Told You So
by Charley Reese
Every day that passes, Americans will be less welcomed in Iraq, and I wouldn't take lightly the warning of an Iraqi cleric who said, "You should leave before we force you out."
An army that won't fight is one thing. Twenty million people willing to stab you in the back, cut your throat or toss a grenade in your soup are quite another. Our Army is trained and equipped to fight set battles against other armies. It is not trained to cope with a hostile civilian population. It will not do well, and if we insist on staying, the Iraqis will force us out, just as the Lebanese forced the Israeli army out.
And remember, life isn't a TV show. The plot won't unfold rapidly. Slowly and gradually our victory over Saddam will turn to dust, and all those snazzy plans of the arrogant neoconservatives for a new, enlightened Middle East will turn to ashes. The Middle East is full of the ruins of superpowers.
I wrote the above three paragraphs in early May 2003, shortly after U.S. forces entered Baghdad. Just wanted to remind you that I wasn't in the crowd that jumped on the bandwagon for war, as well as point out that what has happened in the past three years was easily foreseeable, even by a country boy turned journalist with no official sources.
If you want to go back even further, to 2001, you'll find that in August 2001, I warned that Americans could expect a terrorist attack inside the United States. Again, no official sources. I just used the one commodity most missing in Washington, D.C. - common sense.
You don't inject yourself into somebody else's war without getting shot at sooner or later. As it happened, we got shot sooner, just a few weeks after I wrote that August column.
Nor do you need a degree from an Ivy League university to understand that people don't like to be occupied by a foreign army. All foreign armies that have occupied other people's countries have used the excuse that they came to liberate the people. Nobody believes that anymore.
Now President Bush has let the cat out of the bag. After all this jabber about listening to the officers on the ground, he said the other day at a press conference that "future presidents" will likely make the decision to bring the troops home from Iraq. So he's talking at least four years, if not eight. If they're really going to stay until Iraq develops into a Western-style democracy, try 30 years.
But they won't stay anywhere near that long. The American people's patience with foreign wars - provided the casualties aren't too heavy and there is no cost to those at home - is about five years. The president has about two years left before he will have to brand whatever corrupt authoritarian regime that emerges in Iraq as "a great victory." A man who lies us into war will not hesitate to lie us out of one.
Then Americans will have to face the costs. After all the thousands of America's finest have been buried, after all those artificial limbs have been attached, all those mutilated faces reconstructed, all those blind given Seeing Eye dogs, all those mental cases put on a drug regimen, all those billions of dollars added to the $8 trillion American debt, then comes the question, the important question everybody is ignoring right now: What will we have bought for this terrible price? Another corrupt dictatorship in a still-unstable Middle East.
We had that before the war. Our corrupt political leaders just didn't like their corrupt political leader, so they decided on "regime change." We certainly will not have purchased a safer America. At the end of this sorry episode, America will be weaker and more hated than it is today.
What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end of Euro-American domination of the planet. When the emperors start being idiots, the empire is on the way to the ash heap of history. If you have any grandchildren, you might suggest that they study Chinese.
Anonymouse wrote:Told You So
by Charley Reese
What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end of Euro-American domination of the planet. When the emperors start being idiots, the empire is on the way to the ash heap of history. If you have any grandchildren, you might suggest that they study Chinese.
or, we could get our shite together and quit acting like knuckleheads.
i like the idea of being dominated even less than the idea of dominating everyone else.
Anonymouse wrote:
Told You So
...
Hey there Iraqis! Listen up! Do a majority of you want America's and the rest of the Coalition's troops to leave Iraq ASAP?
If yes, then form a government; any damn government; and pass a resolution ordering America and the rest of the Coalition to leave Iraq. It's simple to do! Here's a sample of such a resolution.
When your Iraqi legislature adopts it, the world will say the Iraq Legislature wrote:Whereas, America and the rest of the Coalition are making Iraqi lives miserable by remaining in Iraq; we hereby order America and the rest of the Coalition to remove all their troops and leave Iraq as soon as possible, but no later than three months from the date of this resolution.
No President of America, not even George Bush, could get away with ignoring such a resolution. For one thing, the Republicans in the Congress wouldn't stand for it. The Congress would impeach Bush pronto if he dared ignore such a resolution.
Why doesn't the Iraqi government do this already, if a majority of the Iraqi truly people want us to leave?
Is it possible that the
LIEbral opinion-news media are mis-characterizing what the Iraqi people actually want? Surely they wouldn't do that ........... would they? Hmmmm ...........
Brought to you by the American Committees on Foreign Relations ACFR NewsGroup No. 686, Friday, March 24.
Quote:Willful Ignorance
What we do, and don't, know about the Madrid train bombings and al Qaeda.
by Dan Darling
Daily Standard
03/22/2006 12:00:00 AM
Therefore we say that to force the Spanish government to withdraw from Iraq the resistance has to [be] measured by painful strikes against their forces and accompanying this a informative campaign clarifying the truth of the situation inside Iraq, and we must absolutely gain from the approaching date of general elections in Spain in the third month of the coming year. We believe that the Spanish government will not endure two or three attacks as a maximum limit because it will be forced to withdraw afterwards due to the popular pressure on it, for if its forces remain after these strikes it is almost certain the Socialist forces will win the elections, as one of the main goals of the Socialist party will be the withdrawal of the Spanish troops . . . the dominoes will fall quickly, although the basic problem will remain of toppling the first piece.
-Iraq al-Jihad, circa August 2003
"MADRID TRAIN BOMBINGS PROBE FINDS NO AL-QAEDA LINK" was the headline of a widely-circulated Associated Press story two weeks ago. Citing a "Spanish intelligence chief" and a "Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain," the AP reported that "A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network." While acknowledging that the masterminds behind the attack were "likely motivated by bin Laden's October 2003 call for attacks on European countries
that supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq" and that "the plotters had links to other Muslim radicals in western Europe," the AP cited the Spanish intelligence chief as saying that there were "no telephone calls between the Madrid bombers and al Qaeda and no money transfers" and "no evidence they were in contact with the al Qaeda leader's inner circle."
Such a view is by no means new. Indeed, in June 2005 Dateline NBC reported that "Madrid is cited as the key turning point in the evolution of Islamic terror. Initially, Spanish and U.S. counterterrorism officials sought links between al-Qaeda (or, as the CIA now describes it, 'al-Qaeda Central'). But quickly they realized there weren't any. . . . It required no central direction from the mountains of Pakistan, simply a charismatic leader with links to men trained in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union."
SUCH A VIEW is no doubt attractive, but there are serious problems with it. As the March 11 Commission (an independent Spanish investigation into the attacks parallel to the U.S. 9/11 Commission) noted, there were numerous connections between the masterminds of the 3/11 attacks, al Qaeda, and a number of known al Qaeda associate groups including Ansar al-Islam, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (and its offshoot Salafi Jihad), and Abu Musab Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq (then al-Tawhid wal Jihad). There is also the al Qaeda strategy document Iraq al-Jihad, which appears to lay out in detail plans for attacks in Spain several months prior to the country's elections.
According to the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI)'s report on the motivations of Islamist terrorism in Europe, "The researchers from the FFI consider it likely that the terrorists behind the Madrid massacre were familiar with the contents of this strategy document" as well as that "the evidence leaves few doubts that the attacks in Madrid were carried out by al-Qaeda affiliates in Spain."
Most importantly, the March 11 Commission identified former Egyptian army explosives expert Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed as one of the planners of the Madrid bombings. According to an arrest warrant issued by Spanish judge Juan del Olmo, Ahmed is "a suspected member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad" who "took over leadership of a group of followers of extremist Islamist ideology, supporters of the Jihad and of Osama bin Laden" while living in Madrid. Now on trial in Milan for international terrorism, Ahmed was wiretapped by Italian authorities telling an associate that "The Madrid attack is my project and those who died as martyrs are my dearest friends."
Given that Egyptian Islamic Jihad is currently headed by al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, one would think that such a statement from one of its members, to say nothing of various statements from senior Spanish and Italian law enforcement and judicial officials, would settle the issue of al Qaeda involvement in the Madrid train bombings once and for all.
(Moreover, a key piece of the Spanish intelligence chief's claims, that no money transfers occurred between al Qaeda and the masterminds of the Madrid
bombings, may also be in doubt. Both El Mundo and Corriere della Sera reported in September 2004 that Ahmed stated in a conversation wiretapped by Italian authorities that during his time in Madrid he was being financed by Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, a radical Saudi cleric who has been described as a "friend" of Osama bin Laden and been praised by the al Qaeda leader for his support in a number of al Qaeda propaganda videos.)
THE SPANISH INTELLIGENCE CHIEF'S CLAIM that there was no al Qaeda link to the Madrid bombings might be better understood within the context of Spanish domestic politics. After all, if the goal of the attacks was to topple the Popular Party government in order to bring about a Spanish withdrawal from Iraq, it would seem that al Qaeda was successful both in achieving the desired results and reading the Spanish political scene--which the Zapatero government might, understandably, be loathe to admit.
What is alarming is that U.S. counterterrorism officials have apparently also missed these tell-tale signs of al Qaeda involvement in connection with a major terrorist attack in a European capital. Although this might not be very surprising: According to a May 2004 article in U.S. News & World Report, when asked about Iraq al-Jihad "Analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency also found the article unremarkable, 'a document like any number of other documents,' says one intelligence official."
Perhaps it was, but it was almost certainly a document whose online publication and dissemination had tragic consequences for the Spanish people.
ANY NUMBER OF INVESTIGATIONS into U.S. intelligence failures prior to 9/11 have revealed key gaps in the understanding of al Qaeda. As the FFI report on Islamist terrorism in Europe makes clear, there are no strict organizational division between al Qaeda and its various allies and associate groups, thus making the overlap between them fluid and difficult for investigators to track.
To rule out an al Qaeda link to the Madrid bombers at this stage would seem counterintuitive in light of the information currently available from any number of credible sources. For instance, Judge Juan del Olmo, who is heading up the official Spanish investigation into the attacks, has said that the Madrid bombings were "were carried out by a local cell linked to a international terrorist network . . . of Islamic fanatics which planted the bombs had links stretching through France, Belgium, Italy, Morocco and to Iraq." Is it that much to ask that the U.S. intelligence community be at least as informed as members of the Spanish judiciary?
Dan Darling is a counterterrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute Center for Policing Terrorism.
Quote:Why doesn't the Iraqi government do this already, if a majority of the Iraqi truly people want us to leave?
Is it possible that the LIEbral opinion-news media are mis-characterizing what the Iraqi people actually want? Surely they wouldn't do that ........... would they? Hmmmm ...........
Right now they have no government but when the did, they didn't listen to the people just like our leaders don't always listen to us
The "LIEbral" should be against the rules, but in any case, it has gone past tired.
NY Times to report on secret memo of Bush, Blair meeting before Iraq war
RAW STORY
Published: Sunday March 26, 2006
The New York Times is planning an article on a secret memo from January 2003 that "sheds light on the buildup and decision-making process before the invasion of Iraq," RAW STORY has learned.
The article, written by Don Van Natta Jr., most likely addresses the Jan. 31, 2003 memorandum which was leaked to a British author and referenced in February of this year. It is unknown whether or not The New York Times was able to obtain a copy of the secret memo, and it remains possible that the Times has acquired a different memo.
According to an article on the memo published by the Guardian in February, "Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme."
"The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", The Guardian reported that Bush told Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam".
The memo is also said to reveal that President Bush suggested "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours," in order to provoke Saddam to shoot on them, therefore putting Iraq in breach of United Nations resolutions.
The memo was first obtained by Philippe Sands, a professor of international law at a British university, who wrote about it in an updated edition of his book, Lawless World.
DEVELOPING...
Can this be used to indict the president for starting a war on false justifications?
revel wrote:The "LIEbral" should be against the rules, but in any case, it has gone past tired.
hahahahaha!! boy.. am i glad we're on the same side !
It's still not a civiL war.
The number of deaths increases steadily: now it is said, US forces killed at least 22 people and wounded eight - in an incident most likely to lead to increased tensions with not only the the Shia community.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?th&emc=th
So. Bush and Blair lied about the justification for war.
What else did they lie about? Almost everything else.
The invasion of Iraq is a crime.
Quote from above attributed article:
Quote:American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents who for nearly the past three years have been branded the gravest security threat.
So now, both parties to this 'non-civil' situation have their military arms at the ready, and very active.
Do people have to declare it a civil war, in words, for it to be a civil war?
And bushco go around spinning and twirling in their 'perception is everything' attempts.
Have we sided with the Sunni's then?
I find this remarkable in the light of what happens just now .... and from the very beginning onwards:
Quote:Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Blair agreed with that assessment.
Can there be any more doubt that Bush was determined to go to war, despite any weapons of mass destruction found?
Sheesh.
Cycloptichorn
