The UN, US and Iraq IV

nimh wrote:

Blah...... and the proven willingness to hand them over to al-Qaeda were at the core of the Administration's argument....blah

What the hell are you talking about?

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Echoing NIMH...my address to timber here (or anywhere else) ought not to be seen as anything like a personal grudge. Timber and I have never spoken an uncivil word to each other, and we both, I think, share a real fondness and respect. This is quite unlike steve and I, who have never had an ounce of affinity for one another.

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

Nimh

Can I persuade you to join Labour rather than the LibDems? (!) You're certainly well qualified, especially with your use of English which is much better than most over here...

Heh ... thank you very much for your compliments, you almost make me blush - <shy> ... but I still dont think I would feel much at home with the current Labour party, tho!

The LibDems suffer from inconsistency, its true, trying to be both the center-right "reasonable alternative" for Tory voters and a safe left-wing shelter for disillusioned Labourites. They're gonna get in trouble with that sooner or later. But they're a breath of fresh air in reasonableness on Europe, civil liberties, even asylum-seekers, in these times of hateful, repressive intolerance. Plus they seem kind folks. That last bit might sound silly, but in the era of overspun, cynical, deceitful power-politics, I'd entrust my vote to a "nice guy" anytime!

Anyways ... for better or for worse, I aint in Britain, so I don' have to worry my head about it (there goes the English ;-). I vote for a party called the Green Left - which in turn actually is a lot less "left" than the English Greens, who seem a bit sectarian. Complicated, complicated ;-).

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IronLionZion wrote:

Blah...... and the proven willingness to hand them over to al-Qaeda were at the core of the Administration's argument....blah

What the hell are you talking about?

LOL! "Blah blah", eh?

Here I am, all on the same side of the argument as you, and its all blah blah to you? Uh oh ...

OK ... In his Address to the Nation of 17 March, Bush said that there was "no doubt that the Iraq regime continued to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised", etc. That constituted a danger in itself, since "the [Saddam] regime", thus Bush, "has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East [and] has a deep hatred of America and our friends." Thats main justification of the war number #1, in the Bush world.

Next move in this speech - and in other Bush, Powell, Rice speeches of the time - is to tie Saddam to the danger of more 9/11-like attacks on America. "The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."

The terrorists would be likely to "obtain them with the help of Iraq", because, after all (according to Bush), Iraq "has aided, trained and harbored terrorists" before, "including operatives of al Qaeda", and hell, Saddam even trained them in "bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases". And thus, "Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies" had to be stopped, as "the terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed." Thats main justification of the war number #2, in the Bush world.

It was with these two arguments that the Bush admin insisted that war had to be started immediately, and that we couldnt wait until Blix would or would not turn out to be able to finish his work - even though 11 out of 15 Security Council member states were asking for such a delay. I.e., "The actual possession of WMD, and the proven willingness to hand them over to al-Qaeda were at the core of the Administration's argument not just for war - but for immediate war."

Of course it was crock even at the time. The intelligence the Bush admin chose to share with its allies proved to be unconvincing to pretty much everyone except Blair, Aznar and Howard, with Berlusconi sitting on the fence. Much of the further intelligence it claimed to have proved to have been misguided after the war ended, when the fruitless search for WMD started.

But at least the WMD justification rested on some factual basis, be it of a 'guilty until proven innocent' basis - Iraq used to have WMD, and though there was no proof that it still had any left, there was also no proof that it'd gotten rid of all of them. The argument that Saddam was likely to pass any such WMD on to al-Qaeda, on the other hand, was really just associative logic.

No actual Saddam-alQaeda ties have ever been shown, of course - not even US Congress could find any, whatsoever, in its 900-page report. The best that conservative posters here have been able to come up with, is al-Qaeda ties to Ansar-al-Islam, a militant group that actually operated from the Kurdish-controlled zone, out of reach of Saddam (and did so in opposition to his regime); and the fact that one known terrorist, who can be linked to al-Qaeda at a later point in time, once had a crucial operation at a Baghdad hospital in Saddam times. And thats about it.

Well, anyway - we agree, I think. Welcome to A2K ;-). I edited my post above to make it more clear, btw, considering it apparently wasnt yet.

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the far right seems to conveniently ignore that all of Bushy-Poo IIs speeches and comments are archived. Wink

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damn, i hate it when they write that stuff down, they shoulda known i was only joshin'."do you have many blacks in this country?"

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dyslexia wrote:

damn, i hate it when they write that stuff down, they shoulda known i was only joshin'."do you have many blacks in this country?"

I'm sure he thought Brazillians were all nuts. Wink

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nimh wrote:

IronLionZion wrote:
Blah...... and the proven willingness to hand them over to al-Qaeda were at the core of the Administration's argument....blah

What the hell are you talking about?

LOL! "Blah blah", eh?

Here I am, all on the same side of the argument as you, and its all blah blah to you? Uh oh ...

OK ... In his Address to the Nation of 17 March, Bush said that there was "no doubt that the Iraq regime continued to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised", etc. That constituted a danger in itself, since "the [Saddam] regime", thus Bush, "has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East [and] has a deep hatred of America and our friends." Thats main justification of the war number #1, in the Bush world.

Next move in this speech - and in other Bush, Powell, Rice speeches of the time - is to tie Saddam to the danger of more 9/11-like attacks on America. "The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."

The terrorists would be likely to "obtain them with the help of Iraq", because, after all (according to Bush), Iraq "has aided, trained and harbored terrorists" before, "including operatives of al Qaeda", and hell, Saddam even trained them in "bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases". And thus, "Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies" had to be stopped, as "the terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed." Thats main justification of the war number #2, in the Bush world.

It was with these two arguments that the Bush admin insisted that war had to be started immediately, and that we couldnt wait until Blix would or would not turn out to be able to finish his work - even though 11 out of 15 Security Council member states were asking for such a delay. I.e., "The actual possession of WMD, and the proven willingness to hand them over to al-Qaeda were at the core of the Administration's argument not just for war - but for immediate war."

Of course it was crock even at the time. The intelligence the Bush admin chose to share with its allies proved to be unconvincing to pretty much everyone except Blair, Aznar and Howard, with Berlusconi sitting on the fence. Much of the further intelligence it claimed to have proved to have been misguided after the war ended, when the fruitless search for WMD started.

But at least the WMD justification rested on some factual basis, be it of a 'guilty until proven innocent' basis - Iraq used to have WMD, and though there was no proof that it still had any left, there was also no proof that it'd gotten rid of all of them. The argument that Saddam was likely to pass any such WMD on to al-Qaeda, on the other hand, was really just associative logic.

No actual Saddam-alQaeda ties have ever been shown, of course - not even US Congress could find any, whatsoever, in its 900-page report. The best that conservative posters here have been able to come up with, is al-Qaeda ties to Ansar-al-Islam, a militant group that actually operated from the Kurdish-controlled zone, out of reach of Saddam (and did so in opposition to his regime); and the fact that one known terrorist, who can be linked to al-Qaeda at a later point in time, once had a crucial operation at a Baghdad hospital in Saddam times. And thats about it.

Well, anyway - we agree, I think. Welcome to A2K ;-). I edited my post above to make it more clear, btw, considering it apparently wasnt yet.

I guess now would be the time to point out that when I said 'what the hell are you talking about' I meant it in the sense 'I agree with everything you said.'

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ILZ -- these forums are tricking sometimes so please pardon us when we don't get some facetious or even cynical humor. It often looses something without the aid of the voice inflection! Laughing

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Lightwizard wrote:

ILZ -- these forums are tricking sometimes so please pardon us when we don't get some facetious or even cynical humor. It often looses something without the aid of the voice inflection!

Actually, the first time I was dead serious - I wanted an explanation. After it was explained, I realized I agreed completly. I suppose the odd responses are just my style. IronLionZion doesn't condone the use of smilies.

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Smile when you say that pawdner ....

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Two things, in particular, I just could not resist responding too.

timberlandko wrote:

I feel The UN, by act of piling binding-on-pain-of-force resoltions one atop the other, each essentially repeating the demands of its predecessors while Iraq remained defiantly and flagrantly in material breach of the first of them, over more than a decade abdicated its responsibility and violated the basic precepts of its Charter. I maintain that resumption of hostilities with Iraq was both fully justified and long overdue, and that the necessity of the US to undertake that justified resumption of hostilities outside of UN channels exemplifies the UN's divorcement from recognition of and relevance in contemporary geopolitical affairs.

You cannot disobey the United Nations to punish another nation for disobeying the United Nations. The stupidity of that argument is self evident.

The way you try to take some moral high ground and claim we were defending the best interests of the UN is appaling to me. Is it Americas exclusive right to decide what the UN should do, what resolutions should be enforced, and which should be ignored, or should every other nation do the same? The power of the United Nations comes from its global legitimacy. That means that, at some times, the UN will disagree with certain nations withen its ranks. If they agreed to the every whim of powerfull nations the legitimacy of the organization would be compromised.

If we are to take on the role of enforcing UN resolutions, then what about nations like Isreal, who have violated resolutions for decades with no consequences? For example, the Israeli refusal to withdraw completely from the West Bank. Israel received vague and feeble verbal condemnations from some countries, but in the end, there were no consequences. In fact, the United States has occasionally violated UN resolutions itself. For example, resolution 465 "calls upon all states not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connection with settlements in occupied territory." The United States has provided Israel with millions of dollars to build highways linking the occupied settlements, which is a clear violation of resolution 465.

America led the charge to impose economic sanctions on Libya, Afghanistan, and Sudan, because they refused to extradite people wanted by the United States. This hardly seems right considering that the United States used its veto power to stop resolutions against Israel, Turkey, and Morocco for the much more serious crime of occupying a neighboring country.

America often abuses UN resolutions to suite its needs. For example, no-fly-zones were created in Iraq under resolution 668 (protecting civilians), but America has used the no-fly-zones for its own agenda. This was confirmed when Donald Rumsfeld claimed that the no-fly-zones were created to "assist in weapons inspections."

Please, don't try to justify this action by appealing to the UN. The obvious reality is that we support the UN only as far as it can bend and warp to meet our policy needs. We use our influence to impose resolutions against our enemies, veto resolutions against our friends, and impose violence only when and if we feel it is neccessary. If it suites our needs, we disobey resolutions if we feel they are not important. When the rest of the world diagrees with our asinine attempts to justify war in Iraq, we simply invade them anyway and claim to be defending the interests of the world community.

Quote:

I submit that more "reconstruction" and "movement toward indigenous rule" have been accomplished in six months in Iraq than were achieved in Germany or Japan in the first six years following WWII....

With the small difference that we have degenerated into a full scale guerilla war. Go figure.

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IILZ, research the difference between Chapter VI resolutions, under which all of the resolutions pertaining to Israel fall, and Chapter VII Resolutions, under which the pertinent resolutions in the Iraq matter fall. There is no basis for enforcement of Chapter VII resolutions; they call on the parties to a dispute to negotiate. No negotiation is provided under Chapter VII resolutions; they are demands for compliance on the pain of sanction up to and explicitly including armed intervention.

I make no claim of trying to defend the best interests of the UN; the US did nothing more than put its money where the UN's mouth was. I have no interest in the best interest of the UN. Apparently, neither does the UN.

I'm no fan of Israel either, BTW.

As to "full scale guerilla war", I can only guess you've never been to one. I have. Iraq ain't even close. It ain't all nice, but it ain't even close.

edited to change "between VII" to the "VI" that should have followed the word "between"... Embarrassed

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dyslexia wrote:

damn, i hate it when they write that stuff down, they shoulda known i was only joshin'."do you have many blacks in this country?"

FHC was courteous not to confirm that gaffe by Bush. I am certain that it happened but I wish FHC would have expressed his disgust at Bush's ignorance for that statement.

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Got to post this without reading up fully over last 12 hours so more later but have to say this
Blatham says

Quote:

Timber and I have never spoken an uncivil word to each other, and we both, I think, share a real fondness and respect. This is quite unlike steve and I, who have never had an ounce of affinity for one another.

Quite right Blatham, there is nothing like a little personal antagonism to make the world go round. (nice uniform btw) Laughing

ilz says of nimh

Quote:

I guess now would be the time to point out that when I said 'what the hell are you talking about' I meant it in the sense 'I agree with everything you said.'

Nimh, I guess English is more complicated than I thought.

thanks btw for your analytical approach on the differences between the spoken word and inference.

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timberlandko wrote:

IILZ, research the difference between Chapter VII resolutions, under which all of the resolutions pertaining to Israel fall, and Chapter VII Resolutions, under which the pertinent resolutions in the Iraq matter fall. There is no basis for enforcement of Chapter VII resolutions; they call on the parties to a dispute to negotiate. No negotiation is provided under Chapter VII resolutions; they are demands for compliance on the pain of sanction up to and explicitly including armed intervention.

I make no claim of trying to defend the best interests of the UN; the US did nothing more than put its money where the UN's mouth was. I have no interest in the best interest of the UN. Apparently, neither does the UN.

I'm no fan of Israel either, BTW.

As to "full scale guerilla war", I can only guess you've never been to one. I have. Iraq ain't even close. It ain't all nice, but it ain't even close.

You ain't paying attention

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Nimh

Interesting that you would not feel at home in the British Labour Party. Most of the British Labour Party do not feel at home...

Well actually that's not true. I joined the party because Labour via the New Labour project cut out the Trotskyites and Militant infiltrators, pulled itself up by its own boots strings, and transformed itself into a party worthy of Government and my vote. I supported Blair from the early days, and I still think history will be generous to Blair and his government as one of the great reforming and radical administrations.

Blair is also a nice bloke (making due allowance for the fact that all politicians who achieve high office are duplicitous lying bastards) with a good line in self deprecating humour. Years ago he was asked why he kept coming out with New Labour stuff about "rights and responsibilities", "enterprise and fairness" "opportunities for all" etc instead of the old mantras "tax the rich" "nationalise everything that fails" etc

his response which still raises a chuckle with me was that "In fact its worse than you think... I actually believe in it."

But that was the good old days, when Bill and Tony were making music together, and the Pnacs were still safely locked away in their special padded cells of various right wing think tanks.

The bloodless coup d' etat that brought Bush to power, 9/11, Afghanistan and now Iraq have completely changed my outlook, not so much on Blair but on the true nature of American intentions towards the rest of the world.

However, I'm still thinking about a suitable party for you here. English Greens and LibDem yellow. A bit of red Dutch tulips perhaps? A subtle mixture of radicalism, ecofriendly economics, freedom of expression, beards and sandals. Thats it! The Red Green Yellow alliance. Or as it will soon be known, the Vomit Party! (only joking ILZ)

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LONDON (Reuters) - War in Iraq (news - web sites) has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group's will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report.
The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank's annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington's assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were "over-confident."
The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq.
Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the country from "ripening into a cause celebre for radical Islamic terrorists," it concluded. "Nation-building" in Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than initially planned.
"On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to support it," the report said.
"On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability," it said.

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The Day the Former Saddam-City Did an About-Face
By Christophe Ayad
La Liberation

Saturday 11 October 2003

Thursday's attack destroyed Baghdad Shi'ites' pro-American feeling.

"Thursday night the Americans came back in force. They fired without warning even though no one had attacked them,", according to a witness to the altercation.

It wasn't only two men Medinet al-Sadr buried Friday, but also the brief "enchanted parentheses" between the immense Shi'ite neighborhood and the American army. In the same place where American tanks filed through to shouts of "Long live"s several hours before the fall of Baghdad six months ago, a crowd of several tens of thousands of men marched Friday to cries of "Down with America; Long live Islam!" after an inflammatory sermon during which a cleric called on American troops to leave Iraq. It was the largest Shi'ite demonstration in Baghdad since the arrival of American troops.

One day of blunders and provocations was enough to swing the former Saddam City into anger. Thursday morning a kamikaze hurled his Oldsmobile stuffed with explosives into Medinet al-Sadr's police headquarters, killing eight people. In the hour that followed, American troops showed up on the spot. "Instead of concerning themselves with our safety, they found nothing better to do than to surround the second martyr's office", mutinies Sheik Dhia. The "second martyr's office" is the representative office of Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraq's most nationalistic and anti-American Shi'ite leader. It's the true seat of power in Medinet al-Sadr: a crowd of clerics in white and black turbans and armed men from Moqtada al-Sadr's paramilitary militia, the "Mahdi army", gathers there permanently. "The neighborhood youth chased the Americans away with stones", continues Sheikh Dhia. "They would have done better to hunt down the criminals who had just committed the attacks on us, instead of searching and arresting our religious men."

Jassem, who runs a little hair salon on the sidewalk across the street, picks up the story: "Thursday night, around 8PM, the Americans came back in force. They opened fire without warning, even though no one had attacked them." The fusillade lasted a good hour. Jassem lowered his steel curtain. When he brought it up, he found it filled with holes like a strainer. On the floor above, where eight families live in ten rooms, a projectile destroyed the balcony and cut through the apartment, miraculously without any victims. When the Americans left, two corpses were picked up: Ali Qazem and Haïdar Yousr, two militiamen from the Mahdi army, buried Friday with great pomp following the weekly grand prayer.

According to an American spokesperson, the patrol had been lured into an ambush a little before: once they were without cover, the GIs endured fire that left two dead and four wounded. In Medinet al-Sadr, no one saw or heard any of this. On the other hand, everyone talks about the three armored vehicles that came back in the middle of the night to lay siege to "the second martyr's office", all the while not entering it, however. "Until dawn two helicopters flew over the neighborhood", Jassem recounts. "They have supposedly come to liberate us and they treat us like enemies"

At the little hairdressing salon, the litany of grievances is interminable. "O.K. now we can criticize Saddam and pray in public, but for the rest, what have we gained?" one client gets all worked up. "Our streets are still as rotten. We're dying of hunger." In Medinet al-Sadr, sewers continue to run open to the sky, carrying along black water that children splash around in. "Nobody asks for thirty-five years of injustice to be repaired in a week, but they could make a little gesture," Jassem continues. "Electricity functions eight hours a day. I can't work under these conditions. At night I have to close up at ten o'clock on account of robbers. Before the war, I closed the boutique after midnight."

"As before". With the exception of Jassem, all six men present in the hairdressing salon are unemployed. Hakim tried to get a job as a garbage collector at the municipality the Americans put in place: at 3 dollars a day, a fortune for Medinet al-Sadr, the bonanza didn't last. "There were 300 places, the council members gave 100 of them to their friends and relations and pocketed the rest of the budget. Everything has become just as it was before. Saddam's stool pigeons have become the Americans' translators. If you want to lodge a complaint at the police station, you have to baksheesh the cops. Before it was 250 dinars, now it's 1,000 (a half-dollar)." In these circumstances, "the second martyr's office", which gives out aid to the poor, has no trouble monopolizing public approval.

"It's the same with security. The Americans should have just let the Mahdi army do the job. They're our own, they're Muslims", continues Hakim. Friday night, the GIs abandoned Medinet al-Sadr streets to the Shi'ite militiamen, recognizable by the green bandana around their foreheads. At every corner, a troop of adolescents armed with clubs and of men with Kalashnikovs searched the cars. Perhaps a new front has opened for Americans already harassed daily in the Sunni triangle!

-------

Translation: Truthout French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.

-------

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The UN, US and Iraq IV

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