The US, UN & Iraq II

Why do we eat our children?

http://electroniciraq.net/news/394.shtml

Thanks for the implied update there. I hadnt heard yet that they didnt actually find anything there.

That means the proof that Iraq actually had significant supplies of WMD that were ready for military use is still awaiting. I find that a little surprising. The case for war implied not only that it was probable that Iraq still had some - about this US and UN agreed - but that it had an extent of it that UN inspectors would never be able to unearth within the few months they were asking, or not, as Bush would have said it: "before it's too late" - i.e., that it had an extent of it that was of immediate threat to world security.

By now US troops have stormed through half of the country, and they didn't find any. Nor did Iraqi troops use any of these weapons, though with every step the invasion is taking, the warning is that, as you now put it again, "The risk of WMD use increases". We marched straight through the part commanded by that Iraqi general who was called "Chemical Ali" (or whatever his first name was). I mean, I hope it remains that way, of course, but if it does, or if the amount of WMD the Americans unearth does not suggest they wouldn't have been found by the inspectors in those few months they asked, the case Bush brought for this war was bogus.

Btw, though the item itself was of interest, you're reading The Sun? The naked-girl-on-page-three, Royalty-Sex-Scandal-Schocker-frontpage-headline Sun? <giggles>.

Interestingly, the UK must be the only country where they've got a 'left-wing' tabloid rag too: The Daily Mirror. See http://www.mirror.co.uk/frontpages/ for a basic idea ...

Sound familiar?

It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. Herman Goering

Hi Hoft, good to see you back. Making a speech eh? Impressive.

Regarding fogs etc (as opposed to frogs), it seems desert storm is coming back to haunt us. Visibility is virtually zero in central Iraq. Thats when IFF equipment is needed most. (Or as I have heard it said in the American case FFI 'fire first they might be Iraqi'). Either way the fog of war is lethal.

Timber, I have no way of knowing if that chemical factory was of any importance, but I take your point that the Iraqis thought it was. However I have read descriptions of how Iraqis go to extraordinary lengths to protect their infrastructure, for example guarding ministry buildings up to the point they are destroyed, and then protecting the rubble from intruders.

I'm a person of eclectic taste and broad interest. In fact, in common with many of my gender, I find broads pretty interesting ... especially if they're a third my age and appropriately under-attired (yes, its a pun)

Can I chip in with a little bit of humor ?

Shock and Awe

Gautam, Most Americans are already aware of the "shock and awe" of our taxes for the next foreseeable life time, never mind years. Bushie's tax plan to benefit the top 15 percent of the richest in this country will continue to "smile and smerk." c.i.

This is a digression, but I just gotta ask you c.i., ... what is wrong with tax relief being passed to taxpayers in direct proportion to their individual particular tax burden? How is that "Unfair"? What could be more fair?

If I hear another American general talking about "innergraded sinnergees" I think I'm going to puke.

Frank Rich was a reviewer for the NYTimes. Then he was given a weekly op-ed piece a while back and wrote superlative op-ed pieces about politics and culture. Now he's back in the Arts and Leisure section and has written a wonderful article about the film, "Chicago," and its echoes in the current situation. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/arts/23RICH.html

Here are some excerpts:

"...A star defense attorney, Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), wants to browbeat a mob of reporters into believing that his client, Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger), did not murder her lover when in fact she did. "Now remember," Billy coaches Roxie, "we can only sell them one idea at a time." The idea: Roxie acted in self-defense. "We both reached for the gun," Roxie sings to the reporters, who obediently turn her lie into a rousing chorus,

Shades of Reagan's mixing up his non-existent military service with movie roles...!

By the way... Why are the Iraq elite military called the "Republican Guard," and ours are not?

Oh, and Timber, the reason why I think progressive taxes make sense is because some part of our lives is dependent on the community, on the whole society. We aren't "islands," living only for ourselves. I don't think we have the right to choose whether to sustain what sustains us.

Can someone pls explain me the "laws of war" ?

And a lot of newspapers are full of outrage that arms with "made in Russia" are found in Iraq. How come there is not even one peep from anyone abt the arms found which were labelled "Made in Hampshire in the good old Britian" ???

Yikes, Steve! Wonderful about "innergrated sinnergies." It reminds me of studying transcendental meditation with the Maharishi (in your fair city) and being told I would achieve "suddler and suddler levels of unnerstanning."

timber and ci

Don't do 'fairness in taxation viewpoints' here or I'll shoot you both.

Steve

I know. These guys (too many of them) speak with all the zesty enthusiasm of commentators at a bloody football game. War as exhilerating specator fun.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/opinion/25KRUG.html

As it happens, I know someone presently engaged in a legal action against this particular sleeze bag named here. This guy is as greedy and immoral as even Texas can produce.

Tartarin

Have you seen Chicago? It is a gorgeous hunk of work. After coming home from the theatre the evening I saw it, I posted on this thread (version 1) a little skit with Cheney and Rumsfeld dressed as slutty chorus girls, Bush as Roxy about to go on the witness stand, and Carl Rove as Billy Flynn singing 'Give em the old razzle dazzle...razzle dazzle em'. Subsequent posts revealed that offence had been taken.

While I ponder what appears to be a refutation of the assumption that Iraqis want to be "liberated" it is gratifying to note that most posters have resorted to using their brains instead of just repeating the worn out cliches of times past.

While the events of the future play out, I continue to cling to the thread of hope that "Rummy" and I are not wrong and that the average Iraqi has heeded the advice in the leaflets and these wretched people are staying inside until they see Saddam swinging from the yardarm.

Anybody "hoping" with me?

Tartarin, I understand your take on progressive taxation. My preference would be for an across-the-board flat-rate tax on consumption, similar to the sales-taxes imposed by states. No income tax, no property tax, none of that ... you want it, you buy it, you get taxed for it. The flaw in that is that it cuts lawyers out of the loop, something which could never happen. I'm guess I'm an unreformed Federalist.

Oh, and the appelation "Republican Guard" is nothing more than a designator of a particular elite segment of the Iraqi Military ... Iraq styles itself a republic, and The Republican Guard are supposed to be its premiere military units, comparable to the Waffen SS ... better equipped, more highly trained, more politically reliable than ordinary units. Over and above that, there is the Elite, or Special, Republuican Guard, which essentially is a less heavily armed and more political security organization dedicated to the protection of Ba'ath Party infrastructure and the carrying out of particular party-ordered domestic activities, somewhat analogous to the Gestapo of old.

Rummy and Perception -- ol' buddies. They deserve each other!!

Here's something interesting which I hadn't known about (heard about it on loco radio last night and it proves out):

During the West Nile investigation, the belated discovery that the causative virus had originated in the Middle East reportedly raised red flags with biological warfare analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The reason was an eerie coincidence. In April 1999, Mikhael Ramadan, a self-declared Iraqi defector who claimed to have worked as a body-double for Saddam Hussein, published a memoir in England titled In the Shadow of Saddam in which he asserted that in 1997, the Iraqi leader had ordered the development of a highly virulent strain of West Nile virus as a bioterrorist weapon. Additional concern was raised by the fact that during the 1980s, the CDC had shipped an Israeli strain of West Nile virus to a microbiologist in Basra, Iraq, ostensibly for public health research. Nevertheless, further analysis turned up no evidence that the Iraqis had developed West Nile virus as a biological weapon.
http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/testtuck.htm

In Judith Miller's (NY Times reporter's) book, this info is investigated.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684871599/qid=1048606010/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-2604911-8891861

Timber!! I know what the Republican Guard is!! Joke!! (Just wondered whether we shouldn't be using the same term.)

Yes, I've wondered about a (selective) consumption tax, know there are arguments against it (aside from lawyers), but haven't followed them particularly. The major problem is, of course, the extent to which our economy is based on consumption (not great) and above all, debt (horrendous). Removing all the bad stuff from what supports our economy, the good stuff that's left is extremely fragile....

Blatham -- Nope, haven't seen Chicago. For reasons which I'd only reveal in a PM.