US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

guess you better suit up, grab yer flamethrower and go incinerate some malignancies then.

I sense I'm burning up more than bandwidth.

When people ask how long are we going to be there, they mean how long are we going to be there in vain?

Some Iraqis have asked us to leave, but they were ignored.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=925971&C=mideast

At the Labour Party conference yesterday, Tony Blair acknowledged we are in a global fight against "pre-medieval religious inspired terrorism". Thats true, we are. And its been made worse by invading Iraq. Its been made worse than worse by invading Iraq and not doing it properly. We never had enough troops on the ground. We never got on top of the insurgency, but rather we gave it an opportunity to get on top of us. For a chance of success we HAD to demonstrate that we were not just there for the oil, but truly and genuinely wanted to build a better Iraq, free of Saddam and the Baathists, for the benefit of the Iraqi people. But what did we do? We got to Baghdad, disbanded the Iraqi Army, established the Green Zone and cleaned out the swimming pools and got the aircon working because, you know what, its hot in Baghdad in the summer.

Having defeated Saddam's regular forces, we made next to no effort to win the hearts and minds of the people. We allowed the Islamists and the remnant Ba'athists to team up together. In short we screwed it up. And when I say we I mean you Americans. Now we in Britain have to live with the consquences of having pre medieval religious fanatics persuading boys from Leeds to put bombs on trains and kill my neighbour.

hear hear, steve

Cycloptichorn

Blair obviously still has his head on straight. Good to hear.

Hmm, the conservatives and the right press are gnashing their teeth - if they have some - today. :wink:

("More broken promisses from the maste spin" - "The reason why Blair shouldn't stay in No. 10 is Iraq: Only Blair's arrogance keeps our troops there." Quotations from the 'Express'.
"It's just wishful thinking, this idea that there is a plan for a smooth handover," writes Alice Miles in the Times. "There is no consensus. There is no deal. Again."
Comparing him to David Brent, the anti-hero of The Office who refuses to believe that he has lost his job, Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun describes yesterday's speech as a "journey of despair". "He is still wittering on about more police on the beat and promising clean hospitals. Meanwhile we have squandered billions on bureaucrats, watched violent crime soar and MRSA rocket ... he did not say a word about pensions, kicked into touch as pensioners choose jail rather than pay exorbitant bills ... What have you been doing for the last eight years?")

Why so?

Well, they don't want him in office anymore - he's Labour, you remember :wink:
[Edited my previous response before to add some comments from the conservative press - besides 'The Sun', which is intriguingly the paper that matters most to New Labour.]

before I forget, whats happened to Setanta?

from http://lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer120.html

The attacks of 9/11 emerged "not out of a clear blue sky, "but from a deep swamp of anger and hatred" generated by decades of American, British, and Israeli atrocities committed against Arab and Muslim people.

Saw this elsewhere

More recently and a bit closer to home here in the US, Doug Ireland writes:

"The internationally renowned correspondent for The Independent - the great British journalist [and citizen] Robert Fisk - has been banned from entering the United States. Fisk has been covering war zones for decades, but is above all known for his incisive reporting from the Middle East for more than 20 years. His critical coverage of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, and the continuing occupation that has followed it, has repeatedly exposed US and British government disinformation campaigns. He also has exposed how the bulk of the press reports from Iraq have been "hotel journalism" - a phrase Fisk coined."

He continues:

"The daily New Mexican reports that "US immigration officials refused Tuesday [20 September] to allow Robert Fisk, longtime Middle East correspondent for the London newspaper, The Independent, to board a plane from Toronto to Denver. Fisk was on his way to Santa Fe for a sold-out appearance in the Lannan Foundation's readings-and-conversations series on Wednesday night. According to Christie Mazuera Davis, a Lannan program officer, Fisk was told that his papers were not in order. Davis made last-minute arrangements Wednesday for Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radios daily news show, Democracy Now!, to interview Fisk via satellite from a television station in Toronto..." A recording of this satellite interview will soon be available on the Lannan Foundation's website."

Report in 'GlobelEcho' about that.

just wait. the phrase "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" is gonna come up.

From BBC:

Bush warns of Iraq violence spike

US President George W Bush has warned that insurgents in Iraq will step up their attacks ahead of next month's referendum on a new constitution.

Comment: This is news?

U.S. Envoy's Message Falls Flat Again, This Time in Turkey

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: September 28, 2005
ISTANBUL, Sept. 28 - Under Secretary of State Karen P. Hughes, seeking common ground with leading women's rights advocates in Turkey, was confronted instead today with anguished denunciations of the war in Iraq and what the women said were American efforts to export democracy by force.

It was the second straight day that Ms. Hughes found herself at odds with groups of women on her "public diplomacy" tour, aimed at improving the American image in the Middle East. On Tuesday, she told Saudi Arabian women she would support efforts to raise their status, but she was taken aback when some of them responded that Americans misunderstand their embrace of traditions.

Ms. Hughes met today with about 20 Turkish feminist leaders at a local museum in Ankara, the capital. She introduced herself, as she has been doing on this trip, as "a working mom" and said she was there to emphasize the many things Turkey and the United States had in common. The women welcomed her but had a different emphasis.

"You are very angry with Turkey, I know," said Hidayet Tuskal, a director of the Capital City Women's Platform, referring to opposition in Turkey to the Iraq war, which she said was a feminist issue because women and children were dying daily. "I'm feeling myself wounded," Ms. Tuskal added. "I'm feeling myself insulted here."

Fatma Nevin Vargun, identifying herself as a Kurdish rights advocate, said she was "ashamed" of the war and added that the United States bore responsibility. Referring to the arrest of a war protester at the White House earlier this week, she added, "This was a pity for us as well."

With her brow furrowed, Ms. Hughes replied: "I can appreciate your concern about war. No one likes war." She went on to say that "my friend President Bush" did all he could to avoid a war in Iraq, but she then asserted about Iraq: "It is impossible to say that the rights of women were better under Saddam Hussein than they are today."

She said women had been tortured, raped and killed under the Hussein government before it was ousted by American-led troops.

The comments about Iraq underscored the uneasiness Turkey has had since planning for the invasion began in 2002, when Turkish leaders equivocated and then declined to let American troops enter Iraq from the Turkish border. Turks are now worried about the spillover that a federalized Iraq, with a semi-autonomous Kurdish region in its north, would have in encouraging Kurdish separatists in eastern Turkey.

Ms. Hughes, approaching the end of her five-day trip, also met today with Turkish foreign ministry officials and flew from Ankara to Istanbul later in the day for more sessions with citizen groups and people who the State Department says are "opinion leaders" picked by the consulate.

She also got a tour of the historic Topkapi Palace, the seat of power and luxury in the old Ottoman Empire, where she held an "interfaith dialogue" with Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish leaders. It was another staple of this trip, which is intended to emphasize that Muslim countries with large devout populations should understand that Americans are also guided by religious convictions.

She called on the leaders one by one to discuss the principle of tolerance and said afterward: "They assured me that as faith leaders they are prepared to do their part. I hope this is the beginning of many such conversations."

The women in Ankara were notable because their meeting with Ms. Hughes began congenially, with her host describing the importance of her support for their causes. But it quickly spilled into tough talk, delivered politely but firmly.

Feray Salman, a human rights campaigner, said that while she believed in democracy, the Bush administration was trying to export it by force. "States cannot interfere through wars," she said. "I don't believe in this."

In recent months, Turkey has charged that the Bush administration has failed to denounce violent actions of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the P.K.K. Asked by one speaker why the United States refused to label the group a terrorist organization, Ms. Hughes said the administration had done just that.

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here you made that phrase come up all by yourself.

Malignancy Advocates Apologists and Defenders (MAAD), while refusing to acknowledge what they themselves are actually doing, blame others for the horrific crimes committed by malignancy.

I blame the deaths of civilians and innocents in Iraq on the fact that an occupying force has been dropping bombs and firing bullets at them.

blah, blah, blah....

get a new writer, will ya ? the material is stale and the marks ain't clappin' no more.

If you were among those who insisted upon the impeachment of Bill Clinton for telling lies about his sexual peccadilloes, what about a president whose lies are far more destructive of the lives and liberties of people, not to mention the civilization that has been mortally wounded? For those who, in the Clinton years, expressed concern about "moral values," the ball is now in your court. There is nothing more at stake than the wholeness of your character and the nature of the world you are to leave to your children.

September 26, 2005

Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law.