The US, UN & Iraq II

Dlowan, for right now this is the best site to visit ......I'll post any new stuff as I find it.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqmiddleeast.htm

As you read keep in mind the time frame. The invasion of Iraq was detailed out years befor 9/11.... by the same people that now hold high level positions in the Bush cabinet ..... using much of the same language that Bush himself uses to justify the invasion.

Note the signatures on the documents ...... a veritable 'who's who' in Bushland.

littlek, What I find most disturbing about many of the opinions on your link is the double standards of Arabs speaking against the US/UK's effort to free Iraqi's from Saddam. They themselves live in non-democratic countries, and have the gall to criticize the US for not doing more on the Israel/Palestinian crisis, while they shout and cry about it but do nothing to help their own brothers and sisters. Talk is cheap. Why don't they help their fellow Arabs, the Palestinians, if they feel they are being so mistreated by the Israeli's? If they are so willing to die for Saddam, why not for the Palestinians? c.i.

Thanks for suggesting a place for us all to go, perception. If you'd like I can suggest somewhere for you, as well.

Like I said cic, a simplicity.

NO personal remarks.

Thank you Ge.

c.i. said:



c.i.: This is a thought I, too, have had although not quite in the terms you express it. There seems to be a generalized angst about the US supporting Israel in spite of that country's hawkish and uncompromising stand and Sharon's obvious intent to retake the West Bank. I can understand the anger about our national support of Israel. Our country does not have an even-handed view in the Israeli-Palenstinian conflict, and we are so agonizingly intertwined politically with Israel that the US may never articulate a view that makes sense to serious thinkers.

Are these opiners whom you refer to using this bent of ours to reinforce their anti-Western views, or are they simply asking a reasonable question: Why do we support Israel's vicious arm-swinging re the Palestinians? Should not our first priority be to advance, and insist upon, a two-state solution there?

Perhaps the propagandists have picked up on the fact that now people can just sit around, appear on CNN, and wait to be liberated rather than fighting and dying their way to freedom as did rebels in the past, when small groups of martyrs did not know, lacking cell-phones, that there were others whom they could join with and thus not die alone?

It may have begun after WWII when the countries in NATO hoped to keep US troops in Europe so that they had a secure line of defense. That seemed to make sense at the time; why spend masses of money to build up forces in small-medium sized countries if the US, with its resources and will, would join with them to defend against common enemies. But it all spun out of control, didn't it? Allegiances shifted, national interests changed, and the countries without major standing armies found themselves forced to stick with those that had them.

Kara

Your post prompted by C.Is response to littleK is very thoughful and the questions you asked were questions that were begging to be asked.

Gelisgesti

That link on the "Project for the new Amercan century" is fact filled and worth the time to read it .

William Kristol (the Chairman of the project) is not a foaming at the mouth "right winger" and is worth listening to(He is quite often a guest on FOX news at 6PM---Brit Hume).

BTW---Your stage name gives me a fit---I can't put it into reference with anything that I am familiar with---can you give me clue about how you arrived at it?

pnac
It's like this Perc, you wouldn't or couldn't understand .... both to the same end. Some people want to know more about whomever purports to be a better champion of their cause than they themselves could be, than what appears on their resume. A man that I know nothing about and that knows no more about me than how my peer group would react under a given set of circumstances, earns my immediate suspicion when he says ... 'trust me'.
All I Know about 'chairman' Kristol is that he has more of the President's ear than do I, which in and of its self is neither crime or sin until it is considered that this access was premeditated (the 'pnac' dates back to the mid to late nineties) and scripted toward a certain agenda that has not been presented to 'we the people', as necessitated by the democratic process, rather has been effectively kept hidden from public scrutiny.

What really pisses me off? This 'pnac' lurks in the shadows pronouncing death sentences on innocent Iraqi men women children and .... our nation's finest that serve to protect not only our lives, but the right of the 'pnac' to exist.

Blatham, Timber

I don't know why you are so sensitive about personal attacks. Sometimes they are justified. Sometimes (in my case of course) not.

Seriously if someone makes a crass and stupid remark, they are by definition crass and stupid.

(Are we supposed to accept that it can be someone's valid opinion that 2+2 = 5?).

Conversely if someone comes out with a string of foul language against someone else (and I'm certainly not advocating this), it in fact reflects more on the person using that language than the object of the attack.

I'm not saying it should be a free for all, but I for one am thick skinned enough to cope with all manner of abuse - it just doesn't worry me, and I think that applies to most people on this thread.

If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen, don't try and turn the kitchen into a non smoking lounge!

only a thought

Steve: Try using PMs for messages that are off topic. Personal attacks are useless in debate, they just take up space and time. If you object to someone saying 2+2=5 say so and say why, all the rest of the namecalling is pointless and non-productive.
I'll be happy to discuss this further with you through PMs.
peace,

Joe

Tartarin



Zbigniew Brzezinski The Grand Chessborad ISBN 0 465 02726 1

It is the lying in the shadows part that bothers me; this agenda is almost entirely unarticulated as a party line, out there for people to judge and debate.

perception, I was just getting underway in my expatiating when I got called away to do some work. You were spared the body of my thinking on the matter.

If you are curious about the name gelisgesti, just Google it.

Geli

.

I think this is an idiotic remark. But of course politeness restrains me from calling Fleischer an idiot.

I just did that. Very interesting.

Go ahead ..... google me, but there will come a time my friend when the shoe is on the other foot ........ when googler becomes googlee ....

Actually I have been using 'alltheweb.com' and feel that in some areas it is superior to google. Use Iraq or whatever as a target and search 'news'. Sort the results by 'date'. It is up to the minute.

Steve, hey ...... if the shoe fits .....

Ge,

AllTheWeb returns with many A2K links (and one MSN site for you that is, of course, blocked ) but it says nothing about the derivation of your screen name, as Google does.

The Arab World does not hate the US exclusively; it is the entire Non-Muslim World they rally against. This, IMHO, stems from the failure of Arab Culture to integrate with The Developed World. Though characteristically oil-rich, the Arab Nations have appallingly low standards of living among their populaces-at-large. Any number of nations lacking the oil wealth of the Arab World have prospered over the past half century. That Malaysia, an Islamic but non-Arab state, is among the prosperous states shows that Islam is not the cause, but rather that Arab Culture is the main impediment to Arab Success. The Arabs do not recognize that it is their own failings, not any "Western Conspiracy", which perpetuates their Third-World status. Millions of Arabs are denied economic and social opportunity by the structure of their society. They do not recognize that prosperity requires rule-of-law and representative government. They do not recognize that cultural inhibitions toward the education of woment deprives their society the benefit and interaction of half their population. Most of the oil wealth pours into the coffers of a minority elite, an elite which does not provide economic opportunity for their people, but rather hires foreigners to carry out labor and service jobs. Corruption, not Commerce, is the day-to-day trade of the Arab Politico-Economic Community. Where are the Arab Factories? Where are the Arab Tech Companies? Where are the Arab Research and Development facilities? Where are the Arab International Trade Organizations? Where is Arab-Fostered Arab Opportunity? Its no wonder suicide is seen as a weapon. Rather than looking to their own failures and shortcomings, and addressing them proactively and effectively, The Arabs perpetuate their ineptitude, blame outside influences for purely internal problems, and fight not only The West, but themselves. Their militant outrage is based not on outside injury, but on internal jealousies, failures, and corruption. The real enemy of The Arabs is The Arab World.