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

Yeah, whatever.

It seems that you don't care about people intentionally subverting the democratic process and decieving Americans.
From what leap of logic did you arrive at that "it seems?" Of course I care! I want all deceiving lying politicians removed from office. Problem is we all don't agree on who all those lying politicians are!

However, I perceive self-declared and self-perpetrating terrorists a far greater and more immediate threat to the survival of civilization than lying politicians. Lying politicians can at least be ignored 'til they die of natural causes without serious immediate consequences. We cannot ignore self-declared and self-perpetrating terrorists without serious immediate consequences.

If that's what has to be done, Ican, then F*ck it, the terrorists have won. Won. I for one won't put up with it.
False! Unfortunately, we have had to endure lying politicians for centuries--long before al Qaeda was even a gleam in anyone's eye. Yet civilization has grown, progressed and prospered nonetheless. I think it obvious that civilization will shrink, regress, and fail if al Qaeda is allowed to grow, progress and prosper.

You still seem to think that the Terrorists exist in a vacuum, where nothing that they have done is because of anything that WE have done. That they simply 'hate our freedom.' This is untrue, and thinking in this manned has disastrous consequences; as what you are attempting to do in the name of good is turned to evil. This is why we've created many more terrorists than there were before, and many more attacks as well.
False! I have not posted here my thoughts about why the terrorists are terrorists. Others have. But I have not.

We have not "created many more terrorists." The terrorists have created many more terrorists. I infer that you think the victims and the threatened victims are equally guilty with the terrorists for the murders of civilians perpetrated by the terrorists. I think that ridiculous. No I think that insane. I think assuming responsibility for the murders perpetrated by murderers is not only taking on unearned guilt, it's immoral. I'll have none of it.

You wantonly and irresponsibly ignore the fact that the al Qaeda terrorists have been growing rapidly worldwide ever since 1988 without any attempt by ourselves to remove their host governments, or even attempts to curtail them.

To pretend that we have nothing to do with the rise in world terrorism is, well, unbelievable, Ican. To say that we should just start striking about blindly without any thought to the consequences, or to what we have to do in order to strike about (lie to the American people), is unbelievable as well. Yet this is what those in charge, and yourself, advocate doing; disastrous!
I don't pretend there is nothing we can do to solve the terrorist problem. Quite the contrary. I don't recommend "striking about blindly without any thought to the consequences, or to what we have to do in order to strike about." I certainly don't advocate anything of the kind. Why do you think such a thing? I advocate timely defense of ourselves against those who have murdered some of us and those who have declared their intention to murder the rest of us.

In my opinion, it would have been far more timely if President Clinton and/or President Bush had ordered Afghanistan to be attacked on the ground well before 9/11 with the goal of preventing 9/11. Then as soon as we detected al Qaeda re-establishing their bases in Iraq (as they did in December 2001), we should have attacked Iraq. That of course, is the wisdom of hindsight. We didn't do that and now we are paying the price for our past fear of facing reality. But we can now learn from that terrible experience to finally face reality now.

Look that the recently suppressed world terrorism report if you don't believe me that things have gotten worse.
True! They have gotten worse! In my lifetime serious problems seem to always have gotten worse before it was learned how they could be made better. If your daddy never taught you that, shame on your daddy.

Think like a doctor; you have to look at the entire situation, not just the immediate problem at hand.
I rather think like a engineer in a ground emergency or an aviator in an airborne emergency. Doctors too often fail to interpret and treat anything other than symptoms. Engineers and aviators know that to survive one must first successfully end the cause of the emergency, and then, and only then, seek ways to prevent future such emergencies.

Cycloptichorn

Despised and Successful
From the May 9, 2005 issue: Tony Blair is about to win another election.
by Gerard Baker
Weekly Standard
05/09/2005, Volume 010, Issue 32

London

THERE'S A WEEK TO GO until the British election, and it's a typical day for Tony Blair. During the morning press conference, he is variously accused, by reporters and opponents, of having lied to take his country to war in Iraq, of having covered up advice from senior lawyers that the war was illegal, and of having smothered internal dissent about his foreign policy. After lunch, on the stump in the west of England, he is pressing the flesh of some hesitant-looking voters when one turns away, and with hands clasped firmly to her sides, says, "I will not shake the hand of a killer." Over dinner back in London, he hears news that a veteran Labour MP has left his party to join the left wing and antiwar Liberal Democrats, urging voters to "give Mr. Blair a bloody nose" in the election this Thursday.

Then, just before he crawls into his Downing Street bed, the prime minister receives the latest batch of opinion polls from tomorrow's newspapers. Labour is increasing its lead over the Conservatives--to 10 percentage points in one poll--pointing to another huge, historic parliamentary majority of perhaps more than 100 seats. It is hard to recall an election anywhere in recent memory when a political leader so apparently disliked, despised, and distrusted was so assured of being kept in office with a solid mandate for another term. But this curious state of affairs is only one aspect of the enigma that is Tony Blair and modern British politics.

To Americans

who follow these things, the standing of the British prime minister is hard to fathom. American conservatives revere him as the steadfast ally of President George Bush, the solid friend of America who stood firm in the darkest days of the war against terrorism. Bush himself, though diplomatically quiet during the campaign, has not disguised his desire to see Blair continue in office. Yet Democrats, even those who opposed the war, admire the way Blair has done something they have signally failed to do: take the main left-of-center party out of the wilderness and fashion it into the most effective electoral machine in Western politics.

The Democratic party's high priests of electoral strategy have flocked to London in the last few months to offer help to Blair's campaign and, perhaps, to learn a thing or two themselves. Bob Shrum, the eight-time losing presidential campaign adviser, was here this month. Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager, has also sipped tea with Blair at Downing Street. "I wasn't really there to offer advice. I admire him enormously," Trippi told me.

How is it that the man lionized by both George Bush and Joe Trippi could be so loathed by the British, with apparently equal energy and, it seems, in an oddly parallel way, by both sides of the political divide? And how is it that, despite the loathing, he still seems assured of victory--and is set to become only the second British prime minister in more than a century to win three straight parliamentary majorities?

Blair's approval ratings are certainly low for an incumbent prime minister seeking reelection. In a MORI poll this month, only a quarter of voters said they like him and his policies. Almost half said they dislike him. On the left, Blair-hatred is palpable. It reaches out from the pages of the left-wing newspapers; it screeches from the halls of academia; it is muttered over beers wherever Labour activists gather. One little illustration will stand for the billions of words that have been spewed onto the prime minister's reputation: In the Guardian last week, Richard Gott, a former Stalinist who should know a thing or two about the subject, actually argued that Blair was a war criminal who should be tried and imprisoned.

The evident progress in Iraq since the elections in January has done nothing to drain the poison resulting from the prime minister's support for the United States. When he is asked about Iraq, Blair pointedly doesn't mention President Bush. Socialists will never forgive him for standing up to the French, the Russians, and the United Nations. It is a commonplace, indeed an almost universally accepted truth, that Blair lied about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. The prime minister's repeated denials now draw only belly laughs from most of his fellow Labour members. According to Brian Sedgemore, the old leftie who quit last week to join the Liberal Democrats, more than 100 of Labour's 400 MPs detest him. Only a few brave and independent-minded thinkers on the left dare confront

this wave of obloquy. For the rest, Blair is a Bush-loving traitor.

But if Blair is a punching bag for his own side, he is a target for howitzer practice for the Conservative opposition. Speaking for a sizeable body of conservative opinion, the Daily Mail screams abuse at Blair from its front pages. In the last few weeks alone, the paper has claimed that the prime minister (and his equally despised wife) have, among other things, made the British sicker, poorer, and enslaved to American imperialism. More temperate conservatives despise the prime minister with a passion that is quite rare these days in cynical British politics. Matthew Parris, my colleague at the Times, has opined publicly that Blair is, at best, completely insane; at worst, a dark figure manipulating his own people for nefarious reasons.

It is the liberal metropolitan elite that is most vocal in its hostility to Blair's support for America. But the opposing team also includes a certain type of trendy Conservative. On the right, anti-Americanism is enjoying a revival in English politics, and, allied with a Tory mentality that thinks the world should be left to run its own affairs, this sentiment is understandably hostile to Blair's internationalism. But opposition to, indeed disdain for, Blair on the right runs much deeper than simple opposition to the Iraq war and American foreign policy. Indeed many Conservatives who supported the Iraq war and who have impeccable pro-American credentials cannot stand the prime minister. Since Americans often see Blair as a candidate for sainthood, it is probably worth exploring the reasons he is detested by British conservatives.

Undoubtedly part of the animus Blair arouses on the right owes to his remarkable success, Clinton-style, at repositioning Labour in the middle ground of British politics. Not only has Blair bucked his party and taken a firmly pro-American stance, he has shifted Labour to the center on big domestic issues. Even as he was fighting an uphill battle over Iraq, Blair took on the left of his party over two more small but symbolic issues: the introduction of a more realistic tuition system for Britain's chronically underfunded universities and the extension of private choice into the bloated bureaucracy of the National Health Service.

A Downing Street adviser told me that, if reelected, Blair will push even more aggressively to reform public services and will tackle the welfare spending threatening to undermine Britain's economic success. Such theft of Conservative issues has redefined Labour, but it drives the Tories nuts. Blair's governing style arouses reasonable indignation on the right. Many conservatives object to what they see as an unprepossessing authoritarian streak in his government. The absurd ban on fox-hunting Blair piloted through parliament was a mean, illiberal piece of pandering to the left of his party and a clarion call to the worst class instincts of the British. He has run a troublingly centralized, informal system of government where quiet chats on the prime minister's sofas seem to be the conduit for dramatic changes in the country's direction. Blair has also, despite promises to reform public services, presided over a steady and stealthy expansion of the state through increased taxes. If Labour is reelected, the tax take as a proportion of national income will rise above 40 percent, its highest level in 25 years.

Clearly impatient with patriotic talk, Blair shows no interest in the idea of Britain. Immigration policy looks at times like a free-for-all. He has dismantled half the British constitution and is extremely eager to hand over large chunks of British sovereignty to the European Union. And though his enemies are wrong and unfair when they claim he lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the charge has had such public resonance because there has often been something slightly tangential about Blair's relationship to the arc of political truth. And yet, with fewer friends on either the left or right than when he was first elected eight years ago, he seems certain to win. Why?

Part of the explanation is that, for most voters, even those who profess unhappiness with Blair, Iraq, and even these other political issues have been eclipsed by the economy. Blair is, implausible as it may seem, right when he claims that the British economy has been enjoying its longest period of economic growth since the industrial revolution. Blair also faces a weak and divided opposition. The Conservative party has not yet adapted to the trauma of the loss of its governing majority eight years ago; it has a leader in Michael Howard who is failing to persuade the public that it is fit for office.

Labour is further helped by an electoral system that skews the results absurdly in their party's favor. If Labour and the Conservatives finish with the same proportion of the vote this week, Labour is likely to have close to 100 more seats than the Tories. And other factors are at work. Blair's own enemies on the left claim that Labour's impending victory has nothing to do with the prime minister. Labour will win comfortably, they say, because voters know they will be changing prime ministers soon. Blair, in a move unprecedented for a British prime minister, has said publicly that he will not fight another election as leader of the Labour party after this one. Everyone expects him to step down in the second half of his next four-year term to make way for Gordon Brown, his chancellor of the exchequer. Brown's ratings are slightly higher than Blair's; the decision to bring him to the forefront in the campaign was a smart one.

In other words, and perhaps strangely to American observers, if Labour wins, as it is universally expected to, it will be in spite of, not because of, Blair, a bruised and battered prime minister. When he steps down some time in the next few years (no one expects him to be allowed to continue right up to the next election, as he would prefer), he will depart unmourned in Britain, unloved by his own party--despite leading it to once unimaginable success--and despised by his opponents.

There is something tragic about this enforced twilight of Blair's career. He started out in 1997 with a reputation as a slightly slippery figure, a clever, unprincipled, poll-driven political huckster. But the cause of his undoing was a courageous decision to support President Bush against his party, half his government, and the bulk of his people, in a worthy and honorable campaign to rid the world of a dangerous menace and liberate 25 million people. He deserves better than the Pyrrhic victory he will win this week.

Gerard Baker, U.S. editor of the Times of London

Personally I love reading infrablue's posts to ican. He does it so well regardless of the responses he gets in return.

For now, let's all assume this is all absolutely true. Let's further assume that Blair and Bush knowingly, falsely claimed that Saddam's regime possessed ready-to-use WMD: that is, they both lied.

I view it as more Edgar Bergen and Charley Mcarthy than anything else

ican,

I think what you haven't realized is: terrorists need no 'bases' or 'camps'. Especially the 9/11 attacks have shown this.
False!Bin Laden founded and operated training camps in Afghanistan in 1988. He moved to Sudan in 1991 and founded and operated training camps there until 1996. He moved back to Afghanistan in 1996 where he operated training camps there until the invasion of Afganistan by the US et al in October 2001. In December 2001, bin Laden helped establish training camps in northeastern Iraq which he operated until the US et al invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

None of these bin Laden al Qaeda training camps were mere al Qaeda vacation spas. These camps were used to train thousands of al Qaeda terrorists who, after their training, spread like viruses to locations all over the world. Had they continued in operation they would have continued to train thousands more such terrorists. These camps were necessary to support the terrorist war bin Laden, in his fatwahs in 1992, 1996, and 1998 (also in 2004), had declared war against Americans, Israelis and their allies everywhere.

The terrorists have been living for years in western countries, even in the US. Sure, they may have travelled to the ME. But if the whole ME will turn into ONE BIG DEMOCRACY, they will just go somewhere else. They don't need a country.
False! They clearly (except to the most naive) need one or more countries in which to train and from which to equip their al Qaeda terrorists.

There are many examples of terrorist organisations who frequently killed people - like the IRA, the RAF or the ETA in Europe. Where are their 'bases'?
In their cases their bases continue to be in their countries of their origins.

What I don't understand is how anybody can pretend to fight a 'war on terrorism' when they are totally unwilling of trying to understand the terrorists' motives.
What I don't understand is why you believe those fighting a war on terrorism "are totally unwilling of trying to understand the terrorists' motives." I read and carefully studied those fatwahs I listed above. You should have read those fatwahs yourself. I cannot understand why you didn't. If you had you would already know their motives. They make al Qaeda's motives very clear. No ambiquity in any of them. If you need links to these fatwahs, just ask and I will be happy to provide them.

What I don't understand is why you believe those fighting a war on terrorism "are totally unwilling of trying to understand the terrorists' motives." I read and carefully studied those fatwahs I listed above. You should have read those fatwahs yourself. I cannot understand why you didn't. If you had you would already know their motives. They make al Qaeda's motives very clear. No ambiquity in any of them. If you need links to these fatwahs, just ask and I will be happy to provide them.

Quote:

For now, let's all assume this is all absolutely true. Let's further assume that Blair and Bush knowingly, falsely claimed that Saddam's regime possessed ready-to-use WMD: that is, they both lied.

ican, you are setting up a straw man in order to strike him down. What has been reported may, in part or in toto, be true or sort of true or true at the time or truth shaded as needed to prove a point. When you polarize the discussion, nothing is gained. No wisdom is acquired, no one is encouraged to think about the issues except in a true/untrue way. There is a lot of grey here, and that is where much of the truth lies.
False! I am not doing anything of the kind. I am trying to communicate the fact that whether or not Saddam possessed ready-to-use WMD and whether or not Blair and/or Bush lied about Saddam possessing ready-to-use WMD are allegations not relevant to my argument that we had a right to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Whatever you choose to assume on those two subjects will have zero effect on the truth of my argument (which I have posted here repeatedly). Try me. Tell me what you would like me to assume about these two subjects. I'll comply.

History will show who shaded the truth for his own purposes. And we will be better able to judge if he (whichever he) made the right decision for his country at that moment in history.

We know (yes, some things we do know...) that Bush and Blair had info or concerned hints or intel that would have warned them against the need to rush to war They claim that they had strong intel leading them to war. We may never know what drove Bush, and Blair as his ally, to plan and execute the war on Iraq. Many in the US have heard and read for some years now that this administration was bent on, and looking for an excuse to wage, the war on Iraq. What, who, and why that engine got its spark and drove it down the track, only history will unearth those secrets. And I do believe they are secret.
As far as I'm concerned you don't have to wait for history to decide. Decide for me on your own. I'll not dispute your decision.

I watched Sixty Minutes tonight about the interrogation abuses at Guantanamo and was shocked (if we can ever be shocked again) that so much has remained hidden. What sudden revelations will next alert us to what has happened to our country and its loss -- from fear and lack of moral center -- of the standards this country used to be grounded in and based on. We have lost our right to be the leader of the world.
Neither you or I are responsible for what the criminals in our society perpetrate. The criinals in our society are responsible for that. In particular we are not responsible for what the perpetrators at Abu Graib and Guantanamo perpetrated. These perpetrators have already been and/or will be brought to justice by us. The revelations about the their alleged abuses of prisoners were disclosed by or own miltary and defense department people long ago. This is not new information.

We never had a right "to be the leader of the world." We do not have a right "to be the leader of the world." We shall never have a right "to be the leader of the world." No human being or group of human beings that ever was, is, or ever will be on the face of this earth has a right "to be the leader of the world."

We do have a right and will continue to have a right to defend ourselves against those who have declared war on us and murdered some of us. We do have a right and will continue to have a right to defend ourselves against those governments that have permitted and have not attempted to remove those same people, who have declared war on us and murdered some of us, to train and reside in their countries.

I infer, Ican, you believe the end of terrorism justifies the lenghths that Blair and Bush went to end it; including lying to the people they served.
False! I do not believe any such thing. I believe what Blair and Bush did or did not do is irrelevant to the question of whether or not we had a right to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Even if Iraq accomplished such a lofty goal instead of making it worse like it did, have we come to the point where accept and expect our leaders to lie to us when it comes war and death?
I for one do not accept our leaders lying to us. I never will. Too damn many have, too many will, and too damn many are doing it as I type this post.

Also, too any have done a terrible job securing our lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness. I think this latter failure is far worse than their lying.

anyone:

Personally I doubt our media in the US is going to pick up on that one line about having intellengence fixed around the goal of going to war with Iraq. It is all kind of like an afterthought kind of a thing to most people.
The media I hear, see, and read has already done that. But the media I hear, see, and read says too little about a worse failure of our leaders: their failures to require our government adhere to the rule of law.

There are more clues to the terrorist's intentions than just the fatwahs you listed, Ican. Many more.
True! But almost all those clues lead to the same things stated in the fatwahs.

And, the idea that terrorists cannot operate off of the 'cell' method is ludicrous. In that scenario, you could have a distributed network of terrorists in a whole ton of countries, who do their training locally; do you forget where the Sept. 11th terrorists trained to fly/lived for some time before they struck?
True! Of course terrorists can operate exclusively off of the "cell method." Many have and many will. However, in the case of al Qaeda they have operated off both the base and cell methods. They started from bases and then proceeded to cells--cells all over the world.

Cycloptichorn

But aren't the fatwahs rather a result than anything else? Why have those fatwahs been issued, ican?
True! The fatwahs were issued as a consequence of what the terrorists believed was true. In the fatwahs, the terrorist make quite clear what it is they believe is true.

And re 'terrorist bases': what, exactly, did the 9/11-terrorists learn in those 'training camps'? Why do you think those camps were necessary? How were they equipped? With what were they equipped? In what were they trained?
I can't see anything they did that couldn't be trained in my or your living room. Oh, except for learning to fly, and we know where they did that.
Why they went to the expense of setting up those training camps instead of using yours or my living rooms, or anyone else's living rooms, is not known to me. What is known to me is they did in fact train their terrorists initially in their training camps.

I bet they used these camps to recruit, provide basic training, and select the future most competent, probable suicide murderers.