THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

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So I assume by this America was eitm during WW II.

Latest poll.

Quote:

Poll: World Doesn't Respect Bush
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So I have a question for yo'all.

Are we winning, losing or is it a stalemate?
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xingu wrote:

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So I assume by this America was eitm during WW II.

Ok, I agree that my definition of eitm was incomplete!

Shinto-eitm murdered millions of non-eitm and then made war and subsequently declared war on America.

Nazi-eitm murdered millions of non-eitm and then declared war and subsequently made war on America.

America and its allies subsequently reacted by declaring war and making war on Shinto-eitm and Nazi-eitm.

America and its allies defeated Shinto-eitm and Nazi-eitm by murdering Shinto-eitm and Japanese non-eitm, and by murdering Nazis-eitm and German non-eitm.

Thus was prevented many many more non-eitm from being murdered by Shinto-eitm and Nazis-eitm than America and its allies murdered while defeating the Shinto-eitm and Nazi-eitm.

Correction of Definition of eitm!

eitm = evil inhuman terrorist malignancy =
those who murder non-eitm but do not murder eitm +
those who abet the murder of non-eitm but do not abet the murder of eitm +
those who advocate the murder of non-eitm but do not advocate the murder of eitm +
those who are silent witnesses to the murder of non-eitm but are not silent witnesses to the murder of eitm +
those who allow the murderers of non-eitm sanctuary but do not allow the murderers of eitm sanctuary.

Thus America was not eitm during WW II.

eitm have declared war on civilians worldwide; waged war on civilians worldwide; and murdered civilians worldwide.

eitm are not civilians, but dead ones are being counted by the UN as Iraqi violent civilian deaths.

Looking back on Saddam Hussein

openDemocracy.net
Fred Halliday
9 - 1 - 2004

What was it like to study the Arab world under the shadow of Saddam? The capture of the former dictator of Iraq leads a respected scholar-activist to recall some of his personal encounters, in the west and across the Middle East and Persia, with the tentacles of the republic of fear.

Around [the time of the second, definitive, Ba'ath seizure of power in 1968,] the Iraqi Communist Party, one of the largest in the Arab world, split into two, a more cautious pro-Soviet and a more critical independent party: the latter group [..] despatch[ed] key members to start a guerrilla war in the southern marshes of Iraq, which ended in defeat in 1969.

A vivid memory from an Exeter University conference in 1981 is of Hanna Batatu, faced by a squad of menacing Ba'athist "academics" from Iraq, refusing to be silenced by their complaints and intimidating gestures, as he detailed the vicious nature of the Ba'athist state. As one Iraqi in the front row slowly and demonstratively drew his finger across his throat, Batatu declared: "I am a free man". This was a principle Batatu held to throughout his productive and formative intellectual life.

Hanna Batatu's dignity is not the only memorable thing about that conference. Equally so is the participation of some United Kingdom citizens who had (perhaps) taken money from Iraq for public relations and translation work, and of others who were, to judge by their fulsome praise of Iraq's leaders, the core members of what one can only call the English branch of the Ba'ath party. They were mainly Conservatives, old "friends of the Arabs", but in more recent times Saddam may have sought to recruit, and reimburse, at the opposite, left-wing end of the political spectrum.

In its way that conference was a microcosm of the political and intellectual currents of the time flowing around the issue of Iraq. Its organisers even wanted to open the proceedings by having its participants send a collective telegram supporting Saddam in his recently-launched war with Iran - something the rest of us only just managed to prevent.

In the 1970s I had already made the acquaintance of an Iraqi diplomat, then quite active in London, who (it emerged) was given this job in recompense for his wife having been kidnapped and raped by some of Saddam's guards.

Syrian Ba'athis brought another element to Iraq, one that reinforced an existing prejudice which was inculcated through the nationalist school textbooks of the monarchical period: hostility to Persians. These neighbours ("Zionists of the East") were presented as the greatest, long-term enemies of the Arabs - far more than their more recent, and less populous, counterparts in the west.

The mass expulsion of people with Persian antecedents or names from Iraq in the 1980s, no less than the making of an epic film celebrating the Arab victory over the Persians at Qadissiya in 637 CE, rested on this [element. It] is exemplified in the title of a book written by one of Saddam's uncles, Khairallah Tulfah, and made compulsory reading in schools, Three Things Which God Should Never Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies - note the order.

The Ba'ath party had not just borrowed rituals from Europe's totalitarian regimes; it used their techniques of violence, fear, and the corruption of language. In April 1980, a filmed party meeting showed Saddam singling out inner-party rivals who were dragged from the room, then executed after show trials. He had learnt the most basic lesson of all dictatorships: that is one thing to kill the guilty, but what really works is to kill the innocent. Saddam and his cronies attended these executions; members of the Ba'ath party, including students in Britain, were summoned to the London embassy to view a video of the occasion.

I have visited some unsavoury regimes - from Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran (where I saw 100,000 people march by shouting "Death to Liberalism" and realised that, among others, they meant me) to Ethiopia's Red Terror; but never have I sensed such fear as in Iraq. One could cut it with a knife. A professor said to me, resignedly: "When I open the paper in the morning I do not know if I have been appointed ambassador to the UN or condemned to death. In either case I would not know why".

On the day we were supposed to meet Tariq Aziz, the perennial frontman for Saddam's regime, an alleged Iranian agent had tried to assassinate him [..]. Saddam appeared on television the next night to promise revenge: "Blood will be answered with blood". He denounced his enemies as "cowards and dwarfs" and in typical style proclaimed that "the Iraqis will dance merrily on the wings of death".

Saddam's rhetoric put the eclecticism of any other modern leader to shame. It mixed 20th century demagogy with invocations of knights on horseback, the interpretation of dreams and evocations of the battles of early Islam. (In the wars of 1991 and 2003, he denounced George Bush, father and son, as "Hulagu" - the name of the Mongol leader who captured Baghdad in 1258).

In September 1980, Saddam launched the Iran-Iraq war by invading Iran. It lasted for eight years and cost an estimated one million lives. This was by far the most destructive war in the modern Middle East (in the five Arab-Israeli wars, plus Israeli incursions into Lebanon and two Palestinian intifada, the total deaths are estimated at 70-80,000)

Leaving Baghdad at the end of that 1980 visit presented a problem. At every meeting I attended, the Iraqi host would give me a two-volume set of Saddam's speeches. It was too risky to do what one normally does and chuck them into the waste-paper basket. So I carried six pairs, twelve books, in my suitcase - intending to find them a suitable home in London university libraries. [..] Arriving in the early morning at Heathrow airport, somewhat befuddled by the flight, I foolishly lent far over the luggage carousel to grab my bag. The disc slipped, the pain of this encounter with Ba'athism ran up my spine, and for a month I was flat on my back.

This, too, must be counted among Saddam's crimes.

An Australian journalist in Baghdad was once woken in the middle of the night for an interview with the president. After stumbling unprepared via a translator through a number of banal questions, he resorted to asking Saddam what was his favourite film. The answer came in English: The Godfather.

It was said without irony, and may be corroborated by the ways in which Saddam [..] modelled himself on another moustachioed mass murderer, born incredibly only 450 miles (720 kilometres) away [..]: Joseph Stalin. Said Aburish's perceptive biography of Saddam contains a revealing anecdote about a visitor to Saddam's home who witnessed the dictator in an austere spare room lined with fourteen books about the Soviet leader.

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ican

I have seen you make dumb illogical posts in the past but this one takes the cake.

Democrats in the US Congress called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to condemn Hezbollah's attacks against Israel and to recognize Israel's right to defend itself.

The lawmakers expressed dismay during a press conference over Maliki's recent criticism of "Israel aggression" in Lebanon, and called for a "clarification" from the Iraqi leader before he appears Wednesday before a joint session of Congress.

House Democrats wrote a letter Tuesday urging Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert to revoke his invitation to Maliki, whose steadfastness as a partner in the US-led war on terror, they said, is seriously in doubt.

The Islamic Dawa Party or Islamic Call Party is, historically, a militant Shiite Islamic group and, presently, an Iraqi political party. Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq are two of the main parties in the religious-Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which won a plurality of seats in both the provisional January 2005 Iraqi election and the longer-term December 2005 election. The party is led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a doctor, who served as the Prime Minister of Iraq in the Iraqi Transitional Government from 2005 until May 20, 2006. The party's deputy leader, Nouri al-Maliki, is the current Prime Minister of Iraq.

U.S. News & World Report
December 26, 1983 / January 2, 1984

The New Face of Mideast Terrorism

A new brand of terrorism confronting the U.S. in the Mideast was demonstrated in the closing days of 1983 when a suicide bomber wrecked the American Embassy in Kuwait.

Actions that once were hallmarks of Mideast radicals -- takeovers of buildings, hijackings of airliners and seizing of hostages -- are waning. In their place: Terrorism sponsored by governments -- notably Iran and Syria -- and carried out by Moslem fanatics fired by hatred of the U.S. and a desire for martyrdom.

Prompted as much by current issues as by ideology, the new terrorism is more lethal, widespread and harder to contain than terrorism of the 1970s.

U.S. officials blamed the December 12 bombing of their embassy in Kuwait on ''Islamic fundamentalists'' of the Shiite sect, backed by Iran and Syria.

The Americans charged that the attack was ''clearly connected'' to three disastrous bombings in Beirut -- one in April that killed more than 60 people at the U.S. Embassy and two suicide attacks in October that killed more than 240 American servicemen at the Marine barracks and 58 soldiers at the French peacekeeping headquarters. Shiites also are blamed for a bomb that killed 61 persons at an Israeli command center in southern Lebanon in November.

Suspicion for the attacks in Lebanon centered on one group -- the Islamic Jihad [Holy War], a secretive Shiite unit based in Syrian-controlled eastern Lebanon. It is closely linked to the Iranian regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who calls the U.S. the ''great Satan.''

The terrorist who detonated the truckload of explosives at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait was identified as a 25-year-old Iraqi belonging to an outlawed Moslem unit, the Iranian Dawa Group.

The Associated Press
February 11, 1984, Saturday
Trial Of Bomb Blast Defendants Opens

By ALY MAHMOUD (KUWAIT)

Twenty-one defendants accused of bombing the U.S. and French Embassies last December were formally arraigned today, as their trial began under extreme security.

To be tried in absentia are four defendants who are at large, the prosecutor general said.

Five people were killed and 86 injured in the rash of bombings on Dec. 12. Besides the U.S. and French embassies, four Kuwaiti targets were bombed.

The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for 19 of the defendants. The others are believed to have played a lesser role in the bombings in and around the capital of this oil-rich Arab nation . . . Of the other defendants, 17 are Iraqis; two, Lebanese, three, Kuwaitis and two are stateless. Most of them said they belonged to Al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, an Iraqi movement of Shiite Moslem fanatics who are pro-Iranian, said court sources who asked not to be identified.

The Associated Press
September 21, 1986, Sunday
Underground Iraqi Group Threatens French Hostages

BEIRUT, Lebanon
An Iraqi opposition group warned Sunday that French hostages in Lebanon will suffer if two Iraqis deported from France last February are not allowed to return to Paris soon. The statement was issued by the Beirut-based regional office of the Dawa Party, which is made up of Iraqi Shiite Moslems and supports mainly Shiite Iran in its 6-year-old war with Iraq. Iraq's government is made up mainly of Sunni Moslems. France deported the two students, Fawzi Hamzeh and Hassan Kheireddin, reported to be Dawa members, along with 11 other Middle Easterners after a series of terrorist bombings. The pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad organization, which has close ties with Dawa, said in March that it killed French hostage Michel Seurat in retaliation for the deportation. His body was not found . . .

The Associated Press
December 27, 1986, Saturday
Five Groups Claim Responsibility; Iraq Accuses Iran
BYLINE: By HAFEZ ABDEL-GHAFFAR
DATELINE: DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia

BODY:
Five groups in Lebanon claimed responsibility for the attempted hijacking of an Iraqi jet, but conflicting accounts remained of what happened before the jetliner crashed, killing at least 62 people. Iraqi Airways flight 163 was en route to Amman, Jordan, from Baghdad, Iraq, on Christmas Day when it crash landed in northern Saudi Arabia. The death toll was thought to be the highest in a hijacking or attempted hijacking in the history of air piracy . . . Another an anonymous caller to a Western news agency claimed responsibility on behalf of Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, a fundamentalist Shiite Moslem faction loyal to Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini . . . He told a Western news agency the hijackers acted in cooperation with the Dawa party of pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiites. The caller demanded the release of two hijackers he said were arrested after the crash.

Remember why we invaded Iraq? To do some nation building. We were going to install a toady government that would be allied with Israel.

Remember why we invaded Iraq? To do some nation building. We were going to install a toady government that would be allied with Israel. Well, as it turns out, all the best laid plans of morons and dopes off times go astray.

<snip>

House Democrats wrote a letter Tuesday urging Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert to revoke his invitation to Maliki, whose steadfastness as a partner in the US-led war on terror, they said, is seriously in doubt.

Remember why we invaded Iraq? To do some nation building. We were going to install a toady government that would be allied with Israel. Well, as it turns out, all the best laid plans of morons and dopes off times go astray.
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We are fighting a war. These are the reasons why:

(1) We Americans probably face a sizeable risk of being murdered by Terrorist Malignancy, if we decide to limit the defense of ourselves against Terrorist Malignancy to only here in America;
http://www.mideastweb.org/osambinladen1.htm

(2) The state of Afghanistan harbored (i.e., allowed sanctuary to) al-Qaeda Terrorist Malignancy from May 1996 to October 2001, when the USA invaded Afghanistan seeking to end their sanctuary in Afghanistan;
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm

(3) The state of Iraq harbored (i.e., allowed sanctuary to) al-Qaeda Terrorist Malignancy from December 2001 to March 2003, when the USA invaded Iraq to end their sanctuary in Iraq;
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm

(4)

Quote:

Tuesday night, September 11, 2001, the President broadcast to the nation:
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

(5)

Congress wrote:

Friday, September 14, 2001
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/terroristattack/joint-resolution_9-14.html
The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

(6)

Quote:

Thursday, September 20, 2001, President Bush addressed the nation before a joint session of Congress:
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
Tonight we are a country awakened to danger. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.

(7)

Quote:

Wednesday, October 16, 2002, Congress passed a joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq and gave two subsequently verified, primary and sufficient reasons for doing so:
www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf
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;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

(8) But, you protest Bush and Congress also claimed Iraq abetted 9/11, when neither Bush or Congress claimed any such thing!

I protest that 19 terrorists, first trained in Afghanistan, armed with box cutters, hijacked four airliners, and flew them into American buildings or into the ground killing almost 3,000 American civilians.
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm

If 19 terrorists could murder 3,000 not abetted by Iraq and not armed with WMD, what could 10,000 terrorists do, if abetted by Iraq but not armed with WMD--murder more than one-million?

(9)

Quote:

9-11 Commission Report, 9/20/2004, Chapter 2.5
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
U.S. intelligence estimates put the total number of fighters who underwent instruction in Bin Ladin-supported camps in Afghanistan from 1996 through 9/11 at 10,000 to 20,000.78

How should we prevent 9/11s happening again in future: Domestically surveilling suspected terrorists, removing terrorist training sanctuaries, removing governments that harbor terrorists, exterminating terrorists, or ignoring terrorists?

(10) The primary reason for invading Afghanistan (i.e., al-Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan) plus the following, support my contention that the false allegation of WMD possession by Iraq was a supplementary reason and not the primary reason for invading Iraq.

Quote:

Secretary of State, Colin Powell's speech to UN, 2/5/2003, The section on "sinister nexus"
http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm
But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.

Note: this harboring allegation was never refuted by Saddam's regime and it was verified by our troops in April 2003, while the Iraq WMD and Iraq abetting 9/11 allegations were refuted by Saddam's regime and refuted by our troops.

Because our troops actually confirmed the presence of these same terrorists in northeastern Iraq in the first weeks of the invasion of Iraq, the phrase, "the potentially much more sinister nexus" provides some additional support for my contention that the false allegation of Iraq's possession of WMD was a supplementary reason and not the primary reason for invading Iraq (i.e., al-Qaeda sanctuary in Iraq).

Nasrallah's other fight
By Olivier Guitta

In the past few weeks, Hassan Nasrallah (which means in Arabic "God's victory"), the secretary general of Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah (the Party of God), has almost become a household name.

Even though Nasrallah has become "famous" for starting this new Hezbollah-Israel war and declaring Israel as Hezbollah's mortal enemy, one should not forget that the "big Satan" remains the United States. And that's why Iraq is where Nasrallah's influence can also be felt.

Nasrallah's biography explains how he got close to prominent clerics in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, in particular the Sadr family. In

1975, when he was only 15, Nasrallah joined the ranks of the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Amal - which Hezbollah broke from after its creation in 1982 - led by Musa al-Sadr.

From 1976 to 1978 he was sent to study in Najaf, Iraq, at the famed Shi'ite seminary the Hawze. There he met most of his mentors, starting with Iranian ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979) and also his tutor, ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr (Muqtada al-Sadr's father). He also was in close contact with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (the leading Shi'ite spiritual force in Iraq today).

And finally, he was groomed by future Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi, whom he succeeded after Musawi was killed by the Israelis in 1992. Those two years in Najaf definitely left a huge imprint on Nasrallah's psyche.

And that's why, when it was time to help his Shi'ite brothers in Iraq after the US intervention in 2003, and especially Muqtada, Nasrallah responded. Nasrallah, using the 1982 model of what had worked in Lebanon to kick out the multinational force, adapted some of his tactics in Iraq.

Indeed, Iraq in 2006 looks a lot like the Lebanon of 1983. For example, the Iranian man in charge of this whole operation is Hassan Qommi, who had the exact same job ... in Beirut in 1982. Qommi helped Hezbollah instructors get to Iraq to train Muqtada's Mehdi Army, which has staged several high-profile confrontations with US forces, notably at Fallujah.

Starting in 2003, Hezbollah began building up organizational and military apparatuses in Iraq. For instance, that April, Hezbollah opened two offices in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Safwan. The campaign, targeting moderate Iraqi Shi'ite clerics willing to work with the US, was most likely orchestrated by Muqtada and Hezbollah.

Keep in mind that even though Nasrallah greatly respects Sistani, he is totally at odds with him when it comes to fighting the US presence.

Also in 2003-04, Imad Mughniah, the top Hezbollah operative wanted by most Western secret services for his role in most of the attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah, including the bombings of the US Embassy and the US and French barracks in Beirut in 1983, was sighted in Iraq. Syria had most probably facilitated his entry on to Iraqi soil.

Hezbollah also had a specialty in Lebanon in the 1980s, which was kidnapping foreign citizens. Is it a coincidence that it was happening on a daily basis in 2004 in Iraq?

Knowing that Nasrallah called for suicide bombings against the US forces in Iraq, it was just a matter of time until Hezbollah was ready to strike. The connection with Muqtada is total. For proof of Hezbollah's active participation in the insurgency there are the arrests made in February 2005 by Iraqi authorities of 18 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters taking part in the insurgency.

In a July 11 speech that was really focused on the situation with Israel, Nasrallah made a point of again talking about Iraq. He specifically called for Iraqis to step up their resistance against the US invader. In response, Muqtada offered to send members of his militia to south Lebanon to fight Israel. This is not surprising, since Muqtada declared in 2004 that he was "the striking arm for Hezbollah".

Obviously, Hezbollah as a multinational group cannot be simply reduced to Lebanon and Israel. Its expansion into Iraq fits strategically very well in the plans of its two sponsors: Syria and Iran.

Richard Armitage, former US deputy secretary of state, has said that the United States had a blood debt with Nasrallah's organization. In light of the fact that Hezbollah was, prior to the September 11 attacks of 2001, the organization that had killed the most Americans, and the likelihood of additional killings of US soldiers in Iraq, now would be a good time to repay the debt.

Olivier Guitta is a foreign-affairs and counter-terrorism consultant in Washington, DC. He can be reached at [email protected].

Well, xingu, I think you just gave the ring wingers another excuse for the Iraq war. ...

We are fighting a war. These are the reasons why:

(1) We Americans probably face a sizeable risk of being murdered by Terrorist Malignancy, if we decide to limit the defense of ourselves against Terrorist Malignancy to only here in America;
http://www.mideastweb.org/osambinladen1.htm

(2) The state of Afghanistan harbored (i.e., allowed sanctuary to) al-Qaeda Terrorist Malignancy from May 1996 to October 2001, when the USA invaded Afghanistan seeking to end their sanctuary in Afghanistan;
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm

(3) The state of Iraq harbored (i.e., allowed sanctuary to) al-Qaeda Terrorist Malignancy from December 2001 to March 2003, when the USA invaded Iraq to end their sanctuary in Iraq;
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
...
our troops actually confirmed the presence of these same terrorists in northeastern Iraq plus another sizeable group of terrorists south of Baghdad in the first weeks of the invasion of Iraq ...

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Both Democrats and Republicans disagree with Maliki. ...

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And I don't give a damn who agrees or disagrees with Maliki. ...

{Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 2:42 pm Post: 2174824 - }

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Remember why we invaded Iraq? To do some nation building. We were going to install a toady government that would be allied with Israel. Well, as it turns out, all the best laid plans of morons and dopes off times go astray.

Quote:

Democrats in the US Congress called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to condemn Hezbollah's attacks against Israel and to recognize Israel's right to defend itself.

The lawmakers expressed dismay during a press conference over Maliki's recent criticism of "Israel aggression" in Lebanon, and called for a "clarification" from the Iraqi leader before he appears Wednesday before a joint session of Congress.

House Democrats wrote a letter Tuesday urging Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert to revoke his invitation to Maliki, whose steadfastness as a partner in the US-led war on terror, they said, is seriously in doubt.

...