The US, UN & Iraq II

A peaceful war march is not the "will of the mob." I have done everything in my power, including letters, phone calls, and e-mails to the powers that be regarding the terrible mistake our country is about to unleash on the world.

You suggested this morning, perception, that we who disagree with the administration ought to throw rocks at the White House. That would be inappropriate and ineffective (except as a way to get jailed) and perhaps this march of people who will circle the White House will be ineffective, too. But I must do something. This peaceful walk is in the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and I suppose there could be an element that is disruptive, but that is not the purpose of the march. Unfortunately, George Bush will probably be looking out another window, as he prays to his god of vengeance, and will miss us.

Tartar wrote:

hope you will try to develop a little more flexibility and respect for the opinions of others. If you ALWAYS disagree with a number of us, if you've ALREADY expressed your disagreement more than once, the best thing to do is let our posts pass by without further challenge. That way I think we might save this (endlessly interesting!) thread from escalating rudeness and personal attacks.

That was a beautiful description of your actions thus far----thank you for saving me the trouble.

That should be the article:

LUNCH WITH THE CHAIRMAN
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?
Issue of 2003-03-17


Posted 2003-03-10http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/

Glad to see that the thread has changed to a an easier size for dial-up members to use!

Here is an important article link within a2k to use. I just finished adding it into one of my blogs in it's entirety.http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5065
From BumbleBeeBoogie

Ul

Thank you kindly for the New Yorker link...I hadn't read that yet. Actually, thank you for many very relevant links.

Khashoggi, for those who don't know the name, is one of the true scuzzbags of the world, having made bazillions as an arms broker between the US and the Shah in Iran, and then in other relationships later. He is one of main characters in Anthony Sampson's "The Arms Bazaar", a study of the world wide trade in weaponry.

Why not lend all this intellectual support to the leader of Afghanistan to prevent the return of the Taliban----he could really use your support. Mr Karzai is fighting a losing battle against, the drug traffic, the individual fiefdoms and corruption. Those people protecting him have done a magnificent job but it's probably just a matter of time before he is assassinated and Afghanistan will go back to business as usual. Which is 14th century Islam.

Here's a really neat story from yesterday's NYTimes:

Instruments of Thanks for Marines
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/nyregion/10GUIT.html

Diane Rheam on NPR had did a special on SEYMOUR M. HERSH this morning.

Now that gladens the heart Tartar--well done

CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER

Showdown: Iraq

Aired March 9, 2003 - 12:00 ET
Webpage Title

Thanks ul, that was a very interesting piece in many ways. IMHO, the administration loses hands down in each debate and comes off appearing to fabricate out of whole cloth issue after issue while enriching themselves off the spoils even before the spoils exists! The spoils of the Iraqi as well as American people!

US firms set to cash in on reconstruction of Iraq

Tuesday March 11, 2003

The American government is on the verge of awarding construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is deposed.
Halliburton, one of the companies in the running for the highly profitable deals, was formerly headed by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney. Halliburton has already been awarded a lucrative contract to resurrect the Iraqi oilfields if there is a war.
Other companies have strong ties to the US administration, including the construction giant Bechtel, the Fluor Corporation, and the Louis Berger Group, which is involved in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,911942,00.html

A wilful blindness Why can't liberal interventionists see that Iraq is part of a bid to cement US global power?

George Monbiot
Tuesday March 11, 2003
The Guardian

...What almost all those who supported that war [in Afghanistan] and are now calling for a new one have forgotten is that there are two sides to every conflict, and therefore two sets of outcomes to every victory. The Afghan regime changed, but so, in subtler ways, did the government of the US. It was empowered not only by its demonstration of military superiority but also by the widespread support it enjoyed. It has used the licence it was granted in Afghanistan as a licence to take its war wherever it wants. ...In this week's Observer, David Aaronovitch suggested that, before September 11, the Bush administration was "relatively indifferent to the nature of the regimes in the Middle East". Only after America was attacked was it forced to start taking an interest in the rest of the world.
If Aaronovitch believes this, he would be well-advised to examine the website of the Project for the New American Century, the pressure group established by, among others, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Elliott Abrams and Zalmay Khalilzad, all of whom (except the president's brother) are now senior officials in the US government.... ...Last year, the Sunday Herald obtained a copy of a confidential report produced by the Project in September 2000, which suggested that blatting Saddam was the beginning, not the end of its strategy. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." The wider strategic aim, it insisted, was "maintaining global US pre-eminence".
Another document obtained by the Herald, written by Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, called upon the US to "discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role".... Why do the supporters of this war find it so hard to see what is happening? Why do the conservatives who go berserk when the European Union tries to change the content of our chocolate bars look the other way when the US seeks to reduce us to a vassal state? Why do the liberal interventionists who fear that Saddam Hussein might one day deploy a weapon of mass destruction refuse to see that George Bush is threatening to do just this against an ever-growing number of states? Is it because they cannot face the scale of the threat, and the scale of the resistance necessary to confront it? Is it because these brave troopers cannot look the real terror in the eye?

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

If we bowed to world opinion and retreated from the area( which we must do because we cannot maintain an army in the sand and the heat for a year)------what about those Iraqi people who have been waiting patiently for us to strike Saddam dead. Saddam wins ---------and how could those Iraqi people ever forgive us?

Just a question for all you wise people..............

Just heard Paul Wolfowitz say war is now unavoidable. He also subtly changed "weapons of mass destruction" to "weapons of mass terrorism", just to reinforce the link for anyone too dim to get it, that the invasion of a sovereign member of the UN against the wishes of the UN is phase two of The War against Terrorism.

If this is an easy war, with not too many American casualties, it spells the end of any meaningful purpose for the UN. Bush who clearly regrets being talked into going that route by Tony Blair won't contemplate involving the UN for phase 3 etc.

If however if its a messy war, with horrendous casualties all round, the wise counsels who advocated restraint might be listened to in future. The status and the authority of the UN will be enhanced, and the United States taught a salutory lesson.

That puts those of us who believe the UN is the only hope for the collective peace and security of future generations, in a difficult position.

Which is more important, the survival of the UN, or the loss of allied troops? And what an outrage that war criminals such as Perle, Wolfowitz Cheney and Rumsfeld should have put us in this position. [Waging aggressive war is a war crime in itself, something very well established at Nuremburg by the United States of America].

Q&A: What is North Korea's Strategy?

A worthwhile article ... short, but it makes several cogent observations.



timber

Here's some disturbing news from today's San Jose Mercury News; "US support for war growing, poll finds." "52 percent say UN weapon's inspectors should be given more time; 58 percent say the UN was doing a poor job managing the Iraq crisis; and 55 percent say they would support a US invasion of Iraq even if it was in defiance of a UN Security Council vote." c.i.

That reads like GOOD news to me.

Oh, and please provide a link when you quote from a news story. The SJ Mercury News is on-line and easily cited, so why not cite it?

Tres -- Maybe not everyone has mastered the trick of copy/paste via Notepad or other device (I use my email program). Otherwise it's virtually impossible to copy the quote and the link at the same time and into the same dialogue box in A2K.

I just had to make a quick trip to pick up a pet at the vet and did some roaming around all the conservative talk shows on AM in our area (nope, not a single moderate or liberal one). I'd say Bush is getting universally trashed, at least in this area, and until Limbaugh takes over in a couple of hours. Really surprises me how his stock has been falling locally.

Question for the assembled crowds:

While listening to AM radio this morning, I heard that ABC News has now picked upon the story that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz "planned" 9/11 back in 1997. I haven't been able to find a word about it on the ABC website, regard it as moonshine for the time being. But here's my question:

The date of Desert Storm's onset was January, 1991, right? 91/1.

Have fun...