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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

 
 
sumac
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 06:53 am
In an interview on CNN yesterday morning, Senator Biden, a ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the administration has yet to put forth any plan at all as to what was to happen at the end of June. The Foregin Affairs Committee has responsibility in that area.
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Brand X
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 07:25 am
The June 30 'turn over' will be symbolic at best but they have to stick with that date to save any face at all.
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 07:38 am
That June 30 date is meaningless for all practical purposes. It's not even a symbolic turn-over. It's more like Bush's promises of increasing jobs by 240 million. Nada.
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 07:46 am
This one is a doozy.
*******************
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com

Poisoned?
April 3, 2004
By JUAN GONZALEZ<br>DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found.
You can view the entire article at http://www.nydailynews.com/04-04-2004/news/wn_report/story/180331p-156685c.html .
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blatham
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 08:01 am
Brand X wrote:
The June 30 'turn over' will be symbolic at best but they have to stick with that date to save any face at all.


brand

I believe that is what they think (they being the campaign-concerned in the White House).

"Face" is a popularity measure. It has NOTHING to do with ethics, and it has nothing to do with sound policy.
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sumac
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 08:57 am
Save face? Of all the crap being dished out by Bush et al, that one is maddeningly, monumentally dastardly, unethical, criminally negligent, and any other relevant negative attribution you could think of. They attack and kill people and they are concerned with saving face? The horror of it all.

Out of one side of his mouth Bush goes around saying that they would stay the course and not desert the Iraqis before they are ready to resume responsibility for their own governance, reconstruction is complete, etc., etc. Then out of the other side of his mouth comes the continuing pronouncement that the 'turn over' is to occur before any of the above objectives have been met.

Everybody and their brothers know that it can not, should not, happen on that arbitrary date.
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BillW
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 09:09 am
errrrrr, Politics is number 1, face is but a symtom Exclamation
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Scrat
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 09:44 am
sumac wrote:
In an interview on CNN yesterday morning, Senator Biden, a ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the administration has yet to put forth any plan at all as to what was to happen at the end of June. The Foregin Affairs Committee has responsibility in that area.

And you assume that Biden is telling the truth?
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blatham
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 10:44 am
scrat

I believe Biden is saying that no plan has been shown to anyone on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I don't know what the traditional or legal relationship between the White House and this committee might be.
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Scrat
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 11:13 am
blatham wrote:
I believe Biden is saying that no plan has been shown to anyone on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I don't know what the traditional or legal relationship between the White House and this committee might be.

Thanks, I understood that. I was trying to highlight the apparent differential in standards in these discussions. It seems (for some, at least) that any statement against the interests of the administration is assumed to be true, while any statement supporting those interests is assumed to be a lie.

I'd suggest that we treat all such statements--whether good or bad for the Prez--as suspect until verified by another source, but I'm sure my detractors here will find a way to claim that's just a blind-Bush-loving ploy. :wink:
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PDiddie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 11:19 am
Point/Counterpoint: The War in Iraq

Quote:
This War Will Destabilize the Entire Mideast Region and Set Off a Global Shockwave of Anti-Americanism

George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more.

This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher. It will not end the threat of weapons of mass destruction; it will make possible their further proliferation. And it will not lay the groundwork for the flourishing of democracy throughout the Mideast; it will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence.

If you thought Osama bin Laden was bad, just wait until the countless children who become orphaned by U.S. bombs in the coming weeks are all grown up. Do you think they will forget what country dropped the bombs that killed their parents? In 10 or 15 years, we will look back fondly on the days when there were only a few thousand Middle Easterners dedicated to destroying the U.S. and willing to die for the fundamentalist cause. From this war, a million bin Ladens will bloom.

And what exactly is our endgame here? Do we really believe that we can install Paul Bremer as the viceroy of Iraq? Is our arrogance and hubris so great that we actually believe that a U.S. provisional military regime will be welcomed with open arms by the Iraqi people? Democracy cannot possibly thrive under coercion. To take over a country and impose one's own system of government without regard for the people of that country is the very antithesis of democracy. And it is doomed to fail.

A war against Iraq is not only morally wrong, it will be an unmitigated disaster.


===================

Quote:
No, It Won't

No, it won't.

It just won't. None of that will happen.

You're getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine. So just relax, okay? You're really overreacting.

"This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher"?

It won't.

"It will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence"?

Not really.

"A war against Iraq is not only morally wrong, it will be an unmitigated disaster"?

Sorry, no, I disagree.

"To take over a country and impose one's own system of government without regard for the people of that country is the very antithesis of democracy"?

You are completely wrong.

Trust me, it's all going to work out perfect. Nothing bad is going to happen. It's all under control.

Why do you keep saying these things? I can tell when there's trouble looming, and I really don't sense that right now. We're in control of this situation, and we know what we're doing. So stop being so pessimistic.

Look, you've been proven wrong, so stop talking. You've had your say already.

Be quiet, okay? Everything's fine.

You're wrong.


Where Else?
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timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 12:50 pm
Hey, Scrat ... remember "Trust, but verify"? ... always good avice :wink:
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Scrat
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 12:57 pm
timberlandko wrote:
Hey, Scrat ... remember "Trust, but verify"? ... always good advice :wink:

Even if Reagan lifted it from the Russians. Cool
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sumac
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 07:17 pm
PDiddle - that was great. Many thanks.

Scrat,
You're wrong. LOL. Seriously, very few of us here are snatch and jerk in our minds regarding the present administration. There is thought, evaluation, and an accumulation of past history to guide us in each and every reaction.

But Biden is a particularly trustworthy straight-shooter, and his comments are easily verifiable so he could hardly lie, even if he were so inclined. And why do you rush to the suggestion that he is lying?
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 07:36 pm
sumac, I was thinking the same thing about Condi Rice's appearance tomorrow before the 9-11 commission. Any lies will be easily detected, so that should be "out of the question."
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pistoff
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 07:54 pm
Hand over.
This "hand over" is a sham!!! Iraqis know it. Most Americans don't &/or don't care.

"Some recent highlights. At the end of March, building on his Order 39 of last September, Bremer passed yet another law further opening up Iraq's economy to foreign ownership, a law that Iraq's next government is prohibited from changing under the terms of the interim constitution. Bremer also announced the establishment of several independent regulators, which will drastically reduce the power of Iraqi government ministries.

For instance, the Financial Times reports that "officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority said the regulator would prevent communications minister Haider al-Abadi, a thorn in the side of the coalition, from carrying out his threat to cancel licences the coalition awarded to foreign-managed consortia to operate three mobile networks and the national broadcaster." The CPA has also confirmed that after June 30, the $18.4bn that the US government is spending on reconstruction will be administered by its embassy in Iraq.

The money will be spent over five years and will fundamentally redesign Iraq's most basic infrastructure, including its electricity, water, oil and communications sectors, as well as its courts and police. Iraq's future governments will have no say in the construction of these core sectors of Iraqi society. Retired rear admiral David Nash, who heads the Project Management Office, which administers the funds, describes the $18.4bn as "a gift from the American people to the people of Iraq". He appears to have forgotten the part about gifts being something you actually give up. And in the same eventful week, US engineers began construction on 14 "enduring bases" in Iraq, capable of housing the 110,000 soldiers who will be posted here for at least two more years. Even though the bases are being built with no mandate from an Iraqi government, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations in Iraq, called them "a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East".

The US occupation authority has also found a sneaky way to maintain control over Iraq's armed forces. Bremer has issued an executive order stating that even after the interim Iraqi government has been established, the Iraqi army will answer to US commander Lt General Ricardo Sanchez. In order to pull this off, Washington is relying on a legalistic reading of a clause in UN security council resolution 1511, which puts US forces in charge of Iraq's security until "the completion of the political process" in Iraq. Since the "political process" in Iraq is never-ending, so it seems is US military control. In the same flurry of activity, the CPA announced that it would put further constraints on the Iraqi military by appointing a national security adviser for Iraq.

This US appointee would have powers equivalent to those held by Condoleezza Rice and will stay in office for a five-year term, long after Iraq is scheduled to have made the transition to a democratically elected government. There is one piece of this country, though, that the US government is happy to cede to the people of Iraq: the hospitals. On March 27 Bremer announced that he had withdrawn the senior US advisers from Iraq's health ministry, making it the first sector to achieve "full authority" in the US occupation.


Taken together, these latest measures paint a telling picture of what a "free Iraq" will look like: the United States will maintain its military and corporate presence through 14 enduring military bases and the largest US embassy in the world. It will hold on to authority over Iraq's armed forces, its security and economic policy and the design of its core infrastructure - but the Iraqis can deal with their decrepit hospitals all by themselves, complete with their chronic drug shortages and lack of the most basic sanitation capacity. (The US health and human services secretary, Tommy Thompson, revealed just how low a priority this was when he commented that Iraq's hospitals would be fixed if the Iraqis "just washed their hands and cleaned the crap off the walls".) " Naomi Klein


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1184993,00.html
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 07:59 pm
pistoff, From just reading the first paragraph of your post, it's clear that this move is intended to get international support for this messy war - no more, no less. The bait may be out there, but I wonder who's ready to bite. (Gotta be a little bit crazy to get involved.)
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Gelisgesti
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 08:13 pm
Who the hell is this guy?
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Apr, 2004 09:28 pm
According to a news release, it seems the pentagon is going to direct the troops in Iraq to stay longer than their one year assignment due to the expanded violence.
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Scrat
 
  1  
Reply Thu 8 Apr, 2004 10:26 am
sumac wrote:
Scrat,
You're wrong. LOL. Seriously, very few of us here are snatch and jerk in our minds regarding the present administration. There is thought, evaluation, and an accumulation of past history to guide us in each and every reaction.

Lest you forget, there are plenty who make no bones about HATING Bush. You would suggest that these bring no bias to the news they read, prejudge nothing. That does not seem plausible to me. I am perfectly happy to accept your claim that you are not one such, but with respect, you are in no position to claim that none are.

sumac wrote:
But Biden is a particularly trustworthy straight-shooter, and his comments are easily verifiable so he could hardly lie, even if he were so inclined. And why do you rush to the suggestion that he is lying?

Please read my comments again, as I made no such rush nor any such suggestion. I posed a question, and have explained why. My intention is not to suggest that Biden is lying, but to note that EVERYONE who speaks out in a manner deemed damaging to Bush either is assumed by liberals to be telling the truth, or (worse) merely embraced for their value in the anti-Bush struggle without any concern for truthfulness. Conversely, anyone who offers information that supports Bush is assumed to be lying.

Clark is a hero telling the truth. Condi is a pawn telling lies. And so on, and so on... But what is the unbiased standard by which people here measure the truth of a person's statements? THERE IS NONE. Those who support Bush MUST be lying, and those who offer information that appears to harm Bush MUST be telling the truth.
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