THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

No I don't think they are necessarily sadistic bastards. I think its got more to do with power and the abuse of power.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

...until you become a sadistic bastard perhaps!

...That's why the guy is in front of you...he's a TMM. You, an interrogator, have been able to competently and justly establish that he's guilty, guilty of being a TMM.

... I think I would find it incredibly difficult to live with the knowledge that I failed to save the lives of innocent people -- innocent Non-americans as well as innocent Americans -- if I believed I could have saved their lives by applying pain short of killing or maiming to an accused terrorist, terrorist abettor, or terrorist comforter that I'm responsible for interrogating.

TMMs are outside of the normal descriptions of human. They are in that category which is torturable. Serial murderers in Kansas aren't in this category. TMMs are in it all alone because they are TMMs and no one else is quite like them.

If you threw them into a state corrections facility with the most hardened and vile criminals, the rapists and child molesters there would look down on TMMs, and beat them up.

And let's not forget that they are in this category because an interrogator, perhaps on hire to Halliburton, judged him a TMM.

That Palestine was designated as part of other Arab countries and territories by Arabs, and that the Ottomans were imperialist rulers much like the British were, and the Arabs in Palestine as well as the rest of the Middle East revolted against their rule is not untrue. The history of Palestine is much longer and more involved than that, but that fact does not make the above untrue.

Once again, ican, the Zionists brought their aims to fruition with the creation of the state of Israel rendering their aims relevant. They aimed to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, they accomplished their aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.

"Ethnocentric" also means "centered on a specific ethnic group, usually one's own," and that is what the state of Israel is all about. Arrogation of land, ethnic-cleansing and the violation of basic human rights constitutes the establishment of an ethnocentric state--a state by, for and of the ethnicity of an invading people--on a land pre-inhabited by other peoples, and that is how it is manifested. Such establishment constitutes death, bodily and mental injury, and violation of basic human rights. This is exemplified in the creation of Israel.

I would that Palestine was one state for all the inhabitants thereof, with equal rights for all, and no ethnocentric dictates or injunctions.

Expiation of the malefaction of immoral ethnocentric disregard begins with dispensing with one's pretense of superiority. In the case of Israel, the pretense of the superiority of an individual's rights in this state and on this land based on one's ethnicity.

The second class status of non-Jews in Israel is implied in Basic Law 7A(1) (Amendment 9) "[A candidates' list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication] negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people . . ."

The Constitution of the United States of America
Effective as of March 4, 1789
...
Article II
Section 1.
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Before [the President] enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
…
Article III
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Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
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Article VI
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The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
…

... In 1920, Palestinian Jews, the Arab Jews born and living in Palestine, signed anti-Zionist petitions denouncing Ashkenazi rule. (Adam Hanieh, "Israel: divided by racism" 1997)

1920 AD:5 Jews killed, 200 wounded in anti-zionist riots in Palestine.
1921 AD:46 Jews killed, 146 wounded in anti-zionist riots in Palestine.
1929 AD:133 Jews killed, 339 wounded--116 Arabs killed, 232 wounded.
1936,38,39 AD:329 Jews killed, 857 wounded--3,112 Arabs killed, 1,775 wounded.

(and so on and so on)

That Palestine was designated as part of other Arab countries and territories by Arabs, and that the Ottomans were imperialist rulers much like the British were, and the Arabs in Palestine as well as the rest of the Middle East revolted against their rule is not untrue. The history of Palestine is much longer and more involved than that, but that fact does not make the above untrue. ...

Almost the whole of public opinion is complicit in this, as is shown by the fury over the admininstration's failure to pre-empt the Sept. 11 assault: a preemption tht would almost certainly have involved some cornercutting in the interrogation room.

But this doesn't relieve the security forces of democratic countries from their sworn responsibility to protect us -- yes us, the very people who demand results but don't especially want to know the full price of our protection.

You don't have to tell them what time of day it is, or where they are, or when the next meal will be served. (Though it must be served.) But you must not bring in that pig or that electrode. That way lies madness and corruption and the extraction of junk confessions. So even if law and principle didn't enter into the question, we sure as hell know what doesn't work.

The evils that is done "in our names"

Quote:

That Palestine was designated as part of other Arab countries and territories by Arabs, and that the Ottomans were imperialist rulers much like the British were, and the Arabs in Palestine as well as the rest of the Middle East revolted against their rule is not untrue. The history of Palestine is much longer and more involved than that, but that fact does not make the above untrue. ...

Good post, Infra. This is the kind of statement that is seldom put out there for debate in the US.

The evils that is done "in our names" is no different from the bestial behaviour of the Nazis or the Japenese in ww2, just one of scale.

Stalin said one man's death is a tragedy. A million is merely a statistic.

I love their attempt to blame it on the soldiers, hoping that Americans and the media would buy in to their bullshit once again and not check the facts. Now they are backstepping again, and won't even proclaim torture unacceptable. This is even though they have said that no reliable information can be obtained from torture. This regime has got to go, torture, killing, maiming, collection of booty in their own personal treasury, mass distruction, pillage, rape, lies, obstruct of law, disobeying UN mandates - Saddam, I think not - the Bush regime.

Neither George Bush or any member of his cabinet is any more responsible for the unjustifiable Iraqi prisoner abuse than they are for the hit-and-run accidents on federal highways. Only the perpetrators of these abuses are responsible.

Ever hear the phrase 'the buck stops here?'

Either

A) systematic abuses have been going on in Iraq, perpetrated by a small cadre of soldiers who are consistently fooling their higher-ups into believing it is not happening

or

B) the higher-ups knew about it and approved of it all along.

You can take your pick, Icann. With option A, we clearly have an incompetent and inefficient system of running things in Iraq, and those responsible for creating and running that system are responsible for the abuses that took place, or with option B (much more likely in my mind) the admin knew about it, and did nothing, until the press got wind of it.

Either way, there are serious problems with the upper management in the situation.

I find it crazy that you people attribute ALL of the successes in Iraq to Bush's leadership and NONE of the failures.

lying to the American people constantly

ican711nm wrote:

My emphasis added
My comments inserted

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By Deborah Charles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Investigators have found no evidence Iraq (news - web sites) aided al Qaeda attempts to attack the United States, a commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings said on Wednesday, undermining Bush administration arguments for war.

no evidence ???

The report by commission staff said al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in 1994 and had explored the possibility of cooperation, but the plans apparently never came to fruition.

apparently???

President Bush (news - web sites) and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) this week reiterated pre-war arguments that an Iraqi connection to al Qaeda, which is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, represented an unacceptable threat to the United States.

However, the commission said in a staff report, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

no credible evidence ???

"There is no convincing evidence that any government financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11 -- other than limited support provided by the Taliban after bin Laden first arrived in Afghanistan (news - web sites)," it added.

no convincing evidence ???; not convincing to the Commission, perhaps

which is it? no evidence ??? no credible evidence ??? no convincing evidence ??? I wonder if the Commission even itself knows. The Commission lost its credibility with me when they failed to investigate Gorelick's role in messing up our intelligence communication efforts

The staff report was issued at the start of the commission's final two days of public hearings into the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. The hearings were called to find out how the United States failed to prevent the attacks and what it can do now to improve security.

The report stood in contrast to comments this week by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam had "long-established ties" to al Qaeda.

Bush, asked on Tuesday about Cheney's comments, cited the presence in Iraq of Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "the best evidence of (a) connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda."

Bush said Saddam had also supported militants such as Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Nidal was "no doubt a destabilizing force."

Although Cheney and other officials had suggested Iraq might have played a direct role in the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush acknowledged after the war that there was no evidence of such cooperation.

Like I have repeatedly said, Bush is at best mediocre and at worst incompetent

A separate draft report by the commission also describes confusion in the Pentagon (news - web sites) on the day of the attacks, the New York Times reported. It said Pentagon procedures were "unsuited in every respect" for the attacks, and unprepared officials responded with a "hurried attempt to create an improvised defense."

Furthermore, the newspaper quoted commission chairman Thomas Kean as saying "there was a lot of chaos" in the White House response. It said commission members wanted to know why Bush was allowed to continue meeting with Florida schoolchildren after the attacks were known, and why Bush hopscotched around the country on Air Force One before returning to Washington.

AL QAEDA TRYING TO STRIKE U.S.

In a report entitled "Overview of the Enemy," the commission also said al Qaeda has changed drastically and become decentralized since the Sept. 11 attacks, but it still helps regional networks and will keep trying to strike the United States to inflict mass casualties.

"Al Qaeda remains extremely interested in conducting chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks," said the report.

The commission said al Qaeda's ability to conduct an anthrax attack is one of the most immediate threats. Al Qaeda may also try a chemical attack using industrial chemicals, or by attacking a chemical plant or shipment of hazardous materials.

The report said al Qaeda may modify "traditional tactics" to prevent detection.

may modify "traditional tactics" ???; they've done that after each and every strike

The CIA (news - web sites) estimates al Qaeda spent $30 million a year before Sept. 11 for terror operations, to run the training camps and contribute to Afghanistan's Taliban militia. While it found no convincing evidence of government support, the panel said Saudi Arabia provided "fertile fund-raising ground" for al Qaeda.

FBI (news - web sites) and CIA experts are due to testify about the militant Muslim network and give a detailed timeline of the events leading up to the deadly attacks.

One more time: the Commission lost its credibility with me when they failed to investigate Gorelick's role in messing up our intelligence communication efforts. The Commission further subtracted from their credibility when they failed to agree on what kind of evidence we have of Iraqi financial and equipment support of Al Qaeda.