Conflict in the Middle East, pt. 3

Ahmed Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile who fed the United States intelligence on Iraq's banned arms program that helped justify the U.S.-led war, today dismissed charges that he exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons.

Chalabi, 58, the leader of the Pentagon-backed Iraqi National Congress, insisted that U.S. authorities would find the former Iraqi government's hidden weapons once they locate Hussein.

That explains why the WMD haven't been found yet : they're up Saddam's arse.

9058. PelleNilsson - 6/11/2003 12:24:06 PM

Those damned elusive weapons
(Economist, subscription only, excerpts:)

Before the invasion [Mr Blair] had confidently asserted that once coalition troops showed up in Baghdad, rejoicing Iraqis would promptly lead them straight to the smoking-gun evidence he knew was there.

Until the middle of last week, this was merely a bit embarrassing for Mr Blair. Everybody understood that Iraq was bigger than France and that Saddam Hussein was very good at hiding things, not least himself.

But Mr Blair is no longer getting the benefit of the doubt. The first blow to his credibility came from Donald Rumsfeld. Unconcerned, as usual, by the damage his musings would do in London, the American defence secretary reflected that WMD could never be found after all because they might have been cunningly destroyed by Mr Hussein before the war. Quite what strategic goal such a move would have served was left unexplained—though that question also applies to Mr Hussein's failure to comply with UN resolutions, which looks bizarrely suicidal if he either had no WMD or planned to destroy them.

The second blow to Mr Blair's credibility came from closer to home. This week a nameless but apparently senior MI6 officer claimed that Downing Street had deliberately “sexed up” carefully calibrated intelligence reports. In particular, Mr Blair stood accused of misleading the House of Commons by saying that Iraqi WMD could be launched within 45 minutes. The disgruntled leaker claimed that the intelligence for this came from only one uncorroborated source—one which the Joint Intelligence Committee had been reluctant to validate.

Just how much trouble Mr Blair is really in is still not clear. The belief that Downing Street spun the intelligence material is widespread.

9059. jayackroyd - 6/11/2003 12:52:16 PM

Suicide bomber kills over 15 in Israel.

Reuters:


An Israeli helicopter missile attack killed a top Hamas militant and five other Palestinians in the Gaza Strip Wednesday shortly after a suicide bomber blew up a commuter bus in Jerusalem, hospital officials said.

The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus Wednesday in which at least 16 people were killed and more than 60 wounded.

A Web site that is linked to Hamas and regularly publishes official statements from the group said in a statement that the Jerusalem bombing was carried out by Hamas' Izz-el-Deen al-Qassam military wing.




Israeli military retaliates immediately

Reuters:


Hamas identified the militant as Tito Massaoud, a leader of its Izz-el-Deen al-Qassam military wing. An Israeli security source said he was involved in the launching of Qassam rockets against southern Israel and Jewish settlements in Gaza.


"The helicopter fired missiles at a car and left it to burn," a witness said about the attack in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City, a day after an Israeli helicopter strike wounded Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a senior Hamas leader.


Another Hamas militant in the vehicle with Massaoud and four passersby were also killed, the hospital officials said.

9060. jayackroyd - 6/11/2003 12:54:03 PM

Let's try that again:

Suicide bomber kills over 15 in Israel.

Reuters:


The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus Wednesday in which at least 16 people were killed and more than 60 wounded.

A Web site that is linked to Hamas and regularly publishes official statements from the group said in a statement that the Jerusalem bombing was carried out by Hamas' Izz-el-Deen al-Qassam military wing.




Israeli military retaliates immediately

Reuters:

An Israeli helicopter missile attack killed a top Hamas militant and five other Palestinians in the Gaza Strip Wednesday shortly after a suicide bomber blew up a commuter bus in Jerusalem, hospital officials said.


Hamas identified the militant as Tito Massaoud, a leader of its Izz-el-Deen al-Qassam military wing. An Israeli security source said he was involved in the launching of Qassam rockets against southern Israel and Jewish settlements in Gaza.


"The helicopter fired missiles at a car and left it to burn," a witness said about the attack in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City, a day after an Israeli helicopter strike wounded Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a senior Hamas leader.


Another Hamas militant in the vehicle with Massaoud and four passersby were also killed, the hospital officials said.

9061. wonkers2 - 6/11/2003 12:57:20 PM

It's pretty clear that Bush & Co. have lied to the American people about matters of grave importance to the country. Bush should be impeached.

9062. jayackroyd - 6/11/2003 12:59:27 PM

Given how low the republicans set the impeachment bar a few years ago, I suppose you can make that argument.

Can you find a way to get Bush to talk about the justifications for the war under oath?

9063. OhioSTOPAS - 6/11/2003 5:52:32 PM

I think the “Topics of Interest” column on the Mote “Welcome” page is overdue for a cleanup.

“Troops cleaned up after sarin exposure”? It turned out the "sarin" was most likely pesticide.

“Iraqi scientist may lead to WMD”? We haven’t heard anything since about Judith Miller’s unnamed scientist who was leading us to unnamed WMD’s at an unnamed location.

“Possible evidence of Iraq/al Qaeda link”? Oh, the mysterious papers “discovered” by the pro-war tabloid, the Telegraph? Haven’t heard about that since, either.

The “Topics of Interest” column is indicative of news coverage of the search for WMD’s. Every possible discovery is trumpeted by the media (especially FOX TV or Clear Channel radio), but there’s silence when the "discovery" peters out to nothing. No wonder so many people think we have actually already FOUND weapons of mass destruction (see next post).

9064. OhioSTOPAS - 6/11/2003 5:54:49 PM

The public thinks we HAVE found weapons of mass destruction!

"A striking finding in the new PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll is that many Americans are unaware that weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq. While 59% of those polled correctly said the US has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, 41% said they believed that the US has found such weapons (34%) or were unsure (7%). . ..

"Among Republicans who said they follow international affairs very closely . . . an even larger percentage -- 55% --said weapons have been found, with just 45% saying they have not.

"Another widespread misperception is that Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons in the war. Twenty-two percent held this misperception. . . ."


How could the public be so misinformed? As the director of PIPA speculates, "To some extent this misperception can be attributed to repeated headlines that there has been a promising lead in the effort to find evidence of such weapons, headlines that are not counterbalanced by prominent reporting that these leads have not been fruitful.”

Of course, willful misinformation from the pro-Bush network of talk show hosts and FOX television is at play too. It’s amusing that (as noted above) the most misinformed segment of the public consists of Republicans who consider themselves to be “follow[ing] international affairs closely.” Obviously, they are “following international affairs” by listening to Rush and watching FOX.

9065. OhioSTOPAS - 6/11/2003 6:06:31 PM

And on the subject of discovery of weapons of mass destruction, here's a truly idiotic and/or intellectually dishonest article by Stanley Kurtz in National Review , asserting that we HAVE discovered WMD's:

"The United States has discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I know this because I read it on the front page of the very liberal New York Times. Of course, the Times was only trying to hurt the administration. In the rush to Baghdad during the war, our troops bypassed and failed to secure one of Saddam's key nuclear facilities. That facility was looted by local villagers, who ransacked vaults and warehouses looking for anything of value. Many of the villagers took home radioactive barrels, and are now suffering from radiation poisoning. According to the Times, the looted nuclear facility 'contained ample radioactive poisons that could be used to manufacture an inestimable quantity of so-called dirty bombs.'

"So in the course of trying to embarrass the administration, the Times has inadvertently raised a very important point in the administration's defense. Saddam's nuclear-weapons program contained sufficient material to pose a serious threat to the United States. . . .";

Are you kidding me? Of course Iraq had nuclear material, non-weapons-grade, that was the byproduct of nuclear power plants. Iraq's nuclear material was not in violation of U.N. sanctions or resolutions, and was overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency. And although radioactive sludge is nasty stuff, it's hardly a "weapon of mass destruction" in any sense of those words.

9066. OhioSTOPAS - 6/11/2003 6:07:08 PM

Is there ANY pro-Bush argument that is too stupid for conservative commentators? Articles like Kurtz's make me think that having an army of stupid dittoheads who will agree with any pro-Bush statement has made conservative commentators mentally soft. After all, why strain your brain when you can throw anything you think of at the wall and it will persuade your core audience?

9067. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 9:27:00 PM

jay

Good to see you back. I have some pending questions. I'll re-post them.

"Now, I am speaking to jay, who has made specific allegations -i.e., that the last two administrations and Senator Rodham Clinton lied in their representation of WMD in Iraq. In making that charge, he's wrong, but at least he is intelligible.

I'll wait for his evidence of lying by Bush, Blair, Powell, Wolfowitz, Clinton, Gore, Rodham Clinton and the like much as we all wait for the planted WMD.

Note. The last time I challenged jay, I proffered specific questions, which he did not answer. This time, I've demonstrated that wift in his broad charges and the error in his importing his own sense of imminence to that of an administration that gave a deicedely clear, and very different definition of same months ago."

Perhaps you missed this. The Mote has been down.

9068. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 9:29:00 PM

And this --

jay

Also, you wrote Wolfowitz made it perfectly clear in the Vanity Fair article. WMD was the only justification that polled well. (He says, "everyone could agree on," but call me cynical--it was the line that would work.)

I won't call you cynical. As you have labeled the administration and Senator Rodham Clinton and President Clinton and Vice President Gore, I will call you a liar.

Unlike you, however, I'll offer proof.

Wolfowitz: The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but . . . there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. .. . The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his U.N. presentation.

Where does Wolfowitz reference polling in the Vanity Fair article?

9069. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 9:31:41 PM

Also, it's time for NAME THAT LIAR.

Who uttered each statement about the existence of WMD in Iraq!

1) In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security. Now this much is undisputed.

2) Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

3) We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

4) Saddam Hussein is not a good man by our definition . . . There's no question ... he has significant stocks of chemical and biological agents.

9070. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 9:32:19 PM

5) I think we have to assume that if he knows we're coming ... he'll do everything he can to use them.

6) If he has chemical and biological agents, and I believe he does, he would have no incentive not to use them then, if he knew he was going to be killed anyway and deposed. He's got a lot of incentive not to use them now because he knows he'll be toast if he does.

7) What if, in the aftermath of a war against Iraq, we faced a situation like that, because we've washed our hands of it? What would then happen to all of those stored reserves of biological weapons all around the country.

8) Iraq poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and possesses and develops a significant chemical and biological weapons capability and is actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supports and harbors terrorist organizations.

9071. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 9:34:06 PM

9) Nevertheless, Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

10) However, if Iraq came to resemble Afghanistan - - with no central authority but instead local and regional warlords with porous borders and infiltrating members of Al Qaeda than these widely dispersed supplies of weapons of mass destruction might well come into the hands of terrorist groups.

9072. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 9:34:37 PM

11) There are smoking guns, and that's the important point to make. Look, I think that the president has to do a better job of explaining what we mean by a smoking gun. There's a way in which people are now looking at the U.N. inspectors in Iraq as if some local prosecutor has sent people in to investigate an innocent man for a suspected crime and find the evidence. Saddam Hussein is not an innocent man. He made clear he wants to dominate the Arab world, which would be terrible for the Arab world and the rest of the world. He invaded his neighbors. He's killed hundreds of thousands of people. We know that he had weapons of mass destruction. You want to find the smoking guns? There are thousands of them in the report issued by the United Nations inspectors after they were kicked out of Iraq in 1998. Thousands of tons of chemical agents, thousands of liters of biological agents, and the aim of the United Nations resolution, in my opinion, was to send those inspectors in and to force Saddam Hussein to say, "I've destroyed the smoking guns that you knew I had in 1999." He hasn't done that, and unless he does, we're going to have to take action to disarm him. Nobody wants to go to war, but sometimes you have to go to war to protect the lives of the American people. This may be one of those cases.

12) If you’re worried about terrorists getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction or components of weapons of mass destruction, you first look at Iraq as where they could get their hands on those components. I told the president on 9/12, “We got to put politics out of these terrorism issues and we got to try to work together to do what’s right, to keep the people of this country safe.” And that’s what I’ve tried to do every day since.

9073. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 9:34:59 PM

13) . . . in the post-Sept. 11 world, the unrestrained threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein is unacceptable and that his refusal to allow in inspectors is in blatant violation of the United Nations 1991 cease-fire agreement that left him in power . . . There is also no question that Saddam Hussein continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction, and his success can threaten both our interests in the region and our security at home.

14) This resolution will show that America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

15) As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process. The responsibility of the United States in this conflict is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, to minimize the danger to our troops and to diminish the suffering of the Iraqi people. The citizens of Iraq have suffered the most for Saddam Hussein's activities; sadly, those same citizens now stand to suffer more. I have supported efforts to ease the humanitarian situation in Iraq and my thoughts and prayers are with the innocent Iraqi civilians, as well as with the families of U.S. troops participating in the current action.

9074. judithathome - 6/11/2003 10:39:24 PM

The Mote has been down

No, it hasn't. It was announced that the address was changing on Friday evening. For those who remembered that fact, it was up at the new address early Saturday morning and for every day since then.

9075. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:00:14 PM

Thanks, juditha. I guess jay doesn't even have The Mote has been down as an excuse for ducking my questions.

9076. judithathome - 6/11/2003 11:03:04 PM

Maybe Jay has been gone, did that ever occur to you? You haven't been here every day, either...swings both ways.

It's summer...people are on trips. Or boning up for Twenty-One. ;-)

9077. Jayackroyd - 6/11/2003 11:04:05 PM

Dan,

I'll refer to my posts beginning 9013 which were my responses to your trying to repaint the history of the justification of the intervention by the president as something other than the prevention of a threat to the US by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.


That other politicians were either snowed by the administration, or chose to follow the polling numbers doesn't change the fact that the administration chose to justify the war on the basis of a threat that, so far (as you say, time will tell) has proven to be false.

And, again, call me cynical, but I do think that Rove and polling numbers played a part in the decision of how to present this. Are you saying that it did not? That the president forthrightly presented the most well documented and carefully researched case based on the intelligence in his hands?

And, in response to my saying that democrats are cynical, too, your response is to polarize this as a partisan issue?!? I already said that the Democrats also read the poll numbers, and supported a position that supported the intervention in the absence of proof that the pretext was anything other than a pretext.

I ask again, what's your point?

9078. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:05:49 PM

jay! Good to see you buddy.

One of my questions was with regard to your characterization of Wolfowitz' statement as written in Vanity Fair.

You seemed to have missed it.

Shall I repost it?

9079. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:10:00 PM

As for your recent post, you have already branded Hillary Rodham Clinton a liar. In your responsible parlance, when asked, you cheerily said Sure.

Re: all the other individuals who stated unequivocally that Iraq had WMD - from Blair, Powell, Rumsfeld, Clinton, Gore, the majority of the Senate, Gephardt, Pelosi - were I to ask you if they too were liars, would you simply say Sure?

I'm just trying to get the breadth of this great snow job.

9080. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:12:42 PM

Here. Let me repost it for you, jay. As someone who can breezily label people as liars, I'm sure you'll be in a rush to respond and clear your name.

jay

Also, you wrote Wolfowitz made it perfectly clear in the Vanity Fair article. WMD was the only justification that polled well. (He says, "everyone could agree on," but call me cynical--it was the line that would work.)

I won't call you cynical. As you have labeled the administration and Senator Rodham Clinton and President Clinton and Vice President Gore, I will call you a liar.

Unlike you, however, I'll offer proof.

Wolfowitz: The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but . .. there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. . . . The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his U.N. presentation.

Where does Wolfowitz reference polling in the Vanity Fair article?

9081. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:14:02 PM

We need not wait for time to tell re: my question regarding your veracity, need we?

9082. Jayackroyd - 6/11/2003 11:16:28 PM

Yeah, I said "Sure." I was being somewhat sarcastic.

Whether they were lying or not obviously depends on when they reached those conclusions and whether they were given accurate intelligence as of 2003.

So I'll stand corrected, and say that they either were lying, or they were lied to. At best. At worst they were simply saying what the polls said they should say.

So, one more time, what's your point?

9083. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:20:13 PM

Did The Mote get a new feature which deletes from jay's screen pointed questions that demonstrate his own duplicity at a time when he denigrates the forthrightness of others?

Not that I'd need it, but it certainly could be handy for some.

Where does Wolfowitz reference polling in the Vanity Fair article?

9084. Jayackroyd - 6/11/2003 11:21:32 PM

Where does Wolfowitz reference polling in the Vanity Fair article?

It doesn't, obviously. That's why I said "call me cyncial, but..."

And, I ask again, you think that American public opinion didn't matter? That the president forthrightly declared a link to the safety of american citizens because it was well supported by intelligence? That theY didn't poll this?

Again I refer to the restatement of contemporaneous reality I posted some time ago.

I'm waiting for a response to that, and waiting to hear you say that the president, Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld all were speaking the white-lilied truth when they said that this war was about disarming Iraq and protecting America.

9085. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:27:58 PM

Jay, oh jay.

You're lying.

You wrote Wolfowitz made it perfectly clear in the Vanity Fair article. WMD was the only justification that polled well. (He says, "everyone could agree on," but call me cynical--it was the line that would work.)

That's a lie, jay. Wolfowitz did not reference polling.

Come now, jay.

Take your medicine.

Save your soul.

9086. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:31:29 PM

And yes, I believe the administration and every one of the individuals in my quiz believed that Iraq possessed WMD when they made statements regarding the same.

Then again, when Clinton wagged his finger at me, I believed him too.

I guess I'm not as cynical as you.

Certainly not so cynical that I'd lie about what Wolfowitz said.

Nor so brittle that when caught, I wouldn't fess up to it.

Come now, jay. People are reading.

At least scurry out with, "Perhaps I was hasty in my characterization of what Wolfowitz said, but that doesn't change the yada yada yada . . . "

There's a good lad.

9087. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:35:03 PM

The Boy Who Cried Wolfowitz

However, in just the last few days there have been widely disseminated misrepresentations of perfectly clear statements made by Wolfowitz concerning weapons of mass destruction and further concerning the role played by oil in the motivation of United States policy toward Iraq.

The thing is, even when caught, jay persists.

9088. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:38:09 PM

Yet this man would deign to make pronouncements on the honor of others?

This shill.

This brazen liar.

I ask this body to censure Jayackroyd.

Not the effeminate rebuke of VonKreedon as he mildly queried wonkers the racist after wonkers the racist called Condelezza Rice a lying porch monkey.

No. This requires more.

Or this body means nothing.

9089. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2003 11:43:05 PM

I yield the floor.

9090. vonKreedon - 6/12/2003 12:10:18 AM

Dan - Your continued attempt to divert attention from the administration's intelligence and legitimacy failures is really old. Of those you cite as claiming that Iraq possessed WMD, only the Clinton and Bush administrations acted on this information through military action unsanctioned by the UN. The others, the Senators and Presidential hopefuls are all dependent on the information given them by the very same administrations, and so can be excused for expressing the certainty of what they were being told. If you are convincingly lied to you can hardly be held responsible for passing on the lies.

Unlike the Clinton administration however, only the Bush administration promulgated a policy of preemptive warfare based on this intelligence. Only the Bush administration is in a position and exhibiting the tendency to run from one intelligence failure to a war with Iran, or maybe Syria, based on similar intelligence. Only the Bush administration is in the process of creating a groundswell of opposition to the US in the rest of the world.

Only the Bush administration is carrying on a set of domestic and international policies that have no legitimacy save the power to implement them. This is hardly an intelligent long term strategy.

9091. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 4:22:23 AM

I yield the floor

No, Dan, you're on it.

Remember, speaking of pending questions, I have repeatedly ask you your opinion of the monumental intelligence failure that has set the whole world laughing at the USA.
You say :
And yes, I believe the administration and every one of the individuals in my quiz believed that Iraq possessed WMD when they made statements regarding the same.

This makes the question of the intelligence failure all the more acute, and urgent. If they were all sincerely mistaken, then the credibility of the USA may take decades to recover. If it turns out that intelligence was manipulated to pursue a policy goal, (i.e. that some of them were sincerely mistaken, and that some were manipulating the others), that surely has earth-shaking consequences within the US political system.

So, how do you think the USA will/should handle the issue, Dan?

(If you can bring yourself to accept, as a hypothetical, that there really are no WMD to find.)

9092. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 5:22:20 AM

Meanwhile... Does Sharon want peace?

Sceptics note a pattern of Israeli assassinations at crucial moments in the peace efforts. In January and July 2002, and March this year, the army's assassination of senior Hamas or Tanzim commanders broke weeks without Palestinian attacks and efforts to establish a ceasefire.

9093. jexster - 6/12/2003 6:06:42 AM

I think Bush should get his road maps from the auto club.

9094. Macnas - 6/12/2003 6:14:40 AM

re 9088

Daniel,

"after wonkers the racist called Condelezza Rice a lying porch monkey"

I thought it was "lawn jockey"??
Some here knew what it meant, I did not, and even when it was explained I still cannot decide wether it is outright racist, or racist to a degree. Perhaps it would have to be part of one's lingua franca before it could be understood properly.

Nonetheless if it is racist then it has no business here.

Do you have any strong opinions on Aceofspades racist remarks towards marjoribanks??

9095. PincherMartin - 6/12/2003 6:14:57 AM

Fucking idiot.

The attack on the Hamas leader was a response to the attacks in Gaza on Sunday that killed four Israeli soldiers. Hamas not only claimed responsibility for that attack (coordinating the action along with two other groups), but said they would have nothing to do with peace negotiations being led by Abbas.

So Sharon was responding to an attack -- the first since he and Abbas shook hands in front of Bush, with all three pledging to work towards peace using the so-called road map. He initiated nothing. Sharon's counterattack also came after Abbas said he would do nothing to rein in Hamas for not negotiating.

It fucking figures you would be dishonest enough to not mention those attacks on Sunday or the failed negotiations, as if Sharon just up and ordered a missile attack on Hamas for no apparent reason.

Get this, you fucking fag. Hamas just carried out an attack on Israel. Hamas says its official policy is unchanged: they will drive all the Israelis into the sea. Hamas broke off negotiations with Abbas over peace negotiations. And now you bitch about whether Sharon really wants peace.

The U.S. ought to give New Zealand to the Jews and get it out of the hands of white trash such as yourself. What a fucking waste.

9096. PincherMartin - 6/12/2003 6:15:43 AM

My last was to Alistair's Message # 9092

9097. jexster - 6/12/2003 6:16:18 AM

Danny...I don't think that they cared one way or the other about WMD's. Nor do I think that most of that crowd really believed that Iraq was any threat to this country or to the region for that matter.

But what do I know about these looney ideologues anyway? They may well have made war against a figment of their febrile imaginations and not even realized it!

I stopped believing in Bush shit a long, long time ago.


Hell if the ends don't justify the means, what does eh?

9098. jexster - 6/12/2003 6:20:07 AM

"So Sharon was responding to an attack "


THAT is the problem and has been for a couple of years now.

9099. jexster - 6/12/2003 6:21:36 AM

I thought Alistair was hetero?

I am a fucking fag.

9100. PincherMartin - 6/12/2003 6:32:17 AM

Welcome back from the loony bin, Jex.

9101. Macnas - 6/12/2003 6:33:00 AM

Roadmap?? we don't need no stinking roadmap!

Israel will always respond in kind to such attacks, always have, always will. They take retribution seriously and it is part and parcel to the way the IDF operates.

While Pincher and I have different views towards some of the methodology used by the IDF, he is right in saying, in between the foul language, that Hamas are against the current peace plan is central to this spate of tit-for-tat violence.
If Abbas wants to move things forward, he will have to deal with Hamas, but how I don't know.

9102. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 7:36:03 AM

Get fucked, you fucking motherfucker.

9103. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 7:37:06 AM

My 9102 was addressed to no-one in particular, just a random psychopathic outburst because I forgot to take my medicine and pissed in my pants.

9104. jexster - 6/12/2003 7:45:39 AM

Thanks PM!

Its SO damn good to be back.

Interesting paragraph, concluding in fact, of an article in Salon by an Ha'aretz diplomatic correspondent:

The consensus in the Israeli establishment is that Bush's activist posture will disappear with the first crisis. The Israeli embassy in Washington believes that by getting involved in the region the administration is striving to head off criticism at minimum risk (pay off Blair and turn attention away from bad news from Afghanistan & Iraqi colonies) and will therefore not take any daring steps. Israeli intelligence assessments share this view, predicting that Bush will avoid confronting Israel on the eve of his reelection campaign. "If Bush faces trouble, he will stop his intervention," said an Israeli official involved in the diplomatic exchange with Washington.


"If an evangelical voter is forced to choose between Bush and the rapture, the rapture will win every time." A Prominent Preacherman & leader of the "Base"


salon.com

9105. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 7:55:53 AM

Macnas, you are right in that Abbas has to deal with Hamas.
You are also right that Hamas are opposed to peace with Israel. It is also correct that Hamas are a bunch of psychopathic terrorist scum.

These things are so breathtakingly obvious that I don't find it necessary to preface every post with them. Apparently some people can't cope with the idea that any criticism of Israeli politicians or government is not necessarily motivated by support for terrorists.

9106. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 7:56:30 AM

Welcome back to the loony bin, Jex.

9107. Macnas - 6/12/2003 8:07:58 AM

Alistair

You great big fat liar, I hate you. I slap your francophile face (bit of illiteration, always good) with a glove and demand that you duel with me to restore honour, for what I'm not sure but I demand it anyway.

Furthermore everything you say reveals more and more of a racist antisemetic mindset which we all know is rampant in that shithole you call France. You should be ashamed of yourself sir.

Now I would like another mint julip, which I will take on the verandah.

9108. jexster - 6/12/2003 8:10:38 AM

Amram Mitzna had the only real solution, one which the Israeli public agreed with in the abstract (betw. bombs)

"We will immediately pull out of the West Bank and Gaza without condition. We will then negotiate with the Palestinians. If a suicide bomber attacks on the second day of the talks, we will negotiate on the third day."


Retaliatory attacks & reprisals make people feel good but I can't for the life of me see any other point or purpose. They haven't increased Israeli or PAL security. They've had quite the opposite effect.

Achieving indiscriminate reprisal is exactly the military tactical objective of the PAL militants. Where Western military doctrine calls for overwhelming force against the enemy at his weakest point, Hamas attacks the enemy at his strongest point. Where Western doctrine aims to destroy the enemy force in detail, fourth generation strategies if anything aim for defeat of their armed units. A western force is confounded by such tactics because their training and their equipment are designed to give their opponents exactly what they want, what they expect - mass destruction and violence.

Mitzna realized this.

9109. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 8:14:18 AM

Jailed Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti and head of
the Hamas diplomatic wing, Khaled Mashal, reached
an agreement in principle on a temporary
cease-fire a few days before the summit in Aqaba,
according to a report in the Palestinian daily
Al-Ayyam, Israel Radio reported Thursday.

The agreement between Barghouti
and Mashal, who currently
resides in Damascus, called for
an end to attacks on Israeli
civilians, including in the
territories, but only if Israel
refrained from harming
Palestinians there, the report
said.

Sharon demands a total halt to terror before any concessions from Israel. This is reasonable enough in itself; but impossible to deliver.

Evidently, Abbas (from a very weak power base) was attempting to negotiate a truce with the terrorists. That's the only option he's got. He probably has less men under arms than Hamas has; any civil war will quickly turn to his disadvantage. With Israeli helicopters firing rockets into crowded streets, there is unlikely to be much popular support for Abbas if it comes to a showdown.

Reflex revenge killings by Israel, in response to terrorist attacks aimed at destroying any chance of peace, play perfectly into the terrorists' hands.

9110. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 8:22:56 AM

Sorry, the above quote was from Haaretz.

9111. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 8:31:52 AM

I see two fundamental problems with the Israeli approach :

* it's based on the Old Testament principle of a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. Muslims do that real well too. There is technically no end to this : it precludes peace.
* Israel holds all the cards : a functioning democracy, legal system, and human rights; a developed economy (though in crisis just now); one of the world's best armies; and so on. When it comes to negotiating, they are in a strong position. They insist on driving a hard bargain every time, they are very tough negotiators, and the problem is : the Palestinians have nothing they can concede; they simply have nothing.

Israel and the Palestinians are not symmetrical negotiating partners. Without unilateral concessions (renouncing revenge, withdrawing from the occupied territories) there is simply no solution.

9112. Macnas - 6/12/2003 8:34:54 AM

US helicopter shot down in Western Iraq. Crew survived and rescued.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think the situation is getting worse?

9113. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 8:45:04 AM

Another quote from Haaretz:

The court issued temporary injunctions against
the evacuations of the three outposts, while
the army has mobilized many soldiers for the
operation and is keeping them on hold until the
court decision is issued.
[...]
State attorney Shai Nitzan argued for hours
Wednesday before the court, that the proposal
to allow the settlers hearings before the
evacuations "makes a mockery" of the law, and
will encourage lawbreakers. He said all three
outposts were given demolition orders "many
months ago" but the settlers did nothing to
obey the orders.

He rejected claims the outposts were on private
property acquired by the settlers, and noted
that all three are on private property owned by
Palestinians. To get to the Yitzhar settlement,
he noted, the settlers crossed farmland owned
by Palestinians.
[...]
But Barak insisted on granting the hearings "to
clear the table" of the settlers' claims that
the IDF denied them the right to object to the
evacuations through legal means. "My position
is that a person should be allowed a hearing,
even if he has nothing to say," said Barak.

9114. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:00:04 AM

Von Kreedon

Dan - Your continued attempt to divert attention from the administration's intelligence and legitimacy failures is really old. Of those you cite as claiming that Iraq possessed WMD, only the Clinton and Bush administrations acted on this information through military action unsanctioned by the UN. The others, the Senators and Presidential hopefuls are all dependent on the information given them by the very same administrations, and so can be excused for expressing the certainty of what they were being told. If you are convincingly lied to you can hardly be held responsible for passing on the lies.

Ha ha ha ha. Who did you expect me to finger? The Eisnehower Administration? Moreover, of those I quote, almost every one of them (who was not Clinton or Gore) authorized the administration to act with carte blanche by Senate and House vote because they had no doubt as to the existence of WMD.

And the information upon which they acted was the same information pretty much made available to the last two administrations.

But if you are settling for Bush, Cheney, Powell, Blair, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Clinton, Gore, Albright, and Cohen as the gaggle of conspiratorial liars, fine.

9115. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:00:51 AM

Von Kreedon

Unlike the Clinton administration however, only the Bush administration promulgated a policy of preemptive warfare based on this intelligence. Only the Bush administration is in a position and exhibiting the tendency to run from one intelligence failure to a war with Iran, or maybe Syria, based on similar intelligence. Only the Bush administration is in the process of creating a groundswell of opposition to the US in the rest of the world.

Are you ignorant? Desert Fox was a strike on Iraq - not after it attacked anyone, but after inspectors left. read some history. Then chirp up.

Only the Bush administration is carrying on a set of domestic and international policies that have no legitimacy save the power to implement them. This is hardly an intelligent long term strategy.

Ah. So this is about Kyoto and tax cuts.

9116. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:02:06 AM

alistair

Remember, speaking of pending questions, I have repeatedly ask you your opinion of the monumental intelligence failure that has set the whole world laughing at the USA.

The only laughing I heard was after you screamed "Stalingrad!" and "The pottery! The pottery!"

As for the intelligence failure, as I said, let us wait something longer than a cable news minute to determine if there was an intelligence failure.

Right now, I'm addressing the accusation of deception.

I think the credibility issue is overblown, and that the United States is handling matters just fine. The world should realize it has bigger fish to fry in Plymouth Iraq, but if it intends to carp about being deceived, let it.

Get fucked, you fucking motherfucker.

That's the most intelligible thing you've said in weeks.

9117. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:02:22 AM

200,000 troops for 3-5 years...Rummy fired COS Shinseki for saying what we now all know is true and some of us knew all along.

Though some predict guerilla war, I can't see it. The Shiites especailly are playing a very sophisticated game, one that does not involve armed confrontation with the US. Seems they've concluded that Bush will tire of his great adventure sooner rather than later and they'll be around long after the Imperium is gone....Their mullahs seem to be doing their best to make the Occupation an unpleasant experience as possible short of violence probably content to let the Sunni Baathists carry that load.

Why all they need is the democracy that Bush promised!

OOPS

9118. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:02:41 AM

Macnas

Do you have any strong opinions on Aceofspades racist remarks towards marjoribanks??

Not really. They give as good as they get. I believe marj calls Ace a frothing ape and Ace hits back with a few Sahibs. I actually have quite a high tolerance for all manner of insults, but given that wonkers is such a good, grey liberal, I like to see him extricate himself from behavior he would surely condemn in another. And you ruined it - I was actually hoping wonkers would set the record straight by insisting that he said "lawn jockey" as opposed to "porch monkey." The spectacle would have been fantastic.

9119. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:03:17 AM

Pincher

For some, all Hamas aggression is revolution; all Israeli response is barbarism.

Jexster

Good to see you back. I hope Nurse Ratchet wasn't too hard on you.

9120. Jayackroyd - 6/12/2003 9:11:57 AM

But if you are settling for Bush, Cheney, Powell, Blair, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Clinton, Gore, Albright, and Cohen as the gaggle of conspiratorial liars, fine

And so what's your point? You keep reiterating this statement, but what is it in support of? I can guess at some ideas, but they're all so lame that I can't post them. What is this statement supposed to prove?

9121. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 9:15:23 AM

For some, all Hamas aggression is revolution; all Israeli response is barbarism

Names, coward?

9122. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 9:23:01 AM

As for the intelligence failure, as I said, let us wait something longer than a cable news minute to determine if there was an intelligence failure.

Actually, once Alzheimer's sets in, there's very little hope of intelligence improving, no matter how long you wait.

9123. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:23:46 AM

alistair

Apparently you, who asks if Sharon wants peace after he responds to the murders of soldiers.

jay

You wrote Wolfowitz made it perfectly clear in the Vanity Fair article. WMD was the only justification that polled well. (He says, "everyone could agree on," but call me cynical--it was the line that would work.)

That's a lie, jay. Wolfowitz did not reference polling.

Please acknowledge it and you will have the benefit of my discourse on other matters. But as it stands now, if you cannot retract your calumny against Mr. Wolfowitz, I cannot trust you to be responsible in future debate.

9124. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:26:38 AM

DECEPTION - Bush lied. He made statements that he either knew or should have known were not true.

Small wonder they've such a hardon for The Noble Swede Hans Blix!

He was on to them and they knew it.

The CIA has been leaking for a year. Some of their analysts and some at DIA have moved into a position of radical (for the gov't) rebellion. The problem is Bush cooked intelligence to fit his war propaganda. He misrepresented the intelligence information available to him. That's clear now. It was clear months ago. The CIA isn't going to lie down and let Bush fuck them this time like he did with 9/11.


Rummy set up a special intelligence cookery school in the Pentagon precisely because Bush needed to make his case for invasion. WMD, nukes, UAV's Scuds, Al Qaeda, grave and imminent risks, IRAQI FREEDOM(!)etc etc that was flim flam, a con job. The neocon's could never have sold their Imperial Hallucinations so they made up shit "for bureaucratic reasons". Poltically, Bush and Rove needed a real wag the dog war post 9-11. The WOT was plainly insufficient to statisfy American blood lusts. It wasn't even a war. No embedded journalists, no "shock and awe", no Jessica Lynch - the Movie....

Its really not all that hard. They lied because they didn't care whether they told the truth. They lied because the lies sounded better.

9125. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:28:11 AM

"I never had sexual intercourse with that woman"

The fat bitch just gave me hummers.


And it didn't cost little boy's two arms and didn't cost the American taxpayer an arm and a leg

9126. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:28:14 AM

VK

Good evening,

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

Note how Mr. Clinton did not say Saddam Hussein has just used nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

9127. Jayackroyd - 6/12/2003 9:28:43 AM

But as it stands now, if you cannot retract your calumny against Mr. Wolfowitz, I cannot trust you to be responsible in future debate.

That's fine by me.

9128. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:29:19 AM

I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish.

Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability.

No wait a minute. Clinton's entire national security team helped him in this deception

9129. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:31:29 AM

. . . As the UNSCOM reports concludes, and again I quote, "Iraq's conduct ensured that no progress was able to be made in the fields of disarmament.

"In light of this experience, and in the absence of full cooperation by Iraq, it must regrettably be recorded again that the commission is not able to conduct the work mandated to it by the Security Council with respect to Iraq's prohibited weapons program."

In short, the inspectors are saying that even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham.

Saddam's deception has defeated their effectiveness. Instead of the inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors.

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance.

Huh? A clear and present danger? Even when the inspectors had just been in country?

9130. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:33:03 AM

They wanted Blix pickin blueberries and wild mushrooms for good reason!

9131. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:34:26 AM

Jay

I bet it's fine by you. If I were as slippery and limited as you, I wouldn't want to talk to me either. It's a shame, though, to see you lose your soul rather than simply admit that you had neither read the Vanity Fair, article, nor had you seen anything about Wolfowitz and polling. And that you host . . . ay yi yi.

Take note, however, while I won't engage you, I will continue to show when you lie and how you lie.

9132. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:35:40 AM

Continuing on my history lesson for VonKreedon

And so we had to act and act now.

Let me explain why.

First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.

Second, if Saddam can crippled the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community -- led by the United States -- has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday -- make no mistake -- he will use it again as he has in the past.

Third, in halting our air strikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance, not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed. We will not only have allowed Saddam to shatter the inspection system that controls his weapons of mass destruction program; we also will have fatally undercut the fear of force that stops Saddam from acting to gain domination in the region.

That is why, on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team -- including the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of state and the national security adviser -- I have ordered a strong, sustained series of air strikes against Iraq.

They are designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors.

At the same time, we are delivering a powerful message to Saddam. If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price. We acted today because, in the judgment of my military advisers, a swift response would provide the most surprise and the least opportunity for Saddam to prepare.

Okay kids. Can you spell P-R-E-E-M-P-T-I-O-N?

9133. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:36:35 AM

Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons: not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.
.




Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.


The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving

9134. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:36:42 AM

If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler's report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons.

Weapons? He don't have no stinkin' weapons!

9135. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:39:51 AM

Clinton - 1998

. . . . And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.

Because we're acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.

Clinton - 2002

Saddam Hussein is not a good man by our definition . . . There's no question ... he has significant stocks of chemical and biological agents ... I think we have to assume that if he knows we're coming ... he'll do everything he can to use them ... If he has chemical and biological agents, and I believe he does, he would have no incentive not to use them then, if he knew he was going to be killed anyway and deposed. He's got a lot of incentive not to use them now because he knows he'll be toast if he does.

What the hell is this man talking about?

What weapons?

9136. Jayackroyd - 6/12/2003 9:40:24 AM

Take note, however, while I won't engage you, I will continue to show when you lie and how you lie.

Which one of those two contradictory statements are going to be true in the future?

9137. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 9:41:47 AM

I used to host.

How you have disgraced this office.

9138. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:52:27 AM

Rich indeed!

An embarrassment of riches...Bush said Saddam lied, DS runs to Bill Clinton for help!


I don't think you want to get into a quote war.....better you say either "Americans don't care if its not embedded video phone feed" or what a GOP friend of mine volunteered

"Mendacity is a time honored tool of statecraft"

See Danny I got me plenny o quotes....in Texan "a mess of quotes"

9139. judithathome - 6/12/2003 9:57:15 AM

As for the intelligence failure, as I said, let us wait something longer than a cable news minute to determine if there was an intelligence failure.

Oh, so NOW is the time for waiting...where was this cool headedness advising "wait longer than a cable news minute" before we became a first strike nation? Ah, that's right...we had to rush into war because we were in immediate danger of being attacked by a WMD program.

Have you noticed how Bush has started slipping in that innocuous little clarifier in every remark he makes about the run-up to war?

9140. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:58:41 AM

The Tasting Menu!

History Of Lies: WMD, Who Said What and When



Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons

George Bush, US President 18 March, 2003

Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction

Donald Rumsfeld, US Defense Secretary 28 May, 2003


Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

Dick Cheney
Speech to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002


Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

George "aWol" Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
September 12, 2002



If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.

Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
December 2, 2002


We know for a fact that there are weapons there.

Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003

9141. jexster - 6/12/2003 9:58:55 AM

"25,000 liters of anthrax ... 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin ... materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent... upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents ... several mobile biological weapons labs ... thousands of Iraqi security personnel... at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors."

George "aWol" Bush
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003



We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.

Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
February 5, 2003



We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.


Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
March 7, 2003



Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

George "aWol" Bush
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003


For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.

Paul Wolfowitz
Vanity Fair interview
May 28, 2003

9142. judithathome - 6/12/2003 10:01:24 AM

Not one quote contains the word "program".

9143. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 10:02:14 AM

Jexster

You forgot (courtesy of jay) -

"Eh, it's all about OIL and EMPIRE, but we took a poll, and decided WMD was the way to go."

Paul Wolfowitz
Vanity Fair interview
May 28, 2003

Juditha

I was similarly patient when all you ninnies were screaming "Stalingrad!" and I'll be similarly patient with regard to Plymouth Iraq when all you fools are moaning "Men are dying!"

9144. judithathome - 6/12/2003 10:03:48 AM

Time will tell, Danny.

9145. jexster - 6/12/2003 10:04:34 AM

"He is deceiving"

That is rich!

Practice to Deceive
Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan - Josh Marshall

9146. judithathome - 6/12/2003 10:05:28 AM

And were I you, I wouldn't be so quick to denigrate the deaths of the soldiers who are dying every day over there. I know you were making fun of us fools who care about them but still....

9147. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 10:07:07 AM

It is you and your ilk who denigrate the when you suggest they are mere fodder and they have achieved nothing but the ends of lies and deceptions.

You care about them so much that you disgrace their mission.

9148. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 10:07:37 AM

Sickles: For some, all Hamas aggression is revolution; all Israeli response is barbarism

Connor:
Names, coward?

Sickles :
alistair

Apparently you, who asks if Sharon wants peace after he responds to the murders of soldiers.

You have already retracted and apologised once for accusing me of supporting terrorism. Do it again, you lying scumbag.

9149. jexster - 6/12/2003 10:10:00 AM

Read practice to deceive...read Haliburton's fat contract...


It is about oil or do you think Third Infantry will head for the Congo ???


Damn, I don't like these folks but geez, psychotic? I HOPE it was about oil don't you?

They want to build a new American Empire starting in Afgh and Iraq..gonna take the Saud out of Arabia, send GOP political campaign consultants to teach the Arab street how democracy can work for them and save Sharon's ass!


Get behind the bullshit....always a good idea in politics even better now

9150. jexster - 6/12/2003 10:12:24 AM

I think its a crime that Americans are dying for a lie. In fact its a war crime. All those grieving moms...


But damn I am sure proud we have liberated Iraq and struck a mighty blow against terror!

Why I'm so fuckin proud, I think I'll do a mess of brisket for lunch and a double order of freedom fries..

9151. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 10:20:39 AM

Sorry, alistair. The first charge was unsupported and too sweeping. But the second sticks firmly after your post re: Sharon.

Jexster

You've been gone too long. The war crime was the loss of "THE POTTERY!"

9154. robertjayb - 6/12/2003 10:39:53 AM

I forget, is this tit or tat?

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli missile strike killed a senior Hamas militant and five other Palestinians, including a toddler, on Thursday amid a surge of bloodletting that has plunged U.S.-led peace efforts into turmoil.

The helicopter attack was launched a day after a Palestinian suicide bombing killed 16 people on a Jerusalem bus and Israeli air raids killed 11 people in the Gaza Strip in one of the bloodiest days in months of conflict.

9155. jexster - 6/12/2003 10:39:55 AM

Well it was!


One of them anyway...Don't tell me that you fall for "Operation Iraqi Freedom" "inbedded Journalism" AND Rummy one liners too?

Fercrissakes you are a lecturer and graduate of one of America's foremost law schools, a distinguished member of the bar, a man of the world, you can't be that gullible?

Please don't tell me that you wept with pride for Jessica Lynch!

Yes. Its a crime that GWB not only mangles his native tonguebut managed to destroy man's first recorded words for what again?

9156. Macnas - 6/12/2003 10:40:23 AM

The IDF fire some more rockets at Hamas.

9157. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 10:42:51 AM

For some, all Hamas aggression is revolution; all Israeli response is barbarism

Since you have stated that this is directed at me, kindly quote where I have given signs of approval of Hamas terrorism. Or retract, you worthless sack of shit.

9158. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 10:47:29 AM

Ha ha ha ha.

You're so emotional, alistair.

I stand by it.

If you retract your criticism of Sharon for responding to attacks on the murder of Israeli soldiers by Hamas, I may well reconsider your case.

9159. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 10:48:30 AM

jexster

for what again?

Why, for OIL and EMPIRE!

Of course.

9160. Macnas - 6/12/2003 10:50:25 AM

re 9147

It annoys me that any soldier is put in such a position when he has neither the skill/training or experience to fulfil his mission. While I am not a supporter of the war, what is done is done and I do want to see the best outcome for the Iraqi people and also the welfare of the troops who remain.

At this time US troops are little more than target opportunities, and will be so until they set about actively disarming the populace and coming to terms with patrolling in a built up hostile area.

9167. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 11:08:56 AM

alistair

So, you believe it is copasetic for Hamas to murder IDF soldiers as a rebuttal to the Palestinian Authority and Israel moving toward peace via a renunciation of terrorism and an address of the settlement policy?

No. You're not predisposed to terrorists in the slightest, are you?

9168. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 11:10:08 AM

I do respect how alistair can talk about Hamas as a terrorist organization, yet in the same breath, label Sharon as the man who wants no peace. Hmmmmmm.

9169. Macnas - 6/12/2003 11:29:22 AM

Dan, I do not agree with what you are alluding to.
Alistair, more than most here, is outspoken in his loathing for terror organisations.

Some people tend to make subtle distinctions between Arab and European terrorists, tending to look a bit more favourably on the IRA or ETA. Since the days of the Fray, alistair has expressed his hatred of both groupings with equal conviction.

9170. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 11:32:42 AM

Daniel, why do you insist on equating the Israeli government with Hamas, a terrorist organisation?

I find this hard to comprehend. You seem to be putting them on the same moral level. This is a mistake.

I criticise the Prime Minister of a democratic nation for escalating conflict with Hamas, while pretending to negotiate with the Palestinian authority.

It's obvious that the current situation requires Israel to negotiate, by proxy, with terrorists, if there is to be progress towards peace. By attacking Hamas during this period (with considerable collateral casualties), the Israeli government is precluding all possibility of negotiations between the PA and Hamas.

Gee, I guess that's too difficult for your Alzheimer-impaired intelligence. Never mind.

9172. jexster - 6/12/2003 11:40:47 AM

I think that Hamas gets a bad rap.

Give em some JDAMS, an F-16 wing, a couple M1-A1 armored brigades, a few Warthog squadrons and an AWACS, throw in a nuke, it would be a fair fight!

They are fighting for their homeland just like your brave Virginny forebares fought the War of Nothern Aggression. Suicide bombing and 4th generation low rent war is all that they can manage that the massive charitable work they do in Lebanon.

And suicide bombing isn't psycho apparently. According to Israel's foremost psychiatric expert on this, based on his 30 years of case study, beginning with the first bomber and every one since, these folks are quite sane. They aren't brainwashed. They aren't psychotic. He says their decisions are rational products of their belief systems and their situation. Think of it like Saving Private Ryan, the Marines at Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the people of Stalingrad, Leningrad etc.

Sacrificing their lives for their nation...jewish partisans in Poland...in the Warsaw ghetto...Omaha Beach, Pickett's charge

9173. alistairConnor - 6/12/2003 11:57:05 AM

Here's some more stuff that's too complicated for Shitbag to bother with.

From Haaretz, that well-known pro-Hamas paper.

Ostensibly, it was a matter of miserable timing.
When Abu Mazen is making every effort to
achieve dialogue with the Hamas and the other
refusal organizations, when Egypt is striving
to achieve a truce and was intending to send
intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to twist a few
arms in the Hamas yesterday, when the
Palestinian Authority is fending off attacks
from the Palestinian public for being "an
Israeli-American project," Israel could not
have played better into the hands of the
opponents to the road map.

From the Palestinian perspective, in which the
assassination attempt was aimed at the
diplomatic process, there's an appendix that
buttresses their view: This was not an
operation that required hard-to-get,
up-to-the-minute, intelligence information or a
one-time opportunity. Rantisi's home address is
not a secret, he appears in TV studios and on
the street - anyone who wanted an opportunity
could have seen Rantisi and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
on the main street in Gaza City on Monday
having a long conversation.

9177. PelleNilsson - 6/12/2003 12:21:33 PM

Right. One has to doubt either Sharon's willingness to follow the road map or his ability to control the hawks in the IDF.

9178. PincherMartin - 6/12/2003 12:24:17 PM

I swear to God, if the U.S. were to attack New Zealand with its military for the express purpose of using the two main islands there as destination points for shipping Jews and Pals from the Middle East, I would be happier than the day Saddam fell. We could give the North Island to the Jews and the South Island to the Pals, thereby separating the two. We could also send the Appalachian mountain folk whites who live down there on the cusp of the developed world and their Maori cohabitants to the Middle East, where with their lack of development they fit better anyway.

9179. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2003 12:27:01 PM

Alistair

So you support the IDF in its retaliatory strikes against Hamas?

9180. PincherMartin - 6/12/2003 12:42:29 PM

Right. One has to doubt either Sharon's willingness to follow the road map or his ability to control the hawks in the IDF.

Pelle, what are you talking about? The peace process was going along fine until Hamas attacked that Israeli outpost. I have no idea whether Sharon believes in peace or not, and I really don't care. What matters is that he was starting to do what he was suppose to do.

The Israeli government is completely correct in its view that they are under no obligation to sit around take casualties while the Pals work out their problems. For one thing, those problems between Pal hawks and semi-hawks may never be solved. For another, Hamas position was clear: there was to be no ceasefire, period. It's not like the attack was by some rogue element of one terrorist group, allowing the Israelis to think it might be a one-time event.

9181. PincherMartin - 6/12/2003 12:43:17 PM

...sit around and take casualties...

9182. PincherMartin - 6/12/2003 12:52:07 PM

U.S. Blasts Hamas as Main Obstacle in Middle East

Good for the United States. At least somebody is getting this right. I was worried about Bush's initial comments on Israel's first missile attack, but it looks like he's reconsidered now.

Hamas started this shit. They drew first blood. If Abbas or the Pals can't control them, then the U.S. should ratchet up the pressure in any way it can.

The United States accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Thursday of being the major obstacle to Middle East peace amid a wave of bloodshed that has thrown a U.S.-backed peace plan into turmoil.

"The issue is Hamas. The terrorists are Hamas," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) told reporters traveling with President Bush (news - web sites) to Connecticut.

His comments marked a change in tone from U.S. criticism of Israel for its attempt to kill a Hamas leader on Tuesday. Hamas has rejected Bush's Middle East peace "road map" as too generous to Israel.

test

9255. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 9:16:44 AM

Pickles, who made some hay out of similarly pompous statements on a day when the Israelis and Pals actually did take some strong rhetorical steps forward, is now blowing smoke.

One of the distasteful elements of the US engagement with the ME in recent months is that we're forced to see, read and hear pipsqueaks like Pickles (and Concerned, and so on) rabbit on about a region they only have the haziest idea about. Thus, Pickles is going all self-righteous about the portent of a completely unremarkable Hamas rote press release.

Memo to Pickles: Such statements and counter-statements and even more meaningful acts one way or the other are a daily occurence in Israel-Pal and should not be a reason to call a decorous moment of silence every time they occur. Further Memo: read a regional paper, perhaps Haaretz every day and stop being a twit.

For example, today, haaretz has an article saying - "
The Yesha council of West Bank rabbis issued a
statement Friday, in which is called on Arab
countries to grant Palestinians in the territories
"the right of return to Arab lands," and urged
Israel to implement a biblical injunction against
allowing non-Jews to settle in the Land of
Israel........The rabbis' call echoes statements made recently by several government minister from the right
of the spectrum, who have also expressed the
opinion that there should be "no place for our
enemies inside Israel."

How can anyone listen to your opinion on the Pals/Israel, Pickles, when everyday statements like the one above and the one by Hamas, reduce you to tears and protestations.

9256. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 9:20:55 AM

Marj

You can save words by simply responding "I'm smart . . . I'm smaaaaaartttt!"

Moreover, I was agreeing with you. Clearly, the real concern on the Roadmap to Peace is the Christian Coalition.

What else could it be?

9257. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 9:27:50 AM

Applied reading comprehension is a desirable thing in discussion, Pickles. Plus, assumed pomposity and attemped sarcasm like yours would perhaps be mildly amusing if you could demonstrate the ability to understand simple prose.

--

I'm assigning you reading, Pickles.

Here is Living outside of history . Read it, comprehend it, digest it, then return to me for a brief quiz and further assignments.

9258. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 9:29:06 AM

When answers are simple (i.e., the Authority and Israel pledge a start to peace, and Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade say "No, thank. We'd prefer to continue killing everything we see," it is truly the great, wise mind that finds fault in Billy Graham.

9259. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 9:30:29 AM

I can't read it, Haji. No pictures.

9260. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 9:41:46 AM

70% of Israelis want to get out of all the settlements including those in Jerusalem. Of Americans who give half a shit, the numbers are likely to be even higher.

The settlements and the occupation are the glaring illegalities in the Israel/Pal situation, even hyper-rational Sharon agrees with that openly.

Given the assymetry between the two parties, why does Israel simply not just retreat from the settlements and then wreak terrible havoc on any element which persists in violence against it within the '67 borders? Even the most fervent international critic would be neutralized by this tack, why not take it?

Because the wackoes in the US and Israeli regious right aren't having any of it. They rely on interpreted ancient texts for the belief that God gave the land to Israel and that it must be held cause Jesus is coming that way. Unfortunately, these wackoes are electorally significant in both countries and in both countries have managed to hijack the inevitable peace process for periods of time.

Bush, for all his born-again-ness, is not one of the wackoes, even if he panders to them all the time. It may just be that he has it in him to stiff the religious right in this country (and Sharon clearly has enough gravitas to beat off his own parallel fringe if he wants).....thus things may in fact be looking up for the rest of us who are not hostages to disputed, cobbled-together, alleged words from God.

9261. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 9:48:47 AM

Haji

why does Israel simply not just retreat from the settlements and then wreak terrible havoc on any element which persists in violence against it within the '67 borders?

Because it will find it self in the exact same situation it finds itself today - but with its enemies emboldened by their concessions and strategically enhanced.

And when havoc is wrought, the Arab psychoses will reassert itself and the international condemnation - charged largely by a European anti-Israeli sentiment and - will gear up yet again.

Regardless, your belief in the neutralization of the fervent internationalist is charmingly wrong, if irrelevant.

The psychotics are the issue and your prescription of unilateral concession in the face of psychoses is simply stupid.

You've essentially come up with a diplomatic maneuver that might make you feel better about IDF actions.

But you are not threatened by Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.

9262. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 9:50:05 AM

Again, all of this is irrelevant, in that you've pinpointed the real sticking point -- Ralph Reed.

9263. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 9:58:31 AM

Because it will find it self in the exact same situation it finds itself today - but with its enemies emboldened by their concessions and strategically enhanced.

This oft-repeated mantra has become the most popular canard of the religious right and their running mates in this battle - the fringe of the neocons.

In short, it is utter bullshit, ahistorical meaningless claptrap dredged up precisely to obscure the very real and very obvious path ahead for the two parties and for the region.

Akiva Eldar (go look him up, Pickles, you simpleton) elaborated on this quite neatly yesterday. It is his sober belief that Sharon is not playing a waiting game -the waiting is his game, he feels that he can herd the Pals into "bantustans" and that by erecting bogeyman after bogeyman, by overstating the real security threats, and by counting on ventriloquist's dummies like Pickles to mouth grotesquely meaningless niceties like the line highlighted above, he can indefinitely hold off the inevitable.

He may be right in the short term (and has the dummies aplenty to assist), but he cannot and will not be right in the medium to long term unless the wackoes are correct and Jesus himself is coming back to mete out judgement as per that old book.

9264. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 10:01:17 AM

Pickles has now got two reading assignments.

When I return, I shall look to see if he has digested and learned from them and perhaps even taken them back to the little right-wing circle jerk.

Morning, all.

9265. Wombat - 6/13/2003 10:07:43 AM

Recent polls indicate that over 50% of Israelis oppose the latest round of assassinations, and almost 70% are willing to abandon settlements as part of the road map.

It is very noble for Sickles to don the mantle of partisan and antiterrorist enthusiast on behalf of Israel, however, it appears to be at variance with what most Israelis may want.

9266. jexster - 6/13/2003 10:13:17 AM

poll in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily found 67 percent of Israelis wanted what the survey termed the "assassination policy" to stop

9267. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 10:37:39 AM

Well, more Americans voted for Gore, and that cleary wasn't in their best interests either.

9268. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 10:48:07 AM

You don't get it, Jew-hating Wombat, that 70% of Israelis are clearly Jew-haters.

Leave it to Pincher "I'm the best friend of the Jews" Martin and Mr. Pickles the ventriloquist's dummy, Jew-hating Wombat. They're the voice of reason.

9269. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 10:57:51 AM

Relax, Haji. At least you're on the Sharon-Pat Robertson case.

9270. jexster - 6/13/2003 11:03:02 AM

Meetin Jaysus in the air!

9271. jexster - 6/13/2003 11:03:46 AM

We interrupt this colloquy for procedural bulletin:

Covert Army Unit Hunted For Banned Iraqi Arms
Elite Task Force 20 has failed to find weapons of mass destruction.

9272. jexster - 6/13/2003 11:04:34 AM

Is PM a Heeb-o-phile?

Me too!

Mazeltov!

9273. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 11:11:23 AM

And it is as entertaining as ever. Current high amusement is generated by the sight of the blustering Pincher "I'm the best friend of the Jews" Martin beating his chest about the Middle East in the manner now in vogue with the nitwit neocon contingent.

Somehow I doubt that the great Hebrew nation is particularly cheered by the fervent, tearful, avowals of solidarity coming from the likes of these characters.

Watch your back, is my advice.

Hahahaha!

Yes, Marj, who once slipped a very large poisoned dagger into his Jewish business partner's back, solely because the man was Jewish, warns the Israelis of the perfidious neo-cons, who are the best friends Israel has ever had.

9274. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:15:20 AM

BUSH LIED!!!


Short conflict, less ammo kept war cost down

>By Laurence McQuillan, USA TODAY

>WASHINGTON — A short conflict that used fewer missiles, sparked fewer oil field fires and created fewer refugees than anticipated produced a lower-than-expected financial cost for the major combat in Iraq.

9275. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 11:18:47 AM

Wombat --

Recent polls indicate that over 50% of Israelis oppose the latest round of assassinations, and almost 70% are willing to abandon settlements as part of the road map.

It is very noble for Sickles to don the mantle of partisan and antiterrorist enthusiast on behalf of Israel, however, it appears to be at variance with what most Israelis may want.

One poll taken by one newspaper with some questionable language (Do you favor "assassinations" of Hamas leaders) taken over a period of days no one has identified. There has, after all, been another bus bombing since Sharon's first missile attack. Was the poll taken before or after or over a period of days overlapping that event?

The Sharon government is the elected government of Israel and as such is the caretaker of Israeli security, even as much as you may want to hand that responsibility to a newspaper poll of dubious reliability because it was hyped up by Reuters.

As for the settlements, Sharon had taken the first steps towards removing a few before the recent return to violence.

9276. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 11:18:56 AM

"What did the president know, and when did he know it?"

Howard Dean

"Oh please, oh please, oh please."

Daniel Sickles

9277. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 11:20:04 AM

Another thing about that poll.

It is my understanding that none of the recent Israeli casualties of the Hamas campaign were sampled.

9278. concerned - 6/13/2003 11:20:28 AM

Yes, Marj, who once slipped a very large poisoned dagger into his Jewish business partner's back, solely because the man was Jewish....

Some detail on this? IAC, it's more than a bit strange that Marjoribanks reserves no pejoratives for Hamas or their actions.

9279. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:21:36 AM

Unbelievable.

Alisatair O'Faggit called Sickles "Shitbag" fifty times.

In a single post, I asked,

"Wait, I'm confused. Is the Shitbag now in charge of The Madmen, or does the Shitbag act as a sort of executive officer on The Madman's behalf?"

Apparently Cock in the Mouth Jay deleted it.

9280. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 11:29:30 AM

Actually, it's entirely believable.

Jay took a drubbing. He had to strike back in the only way he could.

9281. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 11:30:23 AM

Some detail on this? IAC, it's more than a bit strange that Marjoribanks reserves no pejoratives for Hamas or their actions.

To tell you the honest truth, I was so embarrassed for Marj after he told that story that I merely skimmed the details and quickly purged it from my memory except for the basic outline of it. Andonly, I believe, knows the story better, since she quizzed Marj on it at the time.

It's one thing to go after an anti-Semite when they try to hide, but what are you suppose to do when they themselves volunteer a story that shows they lack such basic moral intregity on the issue? Frankly, I was speechless and embarrassed for the man, and I say this as someone who almost never foregoes any opportunity to razz him.

9282. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 11:33:37 AM

I lost five or six of my posts to Jay, some of which had substantive points, such as my proof that Alistair's a sheepfucker.

9283. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:34:14 AM

Dan,

It's considered "needless abuse" when you point out that the thread moderator is incorrectly quoting someone, and has not even bothered to read the original article, and refuses to read the posted retractions/corrections connected to the misquote, etc.

The left has this cute little idea that they never quite admit but it's apparent nevertheless. The idea is that, because they are ultimately on the side of Truth and Justice and Holiness, pretty much all tactics are acceptable. They continue peddling lies which are PROVEN to be lies simply because they refuse to give up on the rhetorical usefulness of the lie.

9284. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:35:11 AM

"IAC, it's more than a bit strange that Marjoribanks reserves no pejoratives for Hamas or their actions. "

They're "Freedom Fighters." Our own State Department said so, according to Sahib Softass.

9285. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:38:12 AM

This was cute too:

After Daniel pointed out that Clinton, Hillary, Gore, Albright, Pollack, Talbot, Daschle, Kerry, etc. -- the sum and entirety of the Democratic Party and the Clinton Administration in particular --all claimed the same thing about Saddam's WMD's over the course of the past eight years (that is, that they exist and posed a grave threat requiring military action-- Mssrs. Daschle and Kerry were particularly eloquent on this point during Clinton's famous Monica Bombing of Iraq), Jay says,

"I don't know why you keep saying that. I don't know what that's supposed to mean."

A ha ha ha ha ha hah. Right, Jay. You can't figure out the subtle point Danny's driving out. It's just too convoluted and complex a thesis for you to grasp.

9286. jexster - 6/13/2003 11:40:46 AM

Oh puppy love!

Oh procedural details:

At least 5,000 civilians may have been killed during the invasion of Iraq, an independent research group has claimed. As more evidence is collated, it says, the figure could reach 10,000.
Iraq Body Count (IBC), a volunteer group of British and US academics and researchers, compiled statistics on civilian casualties from media reports and estimated that between 5,000 and 7,000 civilians died in the conflict.

Its latest report compares those figures with 14 other counts, most of them taken in Iraq, which, it says, bear out its findings.

Researchers from several groups have visited hospitals and mortuaries in Iraq and interviewed relatives of the dead; some are conducting surveys in the main cities.

Three completed studies suggest that between 1,700 and 2,356 civilians died in the battle for Baghdad alone

9287. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 11:40:56 AM

Oooh.

Pincher Martin, the self-described "best friend of the Jews" is calling me an anti-Semite.

How frightening, I quail in my chappals.

9288. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:41:35 AM

Seriously, Dan-o. What do you mean by that? It's baffling. I see the words but they're all mixed up and cross-combobulated like cyrillic alphabet soup.

What is the mysterious, numinous, eldritch point you're driving at? It's all so taxing on my little brain.

9289. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 11:42:17 AM

Pincher Martin, the self-described "best friend of the Jews" is calling me an anti-Semite.

How frightening, I quail in my chappals.

Marj, is that dagger in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

9290. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 11:42:38 AM

Somebody, quick.

Take Haji's thesaurus.

9291. jexster - 6/13/2003 11:44:37 AM

Did I tell you about the moronic (little m) Indian Econ Stats prof I had this semester?

9292. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 11:46:16 AM

Ace

I think I was overly convoluted. I could have meant:

So, either the entire British and United States governments, their intelligence arms, the GOP and the Democrats, and the executive team of the past two administrations, along with UNSCOM and the U.N., conspired to concoct the lie of WMD in Iraq AND Saddam dovetailed into the aim of this conspiracy by refusing to comply with 1441, which could not have uncovered these mythical WMD, and inviting an invasion.

or

um . . .

you know.

Jay's right.

I'm really don't know what I was driving at.

9293. jexster - 6/13/2003 11:46:55 AM

On dying in vain...

Resistance to occupation is growing -

US and British troops are being sucked into an Iraqi quagmire

9294. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:47:45 AM

Why did you let her get away with that?

I would at least have invited her to hazard a guess at my Opus Arcanum.

9295. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:48:45 AM

I'm curious: If Bush "lied" about the WMD, does that mean the pro-Saddam lobbyists "lied" about the war's cost, duration, and bodycount?

9296. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 11:48:48 AM

Jexter --

US and British troops are being sucked into an Iraqi quagmire

Old news. The media's been reporting the U.S. has been stuck in a quagmire since March.

9297. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:49:34 AM

It's also the Guardian UK, Pincher.

Who are famous for the "Wolfowitz: It was all about the oil" story.

9298. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 11:52:24 AM

Does "quagmire" really fit the bill any more?

I much prefer "hopeless morass."

9299. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 11:53:33 AM

Daniel Sickles: It was all about the oil

9300. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 11:57:21 AM

Ace, in all seriousness, I don't know why anyone thinks most British newspapers are synonymous with quality journalism. They usually all are full of bloviaters and drunks, long on opinion and short on the basics of journalism (such as checking their facts), and where the real parting line on foreign affairs is not right/left or conservative/liberal, but virulently anti-American/subtly anti-American.

9301. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 12:00:37 PM

Blah blah blah. All I see in your statement is,

PINCHER MARTIN: IT WAS ALL ABOUT THE OIL

9302. jexster - 6/13/2003 12:04:02 PM

It certainly wasn't about the WMD!

Let's go to Liberia and stamp out evil there!



Niger Uranium Story was De-Bunked a Year Ago, But Bush and
Powell Kept Using It

9303. jexster - 6/13/2003 12:05:04 PM

MUSHROOM CLOUD! DUCK AND COVER!






Sorry just a fart

9304. alistairconnor - 6/13/2003 12:20:13 PM

So, either the entire British and United States governments, their intelligence arms, the GOP and the Democrats, and the executive team of the past two administrations, along with UNSCOM and the U.N., conspired to concoct the lie of WMD in Iraq AND Saddam dovetailed into the aim of this conspiracy by refusing to comply with 1441, which could not have uncovered these mythical WMD, and inviting an invasion.

Pincher, as I recall, you were quite distressed a couple of weeks ago about the idea that maybe there had been an intelligence failure, and you expressed the idea that if there really were no WMD to be found in Iraq, that would be a very serious blow to America's credibility. Words to that effect. I'm sure we can find the posts again.

Has your position evolved on this? It's a sincere question.

9305. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 12:23:43 PM

"Has your position evolved on this? It's a sincere question."

Yes, yes, sincere as ever.

And Pincher, you really do owe him a thoughtful, candid answer, because you know that he, VK, and Jay are so prompt about providing same in return.

9306. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 12:25:05 PM

Alistair --

I did say that, and my position has not evolved.

But at the same time I said that, I also said I would wait until at least August before making any final judgements.

9307. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 12:26:41 PM

Ace is absolutely right though.

I answer the questions put to me. How about a little payback?

9308. alistairconnor - 6/13/2003 12:32:34 PM

Thank you for your answer, Pincher. You are a great deal more honest than Sickles. I will keep asking him that question, and I'm sure that he'll still be refusing to answer it in a year's time.

What questions have you asked me, Pincher?

You have made a number of bald assertions about me, some involving sheep, and some involving anti-semitism. None had any substance or evidence to back them up. Was there a question there too somewhere?

And why do you need to ask me questions anyway? You can always read my mind so well.

9309. PincherMartin - 6/13/2003 12:37:14 PM

Specifically, why didn't you mention the Hamas attack when you questioned the timing of the first Israeli missile attack?

Why didn't you questioned Abbas' committment to peace -- like you have Sharon's -- after Hamas left the negotiating table, attacked Israel, and all Abbas said was he would like to continue talking with Hamas, but that he would make no moves to use force against them?

Why didn't you mention that Sharon scared his own supporters when he used the word "occupation" and said that some of the settlements would have to be taken down?

9310. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 12:38:40 PM

Ha ha ha ha.

Yes, I duck alistair's questions with regularity.

Like when he asks My God! It's not Stalingrad! It's Chechnya. Don't you agree?

9311. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 12:39:02 PM

"What questions have you asked me, Pincher? "

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee

ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

We've got a trifecta of comedy going. Cock in the Mouth Jay wants to know what Sickles means, Pelle wants to know why conservatives have "adopted a shrill tone," and Alistair O'Faggit wants to know if anyone's asked him any questions which he has dodged or simply refused to answer.

Remember the day that Alistair wrote to Pelle, "Don't answer his hypothetical question. It's a trap"?

9312. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 12:42:46 PM

Alistair, I guess you just missed all those hundreds of interrogratories that began with "Alistair" and ended with "?"

You just sort of read them as non-rhyming limerics, I suppose.

Don't answer his hypothetical. It's a trap!

9313. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 12:42:50 PM

Alistair, I guess you just missed all those hundreds of interrogratories that began with "Alistair" and ended with "?"

You just sort of read them as non-rhyming limerics, I suppose.

Don't answer his hypothetical. It's a trap!

9314. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 12:47:59 PM

The only consolation is that half of the aging hippy shitbag contingent so richly in evidence here will be dead in ten fucking years.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

9315. jexster - 6/13/2003 12:58:20 PM

Poor little fella

9316. jexster - 6/13/2003 12:59:18 PM

The New and Improved WMD Finder! Mark Fiore

9317. OhioSTOPAS - 6/13/2003 1:09:28 PM

From Haaretz:

“In early May, Bush met with a delegation of U.S. Jewish leaders, one of whom said afterward that Bush had made the following statement about Sharon: ‘I saved his ass in Iraq. He owes me, and I intend to collect the debt.’”

Assuming the President was quoted accurately, what could he possibly mean by “I saved [Sharon’s] ass in Iraq.”?

9318. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 1:45:28 PM

Assuming the President was quoted accurately, what could he possibly mean by “I saved [Sharon’s] ass in Iraq.”?

He meant, "It was all about oil."



"It was all about oil."

-- William Shakespeare

9319. AceofSpades - 6/13/2003 1:45:32 PM

Assuming the President was quoted accurately, what could he possibly mean by “I saved [Sharon’s] ass in Iraq.”?

He meant, "It was all about oil."



"It was all about oil."

-- William Shakespeare

9320. alistairconnor - 6/13/2003 1:54:37 PM

Pincher, I guess I must have missed these questions the first time you asked me. (Hey, why don't you claim they got deleted?)

By way of introduction, in case anyone's wondering why the fuss, I have been fielding accusations of "pro-Hamas" from Sickles, and of "Jew hater, anti-semitic" from Pincher, ever since I posted the following in Message # 9092 :

Meanwhile... Does Sharon want peace?

Sceptics note a pattern of Israeli assassinations at crucial moments in the peace efforts. In January and July 2002, and March this year, the army's assassination of senior Hamas or Tanzim commanders broke weeks without Palestinian attacks and efforts to establish a ceasefire.

Now, having started to backtrack after learning that a majority of Israelis share my disapproval of the assassination attempt, Pincher, clutching at straws, wants me to answer the following questions :

(cont'd)

9321. alistairconnor - 6/13/2003 1:54:57 PM

Specifically, why didn't you mention the Hamas attack when you questioned the timing of the first Israeli missile attack?

I posted four words, a link, and a quote. The bungled assassination attempt had just taken place. It was a major event, I thought it worth a brief comment, which would probably provoke discussion. I have absolutely no need to justify it, but I'm doing it out of politeness because you asked the quesion.

What's more, I believe that Sharon's policy of knee-jerk reaction (major escalation in this case) to any terrorist attack, is profoundly stupid, and amounts to surrendering control of the peace process to Hamas.

Why didn't you questioned Abbas' committment to peace -- like you have Sharon's -- after Hamas left the negotiating table, attacked Israel, and all Abbas said was he would like to continue talking with Hamas, but that he would make no moves to use force against them?

Because it wasn't Abbas who fired missiles from a helicopter into a crowded street. And because there's only so much you can say with four words.
Why didn't you mention that Sharon scared his own supporters when he used the word "occupation" and said that some of the settlements would have to be taken down?

See above. I haven't yet finished my book on this subject.

9322. Ms. No - 6/13/2003 4:32:06 PM

Cos, if you're still around, I'd like to explore a couple of things with you.

My general take on the whole situation is that I don't know enough to say one party or the other is at fault. I have a predisposition to give more benefit of the doubt to the Israelis because they're surrounded on all sides by enemies. At the same time, I completely disapprove of them settling areas that don't belong to them and I believe that their actions have not only provoked increased violence and encouraged ill-will, but also weakened their bargaining power by engaging in vengeance killing and other unjustifiable acts of violence.

The entire region tends to piss me off because I see a lot of righteous victim mentality on all sides. Lots of whining and posturing. Nobody is responsible for their actions because they've been abused and victimized by everyone else. It's the standard justification for every violent act no matter how heinous.

At times it seems that the only answer is to kill everyone and sow the ground with salt. Not unlike when you fight with your siblings over a toy and your parents take it away so nobody can play with it.

That's not a viable option, however. I did ask CalGal once if anyone had ever successfully thwarted a terrorist and she brought up Quadaffi (sp?). I think her point was that he gave up the fight after we killed his children.

On the one hand I find that abhorrent. On the other hand I have to ask "How many people are going to die if this isn't stopped?"

Not unlike the bombing of London question. Do we sacrifice the few for the survival of the many. Do we go in and completely decimate a culture and a people in order to build a lasting peace? What is the value of a culture that cannot be trusted not to endlessly terrorize and make war on other people regardless of the provocation?

9323. vonKreedon - 6/13/2003 5:10:06 PM

Cos - IMO both sides actively participate in the cycle of violence. The Pals insistence on using terror is not only abhorent, but seems stupidly counter-productive. The biggest win for the Pals to date was Intifada I, which was minimally violent and the stones were generally directed at the IDF soldiers. Why would they then instigate Intifada II as a terror campaign rather than as a more refined campaign of civil disobedience?

I think that the debate in the US tends to focus on Isreal because that is where our countries support and influence lies. We subsidize the Isreali government more than any other foreign government. According to the CS Monitor, Isreal is due to receive, "...$2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years." Further, this article states,
"And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy."

This is a staggering amount of money for the US to be paying out, and it makes it impossible for us to act as an honest broker. This also is more money than the Federal government gives to 35 of the 50 states!

In my opinion we should work to impose sanctions on the Isrealis and Pals. We should work with the UN to cut off all aid to both sides. I expect this would get their attention.

9324. alistairconnor - 6/13/2003 5:34:15 PM

Continuing my response to Pincher's questions in Message # 9309.

My answers were a little bit flippant, I was in a hurry. In truth, what you need is an answer to the subtext of your question. My interpretation of the subtext is something like this :

"How dare you criticise an Israeli politician without a long preamble praising said politician and criticising his enemies in order to establish your non-anti-semitic credentials?"

Stated like that, what can I say? I suspect this is a specifically American thing : Criticism of any Israeli or any Jew is considered, a priori, to be anti-semitic. It's not something I have any control over. I can't help how my words are received. There is nothing that I have posted in this forum that would accredit the idea that I am anti-semitic; so I feel no need to defend myself against such an accusation before it is formulated.

Would you care to comment on this, Pincher? (It would probably reflect better on you if you edited before posting to remove the mindless abuse.)

9325. Ms. No - 6/13/2003 5:56:00 PM

Cos,

Well, duh. Sanctions. Good call. I hadn't thought of that but it's an obvious tactic.

If we cut off all aid to the region what are the likely responses? How badly does Israel need our support to sustain itself? Militarily I assume they're in good shape. Even if all aid stopped as of this minute they're well supplied and well-run. Israel also has nuclear arms, correct? How many Pro-Palistinian nations also have nuclear weapons?

As for the Palestinians I imagine they'd be in sorry shape if sanctions were imposed. They'd doubtless receive aid from nations who don't need US support or are willing to do without it in order to purge the Israelis. How many such nations are there? What are their military capabilities? Can they afford to feed and arm the Palestinians sufficiently to overthrow Israel?

How long would it take for Israel to decide on a nuclear response?

9326. alistairconnor - 6/13/2003 6:00:54 PM

More rumours for Pincher

A senior Hamas official denied Friday a report by
the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera that the
militant group was prepared to agree to a
conditional cease-fire with Israel, but said that
the group was holding "intensive" talks with
Palestinian Authority representatives.

You may have forgotten by now, Pincher, but you called me a liar for claiming that the PA was negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas. The problem with that sort of accusation is that it assumes perfect knowledge : you had no proof that such negotiations were not taking place, therefore the accusation was baseless.

9327. alistairconnor - 6/13/2003 6:04:45 PM

How badly does Israel need our support to sustain itself?

Israel is in the middle of its worst-ever economic slump. About half due to the high-tech bubble, in which they were major players, and about half due to the Intifada. They are faced with a growing social crisis, and they badly need additional help from the US.

Bush holds all the cards, if he cares to use them.

But choosing the right moment is crucial. A majority of Israelis are ready for unilateral concessions as the price for peace; a minority are ready for bloody insurrection to prevent it.

9328. Ms. No - 6/13/2003 6:20:47 PM

The Pals seem to believe they have nothing to lose - hence the never ending pool of folks willing to walk into public squares in C-4 leisure suits.

If sanctions were imposed they would have an initially greater affect on Israel than on the Palestinians in which case Israel would be a sitting duck, right? Except that they wouldn't stay that way. They'd only take so much before they decided to fight back regardless of forfeiting future aid.

If it came to that they'd hardly feel the need to stop at their designated border when the only real solution would be to wipe out the Palestinians once and for all. It's not as if the Palestinians are ever going to give up...or maybe they would to avoid total extermination. It wouldn't last, however. Eventually there would be rebellion and retaliation and so on back to the same vicious cycle that's been going on for what seems like the last billion years.

Or I could be missing something again.

9329. vonKreedon - 6/13/2003 6:33:54 PM

In my view sanctions would only be feasible if they were multilateral, preferably UNSC ordered, and included the Pals as well as the Isrealis. The Pals have less to lose from sanctions than the Isrealis, and the maintainance of santions on the Pals would be more problematic, but the sanctions would be a non-starter (assuming there is any way for them to be a starter) without imposing them equally.

9330. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 6:38:06 PM

VK

IMO both sides actively participate in the cycle of violence. The Pals insistence on using terror is not only abhorent, but seems stupidly counter-productive. The biggest win for the Pals to date was Intifada I, which was minimally violent and the stones were generally directed at the IDF soldiers. Why would they then instigate Intifada II as a terror campaign rather than as a more refined campaign of civil disobedience?

This is what is so dangerous and soft about your worldview. There is no doubt that offered peace, Israel would deal, and deal quickly. There is also no doubt that offered peace, the terrorists would choose war, because their aims are simple, barbaric and unalterable. Those aims are not homes and schools and nutrition for the Palestinian people, but extermination of the Israelis.

What you presume is counterproductive (i.e, terrorism) is not counterproductive at all from the viewpoint of a psychotic. But you so want peace that you make equivalent what cannot be made equivalent - Israeli desire to deal and the savage aims of backward psychotics, who upon the first day of dealing, start the slaughter with impunity.

Yes, many of the poor Palestinians are in the middle, but even this is somewhat of a fiction - most of them support suicide bombers, for example.

9331. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 6:42:37 PM

I think that the debate in the US tends to focus on Isreal because that is where our countries support and influence lies. We subsidize the Isreali government more than any other foreign government. According to the CS Monitor, Isreal is due to receive, "...$2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years." Further, this article states, "And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy."

This is a staggering amount of money for the US to be paying out, and it makes it impossible for us to act as an honest broker. This also is more money than the Federal government gives to 35 of the 50 states!

We'll pay anyone for peace. Ask Egypt. Think of what we pay out to sit on the Korean peninsula.

9332. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 6:43:03 PM

A Palestinian state could be Monaco, if only the terrorists would loose their grip. They will not, and your soft suggested polcy shows why. If Hamas can even be viewed as a legitimate player, why not keep up the massacre? If blowing up civilian targets in supermarkets gets the United States to slap sanctions on all, that would encourage even more massacres.

Yet, Hamas (and Hezbollah and the Brigade) will not loose their grip - and for that barbaric intransigence, Israel will regularly be demonized.

In my opinion we should work to impose sanctions on the Isrealis and Pals. We should work with the UN to cut off all aid to both sides. I expect this would get their attention.

Why would we impose sanctions on the people who support terrorists/the people who are lambs while terrorists act in their name and those who fight terrorists (much as we do, with civilian collateral damage in the process) in the post-9/11 era?

Unless you are talking we as in some other nation.

Perhaps I should ask - which we?

The real answer is to demand that the Authority deal with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Brigade in conjunction with Israel. Then, the Authority can actually deliver on offered peace.

9333. vonKreedon - 6/13/2003 6:50:22 PM

Dan - If you want to trade false equivalencies, how about the number of civilians slaughtered? The psychos would obviously have slaughtered more civilians, correct?

Are you denying that the Isrealis participate in the cycle of violence? Are you denying that Isreali actions, such as the settlements, and destruction of homes and other collective punishments, and the killing of civilians play a substantial part in maintaining support for Hamas among the Pals?

9334. concerned - 6/13/2003 7:12:41 PM

Re. 9333 -

I always consider the following when judging the situation:

Will the Israelis accept coexistence with the Pallys? Yes.
Will the Pallys accept coexistence with the Israelis? No.

The Pallys need to give peace a chance for this to work.

9335. vonKreedon - 6/13/2003 7:17:59 PM

Con - Those are good things to consider, and I think that the jury is still out on both answers.

To break it down further:

• Will the bulk of Isreali society accept coexistence with a Pal state? Yes
  
• Will the Isreali religious right/settlers movement accept coexistence with a Pal state? No
  
• Will the bulk of Pal society accept coexistence with the Isreali state? Unclear
  
• Will the Pal Islamists accepte coexistence with the Isreali state? No
  
  
  So, you are correct that the Pals appear to have farther to go toward peace than the Isrealis, but not that there is no impediment from the Isreali side.

  9336. vonKreedon - 6/13/2003 7:18:29 PM

9337. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 7:20:48 PM

It's a solid distinguishing point.

For you, civilian death means equivalence in wrong. Dresden and Hiroshima equal Treblinka and Bataan, for example.

Hence, why I deem your thinking both dangerous and soft.

For example, we are al-Qaeda, because civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq exceeded those on 9-11.

To your questions --

Indeed, Israel participates in a cycle of violence, much as the United States participates in a cycle of violence. When you are attacked, and you attack back, that is a cycle of violence. When you're existence is threatened, and you fight to maintain it, that is a cycle of violence.

The difference between you and me is that for me, mere participation in the cycle does not mean moral equivalence. At root, you appear to be pacifist (chich makes sense, given my understanding of your soft and dangerous thinking).

As for your other question, I think it is borderline ignorant to suggest that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Brigade even require substantial assistance from the Palestinians - they only need a portion of them, and IDF killing of Palestinian civilians is merely a bonus for their deomization of the blooduscking Jew, certainly not critical. The terrorists have bigger fish to fry and they would likely sacrifice every Palestinian in their cause. Indeed, they have consigned them to lives of misery and degradation rather than renounce their violent paths.

One need only read their founding and operating principles.

Have you?

9338. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 7:25:05 PM

Will the Isreali religious right/settlers movement accept coexistence with a Pal state?

What? The settlers might attack the new Palestinian state?

I think your suggestion is so ludicrous it must be unintentional. What you might mean to say is that the rightists will resist dismantling of the settlements. Which they will.

But if the Authority could actually deliver an end to terrorism, the resistance would be overcome. As it stands, the Authority can talk of renouncing terrorism, only to be ignored by . . . the terrorists. Imagine that.

Needless to say, squatting on disputed land lost in warfare is hardly equivalent to sending in little girls strapped with explosives to massacre civilians.

9339. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 7:33:54 PM

For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah's victory prevails. Thus we shall perceive them approaching in the horizon, and this will be known before long . . .

Article Three

The basic structure of the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Muslims who are devoted to Allah and worship Him verily [as it is written]: 'I have created Man and Devil for the purpose of their worship" [of Allah]. Those Muslims are cognizant of their duty towards themselves, their families and country and they have been relying on Allah for all that.

They have raised the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors in order to extricate the country and the people from the [oppressors'] desecration, filth and evil ....

The time(16) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad(17), which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)(18). . .

[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement....

When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad becomes a duty binding on all Muslims. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad. This would require the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses on all local, Arab and Islamic levels. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters.

9340. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 7:34:38 PM

The Hamas Charter in Full

9341. marjoribanks - 6/13/2003 10:07:00 PM

I just wasted 35 seconds actually reading Sickles's boring platitudes above.

Two things are clear. One, ventriloquist's dummy Mr. Pickles has not done the reading I assigned him. Two, Mr. Pickles is incapable of saying anything remotely informed, meaningful, or interesting on the topic of Israel and Palestine. The mouth moves, lines of text appear in the Mote, but it's only a dummy after all.

I prefer Pincher's tearful declarations of fealty to the Hebrews any day.

9342. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2003 10:09:01 PM

Be nice, Haji.

You'll upset VonKreedon.

9343. jexster - 6/13/2003 10:40:06 PM

Anyone post this?

Evidence that Bush Ideologues Deliberately Lied - Kristof

9344. jexster - 6/13/2003 10:44:27 PM

What interests me aren't the lies. I was convinced of that loooong ago and am quite beyond shock or awe.

What's fun is the CIA professionals (and DIA too) are involved in a bureaucratic black op. Bush has fucked these people so often it isn't funny...and from the leaks as this Black Op plays out, it appears the Company is over their shock and awe too.


Will the Butcher Boy end up with an armadillo head between his legs?

Stay tuned.

9345. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:26:10 AM

Alistair --

Pincher, I guess I must have missed these questions the first time you asked me. (Hey, why don't you claim they got deleted?)

Jay has been busy since the last time I checked back on my previous posts. The formatting -- or whatever you call it -- is fucked-up now because he took out numerous posts as far back as nearly 200 posts ago, but didn't bother to see what it might do to the rest of the thread. He also took out some of my substantive posts and left others such as my Message # 9178, which have no purpose other than to offend.

So, yes, I can't go back now and show you where I demanded that you explain your viewpoints, because in those same posts I took a pre-emptive strike that the only explanation for your views was because you were a "Jew-hating Kiwi." And our moderator couldn't live with that.

continued ...

9346. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:27:48 AM

By way of introduction, in case anyone's wondering why the fuss, I have been fielding accusations of "pro-Hamas" from Sickles, and of "Jew hater, anti-semitic" from Pincher [Don't forget sheep-fucker]. , ever since I posted the following in Message #9092:

Wrong, you also posted Message # 9048, which I saw but was unable to respond to in time before you posted essentially the same sentiment in Message # 9092. They both had the noxious anti-Semitic scent of blaming the Israeli leadership for having the temerity of striking back after they had first been struck.

Now, having started to backtrack after learning that a majority of Israelis share my disapproval of the assassination attempt, Pincher, clutching at straws, wants me to answer the following questions:

There has been no backtracking. Jay and Wombat cited a poll of Israelis that does not go as far as you do. There is a difference between saying you want a policy to stop for the sake of peace, and claiming, as you did, that the policy was invented out of thin air for no discernible purpose. That's not to mention the numerous problems with relying on a newspaper poll you don't know anything about, as I mentioned in Message # 9275.

I posted four words, a link, and a quote. The bungled assassination attempt had just taken place. It was a major event, I thought it worth a brief comment, which would probably provoke discussion. I have absolutely no need to justify it, but I'm doing it out of politeness because you asked the quesion.

Well, gee willikers, thanks.

continued...

9347. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:28:15 AM

What's more, I believe that Sharon's policy of knee-jerk reaction (major escalation in this case) to any terrorist attack, is profoundly stupid, and amounts to surrendering control of the peace process to Hamas.

Or it could mean the destruction of Hamas, which is probably necessary for any long-lasting peace.

Pincher: "Why didn't you questioned Abbas' committment to peace -- like you have Sharon's -- after Hamas left the negotiating table, attacked Israel, and all Abbas said was he would like to continue talking with Hamas, but that he would make no moves to use force against them?"

Alistair: "Because it wasn't Abbas who fired missiles from a helicopter into a crowded street. And because there's only so much you can say with four words."

But it was Abbas who let Hamas walk away from the negotiating table, declare that the war on Israel was still in effect, and carry out a fatal attack that killed five Jews. And what did Abbas do in return? He said he would do nothing to force Hamas to stop, but hoped they would return to negotiations. And what was your response to this sequence of events? Two posts blaming Sharon for the breakdown in peace.

Why didn't you mention that Sharon scared his own supporters when he used the word "occupation" and said that some of the settlements would have to be taken down?

I've already shown that you have been engaged on this subject beyond the one post you claim represents your full wit and wisdom on the situation. And what do your posts on the subject all have in common?: Israel, in your view, is the main culprit in the breakdown of peace between it and the Pals.

That is so at variance with reality, and such a mainstay of your personal philosophy towards Israel, that I'm afraid it earns you the very worst of nasty sobriquets.

9348. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:32:16 AM

Correction in the last post above:

Pincher: Why didn't you mention that Sharon scared his own supporters when he used the word "occupation" and said that some of the settlements would have to be taken down?

Alistair: See above. I haven't yet finished my book on this subject.

I've already shown that you have been engaged on this subject beyond the one post you claim represents your full wit and wisdom on the situation. And what do your posts on the subject all have in common?: Israel, in your view, is the main culprit in the breakdown of peace between it and the Pals.

That is so at variance with reality, and such a mainstay of your personal philosophy towards Israel, that I'm afraid it earns you the very worst of nasty sobriquets.

9349. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:33:56 AM

One more time:

Pincher: "Why didn't you mention that Sharon scared his own supporters when he used the word "occupation" and said that some of the settlements would have to be taken down?"

Alistair: "See above. I haven't yet finished my book on this subject."

I've already shown that you have been engaged on this subject beyond the one post you claim represents your full wit and wisdom on the situation. And what do your posts on the subject all have in common?: Israel, in your view, is the main culprit in the breakdown of peace between it and the Pals.

That is so at variance with reality, and such a mainstay of your personal philosophy towards Israel, that I'm afraid it earns you the very worst of nasty sobriquets.

9350. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:39:46 AM

An outstanding link from Ronski at The Perfect World: My proof that Alistair is a Jew-hating Kiwi

9351. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:45:04 AM

Of course, the author is a Jew, so what he says will be disqualified by Alistair from the start, but he still says many sensible things:

There is a horrid but obvious dynamic going on here: At some deep level, Europeans, European politicians, European culture is aware that almost without exception every European nation was deeply complicit in Hitler’s genocide. Some manned the death camps, others stamped the orders for the transport of the Jews to the death camps, everyone knew what was going on—and yet the Nazis didn’t have to use much if any force to make them accomplices. For the most part, Europeans volunteered. That is why "European civilization" will always be a kind of oxymoron for anyone who looks too closely at things, beginning with the foolish and unnecessary slaughters of World War I, Holocaust-scale slaughter that paved the way for Hitler’s more focused effort.

And so, at some deep level, there is a need to blame someone else for the shame of "European civilization." To blame the victim. To blame the Jews. And the more European nations can focus one-sidedly on the Israeli response to terror and not to the terror itself, the more they can portray the Jews as the real villains, as Nazis, the more salve to their collective conscience for their complicity in collective mass murder in the past. Hitler may have gone too far, and perhaps we shouldn’t have been so cowardly and slavish in assisting him, but look at what the Jews are doing.

9352. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:45:43 AM

And for Macnas:

Isn’t it interesting that you didn’t see any "European peace activists" volunteering to "put their bodies on the line" by announcing that they would place themselves in real danger—in the Tel Aviv cafés and pizza parlors, favorite targets of the suicide bombers. Why no "European peace activists" at the Seders of Netanya or the streets of Jerusalem? Instead, "European peace activists" do their best to protect the brave sponsors of the suicide bombers in Ramallah.

9353. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:48:24 AM

Consider that remarkable Joel Brinkley story in the April 4 edition of The Times, in which the leaders of Hamas spoke joyfully and complacently of their great triumph in the Passover massacre and the subsequent slaughters in Jerusalem and Haifa. Two things made this interview remarkable. One was the unashamed assertion that they had no interest in any "peace process" that would produce a viable Palestinian state living side-by-side with a Jewish state. They only wanted the destruction of the Jewish state and its replacement with one in which "the Jews could remain living ‘in an Islamic state with Islamic law.’"

That defines the reality that has been hidden by the illusion of hope placed in a "peace process." The Palestinians, along with their 300 million "Arab brothers" surrounding the five million Jews, are not interested in a "negotiated settlement."

Israelis are forever being criticized for not negotiating, for not giving away enough of their security, but they have no one to negotiate with who doesn’t, in their heart of hearts, want to exterminate their state and their people as well, if necessary.

9354. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 1:57:15 AM

Alistair -- Message # 9324

In truth, what you need is an answer to the subtext of your question. My interpretation of the subtext is something like this :

"How dare you criticise an Israeli politician without a long preamble praising said politician and criticising his enemies in order to establish your non-anti-semitic credentials?"

Nope, how about this. "How about adding that sentence, that clause, that shows you understand a little about fairness, that shows you appreciate the facts enough to be a disinterested judge of what is happening there."

9355. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 2:14:23 AM

Alistair Message # 9324

Stated like that, what can I say?

Since I didn't state it like that, you don't have to worry about answering it. Your "subtext" protects you from answering the hard questions I put to you that you really have no answer for.

I suspect this is a specifically American thing : Criticism of any Israeli or any Jew is considered, a priori, to be anti-semitic. It's not something I have any control over. I can't help how my words are received. There is nothing that I have posted in this forum that would accredit the idea that I am anti-semitic; so I feel no need to defend myself against such an accusation before it is formulated.

You have a soft anti-Semitism, as do many Europeans. Two generations ago, you would have helped put Jews in the gas chambers; now, you are more civilized, and merely want them to be at the mercy of the Palestinians. (We see this sort of muddle-headedness in the states on crime occassionally.) Is it intentional on your part or just a reflexive position? I can't say, but it does not speak well of you.

9356. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 2:23:43 AM

Alistair -- Message # 9326

You may have forgotten by now, Pincher, but you called me a liar for claiming that the PA was negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas. The problem with that sort of accusation is that it assumes perfect knowledge : you had no proof that such negotiations were not taking place, therefore the accusation was baseless.

You were a liar when you said it, and you know it.

I'm sure Hamas is holding intensive talks with the PA right now because they have just seen three of their top leaders (and their families) incinerated or injured and the rest under heavy threat of being incinerated. There's nothing like the use of effective violence against a group to get it focused on the virtues of talking.

You seem to keep forgetting what you say and when you say it.

9357. PelleNilsson - 6/14/2003 5:38:13 AM

Two generations ago, you would have helped put Jews in the gas chambers;

That is a disgusting and absolutely inexcusable accusation.

9358. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 9:02:59 AM

Pelle --

That is a disgusting and absolutely inexcusable accusation.

It's spot on, Pelle, and I'm sorry that you're not honest enough to recognize it.

With his unadulterated blame-the-Jews-first mentality, Alistair is the intellectual heir to a grand European tradition of Jew-hating. Many Europeans have escaped this tradition and are now able to fairly judge the Middle East without this baggage. I would never say, for example, that Sto would have helped put Jews in the gas chamber. The man is too honest and guilt-ridden to do something like that, and his brain is hard-wired to be sceptical of the kind of harmful ideas that Europe propagates from time to time.

But Alistair is the quintessential type. What would someone of his mediocre talents and love for half-baked ideas have been doing in the France of the 1930s and early 1940s? Alistair is not smart enough to be honest with himself and yet he is smart enough to justify wickedness. That's a dangerous combination. Most likely, he would have been a low-level government functionary or a bourgeois, highly patriotic, disdainful of both Hitler and the Jews, and supportive of getting both out of France. He probably would not have gassed the Jews himself, but in little ways he would have been supportive of the bureacracy that did and he would have slept like a baby at night while doing so.

9359. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 9:10:43 AM

A great many very good, solid, well-meaning people did it, Pelle. And they did it after years of soft and dangerous thinking much as is on display here. We are confronted with such a simple choice of right and wrong, yet people like alistair complicate it to the point of the bizarre.

The greater the massacre of Israelis by terrorist groups (read that again - I did not say, political organizations, but terrorist groups) with explicit dogmas of making Jews in the Middle East extinct (set out in black and white in my prior link), Israeli responsive attacks, wails about the "cycle of violence," and the denunciation of settlements with nary a rebuke for suicide bombings increases.

I'm most impressed by Isn’t it interesting that you didn’t see any "European peace activists" volunteering to "put their bodies on the line" by announcing that they would place themselves in real danger—in the Tel Aviv cafés and pizza parlors, favorite targets of the suicide bombers. Why no "European peace activists" at the Seders of Netanya or the streets of Jerusalem? Instead, "European peace activists" do their best to protect the brave sponsors of the suicide bombers in Ramallah.

9360. PelleNilsson - 6/14/2003 11:26:52 AM

This is absurd. Pincher purports to know exactly what Alistair would have thought and done in the 1940s and turn that into the gravest accusation imaginable. Little Daniel chimes in, anxious to show his right-wing credentials and solidarity, but what he manages to show is an utter lack of intellectual honesty.

Pincher speaks of honesty. Where is the honesty in demonizing criticism of the present Israeli government into support for a second Holocaust?

I shall have no further communication with these two despicable clowns and intellectual frauds.

9361. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 11:40:45 AM

Pincher and I extrapolated from alistair's stated sympathies, which are certainly more to the vicious, psychotic terrorists than to the democratic, respondent government. You'd have to be ahistorical not to realize that a percentage of any ten posters in this thread transported to WWII era Germany as citizens would have been accomplices in some form or fashion to Hitler's final solution. Having read enough of alistair, I'm comfortable in placing my wager on him as some stripe of willing executioner. Not SS, mind you, but certainly tolerant of the machinery and comfortable in its objectives.

Alistair? No. He's a closet pacifist. His problem is not in a mislaid sympathy, but in simple differentiation.

Where do you think your philosophy might lead you, Pelle?

Ah, but when the extrapolation hurts, and the conversation gets interesting, when civility is so cherished, and when the rubber meets the road, Pelle descends into angry invective.

I shall have no further communication with these two despicable clowns and intellectual frauds.

Pity.

9362. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 11:51:56 AM

The left always simply deems the apparently "weaker" party the righteous party. The weak party is ALWAYS virtuous. If the weak party is the Palestinians, ignorant, hate-filled, economically retarded, reading and chanting the filthiest Nazi-esque anti-Jew propaganda, and slaughtering


WOMEN AND CHILDREN CIVILIANS BY THE BUSFULL

and then CELEBRATING these victories proudly--

Well, see, they're the righteous party, aren't they? They're "weaker." There is simply no moral outrage that they can commit that can steal that most cherished of all leftist designations from them -- "The Victim." They can kill Jews with more orgiastic frenzy than the Nazis, and they remain the Holy Victims.

Remember, the Nazis killed Jews, but they at least had the moral sense to feel guilty about this. They killed Jews in SECRET, denied what they were doing to the world. They're executioners largely became alcoholics and depressives; the soldiers involved in slaughtering Jew (and Gypsy, and Communist) civilians tended to have abyssmal morale. They didn't like killing civilians, even Jew civlians.

Contrast this with the Palestinians, who have ORGIASTIC PARADES everytime they, say, bomb an university killing seven Israeli and American 19 YEAR OLD COLLEGE STUDENTS, and sing hymns about their "military victories."

But, see, get this: They are poor (chiefly due to their own making, with an assist from the UN), so they are The Victim, and they can therefore be genocidal killers with no rebuke from the Left. Indeed, the Left apologizes for -- nay, applauds-- the degeneration of an entire race/tribe into a Psychopathic Murder Cult.

Victims can kill as many people as they wish.

The Left has had a long and shameful romance with terrorism and killers and bombers and butchers.

9363. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 11:57:07 AM

"I prefer Pincher's tearful declarations of fealty to the Hebrews any day. "

No Jew haters here.

9364. PelleNilsson - 6/14/2003 12:04:10 PM

Another intellectual fraud appears.

The Nazis had moral sense. he says, but the Left has none. The Left "applauds a Psychopathic Murder Cult".

I invite you to contemplate these two statements.

9365. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 12:18:40 PM

Pelle --

This is absurd. Pincher purports to know exactly what Alistair would have thought and done in the 1940s and turn that into the gravest accusation imaginable.

Alistair blames the Jew first and the Jew last for actions the Jew did not start. He does not speak of incidents that may have caused the Jew to react. He slanders their leadership. He requires the Jew to sit still while he is being killed. He glories in an intellectual tradition (European) that has seen the Jew as the worst evil on the earth. He loves a national culture (French) that is one of the few on the continent of Europe that has never really come to grips with its complicity in the Holocaust.

It's funny. Pelle is upset that I claim to know what Alistair would have thought in the 1940s. Alistair often teases me about a similar thing: that I claim to know what he is thinking. But both Pelle and Alistair freely entertain whether Sharon is really for peace, as if such a thought can ever be known. Both men slander Sharon's intentions at nearly every opportunity and yet scoff at my interpretation of their intentions, even though I am able to engage them and their ideas in a way they will never be able to do to Sharon.

Pincher speaks of honesty. Where is the honesty in demonizing criticism of the present Israeli government into support for a second Holocaust?

I told you why. You have no response to it and become outraged I even have the moxie to present such an idea. Alistair's persistent and skewed criticism of Israel reeks of anti-Semitism.

continued ...

9366. PincherMartin - 6/14/2003 12:19:00 PM

I shall have no further communication with these two despicable clowns and intellectual frauds.

Come, Pelle, when have you ever communicated, with me or anyone else? I remember an occassional two-line response to a post or query; I remember an occassional sniping to a discussion of which you were not a part, and which has become sort of your trademark. But communication? You nearly always fail to answer my straightforward questions. You have not whispered one word as to what you think of Alistair's tendency to blame Israel or Sharon or the Israelis as his first, his middle, and his last explanation of the Israel/Palestinian crisis.

9367. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 12:33:12 PM

Pelle,

Indeed, yes-- the Nazis were at least sensible enough to be embarassed for their crimes.

You are arrogant and positively haughty about your own.

There is no terrorism nor murder no brutality nor slaughter of children that you cannot apologize for-- nay, that you cannot applaud.

And Pincher is quite right-- you've never "communicated." You have the intellectual power of a circus animal. You post your unfunny bon mots and you and Alistair whisper to each other-- "Don't answer that question! It's a trap!"

Yes, you figured it out-- the Socratic tradition of hypoethetical, response, and extrapolation revealed at long last as "a trap" for Lefties like yourself.

Please make the vow to me that you will no longer respond to my posts.

And then, for Christ's sakes, please honor that vow, you soft-minded terrorist apologist.

9368. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 12:39:11 PM

There is a black comedy in the Left's eternal response to Israeli's women's torsos severed in two by the kinetic ribbons of bomb-blasts: "When is America finally going to slap sanctions on these goddamned JEWS!"

Yes, that is the natural response. A Jew's birthday party is rudely interuppted by an exploding Palestinian and his lethal shrapnel; and Pelle and Allistair both want to know when the Jews will be punished for this.

9369. PelleNilsson - 6/14/2003 12:41:20 PM

Indeed, yes-- the Nazis were at least sensible enough to be embarassed for their crimes.

Did you notice any embarrassement on the part of Eichmann during his trial? Oh, I forget, you weren't born then.

You are arrogant and positively haughty about your own.

Which crimes of mine are that, Ace?

9370. jexster - 6/14/2003 1:08:22 PM

First we were persecuted by Saddam Hussein and now by George Bush. Such is the fortune of our people Mr. Jassim, brother-in-law of the widow above.

9371. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 1:22:01 PM

"Which crimes of mine are that, Ace? "

Ah, yes. Quite right. I forgot my audience.

Yes, I'm quite sure you've committed no crime of action; merely moral crimes of thought and prayer. How am I so sure? Because you are European; you do not do, you just sit in your faggity cafes and cogitate.

You do not fight, but you have strong opinions about fighting; you do not create art, but you have strong opinions about art.

What Europeans love is their fucking opinions. Because that's all they fucking have. They are a continent of critics, a race of spectators, a civilization of commentators.

We do not need to fear Europeans taking up the gauntlet and challenging us in the real world. Their campaign will be fought were they are accustomed to "fighting," to wit, in their beloved opinion magazines.

Let us not disturb the cultured opinions of the Euros. Let us just take the world and remake it as we wish, and leave them free to do what they do best, to watch, to complain, to comment.

9372. marjoribanks - 6/14/2003 2:31:55 PM

Hmm. It's Saturday, the sun is shining brightly and the outside world beckons. People with lives are up and about. But here, with the ferocity of embittered shut-ins, the little circle jerk is parading back and forth with thumbs firmly up each other's rectums.

There was a time, I admit, when I would have been as outraged as Pelle correctly is at the disgustingly degraded tactics of the pathetic circle jerk. But now, it's become mundane....every few days they will descend here like a needy pack of baboons and will hurl faeces around until someone pays attention to them.

For months, even years now, I have been pointing out that there is no depth to which these scum will not go to draw attention to themselves, no rhetorical gutter is too filthy for them not to drink deeply from. Forget shame, forget decency, the scum apparently celebrate the absence of anything in them even resembling humanity.

Rather than trying to dissuade them from sullying our nice little site, I propose that we watch (occasionally poke sticks) and let them humiliate themselves, grovel in their own filth as is their wont, expose themselves further as the dregs of what this medium has to offer and as evidence of the ongoing failure of part of the US educational system. Like the Columbine scum, who no doubt spent their Saturdays similarly fulminating about their intellectual and moral superiors, the circle jerk can only be expected to engage in the kind of nonsense above that I wasted two minutes skimming.

9373. jexster - 6/14/2003 2:39:32 PM

Bonfire of the Vanities

USA Today reports,

"For the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, the war doesn't seem to end. Some feel angry that they're still here, guilty that they're not with their families and perplexed that their reward for capturing Baghdad has been extra duty in a country they have grown to dislike. Their families, who
watched the liberation of Iraq on TV, expected a clean end to a hard-fought war. Instead, they worry their loved ones could die keeping peace in a country where U.S. forces are widely regarded as occupiers, not liberators. Iraq is still a dangerous place. During the 43-day war, 139 U.S. service members died - an average of about three deaths a day. In
the six weeks since, 44 have been killed - about one a day. U.S. forces have recently faced stepped-up attacks, particularly in this central Iraq region where Saddam Hussein loyalists are still active... In the past
three weeks, 10 U.S. troops have been killed by enemy ambushes or attacks."

9374. jexster - 6/14/2003 2:42:52 PM

Now that Bush is seeking help from the Taliban in Kolony Kabul, Ace's suggestion that he open talks for the return of Saddam may not be all that farfetched.

Hell it may even prove brilliant!

And I will be the first to say so

9375. marjoribanks - 6/14/2003 2:47:23 PM

Now, to be specific, I don't expect anything but gibbering and unintelligible hoots from Ape. And I am coming close to ignoring the tedious mouthings of ventriloquist's dummy Mr. Pickles altogether.

But the real exposure of deep character flaw comes from the ever-posturing, ever menopausal, Pincher "I'm the best friend of the Jews" Martin. Not content with the absolutely ludicrous display of impotent chest-beating about his (highly suspect) alleged loyalties, he has now taken the additional step of playing dress-up as Nazi-hunter. In a history of some years of participation in forums like these, I must say that this is among the most pathetic displays I've seen.

One is reminded again of that cartoon dog who gambols around his hero endlessly, 'Can I be part of the club, Ape?, huh? Can I, can I? I love the Jews, Ape, I do, I do. I'm their best friend, Ape, I am I am. Know what, Ape? I hate the Nazis, Ape. I really hate the Nazis and love the Jews, Ape. Can I be part of the club, Ape? See, Ape, I can find a Nazi, Ape. Look at me, Ape, there's a Nazi, Ape. Yup, he's a Nazi and doesn't love the Jews, Ape. Watch me, Ape, I'm going to call him a Nazi and tell him I love the Jews, Ape. Can I be part of the club, Ape?"

Inevitably, the pathetic cartoon dog is going to get a clout, even from his hero, and a great big 'Shaddup'.

Having been subjected to the sad sight of all of the preamble to what is coming, I hope the two buffoons do us the favour of playing out the sad little spectacle here in front of us.

--

Now, I intend on spending the remaining 10 minutes of my saturday Internet time reading up on Clemens's 300th victory.

9376. PelleNilsson - 6/14/2003 2:48:48 PM

Ace, the two-bit, nigger-hating NY claims adjuster demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt why he is an intellectual and moral catastrophe.

9377. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 2:52:38 PM

At least Pelle still talks to Ace. He still can only muster one turgid line.

I got stuck with Haji the latte' sipping wannabe.

Haji, to what was Pincher referring when he accused you stabbing a colelague in the back solely because that colleague was a Jew?

9378. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 2:56:22 PM

Interestingly, while the sun shines, Haji alternately slams those who post while he posts himself.



Get some sun, Haji.

9379. PelleNilsson - 6/14/2003 3:08:18 PM

I'll talk to you, Daniel, provided that you distance yourself from Pincher's unreasonable and unjust accusations against Alistair. I note that Ace does not support them, at least not openly.

9380. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 3:24:26 PM

Well, before I do anything with regard to Pincher, let's explore two issues.

First, consistency. The calumny you feel alistair has endured is the presumption that he would have been one of Hitler's willing executioners. Thus, you have cut-off debate with those who made that presumption (Pincher and myself) on principle.

Marj has offered that Ace, Pincher and myself are akin to the Columbine mass murderers.

Will you be cutting off discussion with marj (who has had an actaul allegeation of rank anti-Semitism directed his way to which he is strangely silent) or is it the target of the insult - rather than it fairness or nature - that so stirs your sense of justice?

More importantly --

Do you believe alistair is reflexively anti-Israeli?

I do. Does that make him an anti-Semite? Hard to say. But I can say that his propensity to immediately blame Israel for aggression while traipsing by the vile deeds of Hamas, along with his observations that Sharon is the true extremist and the United States and Israeli political spheres are too incestuously intertwined, carry that whiff of Jew-baiting.

But let's call it an open question.

Would alistair have been a willing executioner? Probably. Of course, given the authoritarian nature of the enterprise and the hot Nazi fashion, all of us may have played a part in the extermination. Some might have engaged with a little more brio.

9381. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 3:34:57 PM

The 36-Year War
There will be no peace until the Arabs accept Israel

Over the years, Israel's attitude toward the Palestinians has transformed radically. Less than a decade after Labor Prime Minister Golda Meir declared "there is no Palestine," hard-liner Menachem Begin signed the 1979 Camp David Accords recognizing the Palestinians' right to political autonomy. Then, in the Oslo Agreements of 1993, Yitzhak Rabin acknowledged the existence of a Palestinian people and its just demand for self-determination--a commitment upheld by Rabin's Likud successor, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israelis were also busy settling the territories during this period, but in 2000 Ehud Barak offered to uproot or concentrate the settlements, even to redivide Jerusalem, to accommodate Palestinian sovereignty. Finally, at Aqaba, Ariel Sharon, the former architect of the settlement movement, vowed to help create a territorially-contiguous Palestinian state to "live side by side with Israel in peace and security."
Yet would the establishment of that state guarantee a secure peace? Palestinian thinking on Israel also evolved after 1967. A year after the war, the Palestine Liberation Organization adopted its National Charter that denied the existence of a Jewish people and envisioned Israel's destruction through armed struggle. By 1974, however, the PLO enacted the "Phases Plan" calling for the creation of a state on any part of Palestine by any means, including diplomacy, as the first step toward regaining the entire country.

Although PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat later accepted U.N. Resolution 242 and, at Oslo, affirmed Israel's existence, in practice he never abandoned the goal of annihilating the Jewish state.

Oren's "Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East" is very good.

9382. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 4:07:41 PM

"I note that Ace does not support them [the anti-Jew charges against alistair], at least not openly."

No one asked me.

If you're asking, the answer is yes-- I support the charges wholeheartedly.

But why the fuck would I join in, when Pincher is doing such a splendid job?

Have either of you petititioned for Europe to offer citizenship to the Palestinians yet?

of course not. You, a continent of Nazis and bootlicking Quislings, drove the European Jews to flee from the ovens and human-skin lampshade factories. You created this situation, assholes; where did you expect the Jews to go? Did you expect them to wade into the ocean and drown themselves?

They fled your butchery. They fled to a homeland they were forced to abandon centuries ago. YOU CAUSED THIS TO HAPPEN.

You want a "solution," but only a solution to be paid for by others. If you want to solve this problem, offer the Palestinians automatic EU citizenship. 90% will happily and voluntarily leave their "refugee camps" [har, har-- they've been there for fifty years. Some "refugees;" some "camps"] and the last 10% will have plenty of -- what is it you call it? Ah yes -- lebensraumen to frolic in on the WB and Gaza.

But you won't do this, of course.

Europeans are big on "supervising" and "directing;" they're not very good at picking up some of the load themselves.

9383. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 4:10:01 PM

Meanwhile, Sahib HB-1, the fat, arrogant, half-caste scumbag who fancies himself Princess of the Punjab, continues to giggle about the latest suicide bombing.

Sahib, if you care so much, pick up a fucking rifle and join the battle. You gutless little wog Nazi.

9384. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 4:12:23 PM

By the way, Haji, it's now raining and lightning in New York. It began ten minutes ago, just before I posted.

Before that, I was out and about at the bookstores and in the park.

Where were you, Sahib Softass?

Why, my oh my -- you were right here. Using your crude, monkeywog fingers to type up little insults to your intellecutal and cultural betters.

9385. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 4:14:34 PM

Now rally round and tell me that that's "racist." That it's the "Hebrews" we're supposed to slur, not, for goodness sakes, the backward arrogant caste-cocksuckers of the Subhumancontinent.

9386. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 4:22:48 PM

Wait, wait. I'm not done with Corporal Curry.

1) He snidely calls Pincher "The Best Friend of the Hebrews." He says this as if it's not possible this could actually be the case.

I believe the Princess of the Punjab might actually believe that that's simply not possible. He's snidely implying that it's just downright impossible to actually like Jews, or "the Hebrews," as he's woggishly wont to call them. He cannot believe someone could actually be a "friend" to the Jews. He thinks it's a put-on, an act of some sort. That Pincher is just kidding around about liking the dirty hook-nosed sandal-footed nosferatu vampires of the discount diamond trade.

It's telling. Almost as telling as Sahib Softass's un-selfconscious telling of stabbing his Jew ex-partner in the back because, hey, he was a Jew. He had it coming.

2) I didn't tell Pincher to call alistair a Nazi. I called you fucks Nazis and Quislings and cowards first, because I'm less polite. But this has been quite apparent to all of us; some of us have just been more civilized about calling a third-world scumbag Nazi what he is.

3) Pincher isn't earning my respect. I actually like Pincher more when he plays more the educated, controlled one and leaves the petty name-calling to me. But I can't say I blame him for breaking down and saying what's been on our minds for a year.

9387. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 4:23:36 PM

9388. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 4:27:55 PM

I think the monkeywog might have the same problem with the Jews that some other minorities have: That the Jews represent an almost-entirely assimilated minority group, almost entirely accepted by the Caucasians. The Monkeywog is annoyed by this; he graduated, after all, at the Top of His Caste, shouldn't the Caucasians acknowledge him as an equal, if not an outright superior being?

Asians are starting to get this same sort of resentful hatred by other minority groups, too.

9389. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:07:39 PM

Does anyone else hear Bulldozers?

9390. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:11:21 PM

Palestinians out collecting souvenirs.

But let's not imply these people are uncivilized death-crazed murder cultists or anything. They're swathier than Caucasians, and therefore any and all criticism of them is prohibited.

9391. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:14:31 PM

Another glorious Muslim Military Victory.

I've got to tell you--some people denigrate Muslims' skill and courage on the battlefield. But versus unarmed and unaware old men, women, and children-- they're just about the most elite killing machines that history has produced.

9392. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:18:25 PM

VonK, who fancies himself a moralist, always calls Palestinian mass-murders "counterproductive." See, that's the problem with butchering dozens of unarmed civilians at a clip-- it's not a sound tactic.

Surely we wouldn't want to confuse the issue by discussing whether or not these animalistic attacks are immoral or wrong. Oh, no-- VonK, like other anti-American traitors, has too exquisitely sensitive a sense of taste to offer such ugly and primative moral judgments about violent acts.

Unless, of course, the United States is performing the violent acts in question. Then he becomes quite judgmental indeed, and is quite willing to start hectoring about the immorality of killing.

But 17 murdered, 170+ injured, all civilians, all innocent, due to a Palistinian Murder Cultist?

Why-- that's counterproductive. If only the murder of civilians could be made more productive, VonK wouldn't have much of a problem with it.

9393. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:35:30 PM

Fighters' Camp Hit By Major U.S. Strike



Washington Post


6/14/03


RAWAH, Iraq, June 13 -- The scorched cliff side, the charred bulrushes and the burned and bloodied mattresses showed how it started. Here in the desert, 200 miles northwest of Baghdad and 30 miles east of the Syrian border, dozens of anti-American guerrillas were killed when U.S. helicopters swooped in and rocketed the two large tents where they slept.

The attack in the early morning hours Thursday was the most devastating since the war in Iraq officially ended more than a month ago, killing at least 68 fighters. For a day, this bleak landscape was the center of a new, vicious phase of combat between U.S. troops and underground groups and individuals bent on disrupting the U.S. and allied occupation.

.............................................

Tell me, VonK--was this immoral of us? Or merely counterproductive?

VonK's heart pumps piss when he reads about sworn enemies of America -- and soldiers who have voluntarily decided to take up arms against us -- being killed.

When a nineteen year old Israeli record-store clerk is blown up on her way to work, why, that's merely counterproductive.

9394. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 5:44:37 PM

Would alistair have been a willing executioner? Probably. Of course, given the authoritarian nature of the enterprise and the hot Nazi fashion, all of us may have played a part in the extermination. Some might have engaged with a little more brio.

Had to go get my hip boots to be able to get through this. Pontificus Maximus may write like Liberace played, but undress it and it's the same old pile of used-up drivel. Besides which, it's completely irrelevant to the discussion. Mr. Sickles wouldn't know an anti-Semite if it bit him, any more than he would know a racist, but it derails any substantive discussion effectively. Doctor Deflecto rides again. The propaganda technique of creating a common enemy and working the masses into a froth over it is what creates Nazi environments. Squelching opposing views by tagging those who dare express them as racists and anti-fill-in-the-blank is an old tactic that plays well to the masses, too. Any mob can be worked up into stoning anyone to death if the speaker is smart and engaging enough to pull it off. Thankfully, neither Sickles nor Ace is either.

Ideas aren't dangerous. Domination of one and suppression of opposition is deadly. And for Pincher to shut down what could have been an engaging if heated discussion with such ridiculous accusations against Alistair is beyond comprehension.

The fact is, Palestinians have no means of controlling Hamas, and as long as excuses can be maintained for continuing to deprive them of such means they will never be able to move forward. The same who accuse Alistair of anti-Semitism and Wonkers of racism so readily show bigotry toward the Palestinians, painting them all with the same brush and using their extremists as examples of why they are incapable of governing themselves--the same tactics used throughout history--all without batting an eye.

9395. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 5:44:59 PM

Goebbels delineates the enemies of Europe His rhetoric sounds much more like that of certain Americans here than of the Europeans who've posted. He sounds almost as reasonable as Mr. Sickles. Right thinking. That's where our safety zone is. Dangerously soft individuals who don't see Rightness are the threats to our freedoms. Mr. Sickles is trying in his calm, eminently rational way to save us from ourselves.

9396. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 5:52:11 PM

But let's not imply these people are uncivilized death-crazed murder cultists or anything. They're swathier than Caucasians, and therefore any and all criticism of them is prohibited.

Yes, and Alistair is tagged an anti-Semite and Wonkers a racist, yet they cozy up to this.

One more time, btw, no one who squealed at Wonk knows enough about black/white racism in America to understand that Lawn Jockey can't be used as a racist term by a white person, since it has a specific meaning regarding someone black pandering to whites to get ahead personally at the expense of blacks as a whole--but don't clutter your heads with details.

9397. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:52:45 PM

Yes, Arky, it's the people calling for an end to the slaughter of Jewish civilians who are the Nazis, and the ones egaging in apologism for Jew-massacre who are the enlightened Nazi-fighters.

That's right, dear.

By the way-- What would you say about Caucasians, especially AMERICAN Caucasians, who marched with guns and camo fatigues with their infant children?

9398. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 5:53:33 PM

Bin Laden uses pictures to enrage too, Ace.

9399. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 5:55:31 PM

Ace, I never said anything remotely like that. Twisting and misquoting those who try to reflect any other point of view is another propaganda technique.

You taking a community college class in propaganda or something?

9400. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:55:36 PM

Oh, I see. If I call Alistair a Nazi, I'm shutting down debate.

If Arky calls me bin Ladin, or a bin Ladin-ist, why, that's just good forensics, now isn't it?

You fucking imbecile. All you can whine about is your precious "voices" being "chilled" by people who dare to disagree with you.

Freedom of Speech equals, apparently, Freedom of Leftists from Having to Defend their Sick Ideas.

9401. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 5:58:12 PM

"Ace, I never said anything remotely like that. Twisting and misquoting those who try to reflect any other point of view is another propaganda technique."

A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah.

Right. You quoted Goebbels. But you surely didn't mean to suggest that your opponents were engaging in Goebbels-esque Nazi propaganda, no?

Hysterical. Lefties have this image of themselves as pefect little angles who are above incivility. But they love calling people "Nazi" and suggesting they resemble Goebbles and Bin Laden. So they just imply that someone is a Nazi, or a jehadi, and then piously claim "I never said anything like that! You're TWISTING MY WORDS!"

a ha ha ha ha ha ha hah

You cowardly little cunt. At least have the courage of your trailer-park trash convictons, you whore.

9402. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 5:58:42 PM

You don't shut down debate, Ace. We simply step around you. I was talking about the substantive discussion that was going on at the time.

And yes, freedom of speech does include that, Ace. Interesting that you abhor it so, when you consider yourself such a patriotic American.

9403. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:00:02 PM

Arky:

"Goebbels delineates the enemies of Europe His rhetoric sounds much more like that of certain Americans here than of the Europeans who've posted. He sounds almost as reasonable as Mr. Sickles. Right thinking. That's where our safety zone is. Dangerously soft individuals who don't see Rightness are the threats to our freedoms. Mr. Sickles is trying in his calm, eminently rational way to save us from ourselves."

Me: "Yes, Arky, it's the people calling for an end to the slaughter of Jewish civilians who are the Nazis, and the ones egaging in apologism for Jew-massacre who are the enlightened Nazi-fighters. "

Arky: "Ace, I never said anything remotely like that. Twisting and misquoting those who try to reflect any other point of view is another propaganda technique. "

You stupid little cunt. No wonder you teach children. You couldn't grasp the material necessary to teach junior high.

9404. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:01:18 PM

But you surely didn't mean to suggest that your opponents were engaging in Goebbels-esque Nazi propaganda, no?

No. You. I don't take opposition to my ideas personally, and I think Hamas should be forcefully dealt with.

And nononono, you're getting it all wrong, Ace. See, you're frothing at the mouth and spluttering on your computer screen. Propaganda is supposed to make your target audience do that. The speaker is supposed to maintain his composure.

9405. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:01:55 PM

Me: "Freedom of Speech equals, apparently, Freedom of Leftists from Having to Defend their Sick Ideas."

Arky: "And yes, freedom of speech does include that, Ace. Interesting that you abhor it so, when you consider yourself such a patriotic American."

It does?

Gee, I thought that people could speak, and that other people could then criticize what had been said.

But no-- Arky tells me that the Lefties get to have their say, and then everybody just has to clam up! Can't challenge the lefties!

Because that's what Freedom of Speech is! It's Free Speech for Lefties, and Silence for All Else!

9406. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:02:54 PM

I call for an end to the slaughter of Jewish civilians. I call for an end to the slaughter of civilians everywhere. I call for an end to violence against civilians being justified by an idea or an ethnicity or a religion or even a government.

9407. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:03:38 PM

Oh, good, that should just about take care of it.

Thanks, Arky!

9408. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:04:06 PM

Hahahaha! You've really been shut down alright.

9409. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:04:12 PM

Arky, can you call for a reduction in my phone bill?

Thanks.

9410. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:05:01 PM

When lefties really want to be taken seriously, they begin "calling" for an end to war and shit.

Good stuff.

Keep it coming.

9411. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:05:36 PM

I call for an end to Wog Socialist Scumbags stabbing their Jewish partners in the back!

9412. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:06:10 PM

Anyone else want to play with my sharp stick for a while? I'm already bored.

9413. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:07:57 PM

Arky, please elaborate on this novel concept of Free Speech you have--that you have Free Speech rights, and that my speech rights do not include criticizing your ideas, because that would be "shutting down debate."

Therefore, apparently, *I* have to shut up and cede the debate to you.

Does that just about sum it up, or what?

9414. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:12:54 PM

O.K. Once more. Debate is debate--back and forth. Name calling (which we all like to do occasionally) to the exclusion of anything of substance stops the back and forth on the issues. Criticize me all you want. Call me names all you want. I couldn't care less. But it doesn't make discussion of any issues with you possible.

Are you really that stupid?

9415. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:21:56 PM

I called you names, my Dixiecrat Demosthenes, when you said that calling people "nazi" was out of bounds, and then called Sickles a Nazi in the same fucking breath (comparing him, EXPLICITLY, to Goebbels, and saying that the Americans here are closer to Goebbels than the Euros), and then, worst of all, claiming you hadn't called anyone a Nazi at all and that I was "distorting" your words by saying you were calling Sickles a Goebbels!

The gall!

It's not that you're lying-- I know that. It is that you are so self-righteous, and believe that you are so above incivility, that you actually can't believe that your angelic fingers are even capable of typing the word "Nazi" against your opponents, and you piously deny you've done that two minutes after you've done it!

It's unbelievable! It's like dealing with children! You called me, so far, Nazi, Goebbles, bin Laden, and then you sit there and smuggly lecture me about the evils of incivlity and name-calling!

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah

Go teach the multiplication tables, Genius. Or are you that advanced?

9416. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:22:31 PM

I call for an end to leftists' self-delusions about their intellect and virtue!

9417. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:25:42 PM

And arky-- stop criticizing me. You informed me above that criticizing someone is violating that person's free speech rights.

Stop "silencing" me, you vicious cunt.

[Or wait-- is this only a one-way street? Who precisely is entitled to this Right to Be Free From Criticism? Strangely -- I'm sure this is just some coincidence -- the Right to Speak and Not Hear Any CounterArgument seems to extend only to Arky and her claque of traitors & quislings.

9418. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:28:31 PM

I call for an end to . . . is much like VonKreedon's equivalence of the perpetrators of civilian deaths, no matter the perpetrator, the method, or the reason. The speaker clings to it like a talisman, beliveing it can ward away all evil inquiry. Theirs is a soft, dangerous symmetry.

You can also occasionally hear alistair denounce Hamas (as in, "Of course I abhor blah blah blah"), but alistair really does prefer the savage, and truly does feel that israeli is the prevailing evil, so his denuniciation of Hamas is really just so much p.r.

9419. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:32:23 PM

Less relevant, having read arky's response to my quote, it appears she just didn't understand it. But my hat's off to anyone who can include Goebbels and Liberace in a phrase, and then wax historical on how calling Condi Rice a stupid bitch lawn jockey is really A-OK.

9420. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:33:04 PM

I seem to remember some pro forma "denounciations" of Saddam Hussein, too, in between demands that we respect Saddam Hussein's rights a dictator to enjoy unfettered the sovereign right of raping, mutilating, imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering the people he ruled over.

9421. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:35:37 PM

This squalid self-deluding episode reminds me of the old Fray and the argument for the old Pigpen, where people would have to go if they were uncivil.

The lefties were the prime violators of the rule, calling people "stupid," "Nazi," etc., and then refusing to go to the Pigpen as they themselves had mandated.

The only defense seemed to be -- unsaid, but apparent nonetheless -- that when Lefties name-call, calling people stupid, racist, Nazi, etc., it's different, because, you see, it's true when Lefties say it.

Just ask them. They'll tell you.

9422. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:36:11 PM

PENDING QUESTIONS (since early May)

Ohio

With regard to the one of the biolabs, you wrote Why is something found in Arbil presumed to have belonged to Saddam Hussein's government? I was wondering if anyone had read anything about that biolab being the property of a nation or entity other than Iraq?

Also please expound further on the distinction you are trying to make between Democrats who lied about WMD in Iraq pre-war and the lies you attribute to the administration. I've read the public statements of Clinton, Gore, Rodham Clinton, Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, Kerry, Biden, and Wellstone, as well as the text of HJR 114, and contrary to your claims, the individuals were not simply recommending we keep a lid on Iraq with inspectors and continued sanctions.

Alistair

Do you still believe the U.S. military was lazy and committing war crimes with regard to the antiquities and the looting? (update - is it still you contention that the United States military responded to civil unrest in the manner it did as part of a plan to promote looting?)

jay

1) Where did Blair or Bush say that Iraq was tied to 9-11?

2) Do you believe Iraq had chemical weapons within 6 months of the invasion?

3) You stated earlier that Blair "made a pretty good case" for military intervention in Iraq. Could you please provide me quotes and/or links to that "pretty good case"?

9423. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:38:25 PM

Will Pelle add arky and marj to his "I'm not talking to you list," which includes Pincher and myself, for their despicable insults?

Nah.

In all likelihood, he'll just lay low until the shooting stops.

9424. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:39:39 PM

Oooh, a duet.

Correcting Ace's misreadings would take more time than I have, but two quick points.

One: Ace hasn't correctly summed up a single thing I've said. I'm compelled to make two quick corrections of his many malcomprehensions, though. I did not say criticizing anyone was out of bounds and I did not call Mr. Sickles a Nazi. I was speaking of tactics and tolerance of other views in an exchange.

Two: Lawn jockey is an insult, and no one said otherwise, so if you think Ms Rice is a nice lady, then calling her a name is not ok; and it does have to do with race, but it is not a white to black racist remark. You would never hear a KKK member use the term in seriousness.

9425. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:43:32 PM

Well, if you'd never hear a KKK member use it in seriousness . . .

I'm not sure I've ever read something as patently stupid as the foregoing.

Go brush yer tooth with yer sharp stick.

9426. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:45:58 PM

That Colin Powell is sue one dumb burr head

Hey, hey. That's racist!

Not at all. No serious grand dragon would call Colin Powell a burr head.

Good point. How 'bout chicken wing?

Solid. The KK doesn't use that one in seriousness either.

9427. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:48:01 PM

Arky's Jes' Joshing Racial tersm

burr head

chicken wing

porch monkey

lawn jockey

watermelon

mud

9428. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:48:48 PM

gold tooth

9429. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 6:49:48 PM

Dear Arky

Is spear chucker stilled used in seriousness by the Imperial Wizards?

Signed,

Wonkers

9430. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:52:40 PM

See, Mr. Sickles (read slowly and carefully, now), the Ku Klux Klan is against African-American people advancing in caucasian American society. A lawn jockey would be someone who keeps African-Americans down by taking a second-class status for personal advancement. So to the KKK a lawn jockey would be a good African-American person.

Don't tell me that you've lived this long in this country and didn't know that.

9431. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 6:55:57 PM

You know, I hear the KKK doesn't use the word "nigger" in all seriousness anymore.

They just sort of use it in a jovial, roguish, rakish manner.

9432. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 6:58:04 PM

I see you know all the ones used by white folks, though. Where'd you pick them up, I wonder?

Back on subject to anyone who's interested, I seriously wonder what would be the best way for Abbas and Sharon to handle Hamas and save the peace process. What real options does Abbas have?

9433. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:00:43 PM

The key to using terms like "lawn jockey," "nigger," and "Jew-Lover" properly is to make sure you don't say them "in all seriousness." A good, not serious way to say them is to say them as part of a children's musical phrase, like the old Shave and a haircut, two bits. That just brings a smile to people's faces.

So, you could say, Shave and a Haircut, Law Jockey!

It's got an innocent, playful sing-song quality to it.

9434. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:01:24 PM

Ace

Actually, I heard similarly, so I used it recently. The African-American to whom I directed it took offence, so I explained that the KK did not use "nigger" in seriousness any more.

He was unaware of the policy change.

It was tense for a moment, so I further explained that even if it the term "nigger" was still used in seriousness by perhaps his local KKK chapter, how I meant the term was as follows:

I meant to denigrate him as servile, buck-and-shuffle, house slave who was a disgrace to his race, a suck-up to the white man, but I did not mean to denigrate him solely as a black man.

He understood immediately and we both had a very hearty laugh about the whole mix-up.

9435. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:02:13 PM

"I see you know all the ones used by white folks, though. Where'd you pick them up, I wonder? "

Our Dixiecrat Demosthenes lives in the most racially backward place on earth this side of Mississipi bayou country, and she really needs to know where Tom got all those potty-mouth slurs for black people from.

You stupid whore. He heard them from your fucking mother.

9436. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:03:15 PM

Actually, I heard them from wonkers.

9437. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:04:05 PM

"He understood immediately and we both had a very hearty laugh about the whole mix-up."

I can imagine! Because those darkies do love a good laugh!

If you'd had yourself a fiddle, I bet you could've set that there Boy to some festive dancin'!

9438. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:04:23 PM

I am sorry to see arky stick her sharp stick in her own eye.

9439. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:06:12 PM

Ace

No doubt, no doubt. Once he understood that I, as a white man, was merely calling him a foppish, grinning, sell-out to his own race, he just slapped his knee and said, "Well, why didn't you tell me that was all you meant?"

9440. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:06:57 PM

The good news about arky's eye is that this entire exchange will be deleted as soon as jay can get in here and correct the official record.

9441. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 7:08:23 PM

Mr. Sickles, the fact that you cannot read nor comprehend has diddly to do with my stick or my eye. But keep talking. You know what Truth is. And Right.

However, I can take a hint. I see you two are waltzing again. Enjoy eachother and I'll come back later when things are on topic and leave you to your intimate moments.

9442. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:09:33 PM

Awwww.

You don't want to jab us with a sharp stick no' mo', Missuh Arky?

In all seriousness?

9443. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:12:04 PM

So I'm with Danny Glover the other day, and he says how he's against the war in Iraq and I say "Aw, you old lawn jockey. You jes' suckin' up to Whitey Farrell and Sheen and Robbins and shit, and stickin' it to the brothers who are doing their duty kickin' Baath ass."

And get this.

He punches me in the mouth.

Starts talking crazy about how I made a racial insult.

Go figure.

9444. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:12:09 PM

By the way, "lawn jockey" does not mean "sellout to one's race," like "Uncle Tom."

Lawn jockey means a black in a servile role, usually involved in menial labor.

Everyone knows this. Arky pretends not to, but she does. Her momma told her what all the slurs for Nigras meant.

9445. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:12:55 PM

In fact, "lawn jockey" usually doesn't mean much more than "spade" or "nigger."

9446. Daniel Sickles - 6/14/2003 7:13:08 PM

Well, either way, Glover was pissed.

I just don't get it.

9447. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:15:27 PM

And I wonder-- if it's okay for Wonkers to say "lawn jockey," can I put a black lawn jockey up in front of my house?

After all, pace our Dixiecrat Demosthenes, all nappy-haired Nigras in my area should realize that the lawn jockey is not a slur in all "seriousness" anymore, and they shoud take the lawn jokey to merely be a visual satire of, say, Michael Powell.

Not an insult to them at all.

9448. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:18:30 PM

Well, either way, Glover was pissed.

I just don't get it.


Well, Nigras are dumb. On accounts of dey's skulls is so thick.

9449. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:21:31 PM

Not that I would say that in all seriousness, of course.

I'm just hearkening back to the days of Nazi-influenced racial physignomy in a joshing, ironic fashion.

9450. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:23:26 PM

It's like a knock-knock joke.

Knock knock.

>Who's there?

Lawn jockey.

>Lawn jockey who?

Lawn jockey, mastuh, it's yuh lawn jockey Suh. I gots your horses all put away and brushed down and now I'se goin' to fetch yuh some well-water, Suh.

See? It's not said in all seriousness. Not anymore.

9451. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:28:18 PM

Now, I'll tell you what also isn't said in all seriousness:

That Europe is now a continent of fucking useless, know-nothing talking head pseudofags.

And that Pelle's homeland of Sweden or Norway or wherever is the most useless of the bunch.

Please-- no further mention of Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, or, fuck it, the Netherlands or Belgium, either.

If one of these countries is important in the news -- Ha, ha, hah, hah, hah, hypothetically I mean -- refer to the country vaguely like they refer to colleges in Penthouse Letters, i.e., "a small meaningless ice-bound country with a high suidice rate" or "a meaningless, no-account frostberg populated entirely by blonde Aryan Viking-Nazi communist homosexual Ice Niggers."

(

9452. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:30:31 PM

And when did all of these (ha, hah) "Vikings" all decide to go bi?

All these latter-day Northern European men are just one and a half tabs of ecstasy from giving a blowjob to their Barcelonan flatmate/DJ/drug-pusher.

These fucking countries... christ, characters in a Brett Easton Ellis gay porn novel laugh at these European "men."

The whole continent of Europe has decided to "experiment" with a bit of homosexuality. Every banker, teamster, waiter, policeman, politician you see in Europe-- each of them has had another guy's finger up his ass, if not in the recent past, then at least during a university meth party.

What the fuck is that? When did the men of an entire fucking continent think to themselves, "You know what I wouldn't mind a bit of right now? Cock."

EDIT: Oh, I'm sorry. They would have said, "You know what I'd fancy right now? Cock."

Fancy.

Kind of gives the fucking game away, don't it now?



I'd fancy it if all of these blonde Viking-Nazi polymorphously perverse Aryan Ice Niggers would just build themselves a giant wooden shoe boat and sail it to the fucking North Pole.


There they could happily spend the rest of their useless lives putting on raves featuring bad Frankfurtian techno-pop and really bad Oslovian rappers and pop X pills and perform gay analingus on Santa's elves while collecting outrageous welfare benefits.


God. Nordics! What fucking faggots!

Hey, Horst, wouldst du liken to climben die Matterhorn mit me?

>Ach, du lieber, you betten your arsen I would Horst. But first, let us inject some crystal meth directly into each other's colons and then produce a really bad ironic-disco house E.P. together.

9453. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:33:08 PM

Meanwhile:

RELIGION OF PEACE ALERT!



Oh, Lordy. You know when members of The Religion of Peace (TM) start genuflecting before their Satanic God of Murder, someone's about to die.

9454. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:34:33 PM

It will probably be a child, of course.

Which vonK instructs us is "counterproductive."

9455. AceofSpades - 6/14/2003 7:36:34 PM

A rare photo of Palestinians showing their true feelings towards us.

Why is it rare? Not because it doesn't happen often. It's rare because the Palestinian Authority threatens to murder foreign journalists who print photos like this.

Another day in the Religion of Peace (TM).

9456. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 11:37:55 PM

Now that Lum and Abner have left the building and I've Accessed a migraine, what about Abbas? What real options does he have in dealing with Hamas?

This looks hopeful.

9457. concerned - 6/14/2003 11:45:29 PM

Re. 9453 -

Is that jexster I see, front row, second from left?

9458. arkymalarky - 6/14/2003 11:47:36 PM

Whooo, Con'd, am I glad to see you! ;-)

Whyn't you take a stab at my question.

9459. concerned - 6/14/2003 11:55:21 PM

I don't think he has very many, or least very effective ones available. It's good that talks are continuing, but, until Pally sentiment fails to support the likes of Hamas, it will remain difficult to reach any lasting resolution.

9460. jexster - 6/15/2003 10:24:04 AM

But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

--George W. Bush
Interview with TVP Poland
5/30/2003

You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on And we'll find more weapons as time goes on

--George W. Bush
Press Briefing
5/30/2003

9461. jexster - 6/15/2003 10:24:58 AM

Iraqi mobile labs nothing to do with germ warfare, report finds
An official British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush.

9462. jexster - 6/15/2003 10:27:57 AM

'They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.'


Find the man a roadmap

9463. jexster - 6/15/2003 11:00:30 AM

Sham what am..
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Jewish settlers have quietly set up five new outposts in the West Bank since Israel began dismantling such sites last week under a U.S.-backed "road map" to peace, an Israeli monitoring group said Sunday

9464. jexster - 6/15/2003 11:23:50 AM

President Bush has managed the near-impossible; he has turned Saddam Hussein, who was hated and feared by almost every Iraqi, into a potent symbol of nationhood.

TELEGRAPH UK

9465. jexster - 6/15/2003 1:31:01 PM

"The White House asserts that the CIA did not
pass along the information about the forged Niger documents, and therefore Bush was unaware they had been falsified... Phoning around Capitol Hill..., I found a high degree of skepticism about the White House version of events. The SOTU is the most vetted speech a president gives. It's not credible to believe Bush and all the bigwigs around him were duped. A more likely explanation is that the administration needed to bolster the nuclear leg of its case... A congressional source says Powell knew
what the administration's pro-war wing was doing, and that Tenet was trying to put up resistance while also serving his clients, a jujitsu act that sets him up as the fall guy in the unfolding WMD scandal.... Tenet is not a Bush loyalist; he was CIA director in the Clinton administration before Bush asked him to stay on the job. Getting hung out to dry on the front page of the Post is Tenet's reward."


The Company v. The Moron - A Battle to the Death (MSNBC)

9466. Max Macks - 6/15/2003 4:33:13 PM

> President Bush has managed the near-impossible; he has turned Saddam Hussein, who was hated and feared by almost every Iraqi, into a potent symbol of nationhood.

Jexter,
How true and how annoying.
How much more damage to the US can this Bush do?

9467. Edmund Dantes - 6/15/2003 4:47:06 PM

"How true"

It's true only in Jasper Poopstain's wishful thinking and yours, but not in the Telegraph story to which tiny britches links.

It contains no such quote.

9468. Snowowl - 6/15/2003 5:10:08 PM

It's true only in Jasper Poopstain's wishful thinking and yours, but not in the Telegraph story to which tiny britches links.

It contains no such quote.

Perhaps you should read further than the first sentence. From the Telegraph article:

Guerrilla wars aren't usually fought with the agreement of the majority; most people would prefer a quiet life. Probably the resistance to the British Mandate was only a minority cause at first. But President Bush has managed the near-impossible; he has turned Saddam Hussein, who was hated and feared by almost every Iraqi, into a potent symbol of nationhood.

9469. alistairconnor - 6/15/2003 5:35:22 PM

It's been an interesting experience for me, over the past couple of months, to be a lightning-rod for pro-Rumsfeld Americans in discussions of the Iraq war.

Now it seems I have the same role with respect to Israel/Palestine. What fun.

Probably I am the nearest thing to a proxy for European views that they have access to. They are suffused by hatred for all things un-American, and I will do as a scapegoat. In the context of what has been discussed here, the accusation against me of anti-Semitism is intellectual terrorism of the lowest sort, and I will no longer respond to it. Call me a coward, if it gives you a hardon.

Glad to see you had a nice weekend.

9470. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:02:59 PM

Christ. All the terrorist symps have apparently agreed on this same pose. It's a cross between Bobby Sands and Norma Desmond; it's the "More in Sorrow than in Anger, I'm Afraid that You Have Disqualified Yourself From Civil Debate and I'm Further Afraid That I Will Have to Shunneth Thee."

For God's sakes. This is the same fucking ASSHOLE who's been calling people "liars," "The Madmen" and (my favorite) "The Lying Shitbag" for going on a year now. But Poowh Widdle Awistaiw, Pinchewh Mawhtin wuffled up hif feathewhs.

So, what have we learned? Well, "The Lying Shitbag" is perfectly civil but it represents a breach of the highest order to note Alistair O'Faggit's rather transparent hatred of the Jews. And furthermore, Pelle, vonK, and the gang never said "Boo" when the terms "Nazi," "antiSemite," or "racist" were used ten thousand times before against their ideological enemies, but now that someone has suggested that perhas it was a tad anti-Jew for Sahib Softass to institute his own personal Krystalnacht, and then brag about it while chuckling like Newman the Mailman with a candybar, suddenly such language is quite out of bounds.

Well, fuck you. Among you are three traitors, and two anti-Jew, anti-American cunt Quislings. The language hurts because it's finally being used properly to describe the right people.

9471. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:05:13 PM

The six or seven of you assholes remaining here should get together at Army bases, arming yourselves with lots of popcorn and candy, to celebrate as each new American corpse comes home in a tarp.

Because for all your lies to the contrary, you're so angry about not being right that you're still praying for more dead bodies to provide you with a shred of vindication.

9472. robertjayb - 6/15/2003 6:06:43 PM

Dear Mom, Things are going really well and I hope to be home for Christmas...The people here love us...

NEAR BALAD, Iraq, June 15 - (Reuters)- Guerrillas ambushed a U.S. convoy in the hostile region north of Baghdad on Sunday, wounding several soldiers, as a new U.S. mission was launched to hunt for Saddam Hussein loyalists blamed for recent attacks.

A crippled U.S. truck smouldered on the highway south of the restive town of Balad after the ambush, its tires and canopy ablaze. Apache helicopters buzzed overhead, searching for the attackers. Tanks and armored vehicles surrounded the truck. Troops trained their guns at the fields around the road.

9473. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:08:07 PM

Do I lie?

If I'm lying, can anyone point out VonK, Pelle, Alistair O'Faggit, Cock in the Mouth Jay, Arky Trailer Trash, or Judith the Crone saying "Thank God! I was afraid that would go worse!" when Baghdad fell?

Of course not. Rather than being relieved that your dire predictions did not come to pass, you became angry, bitter, resentful, and nasty about it.

So don't try telling me that you were oh-so-relieved that your dire predictions didn't come to pass. I saw you. I read your posts. I saw the mood in this place was not one of celebration that American troops would be coming home to see their families, but ANGER and bitter sorrow that the Iraqis hadn't killed more Americans.

9474. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:08:56 PM

NEAR BALAD, Iraq, June 15 - (Reuters)- Guerrillas ambushed a U.S. convoy in the hostile region north of Baghdad on Sunday, wounding several soldiers, as a new U.S. mission was launched to hunt for Saddam Hussein loyalists blamed for recent attacks.

Yaaaayyy! Oh happy day!!!

Hoooray!!! Whoo-hoo!!! Americans killed!!!

Yippee!!! We got another one!!!

9475. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:09:23 PM

Oh wait-- wounding several soldiers you say?

SHIT!

9476. jexster - 6/15/2003 6:10:21 PM

I am so put out. No more in-bedded CNN! Maybe I see this on the next episode of Cops, "Death in Vain"

NEAR BALAD, Iraq, June 15 - Guerrillas ambushed a U.S. convoy in the hostile region north of Baghdad on Sunday, wounding several soldiers, as a new U.S. mission was launched to hunt for Saddam Hussein loyalists blamed for recent attacks.

A crippled U.S. truck smouldered on the highway south of the restive town of Balad after the ambush, its tires and canopy ablaze.

9477. jexster - 6/15/2003 6:11:14 PM

Died for a lie Ace

Dead for a lie.


Your fault NOT mine.

Not in my name

In yours.


Up yours

9478. jexster - 6/15/2003 6:12:17 PM

Its what happens when radical ideology substitutes for clear moral vision

9479. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:13:12 PM

NEAR BALAD, Iraq, June 15 - Guerrillas ambushed a U.S. convoy in the hostile region north of Baghdad on Sunday, wounding several soldiers, as a new U.S. mission was launched to hunt for Saddam Hussein loyalists blamed for recent attacks.


Wow!!! Check out how eager they are to report the wounding of American soldiers!

Both Robert and Jex are buzzing on a dead-American-soldier sugar high right now!!!

9480. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:14:46 PM

"I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings.

"Some of this is merely the result of pettiness -- ignoble resentment, partisan hackdom, the desire to be proved right and to prove the likes of Rumsfeld wrong, irritation with the sanitizing, myth-making American media. That part of it I feel guilty about, and disavow. But some of it is something trickier: It's a kind of moral bet-hedging, based on a pessimism not easy to discount, in which one's head and one's heart are at odds."

--Gary Kamiya, Salon

Do any of you other "serious, intelligent, morally sensitive" American patriots have any similar confessions?

9481. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:17:15 PM

Nope.

I don't personally believe delusional people are liars. They're much worse. Ace, gather yourself if you'd like to be thought as having a shred of sanity by anyone outside your keeper Mr. Sickles.

IMO, the fact remains as I stated it, if the US loses control of the situation in Iraq the whole thing will have not been worth what it took to get us there and what it will take to get us out. My lack of faith in anyone in Bush's administration to handle foreign policy with any sense outside Colin Powell is what has worried me from the beginning. What will be the results if he doesn't follow through?

9482. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:18:55 PM

I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings.

"Some of this is merely the result of pettiness -- ignoble resentment, partisan hackdom, the desire to be proved right and to prove the likes of Rumsfeld wrong, irritation with the sanitizing, myth-making American media. That part of it I feel guilty about, and disavow. But some of it is something trickier: It's a kind of moral bet-hedging, based on a pessimism not easy to discount, in which one's head and one's heart are at odds."

But Arky assures me that she and her leftist, partisan-hack friend would never entertain such sickening thoughts.

And yet here are jex and robby, who both can't wait to be the first to report Americans in the meat-shop!

9483. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:19:29 PM

When I say "handle foreign policy" I'm thinking the long view of foreign policy.

9484. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:22:14 PM

And not that it matters, but I think Clinton had the same problem but from a different angle. He saw and understood the long view but he didn't follow through either, because he didn't stay focused enough and fight hard enough long enough. To me he impacted the global environment but it vanished when he did.

9485. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:22:49 PM

I also note that the words "lie" and "liar" have become the most-used words in every leftists' vocabulary.

I think I know why: Because as actual reality has moved further and further from their wished-for fantasy world, they come to despise reality as a "lie." They just no longer believe the material world is telling the truth.

Thus, the Tourette's-like rage at the world. Everyone's a liar-- if CNN shows celebrating IRaqis, they're liars -- we all know, of course, that those were Hollywood actors hired by Adnan Chalabi and Arnold Schwartzenegger to celebrate. Military historians agree that this was one of the most daring, innovative, swift and successul attacks in the history of warfare? LIARS-- we all known that Bush is stupid and probably paid Saddam not to fight.

Lie.

Liar.

You're all liars!


...................................

Yes, dearies. The whole world is lying. Only you Enlightened Few know the real truth.

9486. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:25:34 PM

Whyn't you go pull some actual quotes and satisfy the nonaligned that you are the Right One.

Take your time.

Con'd will love this, but I wonder what Clinton would do with the same circumstances wrt Sharon and Abbas.

9487. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:26:19 PM

And once again:

If I'm wrong, surely there must be evidence of such.

If you really were happy and relieved that the US had won the war with historically-tiny casualties, quote the post where you say so.

The only thing I saw in here after Baghdad fell was abject horror. You were horrified that more US soldiers hadn't been killed, and you were angry about it.

But if I'm wrong-- surely there are posts to prove that.

So-- quote them.

9488. judithathome - 6/15/2003 6:27:59 PM

Ace, hate to burst your bubble and I know you won't believe it anyhow but just the other day I told a Iraqi war veteren at the base commissary that I was happy to see him home. And we went to a welcome home parade two weeks ago when troops came back from their tour...even applauded when they got off the plane.

So stuff your assumptions about this crone up yours. I don't have to blare my support of the troops like some drunken asshat to prove I'm patriotic. I certainly don't need to for you but your smug superiority about how much better than all of us you are makes me as sick as we make you.

How many troops have you gone to see? Spoken to?

Yeah, I thought so.

9489. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:28:16 PM

One thing I do agree with Mr. Sickles about is that time will tell. By November of 2004 we should have a clear perspective on whether Bush's Mideast strategy has been good or bad.

9490. jexster - 6/15/2003 6:33:17 PM

Gave both his arms for the Greater Glory of Bush

9491. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:34:02 PM

Ace, the day anything you say raises my interest enough to go back and wade around looking for anything, you'd better look outside and make sure the sun is still there. I could not possibly give less a rip what you think or believe than I do.

Can we please discuss the Mideast now?

I think the focus on Iraq will go the way of the focus on Afghanistan and everything will come back, as it always does, to Israel and the Palestinians. Bush can screw up majorly in those two countries if he makes progress there.

9492. jexster - 6/15/2003 6:35:52 PM

Arky - Depends, in the first instance, on what Bush's mid-east policy was or is or is to come?


Hell they've been making this shit up as they go along anyway.

The only war I know of where the justification is still being made up after it is over..

mmmm

Take that back

Not over

9493. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:36:15 PM

Judith-- Sure, I'm sure there are millions of times you've said "Thank Goodness." But golly jeepers, isn't it funny that you never managed to WRITE IT once?

It's sort of like lefties swearing on a pack of Bibles that they really did oppose Clinton's unilateral Desert Fox action, really, cross my heart, no posts to prove it but I swear I opposed it secretly, in my heart.

9494. jexster - 6/15/2003 6:38:26 PM

Had a friend with similar view Arky, that Bush will just find another diversion.

But Iraq is different from Afghanistan. Iraq cannot be swept under the rug. Neither, for that matter, will Bush be able to avoid the consequences of his disastrous Afghan policy as that colony and neighboring Pakistan are steadily falling apart

9495. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:40:52 PM

Here's Judith joining in in the "celebrating" of our shared American victory:

6661. judithathome - 4/7/03 11:35:41 PM


In other words, Robert, "We won so shut the hell up."

....................

Yeah, Judith, I can see how fucking deliriously relieved you were that our troops were safe. Seems to me the only person you were thinking about was yourself, and how you'd have to suffer the indignity of being told you were wrong.

But I'm oh so sure you were out there waving the flag you so despise at the homecoming parades!

9496. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:41:10 PM

Hell they've been making this shit up as they go along anyway.

There doesn't seem to be a cohesive message there, or elsewhere. Domestically it's been pretty clear, and that's where I've been most concerned over the long term, figuring that in other areas no plan is better than a bad one.

But I've never been good at reading political tea leaves.

9497. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:42:17 PM

More celebrating:

6673. arkymalarky - 4/8/03 2:06:09 AM

Ronski, I'm talking only about those regimes which oppress their own people.

Yes, Snow, and can you believe it was Bush Sr. who said we couldn't be the world's policeman? His son has certainly proved him wrong. I think we can save the world from itself and simply replace the UN.

...............................

Wow. All those American servicemen coming home with minimum casualties, and all the Patriot Arky can manage is a bit of sarcasm about "where next?"

9498. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:42:34 PM

What a damning quote. I can't believe Ashcroft hasn't already thrown Judith into Gitmo with the rest of 'em.

9499. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:43:26 PM

6682. Macnas - 4/8/03 1:30:53 PM

"I think we can save the world from itself and simply replace the UN."

My favourite so far.


..................

Wow! Another lefty relieved that his dire predictions were wrong!

9500. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 6:45:23 PM

Wow. What a stellar comeback.

Dearie, I'm reading your responses to the fall of Baghdad, 4/9, and I see no relief or happiness that you were wrong about thousands of US casualties and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties.

I see just a lot of sourness, griping, sarcasm, and nastiness.

Almost as if you're angry that more Americans didn't die.

As Gary Kamiya admitted that many of you were.

9501. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:46:53 PM

In the context of a foreign policy discussion about what criteria to use in determining to invade a country, it's an important question.

I knew we would win and I'm glad we won, but all major military actions help define policy, and to this moment I don't have a clue what policy Bush has defined so far. If it's simply preemption in the most general sense, and without long-range plans and goals, it's going to be a bumpy ride the next few years.

9502. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:50:01 PM

Because I wasn't wrong. I never thought we would get bogged down and lose lives in the invasion, but I was concerned from the beginning about the aftermath.

And danged if I haven't been right about that part. So far. Like Mr. Sickles says, patience is a virtue.

Now, go on off and find something to refute me. And read carefully. I'd start waaaaayyyy at the beginning and comb the entire thread to make sure you don't miss a smoking gun hidden in the ivy plants somewhere.

9503. Macnas - 6/15/2003 6:50:52 PM

Ace

So you're quoting me, when I was quoting Arky, while she was being ironic??

Don't bother with the "posts from the past" caper, danSickles does it much better than you ever will, wannabe.

9504. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 6:55:13 PM

Nonono, Macnas. He's a man on a mission. I don't want him to veer from his important duties, which I figure will take him a day or two at the least. Who needs context when our every thought and deed can be summed up in one soundbite?

9505. arkymalarky - 6/15/2003 7:06:09 PM

Ok, now that Ace is busily rummaging through the thread for juicy tidbits to taunt us with (why did the French bullet-helmet soldier in Monty Python just flash on my inward eye?), what about Israel and Palestine? Can Hamas single-handedly derail something that both sides sincerely want, or is neither/either side sincere?

9506. judithathome - 6/15/2003 7:11:50 PM

Judith-- Sure, I'm sure there are millions of times you've said "Thank Goodness." But golly jeepers, isn't it funny that you never managed to WRITE IT once?

Well, gee, I wasn't aware I had to act like Bob Graham and and record every single thought I ever had...but I guess to someone like you, who thinks every single thing they write is a gem worth archiving, it does seem odd. Funny, I have been told over and over by you guys that what I have to say is boring and unimportant and now you are chiding me for writing down too little.

Why are you even over here, anyhow? Isn't there enough going in your own threads? Or are you just collecting fodder for conversation over there? Because, you know, there really should be enough to work with on your own.

9507. judithathome - 6/15/2003 7:18:38 PM

Well, it's been fun...but I'm going to watch Walking With Cavemen rather than talking to one...have a nice evening, all.

9508. jexster - 6/15/2003 7:46:59 PM

Thanks for reminding me!

Chaos. Wild beast-like creatures with moronic intellect battling it out.....sounds great.

Sounds like Bush mideast policy, a sucess after all.

it's six months from now. The Iraq war is over. After an initial burst of joy and gratitude at being liberated from Saddam's rule, the people of Iraq are watching, and waiting, and beginning to chafe under American occupation. Across the border, in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, our conquering presence has brought street protests and escalating violence. The United Nations and NATO are in disarray, so America is pretty much on its own. Hemmed in by budget deficits at home and limited financial assistance from allies, the Bush administration is talking again about tapping Iraq's oil reserves to offset some of the costs of the American presence--talk that is further inflaming the region.
...
To most Americans, this would sound like a frightening state of affairs, the kind that would lead them to wonder how and why we had got ourselves into this mess in the first place. But to the Bush administration hawks who are guiding American foreign policy, this isn't the nightmare scenario. It's everything going as anticipated.

9509. jexster - 6/15/2003 7:47:52 PM

Ace...posts from the past?!?!?!??

Don't go there. Too much for you to eat.

9510. Daniel Sickles - 6/15/2003 8:02:42 PM

Alistair's vow of silence is a good thing.

He is, after all, the man who called the looting of antiquities in Iraq a "war crime" that was part and parcel of U.S. strategy.

He also predicted that Iraq would use biological and chemical weapons against the United States, though now he chortles at the fact that anyone could have bought such a brazen lie as their existence.

He stated that Baghdad would become Stalingrad or, at a minimum, Sarajevo.

He predicted Rumsfeld would be sacked.

He predicted that British troops would not take part in the war.

He predicted the war would hurt the United States economy by driving up oil prices.

He believes that the United States and Great Britain were on a premeditated mission to destroy multilateral institutions.

He opined that France's opposition to the war was a result of being maipulated by the madman!

He criticized Israel for "escalation" with Hamas.

He has labeled Colin Powell an honest man, while alternatively suggesting that he is integral to the lies of the administration.

He once stated that 65% of United States citizens believe that Saddam was behind 9-11 and that it was this mistaken belief that served as the foundation of the war in Iraq; now, he posits that the foundation was the belief that Iraq had WMD.

He has stated that Jewish groups exaggerate anti-semitism in Europe and he has offered as evidence of a lack of anti-semitism in France that fact that more Jews - I kid you not - die in Israel than in France as a result of anti-semitism.

He also has stated that Israel is part of the impetus for the United States going to war with Iraq.

9511. Daniel Sickles - 6/15/2003 8:03:45 PM

In sum, as someone who holds the record for saying the most ridiculous, false, and asinine things in the shortest period of time - many with a healthy tinge of anti-Israel fervor - alistair should shut up for while.

Accordingly, I applaud his sabbatical.

9512. Daniel Sickles - 6/15/2003 8:07:11 PM

McCain

Like many Americans, I am surprised that we have yet to locate the weapons of mass destruction that all of us, Republican and Democrat, expected to find immediately in Iraq. But do critics really believe that Saddam Hussein disposed of his weapons and dismantled weapons programs while fooling every major intelligence service on earth, generations of U.N. inspectors, three U.S. presidents and five secretaries of defense into believing he possessed them, in one of the most costly and irrational gambles in history?

Johnny clearly doesn't get to The Mote often enough.

9513. Daniel Sickles - 6/15/2003 8:09:45 PM

Pssssst.

Don't answer McCain's question.

It's a trick.

9514. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 8:26:15 PM

All questions are tricks, Daniel.

9515. AceofSpades - 6/15/2003 8:26:48 PM

They seek to elicit one's honest beliefs. Ergo, they are traps for those who make a practice of deceit.

9516. jexster - 6/15/2003 10:18:01 PM

Thanks for the opening!


A Practice to Deceive
Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan.

9517. jexster - 6/15/2003 10:18:56 PM

Lies have consequences and if Ace is good for anything, its as a republisher of lies by the bushel.

9518. jexster - 6/15/2003 10:33:25 PM

God save us from fanatics and their dim witted true believers...

One thing's for sure - you cannot believe anything they tell you and even less, what their synchopants blather on this thread...

There is a startling amount of deception in all this--of hawks deceiving the American people, and perhaps in some cases even themselves. While it's conceivable that bold American action could democratize the Middle East, so broad and radical an initiative could also bring chaos and bloodshed on a massive scale. That all too real possibility leads most establishment foreign policy hands, including many in the State Department, to view the Bush plan with alarm. Indeed, the hawks' record so far does not inspire confidence. Prior to the invasion, for instance, they predicted that if the United States simply announced its intention to act against Saddam regardless of how the United Nations voted, most of our allies, eager to be on our good side, would support us. Almost none did. Yet despite such grave miscalculations, the hawks push on with their sweeping new agenda.

Like any group of permanent Washington revolutionaries fueled by visions of a righteous cause, the neocons long ago decided that criticism from the establishment isn't a reason for self-doubt but the surest sign that they're on the right track

9519. vonKreedon - 6/15/2003 11:21:00 PM

Regarding Leftist Anti-Americans wishing more US troops would die:

7509. vonKreedon - 4/23/03 6:43:56 PM

Oh, one thing more, I never wished that the US military would have anything other than swift and
nearly bloodless success in their operation. Given that the administration ordered the invasion the best for all, excepting the Saddamite regime, was for a very quick and effective campaign. I was also very admiring of the conduct of the US military throughout this campaign.

6994. vonKreedon - 4/14/03 9:06:13 PM

The only niggle that I have with the way that the US handled the civil unrest in Iraq is that we
might have been more proactive about guarding the hospitals, seeing as the war we prosecuted had
filled them. There is no way we should have taken on trying to stop, much less shoot, people
looting their own government buildings and museums. Our responsibility under the Geneva
Convention is to ensure that the basics are protected. We seem to have done fine at protecting the water/power stations, but only managed to protect the main Baghdaddie(I absolutely love that name) hospital. Again, this is a niggle, we had the opportunity to fuck this up big time and avoided doing that.

6750. arkymalarky - 4/10/03 3:55:09 AM
[SNIP]

We have a brilliant military machine and I think our soldiers have been our best PR people internationally thus far.
[SNIP]

6760. alistairConnor -4/10/03 1:25:37 PM

Well, Dube, I fervently hoped for a quick and complete US victory, so I'm pleased with the
result in that respect. On the other hand, that in no way invalidates my opposition to the war, which was certainly not predicated on the expected number of deaths in the US military.

[Cont.]

9520. vonKreedon - 6/15/2003 11:23:44 PM

6761. Macnas - 4/10/03 1:39:39 PM

I think that everyone here that opposed this war, and I am one of those, once it started hoped for a swift conclusion.

6763. RickNelson - 4/10/03 2:26:36 PM
[SNIP]
Anyway, I'm one who looked at the face of reality, saw I couldn't do a thing to change the inevitable event of war, chose to oppose the principle of war, but supported the troops in whatever method available. That turned out to be a letter and money to give troops goodies and toiletries. I'll thank all I see on the streets when that chance arises. I do that anyway. Same for Vets day and Memorial day.

6777. PelleNilsson - 4/10/03 4:45:49 PM

No doubt, Iraqis will face a difficult time in the immediate future before a working civil administration can be re-established. But in my view it is worth it because now there is a future; there is hope for the Iraqi people where previously there was none. It is for this
reason I supported the war. I never cared much about the WMD, the alleged links to Al Qaeda or Saddam's misdeeds in the past. The events show the awesome power of the US (which has been applied judiciously) but it also
shows that a regime that is based on repression and intimidation will crumble when real pressure is applied.

6716. vonKreedon - 4/8/03 6:03:23 PM

The US militaries words and actions in this war have been excellent nearly accross the board.

[Cont.]

9521. vonKreedon - 6/15/2003 11:24:06 PM

6571. jayackroyd - 4/5/03 2:01:27 AM

6566

Yeah, vK, I saw that same footage. The commander bringing the troops literally to their knees, and then bowing, backing up was a very compelling testament to how much effort the US is making to not antagonize the citizenry.

6566. vonKreedon - 4/4/03 8:45:43 PM

The US Militaries conduct in this war has been remarkable.
[SNIP]

6500. vonKreedon - 4/3/03 11:12:50 PM
[SNIP]
On another note, it certainly does appear that those of us who wondered about the wisdom and viability of the military plan have to be prepared to eat some crow. It seems as if the Iraqi military is coming apart at the seams.

6503. judithathome - 4/3/03 11:18:24 PM

I'll gladly eat some crow...just serve it up with side of dead Saddam.


6453. vonKreedon - 4/2/03 11:53:04 PM

If the war plan is successful then Perle and the rest of the administration should certainly get credit for the plan and the troops in the theater credit for its execution.

6456. jayackroyd -4/3/03 12:15:00 AM
[SNIP]
And, since the US is committed, I want it to be successful. But I don't want to be a citizen of a hegemonic nation.

9522. marjoribanks - 6/15/2003 11:29:05 PM

It's all about love, friends, hot man-love between manly men.

What else can it be? Why would these scum spend the entire freaking weekend, the first decent weather weekend in our collective area in months and months, tramping up and down in an empty chat room, parading the lowest, most repulsive, most loathsome characteristics our species still maintains?

Why would two dirtbags lie to lure a young man out of a bar, string him up and slaughter him rather than simply leave him alone? Why would two dirtbags, supposedly educated in this case, spend their time screaming every-hysterical, ever-more-ridiculous, filth in a space where they are studiously ignored most of the time? And continue it after every kind of polite and impolite rebuff, after every indication is made that no one here is fooled, no one here is paying the slightest attention to their shameless allegations?

It's love, you know, the Columbine-reject- type love that we've seen paraded up and down here for some time.

The only respite from the tedious gibbering came with that misty-eyed and clenched-teeth breakdown of circle-jerk emotions - I know we're all glad to learn how Ape likes PM to talk when they're together, and wait with bated breath for a similar declaration about the ventriloquist's dummy. See, it's all about love. The kind of love that dares not speak its name so much that you have to scream in denial of it, beat declarations of it into unknown passers-by.

9523. marjoribanks - 6/15/2003 11:30:12 PM

I love chicks, Ape.

Me too, Mr. Pickes, I really love chicks, that's why I spend all my time here with you.

Fucking love them, Ape.

Fucking love those fucking chicks too, Pickles.

I fucking hate fags, Ape, I fucking love chicks.

Fucking fags, Mr. P, they fucking don't love chicks.

Fucking fags, chicks are so much fucking better, right, Ape? You knew a chick once, right Ape?

You remembered, I fucking love chicks, Mr. P, and you, but in a manly way, not like those fucking fags.

Fucking fags don't understand how we can love each other but really we fucking love chicks, right Ape?

Right, P. We love each other, but we really fucking love chicks, and though we'll never be parted, P, those fucking fags don't understand.

Ape, love chicks so much I want to take my thumb out of your ass and make a sign to take down to the Gay Pride parade.

Look, P, let's not get carried away. The fags want us to give up and take our thumbs out of each other's asses. Let's make the signs with our other hands, yes I think we're both finished now.

9524. marjoribanks - 6/15/2003 11:43:09 PM

Kreedon,

You might be bored and have nothing better to do for a few minutes. In which case, carry on, the baboon and the dummy offer some entertainment at times like that.

But if you're actually bothering to "defend" yourself from the laughable fifth-rate "allegations" levelled by the two shut-in scum, don't bother.

Here are some facts:

1) Not one person, not one single person here, is swayed one iota by the unending girlie hysteria coming from that direction.

2) The only evidence on display here from that direction, is comprehensive and irrefutable evidence of their own total moral and intellectual bankruptcy, the likes of which have led me to some uncomfortable conclusions about the US educational system.

3) I have come to what is clearly the most true answer to your question from some days ago in the Inferno. I have already given you the answer for myself. For the circle-jerk, this display in an empty chat room over the weekend proves once and for all that the motivation is to demonstrate heated passion for each other. This is not a joke, or meant to be a slam, it is sober reflection - Ape gibbers here in order to show Pickles that he loves him, and Pickles slavers back for the same reason. Pincher "I'm the best friend of the Jews" can't quite get his tongue in-between, but he's trying, but will inevitably be crushed....and so on.

9525. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/15/2003 11:46:03 PM

9526. marjoribanks - 6/15/2003 11:54:00 PM

I am not as decent a person as Alistair.

I like pissing on the intellectually derelict when they're obnoxious, and have always taken pleasure in kicking bigots very hard. I will do so in person, and have extended invitations along those lines more than once to the skulking coward Ape.

Thus, I will not simply do the decent thing and avert the my eyes from these scum as they repeatedly shame themselves, their families, all their teachers and educational institutions, and even the fine country I live in.

But I have precious little free internet time, and I come to this site for enjoyment and pissing on the intellectually derelict is still not very much fun compared to almost anything else. Hence, whenever I get free internet time on the Mote, I will devote only 1/4 of it - at the maximum - to this thread and the remainder to the things that make this site still something I look forward to checking out almost every day.

9527. robertjayb - 6/16/2003 12:00:20 AM

Jimmy Breslin on Watergate and now:

June 15, 2003

I was around when Watergate was being called a third-rate burglary. Brilliant minds in Washington said congressional hearings would be ludicrous, cheap and unpatriotic. Then, Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina arrived with a lance to start cross-examining White House people, and we were off into history. I don't think he went three days when the first murmurs of impeachment were heard.

Therefore, on Friday I looked through my notebooks and files about the deaths in Iraq of two Marines, Cpl. Marcus Rodriguez and Sgt. Riayan Tejeda.

------------------------------

Today, the two dead Marines are the symbol for everybody who died in a war that was started because of a series of coordinated lies in Washington that said that Iraq had nuclear bombs. "Weapons of Mass Destruction." The Bush administration used the term so much that it turned into initials, WMD.

9528. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 12:02:21 AM

I am not as decent a person as Alistair.

This is true. Alistair merely practices a soft anti-Semitism, and I have to go back fifty years to speculate about a hypothetical Alistair doing the Jews actual harm. You, on the other hand, have shown yourself quite willing to harm a Jew's interest in this life. And why? Because he was a Jew. Nothing hypothetical about your anti-Semitism.

9529. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 12:04:58 AM

Thus, I will not simply do the decent thing and avert the my eyes from these scum as they repeatedly shame themselves, their families, all their teachers and educational institutions, and even the fine country I live in.

Belize? India? Goa? An Israeli commune?

9530. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 12:06:27 AM

I am not as decent a person as Alistair.

This is true. Alistair merely practices a soft anti-Semitism, and I have to go back fifty years to speculate about a hypothetical Alistair doing the Jews actual harm. You, on the other hand, have shown yourself quite willing to harm a Jew's interest in this life. And why? Because he was a Jew. Nothing hypothetical about your anti-Semitism.

9531. concerned - 6/16/2003 12:14:25 AM

re. 9520 -

vK -

I don't think you were one of the primary targets of Ace's posting here in the first place.

9532. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 12:55:23 AM

Alistair -- Message # 9469

It's been an interesting experience for me, over the past couple of months, to be a lightning-rod for pro-Rumsfeld Americans in discussions of the Iraq war.

You said so many ridiculous things about America and the war that you should hardly be surprised you became a lightning rod for anyone not viciously anti-American. But it was not your general anti-American views that drew the attacks (since nearly everyone here is anti-American to one degree or another), but your patently silly and contradictory remarks that Daniel highlights in Message # 9510.

Now it seems I have the same role with respect to Israel/Palestine. What fun.

I may have been too harsh in saying you would have helped in gassing the Jews, although I still think it's true. It's possible, though, that your anti-Semitism is nothing more than a symptom of your anti-Americanism. It's hard to know for sure. Do you hate America for its large and prominent Jewish population or do you hate the Israelis for relying on your global bete noir? Or are they twin evils for you? In any case, whenever I've seen you discuss global politics, if you assign blame, more than 90% of the time you assign it to the U.S. and Israel.

Probably I am the nearest thing to a proxy for European views that they have access to. They are suffused by hatred for all things un-American, and I will do as a scapegoat.

Yes, that must be it. I hate all things un-American, which is why my wife is not American, and is also why I've lived abroad for more years of my adult life than I've lived in the states. All because I hate un-American things. It suffuses my very being.

continued ...

9533. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 12:55:35 AM

In the context of what has been discussed here, the accusation against me of anti-Semitism is intellectual terrorism of the lowest sort, and I will no longer respond to it. Call me a coward, if it gives you a hardon.

I do, for a simple reason. I called you a "Jew-hating Kiwi" at least half-a-dozen times (among other insults) and you still sought out dialogue with me. I then moderated my tone and answered all your questions. In turn, you now take Pelle's lead and duck out just when the conversation is getting good. That's cowardly. You can't blame Sickles and Ace. Sickles has been stern, but polite throughout, and 90% of Ace's posts don't even mention you.

I did also claim you were the intellectual heir of those who had helped to gas the Jews, and that if you were in the France of the 1940s, you would have assisted in the effort to do so. I believe this because you are so taken with the continent's intellectual fads of your time, and I think that you would have been just as taken with the continent's intellectual fads of the thirties and forties, which included a generous and occassionally vicious anti-Semitism. This in combination with the large numbers of French who cowardly assisted the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews makes my speculation about what you would have done commonsensical rather than nasty.

9534. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 12:57:30 AM

Marjori Banks shows how to shit on a Jew and blame the U.S. for it.

9535. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 1:10:48 AM

I did also claim you were the intellectual heir of those who had helped to gas the Jews, and that if you were in the France of the 1940s, you would have assisted in the effort to do so. I believe this because you are so taken with the continent's intellectual fads of your time, and I think that you would have been just as taken with the continent's intellectual fads of the thirties and forties, which included a generous and occassionally vicious anti-Semitism. This in combination with the large numbers of French who cowardly assisted the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews makes my speculation about what you would have done commonsensical rather than nasty.

I forgot to add the obvious: that Alistair currently practices a soft anti-Semitism, so why wouldn't we expect him to practice the harder and more common variety of the forties.

9536. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 4:19:41 AM

VK, that was a useful exercise. I had vaguely thought about revisiting some of my posts made during the war, roughly the 50% that Sickles hasn't already re-posted, to see how they stand up... better by the day... but I don't have the required addiction to meta-meta-commentary; I'd rather discuss what's happening in the world.

My favourite quote, which I completely subscribe to :

6503. judithathome - 4/3/03 11:18:24 PM

I'll gladly eat some crow...just serve it up with side of dead Saddam.

9537. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 4:26:30 AM

Message # 9511 Sickles : Accordingly, I applaud his sabbatical.

Reading comprehension, Danny. I said I would no longer respond on the question of anti-Semitism.

I suggest that you lads start a thread, you could call it All about Alistair, where you could continue your telepathic psychoanalysis routine. Since my participation is not desired, you could even do it on another message board.

9538. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 5:06:33 AM

I had vaguely thought about revisiting some of my posts made during the war, roughly the 50% that Sickles hasn't already re-posted, to see how they stand up... better by the day... but I don't have the required addiction to meta-meta-commentary; I'd rather discuss what's happening in the world.

Translation: I'm not going to defend what I said earlier, because it's indefensible, so I'll just move on.

9539. Macnas - 6/16/2003 5:08:32 AM

US troops do an "Operation Motorman" in an attempt to curtail the opposition.

Now, if you take the time to read the article, you can see just how contorted the issue is. The US has to take some initiative and try and root out armed opponents, but in doing so will increase unrest towards them.

This is not particular to the actions of the US troops, it is a common result of such measures, and it highlights the difficulties that arise when the occupier is in a defensive/reaction situation. Best course of action? Get finished and get out, leave the Iraqis deal with it.

Nobody will be more ruthless towards the armed factions than their own countrymen. The US will only take more casualties and further damage to their relations with Iraqis if they stay and try and finish it themselves.

9540. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 7:05:30 AM

Sharon and Hamas, after having declared mutual war and total extermination, are perhaps being hauled back from the brink :

Sources close to the talks said they were optimistic Hamas would agree to a ceasefire. The Palestinian Prime Minister, Abu Mazen, is expected to join the talks today.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, appeared to back off from an Israeli threat to "wage war to the bitter end" against Hamas. He was quoted as saying: "If no one fires on us, we will not return fire, except in cases of ticking bombs," a remark that was interpreted as meaning Mr Sharon would call off the helicopters that have assassinated Hamas leaders almost daily in the Gaza Strip, though he refused to give an explicit guarantee.

So, did Sharon's escalation teach Hamas a valuable lesson? Dunno. In any case, they are negotiating, which is important.

9541. Macnas - 6/16/2003 7:14:40 AM

It's a fucking miracle.

9542. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 7:24:07 AM

G in Baghdad is a friend of Salaam's, and posting regularly these days.

If we were in Beirut, grozny or Tehran with the same set of events we just had in Baghdad, We would have half of the politicians around us assassinated by rival factions, at least 10 suicide bombers, half of the American journalists here taken as hostages and sectarian / ethnic fighting’s in the streets.
Instead of that what we see around us, is a city going back to life some times grudgingly but other times with fast speed.

9543. jayackroyd - 6/16/2003 8:23:01 AM

Things aren't that bad

This piece makes a similar point.

Two months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraq is widely depicted as a nation in chaos, with armed gangs dominating Baghdad's streets amid a widespread breakdown of public services. Having returned from Iraq two weeks ago, I believe this picture is distorted. In fact, we may soon look back at the postwar looting as only a bump in a long road.


The media do not really do a good job of conveying nuances in complicated situations, generally speaking. Chaos or unbridled success are the choices in a news story.

9544. jayackroyd - 6/16/2003 8:41:21 AM

Banks--

Besides this new sad demonstration of the confused sexuality that underlies their hysterical, abhorrent behavior, the traffic over the weekend illustrates something that Eric Alterman makes a point of in his book What Liberal Media?.

The very heart of the wingnut media strategy is to scream out lies at the very tops of their lungs, over and over again. One reason the book is interesting is the author goes to the effort of exposing some of the lies. But it is difficult and tedious to disprove unsourced soundbites. And by the time the correction is made, the bite, if it's a good one, has been absorbed into the general media buzz anyway.

Combine that with scurrilous ad hominem smears to change the subject when they are on the ropes, and you have the wingnut media strategy in a nutshell.

It works pretty well in an environment where the other participants try to preserve civility and balance.

9545. jayackroyd - 6/16/2003 8:41:45 AM

toys

9546. Daniel Sickles - 6/16/2003 9:02:21 AM

In a few days, alistair took a vow of silence on issues of his alleged anti-Semitism and his egregious mistakes of late; Pelle has vowed not to speak to myself or Pincher, jay concede that he lied re: Wolfowitz andVanity Fair and later revealed that he is reaidng Eric Altermann; and Haji is cutting back his precious internet time at the expense of this thread.

Now that's what I call progress in the war on terror.

9547. Daniel Sickles - 6/16/2003 9:12:42 AM

Haji: Profile in Courage

The rub: the client refused to do business with our American entity. Not entirely unreasonably, he cannot be seen, by X and Y, to pay this price (the lowest we can go without taking a terrible hit) to an American company, that too with an Israeli founding partner . . . .

There is only one workable solution other than bankruptcy - and we took it. The deal has been cut with our Mauritian shell company, and the Israeli had to bow out of all of it. He has no options, and neither do we. The mutual future, which once looked rosy, is shot. The deal opens a small pipeline into markets which may actually make our partnership what the seven of us envisioned a while ago - but without him. He took it gracefully, and we have put the very meager profit from the deal into a trust to pay off his daughter's next two years of college. But he is now going to have to declare bankruptcy, and his wife is going to leave him, and all this other shit . . . .

Both of these ugly little episodes would not have occurred except in a climate where a good part of the world both animatedly disapproves of Israeli excesses in the occupied territories and associates these excesses with the US.

Wow.

9548. judithathome - 6/16/2003 10:41:19 AM

Daniel, I should take back my post in the Inferno addressed to Pincher. Seems you also have an unhealthy fixation on this place.

9549. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/16/2003 10:56:28 AM

Sickfull is just another angry little twerp, Judith; his party is rife with 'em—wimps with little stingers, dreaming of unloading big bombs to compensate for their limitations.

9550. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 11:09:39 AM

I really really want to know what people think. If Bush is able to take any responsibility for a real I/P agreement will all else be forgiven, domestically and abroad, economically and diplomatically, in 2004?

9551. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 11:16:39 AM

Things are bound to improve in Iraq. The people with experience in empire are coming to save America's bacon :

Top British team given mission to end Iraq chaos

SIR Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s best-known diplomat, will become the most senior British political authority in Baghdad and lead a highpowered team to help redress what many see as a chaotic post-war administration of Iraq.
Sir Jeremy, 59, was due to retire this summer after five years as Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, where he waged a strenuous diplomatic campaign to win support for the war in Iraq.
But Whitehall sources told The Daily Telegraph that he has agreed to take on one of the most delicate assignments for the Government — acting as ‘‘colonial administrator’’ to rebuild Iraq and re-create a government in Baghdad. A formal announcement is expected this week.
Two months after the downfall of Saddam Hussein, many British officials are dismayed by the inability of the United States to restore the semblance of a working administration for Iraq.

(This from a right-wing, pro-war UK paper. If the link doesn't work, try the facsimile edition and go to page 10)

9552. judithathome - 6/16/2003 11:46:58 AM

If Bush is able to take any responsibility for a real I/P agreement will all else be forgiven, domestically and abroad, economically and diplomatically, in 2004

He won't need success for all to be forgiven...it already is. And if the I/P accord falls apart, he won't be blamed. This guy is made of oil...you think Teflon was the great deflector; it's not. It's Bush oil.

9553. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 11:57:51 AM

Hey, they fingered the guys responsible for the intelligence failure...

The CIA has reassigned two senior officials who oversaw its analysis on Iraq and the deposed regime's alleged banned weapons, a move that a CIA spokesman said was routine but that others portrayed as an "exile."

The officials served in senior positions in which they were deeply involved in assembling and assessing the intelligence on Iraq's alleged stocks of chemical and biological arms.
[...]
"Two of the key players on this problem have essentially been sent into deep exile," said one agency official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official added that the changes seemed designed to show the administration that "we're being responsive to charges that we did not perform well."


(cont'd)

9554. Daniel Sickles - 6/16/2003 12:00:07 PM

Moving on the from the recent unpleasantness. In all seriousness:

PENDING QUESTIONS (since early May)

Ohio

With regard to the one of the biolabs, you wrote Why is something found in Arbil presumed to have belonged to Saddam Hussein's government? I was wondering if anyone had read anything about that biolab being the property of a nation or entity other than Iraq?

Also please expound further on the distinction you are trying to make between Democrats who lied about WMD in Iraq pre-war and the lies you attribute to the administration. I've read the public statements of Clinton, Gore, Rodham Clinton, Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, Kerry, Biden, and Wellstone, as well as the text of HJR 114, and contrary to your claims, the individuals were not simply recommending we keep a lid on Iraq with inspectors and continued sanctions.

Alistair

Do you still believe the U.S. military was lazy and committing war crimes with regard to the antiquities and the looting? (update - is it still you contention that the United States military responded to civil unrest in the manner it did as part of a plan to promote looting?)

jay

1) Where did Blair or Bush say that Iraq was tied to 9-11?

2) Do you believe Iraq had chemical weapons within 6 months of the invasion?

3) You stated earlier that Blair "made a pretty good case" for military intervention in Iraq. Could you please provide me quotes and/or links to that "pretty good case"?

Additionally, I'd like answers to John McCain's do [you] really believe that Saddam Hussein disposed of his weapons and dismantled weapons programs while fooling every major intelligence service on earth, generations of U.N. inspectors, three U.S. presidents and five secretaries of defense into believing he possessed them, in one of the most costly and irrational gambles in history?

9555. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 12:02:23 PM

But the blood-letting is surely far from over : it will be hard to make these two carry such a huge can :

An intelligence official familiar with the Iraq assessments said congressional investigators are not likely to find documented proof that analysts were pressured to tailor their assessments.

"They'll be hard-pressed to find any kind of smoking gun, a case of somebody coming in and saying, 'I wrote it this way and it came back from the 7th floor telling me to write it another way,' " the official said, referring to the location at CIA headquarters where Director George J. Tenet and other top officials have offices.

Instead, the official compared the pressure analysts faced in the months preceding the war to that applied by lawyers "badgering the witness — asking the question over and over and over again to the point where people get worn down."

Much of this pressure, the official said, came from top officials at the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Pentagon officials have repeatedly denied seeking to influence the intelligence on Iraq.
In Washington, the buck-passing is in full swing :

In a series of media appearances this week, senior White House officials including national security advisor Condoleezza Rice stressed that all of the administration's prewar claims came straight out of briefings from the CIA.

"You had a director of central intelligence that produced an estimate that said this regime had weapons of mass destruction," Rice said in a television interview.

This week, the White House put Tenet in charge of the ongoing weapons hunt, a job that had belonged to the Pentagon.

"They handed the whole ball to George," said one intelligence source familiar with the details of the assignment. He said the message being sent to Tenet seemed clear: "You said [the banned weapons] were there. You go find them."

9556. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 12:04:21 PM

Same story in the UK : there has been an ugly bust-up, lots of finger-pointing, between Blair and the intelligence services.

And a guy who resigned from Australian intelligence has a tail to tell about it all...



It occurs to me : Chirac would surely have looked awfully foolish if lots of WMD had been found...

Maybe he knew something? Maybe he has a functioning intelligence service?

9557. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 12:08:40 PM

Do you still believe the U.S. military was lazy and committing war crimes with regard to the antiquities and the looting? (update - is it still you contention that the United States military responded to civil unrest in the manner it did as part of a plan to promote looting?)

No, with hindsight I don't believe there was any plan at all. Having taken Baghdad quickly and easily, they absolutely had not the faintest clue what to do next. They still don't.

9558. alistairConnor - 6/16/2003 12:11:46 PM

Additionally, I'd like answers to John McCain's do [you] really believe that Saddam Hussein disposed of his weapons and dismantled weapons programs while fooling every major intelligence service on earth, generations of U.N. inspectors, three U.S. presidents and five secretaries of defense into believing he possessed them, in one of the most costly and irrational gambles in history?

Gee, does John McCain post on this site? I hope he replies. What's his moniker?

9559. Daniel Sickles - 6/16/2003 12:20:40 PM

alistair

It must be good to have one inane, sweeping supposition (looting was a war crime and it was allowed as part of a premeditated plan by the U.S.) replaced by another (the U.S. is clueless in occupation).

But you are off the PENDING list. Congratulations.

9560. concerned - 6/16/2003 12:22:42 PM

Maybe he knew something? Maybe he has a functioning intelligence service?

Maybe he's a beneficiary of the straw man the Left is trying to drum up?

9561. concerned - 6/16/2003 12:27:23 PM

What was most objectionable about the Iraqi looting as Coalition war crimes canard was not that it was patently baseless on its own terms but that it required such an extreme exercise of fantasy to imagine that the mere loss of historical artifacts could ever be seriously construed as a war crime in its own right under any circumstance, even if it had been the occupying force itself which had taken them rather than the indigent population.

9562. concerned - 6/16/2003 12:35:23 PM

For example, I'm unaware of any precedent for such an accusation. Yurrup is laden with priceless treasures looted from the rest of the world. Time to set up tribunals for all their governments?

9563. concerned - 6/16/2003 12:37:48 PM

...all Yurrup's governments, that is...

9564. OhioSTOPAS - 6/16/2003 12:39:39 PM

(9554) It was reported shortly after the discovery of the so-called mobile biolab that it had been driven from a Baghdad-controlled city to where it was found, in Kurd-controlled Arbil.

I say "so-called" biolab because of this.

9565. OhioSTOPAS - 6/16/2003 12:42:33 PM

(9554) I decline to "expound" on the answer I've already given to your silly "question."

But go ahead and ask it twenty more times.

9566. Daniel Sickles - 6/16/2003 12:43:39 PM

Ohio

You wrote Why is something found in Arbil presumed to have belonged to Saddam Hussein's government?

I'm still wondering if you can identify the name of another government to whom you suggested the biolab belonged?

9567. OhioSTOPAS - 6/16/2003 12:53:58 PM

??????

Kurdistan (or what the Iraqi Kurds call "Kurdistan"), of course.

9568. jexster - 6/16/2003 12:58:18 PM

It is now evident that Saddam Hussein's possession of vast quantities of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) is about as likely as Mars having canals, complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers

Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence (Defense & the National Interest)

DNI is a website of Franklin C. (Chuck) Spinney, an analyst in the Tactical Air shop of the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD/PA&E)

Chuck is a well-known figure in the defense community, having testified before Congress numerous times, published several articles in the Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, the Wall Street Journal, Strategic Review, and elsewhere, and appearing on the cover of Time Magazine in 1983. He is also the author of Defense Facts of Life: The Plans Reality Mismatch (Westview, 1985)


Spinney's comments preface other material prepared by DIA and CIA analysts.

9569. jexster - 6/16/2003 1:01:33 PM

The upshot is that we went to war and wrecked a country over something that, barring an unlikely revelation, was not true. The American people don't seem to care. Perhaps they expect to be misled by their government, or, more likely, they have just changed the channel.

But the rest of the world does care. The international credibility of American assertions based on military intelligence is now zero. When we make claims about other countries --as we are now doing about Iran -- not a soul will believe them, even when they happen to be true. At this point, Americans should not believe them either.

I stopped a long time ago.

9570. jexster - 6/16/2003 1:04:52 PM

US Morale Deteriorates - Iraq SitRep - A Memo from the 4th Infantry Division (DNI Comment 487)

9571. jexster - 6/16/2003 1:06:47 PM

Link

9572. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 2:04:53 PM

The military did their jobs perfectly, but I agree with Alistair that to this day I do not understand what the leadership had in mind for them to do after Baghdad fell. No one has yet come in and defended the post-Iraq plan as carried out so far, which for the zillionth time is the only part that was in doubt and is the only important one now.

Forget WMDs. Even if they find them now in quantity it doesn't have much impact on the current situation. The biggest concern over that now is whether there's a major problem with US intelligence for the future.

9573. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 2:15:36 PM

Arky,

I'm still turning over the idea of how to counter terrorism.

As I see it the most effective and obvious solution would be grossly unpalatable to most people: use terrorists' own methods against them.

Not afraid to kill yourself in order to slaughter innocent civilians? Fine. How 'bout if you knew that after your death your entire family would be wiped out? If we can't find your family we'll kill your neighbors and their families.

With such a policy in place I think there'd be far fewer volunteers for the martyr brigade and those who still considered it a viable option would find that anyone who knew of their activities would be running to inform on them in order to protect their own lives.

The two pertinent questions as I see them are first whether it would work and second what it would cost us -- and I don't mean monetarily.

NOTE TO ALL:

I'm not interested in provoking an argument about my personal moral integrity or lack thereof. I'm fully aware of the extremity of the proposition, but I'd like to discuss both its strengths and weaknesses without stooping to personal insults.

9574. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 2:28:11 PM

That's been used to varying degrees with the Palestinians already, and I don't think it's effective at keeping your support base behind you. Reasonable people don't like to see families and children and homes torn apart, even if they all belong to the terrorists. Terrorists aren't reasonable people, so a dead child of the enemy is justice to them. Rational and civilized people aren't like that. I'd also hate to see it adopted by any one nation for the same reason I hate to see preemption adopted by us--concern over what other nations will pick it up and defend their actions with it. Carried out as a widespread international policy, I think it would be chaos.

To me it's like drugs, except you can't arrest the people we're always arresting for drug violations because they blow themselves up. You've got to get to the source, which is rarely done effectively but which I think we did with Al Qaeda and Israel's trying to do with Hamas; but I think they need to be working with the new Palestinian leadership rather than magnifying their weakness right off the bat by sailing over them to attack.

9575. jexster - 6/16/2003 2:45:05 PM

This is an administration that determines what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing points of view. It's very scary Rand Beers, former counterterrorism analyst, National Secuirty Council

9576. PelleNilsson - 6/16/2003 3:11:25 PM

What you have to consider is the revolutionary terrorist's warped logic which has remained the same since prince Bakunin's anarchists, via the Red Army Faction in Germany, Action Directe in France and now Hamas in Palestine. This logic welcomes increased repression by the enemy. Every house demolished, every civilian killed is a boon to Hamas. In their mind such actions will increase the revolutionary fervour and the will to resist among their own and expose the "internal contradictions" of the enemy; in the case of Israel the contradiction of simultaneously being a democracy and a repressive occupation power.

In the end, the revolutionary thinks, the situation will explode and and a brave new world will emerge.

9577. jexster - 6/16/2003 3:12:20 PM

This morning on Today, a journalist who was interned in an Iraqi prison for women was interviewed by Matt Lauer.

The upshot of her remarks was that the current and growing miasma was not the result of "baathist agitators" but was due to the inept preparation for and execution of the Occupation by the Bush administration.

The interview recalled a report I read some time ago. Prepared BEFORE the war on this very subject. Entitled (PDF)"Post-war Iraq, Are We Ready?", the Center for Strategic and International Studies document is damning indeed.


Damingly prescient

9578. vonKreedon - 6/16/2003 3:22:06 PM

Cos - While not quite as extreme as your proposal, the Isrealis, as pointed out by Arky, have been pursuing a policy of collective punishment of family/community members for at least a couple of decades now. The results have not been encouraging if one is trying to reduce the incidence of terror bombings.

9579. jexster - 6/16/2003 3:42:26 PM

They just don't understand us.


Dar Hyat - Portrait of the Neocons - Paul Bremmer, Grand Viceroy of Mesopotamia

9580. PelleNilsson - 6/16/2003 4:08:49 PM

Now that jexster is gearing up again we may have to separate the Iraq and I&P issues.

9581. judithathome - 6/16/2003 4:13:02 PM

I don't understand why you put them together in the first place.

9582. judithathome - 6/16/2003 4:16:15 PM

And it's not Jex who has filled this thread with an abundance of posts...it's the thundering horde from TPW.

9583. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 4:57:05 PM

Arky,

That's been used to varying degrees with the Palestinians already, and I don't think it's effective at keeping your support base behind you.

To what degree? It's not the kind of policy that can be effective if only sporadically or half-heartedly pursued. To be effective it would have to be the immediate answer every time, all or nothing, because to pursue it less than diligently incurs the wrath and loathing of the support base while still not accomplishing the goal of crushing terrorists.

I think you're absolutely correct that it would harm our support base. At the same time I'm wondering what exactly that would mean in the long run. If the tactic was successful and eliminated terrorism as a viable weapon then for many people no matter how much they abhorred it, the end would perhaps not justify the means but would cause enough relief so as to offset anything more than outraged grumbling. I suppose that's a roundabout chicken shit way of saying "So they don't like it? What can anyone really do about it?"

Ideally, the Palestinian Authority would destroy Hammas. I'd always prefer that nations do their own policing, but for argument's sake let's assume that it would be the US carrying out this policy. When all is said and done we're still militarily superior unless the whole world decides to combat us which isn't likely. Additionally we're still economically valuable enough that most nations will still do business with us however bad it might taste. In the end a nation's pocketbook generally overcome its sense of moral outrage. Sad, but true.

(cont.)

9584. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 4:57:56 PM

(cont.)

Reasonable people don't like to see families and children and homes torn apart, even if they all belong to the terrorists. Terrorists aren't reasonable people, so a dead child of the enemy is justice to them. Rational and civilized people aren't like that.

It wouldn't be justice. It's not about retribution. It's about making terrorism too expensive to be a viable means of warfare. I think it's a mistake to insist that reasonability and rationality would bar such a policy, though. Compassionate people won't like it. It is uncivilized, but war is not civilized. Thousands of people died at Hiroshima so that hundreds of thousands might be spared. That doesn't make the dead of Hiroshima any less innocent or their lives any less personally valuable. They didn't die because those who lived were any better. Their deaths bought peace. Was it too high a price to pay? I don't believe there are many who could look at the alternative and in good conscience claim it was.

I'd also hate to see it adopted by any one nation for the same reason I hate to see preemption adopted by us--concern over what other nations will pick it up and defend their actions with it. Carried out as a widespread international policy, I think it would be chaos.

I would hate that as well, but I don't think it's a likely outcome. As a direct response to specific terrorist activities the scope of this policy would be small. There should be no question of confusing anti-terrorist retaliation with pre-emptive strikes carried out by regimes trying to repress their populaces. This is not a pre-emptive tactic but solely a response to terrorist killings.

(cont.)

9585. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 4:58:12 PM

(cont.)


You've got to get to the source, which is rarely done effectively but which I think we did with Al Qaeda and Israel's trying to do with Hamas

I would agree with you about cutting off the heads in order to stop Hamas, but Hamas is not the only source of terrorism in the world. The root of terrorism is rage and there is no effective way to stamp out rage. The only thing that can be done is to limit the way that rage can be expressed. As in any civilized society, emotions cannot be governed, but the actions used to express those emotions can be. It's not illegal to hate your neighbor, but it is illegal to murder him or burn his house down. There are penalties for acting outside the law.

I think they need to be working with the new Palestinian leadership rather than magnifying their weakness right off the bat by sailing over them to attack.

I agree. The problem is that you cannot negotiate with terrorists and until the Palestinians are willing to stamp out terrorism in their midst it does little good to come to any kind of agreement with their leaders who can effectively promise nothing.

9586. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 5:02:17 PM

Pelle,
Message # 9576

I understand that, but just as everyone eventually breaks under torture, there must eventually be a breaking point for terrorists. Fanatics make up only a part of any population. Terrorist fanatics only a part of that part.

I'm willing to grant that there are some people who will never give up, but they are not the majority. Eventually it will become obvious that terrorist acts only result in the death of the population at large. In order to save their own lives I believe that people will shun, denounce and eventually execute terrorists. It will be too costly for them not to.

9587. alistairconnor - 6/16/2003 5:02:21 PM

But you are off the PENDING list. Congratulations.

Danny, that gives me a warm glow inside.

It always gives me a warm glow inside when I gain your approval. I know I have gained your approval when you don't respond to something I post : this indicates your agreement (you explained that a propos of Morocco).

We agree about a lot of stuff today. That feels good.

9588. vonKreedon - 6/16/2003 5:14:02 PM

Cos - My understanding is that the Isrealis have been applying the home destruction, embargo the whole town strategy of collective punishment with both immediacy and consistency for a couple of decades without apparently reducing the level of terror attacks.

Looking to history, the French, under Napolean, applied severe collective punishments against the Spanish from 1808-1812 without making the guerrillas any less of a threat to the French lines of communications. The Nazis applied a consistent and immediate strategy of collective punishment against the Soviet partisans without ever removing the partisans as a threat to their lines of communications. Now, both of these examples are a bit different from the Intifada II in they were guerrilla/partisan movements in support of and supported by a regular army campaign. The Intifada II, while not part of a regular army campaign, is receiving support from outside its area of operations.

9589. alistairconnor - 6/16/2003 5:15:35 PM

MsNo,

Terrorism is being pretty effectively fought these days, by inter-government co-operation. There's a lot of quiet tracking-down and snuffing of terrorists, which doesn't make the papers, and that's as it should be (I'm talking about Al Qaeda type terrorism). It's ruthless by its nature, but it's a reasonable way of dealing with people who are willing to die in order to kill innocents.

9590. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 5:16:14 PM

Cos,

I agree, but as I said, this is an all or nothing venture. To only go halfway is to be crushed in the doorjam as is happening to Israel. They lost face with the Palestinian fanatics by attempting to be diplomatic and now they've lost face with the diplomats by using force.

I'm heartily in favor of diplomacy in almost every instance. The exception is when diplomacy cannot succeed. If the Palestinian authority would take care of their fanatics then Israel could re-adopt a purely diplomatic stance, but I don't see this happening. I don't think the Palestinian authority has either the will or possibly even the means to stamp out terrorists.

Let me bring it back around to sanctions -- still a good idea, but how strict would the sanctions have to be to get Palestine to kneel? Basically sanctions are like the seige of a castle. It appears bloodless, but the reality is that people slowly starve to death and die of disease. The first to go are the children and the elderly. Next to go are the women. The last men standing are the soldiers.

Is it really more humane to starve a nation of women and children and old people to death? Because that's what it would take and it would punish the entire populace not only those affiliated with terrorists.

9591. vonKreedon - 6/16/2003 5:25:14 PM

Cos - The question in this instance is, "Is it more humane to give a population the choice between starving and giving up a terrorist strategy, or to simply kill some number of men, women and children for every incident of terror?" I prefer giving the population the choice. Also, sanction do not necessarily mean starvation. The Iraqi sanctions allowed for UN controlled importation of civilian necessities, it was the Saddamite obstructionism that prevented the Iraqis from receiving enough, not the sanctions themselves.

Historically the point is that such terror campaigns typically require outside support to continue, if there is no support then not only are the means to conduct the campaign constrained, but also the popular perception of the legitimacy and usefulness of the campaign is undermined in the population. Without the support of the population, which is what your draconian suggestion tries to address, the guerrilla/terrorist/partisan cannot continue.

9592. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 5:34:27 PM

Cos,

I think one of the most important differences here is that unlike the Spaniards and the Soviets a majority of Palestinians want peace. Perhaps this is not true and if that's the case then they're more like the examples you provided.

Also, the Israelis have been sloppy. The primary target after a terrorist martyr attack should be the immediate family, not half a city block of some random city the terrorist might have passed through. There has to be some incentive for people not to associate with or aid terrorists. Indiscriminate retaliation adds fuel to the fire of rebellion and grows the recruitment base. If there is no way for people to act against terrorism and thus avoid retaliation then you've defeated yourself.

Sanctions against other nations that seek to aid the Palestinian terrorists are a must. How successful have we been with such, so far? What more can we do on that front?

9593. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 5:36:06 PM

I'm heartily in favor of diplomacy in almost every instance. The exception is when diplomacy cannot succeed. If the Palestinian authority would take care of their fanatics then Israel could re-adopt a purely diplomatic stance, but I don't see this happening. I don't think the Palestinian authority has either the will or possibly even the means to stamp out terrorists.

This is so sensible it has the potential to shake this thread to its foundations.

There can be no serious negotiations and certainly no peace deal as long as terrorism is being countenanced.

9594. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 5:43:43 PM

AC,

I'm glad to hear it and I thank you for bringing up perhaps the best argument so far: terrorism is already reduced to the extent that such an extreme action as Ms. No has proposed is not needed.

I'd be willing to accept that on a global scale, but that still leaves us with the problem of Palestine and Israel. We're dismantling Al Qaeda, but Hamas thrives and a thousand individuals with no official affiliation continue to stoke the terror furnace.

Geographically we're talking about a microscopic area when compared to the territory covered by Al Qaeda. What is the difference between the two groups? Why has the tactic not been effective with the Palestinians?

9595. Daniel Sickles - 6/16/2003 5:51:37 PM

Ms. No

Because Hamas is tolerated by so many in the West, much as a few freaks tolerated al Qaeda as some freedom fighting wing that went awry post 9-11.

So, Hamas targets and blows up civilians by the truckload; derails all attempts at peace; continues to abide by a dogma that is antithetical to any reason (i.e., Jews must be eradicated); and otherwise goes its own murderous way, yet it is the IDF that is scrutinized. It is the right-wing pro-settlement factions are placed before us as the true sticking point. It is Sharon labeled the butcher.

And a false equivalence quite in vogue in many European capitals and Manhattan salons is perpetrated, mainly because of the fact that Hamas is glamorized; anti-Semitism is in play; and simple intellectual limitations are present - i.e., because Hamas cannot be dealt with, all pressure is placed on the Israelis to deal, as alistair said the other day, unilaterally, while absorbing.

Always absorbing.

9596. alistairconnor - 6/16/2003 5:56:19 PM

No,
The problem is that there is a latent civil war in Israel/Palestine that is over 50 years old. This is completely different from the Al Qaeda phenomenon. This does not mean that Hamas terrorism is any more justifiable than Al Qaeda terrorism, but it means that Hamas has a social base.

The fact that terrorist attacks in Israel are met with military incursions of the IDF into Palestinian territory, help a lot of ordinary poor folks to see the whole thing as a war, an unequal war, in which the terrorists are fighting for them. That's sick, but that's were we are today.

The key element in breaking support for Hamas and the other terror groups, is to deliver peace and security to the Palestinians, so that they can start to build an economy, go back to school, live the normal lives they aspire to.

9597. alistairconnor - 6/16/2003 5:58:17 PM

hmmm Hamas glamourous? Can't see it.

9598. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 6:00:59 PM

Cos,

The Palestinians are already living in the direst poverty. In order for Sanctions to work they must be felt. What have the Palestinians got left to lose except the food in their children's mouths? Or perhaps things are not as bad as I believe. I ask again, how far do you believe the sanctions would have to go in order persuade the Palestinians?

I think you have to consider very seriously that mass starvation is a real possibility. In such case the people are still choosing between death and their politics --- but it's all the people who suffer.


Historically the point is that such terror campaigns typically require outside support to continue, if there is no support then not only are the means to conduct the campaign constrained, but also the popular perception of the legitimacy and usefulness of the campaign is undermined in the population.

I'm assuming you're talking about support from other Arab nations, yes? As AC pointed out we've been successful with Al Qaeda working less draconian methods than I proposed (I love it that I've snagged such an adjective). Why haven't they been successful in tearing down the terrorist network of the Palestinians?

9599. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 6:06:36 PM

The key element in breaking support for Hamas and the other terror groups, is to deliver peace and security to the Palestinians, so that they can start to build an economy, go back to school, live the normal lives they aspire to.

There's no time. Hamas (and other militant groups), as part of the road map to peace, must be disbanded by 2005. That's one reason why they are so against the peace terms by Abbas.

There's simply no time to wait for normalcy to return to the Palestinians. Either Hamas gets with the program or they are taken out. For peace to hold, one way or the other, they must go.

9600. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:12:03 PM

To be effective it would have to be the immediate answer every time, all or nothing, because to pursue it less than diligently incurs the wrath and loathing of the support base while still not accomplishing the goal of crushing terrorists.

That's easier said than done since you have to identify them first, and with the techniques they use that can be a challenge. As long as there's one man left to oppose anything there will never be an end to terrorism. The question is how best to minimize the threat and maintain a free and stable country and maintain international support to keep the policies working. We've done that all these years the best of anyone with the most diverse population in the world, so I don't know that another policy would be a good idea for us at all. I was thinking about Israel.

9601. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 6:13:04 PM

AC,

The problem is that there is a latent civil war in Israel/Palestine that is over 50 years old. This is completely different from the Al Qaeda phenomenon.

I'm in total agreement and I think you state the case quite clearly, but then we're back to the same problem: How to convince the majority of Palestinians that terrorists are not their friends.

I still think the best way is for the Palestinian Authority to wipe out terrorism from within. I'm sure their fear is that they'll lose power if they turn on the "heroes of the people", but if they can bring peace and renewed prosperity to those people I doubt there'll be much grumbling for very long --- again, it's about the belly and the pocketbook.

Probably the worst way is for the IDF to continue to try and wipe out Palestinian terrorists for the very reasons you mention as well as the fact that they haven't done a very good job about striking the right people.

But if the Pals won't and Israel can't, what does that leave?

9602. alistairconnor - 6/16/2003 6:14:51 PM

The problem with that is that if you disband one bunch of terrorists without actually normalising life, it will reform under another name, or under no name at all. Concrete improvements must start immediately and go hand in hand with repression of the terrorists, otherwise a large part of the general population will identify with the terrorists being repressed.

9603. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:16:23 PM

It wouldn't be justice. It's not about retribution. It's about making terrorism too expensive to be a viable means of warfare. I think it's a mistake to insist that reasonability and rationality would bar such a policy, though.

It's not the intent, it's the effect, and if it goes too far then the question has got to be what we're protecting from terrorism--our values and our way of life or the leaders of the system. It's an easy little step from there to shutting down dissent and then all you're protecting is existence. And that might be worth it, but we're talking such a massive escalation to make it worth it.

The hubris of a lot of Americans is beginning to concern me, as well. Just because we're the only superpower doesn't mean we can thumb our collective noses at everyone else. We're not and never will be completely self-sufficient and secure and we can't just assume we're invincible against any combination of international circumstances.

9604. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 6:19:35 PM

The problem with that is that if you disband one bunch of terrorists without actually normalising life, it will reform under another name, or under no name at all.

"Normalcy" is too subjective a concept to be the foundation of any peace deal. (Who in the Middle East has a normal life?) The road map is filled with conditions that seek to extricate both sides from each other's affairs and make each side comfortable with co-existance. One of those conditions is the disbanding of the militant groups, of which Hamas is one example.

Once these conditions are met, "normalcy" for the Palestinians will be the responsiblity of Palestinians.

9605. alistairconnor - 6/16/2003 6:19:37 PM

I still think the best way is for the Palestinian Authority to wipe out terrorism from within.

What you're talking about here is civil war within Palestine. Hamas, Al Aqsa et al probably have more men under arms than the PA does, and more highly motivated. Then you end up with a provisional government of the terrorists, and everyone's happy, right?

Before the PA can take them on, it needs popular support, and that means actually delivering the goods. If it can deliver a ceasefire, by negotiating with Israel, and by negotiating with Hamas, then maybe it can gain enough traction.

9606. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:19:47 PM

The problem is that you cannot negotiate with terrorists and until the Palestinians are willing to stamp out terrorism in their midst it does little good to come to any kind of agreement with their leaders who can effectively promise nothing.

That wasn't my point. My point is they have nothing to fight terrorism with in the way of an organized system, and they need at least enough strength to be able to do so, and Israel and the US need to give Abbas at least enough room to appear to lead his own people. But if you can't negotiate with terrorists, then they are being leaned on to negotiate with Hamas and they're really in a corner.

9607. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:25:36 PM

I would hate that as well, but I don't think it's a likely outcome. As a direct response to specific terrorist activities the scope of this policy would be small.

It comes down to whether we support what they're fighting for, and it's fairly easy to paint a response as a valid reaction to terrorism. Two sticky spots that come immediately to mind are Chechnya and the India/Pakistani conflict over Kashmir.

As far as the source of terrorism, etc, the source of any powerful violent response is collective anger. I can't see anything in your suggestion that would reduce or eliminate terror--until you killed everyone but those who think like you. It's not mere coincidence that often the national authoritarian governments which come to power do so with support from the people that springs from their fear.

9608. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 6:28:32 PM

Arky --

As far as the source of terrorism, etc, the source of any powerful violent response is collective anger.

But there hasn't been a powerful violent response.

9609. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:29:26 PM

Sorry to intersperse with the ongoing discussion. I was just trying to hit everything in one wad.

9610. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:31:40 PM

Pincher,
I'm not sure I'm following you, and it's probably because I wasn't clear, but there hasn't been a powerful violent response by whom toward whom?

9611. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 6:40:00 PM

Sickles,

Because Hamas is tolerated by so many in the West, much as a few freaks tolerated al Qaeda as some freedom fighting wing that went awry post 9-11.

It's been pointed out that Hamas is significantly different from Al Qaeda because of the history of the region. Essentially Al Qaeda represents only fanatic anti-Westerners. No particular nation, no particular people, no particular ethnic group -- hence the freakiness of those who support them. Hamas, on the other hand, is closely aligned with a people who have actually been wronged.

It doesn't make their tactics right but conversely Hamas' tactics don't put the Palestinians at large in the wrong. I would imagine that the bulk of Western support for Hamas is indirect in that we do not make every effort to curb Arab nations from giving direct support. That's not in the power of political pundits and rabble-rousing activists. That's in the power of our Government.

9612. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:42:43 PM

Hamas is localized. We don't tolerate it any more or less than we tolerate the Basque separatists or the IRA.

9613. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:43:53 PM

Actually, Israel gets more support from the US in their fight against Hamas than our other allies do for their terrorist groups, but they're also much more "successful" for lack of a better word, and warrant more attention.

9614. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 6:45:59 PM

Arky --

By the Israelis. If the Jewish state inflicted a "powerful violent response" on Palestinian terrorists, there would be far more than 3,000 dead over the last three years, and you wouldn't see the leaders of these militant groups living with their families.

Until this last week, Israel did not even target Hamas' leadership.

9615. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 6:47:14 PM

As of now, Hamas is no longer considered a local problem.

9616. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 6:48:07 PM

Arky,

That's easier said than done since you have to identify them first, and with the techniques they use that can be a challenge.

Yes, it is a challenge, but I don't think it's an unreasonable one nor one that cannot be met --- if so then our war on terrorism is more of a joke than our war on drugs.

The question is how best to minimize the threat and maintain a free and stable country and maintain international support to keep the policies working.

Yes, I agree. Many people believe we are doing the best that can be done in this situation. Many people don't. I'm simply posing a rather radical alternative to see where our priorities might be.

9617. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:54:15 PM

Actually, I think going after the leadership is the thing to do instead of ripping some suicide bomber's parents' apartment, when it can be done. My only opinion about that is to let Abbas have a chance to be taken seriously as a Palestinian leader the way Arafat could never have been, and it's possible that for the first time there could be a real cooperative and effective effort between the Israelis and the Palestinians to get Hamas under control.

It will be a never-ending battle, though, to one degree or another. Even with MsNo's idea, the most you can hope for with terrorism is that the ability to carry it out is minimized without reducing people's personal freedoms too much. Our own incidents of it in the states, even those on a relatively "minor" scale, have been very difficult. Look at the Unabomber and Randolph, who was just caught the other day.

9618. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 6:58:33 PM

MsNo, it's a challenge to identify them and either way it takes time so an immediate response isn't always practical. IOW, it's not so much that the alternative is radical, but that it's not really implementable (surely there's a less awkward word than that somewhere) in any consistent and thus effective sense.

The best way to control terrorism imo is to keep it as isolated and unorganized as possible. You will never stop all the Timothy McVeighs, but any organization, no matter how secretive, is going to reveal something trackable of itself when it carries out an attack. And of course organized terrorist groups often claim responsibility, where as a lone terrorist is just as happy to keep his reasoning in his head and let the violence speak for itself.

9619. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 7:10:45 PM

Arky,

It's not the intent, it's the effect, and if it goes too far then the question has got to be what we're protecting from terrorism--

A valid concern. There would need to be strict guidelines about implementing such a policy --- when it could be enacted, against whom, what evidence would be required to ensure accuracy in target choice. Let me be perfectly clear that I'm talking about retaliating only against specific acts of violence toward humans. Raising a rabble in a public square doesn't qualify. Strapping a pound of C4 to your belt and getting on a public bus does.

As for what we're protecting from terrorism, let me turn it around and ask how much freedom people have living in a terroristic society? Are they currently free to vote and dissent and go about their daily lives? No, they're not.

It's an easy little step from there to shutting down dissent and then all you're protecting is existence.

While I think there are a great many people in the region who would be blessedly relieved if they could even be assured of their continued existence, I still believe that the step is much farther and more difficult to make than you fear.

It's a battle we fight every day here in the US particularly with the passing of the so-called Patriot Act. Repression of ideas is something to always be on guard against, but ideas are a luxury if you're dead in a ditch. Bread before politics, right? (but don't hold me to it, I may change my mind after lunch)

The hubris of a lot of Americans is beginning to concern me, as well.

I agree although I recognize that what I proposed is just about the ultimate in hubris. Because of the small scope of the proposal and also because of where the US is currently both as a military and economic power I think we could get away with it. Perhaps a few years from now, we wouldn't be able to, but for now I think we could.

9620. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 7:10:54 PM

(Whether we should or not is a whole 'nother can o' worms.)

9621. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 7:17:17 PM

AC,

What you're talking about here is civil war within Palestine.

Yes. A war between those who want the chance for peace and those who will never be satisfied with anything less than an eternity of hatred and bloodshed.

Hamas, Al Aqsa et al probably have more men under arms than the PA does, and more highly motivated.

If they need arms and soldiers to bring down Hamas there are nations who could be pursuaded to give such aid if asked. I can think of two right off the bat.

As far as gaining popular support, the PA needs to rev up the propaganda machine and begin painting Hamas as the roadblock it is. If the PA would commit to this I think they'd receive all the aid they could possibly want in dismantling the terrorist factions.

9622. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 7:23:14 PM

Arky,

But if you can't negotiate with terrorists, then they are being leaned on to negotiate with Hamas and they're really in a corner.

This is kind of a repeat of what I just posted to Alistair, but I'll say it anyway. Abbas needs military support to back up his authority. All he has to do is show that he wants it.

It's a hard step for him to take. No administration wants to admit that it needs the help of other powers in order to establish authority within its own borders, but that has to be weighed against the repercussions if that help isn't sought: How long will Abbas be viable as a leader if he shows that he cannot deliver what Israel and the US demand? He runs the risk of losing popular support, but as has been pointed out, if he can bring peace and prosperity to his people they're likely to forgive him a great deal.

Or maybe not. The question then becomes whether his pride is more valuable to him than the lives of his people.

9623. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 7:24:57 PM

It's a battle we fight every day here in the US particularly with the passing of the so-called Patriot Act. Repression of ideas is something to always be on guard against, but ideas are a luxury if you're dead in a ditch. Bread before politics, right? (but don't hold me to it, I may change my mind after lunch)

That's the point I've been trying to make about what those who would control people do. The fascist mindset that allowed a "civilized" area to become uncivilized is always there to be tapped into if we let fear drive our policies. Ideas are a necessity in a thriving and growing civilization and suppression of them kills it.

9624. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 7:26:25 PM

You're acting like Abbas has easy access to support, and he doesn't. Maybe he will out of this next stage.

9625. Ms. No - 6/16/2003 7:26:25 PM

whew! I've got more to respond to I know, but I've got to go fight traffic now. I will continue tomorrow.

Have a good night!

9626. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 7:27:00 PM

Seeyalater, No!

9627. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 7:33:17 PM

Arky --

That's the point I've been trying to make about what those who would control people do. The fascist mindset that allowed a "civilized" area to become uncivilized is always there to be tapped into if we let fear drive our policies. Ideas are a necessity in a thriving and growing civilization and suppression of them kills it.

I could as Ms No has already done, point out that some things come before ideas.

But I'm curious at to what ideas you think are being suppressed? Unless those ideas are radical Islam or support for terrorists, I can't think of any, and even with those two, I could probably find examples of people who passively support these activities in the U.S. being allowed to go about their lives.

Please be specific as to the ideas you think are suppressed, and how those ideas will make us a thriving civilization.

9628. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 7:42:56 PM

If we begin to place security before basic American freedoms we're in for big trouble.

Your last request is ludicrous. Do you want me to write an essay of five hundred words? What I Believe? Wait. That's already been done.

Let me just say this. Our ideas have made us the greatest nation in the world, though we were once the rebels. We didn't know at the time that we would end up a "thriving civilization."

Where did I say we're suppressing ideas? I was responding to MsNo's post. There's always been some degree of that, though, and it's important to address it when it comes up. Individuals may try to use shame or ridicule to quiet their opposition (which I personally find a despicable tactic), but the main area where I see idea suppression at this point is in the simple buying up of the media. There's been some real effort (though not concerted, I don't think) at suppression beyond that, though. Here in AR a young man got arrested for refusing to leave a mall over a t-shirt he was wearing that said "Support the Troops. Oppose War and Bush."

9629. jexster - 6/16/2003 7:46:34 PM

ELIZABETH, N.J. (Reuters) - President Bush countered those questioning his justification for the invasion of Iraq on Monday, dismissing "revisionist historians" and saying Washington acted to counter a persistent threat.



"Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them," Bush said in a speech to New Jersey business leaders.



He likes to call them...


Fuckin Moron

Fuckin lying bastard

Fuckin war criminal


Lies have consequences

9630. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 8:01:27 PM

Arky --

Your last request is ludicrous. Do you want me to write an essay of five hundred words? What I Believe? Wait. That's already been done.

I ask for specificity and you reply with generalities.

You hedge here and for good reason. The vast majority of Americans (over 99.99%) are as free today as they were before the Patriot Act. The only ideas that are threatened are those which strongly support radical Islam, and I for one don't see how the supression of them hurts the U.S. in anyway I can see, however, that allowing radical Islamists to run free hurts my country's interests.

Where did I say we're suppressing ideas?

You responded favorably to her post that spoke of the repression of ideas, even though she meant it more hypothetically.

Individuals may try to use shame or ridicule to quiet their opposition (which I personally find a despicable tactic)...

Yes, people like Voltaire and Swift and Mencken and Vidal. Do you find these writers' tactics despicable?

Brutal satire has a long and distinguished history in Western literature. Many think of it as an important strain in the freedom of expression.

Here in AR a young man got arrested for refusing to leave a mall over a t-shirt he was wearing that said "Support the Troops. Oppose War and Bush."

Seems extreme, but I don't know how the whole episode played out. It may have to do with the freedom of a merchant to refuse service to a customer. I would like to see an article on it before I pronounce judgement.

9631. PincherMartin - 6/16/2003 8:02:39 PM

...I for one don't see how the supression of them hurts the U.S. in anyway. I can see, however, that allowing radical Islamists to run free hurts my country's interests.

9632. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 9:50:46 PM

I didn't hedge. MsNo mentioned the Patriot Act, I didn't. And it's not what ideas it supresses, it's what it does with many of our civil liberties. I was general for a reason. If you think I'm going to post a treatise or laundry list of ideas you'll just have to be disappointed. A lot of ideas that will advance civilization haven't been thought of, but we're talking ideas, not implementation anyway. It's those who want their ideas to be the only acceptable ones and use whatever tactics required to achieve that who are dangerous, not VonKreeden.

WRT your list, didn't one of those guys say "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? I'm talking about exchanges and what the people have a right to hear and respond to, and I'm talking about trying to associate an opposing view with anything that will discredit it or using other means to shut someone down, not real criticisms of policy and power. And I'm not talking about touchy-feely no one gets their egos bruised, either. I'm talking about shutting out opposing views using tactics that do nothing to address the views. But I shouldn't need to tell you that.

No one sees how supression of ideas hurts them until it's their ideas being supressed.

I can get off on a tear here, but I won't (I hear the Mote breathing a collective sigh of relief), in using AR as an example and what is happening with "school reform" and the misinformation that's spread daily which opponents of the main proposal are powerless to correct because we have no medium through which to correct them. So we're working from the ground up, because it's the only way we have. I don't mind honest back and forth and you can slap away, but I want my shot at it too, without being gagged and bound.

9633. marjoribanks - 6/16/2003 9:53:36 PM

Many of the comments here about Abbas and Sharon seem to me to be drawn from the popular media caricatures of the two men and the two sides, rather than the more complex realities of the Israel/Pal situation.

I posted this article for Mr. Pickles a few days ago, I recommend it to everyone else. It is a fine brief look at the first basic reality that needs to be taken into account when the current situation is assessed -demographics and the limited options available for Israel if it wants to remain both a democracy and a Jewish state.

This latest issue of the NYRB has another article that gets to some of the more important matters in the current status of this conflict - The Map and the Fence.

Sheehan's report is quite adequate to being used as a main reference point to the discussion in this thread - and touches on most the questions raised in discussion today. I suggest that it be closely read by the thread participants.

9634. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 9:56:44 PM

I'll put it bluntly this way. I can have an exchange with you. You can slap me down and tear me up and we can snipe back and forth, but you read what I say with the honest intent of responding and I try to do the same with you (my essay on ideas notwithstanding). I can't do that with Mr. Sickles and Ace, which is irrelevant to me. It's easy enough to write off any chance of having a back and forth and I can manage to go on with my life without a ripple. If they were trying to control my media or my government then that's a different matter altogether.

9635. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 10:01:03 PM

Thanks for the links Marj. I've only been keeping up in the last few weeks here and in major news since I've got so many personal projects going at the moment, so the Haaretz article in particular will be helpful.

9636. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 10:04:44 PM

And suppress *does* have two s's. That was bugging the crap out of me. The more I looked at it the more I couldn't remember.

9637. marjoribanks - 6/16/2003 10:06:55 PM

Please do use AR as a specific example and go on any extrapolatory tears as you are inspired to, Arky. It is precisely that kind of informed, grounded, opinion and analysis that is useful and valuable to debate/discussion.

It is when debate is grounded in nothing but trumped-up patriotism and egregiously twisted misinformation that we see the kind of pathetic display that appeared on our screens after the weekend.

But I disagree with you (and what I take is your belief) that sloganeering punks like the circle jerk are effective. They're not at all, except in the short term, except perhaps in arenas like this where most people have better things to do and so will disengage. I'm heartened to report from my own neck of the woods that these kinds of impotent attempts to muzzle debate and vilify decent people are slapped away as effectively as they have been here, and have had the additional salutary effect of exposing the extreme weakness of the ones doing the attempting.

9638. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 10:56:10 PM

Thanks Marj. I'm sure my personal experience is somewhat skewing my perspective. We've got one statewide newspaper and it's not only very conservative but acts like there are no other ways to look at an issue other than their way. Details are irrelevant. Right is Right and there's nothing the opposition can say that's even listened to, much less addressed. This approach of both liberal and conservative op-ed writers as though they're proclaiming from on high is really beginning to get on my nerves.

To be fair myself, they did publish a guest editorial I wrote, and they have some syndicated liberal columns, including Gene Lyons, but that's just a bone to keep people feeling like they've got some balance. The one other offering is a weekly which is the standard liberal pontificating spew and isn't much better. They're both in bed on this issue, though. Rural schools have to go because they're holding the state back. Don't know why they don't look in their own backyards and see how pathetically their own district is doing. Poor rural kids are about to get the shaft, but it's all for their own good and people who want to keep their community schools are just being selfish and afraid of change and they don't want to lose their high school sports......Breathing deeply and slowly.....counting to ten.....The thing is I'm particularly revulsed by demonizing the opposition right now, and even outright lies that are being published unchallenged. You can tell me anything about my views and debate any issue with me you like, but when you say I hold them because I'm ignorant and selfish don't care about the best interests of my students then you've entered the territory I've been trying to define here in this thread and I have zero tolerance for it.

9639. arkymalarky - 6/16/2003 10:57:04 PM

Well, I managed the diatribe in one post. That's good for me.

The main thing that's encouraging me is that the people I'm talking to who do have some influence don't seem swayed by it, and hopefully things will begin to turn here.

Here's an article on the arrest: Student Arrest

9640. marjoribanks - 6/16/2003 11:34:59 PM

Hmm. That is a troubling little case, Arky, I can guarantee that that story has played out in the overseas media as further evidence that this country has lost its bearings.

And in fact, 9/11 has had such a profound and pattern-shattering effect on the American psyche that I don't think the claim is wrong. People do not know how to act, still, or are uncertain about going back to behaving the way they thought was right all along. They are questioning what it is they stand for, and against, and the fallout from this can be the idiocy that you report from AR.

But this country, while young, has a wonderfully regenerative quality to it that is something quite unique, possibly even in the entire span of social history. Today, despite the series of outrageous heists (actual as well as figurative) being attempted by a section of those empowered in DC, I am greatly encouraged that the tide is neither overwhelming nor all one way.

I thought, I admit, that it was all going to be a downward spiral. But that was a temporary loss of faith, and the evidence now bears out my conviction that this fine system of governance does demand accountability, and that actions do have consequences. Let the Senate have its way, let's see what the judiciary manages, let's have the intelligence community respond to some of the allegations flying this way and that. The truth is going to out.

9641. marjoribanks - 6/16/2003 11:35:35 PM

To use a phrase popular in India, it will take "the fullness of time", but the transparency will come as it almost always does in this country, Alistair's "madmen" will each have to pay the piper in turn, and the US will regenerate anew its political and social compass grounded in the Constitution.

And that "fullness of time' ain't going to be that long - let's see this next electoral cycle play out and have the Wolfowitzes defend their actions in the unyielding gaze of the public eye. Let's see how long it is before the mewling punks (like our little lovelorn trio here) realize that they ain't getting away with shit, and that no one has been fooled or distracted by their disgusting fake "patriotism" and impotent witch-hunts.

9642. concerned - 6/17/2003 12:11:25 AM

If GWB wins a second term, what of the last few posts?

Re. the NWA link - it's Arkansas. What do you expect?

9643. arkymalarky - 6/17/2003 1:16:54 AM

Hey! Did you know we're about the most liberal Southern state in terms of the great traditions of grassroots Democrats? Bob told me something I didn't know the other day about the Central High Crisis in Little Rock and that is that the location was selected because there was less racial strife in AR than many of the other states and it seemed a good place to start. Had Faubus not stirred things up it might not have escalated to nearly the point it did, either.

If GWB wins a second term, what of the last few posts?

Do the words "hell in a handbasket" mean anything to you? ;-)

Like I say, political tea leaves have never been my strong suit.

9644. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 2:55:02 AM

Arky --

And it's not what ideas it supresses, it's what it does with many of our civil liberties. I was general for a reason. If you think I'm going to post a treatise or laundry list of ideas you'll just have to be disappointed.

A couple of examples should make your point adequately, without burdening you with the task of drawing up a treatise or laundry list.

A lot of ideas that will advance civilization haven't been thought of, but we're talking ideas, not implementation anyway. It's those who want their ideas to be the only acceptable ones and use whatever tactics required to achieve that who are dangerous, not VonKreeden.

Dangerous ideas do not have to be promoted by shady characters or internet thugs to be dangerous. Ordinary people with silly ideas and the power or influence to put them into effect are enough.

The phrase "the banality of evil" refers to Hannah Arendt's description of the Nazi Eichmann, who when stripped of his power, showed how ordinary people who propagate evil policies can be. Arendt wrote that "the deeds were monstrous, but the doer...was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous."

Does Von Kreedon have the capability for such monstrous acts? I doubt it. But he does have a naive view of power that, were it put into effect, might invite others to abuse it. It's a cliche that idealistic revolutionaries with good intentions are often succeeded by brutal powermongers.

WRT your list, didn't one of those guys say "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"?

Yes, Voltaire.

continued ...

9645. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 2:55:48 AM

I'm talking about exchanges and what the people have a right to hear and respond to, and I'm talking about trying to associate an opposing view with anything that will discredit it or using other means to shut someone down, not real criticisms of policy and power.

Sometimes exaggeration or caricature is the most effective way of countering a ridiculous idea. Swift knew that when he wrote "A Modest Proposal." A serious discussion of some ideas gives them more credit than they deserve.

An example of this is Banks' little idea -- posted during the middle of the DC sniper killing spree -- speculating on a link between George Bush's rhetoric and the motivations of the sniper. That was too ridiculous for anything but a scornful, dismissive reply. Unfortunately, it was too ridiculous to parody, and became sort of a self-parodying post.

It's a fair question to ask where you draw the line. Serious and subtle ideas can also be caricatured or dismissed by people who have the ability to exaggerate and poke fun at what they can't understand. For myself, I think a fair line to draw is what I call the "sting of truth." Some parodies are effective; some are not. Why the difference? I think effective ones have that "sting of truth" for the reader.

continued ...

9646. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 2:55:59 AM

No one sees how supression of ideas hurts them until it's their ideas being supressed.

I should remind you that I'm the only here who has seen his views suppressed (Ace and Alistair as well, but to a far lesser degree).

I can get off on a tear here, but I won't (I hear the Mote breathing a collective sigh of relief), in using AR as an example and what is happening with "school reform" and the misinformation that's spread daily which opponents of the main proposal are powerless to correct because we have no medium through which to correct them. So we're working from the ground up, because it's the only way we have. I don't mind honest back and forth and you can slap away, but I want my shot at it too, without being gagged and bound.

Not having a medium (and by this, you must mean a "major medium") is not the same as being gagged and bound.

9647. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 3:34:12 AM

Message # 9634

I'll put it bluntly this way. I can have an exchange with you. You can slap me down and tear me up and we can snipe back and forth, but you read what I say with the honest intent of responding and I try to do the same with you (my essay on ideas notwithstanding). I can't do that with Mr. Sickles and Ace, which is irrelevant to me.

We debate honestly now, but we didn't before.

Sickles is a very good debater, and if you haven't been in a fruitful exchange with him yet, you will eventually. While he can be stern in sticking to what he thinks are the core issues of the debate, and is a master at parody, he is also generally fair, and less likely than I am to fly off the handle at what he takes to be silly ideas.

Ace isn't so much a debater -- although he can debate well when he chooses to -- as he is a performance artist who uses politics as his field. Essays, internet links, news items, and especially other people's posts are all fair game for him to start off on amusing (depending on your perspective, of course) political rants, parodies, caricatures, etc. Isn't he serious? Of course, he's serious, but he prefers not to engage in straightforward debate. That doesn't make him any less effective at getting his ideas across. Does he question things that other people would prefer not to have questioned or engage in harsh ridicule to make a point? Yes, he does. So what. So did PE. So does Marj.

continued ...

9648. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 3:34:28 AM

It's easy enough to write off any chance of having a back and forth and I can manage to go on with my life without a ripple. If they were trying to control my media or my government then that's a different matter altogether.

Then really your fear, if I can call it that, isn't too different than our views of VK or Alistair. Imagine Sickles or Ace (or myself, I presume) as top policy-makers in our government and you get a sense of how I would feel if VK or Alistair were in a similar place of power.

9649. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 3:37:20 AM

And suppress *does* have two s's.

Actually, it's two p's. It didn't look right to me either. You seemed to follow my lead in spelling it incorrectly.

9650. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 4:06:43 AM

Message # 9604 Pincher:
"Normalcy" is too subjective a concept to be the foundation of any peace deal. (Who in the Middle East has a normal life?)

It's actually not that difficult to define normalcy in terms of everyday life. Palestine is not going to become a prosperous functioning democracy overnight, but, for example :
"Normal" means you can go to work, send your children to school, go to the market, visit your friends. "Not normal" is curfew (you risk being shot on sight if you're out after dark) and roadblocks every couple of hundred yards, making it physically impossible to get to work or to school before it's time to go home again.

For Palestinians, "normal" and "not normal" depends on whether their sector is occupied by the IDF or not, at a given time.

For Israelis, it's actually a lot harder. How can one live a normal life, knowing that at any moment, one may be victim of a bomb, rocket or sniper's bullet? Even if there were to be no terrorism for ten years, there would still be objective reasons to fear sudden carnage.

On the other hand... Israelis can go to work, go to school, go to the market, visit their friends. NOT free of risk; but with a risk which is significantly lower than that experienced by Palestinians, with respect to being an innocent victim of mayhem.

9651. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 4:14:32 AM

MsNo :

You are claiming that it's easy to determine what is terrorism and what isn't. I agree, in terms of actual acts. The problem comes with determining who is a terrorist and who isn't (before they have committed a terrorist act); and what is a terrorist organisation and what isn't.

Hamas, for example, in Palestine, is a legal charitable organisation and a political party. It is also a clandestine terror network.

When you say "you don't negotiate with terrorists", I agree with you in principle. In practice, everyone does it, when they have no viable alternative.

What's more, who can you legitimately negotiate with, and who is out of bounds?

Provisional IRA? Sinn Fein?

Black and white? Good and evil? Easy to determine objective standards for this?

9652. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 4:23:41 AM

Here's a little example of how easy it is to define who's good and who's evil.

I heard on the radio this morning that the police have launched a major raid in the Paris region, in a dozen locations, on the People's Mujahedin. They are the principal opposition to the regime in Iran.

160 people have been arrested, on warrants issued by judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, the chief of the anti-terrorism section, on suspicion of organising or financing terrorist attacks.

This is the same outfit that has its principal bases in Iraq, and was functionally integrated into Saddam's army. When US troops arrived at their base, they impounded their heavy weapons, and last I heard, were still free to go about their business.

Apparently they haven't committed any attacks against American interests since the 1970s; but they still launch operations within Iran.

Good guys? Bad guys? Black hats? White hats?

9653. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 5:03:34 AM

Then really your fear, if I can call it that, isn't too different than our views of VK or Alistair. Imagine Sickles or Ace (or myself, I presume) as top policy-makers in our government and you get a sense of how I would feel if VK or Alistair were in a similar place of power.

Have I, or has VK, expressed any desire or intention to shut down debate, to exclude dissenting views? In what way can you claim that he and I attempt to control information, or would attempt to do so if in positions of power? (Let's exclude your mind-reading stunt this time, for the sake of argument). If this is your contention, you should provide evidence.

On the other hand, your intention to drive me out of the discussion has been quite unambiguous. Sickles, who is generally more devious than you, has been in this case perfectly forthright, stating several times that I should go away, stop expressing my "zany ideas" etc.

Ideologically, you clearly have no problem with limiting dissent in general : you have stated that some things are more important than ideas (i.e. more important than the freedom to state ideas); you think that everything is fine, in that 99.99% of Americans are still free, despite the "patriot" act.

I wonder, where would you set the threshold? What percentage? For you, what other categories of people can have their liberties suppressed, along with those who "strongly support radical Islam" ?

Yes, the idea of Pincher Martin as a top policy maker would inspire fear in me.

9654. Macnas - 6/17/2003 5:40:23 AM

The French raid the offices of the Peoples Mujahedeen of Iran.

Wasn't there some talk of the US proposing to sponsor this group as a valid opponent to the Iranian government??

9655. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 6:12:24 AM

Beat you to it Mac... see 9652.

I note that The European Union declared the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran a terrorist organisation in May 2002. This is not done lightly.

9656. Macnas - 6/17/2003 8:10:10 AM

My apologies alistair, I'm afraid that these days with the amount of non-content here I am guilty of skimming.

9657. marjoribanks - 6/17/2003 8:50:20 AM

Everyone knew that the blow-up baddie, Pincher "I'm the best friend of the Jews" Martin, was just a posturing, mewling little twerp trying to keep up with the Ape and Mr. Pickles.

But who needed, who wanted, to see the embarassing spectacle that's unfolding now? I almost prefer the stream of mindless vituperation to this bathos. It makes me uncomfortable to see a purportedly grown man, one with alleged brains tucked away somewhere, grovel and dissemble and try to maintain tattered street cred even as he maintains the astonishing presumptions that allow analogies between the punk circle jerk and councils of ministers.

It's more degrading to read this glop than the straight-ahead bigoted sloganeering of the past days.

9658. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 9:18:24 AM

alistair

Sickles, who is generally more devious than you, has been in this case perfectly forthright, stating several times that I should go away, stop expressing my "zany ideas" etc.

To the contrary, I recommended and still recommend that you take a more measured stance in evaluating the events of the day. Again, alistair, Haji's log-rolling aside, you border on the hysterical. Review your Greatest Hits:

He is, after all, the man who called the looting of antiquities in Iraq a "war crime" that was part and parcel of U.S. strategy.

He also predicted that Iraq would use biological and chemical weapons against the United States, though now he chortles at the fact that anyone could have bought such a brazen lie as their existence.

He stated that Baghdad would become Stalingrad or, at a minimum, Sarajevo.

He predicted Rumsfeld would be sacked.

He predicted that British troops would not take part in the war.

He predicted the war would hurt the United States economy by driving up oil prices.

He believes that the United States and Great Britain were on a premeditated mission to destroy multilateral institutions.

He opined that France's opposition to the war was a result of being maipulated by the madman!

He criticized Israel for "escalation" with Hamas.

He has labeled Colin Powell an honest man, while alternatively suggesting that he is integral to the lies of the administration.

He once stated that 65% of United States citizens believe that Saddam was behind 9-11 and that it was this mistaken belief that served as the foundation of the war in Iraq; now, he posits that the foundation was the belief that Iraq had WMD.

9659. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 9:18:52 AM

He has stated that Jewish groups exaggerate anti-semitism in Europe and he has offered as evidence of a lack of anti-semitism in France that fact that more Jews - I kid you not - die in Israel than in France as a result of anti-semitism.

He also has stated that Israel is part of the impetus for the United States going to war with Iraq.


I don't re-post them to humiliate you. Rather, I re-post them because you recently took pride in their invocations and you really shouldn't.

I don't seek to squelch debate. I just think that when you speak in the clubbish atmosphere of those who share your vision, you look like a jackass, whereas, when you are challenged, your writing is more temperate and less hysterical.

9660. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 9:20:58 AM

There just isn't any good news about Iraq these days.

Bush is making US less secure, says former aide

Rand Beers, who served four presidents on the National Security Council, said that the White House was making the US less secure, alienating allies and had failed to understand its terrorist enemy.

[...]
“I saw the things that weren’t being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became,” he told The Washington Post. “The Administration wasn’t matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They are making us less secure.”

Many of his former colleagues thought that the Iraq war was “ill-conceived and poorly executed”, he said. On the need for haste in attacking Iraq, he said: “I continue to be puzzled by it. Why was it such a policy priority?”

He suggested that the Bush Administration was more inclined to pursue battlefield success rather than grappling with the domestic security issues bound up in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. “Fixing an agency management problem doesn’t make headlines or produce voter support . . . it’s easier to go to war.”

The themes of his criticisms are familiar in Europe: that the US focus on Iraq has allowed al-Qaeda off the hook; that the US is losing the peace in Afghanistan; and that it has failed to put enough pressure on Saudi Arabia to deal with terrorist funding.

9661. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 9:21:33 AM

Moreover, you label me devious (as does Haji) when I utilize probably the least devious methods in all of discourse.

I provide you your words.

I ask you questions about those words.

If that is devious, you have been too long living on Lollipop Lane.

9662. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 9:27:50 AM

Our Hindu princess checks in to show everyone that he doesn't mind seeing the embarrassing string of reminders of what low moral character he possesses or of what an idiot he is. Did someone dredge up his own post where he describes in painful detail how he had to do in his Jewish partner for no better reason than his own pathetic character, and yet managed to feel better about it by blaming it on U.S. policy? No matter. Soldier on. Did he dispute his juvenile post of connecting the DC sniper with Bush's rhetoric? Of course not. How could he? Best to adopt a superior tone about the present "circle jerk" and move on to the attack, however lightly equipped he is to carry it out.

9663. marjoribanks - 6/17/2003 9:29:20 AM

Piffle.

I'd have to have a significantly higher opinion of Mr. Pickles, the ventriloquist's dummy, in order to ascribe deviousness to his maunderings. The sad plea is yet another imagining, another assumed grandiosity, another distortion of a documented record.

No. Pickles is a shameless, idea-deprived, punk who has lost his sense of decency and decorum. These last two did exist in Pickles before the gibbering ApeofHades became his lodestone.

But I tire, already, of discussing the circle jerk.

What you are, lovesick trio, is readily apparent to all of us, your tabled evidence here is comprehensive and unambiguous. Now lick your wounds quietly or I'll have to get my slipper out again.

9664. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 9:31:31 AM

Piffle

Stopgoppery.

Lollygaggery.

Dumfluffery.

Hefalumps.

Woozles.

Haji, you write like Willie Wonka.

Except Willie Wonka doesn't write the same thing over and over again.

9665. marjoribanks - 6/17/2003 9:32:04 AM

Yawn.

Run along to your nanny, Pincher "imagine if I were a senior government official" Martin. Maybe she's got some more annuated goodies for ye.

9666. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 9:32:30 AM

What you are, lovesick trio, is readily apparent to all of us, your tabled evidence here is comprehensive and unambiguous. Now lick your wounds quietly or I'll have to get my slipper out again.

Oh please get that slipper out Marj. Please, please, please. And don't forget to mention -- again -- how tired you are of discussing the circle jerk, even though it seems to be all you post on these days.

9667. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 9:33:50 AM

It's all Haji can post.

It's all he's got, other than "Piffle! Read this and get back to me! Harumph!"

Marj way well be auditioning for Mr. Belvedere II.

9668. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 9:34:03 AM

Yes, "if I were a government official, I would be the best friend of the Jews" or was it "if I was the best friend of the Jews, I would be a government official." I can't keep them straight.

9669. judithathome - 6/17/2003 9:37:37 AM

Seems to be all anyone posts on these days.

Any comments on the Rand Beers item or is he just another idiot who doesn't get it?

9670. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 9:38:28 AM

Meta meta, Danny. Take your obsession to the "All about Alistair" thread.

9671. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 9:39:22 AM

Alistair

I'm pleased to let the past be the past. If, however, you initiate, I'm also happy to explain myself.

9672. marjoribanks - 6/17/2003 9:40:37 AM

Oh, I don't get tired of correctly characterizing our entertainingly debased little trio, merely of reading about their passionate feelings for and about each other.

For instance, when I return from my morning meeting, I fully intend on coming here and accurately depicting what has happened in my absence. For edification and amusement, you know.

9673. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 9:41:14 AM

Good, we can hardly wait.

9674. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 9:41:33 AM

Don't forget your slippers.

9675. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 9:42:41 AM

And if you have to do in a Jew during your morning meeting, try not to blame it on the U.S.

9676. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 10:05:08 AM

Alistair --

I'll wait for the creation of meta thread to discuss your Message # 9653

As for Message # 9650, I don't think this "normalcy," as you describe it, can be the basis for peace talks, but more of an endgame for where we would like to be if the peace negotiations go well. In the meantime, the road map does a good job of spelling out what needs to be done: the first step, of course, is the cessation of violence and the removal of many if not most of the settlements.

9677. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 10:13:09 AM

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

9678. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 10:17:00 AM

(bugger.)

9679. jexster - 6/17/2003 10:19:45 AM

Its What Georgie Likes to Call "Revisionist History"

Former foreign secretary Robin Cook today dealt a series of devastating blows to the government's case for a war against Iraq, saying that it was "now clear that Saddam Hussein did not represent a 'clear and serious threat'".
Giving evidence to the foreign affairs select committee inquiry into the government's handling of the war - and the evidence used to back its case - Mr Cook cast doubt on both dossiers of evidence against the Iraqi leader, revealing that "Iraq was an appallingly difficult intelligence target to break".

He said that by the late 1990s the government was confident that Iraq did not have nuclear or long-range missiles, and that "containment worked better than we had hoped".


And those who speak English, a bald faced lie.

9680. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 10:19:59 AM

Paul Bremer was a savior until alistair read an article.

9681. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 10:21:08 AM

The title of Alistair's linked article, "America's rebuilding of Iraq is in chaos, say British," reminds me of the line from the Lone Ranger: "What do you mean 'we', white man?"

9682. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 10:30:36 AM

Sickles :

Yes, I naively hoped that they had fired the incompetent Garner in order to replace him with someone more capable.

Why, in your opinion, did they fire Garner? They could have saved themselves the trouble, they still don't have a clue.

9683. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 10:37:40 AM

Well, Pincher, the British were comprehensively lied to about the sort of war they were getting into. By both their own government and the US government.

The US has insisted on locking the UN out of the organisation of post-war Iraq, against the wishes of the British. The US has made its bed, and can lie in it all alone.

There is a quote from that Telegraph article that I disagree with :

The official, who was involved in the planning for post-war Iraq from its conception, said Washington had been seriously caught out by the discovery that Iraq was no longer a functioning country.

"The original post-war plan was to solve the humanitarian crisis - should it have arisen, which it did not - and then use the existing Iraqi ministries and officials to get the country running again as quickly as possible."

In the event the coalition arrived in Baghdad to find the ministries looted and destroyed


No they didn't. As you and I know, they arrived in Baghdad and sat on their hands while the ministries were looted and destroyed, and Rumsfeld egged the looters on.

9684. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 10:40:20 AM

alistair

No sooner do you retract on calumny than you reinstate it. Now Rumsfeld "egged the looters on."

9685. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 10:44:10 AM

Alisatir --

You make such unqualified claims and then you wonder why you get a strong response to them.

Well, Pincher, the British were comprehensively lied to about the sort of war they were getting into. By both their own government and the US government.

No doubt, there has been some exaggeration -- very common in politics -- but you have no proof that Bush or Blair officials comprehensively lied about what they thought was the threat in Iraq.

The US has insisted on locking the UN out of the organisation of post-war Iraq, against the wishes of the British. The US has made its bed, and can lie in it all alone.

The British went along with the U.S. decision, and so did the U.N.

No they didn't. As you and I know, they arrived in Baghdad and sat on their hands while the ministries were looted and destroyed, and Rumsfeld egged the looters on.

Another one of your myths. The U.S. did no such thing, as you and I both know.

9686. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 10:54:52 AM

Another one of your myths. The U.S. did no such thing, as you and I both know.

How come the oil ministry didn't get destroyed? They parked a couple of armoured cars out front, and nobody tried anything.

Sure, they couldn't possibly have found a few dozen troops to protect the other ministries, and keep the government infrastructure intact. That might have saved a couple of years and billions in the reconstruction process, but it was simply too complicated for the military planners' little heads, I remember now, you explained that to me at the time.

9687. alistairConnor - 6/17/2003 11:07:38 AM

No sooner do you retract on calumny than you reinstate it. Now Rumsfeld "egged the looters on."

I'm surprised you missed it. It got a lot of publicity at the time. Stuff to the effect that Iraqis were just letting off a little steam, enjoying their new-found freedom by looting. I don't have an exact quote, but I didn't dream it.

9688. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/17/2003 11:19:37 AM

Ah, the fruits of Empire and Iraqi liberation . . .

9689. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:24:21 AM

My characterization, in italics, followed by alistair's quote:

He predicted that Iraq would use biological and chemical weapons against the United States, though now he chortles at the fact that anyone could have bought such a brazen lie as their existence.

Alistair's words: "I think it likely that they have chemical or biological weapons."

9690. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:24:56 AM

He stated that Baghdad would become Stalingrad or, at a minimum, Sarajevo.

Alistair's words: "I can't see how they can take Baghdad, without spending several months and a few thousand dead Americans on it. Not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. The whole bombing thing has been next to useless, as far as I can see. The obvious targets were surely emptied before they were hit. The near-miss on the opening day was a nice try, but there will be no second chance : Saddam probably hasn't seen the light of day since then, he'll be sticking to his vast network of unbustable bunkers. That's something that hasn't been mentioned much in the media. Everyone seems astonished that the Iraqi government keeps functioning. I don't know if Stalingrad is a useful reference, but Sarajevo bears thinking about."

9691. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:25:24 AM

He predicted Rumsfeld would be sacked.

Alistair's words: "Colin Powell is an honest man, and I bet he bitterly regrets not resigning when he lost the battle within the US administration, some time in December I guess. He'll outlive Rumsfeld, but that's small consolation for him."

9692. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:25:47 AM

He predicted that British troops would not take part in the war.

Alistair's words: "My prediction: Blair will bail out, and British soldiers will watch the war from the sidelines."

9693. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:26:09 AM

He predicted the war would hurt the United States economy by driving up oil prices.

Alistair's words: "Old Yurrup, by all accounts, is already suffering greatly from this. Do they really want to risk further trashing their economies simply to spite the US and GB? High oil prices hurt the US economy much more than Europe (Europe is much more energy-efficient with respect to producing GDP). A declining dollar accentuates this. The question is, why does Bush insist on worsening his already critical economic situation with this war?"

9694. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:26:40 AM

He believes that the United States and Great Britain were on a premeditated mission to destroy multilateral institutions.

Alistair's words: "I'm not naturally inclined to conspiracy theory : I believe that when looking at the way things turn out, we often don't give enough credit to incompetence, and to the randomness of electrons. But I'm starting to come round to the idea that recent events make a lot more sense if we consider that the Bush administration is actively working to destroy multilateral institutions: in particular, the UN and NATO. If this is the case, then a veto on a Security Council war resolution would be playing into their hands. Inability to get a majority is better: currently, it looks like 11 to 4 against 'war now'. But best of all is the evaporation of the coalition of the 'willing'. I am more and more optimistic that they will pull back from the brink. Bush and Blair: 'You and me against the world. Sometimes it feels like you and me against the world.'"

9695. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:27:02 AM

He opined that France's opposition to the war was a result of being maipulated by the madman!

Alistair's words: "Psychologically, I believe that was a turning point : it was pretty hard for Chirac to back down after that, with remarks from the US about 'old Europe', pouring salt in the wounds. What on earth was Rumsfeld thinking? Either he wasn't thinking at all, or he was trying to provoke a showdown. So that's one interpretation of the whole deal : Chirac was manipulated by the Rumsfeld clique, whose long-standing agenda is to get the US to act outside of international institutions, building short-term coalitions etc. A French veto would make that inevitable... well, it worked. Sort of."

9696. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:27:25 AM

He criticized Israel for "escalation" with Hamas.

Alistair's words: "I criticise the Prime Minister of a democratic nation for escalating conflict with Hamas, while pretending to negotiate with the Palestinian authority."

9697. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:27:45 AM

He has labeled Colin Powell an honest man, while alternatively suggesting that he is integral to the lies of the administration.

Alistair's words: "Colin Powell is an honest man, and I bet he bitterly regrets not resigning when he lost the battle within the US administration, some time in December I guess."

"... except those bits of it that Powell presented to the UN a couple of weeks ago. Which turns out to have included crude forgeries (the uranium correspondance), romanticised versions (mobile bio weapons labs that turn out to be water-quality control labs), plus various fictional material (solid ground where underground bunkers are alleged, etc). I happen to believe that Saddam is hiding chemical and bio weapons capabilities. But that sort of bullshit provides ample excuses for those who choose not to believe that. Because nobody can believe Powell. What is the point in being the world's only superpower, with fabulous satellite and aerial recon, communications interception, and spy networks, when at the moment of truth, when the entire world is watching, you resort to fairytales scripted by Hollywood screenwriters?"

9698. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:28:03 AM

He once stated that 65% of United States citizens believe that Saddam was behind 9-11 and that it was this mistaken belief that served as the foundation of the war in Iraq; now, he posits that the foundation was the belief that Iraq had WMD.

Alistair's words: "Something like 65% of US citizens believe that Saddam was behind the Twin Towers atrocity (if that's not an urban legend?) -- this is the foundation of the current war. We have this righteous moral rage, somebody has to pay. Afghanistan? Not enough. Who's next? Well, who ya got?"

9699. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:28:25 AM

He has stated that Jewish groups exaggerate anti-semitism in Europe and he has offered as evidence of a lack of anti-semitism in France that fact that more Jews - I kid you not - die in Israel than in France as a result of anti-semitism.

Alistair's words: "[Responding to "Do you mean to say that Jewish groups are exaggerating anti-semitism in Europe?"]

"In short, yes. I often listen to Radio Judaica, a local Jewish station, on the way to work. They run frequent ads for emigration to Israel. This is part of a big campaign launched a year or so by the Sharon government, aimed at attracting French Jews (with rather limited success, looking at the net migration figures). It has been conjectured that the "anti-semitism" campaign, in addition to attempting to sway public opinion in favour of Israel, was aimed at provoking a panic reaction among French Jews."

[Responding to "Well, if I was a French Jew, I would be in a panic, right now."]

"Is the irony intended? It would be funny, except that... it isn't. Shall we compare the relative death rates for anti-Jewish violence in France and in Israel? Having said that... Just last night, I was talking to a friend who's about to embark on a thesis, on the subject of the Jewish population of our region, Rhone Alpes, between 1932 and 1948. It seems that the indigenous Ashkenaz population was boosted in the 30s by refugees from persecution in eastern and central Europe, before being about halved by deportation to the death camps during the war. One problem she has with respect to sources, is the turnover of the population since then : the local Jews are now, in their majority, Sepharads of North African extraction, who arrived in the 50s and 60s, when large numbers of the original Ashkenaz moved to Israel. (That's just a random side-note to the discussion)"

9700. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 11:28:37 AM

He stated that Israel is part of the impetus for the United States going to war with Iraq.

Alistair's words: "Beware of simple explanations Rick. Oil is part of it. Israel is part of it. The desire for democracy of part of it. But the fantasies of empire of the Cheney clique are the driving force."

He is the man who called the looting of antiquities in Iraq a "war crime" that was part and parcel of U.S. strategy.

Eh, this one is too painful to recount. I have no doubt alistair will fess up to it.

After all, I am human.

9701. jexster - 6/17/2003 11:42:58 AM

Died for a Lie - May He Rest in Peace

KHALDIYAH, Iraq - A sniper killed a U.S. soldier on patrol in Baghdad with a single shot, while gunmen targeted Iraqi officials in nearby towns in drive-by shootings likely designed to intimidate them against cooperating with Americans, the military said Tuesday.

9702. judithathome - 6/17/2003 11:44:23 AM

I wish to hell you would stop trashing this place with your petty little snits. Go do this back where you have a more appreciative audience, where all of you can enjoy it and chortle over how clever you are...we all get it, Danny.

You are brilliant. You are wise. You are witty. We get it.

9703. judithathome - 6/17/2003 11:46:58 AM

I wish they would at least post the names of the soldiers who are dying weekly from snipers attacks. They don't seem to be posting their names even after they have had time to notify the families of the guys...seems to me they are dying in the line of duty and deserve at least a mention.

9704. PincherMartin - 6/17/2003 11:50:02 AM

Judith, lighten up. Sickles wouldn't have done it all, if Alistair hadn't accused him of dishonesty in presenting his views. Such a call deserves a full bore response.

9705. jexster - 6/17/2003 11:55:18 AM

Hey Niner when you get a chance.


Howza bout dredging up some of your comments about WMD beginning in 11-12/01 thereabouts

9706. judithathome - 6/17/2003 11:55:29 AM

Well, it has achieved a "full bore", at least.

9707. jexster - 6/17/2003 11:56:49 AM

I haven't got the time and you seem oh so much better at dredging up the past than knowing what the hell is going on in the present tense.

Be a dear.

Get to work


You're SOOO good at it.

Everyone says so.

9708. judithathome - 6/17/2003 11:57:38 AM

War Poll Uncovers Fact Gap

A third of the American public believes U.S. forces have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. Twenty-two percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons.

But such weapons have not been found in Iraq and were not used.

Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. But most of the Sept. 11 terrorists were Saudis; none was an Iraqi.

The results startled even the pollsters who conducted and analyzed the surveys. How could so many people be so wrong about information that has dominated news coverage for almost two years?

9709. AceofSpades - 6/17/2003 12:15:46 PM

"No Connection" Department:

Iraqi Arms Tied to al-Qaida
Found in raids in Saudi Arabia

Email this story

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By Mohamad Bazzi
MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

June 17, 2003


Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Weapons and explosives smuggled out of Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime may have ended up in the hands of al-Qaida militants in Saudi Arabia, according to Saudi officials and a former Iraqi army officer.

Part of a major arms cache discovered by Saudi authorities during a May 6 raid in Riyadh appears to have come from Iraq, according to a Saudi official and the former Iraqi officer. The raid had targeted 19 al-Qaida members who fled during a shoot-out with Saudi security forces. At least three of the fugitives died when they took part in a series of simultaneous suicide bombings in Riyadh a week later, Saudi officials said.

In the safe house they raided, Saudi authorities found 800 pounds of advanced explosives, hand grenades, assault rifles, ammunition, disguises and tens of thousands of dollars in cash.

..................................

Wait, wait. I'm confuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuused. I thought that Al Qaeda and Iraq didn't cooperate...?

9710. concerned - 6/17/2003 12:29:46 PM

I wish they would at least post the names of the soldiers who are dying weekly from snipers attacks.

What if their next of kin doesn't want the publicity?

9711. judithathome - 6/17/2003 12:39:41 PM

What if their next of kin doesn't want the publicity?

Maybe they don't. But I would find it odd that the families don't want even a mention of the names of their dead children...after all, they are just as much heros as those who died in the war. They are over there protecting not only the Iraqi people but American interests and personnel.

9712. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/17/2003 12:42:50 PM

9713. marjoribanks - 6/17/2003 12:54:39 PM

Very, very good, Wizardo.

Quite exactly right.

9714. marjoribanks - 6/17/2003 12:59:11 PM

From left to right:

Dantes, Mr. Pickles, Ape and Pincher "imagine me as a senior government official" Martin.

--

Thanks again, insightful Wizardo.

9715. jexster - 6/17/2003 1:03:59 PM

American Public Seriously Misled

A Knight Ridder wire story reports,"A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll, and 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons."

Steve Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland which conducted the poll, said, "Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention, this level of misinformation suggests some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance." Not surprisingly this refusal to face reality is especially high among those who supported the war.


Hows YOUR cognitive dissonance this morning Danny Boy?

9716. jexster - 6/17/2003 1:06:51 PM

But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

--George W. Bush

9717. jexster - 6/17/2003 1:07:23 PM

I bet Ace doesn't believe Bush.

9718. jexster - 6/17/2003 1:11:39 PM

Cognitive Dissonance, The Halo Effect, and The Self-Esteem Trap - Therapeutic Consdierations

9719. PelleNilsson - 6/17/2003 2:39:16 PM

A curious week in the life of Mr Sickles

START QUOTE

7466. Daniel Sickles - 4/23/03 4:48:35 PM
“I still don't know whether Saddam had chemical and/or biological weapons.”

At this juncture, I'm quite sure he does not.

7471. Daniel Sickles - 4/23/03 4:58:29 PM
To be clear, no one of any rational mind has qustioned the existence of the components of WMD existing. Even Clinton ("Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors") and Gore ("We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country") have been unequivocal on the subject.

I merely affirmed that Saddam no longer has them.

Which is a good thing.


8196. Daniel Sickles -4/30/03 10:06:07 PM
Who says Iraq doesn't have WMD?

Say it now and say it proud.

Me and Tony say different, and like men . . . yes, like men, we are placing our stake in the ground.


8214. Daniel Sickles -5/1/03 9:17:03 PM
I've no doubt about Iraq and WMD. I've no doubt we will find convincing evidence of it.

8425. Daniel Sickles - 5/7/03 1:52:59 AM
You stated that I am trying to wriggle from my contention that Iraq possessed WMD pre-war (and to meet your comment on pre-pre-war, I mean, within months of the war).

I am not. I stand foursquare with Blair, who states that those who doubt WMD in Iraq will "eat their words."

8606. Daniel Sickles - 5/14/03 9:23:27 PM
I've stated unequivocally that like Blair, I expect those who doubted the existence of WMD in Iraq pre-war to be "eating their words." So, it may well be the bacon, orange juice and toast on ours.

END QUOTE

So what happened between April 23 and April 30? Was it a revelation? A visitation? Shall we ever know?

9720. vonKreedon - 6/17/2003 3:10:09 PM

Pelle - I'm not sure what you mean. The statement on 4/23, "At this juncture, I'm quite sure he [Saddam] does not[possess WMD]." simply means that Saddam is no longer in power and so does not possess WMD. Though in retrospect this seems perhaps overly optimistic, since we have found neither WMD nor Saddam.

9721. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 3:10:34 PM

Dude, it's good to see some homework done.

But you need to be a little smarter.

On 4/23, I was positive that Saddam did not have WMD because Saddam's regime had crumbled and Saddam was on the run.

Then and now, I'm clear and forthright. I've never doubted that Iraq had WMD. On 4/23, however, I was sure Saddam did not have WMD, because he was eating rats and ducking bombs.

I'm foursquare with Blair and Hillary Clinton (who has stated In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security. Now this much is undisputed).

9722. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 3:14:36 PM

Pelle

By the way, I don't mean to discourage you. You should be thorough and one's own words are currency.

Just because you ate dirt the first time out of the gate should not dissuade you in the future.

And remember - we all don't have a canvas as broad as alistair upon which to paint.

9723. PelleNilsson - 6/17/2003 3:20:32 PM

OK, I got carried away. I was actually looking for one of my own posts (which I didn't find, it must be somewhere in International or in the retired I&P thread), when I hit upon Daniel's and forgot about the timeline.

9724. vonKreedon - 6/17/2003 3:21:32 PM

Dan - It is amusing to see you put such trust in the word of the Clintons and Al Gore. It's as if the Monica Bombings were really a strategic strike at a clear and present danger and not at all a case of dog wagging.

9725. vonKreedon - 6/17/2003 3:23:16 PM

Also Dan, are still as sure that Saddam does not at this juncture possess WMD? It would seem logical that since we cannot find Saddam and we cannot find the WMD that they might be together.

9726. AceofSpades - 6/17/2003 3:25:31 PM

Daniel, why did you answer? It was a trap.

It's as if the Monica Bombings were really a strategic strike at a clear and present danger and not at all a case of dog wagging.

The timing almost certainly was contrived to wag the dog. That does not change the elemental fact, however, that Saddam DID have WMD.

Bush the first thought so. Clinton thought so. Gore thought so. Hillary thought so. Majors thought so. Blair thought so. The French thought so. The Russians thought so. The Germans thought so.

Everyone thought so -- including the same leftists here now asking "Where are the WMD?" Indeed, Alistair and other people united against The Madmen did so partially because, as they said in their own words, Saddam would use the WMD against our soldiers, against Kuwait, against Israel, etc.

It's funny how you assholes can claim WMD is a reason NOT to invade Saddam one week and then claim there were no WMD at all the next.


So this idea that Bush just made this crap up in the past six months doesn't even pass the laugh test.

I never ONCE heard you doubt that Saddam had WMD, until it became in your rhetorical interests to do so.

9727. PelleNilsson - 6/17/2003 3:28:32 PM

It was not a trap; as I admitted it was a mistake.

9728. AceofSpades - 6/17/2003 3:31:34 PM

No, you laid a trap for him, Pelle. He shouldn't have answered at all.

Isn't that what you said to Alistair once upon a time? Don't answer his questions; it's a trap!

Yes, you did say that. You don't believe in answering questions because you fear, righly, that your honest answers will tend to undermine your position. So you either lie or simply refuse to answer at all.

It's a trap.

Yes, it's a trap, and Daniel had every right to play the same game of refusing to answer fair questions.

of course, he could answer rather easily, because it was obvious even to VonK what an asinine failure of reading comprehension you had made.

But he retains the right, expressly stated by you a long time ago, of not answering any difficult question, because difficult questions are "traps."

9729. AceofSpades - 6/17/2003 3:34:21 PM

Your question was a trap; it was also a clumsy trap of the sort you'd expect to see designed by a subnormal intellect. You laid the carrot by the snare, but you forgot to attach the snare to the carrot. Thus, Daniel was able to easily pluck the carrot from the ground and munch upon it, while you went hungry.

Idiot.

I suggest that you did not make a "mistake" at all, at least not an inadvertant one, which is usually what we think of when we think of mistakes. I think you knew exactly what he meant, and therefore appreciated he was not chaning his claims at all, but you dishonestly suggested he was in the hopes that your fellow leftist hacks would simply agree with you.

VonK, unfortunately, spoiled your little game.

9730. PelleNilsson - 6/17/2003 3:38:10 PM

This is incredible.

9731. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 3:45:07 PM

VK

The reliance is justified. When Clinton and told me in 1998 that there was no question but that Saddam had WMD, I believed them. When Clinton and Gore told me in 2002 that there was no question but that Saddam had WMD, I believed them, much as I believed and believe Bush and his team.

Again, Senator McCain's words:

Like many Americans, I am surprised that we have yet to locate the weapons of mass destruction that all of us, Republican and Democrat, expected to find immediately in Iraq. But do critics really believe that Saddam Hussein disposed of his weapons and dismantled weapons programs while fooling every major intelligence service on earth, generations of U.N. inspectors, three U.S. presidents and five secretaries of defense into believing he possessed them, in one of the most costly and irrational gambles in history?

9732. AceofSpades - 6/17/2003 3:45:38 PM

Don't answer John McCain, Pelle; it's a trap.

9733. PelleNilsson - 6/17/2003 3:57:41 PM

I'm on record here as saying that I never cared much about the WMD, my concern was the regime change. I will now state that I hope WMD will be found. That Bush's and Blair's credibility be undermined is not in the best interest of the west.

9734. AceofSpades - 6/17/2003 4:00:05 PM

Your words are encouraging, but I suspect a trap.

9735. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/17/2003 4:00:50 PM

9736. vonKreedon - 6/17/2003 4:08:08 PM

Regarding doubts about the possession of, and threat from Iraqi WMD:
4943. OhioSTOPAS - 3/14/03 10:33:41 PM

[SNIP]

I don't know what Iraq has. That's why we need inspectors.

4795. jayackroyd -3/13/03 3:43:05 AM

[SNIP]
He [Rove] was right. Both polls and my informal discussions with people show that it worked. People believe Iraq works with Al Qaeda and that they were involved in 9/11. The repeated phrase "weapons of mass destruction" has successfully conflated nuclear warheads with empty mustard gas shells. And Americans believe Iraq poses a threat to US security.

4313. vonKreedon - 3/7/03 5:45:11 PM

Con - I listened to the Blix and Baradei reports this morning. It is hardly a misconstruction to say that Blix's statement was one of increasing and measurable Iraqi cooperation. Blix statement also says that UNMOVIC's follow up on intel regarding mobile bio-weapon labs, underground facilities and such has simply not panned out. Baradei's statement was even more clear, there is no evidence that Iraq has a nuclear weapons program and all the evidence put forward by the US/UK has proven out to be false.

This was a disaster for the US/UK position at the UNSC. Not only did Blix and Baradei state that Iraq is increasingly cooperative and forthcoming, but they both stated that none of the intel provided by the US/UK has proven out to be what we claimed it was. The US/UK continue to claim that they have definitive proof of Iraqi WMD programs, but somehow when the inspectors look were we tell them to look there is nothing there.
[SNIP]

9737. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 4:27:37 PM

jay

1) Where did Blair or Bush say that Iraq was tied to 9-11?

2) Do you believe Iraq had chemical weapons within 6 months of the invasion?

3) You stated earlier that Blair "made a pretty good case" for military intervention in Iraq. Could you please provide me quotes and/or links to that "pretty good case"?

9738. alistairconnor - 6/17/2003 4:33:45 PM

Message # 9709 Homo Pan Troglodytes :

blah blah blah blah may have ended upblah blah blah blah

Given your record on reported WMD finds, every one of which proved accurate, I'm really really holding my breath about this one.

9739. judithathome - 6/17/2003 4:41:48 PM

This is incredible.

Yes, it is and it would seem they have all become imbedded with Cal's habit of parsing every single sentence and word therein and going on and on about it until people die from exhaustion or boredom, whichever comes first.

9740. alistairconnor - 6/17/2003 4:44:14 PM

Message # 9731
Since Senator McCain hasn't turned up to comment on his quote, I'll have a go.

But do critics really believe that Saddam Hussein disposed of his weapons and dismantled weapons programs while fooling every major intelligence service on earth, generations of U.N. inspectors, three U.S. presidents and five secretaries of defense into believing he possessed them, in one of the most costly and irrational gambles in history?

I can certainly understand Sen McCain's confusion and disarray.

This is one of the most intriguing aspects of the whole affair :

1) why on earth would Saddam go to such elaborate lengths to deceive the world's best intelligence agencies, finest political minds (no irony intended!) etc, by denying that he had WMD while giving out signs that he really had them, to the extent of provoking a war to depose him, if he really didn't have any? (I have the germ of a theory about this, but I would like to know if you have one of your own)

2) Why on earth would the world's best intelligence agencies, finest political minds (ditto) etc automatically assume that a bloodthirsty psychopath dictator would be acting rationally, in his own best interests, let alone his country's?

See, that's the thing about dictatorship. Not a very effective political system. No transparency, no checks and balances. No reality checks. Maybe he was just crazy after all.

9741. judithathome - 6/17/2003 4:46:56 PM

That's too easy...he can't be crazy and a genius at the same time.

Oh, wait...never mind.

9742. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2003 4:52:29 PM

That's "a go"?

9743. wonkers2 - 6/17/2003 7:18:35 PM

It seems pretty obvious that Bush and Blair seized the opportunity after 9-11 to go to war with Iraq and massaged the intelligence on WMD and ties to Al Qaeda to support their decision. At least so said UK's former Foreign Secretary today. He accused Blair of allowing his super concern over relations with the U.S. to cloud his judgment on Iraq and the assessment of intelligence on WMD. It's pretty clear now that nothing will be found that poses a threat of the magnitude required to justify a preemptive strike under the terms of Bush's own new security policy.

Who will be the scapegoats for Bush and Blair? Tenet is one prime candidate.

9744. concerned - 6/17/2003 7:43:28 PM

AC -

You make me a bit nervous that, if enough people take talk like yours about Bush's advisors seriously, one of them might be encouraged to attempt to storm the Capitol, Rambo style.

9745. judithathome - 6/17/2003 7:53:29 PM

Oh, no need to worry, Concerned...the masses are as apathetic as ever; nothing will stir them to such action. Bush could slice live babies in half on primetime TV and they would just cite the parable of Solomon.

9746. jexster - 6/17/2003 11:29:23 PM

So that Bush could land on a carrier

9747. jexster - 6/17/2003 11:30:49 PM

9748. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/17/2003 11:51:38 PM

9749. Macnas - 6/18/2003 3:26:09 AM

More unrest as US troops open fire during a demonstration in Baghdad, no details yet.

9750. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 3:46:42 AM

Message # 9742 Daniel Sickles
That's "a go"?

Whatever you do, Dan, don't comment on what I said. It's a trap.

Yes, it's a trap. I'm trying to get you to express an opinion.

Wise men never express opinions.

9751. Macnas - 6/18/2003 3:51:08 AM

Be quiet you uppity antipode! Or you'll get the "quotes".

9752. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 4:12:33 AM

Well I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

No! No! Not the Comfy Chair!

9753. jayackroyd - 6/18/2003 5:09:31 AM

It turns out Bush really did utter a falsehood in Poland when he said that biological weapons had been found in Iraq.


An official British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis have continued to insist.

Guardian

Now, of course, uttering a falsehood isn't necessarily telling a lie. It all depends on the context, the circumstances, what he knew, who told him, and the president's general ability to comprehend complex and subtle intelligence issues. Whether the president was lying in Poland, I guess, depends on what your definition of "was lying" is.

An interesting sidebar to this is that there has been one consistent message from the Iraqis--they don't have any such weapons. If you look back on the claims made by Powell and others about their certainty that Iraq had weapons, you'll find that is based upon-----declarations by Iraq that they had the weapons.

Maybe, just maybe, wacky as it sounds, maybe the reason the inspectors were thrown out in 1998 was because there weren't any weapons left to find. It's easy to think of motives for Saddam Hussein to want his neighbors to think he had chemical weapons when he did not. The sanctions obviously didn't apply to him, in practice. And of course, all the "Saddam is a monster" arguments argue against the sanctions having any impact on his decision-making.

That happens to be the only story that's consistent with everything that has happened so far.

You read it here first.

9754. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 5:51:09 AM

It's easy to think of motives for Saddam Hussein to want his neighbors to think he had chemical weapons when he did not.

This is precisely what I was alluding to when I said I have the germ of a theory about this.

More explicitly : not only his neighbours, but his own people.

He has shown in the past that he has no qualms about using chemical weapons against Iraqis. I guess he needed the threat of this to fend off armed rebellion from within, as well as from without.

9755. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 6:07:38 AM

Jay, the astonishing thing about this, is that nobody else seems to have thought of it???

Well, I'm sure other people have, but I haven't seen it in the papers.

If Chalabi had put as much energy into discovering and telling the truth about WMD as he later did into fabricating spurious evidence about them, he might have had more luck in fomenting rebellion against Saddam.

If the Kurds had known he had no chem left, maybe they could have taken him in a straight fight? Look how quickly his army crumbled.

My dearest wish these many years has been to see Saddam hanged from a lamp post by Iraqi patriots. That might have come to pass, if the UN weapons inspectors had had time to finish the job.

9756. jayackroyd - 6/18/2003 6:27:16 AM

I'm sure the reason such a theory hasn't appeared is that it has a grassy knoll feeling to it. But the more you roll it around, the more it explains (whichnis how conspiracy nutcases talk, so be sure not to mention any black helicopters when you're discussing this). Imagine the dismay of the Iraqi scientists--what are they gonna say -- "We lied before when we said we had them, but we're telling the truth now when we say we don't."? They could only say what they did say--we don't have any. When asked "where are the records proving the 10,000 liters of anthrax you declared were destroyed?" all they could say is "there isn't any anthrax. See for yourselves."

It explains why the inspectors couldn't find anything before the war, why weapons weren't used during the conflict, and why the Americans can't find them now--despite having the scientists who worked with these weapons in custody. If you scroll up to around 9013, you'll see what Blix was saying at the time, holding open the possibility that, as with the nukes, there may simply have been no cbw.

The other reason this theory would be risky to print is that it would expose the whole intelligence effort as hollow, without any physical corroboration of the evidence. It would be a very serious and hard to believe charge, and one would want to be quite certain about it.

But, again, you see hints that this lack of corroboration may well be the case. Powell's supposed declaration of the first draft of the UN speech from Cheney's office as 'bullshit', his supposed suggestion to Jack Straw that some of the evidence was flimsy, the appointment of a B team to reexamine the evidence that was leading the regular intelligence guys to present an ambiguous picture....

It all hangs together. And, as the folks who thing the weapons are there to be found, time will tell.

Sorry, gotta go. The nurse is here with the Thorazine.

9757. jayackroyd - 6/18/2003 6:28:39 AM

thing=think

9758. jayackroyd - 6/18/2003 6:29:39 AM

Apparently the drug kicked in faster than usual. "And, as the folks who thing the weapons are there to be found, time will tell. " should be

And, as the folks who thing the weapons are there to be found are fond of saying, time will tell.

9759. jayackroyd - 6/18/2003 6:30:28 AM

Hey, macnas, how much trouble is Tony Blair in? What's the feeling in the pubs and teashops?

9760. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 6:40:51 AM

Message # 9685 Pincher :
No doubt, there has been some exaggeration -- very common in politics -- but you have no proof that Bush or Blair officials comprehensively lied about what they thought was the threat in Iraq.

The evidence is getting stronger by the day. You will bow to it eventually, insofar as you are an honest man. Danny will say, in stentorian tones, We shall see, and we'll still be waiting in 2006 for his answer.

Blair is an honorable liar, according to Clare Short :
Senior figures in the intelligence community and across Whitehall briefed the former international development secretary Clare Short that Tony Blair had made a secret agreement last summer with George Bush to invade Iraq in February or March, she claimed yesterday.
[...]
She also claimed that the intelligence and diplomatic community had privately opposed the war. This is the first time she has alleged that intelligence figures had serious doubts about the need for early military action.
[...]
She went on: "I believe that the prime minister must have concluded that it was honourable and desirable to back the US in going for military action in Iraq and therefore it was honourable for him to persuade us through various ruses and ways to get us there - so for him I think it was an honourable deception."
[...]
In the same evidence session [former Foreign Secretary] Mr Cook exonerated Mr Blair of the charge of deliberately misleading the country, but asserted that intelligence material was chosen selectively to fit a predetermined policy.
[...]

9761. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 6:41:53 AM

"I think it would be fair to say there was a selection of evidence to support a conclusion," he said. "I fear we got into a position in which the intelligence was not being used to inform and shape policy, but to shape policy that was already settled."

He asserted that No 10 had "a burning fixation" with weapons of mass destruction that led Mr Blair to reject Mr Cook's view that the policy of containment was working.

9762. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 6:43:30 AM

"I think it would be fair to say there was a selection of evidence to support a conclusion," he said. "I fear we got into a position in which the intelligence was not being used to inform and shape policy, but to shape policy that was already settled."

He asserted that No 10 had "a burning fixation" with weapons of mass destruction that led Mr Blair to reject Mr Cook's view that the policy of containment was working.

9763. Macnas - 6/18/2003 6:58:48 AM

Further on the latest incident in Baghdad, US troops have killed 2 people during a protest.

9764. Macnas - 6/18/2003 7:08:34 AM

re 9760

I listened to both Short and Cook's speeches yesterday evening, and as usual, Robin Cook was by far the more convincing and sincere. Ms.Short is a bit of a buffoon in my opinion.

It is interesting though, Cook was never a favourite of mine, if that is the right word, but right or wrong he does have the courage of his convictions. More importantly for Tony Blair, Robin Cook was probably the last person he would have wanted to be in opposition to him on the Iraq issue, as he is a very talented, calm and collected speaker and not known for the outbursts that Claire Short is famous for.

9765. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 7:13:58 AM

More evidence for Pincher :

CIA deliberately misled UN arms inspectors, says senator

Mr Levin says that when the UN team under Hans Blix returned to Iraq last autumn, the CIA - contrary to what it claimed at the time - did not pass on its full list of 150 high or medium priority suspected weapons sites. This, in turn, enabled the US government to shut down the inspections quickly, opening the path for military action.

"Why did the CIA say that they had provided detailed information to the UN inspectors on all of the high and medium suspect sites, when they had not?" Mr Levin asked. "Did the CIA act in this way in order not to undermine administration policy?"

Had it been known that there were still outstanding sites, he suggested, there would have been "greater public demand that the inspection process continue".

9766. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 8:51:14 AM

I want the truth to out as much as anyone.

But the scene that took place yesterday in Parliament was shabby and motivated more by temporary political expediency than anythng else. Short's comments were nothing less than scurrilous, with all that talk about assumptions and presumptions and the attempt to psychoanlayze Blair. Cook was blessedly more to the point but still, I think, unparliamentary in tone and thrust.

Let's remember a couple of things. One, there might have been crimes committed by both the US and UK regimes and we'll find out about them in time, but one of those crimes is not singlehandedly manufacturing the threat of Hussein's WMD from thin air. I invite anyone here to revisit the media coverage around the time UNSC#1441 was unanimously approved. Everyone, Blix and the Russian intel spokespeople and Chirac and even the Arabs all stated quite baldly that they knew Iraq had large quantities of unaccounted-for WMD and needed to fess up.

Second, politicians are politicians, UK politics are particularly bloodying to participants, and both Short and Cook have rested whatever futures they might have on discrediting the Prime Minister. They kind of have to do this kind of thing if they want to rally up an alternate power source within Labour because the existing power center is going to screw them to the wall quite completely in coming months.

9767. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 8:51:29 AM

Even given all of that, it was a tawdry display. I'm very much in agreement with the fine historian, William Shawcross's piece in the Guardian.

Tony Blair's enemies have behaved in a shocking manner over the liberation of Iraq and its elusive weapons of mass destruction. Opponents of the war predicted all manner of disasters - millions of refugees, famine, thousands of deaths in battle, and revolution on "the Arab street" throughout the region. None of these horrors happened. .......
........So they have used the missing weapons to turn on Mr Blair with self-righteous fury. They declare that the war was "a monumental blunder" (Robin Cook) and that we have been "duped" (Clare Short). This is opportunistic, irresponsible and self-serving rubbish.

9768. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 9:16:24 AM

In any case, I find the far more insufferable policy manipulation came in the glossing-over of what the occupation would entail. We were repeatedly assured that the colonial-government-in-waiting would take over in a somewhat tidy manner and that the liberation was being undertaken in order to replace Hussein with peace, order, and superb rebuilding.

So far, there has been no order, no rebuilding, and a stunning lack of preparedness that has led directly to incredible looting and a complete breakdown of Iraqi civil society. We're more than two months into the post-Hussein era and there isn't even sign that things are under control at all.

I submit that the damaging revelations that will cause heads to roll lie in this area not WMD. Did the administrations purposely suppress dissent (such as that from Shinseki) in order to push for a hasty military campaign before proper plans were in place for the next bit? Let's see, it sure looks like it.

9769. Daniel Sickles - 6/18/2003 9:43:51 AM

marj

Your characterization of the situation in Iraq is shoddy and incomplete. Most of this is borne out by potshots taken by anonymous critics and the tunnel vision of a press that feeds off of disaster. So, the lead every night is "More violence in Iraq . . . ." and just like in Detroit, if you are angry and shaking your fist, you'll be the visual.

Yet, Iraq is being rebuilt weeks after it was taken, from its infrastructure to its Olympic program. The Basra offshore terminal is set to reopen this week and the Basra oil refinery itself has met its pre-war daily output of oil. Elecricity is now available 18 hours a day in Baghdad. Most everybody is eating.

Here is a link on water/sanitation status: USAID

By the way, USAID is a better source of information than 30 second reports on MSNBC.

Moreover, the G-8 just committed and Germany has just committed its Technisches Hilfswerk.

Much as with WMD, much as with the mewls of "Quagmire!" - this expectation of Iraq as a non-violent, perfectly functioning and orderly society (even with scads of ex-military, Baathists and Fedayeen on the streets) weeks after the end of major hostilities and after decades of brutal repression and Sunni domination is simply an immature outlook.

But you can hear the run-up - from marj's intonations to "Another dead American in . . . " Context and scope are simply too difficult to assess. better to be hysterical, and get more hysterical on a daily basis.

Fortunately, this administration realizes that things take time and probably understands that the United States will be in Iraq for years. Hopefully, the West will be in Iraq forever.

9770. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 9:51:02 AM

Where Short's allegations are likely to be more damaging is when she talks about the short-circuiting of Cabinet, the breakdown in due process, scrutiny and collective decision-making. The British are capable of getting very worked up about that. If indeed the kitchen cabinet runs the show, as it seems, this explains the shoddy quality of decision-making in the past few months.

9771. Macnas - 6/18/2003 9:54:31 AM

re 9759

Just seen your post Jay. I wouldn't know about the feelings in the pubs and "teashops" (very quaint), as I assume you are referring to the UK.

I do not think Blair or his government is in any real danger of losing power, or indeed of losing the next election.

The alternatives are weak and lack popular support, even though the Liberal Dem.'s have made some headway of late in local elections.

9772. Daniel Sickles - 6/18/2003 10:01:19 AM

Marj's I invite anyone here to revisit the media coverage around the time UNSC#1441 was unanimously approved. Everyone, Blix and the Russian intel spokespeople and Chirac and even the Arabs all stated quite baldly that they knew Iraq had large quantities of unaccounted-for WMD and needed to fess up is an apt invitation, though the media coverage is a poor gauge.

9773. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 10:02:25 AM

Your characterization of the situation in Iraq is shoddy and incomplete. Most of this is borne out by potshots taken by anonymous critics and the tunnel vision of a press that feeds off of disaster. So, the lead every night is "More violence in Iraq . . . ." and just like in Detroit, if you are angry and shaking your fist, you'll be the visual.

Yet, Iraq is being rebuilt weeks after it was taken, from its infrastructure to its Olympic program. The Basra offshore terminal is set to reopen this week and the Basra oil refinery itself has met its pre-war daily output of oil. Elecricity is now available 18 hours a day in Baghdad. Most everybody is eating.

Re-opening a working oil terminal, and re-starting a working oil refinery does not count as re-building. The fact that "most everybody" is eating and electricity is available in Baghdad once more are similarly weak "achievements" given that everyone ate and electricity was available 24 hrs a day under Hussein, and that there was not (in the end) a blistering infrastructure-destroying fight for control of the country.

These are minimal plus points, and that should be apparent to anyone not interested in aggrandizing the alleged "achievements". Huge, giant, negative points include the total lack of policing in most of the country, the continued inability of the US to find and capture most of Hussein's circle, and the continued looting of every site of any cultural/archaeological/material value across the entire country.

I suggest that Mr. Pickles go look up what Ahmed Chalabi has had to say about US follow-up to military victory, and what the complaints were that he brought with him to the US last week.

Refusal to acknowledge multiple independent sources of corroborated information is what is shoddy, incomplete and transparently stupid. All of those are characteristics of the Pickles opus, not anyone else's contributions here.

9774. Macnas - 6/18/2003 10:03:38 AM

re 9772

A poor guage, as opposed to previous posts from the Mote?

9775. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 10:11:07 AM

Let's run a small experiment here with Mr. Pickles, who wishes to be rehabilitated and treated as a three-dimensional real person and not a flag-emblazoned cardboard cutout.

Got any criticisms of the Iraq campaign and the Bushite reasonings, Pickles? Do you harbor any doubts whatsoever about the information that was fed to us as justification? Do you reckon that there may be bumps, even disasters, on the road ahead? Can you list three substantive areas where you disagree with the Bushite line? Can you list even two areas where you might align yourself with what is percieved to be the consensus of the international community?

And, can you give us a short paragraph sincerely written on the topic - 'Why I like France'.

I asked before if there was anything to differentiate yourself from the yahoo chorus, and would like to see evidence of it.

9776. alistairConnor - 6/18/2003 10:13:32 AM

Marj :

Everyone, Blix and the Russian intel spokespeople and Chirac and even the Arabs all stated quite baldly that they knew Iraq had large quantities of unaccounted-for WMD and needed to fess up.

Not quite. Everyone knew Iraq had not accounted for large quantities of WMD and needed to fess up. (Evidently they destroyed a lot of stuff in the late 90s and didn't do the bookkeeping.)

Surely the CIA et al could have verified this... if they had been asked (one of the interesting things about the intelligence scandal will be to see whether the raw intelligence about the clandestine destruction of Iraq's WMD existed, as it surely must have, and whether it was suppressed or discarded).

9777. Daniel Sickles - 6/18/2003 10:15:24 AM

Haji

Some of your observations are accurate. All are crudely ahistorical. There are issues and you've touched on a few, though, typically, you miss the biggest problem in post-war Iraq - unemployment (now at over 50%). Construction, a resurgent oil industry, and reconstitution of the army should assist.

But some of the facts you use are simply false: most everybody was not eating pre-war. If the United Nations and humanitarian groups are to be believed, pre-war, children in Iraq were starving to the tune of 5000 a month, with marasmus and pot-belly syndrome common.

And it is a fair bet that all the folks in mass graves were not chowing down pre-war either.

Moreover, reliance on Chalabi for post-war outlook is your choice. Given that Chalabi realized that pre-war Iraq wasn't a Haji vision of Benettons and Starbucks, however, it is understandable that his predictions may be rosier.

9778. Daniel Sickles - 6/18/2003 10:25:16 AM

Haji

Got any criticisms of the Iraq campaign and the Bushite reasonings, Pickles? Do you harbor any doubts whatsoever about the information that was fed to us as justification? Do you reckon that there may be bumps, even disasters, on the road ahead? Can you list three substantive areas where you disagree with the Bushite line? Can you list even two areas where you might align yourself with what is percieved to be the consensus of the international community?

Militarily, no. The 42 day war was close to flawless.

Reasonings, no. I accept all of them, from WMD, to regional stability, to support for terrorists, to the humanitarian aspect, to the concept of preemption. Of course, I had my own reasons - Plymouth Iraq - but that was not offered by the administration.

Bumps and disaster? Absolutely. Unlike others, I don't get hysterical about them, because I take the longview.

Three disagreements with the Bushite line: I thought the U.N. should have been let in earlier and I thought that Iraq should have been carved up into major cities and dispensed to the major powers (as opposed to carved into zones and dispensed to pro-war powers). I also think the regular army should have been interned.

As for the international community, I'm unaware that they speak with one voice. That may be a key to your issues of comprehension, Haji.

9779. jexster - 6/18/2003 10:27:03 AM

Lies Have Consequences

Gunmen killed an American soldier and wounded another in a hit-and-run shooting at a Baghdad propane gas station Wednesday, and U.S. troops opened fire on a demonstration outside coalition headquarters after the crowd through a few stones, according to an AP photographer

9780. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 10:30:54 AM

Typically, Pickles posts such tendentious nonsense that I am presented with the option of spending hours correcting each error (fruitlessly) or picking just one or two big 'uns and hitting those.

1) Chalabi, despite the ongoing vilification of him, is neither a total scoundrel or a naif. He may be partly a crook, but that hasn't stopped him from sucking vast sums of money from the Pentagon and getting unheard-of concessions from it despite the objections of the CIA and of State. Considering that his analysis apparently trumped all pre-war, it's rather surprising that it is being ignored post-war.

2) Chalabi's group knows of what it speaks, and is very likely going to be the next government in Iraq if elections are held in the next year or two. Take his statements under advisement, acknowledge what his axes to grind are, but ignore them (like the ventriloquist's dummy you are) at your peril. He had some truly shocking things to say about his American patrons and their ineffectiveness in post-war Iraq just a week ago. I submit that most of it was entirely genuine.

3) You, Pickles, know glaringly little about the ME. This complete lack of feel, of knowledge, or perspective isn't your fault but it does suffuse your every utterance on the subject. I wish you'd read up a bit, at the very least.

9781. Macnas - 6/18/2003 10:32:37 AM

re 9779

It's unfair to judge some troop who shot into the crowd in what seems to be a bit of a panic.

Of course it should not have happened, and this guys trigger discipline was non-existant and he should be punished accordingly. However, it is not the case that this was some kind of revenge shooting.

9782. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 10:32:55 AM

Well, despite the errors in basic comprehension, I give you a small bone, Pickles, you may in fact be morphing back into a human being.

We'll see what further steps we can make when I return to this site later.

9783. jexster - 6/18/2003 10:35:31 AM

And the evidence keeps mounting....


Senior figures in the intelligence community and across Whitehall briefed the former international development secretary Clare Short that Tony Blair had made a secret agreement last summer with George Bush to invade Iraq in February or March, she claimed yesterday.
In damning evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, Ms Short refused to identify the three figures, but she cited their authority for making her claim that Mr Blair had actively deceived the cabinet and the country in persuading them of the need to go to war.

9784. marjoribanks - 6/18/2003 10:35:49 AM

Finally, Pickles, don't throw around borrowed words like 'ahistorical' until you've learned what they mean and in what context they are best applied.

9785. jexster - 6/18/2003 10:39:11 AM

Not judging anyone there marj...no trooper that is.



It was 113 degrees. He was undoubtedly in full battle gear and scared, outnumbered hundreds or even 1000 to 40.


And he was lied to. They lied to him about the reason he was standing in the hot sun.

They lied to him when he was blasting across the desert telling him that if he just pushed a little harder he be in Baghdad and home before he knew it.

They lied to him in the very last minute name of his operation "iraqi freedom". Poor bastard thought he'd be welcomed, thought he'd be home.



Now he is dead.


Lies have consequences

9786. Daniel Sickles - 6/18/2003 10:41:37 AM

Haji

You're self-parody, and I love it. Now go get your latte' and preen in the park.

9787. jexster - 6/18/2003 10:44:36 AM

TASK:
Create a Transitional Security Force

* Indications that combat forces will also handle
stabilization duties, although they do not appear to
have been specially trained or mandated to do so.
* No signs of U.S. forces being trained to handle
post-conflict, civil security needs, in addition to
normal combat functions.


Parole, Retrain, and Reintegrate the Iraqi Regular
Army
* Plan to use Iraqi soldiers to help rebuild Iraqi
infrastructure.
* No signs of adequate plans with respect to parole
and vetting of Iraqi soldiers before they are put to
work on reconstruction projects.
* No signs of longer term plans with respect to
reintegration of soldiers into civilian life.
"Post-War Iraq: Are We Ready?" by Bathsheba Crocker - CSIS Report, 25
March 2003(

9788. jexster - 6/18/2003 10:45:59 AM

You are mean man when you cognition is dissonant. Makes me proud.

9789. Macnas - 6/18/2003 10:51:51 AM

re 9785

Though I have not spoken to a US soldier of late, last time was more than 10 years ago, He is usually a professional, fully aware of his mission and confident in his commander.

While he would undoubtedly prefer to be at home (at this stage) and more than likely would have been pleased with a warm welcome, I'm sure he is stoic in his determination to do his job as it is expected of him.

When he does not, as is the case in the recent protest where 2 Iraqi's were shot dead, he takes his share of the blame, as should those who deploy what are essentially assault troops in a peacekeeping/policing role.

Portraying the modern US soldier as some lost sheep who didn't know what he was signing up for, and remember er are talking about paid professionals here, is incorrect and is all too often used as an excuse for breaches in discipline and lack of professionalism.

9790. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:13:28 AM

Many of these kids are in the service because they can't get a job elsewhere, Macnas...they are not all flag waving soldiers with their courage leading them forward. They have joined to get the job, the benefits, and because the recuiter made it sound like a huge job opportunity.

I have talked with these soldiers...my husband was their boss and we would have them over for meals and to relieve the homesickness they went through being stationed away from home for the first time. I've listened to them numerous times and many felt it was just a job, not a holy calling. Many stated flat out they wouldn't risk their lives and many more were sorry they had ever joined.

So not all those soldiers over there are proudly serving Uncle Sam. Most are but some are serving only through circumstance and not happy to be doing so at all.

9791. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:14:14 AM

recruiter...

9792. jimmy page - 6/18/2003 11:22:38 AM

They have joined to get the job, the benefits, and because the recuiter made it sound like a huge job opportunity.

Posts like that always interest me in the sense that the poster makes it sound like some poor conscript who was forced to join Peace Corps is all of a sudden asked to fight. That's not the deal. And if you have any connection with the military you should know better.

Last time I checked it wasn't a welfare program or a free ride. Everyone who signs up knows there's a chance they'll have to go fight even if they're playing the odds that they won't have to.

Are there good benefits like training, tuition money, mortgage deals, etc.? Yes. Are they well-deserved? Yes. Do they have to be earned in the sense that when your country asks you to fight, you're expected to do so? Yes. Everyone knows that going in. They give you a crew cut and a fucking automatic rifle.

9793. Macnas - 6/18/2003 11:23:43 AM

re 9790

My point is that they are paid professionals who have to do their job accordingly.

The reasons why they joined, and how they feel about it, well, call me heartless but I don't care about that. They have to do what is tasked of them.
I do not subscribe to the "scared kid in a helmet with a rifle" image. I've never met that soldier, 'though I accept you have in an informal, out-of-uniform setting.

9794. jimmy page - 6/18/2003 11:26:08 AM

I do not subscribe to the "scared kid in a helmet with a rifle" image.

Amen. We have the best trained military in the world. It's all volunteer. We don't give 14 year olds guns and send them out to shoot at shit.

9795. jexster - 6/18/2003 11:31:24 AM

Salon is running a time line on the lies (Is Danny a Secret Salon Agent)...

The Line of the Lie confirms Clare Short's claims of a secret pact for war between Bush and Blair last summer, the disavowals, yet another lie.

Before Cheney's speech, the Bushies resorted to innuendo, the "meaning of is-is" type lie. At that point, after Bush and Blair, disavowals and UN charade to the contrary notwithdstanding, had decided to make war in Feb/March 03, the slippery changed to the categorical lie.

This ended roughly in March/April. Other than Bush's manifestly ridiculous claims to Polish TV, this was the last of the hard core lies:

March 30 In the second week of the war, Rumsfeld is asked on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" if he was surprised that no WMD had yet been found, being that coalition forces already controlled so much of the country.

"Not at all," Rumsfeld said. Coalition forces controlled substantial portions of the country, but those "happen not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed." Don't worry, Rumsfeld conveyed. "We know where they are," he said. "They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

9796. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:32:41 AM

Compared to US conflicts as recent as Vietnam, it appears now that it has reached the point that one can now expect to enlist in the US military and serve out a full career if desired with about as much chance as leaving the military alive as in some areas of private employment, whether or not the US becomes engaged in foreign wars or not.

9797. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:33:27 AM

could have improved the phrasing in my last....

9798. jexster - 6/18/2003 11:33:51 AM

There are several handy dandy guides about. For easy reference, I recommend The Clip and Save Guide to WMD Lies


You can't tell your liar without a scorecard!

9799. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/18/2003 11:33:55 AM

9800. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:34:48 AM

Suit yourselves. But before you discount what I have to say, go talk to a few on your own.

I never said we didn't have the best trained military in the world and please note I used the word "SOME".

If you don't like the idea that some of them don't like their jobs and are not as gung ho as you would like them to be, take it up with them, not me.

9801. jexster - 6/18/2003 11:35:13 AM

A Hottie!

Poor bastard


It no doubt consoles him to know that he makes yahoos like the Ace of Spades feel like men.

9802. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:37:33 AM

If you don't like the idea that some of them don't like their jobs and are not as gung ho as you would like them to be, take it up with them, not me.


It's an all-volunteer military, and lots of people everywhere would rather be doing something else than their day jobs:)

9803. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:39:33 AM

Yeah, I'm sure they would. Tell that to Jessica Lynch, who had such glorious opportunities in her hometown for employment. And her brother, tell him, too.

9804. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:41:40 AM

Personally, not ever having been in the military, I don't know if I would have taken well or not to any 'indoctrination', such as it is. But that doesn't mean I think it's unnecessary or bad; it's just me.

9805. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/18/2003 11:41:46 AM

Be all that you can be!

9806. jexster - 6/18/2003 11:42:26 AM

I linked this up thread..a excerpt from a letter from a 4th infantry captain...

They're not called grunts for nuthin...

I'm taking command of a [XXX], I would much rather have a line company, but I don't get much of a choice on this one.

Its not fun sleeping in a sleeping bag filled with sand. ...The bugs are annoying, I watched as 10 flies carried away my MRE dinner tonight, and I was happy because I got the spoon with the food on it to my mouth before they could get to it. It's the little things that make us happy.

OK, so here is the description of how bad the sand is: Take a hundred bottles of baby powder, dump them on the ground in 1 spot so they make about 6 inches of baby powder. Now walk in the baby powder.. .and watch the powder rise into the air. Now imagine yourself eating as someone walks through the baby powder right next to you, or better yet, imagine trying to take a "shower" as a HMMWV is driving past you in the baby powder.

Our DIV HQ occupied a palace complex in Tikrit complete with swimming pool, man- made lake and 8 different palaces with air conditioning The CG [commanding general] came to see us once for 15 minutes and never came back.

Well, my overall impression is that the COLs and above only care about themselves and making sure that they are living well. I believe that they think if they are living well, then everyone else is living well, because they never leave their cushy palaces to see the real fighters and killers.

9807. jexster - 6/18/2003 11:42:37 AM

Heard through the grapevine that Donald Rumsfeld fired the SEC Army, wants an AF guy to be the next big wig and is going to downsize us by 2 divisions. Guess he doesn't like us. Also heard that 1AD will not return to Germany, and that we are in the process of closing a lot of bases in Germany. That won't help in terms of our invasion of France which must be up next on the hit list, right behind Syria.
Gotta get some sleep, tell all that everyone out here is doing just fine.

Capt XXX

9808. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:42:40 AM

Re. 9803 -

Tough to have a college degree at age 18.

9809. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:43:39 AM

Why do so many 18 year olds volunteer, I wonder...and so many from the South? I guess it's because they decided to decline all the college scholarships and grants they received. Or they just liked the idea of being a soldier rather than taking advantage of the huge job opportunities in towns where most of the factory jobs have been shipped off to Asia or Mexico. Or maybe all the Mickey D jobs in their town were full up.

9810. Macnas - 6/18/2003 11:44:14 AM

re 9800

Before I head for home judith,

I do not discount what you have to say, I disagree with it to an extent. I do see that you have a valid point wrt some you have met, and as you have met many more than I ever have or will, I know what you say is true of some soldiers.

But the armed forces of any country should be as professional as possible, and in the case of the US that is entirely possible. Being a profesional soldier is what prevents mistakes such as happened today in Baghdad.

I don't care how gung-ho a soldier is, I'd prefer him to be good at his job. Talk to you tomorrow.

9811. jexster - 6/18/2003 11:44:37 AM

Aaah speaking of Lies....Jessica Lynch The Movie

9812. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:45:25 AM

Tough to have a college degree at age 18.

And this is in reference to whom?

9813. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:51:02 AM

I recently went to some military sponsored memorial type service where I work. It's rather easy to perceive such a thing as cornier than all get out. But, once into the service, I became quite emotionally involved because, regardless of the rationalizations, almost everybody's lives and careers are involved or are affected in some way by the results of the military's actions and the military still serves an important purpose.

9814. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:51:48 AM

Re. 9812 -

About 99.9% of us.

9815. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:52:27 AM

I agree...now answer my last question to you, please.

9816. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:54:14 AM

I must be missing your exquisite sense of humor. How do 99.9% od us have college degrees at age 18? Obviously, I'm in the 0.1%. ;-)

9817. concerned - 6/18/2003 11:56:25 AM

I was saying that having the requisite college degree for reasonable career mobility is not really an option at age 18 for most all of us.

9818. judithathome - 6/18/2003 11:58:09 AM

Well, being in the military isn't a guarantee of getting a degree, either.

9819. jimmy page - 6/18/2003 11:59:54 AM

Why do so many 18 year olds volunteer, I wonder...and so many from the South? I guess it's because they decided to decline all the college scholarships and grants they received. Or they just liked the idea of being a soldier rather than taking advantage of the huge job opportunities in towns where most of the factory jobs have been shipped off to Asia or Mexico. Or maybe all the Mickey D jobs in their town were full up.

That's right Juditha. Tell it to us. They are forced to sign up. They're drafted. They're just poor dumb hicks who'n don't know no betta.

Grow up and cut the holier than thou sarcasm.

Does the military provide some real benefits and opportunities for people who might otherwise be facing dead-end jobs??

Yes.

If someone opts to go that route, are they actually expected to use the fucking gun they're trained to use?

Yes.

When these people get into actual combat, is it frightening? Yes, understandably. But they perform judith.

I wonder how many of our young volunteers would appreciate you painting them as cowardly, stupid, dead-end dupes with no job prospects? Nice stereotype.

Like I said before it's not the Job Corps. It's the military. I would bet that the poor dumb hicks you lament made an informed decision and thought the military was a better prospect than their other options.
While many may hope they don't have to fight, I would wager that they ALL understand that they might.

9820. jimmy page - 6/18/2003 12:01:41 PM

basically, I think you denigrate our men and women who serve by painting them as a bunch of fucking morons with no choices.

9821. judithathome - 6/18/2003 12:03:03 PM

wonder how many of our young volunteers would appreciate you painting them as cowardly, stupid, dead-end dupes with no job prospects? Nice stereotype.

Probably about the same number who don't appreciate having their words twisted to mean something they didn't say.

9822. judithathome - 6/18/2003 12:04:50 PM

basically, I think you denigrate our men and women who serve by painting them as a bunch of fucking morons with no choices

YOU are one who is leaping to this conclusion.

9823. concerned - 6/18/2003 12:05:33 PM

No, but doesn't the military still offer GI bill type college educational funding for those who have served? That sure beats nothing.

9824. jimmy page - 6/18/2003 12:05:58 PM

All you have to do is read your own own words.

9825. concerned - 6/18/2003 12:06:16 PM

My last was wrt 9818.

9826. judithathome - 6/18/2003 12:11:19 PM

Yes, Concerned, they certainly do offer help with college and I think that is one of the best benefits the military has. You have to serve a certain number of years to qualify but, unless it has changed recently, it is a relatively low number. So the military is a good choice for someone wanting to attend college without the means otherwise to do so. College costs going up as they are, it may be the only choice soon for those who can't go to school otherwise.

This all started because I said some of the troops were not as happy as a few would have us believe...I wasn't putting any of them down nor was I saying they were all morons. Indeed, they are probably more intelligent than some in Washington.

9827. judithathome - 6/18/2003 12:14:16 PM

My last was wrt 9818.

I wasn't commenting on their intelligence. Just being in the military doesn't mean you automattically qualify to receive the benefit. Or that you choose to USE it.

But I don't know why I am bothering to explain myself...your mind is already made up.

9828. concerned - 6/18/2003 12:18:25 PM

About what, exactly?

9829. jimmy page - 6/18/2003 12:21:02 PM

I went back and looked judith, and I don't think I twisted your words. This is the last I'll say on it, as you apparently say that it's not what you really mean, but if you look, it is what you're saying. In sum, here’s where you talk about how they’re duped by a recruiter:

They have joined to get the job, the benefits, and because the recuiter made it sound like a huge job opportunity.

Here’s your take that many will flat out refuse to fight, the damn cowards:

Many stated flat out they wouldn't risk their lives and many more were sorry they had ever joined.

Here are the schmucks with no choice:

some are serving only through circumstance and not happy to be doing so at all.

Because damn, you know that no one from West Virginny can get a job:

Tell that to Jessica Lynch, who had such glorious opportunities in her hometown for employment. And her brother, tell him, too.

And your catch-all, stereotyping them as loser hicks from the South with no job prospects other than McDonald’s and too dumb to get a scholarship or too poor to pay for school:

Why do so many 18 year olds volunteer, I wonder...and so many from the South? I guess it's because they decided to decline all the college scholarships and grants they received. Or they just liked the idea of being a soldier rather than taking advantage of the huge job opportunities in towns where most of the factory jobs have been shipped off to Asia or Mexico. Or maybe all the Mickey D jobs in their town were full up.

But whatever.

9830. jimmy page - 6/18/2003 12:21:24 PM

Later.

9831. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/18/2003 12:22:35 PM

I love to hear the GungHo Chickenhawks, who were never in the military, pontificate and castigate others who surmise the truth intuitively and empirically with regard to the grunts who are on the front lines.

I wound up in the military because I hated business school, dropped out and was about to be drafted.

The bullshit advertising the military slings out now seems a lot better than feeding pigs—on the farm or at McDonalds.

Real choices there--just like Republican health care: "Pay us, or die!"

9832. concerned - 6/18/2003 12:24:42 PM

Funny to see WoW call JAH a 'chickenhawk'.

9833. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/18/2003 12:31:26 PM

You would think that, Dimwit! I was referring to you and Jimmypage.

And this is just for you, connie: