Anonymouse wrote:I'm curious...since all the official justifications for the Iraq war have been proven to be lies, how do the supporters of this war and Bush feel after having been duped?
Your post is Mythology!
Of the 23 reasons (numbered below by me) given by the USA Congress in its October 2002 resolution in the form of whereases, 13 (shown by me with boldface numbers) have been proven true. The remaining 10 are not proven lies, but have been proven false in one or more respects.
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That list is meaningless, as we can pinpoint to some country and find that that country violates at least one of those points (North Korea I'm looking in your direction).
Your argument here is fallacious.
Suppose we correctly identified ten countries all of which were merely allowing sanctuary to members of the same terrorist organization that declared war against the USA. We would have to recognize at least two realities:
(1) We were not capable of simultaneously invading all ten and successfully removing all ten of their governments in order to permanently destroy those terrorist sanctuaries;
(2) Deciding to not invade any of these countries was suicidal for our country, since there is no effective way for us to defend our borders or our communities against terrorists except to exterminate the terrorists where they are created.
The argument then reduces to the question of which one shall we invade first and remove its government. We pick country A, because it is perceived by us to be the biggest and most immediate threat to us by allowing sanctuary to the most such terrorists, and coincidentally was also perceived by us to be the easiest to conquer.
But then to our surprise, many of the terrorists in A flee to the other nine countries. We observe that the growth of the terrorist sanctuary in I exceeds such growth in the remaining eight countries. So we invade I for that reason and also for thinking it will be easier to conquer than any of the remaining eight. To our dismay, we discover we underestimated the difficulty of conquering I. We persist nonetheless with the expectation that:
(1) If we persevere to eventual victory in I, we will intimidate the other eight countries to cease allowing sanctuary to the terrorist organization;
(2) If we do not persevere, it will be suicidal for our country.
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What is indeed mythological is the premises on which this war is based. The main reasons for this war, are the ones that were used in the marketing campaign to lure the gullible American masses to rally behind this war.
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The real sufficient reasons for the war were stated by the Congress October 16, 2002:
[quote="Congress"](10) Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
(11) Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
US military frees two Reuters journalists in Iraq
Jan 15, 2005
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military freed two Iraqi journalists who work for Reuters on Sunday after holding them for several months without charge.
Ali al-Mashhadani, a television cameraman who was arrested in August, and Majed Hameed, a correspondent for Reuters and Arabiya television who was detained in September, are both based in Ramadi, one of the centres of a Sunni Arab insurgency.
They were freed from Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison after being held there and at Camp Bucca, a U.S. jail in southern Iraq.
At least three other Iraqi journalists for international media, including a freelance cameraman working for Reuters in the northern town of Tal Afar, remain in custody.
Reuters has urged the U.S. military also to free Samir Mohammed Noor, who has been held without charge since his arrest by Iraqi troops at his home in Tal Afar seven months ago. A cameraman for U.S. television network CBS in Mosul has been held since April.
"We are delighted that Ali and Majed are now free although we continue to have grave doubts about the way in which they were held for so long without charge," Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger said.
"We hope that Samir will also be able to rejoin his family soon."
Reuters and international media rights groups have repeatedly voiced concern at the long and unexplained detentions of journalists by U.S. troops.
They have in particular criticized the military's refusal to deal more quickly with suspicions apparently arising from reporters' legitimate activities in covering the insurgency.
More than 14,000 people, mostly Sunni Arabs, are held by the U.S. military on suspicion of taking part in Iraq's insurgency.
Situation in Iraq Is Civil War
Rep. John Murtha
01.12.2006
According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, the definition of a civil war is a "war between political factions or regions within the same country." That is exactly what is going on in Iraq, not a global war on terrorism, as the President continues to portray it.
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Two sufficient reasons for the war were stated by the Congress October 16, 2002:
Congress wrote:
(10) Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
(11) Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
brought to you by the American Committees on Foreign Relations ACFR NewsGroup No. 657, Monday, January 16, 2006
in its REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Saddam's Documents
January 13, 2006
It is almost an article of religious faith among opponents of the Iraq War that Iraq became a terrorist destination only after the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein. But what if that's false, and documents from Saddam's own regime show that his government trained thousands of Islamic terrorists at camps inside Iraq before the war?
Sounds like news to us, and that's exactly what is reported this week by Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard magazine. Yet the rest of the press has ignored the story, and for that matter the Bush Administration has also been dumb. The explanation for the latter may be that Mr. Hayes also scores the Administration for failing to do more to translate and analyze the trove of documents it's collected from the Saddam era.
Mr. Hayes reports that, from 1999 through 2002, "elite Iraqi military units" trained roughly 8,000 terrorists at three different camps—in Samarra and Ramadi in the Sunni Triangle, as well as at Salman Pak, where American forces in 2003 found the fuselage of an aircraft that might have been used for training. Many of the trainees were drawn from North African terror groups with close ties to al Qaeda, including Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Mr. Hayes writes that he had no fewer than 11 corroborating sources, and yesterday he told us he'd added several more since publication.
All of this is of more than historical interest, since Americans are still dying in Iraq at the hands of an enemy it behooves us to understand. If Saddam did train terrorists in Iraq before the war, then many of them must still be fighting there and the current "insurgency" can hardly be called a popular uprising rooted in Sunni nationalism. Instead, it is a revanchist operation led by Saddam's apparat and those they trained to use terror to achieve their political goals.
This means in turn that much of the Sunni population might be willing to participate in Free Iraq's politics but is intimidated from doing so by these Saddamists. The recent spurt of suicide bombings, aimed at Iraqi civilians and police trainees, looks like an attempt to revive such intimidation after the successful election. These Saddamists can't be coaxed into surrender by political blandishments because their goal isn't to share power but is to dominate Iraq once again. Or if they do play in the political process, it will only be in the Sinn Fein sense of doing so as cover for their real terror strategy.
In any case, it is passing strange that the Bush Administration has been so uninterested in translating, and assessing, the information in the two million documents, audio and videotapes and computer hard drives it has collected in Iraq. Mr. Hayes reports that only 50,000 of these "exploitable items" have been examined so far, and those by a skeleton crew with few resources. Does anyone think, had there been a Nazi insurgency after Hitler fell, that the U.S. wouldn't have scoured everything found in Berlin? Why the dereliction this time?
A benign explanation is that the first Bush priority was searching Saddam's files for WMD, not terror ties. But the WMD work has been done since the Duelfer report was substantially wrapped up well over a year ago. The current threat to U.S. soldiers in Iraq is from terror attacks, not WMD. Anything the U.S. can discover about whether and how Saddam and his coterie planned a guerrilla war before the invasion could be invaluable in defeating this enemy.
In his new memoir about his year in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer reports that in July of 2003 he was told about a captured document from Saddam's intelligence service (dated January 2003) outlining a "strategy of organized resistance" if the regime fell. About the same time, pamphlets began circulating in Baghdad describing the "Party of Return," with vows to kill Iraqis who worked with the Coalition. We also know that documents discovered with Saddam in his rabbit hole in late 2003 included a claim that the insurgents would know they had won when a U.S. Presidential candidate called for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. These are signs of a disciplined political party, not some broad Algerian-like nationalism.
A less benign explanation for the Bush Administration's lethargy is that its officials don't want to challenge the prewar CIA orthodoxy that the "secular" Saddam would never cavort with "religious" al Qaeda. They've seen what happened to others—"Scooter" Libby, Douglas Feith, John Bolton—who dared to question CIA analyses. Mr. Hayes reports that the Pentagon intelligence chief, Stephen Cambone, has been a particular obstacle to energetic document inspection.
But if we've learned nothing else about U.S. intelligence in the last four years, it is that its "consensus" views are often wrong. The 9/11 Commission has confirmed extensive communication between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda over the years, including sanctuary for the current insurgent leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We have also learned that in the years leading up to his ouster Saddam had implemented a "faith campaign" to use fundamentalist Islam as a tool of internal control. Especially if U.S. troops are going to remain to help the new Iraq government defeat the terrorists, we should want to know everything we can about them.
And the American people should know too. For three years now, opponents of the war in Congress and the bureaucracy have cherry-picked intelligence details and leaked them to influence public opinion. The Bush Administration until recently has been remarkably reluctant to fight back. Telling truths about Saddam that are revealed by his own documents is part of that fight.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's electoral commission said Monday that 227 ballot boxes from Dec. 15 parliamentary elections would be thrown out because of fraud, a tiny percentage of the overall vote.
Iraqis cast ballots at almost 32,000 voting centers across the country last month, and each center has several ballot boxes, meaning the 227 boxes being thrown out will have almost no effect on the overall vote totals.
Election officials annulled some of the boxes because fake ballots were used, said Hussein Hendawi, an official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. About 53 centers were annulled because too many votes were cast at that polling station, he said.
Hendawi said fewer irregularities occurred in last month's election than in last year's Jan. 30 vote for an interim parliament.
The IECI studied 58 serious election complaints, he said. A total of 1,985 complaints were lodged overall, but most were not considered serious.
Twenty-five of the serious complaints were lodged in Baghdad province, the country's largest, Hendawi said.
Two sufficient reasons for the Iraq war were stated by the Congress in their declaration of war on Iraq, October 16, 2002:
Congress wrote:
(10) Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
(11) Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
It is irrelevant that the Congress, or any other branch of our government on October 16, 2002, whether mistakenly or otherwise, thought or pretended additional reasons necessary. It is highly relevant that our military as predicted did in fact encounter and destroy major sanctuaries of al-Qaeda and Saddamist terrorists in Iraq within the first four weeks of our invasion of Iraq. It is also highly relevant that al-Qaeda from other countries joined with the dethroned Saddamists in Iraq in an effort to regain their lost power and to preserve Iraq as a sanctuary for both al-Qaeda and Saddamists.
It is still significant that 70% of the eligible voters of Iraq want to be governed by a democracy and not by totalitarian gangsters like the Saddamists and al-Qaeda..
A interesting round-up of "all major exit strategies and viewpoints" from a variety of sources, including think tanks, publications, political analysts and leaders, etc., published by the Project on Defense Alternatives:
Iraq Withdrawal and Exit Strategies & Plans
The Kucinich Plan to Bring Our Troops Home
Dennis Kucinich:
"The war in Iraq is over and the occupation has turned into a quagmire. The United States troops have become the targets of criminals and terrorists who are flowing into Iraq for the chance to kill Americans. The cost of the occupation keeps rising: The President has already asked for more than $155 billion to pay for it, and there is no end in sight. The United Nations is now in an impossible situation, where most of the members view the war and occupation of Iraq as a U.S. folly. Under these circumstances, the UN is unlikely to help. And UN assistance with a U.S. occupation would not allow the establishment of an Iraqi government that was acceptable to the Iraqi people.
"U.S. military casualties in Iraq have now exceeded 500, and the media has begun comparing the figure to the number of U.S. dead in Vietnam in 1965 prior to the significant expansion of U.S. operations there.
"Other Democrats join the Bush Administration in explaining that 'We can't cut and run.' I say we can't continue the damage we are causing and cannot begin repairing it until we withdraw our occupying army. We must pay for what we destroyed. We must pay reparations to the families of innocent civilians we killed and injured. But we must work through the United Nations. We must allow the United Nations to facilitate the creation of a democratic government that will be acceptable to the Iraqi people. No government created by the United States will be. It is better that we recognize this now than after the next 500 deaths.
"If we stay the course it will do damage to American security. Iraq was not responsible for 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction. It was wrong to go in and it's wrong to stay in. The demands of an occupation are overstretching our armed forces. And the extended deployment of reserve forces makes us vulnerable at home. The reserve call-ups include large numbers of firemen, policemen and other first responders who are needed for hometown security. Americans are asking, is there a way out? I say there is. This is my plan to get the UN in ... and the U.S. out of Iraq! This plan will bring our troops home within 90 days of UN approval, and strengthen American security.
"The following is my detailed plan to quickly bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq:
1. The United States must ask the United Nations to manage the oil assets of Iraq until the Iraqi people are self-governing.
2. The United Nations must handle all the contracts: No more Halliburton sweetheart deals, No contracts to Bush Administration insiders, No contracts to campaign contributors. All contracts must be awarded under transparent conditions.
3. The United States must renounce any plans to privatize Iraq. It is illegal under both the Geneva and the Hague Conventions for any nation to invade another nation, seize its assets, and sell those assets. The Iraqi people, and the Iraqi people alone must have the right to determine the future of their country's resources.
4. The United States must ask the United Nations to handle the transition to Iraqi self-governance. The UN must be asked to help the Iraqi people develop a Constitution. The UN must assist in developing free and fair elections.
5. The United States must agree to pay for what we blew up.
6. The United States must pay reparations to the families of innocent Iraqi civilian noncombatants killed and injured in the conflict.
7. The United States must contribute financially to the UN peacekeeping mission.
8. The United Nations, through its member nations, will commit 130,000 peacekeepers to Iraq on a temporary basis until the Iraqi people can maintain their own security.
9. UN troops will rotate into Iraq, and all U.S. troops will come home.
10. The United States will abandon policies of "preemption" and unilateralism and commit to strengthening the UN.
"I am working tirelessly to take America in a new direction, to gain approval of this plan at the United Nations, and to put it into action, bring all U.S. troops home in 90 days. Only if the United States takes a new direction will we be able to persuade the UN community to participate. Such a new direction is reflected in this 10-point plan.
"The President should go to the UN and announce America's intention to abide by this plan if approved by the UN.
"He should ask the UN Security Council to ratify a new resolution on Iraq that would deploy a multinational force under UN mandate to keep the peace in Iraq while the interim Iraqi government receives UN support and a new Iraqi government is elected. It is my plan that within one month, the first UN troops and support personnel will arrive in Iraq, and the first U.S. troops will be sent home. UN peacekeeping troops and Iraqis who are commissioned as police and military will replace the U.S. In place of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, the UN will open an office to direct the repair to infrastructure damaged by U.S. invasion. In two months, the UN will begin to conduct a census of the Iraqi population to lay groundwork for national elections. At the same time, new temporary rules for the election will be promulgated, guaranteeing universal suffrage on a one-person, one-vote basis. During the transition period, a Memorandum of Understanding between the American and UN force commanders for a turnover period will settle the question of who commands the troops. By the end of month three, all U.S. troops will have returned home.
"In month four, a major milestone will be reached when Iraqi sovereignty is established. A nationwide election will take place to elect representatives to a Constitutional Convention. The Convention will have two duties: 1) elect a temporary Prime Minister who appoints a cabinet to take over responsibility from the Iraqi Governing Council, and 2) draft a national constitution. Accountability of this Prime Minister is achieved by virtue of the fact that he can be recalled by a majority of the Convention.
"In one year, there will be nationwide elections pursuant to the new Constitution, which will install an elected government in Iraq.
"The U.S. owes a moral debt to the people of Iraq for the damage caused by the U.S. invasion. The U.S. will also owe a contribution to the UN to help Iraq make the transition to self-government. American taxpayers deserve that their contributions be handled in an accountable, highly visible manner. However, Americans are not required to build a state-of-the-art infrastructure as the Administration is planning. The Administration is ordering top-shelf technology from U.S. corporations for Iraq, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Sweetheart deals have been awarded with billions of dollars to top corporations and political contributors. This is precisely what corrupts the Administration's reconstruction efforts today. Instead, Iraqis should be employed to repair Iraq, and U.S. taxpayers should pay only for the damage caused by the U.S. invasion, including compensation for its victims. U.S. taxpayers should not be asked to furnish Iraq with what we do not have here!
"The war and occupation in Iraq have been costly in other ways too. One price America has paid is the loss of our moral authority in the world. The Administration launched an unprovoked attack on Iraq, and the premises of the war are proving to be false. This has cost us our credibility and done serious harm to America's standing in the world. After the attacks of 9-11, the world felt sympathy for us. But this war and the occupation have squandered that sympathy, replacing it with dangerous anti-American sentiment throughout the world.
"America must make a dramatic reversal of course: we must acknowledge that the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq is counterproductive and destabilizing. We have a choice in front of us: either we change course, withdraw our troops and request that the UN move in, or we sink deeper into this occupation, with more U.S. casualties, ever higher financial costs, and diminished security for all Americans.
"We need a real change. My plan will bring the troops home in 90 days, transfer authority to the UN with provisions made toward a rapid transition to Iraqi sovereignty, and save billions of dollars. It will enable the U.S. to think creatively about how to deal with threats that come not from established countries with conventional armies (our armed forces are more than adequate to that task), but rather threats that come from networks of terrorists and criminals who use unconventional means to injure Americans. We must also apprehend the criminals who masterminded the 9-11 attacks on our nation, a goal that is hindered by the occupation of Iraq. Lastly, my plan will also enable the U.S. to redirect scarce resources to rebuild America."
ican711nm wrote:McTag wrote:ican711nm wrote:Anonymouse wrote:ican711nm wrote:
(3) I think that private foreign as well as private domestic companies should be required to competitively bid for inividual segments of the Iraq oil business;
Required? By what? Executive fiat?
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I hope this restatement will make it clearer to you what I actually think:
I think that private foreign as well as private domestic companies, who desire to invest in and participate in Iraq oil production and distribution , should be required to competitively bid for inividual segments of the Iraq oil business, in order to obtain one or more such segments they want.
So I suppose you would have no objection to foreign companies coming into the USA, slicing it up and competing among themselves for the rights to exploit it- oil, lumber, fisheries, seed bank, antiquities? For their own gain? American companies could bid too, of course.
No objection whatsoever!
This has in fact been going on in the USA for the last two centuries. Foreign companies and domestic companies have regularly competed to buy American businesses and patents. Sometimes a foreign company is high bidder and sometimes not.
Big Deal! For example: Who owns Chrysler now?
Oh dear. You don't have to prove to me how detached from reality you are.
McTag wrote:
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Oh dear. You don't have to prove to me how detached from reality you are.
Pathetically so!!
Anon
Anon-Voter wrote:McTag wrote:
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Oh dear. You don't have to prove to me how detached from reality you are.
Pathetically so!!
Anon
You display a detachment from reality that is pathetic. Are you just pretending or are you really as ignorant as you appear?
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I read your "contributions" and just shake my head in disbelief that anyone could come up with it!! Quite apparently, I'm not the only one!
Anon
