THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

I'm just waiting to see how they wiggle out of this one.

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I have a feeling that George is coming to the end of his chain. Sistani has him beat from the get go .... sooner or later someone will ask the question 'why can't they wait until it is possible then have an election, they watched Saddam get 100% of his last election and stood by. We told the Shia in 92 'sure , go ahead and revolt', then left them to be massacred.
Sistani played George like a master, the game is at check with no chance for a draw ..... George is close to the end of his chain.

An old trapper came out of the woods and went to see the dentist, to have a lot of work done on his teeth, He needed many fillings and several extractions, besides a good cleaning. The dentist offered to give him novocaine, but the trapper adamantly refused. He said he had experienced terrible pain twice in his life and it had hardened him to pain.
So the dentist went to work. He drilled, he filled, he pulled, and he polished, working up a good sweat with all his effort, but the trapper never flinched or moved.
When he was all finished the dentist reached into an upper cabinet, pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, poured two generous drinks and offered one to the trapper. The dentist said, "What happened to you to harden you so much to pain?"
The trapper replied, "Well, I was out in the woods one day and nature called. So I dropped my drawers and had the misfortune to squat right over a set bear trap. Well I dropped my load, it hit the trip pan and that trap jumped right up and grabbed me by my scrotum!" "Oh my God!", said the dentist, "That must have hurt terribly!" The trapper replied, "Not as bad...as when I got to the end of the trap's chain!"

Just had to work that in Wink

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According to a recent news release, the UN is expected to intervene in Iraq to help in the election process. However, IMHO, it will not work, because they will only be a puppet for the US, and the Iraqis will see right through it. I also think that the UN is a bit gun-shy at this point, because of the bombing of the UN building last year in Baghdad.

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Quote:

Home » War on Iraq »

Unlikely heroine across the pond
Posted by Christopher on January 19, 2004 @ 10:54AM

From the London Observer: "She was an anonymous junior official toiling away with 4,500 other mathematicians, code-breakers and linguists at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham. But now Katharine Gun, an unassuming 29-year-old translator, is set to become a transatlantic cause célèbre as the focus of a star-studded solidarity drive that brings together Hollywood actor-director Sean Penn and senior figures from the US media and civil rights movement, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Gun appears in court tomorrow accused of breaching [Britain's] Official Secrets Act by allegedly leaking details of a secret US 'dirty tricks' operation to spy on UN Security Council members in the run-up to war in Iraq last year. If found guilty, she faces two years in prison."

Source

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c.i., the issue about the UN is absorbing. I am sad but not surprised that Annan will not stand up to the US and insist on a different sort of election process if the UN is to become involved. If the UN comes back to Iraq as a US puppet, their people will become targets for the attention-seeking resisters and the UN will once again be seen as powerless. Annan has asked for responsibilty and power for the UN equal to the demands made for cover and international organizational respect. It is laughable that the US would grant that.

I don't know if there is any answer at present to how an Iraqi government should be formed, or helped to be formed, but I do not think that caucuses that are headed by US appointees will satisfy any of the warring elements, any more than the governing council, which is made up of US appointees, is seen as legitimate by most Iraqis. The strong backing for Ayatollah Sistani is only one of the many problems anyone faces in trying to satisfy demands for representative elections. I can only think that we must stay the course with the governing council for a year or two until a more acceptable election process is worked through.

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One major item this administration seems to miss is that the number of Shia is not going to change into a minority any time soon. Trying to force US elected leaders on Iraq is a failure from the get-go. Why can't they see things that are so obvious?

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In last year's State of the Union speech, Bush said U.S. intelligence estimated that Hussein had materials to produce "as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent" and had "upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents."

He didn't mention anything about that yesterday (as far as I could find out) nor about that U.S. weapons inspection teams have failed to find nuclear, chemical or biological weapons (their imminent threat was sold as a major reason for going to war, you remember?).

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Walter wrote

Quote:

Bush said U.S. intelligence estimated that Hussein had materials to produce "as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent" and had "upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents."

And Blair said Saddam had bought uranium ore from Niger. When that was shown to be a lie and based on a forged document, Blair said British intelligence had other sources that backed up the claim.

And what about all the rubbish of Saddam being hand in glove with Osama bin Laden, and secret meetings with Iraqi agents and al Qaida in Prague?

And the wonderful Colin Powell show at the UN, with "intercepted" tapes of Iraqi generals moving and hiding wmd...

"Abdul, it is me Ali. Our glorious leader has asked me to tell you not to mention the long range rockets and nuclear weapons we dont have. Also hide the leprosy bomb and the cough mixture device such that they can never be found until final victory over the infidel is ours..."(evil laughter, fade out)

OK I'm exaggerating a little here. But Powell still raised a laugh at the security council, especially when he produced a little vial of anthrax from his pocket and said Saddam had a lot more where that came from.

It was all lies. But of course it served the purpose of providing the excuse to invade Iraq. And most Americans bought into it. I never thought Orwell's vision of 1984 was realistic because they never had the technology to control how people thought. But it happens now. I wish I understood how they do it.

"He who controls the present controls the past. And he who controls the past controls the future."

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Welcome to 1984 ... twenty years later ...

[quoter]PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES
"Propaganda Techniques" is based upon "Appendix I: PSYOP Techniques" from "Psychological Operations Field Manual No.33-1" published by Headquarters; Department of the Army, in Washington DC, on 31 August 1979

PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES

Knowledge of propaganda techniques is necessary to improve one's own propaganda and to uncover enemy PSYOP stratagems. Techniques, however, are not substitutes for the procedures in PSYOP planning, development, or dissemination.
Techniques may be categorized as:
Characteristics of the content self-evident. No additional information is required to recognize the characteristics of this type of propaganda. "Name calling" and the use of slogans are techniques of this nature.
Additional information required to be recognized. Additional information is required by the target or analyst for the use of this technique to be recognized. "Lying" is an example of this technique. The audience or analyst must have additional information in order to know whether a lie is being told. [/quote]

Source

Or, if you prefer ...

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Quote:

"He who controls the present controls the past. And he who controls the past controls the future."

Steve, who said that?

I didn't listen to last year's State of the Union because I can't watch Bush speak (he looks like an actor playing a role) but I read it the next day in the NYTimes.

This year, I didn't watch it, of course, and didn't read the whole thing this morning. Everyone knew what would be in it, and what reasonable being would put faith in the words after what was said last year (thanks Walter and Steve for reminding us...as if we needed reminding...)

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Kara wrote:

Quote:
"He who controls the present controls the past. And he who controls the past controls the future."

Steve, who said that?

Quote:

Orwell, 1984 :wink:

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Ah, of course. Thanks, Walter. I read that book in 1951 and have thought so often of how its prophecies came true.

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Bush also said during his 2003 SOU address that Saddam bought uranium from Africa. What bothers me more than anything is the claim made yesterday that the deficit will be reduced by 50 percent in five years. Nobody seems to understand macroeconomics, and the unpredictability of the world and US's economy going on for the next five years. People are duped too easily. This is a "no tax and spend" president. Where is all that money coming from?

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In his State of the Union address before Congress, the president said,
"There are many in this chamber who voted against liberating Iraq."
Oh, is that the reason we invaded Iraq? Silly us. All this time we
thought it was Iraq's connection to terrorists. Or was it weapons of
mass destruction? Or did it have something to do with nuclear arms
secretly under development?

You have to like that "liberating" excuse most of all. It's loaded with
righteousness. What's ingenious about this excuse is that it opens
the way for us to invade those countless other countries with their
masses huddled under totalitarian regimes. We need to get busy and
dig in, because it's going to take about 200 hundred years to clean up
this dictatorial neighborhood. There's more than one way to skin a
terrorist. Isn't democracy wonderful?
--Dewey Conrad

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Propganda ... it's not what you say that matters, it's what you don't say and who you don't say it to.

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It is that righteousness and superiority that makes it so hard to swallow, and we will hear the "liberation" thing every day from now until the election.

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Kara wrote

Quote:

it is that righteousness and superiority that makes it so hard to swallow

And don’t forget that brilliant line "America will never require a permission slip to defend itself…" (paraphrase)

Whoever wrote that for Bush should get some sort of campaign medal. I think its probably secured four more years for George 2. Crying or Very sad

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Quote, "that brilliant line "America will never require a permission slip to defend itself" (paraphrase)" is so convoluted, why can't people see through it? Iraq was never a threat to America. NEVER! What were we defending ourselves from?

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c.i., you can only appear strong if you have an opponent. Otherwise, you are shadow-boxing. We found an enemy almost as useful as the Soviet Union, which enemyship sustained us for decades. Needing a new icon of evil, we found the Axis, then terrorism (an amorphous and hard-to-define enemy), and whoa, Iraq! We had an enemy. Now we could crank up the rhetoric and once again define the world as black and white. We were the good guys on the white horses.

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Are we still in Kansas?

Quote:

Posted on Wed, Jan. 21, 2004
Marine Corps lawyer speaks out against tribunals
By FRANK DAVIES
Miami Herald

ARLINGTON, Va. - A Marine Corps major and lawyer Wednesday blasted his commander-in-chief's military commissions, set up to try terrorist suspects held in Guantanamo, as a fundamentally unfair system designed to produce guilty verdicts.

Maj. Michael Mori, who represents Australian detainee David Hicks, said upcoming military trials will not be "full and fair," as Pentagon leaders promised, but were "created and controlled by those with a vested interest only in convictions."

Mori, at a press briefing, said the rules and procedures for military trials "effectively removed any resemblance to any criminal court," and did not meet the standards of either military courts martial or civilian courts.

"Using the commission process just creates an unfair system that threatens to convict the innocent and provides the guilty a justifiable complaint as to their convictions," said Mori, who has defended or prosecuted about 200 cases in military courts.

President Bush two years ago revived military commissions, not used since World War II, to try terrorists in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the global hunt for terrorists.

But the Pentagon has been slow to set up the legal machinery of military trials while some detainees, including Hicks, have been held two years at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba, without hearings, charges or formal POW status.

There are more than 600 captives in Guantanamo. So far, Bush has designated Hicks and five others as eligible for military trials, and charges are expected within a few weeks.

A spokesman for the military commissions, Air Force Maj. John Smith, said the commissions are "the right forum to deal with violations of the law of war" by non-U.S. citizens and have a long history in military law.

"They're not less fair, just different," Smith said. "They recognize that fighting a war is not the same as law enforcement or police work."

But Mori and four other military lawyers assigned to the defense team said the commission system is unfair because one branch, the executive, controls a closed system: Filing charges, setting the rules, appointing officers as judge and jury, and retaining the final say on verdicts and sentences.

He said that military judges in courts martial are much more independent than the panels of military officers who will try terrorist suspects.

"If there is reliable evidence to convict a detainee, use an established justice system, like the court-martial process," said Mori, who also suggested that some captives could be tried in their home countries.

Last week, in a brief to the Supreme Court for a related Guantanamo case, the five military lawyers called the commission system "monarchical" and urged the justices to ensure that any detainee convicted in a military trial have the right to appeal to a federal civilian court.

The Bush administration argues that because the detainees are held outside the United States, where the trials are also planned, federal courts have no authority at any point in the process.

Mori Wednesday went beyond that brief in his criticism, suggesting that military trials will "lower the standard under which U.S. service members and citizens could be tried by foreign countries, a dangerous precedent."

"The reality is, we wouldn't tolerate these rules if they were applied to U.S. citizens," he said.

The five lawyers acknowledge they are following a difficult path, representing their clients within the system while attacking that system. Their stand is likely to fuel the international criticism of the detentions and pending trials.

"When I fight for my client, I'm going to point out every injustice, and this system is not representative of military justice," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, assigned to defend a Yemeni, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, held in Guantanamo.

The defense team received the permission of the general counsel's office of the Pentagon to file the brief and speak out Wednesday, reflecting their dual role as military officers and defense attorneys.

Defense spokesmen said the team's outspokenness shows the lawyers are free to pursue a "zealous defense" and that the trials will be a fair legal battle.

"If I were a defense counsel, I'd probably raise some of the same issues," Smith said.

Mori said he has met with Hicks three times but could not discuss details of his case. He described the 28-year-old Australian physically as "fair as can be expected" but that the captive's mental state had "degenerated."

"Two years, without outside world communication, it kind of creates a disorientation," Mori said.

Friends and family describe Hicks as an adventurer who fought in Kosovo, converted to Islam, and wound up in Afghanistan, apparently fighting with the Taliban. Northern Alliance forces captured him and turned him over to U.S. forces.

At Guantanamo, Hicks has been known as a frequent hunger striker and "spoiled brat," according to one doctor.

Australia, a U.S. ally, has won assurances from U.S. officials that Hicks will not face the death penalty and that he could serve any sentence in Australia.

Source

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

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