iraq turns down UN peacekeepers and refuses to destroy the missiles known to be violating UN Resolution 1441.

Now that France and Germany have been kicked in the teeth by the dictator they are trying to save they might use the words 'very disappointed' in their planned 18th UN Resolution regarding Iraq. Serious consequences indeed.

Of course, the US will probably be administering Baghdad before things get to that point.

3367. concerned - 2/15/2003 9:53:45 PM

re. 3363 -

What crap. The governments of those three countries represent only themselvees.

3368. jexster - 2/15/2003 10:07:38 PM

Yea right..in alternate universe....millions of people on the street to stop Bush's War....ALL of Europe 70-90% in any country agree with Chirac and Shroeder and of those that don't many will soon fall

That's called DEMOCRACY!

3369. concerned - 2/15/2003 10:14:57 PM

The US would not be fighting Iraq, IAC. This is part of the war on terrorism.

3370. concerned - 2/15/2003 10:16:42 PM

Saddam no more represents the Iraqi people than bin Laden did Afghanistan.

3371. jexster - 2/15/2003 10:16:48 PM

Oh yeah right...is that cow pie #145 or 146 I forget.

3372. jexster - 2/15/2003 10:18:18 PM

Bush can sure turn em out....millions marchin...just for him

3373. concerned - 2/15/2003 10:18:35 PM

The US wants to free Iraq, something worth fighting for.

3374. concerned - 2/15/2003 10:20:35 PM

Let's see what kind of staying power your totalitarian weekend warriors have, jex.

3375. jexster - 2/15/2003 10:33:02 PM

We've now been out 3 times em masse, millions in the dead of winter...600 cities...we've got more staying power than Bush. Bush knows it, and that's why he has to strike soon

Its all grass roots and its unprecedented and its all thanks to GWB..nobody else could have accomplished this...

Must make you VERY proud

Anti-war protesters march through narrow streets during a demonstration against war on Iraq in Berne, February 15, 2003

3376. concerned - 2/15/2003 10:41:02 PM

Such a waste of effort. All these people stay home for much worse.

3377. concerned - 2/15/2003 10:42:10 PM

I look forward to all the protestors admitting that they did the wrong thing when Iraq is freed.

3378. Cellar Door - 2/15/2003 11:45:38 PM

"I look forward to all the protestors admitting that they did the wrong thing when Iraq is freed."

I look forward to the overthrow of the Bush Crime Family too.

3379. concerned - 2/16/2003 3:52:44 AM

From the Irish Independent: 'Liberty, equality, fraternity, enmity' by Ruth Dudley Edwards

The self-serving French have made war inevitable and managed to raise US dislike for them to an all-time high, writes Ruth Dudley Edwards

SADDAM Hussein dancing a triumphalist jig; Nato in mortal danger; the United Nations possibly in meltdown; the EU hopelessly split; and a peaceful resolution of the Iraq crisis now almost impossible: you certainly have to hand it to the French. But to be fair, they're consistent: you can always rely on them to let you down. Shortly, they'll be letting down the Germans and the Belgians.

French foreign policy is notoriously visionary, daring and self-serving and its diplomatic service is the most disliked and also the most admired in the world. As negotiators, the French are notorious for their complete ruthlessness and cunning. There is a famous story about the stalemate reached in the lengthy negotiations between the French and the British about whether their jointly-developed aeroplane should be called 'Corcorde' (French) or 'Concord' (English). Suddenly, the chief French negotiator burst into tears, causing his deeply embarrassed English opposite number to say, "Oh, my dear chap, let it be Concorde". If this really happened, you can bet that the tears were a cynical ploy and that the negotiators laughed at the gullible British all the way home.

3380. concerned - 2/16/2003 3:53:10 AM

When it comes to their relationships with other countries, the French are bastards and proud of it. Over centuries they have been the consistent and skilled practitioners of what the distinguished international relations expert, Martin Wight, describes as Machiavellian diplomacy. Wight divided diplomacy into three types: Grotian (after the seventeenth-century theologian Hugo Grotius) is directed at finding common ground with the other side. Machiavellian (after the sixteenth-century pragmatist) is instinctively hostile and relies on coercion, bribery and lies. Kantian (after the eighteenth-century philosopher) assumes with suicidal optimism that mankind is fundamentally benevolent and will respond to unilateralist gestures of goodwill. Traditionally the British are Grotian, the French (like the old Soviet Union) Machiavellian and anti-war campaigners like our present peace activists are Kantian.

(Throughout the peace process, the Provos have been Machiavellian and the Irish and New Labour governments Kantian towards republicans, Grotian towards nationalists and more often than not Machiavellian towards unionists. This is understandable in the case of the tribal Irish; in the case of the British it demonstrates their rulers' tendency to be more perfidious towards their own people (see Gibraltar) than towards their enemies.)

The US is in an uproar over France: emails are flying around in their millions asking incredulously how the French could have forgotten that Americans died to save them in two world wars. Yet there is no surprise in Britain, where it is well-known that gratitude is not an emotion the French understand; in the Foreign Office, it is equally well-known that the only interest the French have in anywhere is how much money or prestige can be gained from it.

3381. concerned - 2/16/2003 3:56:27 AM

France snuggled up to Saddam before any other Western power and became his biggest supplier of arms, including the nuclear technology no other country would supply. The French were indulgent about the invasion of Kuwait, have undermined all UN attempts through sanctions or inspections to bring about disarmament and are creating mayhem at present in order to preserve their substantial share of the oil-for-food trade. They've emboldened Russia to play a similar game and the German Chancellor to the consternation of his diplomatic service to follow suit in the hope of winning back some electoral popularity. Now, they've thrown a moral fig-leaf to all those UN countries who were desperate to avoid doing anything brave.

Faced with a united voice from the EU, Nato and the UN Security Council, Saddam would have caved in and almost certainly avoided war. That anti-war strategy of the UK and the US is now gravely damaged. Helped by the Kantian peaceniks, the Machivellian French have made war almost inevitable. In the end, of course, as with Afghanistan, France will secure the best possible deal for herself in exchange for coming down on the side of the US at the last possible minute.

3382. concerned - 2/16/2003 3:56:46 AM

Still, bastards don't always play it right. The German establishment blames Chirac for seducing Schroeder down a suicidal path and so at diplomatic level in the EU the Franco-German alliance is damaged. The new countries coming into the EU and Nato see Americans as benefactors and the French as spoilers. If Nato with which France has had a form of external association for years survives, France will not easily be forgiven for alienating the great power on which the institution has for so long depended. And the sense of betrayal in the United States is so great now that Bush will be encouraged to find ways of punishing France in the long run. But the main victims of France's latest exercise in selfishness will be the Iraqis who will die in a war made necessary because the French threw a life-line to a drowning Saddam Hussein.

3383. concerned - 2/16/2003 4:58:46 AM

Germany's leading role in arming Iraq

Chirac is scum, Shroeder is scum. Both France and Germany are playing a two faced game, lying to the world about everything while violating UN resolutions banning the sale of weapons and WMD precursors to Iraq, and neither has any sort of workable plan regarding Iraq.

3384. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:45:53 AM

Anti BushWar Rallies Raise Chorus Across Europe

Times of London: Blair, First Casualty of Bush War

Largest Public Protest in British History - Times of London

The Great Unheard Hit the Streets

Bush managed to squander a surfeit of good will and turn out the largest worldwide protest in history against him.

Keep up the good work!

3385. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:48:03 AM

BAY AREA LINKS TO IRAQ

Bay Area companies are mentioned in Iraq's weapons declaration.

-- Hewlett-Packard sold $1.7 million worth of computers and electronic testing equipment to the Iraq government in the 1980s.

-- Bechtel sold products related to Iraq's conventional weapons program in the 1980s.

-- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore and Albuquerque) helped train Iraqi nuclear weapons scientists in the 1980s.Source: Andreas Zumach, German newspaper reporter

3386. alistairconnor - 2/16/2003 10:48:40 AM

Faced with a united voice from the EU, Nato and the UN Security Council, Saddam would have caved in and almost certainly avoided war. That anti-war strategy of the UK and the US is now gravely damaged.

Cloud cuckoo land (or rather, a Machiavellian manipulation). If the US hadn't been openly, explicitly hell-bent on war for months now, then there could have been a common, negotiated position to deal with Saddam and avoid war. This is, indeed, what France and Germany have been striving for.

3387. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 10:49:35 AM

CNN's headline says it all (almost): "Antiwar rallies delight Iraq."

Iraq was gloating Sunday...

Why not put "Saddam" in there instead of "Iraq" to be totally honest?

3388. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:50:39 AM

Link

3389. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 10:51:28 AM

Cloud cuckoo land (or rather, a Machiavellian manipulation). If the US hadn't been openly, explicitly hell-bent on war for months now, then there could have been a common, negotiated position to deal with Saddam and avoid war. This is, indeed, what France and Germany have been striving for.

Yep, just like for the last 12 years prior to the the "hell-bent on war for months now."

"We were this close, you American fools!"

3390. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 10:53:28 AM

In actuality, before American pressure began, there were no inspectors in Iraq and all the talk was how long before sanctions would be lifted.

3391. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:56:55 AM

God bless Iraq.

I am gloating too!

3392. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:58:53 AM

Gonna march again today Eddie. Of course you remember the one I joined last summer don't you?

That one had about 3000....today 300,000 expected.

Fine job Moron

3393. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 11:02:47 AM

Associated Press 6-6-2001: US Wants to Pressure Iraq But Many Countries Balk

Compared with a decade ago, Saddam is looking strong. He has been able to avoid U.N. weapons inspectors since late 1998. Powell suspects Saddam is at work on forbidden weapons.

Russia Questioning Premise of New Iraqi Proposals

Iraq, in protest against the entire revision of the sanctions, halted oil exports on Monday. Baghdad wants the embargoes lifted or at least made ineffective and objects to any system that would perpetuate them. On Thursday Iraqi President Saddam Hussein urged Russia, as a permanent council member, to use its veto power to kill the resolution.

3394. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:06:03 AM

Compared with a decade ago, Saddam is looking strong.

As I said in Fall 2001, all Bush would accomplish by his blather and bluster is to increase Saddam's strength and prestige in the world.

"God bless Iraq" Pope John Paul II

3395. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:09:26 AM

As Condom Rice tries to salvage the disaster on Meet the Press, Russert follows with a new and vocal opponent, Gen Wes Clark

3396. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 11:12:08 AM

"God bless Iraq" Pope John Paul II

Jasper One-note: Why don't you quote us some John Paul II on homosexuality?

You know, how it's an "offense to Christian values"? Or that homosexual acts are contrary to the laws of nature?

3397. Cellar Door - 2/16/2003 11:13:22 AM

Hooray For Hollywood!

3398. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:18:00 AM

Bush is dead meat either way:

"If the United States marches 200,000 troops into the region and then marches them back out . . . the credibility of American power . . . will be gravely, perhaps irreparably impaired." - Henry Kissinger

Anatol Lieven considers what the US Administration hopes to gain

The most surprising thing about the Bush Administration's plan to invade Iraq is not that it is destructive of international order; or wicked, when we consider the role the US (and Britain) have played, and continue to play, in the Middle East; or opposed by the great majority of the international community; or seemingly contrary to some of the basic needs of the war against terrorism. It is all of these things, but they are of no great concern to the hardline nationalists in the Administration. This group has suffered at least a temporary check as a result of the British insistence on UN involvement, and Saddam Hussein's agreement to weapons inspections. They are, however, still determined on war - and their power within the Administration and in the US security policy world means that they are very likely to get their way. Even the Washington Post has joined the radical rightist media in supporting war.

The most surprising thing about the push for war is that it is so profoundly reckless.

These risks are not only to American (and British) lives and interests, but to the political future of the Administration. If the war goes badly wrong, it will be more generally excoriated than any within living memory, and its members will be finished politically - finished for good. If no other fear moved these people, you'd have thought this one would.

3399. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:18:29 AM

HK's line cost the US 30,000 deaths in Vietman

3400. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:26:08 AM

In New York City, the people defied police refusal to grant a march permit by turning the upper east side broad boulevards into a sea of humanity. Hundreds of thousands filled First Avenue, Second Avenue and Third Avenue. On First Avenue the rally stretched from 52nd St. past 80th St. Second and Third Avenues, and even over to Lexington Avenue, were clogged with demonstrators who were prevented by police barricades and checkpoints from reaching the main assembly site.

Demonstrations took place in scores of cities throughout the United States. In Los Angeles, 100,000 demonstrated in the largest anti-war protest in many years. 5,000 marched in Houston, 7,000 in Chicago, more than 7,000 in Sacramento, thousands marched in San Jose and Detroit. In San Francisco, the demonstration is taking place on Sunday, February 16.

3401. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:27:16 AM

I am fired up Eddie how bout you....I am going to go to Mass at 9 and then take the War Against Evil to the streets at 11

God bless Iraq

3402. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 11:33:54 AM

Jasper's pal, Wesley Clark

No sooner are we told by Britain's top generals that the Russians played a crucial role in ending the west's war against Yugoslavia than we learn that if Nato's supreme commander, the American General Wesley Clark, had had his way, British paratroopers would have stormed Pristina airport threatening to unleash the most frightening crisis with Moscow since the end of the cold war.

"I'm not going to start the third world war for you," General Sir Mike Jackson, commander of the international K-For peacekeeping force, is reported to have told Gen Clark when he refused to accept an order to send assault troops to prevent Russian troops from taking over the airfield of Kosovo's provincial capital.

3403. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:41:39 AM

And Russia's gonna go to war over Pristina! And here I thought you thought Clinton a pussy for not risking US ground troops.

Turns out you just don't know what you are talking about.

If you have some slime for Norman Schwartzkopf whose views are identical then have at it.

3404. jexster - 2/16/2003 11:42:47 AM

Let's revisit your Krugman bladder err. blather after the march...

I have better things to do than slap you down again

3405. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 12:07:29 PM

And Russia's gonna go to war over Pristina! And here I thought you thought Clinton a pussy for not risking US ground troops.

Don't "think" about what I think, Jasper. You're too deranged to approach such intellectual heights without guide and compass.

My post regarding "Mad-dog" Clark is just to point out your never-ending hypocrisy regarding Kosovo versus Iraq.

3406. vonKreedon - 2/16/2003 12:52:02 PM

ED - My view is that if the US administration had not contracted Mad Cowboy Disease we would have a united UNSC putting pressure on Iraq. From the beginning Bush's rhetoric was that we were going to effect regime change in Iraq no matter what anyone else said. This was diplomatically counterproductive. If the administration had been less arrogant, more polite, more...diplomatic, then we could have arrived at a more effective position. At this point the US really is more and more fettered by the lack of international legitimacy for any war of regime change. Despite our cowboy rhetoric we find ourselves working for UNSC resolutions, we should have started from that position.

3407. OhioSTOPAS - 2/16/2003 12:56:33 PM

On the other hand, Von, President Bush has done well. We have inspectors back in Iraq, we've extracted concessions from Iraq, and the UN has shown a little backbone. The President could rightly declare victory here, and I hope he does so and pulls our troops back out of danger.

3408. jexster - 2/16/2003 1:12:30 PM

Mysterium Fidei!

Lord make me an instrument of your peace....

Protesters Agains Bush's War Clog Hollywood Boulevard

God bless Iraq

3409. PelleNilsson - 2/16/2003 1:22:02 PM

jexster

You have marginally contributed to a marginally increased chance for Saddam to stay in power and continue to repress, torture, murder and starve the Iraqi people. But don't lose any sleep over it. But what does the Iraqi people matter against the opportunity to give Bush as slap in the face?

And what did the deaths of Serbs matter when Clinton was the CIC?

You bloody hypocrite.

3410. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/16/2003 1:24:01 PM

An excerpt from:

NOTEBOOK Light in the window By Lewis H. Lapham

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” — Leon Trotsky

As a promotional venue for any season's collection of worthy thoughts and tasteful sentiments, the Sunday New York Times Magazine commands the authority of the show windows at Bergdorf Goodman. Of the moment and with the trend, the editors arrange the sociopolitical merchandise in ways meant to attract discriminating shoppers in the markets of received opinion-well-informed and right-thinking people, competently educated and decently affluent, alive to the similarities in the works of Versace and Matisse, fond of animals and the several shades of beige. Although the editors occasionally make space for ideas a trifle too advanced for some of their less sophisticated readers in Oklahoma or eastern Queens, they don 't take chances with the big-ticket items or with what they judge to be the consensus of up town money and downtown style. Which is why, on first glancing at the no-nonsense cover lines for the issue of January 5-"The American Empire (Get Used to It)"-I knew that I was in the presence of an important fashion statement. The United States Army ( very with it, very now) was on its way to an invasion of Iraq, there to exhibit a modish line of summer weapons at the military equivalent of a runway show, and the Times had gone to the trouble of furnishing a helpful program note: What to watch for, when to applaud, how to think about this year's new and exciting look in geopolitics. Michael Ignatieff, a brand-name foreign-policy intellectual recruited from the faculty of Harvard University, matched the assertive tone of his lead article to the red, white, and blue block lettering (not fussy, very bold) of the magazine's cover art:

3411. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/16/2003 1:25:28 PM

“Americans are required, even when they are unwilling to do so, to include Europeans in the governance of their evolving imperial project. The Americans essentially dictate Europe's place in this new grand design. The United States is multilateral when it wants to be, unilateral when it must be; and it enforces a new division of labor in which America does the fighting, the French, British and Germans do the police patrols in the border zones and the Dutch, Swiss and Scandinavians provide the humanitarian aid.”

. . . The government in Washington makes no secret of its wish to eliminate the freedoms of speech, thought, and movement synonymous with the workings of a democratic republic, and where is the senator or syndicated columnist who gives voice to an intelligible objection? To the civilian populations of Basra or Islamabad it might not make much difference whether the United States styles itself hegemon or republic—the bombs fall from the same clouds, the buildings collapse into the same ruins, and who doesn't know that an F-16 by any other name is still an F-16 ? For the residents of Philadelphia and Colorado Springs, the words should matter; despite Ignatieff's bland assurances to the contrary, so should their supporting connotations. A government that becomes accustomed to thinking of itself as an empire falls easily into the habit of issuing imperial decrees and soon acquires the characteristics that Secretary of State Colin Powell last February attributed to a failed state, "unrepresentative of its people. . . rife with corruption," blighted by "a lack of transparency," thinking that "it can achieve a position on the world stage through development of weapons of mass destruction that will turn out to be fool's gold. . ."

3412. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 1:25:32 PM

My view is that if the US administration had not contracted Mad Cowboy Disease we would have a united UNSC putting pressure on Iraq.

(I assume this is in response to my post in International.)

The fact is, there was no united UNSC pressure on Iraq prior to US ratcheting. Any "strength" the UN exhibited subsequently has always been to placate the US, not to do something meaningful about Saddam. Further, Saddam would have ignored (and will resume ignoring) whatever the UN promulgates regarding his weapons programs as long as he doesn't see it as the only alternative to US attack.

Tariq Aziz was just yesterday pooh-poohing the French-German "plan" and the notion that Iraq would allow UN blue helmets on Iraqi soil. Further, he also ridiculed the notion that Iraq needed to eliminate its over-range missiles because they were just a "few miles" over what was allowed by the UN and to expect Iraq to destroy them (and conform to the actual wording of the agreement) was unreasonable.

At this point the US really is more and more fettered by the lack of international legitimacy for any war of regime change.

I fail to see how not seeking regime change in the beginning would have us less "fettered" to seek regime change now. It seems akin to saying, "If only the car dealer hadn't asked for such a high price to start with, he'd be in a better position to ask for a high price now."

3413. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/16/2003 1:26:09 PM

The secretary was speaking of North Korea and Iraq; he might as well have been talking about Vice President Dick Cheney's vision of a reconfigured United States. If not as a concerted effort to restrict the liberties of the American people, how else does one describe the Republican agenda now in motion in the nation's capital? Backed by the specious promise of imminent economic recovery and secured by the guarantee of never-ending war, the legislative measures mobilized by the White House and the Congress suggest that what the Bush Administration has in mind is not the defense of the American citizenry against a foreign enemy but the protection of the American oligarchy from the American democracy. In every instance, and no matter what the issue immediately at hand, the bias is the same-more laws limiting the rights of individuals, fewer laws restraining the rights of property:

1- The systematic transfer of the nation's wealth from the union of the poor to the confederacy of the rich. President Bush's new plan to exclude from taxation all corporate dividends received by individual~, at the same time lowering the income-tax rates previously scheduled to take effect•between now and 2009, assigns the bulk of the refund (64 percent) to the wealthiest 5 percent of the nation's taxpayers, more than half of the award to people earning at least $200,000 a year, a quarter of it to people earning more than $1 million a year.

2- The easing of environmental regulations on the energy industries in New England.

3- The opening of the national forests in the Pacific Northwest and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to further expropriation by the oil, gas, mining, and timber industries.

3414. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/16/2003 1:26:30 PM

4- The persistent issuing of health insurance regulations intended to subvert and eventually overturn the 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, that recognized a woman's freedom to decide whether or not she will give birth to a child.

5- The reinforcing of the monopolies held by the big media syndicates on the country's systems of communication.

6-Outfitting the banks and credit card agencies with the privilege to sell to the highest bidders any or all of the personal data acquired from their customers.

7- The broad expansion of the government's police powers under the USA Patriot and Homeland Security acts, the Justice Department reserving to itself the right to tap anybody's phone and open everybody's mail.

8-A series of bills in Congress meant to reduce the nation's health care costs by denying medical services to people too poor to pay for the upkeep of the insurance companies.

9- The nomination to the federal appeals courts of judges apt to find legal precedents in the pages of the Bible rather than in the Constitution.

3415. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/16/2003 1:29:10 PM

Still anal, Indiates?--try the looking at the bigger picture and stop picking you butt as a distraction.

3416. jexster - 2/16/2003 1:29:39 PM

Screw you Pelle....I haven't time to fuck with you either but I will do so later on.

You moral cripple.

God bless Iraq

3417. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/16/2003 1:29:58 PM

~~the~~ you=your

3418. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 1:34:38 PM

If you want anal, WizzoOfWitless, try Jasper.

BTW, does any of your blather above have anything to do with Iraq (i.e., the topic of this thread)? Instead of advising others about "the big picture," why don't you try reading the BIG TYPE?

3419. vonKreedon - 2/16/2003 1:39:52 PM

Ed - Regime Change was a foolish goal to announce, particularly a unilateralist context. As far as the US and international needs regime change without a change in WMD policy/capability really doesn't accomplish anything. In addition regime change as a goal in itself is a dangerous precedent. No, the US administration should have worked within the UNSC to ensure international support for substantive and effective disarmament of WMD. As Ohio points out, we have this now and we could have had it with international support and built on the international post-9/11 sympathy. Instead we are becoming international pariahs and are going to have difficulty with our future diplomatic maneuverings. It was unneccessary and seems to have been based on playing to the admin's cowboy base. Yipee-kaway mother-fucker.

3420. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/16/2003 2:12:57 PM

Indiana-Idiotantes-

The Lapham excerpt has everything to do with Iraq and the motivations behind the push for war— as well as a media that capitulates to that push--but you'll never see the connection, Eddie, because your head is still too far up your anal canal.

3421. magoseph - 2/16/2003 2:14:58 PM

If Iraq wants to avoid war and the inspectors want to avoid war, the only way, I think, it can be accomplished as follows--The inspectors must uncover or be led to caches of the materials in question. In other words, on an almost daily basis, mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax, and other such weapons of mass destruction have to be uncovered and destroyed. To date only, fifty liters of mustard gas and about three hundred illegal missiles have been uncovered. The present pace is totally unsatisfactory and unless it accelerates immediately, war will quickly follow. It should be made absolutely clear to the Iraqi military that if they use these weapons against the Americans and their allies, they will receive the same treatment that MacArthur inflicted on the Japanese defenders of Manila who were found guilty of massive violations of the rules of war. Proceedings were quickly instituted against responsible officers and enlisted personnel followed by summary executions. Even the general in charge of Manila's defense was hung.

3422. PelleNilsson - 2/16/2003 3:00:36 PM

I take credit for leaving "Megaword" jexter speechless.

3423. Cellar Door - 2/16/2003 4:07:24 PM

My two cents

3424. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 6:18:06 PM

NATO, sans France, approves defense plan for Turkey.

3425. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:14:17 PM

Now for Pelle.
1999
After years of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia, the Serbs turned their tanks on an entire province forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to the Macedonian plain where they faced sure death until NATO rescued them.

The aggressor: Serbia, Milosevic

2003
The aggressor: George W. Bush, USA

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

No threat of aggression imminent or grave from Iraq
Bush administration allegations of WMD proved untrue in at least fifteen particulars
the aggressor - George W. Bush would violate the UN charter

3426. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:14:32 PM

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

can't end an Iraqi aggression that hasn't happened nor that is remotely likely to happen
The aggressor George W. Bush has been and continues to be openly contemptuous of all efforts to resolve conflict peacefully
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the delusions of the "democracy fairies" notwithstanding, the chances that this will end in a prolonged and bloody occupation of a hostile arab nation are substantial
- given the ineptness of the Bush administration in the crisis thus far, the likelihood of further bungling mitigates against probable sucess
- unilateral operations even LESS likely to succeed
-the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
from NGO's, to the UN, to the James Baker Institute - thousands will die, millions will be made refugees
terrorism likely to increase
threats of violence elsewhere have already increased
the threat of nuclear proliferation has already increased
the war on terrorism will suffer
the precedent of pre-emptive war will have been firmly established
"suicide for fear of death" Bismarck
All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time...I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."
--President Dwight Eisenhower, 1953

3427. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:15:46 PM

I have been perfectly consistent as has Pelle. Pelle has consistently stood with the aggressor nation, I against

3428. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:18:41 PM

Anti-War Marches Reveal Gulf Between Leaders and People

3429. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:19:14 PM

3430. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:22:15 PM

Sign of the Day

A tie

Only a MORON Could Turn the Whole World Against US in 12 Months

Can't We All Just Get a Bong?

3431. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:29:01 PM

SF: Two Hundred Thousand Protest Bush War Against the World

3432. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:29:51 PM

3433. jexster - 2/16/2003 7:32:07 PM

"God bless Iraq" Pope John Paul II

Like a used car salesman trying to sell crap, Eddie ALWAYS changes the subject but then again so does his Butt boy bush

3434. Edmund Dantes - 2/16/2003 8:14:52 PM

[T]he only way to avoid war is to convince Saddam Hussein that he has no choice left but to disarm. He has successfully avoided that conclusion for 12 years. Not unreasonably, the United States is not prepared to give him more time, whatever we may think. Peace is not impossible, but it is almost inconceivable unless Iraq disarms. Therefore any action which encourages Saddam Hussein not to disarm is extremely dangerous; it makes war more likely.

Beyond question, the Franco-German stand in the United Nations has encouraged Saddam Hussein.

In all honesty, Jasper is still Saddam's useful idiot

3435. jexster - 2/16/2003 8:22:30 PM

What this is supposed to bother me? This half-witted slur from a half wit. I am supposed to take this seriously, to comment on it.

God bless Iraq.

3436. jexster - 2/16/2003 8:23:46 PM

Leave matters of substance to those who know something about them Ace.

Stick to the cheeseball slime

3437. jexster - 2/16/2003 9:27:01 PM

http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=237093&group=webcast target=new>Global Day of Peace: Reports from Around the World

200,000 people gathered in Melbourne Australia on Friday to kick off a massive global protest. Read first-hand reports from many of the 603 cities where rallies were held, courtesy of Indymedia.org.

3438. jexster - 2/16/2003 9:28:37 PM

Link

3439. wonkers2 - 2/16/2003 9:39:31 PM

Atta boy Jexter. I'm still convinced Pelle is somehow connected to the military-industrial complex or the CIA.

3440. magoseph - 2/16/2003 10:48:59 PM

The global peace movement was too late--The US is now almost fully deployed on Iraq's southern border. Arrangements with NATO were completed today in respect to the defense of staging areas in the north (Turkish border with Iraq). Bush has simply gone too far and said too much to back down now. In addition, it is believed a firm position with Iraq makes the North Korean situation doable. In my opinion, Iraq must immediately begin to reveal the location of their caches, or at least those that are presently known to the Americans.

I see only one other possibility to avoid a full-fledged war and that is as follows--The Americans in the South are on the border in full strength and in battle formation. They could move across the border about fifty miles after notifying the respective Iraqi defensive formations of their intentions not to move any further. This places Saddam in the position of ordering an attack on the Americans which may not be obeyed and if not, will weaken his government significantly. The Iraqis really can't attack the Americans because they'll be wiped out in less than one hour and at almost no cost to the Americans.

My premise is a simple one--the Iraqi military won't move on American formations and basically they'll be forced to withdraw little by little to metropolitan Baghdad. Of course, there may other be other things to say about that. I have had my shot at trying to be a Jeanne d'Arc today.

3441. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:49:26 PM

"Powell's long dossier of Iraq's alleged non-compliance came under withering attack from the chief UN weapons inspectors yesterday. They said they found several elements of his evidence either false or unconvincing.

Hans Blix picked on two satellite images of a chemical warfare site, which the US secretary of state told the security council, in his 90-minute presentation last week, proved Iraq was engaged in deception...But Mr Blix made it clear he found the pictures unconvincing. 'The reported movement of munitions at the site could just as easily have been a routine activity as a movement of proscribed munitions in anticipation of an imminent inspection,' he said...Mr Blix also cast doubt on Mr Powell's claims that Iraqi officials had been tapping the inspectors' telephones and hastily moving material from sites shortly before the inspectors arrived. 'In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming,' Mr Blix said."

Lies, damned lies and duct tape!
Blix and El Baradei Punch Holes in Powell's 'Evidence'

I'm just a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Said he was fighting on arrival
Fighting for survival
Said he was a Buffalo Soldier
Win the war for America

3442. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:56:03 PM

http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2956 target=new>Jexster Item in Democrats.com - No More Exits for Colin Powell

Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace asks in a recent issue of The Globalist: "Do you know who in the early 1990s worried that: 1. 'Ruling Baghdad' would come only 'unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships?' 2. Addressing 'inevitable follow-up, who also asked whether Americans would really learn to live with 'major occupation forces in Iraq for years to come?' 3. Finally, who argued that, 'fortunately for America, reasonable people ' would think such a scenario 'would not have been worth the inevitable follow-up?'" That's right. Our newly minted hawk and hypocrite, Colin Powell.

3443. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:56:45 PM

God bless Iraq.

3444. jexster - 2/16/2003 10:59:29 PM

Since Pelle no doubt missed the point to 3442:

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition

3445. PelleNilsson - 2/17/2003 1:18:37 AM

jexster: I have been perfectly consistent as has Pelle. Pelle has consistently stood with the aggressor nation, I against

No, I have consistently stood with the people of Iraq.

3446. alistairConnor - 2/17/2003 3:37:17 AM

Message # 3407
The President could rightly declare victory here, and I hope he does so and pulls our troops back out of danger.

No and no. Bush has snatched defeat, and humiliation, from the jaws of victory.

But this is certainly no time to be pulling troops back. They should stay there until Saddam has been coerced into disarming.

And if Saddam continues being Saddam, and the inspectors conclude that they are making no progress, then Mago's scenario looks like a good one, and a broad coalition of nations would sign on for it.

3447. alistairConnor - 2/17/2003 3:38:16 AM

When Bush's economic team turned out to be out of their depth and leading America into deep shit, he fired them. He should do the same now to his international affairs team. That would go some way towards restoring the lost prestige of the US.

3448. Macnas - 2/17/2003 5:10:05 AM

Pelle

Then you are in the minority. Nobody cares.
Saddam is easy to hate, he gives us all those reasons, and they are good ones, no need to list them here again, we know he is an evil man.

The people of Iraq though, just who are these pawns, these suffering masses. We don't know or care much. The neighbors of Iraq, do they care about the people of Iraq? no they do not. The rest of the arab nations, are they crying out for fair treatment of the people of Iraq? No they are not.

Europe then, any takers here? no not really beyond some useless lip service.....but wait, a spark of light glimmers in the distance, up there in the land of Saab-Scania, it is Pelle. I'm not lampooning you Pelle, I'm not good at that kind of thing anyway. I am saying that nobody cares about arabs, especially arabs. And invading the country and deposing Saddam, while ostensibly a good thing (because he is so evil) will not "make everything better".

So far I have not seen any feasible (in my poor opinion) plan to restore power to....another arab within Iraq. All pretty wishywashy so far, unless theres a plan out there I have not read yet. This is a blueprint for destabilising a huge arab nation, it will split up into virtual enclaves under the control of fundamentalist or tribal or whatever power figures. This is happening in Afghanistan right now. It happened, albeit in different circumstances, in the Leb.

In the long run, the west will not succeed in the middle east, it will turn into a meat grinder if it persists. The arabs are crap at set piece war, they are depressingly good at attrition.

3449. joezan - 2/17/2003 7:28:36 AM

Anti-War Marches Reveal Gulf Between Leaders and People

Oh yeah?

99.7% of Americans Stay Away From Protests, Go About Their Normal Business, Revealing Overwhelming Support and Confidence in their Country's Leadership and Military

3450. stostosto - 2/17/2003 9:11:08 AM

concerned #3383

Chirac is scum, Shroeder is scum. Both France and Germany are playing a two faced game, lying to the world about everything while violating UN resolutions banning the sale of weapons and WMD precursors to Iraq, and neither has any sort of workable plan regarding Iraq.

You're quick to declare certain people "scum". But how about the British involvement in providing Iraq with "super gun" parts and sophisticated machine tools for Iraqi weapons factories? These happened during both Thatcher and Major governments. Are these people then "scum" too? They transacted through an Italian bank. Is Berlusconi "scum" also? (I wager he comes close, but not for that reason). A Canadian weapons specialist was head of the Iraqi "super gun" project. Is the Canadian government "scum"?

Are you aware what involvement Mr Schröder and Mr Fischer had in the German government's shady dealings with Iraq and others? I trust you remember the German government at the time was led by Helmut Kohl, and that this man was of a different party than either Schröder or Fischer.

Also, and quite apart from all this: Is it your contention that German or French foreign policy is driven by concerns for their arms trade with Iraq? I ask because it is frequently asserted on these internet boards.

Germany is, like, the world's third largest exporter, France ranks fourth, fifth or sixth. How much economic importance do you think a medium-sized middle income country like Iraq could ever truly have for economies their size? Are we talking half the GDP here? Or, is it perhaps more like 0.1% of GDP?

It's essentially the "It's all about the Texas oil lobby" argument, and just as silly.

3451. stostosto - 2/17/2003 9:22:07 AM

For the record, I wouldn't reject a charge that Chirac is "scum", by the way. He was involved in deep corruption shit and had to be elected a second term in order to preserve his immunity from prosecution. I don't generally trust the French in their foreign policy either. Quite possibly there have been kick-backs involved with the dealings with Iraq (which involved that nuclear reactor that Israel bombed in 1981).

But neither the USA nor Britain, nor a host of other countries go free of such charges, not on Iraq, and not in many other cases. What's more, you know this very well. Aren't you the type liable to rant at Clinton's dealings with North Korea? Oh yes, you voted for his opponent, and there has since been a change of government. But how is that different from other countries that have also changed governments? If Schröder is "scum" for what Kohl did, then Bush is also "scum" for what Clinton did, right? Right.

3452. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:40:07 AM

Blair Increasingly Isolated

That's Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain NOT France Edmundo.

3453. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:41:40 AM

"The real question is not about intervention," said John Game, 38, a doctoral student at London University, gesturing to the crowd around him as he marched Saturday. "It's about why Tony Blair is not listening to the people of Britain. That's not democracy; this is what democracy looks like." Among the demonstrators' posters were some that read, "Regime change begins at home."

3454. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:48:30 AM

It was great to march this weekend knowing you were in solidarity with democratic movements for peace, against Bush's war all over the world, knowing that the enemy of peace was also the enemy (dare I say, with the Pope) of God and humanity, seeing the six pro-bush demonstrators surrounded by 30 policemen in riot gear, and knowing that the whole world was watching.

3455. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:49:11 AM

God bless Iraq.

3456. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:49:15 AM

God bless Iraq.

3457. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:53:45 AM

As Pelle twists slowly in the wind Blair's Moral Cause for Bloody Bush's War of Aggression Shot Full of Holes - Gaurdian UK

3458. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:57:47 AM

Bush is running out of excuses for blood and out of time to get it.

3459. jexster - 2/17/2003 10:57:51 AM

Bush is running out of excuses for blood and out of time to get it.

3460. jexster - 2/17/2003 11:15:15 AM

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition

A gainst those who have suffered under Saddam in the past must be set the humanitarian catastrophe that the UN says may leave up to 10 million hungry. The World Health Organisation estimates that 100,000 Iraqis could be casualties and another 400,000 affected by disease and displacement.

Expert NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty utter similar warnings - concerns candidly shared by Clare Short. From within Iraq itself, meanwhile, come first-hand accounts of the terror and anger that the prospect of attack elicits. Yet from the US, at least, comes little but vague promises of minimised civilian casualties and "post-liberation" nation-building. To gauge the value of such pledges, one need only look at Afghanistan

Again, if humanitarian con cern is now the prime motivating factor in international intervention, there are many more urgent candidates, such as Congo, or North Korea, or southern Africa where millions are starving (and misgoverned) right now. On the other hand, it is clear that Iraq is not a Kosovo, where ethnic cleansing was an immediate, urgent horror or a fledgling East Timor, crying out for external assistance.

3461. jexster - 2/17/2003 11:16:03 AM

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective

The two main US-British arguments in favour of launching a war on Iraq next month - that Saddam currently possesses deployable weapons of mass destruction and poses an immediate or near-term threat to the region and to us -already had few takers before Friday's UN meeting. In his peculiarly dispassionate, persuasive way, Blix further undermined and, for many, destroyed the credibility of the Anglo-American case for an early, pre-emptive attack

3462. jexster - 2/17/2003 11:27:31 AM

Turkey Delays Deployment Decision - Holds Out for More $$$
$26 Billion and Gift of Iraqi Kurds Insufficient

3463. PelleNilsson - 2/17/2003 11:55:23 AM

A gainst those who have suffered under Saddam in the past must be set the humanitarian catastrophe that the UN says may leave up to 10 million hungry.

More than 10 million are already hungry. 60% of the population live off meagre government food rations. The infant mortality rate has doubled. Hospitals lack equipment and medicines. The infrastructure is crumbling. The most worrying part is the water distribution. It is a wonder that we have not yet seen any serious outbreaks of cholera, a real killer if it hits an ill-nourished population. Those who want to prolong this situation for the indefinite future take on an awesome reponsibility. May God rescue their souls.

3464. judithathome - 2/17/2003 12:06:27 PM

60 Minutes last night had a really disturbing report on how ill equipped we really are for this war in terms of properly functioning chem gear and they made one point that seemed staggering: where are we going to get the water to detoxify (or whatever the proper word for it is) the troops if they are hit by bio/chem weapons?

3465. judithathome - 2/17/2003 12:09:17 PM

Here's the link to that story:

60 Minutes Report

3466. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:17:22 PM

You will see the outbreaks of cholera when Bush invades. That per the very organization charged with feeding the Iraqi people.

3467. judithathome - 2/17/2003 12:19:51 PM

Jex, you should read my link...it's very interesting.

3468. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:22:24 PM

Or can't you read the several posts I have made on the subject?

If your concern is those already suffering, lift the sanctions now?

There is no way this bloody pre-emptive war can be considered as in any way equivalent to the Kosovo invasion - not in terms of the evil to be eliminated; not in terms of the means used to eliminate it; not in terms of the imminence or gravity of the threat; not in terms of exhaustion of peaceful means of resolution, and certainly not in terms of the evils that will be unleashed.

Moreover, Bloody Bush doesn't care about nor has he planned for the post-Iraq humanitarian disaster.

So spare me your cheap moralizing and even cheaper "knowledge"....

God bless Iraq

3469. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:25:47 PM

I saw the story last night.

The notion that war is moral, that it will be cheap, easy, painless is nonsense.

Pure Pelle piffle.

Right now, the UN food programs are working. Abandoned of course in Bloody Bush's post-911 push for Empire was the efforts pre-911 to improve the oil for food program.

Is it any surprise then that those charged with that program stand in horror of war against the Iraqi people?

3470. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:33:03 PM

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition

A revealing glimpse into the burdens and responsibilities we will incur by invading Iraq is available in a recent report co-sponsored by the James A. Baker III Institute for Foreign Policy and the Council on Foreign Relations.

"There should be no illusions that the reconstruction of Iraq will be anything but difficult, confusing and dangerous for everyone involved," concludes the report, which then goes on to detail just how complex things will get.

According to that report:

> "A U.S.-led attack on Iraq threatens to be a traumatic event throughout the Muslim world. In the Arab world especially, there is a serious risk that war in Iraq will stir up further trouble for the United States, including terrorist attacks against the United States and its partners."

> "Refugee flows toward Turkey and especially Iran of up to 1.5 million people are likely."

> "Strong U.S. backing for an emergency government will be needed to fill the vacuum left by Saddam. Without an initial and broad-based commitment to law and order, the logic of score-settling and revenge-taking will reduce Iraq to chaos."

> "If a large-scale, prolonged U.S. occupation of Iraq becomes necessary, or if the United States appears to be taking over Iraq's oil sector, guerrilla attacks against U.S. military personnel guarding oil installations are likely."

> "Leaving aside immediate humanitarian needs, experts estimate that reconstruction will cost between $25 billion and $100 billion. . . . rebuilding Iraq's electrical power infrastructure could cost $20 billion to restore its pre-1990 capacity."

3471. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:33:41 PM

> "There has been a great deal of wishful thinking about Iraqi oil, including a widespread belief that oil revenues will help defray war costs and the expense of rebuilding the Iraqi state and economy. . . . If no facilities were damaged, Iraq's total oil revenues would still only likely average around $10 billion to $12 billion annually."

The report is by no means intended as an argument against war. Among its authors was Ken Pollack, who wrote a highly influential book called "The Threatening Storm: The Case For Invading Iraq." The report treats the debate over war as settled, an approach that makes its findings all the more sobering.

In addition, the report assumes a couple of things that may not prove valid. First, it accepts as highly unlikely that Iraqi officials will blow up hundreds of oil wells as they retreat, as they did in Kuwait in the Gulf War. To me, that optimism seems, well, optimistic. If the panel's assumption proves incorrect, the report concedes that it "could leave Iraq's population of 23 million largely dependent on international donor aid and could portend a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions."

The report, which was published Jan. 16, also assumes that the United States will be able to draw broad international support and U.N. assistance to support its effort in Iraq. Today, a month later, that level of support seems unlikely.

Pre-emptive war - suicide for fear of death.

God bless Iraq

3472. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:36:56 PM

If memory serves, Pelle opposed military action against an overt aggressor who threatened to exterminate an entire people and create a humanitarian disaster of unprecendented proportions (Kosova)

And now Pelle supports military action BY an overt aggressor that will create a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented proportion.

Pelle is morally disordered and has no business calling me a hypocrite.

Do you Pelle?

3473. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:41:54 PM

The Bush Regime has not even bothered to study the post war situation in any depth for fear that Congress might focus our attention on the disaster that their invasion portends. We do know however that the Regime has budgeted FIFTEEN MILLION dollars for humanitarian aid; that the Regime sent LESS aid to Afghanistan after the Taliban than it did while the Taliban was in power, and that the Bush Regime never even pretended to fulfill their promise of a "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan.

We know then that the Bush Regime cares nothing for the suffering of the Iraqi people and will only make it worse

3474. PelleNilsson - 2/17/2003 12:46:30 PM

I supported the NATO intervention in Kosovo but I didn't agree with your debating style back then either.

3475. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:46:41 PM

REFERENCES:

"The United States may lose the peace, even if it wins the war” Rice University News

3476. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:48:21 PM

Well then my memory did not serve and I apologize. I also apologize for mistaking a dispute about style, which I can certainly appreciate, for one of substance which I cannot.

3477. jexster - 2/17/2003 12:49:00 PM

Anyway I can't continue to put off this statistics project any longer

God bless Iraq.

3478. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:01:11 PM

Oh hell I'll never be able to calculate a Z score without a table.....

President Bush and his hawkish advisers speak blithely about a U.S.-led invasion leading to a garden of democracy blooming in the desert soil of Iraq. I wouldn't reach for my gardening tools too quickly.

What the administration has been unwilling to tell the public is the truth about some of the implications of war with Iraq — first and foremost, the bloody horror
of men, women and children being blown to smithereens in the interest of peace, and then the myriad costs and dangers associated with a long-term U.S. military occupation>

In point of fact, the Bush Regime has repeatedly lied and is not to be trusted by anyone with half a brain. They have lied about Al Qaeda; they have lied about WMD; they have lied about relations with other nations. Its more difficult to find something they've said that is truthful.

3479. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:01:15 PM

3480. joezan - 2/17/2003 1:05:30 PM

It took 12 minutes to complete a statistics project?

3481. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:06:28 PM

Don't Break Out Your Hoe: Even Saddam Opponents Vow to Fight Aggressor

Surprised? What credibility would ANY opposition group have that supported the killing of Iraqis by George W. Bush?

Fuckin idiots.

3482. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:08:06 PM

Still other critics place the emphasis not on oil but on political reform of Iraq and even the entire Middle East. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times is prepared to support Hussein's overthrow, but only if we "do it right"--which is to say that we devote the "time and effort" to creating "a self-sustaining, progressive, accountable Arab government" in Iraq. And this delightful government (can we have one at home, too, please?), in turn, must become "a progressive model for the whole region." "Our kids" can grow up in "a safer world" only "if we help put Iraq on a more progressive path and stimulate some real change in an Arab world that is badly in need of reform."

The United States must mount "an imperial operation that would commit a reluctant republic to become the guarantor of peace, stability, democratization and oil supplies in a combustible region of Islamic peoples stretching from Egypt to Afghanistan." We arrive at a new formula that has no precedent for dealing with nuclear danger: nonproliferation by forced democratization. Ignatieff acknowledges that a republic that turns into an empire risks "endangering its identity as a free people"--thus menacing democracy at home by trying to force it on others abroad. Nevertheless, he wants the United States to take on "the burden of empire."

The Bush Administration, however, has given little encouragement to the evangelists of armed democratization. Notoriously, it has kept silent regarding its plans for postwar Iraq and its neighbors

Link

3483. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:11:24 PM

The hatred of the government in the south is clear, and there is little question that a change of government would be welcomed. But "we don't want the change to come through America's bombs," said another individual who requested anonymity. "Some people see it as enduring bombing, hoping to survive and then starting over without him [Saddam]. But most of us want a peaceful change brought about from within. We don't want anymore misery here."

Hundreds of Iraqi imams, including those at the holy shrines at Najaf and Karbala, have signed on to a fatwa (a religious decree) calling for jihad against any invading forces. "This is not a war against Iraq, this is a war against Islam," says Abdul Rihad, the imam at the biggest Shiite mosque in Basra. He adds, "We don't like to fight. But if war is imposed on the Iraqi people, they should fight for their land, their blood, their family. But we do not want that, because this war will be a loser for both sides."

3484. concerned - 2/17/2003 1:13:26 PM

No wonder the Left loves Saddam so much. He's the closest thing to a real Nazi there is nowadays.

The Nazi Background of Saddam Hussein

By Chuck Morse

February 17, 2003

Kharaillah Tulfah, Saddam Hussein's uncle and future father-in-law, along with Gen. Rashid Ali and the so-called "golden square" cabal of pro-Nazi officers, participated in a failed coup against the pro-British government of Iraq in 1941. Operating behind the scenes in Baghdad at the time, and arranging for Nazi weapons and assistance was the notorious pro-Nazi Haj Amin al-Husseini the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Mufti had been on the Nazi payroll, according to testimony at the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, since 1937 when he had met with Adolf Eichmann during Eichmann's brief visit to Palestine. Saddam Hussein was born in 1937.

The Mufti, after instigating a pogrom against Jews in Palestine in 1920, the first such pogrom against Jews in the Arab world in hundreds of years, went on to inspire the development of pro-Nazi parties throughout the Arab world including Young Egypt, led by Gamal Abdul Nasser, and the Social Nationalist Party of Syria led by Anton Sa'ada. After the failure of the 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Iraq, the Mufti fled to Berlin where he spent the war years heading a Nazi-Muslim government in exile and using confiscated Jewish funds in a largely successful effort to further pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda in the Arab world. While in Berlin, the Mufti also helped form pro-Nazi Muslim Hanschar brigades in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia.

3485. concerned - 2/17/2003 1:13:54 PM

Kharaillah Tulfah, participant in the 1941 pro-Nazi coup and an advocate of a pan-Islamic Nazi alliance along with the Mufti, raised and educated his nephew Saddam Hussein from age 10. In 1959, the 22-year-old Saddam failed in an attempt to assassinate Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qassim. He subsequently fled to Egypt where he received refuge from fellow Mufti disciple Nasser. At the time, Nasser, along with the Mufti himself, who resided in Cairo after the war and his conviction by the Nuremberg Tribunal of war crimes, was spearheading what was known as the Odessa Network, which facilitated the settlement of thousands of Nazi criminals in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. In 1962, Saddam married Sajidah Tuffah, the daughter of his uncle and mentor.

Saddam triumphantly returned to Baghdad in 1963 after a successful coup by the Ba'ath Party against Qassim where he assumed control of State Security. The Ba'ath seizure of power in Iraq was followed by firing squads and murder of political opponents reminiscent of Castro's seizure of Cuba. Saddam was chief interrogator and torturer at the infamous Palace of the End set up as a torture chamber under the auspices of State Security.

3486. concerned - 2/17/2003 1:14:04 PM

Saddam became absolute ruler in 1979 after assassinating over 20 leaders of his own party. He immediately proceeded to implement the Nazi vision of his uncle and the Mufti. In Iraq, Saddam annihilated of his opponents and, using his absolute power, developed a personality-cult around himself reminiscent of the Nazi Furherprincip. Like the Nazis, who sought to implement a new social order based on socialist and nationalist principles, Saddam has sought to develop a united Arab order under his personal control. Imitating the example of Hitler, Saddam set up concentration camps and began to carry out a planned program of genocide against the Kurds.

Saddam, in control of weapons of mass destruction, is today's chief disciple of the infamous Grand Mufti, the Nazi war criminal. Like the Mufti, he will stop at nothing in his quest to annihilate the Jews and defeat the western democracies. His regime is the Nazi principle manifested today in all its horror and inherent evil and like the Nazi's before him, he must be utterly crushed if there is to be any peace.

3487. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:14:52 PM

"God bless you Tariq Aziz and God bless Iraq" Pope John Paul II, Nazi

3488. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:15:35 PM

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. . . . All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

(Hermann Goering, interviewed by a writer just before his suicide while awaiting trial at Nuremberg)

3489. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:17:42 PM

The Third Reich Syndrome: George Will and the Collapse of Historical Knowledge:

future generations of shallow and ill-educated people might conclude that since both Josef Göbbels and George Will never served in the military, and both wrote tirelessly in favor of war, and both practiced the lower forms of journalism, there must be a functional equivalence between the two. But who would now suggest such a far-fetched analogy?

3490. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:19:03 PM

The jig is up..Bush has run out of excuses, Blair is about to be run out of office, Bush is about to be left without any real allies and Bush has run out of time

He has to invade and soon

3491. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:19:45 PM

Good morning shallow, ill-educated TD!

3492. jexster - 2/17/2003 1:19:48 PM

Good morning shallow, ill-educated TD!

3493. jexster - 2/17/2003 3:01:13 PM

A Perfect Storm of People Power
TWO MILLION in London - A flood of emotion and anger

Somebody called it a movement. It was not a movement. It was a feeling. A feeling that drove wave after wave of people in a great river which began to flow a few minutes before noon and was still in full flood long after nightfall.

3494. joezan - 2/17/2003 3:12:53 PM

3467. judithathome - 2/17/03 12:19:51 PM

Jex, you should read my link...it's very interesting.

Please pay attention to me, Jex? Nobody else will.

PLEASE????????!!!!!!!!

3495. judithathome - 2/17/2003 3:15:59 PM

Ha...yes, I'd much rather YOU pay attention to me, as you never cease to do!

I really appreciate it, joezy but my heart belongs to another so just shuffle off, now, and give up this fruitless quest. It's very flattering but nothing will ever come of it. I know it breaks your heart but it's only fair to tell you the truth.

3496. jexster - 2/17/2003 3:28:00 PM

To be fair 300 did turn out in Denver to support the Moron King's War.

30,000,000 to 300

3497. jexster - 2/17/2003 3:32:56 PM

I did read the link JAH..I told you I saw the program last night...

I've heard this several times now that Bush is lying to the troops about the protection that they will have.

I also noted on last night's broadcast that notorious Clinton hater from the Kosova conflict, David Hackworth, also says Bush is lying.

Why does he lie so much?

Could it be that he fears what would happen if the People knew the truth?

As the NyT said this morning WE THE PEOPLE are the new superpower on the planet!

And don't blame me...Pelle called me a hypocrite yesterday just as I was leaving to march. I stewed all the way up Market Street. On top of that a scant 2 weeks quit smoking and I'm as mean as goats' guts

3498. jexster - 2/17/2003 3:50:29 PM

But as far as I am concerned it doesn't matter whether a US serviceman or woman dies from gas or a bullet.

The war in which she dies lacks justification in morality or international law. It is unnecessary. The one who launches such a war is a mass murderer responsible for every death, injury, and all destruction that ensues from whatever cause.

3499. judithathome - 2/17/2003 4:09:07 PM

Jexter, that wasn't me posting about the link again, it was our vaunted host of this thread, contributing not to the thread but to his reputation of being so obsessed with me and what I do and post that he cannot leave it be. Joezan has betrayed ONCE AGAIN his fascination with all I do and say.

3500. judithathome - 2/17/2003 4:13:25 PM

Actually, it looked suspiciously like he was faking a post from me but I'm sure that wasn't his intent...as he well knows, faking posts can get one in trouble. But even so, as host of this thread, he can do whatever he wants, right?

3501. concerned - 2/17/2003 4:15:05 PM

Hey. It was good enough to snooker jexster.

3502. judithathome - 2/17/2003 4:23:58 PM

Yes, it was. That's the point.

3503. joezan - 2/17/2003 4:25:06 PM

That ain't saying much, concerned.

It was cute that jasper took some pity on poor judy and tossed her a bone, though.

3504. judithathome - 2/17/2003 4:29:17 PM

Joezan, what do you think of the peace rallies over the weekend? What do you think of the latest on the troops being ill-trained for bio/chem warfare? When do you think the war will start in earnest?

Don't you think those things are more interesting to discuss in YOUR thread than whether I am getting any attention?

3505. wabbit - 2/17/2003 4:29:44 PM

Or, Joe, you could use a <blockquote> tag and avoid the confusion to begin with.

3506. joezan - 2/17/2003 4:46:34 PM

I think that much more significant was the fact that 280,000,000 Americans avoided the demonstrations.

As for chemical warfare, what are you worried about? Your guru jasper has assured us many, many times - on the good authority of Scotty Meet-me-at-McDonald's-and-watch-me-play-with-myself Ritter - that Saddam has no WMD.

3507. judithathome - 2/17/2003 4:49:20 PM

Well, excuse the hell out of me for trying to start a discussion.

3508. vonKreedon - 2/17/2003 5:03:25 PM

Joe - Given your formulation on how those who did not attend the demonstrations is more significant than the number who did, what do you make of the fact that well over 280,000,000 Americans avoided the Pro-War demonstrations?

3509. judithathome - 2/17/2003 5:08:30 PM

From FOX news, where the question of the day, Should we go ahead with the war? is running over 80% saying yes:

U.S. May Seek Second U.N. Iraq Resolution

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday it was becoming more obvious that the Iraqi president would not disarm voluntarily, and that the U.N. Security Council was letting him get away with it.

"The Security Council has to be an instrument of peace, but it has to be an instrument of peace that has teeth, or it is never going to be able to deal with the myriad difficult actors out there in international politics who intend to disturb that peace," Rice said.

The White House had a long holiday weekend to weigh options after being rebuffed Friday as most members of the Security Council lined up behind France's call for more weapons inspections and against military action.

Rice said on Fox News Sunday that the administration may ask the council to take up a new resolution authorizing force against Iraq, although she said that wouldn't be necessary to take action to forcibly disarm Saddam.

3510. joezan - 2/17/2003 5:11:23 PM

vonK:

Which demonstrations received more advance press?

I never even heard of any pro-war demonstration being planned.

3511. vonKreedon - 2/17/2003 5:30:27 PM

There were several around western washington, and they had decent advanced coverage in at least the Seattle Times. But very few people showed up for these demonstrations, while tens of thousands showed up for the anti-war demonstrations. According to your methodology there is intense antipathy for this war, which interestingly is also what the size of the anti-war demonstrations show!

3512. concerned - 2/17/2003 8:08:32 PM

Re. 3463 -

A gainst those who have suffered under Saddam in the past must be set the humanitarian catastrophe that the UN says may leave up to 10 million hungry.

The trick is to pretend that things are not already as bad or worse than this unduly negative projection so that a cornucopia of anti-American feeling can be generated, never mind that this is probably getting it exactly backwards.

3513. lemwalker - 2/17/2003 8:12:15 PM

My wife brought home a "No Iraq War" sign and I threw it in the trash. The public is not being asked to vote on war. Nor is it being asked to pay for it.
The world is 70% percent ocean and the US has the Navy. So I guess that makes us responsible for the dirt too.

3514. jexster - 2/17/2003 9:02:26 PM

The Whole World Is Against Bush's War

Wearin my "War on the World?
Not in My Name!" button right now

30,000,000 people -dead of winter

God bless Iraq.

3515. joezan - 2/17/2003 9:30:35 PM

vonK:

Don't be an idiot - there are more than enough of those in this tiny little place.

1. The pro-war position is being very nicely forwarded by my President and his administration - thankyouverymuch - so no pro-war "demonstration" is needed.

2. The anti-war position has been abandoned by the loyal opposition, so those opposed to Bush are forced out on the street, doing anything they can do - including getting naked - to get some attention.

3516. Cellar Door - 2/17/2003 9:30:46 PM

What do you mean we're "not being asked to pay for it"? We're being asked to pay BIG TIME! The economy is tanking, and the unelected "Preisdent" wants the poor to pay taxes and the rich to pay NONE.

We have no National Health Care!!!!

The Big Question iright now is whether Dubbya's going to suspend the next election for reasons of "security."

WAKE UP PEOPLE --WE'RE LIVING UNDER A DICTATORSHIP!!!

3517. joezan - 2/17/2003 9:36:53 PM

BTW, jasper: Whatever happened to the Scott Ritter argument? You know - the one you were puking two months ago, about how Scott Ritter said that when he left Iraq in '98 Saddam's WMD material and capabilites were virtually destroyed, so GWB was making up all that stuff about Iraq never having given up its dirt, so there was no reason for the US to go in?

Why haven't we heard any more about that?

It wouldn't be because your other hero - the UN - has been forced to admit that there are tons and tons of VX, Botulinum, Anthrax, etc, etc, yet to be accounted for, would it?

3518. vonKreedon - 2/17/2003 10:10:44 PM

Joe - You are the one who postulated that those who did not go to a demonstration were opposed to the demonstration. I'm just pointing out that there were opportunities to actually go to other demonstrations and few did.

Feel free to put your hands over your ears and go Lalalalala...I can't hear you about the size of the demonstrations and the broad based population of the demonstrators. Such resolute denial of political reality is likely to work in our favor.

3519. robertjayb - 2/18/2003 1:37:19 AM

The Great Media Divide...(Paul Krugman)

There are two possible explanations for the great trans-Atlantic media divide. One is that European media have a pervasive anti-American bias that leads them to distort the news, even in countries like the U.K. where the leaders of both major parties are pro-Bush and support an attack on Iraq. The other is that some U.S. media outlets — operating in an environment in which anyone who questions the administration's foreign policy is accused of being unpatriotic — have taken it as their assignment to sell the war, not to present a mix of information that might call the justification for war into question.

So which is it? I've reported, you decide.

3520. ronski - 2/18/2003 7:36:29 AM

vonKreedon,

It's not called the silent majority for nothing, you know.

3521. joezan - 2/18/2003 7:55:45 AM

vonK would like to completely ignore the fact that protests are by nature demonstrations of opposition to the government's position. This is why they are called protests.

People who are for the war have nothing to protest, vonK. What the hell would we demonstrate against?

We stayed home and minded our business, vonK. And by doing so, we demonstrated our belief that our President and his administration know what they are doing and have things well in hand.

3522. Edmund Dantes - 2/18/2003 9:22:24 AM

My address book is the first casualty of war

It is a shocking experience to realise that your friends are either mindless, deluded or malevolent.

I used to think that 9/11 was the most important day of my life. It was indeed a day which transformed the world; its influence will be felt for decades, if not centuries. But however foul the “America had it coming” refrain, that came mainly from the usual suspects. This is different. This time the words come from friends.

I have many friends with whom I disagree politically; it would be a small-minded person who could not say that. But this goes beyond mere politics. This is about fundamentals. And what makes it truly shocking is how many normal, apolitical, otherwise decent people are so deeply wrong, so stridently misguided.

3523. lemwalker - 2/18/2003 9:36:55 AM

Cellar
My grandkids have to pay for it. I doubt if all the taxes I pay in a year would provide one meal for a carrier crew. Can't argue about the rest....been wondering myself if we'll have the opportunity to kick dubya out.

3524. Edmund Dantes - 2/18/2003 9:52:21 AM

Postulating that the 2004 US elections might be "cancelled" disqualifies a person as too silly for conversation with adults.

Perpetually adolescent Hollywood celebrities perhaps, adults no.

3525. jexster - 2/18/2003 12:58:39 PM

What's it with you and adolescence? "adult administration"

You wanna be a big girl or somethin?

3526. jexster - 2/18/2003 1:00:48 PM

From the Washington Post we now know what we adults always have known - Bush doesn't give a shit about the UN or about whether or what WMD Saddam may have. He wants blood in Two Weeks - War of Aggression Against the World

3527. jexster - 2/18/2003 1:02:46 PM

At least Eddie has taken my advice. He's sticking to cheeseball slime and not talking about things he knows nothing of - like WMD, geopolitics, military affairs, morality

He wants to be a big girl!

3528. jexster - 2/18/2003 1:15:51 PM

30,000,000 last weekend....how many during the Ides of March???

Nice to see too how well the adult administration is doing with North Korea

I hear they have nuclear bombs!

3529. jexster - 2/18/2003 1:24:40 PM

Blair Silent on Iraq Democracy

SUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3530. jexster - 2/18/2003 1:30:26 PM

Hey Eddie..isn't it amazing how the New Superpower - the People of the World in the streets - took Tony Blair down

See international thread.

God bless Iraq

3531. Edmund Dantes - 2/18/2003 2:07:02 PM

Saddam could use another human shield, Jester Saddamite. When you heading out?

Human shields arrive in Baghdad

Squabbling peace activists were recovering from a chaotic overland journey yesterday after limping into Iraq aboard two London buses, a day late for the worldwide series of anti-war demonstrations.

Three double-deckers, all crammed with "human shields", had set out from London on Jan 25 to reach Baghdad in time for the day of global protests. But only two of them, with 65 activists, including 18 Britons, made it to the Iraqi capital late on Saturday.

The third was abandoned in Italy after breaking down. Everyone crammed aboard the others, one of which had to be dug out of snow drifts near Istanbul. Several activists dropped out on the way.

The rest endured bitterly cold weather, illness, poor living conditions and a great deal of bickering. When they arrived at Iraq's border with Syria on Friday, Iraqi officials held them overnight, which made them miss Saturday's peace demonstration in Baghdad.

"There were lots of group squabbles," said Benjamin Joffe-Walt, 23, an American paramedic. "Very few people knew each other. I did not know any of them and it was difficult to organise it. There were lots of different ideas on when to go to bed, how long to spend on the bus." The activists, aged from 20 to 68, slept in cheap hotels, youth hostels, tents or on the buses.

Ken O'Keefe, their informal leader and a former American marine, burned his US passport and designed himself new travel documents proclaiming him a "Citizen of the World". As a result, he was detained in three countries.

Mr O'Keefe has yet to arrive in Baghdad and Mr Joffe-Walt last heard of him in Syria.

3532. Edmund Dantes - 2/18/2003 2:07:16 PM

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A blonde Norwegian activist created a sensation in Turkey and her picture appeared on the front pages of several tabloids. A typical headline read: "Who would bomb this angel?" Mr Joffe-Walt said: "It was not exactly the kind of coverage we were hoping for." Peter Vandyke, a self-styled "reiki master and spiritual healer" from Portsmouth, drove a London taxi with the convoy.

He described the journey as "horrific" and said: "A lot of people are really sick. They have been sleeping on the buses in sub-zero temperatures...."

3533. Edmund Dantes - 2/18/2003 2:08:01 PM

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Among the British contingent is a married couple, Helen and Kevin Williams, 34-year-old vegans from Newport, south Wales. They kept strictly to their diet throughout the bus journey. "It was very important to us," said Mrs Williams, who wore a T-shirt saying, "Animal Killers, close them down."

Mr Vandyke said the group would camp inside hospitals, schools, power stations and other buildings "needed for basic human living". He said the presence of vegans and spiritual healers would shield the buildings from harm if war broke out.

3534. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/18/2003 2:25:02 PM

He'll Be Remembered as an Asshole

Hey, gang! We won, if you don't mind Pyrrhic victories. I feel like the guy at Hiroshima who was in a fart-lighting contest just as the A-bomb went off. His last words were "beat that". In a topsy-turvy way that would baffle the Cheshire Cat, we who desire peace will triumph in the event of war. You see, if there's a clear loser in the pending savagery, it's George W. Bush and his administration of barking scrotum monsters.

3535. joezan - 2/18/2003 2:35:45 PM

Does anyone ever click on any of Whizzzzz'es l