THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Good evening to you as well, McTag,.

Thirty years ago Iraq had a military dictator for a president. I believe they will do far better than that this time.

For all its missteps the United States is not a colonial power in anywhere near the same sense as were our forebears in these enterprises. We have not seized the oil assets or attempted to take ownership of things that are not ours as did the British and French.

Maintaining the world's supply of oil - delivered under market conditions with revenues to their national owners - is indeed a legitimate activity for the Western Powers. Consider for a moment where the Persian Gulf oil goes and where consumption is increasing the fastest - would you like to see China and Japan doing this to keep their own economies going?

The current distemper in the Moslem world is directly traceable to the folly and exploitation of them by Britain and France, and of certain features in the cultural/historical development of the region. This condition, the problem of Zionism, and the clash between the two are among the most dangerous and threatening issues before the world today. Are all legacies of the actions of western European powers in the early 20th century (and some before). We are trying to deal with it after we were attacked by some of the players in that dangerous game.

Contrast this with the motives of Britain and France in 1914, and their subsequent actions. What is going on now is not the same story at all.

With all this in mind, I find European indignation over the matter quite amazing.

0 Replies

McTag wrote:

[size=8]I don't know how you've convinced yourself that some people are insisting the Iraqis don't want democracy...of course they do. The want it with autonomy, and they're not going to get it.
If you think that USA has invaded Iraq just to depose a dictator and leave behind a democracy, you are delusional.[/size]

21st : Attention bushwhacker cannots and all you other “nattering nabobs of negativity”!
There are now 14 million registered Iraqi voters [size=8](who are not delusional)[/size].
Outstanding!
The total number of Iraqis voting will be more than
Corection! 12,863,769
Astonishing!
After they vote, there will be more than[/b]
Corection! 12,863,769
Iraqi Patrick Henrys.

Quote:

Patrick Henry: "It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace!—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethen are already in the field. Why stay we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me: give me liberty, or give me death!"

You can count on it!

0 Replies

The full meaning of the word "tolerate" includes the sense "to suffer," i.e. (id est, that is, namely), to endure, bear, feel pain, inadvertently.

The 9/11 commission report is poor evidence of Saddam's alleged harboring of al Qaeda. It is so poor in fact, that the 9/11 commission report itself does not state that Saddam harbored al Qaeda. It merely uses the ambiguous term "tolerated" in regard to Saddam concerning Ansar al-Islam, and the indefinite phrase "may even have helped." It is only you, ican, that is drawing conclusions thereof alleging Saddam harbored al Qaeda. The evidence you rely on to arrive at your conclusions is hardly enough to say that Saddam harbored al Qaeda.

The Kurds had much more control over northern Iraq than Saddam, and that was by way of the protection from Saddam afforded them by the Joint Task Force enforcing the no-fly zone there. That "al Qadea" reformed in northern Iraq by 2001 after the Kurds defeated al Qaeda in northern Iraq by 1999 is not evidence that the Kurds had no more control over northern Iraq than did Saddam. The Kurds were prepared to deal with Ansar al-Islam in 2002. Their ultimate hinderance was the US' looming war against Iraq. The evidence that I have that Saddam actually lacked the choice of at least attempting the same thing is the fact that Saddam had no control over northern Iraq. That the US claims it requested Saddam to extradite Zarqawi and his subordinates is irrelevant because of that fact.

That Saddam never claimed that al Qaeda were not so encamped, or otherwise, in northern Iraq is not evidence of Saddam's alleged harboring of al Qaeda.
That Saddam never claimed he tried to remove al Qaeda is not evidence that he did not attempt to remove al Qaeda, let alone your allegations of Saddam's harboring of al Qaeda.
All of this amounts to assumptions on your part predicated on leaps of logic, nothing more.

The 9/11 commission's silence about Zarqawi is relevant because, aside from it's possible corroboration of Powell's claims--which it does not--it could have elaborated on it's own allegations of "tolerance" of and "may even have helped" Ansar al-Islam, which is the terrorist group with whom Zarqawi had fallen in northern Iraq. It does not.

And so, maybe Zarqawi had such a role, and maybe he did not, and this is a matter of pure speculation. That isn't very good evidence for the claim that Saddam had dealings with him, or that Saddam had the wherewithal to extradite him, etc. All this amounts to is uncorroborated, unverified bluster, and this is what you are basing your own claims of harboring, pure speculation. Speculation is not evidence of Saddam's harboring of al Qaeda.

I did not imply that anyone who scores less than 100%, is rated by me as scoring 0%, i.e. is discredited. Your inference is fallacious.

I am saying that Powell and the US admin. played fast and loose with their "evidence" of Saddam's WMD and harboring of al Qaeda to terrorize and incite the US public into support for its invasion and occupation of Iraq. There is no evidence of either. Powell and the US admin. have been discredited on these counts. Because of this, any of their subsequent utterings are suspicious and questionable.

0 Replies

OCCOM BILL wrote:

revel wrote:
What makes rumsfield and others who are currently in the administration different than those in the UN that supported Saddam Hussien is the rhetoric that those in the administration uses when talking about saddam now rings hollow when they once supported him while he was doing the very same things.
That's a hoot coming from a U.N. apologist, Revel. Answer your own question; What's the difference? Hint: U.N. had authority since Iraq's surrender that Rummy didn't have. But even if you ignore that FACT, how do you reconcile your lack of condemnation on the U.N. for a difference you can't cite?

revel wrote:
Sometimes I just wonder if people leave their common sense out of political forums intentionally so it don't get in their way of their arguments.
Re-read the first paragraph

The UN (or which we are a part of and have always been a part of) might of have had authority but none of them were so chummy with saddam hussien what with the pictures and all and then going around acting all bent out of shape about his actions 10 years later of which he knew about when he was so chummy with him. (along with the rest of the Reagan administration) It is the two actions together that makes the difference.

It's like being friends with a known bank robber and reaping the benefits and then later after the money is spent, turning on him and acting all bent out of shape about the bad bank robber.

0 Replies

So those photos of a men standing together doing legitimate business a decade ago is more damning in your view than a multi-billion dollar criminal scam, where the diverted funds resulted in over a million victims starved to death? Is that right? Rolling Eyes

0 Replies

georgeob1 wrote:

Contrast this with the motives of Britain and France in 1914, and their subsequent actions. What is going on now is not the same story at all.

With all this in mind, I find European indignation over the matter quite amazing.

I agree with most of this post, so have deleted the rest of it to leave more room for Ican.

I am not sure where this branch of the discussion came from, because I have never accused america of being any better or worse than former colonial powers. And I recognise the differences I think.

My "indignation" over the matter takes us back a few months: I demonstrated with more than a million other Britons on the streets of London when it became clear that Tony Blair had decided to accompany the US on an invasion of Iraq, and to justify it peddled the same lies that you have been sold.
Nothing which has happened since has dissuaded me from the view that this is a crime, on a par with those laid before the tribunal in Nuremberg.

0 Replies

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Like Bill did, damn it, not does. I haven't badgered you since (I now patiently await your feeble responses).:razz:

You are a little more patient now Bill, agreed, and no longer rush in "where angels fear to tread". :wink:

I get a bit depressed on this theme, and leave off commenting sometimes. While I undergo therapy, usually a few pints.

I put in the bit about the onlookers at the GWB inaugural, which you didn't like, shame, because Pan said "we get touchy when people criticise our country". Well fair enough, but I'm not the only one against the Bush administration and what it has done and what it stands for. Not the country, you understand, but its current leadership.
Many thoughtful Americans are vocal in protest against Bush, as well as those overseas, and I hope his advisers will begin to realise the reasons for that.

0 Replies

McTag:

The problem is that this US administration and the people who voted for them (twice!) think that everyone else in the world is just like them. The fact of the matter is that the rest of the world is not at all like the evangelical, pro-pre-emptive war, anti-gay, anti-tax, pro-small government, pro-business/anti-worker, anti-Kyoto, anti-stem cell, anti-whatever else you got that sounds like too much fun folks running Washington and a lot more like what the Democratic Party used to be for before the New Democrats started moving towards the American middle.

They are so sure they are on on the path of the righteous, they do not ask anyone else's opinions and if those opinions are offered unasked, they do not listen.

Joe (which of the monkeys is the Sec. of Defense?) Nation

0 Replies

OCCOM BILL wrote:

So those photos of a men standing together doing legitimate business a decade ago is more damning in your view than a multi-billion dollar criminal scam, where the diverted funds resulted in over a million victims starved to death? Is that right?

You continually miss the point.

0 Replies

McT

I see Tony is trying to divert attention away from the Brit soldier torture photos from Iraq. And to attribute it to 'a few bad apples'. And to suggest, as the Major testifying suggests, that it happened in one place on one day (and they deserved it almost, stealing food and all).

But that's all predictable. They have the US model to follow.

What I find compelling - and unmentioned anywhere I've read - is the particular type of acts committed and how that fits a pattern found at Abu Ghraib. And, what one must infer lies behind this similarity.

The abuses, aside from beatings, were forcing these men to perform degrading sexual acts. Particularly degrading because of cultural taboos.

What are the chances this would occur randomly? Almost zero. Brits did not do this with the IRA, for example, nor anywhere else I know of.

Which leads to the justifiable assumption that these techniques were shared and propogated at fairly high levels between the US and Britain.

0 Replies

Wow, I never thought of that, and I would not suggest that it is so. But possible, certainly.

What is significant, and we've touched on this before, is that only chance discovery of personal photographs (in a photo developing shop) led to the exposure, in this country, of the practices. In other words, the abuses are more than likely to have been widespread. Sorry, Tony, once again you are dissembling.
BTW the British officer in charge of the camp where these abuses took place is coming before the enquiry. He may be censured, but is not (yet) as I understand it, charged with any crime.

0 Replies

These men were only detained for looting, I believe. So what was there to be gained by degrading/ psychological interrogation methods?
So I conclude the soldiers were just doing it for sadistic gratification. Army recruitment is mostly from the lowest streams of society. And when you demonise the enemy, and remove controls, almost anything is apparently possible.
Don't forget also, due to lack of planning, there were too few soldiers, too many detainees. These guys must have been scared most of the time, and therefore resentful.

0 Replies

Excerpts from a simply hilarious interview with Terry Jones at Salon:

Quote:

How did you first come to write these Op-Ed pieces?

It was incredulity that kicked it off. I just couldn't believe how our leaders responded to the events of 9/11. It seemed to me that at every stage they decided to take action that would quite clearly produce the opposite effect from what they declared they wanted. For example, after 9/11 George Bush said exactly the right things. He said we have to catch the evil perpetrators of this evil crime. But if you're going to catch the perpetrators of a crime, I would have thought that what you need is speed and secrecy. What you don't do is announce where you're going to look. [Shouts across the room] "We're going to look in Afghanistan, all right?" You don't say when you're going to do it. [Shouts]: "We're going to do it in two months' time. Two months' time, OK?" And you don't say what you're going to do. [Shouts]: "We're going to bomb you!" I would have thought any evil perpetrators would have got out of Afghanistan by then. I certainly would have done, if I were an evil perpetrator.

Then Tony Blair says, "We're going to make the world safe from terrorism. We're going to protect the U.K. from terrorist attacks, so what we're going to do is go and bomb ... let's see ... Iraq, yes, let's bomb that. That'll make the world safer." It's like the emperor's new clothes. People are making such stark, staring mad decisions and eventually other people just go along with it.

Do you think people go along with it because the government just keeps repeating the mad rationale so forcefully over and over again?

Yes, but it's also the power of words. Words do eventually have an effect. If you keep repeating, "Security forces are putting down insurgents in Iraq," rather than saying "Our illegally occupying army is killing the freedom fighters in Iraq," people will actually start believing it. If we were in France in the Second World War, we'd be talking about brave resistance fighters stopping the illegal occupation of France. We would call the Vichy government quislings and collaborators. Whereas we're talking now about the great [Iyad] Allawi, who's just doing what the Americans want him to do.

Another one is the four "civilian contractors" whose murders prompted the attacks on Fallujah. They were mercenaries. They work for Blackwater, and if you go to Blackwater's Web site, it's really quite interesting. They offer two courses on sniping.

0 Replies

McTag wrote:

I put in the bit about the onlookers at the GWB inaugural, which you didn't like, shame, because Pan said "we get touchy when people criticize our country". Well fair enough, but I'm not the only one against the Bush administration and what it has done and what it stands for. Not the country, you understand, but its current leadership.
Many thoughtful Americans are vocal in protest against Bush, as well as those overseas, and I hope his advisers will begin to realize the reasons for that.

My issue with your submission, McTag had little to do with your objection to George Bush and more to do with the idiot who suggested a need for security to protect a President makes him a coward or that fellow Americans wishing to cause him harm proves he's wrong in some way. Apply that idiot's logic to Kennedy or Lincoln and you'll see what utter nonsense it is. I rather hoped you'd retract your endorsement upon pondering the implications of what the idiot suggested. Bush could very well be an idiot and/or a coward, but that wouldn't add a spec of legitimacy to that idiot's justifications for calling him one. Get it?

revel wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:
So those photos of a men standing together doing legitimate business a decade ago is more damning in your view than a multi-billion dollar criminal scam, where the diverted funds resulted in over a million victims starved to death? Is that right?
You continually miss the point.

I do? You have the most comprehensive set of blinders I've encountered. Most of the folks here recognize tragedy and dispute various reactions and potential viability of solutions to it. You are on the extreme by refusing to acknowledge various tragedies in the first place. Your take on Iranian Women, for instance, should have told me to just stop acknowledging you altogether. You are probably the only person on this board that refuses to recognize the tragedy of their plight.

0 Replies

McTag wrote:

These men were only detained for looting, I believe. So what was there to be gained by degrading/ psychological interrogation methods?
So I conclude the soldiers were just doing it for sadistic gratification. Army recruitment is mostly from the lowest streams of society. And when you demonise the enemy, and remove controls, almost anything is apparently possible.
Don't forget also, due to lack of planning, there were too few soldiers, too many detainees. These guys must have been scared most of the time, and therefore resentful.

But that's precisely why the lack of precedent case (Brit soldiers degrading prisoners sexually) is so relevant here. If it were sadism merely, there'd be some significant precedent examples.

Now, the major is claiming the arrests were for looting, and that the torture occured on a single sunny day. That sounds implausible. But it is a PR line the government and military would find acceptable, under the circumstances.

And, yes, one role of film discovered by chance. The likelihood that's all is about zero.

0 Replies

blatham wrote:

McT

I see Tony is trying to divert attention away from the Brit soldier torture photos from Iraq. And to attribute it to 'a few bad apples'. And to suggest, as the Major testifying suggests, that it happened in one place on one day (and they deserved it almost, stealing food and all).

But that's all predictable. They have the US model to follow.

What I find compelling - and unmentioned anywhere I've read - is the particular type of acts committed and how that fits a pattern found at Abu Ghraib. And, what one must infer lies behind this similarity.

The abuses, aside from beatings, were forcing these men to perform degrading sexual acts. Particularly degrading because of cultural taboos.

What are the chances this would occur randomly? Almost zero. Brits did not do this with the IRA, for example, nor anywhere else I know of.

Nonsense Blatham. It could mean "high levels" of direction... or it could be rumor had it and it sounded funny. The pictures of American abuse were digital and and even used as screensavers. They could easily have been added to an email like a circulating office joke. Your suggestion that one must infer your preferred explanation is preposterous. While your suggestion may be as likely or even moreso than mine, it is absurd to assume that your hypothesis is correct so it doesn't:

Blatham wrote:

Which leads to the justifiable assumption that these techniques were shared and propogated at fairly high levels between the US and Britain.

One would have to want to believe your explanation pretty badly to think your logic chain constituted proof of your unproven assumptions. Confused

0 Replies

My friend Ali (from Free Iraqi has learned the art of sarcasm(!). He writes the following in his last post (for a while):

Should we be grateful to the doctors?

According to this guy Iraqis in general should not be grateful to Americas otherwise they're traitors or they have their own agenda. His whole argument brought to my mind this story that I read about recently in Al Bayan newspaper (link in Arabic):

"Young Iraqi man get treated in Israel from a heart disease."

According to An Israeli newspaper reported that a young Iraqi from Kirkuk had a successful heart surgery in a hospital in Bateh Takfa(sp?). The family of the young man said that they could not afford the expenses of the surgery and so went to a humanitarian aid that arranged for their son to be transferred and treated in Israel for free.

"I never believed that I'd visit Israel one day" said the young man, "I'll tell everyone in my town about the goodness of the people of Israel. I have no more words but to thank the Israeli doctors"

How dare he seek the help of the Zionists to save his life! I'm sure the terrorists (err, the freedom fighters) will deal with him when he returns, and when he get killed I hope the Israeli doctors feel proud for jeopardizing this young man's life. The strangest thing is that he's grateful! I'm confused as what are his motives and why he's so thrilled about this! Hmmm, I don't want to judge him but he seems to have an agenda of his own, otherwise why did he chose Israel to be treated in among all his enormous options?! He could've waited for an offer from France for example! It isn't like his case was that urgent!

I mean this young man's story is very similar to to the story of all Iraq. We were all dying before the Americans came and saved us from the chronic lethal disease that Saddam was. Now that we have a new real life we are faced with serious dangers everyday by those who refuse to see us enjoy such a life. Should we be grateful to the 'doctors' or not? I guess the young man has the answer.

And finally I'd like to say to all those who attack me and my brothers that I'm sorry I won't be able to debate with you from now on, as I'm in the middle of a big conspiracy that should end in the toppling of the Iraqi president (oops did it again! meant Allawi the puppet) and replace him with another puppet. You know, puppets are all kind of "made in Hong Kong" these days and they need to be replaced every now and then to keep things going.

Talk to ya later mate (you can't judge me on this one, can you?) I'm done talking, as I'm preparing for a campaign and I intend to LIVE and I intend to vote.

0 Replies

OCCOM BILL wrote:

McTag wrote:
I put in the bit about the onlookers at the GWB inaugural, which you didn't like, shame, because Pan said "we get touchy when people criticize our country". Well fair enough, but I'm not the only one against the Bush administration and what it has done and what it stands for. Not the country, you understand, but its current leadership.
Many thoughtful Americans are vocal in protest against Bush, as well as those overseas, and I hope his advisers will begin to realize the reasons for that.
My issue with your submission, McTag had little to do with your objection to George Bush and more to do with the idiot who suggested a need for security to protect a President makes him a coward or that fellow Americans wishing to cause him harm proves he's wrong in some way. Apply that idiot's logic to Kennedy or Lincoln and you'll see what utter nonsense it is. I rather hoped you'd retract your endorsement upon pondering the implications of what the idiot suggested. Bush could very well be an idiot and/or a coward, but that wouldn't add a spec of legitimacy to that idiot's justifications for calling him one. Get it?

Well that's fair comment. The "coward" part of the post was not what I wanted to say, but rather that plenty of Americans tried to protest the inauguration parade.
My own opinion, from what I have read is that Bush is a bully and probably also a physical coward as many bullies are. He will not sit on a horse, I read somewhere, and did not join Giuliani in NYC until all the dust had well settled. My own belief is that was not due to personal security, but personal funk and panic, and not knowing whether he would be lynched. (see: McTag's theory that the Administration had something to do with the 9-11 attack) But we will never know the truth of that, so you can put that down to my general distaste for him if you like.

The man who wrote the diary is William Rivers Pitt, whose journalism I commend to you. You may call him many things, and many do, but "idiot" he is certainly not.

Finally it's sadly ironic, is it not, that the President of the strongest nation on the planet, after unprecedented security legislation and initiatives, who had decreed and prosecuted a "war" to "make America safer" should need security measures like these to appear in public in his capital city.

0 Replies

Quote:

He will not sit on a horse

LOL! I've seen this criticism before. I especially like this retort:

Bush knows how to rope a dope. He has a string of Jackasses, the Democrats in Congress, hogtied.

Laughing

0 Replies

the cheddar cheerleader wrote;

Quote:

Nonsense Blatham. It could mean "high levels" of direction... or it could be rumor had it and it sounded funny. The pictures of American abuse were digital and and even used as screensavers. They could easily have been added to an email like a circulating office joke. Your suggestion that one must infer your preferred explanation is preposterous. While your suggestion may be as likely or even moreso than mine, it is absurd to assume that your hypothesis is correct so it doesn't:

Blatham wrote:
Which leads to the justifiable assumption that these techniques were shared and propogated at fairly high levels between the US and Britain.

One would have to want to believe your explanation pretty badly to think your logic chain constituted proof of your unproven assumptions.

Bill

I didn't say my inference MUST be taken as holy writ. And I didn't suggest 'proof' was in place. As you quoted, I said 'justifiable assumption'.

0 Replies

THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know