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

The reality, ican, is that you quote a report based on bogus information. The information perused by the 9/11 commission is the exact same crap that the Bush admin. used as a pretext to invade and occupy Iraq. The 9/11 commission report is, at best highly suspect, and at worst, a pile of crap based on crap.

I wonder will we leave now ...Iraq... that the winning party has clearly shown that they want us to? Or will they're wishes be fazed out in some kind of weird puzzle of a way they got this thing set (rigged) up?

Setanta, I agree with lola.

04/10/2005

U.S. gives democracy a bad name, speaker says

By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune


Political scientist Stephen Zunes says most governments have double standards when it comes to foreign policy. This is nothing new. But then, he adds, most governments aren't presenting themselves as paragons of democracy the way the United States does.
And that has led to unprecedented national security risks, as other nations increasingly regard the United States with hostility because it seems the world's most powerful nation isn't willing to hold itself to the standards it expects of others, Zunes said.
"If we refuse to play by the rules, why should anyone else?" Zunes asked.
The rhetorical question was central to the keynote talk Zunes, a professor of politics and chairman of the Peace and Justice Studies program at the University of San Francisco, gave during Saturday's Anti-War Educational Conference at the Salt Lake City Main Library. Sponsored by the Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice and the Utah Green Party, the talk drew about 50 people.
Zunes, who has written two books about the roots of terrorism, gave the Bush administration credit for dispelling racist assumptions that people of the Middle East aren't capable of democratic governments. He also agreed with Bush's assertion that supporting other nations' democratic movements is in American's own national interest.
The problem, however, is that the Bush administration's actions, as well as those of past administrations, don't live up to America's idealistic principles. Most telling, Zunes said, is how the United States continues to support oppressive governments, including those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. While Bush touts democratic reform in Iraq, "you don't hear much about spreading democracy from Riyadh to Cairo," he said.

Nor do terrorists decry democracy, Zunes said. Rather, al-Qaida and other groups find recruits by pointing out American support of anti-democratic governments.
Zunes said he feared the United States is making the same mistakes in the Middle East it made during the Cold War, when administrations used the fight against communism as justification for their support of right-wing dictatorships.
As for Iraq, he said, the democratic movement there has been severely hindered by America's rules. For example, no Americans can be prosecuted in Iraqi courts; the Iraqi government can't lay any restrictions on American troops; any actions by the new government must be approved by a 75 percent supermajority vote; and the judiciary is controlled by American appointees, as are the news media and financial institutions.
In addition, during the American occupation Iraqi public health has worsened, basic utilities have become less available, terrorism and counterterrorism have claimed tens of thousands of lives and violent crime and unemployment have soared.
Zunes said many Iraqis believe their quality of life was better under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship than now. Other Middle Eastern nations also don't like what has become of Iraq.
"If this is what democracy looks like, they don't want anything to do with it," Zunes said. "We are giving democracy a bad name, just as the Soviets gave a bad name to socialism."

Walter, Good article; it articulates the problems our country has in trying to force democracy in other countries while at the same time supporting and abetting other tyrannical governments such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Anybody that knows a little about international politics can see the hypocrisy from a far distance. No need for any magnification.

Saudi Arabia - beheading in the 21st century.

Saudi Arabia uses public beheading as the punishment for murder, rape, drug trafficking, sodomy and armed robbery, apostasy and certain other offences. 45 men and 2 women were beheaded in 2002, a further 52 men and 1 woman in 2003 and 35 men and a woman in 2004.
The condemned of both sexes are given tranquillisers and then taken by police van to a public square or a car park after midday prayers. Their eyes are covered and they are blindfolded. The police clear the square of traffic and a sheet of blue plastic sheet about 16 feet square is laid out on the ground.
Dressed in their own clothes, barefoot, with shackled feet and hands cuffed behind their back, the prisoner is led by a police officer to the centre of the sheet where they are made to kneel facing Mecca. An Interior Ministry official reads out the prisoner's name and crime to the crowd of witnesses.
A policeman hands the sword to the executioner who raises the gleaming scimitar and often swings it two or three times before approaches the prisoner from behind and jabbing him in the back with the tip of the sword causing the person to raise their head.
Normally it takes just one swing of the sword to sever the head, often sending it flying some two or three feet. Paramedics bring the head to a doctor, who uses a gloved hand to stop the fountain of blood spurting from the neck. The doctor sews the head back on, and the body is wrapped in the blue plastic sheet and taken away in an ambulance. The body is then buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.
Beheadings of women did not start until the early 1990s, previously they were shot. 34 women have been publicly beheaded up to the end of 2004. Most executions are carried out in the three major cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dahran and Saudi executioners take great pride in their work and the post tends to be handed down from one generation to the next.

... The attack in Afghanistan was probably justified because of Osama and al Qaida. No other country was a threat to the US and/or the American People. It's never justifiable on false intelligence.

Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke's office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled "Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks." Rice's chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda. The memo found no "compelling case" that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event. Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime. Finally, the memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional weapons.62

On the afternoon of 9/11, according to contemporaneous notes, Secretary Rumsfeld instructed General Myers to obtain quickly as much information as possible. The notes indicate that he also told Myers that he was not simply interested in striking empty training sites. He thought the U.S. response should consider a wide range of options and possibilities. The secretary said his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time-not only Bin Ladin. Secretary Rumsfeld later explained that at the time, he had been considering either one of them, or perhaps someone else, as the responsible party.63

According to Rice, the issue of what, if anything, to do about Iraq was really engaged at Camp David. Briefing papers on Iraq, along with many others, were in briefing materials for the participants. Rice told us the administration was concerned that Iraq would take advantage of the 9/11 attacks. She recalled that in the first Camp David session chaired by the President, Rumsfeld asked what the administration should do about Iraq. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz made the case for striking Iraq during "this round" of the war on terrorism.64

A Defense Department paper for the Camp David briefing book on the strategic concept for the war on terrorism specified three priority targets for initial action: al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq. It argued that of the three, al Qaeda and Iraq posed a strategic threat to the United States. Iraq's long-standing involvement in terrorism was cited, along with its interest in weapons of mass destruction.65

Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitz-not Rumsfeld-argued that Iraq was ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked.66 Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq was behind 9/11. "Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with," Powell told us. "And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem."

... Of the 9-11 hijackers themselves, 15 of 19 came from Saudi Arabia.

old europe wrote:

... Of the 9-11 hijackers themselves, 15 of 19 came from Saudi Arabia.

I infer from your post that you think we should invade Saudi Arabia.

According to the 9/11 Comission Report, Al Qaeda originally started in Afghanistan in 1988 after the Russians fled Afganistan. Bin Laden moved back into Saudi Arabia in 1990 and left again in 1991 for Sudan. By 1994, the Saudi government froze bin Laden's financial assets and revoked his citizenship. "He no longer had a country he could call his own." Bin Laden and his al Qaeda confederation were subsequently kicked out of Sudan in 1996. They then returned to Afghanistan. In 2001 members of the al Qaeda confederation established bases in Iraq. In 2001, al Qaeda murdered 3000 people in America.

If a justification for invading Saudi Arabia is their tyrannical government, then surely an additional justification for invading Iraq is also their tyrannical government.

If the justification for invading Saudi Arabia is the fact that 15 of the 19 al Qaeda who participated in 9/11 grew up in Saudi Arabia, then surely a justification for invading any particular country are the mass murderers of civilians who grew up in that country. Is that what you are advocating?