>
2501. jexster - 12/21/2003 1:19:38 PM
Our moralists compete in criticising the lies, distortions, and
exaggerations of our Master Planners. But the majesty that certain spin doctors
show in giving us nonexistent morsels to chew on should command our
admiration....Plato permitted lying in only two occupations: doctors and
statesmen...Yet it is reassuring to note that the same distortions that allow
Washington to give credibility to its war will hasten its defeat in the end."
More directly, lies have consequences.
2502. jexster - 12/21/2003 1:21:09 PM
liars, incompetents
lies, consequences
flies, flypaper
2503. jexster - 12/21/2003 1:46:02 PM
Eddie here's anoth newsflash from Planet Earth....party hearty
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government on Sunday raised the national
threat level to orange, the second-highest, saying attacks were possible during
the holiday season and that threat indicators are ``perhaps greater now than at
any point'' since Sept. 11, 2001.
``Information indicates that
extremists abroad are anticipating near-term attacks that they believe will
rival or exceed the scope and impact of those we experienced in New York, at the
Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania more than two years ago,'' Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge said in a statement released before his news conference on
the announcement.
2504. jexster - 12/21/2003 1:46:20 PM
er
2505. robertjayb - 12/21/2003 2:06:47 PM
Condi reluctant to testify under oath...Oh. I wonder, wonder
why...This could get interesting, methinks...
TIME---Poised
to convene its first hard-hitting hearings in January, the federal commission
investigating the 9/11 attacks continues to be at odds with the White House over
access to key information and witnesses. Two government sources tell TIME that
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is arguing over ground rules for her
appearance in part because she does not want to testify under oath or, according
to one source, in public. While national security advisers are presidential
staff and generally don’t have to appear before Congress, the commission argues
that its jurisdiction is broader—and it's been requiring fact witnesses in its
massive investigation to testify under oath.
2506. Al D - 12/21/2003 3:45:44 PM
Judith
I suggest Al D read it and I will link it in as soon as
it's available. He was asking a few months ago exactly what influence the people
mentioned in the article had on the adminisatration; he'll know after reading
that article.
Can you locate the post where I said that. There are
times that what I say and what you understand are two different things. To be
specific, certain people who were insisting that Bush fire people, at least one,
that I don't believe worked directly for the government. That people have
influence and input is another matter. I will indeed read the article you
mention, in fact I'm sure I could get it from any # of my friends who are avid
readers of MJ.
2507. judithathome - 12/21/2003 6:03:23 PM
Al, no, I cannot locate the post where you said something like what I
paraphrased because I don't obsess over posts and hold them in reserve for later
jabs and I don't pore over thousands of posts looking for one where someone
might have said something in a certain way so that I can ridicule them later
over their statements. That's a hobby others seem to enjoy. I don't.
I
am not accusing you of anything nefarious in your statements...I merely thought
you might like to read the article. It seems to be an excellent overview of waht
led up to this war and how things were interpreted by many people close
to the administration.
Speaking of reading into things what people might
not have meant: I honestly thought you might find the article interesting; I in
no way meant "Al had better read this because he is a confused old coot." But if
you took it that way, it would seem I am not the only one understanding things
differently than how they were meant.
2508. Al D - 12/21/2003 8:43:54 PM
As my dear old Dad uses to "Jesus H. Christ!" Why do you come on so strong
over such a little point. I am aware that the neo-cons had Iraq in their sights.
But when posters start talking about Bush fireing Richard Pearle when I was
under the impression he was not in the administration, I question them. I am an
old coot, I suppose, but maybe not as confused as you Liberals seem to believe.
Or is it just that age=addled. At one time, I imagine, they was respect for
elders. We have come to sadder days, alas.
Lots of family arriving tomorrow, so I will wish you a very merry
Christmas, dear Judith, and to all others also. We all know that it is love that
makes the world go round.
2509. judithathome - 12/21/2003 8:48:31 PM
Merry Christmas to you, too, Al...I am thinking you mistook my tone or maybe
I'm just stir crazy in this cast for three weeks now and overly verbose.
Whatever, have a nice visit with your family.
(And as for age and
respect for elders, I think I can put in a claim for that myself...I'm old
enough to be everyone's mother on this board except for you...ha!)
2510. Al D - 12/21/2003 8:57:18 PM
Maybe so Juith, but aren't you glad you're not!
2511. jayackroyd - 12/22/2003 7:30:24 AM
Eddie,
I'm copying 2466 over to politics in order to respond to it,
which is where I think the response belongs.
2512. jexster - 12/22/2003 9:54:15 AM
Jsy
There's very good reason behind Bush's blather about democracy -
he has absolutely no intention of allowing it to Iraq any time soon. That's how
he operates. That's what he does bes shuck, jive and lie.
The Imperial
Regime is fully cognizant of the hard reality that democracy in Iraq would
establish the rule of Shia clerics, who have the only organized political
operation in the country and whose leaders are beginning to express their
intention to take over in elected body whether it be the scam 3 caucus system or
direct elections - one man one vote/
Secular forces in Iraq, to the
extent that they had any numberical strength at all, were Baathist and mostly
Sunni.
But as this
article in today's Post discusses, the Sunnis are a people under seige with
a major leadership problem. But that vacuum is being filled, not by secularists
either
Once divided and discredited clergy have stepped forward to
try to end a crisis of identity, bringing a message of political Islam to a
community that once embraced secular Arab nationalism and tribal traditions.
No longer kingmakers, the community's leaders vow that they still
hold the key to stability. But casting a shadow over conversations with men such
as Quds is a sense of dispossession, of a minority searching for a voice in the
contest to create a new state.
2513. jexster - 12/22/2003 9:57:05 AM
Now I have taken a typically American optimistic view (as best as reality
permits me to!) many times having stated that the path to a stable Iraqi state
runs through a very narrow gate ie a major initiative by Shia clerics to take
the lead in an Iraqi nationalist movement from the Baathists and enter a
religio-nationalist coalition with the Sunnis.
Against that, I posted
Regis Debray's view that the longer the occupation lasts the more certain the
prospect of a major fundamentalist civil war and disintegration of the country.
Debray knows more about Iraq than I for sure and more than any 10 Bush
Neojacobin nutters that are this mess, and in the linked article you can see the
outlines of his scenario taking shape.
I am not sure yet that it is
inevitable. UNlike Bush's neocons, I am not nor have I ever been a fan of
Marxist dialectical materialism....But I hadn't given a seconds thought to
anything like Debray's view until recently and he is on to something.
One thing for sure though.....Bush's democracy isn't on a real world
road map....They got their "course" from the Mad Hatter.
Party Hearty..
Wuz de nite befo
Crimmus;
And all ower da hood;
ereybody wuz' sleepin';
Dey wuz sleepin' good
2514. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:07:52 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers in Baghdad
Monday, hours after troops captured a former general in Saddam Hussein (news -
web sites)'s once-feared security services on charges of recruiting ex-soldiers
to attack Americans.
The blast that ripped through a military
convoy in the late morning also killed an Iraqi interpreter and wounded two
other soldiers, the U.S. military said in a statement.
2515. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:08:55 AM
Two more sacrificed for the "course" of liars and incompetents.
Anybody clue us on what course is?
2516. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:11:07 AM
I DO! I DO! ME! Call on me Dr. Poopstain!
The Debray Scenario
"If you lose and cannot get a place in the government, you have
something to fight with," said Nadhim, wearing a white skullcap. . "It's
something to create a balance of power."
The future, he predicted, was
grim. He saw no end to the occupation. He saw sectarian strife only mounting.
"The seeds for civil war have been planted," he said, his tone matter of
fact. "I really think so."
2517. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:18:07 AM
The Debary Scenario II
Thousands of Iraqi Kurds gathered in Kirkuk
on Monday to demand inclusion of the northern oil centre in a future autonomous
Kurdish region
Attack of the Killer Kurds!
2518. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:23:49 AM
Lessons of Libya: War isn't always Necessary
2519. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:25:53 AM
The real story with the Libya development is the light it's showing on where
it likely got its nuclear starter kit: i.e., Pakistan.
New information
from North Korea and particularly from Iran is starting to show us that, in
essence, there really is no global weapons proliferation problem so much as
there's a Pakistan problem.
We now know enough to say with increasing
confidence that every state we're worrying about got either all of their help,
or their most significant help, from the Pakistanis.
This raises so many
questions and so many sharp-edged dilemmas that it is truly difficult to know
where to start.
-- Josh Marshall
Eddie, refresh me please, what
did the Queen of Hearts tell Alice Bush about making deals with dictators like
Busharaff, that fella in Uzbekistan, and the neo-commie dictator Pootie Poot
Crock of shit
Open wide
2520. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:31:16 AM
>
2521. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:33:35 AM
For those who know anything at all about Libya, however, an entirely
different interpretation is obvious. Libya proves that economic sanctions can
work. Because of its involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other acts of
terrorism, Libya was subjected to an international embargo in 1992. The embargo
from all accounts deeply hurt Libya's economy, and it produced a stark pull-back
from support of terrorism on Qadhafi's part. The Libyan government estimated
that the world boycott cost Libya $37 billion. The economy remains small at
about GDP $40 bn. despite an oil income, but the potential for wealth is vast. A
$6 bn investment could increase Libya's daily oil production from 1.2 million
barrels a day to 2 million barrels a day. (The population at 5.5 million is so
small that this increase would yield about $1600 per person per year, if the
price of oil were about $28/b.) Western investors have been skittish (and US
entrerpreneurs have severe legal limits on their Libyan activities), and that
would have to change for oil and gas exploration to expand, e.g. There's black
gold in them thar dunes.
(Again, the hawks have explained Qadhafi's
abandonment of support for terrorism with reference to Ronald Reagan's 1986
bombing of Tripoli; not being good at math, they don't seem to realize that 1988
comes after 1986. One could more reasonably draw the conclusion that the US
aerial strike encouraged Libya to commit more terrorism.)
The UN
sanctions, but not the US ones, were eased in 1999. In the meantime, Qadhafi had
become the target of the radical Islamist Anas al-Libi, a top al-Qaeda operative
suspected of involvement in terrorism in East Africa, as well. After September
11, Qadhafi associated himself with the US war on terror, in hopes of seeing
al-Libi killed and the Libyan branch of radical Islamism devastated.
Juan Cole
2522. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:35:14 AM
Hell Iraq shows sanctions work!
Take some good advice Dear ole Dr.
Poop...believe the opposite of what Abu Dantes says..you'll get along jess fayhn
2523. jexster - 12/22/2003 11:43:35 AM
There's one thing guarandamntee ya Qadhafi didn't lose sleep over - invasion
by our Dear Leader...unless of course he's totally out of touch with reality,
living in Hope Village on another planet...
HELLO ABU ED!
Ahhhahhhahhahh
She came from
Planet Claire
I knew she came from there
She drove a Plymouth Satellite
Faster than the speed of light
Planet Claire has pink air
All
the trees are red
No one ever dies there
No one has a head
Ahhhahhhahhahh
Some say she's from Mars
Or one of the seven
stars
That shine after 3:30 in the morning
WELL SHE ISN'T
She
came from Planet Claire
She came from Planet Claire
She came from Planet
Claire
Ahhhahhhahhahhahhahh
2524. jexster - 12/22/2003 12:56:06 PM
Welcome
Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends We're So Glad You Could Atend, Come
Inside! Come Inside!
- Welcome to the Mother of All Trials
In 1990, Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) told Saddam that he sympathized
with his complaints that the Western media were exaggerating his mass
murders.
The
Mother of All Trials: How Reagan-Bush-Schultz-Rumsfeld Winked At Saddam's
Chemical Weapons Use
Don Rumsfeld actually went to Iraq twice,
once in
1983, and again in 1984. The work Rumsfeld did in 1983 of beginning
a rapprochement between Reagan and Saddam was detracted from by a strong State
Department condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war.
Schultz told Rumsfeld to explain to Saddam that the Reagan
administration
did not actually, really have any serious objections to, like, exterminating
Iranian troops like cockroaches with poison gas. It was just a general,
unspecific blanket condemnation of that sort of
thing, you know, to keep up
appearances... So, Saddam should feel comfortable about Reagan's desire to
continually improve bilateral Reagan-Saddam relations at a pace of Saddam's
choosing, and not be put off by the
unfortunate but necessary pro forma
condemnations of him as a war criminal issued at silly old Foggy Bottom."
__Despite
Saddam's Use of Chemical Weapons, GHWB Invited Tariq Aziz to DC in 1984?
>Who
Arranged the Sale of WMD to Saddam Hussein in the 1980's?
I bet
cracker jack defense counsel worldwide will line up for this MUTHA
2525. marjoribanks - 12/22/2003 3:13:33 PM
I bet you, anything you want, that the right wingers (who still shamelessly
claim humanitarian brownie-points for the ouster of Saddam) will say exactly
nothing of import about these allegations about Pak's top nuclear scientist, and
will instead bleat loudly and repetitively about something completely different
in order to distract.
This is old news, just as it is old news now that
the Bushites and the rightwingers have kept gob-shut about the fact that Daniel
Pearl's killers also backed Mohammed Atta. Incovenient reminders of, you know,
actual terrorism, actual weapons of mass destruction, actual threats to New
York's security. War on Terror, my ass.
2526. rdbrewer - 12/22/2003 3:28:01 PM
I bet you, anything you want, that the right wingers . . .
Don't forget. You already have a $200.00 bet on the table with me re
Bush winning next year. Might as well put that in the liability column and pay
up.
Welcome, back, btw.
2527. rdbrewer - 12/22/2003 3:29:19 PM
who still shamelessly claim humanitarian brownie-points for the ouster of
Saddam
And why would that be shameless? You prefer a mass murderer
in power?
2528. marjoribanks - 12/22/2003 3:50:48 PM
Brewer,
Briefly:
It is shameless to claim that Hussein's
removal, the War on Iraq, had anything but highly tangential ties to a
humanitarian impulse.
1) This was not the case made.
2) This is
not the reality, at the Azores summit a few days before hostilities were
launched it was re-iterated that even the departure of Hussein would not be
enough to call off the invasion/occupation.
3) The USA, the Republicans
in fact, had absolutely no problems doing business and cozying up to Hussein
even as the mass murderer was mass murdering. In fact, many of the same people
who now retreat to the "humanitarian war" claim did business and cozied up to
Hussein after he'd used these WMD on his own people.
4) The USA,
the Republicans in fact, stood by - with troops actually on the ground inside
Iraq - and allowed Hussein the mass murderer to mass murder his Shi-ite
opposition, an opposition the USA - A Republican president named Bush actually -
egged on to open insurrection in the first place.
5) The USA has a very
fine, and understandable, record of cozying up to and doing business with mass
murderers. Yes, I suggest you read up on the Bush buddy in Uzbekistan who has
been reliably fingered - by the recalled Brit ambassador no less - as boiling
opponents alive.
Hence, Brewer, no one is fooled by the shamelessness of
the humanitarian war angle and even less by the laughable idiocies contained in
the latter question in #2527.
2529. rdbrewer - 12/22/2003 7:40:42 PM
You're talking about the intent of the invasion, about which part of the justification was the way Hussein treated his people. I'm talking about the practical effect of his ouster. I care less what the intent was; thus, I say "so" to each of your points. Practically speaking, capturing Hussein means fewer Iraqis will be tortured and killed. That's a win in the Republican column.
2530. rdbrewer - 12/22/2003 7:43:07 PM
Please, Marj, we're friends now. You can call me "Mr. Brewer."
2531. Edmund Dantes - 12/22/2003 9:09:45 PM
This was not the case made.
Certainly it was part of the case
made, as I have demonstrated repeatedly in this thread via the most significant
speeches leading up to the conflict.
This is not the reality, at the
Azores summit a few days before hostilities were launched it was re-iterated
that even the departure of Hussein would not be enough to call off the
invasion/occupation.
Not a very good hook on which to hang such a
hat. From the Azores statement:
Iraq’s talented
people, rich culture, and tremendous potential have been hijacked by Saddam
Hussein. His brutal regime has reduced a country with a long and proud history
to an international pariah that oppresses its citizens...
We would
undertake a solemn obligation to help the Iraqi people build a new Iraq at peace
with itself and its neighbors. The Iraqi people deserve to be lifted from
insecurity and tyranny, and freed to determine for themselves the future of
their country. We envisage a unified Iraq with its territorial integrity
respected. All the Iraqi people -- its rich mix of Sunni and Shiite Arabs,
Kurds, Turkomen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and all others -- should enjoy freedom,
prosperity, and equality in a united country. We will support the Iraqi people’s
aspirations for a representative government that upholds human rights and the
rule of law as cornerstones of democracy....
Our commitment to support
the people of Iraq will be for the long term.
We call upon the
international community to join with us in helping to realize a better future
for the Iraqi people.
Margarinebank cites this as evidence
against humanitarian liberation? I wonder if he'd even read it.
2532. Edmund Dantes - 12/22/2003 9:16:08 PM
As for this, again, I wonder what on earth he is talking about:
...even the departure of Hussein would not be enough to call off the
invasion/occupation.
...unless he's obfuscating and hiding behind
the sometimes-additional condition that Saddam's sons leave as well.
Again, from
the time of the Azores summit:
In the Azores
and on Washington talk shows, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear that it was too late for Iraq to
disarm, too late for further weapons inspections and too late for more diplomacy
to get the world to support the U.S. case for war. Although giving the United
Nations another day to agree with the U.S. position, Bush and his lieutenants
made clear that was mere symbolism. The only means to avoid war, they said, was
Saddam's exile.
Again, this is evidence for the WMD,
non-humanitarian position? No, it bolsters the argument that the war was about
regime change.
As it was.
2533. Edmund Dantes - 12/22/2003 9:18:55 PM
Regarding points three through five, margie is just being silly. His argument is as fallacious as saying because the United States helped Stalin against Hitler we cannot possibly have been serious in our opposition to communism.
2534. jexster - 12/22/2003 9:33:01 PM
The total number of wounded soldiers and medical evacuations by the U.S.
military in Iraq is nearing 11,000, according to new Pentagon data, and 457
troops have died. But as Aseneth Blackwell, a Vietnam War widow, says, the
casualty figures can't capture the pain and suffering she has seen during visits
to D.C.'s Walter Reed Army Medical Center this year. "To see these guys walking
around up there with an arm missing, a leg missing, that is when it hits you in
the face," said Blackwell.
Lies
Have Consquences
Welcome to the Real World
2535. rdbrewer - 12/22/2003 9:33:55 PM
That was the argument for neutering the CIA back in the '70s. Crats felt is
was wrong to work with the world's creeps, even it helped us. So CIA activity
was restricted. That kind of unrealistic thinking ignores the reality that we
occasionally with have to deal with one madman in order to crack the skull of
another.
F/x, we helped Bin Laden against the USSR. Expanding Soviet
influence was regarded as a worse alternative. Likewise, we helped Hussein
against Iran which was on our shit-list at the time. That does not mean we
(including Jimmy Carter) cozied up to Hussein because we approved of his ways.
He was merely of use to us at the time.
2536. rdbrewer - 12/22/2003 9:34:28 PM
2535 was re 2533
2537. Edmund Dantes - 12/22/2003 9:55:46 PM
PUTIN PLAYS BALL: RUSSIA WILL REDUCE IRAQ DEBT BY 65 PERCENT
2538. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:38:52 PM
If Bushiewooshie gives PootyWooty a slice of the pie.... 
2539. jexster - 12/22/2003 10:41:37 PM
Of course, since there is no state, no course and a substantial likelihood that Iraq will decompse.....sounds like Emperor Moron was given the sleeve out a KGB vest.
2540. concerned - 12/23/2003 12:37:10 AM
Re. 2528 -
Truth is the first casualty when marjoribanks goes on an
anti-GWB rampage. You could almost say that the more good George W. Bush
accomplishes, the greater lengths marjoribanks will go to to claim the exact
opposite.
Thus, it is no longer France, Germany and Russia which sold
Saddam his weapons and means to produce the WMD he gassed his own countrymen and
his neighbors in Kuwait and Iran with that should be condemned. It's the Bush
Administration and Republicans in general, who freed Iraq from this menace, who
is censured instead. Thus, in marjoribanks' world, it may be allowable to
indulge in hypocritical Xlowntoonian talk of deposing Saddam, as long as it
remains only that, but woe to any Republican who sees it through. I think it's
safe to say that the majority of Iraqis would be most unhappy with Marjoribanks'
attitude.
2541. concerned - 12/23/2003 1:13:01 AM
We were kept in the dark over American Unilateral deal with Libya,
says France
Just call it 'additional justification' for deposing
Saddam, Dominique.
2542. alistairconnor - 12/23/2003 9:48:04 AM
Clearly, the Libya deal is a triumph for the UK. More specifically, a triumph
for Robin Cook, who initiated constructive engagement with Gaddafi in 1999.
Now Blair
wants the EU powers to pursue this approach with Syria. After the success of
the UK/France/Germany trio getting Iran aboard for nuclear inspections, he looks
like he's on a roll...
But Syria is unlikely to disarm unilaterally
unless there's a breakthrough with Israel.
2543. alistairconnor - 12/23/2003 9:53:34 AM
Objectively, it looks a lot like the nice cop/nasty cop archetype...
(Europe to Iran) - Here, have a cigarette.
(to partner) No Sam, calm
down! Just let me talk to him.
(to Iran) Did you see what he did to the guy
in the next cell? Oh, I hate it when he does that. Now listen, we can get you
out of here. Why don't you just tell me what really happened?
2544. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:12:45 AM
The
Mutha of All Trials:
Your Honor, The Defendant Saddam Hussein Calls
Donald Rumsfeld
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 — As a special envoy for the
Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary,
traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to
improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons,
newly declassified documents show.
2545. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:15:49 AM
2546. concerned - 12/23/2003 11:16:33 AM
AC -
So far, France has been completely MIA on all of this progress
in disarmament being made in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. Much like a spoiled
child who refuses to play because she cannot change the rules at whim. Shameful,
no?
2547. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:17:58 AM
2548. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:19:10 AM
In a related development, Emperor George Bush directed the CIA to speed production of its top secret trained trial kangaroos.
2549. concerned - 12/23/2003 11:21:30 AM
jexster's sympathy for the devil is far worse than anything he accuses Rumsfeld of.
2550. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:22:42 AM
In February, Iraq warned Iranian "invaders" that "for every harmful
insect there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it." Within weeks,
the American authorities intercepted precursor chemicals that were bound for
Iraq. Finally, on March 5, the United States issued a public condemnation of
Iraq.
But days later, Mr. Shultz and his deputy met with an Iraqi
diplomat, Ismet Kittani, to soften the blow. The American relationship with Iraq
was too important — involving business interests, Middle East diplomacy and a
shared determination to thwart Iran — to sacrifice. Mr. Kittani left the meeting
"unpersuaded," documents show.
Mr. Shultz then turned to Mr. Rumsfeld.
In a March 24 briefing document, Mr. Rumsfeld was asked to present America's
bottom line. At first, the memo recapitulated Mr. Shultz's message to Mr.
Kittani, saying it "clarified that our CW [chemical weapons] condemnation was
made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and
incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs." The American officials had
"emphasized that our interests in 1) preventing an Iranian victory and 2)
continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq, at a pace of Iraq's
choosing, remain undiminished," it said.
2551. concerned - 12/23/2003 11:26:11 AM
This proves that jexster is in league with Islamist whackjobs.
2552. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:26:57 AM
2553. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:29:56 AM
Anthony C. Zinni's opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq began on the
monsoon-ridden afternoon of Nov. 3, 1970. He was lying on a Vietnamese
mountainside west of Da Nang, three rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle in his
side and back. He could feel his lifeblood seeping into the ground as he slipped
in and out of consciousness.
He had plenty of time to think in
the following months while recuperating in a military hospital in Hawaii. Among
other things, he promised himself that, "If I'm ever in a position to say what I
think is right, I will. . . . I don't care what happens to my career."
That time has arrived.
2554. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:31:07 AM
TD you best sit down, take a deep breath, and I'll call an ambulance
2555. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:32:00 AM
Meanwhile Uncle Saddam has some insecticide that may help. Its MADE IN USA so there's no need for you to worry..just take a deep breath.
2556. concerned - 12/23/2003 11:35:50 AM
Re. 2553 -
The time when Zinni commits professional suicide?
2557. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:36:05 AM
Over the past year, the retired Marine Corps general (and chief of US
Central Command) has become one of the most prominent opponents of Bush
administration policy on Iraq, which he now fears is drifting toward
disaster.
Damned leftist Marine Corps Generals!
2558. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:36:49 AM
God knows speaking the truth to the Liar is a dangerous business!
2559. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:38:34 AM
Aahh the Regis Debray Scenario:
"I think a weakened, fragmented,
chaotic Iraq, which could happen if this isn't done carefully, is more dangerous
in the long run than a contained Saddam is now," he told reporters in 1998. "I
don't think these questions have been thought through or answered." It was a
warning for which Iraq hawks such as Paul D. Wolfowitz, then an academic and now
the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, attacked him in print at the time.
Now, five years later, Zinni fears it is an outcome toward which
U.S.-occupied Iraq may be drifting. Nor does he think the capture of Hussein is
likely to make much difference, beyond boosting U.S. troop morale and providing
closure for his victims. "Since we've failed thus far to capitalize" on
opportunities in Iraq, he says, "I don't have confidence we will do it now. I
believe the only way it will work now is for the Iraqis themselves to somehow
take charge and turn things around. Our policy, strategy, tactics, et cetera,
are still screwed up."
This party's going to a run a looong loooong
time Eddie, long time
2560. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:40:36 AM
Lies have consequences:
He had endorsed Bush and Cheney two years
earlier, just after he retired from his last military post, as chief of the U.S.
Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq.
"I think he ran on a
moderate ticket, and that's my leaning -- I'm kind of a Lugar-Hagel-Powell guy,"
he says, listing three Republicans associated with centrist foreign policy
positions.
He was alarmed that day to hear Cheney make the argument for
attacking Iraq on grounds that Zinni found questionable at best:
"Simply
stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass
destruction," Cheney said. "There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use
against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
Cheney's
certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been
immersed in U.S. intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the
intelligence analysts' doubts about Iraq's programs to acquire weapons of mass
destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and
never -- not once -- did it say, 'He has WMD.' "
2561. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:45:33 AM
The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk
about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist
"neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of
the world they didn't understand. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this
was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going
to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who
never had an idea that worked on the ground."
Liars and
incompetents...party long time
2562. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:47:08 AM
Zinni vows that he has learned a lesson. Reminded that he endorsed Bush in 2000, he says, "I'm not going to do anything political again -- ever. I made that mistake one time."
2563. jexster - 12/23/2003 11:50:40 AM
>Saddam-Atta Memo is a
Fraud
Newsweek reports,"A widely publicized Iraqi document that
purports to show that 9-11 hijacker Mohammed Atta visited Baghdad in the summer
of 2001 is probably a fabrication that is contradicted by U.S. law-enforcement
records showing Atta was staying at cheap motels and apartments in
the US
when the trip would have taken place... 'Terrorist Behind September 11 Strike
Was Trained By Saddam,' ran the headline on the story written by Con Coughlin, a
Telegraph correspondent and the author of the book 'Saddam: The Secret Life.'
Coughlin's account was picked up by
newspapers around the world and was
cited the next day by NY Times [propagandist] William Safire. But U.S. officials
and a leading Iraqi document expert tell NEWSWEEK that the document is most
likely a forgery - part of a thriving new trade in dubious Iraqi documents."
Even Ahmed Chalabi's group called the memo "clearly nonsense", and Coughlin said
he had "no way of verifying it."
Aaah that London Daily
Telegraph again...sister publication - Jerusalem Post...Both owned by Conrad
Black financier of Richard Perle, William Buckley, George Will...
Get
the picture?
2564. jexster - 12/23/2003 12:01:31 PM
Bush has
thrown open Pandora's box in a paradise for international terrorists
Major League Imbecile..We party long time ..you me...Bring it on
2565. concerned - 12/23/2003 12:11:50 PM
Re. 2542 -
Actually, the Libya deal is another triumph for the Bush
Administration.
Rack 'em up. Ka-ching!
This is because the offer
from Moammar dates from the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom, not 1999.
2566. robertjayb - 12/23/2003 12:56:52 PM
The rooster crows and the sun rises...
2567. robertjayb - 12/23/2003 1:20:42 PM
Riverbend is
tense...
These last few days have been truly frightening. The
air in Baghdad feels charged in a way that scares me. Everyone can feel the
tension and it has been a strain on the nerves. It's not so much what's been
going on in the streets- riots, shootings, bombings and raids- but it's the
possibility of what may lie ahead. We've been keeping the kids home from school,
and my cousin's wife learned that many parents were doing the same- especially
the parents who need to drive their kids to school.
We've been avoiding
discussing the possibilities of this last week's developments… the rioting and
violence. We don't often talk about the possibility of civil war because
conferring about it somehow makes it more of a reality. When we do talk about
it, it's usually done in hushed tones with an overhanging air of consternation.
Is it possible? Will it happen?
2568. wonkers2 - 12/23/2003 4:07:22 PM
The Conrad Black connection with George Will, Richard Perle, William Buckley, et al, was detailed by Paul Krugman in his op-ed in the NYT today, linked in the politics thread. (#1852) The right-wing conspiracy has gone international.
2569. alistairConnor - 12/23/2003 7:24:02 PM
Message # 2546.
concerned
AC -
So far, France has been completely MIA on all of
this progress in disarmament being made in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. Much
like a spoiled child who refuses to play because she cannot change the rules at
whim. Shameful, no?
I guess you missed where the foreign ministers
of France, Germany and the UK flew to Iran to sign the nuclear inspection deal.
That's OK, keep those blinkers on, Con. Never back down or apologise for
errors. Clearly, the only way you can keep your mind focused is to keep it
narrow.
2570. concerned - 12/23/2003 7:39:47 PM
Oh, so sorry to miss France's mosquito-like contribution in Iran. Very important to Gallic ego, I know.
2571. rdbrewer - 12/23/2003 8:08:24 PM
Le Figaro wails:
French diplomacy finishes the year on a morose note.
Not only must it watch American trains passing, in Iraq as in Libya, but it must
also applaud. The success obtained by George W. Bush in his fight against 'rogue
states,' with the arrest of Saddam Hussein and then Qaddafi's renouncing of
weapons of mass destruction, have placed Paris in a delicate position.
--"via Andrew
Sullivan"
2572. rdbrewer - 12/23/2003 8:09:30 PM
Le Parisien:
"If a glorious solitude is the price of greatness, no one
can doubt that France lives the highest hours of its civilization."
--ditto
2573. jexster - 12/23/2003 9:47:24 PM
The Lies Are Getting Deeper, the Liars More Desperate:
New
theory for Iraq's missing WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them
December 24: British officials are circulating a story that
Saddam Hussein may have been hoodwinked into believing that Iraq really did
possess weapons of mass destruction.
Damned winking hoods
everywhere!
2574. jexster - 12/23/2003 9:48:30 PM
Now all they have to do is figure out another reason for our being there and a way out.
2575. concerned - 12/24/2003 12:33:09 AM
Re. 2571 -
France has to learn to expand its diplomatic playbook wrt
dictatorships and terrorist states to include something besides coddling.
2576. concerned - 12/24/2003 1:39:26 AM
This one's for Alistair Connor:
Has France shot itself in the foot?
Hey, AC -
Amir Taheri compiles a truly remarkable list of French unilateralist
diplomatic arrogance and incompetence. Upon reading this, the most ignorant
snail licker would have to admit that the French clearly neither play well with
their neighbors in Europe or the United States, nor benefit from the results.
Taheri writes:
The French have seen Saddam Hussein’s capture
on television and found him not worthy of the efforts that their government
deployed to prolong his rule. They have also seen the Iranian mullahs
agreeing to curtail their nuclear programme under the threat of US military
action. And just this week they saw Muammar al-Kaddhafi, possibly the most
egocentric windbag among despots, crawl into a humiliating surrender to the “
Anglo-Saxons”.
Yet the French diplomatic community still tries to
somehow inculpate the US with hilariously revealing quotes like: “ Vengeance
is a hamburger that is eaten cold,”
Taheri does not pull his punches
wrt the abject failures of French policy wrt Iraq and Africa either, stating:
France’s policy in the Middle East and Africa is also in a mess.
France’s passionate campaign to keep Saddam in power won no plaudits
from the Arabs.
Many Arab leaders regard France as a maverick power that
could get them involved in an unnecessary, and ultimately self-defeating,
conflict with the United States.
“I cannot imagine what Chirac was
thinking,” says a senior Saudi official on condition of anonymity. “How could he
expect us to join him in preventing the Americans from solving our biggest
problem which was the presence of Saddam Hussein in power in Baghdad?”
Another senior Arab diplomat, from Egypt, echoes the sentiment.
2577. concerned - 12/24/2003 1:39:41 AM
“The French did not understand that the Arabs desired the end of Saddam,
although they had to pretend that this was not the case,” he says.
In
Africa, the recent Libyan accord with Britain and the US deals a severe blow to
French prestige. Libya is the most active member of the African Union and its
exclusion of France, also from talks on compensation for victims of Libyan
terrorism, sets an example for other African nations.
So, tell us,
AC. What delusions or overweening fatuosities could have compelled the French to
have have been so self defeatingly shortsighted?
2578. concerned - 12/24/2003 1:46:21 AM
Could it be that the notorious Inspector Clouseau is steering the French ship of state? The symptoms are certainly evident.
2579. concerned - 12/24/2003 1:50:49 AM
Of course, there is one huge difference. The movie scripts were written so that events sometimes contrived to eventually allow Clouseau to reach his objective, despite his almost inconceivable incompetence. Such a 'guardian angel' does not exist for France in the world today.
2580. jexster - 12/24/2003 9:50:58 AM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three US soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing near the restive city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, a US military spokesman said.
2581. jexster - 12/24/2003 10:11:10 AM
Yellow Cake Lie Born of Bush Desperation for War Scowcroft Report Charges
2582. jexster - 12/24/2003 10:13:12 AM
Occupation Forces Bomb Baghdad
2583. jexster - 12/24/2003 10:37:28 AM
The Second End to Major Hostilities? - Defense and the National
Interest
In telling us his thoughts on the capture of Saddam
Hussein, President George W. Bush did not err by re-announcing the “end of major
hostilities” in Iraq. He didn’t have to; others have been making that mistake
for him.
Commanders in Iraq, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice,
and others tell us Saddam’s loyalists will still take their toll of violence
against our forces and Iraqis who serve them. Dr. Rice and others have learned
from their past mistake of advising the President to declare the worst of the
fighting and dying to be over. However, from occupation chief Paul Bremer’s
ebullient “We got him” to the Army officer who declared “a tremendous negative
impact on the Baathist insurgency” to a virtual horde of
domestic
prognosticators, we also hear a major corner has been turned. With Saddam behind
bars, they imply or state outright the path now clear for a happy ending for the
American adventure in Iraq.
That is not the case. The tipping point –
that is, the Bush crowd’s version of the Indochinese “light at the end of the
tunnel” -- is no where in sight. This sign-post in their linear vision of the
war will remain invisible, indeed non-existent, as long as Washington D.C.
continues fundamentally to misunderstand the nature of the conflict in Iraq.
Winslow T. Wheeler is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for
Defense Information.
After working on Capitol Hill on national security
issues for 31 years, he is writing a book about Congress and defense policy,
“The Wastrels of Defense.”
2584. jexster - 12/24/2003 10:38:53 AM
Our soldiers have been fighting bravely as they are
trained, equipped,
and ordered, but Washington was and remains caught in a cultural warp fighting a
war beyond its comprehension.
2585. jexster - 12/24/2003 12:48:46 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad on Wednesday night,
quickly followed by a firefight.
The blast appeared to come from
the area around the Sheraton Hotel, on Abu Nawas Street near the east bank of
the Tigris River. U.S. military officials could not immediately be reached for
comment.
2586. jexster - 12/24/2003 2:03:52 PM
Above:
U.S. soldiers instruct an Iraqi to tell Santa what he wants for
Christmas
BAGHDAD, IRAQ—On almost every corner in Iraq's
capital city, carolers are singing, trees are being trimmed, and shoppers are
rushing home with their packages—all under the watchful eye of U.S. troops
dedicated to bringing the magic of Christmas to Iraq by force.
"It's important that life in liberated Iraq get back to normal
as soon as possible," said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz at a press
conference Monday. "That's why we're making sure that Iraqis have the best
Christmas ever—something they certainly wouldn't have had under Saddam Hussein's
regime."
To that end, 25,000 troops from the 3rd Armored Cavalry
Regiment and 82nd Airborne Division have been deployed. Their missions include
the distribution of cookies and eggnog at major Iraqi city centers, the
conscription of bell-ringers from among the Iraqi citizenry, and the enforcement
of a new policy in which every man, woman, and child in Baghdad pays at least
one visit to 'Twas The Night... On Ice.
2587. jexster - 12/24/2003 2:04:57 PM
Above: A mosque in Baghdad decorated by U.S. troops
2588. jexster - 12/24/2003 2:08:56 PM
Still, Iraqis report that they are unable to get into the Christmas
spirit.
"Why am I supposed to feel joy for the world?" said 34-year-old
Baghdad mechanic Hassan al-Ajili as he stood in line for his mandatory visit
with Santa. "My country is still at war. I need an American identification card
to get anywhere in my own city. Now, for some reason, men with machine guns have
placed two rows of jingling antlered pigs on the roof of our house. This is
insane.
2589. jexster - 12/24/2003 8:52:40 PM
Lies Have Consequences: Iraqis rocked by mayhem and bloodshed on Christmas Eve
2590. concerned - 12/25/2003 1:16:35 AM
Re. 2588 -
jexster -
What is the point you're trying to make
here? That religious intolerance is a good thing in your opinion? Or that Iraqis
are ignorant?
2591. jexster - 12/25/2003 11:04:45 AM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Rockets and mortars pounded Baghdad on Christmas morning as
guerrillas launched their most serious offensive in Iraq (news - web sites)
since the capture of former dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
The city was awakened by thunderous booms and gunfire as guerrillas
roamed the city, causing mayhem as they struck a major hotel and three foreign
embassies.
Four rockets struck the citadel-like main US compound in
the capital and an oil ministry guardpost was sprayed with bullets.
A woman was slightly wounded when a rocket tore into her family's
apartment, while a policeman's hand was blown off as he attempted to defuse a
roadside bomb on a busy commercial street.
After a lull, with the
arrest of Saddam Hussein on December 13, violence has spiked upwards, with
multiple attacks around the country.
2592. jexster - 12/25/2003 11:06:11 AM
Aaah isn't that what fine art is all about, meaning...what is the meaning?
What is the intention of the artist?
The true artist never tells!
A Merry Christmas to all and to all ....
2593. jexster - 12/25/2003 11:07:21 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Anti-American guerrillas sent more than a dozen rockets and mortar rounds slamming into Baghdad on Christmas Day, hitting hotels, embassies and the vicinity of the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq (news - web sites).
2594. jexster - 12/25/2003 11:13:42 AM
Since we've failed thus far to capitalize,I don't have confidence we will
do it now. I believe the only way it will work now is for the Iraqis themselves
to somehow take charge and turn things around. Our policy, strategy, tactics, et
cetera, are still screwed up..... These guys don't understand what they are
getting into.The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the
neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there.
These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that
worked on the ground....
The bill of goods the neocons sold him has been
proven false, yet heads haven't rolled. Where is the accountability?
Anthony M. Zinni
"
2595. robertjayb - 12/25/2003 3:12:15 PM
Riverbend seeks votes---Fills water tank...
2596. jexster - 12/26/2003 11:10:52 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas extended the biggest insurgent attacks in Iraq
(news - web sites) since Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s capture, killing
four U.S. soldiers in mortar and bomb attacks, the U.S. military said on Friday.
Reuters Photo
Reuters
Slideshow: Iraq
Guerillas Hit Baghdad Targets
(Reuters Video)
Latest headlines:
· Eight US soldiers killed in Iraq
Christmas violence, Japan sends troops
AFP - 30 minutes ago
· Japanese
Troops Leave for Iraq Deployment
AP - 36 minutes ago
· Iraq Ambush,
Explosions Kill 3 U.S. GIs
AP - 1 hour, 37 minutes ago
Special Coverage
A roadside bomb killed one soldier and wounded another
when it exploded by a convoy near Baquba, about 65 km (40 miles) north of
Baghdad, early on Friday. A second soldier was killed the same day trying to
defuse a bomb outside the town, a U.S. military spokesman said.
Two
other U.S. soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on a U.S. camp near Baquba on
Thursday.
2597. robertjayb - 12/26/2003 8:16:31 PM
Christmas in Baghdad with Riverbend...
2598. wonkers2 - 12/27/2003 1:25:20 PM
It seems apparent that we have ignited a civil war in Iraq. And we are in the middle of it, unloved by either side. Not to mention an unknown number of outsider fanatical, suicidal Islamists who are even unfriendlier to coalition forces, NGOs, the UN, et al. What a fiasco!
2599. concerned - 12/27/2003 1:35:17 PM
Guess LWers don't know how to close an html flag.
2600. concerned - 12/27/2003 1:46:15 PM
Re. 2598 -
If it's a 'civil war', how come you can't name the
opposing factions?
2601. judithathome - 12/27/2003 3:51:11 PM
Guess LWers don't know how to close an html flag.
God knows
centrists NEVER forget to do so!
Give it a rest...it isn't only LWers
who make mistakes and rape and plunder and kill and cheat and steal...your
fingerpointing is getting very old.
2602. jexster - 12/27/2003 5:03:47 PM
KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - Six coalition soldiers and seven Iraqis were killed and
at least 129 people wounded as insurgents terrorised the Shiite Muslim holy city
of Karbala with four suicide car bombs, machine guns and mortar fire.
The guerrillas launched attacks on Karbala's city hall and two
military bases, a Bulgarian one located near a university and a Polish one out
of town.
2603. wonkers2 - 12/27/2003 5:45:52 PM
Well, from what I've heard and read the opposing factions are the majority Shias and the minority Sunnis/Baathists. The Kurds would be a third faction, but I haven't read anything indicating they are involved in the guerilla activities.
2604. jexster - 12/28/2003 6:50:53 AM
Sistani Stands Ground on Demand for Real Democracy & General
Elections
IGC agreed with US civil administrator Paul Bremer on
November 15 that caucus-type elections, by hand- picked pro-American local
councils, would be held by the end of May. Sistani objected that such an
election would not adequately reflect the will of the Iraqi people, and insists
on one-person, one-vote general elections.
He also wanted an up-front
guarantee that the Iraqi legislature would not pass laws at variance with Islam.
The IGC has ever since been negotiating with him in an attempt to find a
compromise. AFP said, ' "Despite obstacles that have been raised, he would only
renounce elections if a UN technical team reaches the conclusion that it is
impossible to hold them and proposes another solution that would guarantee a
better representation of the Iraqi people," Sistani's spokesman said. ' Sistani
therefore stood his ground about the need for general elections.
Sistani's refusal to budge poses a severe problem for the US, which
wants now to move quickly to an "Afghanistan" model, hold an American-invented
Iraqi "Loya Jirga" or council of hand-picked notables, "elect" a transitional
government, and turn over sovereignty to it, as they did to Karzai in
Afghanistan. This plan appears to derive from despair that the US will actually
be able to administer Iraq for very much longer, given Iraqi sullenness about
the occupation, and from a desire of the Bush administration to bring home the
reporters, if not the troops, well before the November 2004 elections. Karl Rove
probably figures that the US press simply won't cover Iraq as intensively if the
US isn't running it, just as they don't cover Afghanistan ... Sistani is
therefore standing in the way of a smooth political progression that has
enormous import for the next US election. Juan Cole
2605. jexster - 12/28/2003 6:51:01 AM
OK so Bush doesn't know what course he's on but it looks more and more
like the road runs through the town Bail, Iraq.
The Regime has dumped a
raft of pet econ projects its neocon wacks had scoped as part of their
"Democrtic revolution" ....
And good for Sistani for exposing Bush's
"democratic revolution" as just more stupefyingly vapid rhetorical gas.
2606. jexster - 12/28/2003 7:15:55 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier and two Iraqi children were killed in a
roadside bomb blast in central Baghdad on Sunday, a U.S. military spokesman
said.
Capt. Jason Beck, a spokesman for the 1st Armored Division, said
the explosion in a busy shopping district also wounded 14 people.
They
included five U.S. soldiers, eight members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and
an Iraqi interpreter. Beck said he did not know how serious their injuries were.
``A soldier from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and two Iraqi children
standing nearby were killed when the IED (improvised explosive device) detonated
as a convoy was passing,'' Beck said.
2607. robertjayb - 12/28/2003 3:27:35 PM
bushies back away from Iraq schemes...(WashPost)
BAGHDAD, Dec. 27 -- The United States has backed away from several of
its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq's economy, political system and
security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for
ending the civil occupation has accelerated.
Plans to privatize
state-owned businesses -- a key part of a larger Bush administration goal to
replace the socialist economy of deposed president Saddam Hussein with a
free-market system -- have been dropped over the past few months. So too has a
demand that Iraqis write a constitution before a transfer of sovereignty.
2608. jexster - 12/28/2003 9:23:44 PM
Robert, only steers and queers grow in Tejan. You sproutin horns lately have
ya?
Post the link I was goin ta..damn your eyes...
But you did
all a service I grant ya...
The insurgeents now have hnnded the
neoJacobin Trotskyite cum free range fraud Bushie incompetents what I rate ss
the Fourth Major Defeat for Wars Without Shame, Aim or End:
4.
Defeated Neo-social engineers fantasies of creating their very own Krony
Kapitalist Tejas on the Tigris
3. That capturing th6or Demon Saddam
would have any more effect on Iraq or much less US than killing any garden
variety brown recluse spider in a hole
2. That Bush had a clue what he
was doing in Iraq.
1. Yhat Yellow Cake is fit for human
consumption..
So continue to "bring it on"...Bush is lookin to bail and
we are all lookin to Eddie to tell us
Why in hell did America waste
billions of dollars and tens of thousandd of bodies for a crock of Tejas steer
shit?
And what is the course you want us to ttay?
And why
are you so friggin fat? Some sort of sexual substiiute?
Case closed.
2609. Edmund Dantes - 12/28/2003 9:36:49 PM
In the morning, I shall be skinny. And whether drunk or sober, you'll still
be an illiterate, historically ignorant loon.
For the first time in
more than a decade, four American military aircraft landed in Iran Sunday in a
gesture between two countries more noted for acrimony than mutual aid.
2610. jexster - 12/28/2003 9:41:03 PM
And add to pending questions about Bush's insipid "tip-toe
through-My-Little-Hanging-Garden-of-Democracy/No Deals With Scuzzbag Dictators"
Flower Garden, remind us again of how a cowardly and cowering Q'adaffyi gave up
a WMD program that had produced NOTHING because he was pissin his pants in fear
that George Bush's Imperial Legions would take to the Shores of Tripoli?
I have problems recallin the short term, the wacked. the insignificant
or the scent of any number of your brain farts
Thanks.
2611. jexster - 12/28/2003 9:47:21 PM
French diplomacy finishes the year on a morose note. Not only must it
watch American trains passing, in Iraq as in Libya, but it must also applaud.
The success obtained by George W. Bush in his fight against 'rogue states,' with
the arrest of Saddam Hussein and then Qaddafi's renouncing of weapons of mass
destruction, have placed Paris in a delicate position.
WOW out of
the Mouths of Morons!
Now why would anyone in his right mind trade
one used up sorry satrap in a spider hole with no WMD's and a pathetic, has been
of Moslem secularism whose ass is threatened by Jihadists whose WMD program
could kill a cockroach, for $200-400 Billion bucks, thousands of casualties, and
unprecedented hemorraghe of power/influence?
Make mine with brie on
a baguette thank you very much.
Vive La France!
2612. jexster - 12/28/2003 9:49:58 PM
Look what they get for holding out against easy sleazy deals with
Qadaffi...Andrew Sullivan carrying a big bag of wounded French pride.
And only a few billions of dollars..bargain at twice the price
2613. Edmund Dantes - 12/28/2003 9:53:11 PM
Not fat: 
2614. jexster - 12/28/2003 9:56:58 PM
God damn Eddie ...if that's you, I how much you chargin!
Are you the
stud of my wet dreams or just another caked yeller crust on my sheets?
2615. jexster - 12/28/2003 10:04:14 PM
This is funny....Bremmer was asked to comment on Blair's claims that David
Kay had uncovered as a massive hidden net of Saddma WMD labes...kicker being
that the reporter who asked the questtion didn't attibute source...So Bremmer,
mind sharp as a tack, smelled a rat, suspected he was being set up.... Ain't
no such thing...why you've been conned...Sone shady fuck of a Saddmite done set
you up with a Red Herring just to discredit the Emperor...
Damn
but it wasn't some dickless prevert like Noam Chomsky it was Tony Blair, you'd
think that after a couple of years at the end of Bush's leash, he'd have learnt
a thing or two about Lyin...
2616. wonkers2 - 12/28/2003 10:32:46 PM
There's a lot to be said for the unvarnished truth.
2617. wonkers2 - 12/29/2003 11:01:00 AM
Last night in a preview of Fog of War Robert McNamara said that one of our mistakes in Vietnam was to regard the conflict as a war against communism when in reality it was a Vietnamese civil war. The analogy between Vietnam and Iraq can easily be overdone, but it seems to me that we have ignited a civil war there. And we are in the middle of it, increasingly disliked by all sides. It's also analogous to Yugoslavia and Saddam to Tito. Saddam is no longer around to keep the lid on the feuding factions, and we are unable to do it.
2618. robertjayb - 12/29/2003 11:40:05 AM
Speaking of keeping lids on:(LATimes---registration
required)
BAGHDAD — Seen by a distrustful public as a tool of the
occupying powers, Iraq's Governing Council is coming of age on the job as it
tries to define a leadership to take over from the United States and its allies.
But as the 25-member body steers Iraq toward sovereignty, promised in a
mere six months, it is acting like a defiant adolescent, challenging the
authority and wisdom of those who gave it life. And its bargaining position has
been strengthened by the Bush administration's apparent eagerness to declare its
mission accomplished before the U.S. presidential election.
2619. jexster - 12/29/2003 12:01:44 PM
IGC
Has Little Georgie By the Short Hairs!
That'll teach him to open
that big dumb pie hole of his -
yappin about democracy!
Liar,Liar
Pants on Fire...got em caught on the telephone wire
2620. jexster - 12/29/2003 12:11:44 PM
L'audace, toujours l'audace!
The council began flexing its
muscles last month when it undertook a review of Bremer's gubernatorial
appointments ... Council members are challenging such regional appointments by
Bremer, insisting they are better acquainted with the needs and values of Iraqis
than an American making personnel choices under deadline pressure.
While the council appears ready to accept Bremer's conclusion that
direct elections for the next leadership bodies are impossible due to time
constraints, the proposed caucus system continues to be looked at askance by
Iraq's most powerful religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. His threat
to denounce the caucus method as illegitimate would probably dissuade many
Shiites, who constitute more than 60% of the Iraqi population, from
participating in the process...
Looks like the Debray scenario is
really beginning to take shape ie the longer we stay the worse things be when we
leave...
2621. jexster - 12/29/2003 1:19:30 PM
Republican Apologetics for Occupation Failures Hit Astounding
Lows
Josh Marshall writes: "This is an unfortunate passage. It
comes from David Brooks' column in tomorrow's Times:
'But ours is the
one revolution that worked, and it did precisely because our founders were
epistemologically modest too, and didn't pretend to know what is the good
life,only that people should be free to figure it out for themselves. Because of
that legacy, we stink at social engineering. Our government couldn't even come
up with a plan for postwar Iraq - thank goodness, too, because any 'plan'
hatched by technocrats in Washington would have been unfit for Iraqi reality.'
I don't know where to start. The failure to do
proper planning for
post-war Iraq, it turns out, wasn't a matter of hidebound ideologues who ignored
and attacked expertise and experience. It was the happy result of America's
tradition of non-ideological pragmatism.
This is screw-up laundering
with a spritz of history tossed on."
On the very day that i8t was
reported the Wackos dumped a half a ton of ideological social engineering
blueprints for their New World Order!
2622. jexster - 12/29/2003 1:29:32 PM
Bad enough that liars are runnings but incompetent liars, a are armadillos of
a different color entirely...
Guardian UK -
George W. Bush - Highly Toxic Weapon of Mass Political
Destruction:
Bremmer Humiliates Blair Over WMD Lies
"In a
Christmas message to British troops, Tony Blair claimed there was 'massive
evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories'.
The Iraq Survey
Group (ISG) had unearthed compelling evidence that showed Saddam Hussein had
attempted to 'conceal weapons', the Prime Minister said. But in an interview
yesterday, Paul Bremer flatly dismissed the claim as untrue -without realising
its source was Blair...
'I don't know where those words come from but
that is not what [ISG chief] David Kay has said,' he told ITV1 ...
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said he
would be pressing Ministers when Parliament returned in the New Year on what
precisely the Government knew. 'It is high time the Prime Minister cleared this
matter up once and for all,' he said...
In recent days, senior Whitehall
officials have raised the extraordinary possibility that Saddam did not have
weapons of mass destruction after all - but believed he did after being misled
by his own advisors."
2623. jexster - 12/29/2003 2:05:59 PM
And from today's paper, Houston we have a little firestorm in here in old
London town...
Blair WMD claim a 'red herring', says Bremer
America's top man in Iraq heaps scorn on PM's allegation
Tony Blair faced fresh allegations yesterday that he had "sexed up"
an official report into Saddam Hussein's ability to produce weapons of mass
destruction after the US official running Iraq dismissed out of hand his latest
controversial claim.
The Conservatives said Mr Blair's assertion,
made to British troops in mid-December, that there was "massive evidence of a
huge system of clandestine laboratories" was a piece of "sexed-up information"
uttered "to save his skin".
Irrelevant eh?
Bush better get
his ass out of that TarPit ASAP..
2624. jexster - 12/29/2003 2:10:58 PM
Robin Cook, who has become a formidable backbench critic on the war, said:
"If there is massive evidence of clandestine laboratories it does seem rather
curious that Paul Bremer, who is running Iraq, doesn't know about it. The truth
is the Iraq Survey Group found no evidence of weapons, no delivery systems, no
chemical or biological weapons and found no laboratories to produce them.
"This is unquestionably embarrassing for those who try and claim there
is a chemical and biological arsenal and if they can't convince Paul Bremer, who
is remarkably on-message, how can they convince anyone outside?"
2625. jexster - 12/29/2003 2:15:15 PM
Yesterday the Labour backbencher Diane Abbott said the prime minister
risked further rebellions after alienating loyal MPs after using this argument.
"I never believed this thing about missiles being ready for fire in 45 minutes
but sadly some of my colleagues did, and they are the ones that are most bitter,
she told Sky's Sunday with Adam Boulton.
"They went and had private
chats with Tony, went back to their local parties and said 'the prime minister
has told me... ', and they feel like pillocks."
Yo Eddie how does
that feel exactly, like a "pillock"?
What the fuck is a pillock anyway?
2626. rdbrewer - 12/29/2003 4:05:35 PM
NYT Concludes No Profiteering by Halliburton. In a related story,
Jexter and WoW, conclude there is no god.
An examination of what has
grown into a multibillion-dollar contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure
shows no evidence of profiteering by Halliburton, the Houston-based oil services
company, but it does demonstrate a struggle between price controls and the
uncertainties of war, with price controls frequently losing.
--linked by Andrew
Sullivan
2627. OhioSTOPAS - 12/29/2003 6:58:11 PM
Remember that "top secret memo" that documented how Abu Nidal supposedly
trained Mohamed Atta in Baghdad? Haven't heard anything about it since Newsweek
established it was a fake (see my Message # 2394).
I didn't realize until reading "Altercation"
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3710880) today that the London Telegraph "reporter"
who broke the "story", Con Coughlin (yes, his first name is "Con" - should've
been a clue there) was interviewed by Tom Brokaw on "Meet the Press" the day the
Telegraph reported the story (December 14, also the day Saddam's capture was
reported).
Here it
is:
"Brokaw: . . . [T]ell us about the article that you have today
in the Sunday Telegraph about Mohamed Atta and any connections that he may have
had to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
"Coughlin: Well, this is an
intriguing story, Tom. I mean, basically, when I was in Baghdad, I picked up a
document that was given to me by a senior member of the Iraqi interim
government. It's an intelligence document written by the then-head of Iraqi
intelligence, Habush to Saddam. It's dated the 1st of July, 2001, and it's
basically a memo saying that Mohamed Atta has successfully completed a training
course at the house of Abu Nidal, the infamous Palestinian terrorist . . ."
(continued)
2628. OhioSTOPAS - 12/29/2003 6:59:01 PM
"Coughlin (continued): Now, this is the first really concrete proof that
al-Qaeda was working with Saddam. I saw your interview with James Woolsey
earlier and he was talking about the article in The Weekly Standard. And there
is a lot of detail there. But this is a document, and I've had it authenticated.
This is the handwriting of the head of Iraqi intelligence, Habush, is one of the
few people still at large who is in the pack of cards. And it basically says
that Atta was in Baghdad being trained under Saddam's guidance prior to the 9/11
attack. It's a very explosive development, Tom.
"Brokaw: Thank you very
much, Con Coughlin in London this morning. His article is in The London Sunday
Telegraph. You can access it on the Internet, of course. Now, back to my
colleague, the moderator of Meet the Press, Tim Russert. Tim."
Jeeez.
Real probing interview there, Tom. Does fear of being accused of "liberal bias"
require giving air time to anyone peddling pro-war, pro-Bush misinformation, no
matter how incredible?
2629. robertjayb - 12/29/2003 7:19:41 PM
Step away from that Old Farmer's Almanac and keep your
hands up...
WASHINGTON -- The FBI has warned police
nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular
reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could
be used for terrorist planning.
In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to
about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs "to
assist with target selection and pre-operational planning.
2630. jexster - 12/29/2003 7:56:05 PM
One headline says it all in the Mother of All Battles - The Two Ayatollahs!
'Great Satan' Sends 'Axis of Evil' Member Iran Aid
2631. jexster - 12/29/2003 7:58:09 PM
The NyT recycled a Halliburton press release RD...you really must work on that critical thinking...let's see what the Pentagon auditors have to say, not Andrew Sullivan or the NyT reporter...
2632. jexster - 12/29/2003 8:00:39 PM
Does fear of being accused of "liberal bias" require giving air time to
anyone peddling pro-war, pro-Bush misinformation, no matter how incredible?
You may be on to something here Ohio...
Do you think
Eddie's mom accused him of liberal bias when he was just a little fat baby
boy????
Case closed.
2633. jexster - 12/29/2003 8:21:01 PM
RD - some good advice from a Loosiana man...
1. Don't take no wooden
nickels
2. Don't give a multi billion dollar no bid contract to Texan
You'll do just fine.
2634. jexster - 12/29/2003 8:48:43 PM
Meet Hezzobolah - Iraq's Newest Shiite Political Party
Thank you George W. Bush, Holy Crusader for Democracy & Moron
Annointed of the Lord!
2635. jexster - 12/29/2003 8:49:11 PM
Watch those Shiites....just watch
2636. wonkers2 - 12/29/2003 9:53:31 PM
The London Telegraph is one of the less reliable papers there. Even worse than the Times.
2637. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 6:00:17 AM
AP Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro--Slobodan Milosevic, in custody and on trial
for genocide before a UN court, has been elected to Serbia's parliament,
according to weekend ballot results released Monday.
The Serbian RAdical
Party, which supported Milosevic's Balkan war campaigns in the 1990s, won 81
seats in the 250-seat parliament--FAR MORE THAN THE PRO-WESTERN GROUPS THAT
TOPPLED MILOSEVIC THREE YEARS AGO, the government electoral commission said.
I wonder if the Iraqis will let Saddam Hussein run for election from
jail? And I wonder how many votes he would get?
2638. PelleNilsson - 12/30/2003 10:41:33 AM
That news item is misleading on two accounts. First, it implies that
Milosevic is associated with the Radical Prty which he is not. The party is led
by Vojislav Seselj who is also a guest of the Hague tribunal although his trial
has not yet started. Milosevic's party, the Socialists received 7% of the vote,
barely making it into parliament.
Second, the Radical Party got 28% of
the vote against 42% for the three so called "pro-western groups".
Another example of slanted reporting uncritically accepted.
2639. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/30/2003 12:07:58 PM
2640. jexster - 12/30/2003 12:14:21 PM
The Latest Bush Con Job: Iraqi Police
Here's a
employment test even TD could pass:
What do you think of human
rights?" Mehdi asked.
"It's good and helps humans," Abbas answered.
"What do you think of the other sex?"
"They are half or so of
society and help men serve the community."
Mehdi nodded and scribbled
some notes in the young man's file. Abbas was in.
Need work TD????
2641. jexster - 12/30/2003 12:15:16 PM
Why even Bush might be able to pass
2642. jexster - 12/30/2003 12:29:31 PM
2643. jexster - 12/30/2003 12:30:53 PM
Like most domestic disputes, much of the fighting has been done behind
locked doors, leaving us to interpret the results based on the muffled sound of
screaming voices and the occasional smash of broken porcelain. But the signs
that the neocons are on the losing end of the battle have become fairly evident
in recent weeks:
The administration has welcomed Libya back into the
community of "civilized" nations, on terms that can only help solidify Col.
Ghadafi's dictatorial regime. The deal is about as textbook a case of
realpolitik as you will find outside the archives of the Kissinger NSC.
Jim Baker has returned to the diplomatic circuit, with the speculation
being that his assignment is to liquidate not only Iraq's debt but also the
neocon illusion of remaking the Middle East into the Community of
Israel-Recognizing Nations.
The rumor mill also has uber-neocon Paul
Wolfowitz departing the Pentagon in February. Can Doug Feith -- the other half
of the necon Laural & Hardy act, be far behind?
Bush rolled out the
red carpet -- with a 19-gun salute no less -- for Chinese prime minister Wen
Jiabao, then explicitly warned Taiwan not to ditch its allegiance to the
increasingly fictional notion of "one China." So doing, he completely ignored
the howls of protest from neocon punditry that he was selling Taiwanese
democracy down the river.
The public sniping at the administration by
said punditry has become distinctly more direct, with both Newt Gringrich and
Bill Kristol harshly criticizing the White House -- if not yet the president who
lives and sometimes even works there..
2644. jexster - 12/30/2003 12:46:57 PM
In the Middle East, on the other hand, the policy differences between the
neocons and the realists were vast, and the personal animosities intense. To the
realists, the Middle East was simply another theatre in the Cold War, in which
the moderate Arab regimes were necessary evils and the state of Israel an
unwelcome distraction. America, they believed, had little choice but to rely on
its "deputy sheriffs" in the region -- Iran and Saudi Arabia -- to keep the
Soviets out and the oil flowing.
But the collapse of the Shah knocked
that policy into crisis. Saudi Arabia, everybody understood, simply wasn't
strong enough to be America's sole watchdog in the Persian Gulf. The Iranian
revolution was a match poised over the dynamite dump of Shi'a aspirations
throughout the region. The Soviets were watching closely. What was to be done?
It's an interesting coincidence that at this particular moment in
history, in September 1980, Saddam Hussein launched his war of aggression
against Iran. The war presented a irresistable opportunity for the realists: By
tilting towards Saddam, they could contain Iran, protect Saudia Arabia and --
just perhaps -- wean Baathist Iraq away from its Soviet arms supplier.
The neocons despised this policy, which ran exactly counter to their own
desire to turn Israel into America's primary ally and deputy sheriff in the
Middle East. By cuddling up to Iraq, the realists were actually strengthening
one of the Jewish state's most powerful enemies. This was intolerable.
And here we are stuck in a Tar Pit because the Bush Regime needs an
enemy to replace the good ole Commies and his neoJacobins haven't a clue how to
run a foreign policy.
2645. jexster - 12/30/2003 12:54:47 PM
Figuring out who's minding the store is always a problem with an
administration this secretive, especially since it never admits to a mistake and
rarely tosses people overboard. Or, as General Zinni told the Washington Post:
"What I don't understand is that the bill of goods the neocons sold
him has been proven false, yet heads haven't rolled," he says. "Where is the
accountability? I think some fairly senior people at the Pentagon ought to go."
Who? "That's up to the president."
The problem, I think, is that
while the neocons may be in the dog house, it's very much in the
administration's interests to obscure that fact. Firing them would draw too much
attention to the people who allowed them to crap all over the carpet -- again.
2646. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 3:04:16 PM
Well, according to today's NYT "The Radical Party, led by indicted war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj is estimated to have won 82 of 250 seats in Sunday's vote, making it the largest single party in the Assembly by a clear margin. Full text here
2647. PelleNilsson - 12/30/2003 3:13:58 PM
That's what I said, isn't it? You have a point?
2648. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 3:22:29 PM
Votes for the Radical Party (32%)and the Socialist Party (7%) total 39 percent, by any reckoning a large percentage of the vote for the parties of two accused war criminals. If there is any similarity to Iraq, it's not unreasonable to assume that Saddam Hussein supporters remain a significant percentage of the population and are likely to continue their reisitance for some time and as well are likely to be a factor in future elections. The "good guys" appear to me to be a smaller percentage of the population in Iraq than in Serbia-Montenegro.
2649. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 3:27:18 PM
Correction: The accused war criminals' parties won 41 percent of the seats in the Serbian parliament, 81 Radical Party seats and 22 Socialist. This would appear to indicate significant public sentiment against the pro-western Serbian leaders.
2650. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 3:38:06 PM
Interesting link on the Twilight of the Neocons. I wonder who billmon is. Bright guy.
2651. PelleNilsson - 12/30/2003 3:38:38 PM
That's very true but I doubt that the parallel with Iraq is illuminating. Of course Saddam would get votes from some of the Sunni but very few from the Shia and Kurds which together make up (I think) 70% of the electorate. Say 10-15%? Could be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
2652. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 3:41:16 PM
Well, the Shia and the Kurds aren't exactly house broken democrats any more than the Baathist/Sunnis.
2653. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 4:03:52 PM
Somebody pointed out recently that when the Turks were in charge of what is now Iraq they ruled the area as three separate states, each with its own governor--Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the middle and Shia in the south. Forging these groups into a single, unified democratic country is problematical.
2654. rdbrewer - 12/30/2003 7:21:47 PM
The NyT recycled a Halliburton press release RD.
Right.
2655. rdbrewer - 12/30/2003 7:22:05 PM
Oh, yeah: In your dreams.
2656. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:25:51 PM
That's exactly what it was and it was obvious from the third paragraph that
the reporter had not read the contract; ASPR and didn't know squat about cost
accounting and procurement fraud...that's a tough subject...the prelim Pentagon
audit report and the Halliburton auditors ..they know their ASPR from a hole in
the ground..
Stick to football..its the only thing OKIES do well...
2657. rdbrewer - 12/30/2003 7:34:20 PM
You didn't read the article, Hex. "An examination of what has grown into a
multibillion-dollar contract . . . ." Leave out the prepositional phrase, and
you have, "An examination . . . ." IOW, the NYT examined the contract.
If that's not enough, the article also says:
So far this year, Halliburton's
profits from Iraq have been minimal. The company's latest report to the
Securities and Exchange Commission shows $1.3 billion in revenues from work in
Iraq and $46 million in pretax profits for the first nine months of 2003. But
its profit may grow once the Pentagon completes a formal evaluation of the work.
If the government is satisfied, Halliburton is entitled to a performance fee of
up to 5 percent of the contract's entire value, which could mean additional
payments of $100 million or more.
2658. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:42:58 PM
You pillock, look what you've done!
2659. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:44:14 PM
In a pig's eye!
They sat down with Haliburton flaks.
2660. rdbrewer - 12/30/2003 7:45:15 PM
IOW, "I've made up my mind. Don't bother me with facts."
2661. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:46:18 PM
Did they look at the contract documents? Did they look at the payment
applications?
Sheeeet no they didn't. They've neither the competence nor
the time nor the patience, let me tell ya. I've defended one or two federal
contractors
2662. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:46:46 PM
In my callow, mispent youth.
2663. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:47:00 PM
Before I ate Bush beef
2664. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:48:54 PM
IOW...you pay me the bucks give me the documents, check back in a few months, I give you the answer or we can wait for the feds...or maybe call the Halliburton auditors who spoke before the PR folks at the Dallas Head Shed took a giant dump on em.
2665. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:50:08 PM
This is heavy shit...the cases are complicated as hell and Halliburton could
be debarred.
Believe none of what you read, half of what you see.
2666. jexster - 12/30/2003 7:52:06 PM
2667. jexster - 12/30/2003 8:05:29 PM
War
Criminals: Blair acted like a 'white vigilante' by invading Iraq, says
bishop
Tony Blair came under attack from two of the Church of
England's most senior figures yesterday for acting "like a white vigilante" and
for lacking humility in forging ahead with the war on Iraq.
In the most
outspoken outburst, the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, accused religious
conservatives surrounding the US president, George Bush, of espousing "a very
strange distortion of Christianity" - particularly since, through Iraq's
reconstruction, many would gain financially.
"For Bush and Blair to go
into Iraq together was like a bunch of white vigilantes going into Brixton to
stop drug dealing. This is not to deny there's a problem to be sorted, just that
they are not credible people to deal with it," he said
2668. jexster - 12/30/2003 8:09:00 PM
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force
require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject
to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
1.
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must
be lasting, grave, and certain;
2.all other means of putting an end to it
must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
3. there must be
serious prospects of success;
4. the use of arms must not produce evils and
disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of
destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the
traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine
That's what they call an O-FER in baseball...
0 for 4
That's not even counting the times they "bore false witness"
2669. jexster - 12/30/2003 8:21:51 PM
For crimes against humanity....
In a separate rebuke, the
Archbishop of York, David Hope, questioned the legitimacy of the war and said Mr
Blair would have to answer to God - a "higher authority" - for his decision to
forge ahead with the conflict.
He called on people to pray for Mr Blair
and called on him to show more humility rather than exercising power in an
authoritarian way. Referring to Iraq, he said: "One of the qualities of a good
leader is that they have to be really attentive to the views of the people. It
seemed at one stage that that was not happening."
The conflict, and the
events leading up to it, had raised questions of leadership and trust.
Dr Hope went on to call on Britons to "spend more time praying
for Tony Blair", who should exercise a "calm, quiet authority".
The
coalition leaders would have to give an account to a "a higher authority," he
added, in an echo of the warning by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan
Williams, at the Iraq war remembrance service, that Mr Blair would be "called to
account."
2670. OhioSTOPAS - 12/30/2003 8:32:10 PM
Some
good news from Iraq:
"TIKRIT, Iraq - Influential spiritual leaders
from Saddam Hussein's hometown — a bastion of anti-American sentiment — are
joining forces to persuade Iraqis to abandon the violent insurgency, one of the
leaders said Monday.
"The effort marks a new, open willingness to
cooperate with U.S. forces — a shift in the thinking of at least some key
members of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority . . ."
This is a positive
development which I'm guessing would not be occurring if Saddam were still at
large. Let's hope we can start turning the corner now.
2671. wonkers2 - 12/30/2003 9:18:26 PM
The RNC is probably spreading a little of Bush's money around among the mullahs. I hope it works.
2672. jexster - 12/30/2003 10:31:52 PM
We'll see what the Shia think
2673. Edmund Dantes - 12/30/2003 10:41:03 PM
AL
QAEDA VIDEOS FOUND IN IRAQ WEAPONS RAID
From CNN:
In addition to the al Qaeda literature and videos, the troops
found nearly 8,000 rounds of ammunition; 160 mortar rounds and six mortar tubes;
43 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 79 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs);
and 19 AK-47 assault rifles, as well as dozens of other weapons.
2674. jexster - 12/31/2003 8:44:56 AM
Pentagon Terminates Halliburton Contract
Guess
they don't read the NyTimes RD
And correction wonk..if Bush is giving
money to the mullahs you can bet your bottom dinar it doesn't come from RNC
slush funds..
Your Taxpayer Dollars at Work!
2675. jexster - 12/31/2003 8:47:29 AM
Pentagon to Defer Billions in Iraq Reconstruction Work - Too Many RPG's ED
2676. jexster - 12/31/2003 8:49:24 AM
The Debray Scenario - The Longer the Bungling Bacillus of Babylon Stays,
the Worse Things Will Get
KIRKUK, Iraq - Gunfire erupted Wednesday
during a protest march in Kirkuk and at least two people were killed in this
northern city where plans for a democratic Iraq (news - web sites) are dividing
Kurd, Arab and Turkmen residents.
2677. jexster - 12/31/2003 8:50:28 AM
"What I don't understand is that the bill of goods the neocons sold him has
been proven false, yet heads haven't rolled."
Yea Ed, wassup wit dat?
2678. jexster - 12/31/2003 9:45:58 AM
In
Sunni Bastion, They Are Ready for a Fight
Even with Hussein in
custody, anti-American sentiment fuels Iraqi midsection's insurgency
Better get more moolah to the mullahs quick!
2679. jexster - 12/31/2003 12:38:09 PM
Iraqi Kurds hold up banners during an earlier demonstration in
Kirkuk. Three people were killed and dozens more wounded when Kurdish gunmen
opened fire on a demonstration by Arabs and Turkmen in this northern Iraqi
city
2680. Edmund Dantes - 12/31/2003 12:42:09 PM
THE
SUICIDAL CULTISTS
The so-called Arab street and
its phony intellectuals sense that influential progressive Westerners will never
censure Middle Eastern felonies if there is a chance to rage about Western
misdemeanors. It is precisely this parasitic relationship between the foreign
and domestic critics of the West that explains much of the strange confidence of
those who planned September 11. It was the genius of bin Laden, after all, that
he suspected after he had incinerated 3,000 Westerners an elite would be more
likely to blame itself for the calamity — searching for “root causes” than
marshalling its legions to defeat a tribe that embraced theocracy, autocracy,
gender apartheid, polygamy, anti-Semitism, and religious intolerance. And why
not after Lebanon, the first World Trade Center bombing, the embassies in
Africa, murder in Saudi Arabia, and the USS Cole? It was the folly of bin Laden
only that he assumed the United States was as far gone as Europe and that a
minority of its ashamed elites had completely assumed control of American
political, cultural, and spiritual life.
Hatred of Israel is the most
striking symptom of the Western disease. On the face of it the dilemma there is
a no-brainer for any classic liberal: A consensual government is besieged by
fanatical suicide killers who are subsidized and cheered on by many dictators in
the Arab world. The bombers share the same barbaric methods as Chechens, the
9/11 murderers, al Qaedists in Turkey, and what we now see in Iraq.
2681. Edmund Dantes - 12/31/2003 12:42:32 PM
(cont.)
Indeed, the liberal Europeans should
love Israel, whose social and cultural institutions — universities, the fine
arts, concern for the “other” — so reflect its own. Gays are in the Israeli
military, whose soldiers rarely salute, but usually address each other by their
first names and accept a gender equity that any feminist would love. And while
Arabs once may have been exterminated by Syrians, gassed in Yemen by Egypt,
ethnically cleansed in Kuwait, lynched without trial in Palestine, burned alive
in Saudi Arabia, inside Israel proper they vote and enjoy human rights not found
elsewhere in the Arab Middle East.
2682. PelleNilsson - 12/31/2003 12:53:03 PM
This imbecilic Euro-hatred is as deplorable as the unreflected anti-Americanism displayed by the folks whose political views were set in stone in the 70s.
2683. Edmund Dantes - 12/31/2003 12:58:22 PM
I wouldn't call it "Euro-hatred." Plenty of Hansen's examples come from
within America's borders.
Also, many Europeans aren't ready to watch
Western ideals garrotted by this most recent reactionary barbarism.
That
percentage appears smaller, however, in Western Europe than in the US.
2684. jexster - 12/31/2003 1:52:16 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A large explosion was heard in central Baghdad on New Year's
Eve. Ambulances converged on the area near the former U.S. Embassy.
Gunfire was heard after the explosion. U.S. soldiers were seen
heading to the site of the blast, and U.S. military helicopters hovered
overhead.
Earlier in Baghdad, a car bomb exploded as a U.S. convoy
passed on a street full of shops, destroying a Humvee, Iraqi police Sgt. Thabet
Talib said. An 8-year-old Iraqi boy was killed and 21 other people were wounded,
including five U.S. soldiers and five Iraqi civil defense personnel, authorities
said.
Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored
Division, said it was not clear what kind of bomb caused the blast.
Later in the evening, a bomb hidden in shrubs outside a restaurant
in Baghdad went off as a U.S. military convoy passed, wounding three American
soldiers and three Iraqi civilians.
2685. jexster - 1/1/2004 12:23:59 PM
Bush
Lies, People Die
Iraq WMD Hunt Has Still Found Nothing
Kay Blasts
"Fiasco"
"The teams have closed their chemical and nuclear files
and David Kay is considering stepping down. The remaining hope for the operation
is in the biological area, a field U.N. inspectors were all suspicious of.
Kay's teams have found no evidence Iraq had smallpox but has continued
questioning Iraqi biologists and were pursuing information about anthrax and
aflatoxin. Of the handful of Iraqi weapons scientists remaining in U.S. custody,
two are missile experts, and seven worked on past biological programs, according
to Iraqi officials now working for the American occupation. All continue to
claim that Iraq hasn't worked on weapons of mass destruction for years... To
date, Congress has approved $700 million for the weapons hunt... [Kay's] most
notable determination to date has been that two mobile trailers found in April
and May were not biological laboratories as senior administration officials had
claimed. In a BBC interview Kay called the trailers 'a fiasco.'"
2686. jexster - 1/1/2004 12:26:00 PM
Sunday Times:
Britain's MI6 Planted Propaganda Stories in the Media to Sell Iraq War
2687. jexster - 1/1/2004 12:29:21 PM
Bush Lies, Americans Die - Iraq Occupation Force Suicide Rate "alarmingly high"
2688. wonkers2 - 1/1/2004 12:57:06 PM
Wow! The London Times story should prove to be dynamite! The White House was apparently re-cycling some of M16's lies and adding a few of their own.
2689. jexster - 1/1/2004 1:01:11 PM
Who the fuck in her right mind even half a right working mind could possibly believe anything these dirtballs say about anything?
2690. jexster - 1/2/2004 11:46:47 AM
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas shot down a U.S. military helicopter in central Iraq (news - web sites) Friday, killing one pilot and injuring another, officials and witnesses said.
2691. jexster - 1/2/2004 1:20:45 PM
Its Always Been About the Oil - British Memo Reveals Nixon Plan to
Seize Oil Fields
Nothing to be necessarily ashamed of but
nothing worth lying about either.
2692. jexster - 1/2/2004 9:33:38 PM
US
soldiers ransack Sunni mosque
Iraq's minority faith targeted in
hunt for weapons
Gonna take more than a photo op and a little
moolah for mullahs.
Its going to take...works of great substance!
Rebranding
Bush as man of peace
White House retreats from doctrine of regime
change and returns to traditional diplomacy
2693. jexster - 1/2/2004 9:36:37 PM
"They blindfolded all the worshippers and took them away. You don't see
Muslims attacking the holy places of other people," Abu Hassan, a worshipper at
the mosque, said.
Mr Kaisey acknowledged that most of the resistance was
being directed by disgruntled Sunnis but pointed out that Shias were involved as
well.The coalition also failed to appreciate that Sunnis had suffered under
Saddam, he said.
"All of us on the shura council have spent time in
prison," he said. "We suffered under Saddam. But at the end of the day this is
our country.
"If someone invaded Britain what would you do? You would
probably go and fight."
2694. Al D - 1/2/2004 10:14:08 PM
After 9/11 UBL put out a tape and talked about how people seeing two horses would naturaly choose the strong horse. He made an astute observation which is proving true. Libia's leader is a bit of a mad man, but he knows where the strong horse is. Also, Baath Party members are turning in weapons in Iraq; they are also discovering who the strong horse is.
Islam grew because Mohammed was the strong horse, ergo, must have the
strong god on his side. Perhaps Islamic fundamentalists will start to see the
folly of taking on the west.
2695. Edmund Dantes - 1/3/2004 11:12:56 AM
GAY
AND PALESTINIAN
For these gay men, life in the
seedy parts of central Israel is far better than the virtual death sentences
they fled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Sani — not his real name —
grew up outside Gaza City, in a refugee camp whose clan networks and congestion
made privacy practically impossible. He said he realized he was homosexual at
age 16, in an encounter with another youth.
Sani’s secret was safe from
his father, a local sheik, but eventually it leaked out to the Palestinian
Authority police.
“They brought me in, held me for hours,” he told JTA.
“During one round of questioning, they made me strip and sit on a Coke bottle.
It hurt. And all the time I was more worried my family would learn why.”
Torture by Palestinian Authority security services or vigilante attacks
by relatives is a fate suffered by countless gays in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, where sodomy carries a jail term of three to 10 years.
Islam
prescribes capital punishment for homosexual activity.
Those who survive
torture and attacks either fade into meek self-abnegation or, like Sani, break
away. But it’s an unlikely scenario, given the efforts Israel has made to
tighten its borders over the last three years to keep out terrorists.
2696. jexster - 1/3/2004 11:51:08 PM
TIKRIT, Iraq (AFP) - Four Iraqis were killed when a US convoy opened fire on
their car in northern Iraq (news - web sites) as three US soldiers were
confirmed dead in separate insurgency attacks.
Local police said the
Iraqis, including a woman and a child, were killed when a US convoy opened fire
on their car in the northern town of Tikrit, birthplace of captured former
dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), but US troops in the area denied
involvement.
"The car, a grey Chevrolet Caprice, was hit by 27 shots
and skidded, resulting in the death of four people, including a woman and a nine
year-old child," Tikrit police chief Colonel Ussama Adham Abdel Ghaffer told
AFP.
2697. jexster - 1/4/2004 12:21:47 AM
'The Soldiers Took Him Away. We Haven't Seen Him Since'
The UK Guardian reports: "Mohammad al-Faysal pointed to a picture of his
father hanging in their darkened living room. 'They arrested him on May 24. He
didn't surrender. After the war he stayed in this house for two weeks. Nobody
came. He then moved to the house of one of our relatives. US soldiers burst in
suddenly, ordered everyone to lie on the floor, and handcuffed him and the other
men in the room, and took them away.' He added: 'We haven't seen him since.' Dr
Faysal's father - Sa'ad Abdul Majid al-Faysal - is a former Iraqi ambassador to
Russia. But he is
also the three of spades: number 55 in Washington's pack
of playing cards of the 55 'most wanted' members of Saddam Hussein's regime...
The Americans are believed to be holding several hundred prominent figures at
their military base at Baghdad international airport... With some of the
detainees in prison for eight months without charge, the airport base is rapidly
turning into an Iraqi version of Guantanamo Bay, they say."
2698. wonkers2 - 1/4/2004 12:27:30 AM
Ugly.
2699. jexster - 1/4/2004 12:29:34 AM
Like that do ya Al?
Hey then you'll just love this fella.....maybe
invite him for a round or two at Princeville???? 
2700. jexster - 1/4/2004 12:53:33 AM
Message # 2695
Touching Ed. Why I get all misty over your new found concern for gay
rights.
Ooh but they tell me you are a sneaky bastard Ed, a real clever
sort. Gee wonder if I missed the point of the post...what could it be...
Oh I know! You sly little passive aggressive devil you.
Why you
really have got me by my identity politics short hairs now don't you!
I
get it now.
Kill the bastards. Kill every last stinkin Moslem. Clean
& disinfect the mosques with Sarin. Why how about a queer auto-da-fe????
Make em suck cock or die. Show em a thing or two about real Western
values and strong horses.
2701. jexster - 1/4/2004 7:27:17 AM
Maybe they want their women to be women Ed. Ever stop to think of things from
their point of view? Perhaps your average red blooded towel head has a point.
{erhaps they do don't like it very much when the US invades their nation, its
troops but the vangaurd of the latest and greatest in culture fad chic -
"Lesbian bisexual chic now all the rage with US Teens"
Maybe the Muslim
faithful don't want to be forced to watch Madonna laying lip locks on Brittany?
Maybe they perfer to keep their women barefoot, burhka'ed and pregnant.
A US Army Jackboot on the neck - maybe that isn't such a terrific way to
win friends and influence people after all?
The
Ultimate Straight Male Fantasy Comes True - Bisexual Lesbian Love All the Rage
Among the Nearly Legal Set
Some see it as the latest cool trend
among girls in America's high schools. Others claim it is just teenagers doing
what they do best - being rebellious. Either way, a wave of 'bisexual chic' is
sweeping the United States.
Emboldened by such images as Madonna kissing
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on a TV awards show, girls are proudly
declaring their alternative sexualities at a younger age than ever before.
'It's a countrywide thing,' said Jessie Gilliam, a project manager for
the Washington-based gay and lesbian support group Youth Resource.
2702. jexster - 1/4/2004 7:27:46 AM
Lesby love...what will they think of next!
2703. jexster - 1/4/2004 8:25:40 AM
Message # 2650
Aaah the woosey elites! God daman let's not bother with the "root
causes"...let's just send in our glorious legions and kick some butt.
That this sort of mindless chest thumping drivel could pass for
thoughtful much less insightful commentary tells all that need be told about the
neocon dilletante. The Arab street's intellectuals are the only phoney baloney
being sliced these days.
2704. jexster - 1/4/2004 8:33:04 AM
aren't the only phoney baloney..
Have a slice...
Osama Bin
Laded and his jihadists thrive precisely because secular government in the Arab
world has failed its population and Israel, why sure its a fine place to be, but
not to the Arabs you see. To them, Israel and US policy in the region represent
yet another failure of secular government. That is precisely what Bin Laden
counted on. He doesn't sit around "hating freedom". He doesn't much care whether
we live or die. He just wants to discredit and humiliate the secular states in
the Muslim world so that he can advance his agenda.
Content? Forget
content for any who can prose like this seriously:
"parasitic
relationship between the foreign and domestic critics of the West"
(I
wonder what the "West" this guy has in mind!)
"an elite would be more
likely to blame itself for the calamity"
(there's no rage like that of a
phoney intellectual priss scorned)
"than marshalling its legions to
defeat a tribe"
(or more precisely marshalling THEIR tribes . Sort of
foreign legion I suppose - of course it was the West, with a big assist from the
USA who gave OBL his start and of course, we have left a shitload of broken
promises, a failing state, record opium production to keep the self ashamed
elites of europe well numbed the pain of that self loathing!)
2705. jexster - 1/4/2004 8:37:01 AM
ashamed elites had completely assumed control of American political,
cultural, and spiritual life
The effete elites - got that from Mein
Kampf or perhaps one of the more masculine NASDP intellectuals?
Thank
God for our Manly NeoJacobin Prisses at the National Review - a regular Army of
God - an elite that knows no shame (just look at their writing!). We need more
fine Likud family values for an Israel we can all be proud of.
Nice to
know though that gays in the military are the hallmark of an advanced culture.
I haven't read such overwrought pretentious drivel since the last time I
tried to finish a Said or Chomsky piece - years. These idiots are winning the
race to the bottom.
2706. jexster - 1/4/2004 8:48:35 AM
Of mighty legions and mighty mice droppings for my phoney baloney...WARNING
Ashamed Elite Self-Flagellation Zone
Wanna know why OBL is so
sucvessful...National Review & Weakly Standard are standard equipment in WH
crappers.
Think Again: A Forgotten War
Americans hear about
Iraq, but almost nothing about the war that, had it been better funded, planned
and executed, might actually have done something to arrest the threat of
terrorism.
2707. wonkers2 - 1/4/2004 9:08:17 AM
Making Compromises to Keep Iraq Whole
2708. arkymalarky - 1/4/2004 12:19:04 PM
Jex?
2709. jexster - 1/4/2004 12:59:58 PM
Not me I swear. Its all just a vast conspiracy of NeoJacobin
psuedo-intellectual crackpots to silence the voice of Truth, Sound Morals,
Clarity of Thought, and Purity of Essence.
2710. jexster - 1/4/2004 1:01:10 PM
A Zombie at Large in the Middle East
Current US strategy in the "war on terrorism" is a kind of
zombie. It has been killed, slowly and painfully, by the Iraqi Sunni Arab
insurgency of recent months. Its rotting corpse still walks around as if alive
but as time goes by more and more bits are going to fall off. The question for
uncommitted European governments, such as Gerhard Schroder's in Germany, is
whether they should join this spectacle.
It is their duty to their
citizens to be very careful in this matter. As the Istanbul bombings showed,
close support for US strategy brings with it an increased risk of terrorist
attack. Governments can legitimately ask their citizens to undergo this risk
only if they themselves have genuine confidence in US strategy. At present, it
is impossible to have such confidence.
2711. jexster - 1/4/2004 1:04:03 PM
It is not just in Iraq that US strategy is bankrupt. Despite tactical
successes such as Sunday's battle in Samarra, the fighting there, and the number
of US troops needed to contain it, have also in effect killed off the entire
"Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war. As US soldiers and officials acknowledge in
private, the US simply does not have the troops or will for another war
elsewhere. If Washington were crazy enough to launch another war without having
itself been attacked, the result would be political revolt not just among US
allies but also within the US itself.
This is therefore a good moment
for European and other governments to insist that in return for help in Iraq and
the Middle East, the US must develop a new overall strategy. ...
the
conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the issue that tends to unite the
Muslim world in hostility to the US and its allies. This is the best moment for
a long time to press for a genuine, two-state solution to this conflict. As
prominent figures in both Israel and the US have begun to warn, it may also be
the last possible moment.
If Israel continues on its present course,
what will emerge will in effect be a single state between the Jordan and the
Mediterranean in which a future Palestinian majority will be held down by
apartheid methods. Those making such a warning have included four former heads
of Israel's Shin Bet security service; one of their number, Ami Ayalon, has
declared that Israeli policy is "taking sure, steady steps to a place where the
state of Israel will no longer be a democracy and a home for the Jewish people".
Meanwhile Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, is looking increasingly weak
and isolated at home.
That explains the sudden rash of Likudite
propaganda in the National Review, breaking like a bad case of genital herpes.
Gay rights gay schmights
2712. jexster - 1/4/2004 1:33:24 PM
The Democratic Revolutionary: Policy or Slogan, Real or Faith
Based?
The advance e-mail notice to reporters from the White
House said that President Bush's Nov. 6 speech proclaiming a "forward strategy
of freedom in the Middle East" ....
Given that buildup, it's fair to
ask: Has anything changed? Articulating a philosophy is one thing; making policy
is another.
Yo succeed, Bush's vision must be backed by more than a near
religious belief in the universality of democracy and in what he termed
America's "calling" to bring it about. After all, it was just such faith that
led the White House to minimize the obstacles to democracy in Iraq.
Having set our sights beyond Iraq's borders, the Bush administration
must translate a philosophy into a long-term regional strategy suited to the
complexities of Arab politics. He must find a way to promote democratic
institutions there, not just assert his faith in them from here.
How
can the administration help Arab reformers escape the trap of liberalized
autocracy? ..Neoconservatives favor a policy of shaking up the region in the
hope that a shock to the system will empower democratic forces. Neo-realists
favor a decidedly less optimistic policy of incremental change, a strategy in
keeping with years of American efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world.
Although Bush's heart is certainly with the first camp, a close reading
of his Nov. 6 speech reveals that his head may be partly with the second.
Such caution is born of an ... anxiety about the growing influence of
illiberal Islamists who are waiting to hijack liberal reforms.
The most
telling aspect of Bush's speech, and of the policies being pursued by State's
MEPI, is the absence of any discussion of fundamental constitutional reforms.
2713. jexster - 1/4/2004 2:35:07 PM
Democracy
Snake Oil: Uncertain Antidote or Neocon Miracle Cure for the "Root Causes" of
Terrorism?
From latest issue of Current History, CEIP Democracy
& Rule of Law Project Director Thomas Carothers:
In the rush to
embrace a new line, the US government and the broader US need to recognize the
substantial
obstacles on the path to democratization.
One obstacle
is the facile assumption that a straight line exists between progress on
democratization and the elimination of the roots of Islamic terrorism. The
sources of Islamic radicalism and the embrace of anti-American terrorism by some
radicals are multifaceted and cannot be reduced to the simple proposition that
the lack of democracy in the Arab world is the main cause.
Second,
although many people in Washington may have decided that the Middle East’s
democratic moment has arrived, a discernible democratic trend in the region
itself is not evident.
Third, the United States faces a tremendous
problem of credibility in asserting itself as a prodemocratic actor in the
Middle East. Confronted with the notion that the Bush administration is now
committed to democracy in the region, many Arabs react with incredulity,
resentment, and outright
anger. They have a very hard time taking the idea
seriously...
As the USAdvisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and
Muslim World highlighted in its October 2003 report, “hostility toward America
[in the Muslim world] has reached shocking levels.”
2714. Edmund Dantes - 1/4/2004 2:44:26 PM
Why I get all misty over your new found concern for gay rights.
Eh. I have concern for human rights, Jasper.
Why you
really have got me by my identity politics short hairs now don't you!
Now, now, it's not all about you. Lots of bleeding-heart liberals are on
the wrong side of history--and even their supposed beliefs.
2715. jexster - 1/4/2004 3:06:21 PM
In the two years since, the US policy establishment has come to believe
that promoting democracy in the Middle East should be a component of the war on
terrorism—part of a broader effort to go beyond the active pursuit of terrorist
groups to address the underlying roots of terrorism.
Don't you just hate phoney intellectuals Ed, pathetic hucksters for some
worn out old ideology or other who forever root about like so many fat sows for
root causes to feed The Cause?
2716. jexster - 1/4/2004 3:20:43 PM
Why damn Ed you sure had me fooled !
Here I thought you were just
taking another poke at bleeding heart liberals and all the while there you were
bleeding like a stuck compassinate conservative pig! 
2717. concerned - 1/4/2004 5:03:31 PM
Palestinian refugees: championed by Arab world yet treated like
outcasts
A clear-eyed look at the true sources of discrimination
against the so-called 'Palestinian refugees', most of whom have never lived a
day of their lives within the territory of Israel.
It's time to end the
charade and for countries like Egypt, Syria and Jordan to naturalize their
'Palestinians'.
2718. jexster - 1/5/2004 10:53:06 AM
Its time to end the illegal occupation of stolen land and throw the Israelites into the sea.
2719. jexster - 1/5/2004 10:56:35 AM
WOW the Poodle speaks!
British Troops to Remain in Iraq for Several Years
What's wrong with His Master's Voice? 
DemoCat got his tongue?
2720. Edmund Dantes - 1/5/2004 11:17:41 AM
IRAQIS
BACKING STRONG HORSE
A dozen former leaders of
Saddam Hussein's Baath Party have handed in weapons caches in northern Iraq to
curry favor with the U.S. military and claim a role in a new Iraqi leadership,
the commander of the Army's 101st Airborne Division said.
"They're
coming to us, saying they want to be part of the new Iraq," Maj. Gen. David H.
Petraeus said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. "It has slowly
sunk in that Saddam isn't coming back."
2721. jexster - 1/5/2004 11:43:09 AM
Ahh the root cause is found where..the Horse's Ass....
TIGER BAIT
TIGER BAIT
Zombie = Dead
Man Walkin
See Message # 2710
2722. jexster - 1/5/2004 11:55:16 AM
Lies have consequences and the truth will out..
target=new>State
Department Official Says We Didn't Need To Invade Iraq
Lawrence
Korb, Asst Secty of Defense to St. Ronald Raygun writes:
"Eight months
after the Bush administration got us involved in a bloody war in Iraq, we are
now told by one of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's closest advisers that
Iraq was a war of choice after all. According to Richard Haass, director
of policy planning at the State Department until June 2003 and still the Bush
administration's special envoy to Northern Ireland, the administration 'did not
have to go to war against Iraq, certainly not when we did. There were other
options."
Really? This is not what the administration told us before
the war and continues to tell us to this day."
2723. jexster - 1/5/2004 1:15:43 PM
Envoy predicts 'bigger bangs'
Britain's top
envoy to Iraq last night admitted that the Iraqi resistance was getting "more
sophisticated" in its attacks and predicted even "bigger" attacks in future
against coalition forces.
Speaking in Basra before meeting Tony
Blair, Sir Jeremy Greenstock said he believed fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein
were responsible for up to 80% of recent attacks in Iraq, with foreign Islamist
militants carrying out the rest.
"The opposition is getting more
sophisticated, using bigger bombs and more sophisticated controls. We will go on
seeing bigger bangs," Sir Jeremy said.
The unusually candid remarks
appear to confirm that Iraq's resistance has not melted away following Saddam's
capture last month. Eight people were killed and more than 30 injured in a car
bomb suicide attack on a restaurant in central Baghdad on New Year's Eve.
I guess that just goes to show ya Ed...you can lead a horse's ass to
water but you gotta give it an enema if you wanna make it drink.
2724. robertjayb - 1/5/2004 3:49:50 PM
Riverbend reviews
2003...
It's strange what you can get used to hearing or
seeing. The first time is always the worst: the first time you experience
cluster bombs, the first time you feel the earth shudder beneath you with the
impact of an explosion, the first tanks firing at houses in your neighborhood,
the first check-point... the first broken windows, crumbling walls, unhinged
doors… the first embassy being bombed, the first restaurant… It's not that you
no longer feel rage or sadness, it just becomes a part of life and you grow to
expect it like you expect rain in March and sun in July.
May 2004 be
better than 2003.
2725. jexster - 1/5/2004 4:15:26 PM
Sharon booed by party members after warning settlements will have to go
TEL AVIV (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web
sites) was given a bruising ride by members of his own party when he reiterated
his support for a Palestinian state, warning it would mean dismantling Jewish
settlements in the occupied territories
Write YOUR member of the
Knesset today...tell em boos ain't on the Bush roadmap
2726. jexster - 1/5/2004 4:16:38 PM
Get used to it riverbend..a new horse is in town
2727. jexster - 1/5/2004 7:48:58 PM
Millions Left Homeless in Iraq: Mud Housing Proposed
Kurds Begin Neighborhood Community Development Efforts - Confiscate Arab
Homes
and back in the Mother Country Bush is slashing
Section 8 grants to our homeless even as their numbers swell.
The
Iraqis should count themselves luck to have mud, cause here, they wouldn't have
squat.
2728. jexster - 1/5/2004 7:51:41 PM
2729. jexster - 1/5/2004 7:52:51 PM
The 3 time failed CEO can safely add failed nationbuilder to his resume
2730. jexster - 1/6/2004 6:48:50 AM
JERUSALEM - No action will be taken against Israeli soldiers who shot and
wounded a Jewish-Israeli protester during a demonstration over a controversial
West Bank barrier, the army said Tuesday.
Sauce for the matzos not sauce
for the pita
2733. jayackroyd - 1/6/2004 11:57:05 AM
test
2734. jexster - 1/6/2004 12:34:56 PM
Uniter Not a Divider: Syria-Turkey Mark High Point" of Relations During
Assad Visit to Ankara
ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey and Syria pledged to
work together to bring peace to their long-troubled region at the start of a
three-day landmark visit by Bashar al-Assad, the first Syrian president to visit
Ankara. "My visit comes at a time when Turkish-Syrian relations are reaching
towards a peak, but our region is going through a bad period," Assad told an
official welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace.
"We have
moved together from an atmosphere of distrust to one of trust. We now have to
change the atmosphere of instability in the region to one of stability," Assad
said before talks with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
Assad's visit follows a marked improvement in ties between the two
neighbours which nearly went to war in 1998.
Sezer said talks would
focus on improving bilateral cooperation, but also touch on regional issues,
including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, peace in the Middle East and the
situation in Iraq (news - web sites), their common neighbour.
2735. jexster - 1/6/2004 1:43:03 PM
The
Debray Disintegration Scenario:
Trouble looms after coalition tells Kurds
self-rule can stay
2736. jexster - 1/7/2004 11:59:58 AM
Saddam captured by Kurds?
Case Closed.
One of the persistent
rumors trailing Saddam's capture is that it was the Kurds and not U.S. forces
who were responsible for tracking down Public Enemy Numero Uno. According to
this Sunday Herald story, Kurds will be amply compensated for their services not
just in terms of cold hard cash, but also U.S. support for their rights within a
future Iraqi federation
2737. jexster - 1/7/2004 12:01:20 PM
Saddam’s capture: was a deal brokered behind the scenes?
When
it emerged that the Kurds had captured the Iraqi dictator, the US celebrations
evaporated. David Pratt asks whether a secret political trade-off has been
engineered
Convenient headline!
2738. jexster - 1/7/2004 12:03:18 PM
Tales of derring do spun out of Centcom whole cloth.
2739. KuligintheHooligan - 1/7/2004 1:07:03 PM
Here's a very long, thorough article on Iraq and its weapons arsenal before
Saddam was deposed. This article, at least for me, provides enough clarity on
the intelligence question, what we knew and didn't know, and how thorny such
intelligence can be. Again, we had every reason to believe that Saddam still had
WMDs before March 2003.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=1&u=/washpost/20040107/ts_washpost/a60340_2004jan6
2740. Edmund Dantes - 1/7/2004 1:17:56 PM
Very nice link, Kul.
Clickable
and to WP original
2741. jexster - 1/7/2004 1:41:12 PM
Thanks Ed...But that was just more of my message flotsam.
The link is
in AP...guess what?
Saddam told the truth and Bush lied.
Alice
in wonderland eh?
2742. Magoseph - 1/7/2004 2:10:53 PM
Today's Washington Post 2743. angel-five - 1/7/2004 2:25:49 PM
Earthquake reveals
seismic shift in Iranian view of US 2744. marjoribanks - 1/7/2004 2:55:07 PM
That's an interesting article. 2745. Wombat - 1/7/2004 3:17:19 PM
It's kind of ironic. Saddam lied and evaded and was caught out until no one
believed him, even when he was--apparently--telling the truth about the status
of Iraq's WMD. 2746. Wombat - 1/7/2004 3:19:26 PM
It's kind of ironic. Saddam lied and evaded and was caught out until no one
believed him, even when he was--apparently--telling the truth about the status
of Iraq's WMD. 2747. wonkers2 - 1/7/2004 3:55:29 PM
There's an interesting defense of neocon artistry op-ed in today's Wall
Street Journal by none other than Richard Perle and David Frum.
2748. rdbrewer - 1/7/2004 4:29:05 PM
Thanks for the link, A-5. That is encouraging.
2749. angel-five - 1/7/2004 5:06:56 PM
Say you're an independent businessman with 10k of pocket money to invest, and
your analyst, whom you trust, says, 'Give me the money, I know what needs to be
done with it' so you do. And he dumps it into something tolerable and in one
year you have made 1.2k on it. There is no denying that a 12% return in one year
will beat a lot of investments. If you'd just stuck the money in the bank you
might have made, what, 5%? So you might feel good about yourself. 2750. angel-five - 1/7/2004 5:07:35 PM
I, like most people, like to think of myself as being more fairminded than
partisan, but unlike most politically minded fora participants I can acknowledge
that good has come out of what some of my opponents have done. That is to say in
this instance, although I am horribly opposed to Pax Americana as an unworkable
plan which the American people aren't even willing to support themselves, has
cost us too much, consumed too many of our resources, destroyed our
international goodwill and reputation, weakened the UN and NATO, pinned us down,
corrupted our administration and killed far too many people, it's obvious that
there is a benefit to what we have done. 2751. angel-five - 1/7/2004 5:10:46 PM
The sad thing is that what happened in Afghanistan is what is likely going to
happen in Iraq. We can't rotate forces out of Iraq without a significant callup
of the National Guard or stripping our troops from Europe or SE Asia. We surely
do not want to keep paying hundreds of billions of dollars there. Those people
who got on board the administration plan because of nation building -- the same
people that conservative commentators have dogged about their Iraq criticism
saying that 'I thought you were in favor of nation building and human rights' --
have been taken for a ride, and they should have known, much better, how this
was going to turn out. Some of us were telling them all along.
2752. jexster - 1/7/2004 6:47:24 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Anti-American insurgents fired mortar rounds at a U.S.
military camp Wednesday night, wounding 35 U.S. soldiers, the U.S. command said.
2753. jexster - 1/7/2004 6:49:48 PM
Tar pit - elephant 2754. jexster - 1/7/2004 10:18:50 PM
Aktola OK Not Staying the Course - AP 2755. wonkers2 - 1/8/2004 8:31:07 AM
2756. wonkers2 - 1/8/2004 8:38:52 AM
A report published Wed. in the WP cited a previously undisclosed document
that suggested that Iraq might have destroyed its biological weapons as early as
1991. The report said investigators had otherwise found no evidence to support
American beliefs that Iraq had maintained illicit weapons dating from the
Persian Gulf war of 1991 or that it had advanced programs to build new ones.
2757. jexster - 1/8/2004 9:57:12 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) - All nine people on board died when a US military UH-60
Blackhawk helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing near the restive
Iraqi town of Fallujah, US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit said.
2758. JRoth - 1/8/2004 11:54:17 AM
I had several interesting conversations with active duty personnel over the
Holidays. One I can share was with an engineering officer who told me that the
bases his battalion are constructing are being spec'ed for 10-15 year occupancy.
Guess we're going to stay awhile. Corroborating discussion with a planning type
at the Pentagon; 30-50K troops long term. One idea being floated is to have a
brigade each from several divisions in theater at a time. Rotation would be
staggered so that all the brigades would not be 'fresh' at the same time. Also
mentioned were concerns about the big troop rotation; the units being rotated
out are top tier outfits; the succesor formations may have morale issues coming
in. 2759. vonKreedon - 1/8/2004 12:05:57 PM
JR - Interesting stuff. Are you familian with Lt. Van Steenwyk's blog from Al
Ramadi? Very interesting impressions from a junior infantry officer on the
ground in Iraq.
2760. JRoth - 1/8/2004 12:24:37 PM
VK, 2761. concerned - 1/8/2004 1:32:23 PM
re. 2743 - 2762. wonkers2 - 1/8/2004 2:53:20 PM
Carnegie Foundation Report on Iraq WMD released this morning: 2763. vonKreedon - 1/8/2004 3:13:44 PM
Wonk - [Irony mode]The report is obviously slanted, I mean look at the
subjects they covered. This report by an egregiously liberal organization (it is
after all the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, simply attempts
to reinforce a tautology and should be ignored by all right thinking
people.[/Irony mode]
2764. JRoth - 1/8/2004 4:42:45 PM
Anybody else notice the fortuitous timing of the several news reports on the
lack of WMD progress?
2765. jexster - 1/8/2004 7:32:07 PM
2766. jexster - 1/8/2004 7:33:20 PM
Egregiously liberal organization? 2767. concerned - 1/8/2004 7:34:18 PM
For me, having removed Saddam's boot from the Iraqis' necks will always be
more than enough justification. 2768. jexster - 1/8/2004 7:37:03 PM
Time's up 2769. jexster - 1/8/2004 7:40:07 PM
vK missed ya lately.. 2770. jexster - 1/8/2004 7:43:48 PM
TD 2771. jexster - 1/8/2004 7:45:55 PM
2772. jexster - 1/8/2004 7:47:21 PM
OOOPss 2773. jexster - 1/8/2004 8:02:15 PM
CNN Quick Vote Final Results 2774. jexster - 1/8/2004 8:02:45 PM
Fox 2775. wonkers2 - 1/8/2004 9:19:00 PM
All that proves is that morons watch Fox and intelligent Americans watch CNN.
2776. jexster - 1/8/2004 9:19:16 PM
Iraqis
Are Bitter Over U.S.-Held Prisoners 2777. jexster - 1/8/2004 9:19:45 PM
one jackboot looks the same as the next when you're lookin up
2778. wonkers2 - 1/8/2004 9:21:19 PM
VK, of course any organization that endorses international peace is suspect.
2779. jexster - 1/8/2004 9:52:22 PM
Eddie says they're irrelevant... 2780. rdbrewer - 1/8/2004 9:59:45 PM
Your favorite conservative is gone, Jex. ED hit the road today.
2781. jexster - 1/8/2004 10:01:41 PM
Eddie your case is closed. 2782. jexster - 1/8/2004 10:02:23 PM
Well I guess his case got closed. 2783. rdbrewer - 1/8/2004 10:04:41 PM
He hit the road, not the grave.
2784. jexster - 1/8/2004 10:06:21 PM
I think at a time like this, a little scripture is in order. 2785. jexster - 1/8/2004 10:08:17 PM
Not to worry RD..he'll be back... 2786. rdbrewer - 1/8/2004 10:09:40 PM
Good. I look forward to future cameo appearances.
2787. jexster - 1/8/2004 10:19:39 PM
JR... 2788. jexster - 1/8/2004 11:01:35 PM
WARNING 2789. rdbrewer - 1/9/2004 10:38:48 AM
Clinton
believes Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: Portugal PM 2790. vonKreedon - 1/9/2004 10:58:09 AM
Rd - No, because the PIPA study asks about the perception after the
fall of the Saddam regime. The PIPA study is very limited in what it covers.
2791. rdbrewer - 1/9/2004 11:03:30 AM
No, because the PIPA study asks about the perception after the fall of the
Saddam regime. The PIPA study is very limited in what it covers. 2792. vonKreedon - 1/9/2004 11:24:56 AM
Rd - So a broader, less rigorous and specifically defined study would have
been better? The title of the study is Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq
War, and so that is what is covered.
2793. rdbrewer - 1/9/2004 12:06:04 PM
You're contorting what I said, vk. 2794. rdbrewer - 1/9/2004 12:06:17 PM
(cont.) 2795. vonKreedon - 1/9/2004 12:31:39 PM
Rd - The study controls for partisanship by, for example, breaking out Repub
consumers of Fox and Repub consumers of PBS. 2796. rdbrewer - 1/9/2004 1:03:57 PM
The study controls for partisanship by, for example, breaking out Repub
consumers of Fox and Repub consumers of PBS. 2797. rdbrewer - 1/9/2004 1:04:39 PM
"Then," as it were.
2798. vonKreedon - 1/9/2004 1:17:30 PM
Rd - I don't understand this line of argument. Yes the groups are
self-selecting, both where one chooses to consume news and ones political
affiliation are choices. What I don't understand is how this invalidates the
study, particularly given that the study cross-references political affiliation
with news source. If the results were simply the result of self-selection then
one would expect that the Repubs would score in similar areas regardless of news
source, and the same for Dems, but this is not what the study shows:
2799. angel-five - 1/9/2004 1:32:58 PM
It's just that they don't understand what self selecting means. 2800. vonKreedon - 1/9/2004 1:40:09 PM
A5 - I think that the argument is that those who support the war, and so
would be expected to believe that the justifications have been proved,
self-select Fox as their news source, while those who oppose the war, and so
would be expected to believe that the justifications have not been proved,
self-select PBS/NPR. Rd and Ed then use this claim to attempt to invalidate the
study. But the study controls for this by cross-referencing political
affiliation with news source.
2801. angel-five - 1/9/2004 1:44:59 PM
A5 - I think that the argument is that those who support the war, and so
would be expected to believe that the justifications have been proved,
self-select Fox as their news source, while those who oppose the war, and so
would be expected to believe that the justifications have not been proved,
self-select PBS/NPR. Rd and Ed then use this claim to attempt to invalidate the
study. 2802. angel-five - 1/9/2004 1:51:17 PM
"My god, man, can't you see it? They went to the store on their own and
bought the tacos. How can you compare them to people who do not buy tacos? It's
self selection!" 2803. robertjayb - 1/9/2004 1:57:09 PM
....a handoff from Daily Kos: 2804. robertjayb - 1/9/2004 2:27:56 PM
US gives Saddam enemy POW status... 2805. robertjayb - 1/9/2004 3:01:31 PM
Riverbend says
Iraqi federalism a bad idea...
2806. concerned - 1/9/2004 3:03:14 PM
Re. 2803 - 2807. robertjayb - 1/9/2004 6:31:20 PM
Nuance, eh? 2808. wonkers2 - 1/9/2004 9:43:35 PM
Powell is a weasel, to put it politely.
2809. wonkers2 - 1/9/2004 9:44:06 PM
A bird who very skillfully feathers his nest.
2810. arkymalarky - 1/9/2004 9:47:59 PM
I decided that when I was told it's his son who's head of the FCC. I didn't
know that.
2811. angel-five - 1/9/2004 11:54:59 PM
I don't think Powell is a weasel. 2812. jexster - 1/10/2004 10:21:30 AM
He's a Buffalo Soldier.
2813. jexster - 1/10/2004 10:23:00 AM
Debray Decompostion - Iraq Attacks May Signal Religious Strife
2814. jexster - 1/10/2004 10:23:57 AM
Stolen from Africa 2815. jexster - 1/10/2004 10:44:08 AM
RD... 2816. wonkers2 - 1/10/2004 11:42:30 AM
Powell is known for being very skillful at playing the bureaucracy in
Washington, not for standing on principle. Now he's trying to weasel out of the
lies in his speech to the UN on Iraq. He's been a supporter of affirmative
action in the military but opposed to gay rights in the armed forces. A very
smooth talker. I'm not saying he's always been wrong.
2817. justears - 1/10/2004 1:49:32 PM
Harry Belafonte got in a lot of trouble for calling him a "house negro".
2818. jexster - 1/10/2004 2:11:58 PM
A-5 ...self referencing or self selection is used in every public opinion
survey questio and quite often experimental designs... 2819. jexster - 1/10/2004 2:21:41 PM
The study controls for partisanship by, for example, breaking out Repub
consumers of Fox and Repub consumers of PBS. 2820. jexster - 1/10/2004 2:27:58 PM
I think Eddie is confused...he means self referencing.. 2821. jexster - 1/10/2004 2:37:16 PM
or is he avoiding an impression (20 min/hr).
2822. jexster - 1/10/2004 2:43:52 PM
What impresses me most about the debate is that there is a debate at all!
2823. jexster - 1/10/2004 2:52:47 PM
Yes house negro and porch monkey but Buffalo soldier better captures the
sudden spinal failures. 2824. jexster - 1/10/2004 4:20:22 PM
Who knows what Eddie was talking about. I hate to speak ill of the dead but
Ed left a conceptual train wreck, practically indecipherable. 2825. jexster - 1/10/2004 4:33:07 PM
2826. rdbrewer - 1/10/2004 5:48:30 PM
2827. jexster - 1/10/2004 6:05:08 PM
Well well, he wast right all along! 2828. jexster - 1/10/2004 6:06:58 PM
That would be the Saddam-Reagan Joint venture...traces in 3 doxen mnrtar
rounds... 2829. robertjayb - 1/10/2004 6:16:22 PM
Don't wet yourself, rdbrewer. Icelandic and Danish troops have indeed found
dozens (three) of leaking 15-year-old mortar rounds once loaded with blister
agent. And sure enough, those are chemical weapons. 2830. rdbrewer - 1/10/2004 6:39:54 PM
Oh, I see. It's no longer that there aren't any WMDs in Iraq. Now there are
not enough.
2831. wonkers2 - 1/10/2004 7:07:31 PM
Yeah, it sounds like Bush and Powell underestimated the threat!
2832. concerned - 1/10/2004 8:31:32 PM
rjb - 2833. rdbrewer - 1/10/2004 8:40:08 PM
And most will not be so stupid as to claim that what has been located was
all he had at the time, either. 2834. rdbrewer - 1/10/2004 8:51:47 PM
Wait a minute. Wait just a gosh darned minute. 2835. wonkers2 - 1/10/2004 11:26:48 PM
A few left-over mustard gas shells obviously don't come close to constituting
the iminent threat to the U.S. required by Bush's own ill-conceived preemptive
strike policy. It's not an either-or matter. It's a matter of what weapons did
Iraq have and whether or not they constituted an iminent threat to the United
States.
2836. rdbrewer - 1/10/2004 11:53:28 PM
It only takes one drop to refute the claims you guys were making.
2837. robertjayb - 1/11/2004 12:43:36 AM
Good grief! Mustard gas shells are not weapons of mass destruction. Mustard
gas is a blister agent used to incapacitate ground troops. Really unpleasant and
very useful in trench warfare.
2838. concerned - 1/11/2004 2:43:19 AM
Re. 2837 - 2839. concerned - 1/11/2004 2:44:39 AM
Mustard Gas is generally regarded as a WMD.
2840. jayackroyd - 1/11/2004 3:13:46 AM
RDB 2834 2841. concerned - 1/11/2004 4:13:12 AM
Just to reiterate, and so that there can be no misunderstanding by anybody
with at least a 2 digit IQ, the Bush administration never made claims that
Saddam had nukes. 2842. concerned - 1/11/2004 4:14:34 AM
Plus, I am not sure on what authority, other than wishful thinking, Jay
believes that any given WMD imported from Iraq would have been less deadly than
from elsewhere.
2843. concerned - 1/11/2004 4:31:35 AM
One reasonable definition, offered by the University of Arizona, is that a
WMD is one that will not discriminate between combatants and noncombatants.
2844. concerned - 1/11/2004 4:36:39 AM
the U of A reference gives the following characterization of Chemical WMD's:
2845. concerned - 1/11/2004 5:12:50 AM
Wrt O'Neill's little tantrum about Bush's 'war plans for Iraq', probably
somebody should have explained the meaning of the word 'contingency' to him and
let this former Treasury Secretary know that the US has and has had such war
plans for a number of countries since at least WWII, including the Soviet Union,
China and North Korea, since O'Neill apparently believes the existence of such a
plan is necessarily tantamount to an intention of executing it.
2846. concerned - 1/11/2004 5:17:07 AM
O'Neill contradicts himself when he calls GWB 'disengaged', then claims he
hit the ground running on Iraq and Afghanistan upon assuming office .
2847. jexster - 1/11/2004 8:50:12 AM
If afte reading the book, that is all come up with, I'd pick up a copy
myself. 2848. jexster - 1/11/2004 8:52:16 AM
Debray Decomposition: Tensions Flare in South Iraq; Mosul Kurds
Shelled 2849. jexster - 1/11/2004 8:53:00 AM
Another example of what happens when you elect a liar who is also a
"disengaged" incompetent.
2850. jexster - 1/11/2004 8:53:52 AM
Let's have a 60 Minute Mote Party tonight! 2851. jexster - 1/11/2004 9:13:10 AM
Big
Mess - Protesters Stone British Troops and Iraqi Colonial Guards
2852. jexster - 1/11/2004 9:20:34 AM
And I looked into Pooty Poot's Soul with Through My Simean Eyes and With
My Dead Brain 2853. jexster - 1/11/2004 9:25:23 AM
You Picked a Fine
Time to Leave Me Lucille - Vocal, Kenny Rogers 1997 2854. wonkers2 - 1/11/2004 11:19:45 AM
What about the stuff the U.S. sold or gave to Iraq during the 1980s?
2855. robertjayb - 1/11/2004 11:37:28 AM
2839. concerned - 1/11/2004 1:44:39 AM 2856. wonkers2 - 1/11/2004 11:46:48 AM
Con'ned, Are you saying you feel imminently threatened by a few mustard gas
shells buried in 1989? Give us a break!
2857. jexster - 1/11/2004 2:15:39 PM
Rotted with traces of mustard gas..a little insecticide for the Ayatollah....
2858. jexster - 1/11/2004 2:20:55 PM
Lyin Monkees See, Lyin Monkees Do... 2859. robertjayb - 1/11/2004 2:39:25 PM
Rose petals are scarce this time of year...
2860. jexster - 1/11/2004 3:05:24 PM
TD...Looks like the Talking Poodle needs some training wouldn't you agree?
2861. jexster - 1/11/2004 3:06:58 PM
Go Ayatollah Sistani...but watch out for any trace of insectides labeled "US
AID: Made-in-USA"
2862. robertjayb - 1/11/2004 3:26:50 PM
Professor Nagl's War... 2863. jexster - 1/11/2004 3:34:53 PM
Saddam Hussein - A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
2864. wonkers2 - 1/11/2004 7:22:03 PM
When Baker finishes taking care of Iraq's debt he can go to work on the U.S.
debt, a much tougher and important problem!
2865. robertjayb - 1/12/2004 12:26:42 AM
War College report hits "unnecessary war"...(WashPost)
2866. jexster - 1/12/2004 12:52:24 AM
"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq," said O'Neill. "It was all
about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying 'Go
find me a way to do this." One of the documents shown on 60 Minutes was a scheme
on a secret document for dividing Iraq's oil up among several top US oil
companies. O'Neill said he was surprised nobody at National Security Council
meetings ever asked: "Why Saddam?" or "Why now?" "For me," he added, "the notion
of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to
do, is really a huge leap."
Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper
Since Gulf War, Nonconventional
Weapons Never Got Past the Planning Stage
This is a pretty simple read and
worth the time even if you don't agree with its statements.
I don't agree with the rosy scenario
for future relations, not because there isn't great potential for it - and if
Powell were let loose it would happen rapidly. But because the ideologues
(starting with Cheney) who have largely held sway over the meat of US foreign
plolicy are fixated on pressuring Iran with a hard stance on a number of issues.
If the administration changes, yes, you will rapidly see the US move to
similar relations as that country maintains with most of Western Europe, to the
mutual benefit of both countries.
It's something the Bush administration should also bear
in mind, since it seems prone to the same pattern of denying, lying, and
covering up.
It's something the Bush administration should also bear
in mind, since it seems prone to the same pattern of denying, lying, and
covering up.
And
then you find out that your brother had 10k and your brother, being much better
informed than you, knew that Raytheon was poised to blow straight through the
roof, and put his money on Raytheon and watched it double and then double again
in the same year. You might not be quite so happy about the twelve hundred bucks
you made, you know?
That's how I think the average person should feel
about the foreign policy of our current administration. Going into Iraq will
eventually pay dividends, that is not the question. The question is whether or
not it was a responsible thing to do in the name of protecting Americans. If we
had taken the money we had to spend invading Iraq and placed it against homeland
security and improving intelligence and improving predictive and
computative power and working with our allies and establishing
better controls on the international trade and development of WMD, how much
safer (and less in debt) would we now be? How many fine young Americans bled to
death in Iraq to earn us our 12% interest?
***************************************
It's now on the table that
we're to be taken a little bit more seriously or we might show up in force. And
that clearly has value in international relations with formerly uncooperative
states. The cat is now out of the bag, so the very least we can do while we're
burning Wolfowitz in effigy is point out that his program had at least one good
consequence.
Now what we have to do is ask if that was worth stripping
our nation-building in Afghanistan, for starters. When was the last time any of
you paid any attention to Afghanistan? You know Karzai is sinking in the
quagmire right now, right? What could have been our very best example of what
good can come of US intervention is now something that we don't want to talk
about, at all.
Six mortar rounds exploded about 6:45 p.m. at Logistical Base Seitz
west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said in a statement. The camp is
located in the so-called Sunni Muslim triangle that is a stronghold of
resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq (news - web sites).
investigators have found no support for the two main fears
expressed in London and Washington before the war: that Iraq had a hidden
arsenal of old weapons and built advanced programs for new ones. In public
statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered
no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a
new designer pathogen -- combining pox virus and snake venom -- that led U.S.
scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months. The investigators
assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production
of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage.
And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a "grave
and gathering danger" by President Bush and a "mortal threat" by Vice President
Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.
"The wounded soldiers were given first aid and have been
evacuated from the site for further medical treatment," the statement said. The
Pentagon (news - web sites) added that the soldiers were from the Army's 541st
Maintenance Battalion, based in Fort Riley, Kan., and part of the 3rd Corps
Support Command.
The mortars hit "a living area where they have
their sleeping quarters," the spokesman said.
A Pentagon spokesman
said that some of those wounded returned to duty shortly after the attack, while
others were hospitalized.
Flypaper - fly
crawfish - bush
we're
fucked
That place is going to fall apart like a Bush oil venture
along the road
leading north from Baghdad and into the "Sunni Triangle," the heartland of
Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s support and the center of anti-American
resistance, a sergeant from the 1st Armored Division said he's not interested in
the money because he has been shot at a "few times" and "I don't want to die
here."
According to the Defense Department, 332 soldiers have been
killed by hostile fire since the Iraq war began March 20.
"Every
car, every person are potential weapons. We can't trust anything," said the
sergeant, who has been in Iraq since May and is due to leave in two or three
months. He spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The increased bonus
program is part of an effort to avoid a manpower crunch. It's aimed at soldiers
like Spc. Justin Brown of the 4th Infantry Division. "I don't want to be in the
Army forever and just keep fighting wars," said the 22-year-old from Atoka,
Okla.
Back-to-back wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have stretched
the Army thin. Nearly two-thirds of its active duty brigade-sized units are
deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
T
At the checkpoint outside Baqouba,
the 23-year-old specialist, who refused to give his name saying he feared
retribution from military higher-ups, stubbed out a cigarette on the side of a
Humvee. As he began to speak, he was interrupted by the blast of a Kalashnikov
rifle a few yards up the road. An Iraqi policeman fired the rounds in a mound of
dirt for no apparent reason.
"You see what I have to put up with?" asked
the soldier. With two months left in a 12-month tour, "there's not enough money
in the world to make me stay a month longer."
The report also documented a pattern of deceit that was found in every
field of special weaponry. It said that according to Iraqi designers and foreign
investigators, program managers exaggerated the results they could achieve, or
even promised results they knew they could not accomplish--all in an effort to
appease Saddam Hussein. In some cases, though, they simply did it to advance
their careers, the report said, or preserve jobs or even conduct intritues
against their rivals.
Senior intelligence officials acknowledged in
recent deays that the weapons hunters still had not found weapons or active
programs, but in interviews, they said the search must continue to ensure that
no hidden Iraqi weapons surfaced in a future attack. (What future attack?)
(From NYT article linked above.)
"There were no survivors," Kimmit, the coalition's deputy
director of operations, told reporters.
Other news: The first classes of newly trained Arabic speakers are
coming out of the military and intelligence schools. Due to time constraints
training emphasized aural and written skills at expense of conversation skills.
Another issue is concentration skills; seems our post-literate generation has
difficulty with lengthy written documents.
Interesting link. Has the ring of authenticity. One point was
very relevant: He said the troops are finally getting acculturated and are
making fewer mistakes in dealing with the locals. They are also getting more
battle savvy. All that is to be expected, but it looks like we are going to do
the same thing as in Vietnam; rotate the troops out just as they get efficient.
Incidentally, I'm reading 'Whirlwind' by James Clavell
right now - a semi - fictional novel set in Iran at about the time Jimmuh Cahtuh
godfathered Islamic Fundamentalism there. It's bemusing to read about the
Marxist and Islamic elements murdering hundreds of thousands while essentially
destroying centuries of Iranian societal progress in mere months.
1.
WMD--no immediate threat
2. Inspections were working
3.
Intelligence failed
4. War was not the best or only option
And its one two three what are we fightin for...
WMD Search Teams Pull Out
Or egregiously ignorant post?
Aren't you glad to know that, jexster?
Tendentious horseshit vK.
Robert Kagan
specializes in U.S. leadership and foreign policy. Currently based in Brussels,
he writes extensively on U.S. strategy and diplomacy in the post–Cold War era,
U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy, U.S. relations with Europe, U.S.
policy toward China, and military strategy and the defense budget. He also
writes on U.S. diplomatic history and the historical traditions that shape U.S.
foreign policy today. He is cofounder, with William Kristol, of the Project for
a New American Century. Kagan is also a contributing editor to the Weekly
Standard and the New Republic and a monthly columnist for the Washington Post.
Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, he worked in the Department of
State as a deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs and was a
member of the policy planning staff as principal speechwriter to the secretary
of state.
Education: B.A., Yale University; M.P.P., John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University
Selected Publications: Present
Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy, edited
with William Kristol (Encounter Books, 2000); A Twilight Struggle:
American Power and Nicaragua, 1977–1990 (Free Press, 1996)
Tell me has your brain been marinating in some
primordial goo or have you been eating Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathic
sweetmeats during your absence?
Now you tell us.
How convenient!
I can't wait for
tommorow's load of crap.
Why you give me a reason to get up every
morning.
Robert
Kagan
Senior Associate 
Sorry vk...
Its that macular degeneration actin up.
Do you believe the Bush
administration misrepresented the threat from Iraq to justify a war?
Yes
89%
No 11%
Yes 13
No 87
Has a familiar ring....
ABU GHRAIB, Iraq (news - web sites) — Visitors hold scraps of paper
bearing identification numbers as they pass coils of razor wire and walk across
a muddy field toward the prison, where sons, husbands, cousins and other
suspected insurgents have been held for months by U.S. forces.
Fathers fidget with prayer beads and curse the soldiers
who snatched their boys. Mothers pull their abayas tight against the wind,
checking lists of names posted on plywood. Imams come with Korans. Those who can
afford to, bring lawyers. Brothers carry food and plastic bags of clothing and
wait amid the roar of Humvees.
Iraqis resent many things about the
U.S. occupation, but the detention of roughly 13,000 prisoners — most of whom
have not been formally charged — has triggered intense disgust. The U.S.
contends that the detainees have links to the Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)
loyalists and insurgents attacking coalition forces. Families say many prisoners
are innocent and were unjustly handcuffed, blindfolded and led from their
villages in humiliation.
I say Eddie is irrelevant
Lies
Have Consequences
WMD IN IRAQ
Evidence and Implications
Summary of New Carnegie Report
WMD in IRAQ:
Evidence and Implications, a new study from the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, details what the U.S. and international intelligence
communities understood about Iraq's weapons programs before the war and outlines
policy reforms to improve threat assessments, deter transfer of WMD to
terrorists, strengthen the UN weapons inspection process, and avoid
politicization of the intelligence process.
The report distills a
massive amount of data into side-by-side comparisons of pre-war intelligence,
the official presentation of that intelligence, and what is now known about
Iraq's programs.
The authors of the report are: Jessica T. Mathews,
president; George Perkovich, vice president for studies, and Joseph Cirincione,
senior associate and non-proliferation project director of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
1.
Changes to U.S. Policy
· Revise the National Security Strategy to eliminate
a U.S. policy of unilateral preventive war, i.e., preemptive war in absence of
imminent threat....
Full
Report
SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS
2309 The strict
conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous
consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous
conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
RIP
The Holy
Gospel According to John
31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus
said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
This has been going on since about 1998
or so
He can't resist me.
I think the timing was inevitable or made so by Kay's decision
that he wasn't going to serve as a prop for Bush any longer.
Remember
that Bush rejected calls to include UNMOVIC staff on Kay's team. He always
intended to use Kay for his propaganda value as much as anything. As long as kay
played along, Bush could claim as he and others did throughout, that the crafty
Saddam had buried his goodies in a crawfish hole. 
The Carnegie Indictment is 111 pages long...
Former
US president Bill Clinton said in October during a visit to Portugal that he was
convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction up until the fall of Saddam
Hussein, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said.
"When
Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his
years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had,
that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam
regime," he said in an interview with Portuguese cable news channel SIC
Noticias.
I guess Clinton would have scored "very misinformed" on
the PIPA study recently clobbered in American Politics.
The PIPA study does NOT show the following:
The
only thing that the study shows is that depending on where one consumes ones
news has an impact on how correctly one is informed regarding three facts about
Saddam. Now one can extrapolate from this base, but I do not believe that is
what the study is doing.
And
that, vk, is how they managed to target a specific result.
We know an Iraqi officer met with
an Al-Queda representative in Prague, for example. This would be regarded by
many as a clear link. The survey, however, is restricted to a value judgment
about the quality of the link, not whether there was a link. How clear was this
clear link? We might answer the question differently. The survey authors regard
this as an "unclear" link. The fact that Bush haters will appear answer to
answer "correctly" that the link was unclear, in the case of many of them, has
nothing to do with their level of knowlege about the facts of the war. So,
restricting the question in such a fashion picks up the "errors" of Bush
supporters more often and, thereby, renders the survey unreliable. It also
reveals how the potential biases of the survey writers can meld into the results
of the poll.
Another example: We know Iraq had WMD. We saw the UNSCOM
video of vials of anthrax, for example. A straight forward question would have
inquired whether Iraq had WMDs. But the question on the suvery concerns
additional WMDs. Bush supporters are naturally going to miss this
question at a higher rate than Bush haters in part because Bush haters who don't
know the answer will naturally be inclined to answer that there were no WMD's,
while Bush supporters who don't know the answer will guess that there were.
Another example of how restricting the survey questions leads
to particular result: Instead of asking whether the majority of Iraqis support
the efforts of the U.S. and allies, it asks whether world opinion supports the
effort. First, there hasn't been a world-wide poll published on the nightly
news. More importantly, obviously war haters are going to appear to get this
"right" regardless of whether they are aware of such polling data. Their guesses
are going to be in one direction only. War supporters who don't know the answer
are going to guess the other way, the "wrong" way. If the survery had asked
about Iraqi support for the war, an opposite result would have been
achieved. It would have appeared that PBS watching correlates with being
"misinformed" about war facts.
Overall consumers of Fox
were misinformed 80% of the time; consumers of PBS were misinformed 23% of the
time. Among Repubs, those who consumed Fox 54% were misinformed and those who
consumed PBS 32% were misinformed. This indicates that the news source was a
significant factor in forming misperceptions about the three facts in question.
Now let me give you your quals:
The first of the three questions
(has the US found clear evidence of strong links...) is not as solid as the
second and third, requiring a judgement on the clarity of evidence and strength
of links. You are also correct that the study would have been better if they had
also asked a question about a pre-war justification that has since been found to
be true, but I can't think of one as unassailably true as two of the three they
used.
I think this is where
Dantes criticism kicks in, vk, that these groups are self selecting:
Suppose most people watch whichever news show comes on after or
before their favorite TV show. Suppose network A shows "Al Bundy's Favorite Fart
Jokes--Enacted" and network B shows "History for Lovers of the Obscure and
Arcane."
Regardless of how relatively accurate network A's news show
versus network B's news show, it's a good bet that viewers of network A are
going to be a different demographic than the demographic for network B.
The better route would have been to force 500 to watch PBS and 500 to
watch Fox, as ED suggested, and them quiz them about their knowlege of war
facts.
The Effect of Demographic Variations in Audience
Variations in misperceptions according to news source cannot simply be
explained as a result of differences in the characteristics of each audience.
... controlling for these demographic differences by examining the variations in
misperception within demographic groups reveals persisting variations in the
level of misperceptions according to news source, consisten with the analysis
above.
Looking just at Republicans, the average rate for the three key
misperceptions was 43%. For Republican Fox viewers, however, the average rate
was 54% while for Republicans who get their news from PBS-NPR the averae rate is
32%. This same pattern obtains with Democrats and independents.
By
the criterion being used -- they checked a box on an answer sheet to indicate
their primary source of news -- they are shouting 'Self selection!' because once
they heard that was bad for accurate data.
Self selection is when all
your sample are volunteers, like when you mail out a survey sheet with a SASE.
What you get back is self-selected, they're choosing to get into it with you.
Traditionally these aren't representative people, they're more activist, and you
can't poll them and then say they're representative of America.
However
what we're talking about when someone checks a preference box isn't self
selection. It's answering a question. By what they're going on about, every
answer in every poll is self-selection at work. 'Sorry, we can't say that this
70% of Americans like tacos is accurate.' 'Why?' 'Because it was self
selective.' 'What?' 'Yes.' 'How?' 'Well, we asked them and they answered that
they like tacos, it's self selection, they're selecting themselves as taco
lovers, self selection is bad.' 'What?'
That's precisely what it's like,
and I'm best pleased to have another example at hand to demonstrate that neither
of these guys knows much about polling.
If so, that's not just a misunderstanding of what self
selection means, it's completely wrong and worthy of mockery. Self selection
doesn't mean 'making one's own choices' either. That's called free will.
Once again, self selection means that the respondent
went out of their way to answer the polling questions.
Web polls are
self selecting -- if someone is browsing www.tacosaregood.com and there's a poll
'Do you like tacos?' then you have self selection, twice over. First off your
entire pool of possible subjects consists of all those who would go to
tacosaregood.com in the first place, which would be a group already interested
in tacos and prone to like them, in the aggregate. Then you have the survey and
the people responding to it are all volunteers. They tend to have stronger
opinions than average. This is why most web poll data you see is labeled
'unscientific' etc.
The Nielsen people don't call you in the middle of
Law & Order to find out what you're watching because they like bothering
strangers. They cold call people because that's the method which gives them the
most representative base for their polling.
Fri Jan 9th, 2004 at 17:00:06 GMT
NOW
"I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about
the connection" between Iraq and al Qaida.
- Secretary of State Colin
Powell, 1/9/04
THEN
"I want to bring to your attention
today [to] the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the
al-Qaida terrorist network...al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad now coordinate
the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for Saddam's
network, and they have now been operating freely in [Baghdad]."
-
Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2/5/03
(Courtest of the Center for
American Progress.)
BBC---The United States
has formally declared the ousted Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, an "enemy
prisoner of war".
A Pentagon spokesman said Saddam was given the status as
he was the leader of the "old regime's military forces".
The spokesman,
Major Michael Shavers, said Saddam, captured by US troops in December, was
entitled to all the rights under the Geneva Convention.
But it did not
change the conditions under which he was being held, the spokesman added.
'Curious' Robert discovers nuance.
And here I was thinking contemptible flimflammery and
possibly-treasonous misfeasance.
In any case. for me it is sad to see
the understandably-overrated career of General Powell winding down in such
pathetic fashion. But he must dance with who brung him.
He's caught in a conflict between
his own experience (this is the guy who came up with the Powell Doctrine and
understands the need for coalition building) and the fact that the man who gives
him orders is Dubya Bush. It's the job of the Secretary of State to work for the
President, it's the job of Colin Powell the man to stand up for what he believes
is right. I don't think you can really call him a weasel for what he's done,
although it's certainly worthy of criticism.
Brought to America
Fightin on arrival
Fightin for survival
Actually running a panel experiment is not a very good idea.
The results would be very unreliable. Yhe test itself virtually impossible to
design, implement, and finance.
You'd get "test effect" in spades. The
respondents knowing that they were being tested on content recall would pay
special, non-normal attention.
The PIPRA research was quite good for
reasons I will leave to the Slow Thread.
Eddie just learned a
new term and was throwing it about without more...
Examples..
1 What is your age? (even women!)
2. What is your income
3. DO
you think GWB is a Moron?
4. How many football games did you watch on New
Year's eve. start to finish?
5. The French are foul aren't they?
6
Because God annointed Bush to lead this nation all Bush bashing is really
God-hatred?
7. Eddie Dantes is - grossly obese; moderately chubby; a rail; a
fuckin hunk of junk
8. RD has not read the PIPA study yet {y/N)
Not even close.
They first count misperceptions. They run separate and composite
cross-tabs to control for party registration; plan to vote for Bush or democrat;
support for the war and 7 different media sources.
The results all move
in same direction....
How do you
really know that the respondent watches all seven hours of NewsHour or is he
just tryin to make an impression?
Does R really only watch 20 minutes of
FoxNews a month or is he avoid a making an impression (20 min/hr).
I thought it was a pretty sound study....could have used more questions
techniques..Rockefeller Grant Money...and I told a number of friends....when I
summarized the Fox finding...the reaction was identical
"So they wasted
money to tell us that!"
Fox is the closest thing to Tass we've seen
....thus far
Powell fights policies he loathes until told to
be a good soldier...fightin for survival...
He is far closer in outlook
to Albright, Kissinger, Shultz. Baker, Lugar, Nunn, Dean, Clark, Scowcroft,
Poppy, Hagel, Clintons than to Bush's neocon crowd. Defense has usurped his
department's lead on all major issues and for all this, he soldiers on...
Rummy/Cheney have emasculated the guy. But he
Said he was a
Buffalo Soldier
Win the war for America
Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock Rasta
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival
Driven from the mainland
To the heart of the caribbean
rd: In
polling you don't want your respondents to self-select because it skews the
results. For example, if you ask questions about sex and mail out the survey to
everyone in the phone book: 1) you'll get information only about people who have
listed phone numbers; 2) since returning the survey is voluntary, you'll receive
info only from those willing to talk about their sex lives. This crowd may not
be representative of the entire population.
Above I'm not using the term
precisely in this manner but rather saying that those who watch Fox have
pre-selected themselves for the network and thus won't produce an accurate
result of what effect watching Fox has. In a rigorous study that wanted to
measure the effect of Fox News on an audience, they'd choose say, 1,000 people
at random and make 500 of them watch Fox and 500 of them watch ABC.
Then they'd quiz the two groups on the week's past events to see
who'd learned more.
These are sample design problems in a
non-random sample, a voluntary sample - A-=5's Web poll. This crowd is
represenetative of this crowd, those who actually responded. The Census uses
this method which is why prohablity sampling would produce a more accurate
count.
The PIPA poll was a probability sample, about 700 respondents. I
am not sure whether they substitute or not but for all intents and purposes you
can be 95% confident that the results are within 3.7% of the true population
proportion. The non-response problem is generally insignificant and/or is
handled by replenishing the sample. In this case, because Knowledge Networks
uses an interview panel that they use several times a year, the results are even
more reliable than the usual telephone opinion poll.
As for
"self-referencing" that is exactly what you want! You certainly do not want to
measure the impact of CBS exposure on a Tom Brokaw audience that never watches
Rather.
How absurd should I go to make the obvious point more so?
Republicans/Hillary, Bill? Democrats whether Bush is a menace? The study
examined the impact of media (7 of em) on perceptions about key issues in the
Iraq war Not French media's impact on US perceptions, not whether Bush
supporters are more or less intelligent than other folks.
Eddie missed
the point of the study entirely.
Eddie was lost. Now he is gone.
As I tried to explain in Slow, Eddie's experimental design is
unworkable. The simple cross tabs that PiPA used is far more likely to yield
generalizable results.
And you probably bought one of
his oil wells.
Let's see hwat the Danes found...
'Chemical
weapons' found in Iraq
Factfile: Blister agents
Danish troops
have found dozens of mortar shells in southern Iraq which could contain chemical
weapons according to initial tests.
The 36 120mm mortar rounds appeared to
have been buried for at least 10 years, the army said.
All showed traces
of blister gases, the army said, a group of chemical compounds which include
mustard gas.
US officials confirmed the apparent find and said the
weapons were probably left over from the 1980-88 war on Iran.
Next thing you know mushrooms clouds of em
I must
admit even an old truth is better than a new lie.
Thirty-six decaying
mustard gas shells.
Well, no wonder the bushies took the nation to war.
I do like the idea of Danes and Icelanders scouring the desert.
The point is that never again can a Lefty honestly say and
believe that there Saddam had no WMD before he was deposed. And most will not be
so stupid as to claim that what has been located was all he had at the time,
either.
Don't count on it, Con'd.
Wasn't it RJB ... no
it was Jay who vehemenently denied the existence of WMDs, any WMDs. It was Jay
who was so very in-your-face cocksure. It might be worth looking back in the
thread for the juiciest quotes.
Jay, this story looks like it's going to
pan out. How do you like your crow? Baked, broiled, or fried?
rjb -
Mustard Gas is a Chemical Weapon banned
since 1925 by the Geneva Convention.
Pull the quotes. What I consistently said was "Time will
tell" wrt to nonnuke wmd.
I did say that the claims for nukes, the
claims for al qaeda links and the claims for threats to the US were
transparently false. I said that in February, and stand by those claims. The
Secretary of State and the President have agreed with me on the second. The UN
agreed with me, prewar on the first. And the third, at this point, pretty
clearly reflects facts on the ground.
On the latest claims on non-nuke
wmd issues, time will tell.
To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure who Jay is
referring to, in this instance. He seems to have some intention of
appearing to blame the Bush Administration for this without actually
coming out with the lie.
Contrary to Jay's assertion, it has been shown
beyond any reasonable doubt that Saddam's government did indeed have links to Al
Qaeda.
This definition is arrived at, presumably because the area over which a
WMD exerts its effects tends to be larger and less predictable and is not as
exactly, if at all, controllable in its results as compared to a bomb or a
bullet.
Chemical Weapons
Definition:
"Extremely lethal
man-made poisons that can be disseminated as gasses, liquids, or aerosols"
How they kill - 4 types
o Choking - damage lung tissue: chlorine
gas
o Blood Agents - cut off flow of oxygen: hydrogen cyanide
o
Vesicants - burn and blister soft tissue: mustard gas
o Nerve Agents -
disable nervous system: sarin, VX
2 broad categories:
o
Persistent - doesn't break down easily in the environment, can last for years
o Non-Persistent - break down quickly into non-lethal components
As I read the teaser quote, disengaged does not refer to the
Regime but to its leader. That vacamt stare, the empty ape like eyes, and
beyond, the Void of a brain that died.
That's disengaged.
O'Neill's point is precisely what I have long maintained. The Moron
couldn't find his way to the bathroon without a roadmap and cannot control
decision making processes where the Script is silent nor can he sucessfully
change the Script no matter desperate things get, not until, that is, the Austin
Fun Bunch alarms go off.
Then we get a slogan and a lie
Predictable as brain death
AMARA, Iraq (Reuters) - Scores of angry protesters gathered
Sunday in Amara in southern Iraq (news - web sites), demanding compensation for
at least five Iraqis killed when police and British troops opened fire to quell
a violent demonstration.
In the nearby city of Basra, an
Iraqi-born U.S. citizen working for the civilian administration in southern Iraq
was found shot dead, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)
said.
"An Iraqi-born American citizen working with CPA South was
found shot dead in Basra Saturday," spokesman Dominic d'Angelo said. "His body
was found together with that of another man, who was not associated with CPA
South."
There were no further details on the killings. Guerrillas
fighting the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq have often targeted Iraqis cooperating
with the civilian administration.
Mainly Shi'ite southern Iraq has
been far more peaceful than the restive Sunni Muslim areas around Baghdad, where
most of the resistance to the occupation has been concentrated.
But
tension flared Saturday in Amara, 365 km (230 miles) southeast of Baghdad, when
a demonstration over unemployment turned violent.
Big audience...big rating
We're looking now I greatly fear at the beginnings of a huge meltdown in
Iraq.
After all, there was a reason for Saddam and a reason we
encouraged him as he "gassed his own people". I remember the debate well.
Do you?
Big Whoop. Russia sold night vision goggles in
violation of UN resolutions so that Iraq could defend itself against a war of
aggression launched in violation of the UN Charter.
In pari delicto we
leave Pooty Poot and Dead Brain Walkin..
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials
have found evidence corroborating the Bush administration's allegations that
Russian companies sold Saddam Hussein high-tech military equipment that
threatened U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq last March, a senior State
Department official said Friday.
The United States has found proof that
Russian firms exported night-vision goggles and radar-jamming equipment to Iraq,
the official said. The evidence includes the equipment itself and proof that it
was used during the war, said the official.
Such
exports would violate the terms of United Nations sanctions against Baghdad.
"We have corroborated some of that evidence," the official told a group
of reporters.
While insisting that the matter was "now in the past," he
said that the Bush administration "never received entirely satisfactory
explanations" to its charges, and acknowledged that the issue "is still a
sensitive one in the relationship."
Mustard Gas is generally
regarded as a WMD.
..........................
Ever faithful
to standard bushie practice, concerned just makes shit up.
Speaking of gas...you ever try Beano TD?
A Lie Is Born:
Bush Planned Invasion of Iraq from Day 1
Bush "began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of
American troops, within days of Bush's inauguration in January of 2001 - not
eight months later after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported.
That's what former Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill says... on 60 Minutes, Sunday,
Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. In the first three months of 2001, the administration
was looking at military options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and
planning for the aftermath of Saddam's downfall - including post-war
contingencies like peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of
Iraq's oil. 'There are memos,' Suskind tells Stahl, 'One of them marked 'secret'
says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'' A Pentagon document, says Suskind, titled
'Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,' outlines areas of oil
exploration. 'It talks about contractors around the world from...30, 40
countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq,' Suskind says."
Now why do you suppose Bush is stonewalling Congressional investigations
of Iraq Intel???
Well hell that's a tough one ain't it.
AMARAH, Iraq (AP) - Impatience with Iraq's occupying forces boiled
over Sunday as unemployed Iraqis pelted British troops with stones and a top
Shiite Muslim cleric demanded the country's next parliament be elected - not
chosen by local caucuses, as foreseen by the Americans.
BAGHDAD (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)
suggested that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s alleged weapons of mass
destruction may never be found in Iraq as unrest flared again in the
British-run southern sector of the country.
US President George W. Bush
(news - web sites)'s justification for the war on Iraq was also expected to come
under the spotlight with revelations he was intent on ousting Saddam long before
the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Guess he watched the
BBC excloo those rusted mortar rounds
Peter Maass has a lengthy
encouraging/discouraging article in the NYTimes Magazine Its main player is
Major John Nagl, a West Pointer, Rhodes Scholar, Ph. D counterinsurgency expert,
and third in command of a tank battalion. The encouraging part is that the U.S.
does have thoughtful people on the ground. The discouraging part is that it may
not make any difference.
Nagl is a gifted officer with the common
sense not to confuse hopes with facts. He says he believes he is winning his
war, and his grasp of the present, as well as of the past and the future, is as
sharp as anyone's. He knows, though, that the war will be messy and slow, as
T.E. Lawrence warned, and he knows enough about wars to realize that the outcome
is not assured. That is the nature of guerrilla wars, especially -- they are
chaotic and confused and only fools predict their results.
Yet if
predicting the future is a hopeless endeavor, learning from the past is not. The
counterinsurgency books that Nagl studied do impart an important lesson. The
goal the United States hopes to reach in Iraq -- a successful counterinsurgency
that does not drag on for years and does not involve a large amount of killing
-- has never been achieved by any army.
WASHINGTON - Now assigned the task of reducing Iraq (news - web sites)'s
debt, presidential envoy James A. Baker III once gave crucial support for
continuing a billion-dollar loan program to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s
government that accounts for most of the money Iraq still owes the United
States.
As secretary of state in 1989, Baker urged the Agriculture
Department to offer $1 billion in loan guarantees for Iraq to buy U.S. farm
products after Iraq said it would reject a smaller deal.
"Documents
indicate he intervened personally to make sure that Iraq continued to receive
high levels of funding," said Joyce Battle, Middle East analyst for the National
Security Archives, a foreign policy research center with a vast collection of
declassified documents from the era.
A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly
criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing
it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq and pursuing an
"unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states
that pose no serious threat.
The report, by visiting professor Jeffrey
Record, who is on the faculty of the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base
in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the
breaking point."
.............................
Record's core
criticism is that the administration is biting off more than it can chew. He
likens the scale of U.S. ambitions in the war on terrorism to Adolf Hitler's
overreach in World War II. "A cardinal rule of strategy is to keep your enemies
to a manageable number," he writes. "The Germans were defeated in two world wars
. . . because their strategic ends outran their available means."
He
also scoffs at the administration's policy, laid out by Bush in a November
speech, of seeking to transform and democratize the Middle East. "The potential
policy payoff of a democratic and prosperous Middle East, if there is one,
almost certainly lies in the very distant future," he writes. "The basis on
which this democratic domino theory rests has never been explicated."
O'Neill revealed Bush to be a pathetically
weak man unable to ask an intelligent question or make a single independent
decision.
I believe that there is a market for the truth in
America
How many units of truth do ya think I should put
Eddie D. down for?
And how about my CU Law Alum PT10909 (MIA, RIP), what
he good for?
Al D...at least the price of a round at Poipu surely.
2867. jexster - 1/12/2004 7:05:01 AM
A Public Service Message for Fox Viewers: Powell admits no al Qaeda-Saddam
link
Colin Powell has finally admitted that he had no proof of a
connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.
The New York Times reports,
"'I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection,' Mr.
Powell said, in response to a question at a news conference. 'But I think the
possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them
at the time that we did.'"
Certainly. But how "prudent" was he to assert
in front of the UN last February that there was a "sinister nexus "between Iraq
and the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist
organizations and modern methods of murder."
Trodding through San
Juan
In the arms of America
Trodding through Jamaica, a Buffalo Soldier
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival
Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock
Rasta
It is now safe for you to watch Bill O'Reilly....
2868. jexster - 1/12/2004 7:15:21 AM
The president decided he had to act because he believed that whatever
the size of the stockpile, whatever one might think about it, he believed that
the region was in danger, America was in danger/b> and he would act. And he
did act.
The deaf, the blind, the mendacious, the brain dead, ....
2869. jexster - 1/12/2004 7:16:01 AM
tragic
2870. jexster - 1/12/2004 12:20:17 PM
Very tragic
US soldier dies in bombing, troops kill seven Iraqis stealing
fuel
I hope he didn't watch Paul O'Neiil, principal member Bush
NSC, before he expired.
And as for the Iraqis, it must be hard on their
families and on big bleeding hearted Bushie humantarians
2871. jexster - 1/12/2004 2:19:24 PM
Neo-Colonialism
- The Rape of Iraq
Iraqis Blast US Sponsored Trade Fair - Financial
Times
A 250-strong delegation from the American-Iraqi Chamber
of Commerce in Baghdad expressed anger at having to beat a path to Jordan to
establish contacts with US-led administration ruling Iraq.
"It takes two
months to see the Americans at the palace," said Adil al-Rawi, a Baghdad
merchant, referring to the CPA headquarters in one of Saddam Hussein's former
palaces in the Iraqi capital.Complaining he had failed to win any contracts
under US-led rule, Mr Rawi said: "There's no information in Iraq."
The
Iraqi delegates voiced their anger on the sidelines of the conference during a
meeting with retired US admiral David Nash, the Baghdad-based director of the
Iraq Infrastructure Reconstruction Organisation, who is responsible for
disbursing more than $18bn (?15bn, £10bn) of US funding for reconstruction.
They denounced the conference organisers for failing to provide Arabic
translators and for not including an Iraqi on the panel.
"They are
speaking as if Iraqis are not there," said Ahmed al-Haider of Al Belouj company.
"Iraqis must have a role."
Well boo-hoo. What did ya expect,
liberation?
Suckers
2872. Al D - 1/12/2004 2:23:45 PM
http://slate.msn.com/id/2093620/entry/2093641/=#ContinueArticle
Slate has a discussion which will go on all week among liberals who
supported the war. I found the link on TPW; perhaps, jexster, you would be so
kind as to create a link here.
That is the nature of guerrilla wars, especially -- they are chaotic
and confused and only fools predict their results.
I may have it
wrong, but it seems to me several on the Mote predict the result as a negative
result. Or is that just their wishful thinking?
2873. jexster - 1/12/2004 2:41:39 PM
Sure Al..but I am not functioning too well today (a binge drinking wake last
night) what is TPW???
Should I just link the URL??? I do that and if
that's not what you want...do something else
As for guerilla wars,
speaking only for myself, I have predicted nothing.
I have linked and
supported views of several experts including the CIA ops chief for the
Afghan/Russian conflict to the effect that no occupying army in the 20th century
has resisted a nationalist insurgency successfully; have said that the current
one in Iraq, though extremely low level has already partially succeed (the rush
for the exits take over scuttles democracy in June I think), and I have
entertained as plausible views of Regis Debray that the longer the US stays the
more likely a total disintegration of the country and rise of an virulent
fundamentalist regime in one or more of its components. I had never thought of
that before but began to. What you see depends on what you look for and I do
love the counterinitutive.
2874. jexster - 1/12/2004 2:43:33 PM
2875. jexster - 1/12/2004 2:56:07 PM
Correction...it occured to me that I forgot to mention one guy...
Defense and the National Interest, Center for Cultural Conservatism,
Military Affairs expert William Lind --
As I said in an earlier
column, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are already lost. Nothing the United
States can do can yield an American victory in either placeAs I said in an
earlier column, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are already lost. Nothing the
United States can do can yield an American victory in either place.
In
all probability, both wars were lost before the first bomb was dropped or the
first shot fired. They were lost because, in an era when the state is in
decline, our wares on the Afghan and Iraqi states were doomed to be too
successful. We fought to destroy two regimes, but what we ended up doing was
destroying two states. Neither in Afghanistan nor in Iraq are we able to
recreate the state, which means that Fourth Generation, non-state forces will
come to dominate both places. And neither we nor any other state knows how to
defeat Fourth Generation enemies.
To the degree America had a chance of
real victory in either war, we lost that chance through early mistakes...
In Iraq, the two fatal early errors were outlawing the Baath Party and
disbanding the Iraqi army. Washington is now making noises about reversing both
of those early decisions, but it is simply too late. As von Moltke said, a
mistake in initial dispositions can seldom be put right.
The Politics Of War
Not a prediction I suppose more a time now factual statement and
conclusion.
2876. jexster - 1/12/2004 2:56:17 PM
By standards that Bush set, I suppose that if you asked Ayatollah Sistani
that question he'd agree with Lind that the war is lost already. This being so
given his recent statement that when the Cheney Regime (I do not speak ill of
the Brain Dead) installs its frankenstein creation this summer, that regime will
be neither democratic nor legitimate.
That sounds like a big 0 in the
win column to me.
2877. Wombat - 1/12/2004 4:09:09 PM
As I understand it, UN inspectors found a few examples of elderly--and
unusable--chemical munitions during their inspections before the war that the
Iraqis had failed to destroy--or lost track of. Sounds like this find may be
similar, and the military is correct to downplay it.
Let's remember the
admistration's claims: active WMD programs, deployable in 45 minutes, and an
imminent threat to the United States. This find does nothing to contradict the
paucity of evidence to support these claims.
2878. jexster - 1/12/2004 4:23:45 PM
In the same vein as Al opened...bloody mess...
Anthony Cordesman et
al Center for Strategic and International Suties...
Iraq Policy Critique: Trip Reports
Iraq: Too
Uncertain to Call
Current Military Situation in Iraq
Over the
course of his November 1-12 visit, Anthony Cordesman traveled to Baghdad, Babel,
Tikrit, and Kirkuk, among other areas, meeting with combat commanders and staff
in high-threat areas. One report, “Iraq: Too Uncertain to Call,” focuses on the
strengths and weaknesses of the approaches taken by the Bush administration, the
Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraq Governing Council. The other report
analyzes current combat activity and unit-by-unit developments. Cordesman
traveled at the invitation of the U.S. government.
2879. wonkers2 - 1/12/2004 4:25:03 PM
And of course there was Riceroni's reference to "mushroom clouds." And Bush's breathless "enriched uranium from Africa." And Cheney's repeated linking of Hussein with 9-11. They are the crookedest administration since Harding.
2880. jexster - 1/12/2004 4:57:05 PM
Paul O'Neill exposes Bush mis-leadership
Delivering the single-most
damaging indictment of the president, his former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill
says the administration was drawing up plans to attack and occupy Iraq the
moment it took office. He told "60 Minutes," "From the very beginning, there was
a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go."
Let's past the crap and to the chase"
1. From Day 1 of the
Cheney Regime there was no genuine debate about using the US military and our
resources to invade Iraq.
2. From Day 1 of the Cheney Regime, WMD was a
topic on the agedn of the NSC yet at no time did the authorities responsible for
the security of this country have any substantial evidence that such a program
esisted.
And that - BIG FAT LIE- is the name of that tune.
That
is a real deal high crime and misdemeanor
2881. robertjayb - 1/12/2004 5:09:42 PM
Listen Up!
The scathing Army War College report, "Bounding the
Global War on Terrorism," which is being tucked away deep inside the newspapers
that carry it at all, is online Here. It
is a pdf document of about 60 pages.
2882. jexster - 1/12/2004 9:29:33 PM
2883. jexster - 1/12/2004 9:33:59 PM
Here's your Debray Decompostion Scenario item for the day.
From
Newsweek..
Refereeing
in Hell
GIs are dying. Rival factions are turning on each other.
After freeing Iraq, can we keep it from coming apart? 
2884. jexster - 1/12/2004 9:40:51 PM
Strictly speaking I suppose that Debray Secompostion Theory is more properly
a corrollary to conservative William Lind's War Already Lost Postulate.
Debray makes essentially the same point and adds his "worsens hte longer
we stay to the point of fundie blowback - ie get out whilst the gittin's good"
2885. jexster - 1/12/2004 9:52:15 PM
When the WMD searches came up empty, Bush aides began claiming that the
invasion was actually a way of planting the seeds of democracy in Arab lands.
Now the fear is that Iraq's collapse could destabilize the entire region
Such elegance, such economy of expression!
2886. jexster - 1/12/2004 10:03:02 PM
Thank YOU ROBERT!!! Hopefully JRoth will have time to read and share his
thoughts.
I love to read military shit...most especially when Jeffrey
Record, a veteran defense expert who serves as a visiting research professor at
the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College says things I have been
saying all along, a voice crying in the wilderness of the deaf, the dumb, the
blind and the brain dead:
Record criticized the Bush
administration for lumping together al Qaeda and President Saddam Hussein's Iraq
"as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat."
"This was a strategic
error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two
in character, threat level and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military
action," Record wrote.
"The result has been an unnecessary preventive
war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle
East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from
securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al
Qaeda," Record wrote
2887. jexster - 1/12/2004 10:09:27 PM
And a special thanks to Al Di Poipu for bring this topic to for discussion
today.
2888. jexster - 1/12/2004 10:34:51 PM
All Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monographs are available on the www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/ target=new>SSI Homepage for
electronic dissemination.
Sodden Thought for the Day:
Robert
could it be that Crawford's Little Corporal is the most militarily incompetent
Texican since Travis?? 
2889. jexster - 1/13/2004 4:16:20 AM
Bush Brings First Amendment to Fallujah: Troops Brutalize Reuters Crew
2890. jexster - 1/13/2004 4:19:26 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed by a bomb in Baghdad on Monday and American forces shot dead seven armed looters, while Spain and the Iraqi Governing Council urged the United Nations (news - web sites) to return to help Iraq (news - web sites).
2891. Magoseph - 1/13/2004 7:56:44 AM
The response of the President to O'Neill falls far short so far as I am concerned. There is a considerable difference between having a policy of encouraging regime change as Bush's father did when he encouraged the opposition in Iraq to revolt and Clinton's attempts to mobilize international action against the Hussein regime. What O'Neill is saying is that from the moment of his inauguration Bush secretly, without the knowledge of the citizenry or its Congress, planned an invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation. If true this type of action is so unprecedented, so outrageous, and so unbeliable that it has not yet been defined in respect to whether or not it constitutes an impeachable offense.
2892. jexster - 1/13/2004 11:11:23 AM
Are we ahead of the curve around here or what?
We gots Wonks first to
call for impeachment
Robert first link to the monograph exposing Bush as
the worst Texican military figure in history and pre-history (feel the eyes of
Tejas upon you)
Goooollay!
2893. jexster - 1/13/2004 11:11:34 AM
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - American soldiers killed at least four Iraqi
civilians Tuesday in a town at the heart of the anti-U.S. insurgency while a
U.S. Apache helicopter crashed nearby, probably after being hit by ground fire.
2894. concerned - 1/13/2004 11:19:42 AM
Re. 2891 -
No, it isn't. Where do you get the idea that the Pentagon
must go or has in the past gone to Congress to get all its military contingency
plans approved? And wouldn't doing so pretty much make it impossible to keep any
strategic military information classified?
For that matter, Xlowntoon
advocated removing Saddam and his administration had plans to that effect. And
were not Kosovo/Serbia sovereign? Maybe he should have been impeached for these
things instead, using your standards.
2895. jexster - 1/13/2004 1:26:35 PM
Bremmer: No Democracy for Iraq
2896. jexster - 1/13/2004 1:27:55 PM
TD...either you can defend the Cheney Regime's aggression on its own terms or you cannot.
2897. concerned - 1/13/2004 1:29:29 PM
I already have, you Saddam-lover.
2898. jexster - 1/13/2004 1:30:19 PM
The Clinton administration had no plans for the invasion, occupation and
exploitation of Iraq.
And actually the Cheney Regime had none beyond the
invasion that could be fairly called a plan nor did they America the truth about
what they did plan, why they planned it, and when they did
2899. jexster - 1/13/2004 1:31:35 PM
We all know you have this obession with Clinton, but we're stuck in a Cheney mess....welcome to 2004
2900. concerned - 1/13/2004 1:32:04 PM
The Clinton administration had no plans for the invasion, occupation and
exploitation of Iraq.
Doubtful, but signifies nothing even if true.
The bum couldn't even keep from being impeached, so incompetence is not a
defense.
2901. jexster - 1/13/2004 1:32:15 PM
they "tell"
whew...beat you to it Oozie
2902. jexster - 1/13/2004 1:33:24 PM
Earth to Planet Claire...
Time to engage in real time.
2903. jexster - 1/13/2004 1:33:47 PM
Real facts
Real time please
2904. Magoseph - 1/13/2004 2:04:15 PM
No, it isn't. Where do you get the idea that the Pentagon must go or has
in the past gone to Congress to get all its military contingency plans approved?
And wouldn't doing so pretty much make it impossible to keep any strategic
military information classified?
For your information, I did not
mention the Pentagon. I am talking about Bush. It is certainly a rare day when
you use Clinton as a mean to justify the Bush administration's actions. The only
thing I have to say about the whole matter is that O'Neill is a canny veteran of
the mayhem that prevails on Wall Street. He has best of the best in that climate
and may very well have derailed the Bush steamroller. He waited patiently and
obviously lulled the Bush crowd to sleep. At this point, I don't think they can
touch him and in my opinion, he has scored a punch that will do much to reduce
the Bush effectiveness in Foreign affairs.
2905. Al D - 1/13/2004 10:01:33 PM
The only thing I have to say about the whole matter is that O'Neill is a canny veteran of the mayhem that prevails on Wall Street.
With all due respect to your feminine charms, what exactly does the above
mean? It sounds just like the Communist claptrap I heard back in the '50's from
my commie brother-in-law.
No matter what Clinton said or didn't say about the Saddam regime,
Congress passed an Act in 1998 that called for regime change in Iraq. I was
wathcing a Liberal think tank discussion on C-Span yesterday when a question
from the audience was raised about O'Neill's comment and the reaction from the
panel was, big deal, it was National Policy since '98. It is a non story if
there ever was one, and Dems are silly to grab on to it, just as conservatives
are silly to pounch on the dirty missiles found by the Danes.
2906. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 8:41:30 AM
There is a very interesting analysis in the current Atlantic by Kenneth
Pollack on how he, and his colleagues in the intelligence and national security
community could get the WMD situation in Iraq so completely wrong. No real news,
but a comprehensive reading from an insider who had a key role in convincing
democrats that the war was necessary.
Unfortunately, it is not on the
web.
2907. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 8:44:44 AM
There is an interview with Pollack on line that covers much the same ground.
2908. Wombat - 1/14/2004 9:21:01 AM
The same issue of the Atlantic has an article that describes State Department, CIA and Military planning planning and preparations for postwar Iraq and how the Bush administration completely ignored them. Why Donald Rumsfeld still has a job after the role he played in this boggles my mind.
2909. Magoseph - 1/14/2004 9:37:27 AM
With all due respect to your feminine charms, what exactly does the above
mean? It sounds just like the Communist claptrap I heard back in the '50's from
my commie brother-in-law.
With all due respect to your advanced
years and experience, I would expect you would recognize that a bout between an
old tested warrior and a cub with not too much upstairs such as Bush is really
no contest.
2910. PincherMartin - 1/14/2004 9:43:19 AM
"Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong", by Kenneth Pollack
Here's The Atlantic Monthly article Jay refers to above.
2911. Wombat - 1/14/2004 10:03:42 AM
The directive under the Clinton adminstration was to try an effect regime
change through training and supporting Iraqi dissidents, and was funded
accordingly.
For Republicans and their "centrist" defenders to claim
this as an ex post facto justification for the Bush administration's actions is
laughable, and shows the bankruptcy of the justifications given for their choice
to wage war against Iraq.
2912. PincherMartin - 1/14/2004 10:09:26 AM
Some time ago, I promised some people here I would report back to comment on
the U.S. search for WMD in Iraq. I said I would so in August, but I gave myself
a few extra months to see if the interrogations of captured Iraqis would bear
any fruit.
What do you think now?
I think the evidence
points to Iraq having no significant and extant WMD program just prior to the
U.S. invasion. Nothing dramatic has been found and I now feel reasonably
confident nothing dramatic will be found.
Do you think there's still
a chance WMD will be found in Iraq?
Anything's possible, but I doubt
it. We've had a number of their scientists and core leadership in our hands for
some time. We've now had Saddam for about a month. Interrogations have, I'm
sure, been proceeding steadily and yet we have nothing to show for it except for
a handful of minor violations and some ambiguous evidence.
Did the
Bush administration lie about Iraq's WMD programs as a pretext for invasion?
No, I don't think so. There were a number of sources outside the Bush
administration that thought Iraq had those weapons, including members of the
Clinton administration and non-American analysts and intelligence agencies. The
Bush administration did hype a few claims that were not true, but they seem to
have done so in the belief that their general claims would be proven correct.
They oversold a point they believed to be true rather than outright fabricate
something they did not.
continued...
2913. PincherMartin - 1/14/2004 10:09:51 AM
Knowing what you know now, would you still support invading Iraq?
There's no way I could know then what I know now.
I do not
support invading a country simply because its leader is an evil tyrant. Yet,
that now appears to be what we have just done in Iraq, even if it was not our
intention. I still support the invasion because I believe that was the best
course of action we could take at the time, given what we knew at the time.
2914. Wombat - 1/14/2004 10:15:21 AM
A minor quibble, Pincher. It seems apparent to me that the Bush
administration was unwilling to take no for an answer, and sought to exclude
reputable assessments that showed Iraq's nuclear program was moribund and far
from the imminent threat proclaimed by the administration. As to chemical
weapons, the Bush administration erred in good company, yours and mine included.
Welcome back, by the way. I trust that you are wearing asbestos shorts.
2915. PincherMartin - 1/14/2004 10:33:17 AM
Wombat --
A minor quibble, Pincher. It seems apparent to me that
the Bush administration was unwilling to take no for an answer, and sought to
exclude reputable assessments that showed Iraq's nuclear program was moribund
and far from the imminent threat proclaimed by the administration. As to
chemical weapons, the Bush administration erred in good company, yours and mine
included.
I don't deny the Bush administration cooked up some
evidence to make its case, but it's not unusual for an administration to
oversell its policy by exaggerating its good points and even suppressing or
downplaying some reports that might set it back.
However, I think
several members of the Bush administration, including the president himself,
have been very surprised nothing has been found in Iraq, so I don't believe
their slanted presentation of the case was a pretext to invade.
Welcome back, by the way. I trust that you are wearing asbestos
shorts.
???
2916. PelleNilsson - 1/14/2004 10:39:44 AM
Welcome back Pincher. I like the honesty of your post. I agree with Wombat. I don't think anyone doubted that Iraq had chemical and, possibly, biological weapons. I didn't think they had the delivery systems to make them a threat to the West, but in contrast to you I supported the war because of the regime change. If I had known then what we know now I had been less sure about it, but I'm still guardedly optimistic of the outcome.
2917. jexster - 1/14/2004 10:49:40 AM
Carl von Clausewitz believed that the “first, the supreme, most far-reaching
act of judgment that the statesman and the commander have to make is to
establish the kind of war on which they are embarking, neither mistaking it for,
not trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its true nature. This is
the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive.”1
The nature and parameters of the GWOT, however, remain
frustratingly unclear. The administration has postulated a
multiplicity
of enemies, including rogue states, weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
proliferators, terrorist organizations, and terrorism itself. It has also, at
least for the purposes of mobilizing and sustaining domestic political support
for the war on Iraq and other
potential preventive military actions, confl
ated them as a general,undifferentiated threat. In so doing, the administration
has arguably subordinated strategic clarity to the moral clarity it seeks in
foreign policy and may have set the United States on a path of open-ended and
unnecessary confl ict with states and nonstate entities that pose no direct or
imminent threat to the United States.
Sound strategy mandates threat
discrimination Sound strategy mandates threat discrimination and reasonable
harmonization of ends and means. The GWOT falls short on both counts.
"BOUNDING THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM"
2918. marjoribanks - 1/14/2004 10:55:13 AM
However, I think several members of the Bush administration, including the
president himself, have been very surprised nothing has been found in Iraq, so I
don't believe their slanted presentation of the case was a pretext to invade.
Rose cololored glasses. The President and his advisers are clearly
not reasonable men, on this topic. They hyped a certain set of cases for waging
War, and still - despite all evidence to the contrary - stick to each case until
forced to back away. It's shameless and the playing up of non-existent links
between Hussein an Al-Qaeda is only the most egregious example.
2919. PelleNilsson - 1/14/2004 11:02:47 AM
jexstr doesn't read he only posts. I have known others who only care about output, but no Westerners.
2920. PincherMartin - 1/14/2004 11:06:32 AM
Pelle --
I don't think anyone doubted that Iraq had chemical and,
possibly, biological weapons. I didn't think they had the delivery systems to
make them a threat to the West, but in contrast to you I supported the war
because of the regime change. If I had known then what we know now I had been
less sure about it, but I'm still guardedly optimistic of the outcome.
I try to be optimistic, but I find it hard when I see no visible signs
of progress in the security situation there. Even with the best of intentions,
without security, what do we have? The Shias are starting to make noises and if
they start actively resisting with the same intensity as the Sunnis have been
resisting, we're fucked.
*****
The intelligence failure has
really shaken my faith in the spooks. Before the invasion I would have said we
knew Iraq had chemical and/or biological weapons with the sort of certainty we
use when we talk about Israel having nukes. It seemed that certain. (Like you
and Wombat, I never believed there was solid evidence Iraq had nukes -- although
I thought it was plausible to believe, on no evidence whatsoever beyond Saddam's
history, that Iraq had some secret nuclear program somewhere in the country that
was in its first stages of development.)
To me, this intelligence
failure hasn't been adequately discussed beyond it being used as a cudgel to
beat Bush. But it needs to be addressed. How could we have been this wrong,
again?
2921. PincherMartin - 1/14/2004 11:14:28 AM
Marj --
Rose [colored] glasses. The President and his advisers are
clearly not reasonable men, on this topic. They hyped a certain set of cases for
waging War, and still - despite all evidence to the contrary - stick to each
case until forced to back away. It's shameless and the playing up of
non-existent links between Hussein an Al-Qaeda is only the most egregious
example.
Ex post facto judgements, Marj. The case seemed fairly
convincing to you, in its generalities, before the invasion. You go hither and
thither in your thinking more times than a person can keep track, but I know
that at some points along the track you dug up, running between stands, you
supported taking Saddam out.
I also thought the case tying Al Qaeda with
Iraq before the invasion was weak and said so at the time.
2922. jexster - 1/14/2004 11:25:00 AM
Neither nation-building nor political stamina in
protracted conflicts
with irregular enemies has been a hallmark of American statecraft since the
1960s. Indeed, the “primary problem at the core of American deficiencies in
post-confl ict capabilities, resources, and commitment is a national aversion to
nation-building, which was strengthened by failure in Vietnam,” concluded a
widelyread
U.S. Army study on reconstructing Iraq published the month
before Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was launched.85
The study went on to
predict and warn:
2923. PelleNilsson - 1/14/2004 11:26:01 AM
I think the Pollack interview goes a long way towards explaining the failure. As someone who dabbles in history I know that you have to have some preconceptions, euphemistically called a theory, before you go to the sources otherwise you are lost. The problem here was that the conclusions were not critiqued properly, or rather, the intelligence entity that came up with the critique had been thouroghly mistaken in 1991 and had lost credibility.
2924. vonKreedon - 1/14/2004 11:27:15 AM
PM writes: There were a number of sources outside the Bush administration
that thought Iraq had those weapons,
Pelle writes: I don't think
anyone doubted that Iraq had chemical and, possibly, biological weapons.
These statements are true up until the last set of UN inspections. By
the time we invaded Iraq the inspectors, see 3/7/03 UNMOVIC
Report and IAEA
news release, it was becoming apparent that there were no WMD in Iraq.
If one combines the Bush administrations insistence on rushing to war
with the UNMOVIC/IAEA reports, the recent O'Neill revelation that the
administration was looking for excuses to invade Iraq from the get-go one can
easily come up with a more sinister interpretation of PM's admission that the
administration "...cooked up some evidence to make its case...." This
should be a major issue, the administration lied, or at the very least spun
information out of reasonable recognition of the truth, to induce the US
Congress and electorate to support an elective war that appears to have been
planned from the very beginning of the administration as a vengeance and looting
expedition.
2925. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 11:29:07 AM
I'm glad to see Pincher back in the context of the Atlantic articles and the
post-mortem discussion on Slate, because it makes apparent the consensus views
that are coming around.
The only thing I would add to the Pollack pieces
and Pincher's comments is that they all seem to include information up to the
some point last year, and do not incorporate what was learned by the inspectors.
Yes, before the inspectors went back in, there was widespread belief in Iraq
holding CBW stocks and/or prodution facilities. Yes, there was widespread belief
that Iraq had an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, but few believed that
this threat was imminent. There was no widespread belief that there were links
to al qaeda or 9/11, nor that Iraq threatened the US in any imminent way.
However, if you add the results of the return of the inspectors to the
case, I think that the case for invading in March because of WMD had been
greatly weakened. It was evident at that time that, as AlBaraedi said, there was
no active nuclear program. It was also evident at the time that, as Blix said,
there may be no CBW, but that further inspections would be required to prove or
disprove that claim. I think it is worth noting that a central part of Pollack's
argument for why the assessments were so far off is that there was way to
confirm or deny defector reports reports on the ground.
2926. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 11:31:42 AM
This excerpt from Pollack supporting my claim in the crosspost with VK that
Pollack makes this argument.
When the inspectors suddenly left, the
various intelligence agencies were caught psychologically and organizationally
off balance. Desperate for information on Iraq, they began to trust sources that
they would previously have had UNSCOM vet. If a defector came out of Iraq after
1998, the CIA had to gauge his credibility by comparing his account with those
of other defectors—who might be unreliable or just unproven—or by checking it
against whatever they could glean from satellites and other indirect sources.
With so little to go on, intelligence agencies believed many reports that now
seem deeply suspect.
In the absence of hard evidence, the intelligence
analysts tended to fall back on the underlying assumptions they had begun with.
Those assumptions included the belief that Saddam was determined to preserve his
extant WMD capabilities and acquire new ones. And now there were no weapons
inspectors to hinder him. The inspectors had also been a moderating influence on
Western intelligence agencies; the information they provided, and the mere fact
of their presence in Iraq, helped those agencies stick to reasonable
suppositions and keep unsubstantiated fears at bay. After 1998 many analysts
increasingly entertained worst-case scenarios—scenarios that gradually became
mainstream estimates.
2927. Wombat - 1/14/2004 11:32:46 AM
Pincher:
I think part of the failure was due to an assessment of
Saddam that through his own mendacity, nothing he or his regime said was to be
believed.
The other part of the failure ties directly and indirectly
into how the Bush adminsitration used and politicized intelligence. To
oversimplify: the adminstration was determined on war with Iraq, and was going
to either ignore intelligence that didn't back up their case, or pressure
intelligence producers to change their assessments to make them fit with what
they wanted to hear. More insidious--but understandable--was the intelligence
agencies themselves slanting--or giving undue credence to--reports and analyses
that they knew the administration would read. An agency that produces unused
products will have trouble defending its reason to exist.
2928. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 11:36:51 AM
Pincher--
Thanks for posting that link. I couldn't do it from the
site earlier today, and my first attempt at your link failed.
Do you
have a similar way to get the Fallows article up?
2929. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 11:39:47 AM
I think part of the failure was due to an assessment of Saddam that
through his own mendacity, nothing he or his regime said was to be believed.
But they did believe him when he claimed to have dangerous
weapons. This is another reason Pollack cites for the failure to analyze the
situation accurately. Saddam rattled sabers. As Alistair and I discussed last
May, it was easy to think of reasons, both domestic and foreign, for Saddam to
lie about his capabilities. Pollack spends more time on internal matters than
I've mostly seen, and the discussion is informative, but too nuanced to
summarize well here.
2930. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 11:40:01 AM
toys
2931. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 11:40:21 AM
Let's try that again.
2932. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 11:40:42 AM
One more time
2933. vonKreedon - 1/14/2004 11:41:46 AM
PM - You are due kudos for coming over and directly addressing the issue and ramifications of the intelligence failures/misuses in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Shows your intelligence and integrity.
2934. jexster - 1/14/2004 12:09:17 PM
Actually, PM if fits perfectly. The conflation of objectives (war on
terror/the Saddam problem/the democratic domino theory/preemptive war/weapons
proliferation) and the failure of post invasion planning is of obe piece with
the faith based intellgence. Flights of ideological fantasy combined with an
unbounded thirst for domestic political advantage drove all of it.
2935. robertjayb - 1/14/2004 12:35:46 PM
More debunking of Saddam-Al Qaeda link...(NYTimes)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to
be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle
American troops, according to a document found with the former Iraqi leader when
he was captured, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.
The
document appears to be a directive, written after he lost power, from Mr.
Hussein to leaders of the Iraqi resistance, counseling caution against getting
too close to Islamic jihadists and other foreign Arabs coming into occupied
Iraq, according to American officials.
2936. marjoribanks - 1/14/2004 12:48:00 PM
You go hither and thither in your thinking more times than a person can
keep track, but I know that at some points along the track you dug up, running
between stands, you supported taking Saddam out.
Please. I supported
the war on Iraq precisely because it became obvious that the US intended on an
old-fashioned colonial-type exercise. I still support it for that reason, and
still harbor optimism that the exercise will yield positive dividends.
However, I have simultaneously excoriated the Bushites for mendacity in
its war apologia. And now I am outraged that they stick to the mendacious,
clearly false, line of apologia. Plus they have added bullying to the arsenal of
tricks, and loosed the worst kind of attack rats to try and shout down what
should be a reasonable discussion of what happened, what has gone right, what
has gone wrong, and where this country needs to go in Iraq.
It's
shameful, and they are shameless.
2937. jexster - 1/14/2004 12:53:55 PM
The following is from Sy Hersh's May 2003 New Yorker piece about hou
Cheney/Rummy/Wolfie/Feith cooked intelligence in order to play up war fears...
But the facts were reported months earlier as I recall in an article in
Newsweek that was prompted by UNMOVIC reports that were showing each discrete
allegation provided by the US were not true...
In August, 1995,
General Hussein Kamel, who was in charge of Iraq’s weapons program, defected to
Jordan, with his brother, Colonel Saddam Kamel. They brought with them crates of
documents containing detailed information about Iraqi efforts to develop weapons
of mass destruction—much of which was unknown to the U.N. inspection teams that
had been on the job since 1991—and were interviewed at length by the U.N.
inspectors. In 1996, Saddam Hussein lured the brothers back with a promise of
forgiveness, and then had them killed. The Kamels’ information became a major
element in the Bush Administration’s campaign to convince the public of the
failure of the U.N. inspections.
2938. jexster - 1/14/2004 12:55:12 PM
Last October, in a speech in Cincinnati, the President cited the Kamel
defections as the moment when Saddam’s regime “was forced to admit that it had
produced more than thirty thousand liters of anthrax and other deadly biological
agents. . . . This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never
been accounted for, and is capable of killing millions.” A couple of weeks
earlier, Vice-President Cheney had declared that Hussein Kamel’s story “should
serve as a reminder to all that we often learned more as the result of
defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself.”
2939. jexster - 1/14/2004 12:56:14 PM
The full record of Hussein Kamel’s interview with the inspectors reveals,
however, that he also said that Iraq’s stockpile of chemical and biological
warheads, which were manufactured before the 1991 Gulf War, had been destroyed,
in many cases in response to ongoing inspections. The interview, on August 22,
1995,was conducted by Rolf Ekeus, then the executive chairman of the U.N.
inspection teams, and two of his senior associates—Nikita Smidovich and Maurizio
Zifferaro. “You have an important role in Iraq,” Kamel said, according to the
record, which was assembled from notes taken by Smidovich. “You should not
underestimate yourself. You are very effective in Iraq.” When Smidovich noted
that the U.N. teams had not found “any traces of destruction,” Kamel responded,
“Yes, it was done before you came in.” He also said that Iraq had destroyed its
arsenal of warheads. “We gave instructions not to produce chemical weapons,”
Kamel explained later in the debriefing. “I don’t remember resumption of
chemical-weapons production before the Gulf War. Maybe it was only minimal
production and filling. . . . All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered
destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons—biological, chemical, missile,
nuclear—were destroyed.”
2940. jexster - 1/14/2004 12:56:59 PM
".From the beginning of the war propaganda campaign in August
2002 facts began progressively to emerge in the public domain
By
December there was ample publically available information to suppot the
conclusio that Bush had built an artifice of lies and manipulation. And yes,
there's no need to mince words, they "lied".
2941. jexster - 1/14/2004 1:03:22 PM
Why do you think Bush spent the last three months of the Congressoional
session jsut past stonewalling the Senate Select Intelligence Committee?
Frontline's
"Truth, War and Consequences" vividly portrays the dynamic of deceit that
took hold.
2942. jexster - 1/14/2004 1:07:59 PM
Please. I supported the war on Iraq precisely because it became obvious
that the US intended on an old-fashioned colonial-type exercise. I still support
it for that reason, and still harbor optimism that the exercise will yield
positive dividends.
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By
the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
2943. marjoribanks - 1/14/2004 1:18:01 PM
Yes, I cannot deny that Jexster's ceaseleess Gunga Dinning of me does have some aptness in this instance.
2944. jexster - 1/14/2004 1:26:07 PM
The American people need to konw that I will be making the decision (to go
to war) based on the latest intelligence Kennebunk Golf Course August 2002
There is simply no doubt that Saddam Hussein now posesses weapnns
of mass destruction Cheney 3-4 weeks later
Well we now are beginning
to get some idea of what that "intelligence" really was. It is becoming
increasingly clear with each leak, each tell all, each leak from disruntled DIA
and CIA analysts, that the intelligence was uncertain and contradictory. It is
becoming increasingly apparent that Cheney lied.
2945. jexster - 1/14/2004 1:30:25 PM
Marj, what would Ghandi say?
2946. jexster - 1/14/2004 1:32:58 PM
CAMP EDEN, Iraq - U.S. tests on mortar shells found in Iraq (news - web sites) and suspected of containing blister agents have turned up negative,
2947. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 1:37:24 PM
Jex--
You may have noticed that the combination of the slate probing
liberal hawk discussion, the thoughtful Atlantic articles and interviews, and
the return of PincherMartin to discuss the post-mortem might suggest a more
nuanced discussion here as well. When people admit they've made mistakes in
their assessments, and want to explore those mistakes, that's a good time to
recognize that perhaps you too have made mistakes in your analysis, and try to
consider a more nuanced view.
At least, I think such an approach would
help this discussion and I'm hoping that you and concerned, in particular, can
try to help us preserve that tone, for a while at least.
2948. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 1:38:16 PM
"have made" should have been "may have made."
Fuck you, Freud.
2949. PelleNilsson - 1/14/2004 1:49:59 PM
We cannot discount the fact that until last Saddam's minions behaved as if they had something to hide. We can also not discount the theory that they fabricated phony progress reports to milk the government for funds. So perhaps what they wanted to hide was that there was nothing to hide.
2950. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 1:53:40 PM
That's certainly a theory you would have expected an analyst to explore, as
Alistair and I were saying last May. Likewise, it's easy to think up reasons for
Saddam to want others to believe that he had these weapons.
2951. vonKreedon - 1/14/2004 1:55:02 PM
Jay - Absolutely right, unfortunately Jex appears to be completely incapable of such nuance. But he sure does post a lot!
2952. jexster - 1/14/2004 1:59:03 PM
I appreciate Pincher's visit, as always, but it wasn't HIS mistake to
confess.
His "assessesments" were assessents of assessments of
misleading information deliberately provided the public.
Pincher has
nothing to be embarrassed about. Ken Pollack..he has no excuse and to think I
had planned to skip his CYA Tour.
The Atlantic interview was every bit
as pathetic as I had expected.
I hadn't planneed on reading it.
Damn you
2953. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:03:31 PM
How was it pathetic?
2954. marjoribanks - 1/14/2004 2:10:32 PM
I see no reason for evryone on this site to self-flagellate.
For one
thing, no one else here has been on an ideology-based toot. For another, where
is the acknowledgement of the obvious fact that Cheney and gang have been
outright lying despite knowing better - in the expectation that they will get
away with it. Also, where is the acknowledgement that the attack rats have been
using every desperate tactic possible (from faux-patriotism to scurrilous
character assasination) to avoid fessing up to certain truths about this
campaign in Iraq?
2955. vonKreedon - 1/14/2004 2:21:27 PM
For one thing, no one else here has been on an ideology-based toot.
I would disagree with this statement,; assuming that by "toot" you mean
one who will take whatever position on the facts suits one's ideology or party.
I think that all of us fit this description at one time or another.
Self-congratulatory denial of this behavior only begets more of it from all
sides.
2956. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:27:00 PM
No, Banks, I agree with you and jexster, that Cheney outright lied and
continues to do so with every opportunity in a duplicitous and shamefully
cynical attempt to retain power.
But we all know that I feel this way,
that you feel this way, that jexster feels this way and that concerned thinks
that there were wmd all along and it doesn't matter if nobody finds them because
he knows they were there all along.
But this post-mortem is interesting
and is also fairly nuanced. There was another massive intelligence failure wrt
Iraq. It led to the provision of pretexts (imo) to an administration that hyped
and exploited every bit of raw evidence of whatever provenance to provide a
justification for rash, unnecessary action. How did this happen? Pollack was an
insider through the key parts of this period, and he was fooled. He did not
agree with the need for the invasion at that time, but could not see how one
could not be avoided.
I voiced that question here a while ago--okay, so
there are no wmd. Does that mean sanctions would have been in place
indefinitely? The economy and the citizens were suffering, while Saddam was not.
So this easily could become a question not of whether, but when and how.
Raising those questions would have certainly meant "later" as of the
middle of 2002 as these plans were being put together and deployment begun. Any
later, in my current view, would have endangered the election cycle. So they had
to go in March, despite the collapse of their rationale.
2957. jexster - 1/14/2004 2:30:10 PM
Jay he spends at half of it making excuses for himself.
"Why eeryone
in the intelligence community thought they had a WMD program..."
Well
not Greg Thielman, not Paul O'Neill, not Scott Ritter, and if from readimg his
public statements closely as I did, I believe that Blix wsa skeptical even
before he first set foot in Iraq.
You have to read Pollack with a
jaundiced and very critical eye. Its vital to understand his stake here. Pollack
is an out of power, powercrat who works for an out of favor policy player.
Washingon policy politics is his life. The Ken Pollacks of the world want to be
power players. That book has left his ass hanging and his career with it.
You might recall that Josh Marshall ran a two part interview with him
just before the war. I made much the same case to Marshall. We exchanged a few
emails even. He is a policy whore..
2958. PelleNilsson - 1/14/2004 2:32:56 PM
And your point is?
2959. jexster - 1/14/2004 2:33:41 PM
I should add that Marshall thought I was harsh "crude" I think he put it. But Marshall never again ran a Ken Pollack item either.
2960. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:34:15 PM
Well not Greg Thielman, not Paul O'Neill, not Scott Ritter, and if from
readimg his public statements closely as I did, I believe that Blix wsa
skeptical even before he first set foot in Iraq.
When are you
talking about? Just before the war, as I said, the case was falling apart. I
agree that he's not gonna say anything nasty about anybody who could help him in
the future, because he is sure to want a seat at the table again.
2961. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:35:52 PM
His point, Pelle, is that Pollack provides the desired product to the people
in power, and is not an independent analyst searching for truth. And he's
screwed the pooch big time here, and he's backing and filling might hard, trying
to shed the "massive failure" label.
Right, Jex?
2962. marjoribanks - 1/14/2004 2:41:04 PM
Kreedon.
Toot = binge.
I do deny that most of us here have
been consciously arguing that black is white, when all evidence available
suggests that it is not. I further defy you to find anyone here who has behaved
in the shameful manner of the ApeofHades and his small baboon circle jerk, who
not only argued contra all available evidence but launched incessant pathetic
group attacks on perfectly reasonable adults, using every trick of the two-bit
demagogue's arsenal. Now, proven wrong in every aspect of their arguments, we
need a bit more than a guarded set of mild admissions.
Pincher Martin,
the puffed-up and often ludicrous Friend of Tigers, is the most human face of
this tired hack crew, admittedly. And this small set of concessions may be sign
that he has found his head at last. But let's see. As the sage among us have
been saying from the first, time will tell.
2963. PelleNilsson - 1/14/2004 2:41:38 PM
I got that but does it devaluate what he says?
2964. marjoribanks - 1/14/2004 2:44:48 PM
What is there of any interest in what he said?
2965. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:48:22 PM
It means that he's not reporting facts on the ground, but providing the
analyses sought by the policy makers. Or that he practices cya analysis to
prevent from being caught out. In this case, it means that he was complicit in
the movement of analysis from verbal information through physical corroboration
to final report to a simple acceptance of incorrect human intelligence.
That the answer that they came up with was the desired answer, was not
studded with caveats that there was no way to corroborate the information
directly and was completely wrong leaves him (and everyone else involved in the
business) in a bad position. He was wrong, and was politically correct. That
looks like cooked intelligence.
Still, it's worth noting that they were
much less wrong than the Rummy intelligence sausage factory.
I do think
that the liberal hawks were irresponsible in not speaking out more forcefully in
support of continued inspections. But they may have done so, and been drowned
out by the media.
2966. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:51:19 PM
Banks-
The process by which it happened. One can read it as I'm
interpreting jexster to read it, as just one more intelligence player feeding
the desired answers to the national security apparatus.
Or you can read
it as he presented it, everyone off on a tangent because they had no reliable
information. In either case, it's a massive failure. I said a while ago--June
maybe--that the reason the press wasn't exploring the question of whether there
really just weren't any WMD was because it would have been such a devestating
charge.
2967. marjoribanks - 1/14/2004 2:52:47 PM
Has Fareed Zakaria written into that Slate thing yet? I'd like to see what
his hair-shirt looks like. Pretty damned skimpy, I'll bet, and that's quite fair
enough because he was nuanced from the start.
2968. jexster - 1/14/2004 2:53:19 PM
I am going to make it personal so that I can make the point clear.
I
did an analysis of homeleesness policies in San Francisco for a seminar. I gave
the presentation which was like the paper itself was awesome, very powerful.
After a couple questions, I stated to sit down. The professor says
"Well, John, my only comment is, that your analysis would have been powerful and
convincing had you fully disclosed your interests here."
"HuH?"
"Well you work for Gavin Newsom don't you"
"uh..dudh no..I am
just a schlocky volunteer"
But she was absolutely correct. One of the
twenty odd policy recommendaations happened to support a Newsom initiative we
know as "Care Not Cash". I had no contact whatsoever with anyone from the Newsom
office, no assistance, and had not done any work of any kind at that point of a
policy nature. Yet she was right. I should have disclosed my partisan connection
so that the consumer could evaluate my arguments with full knowledge of what my
stakes were or weren't.
That of cousre was just an exercise. Washington
isn't. Yet that is exactly the sort of information that, by bitter experience,
learned was crucial whenever any policy advocate came to my office to pitch
legislation, when any think tank type or government "expert" tesitified before a
committee, etc.
That clear?
2969. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:55:42 PM
Now if you want to take the jexster Pollack is a whore position more broadly,
the press is also complicit in this. The liberal hawks are being given a chance
to rehabilitate themselves when they were, in fact, completely wrong. They're
getting this chance because it's all a little club up there in DC, and the usual
suspects stay around, no matter what.
This is essentially the center of
Krugman's criticism of political coverage, that the media is complicit in a
series of kabuki theatrical productions.
2970. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 2:58:30 PM
It was just this issue that led to me to cancel my Foreign Policy and Foreign
Affairs subscription after the fall of the Wall. All their writers on the
subject of the Soviet Union were completely, inalterably, unmistakably, flat
out, completely wrong.
And they kept on getting published in the
magazines.
2971. jexster - 1/14/2004 2:59:15 PM
Yea you got it Jay...everyone wants to have influence. Some are better at
detaching but its particularly difficult when the stakes are THAT high and the
war drums are beating that loudly.
CSIS and CEIP turned out highly
credible stuff. CEIP had the WMD angle nailed early on while CSIS sniffed out
the nuke crap and shredded post war planning weeks before the first shot was
fired.
2972. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 3:00:26 PM
No, no Zakaria yet. Lots of column inches, though.
2973. jexster - 1/14/2004 3:03:26 PM
Hell yes they are. A day didn't pass that I didn't read the Guardian and the
Finanical Times for Iraq stories. Sometimes I even used Lexis to get foreign
sources and during the war, when that purported GRU daily intel brief frm
Baghdad appeared, I was on it like a fly on shit.
Bush hatred obsessive
compulsive disorder..no known cure
2974. jexster - 1/14/2004 3:20:16 PM
Another timely on topic post!
From Defense and the National Interest
- that site where Pentagon and Langley renegade analysts vent their rage at
Ruummy and his OSP intel bakers, and other defense scam artists..
The
attached CBS news report says that tonight's edition of "60 Minutes" will
include a segment where former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill (who was fired by
President Bush because of his opposition to tax cuts) alleges that the decision
to remove Saddam Hussein via a preemptive war was made well before the 9/11
terrorist attacks [on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon] traumatized our
nation's people and the popular press into accepting a nation ruled by the
politics of fear.
I asked my good friend Doctor Werther, a frequent
contributor to these Comments (see Comment #s 494, 492, 466, 458,453, 441, and
419), for a brief memorandum describing his assessment of O'Neill's stunning
allegation. What follows is that memorandum:
Werther Memorandum:
9-11: An American Reichstag Fire?
"The State is not force alone.
It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim
is not merely to make him obey, but also to make him want to obey." — H. L.
Mencken Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks (New York: Knopf. 1956). p.
217.
Former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill has provided a
significant corrective to the naive — or disingenuous — assertion that 9/11 was
a catalyzing event which wrenched the Bush administration from its alleged
intention to follow a "humble" foreign policy. Instead, there is an accumulating
body of evidence that 9/11 was a suspiciously useful pretext (like the Reichstag
fire) rather than a bolt from the blue that "changed everything."
2975. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 3:23:28 PM
The Iraq
liberation Act of 1998 makes for interesting reading.
My favorite
sections:
SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.
Nothing in this Act
shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States
Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.
[Sec 4]
(2) MILITARY ASSISTANCE
(A) The President is
authorized to direct the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the
Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and
military education and training for such organizations.
(B) The
aggregate value (as defined in section 644(m) of the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961) of assistance provided under this paragraph may not exceed $97,000,000.
Pretty much the same thing as the Bush administration is
doing, right? 97 million total versus a billion a week. 'bout the same.
2976. PelleNilsson - 1/14/2004 3:30:06 PM
Well, I'm on the verge of losing interest again. I thought the Pollock interview provided some valuable insights into how the intelligence bureaucracy works and why the results were so disastrously wrong. jay seems to think that I'm some country hick who has to have things explained in excruciating detail. Of course Pollock has an agenda. Of course he is tendentious. But if you strip away that, there are still things of interest. If jay had half the experience I have of high-level office politics he could count himself lucky.
2977. jexster - 1/14/2004 3:31:05 PM
They tred to pull that one in aarly 2002 ie that Congress had already
authorized an invasion. Somehow our spineless Democratic "leaders" pitched
enough of a bitch...for all the good it did.
Now they're trotting out
that canard again..why I asked Al whether he knew what that nothing of an
enactment really provided.
2978. jexster - 1/14/2004 3:34:13 PM
It wasn't worthless, especially the first half. It when the CYA bit started
that my hackles got my dander up.
The Greg Thielman interview for
Frontline is pretty revealing as well on a personal level I mean.
Thielman was that State department intel analyst who resigned in
September 2002
2979. jexster - 1/14/2004 4:14:14 PM
Final item...one you'll find linked as a Relatec Comment in the Werther
morandum...an article on the prospects of "Debray disintegraton" ...
Watch the Shiites...watch em..
The
Specter of Sectarian and Ethnic Unrest in Iraq Nicholas Blanford January 7,
2004
(Nicholas Blanford is a Beirut-based journalist. He
recently spent a month reporting from Iraq.)
The main reason for
Shiite magnanimity toward the occupation forces is the expectation that they
will reap the rewards in the new Iraq by virtue of their superior numbers.
Indeed, it is only the powerful Shiite clergy that is keeping the community in
check. The average Iraqi Shiite has as little regard for his occupiers as his
Sunni countrymen. It would be a serious mistake to assume that Shiite quiescence
is a sign of approval for the occupation. "Patience has its limits and we
are waiting because we are tired of seeing tanks and soldiers and listening to
the sounds of explosions," Sheikh al-Awadi said. "The existence of the Islamic
clerics exerts a spiritual control over the people. If these people were
released, there is no one that could stop them. The wisdom of the hawza [the
highest institute of Shia religious learning] is holding the people back."
2980. jexster - 1/14/2004 4:14:24 PM
Shiite political ambitions are on a collision course with Sunni Arab fears of
being left out. If the Shiites fail to receive what they feel is their due and
if the poor state of basic services is not drastically improved, there is a very
real risk of a Shiite resistance emerging. That would effectively sound the
death knell of the foreign military presence in Iraq. While the current
insurgency may be fragmented and ad hoc, the well-organized Shiite groups --
some of which were trained by the Iranian military and have combat experience --
would make the occupation untenable. Yet an Iraq in which the Shiites have a
greater say than the Sunnis will feed the latter's fears of isolation and
possible persecution, undermining any motivation to cooperate with the new
order.
2981. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 9:22:28 PM
pelle,
Please forgive me, and don't mistake my views for my trying to
provide an exegisis of jexster's views.
I do agree, completely, that
the Pollock interview provided some valuable insights into how the
intelligence bureaucracy works and why the results were so disastrously
wrong.
But I do also think that jexster's points represent a useful
insight into the motivations of people like Pollack. The idea that the Pollack
commentary may not be policy oriented, but career oriented is a worthwhile
caveat.
And if you want to accuse anybody of naivete on this score, I
should be first in line. Like Lily Tomlin said, I try to be cynical, but it is
hard to keep up.
2982. jexster - 1/14/2004 10:31:23 PM
I conceded did I that anger blinded me to the "insights", partially and
skewed though they are, especially those found in the first half or so of the
interview. It is the sweeping exculpatory statements that made me see red not
the least of which was his claim to initimate knowlege of the Kamel Hussein
"disclosures" and to unanimity in the intelligence community, a unanimity that
he gingerly but clearly discredits in the first part.
CYA...you
could learn more from Sy Hersh and Greg Thielman and now Paul O'Neill.
But we have more serious concerns than Pollack's power lusts...
White House rethinks Iraq plan
Objections by the
Shias' religious leader and the Kurds throw Washington's vital 'smooth
transition' plan into confusion
Turkey Warns Kurds Against Breakup of Iraq
Kurd Leader
Remains Defiant
"Within a federal Iraq, there will be a region called
Kurdistan. And Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan. It is part of our history and
identity."
2983. Al D - 1/14/2004 10:35:17 PM
Marj, what would Ghandi say?
"I never over charged for gas when I ran the station in St. Louis."
What were the alternatives to invading and ridding the world of Saddam?
Let us agree, arguendo, as Ace like to say, that the inspectors would have
eventually certified that Iraq had no WMD. Keep in mind that inspectors would
not even have been in Iraq without troops massed on their border.
Would there have been any reason to keep sanctions on, wouldn't Europe
have insisted they be lifted. How long would it have taked Saddam to re-start
his weapons program? Are you all convinced he had no wish for a nuclear weapon?
Could he have purchased a few for Korea, or Pakistan, especially if Musharrif is
deposed?
And to oppose what Bush has done, isn't it necessary to insist that to
remove a tyranical dictator is not an option except for those under his heal?
One can continualy harp on the Bush administration for the invasion of
Iraq; let us not forget it was Congress in 1998 that asked for regime change and
Congress that authorized Bush's action.
2984. Al D - 1/14/2004 10:36:28 PM
I have enjoyed the discussion above and also the discussion on Slate.
2985. jayackroyd - 1/14/2004 10:48:25 PM
What were the alternatives to invading and ridding the world of Saddam?
Let us agree, arguendo, as Ace like to say, that the inspectors would have
eventually certified that Iraq had no WMD.
That is the central point
of dispute. It's not a question of whether removing him was in the best
interests of the world. It was when, and how. The administration chose a
unilateral occupation in March based on false pretexts. There were alternatives.
The administration chose to slough them off as nonsense, and bet the farm on
candy and flowers.
This, in my opinion, was a serious foreign policy
error, and a serious abrogation of the president's responsibility to the
American people.
IMO, the latter would not be so, had he pulled it off.
Had he the vision, the resources and a plan to lead a movement to create a
democratic, capitalist pro American state in Iraq, then I'd forgive him his
methods. And maybe I'll change my mind. Time will tell. But I said in March that
I strongly doubted this administration's ability to manage the aftermath, and,
so far, I've been proven correct.
The deadline doesn't help. It makes it
look all the more like cynical electoral politics, rather than the commitment to
any ideals.
2986. Al D - 1/14/2004 10:59:15 PM
For anyone to claim that it's not about politics is either naive or stupid. I don't believe Bush went into the war for political gain, but I grant he may try to get out for political gain. However, we really won't be leaving Iraq in June, just putting the Iraqies in charge. Isn't this what his critics want?
Now it is quite easy and glib to say he should have done it differently.
Perhaps he should have followed the Bay of Pigs plan, which, by the way, was
suggested by some of the so called neo-cons. Now if you can tell me in specifics
what should have been done to remove Saddam, please do. It it makes sense to me,
I will show you my appreciation.
2987. jexster - 1/14/2004 11:03:36 PM
No it was not necessary for the protection of US interest to remove Saddam
Hussein by an aggressive war that has cost this country far more in blood, in
treasure, in respect, and in influence than it was worth to this country.
And don't kid yourselves, aside from the fact that Bush explicitly
stated that Saddam would not be removed if he came clean (which he had some 8
years earlier), this was never about Saddam nor was it about WMD.
What
it was about, what drove them, was a hairbrained theory of a small cadre of
marginalized intellectuals that (a) we could install a democratic government -
build a wholly foreign polity, and create sufficient stability with indigenous
resources so quickly that by the end of last year we would only have 30,000
troops in country. Then as the fantasy goes, the people of the Middle East would
the great glories of our Made in USA nation and Little Americas would sprout
like the crocus in the winter desert.
In fact, the Administration
only began to push the Iraqi Liberation line with any vigor at precisely the
point they could no longer sustain the "Imminent Threat" lie.
There were
means short of massive invasion and decimation of Iraqi civil government by
which we could have toppled the John Gotti of the Tigris and without question,
before we even set foot on Iraqi soil, it was clear to Bush et al (if not it was
certainly clear to me and countless others) that inspections would likely find
nothing.
This is not a question of humanitarian love for the Iraqi
people. It never was.
It is a question of irresponsible leadership that
used the War Against Al Qaeda as a ruse and in the process compromised what
should have been an unrelenting focus on bringing those responsible to justice.
2988. jexster - 1/14/2004 11:09:11 PM
There is a scene in Truth War that says it all. These neocon nuts were so far
gone in their infatuation with Chalabi (George Washington of Iraq!) and his INC
crowd that they dressed Ahmed in Kafiyeh and robes for his grand entry into
Baghdad until intelligence reported that the people would probably shoot him..
The actual footage can be viewed on line part #6 I think.
2989. jexster - 1/14/2004 11:19:56 PM
Blind and deaf is an apt description of these "leaders" of ours.
CSIS
wrote two lengthy reports on deficiencies and wishful thinking in the
invasion/occupation plan before the first shot.
The Army War College
circulated this gem in February, and yet the Bushies spurned any serious effort
at assembling a genuine coalition and continue to...
We didn't hear this
from the Adminstration did we???
Long-term gratitude is unlikely and
suspicion of U.S. motives will increase as the occupation continues. A force
initially viewed as liberators can rapidly be relegated to the status of
invaders should an unwelcome occupation continue for a prolonged time.
Occupation problems may be especially acute if the United States must
implement the bulk of the occupation itself rather than turn these duties over
to a postwar international force.
They didn't have to be
clairvoyants to come up with that on their own. It was in Rummy's in-box if they
were to blind and dear to figure it out by themselves.
2990. concerned - 1/15/2004 3:56:56 AM
From the Gulf News:
'Saudi teenager survey findings are shocking'
Thursday, January 15, 2004
The findings of a survey of Saudi
teenagers' attitudes toward the sweeping reforms sought by the Kingdom,
published in the London-based Asharq Al Awsat, has been criticised by the
English daily Arab News on Tuesday.
The results of the survey, which was
based on 10 male-only high school classes, "were shocking, puzzling and an
accurate indication of what has developed here over the last 20 years", wrote
Abeer Mishkhas.
"For the most part, the answers - not surprisingly -
reflected an obsession with women, in how they should be treated and their roles
in society.
"One of the students made a surprising statement: he thought
there should be a prison for women who do not follow society's customs; in other
words, he felt that women who do not cover their faces or who wear form-fitting
abayas should perhaps serve two weeks in prison," she wrote.
"Another
student suggested that women's morals should be carefully checked. How I wonder?
And what about men's? And he regretted that women blindly follow Western
fashions and trends. I wonder what he thinks about the jean-clad, baseball-cap
wearing young men who are all over Jeddah."
She lauded the remarks of
one respondent, however, who supported the right of women to drive.
"If
women were allowed to ride camels and horses in the past, then how can we
prevent them from driving cars today? If each one of us reminded himself that
his mother or sister was driving on the same road, maybe we would come to
respect other women a little more than we do," Hamad told Asharq Al Awsat.
2991. concerned - 1/15/2004 3:57:29 AM
Other respondents, such as one called Rami, felt that there should be
increased segregation of men and women in shopping centres and that this should
be done by having different shopping hours for women and men. One 16-year-old
called Adel suggested that young men under 25 should not be allowed to travel
outside the country lest they be corrupted.
"Does he think that Saudi
men only travel abroad to do what they cannot do here in the kingdom?" asked
Abeer. Some of the respondents reflected a certain dislike and intolerance for
non-Muslims.
"A general look at these opinions shows us what our society
suffers from, a fear of the outside world and its effects. Another problem is
the obsession with women as objects that have to be controlled all the time,"
remarked Abeer.
"These are all genuine feelings and comments but there
were others who expressed the need for openness, for broadening perceptions and
perspectives and beautifying the environment."
The idea of women as
chattel is alive and well in the heart of Wahhabi Land. And these are the people
who jexster, in effect, keeps standing up for.
2992. concerned - 1/15/2004 10:46:18 AM
US
to begin drawdown in Iraq
50,000 sounds close to the number of US
personnel that the US probably is intending to pull out of Germany.
2993. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:15:15 AM
Tens of Thousands Take to Streets to Demand End Of Occupation
Puppet Regime and Shiite Democracy
Your Emperor little fuck isn't
he.
We already knew that my little brown bros...Maybe we go
crawfishin together and get each of National Buttholes behind bars for their
crimes.
2994. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:17:42 AM
Our National Butthole
2995. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:26:35 AM
Now who in the name of Allah is the bearded fella he
pointin too?
The average Iraqi Shiite has as little regard for his
occupiers as his Sunni countrymen. It would be a serious mistake to assume that
Shiite quiescence is a sign of approval for the occupation
The Deaf,
the Blind, and Dead Brain Walkin...right into a tar pit
2996. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:27:57 AM
Allahu Akbar TD cause we gonna need Him
2997. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:33:47 AM
I fond this article pretty remarkable. Peter Beinhart is
neojacobin-likootie-in-residence at the New Republic and Peter was no small
measure responsible for the magazine's frothing support of this horrible mess.
He made a proposal for Democrats in the latest issue - hey send some
troops into Pakistan and finish off AlQ and the Talibees (nice idea, Clark has
just proposed a joint US/Nato strike force for just such a purpose). But we
don't have the troop, their in Eyerak dodging RPG's...
But that wasn't
the interesting point. The interesting thing and I think horribly damning
admission is that Iraq had nothing to do with dangers to the US but rather was a
cynical manipulation of US public's desire for revenge...something I have said
since November 2001..
2998. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 11:36:28 AM
Now if you can tell me in specifics what should have been done to remove
Saddam, please do. It it makes sense to me, I will show you my appreciation.
He should have followed through on Blix's proposed six month
inspection plan, and used that time period to put pressure on the security
council to set an ultimatum, enforced by an international coalition, to step
down or be thrown out.
But even in plan he followed--to create pretexts
that he could sell domestically for unilateral action--he should have recognized
that the aftermath was going to be very difficult, and planned for it. The
Fallows article in the Atlantic, like other pieces that have been published, is
very damning. There were people planning for the aftermath. There was
information available, material prepared, involvement of agencies who had dealt
with this kind of thing before.
They were not allowed in the room.
That's an appalling failure.
2999. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:43:46 AM
Peter Beinart better watch it. Some folks might start talkin about the
International Licootie Conspiracy..
All along, the Bush
administration has understood that, while making an empirical connection between
Saddam and the September 11 attacks is hard, making an emotional connection is
easy. Ever since the World Trade Center fell, Americans have yearned to teach
our enemies a lesson, a yearning not nearly sated by the overthrow of the
hapless Taliban. Saddam has been public enemy number one since 1990, a decade
before most Americans knew who Osama bin Laden was. And, by placing him at the
center of its war on terrorism, the Bush administration made him bin Laden's
thematic twin, their ideological differences notwithstanding. So, emotionally at
least, when American troops dragged a humiliated Saddam from his lair, they were
avenging America's humiliation on September 11
3000. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:46:03 AM
Bosom Buddies
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
has allegedly been breaking bread with the former Taliban foreign minister. Is
this the administration's new strategy for winning the peace in Afghanistan?
3001. vonKreedon - 1/15/2004 11:48:10 AM
In Message #
2983, Al D asks several compelling questions:
What were the
alternatives to invading and ridding the world of Saddam?
...
Would there have been any reason to keep sanctions on, wouldn't Europe
have insisted they be lifted. How long would it have taked Saddam to re-start
his weapons program?
The alternative was to let the inspection
process continue and to work with the UN to ensure that, should Saddam continue
and increase his cooperation AND that no WMDs were found, that there would be
continued inspections going forward to ensure that Saddam did not then re-start
WMD programs. I believe that, had we worked with the UN instead of bullying it,
France et al would have been very willing to agree to lifting most of the
sanctions, but institute specific anti-WMD sanctions and inspections.
Of
course, this continues to leave us with the problem of Saddam trying to
circumvent these structures, and it leaves Saddam in power over the Iraqi
people. However, it would have allowed the US to focus more effective on
actually combatting terrorist organizations and dealing with other more imminent
threats. It also would have not so completely squandered the international good
will that was directed toward the US post-9/11. Further, this course would have
strengthed the UN, which is or is not a good thing depending on ones views on
global constraints on state power.
(Cont.)
3002. vonKreedon - 1/15/2004 11:48:20 AM
Could he have purchased a few [Nukes] for Korea, or Pakistan, especially
if Musharrif is deposed?
The fate of Musharref should be a central
focus of our anti-terror/anti-WMD policy, and I'm afraid that it is not.
Pakistan is a far more immenent threat to provide al Qaeda with nukes than any
other country. Unlike Iraq, Pakistan actually has nukes. Should Musharref fall
and be replaced either by a radical Islamist government, or by NO effective
governmen, then all bets are off on the security of Pakistan's warheads. This is
another reason for us to have exercised much more restraint and concensus
building that we did.
And to oppose what Bush has done, isn't it
necessary to insist that to remove a tyranical dictator is not an option except
for those under his heal?
In essence my answer is yes. As long as
our global diplomatic system is based upon the sovereignty of nations, then we
have assume that nations have the governments they deserve. This of course does
not mean that we cannot or should not support those who oppose the government,
but it is not our job to impose a different government.
No government
can rule for long without the tacit cooperation of the majority of its citizens.
Saddam and Hitler, as terrible as they were, did not rule by force alone, but
rather were seen as the legitimate ruler by the majority in their country. Now,
wrt to Saddam there is evidence that this may have changed or been changing in
the final years of his regime. We should have supported the opposition, not
imposed a solution.
3003. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 11:50:15 AM
2992
What's the 50,000 number about in your post? in the article,
it's a projection for what sounds like the permanent occupation force.
The drawdown is 9000 from the north, which actually had political
infrastructure in place, due to the enforcement of the no-fly zones. This is not
to minimize the success in the north, which has been widely reported, but it was
an easier problem. The bigger problem is going to be explaining to the Kurds why
their stable, semi-autonomous state needs to be placed under the authority of a
US appointed oligarchy, so that Bush can declare "mission accomplished" in New
York in September.
3004. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 11:54:41 AM
vK
So you think a permanent regime of sanctions would have been
sustainable?
I don't think that's clear. The sanctions, although
weakened by the oil for food program, were causing significant distress for the
population, and were not causing any distress for Saddam. Pollack argues that
before the oil for food program, Saddam was at risk of a coup (which speaks to
your view that there is always something the idea that you get the government
you're willing to tolerate), but that afterwards, the privations were not enough
to drive him out of power.
3005. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 11:57:20 AM
Al
One can continualy harp on the Bush administration for the
invasion of Iraq; let us not forget it was Congress in 1998 that asked for
regime change
Stop watching Fox and read the bill, Al. It's linked
in post 2975.
3006. vonKreedon - 1/15/2004 12:01:02 PM
The 1998 bill was very much in the vein of supporting the Iraqis in effecting regime change, rather than the Bush action of imposing regime change.
3007. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 12:03:30 PM
Or in the event of. That's why I posted the bill. Distorting that bill was
the wingnut^H^H^H^H^H^H^H administration message of the week, in response, I
believe, to the O'Neill book.
And it worked. Boom. Al's on message,
without having been in on the conference calls.
3008. jexster - 1/15/2004 12:12:08 PM
Up to 30,000 Iraqis join pro-democracy protest
January 15, Audio: Washington may have to rethink its plans for Iraq after a
show of support for the Shias' religious leader Ayatollah al-Sistani, reports
Rory McCarthy from Baghdad.
3009. robertjayb - 1/15/2004 12:43:38 PM
Two fine pieces
from Riverbend...Read all...
On Wednesday our darling Iraqi
Puppet Council decided that secular Iraqi family law would no longer be secular-
it is now going to be according to Islamic Shari'a. Shari'a is Islamic law,
whether from the Quran or quotes of the Prophet or interpretations of modern
Islamic law by clerics and people who have dedicated their lives to studying
Islam.
.................................
This latest decision is going
to be catastrophic for females- we're going backwards.
.................................
.................................
People are asking what the reaction is to the claims of the former American
treasurer about Bush planning regime-change before September 11. Why is that
such a shock to Americans? I haven't met a single Iraqi who thinks Iraq had
ANYTHING to do with September 11. The claims were ridiculous and so blatantly
contrived that it was embarrassing to see people actually believed them.
I sometimes wonder how the American people feel. After these last two
wars with Afghanistan and Iraq, do the American people feel any safer? We watch
the 'terror alerts' announced on television- politicians with somber faces and
dramatic pauses alerting the population that at any minute, there might be an
explosion or an attack.
3010. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 1:15:00 PM
Zakaria has spoken in the slate discussion group.
3011. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2004 1:24:03 PM
Now we are discussing alternative ways of getting rid of Saddam, but why? The
question is highly academic. I supported the war because it would achieve that
purpose but certainly Bush's major (overt) motive for the war was to get rid of
Saddam, the threat to the US, not Saddam, the oppressor of the Iraqis. In fact I
think the wet dream of the planners was that Saddam would capitulate in
situ continuing to run Iraq while giving the US free access to the
scientists and technocrats.
So, if Bush had been convinced there were no
WMD the question of removing Saddam for the benefit of the Iraqis would never
have been on the agenda in the first place.
3012. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 1:40:06 PM
No, it is clear at this point that wmd was not a motivating reason for the
administration. It is not clear what was, and of course different players have
different motives. With this group (visualizing the Rumsfeld/Saddam handshake)
I'm sure that the issue was not humanitarian concerns.
I personally
believe that the compelling issue was the need to find a stable mid-east
military and political base to replace the shaky Saudi base.
Alternatively, it was a very audacious attempt to do what the president
has said a few times--to implement the neo-con wet dream of democratic dominoes
in the mid-east.
Neither of these two reasons would have drawn the
support of the American people. It's not clear that they were in the least bit
realistic, either. Time will tell on that, and so far has not been telling a
very good story. And I'll continue to claim that one reason the aftermath is
going so badly is the decision to proceed unilaterally.
Mind you, if
they pull it off, it would be an extraordinary achievement. Establishing a
federal state with an essentially secular constitution with a representative
government would be a very powerful result, even more than the acceptance of
Turkey into the EU (which is also something profoundly to be hoped for).
But these clowns don't stand a chance, especially given how deeply
politically motivated this group is. All that matters--more than the lives of
the soldiers, the lives of the Iraqis, the future of Iraqi children or any other
schmaltzy thing I could think up--is being able to stand up in NYC in September
and proclaim the freedom of the Iraqi people and the newfound security of the
American people.
3013. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 1:41:55 PM
Oh, I left out Rove's reason, which Dantes outlined before he left--that war is a win-win proposition for the republicans. If it goes well, they should be rewarded for their prowess. If it goes poorly, you can't trust those wuss democrats to stay the course. (The latter argument has already been voiced a few times.)
3014. jexster - 1/15/2004 1:59:13 PM
This Means War
Edward Kennedy yesterday gave a rousing
speech against the war:
"By far the most extreme and most dire
example of this Administration's reckless pursuit of its single-minded ideology
is in foreign policy. In its arrogant disrespect for the United Nations and for
other peoples in other lands, this Administration and this Congress have
squandered the immense goodwill that other nations extended to our country after
the terrorist attacks of September 11. And in the process, they made America a
lesser and a less respected land. Nowhere is the danger to our country and to
our founding ideals more evident than in the decision to go to war in Iraq."
3015. jexster - 1/15/2004 2:02:26 PM
So much for Rove's "genius"..better watch out what he asks for, cause he's gonna get it
3016. jayackroyd - 1/15/2004 2:21:53 PM
the response to that is quick and easy. "I'm proud to be president of the
united states where the senator can express opinions like the ones he expressed.
It's because of my commitment to freedom for all people, even those who may
disagree with me, that I believe that I am the most qualified candidate to stay
the course for the future of the Iraqi people and to provide Americans
protection from terror."
Win win.
3017. marjoribanks - 1/15/2004 4:14:54 PM
Thanks for the link to Zakaria's piece, Jay.
I'm pretty strongly in
his camp, and phrased my support for the war (before it began) almost exactly as
he does in his last line:
If we hadn't tried, we can be sure that it
would not succeed and nothing would change.
It was/is one good shot
at rectifying some of the horrible cycle that the ME is in. It should be part of
other moves - the opportunity was and still is historic.
3018. Al D - 1/15/2004 8:17:40 PM
In essence my answer is yes. As long as our global diplomatic system is
based upon the sovereignty of nations, then we have assume that nations have the
governments they deserve. This of course does not mean that we cannot or should
not support those who oppose the government, but it is not our job to impose a
different government.
To be quite honest, I agree. This was my position
before inspectors went into Iraq. We might all be glad that Saddam is gone, but
to invade a country to chance a government is a dangerous precedent. I probably
put most of my thoughts on this over on TPW. But after doing far more reading on
Islamic Fundamentalism and Arabs in general, I am nmore confused than ever on
what is the correct policy. If a threat came from a specific country, the
solution would be easier, but it is from a percentage of individuals in many
different countries. And that problem can only be solved, if at all, within
those countries.
Bush is criticised often for a failure of leadership in not getting some
countries to go along with our policy. But this is more a failure of leadership
within those countries; perhaps this is because they have a large muslim
population. Whatever, it should be obvious to them that we, for their sake as
much as ours, cannot afford to fail in Iraq, but because most of their citizens
are anti-American policy, they do nothing.
3019. vonKreedon - 1/15/2004 8:27:03 PM
Al - I agree that other countries also suffered a failure of leadership.
France could have been much soother and negotiated for a UN led coercive
inspection regime, and potentially the UN would have been strengthened, Iraqi
WMD potential would have been held in check, AND Saddam deposed.
But I
don't live in France, so my thoughts and commentary tend to focus on the
policies for which I bear collective responsibility.
3020. vonKreedon - 1/15/2004 8:28:01 PM
Ooop - ...soother... = smoother
3021. vonKreedon - 1/15/2004 8:35:54 PM
I missed Jay's Message # 3004
So you think a permanent regime of sanctions would have been
sustainable
Certainly not the sledgehammer sanctions that were
initially imposed, but a very specific and strict regime yes. Remember I am
assuming that coercive inspections are occurring and have found nothing for many
months before the UN implementation of such a sanction regimen.
3022. wonkers2 - 1/15/2004 8:52:05 PM
We sustained a regime of containment and deterrance against the USSR for 50 years or so. What's the problem with a little pissant country like Iraq?
3023. Al D - 1/15/2004 9:07:39 PM
wonkers2
While you are correct in one sense, it is too much of a
simplification. You and others seem to totally reject the possibility of a
nation using groups outside national status to further their ends. If we were
sure that UBL was led, fionanced, and directed by Saudi Arabia, not an
impossibility, we could take action against them to end forever his group. If
the attacks come from groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, the Muslim
Brotherhood, etc., who do we go after? Iran, Egypt, Syria? The threat we face
today is more insane that even Stalin was, and Khrushchev and those who followed
him were totally rational compared to the nuts out there today. U.S.S.R had
something to gain. Terrorists have only destruction in mind.
3024. wonkers2 - 1/15/2004 9:11:46 PM
True enough, but the situation doesn't lend itself to military solutions. International cooperation, better intelligence increased security precautions and more foreign aid and trade are needed.
3025. wonkers2 - 1/15/2004 9:13:45 PM
And development of more effective international institutions to promote disarmament, economic development, democracy, labor rights, health care, etc.
3026. jexster - 1/15/2004 9:27:43 PM
Gen Wesley Clark on the Reckless Use of Military Power
CLARK: I
would simply observe that in 1973, a few years after you and I were out of
college, I was in the Pentagon for a summer as an intern and I wrote a paper on
the
possibility of someday deploying U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf and I
was warned by an old colonel at the time. He said: "Captain, if you write a
paper like that, that
Senator Fulbright is going to have you over testifying
before the Congress and us too and we're all going to get fired," and there were
no U.S. forces in that region in
1973.
Since then, we've encouraged
Saddam Hussein and supported him as he attacked against Iran in an effort to
prevent Iranian destabilization of the Gulf. That came back and bit us when
Saddam Hussein then moved against Kuwait. We encouraged the Saudis and the
Pakistanis to work with the Afghans and build an army of God, the mujahaddin, to
oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan. Now we have released tens of
thousands of
these Holy warriors, some of whom have turned against us and formedAl Qaida.
My French friends constantly remind me that these are problems that we
had a hand in creating. So when it comes to creating another strategy, which is
built around the
intrusion into the region by U.S. forces, all the warning
signs should be flashing.
There are unintended consequences when force
is used. Use it as a last resort. Use it multilaterally if you can. Use it
unilaterally only if you must.
3027. jexster - 1/15/2004 9:39:24 PM
TD - With all this vK erudite discussion goin I didn't want you to think was
ignoring you or your 235th Jex-You-Saddam-Lover post most especially.
A picture worth a thousand words...
Look at Those Two Smilin At Each Other - Love at First Sight!
3028. jexster - 1/15/2004 9:59:07 PM
ABC News Independently Confirms O'Neill Account of Bush pre-9/11 Iraq War Plans
3029. jexster - 1/15/2004 10:17:36 PM
O'Neill's Iraq allegations confirmed
While the White House has
been eager to paint Paul O'Neill as a sore loser, and to some measure succeeded,
this ABC News report confirms his claims that the plan to invade Iraq was in the
works way before 9/11. ABC reports, " The official, who asked not to be
identified, was present in the same National Security Council meetings as
O'Neill immediately after Bush's inauguration in January and February of 2001.
'The president told his Pentagon officials to explore the military options,
including use of ground forces,' the official told ABC News."
And that
may explain Bush's latest half-admission that he indeed was for "regime change"
from the beginning, but then describes his approach as similar to Clinton's
policy.
3030. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:21:53 PM
Freedom of the Press - Bush League Style
PARIS - U.S.
commanders bear "criminal" responsibility in the deaths of two reporters because
they didn't tell troops firing from a tank at a Baghdad hotel that the building
housed journalists — but the soldiers did not deliberately kill the journalists,
a press freedom group said Thursday.
Reporters Without Borders demanded
that the deaths of cameramen Jose Couso, of Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras
Protsyuk, of Reuters, be investigated again.
The Pentagon (news -
web sites) had no immediate comment on the report.
They were killed
April 8 when a U.S. tank fired on the Palestine Hotel, which housed
correspondents covering the U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites). The U.S.
military absolved American forces of wrongdoing, saying they fired in
self-defense.
3031. jexster - 1/15/2004 11:25:05 PM
DEMOCRACY LIES
Here Come the Shiites
No flowers, no
candy....
BASRA, Iraq - Shouting "no to America!" tens of
thousands of Shiite Muslims took to the streets to protest a U.S.-backed formula
for choosing Iraq (news - web sites)'s new legislature.
The protest
came Thursday as an aide to Iraq's foremost Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Husseini al-Sistani, warned that he might issue a fatwa, or religious edict,
rejecting a U.S.-backed government if his demands for direct elections are
ignored.
3032. jexster - 1/16/2004 11:16:57 AM
Imperial Viceroy Scrambles to Save Plan for Puppet Regime from
Democracy Demands
The Ayatollah says "Stay the Course"
3033. jexster - 1/16/2004 11:49:55 AM
The Imperium is baffled...what is it about "We want democracy you promised"
that they don't understand?
I understand.
Liberation T.
Dantes..he understood (RIP)
After weeks of quiet overtures and secret
letters to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, administration officials say they are
baffled over exactly what he wants -- and even more confused about what it will
take to get him to back off his demand for direct elections
Oh I
know now...baffled...
They can't figure out how to CORRUPT democracy ...
how much will it take to buy Sistani off.
Typical.
3034. jexster - 1/16/2004 11:51:07 AM
In Baghdad, clerics are circulating CDs of a sermon given by a local
cleric and Sistani follower, Mohammed Yahya, in which he asked: "Does the
occupation authority have the right to express the mission and high interests of
the Iraqi people? This will mean that American policy will control and manage
everything in the country. This will be very dangerous." In the sermon, Yahya
insisted that a future constitution must specify Islam as the basis of Iraq's
identity.
3035. jexster - 1/16/2004 11:52:16 AM
You get it Mr. Yahya ...
Bush lies, people die
3036. jexster - 1/16/2004 12:02:27 PM
If only the Republicans had read the Clark testimony in September 2002, and
the Sludge Fiction in January 2004
Faced
with Disintegration, Cheney Regime Begs UN Help to Salvage Puppet Government
3037. jexster - 1/16/2004 12:02:51 PM
and "not"
3038. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2004 12:06:10 PM
Please outline your ideas on
a)why Sistani makes those demands; and
b)how the mechanics of the transtion should be arranged.
3039. jexster - 1/16/2004 12:16:51 PM
Sistani is making his demands because he wants Shiite power.
And I
think that the situtation is nearly intractable.
I am beginning to agree
with Regis Debray, a viewpoint that frankly had never crossed my mind not even
for a second until a month or so ago...Iraq is headed for disintegration and the
longer we stay, the worse things will get
Therefore, I have to say that
General Clark in 9/2002 and the Army War College in February 2003 were right -
internationalize and withdraw substantial numbers of US combat forces before its
too late.
And I fear it already is.
3040. jexster - 1/16/2004 12:18:36 PM
The Afghan model - heavy political reliance on the UN for the Constitution, though that state is perilously close to the edge as it is, is the best we can do now but insufficient.
3041. concerned - 1/16/2004 12:21:43 PM
I think that Sistani should be marginalized among Iraqis. Many Shiites consider ayatollahs, imams and their ilk as little better than parasites, anyway.
3042. jexster - 1/16/2004 12:22:19 PM
One more thing....
The White House Muppeteer in charge of Democratic
Revolution...shut your pie hole quick
Another thing...
Find a
strong man.
3043. vonKreedon - 1/16/2004 12:55:21 PM
Con - Can you provide evidence to support your contention that "Many Shiites consider ayatollahs, imams and their ilk as little better than parasites"? It does not appear that way from what I have seen. And if instead of many only some regard the Imams et al this way, how would you suggest we go about marginalizing these people? Seems like a dangerours tactic to attempt as it could well simply antagonize the Shia community and solidify support for the Imams et al.
3044. Magoseph - 1/16/2004 1:43:29 PM
U.S. Joins Iraqis to Seek U.N. Role in Interim Rule"
As it begins to reach out for help, and as European nations indicate
that they may provide some, the administration is also considering reversing
itself and allowing businesses in countries that opposed the war, including
France, Germany and Russia, to bid on contracts to rebuild Iraq, officials
said.
The Bush internal polls must have fallen apart for them to
enrage that large segment of their base which is composed of die-hard UN haters.
This will make for interesting watching.
3045. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2004 3:01:08 PM
Sistani is making his demands because he wants Shiite power.
Yes, but Shiite as in religion, not as in people. Contrary to what
concerned claims, Sistani has a big following. In a popular vote the candidates
he endorses will have a big advantage. In the caucus option, by contrast, the
proceedings will be dominated by "notables", i.e. tribal leaders and merchant
families who are less concerned about religious issues.
I think a
popular vote is dangerous at this stage and at any stage in the near future. I
said a year ago that the best that can be hoped for is a pseudo-democracy based
on traditional power structures and I have seen nothing that would make me
change my view.
3046. jayackroyd - 1/16/2004 3:26:19 PM
The standard nation building route is building democratic institutions in
concentric circles. First local councils. Then regional authorities. Then
provincial government. And then national government.
But this kind of
thing can't be done in time for the republican convention. So we are sure to get
something half-assed.
3047. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:35:12 PM
Re. 3045 -
I didn't 'say' what Pelle claims to refute. What I posted
is that many Shiites think that Imams and Ayatollahs are parasites. For one
thing, due to the less than organized nature of Islam, any Muslim who gains a
sufficient following can claim to be an Imam with special authority in
interpreting the Koran and Hadiths, even though Shiism recognizes only one such
valid interpretation. Thus we have a recipe for a Islamic equivalent in some
aspects to the self promoting Christian evangelists who have been so derided in
the US, but since there is little tendency in Islam to separate the secular and
religious spheres, a great deal of internecine religious (and actual) warfare is
characteristic among the cults representing the competing Imams and even
Ayatollahs who tend to grasp at political power.
To such an extent that
rational thought is practicable in such an environment, these religious
'leaders' are often held in contempt, resented and hated among the populace.
However, it should be obvious that it is not safe in nations where these
religious despots have the upper hand for such feelings to be publicly
expressed.
3048. vonKreedon - 1/16/2004 3:38:57 PM
Con - Again, can you cite the basis for your claim that many Shia's hold their Imams etc in contempt?
3049. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:39:45 PM
vK -
I just did.
3050. vonKreedon - 1/16/2004 3:42:18 PM
I see you posting that this is so, but I don't see a citation to a reputable source backing up this assertion. Am I missing something?
3051. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2004 3:45:49 PM
Concerned's observations on Islam is worth less than nothing.
Correct
that. They are worth contempt and ridicule.
3052. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:47:36 PM
It's easy to find the animosities and religious faultlines between the self
proclaimed Imams and Ayatollahs if one learns only a little. It's an absurdity
to pretend that the followers of each of these subgroups don't, at a minimum
believe that the leaders of competing subcults aren't parasites, deluded, or
worse, given the absolutist religious environment that many Muslims inhabit.
Plus, It's hardly reasonable to believe that all Muslims are so stupid that many
wouldn't privately prefer a pox on all the houses of such religious figures.
But, maybe it should be chalked up to the fact that I just have a higher
opinion of the intellectual sophistication of some Middle Easterners than you
do.
3053. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:49:33 PM
Pelle -
Most people who are as ignorant about Islam as you are would
display a more appropriate humility on the subject.
3054. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:50:01 PM
And you are abysmally ignorant about Islam.
3055. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:52:22 PM
Twits like Pelle try to fit the realities of Islam into the Procrustean confines of their socialistic dreamworld and affect to be mortally offended by those who refuse to play along with their fatuous charade.
3056. vonKreedon - 1/16/2004 3:52:23 PM
Con - But seriously, you stated that many Shias have contempt or even hatred for their Imams and Ayatollahs. This is not what I am seeing from consuming news. So, could you please cite the evidence for your statement the Shi'ite Imams etc. are viewed as contemptible parasites by many Shias.
3057. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:55:07 PM
Re. 3056 -
That's not what I posted, although I'm sure that some do.
3058. concerned - 1/16/2004 3:56:14 PM
Re. 3056 -
Explaing to me why you should expect to see that 'from
consuming news'. I wouldn't expect that to be the case at all & I gave some
of the reasons why.
3059. vonKreedon - 1/16/2004 4:01:19 PM
Con, Dude, if your statement is based on a hunch based on what you've seen on
al Jazeera just say so, but this wiggling is unbecoming.
What you said:
Message #
3041: Many Shiites consider ayatollahs, imams and their ilk as little
better than parasites, anyway.
So, I ask again, please cite the
evidence for such a statement.
3060. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2004 4:31:13 PM
Concerned won't cite any evidence because he takes all this stuff off freeper mailing lists.
3061. robertjayb - 1/16/2004 4:35:43 PM
bushies, in a box, seek U.N. help...(Reuters)
UNITED NATIONS - The United States wants U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan to send a team to Iraq to convince Shiites that direct elections are
unfeasible or to suggest a workable compromise, diplomats said Friday.
The request for a fact-finding team was expected to be made by
head of the coalition provisional authority L. Paul Bremer at a crucial meeting
in New York Monday with Annan and members of the U.S.-selected Iraqi Governing
Council during an effort to get the United Nations back into Baghdad.
3062. robertjayb - 1/16/2004 4:48:26 PM
Letmeseehere....bushies favor a faith-based fundamentalist government for the U.S.A., but not for Iraq. Is that about it?
3063. concerned - 1/16/2004 5:20:01 PM
Not at all, but I see what your problem is now.
3064. wonkers2 - 1/16/2004 5:38:20 PM
There's a fascinating long article in the Jan 5 New Yorker by Lawrence Wright
called "The Kingdom of Silence." The author takes a job at a newspaper and gets
a rare look inside a closed society (Saudi Arabia).
As concerned
observed about Iraq, there are plenty of people who resent the rule of the
Islamist fanatics, but they (especially women) are terrified by the "muttawa'a"
Islamic enforcers. Islam is running amok in Saudi Arabia and has strayed far
from original concepts embodied in the Koran. As practiced in Saudi Arabia it's
the most bullshit religion this side of the U.S. deep south.
3065. robertjayb - 1/16/2004 5:42:14 PM
Good. You watch me while averting your eyes from the pathetic sight of your heroes groveling before the once-despised U.N. and all those silly chocolate makers. It will be better for your mental state.
3066. concerned - 1/16/2004 5:57:52 PM
I read that same depressing article a day or two ago, btw (did I link it here?) and what I think is particularly noteworthy is that there is nothing probably that Saudi women can do to keep from eventually getting shoved into chadors if that's what the Wahhabis want, just like the Iranian women have and the Iraqi women might.
3067. concerned - 1/16/2004 6:03:27 PM
Actually, I think Saudi women have already been shoved into chadors.
Where's feminism when it might do some good?
(rhetorical
question)
3068. vonKreedon - 1/16/2004 6:09:19 PM
Con - I'm sure that the chadors will come off as soon as the Imams and
Ayatollahs are tossed out like the parasites so many Muslims believe them to be.
Any day now.
3069. concerned - 1/16/2004 6:19:36 PM
You gotta admit that they're doing Jimmuh Cahtuh, the godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism, proud. Back to the eighth century with an AK47 in every pot. Go, Jimmuh!
3070. jexster - 1/16/2004 7:15:16 PM
The most resounding intelligence failure of the whole intervention era has
certainly been that of accurately assessing Saddam's holdings of nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons. The US and British governments would not have
gone to war if their intelligence chiefs had bluntly said there were no, or very
few, such weapons or programmes. You cannot spin a No.
But TD,
god love him continues to try...and continues to look foolish
3071. jexster - 1/16/2004 7:16:57 PM
And here I thought TD was a born again supporter of the liberation of the
Moslems of Iraq and the newly formed Islamic Republic (by grace of Allah and thw
Warlords) of Afghanistan!
No I really didn't
3072. jexster - 1/16/2004 7:24:15 PM
But let's try again..
What's wrong with this sentence?
From the
Washington Post: "After weeks of quiet overtures and secret letters to Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani, administration officials say they are baffled over
exactly what he wants – and even more confused about what it will take to get
him to back off his demand for direct elections."
We'll translate: What
does he want? Democracy! When does he want it? Now!
Iraqi
Women Protest IGC Edict to Cancel Saddam Women's Rights Laws
Iraqi women have been protesting moves to restrict their rights,
including the Governing Council's decision to cancel laws that are among the
most modern in the Muslim world.
3073. jexster - 1/16/2004 7:28:11 PM
Let's also try a picture just for funzees 
3074. concerned - 1/16/2004 7:41:15 PM
3075. robertjayb - 1/16/2004 7:48:40 PM
Salam Pax blogs on Iraqi political transition...
3076. jexster - 1/16/2004 8:21:37 PM
I will say it again, without fear of contradiction
The Cheney
administration deliberately and maliciously exploited fear and desire for
revenge in the US public and lied consciously lied in every justification
offered for the war in Iraq and in so doing undermined democracy, dimishied US
power, influence and respect in the world
3077. jexster - 1/16/2004 8:23:30 PM
And I'll say it in verse, in large type for the blind and challenge anyone to
prove me wrong...anyone..any time.. 3078. jexster - 1/16/2004 8:30:47 PM
3079. jexster - 1/16/2004 8:31:10 PM
Was I sufficiently clear TD?
3080. jexster - 1/16/2004 8:31:38 PM
BRING IT ON
I shake my bones and I shack them well
When I lie you know you can tell
Chorus:
Liar Liar pants on fire
hanging from a telephone wire
Sqerming Sqerming pants are burning When I lie
my hips start turning.
When I wiggle up and I wiggle down see me twitch
because I 'm a fibbing clown
Chorus:
Liar LIar pants on fire hanging
from a telephone wire
Sqerming Sqerming pants are burning when I lie my hips
start turning.
Squerm Squerm Sqerm...... Squerm Squerm Squerm.......
Chorus:
Liar Liar pants on fire hanging from a telephone wire
sqerming sqerming pants are burning when I lie my hips start turning
Liar Liar pants on fiar.
3081. jexster - 1/16/2004 9:50:29 PM
Appearing on PBS this evening, Juan Cole, Professor of History at the
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and expert on all things Iraq....
Cole finds the Sistani Shiite Emergence "profoundly disturbing"
As I have so often said "Watch the Shiites"
Honey, I'm home..the
Shiites are coming! The Shiites have arrived.
Bookmark Juan Cole's Website "Informed Consent"
3082. jexster - 1/16/2004 9:56:12 PM
Cole:"The Bremmer caucus system was always a sham. The provincial assemblies
that form the "electorate" were appointed by the US, they were
disproportionately ex-Baathist sunni, they were corrupt and there have
widespread demonstrations against their misrule.
Now the Shiites are
calling Bremmer on it."
There's your "democracy lie" TD...since you
asked
3083. robertjayb - 1/16/2004 11:38:24 PM
Salam Pax is on Nightline...
3084. robertjayb - 1/16/2004 11:47:40 PM
Salam doesn't seem to have missed many meals due to the horrors of war.
3085. wonkers2 - 1/17/2004 7:17:54 AM
Salaam Pax's blog is fascinating. Iraq is going to be a mess for a long time. The more I learn about Islam the less I like it.
3086. jexster - 1/17/2004 2:18:36 PM
TIKRIT, Iraq - A powerful bomb exploded under a U.S. armored vehicle in the
cane fields north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing three American soldiers and
pushing the U.S. death toll in the Iraq (news - web sites) conflict to 500.
Reaching that threshold underscores the dangers still facing U.S.
forces in Iraq as President Bush (news - web sites)'s administration prepares to
seek help from the United Nations (news - web sites) in building a new Iraq,
after shunning the world organization for months.
3087. robertjayb - 1/17/2004 2:31:37 PM
Hey Kofi, help us out here, will you? All that stuff we
said---just joking. C'mon, How about it?
WASHINGTON (AP) --
The Bush administration is reaching out to the United Nations to help settle a
nagging dispute with Iraqi Shiite leaders about how to choose an interim
government by July 1 so the United States can end its political control of
postwar Iraq.
The senior U.S. administrator in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer,
and an Iraqi delegation led by Adnan Pachachi, current chairman of the
U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, plan to confer with Secretary-General
Kofi Annan on Monday in New York.
3088. rdbrewer - 1/17/2004 10:59:46 PM
IAEA
Confirms Yellowcake Found in Rotterdam Likely From Iraq
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — The U.N. nuclear watchdog confirmed Friday
that Iraq was the likely source of radioactive material known as yellowcake
(search) that was found in a shipment of scrap metal at Rotterdam harbor.
Yellowcake, or uranium oxide, could be used to build a nuclear weapon,
although it would take tons of the substance refined with sophisticated
technology to harvest enough uranium for a single bomb.
A spokeswoman
for the International Atomic Energy Agency (search) said the Rotterdam specimen
was scarcely refined at all from natural uranium ore and may have come from a
known mine in Iraq that was active before the 1991 Gulf War.
"I wouldn't
hype it too much," said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. "It was a small amount and
it wasn't being peddled as a sample."
The yellowcake was uncovered Dec.
16 by Rotterdam-based scrap metal company Jewometaal, which had received it in a
shipment of scrap metal from a dealer in Jordan.
Company spokesman Paul
de Bruin said the Jordanian dealer didn't know that the scrap metal contained
any radioactive material. He said the dealer was confident the yellowcake, which
was contained in a small steel industrial container, came from Iraq.
Jewometaal detected the radioactive material during a routine scan and
called in the Dutch government, which in turn asked the IAEA to examine it.
Fleming said the agency will compare the chemical composition of the
sample to other samples of ore taken from Iraq's al-Qaim mine, which was bombed
in 1991 and dismantled in 1996-97.
She estimated that the Rotterdam
sample contained around 5 pounds of uranium oxide.
. . .
--via Ace-o-Spades'
3089. robertjayb - 1/18/2004 12:18:20 AM
bushie Iraq plan in deep Shiite...(LATimes)
BAGHDAD — The Bush administration has been backed into a corner on
its political plan for Iraq by unexpectedly strident opposition from Shiite
Muslim clerics, who played their trump card last week, calling on their
followers to stage mass demonstrations.
In the next few days, the
administration, along with the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, plans to
craft a new plan for choosing a transitional government that is more
satisfactory to all the sects and ethnic groups in the country, including the
long-suppressed Shiite majority. But there is every indication that no matter
what shape it takes, the proposal could be unacceptable to crucial political
players.
"The administration is facing problems on all three fronts —
with the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds ... and the situation with the
Shiites is looking more and more like a crisis," said Sheba Crocker, a fellow at
the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The
picture could get a whole lot uglier."
3090. jexster - 1/18/2004 2:07:55 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb exploded outside the main gate to the headquarters
of the U.S.-led coalition Sunday, wounding several Iraqis and at least one
American soldier, a U.S. general said. American officials said there were
"estimates" of 17 Iraqi dead.
The blast occurred at about 8 a.m. near
the "Assassin's Gate" to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s former Republican
Palace complex, now used by the U.S.-led occupation authority for headquarters.
The gate is used by hundreds of Iraqis employed by the Coalition Provisional
Authority, the formal name of the U.S.-led occupation authorities, as well as
U.S. military vehicles.
3091. jexster - 1/18/2004 2:13:00 AM
Sheba Crocker wrote the damning report cards on Bush war plannning in
Feb/March 2003
She's sharp.
Juan Cole:
al-Hayat reported
that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's representative in Karbala, Shaikh Abdul Mahdi
al-Karbala'i, warned that the coming days will witness demonstrations and
strikes, and possibly confrontations with the occupation [Coalition] forces if
they insist on "their colonialist plot and in designing the politics of this
country in ways that serve their interests." Al-Karbala'i called everyone in his
Friday sermon before hundreds of worshippers "to support the religious
leadership," affirming that "the Shiite leadership in Najaf takes a great
interest in the process of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people through
general elections....
Shiite clergymen throughout Iraq, including the
shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala and the slums of East Baghdad (Sadr City)
mounted their pulpits on Friday and asked their congregants to support Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani's call for general elections in May. It is interesting
that many of these clergymen in East Baghdad are probably followers of Muqtada
al-Sadr, and are supporting Sistani's position. The issue of open, one person
one vote elections, serves to unite Shiites across the board, even bitter rivals
like the Sadrists and the mainstream followers of Sistani. That seems to me bad
news for the Coalition Provisional Authority and its plans to have the new
government elected by hand-picked provincial councils.
3092. jexster - 1/18/2004 2:58:08 AM
A post script to Pincher's discussion...and some points I made at the time..
From the Carnegie Endowment's' "iraq WMD Evidence & Implications"
Key Findings with reference to the relevant pages in body of the report...
3093. jexster - 1/18/2004 2:59:09 AM
Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from
Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile programs, beyond the intelligence failures
noted above, by:
3094. jexster - 1/18/2004 3:05:47 AM
WMD in Iraq: evidence and implications pdf
3095. jexster - 1/18/2004 3:20:57 AM
Rummy didn't give Saddam a BJ in the late 80's because he thought he was
cute and sweet Wonk. He did it for a reason, i.e. the US feared that given the
inherent instability of the Iraqi atate, a loss of any Shiite territory or the
collapse of the power of the central regime would lead to the dismemberment of
the country into Kurd, Sunni and Shiite states which would themselves be
unstable and prone to interference from Turkey, Syria and Iran.
That
two ton shit sandwich the United States has been, is and will be chowing down
for the next few years at least?
That was the reason Rummy had love in
his eyes.
Yet another case of ideology and politics trumping fact and
reasoned analysis.
3096. jexster - 1/18/2004 3:40:10 AM
Lies Have Consequences or Why Ace Moved Into His Spiderhole
Intro to Carnegie Report..
If history is any guide, the
war and subsequent
occupation and reconstruction of Iraq will shape
U.S.
relations with the Arab world—and perhaps
with the whole Muslim world—for
decades,...
What happens in Iraq is also likely to profoundly
affect
whether and with what degree of effort and
success states choose to work
together to constrain the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The war and its aftermath will affect U.S. foreign
relations,
influence U.S. policies regarding future armed interventions, and alter the
international struggle against terrorism. It is a massive understatement, then,
to say that a great deal is at stake, on the ground in Iraq, around the world,
and in the lessons for the future that will be drawn here at home.
It is
not too soon to begin this inquiry into the Iraq experience, because public
confusion is widespread and revisionism has already begun.
3097. jexster - 1/18/2004 3:41:21 AM
Some pundits now claim that the war was never about WMD but was undertaken
to bring democracy to Iraq or the entire Middle East. Others say it was a
response to 9/11 or was the necessary answer to a composite threat posed by
Saddam Hussein’s domestic evils, past aggressions, defiance of the United
Nations, and desire for WMD. The administration has adjusted its public
expectation of what Iraq will be found to have had from actual weapons and
massive stockpiles of agent, to weapon programs, to “capabilities,” and even to
the “capability that Iraq sought” for weapons of mass destruction.
Notwithstanding these varied views, the definitive
voice of U.S.
policy—the president’s—was unequivocal that the reason for going to war was the
present threat to U.S. security posed by Iraq’s WMD. From Mr. Bush’s first
detailed case for the war on October 7, 2002, to the declaration of war on March
17, 2003, the purpose is always clear: “Saddam Hussein must disarm himself—or
for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.”2
Other
than warnings addressed to the Iraqi military and reassurances to the American
people regarding homeland security, the declaration of war address was only
about WMD until the closing paragraphs, which touched on human liberty and a
better future for the Iraqi people.
3098. jexster - 1/18/2004 3:43:24 AM
Stay the course?
What course?
3099. rdbrewer - 1/18/2004 4:11:58 AM
You guys read about the yellow cake upthread? No comment?
I got a
tune in my head. It's that old song, MacArthur Park. I gotta sing!
3100. rdbrewer - 1/18/2004 4:13:22 AM
{Intro}
Whimdees were never waiting in Tikrit.
They ran one step
ahead,
As we followed in the Humvee.
I recall the yellow colored cake
It fissioned alpha rays
On the Geiger counter by the MRE's.
CHORUS:
JayAkroyd's claims are melting in the dark,
All that
glowing green radiation flowing out!
Someone left the cake out in Bahrain.
I don't think that Jay can take it,
'Cause he worked so hard to fake it,
And we'll never have that disagreement again.
Oh, noooo!
{Interlude}
I recall the yellow colored cake.
It fissioned
alpha rays
On the Geiger counter by the MRE's.
It burned the tender
scabies on your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees.
CHORUS:
JayAkroyd's claims are melting in the dark,
All that
glowing green radiation flowing out!
Someone left the cake out in Bahrain.
I don't think that Jay can take it,
'Cause he worked so hard to fake it,
And we'll never have that disagreement again.
Oh, noooo!
{Interlude}
Whimdees were never waiting in Tikrit.
They ran
one step ahead,
As we followed in the Humvee.
I recall the yellow
colored cake
It fissioned alpha rays
On the Geiger counter by the MRE's.
CHORUS:
JayAkroyd's claims are melting in the dark,
All that
glowing green radiation flowing out!
Someone left the cake out in Bahrain.
I don't think that Jay can take it,
'Cause he worked so hard to fake it,
And we'll never have that disagreement again.
Oh, noooo!
Oh,
nooOoo!
Noooo no nono
Noooo NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
3101. jexster - 1/18/2004 5:19:06 AM
Yea! Some moldy yellowcake circa 1990 found in a pile scrap metal from Jordan
which may have come from a mine that Iraq closed in 1997....
That's
almost as good as the "tainted" mortar shells that weren't.
The
following post might shed some light on why RD thinks that worthy of borrowed
verse...
3102. jexster - 1/18/2004 5:28:04 AM
He thinks remarkably like Perle & his gang of schizos
Iraq: When the Deaf lead the blind who lead the schziod Tell the
Brain Dead What to Do
REALITY vs. FANTASY.... i just
finished reading Charlie Wilson's War, a terrific book about the covert
CIA war against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s that I'll have more
to say about later. For now, though, I just want to share an excerpt from the
book that's both timely and enlightening.
First some background. Richard
Perle is one of the most hawkish neocons around, part of the group that seemed
to think that we could waltz into Iraq, be greeted as liberators, and then turn
the whole thing over to their favorite exiles within a few months.
It's
a crazy idea on its face, and it makes you wonder what kind of people could
believe something so transparently out of touch with reality. Well, here's a
hint: they believe stuff like this because they are out of touch with reality.
As you read this anecdote, keep in mind that it's being told by a guy
who is a very hardline, hardass anti-communist. His idea of fun is to figure out
new and better ways to kill Russians, and at the time this is happening he's in
charge of an incredibly creative, brutal, and effective buildup of arms to kill
those Russians in ever greater numbers. But even he thinks Perle and his pals
are loons.
Here's
the story:
And to review and refresh...
The extent of WMD
discoveries to date:
1. A vial of botox in a freezer
2. Empty Mortar
shells buried for more than ten years that had no trace of mustard gas.
3.
20 year old materials on nuclear weapons design buried under a Rose bush since
1991.
4. A mobile hydrogen balloon unit (good for clown shows!)
3103. jexster - 1/18/2004 5:28:32 AM
Close that tag eek!
3104. jexster - 1/18/2004 5:29:42 AM
and that one too...i could use some of that Aunt Condimima Yellow Cake with some of Miss laura's deelish limin icin
3105. jexster - 1/18/2004 5:47:04 AM
Saddam Hussein must disarm himself—or for the sake of peace, we will lead
a coalition to disarm him.
Well I guess he did...he put that
yellowcake (or was it Iraqi??)in a dumpster sitting in the front yard of Basra's
only Okie.
After several years the dumpster's bottom rusted through so
the Okie threw it into the back of his 1972 Chevy pick up and drove to Hassan's
scrap metal, used camel and Cheap Persian Rug emporium just over the line in
Jordan...
From there to Holland and finally to waste disposal in Acie's
Own Little World...
Case of nuts
3106. wonkers2 - 1/18/2004 7:33:11 AM
Great link on Richard Perle! I like the idea of trading him to Iran.
3107. rdbrewer - 1/18/2004 11:37:54 AM
If they set off a Iraqi yellow-cake bomb in your city, are you still going to
point out that it was old (implying that the old yellow-cake is an insufficient
reason to occupy Iraq)?
The half-life is 760 million years.
3108. jexster - 1/18/2004 12:21:48 PM
I am saying that there was no nuclear program. There was some yellowcake 5
pounds possibly from Iraq, if so a leftover from their nuclear program pre-1991
from a mine that was closed in 1997 found in a metal container sold for scrap.
You should give up. David Kay did. Bush has too but he's keepin quiet.
If some folks don't know he lied or forgot or he can convince them he
went to war for other reasons, why should he remind them of the truth?
3109. robertjayb - 1/18/2004 12:27:44 PM
jexster,
You left out the combat marmalade and tactical vacuum
cleaners.
3110. Al D - 1/18/2004 2:59:51 PM
robertjayb
You really like to gloat in everything that is or might be
going wrong in Iraq, don't you. Would it really be a gopod thing for America and
the world for Iraq to become a fucking mess? You are some kind of a strange
dude. Once Pelle asked you why you posted ervery American death in Iraq and I
asked Pelle why he thought you did it. It should be obvious to all, but since
many probably agree with you, it is overlooked. After all, as long as the Dems.
get back in power, what does it matter how.
3111. wonkers2 - 1/18/2004 3:27:37 PM
Al, some of us who opposed our invasion of Iraq from the beginning are entitled to say "We told you so" without being accused of gloating or lacking patriotism. I never believed Iraq had WMD, but after Bush decided to attack I posted in this forum that I hoped we would find WMD. Well, we haven't. After things started to look like a mess I supported the $87 billion appropriation needed to complete what we started. Nevertheless, IMO, Bush's preemptive strike policy was a horrible mistake and the invasion of Iraq was not even an honest and appropriate application of Bush's own policy. Now, more than 500 Americans have died with no end in sight and little chance that the neo-cons fantasy of transforming the Middle East into a democracy will be realized. Moreover, the invasion has increased, not diminished, our exposure to terrorists in the U.S. and around the world.
3112. robertjayb - 1/18/2004 4:07:37 PM
BTW, Al D, did you hear about the big explosion early this a.m. just outside
the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad? All those Iraqis lined up to go to work for
Uncle Sam and they got blowed up---20 or more of them (early reports said a
couple of U.S. soldiers were killed, then the reports said they were U.S
civilians but latest reports said their citizenship is unknown). Say they were
U.S. soldiers or civilians, Al D? How should they be weighed out. Do the
evil-doers get more points for a soldier than a civilian? I've noticed that you
like to ask people what they think so I'm asking you what you think about this.
It may seem an obscure point but I think it has relevance now that the Leader of
the Free World is sending his minions hats-in-hand to the U.N. for help in
getting out of a bloody-awful mess the U.N. warned him about getting into. I
find that embarrassing. Do you find it embarrassing, Al D? Anyway, if the U.N.
did send help, would most of the people be civilians? Are a lot of U.N.
civilians clamoring to go to Iraq? What do you think?
As to gloating, I
am firmly anti-gloating (except in a certain few cases where the bastards ask
for it and deserve to get it, good and hard). I am also anti-lying. But first
and most of all I am anti-bungling.
As to posting deaths of soldiers...I
am surprised you ask about that. Don't you think we should take notice? I
certainly do. I have read that the U.S. death toll this week passed that of the
first four years of the Vietnam experience.
3113. robertjayb - 1/18/2004 4:22:43 PM
After all, as long as the Dems. get back in power, what does it matter
how.
I think it matters a great deal. The position you state is that
of John Mitchell regarding the importance of reelecting Richard Nixon. I would
rather not go that far.
And if the Dems do get back in power I
predict a sigh of relief of such magnitude whistling around the globe that it
may disturb your well-earned rest, Al D.
3114. jexster - 1/18/2004 8:20:10 PM
I rather think the better question is "Why do those who believed everything
that Bush represented to be true, those whom he most played the fool for this
guy, why don't aren' they the ones posting the truth?"
Instead of
variously peddling the lie du jour one day and trying shame critics into silence
the next, why aren't those who played the fool from the get go, angry as hell?
Patriot before the war. Patriot today.
I am sure that many
war opponents have experienced mixed emotions - a twinge of joy, moments of some
self-satisfaction, at being proved right. But I am here to tell ya Al since you
are in no position to know yourself, being proved right so often for so long
gets old. Its not all you crack it up to be.
3115. jexster - 1/18/2004 8:30:44 PM
But the expected just keeps on, keepin on. Shut up and stay the course?
That's hardly very patriotic but then, the Bushies said the same thing
before the war.
Don't worry about my motives or my patriotism. I can
sleep at night.
The administration is facing problems on
all three fronts — with the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds and the situation
with the Shiites is looking more and more like a crisis," said Bathsheba
Crocker, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International
Studies. "The picture could get a whole lot uglier." 3116. jexster - 1/18/2004 9:13:33 PM
How many times have I been called anti-American Bush hating Saddam lover?
The moment I hear "I am tired of Bush playing us for fools. I am mad as
hell and I am gonna take it any more."
I'll be all ears.
Meanwhile
Across the Shiite urban strongholds in southern
Iraq last week, clerics close to Sistani prepared their followers for days of
demonstrations and possible violence: "peaceful protests, strikes and, as a last
resort, possible confrontation with the occupying forces," in the words of
Abdel-Mahdi Salami, the senior cleric close to Sistani in Karbala, one of the
two most holy Shiite cities in the country.
"The CPA has to start
learning lessons. We don't want them to learn lessons the hard way, but if they
keep on being pigheaded, they will be hurt," said Mouwafak Rabii, a Shiite and a
member of the Governing Council, who has been present during most of the
council's discussions with Sistani.
"Once the real political process
starts, people grab for power," Carnegie's Carothers said. "They aren't going to
stop — they are just going to keep pushing to see how much they can get. They
know the door is open to a renegotiation of the process."
The Shiites Are Mad As Hell and They Aren't Going to Let Bush Play
Them for Fools No Mo
They want real democratic sovereignty not
Bush's warmed over colonial puppet.
3117. wonkers2 - 1/18/2004 9:16:11 PM
The choices are simple a Shiite theocracy or a protectorate.
3118. jexster - 1/18/2004 9:40:26 PM
Strong man wanted...nice digs, nice pay, some health risk..
The
Shiites will go for something well short of Iranian style theocracy...but Bush's
neocon nirvana...that was ever a fool's errand...that's just more Bush shuck 'n
jive..that's Perle in Afghanistan quality camel shit.
The real problem
is the Shiites can read and they can count to 60%. They are dead right to see
the trap set for them in Bush's run-for-your-lives-who-forgot-the-exit-strategy
farce election year farce of self rule.
Whether Iraq can absent a strong
man ever secure some semblance of stability..well Saddam was certainly a
sadistic butcher and bone headed megalomaniac, but he was no accident. He didn't
just come from hell and appear suddenly in Iraq for no reason.
3119. jexster - 1/18/2004 10:03:14 PM
3120. jexster - 1/18/2004 10:04:13 PM
Why the US
is running scared of elections in Iraq
Washington's plan to
transfer power without a direct vote is a fraud
God damn...what a
shock!
Robespierre Bush - Democratic Revolutionary and Nation Builder
caught lying again.
3121. jexster - 1/18/2004 10:23:46 PM
At least in Iowa, the Democratic party caucuses involve elections. Not in
the US plan for Iraq. The US is proposing that "notables" in each province
attend these caucuses to appoint an assembly which would select a government.
Not surprisingly, the Shia leadership smells a rat. After generations of being
excluded from power, first by the British occupiers in 1920, and then by
successive Sunni governments up to the one led by Saddam, they are angry.
Gee, I wonder why.
The Iraqi Shiites: On the
history of America’s would-be allies
3122. wonkers2 - 1/18/2004 10:30:24 PM
After the dust settles Iraq will be a theocracy. Or we'll have to stay there for a long time. Or some kind of a UN protectorate will have to be established.
3123. marjoribanks - 1/18/2004 10:40:39 PM
When the dust settles, Iraq will be a kind of protectorate and will remain
one for many decades.
I'm guessing that there will be an oligarchy, of a
sort, with nods given to elections. But economic power will be consolidated in
the hands of a few score individuals and families and all of these will be
die-hard pro-American behind the scenes.
And the US Army will be going
nowhere, for a very very long time. Even if Clark wins, even if Kerry wins, but
maybe possibly not if Dean wins.
3124. jexster - 1/19/2004 12:26:01 AM
Dean is publically committed to troops but all will need a strong man sooner
or later ot am I being too pessimistic?
The latest on the Big Shiite
Move from Prof. Cole...Forget the ancient Bernard Lewis and Tom Friedman columns
make fine birdcage liner
But it comes to Middle Eastern History recent
or other that fella Cole knows his onions
3125. jexster - 1/19/2004 12:26:21 AM
Two parallel reports from Baghdad, one from Alissa Rubin of the LA Times
and one from Hamza Hendawi of AP, point to the increasing difficulties the US is
having in satisfying the Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiites in Iraq.
Rubin
[reg. req.] emphasizes the dissatisfaction of the Sunni Arabs, and the ways in
which the UN might step in to mollify the Shiites. I am quoted expressing
pessimism about Sistani's flexibility.
Hamza Hendawi of AP reports from
Najaf that an anonymous administration official told him that "there will be no
new plan" on Iraqi elections. He says, however, that the present plan will be
tinkered with in hopes that will make it acceptable to Grand Ayatollah Sistani.
Hendawi, who quotes me on Sistani, reports enormous anger among Sunni
Arabs about the prospect of Shiite rule. But that is what any sort of democracy
would produce.
What I don't understand is why they don't just have
elections for two houses of parliament. Go back to the old Saddam scheme of 19
provinces (he had created an extra one for Sunnis) and give each province 2
senators. Such a senate would slightly over-represent Sunnis and might help
mollify them and convince them that the Shiite-dominated lower house would not
be able to excercise a tyranny of the majority. Another benefit of such a
province-based senate is that it would give Kurds an incentive to want several
provinces instead of just one.
I am hearing rumors, purportedly coming
out of Najaf, that there will be big Shiite demonstrations throughout Iraq this
coming Friday. One reason I am pessimistic that Sistani will back down is
precisely that he has gone to the streets. He must have known that crowds will
be hard to rein in if some basic modicum of his demands are not met, even if he
himself is willing to compromise.
3126. jexster - 1/19/2004 12:48:26 AM
Remember The Young Ayatollah Sadr? He represents the Khomenist faction and
contrary to CPA propaganda his is one of the loyal followings best organized in
the country. Sistani was widely assumed to be a go along get along push over
with no interest in politics. Sistani did the CPA a big favor a few months back.
He was able to quiet down Sadr.
I bet they cut a deal...why that's the
democratic thing to do!
Though Sadr is distinguished by his radicalism
and the fact that unlike Sistani Shiites he wants a full on theocracy. The two
find common ground in 1) distrust and opposition to the Occupation and indeed
the US presence 2) they both agree on that an Iraq must be an Islamic State. The
only thing separating them is the role of the clergy and of course, each wants
to be Numero Uno in Najaf.
About 60% in a recent pols want either an
Islamist/Democratic but non-secular state or theocracy. Sistani has the majority
of that.(Iff polls mean anything Iraq)
There's your deal...Bush unites
them...the uniter not the divider strikes again
3127. robertjayb - 1/19/2004 12:49:35 AM
WARNING: Engage anti-gloat, Disable We-Told-You-So: WMD scam harming foreign policy...(WashPost)
The Bush administration's inability to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq -- after public statements declaring an imminent threat
posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- has begun to harm the credibility
abroad of the United States and of American intelligence, according to foreign
policy experts in both parties.
In last year's State of the
Union address, President Bush used stark imagery to make the case that military
action was necessary. Among other claims, Bush said that Hussein had enough
anthrax to "kill several million people," enough botulinum toxin to "subject
millions of people to death by respiratory failure" and enough chemical agents
to "kill untold thousands."
3128. robertjayb - 1/19/2004 1:16:27 AM
Wary U.N. may help with U.S. tangle in Iraq...(WashPost)
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is prepared to try to help the
United States salvage its Iraq strategy, despite more than a year of rancorous
relations over the country, largely due to his deep concern about the potential
for a political implosion in Iraq, according to senior U.S. and U.N. officials.
But Annan, who is also wary of U.S. motives, intends to ask some tough
and specific questions in talks with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. governor of Iraq,
and the Iraqi Governing Council at their meeting today in New York, U.N.
officials say. The key is how much authority the United States is willing to
cede on policy, a critical issue because the United Nations does not want to be
used simply to give credibility to the troubled U.S. plan to hand over power to
Iraq by June 30.
3129. jexster - 1/19/2004 11:51:39 AM
The UN doesn't want to give crebility to Bush....what a segue! We're cookin
with Lousiana Natural Gas today
TD might not believe he lied, people die
But the rest of the planet does
Bush's WMD Lies
9 of 10 Bipartisan FP Experts Agree: Bush
Lies Hurt US
The Bush administration's inability to find weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites) -- after public statements
declaring an imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web
sites) -- has begun to harm the credibility abroad of the United States and of
American intelligence, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.
Intelligence on loan from EddieD
3130. jexster - 1/19/2004 11:56:06 AM
THIS does not HAVE to be you! 
3131. jayackroyd - 1/19/2004 12:10:37 PM
3099
I saw the source. 'nuff said.
3132. jexster - 1/19/2004 12:15:24 PM
"The foreign policy blow-back is pretty serious," said Kenneth Adelman,
a member of the Pentagon's Defense Advisory Board and a supporter of the
war>. He said the gaps between the administration's rhetoric and the
postwar findings threaten Bush's doctrine of "preemption," which envisions
attacking a nation because it is an imminent threat.
The doctrine "rests
not just on solid intelligence," Adelman said, but "also on the credibility that
the intelligence is solid."
Ladies and gentlemen, forty
years ago almost to the day an important Presidential emissary was sent abroad
by a beleaguered President of the United States. The United States was facing
the prospect of nuclear war. These were the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Several emissaries went to our principal allies. One of them was a
tough-minded former Secretary of State, Dean Acheson whose mission was to brief
President De Gaulle and to solicit French support in what could be a nuclear war
involving not just the United States and the Soviet Union but the entire NATO
Alliance and the Warsaw Pact.
The former Secretary of State briefed the
French President and then said to him at the end of the briefing, I would now
like to show you the evidence, the photographs that we have of Soviet missiles
armed with nuclear weapons. The French President responded by saying, I do not
wish to see the photographs. The word of the President of the United States is
good enough for me. Please tell him that France stands with America.
Would any foreign leader today react the same way to an American
emissary who would go abroad and say that country X is armed with weapons of
mass destruction which threaten the United States?Zbigniew
Brzezinski
3133. jexster - 1/19/2004 12:22:46 PM
The administration "rid the Iraqi people of a murderous dictator, and rid
the world of a menace to our future peace and security," Vice President Cheney
said in a speech last week. Cheney -- and other U.S. officials -- increasingly
point to Libya's decision last month to give up its weapons of mass destruction
as a direct consequence of challenging Iraq.
Bush, when asked by
ABC's Diane Sawyer why he said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when
intelligence pointed more to the possibility Hussein would obtain such weapons,
dismissed the question: "So, what's the difference?"
I
suggest that the D brothers, T, E, and R jointly write a letter to their
President and explain to him what the difference is.
3134. jexster - 1/19/2004 12:34:19 PM
Jessica T. Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment and co-author of
Iraq WMD: Evidence & Implications
she said there is
intense interest in the report's findings, with 35,000 copies downloaded from
the think tank's Web site in just five days. "It is too soon to say there was no
cost" to the failure to find weapons, she said. "I think there is a huge
appetite for learning about this."
Looks like quite a few people
hit my links..
Say anyone know whether Ace has it up yet???
3135. jexster - 1/19/2004 1:33:00 PM
A nagging question maybe only a Bushie can answer...
The Shiites want
democracy now
Bush says there's no time
Shouldn't we make time
if there is none???
Isn't Bush our Democratic Revolution Leader???
Or was he lying again?
3136. jexster - 1/19/2004 1:41:19 PM
Operation Iraqi Freedom II - Tens of Thousands of Iraqis Hit the
Streets to Demand Democracy 
3137. jexster - 1/19/2004 2:01:44 PM
Juan Cole, PhD, Middle Eastern & South Asian Studie, Big Blue has some
pretty good sources I'd say
100,000 Angry Shiites Take It
to the Streets 
3138. jexster - 1/19/2004 4:25:53 PM
Well fancy that. Sistani and I aren't the only one's who smell a rat...
If it slinks like rat, if stinks like a rat...It must be Georgie
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations (news - web sites)
considered a request from Iraqi leaders and the U.S. administrator on Monday to
send a mission to Baghdad that might salvage plans for putting a provisional
government in place by July.
But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan (news - web sites) told reporters further discussions were necessary
before he could make a decision on sending what he called a "technical" team
immediately
3139. robertjayb - 1/19/2004 4:41:33 PM
Any speculation on why the bushies sent the boy Bremer on this U.N. mission alone. No room on the plane for Condi, Colin, or the LOFW himself?
3140. vonKreedon - 1/19/2004 5:25:19 PM
LOFW?
3141. vonKreedon - 1/19/2004 5:26:18 PM
Lesser Of Four Weevils?
3142. vonKreedon - 1/19/2004 5:27:02 PM
Lemming Out For War?
3143. judithathome - 1/19/2004 5:27:51 PM
Lord of Fort Worth?
3144. wonkers2 - 1/19/2004 5:29:18 PM
He may be grooming Bremer to take over from Powell as Secretary of State in
the unlikely event he is re-elected.
Powell's prostate cancer may be a
factor in a decision not to re-up. I didn't see any statements about it saying
that it was caught in a very early stage as was announced in the case of Kerry.
This is sheer speculation.
3145. arkymalarky - 1/19/2004 5:31:16 PM
Duh, y'all. It's "Leader of the Free World!"
OR is it Lord of the
Fascist World?
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
3146. judithathome - 1/19/2004 5:34:51 PM
> Powell's prostate cancer may be a factor in a decision not to re-up
As opposed to the fact he is finding it hard to look himself in face
while shaving or that he is made sicker by what is happening than what the chemo
is doing to him?
3147. judithathome - 1/19/2004 5:35:39 PM
I wish we could indent with that little caret thingy....
3148. vonKreedon - 1/19/2004 5:51:33 PM
J@H - Try this, replacing the [ ] with angle brackets:
[ul]
>
indented
[/ul]
Result:
3149. wonkers2 - 1/19/2004 6:51:00 PM
When all is said and done Bush is going to wish he had Sadaam Hussein instead of the Shiites. I heard on the radio today that the Governing Council or whatever they call it passed a resolution demanded by the Shiites that takes away rights that Iraqi women have had for years under the Baath government. How do they think we or the UN or anyone is going to control those "Sharia fanatics?"
3150. jexster - 1/19/2004 7:50:22 PM
Message # 3139
Can't send Cheney...too high a level at this point besides Cheney hates
this deal and will kill it...
But no matter how academic the answer is
simple....Annan would trust any of the regular Bushies as far as he can spit and
neither should he.
3151. jexster - 1/19/2004 7:51:58 PM
Wonk is now confirmed Regis Debray Decompositionista
If the US
does not leave soon, the blowback will make some long for the days of Saddam
Hussein Roughly
3152. jexster - 1/19/2004 7:52:32 PM
Kofi "would not"
3153. jexster - 1/19/2004 9:03:21 PM
3154. jexster - 1/19/2004 9:16:35 PM
Brits Fuck Bush in Basra
The Independent reports that
100,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad on Monday, as part
of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani s bid to put pressure on Kofi Annan and the
United Nations to certify that free and fair elections can be held: This
situation reminds me more and more of Algeria; where mass protests played a
similar role in involving the UN.
posted by Juan Cole at 1/20/2004 01:33:45
AM
British Say Open Elections Feasible
The Financial
Times is reporting that British authorities in Basra now believe that there are
no procedural obstacles to holding open elections in Basra of the sort that
Grand Ayatollah Sistani has called for: Whether this is true or not, it is hard
to see the British announcement as anything but payback for the way the CPA has
ordered them about like lackeys since the fall of Saddam. The statement puts Mr.
Bremer in a very difficult situation.
The British may in part been
driven to this announcement by pure fear. They appear to have upped their
estimate of the number of protesters last Thursday from 30,000 to 3 to 10 times
that.
posted by Juan Cole at 1/20/2004 01:16:04 AM
3155. Al D - 1/19/2004 11:05:49 PM
robertjayb
There is really very little point for you and I to discuss the
war in Iraq, but since you asked what I think about what is going on in Iraq, I
will express my opinion. I am happy the Saddam is no longer in power, and I
think in the long run, and in the short run, Iraqies are better off. America is
in a war not of our choice against Islamic extremists and terrorists. What is
happening is not much different than what happened in Germany after WWII. People
are being killed, both Americans and Iraqies, and that is the price that is
being paid. No one should be happy about that, except the terrorists. Our will
can be weakened, and would be if Cassandras like you had your wish.
Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes made is that we declared victory too
early. Perhaps we should have continued to bomb the cities where we knew the
Baathist melted into until there came out with a white flag and surrendered. Of
course, 10's of thousands might have died, but 100's might not be killed now.
And I do not retract my statement that you gloat over every failure in
Iraq, because that is what you obviously wish for. Of course you will keep
insisting otherwise.
3156. robertjayb - 1/20/2004 12:10:42 AM
Riverbend broods
over Sharia...
My head has been spinning these last few days
with decision No. 173 on changing Family Law to Shari'a. I've been darkly
mulling over the endless possibilities. I'm not the only one- everyone I talk to
is shaking their head in dismay. How is this happening? How are we caving in to
fundamentalism?
.................................
I'm torn on the
topic of elections. While I want elections because it's the 'democratic' thing
to do, I'm afraid of the outcome. All the signs lead one to believe that
elections will lead to a theocracy (which I dread). The current GC is *not*
representative of the Iraqi people- neither Sunnis nor Shi'a approve of them…
but will elections bring about a more representative group of would-be leaders?
Furthermore, what if the Iraqi 'majority' *do* want a theocracy like the one in
Iran? If the choice boils down to a democracy styled like the one in America or
a theocracy styled like the one in Iran, how do you think a Muslim country is
going to choose?
For more info on Al-Sistani, check out his site- it's
in Arabic, Farsi, English, French and Urdu... quite impressive. His biography is
here: Sistani's Biography and for those who were *very* interested in temporary
marriage, check this out.
3157. robertjayb - 1/20/2004 1:55:52 PM
3158. robertjayb - 1/20/2004 2:07:10 PM
"Hat-in-hand," to U.N...(WashPost)
The Bush
administration's plans for post-war Iraq never envisioned anything like
yesterday's meeting in New York. U.S. officials asked for the United Nations to
help extricate the United States from a country it liberated from Saddam
Hussein's thuggish tyranny just nine months ago. The guarded response of U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan, as reported by The Washington Post, only
underscores how much U.S. policymakers have lost the ability to control events
in Iraq, according to international online commentators.
3159. jayackroyd - 1/20/2004 3:21:45 PM
But that is what you want isn't it? UN involvement, greater international participation, and so forth?
3160. jexster - 1/20/2004 3:42:32 PM
Has he no shame?
"I am a long way at this stage from
concluding that somehow there was some fundamental flaw in our intelligence,"
Vice President Dick "Praetorian Guard" Cheney said in an interview with USA
TODAY and the Los Angeles Times from his undisclosed location, the first
he's given to a newspaper in two years. Cheney suggested that biological weapons
are hard to find because they could be produced on short notice. "The stuff is
perishable and doesn't last very long anyway," he said. But, he added,
intelligence is "never perfect. It's rarely 100% complete." Uh-huh.
3161. PelleNilsson - 1/20/2004 3:55:15 PM
As of now Kofi is calling the shots. He has played it very cool.
3162. concerned - 1/20/2004 3:59:46 PM
Disengaged is a better word.
3163. concerned - 1/20/2004 4:24:26 PM
The primary question is whether the UN is even capable of successfully playing more than a nominal role in Iraq, humanitarian assistance aside, given the UN's demonstrated skittishness in the face of terrorist attacks.
3164. concerned - 1/20/2004 4:44:24 PM
It also looks, from rjb's link, as if France and Germany are attempting to manipulate both the UN and the US in Iraq in order to gain lucrative Iraqi business contracts.
3165. jexster - 1/20/2004 6:30:14 PM
Democracy - The Last Lie to Die as Bush Tries to Intimidate His Way
Out
BAGHDAD, Iraq - If an influential Shiite cleric sticks to his
demand for early legislative elections, then the coalition may turn sovereignty
over to the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, coalition and Iraqi
officials said Tuesday.
Transferring power to the Governing Council was
among options under study if the United Nations (news - web sites) fails to
convince Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani that early elections are not
feasible, coalition officials told The Associated Press on condition of
anonymity.
3166. jexster - 1/20/2004 6:33:19 PM
With Shiite's holdin the key to Iraqi stability in one hand and a big shit
sandwich in the other, the Cheney regime is no position to be making threats
Of course, concerned has no business yammering either, certainly on the
subject of Iraq
3167. jexster - 1/20/2004 6:34:11 PM
certainly "not"
least of all whatever...
an insult to the
intelligence
3168. jexster - 1/20/2004 6:42:25 PM
And speaking of corruption...The Cheney Regims sets the gold standard!
Outrage Mounts in GB Over Iraq war whistleblower Case
GCHQ worker Katharine Gun faces jail for exposing American corruption in
the run-up to war on Saddam. Now her celebrity supporters insist it is Bush and
Blair who should be in the dock. Martin Bright reports
3169. jexster - 1/20/2004 7:59:37 PM
Marj, sucker for the Raj....your little brown bro Fareed sends his regards...
There really should be no contest.
On one side is history's
most awesome superpower, victorious in war, ruling Iraq with nearly 150,000
troops and funding its reconstruction to the tune of $20 billion this year. On
the other side is an aging cleric with no formal authority, no troops and little
money, who is unwilling to even speak in public. Yet last June, when Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani made it known that he didn't like the U.S. proposal to
transfer power to Iraqis, the plan collapsed. And last week, when Sistani
announced that he is still unhappy with the new U.S. proposal, L. Paul Bremer
rushed to Washington for consultations. What does this man have that the United
States doesn't?
Legitimacy
3170. jexster - 1/20/2004 8:08:52 PM
The Cheney threat to turn over power to a naked puppet rather than a clothed
one, of the collossally stupid moves they have made in propagandizing, planning,
and executing this disaster, surpasses all the rest.
The Shiites do not
trust the US who applauded while Saddam gassed them and left while Saddam
slaughtered them. They don't trust the British who gave Sunnis dominionn over
them and sure as hell they don't trust Bush who is desperately scambling for an
election year ass covering at their expense.
What a stupid move. What an
incompetent bunch of liars.
3171. jexster - 1/20/2004 8:16:52 PM
There Goes the AlD/OsamaB big bad horsie theory of brown control
VIENNA, Austria - Western diplomats and nuclear experts voiced
growing concern that Iran has reneged on its promise to fully suspend uranium
enrichment — a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons.
3172. jexster - 1/21/2004 11:27:58 AM
3173. jexster - 1/21/2004 11:56:35 AM
Tens of Thousands Take to the Streets to Demand End to Puppet
Regime, Iraqi Trial of Hussein
Da noive!
The last thing
Bush wants is a trial that will expose the contribution of current Bushies to
the gassing of his own people!
What do they think this is about?
Truth, Justice and the American Way?
3174. jexster - 1/21/2004 12:55:40 PM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Shiites staged a third straight day of protests against US
plans for Iraq (news - web sites), as US and Iraqi leaders again snubbed their
key demand for general elections ahead of a June power transfer 
3175. jexster - 1/21/2004 12:56:00 PM
A nagging question maybe only a Bushie can answer...
The Shiites want
democracy now
Bush says there's no time
Shouldn't we make time
if there is none???
3176. PelleNilsson - 1/21/2004 1:20:06 PM
You conveniently forget that´there are big problems associated with the Shia version of democracy.
3177. wonkers2 - 1/21/2004 1:27:05 PM
True. They want democracy until they get elected.
3178. vonKreedon - 1/21/2004 1:38:11 PM
Pelle/Wonk - Do we know that the Iranian theocracy is a "Shia version of democracy"? It is certainly possible to view Sistani's call for a direct popular vote through the lense of power politics, but is there any reason to do so other than Iraq's Shia majority and the presence of the Iranian Mullah's next door? I don't know, does anyone have any evidence?
3179. wonkers2 - 1/21/2004 1:43:35 PM
Didn't Sistani call for Sharia to be the law of the land. From what I've seen Sharia isn't particularly democratic. Looks to me like it will be payback time for the Shiites against the Sunnis and the Kurds. Not to mention the Christians and other small groups. Not to mention the women.
3180. PelleNilsson - 1/21/2004 3:18:50 PM
Yes, Wonkers. If an election on the one man one vote principle would be held in Iraq the Shia would win. But the Sunni and the Kurds would certainly boycott an election on those premises. And where are we then?
3181. wonkers2 - 1/21/2004 3:49:17 PM
Starting a western style democracy from scratch after a few thousand years of tribalism and 50?years of strongman rule is no piece of cake.
3182. vonKreedon - 1/21/2004 3:59:44 PM
I'm searching and not finding evidence that Sistani, or the Iraqi Shiites in
general, are calling for the Iranian model. See Role of
Religion in Iraqi Politics
Contrary to common understanding, the
religious revival in Iraq started more than a decade ago. [...] The government
printed and distributed five million copies of the Quran, built large and
expensive mosques (principally Sunni), and in 1994 Sharia was introduced into
the Iraqi penal code.
...
The most important of these is Grand Ayatollah
Ali Muhammad Sistani. Sistani does not advocate an Islamic republic or
Iranian-style clerical rule. But he does believe that the religious leadership
should be closely consulted on critical political issues. The current stalemate
over the process of elections and constitution writing has arisen largely
because the CPA's latest plan came as a surprise to Sistani who then strongly
opposed it.
Sistani and other Shia leaders who oppose an Islamic
republic nevertheless want a form of democratic government that gives full
expression to the Shia demographic majority. Moreover, they want Islam to play a
role in the new forms of governance. There is probably no way to avoid a clause
in the Iraq constitution stating that Islam is the state religion, which is part
of constitutions throughout the Arab world and has been included in all previous
Iraqi constitutions. This will leave open the question of just what this
provision means in practice. Sistani will probably also propose that Sharia be
one of the sources of Iraqi legislation.
3183. vonKreedon - 1/21/2004 3:59:55 PM
Regarding Sharia as state law (a tangental question to the imposition of
Iranian theocratic democracy), the IGC already seems to be well on its way
toward this already, so I'm not sure how caucuses are going to change this
dynamic. See WP
article.
It seems to me that unless the CPA's caucus plan is in fact
rigged, the Shi'ite majority is going to end up in power and Sharia will be
implemented anyway. Am I missing something?
3184. wonkers2 - 1/21/2004 4:02:07 PM
Bush the nation builder.
3185. vonKreedon - 1/21/2004 4:05:01 PM
Ok, I goofed in Message # 3182, there is a large Shiite party, SCIRI. Sistani is not a member of this party.
3186. jexster - 1/21/2004 6:37:54 PM
That's OK may Obe-Juan Cole be with you.
Poor Turks, day late dollar
short....I have the feeling Bremmer already cut this deal...
ANKARA,
Turkey - Kurdish control of an autonomous area in a future Iraqi state would
threaten the stability of the country, a view shared by northern Iraq (news -
web sites)'s neighbors, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
Wednesday.
Erdogan, in an exclusive interview with The
Associated Press, said he will raise those concerns when he meets President Bush
(news - web sites) at the White House on Wednesday.
Turkish leaders
have repeatedly said they fear that expanding Kurdish self-rule in northern Iraq
could lead to the country breaking apart and could threaten the stability of
Iraq's neighbors, which has sizable Kurdish minorities.
"Let me be
open and very frank with you," Erdogan said. "Any federal system based on
ethnicity is not going to be healthy and will damage the future of Iraq."
"This is the idea that is emerging in countries like Iran and Syria
as well," Erdogan added.
Let's put yet another check in the Debray
Decomposition Column - a blowback so stupendous, it will make some long for
Saddam
3187. jexster - 1/21/2004 6:41:58 PM
vK...you won't find evidence that Sistani favors the Iran model because he
doesn't. Sadr does. They both agree on an Islamic state but differ on the
Twelfth Jurisprudent.
I highly recommend Prof Cole's The Iraqi
Shiites: On the history of America’s would-be allies
It is
simply and by far the single best authoritative article I have seen on the
subject.
3188. jexster - 1/21/2004 6:49:29 PM
Bush Doomed? Will He Spend Eternity Eating Shiite Sandwiches? and
three other articles of interest appear in DNI Comment: Who Is
Grand Ayatollah Sistani
If Bush delivers on his democracy
promise, the Shi'ites with 60% of the population will be elected, and the
country will break out in civil war. If he tries to water down Shi'ite
representation with his plan for an assembly elected indirectly by caucuses, the
so far peaceful Shi'ites are likely to join the violence.
...
The US military is already so thinly stretched that soon 40% of the
occupying troops will be drawn from the National Guard and reservists, resulting
in tremendous disruption in the affairs of tens of thousands of families.
Pilots and troops are shunning the cash bonuses offered for
reenlistments. The troops recognize a quagmire even if their neocon overlords
cannot. The only source of troops is the draft.
...
All of this
was perfectly clear well in advance of the ill-considered invasion. If Bush
wasn't smart enough to see it, why didn't his National Security Advisor or his
Secretary of State? How did a handful of neocon ideologues hijack US foreign
policy
Bush did not campaign on a neocon policy of conquest in the
Middle East. There was no public debate over this policy. The invasion of Iraq
was the private agenda of the neocons.
...
Bush, desperate to be
extricated before doom strikes him is experiencing a reality totally different
from the chest-thumping of neocon megalomaniacs, such as Charles Krauthammer,
who declared the US so powerful as to be able to "reshape, indeed remake,
reality on its own."
Bush now knows that he lacks the power to deal with
the reality of Iraq. Indeed, Bush cannot even deal with his own appointees.
3189. OhioSTOPAS - 1/21/2004 6:52:32 PM
Young Jonah Goldberg in his most recent syndicated column (appearing
yesterday in the Columbus Dispatch, Columbus's finest daily newspaper):
"For Bush to have lied [about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction],
he had to have known that there were no WMD's right?"
So when Bush (and
others) said there was "no doubt" Iraq had WMD's, that statement is only a lie
if he was sure there were NO WMD's? Saying something is 100% probable is only a
lie if you KNOW it is 0% probable?
Man. That's quite a stretch, even by
conserv/Repub standards. (How'd this guy get his job, anyway? Did his mother get
it for him or something?)
3190. jexster - 1/21/2004 6:53:02 PM
Oh hell....at the risk of some twit Marji-nizing me with this post, I will be
bold.
We're not going to see a stable, democratic Iraq inside 10 years
and perhaps not in our lifetimes.
3191. jexster - 1/21/2004 6:54:41 PM
That's MAMA's boy!
3192. jexster - 1/21/2004 9:04:43 PM
By way of American preemptive wars, the Commander of the American Armed
Forces decided to go to war on Iraq and topple its regime. Afterwards, the
search for the reasons behind this decision began because all the rhetoric
concerning Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and its threat to
national security and relation with Al Qaeda turned out to be false.
Consequently, more convincing reasons should answer the American voter's big
question: When and why did the President make that decision?
Yet, the
more central and pressing question is: Is Iraq truly a united and coherent state
whose division should be averted? Or is it actually divided and its unity should
be sought after?
Iraq... United Or Divided?
Adel Malek Al-Hayat
3193. jexster - 1/22/2004 7:13:36 AM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three US soldiers were killed and another wounded near
Baquba, while four Iraqi women going to work at a US base were mown down by
guerrillas, the US military and survivors revealed.
The violence
came as the bloody insurgency, fighting to stay alive after the December 13
capture of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), sets its sights more and more on
civilians working for the US-led coalition.
3194. jexster - 1/22/2004 7:28:44 AM
Occupational hazards 3195. Magoseph - 1/22/2004 8:30:47 AM
I reposted your last link in Election 2004 to better effect. Do you want to
hire me, Jex?
3196. jexster - 1/22/2004 11:09:26 AM
I hear the Likud party's lookin for talent..either in its NH field op or in
Jerusalem if you have legal experience 3197. jexster - 1/22/2004 11:12:55 AM
We must keep on topic even if TD refuses to...
It is not just the Shias.
Iraqis of all political, ethnic and religious persuasions want their country
back
Dead Because Bush
Lied
2
G.I.'s Killed as Security Is Seen as Obstacle to Iraq Vote
The real barrier to speedier elections is the continuing
violence, as even American generals now acknowledge.
3198. jexster - 1/22/2004 12:35:33 PM
The Big Shiite Sandwich; We're Just Getting a Peek into Hell
NAJAF, Iraq - The country's top Shiite Muslim cleric would be willing to
drop his demand for early legislative elections if Iraqi and U.N. experts agree
such a ballot would not be feasible.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini
al-Sistani would also want to hear "alternatives" for choosing a new assembly..
Al-Mawsawi said the ayatollah wants to make sure the U.N. experts do not
"stay in a Baghdad hotel" and issue their findings but travel around the country
The aide said al-Sistani was adamant that sovereignty must be
transferred to Iraqis by July 1, as the coalition plans. If the impasse over
choosing a new government cannot be resolved by then, al-Mawsawi said there were
several options, including handing over sovereignty to the U.S.-appointed Iraqi
Governing Council.
Coalition spokesman Charles Heatly said
transferring power to the council, however, was not under serious study.
During the lecture, al-Mawsawi launched into a scathing attack on
the Nov. 15 agreement. Al-Mawsawi said the agreement between the coalition and
Governing Council was announced in the middle of consultations between
al-Sistani and the council.
The aide said the ayatollah believes the
main danger of the Nov. 15 formula is that it "will take us from one quagmire
of illegitimacy to another" because the members would not be chosen by the
Iraqi people.
Al-Sistani believes that only an elected leadership
will have the degree of public acceptance needed to guide the country through
the difficult transition from Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s dictatorship
to democracy, the aide said.
The aide also said al-Sistani fears
that the transitional government to be chosen through the caucuses might try to
remain in office...
3199. jexster - 1/22/2004 12:35:43 PM
"A transitional government must be built on a sound basis," al-Mawsawi said.
"If the basis is not sound, then what comes after will also be unsound."
"A government like that can turn around and tell us that for
security, regional and international circumstances, it will extend its terms for
several years."
3200. jexster - 1/22/2004 3:04:40 PM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - A wave of attacks left US soldiers and Iraqi policemen and civilians dead in their wake, as a senior US commander warned of a looming threat from both nationalists and foreign fighters.
3201. jexster - 1/23/2004 8:54:20 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bomb planted in a meeting room exploded after a meeting of
the Iraqi Communist Party, killing two men in an an apparent attack on
supporters of the U.S.-backed government, officials said Friday.
If as
AL would have it, posting US death makes me ghoulishly Anti-american, and by
implication, him a patriotm, then it follows that this makes me ghoulishly
anti-communist, and him Red.
Right AL?
And as for the slobbering
slerb supporter TD, we all know that Saddam sent Slobo advisers to try an shoot
down our planes, so that takes care of his "concerns"
3202. jexster - 1/23/2004 10:06:34 AM
This ain't from no "ashamed" Euro Elites
This ain't from no liburul
Bush hatin media
This is from The State, "South Carolina's
Newspaper"
The Regis Debray Decomposition... 
CIA warns of civil war in Iraq
In contrast to Bush’s optimism,
officers say tensions mounting
WASHINGTON — CIA officers in Iraq
are warning that the country might be on a path to civil war, current and former
U.S. officials said Wednesday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment
President Bush gave in his State of the Union address.
The CIA officers’
bleak assessment was delivered verbally to Washington this week, said the
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
3203. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 10:56:25 AM
Great article in this month's Atlantic about how Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bremer totally fucked up the occupation of Iraq. Rumsfeld comes off particularly poorly as an arrogant asshole.
3204. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 10:57:17 AM
Add. the long, carefully researched Atlantic article was by James Fallows.
3205. jexster - 1/23/2004 1:57:07 PM
Democracy, Bush Style
United Nations officials, European
diplomats, American officials and Iraqi leaders say there is a growing
conviction that Ayatollah Sistani has realized that he has considerable power to
get his way and cannot be circumvented.
The fear among many is that if
he opposes the caucus process, especially with a religious decree, he could
effectively prevent the caucuses from being carried out. Some experts say that
the ayatollah is mainly interested in gaining power in Iraq, not in democracy,
and that he could be bought off in the process.
3206. jexster - 1/23/2004 2:00:00 PM
Link coming next month
The Indispensable Nation
Regis
Debray
Harper's is weird....that was in last month's print ed..
3207. jexster - 1/23/2004 2:20:58 PM
Operation Iraqi Freedom???
Not For Women
The Imperal
Governor has approved puppet IGC legislation repealing the most progressive
women's rights legislation in the Middle East.
From now on, women who
want to work or marry must have the approval of muslim clerics
ALLAHU
AKBAR suckers
3208. Al D - 1/23/2004 3:14:48 PM
f as AL would have it, posting US death makes me ghoulishly Anti-american,
and by implication, him a patriotm, then it follows that this makes me
ghoulishly anti-communist, and him Red.
I know from personel experience that you don't really care if you make
sense or not, but the above is beyond silly. It is not that I consider you or
almost all who are against the war as anti-American. I consider your opposition
to the war simply political. You npot only believe that democracy is impossible
in Iraq, but you hope you are right. I believe that is almost impossible for
democracy to take hold in Iraq and I hope I am wrong. I think wonkers hopes I'm
wrong, even if it would help Bush, or am I thinking of wombat.
I printed out that article by Cole and am now off to read it. Thanks.
3209. judithathome - 1/23/2004 3:36:07 PM
Add. the long, carefully researched Atlantic article was by James
Fallows.
That's an excellent article.
3210. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 4:21:14 PM
You are correct AlD. Nothing would make me happier than to see the terrorism stop immediately and for democracy to flower in Iraq. As you, I am skeptical that it will happen. Beyond that, I think the invasion was a big mistake based on doctored, exaggerated, erroneous claims about the threat posed by Iraq to the U.S. or other countries in the area. The actual situation in Iraq did not fit Bush's preemption policy, and the invasion inflamed our enemies in the Middle East and did not further our war on terror (I don't like the term "war on terrorism" because it implies that conventional warfare is the answer, which it is not. Aside from Bin Laden, our promises to Afghanistan remain unfulfilled and we are in a big mess in Iraq, resources stretched to the breaking point. Sooner or later Americans will realize how poor Bush's, Cheney's, Rumsfeld's, et al, leadership has been and not reelect him to a second term.
3211. judithathome - 1/23/2004 4:25:28 PM
For a good start on realizing that, they should have watched PBS' Frontline last night on the hunt for Saddam's alleged WMDs. It was excellent and even David Kay, who had supported the war earler and done a lot to push the idea that weapons were over there, ended up referring to the "proof" as "straws of evidence".
3212. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 4:27:49 PM
Bush has backed down from weapons to programs. Cheney still thinks they are there.
3213. jexster - 1/23/2004 4:30:25 PM
Breaking News, On topic, On Time
Ex-Inspection Chief Kay Says Bush Lied
He has the
blood of thousands on his hands...
Bush lies, Americans die
And
if that's not bad enough, we are just beginning to reap the whirlwind of the
biggest foreign policy disaster in US history.
Mark my words - again
3214. jexster - 1/23/2004 4:30:45 PM
Real patriots should be mad as hell
3215. jexster - 1/23/2004 4:33:10 PM
I don't wish to be unfair but some might say that a certain someone is more
interested in Bush's political fortunes than in the lives of US servicemen or
the interests of this country....
Some might say that, not me of course
3216. vonKreedon - 1/23/2004 4:35:57 PM
Bush has backed down from weapons to programs. Even worse,
"...weapons of mass destruction related program activities." Not even
full WMD programs, but activity within programs with some relation to WMD.
Man, I sure am feeling safer now.
3217. judithathome - 1/23/2004 4:41:38 PM
ISG analysts were diverted from hunting for weapons of mass destruction to
helping in the fight against the insurgency, Kay said.
Evidently
whoever sent him over there decided there was not much hope of finding any,
either...why else divert the people searching away from what they were doing?
3218. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 4:42:14 PM
Right, "program activities." Someone should ask him to define the term.
3219. judithathome - 1/23/2004 4:45:10 PM
They will extend that term in a few weeks to be "weapons of mass destruction program activities which might have occured to them at some future point in time".
3220. jexster - 1/23/2004 5:01:15 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. Army OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter attached to the 101st Airborne Division crashed Friday in northern Iraq (news - web sites), killing the two pilots, the U.S. military said
3221. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 5:01:24 PM
Ha!
3222. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 5:01:38 PM
Sad but true!
3223. jexster - 1/23/2004 5:08:40 PM
Case Closed:
Cheney Cites Leaked Intelligence on Iraq-Al Qaeda
In an interview this month, Vice President Dick Cheney touted a
report and leaked classified document that the Administration itself has billed
"inaccurate" as the basis for his Iraq-Al Qaeda claims.
When questioned
about his assertion of a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection, Cheney said, "you ought to
go look [at] an article that Stephen Hayes did in the Weekly Standard here a few
weeks ago, that goes through and lays out in some detail, based on an assessment
that was done by the Department of Defense and forwarded to the Senate
Intelligence Committee some weeks ago. That's your best source of information."1
But the article and document Cheney cites was discredited by the
Administration as "inaccurate" two months ago, at the time it was published. The
Administration also criticized the leak, saying, "Individuals who leak or
purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national
security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal."2
The Defense
Department is not the only agency objecting to the accuracy of the claim. Cheney
raised the connection again yesterday, saying, "There's overwhelming evidence
there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very
confident that there was an established relationship there."3 But Secretary of
State Colin Powell disputed the idea two weeks ago, when he admitted, "I have
not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection."4
3224. jexster - 1/23/2004 5:08:54 PM
Today's Los Angeles Times reports that improved intelligence has revealed
neither the Iraqis nor Al Qaeda trusted one another enough to establish a
relationship. September 11th lead planner Khalid-Sheikh Muhammad, the
highest ranking Al Qaeda official in custody, has revealed that Al Qaeda saw
Iraq as a "corrupt, secular regime."5 Last week, the New York Times reported
that documents indicated Saddam Hussein warned his followers to "be wary of
joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq."6
3225. jexster - 1/23/2004 5:10:53 PM
The Cheney Regime strategy is clear...and just Paul O'Neill described it...
Continue to feed the brainwashed "Base" and hope that they hold up
against the barrage of truth until Election Day when it won't matter what they
believe..
Or anyone else for that matter
3226. jexster - 1/23/2004 5:15:45 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S.-backed plan for handing over power to Iraqis is unacceptable as it stands, according to a top Shiite Muslim leader who met with President Bush (news - web sites) this week.
3227. jexster - 1/23/2004 6:20:05 PM
WASHINGTON - The CIA (news - web sites) named a new inspector to lead the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction Friday, choosing a veteran investigator who has expressed recent skepticism that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) possessed banned weapons that posed an immediate threat.
3228. arkymalarky - 1/23/2004 7:01:37 PM
Rumsfeld comes off particularly poorly as an arrogant asshole.
Really? I'd have thought he'd come off particularly well as one.
3229. jexster - 1/23/2004 7:06:51 PM
School teacher
3230. jexster - 1/23/2004 7:09:45 PM
Concern about the founding fathers of Iraq are ya TD??
Don't be..
The Neocon's "George Washington of Iraq" Ahmed of Arabia Pressures
Bush for Democracy
Even rats know enuf to jump when the ship is
sinking...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading pro-U.S. member of Iraq
(news - web sites)'s Governing Council on Friday called for direct elections
before a July handover of power, urging Washington to give in to popular demand
because its transition plan could destabilize the country.
Ahmad
Chalabi, who has close ties to the Bush administration, said elections were
possible, increasing pressure on Washington to change its stance that there was
no time to organize a vote
3231. arkymalarky - 1/23/2004 8:57:20 PM
Gee, Jex, you really hit below the belt there. ;-)
3232. wonkers2 - 1/23/2004 9:35:42 PM
Maybe Cheney suffered brain damage from his heart attacks/surgery??
3233. jexster - 1/24/2004 8:06:31 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two American soldiers were killed on Saturday in a roadside bomb attack on their convoy near the volatile town of Falluja, the U.S. Army said.
3234. jexster - 1/24/2004 8:42:25 AM
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=483202
target=new>Kurds Turn Against Bush As He Renegs on Autonomy
Promises
The Independent reports: "Iraqi Kurds, the one Iraqi
community that has broadly supported the American occupation, are expressing
growing anger at the failure of the United States and its allies to give them
full
control of their own affairs and allow the Kurds to expel Arabs placed
in Kurdistan by Saddam Hussein. Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, told The Independent in an interview that the Kurds had been
offered less autonomy 'than we had agreed in 1974 with the
regime of Saddam
Hussein'. There are the seeds here for a savage ethnic conflict. The Arabs and
Turkomans in Kirkuk are frightened. Many of the Arab settlers have been there
for more than a generation and it is not clear where they would go. The last
year has seen a number of small-scale but bloody clashes."
3235. jexster - 1/24/2004 8:48:07 AM
LINK - He Lied to the Kurds, Kurds Pissed, Debray Decomposition
Proceeds Apace - Big Shiite Sandwich
Note to AL- The US IS
getting into a deeper and deeper mess and you can learn all about it right here.
"AND YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH,
AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE" -
MOTTO
ENTRANCE LOBBY
CIA
HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VA
Home of the Langley High Mighty
Saxons
3236. jexster - 1/24/2004 9:01:59 AM
Looks like the truth is "relevant" across the pond
New WMD
blow for Blair
Survey chief resigns saying Iraq never had
stockpiles
Never RD, as in not ever, at least not since
1991 which is essentially what Scott Ritter said.
The RNC and its
moronic minions around here of course immediately slandered him, impugning his
patriotism(Fancy that AL you old bag of methane you!) and accusing him of having
been on Saddam's payroll.
3237. jexster - 1/24/2004 10:16:42 AM
Speaking to Reuters after his departure was announced, Kay voiced deep
skepticism that the administration's prewar claims that Iraq was hiding large
caches of illegal munitions would be validated
Follow
the Yellowcaked Road
The Los Angeles Times
3238. jexster - 1/24/2004 1:08:28 PM
JANUARY 19, 2003 3239. rdbrewer - 1/24/2004 1:15:03 PM
Walking for stupidity.
3240. judithathome - 1/24/2004 1:16:23 PM
Because god knows, what we really need in this world is more WAR.
3241. jexster - 1/24/2004 1:25:18 PM
Walking because we refused to be led down the primrosed path of yellowcaked
lies 3242. jexster - 1/24/2004 1:26:08 PM
SAN FRANCISCO,
CA 
Walking against lies, against corruption, against death...
Walking to keep 500+ US soldiers alive
Walking to keep the limbs
on thousands
Walking so that tens of thousands of Iraqis might live
Walking to stay out of a tar pit, a hell that we've just had a first
glimpse of
Walking to keep this country true to its principles and out
of a preventive war of choice
Walking so that the US would not make one
of the worst foreign policy blunders in its history
Walking because we are patriots not parrots
3243. jexster - 1/24/2004 1:31:54 PM
Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.
3244. judithathome - 1/24/2004 1:51:04 PM
So, is it true that the total death countof US soldiers does not include those wounded who die later at hospitals out of Iraq? That those wounded who are sent to Weisbaden or Landstuhl or back to the US and die of complications later are not "counted" as fatalities?
3245. vonKreedon - 1/24/2004 2:31:39 PM
Walking because we are patriots not parrots
Oooh, that is a
sweet pithy line for a sign! I hope to make use of it.
3246. jexster - 1/24/2004 2:55:17 PM
I dunno JAH..we're not supposed to think or speak of those who die..
3247. rdbrewer - 1/24/2004 3:30:41 PM
"Walking because we are patriots not parrots"
Oooh, that is a
sweet pithy line for a sign! I hope to make use of it.
Why? They're
all parroting one another. You don't see independent-minded people showing up
for groupthink spirituality rallies and herd identification posturing and
display fests. When have you ever seen a throng of Libertarians chanting
something--or just a throng of Libertarians, for that matter? These people are
being guided by their penguin motivator neurons. So they are parrots. They have
an instinctive need to stand around together, imitating one another, all
squawking and strutting alike to get that feeling of affirmation and security in
numbers.
3248. rdbrewer - 1/24/2004 3:37:27 PM
But the penguins are better dressed.
3249. arkymalarky - 1/24/2004 3:49:37 PM
When have you ever seen a throng of Libertarians chanting something--or
just a throng of Libertarians, for that matter?
No wonder they never
get anywhere in politics. That's kind of like the Monty Python race for people
with no sense of direction. Who wins?
3250. judithathome - 1/24/2004 3:55:01 PM
You don't see independent-minded people showing up for groupthink
spirituality rallies and herd identification posturing and display fests.
Sure you do...at a Republican Primary or in the audience for a Rush
Limbaugh appearence. At least they claim to be thinking independently; I
seriously doubt their claims but whatever.....
3251. robertjayb - 1/24/2004 7:50:27 PM
The butcher's bill grows...
(CBS/AP) Iraqi
insurgents struck Saturday in the volatile Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad,
killing five U.S. soldiers in separate bombings and narrowly missing an American
convoy with a blast that killed four Iraqis and wounded about 40 others north of
the capital.
...as
the lies unravel...
TBLISI, Georgia Jan. 24 — Secretary of
State Colin Powell held out the possibility Saturday that prewar Iraq may not
have possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Powell was asked about comments
last week by David Kay, the outgoing leader of a U.S. weapons search team in
Iraq, that he did not believe Iraq had large quantities of chemical or
biological weapons.
Who wants to be next to die for the glory of
the bushie dynasty?
3252. wonkers2 - 1/24/2004 11:34:47 PM
If Powell were Japanese he would be falling on his sword out of shame. I guess that's not part of our culture. McNamara claims in Fog of War that he became disillusioned about our war in Vietnam, but he had no answer when Errol Morris asked him why he didn't speak out after Lyndon Johnson sacked him from Secretary of Defense. The resemblance between McNamara during Vietnam and Rumsfeld today is uncanny.
3253. arkymalarky - 1/24/2004 11:43:07 PM
I guess that's not part of our culture.
That would require him
to host a program on Fox or talk radio.
3254. robertjayb - 1/25/2004 12:33:56 AM
Pssst! Wanna' see our new plan?
WashPost---The
Bush administration has produced a list of possible changes for Iraq's political
transition, with some U.S. and British officials acknowledging for the first
time that the original plan could even be scrapped altogether if the United
States is to preempt the growing clamor for election.
....................................
The administration insists
there is no sense of panic, despite the mounting opposition to the current U.S.
transition plan.
....................................
....in a sign
of how much control the United States has lost since the Nov. 15 accord, U.S.
officials concede that the most important calculations in ending the political
crisis will be the positions of two players excluded from the original
agreement: the United Nations and an aging ayatollah who has not left his home
in six years.
..................................
Already, the
preeminent body of Sunnis, the Association of Muslim Clergy, has come out
against elections. Sunni clerics have used their Friday prayer sermons to make
clear they will not give in to a plan that ends up with Shiite domination -- and
that all methods of resistance will be allowed to prevent it.
Panic may be an entirely appropriate response...
3255. jexster - 1/25/2004 10:06:20 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier died on Sunday following a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq (news - web sites), the latest in a series of weekend ambushes that had already killed five U.S. troops and four Iraqi civilians.
3256. robertjayb - 1/25/2004 11:21:57 AM
Unintended Consequences of Unheeded Warnings...
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The top U.S. military commander in Iraq said
Sunday there was evidence ties might be growing between al Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein loyalists waging a bloody insurgency in the country.
....................................
Such an alliance would be a new
one. The secular nature of Saddam's Iraq ran counter to the radical Muslim views
of groups like Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
....................................
3257. wonkers2 - 1/25/2004 12:02:20 PM
That's just great. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Riceroni, Wolfowitz have created an Iraqi-Al Qaeda alliance where none existed before!! Talking about blow-back! First in Afghanistan, now in Iraq.
3258. judithathome - 1/25/2004 12:12:59 PM
toys?
3259. jexster - 1/25/2004 12:43:55 PM
3260. jexster - 1/25/2004 12:47:56 PM
Grand Ayatollah Sistani's Website
3261. rdbrewer - 1/25/2004 12:50:11 PM
3262. rdbrewer - 1/25/2004 12:51:22 PM
undercover brothers
Hey, Jex, how 'bout those penguins!
3263. jexster - 1/25/2004 12:56:37 PM
Message # 3247
BOOMEr
SOONER
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner,
Boomer Sooner, Boomer
Sooner,
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner,
Boomer Sooner, OK-U!
Oklahoma, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma, OK-U!
I'm a Sooner born,
And a Sooner bred,
And
when I die
I'll be Sooner dead!
Rah, Oklahoma! Rah, Oklahoma!
Rah, Oklahoma! OK-U!
3264. rdbrewer - 1/25/2004 1:02:00 PM
oxymoron of the day: Libertarian rally
3265. judithathome - 1/25/2004 1:20:01 PM
Little Point in WMDs Search
...The sharp change in
emphasis by the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group follows the admission on Friday
by its outgoing leader, Dr David Kay, that his 1,000-man organisation had not
found evidence of stockpiles, and that he now believed they had never existed.
The CIA has announced that Kay will be replaced by Charles Duelfer, a
former senior weapons inspector, who has said that in the past that the Bush
administration's prewar allegations on Iraq's weapons were 'far off the mark'.
'My goal is to find out what happened on the ground. What was the status of the
Iraqi weapons programme? What was their game plan? What were the goals of the
regime? To find out what is the ground truth,' said Duelfer.
In a deeply
embarrassing reverse for both the Bush administration and Tony Blair, Duelfer
indicated on Friday that he regarded his primary task as attempting to
reconstruct a 'complete, credible and openly demonstrable picture of what Iraq
had, what their programmes were and where they were headed' before the war.
3266. rdbrewer - 1/25/2004 2:44:50 PM
Who is to blame?
Asked whether he feels President Bush
owes the American people an apology for starting the war on the basis of
apparently flawed intelligence, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence
community owes the president rather than the president owing the American
people.
"You have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the
Clinton administration and didn't change in the Bush administration. It is not a
political `got you' issue. It is a serious issue of how you could come to the
conclusion that is not matched by the future."
"It's not a political
issue. Its an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect
valid, truthful information."
And, as PincherMartin points out
elswhere, "[T]he intelligence community is not an objective observer when
critiquing the Bush administration's handling of the intelligence, that they
might have good reasons to play up the White House's culpability in the
fiasco[.] Kay makes the point briefly and somewhat obliquely, but well."
(All quotes Molly Ivinsed with permission.)
3267. robertjayb - 1/25/2004 5:48:58 PM
What horseshit! The bushies got the lies they demanded. Now it is easy to see why they don't want a world court. They would be hauled before it for sure. Maybe it's just me but I think flim-flaming a good part of the world into an unnecessary war is criminal and if we don't boot their sorry asses out of office then we deserve them.
3268. rdbrewer - 1/25/2004 8:43:02 PM
The bushies got the lies they demanded.
It's interesting how
Kay can be both upheld and rejected depending upon utility in the moment.
3269. jexster - 1/26/2004 5:24:41 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military lost its fifth helicopter this month in
Iraq (news - web sites), which crashed in the Tigris river while searching for a
soldier whose boat had capsized. The aircraft's two crew members and the soldier
remained missing Monday.
"We have no news about the progress of the
search" or the fate of the missing service members, a military spokeswoman at
the central command in Baghdad said Monday.
3270. jexster - 1/26/2004 5:44:42 AM
When they didn't get the lies they demanded, they made shit up.
The
emblishments, misrepresentations, and out right lies are documented in the
Carnegie Report up thread.
THe most damning part of Kay's interviews
tell of his conversion from a WMD believer when he started to his present view
that no weapons existed after 1991.
The Cheney Regime repeatedly assured
the public and the Congress that it would make the decision for war only upon
the best intelligence that Saddam had failed to disarm.
UNMOVIC was
very close to discovering the truth of Kay's epiphany months earlier and without
the subtanstial costs to US power, security, lives and dollars.
The only
reason that $700 million search continues is that Bush wants to postpone
investigation into how he managed to perpetrate such a collosal fraud until
after the election.
Ironically, Tom Daschle initially proposed that the
Senate not consider the Iraq War Resolution until after the 2002 election just
as Bush I requested and Congress granted in Gulf War I. Tragically Daschle caved
in the face of Bush's relentless warmongering/mid term election campaign.
3271. jexster - 1/26/2004 8:49:33 AM
"T]he intelligence community is not an objective observer when critiquing the
Bush administration's handling of the intelligence, that they might have good
reasons to play up the White House's culpability in the fiasco[.] Kay makes the
point briefly and somewhat obliquely, but well."
Kay didn't make the
point briefly or obliquely. Kay didn't make that point at all or even come close
- certainly not in that quote and from what I gather from the reviews, not in
his report either.
Did you read your post?
Yes the CIA is not an
impartial observer. So what? There must be more. Try as I might, I can't connect
one dot.
3272. jayackroyd - 1/26/2004 9:23:41 AM
3268
So which is it for you, rdb? Upheld, or rejected?
3273. jexster - 1/26/2004 10:25:33 AM
Blix said the United States should have known the intelligence was flawed
last year when leads followed up by U.N. inspectors didn't produce any results.
"I was beginning to wonder what was going on. Weren't they wondering
too?" he told The Associated Press by telephone. Speaking of Kay's resignation,
Blix said, "If you find yourself on a train that's going in the wrong direction,
its best to get off at the next stop."
3274. quakeii - 1/26/2004 10:28:23 AM
"Maybe it's just me but I think flim-flaming a good part of the world into an
unnecessary war is criminal and if we don't boot their sorry asses out of office
then we deserve them."
robertjayb--
I'm afraid the American
voting public will prove that they indeed deserve them in ten months.
3275. judithathome - 1/26/2004 10:31:42 AM
I agree with Quakeii.
3276. robertjayb - 1/26/2004 11:06:28 AM
Yes, I fear we lack the wisdom of Hans Blix:
"If you find yourself
on a train that's going in the wrong direction, its best to get off at the next
stop."
3277. robertjayb - 1/26/2004 11:11:22 AM
Riverbend has trouble sleeping---and doing laundry...
3278. jexster - 1/26/2004 11:28:08 AM
He should be thankful he doesn't live here:
Tensions Bring Kirkuk's Ethnic Meltiing Pot to a Boil
US Officials Fear Kurd Nationalism Will Spark Nationwide Civil
War
3279. jexster - 1/26/2004 11:31:17 AM
Why do you think I would deserve an elected George Bush robert?
3280. jayackroyd - 1/26/2004 9:34:58 PM
rdb, still waiting for a response to 3272. Should Kay be relied upon, or not,
in your view?
3281. jexster - 1/26/2004 10:46:03 PM
David Kay is no fool..he's a Company Man....Company Cover for Operation Bush
Root and Branch...
The MO interview is identical to MO Kay report. Its
also Company SOP...Tenant's pattern is no different...
Daming with faint
praise with a CIA twist...Damning with feint praise...
Follow
carefully...so devilishly clever it is almost Asiatic!
ITEM 1 -
Kay's Conversion..Arsenic and Old Cake
WASHINGTON - The White
House retreated Monday from its once-confident claims that Iraq (news - web
sites) had weapons of mass destruction, and Democrats swiftly sought to turn the
about-face into an election-year issue against President Bush (news - web
sites). The administration's switch came after retired chief U.S. weapons
inspector David Kay said he had concluded, after nine months of searching, that
Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) did not have stockpiles of forbidden weapons
and its WMD production likely ended in 1991. Asked about Kay's remarks, White
House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to repeat oft-stated assertions that
prohibited weapons eventually would be found.
McClellan said the
inspectors should continue their work "so that they can draw as complete a
picture as possible. And then we can learn — it will help us learn the truth."
Kay, meanwhile, was called to appear at a public hearing of the
Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) on Wednesday and agreed to
attend, a Senate aide said.
3282. jexster - 1/26/2004 10:47:00 PM
ITEM #2 - First Feint - All The CIA's fault
See RD's quote Message # 3266 Double
Dark Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting
Item 3 - Teary Eyed CIA
Analysts Wracked with Guilt Confess to Dr. Kay, Company Confessor
Dr.
Kay said the fundamental errors in prewar intelligence assessments were so grave
that he would recommend that the Central Intelligence Agency and other
organizations overhaul their intelligence collection and analytical efforts.
Dr. Kay said analysts had come to him, "almost in tears, saying they
felt so badly that we weren't finding what they had thought we were going to
find — I have had analysts apologizing for reaching the conclusions that they
did."
In response to Dr. Kay's comments, an intelligence official said
Sunday that while some prewar assessments may have been wrong, "it is premature
to say that the intelligence community's judgments were completely wrong or
largely wrong — there are still a lot of answers we need." The official added,
however, that the C.I.A. had already begun an internal review to determine
whether its analytical processes were sound. So reasonable!! So contrite!!!
Uriah Heap Humility
3283. jexster - 1/26/2004 10:48:29 PM
Item #4 - The Syrian Mirage - Pretty Sprinkles to Finish
Demcrats.com ITS A SET
UP!
David Kay Now Says WMDs are in Syria
We here at
Democrats.com, who have followed Bush toady David Kay's career with much
interest (not to mention fear and loathing), were stunned when he recently
stated there were no WMDs in Iraq. Was this the same man who kept making the
media rounds to push Iraq's guilt before any new
inspectors had even set
foot in Baghdad? Ya know what they say: If it sounds too good to be true....
Turns out Kay was using his "media moment" last week simply as the "run up" to
his Bush-scripted statement this week: the WMDs are not in Iraq, 'cause they are
in SYRIA. So let's invade and connect those oil pipeline dots from Iraq to the
Mediterranean!
Diabolical Bush Dupes Media Again!
LITTLE
PROBLEM: Kay never said that. He juxstaposed but never connected two factual
conclusions - Chaos in first weeks stymied Inspection...Syria couldn't wouldn't
seal its borders..its all in the mind...
BIG PROBLEM: Kay induced short
term amnesia at Democrats.com....No weapons to smuggle!!! ITEM #1 HELLO!!
3284. robertjayb - 1/26/2004 11:39:57 PM
You get a line and I'll get a pole...
We'll go down to the crawdad
hole...
Crawfishin'
3285. jexster - 1/26/2004 11:51:48 PM
Let's take another look in slow motion...
Let's do a slow mo instant
replay:
1. No weapons since 1995, No production since 1991 - The Poison
2. All CiA;s fault - Attracts Republicans
3. CIA Agents Confess Sins
Against Bush - Attracts More Republicans
4. WMD's in Syria - Democrats.com
not fooled for one second...Deno Shit Fit Attracts Republican Flies
Outcome: Republicans see what they want, Democrats see what they
want & cry foul, Republicans like shrieking democrats see
Sooo....
That Intel Commmitee Investigation that DeLay labored mightly to
postpone for another year or so...two days ago in DeLay Election Year Deep
Freezer
Well ITS BAAACK
PRESTO - Armed Services
Committee - Let's get to the bottom of this right now!
The CIA threw the
spotlight on selected faults, all right, theirs! "Come please expose us, shame
on us all Mr. Bush"
Perfect indirection leads directly to Bush. The CIA
cannot escape responsibilty for their intelligence and their evaluation but they
can damn well nail Bush's ass to the wall for lying; make Bush's election year
very uncomfortable...
If Kay's sleight of hand sounds familiar, it
should.
Tenant Yellow Cake...leaps on sword... accepts full blame for
yellow cake lies...
Such loyal servants of Our Leader keeping friends
close and enemies closer
Days later, with all the lights switched on,
that sword took a whack out of Bush.
Again....9-1-1 Tenant selflessly
rolls...and guess who Gov Kean is focusing on today
And again,
judiciously chosen insider leaks every onec in a while...no big deal...ah but
what about all those chatty retired analysts, agents, station chiefs?
Deniabilty and diversion is their game...its why they're called spooks!
3286. jayackroyd - 1/27/2004 2:09:44 AM
Well, I'm still waiting for rdb's response.
3287. jexster - 1/27/2004 10:33:56 AM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three US soldiers were killed and one wounded in a large
explosion in the restive Euphrates valley town of Khaldiya, west of Baghdad.
AFP/File Photo
Latest headlines:
· White
House brushes off Kay comments
AFP - 21 minutes ago
· Key players get
early copies of Hutton report
AFP - 23 minutes ago
· 3 U.S. Soldiers
Killed in Iraq Blasts
AP - 50 minutes ago
Special Coverage
"We are aware of an incident in the 82nd Airborne
Division area at 13:30 pm (1030 GMT) involving a large explosion in Khaldiya," a
US military spokesman said Tuesday.
"Early reports indicate three
killed, one wounded US soldiers
3288. robertjayb - 1/27/2004 11:40:34 AM
Kofi leaps in...(WashPost)
U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan announced Tuesday in Paris that he is sending a team of U.N.
experts to Iraq to determine whether elections can be organized to choose a
transitional Iraqi government by this summer.
The decision,
which Annan made in a statement released this morning in Paris, where he was
meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, marks the most significant
expansion of the United Nations' role in Iraq since Annan evacuated most
staffers from the country in late October. The move also increased prospects
that the United Nations will emerge as a mediator between U.S. authorities and
critics in Iraq over how the country will make the transition to self-rule.
3289. wonkers2 - 1/27/2004 11:43:07 AM
The biggest factor in Iraq at present is not Iraq elections but U.S. elections!
3290. robertjayb - 1/27/2004 4:28:30 PM
Bloody Tuesday...
(CBS/AP) A roadside bomb exploded south
of Baghdad late Tuesday, killing three U.S. soldiers and wounding three others,
the U.S. military said.
The attack occurred about 8 p.m. near
Iskandariyah, some 25 miles south of the Iraqi capital, a military statement
said.
Earlier Tuesday, three other U.S. soldiers were killed in a
bombing near Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad. Two Iraqi civilians also were killed in
the ambush — including one who was shot in the stomach as he stood in his office
nearby, hospital staff said.
3291. jexster - 1/27/2004 4:35:28 PM
This will shatter the hearts and hopes of our Moral Morons newly converted
Human Rights Activists ...you can almost here the Ba-Ba-Bush Sheep bleating
..."OOO baa baaaaa he gaaa-aaa-aaaased hiiii-iiiz people"
Unholy sheep shit: Iraq war unjustified says human rights
group
The US and British governments cannot justify the
Iraq war on humanitarian grounds, according to the annual report of Human Rights
Watch published yesterday.
3292. wonkers2 - 1/27/2004 5:02:18 PM
Well, that means Bush will have to drop his claim to having done more for human rights than any other president. That leaves having done more for the environment, the middle class taxpayer, homeland security, etc, etc.
3293. jexster - 1/27/2004 5:44:05 PM
More on The Big Bunker Busting Bomb
Bush's State
of the Union (SOTU) address failed to generate the traditional post-speech
bounce in presidential support. Today more results of the poll have been
released and further illustrate his lack of success in moving public opinion.
they asked voters who selected a given issue as "very important" whether
they thought a Democratic president would do a better job than Bush on that
issue. Here are the same issues with the percentage point lead (or deficit) for
a Democratic president among these voters: economy and jobs (+22); health care
(+34); education (+22); terrorism and homeland security (-18); situation in Iraq
(dead even); and Social Security/Medicare (+32).
Then, they asked voters
who selected a given issue as "very important" whether they thought a Democratic
president would do a better job than Bush on that issue. Here are the same
issues with the percentage point lead (or deficit) for a Democratic president
among these voters: economy and jobs (+22); health care (+34); education (+22);
terrorism and homeland security (-18); situation in Iraq (dead even); and Social
Security/Medicare (+32).
Pretty interesting! Despite how much
Bush dwelt on terrorism and Iraq in his SOTU address, his lead on the former,
his area of greatest strength, is actually less than the Democratic leads on the
four domestic issues. And he has no lead whatsoever on Iraq, the front line,
according to him, of the war against terror
Finally, how
about this one: "Do you think going to war with Iraq has made Americans safer
from terrorism?". Yes: 44 percent. No: 53 percent. Since this is exactly the
case Bush was trying to make in the SOTU, disagreement here is a telling
indicator that his speech should be considered "mission not accomplished".
3294. jexster - 1/27/2004 5:45:49 PM
OOOPs Bush Big Bombs are going off all around..I know ahark feels like when chum
hits the water..
FEEDIN TIME..bring it on
3295. robertjayb - 1/28/2004 10:41:14 AM
Shazaam! A new pre-election offensive...Generals Rove and Rumsfeld
will take the point...Lt. dubya will fly cover
WASHINGTON
(AP) - The Pentagon is planning a new offensive to foil the expected movement of
Taliban figures and Al-Qaida terrorists in still-troubled regions of
Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.
Defense officials have issued an
order alerting troops to the planned ``spring offensive'' so forces can start
working on logistics and getting equipment in place, one official said on
condition of anonymity.
3296. judithathome - 1/28/2004 10:48:44 AM
They might have done this earlier...it's not like the opportunity
hasn't been there. But I suppose they think the elections in Iraq and pulling
out of there will be almost done by June so a little diversionary action in the
spring will take up the slack.
I wonder how many Americans are getting
tired of seeing the totals of dead soldiers every day? They reached a limit
during Viet Nam; maybe they have a limit now, too.
3297. jexster - 1/28/2004 11:03:19 AM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Five Iraqis plus a suicide bomber were killed when a powerful
car bomb tore off the front of a hotel in central Baghdad.
Bush's
"Win-win".
3298. jexster - 1/28/2004 11:10:42 AM
WASHINGTON - Senators want to speak with the former top U.S. weapons inspector who said he couldn't find evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a primary justification by President Bush for the war in Iraq
3299. jexster - 1/28/2004 11:20:14 AM
Kurds
& Whey - BIG Win-Win
The crisis over elections in Iraq is
destabilising the north of the country, where thousands of Kurds were yesterday
campaigning for the right to remain autonomous amid fears they would be "sold
out" by the coalition authoritie
Two major things to look for in
February:
1. Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training Camp
2.
Regis Debray's "Indispensilbe Nation" will appear on the Harper's Website and
we'll be rubbing TD's nose in the Tricolor.
Hell I might even trot
it over to the PerfectSpider hole just for funnzies
3300. jexster - 1/28/2004 11:33:19 AM
WMD Were Quietly Destroyed
Ex-weapons inspector Kay says
new evidence shows Iraqis got rid of chemical and bio weapons in the '90s
So you can stop looking now RD.
3301. jexster - 1/28/2004 11:42:43 AM
RD...Now that you no longer need search for figments of Emperor Georgie's
fevered imagination, you'll have alot of time on your hands.
I've given
some thought to how you, a Libertarian, might profitably wile away the hours.
I picked out a selection of readings from the CATO INSTITUTE that I am
sure you will enjoy. Ronksi too if he ever comes out from under his bed...Hey
Ronsk no UAV's overhead its safe now.
How to Exit Iraq,
Dump Neo-Con Policy, and Win Re-election
Iraq: Exit Rather
Than Spend
Washington's Peter Pan Strategy for Iraq
Now you
boyz enjoy your Libertarian reading rally and lemme know when you finish.
There's more where that came from.
Seconds even thirds on King Georgie's
Shiite Sandwiches
3302. robertjayb - 1/28/2004 12:00:41 PM
Hoo Boy! Talk about leading a witness. Looks like the GOP senators are lining up to give blowjobs if Kay gives the right answers.
3303. marjoribanks - 1/28/2004 12:47:37 PM
The War on Terrorism, the campaign against the jihadis who have disrupted
normal life in a huge swathe of the world, has been on the back-burner for a
while as the US set off on its colonial adventure in Iraq.
From the
first, I have pointed out here that there has been a ridiculous and
uncomfortable silence about the some of the real breeding-grounds for the most
dangerous terrorists. The nexus that spawned the direct links between Mohammed
Atta as well as the killer of Daniel Pearl, and - pehaps - the distribution of
nuclear technology to extrmist groups, the nexus that bred the Taliban on one
end. In short, the extremist element in Pakistan that Washington refuses to
mention even as it lied about Saddam Hussein's potential in these areas.
Now, with ample warning, the US appears ready to act on the side of the
Pakistani majority. This is the story, and it will be a huge deal in the spring if it
goes forward.
Is it too late? I suspect it may be.
3304. robertjayb - 1/28/2004 2:03:03 PM
Won't you be my friend?
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan
expects $400-500 million debt write-off from the United States, said Finance
Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Speaking at a joint press conference with
Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan here on Tuesday, Shaukat said the
agreement to this effect would be signed shortly between the two countries under
$395 million package for the US financial year 2004 that began on October 1,
2003.
3305. judithathome - 1/28/2004 4:08:40 PM
Where Did Iraq Get Weapons?
The Senate committee's
reports on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to
Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and
destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2,
1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes
anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with
two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly
botulism poisoning.
One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped
to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other
shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11,
1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989;
the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry
of Health in April 1985 and Officers' City, a military complex in Baghdad, in
March and April 1986.
The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam
Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least
5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took
place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons
of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.
3306. vonKreedon - 1/28/2004 4:37:21 PM
Marj - You say, Now, with ample warning, the US appears ready to act on
the side of the Pakistani majority. Are you so sure that we will be acting
with the majority? The article you cite says, ...his [Musharraf]
cooperation with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts is widely unpopular among average
Pakistanis. It is certainly my understanding that this move will be very
unpopular, and likely meet with armed resistance in the FATA that would be the
main area of operation. It seems to me that this operation would have to be
primarily Pakistani, at least on the ground, with the US providing intelligence,
logistics, fire support and advice.
The thing that worries me about this
is Pak's nukes. To me they are the single biggest threat with regards to the use
of WMD against the US. If Musharraf falls and is replaced by a Taliban-like
regime, or by a chaotic power struggle, then all bets are off on the security of
Pak's nukes. Unlike Iraq, we know that Pak possesses them and keeping them from
falling into the hands of alQaeda should be a top priority, even over the
killing/capturing of Osama.
3307. jexster - 1/28/2004 8:10:52 PM
THANK YOU SPECIAL AGENT KAY!!!
Special K has unleashed the rats of
war...Congressmen are running to the nearest TV camera and saying such things
as...
".not only did Bush lie but members of the Intelligence Committee
looked me in the face and told me lies before I cast my vote."
3308. OhioSTOPAS - 1/28/2004 9:13:07 PM
On Monday morning our local Clear Channel radio station had nothing to say
about Kay's conclusions except (as close to verbatim as I can remember): "Kay
tells the London Telegraph that Saddam sent his weapons of mass destruction
programs to Syria."
Clear Channel, bringing "fair and balanced" news
(sic) coverage to your ears.
3309. wonkers2 - 1/28/2004 10:23:42 PM
Where did Iraq get the weapons? The ugly truth is one reason why some were so sure that Iraq had WMD--because we knew what the U.S. had shipped to Iraq.
3311. angel-five - 1/28/2004 11:32:03 PM
I'll say it even though it's unpopular, especially in my wing of American
politics -- Iraq did not give up WMD. Iraq had WMD, it was a shit-stupid reason
to invade and the Bush administration is now reaping that whirlwind although
thousands of Iraqi civilians aren't breathing and hence cannot, it was indelibly
retarded of our commander in chief the draft dodging coke snorting fratboy
monkey to make the case in this vein, let alone ties to al-Qaeda. But let's not
pretend that Iraq really went out into the desert and dumped all their WMD and
then abandoned the program. As I have said before, it doesn't take much at all
to hide a WMD program especially if you're not producing weapons stocks, and
that's what Iraq did.
3312. jexster - 1/29/2004 1:03:00 AM
Guess what they're sayin on Capitol Hill now?
"WOW, why in
the hell do we have to wait while Bushie roots around Iraq with 700 Milliono of
the taxpayers money just so he can delay the investigation into his lies? "
Special K, Agent CIA
Did ole Jex hit another out of the
park?
We're not worthy...we're not worthy!
3313. jexster - 1/29/2004 1:09:57 AM
Hey Acie, Hey Al, Take a Bite of Georgie's Big Shiite Sandwich
BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - An explosion hit an Iraqi security patrol
in the restive town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, Thursday and witnesses said
they feared many casualties.
The blast struck members of the Iraqi Civil
Defense Force as they were conducting an early morning patrol through the town,
40 miles north of Baghdad, which has been the scene of repeated attacks against
Iraqi forces in recent weeks.
3314. OhioSTOPAS - 1/29/2004 6:30:14 AM
Although David Kay's recent statements are generally embarrassing to the Bush
Administration, the celebrated Mr. Kay is nevertheless being a loyal political
soldier and insisting that the fault was with our intelligence agencies, not the
Resident.
However, this
chronology refutes any argument that Bush, Cheney, Powell et al were
honestly and in good faith relaying intelligence findings to the American
people.
3315. wonkers2 - 1/29/2004 6:37:49 AM
Everyone should read the excellent and damning chronology. I subscribe to several of the publications cited and, as a result, never believed Bush's assertions about WMD.
3316. wonkers2 - 1/29/2004 6:40:12 AM
Moreover, the real issue is whatever weapons Iraq had, whether it was an iminent threat to the United States. It clearly wasn't.
3317. jexster - 1/29/2004 11:35:08 AM
BUSH Tries to Block Independent Investigation of Lies
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites)'s
national security advisor tried on Thursday to head off calls for an independent
investigation into flawed intelligence about Iraq (news - web sites)'s weapons
programs and said the United States may never learn the truth because of
post-war looting
SURPRISE SURPRISE: When Bush Tries to Hide, He Has Something TO
Hide
And they trotted out a new lie to cover the first. Just like a
5 year old might.
3318. robertjayb - 1/29/2004 11:36:29 AM
Oops! No G.I.'s for Pakistan...(CBS/AP)
Pakistan will not allow U.S. troops to use its soil for a planned
"spring offensive" against Taliban or al Qaeda fugitives, officials said
Thursday.
Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, who as chief of the National Crisis
Management Cell coordinates with U.S. officials in the war against terrorism,
said Pakistan's policy did not allow U.S. troops to operate inside the
country.
3319. jexster - 1/29/2004 11:40:54 AM
Bush was just tryin to save Ole Pervez's butt and that's the thanks he gets!
3320. jexster - 1/29/2004 11:42:13 AM
Guess what
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Osama bin Laden (news - web
sites)'s terror network is seeking a foothold in Iraq (news - web sites) as
evidenced by the recent arrest of a top al-Qaida operative trying to enter
northern Iraq, the commander of coalition forces said Thursday.
The
colonia is headed to hell in a handbasket and takin us with it.
3321. jexster - 1/29/2004 11:46:33 AM
Message # 3314
I don't buy the "good soldier" argument for a minute principally
because as Ohio points out, it is so demonstrably untrue based just on the
scattered mostly CIA leaked portions of the NIE 2002 and other stuff too.
Special K is CIA...the "good soldier" routine does double duty - the
obvious (prove loyalty) and the not so obvious (make a charge that invites
investigation which leads to BUsh's ass)....if any are familiar with that
chronology and know where the bodies are buried its the CIA
3322. jexster - 1/29/2004 11:46:55 AM
The Company is layin herbicide to the Bush
3323. jexster - 1/29/2004 12:14:00 PM
Deja Vu All Over Again - The Democracy Lie
Bush Fully Disengaged
White House split over self-rule
The White House is deeply
divided over plans to hand over power to the Iraqis. Cheney and Rumsfeld,
unsurprisingly, would rather hand the baton as early as April to the unelected
Iraqi Governing Council. The move would allow Bush to run on claims of having
restored sovereignty to Iraq while still keeping his favorite lackeys in power.
And in keeping with previous battles, the plan is being opposed by the State
Department and the CIA, who would prefer to broker a compromise with the leading
Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Sistani, who is calling for direct elections.
3324. jexster - 1/29/2004 12:22:31 PM
NOTA BENE in the SJ Merc article that The George Washington of Iraq has
reared his vile head in the debate again. Just as he poisoned the well going
into this mess...
Who can forget?
To paraphrase:
Q:
Aren't you a bit ashamed that your bogus intel played such a huge role in
conning the US public?
A: Fuck no. We're in Baghdad
3325. marjoribanks - 1/29/2004 12:30:19 PM
Are you so sure that we will be acting with the majority? The article you
cite says, ...his [Musharraf] cooperation with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts is
widely unpopular among average Pakistanis. It is certainly my understanding that
this move will be very unpopular, and likely meet with armed resistance in the
FATA that would be the main area of operation.
Reasonable question.
It is possible, Kreedon, to be fiercely nationalistic (and very
suspicious of US motivations) and simultaneously oppose the jihadis and the
extremist element that roils Pakistani politics. One bit of evidence for this is
the continual poor showing of extremist Islamic parties (though this has
improved in the last go-around) in the national elections.
The NWFP
(FATA) and Baluchistan are exceptional, in this regard, because they are much
less centrally-controlled. And when these two regions vote, they vote for the
Taliban. Not friends of the Taliban, not associates of the Taliban, the Taliban
itself.
There is a hard line to be walked here. The majority of
Pakistanis do want the corrosive influence of the extremists to be reduced or
eliminated. But they are also highly suspicious of the US and would certainly be
suspicious of any US military actions within Pak. So your surmise about the
potential make-up of a serious military attempt to take out the more extreme
elements in Pakistan may in fact be correct.
For a piece illustrating
the thinking of educated Paks in the majority I'm talking about, read this.
3326. marjoribanks - 1/29/2004 12:37:10 PM
Cheney and Rumsfeld, unsurprisingly, would rather hand the baton as early
as April to the unelected Iraqi Governing Council.
I might have
commented on this earlier.
Seymour Hersh (I think) wrote that, a few
months into the occupation of Iraq when Powell was running around trying to get
diplomatic support, he and Cheney ran into each other at the WH.
Apparently (Hersh has been reliable in these matters) Cheney barrelled
up to the SofS, jabbed a finger into his chest, and barked out something like
"if you hadn't stopped us from putting Chalabi in charge right after the statue
fell, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now."
It's breathtaking, it's
staggering. This is a hard, hard man, a dangerous person, a hard-boiled
ideologue to the core. He wanted to effect a coup, have his boy in charge, let
his boy be the figurehead for a bloodbath of retribution, and then jimmy things
so that his boy would be in control forever. Forget the rhetoric, forget the
sunny babbling about democracy, this was meant to be an old-fashioned,
muscle-power, coup. And Cheney still wants to see if he can pull it off.
3327. jexster - 1/29/2004 1:29:39 PM
Marjie this is SOS that's been happening and public since the very first
weeks of the Bush admin..
Deep divisions, unrestrained internecine
bureaucratic political warfare are warning signs of, as O'Neil so aptly put it,
a "disengaged" president and invariably result in policy confusion and
unpleasant outcomes.. entirely predictable and predicted.
3328. jexster - 1/29/2004 1:31:56 PM
When Wolfowitz candidly admitted that the Cheney Regime used the WMD lie for
"bureaucratic reasons" what he was really admitting was that the above confused
policy dynamic had the Regime in a rut. 
Followed Bush Roadmap
3329. jexster - 1/29/2004 1:50:19 PM
The
shadow of Iraq
Who will pay the price for war and occupation?
3330. wonkers2 - 1/29/2004 1:50:32 PM
Cheney is suffering from hardening of the arteries of the brain.
3331. jexster - 1/29/2004 1:50:53 PM
Big shiite sandwich and we're all gonna have to take a bite...
3332. robertjayb - 1/29/2004 1:59:26 PM
dailykos.com has a long list of quotes refuting the bushies' claim of not calling Saddam an imminent threat.
3333. robertjayb - 1/29/2004 2:08:59 PM
Seven soldiers killed today...
KABUL (Reuters) - An explosion
in southern Afghanistan killed seven U.S. soldiers and wounded three others on
Thursday, the U.S. army said.
U.S. central command said in a
statement the soldiers were killed when working near an arms cache in the
southern province of Ghazni on Thursday afternoon. An interpreter was also
injured and another soldier was missing, the statement said.
3334. jexster - 1/29/2004 2:09:57 PM
Meanwhile, the misery of the occupation of Iraq grows, as US and
British claims to have liberated the country are exposed as a fraud. While
the resistance continues to inflict daily casualties on the occupation forces in
the centre and north of Iraq - regardless of the capture of Saddam Hussein - the
Shia religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani has put himself at the head of a
mass popular movement for democracy, opposed by the very US occupiers who
insisted they were invading to trigger a democratic revolution across the Middle
East.
There are now around 13,000 Iraqis imprisoned without trial;
evidence of torture and brutality by US and British occupation forces is
growing; and the CIA has warned that Iraq is at risk of slipping into a
three-way civil war. For most Iraqis, life has got worse under the
occupation and even on the crudest calculus, many more have been killed since
Saddam Hussein was overthrown than in his last period in power: as the US-based
Human Rights Watch pointed out this week, Saddam's worst atrocities date from
the days when he was backed by the west.
This is the legacy of the
decision by Tony Blair and George Bush to invade a country that posed no threat
either to Britain or to the US. There is no way in which the Iraq war can
somehow be put behind us.
There are those 3 initials
again....leading one to ask, why are they talking at all?????
Why didn't
Special K just keep silent? Let his report, damning as it was, speak for
itself????
The answer is as plain as the nose on your face.
3335. wonkers2 - 1/29/2004 7:00:38 PM
I wonder what the Hutton Commission's evidence for it's whitewash of Tony Blair and his PR man and for its censure of BBC?
3336. jexster - 1/29/2004 9:23:55 PM
Special K on Newshour, the show that makes you smarter:
"I'm just a
technician. I don't know anything about politics.
Layin it on thick
3337. jexster - 1/30/2004 12:07:33 AM
Iraq is steadily coming apart...the latest from Prof Cole
10,000 Shiites Protest in Nasiriyah, seek Resignation of
Provincial Council
Looks like the Shiites are hard at work...not
only on the national level but they're trying to take the whole rotten edifice
of the Colonial Puppet Regime down at its foundations
3338. jexster - 1/30/2004 12:16:47 AM
And let it never be said that I only press tendentious argument..
Prof. Cole's Wombatian answer to Human Rights Watch (I don't agree but I
concede its a closer call than HRW):
I deeply disagree with the way
the Bush administration pursued the war against Iraq. The hyping of unfounded
'intelligence,' the backroom deals with corrupt or authoritarian expatriates,
the spying on the UNSC ambassadors and then the discarding of them, the
disregard for the United
Nations Charter, the undermining of international
law and the law of occupation--all of these steps and policies made our world so
much more shoddy and dangerous and mistrustful.
That said, I simply must
disagree with HRW and Mr. Roth that there were no humanitarian grounds for such
a war. I believe that what Saddam was doing to the Marsh Arabs from the
mid-1990s could legitimately qualify as a genocide. Likewise, the Anfal campaign
against the Kurds. Although the
latter was carried out some years ago, the
former had been recent and ongoing. Moreover, there is not in most legal systems
any statute of limitations on murder, so I am not sure why there should be one
on genocide or mass murder.
In short, I believe that the United Nations
Security Council was obliged to remove Saddam Hussein from power on the basis of
egregious violations of the UN Convention on Genocide
3339. jexster - 1/30/2004 6:23:18 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Attackers fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the Dutch Embassy in Iraq (news - web sites) on Friday night, hitting the roof with one and setting it on fire. The blaze was quickly extinguished, and there were no injuries.
3340. Magoseph - 1/31/2004 6:07:14 AM
At Least 9 Killed in Blast at Police Station in Iraq
BAGHDAD,
Iraq (AP) -- A car bomb exploded Saturday outside a police station in Iraq's
third largest city, killing at least nine people and wounding 45, witnesses and
hospital staff said.
Witnesses in Mosul saw severed limbs and
decapitated bodies on the street in front of the police station. Windows of
buildings were shattered and plumes of smoke could be seen in the area.
Staff at the Republican Hospital in Mosul said nine people including
civilians and policemen were killed and 45 others were injured.
Saturday
was a pay day and the police station was crowded with staff at the time of the
midmorning attack, said police Lt. Mohammed Fadil.
A U.S. military
spokesman said: ``We are aware of a report of an IED (improvised explosive
device) or a car bomb that exploded near the Mosul police station this
morning.'' He said he had no other details.
Al-Jazeera television
network said the pieces of the car apparently carrying the bomb were found 300
yards away. At least five nearby cars were damaged.
It said no American
troops were in the vicinity at the time of the blast.
3341. wonkers2 - 1/31/2004 9:40:29 AM
Iraqis don't count. Bush is only keeping track of Americans and trying to bury those numbers.
3342. robertjayb - 1/31/2004 2:31:34 PM
Three deadly months:
Iraq
Coalition Casualty Count...
3343. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/31/2004 3:27:42 PM
3344. robertjayb - 1/31/2004 8:13:12 PM
Mirror Imaging...Maureen Dowd
...They (the
bushies) had come into office itching to replay the '91 war and try out their
democracy domino theory in the Middle East — mirror imaging writ large. They
grabbed 9/11 as an opening, yanked power away from Colin Powell and persuaded
the popular diplomat to compromise his integrity by touting sketchy evidence at
the U.N., with the puppet Tenet as his wingman.
The moral of Vietnam was
supposed to be that we would never again go to war without understanding the
culture of our antagonists, or exaggerate their threat to us.
3345. arkymalarky - 1/31/2004 8:30:01 PM
quick off-topic question for Robert: Did I email you info on what I've been working on in AR?
3346. robertjayb - 1/31/2004 9:09:05 PM
Haven't seen such. My ISP email has been rejecting email with attachments. Try robertxb@yahoo.com.
3347. robertjayb - 1/31/2004 10:54:35 PM
The Washington Post says dubya has okayed an intelligence
query and that an announcement is imminent. My advice to the bushies is
stay away from that word imminent.
Anyone know where whitewash
and stonewall futures are traded?
(Dana Milbank and Dana
Priest)--President Bush has agreed to support an independent inquiry into the
prewar intelligence that he used to assert that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling
weapons of mass destruction, Republican and congressional sources said today.
The shift by the White House, which had previously maintained that any
such inquiry should wait until a more exhaustive weapons search has been
complete, came after pressure from lawmakers in both parties and from the former
chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq.
3348. jexster - 2/1/2004 6:44:15 AM
He couldn't have that dispute fester a minute longer. Good move..
Just watch though, he'll jerk them around on procedures, time limits and
materials esp. White House materials just as he did with 9-1-1.
3349. jexster - 2/1/2004 7:24:13 AM
Robert...
Vietnam is a model of statecraft compared to this. The WMD
fearmongering isn't even the worst of it. The Domino Theory of Asian Communism
enjoyed near universal public support and broad support in academic circles too.
For the Cheney Regime to have made a Democracy Domino Theory a
foundational premise of their War on Iraq is appalling.
O'Neill's
formulation fits perfectly as once again ideology and politics trump fact and
sound analysis in what passes for Bush policymaking.
3350. Magoseph - 2/1/2004 7:39:46 AM
RBIL, Iraq (AP) -- Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the
offices of two rival Kurdish parties in this northern Iraqi city, killing at
least 57 people and injuring more than 235. One Kurdish minister said the death
toll could rise above 100. 3351. wonkers2 - 2/1/2004 8:42:54 AM
Cheney's interest in democracy is relatively recent. He opposed U.S. efforts
to unseat the apartheid government in South Africa. Of course, there were only
diamonds in South Africa, not oil. And Israel wasn't a factor.
3352. wonkers2 - 2/1/2004 11:40:31 AM
Here's what Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld have to answer to the American
public on, on WMD, in my opinion. They took intelligence reports and conclusions
which they knew were qualified and controversial in many respects (eg the
aluminum tubes, etc.) and based on untested human intelligence from Iraqi
refugees referred by Chalabi and they spoke to the American public and to the
United Nations with great certainty and assurance about Iraq's weapons programs,
certainty that exceeded the intelligence evidence. They owe us a mea culpa. In
Powell's case I hope we don't have to wait 40 years as in the case of Robert
McNamara. (Check the slow thread for a rather pointed comment on McNamara by
Howell Rains. I'll post it shortly.)
3353. judithathome - 2/1/2004 1:45:27 PM
Very interesting discussion on ABC this morning with James Woolsey, Richard
Holbrooke, George Will, and Fareed whose last name I always screw up. Woolsey
was outclassed by everyone. 3354. wonkers2 - 2/1/2004 2:31:33 PM
Woolsey was one of the earliest talking heads on Television supporting the
invasion of Iraq. He is a big ally of the neo-cons.
3355. judithathome - 2/1/2004 3:21:11 PM
Wasn't he in line early on to become head PoohBah in Iraq, too?
3356. wonkers2 - 2/1/2004 3:32:18 PM
I'm sure he was considered. He was also probably one of the first links to
Chalabi. All I remember is seeing Woolsey flacking for Bush's regime change
policy about once a week on one talk show or another starting shortly after the
inauguration.
3357. OhioSTOPAS - 2/1/2004 5:03:15 PM
Today's Repub talking point, "Bush was misled by the CIA's overestimation of
Iraq WMD's," is just a little bit undercut by the fact that the same
conservatives now parroting this point were previously complaining that the CIA
was UNDERESTIMATING the true danger of Iraq WMD's. The blogger Atrios
(atrios.blogspot.com) has some good then-and-now quotes. Also, as Matthew
Yglesias (www.matthewyglesias.com) notes, 3358. wonkers2 - 2/1/2004 6:14:55 PM
Bye, Bye, George Tenet! I'm surprised he's lasted this long.
3359. robertjayb - 2/1/2004 7:34:11 PM
President to Order Inquiry Into Iraq Intelligence Lapses
3360. jexster - 2/1/2004 8:52:39 PM
June 5, 2003 Post reported..."Cheney and his most senior aide [Scooter Libby]
made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying
Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment
in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments
fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior
intelligence officials... They felt a continual drumbeat, not only from Cheney
and Libby, but also from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Feith, and
less so from CIA Director George J. Tenet, to find information or write reports
in a way that would help the administration make the case that going into Iraq
was urgent." 3361. jexster - 2/1/2004 8:59:38 PM
Yesterday" "President Bush has agreed to support an independent inquiry"
3362. jexster - 2/1/2004 11:10:03 PM
Senior US Officials Knew in May there was no WMD in Iraq
3363. jexster - 2/1/2004 11:48:22 PM
Ohio... 3364. jexster - 2/2/2004 3:53:56 PM
From the Kaleej Times, United Arab Emirates... 3365. Absensia - 2/2/2004 5:07:09 PM
Pakistan's
Nuclear Kahn Confesses 3366. Absensia - 2/2/2004 5:21:54 PM
This should probably be in the International thread. Please move it, if you
wish, Jay.
3367. wonkers2 - 2/2/2004 6:27:32 PM
Khan & Kissinger, two of a kind.
3368. robertjayb - 2/2/2004 6:37:24 PM
Whistle-ass now whimpers, "We know Saddam had the intent and capability to
cause great harm." 3369. judithathome - 2/2/2004 6:42:24 PM
The president is a consumer of intelligence, not a producer of it," Perle
told the Times. 3370. jexster - 2/3/2004 12:09:13 PM
a
href=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&e=1&u=/washpost/20040203/ts_washpost/a6995_2004feb2
target=new>Powell: Oh My If We Only Knew Then What We Know
Now...
The dead included the governor of the region,
ministers in the local administration and several senior officials, Mohammed
Ihsan, the human rights minister for the Kurdish regional government, told The
Associated Press.
Bottom line...the 150 day timeline for a new
Iraqi government is ridiculous and won't be met. Woolsey seemed to think it was
possible but the others pointed out that was whistling in the wind.
"God -- the spin machine
really is good. Suddenly over the past 48 hours every single figure on the right
seems to have come to a unanimous decision that the CIA and the CIA alone is
wholly to blame for the intelligence mishaps. But then why did Dick Cheney need
to create an entire parallel intelligence apparatus under Doug Feith dedicated
exclusively to explaining why the CIA was underestimating Iraq's WMD capacity?"
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — President Bush will establish a bipartisan
commission in the next few days to examine a broad overhaul of American
intelligence operations, using the case of what went wrong in their assessments
of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as part of a look at the difficulties in
penetrating secretive regimes and stateless groups that target the United
States, senior administration officials said today.
And the
result is...
It's all Bill Clinton's fault...
Today we learned that the CIA didn't bend to the pressure.
That makes it easy. The buck doesn't stop bouncing around the
Repsonsibility Regime but rather drops a nime here, a nickel there...
Today: "No independent inquiry. Blue Ribbon commission of Bush
appointees"
The Observer reports that "US military survey teams sent to visit
suspected sites of WMD, and intelligence interviews with Iraqi scientists and
officials, had concluded" . . . as early as last May that there were no chemical
or biological weapons stockpiles in Iraq, and nothing nuclear, either.
The Observer interviewed someone it identified as "a very senior US
intelligence official" who served during the war against Iraq, and knew the WMD
issue thoroughly. He said, "We had enough evidence at the beginning of May to
start asking, 'where did we go wrong?' . . . We had already made the judgment
that something very wrong had happened [in May] and our confidence was shaken to
its foundations." The source asserted that the intelligence community had
"suppressed dissenting views and intelligence."
This allegation directly
contradicts the repeated assertions by the Bush administration and by the
intelligence services themselves that no pressure was exerted on analysts.
The account was confirmed by former UN nuclear inspector David Albright:
"It was known in May that no one was going to find large stockpiles of chemical
and biological weapons. The only people who did not know that fact was the
public."
Actually, some of the "public" wasn't unaware of at least some
of these facts either. See the first entry for the Informed Comment column of
June 11 and the March 18 email i cited there.
One obvious conclusion is
that the Bush administration has known since May that its assertions that WMD
may yet be found in Iraq were false or highly unlikely, and this is another area
in which they have been willing to deliberately mislead the public. If you know
that each time a coin is tossed there is a 50/50 chance it will come up heads,
and you tell people the chance is 10/90, you are in effect lying to them.
Juan Cole
Josh Marshall was struck by the same and latest revisionist
flimflam from Bush apologists ....The Base Cult of the Bush isn't very different
from those Space Alien Suicides in San Diego a few years back or Jim Jones's
suicides..they'll literally swallow anything
A pearl. Lapidary. As
Churchill might have said, hypocrisy wrapped in mendacity, bundled up in
ridiculousness. A true gem. Richard Perle tells the Times that the CIA did
indeed sell the president a bill of goods. “The president is a consumer of
intelligence, not a producer of it," Perle told the Times. "I have long thought
our intelligence in the gulf has been woefully inadequate."
Right. Perle
has long been a staunch critic of the CIA. His argument was that they
understated the scope of Saddam’s WMD programs, naively discounted his ties to
terrorist organizations and had an overly pessimistic vision of post-war Iraq.
In other words, if the CIA is all wet, Perle is all wet squared. Or
probably even cubed.
The skeptical voices in the Intelligence Community
--- the ones who are now vindicated in spades --- were the objects of his
greatest derision. And his solution was to give even more credence to the
unreliable defector testimony which played such a key role in our bamboozlement.
-- Josh Marshall
Wolfowitz
Visit Detonates Escalation of Violence, Raising US Troop Death Toll to 250 Since
May 1
Sending a man as despised by Iraqis as Paul Wolfowitz
to Baghdad is like throwing gasoline on a smoldering fire. The last time he was
there, on October 26, a rocket pounded the Rashid Hotel while he was in the
building, killing one US soldier and wounding 17 other people. Now this weekend,
immediately before and after Wolfowitz's arrival, some of the most deadly
attacks yet have rocked Iraq, bringing the death toll of US soldiers killed
since Bush declared an end to major conflict in May to 250. Scores of Iraqis
died in attacks over the weekend, including 50-100 Kurds in an attack on the
Kurdish Party Office.
ONLY A DEAD BRAIN WALKIN led by the deaf and
the blind...
Dr A.Q. Khan, who is credited to have set
up Pakistan's nuclear programme, has admitted to having transferred nuclear
technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya , authoritative sources disclosed in a
background briefing to Dawn on Sunday.
Abundant evidence to the effect
is also said to have been extracted during the almost two-month-long
'debriefing' of most of the top scientists and officials of the Khan Research
Laboratories (KRL), the sources said.
The government is said to have
also concluded that it was a huge intelligence lapse as those who were charged
with safeguarding the country's nuclear secrets were found to have failed
miserably to detect such a massive leak over such a long period.
"Everybody knew ours was a covert programme and every successive
government and security agencies overlooked allegations about Dr Khan's assets
in the interest of the programme and because of the trust in his person, who
without any doubt was a towering personality," the sources said.
Newspaper reports have already given a long list of property and bank
accounts alleging that Dr Khan had owned all of them in his own name.
Apparently, when Kahn was in charge of the nuclear development, the work
was kept so secret that none of the Prime Ministers from Bhuto (father) through
Sharif) were allowed on the premises and given only vague information.
No, you don't know that.
You're still making
shit up.
Another embarrassing understatement.
Oh my
Oh why
Oh that we may soon say
"goodbye".
3371. jexster - 2/3/2004 12:10:17 PM
I oughta know better than to link before coffee
Oh damn
Powell: Oh My If We Only Knew Then What We Know
Now...
3372. jexster - 2/3/2004 2:27:13 PM
Ace don't know squat but he sure knows when its time to skeeedaddle....
"WMD lies will become increasingly irrelevant...its a win-win
for King Georgie" Eddie Dantes (RIP)
LONDON (AFP) - British Prime
Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) ordered an inquiry into the intelligence
on Iraq (news - web sites)'s weapons programs used to justify war, bowing to
intense political pressure after the United States agreed a similar probe.
3373. jayackroyd - 2/3/2004 4:00:31 PM
This newsweek article
points out, kind of in sum in the middle of the article an interesting, and
ironic fact.
Remember when Powell was saying that we know they have wmd
and we know where they are? And remember Blix complaining that he had looked in
all the places the CIA had told them to look, and hadn't found anything, and
wanted the real list that led to Powell's assurances?
We now know, as in
the Pollack piece in the Atlantic, or any number of other places, that the
source for the CIA's knowledge of wmd in Iraq was the UN inspectors
themselves from the previous inspection regime. (David Kay calls it the
"CIA's crack cocaine")
And, just by the way, now that we do know for
sure that the source of the intelligence was the inspectors, it sure as heck,
with hindsight would have made a great deal of sense to have kept on inspecting.
Oh, but that's our hindsight. The agency, otoh, knew where the
information had come from.
I hope. I guess I hope so.
But if
they did, then why did they say they knew where the stuff was, and that they
were assisting the inspection teams, when they knew they were just feeding them
back their own information.
And if they didn't remember their sources,
that's even worse, isn't it?
3374. jexster - 2/3/2004 4:16:38 PM
"We went to war because of Iraqi 'intent'"
Buffalo Soldier, Porch
Monkey Powell
Shit now they're mind readers which makes sense, in a
psychotic sort of way..after all, Georgie hears voices from God and peered into
Pooty Poot's very soul
3375. jexster - 2/3/2004 4:22:33 PM
Straw
Launches British Intelligence Inquiry
But stop the presses, guess
what?
It all a scam! Shocker eh?
Testing Washington's intelligence
Analysis: If true
to history, the Bush administration may scupper the inquiry it has just
announced into the quality of information it received on Saddam's WMDs
MAYBE?? There's no maybe about it. The Bush executive order lays the
predicate for another flimflam whitewash.
These people are criminally
incompetent and mostly likely insane
3376. jexster - 2/3/2004 4:23:05 PM
The Madness of King George
3377. wonkers2 - 2/3/2004 4:25:55 PM
Whatever happened to "The buck stops here?" Oh I forgot, Bush doesn't read!
3378. jayackroyd - 2/3/2004 4:35:43 PM
Sure he does. Bassmaster.
Although I guess that is really just
looking at pictures, isn't it?
3379. jexster - 2/3/2004 7:51:43 PM
ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - The death toll from twin suicide bombings in Arbil rose to at least 100, making them the deadliest attacks in post-war Iraq (news - web sites) and dealing a crushing blow to the US-led occupation
3380. jexster - 2/3/2004 8:02:02 PM
HUMILIATED BLAIR FORCED TO ORDER WMD INQUIRY
3381. robertjayb - 2/3/2004 11:49:47 PM
dubya surrenders to Kofi and the U.N. (NYTimes)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — President Bush pressed Kofi Annan, the United
Nations secretary general, on Tuesday to have his aides mediate among quarreling
factions in Iraq and forge a consensus behind a plan that would allow the
transfer of sovereignty to a government in Baghdad by June 30, administration
officials said.
.................................................
We
are trying to put this issue in Kofi Annan's lap and let him run with it," one
official said. "There's still very much the intention to stick with the date of
June 30. But there's a lot of pressure on Kofi Annan to come up with the right
solution."
Pressure on Kofi?
3382. robertjayb - 2/4/2004 12:39:38 PM
The Desert Mirage...A longish USA Today piece describes
intelligence blunders concerning Iraq's weapons...
...In July
1998, a commission led by Donald Rumsfeld, who would become Bush's Defense
secretary, cautioned that U.S. intelligence might not be able to warn of
emerging ballistic-missile threats from states such as North Korea, Iran and
Iraq. The solution, the panel advised, was a new kind of analysis to
"extrapolate a program's scope, scale, pace and direction beyond what the hard
evidence at hand unequivocally supports."
As Defense secretary, Rumsfeld
would insist that war in Iraq was waged on solid intelligence. Increasingly,
however, it appears that U.S. intelligence followed the course set by Rumsfeld's
1998 panel in extrapolating the scope of the Iraqi threat "beyond ... the hard
evidence at hand."
.................................................
U.S. intelligence merged debatable intelligence about chemical and
biological agents with equally debatable intelligence about weapons delivery
systems. Iraq, the CIA said, still had 20 Scud missiles and was developing drone
aircraft that might be launched, possibly off a merchant ship, to strike the
United States.
Bush administration officials then translated the CIA's
worst-case calculations into potential mass casualties. Bush cited the U.N.
figures in saying that the anthrax would be enough "to kill several million
people" and that the chemical weapons could "kill untold thousands."
Powell told the U.N. Security Council even a conservative estimate would
give Saddam enough chemical agent to attack "an area five times the size of
Manhattan."
No Scud missiles have been found. The drone aircraft U.S.
search teams have found in Iraq were too small to deliver chemical or biological
weapons.
3383. robertjayb - 2/4/2004 12:40:35 PM
toys?
3384. jexster - 2/4/2004 12:54:24 PM
Intelligence chiefs 'ignored WMD warnings'
February 4: Intelligence chiefs ignored warnings from their own leading
experts that they could not be certain Iraq had chemical and biological weapons,
a former intelligence official who gave crucial evidence to the Hutton inquiry
claimed today
3385. jexster - 2/4/2004 12:56:40 PM
Further to the above, meet the latest to blow the whistle on the Liars...
New dossier claim fuels WMD doubts
February
4: The claim by former Ministry of Defence scientist Brian Jones that
intelligence officials were overruled on the Iraq dossier has inflamed the
controversy about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction ahead of the debate
on the Hutton report.
3386. jexster - 2/4/2004 1:26:43 PM
Iraq: To Hell in a Handbasket
"A US
soldier was killed and another injured on Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Iraq,
the US military said in a statement. The roadside bomb exploded at about 10.30
a.m. (0730 GMT) when the US soldiers were carrying out an operation to clear
such weapons near Iskandariya, 56 km south Baghdad, it added. The death brings
to at least 367 the number of US soldiers killed in combat in Iraq since the
start of the US-led war on Iraq."
Despite the capture of Saddam, more US
troops were killed in January (47) than in December.
Meanwhile, the
deaths from Sunday's massive suicide bombings in Irbil have mounted to about
101, as those gravely wounded have died. Kurds are shocked and angry, and the
outcome of the tragedy has yet to unfold. Jeffrey Gettelman of the NYT cannily
suggests, based on an interview with Joost Hilterman, that some of the high
Iraqi officials killed were among the more pragmatic in recognizing the need for
restraint in demands for Kurdish autonomy. If so, the bombing may have helped
radicalize the Kurds.
3387. jexster - 2/4/2004 1:31:32 PM
Did I mention that no occupying power survived a nationalist insurgency in the 20th century?
3388. jayackroyd - 2/4/2004 2:40:18 PM
Sometime ago, when Bush announced that the real goal was democracy dominoes,
I (and Banks among others) applauded the audacity of the vision, but feared that
this was entirely insincere. The imposition of the June 30 deadline shortly
thereafter proved that our fears were well-founded.
Now, as jexster has
kept saying, the shi-ites are messing things up. Sistani is essentially saying
"put up or get out."
Sistani is a deeply religious man who is also a
survivor. Living in Najaf, a holy city and burial place haunted by Shiite
passion for martyrdom, he has emerged as a leader through quiet rationalism.
When his fatwa summoned thousands into the streets of Baghdad, Sistani crossed
the line from scholar to activist. In many ways, we're all lucky that he is the
voice of Iraq's Shiites, but by playing politics, he is entering a dangerous
arena. A powerful Shiite cleric is calling for a peaceful, internationally
moderated democracy in Iraq. Just across the border, Iran's theocracy is
wrestling with the same issues, and from Egypt to Malaysia leaders struggle to
integrate Islam and democracy. Behind the rhetoric of regime change George Bush
added the promise that America would make that integration happen in Afghanistan
and Iraq. Sistani has dared him to do it.
From Slate.
3389. jexster - 2/4/2004 6:49:01 PM
Iraqi Insurgency Is as Lethal as Ever Since Hussein's
Capture
You were saying TD???
3390. jexster - 2/4/2004 6:53:27 PM
L'audace...toujours l'audace!
Jay....when folks stop applauding the
audacity of Bush's lies and start laughing...he'll be back where he belongs and
we can start cleaning up the mess he's made
3391. jexster - 2/5/2004 12:37:27 PM
Dead for Bush's Lies
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was
killed and another wounded in a mortar attack on U.S. military installations
near Baghdad airport on Thursday, a U.S. Army spokesman said.
Tenet: Analysts Never Claimed Imminent Threat
3392. jexster - 2/5/2004 12:43:56 PM
Rats,
Poodles, Sinking Ships
Blair caught in Iraqi arms row
Tony Blair yesterday said that at the time of the Iraq war he was
personally unaware that Saddam Hussein did not have the ability to fire
long-range chemical and biological weapons.
3393. jexster - 2/5/2004 1:39:49 PM
Sistani
Aide: Loose Federalism not in Iraq's Interests
Kurds
will LOVE that
3394. jexster - 2/5/2004 1:45:01 PM
CNN: THERE HAS BEEN A SERIOUS ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF THE GRAHD AYATOLLAH
3395. jayackroyd - 2/5/2004 2:00:39 PM
More detail, please.
3396. robertjayb - 2/5/2004 2:14:46 PM
Sistani survives assassination attempt...(Reuters)
NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite cleric,
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, survived an assassination attempt on Thursday when
gunmen opened fire on his entourage, a security official in his office said.
"At 10 o'clock this morning, gunmen opened fire on Ayatollah Sistani as he
greeted people in Najaf, but he was not hurt," the official told Reuters on
condition of anonymity.
Sistani, revered by Iraq's Shi'ite community,
which makes up about 60 percent of the population, is rarely seen in public and
seldom leaves the holy city of Najaf, about 160 km (100 miles) south of
Baghdad.
3397. jexster - 2/5/2004 3:21:47 PM
The Shiites won't like THAT one bit
Bush's Big Shiite Sandwich
Open
wide
3398. robertjayb - 2/5/2004 6:03:56 PM
McCain on Intelligence panel?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President Bush is expected to name
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain to a
bipartisan commission that will investigate flaws in U.S. intelligence used to
justify the Iraq war, Republican sources said on Thursday.
Bush is
expected to announce the establishment of the commission on Friday with a
timetable of reporting back next year, after the November election.
Bob Kerrey?
Sam Nunn?
3399. jexster - 2/5/2004 8:17:00 PM
Sam Nunn in VP running
3400. robertjayb - 2/5/2004 11:35:16 PM
No failure of intelligence...(Sydney Blumenthal)--The
Guardian
...On virtually every single important claim made by the
Bush administration in its case for war, there was serious dissension.
Discordant views - not from individual analysts but from several intelligence
agencies as a whole - were kept from the public as momentum was built for a
congressional vote on the war resolution.
Precisely because of the
qualms the administration encountered, it created a rogue intelligence
operation, the Office of Special Plans, located within the Pentagon and under
the control of neo-conservatives. The OSP roamed outside the ordinary
inter-agency process, stamping its approval on stories from Iraqi exiles that
the other agencies dismissed as lacking credibility, and feeding them to the
president.
..................................................
No
news here for webheads...except to note the play the Brits give the story.
3401. robertjayb - 2/5/2004 11:40:00 PM
Tory leader wants Blair resignation...(The Guardian)
Ministers have angrily dismissed a call from Tory leader Michael
Howard for Tony Blair to resign over the Government's Iraq weapons dossier.
His call for the Prime Minister to consider his position followed Mr
Blair's admission that he did not know that the so-called "45 minute claim" only
referred to battlefield weapons when he asked MPs to vote for war.
Mr
Howa