What I find difficult to understand why most of the people behave like cattle derived by politicians and the media.
People, politicians and the media forget the main problem and started to shift the focus on sub-problems in an attempt to play down the cause of the real problem.
- Why do SAS members disguise as Iraqis?
– Is it the SAS job to gather information?
– Why do they need two M4, two rocket launchers, anti-tanks rockets, 2 Machineguns, wire cutters, explosives and 2 wigs to gather information?
– How many missions like this one “succeeded” before ?.
Watch Newsnight on the BBC
What will happend if two Iraqis walking the streets of London or New York with the same gadgets ( in the UK is shoot to kill policy).
The positive news is: this event was a wakeup call for some silent Iraqis and I am including Blogs too.
We Iraqis learned in our history books the term “
For sure we will never hear any information about their mission from officials, sadly people also will never ask these questions and much worst they will Justify it and for sure also the coming weeks there will be no bombings in Bassra too.
Recommended reading
Fake Terrorism Is a Coalition’s Best Friend
Several articles have already turned the story against the angry Iraqis who fought the British tanks as they demolished the jail wall, painting them as aggressive Shia militia attacking the doe-eyed, innocent troops responding to the concern that their comrades were held by religious fanatics. A photograph of a troop on fire comes complete with commentary that the vehicles were under attack during a “bid to recover arrested servicemen” that were possibly undercover. All criminal elements of British treachery are downplayed, the car’s explosive cache is never mentioned and the soldiers who instigated the affair are made victims of an unstable country they are defending.
LB,
Why must you continue these lies?
They are not suicide bombers.
They were not going to blow up a mosque.
Soldiers DO carry weapons — as well as wire cutters and radios as your picture points out.
There is nothing whatever to suggest that they were engaged in terrorism.
Nothing.
And yet you repeat the same garbage over and over with new twists and ignore your previous erroneous claims.
So as not to attract attention to themselves? Duh? They are in Iraq — right?
Of course. They are engaged in security and counter-terrorism operations and they must have intelligence.
Um, to protect themselves? Doesn’t every Iraqi have an automatic weapon? These guys are soldiers. Of course they will have a rifle or pistol.
Perhaps to destroy bad guy vehicles? Doesn’t your military carry RPG’s? don’t the terrorists? Should the Brits carry spit balls?
You mean the M4s you already mentioned?
Um, to crack hardshell lobster claws? Oh — wait — to cut wire!
Not sure what you mean by ‘explosives.’ Hand grenades are quite commonly found on soldiers. As are small c4 charges to blast through doors. What explosives do you mean? Oh that trunk full of artillery shells to suicide bomb the mosque? I thought not.
They are fashion conscious and there probably aren’t too many Iraqi blondes.
But if your main point is that its too bad there are British soldiers in Iraq, you ought to just say so. Don’t make up and spread lies about them being terrorists.
Once the real terrorists and anti-government forces are gone or marginalized, then the Brits and US can pull out. Until that time, the Iraqi government has requested their assistance in establishing security.
PS — the fewer Iraqi civilians, police, and army forces the terrorists kill, the more there will be to enforce security.
I know that puts the terrorists in an inconvenient spot. To get the ‘occupiers’ to leave, they will have to put down their weapons and exercise their rights as citizens in a democratic country. I know that is really a tough concept for you.
I gotta say I’m disappointed and admit to totally misjudging your motivations about Iraqis; afraid you are not much better or anymore real than the people you critize.
It would be one thing to put this crap out there “for what it’s worth”, but you believe it. Having been around the world a bit, you should know better. Having lived inside Iraq, you should know better. You complain about the power plays inside the country and the Al Sadr forcing women to veil etc, but then you come out with this crap. Can’t have it both ways, and it is obvious which side of the fence you are on.
I now know why Ladybird spills out this crap…She lives comfortably in the Netherlands and subscribes to this kind of entertainment…She’s to stoned to know what’s really happening in the world and Iraq.
Take A Look At This Link!
LOL!! That one is classic!
Ladybird, here’s a hint…
When gathering intelligence, you must not stick out like a sore thumb! Meaning.…If you’ve got blond hair and blues in Iraq, you may want to cover that up.…just a little!
When gathering intelligence, you must not stick out like a sore thumb! Meaning….If you’ve got blond hair and blues in Iraq, you may want to cover that up….just a little!
Apart from the fact they don’t have blond hair and/or blue eyes, you are totally correct. :)
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“Apart from the fact they don’t have blond hair and/or blue eyes, you are totally correct.”
Michael must not understand when someone is giving a clear example. I’m quite sure that these Brits were doing everything possible to disguise themselves from looking “Brit” to gather intelligence. As we all know, Brits are pretty damn white.
Now what kind of a society is it which Ladybird, Michael, and their minders envisage for Iraq — or anywhere? The answer to this question is difficult to come by. They’re not saying. They may not even have a clue themselves. They are only interested in tearing down, not building up. We call this type of person in English “barbarian”.
Now if I had to guess what kind of a society they would like to see operating, it would be something along the following lines:
“…After years of resisting President Robert Mugabe’s violent campaign to rid Zimbabwe of white farmers David Wilding-Davies believed he had survived the ethnic purge.
He was wrong. In what appears to be the start of the final clearance of Zimbabwe’s remaining white farmers, Mr Mugabe’s security forces launched a dawn raid yesterday, firing automatic weapons against Mr Wilding-Davies, his white farm manager and a neighbour in Chipinge, south-eastern Zimbabwe.
Allan Warner after being confronted by militiamen
The operation followed Mr Mugabe’s alteration of the constitution last month, for the 17th time since independence from Britain in 1980. He nationalised all white-owned land and prevented white farmers going to court to challenge seizure of about 22 million acres.
Mr Wilding-Davies was attacked by about 15 armed militia when he went to assist his manager, Allan Warner, 53, a South African, who had been knocked to the ground and was being kicked and pummelled. Mr Wilding-Davies said a member of the Central Intelligence Organisation, which operates out of Mr Mugabe’s office, led the attackers.
“It was an incredibly unpleasant experience. It began suddenly as we were walking to work. We are presently harvesting coffee worth about $300,000 [£166,000] for export to Canada.…”“
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=042NMGSN10UO3QFIQMFSM5OAVCBQ0JVC?xml=/news/2005/09/22/wzim22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/09/22/ixportal.html
The white farmers, as we see, are rather in the same position that jews in Iraq found themselves — before they were all murdered or driven out.
Ladybirdism or Michaelism is the same everywhere really, isn’t it?
I think many more people may find Ladybirdism or shall we call it “Ladymichaelism”, “an incredibly unpleasant experience” before the light dawns for the human race.
The kind of deed the 007 mission was investigating:
“A Sunni terrorist drove a mini-bus packed with explosives up to a crowd of day laborers; men waiting for an opportunity for a job that would enable them to put food on the table for the family for one more day. As the terrorist saw that his mini-bus was attracting the attention of the crowd, he beckoned the men to come closer with talk of jobs. At the moment that they pressed against the mini-bus, the terrorist detonated the car bomb and killed them all in the name of Islam.
I must confess to a sense of deep frustration when I hear many people (including President Bush) talk about how “a few terrorists have hijacked one of the world’s great religions.” What happened today in the name of Islam was unadulterated barbarism. Why is there no outcry of disgust from all the followers of “one of the world’s great religions”? If the “vast majority of Islamists” are good people as we keep hearing, why haven’t we heard from some of them?“
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8770
Answer: because they don’t care about 112 arabs as we care about one Steven Vincent. [’Who he?’ Ladymichael]
What is that 007 Mission all about?
“…That piece of news [four more years], coming as it did, in the midst of “withdrawal schedule” prattle, had a very positive impact on the morale and spirit of most Iraqis. Regardless of what you might hear or read in the mainstream media, the vast majority of Iraqis don’t want us going anywhere. They were enormously encouraged to hear we are going to be here for quite a while longer.…“
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8770
Now, question: do you dismiss the assertion in the last sentence of the excerpt above because it appears in The American Spectator, a magazine of ‘the right”? Or do you ask: is this a fact regardless of the medium which publishes it? Your response is an indication of whether or not you are a Ladymichaelist or on the way to joining the Ladymichaelist Party
LOL!! That’s a good one Hank
You weren’t a member of Skull and Bones were you? They also call “others” barbarians. Do you call yourself a Knight? Just curious.
“Or do you ask: is this a fact regardless of the medium which publishes it?”
As I explained before, the media functions to return a profit and for no other reason. They color the “facts” to appeal to their readership, especially when something is a matter of opinion rather than a statement of fact. The information that I have seen is that polls of the Iraqi on the street indicated that the bulk of Iraqi society wants the US out.
Maybe because nobody is listening. Maybe because it doesn’t further the agenda of stealing oil from Iraq. Just guessing.
http://www.freemuslims.org/
http://www.islam-democracy.org/terrorism_statement.asp
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050711–104941-4430r
http://www.muhajabah.com/islamicblog/archives/veiled4allah/008824.php
I watched a CSPAN broadcast a month back or so and they had a long line of muslims coming up on stage and making speaches against terrorism.
Because media’s function is to build and maintain readership, you should compare and contrast what you here from the right-wing organizations with that of the left. Because both organizations are slanting the news to fit their readership, you will realize the one truth of the situation and that is that you can only get a vague idea of what is really happening in the world from the media.
Here’s a good source of left-wing slanted news which will help you balance out your opinions. http://www.democracynow.org/
“They are only interested in tearing down, not building up.“
What would YOU call such people, Jon?
Hank– “What would YOU call such people, Jon?”
Pissed off.
Jon, further: you reply to the question about the absence of Islamic condemnattion of the terror bombings in Iraq posed by the writer in my post #10 that the reason is:
“Maybe because it doesn’t further the agenda of stealing oil from Iraq. Just guessing.”
If I may say so that is not only a facile answer, but also one which in its anxiety to make a shallow debating point misses the thrust of the question which was aimed at the apparent indifference of muslims to these terror bombings, not the indifference of Americans whom you assume to be interested only in “stealing” Iraqi oil.
That mistake exposes your own prejudice in the matter as you rush to make a point out of context.
The writer,who is working for an American company in Iraq, was actually in Baghdad and some 440 yeads away from the explosion and notwithstanding his wonder at the silence of the muslim religion at the terror bombings,he reports in the same article that:
“Regardless of what you might hear or read in the mainstream media, the vast majority of Iraqis don’t want us going anywhere. They were enormously encouraged to hear we are going to be here for quite a while longer.”
This contradicts your information that:
“… polls of the Iraqi on the street indicated that the bulk of Iraqi society wants the US out.”
Will I be surprised if you say that my source is tainted and yours spotless? Or will you agree that we should try to discern which of the two diametrically opposed views is the real voice of the ordinary mass of the Iraqi people?
Ladymichaelists are, we suppose, some kind of leftwing “ism”. They thus must be presumed to have some concern for such ordinary people and in particular for ordinary workers, even in Iraq. Although the Ladymichaelists’ actual opinions, if any, on the kind of society they wish to see created either in Iraq or elsewhere, they are very careful to conceal, preferring to concentrate on glib anti-American attacks.
Hpwever, presuming that concern for the ordinary worker, how might we suppose that they react to the further report of facts in Baghdad later in the same article, namely that:
“A Sunni terrorist drove a mini-bus packed with explosives up to a crowd of day laborers; men waiting for an opportunity for a job that would enable them to put food on the table for the family for one more day. As the terrorist saw that his mini-bus was attracting the attention of the crowd, he beckoned the men to come closer with talk of jobs. At the moment that they pressed against the mini-bus, the terrorist detonated the car bomb and killed them all [112 people] in the name of Islam.”
Despite this barbarism against the Iraq working class, which one might be forgiven for calling fascist barbarism, the writer notes later in his piece:
“A growing number of well-informed observers are becoming convinced that the Americans are in the process of creating an army that will fight, an army that won’t run, and an army whose main interests are secular.”
Ladymichaelists won’t like that prospect — they favour civil war which will present further opportunities to indulge their intellectual bad faith by renewed attacks on the Coalition rather than on the religious barbarians and their “running dogs’ who will have caused it.
Yes, “pissed off” — the reaction of children to events which displease them and in the excretory language which vastly amuses — the very young.
And then the writer of the article in the link in posts #10 and #111, resident in Baghdad, gets close to the heart of the matter:
“No country in the Arab world is better suited to be the “headquarters” of the war against Islamic terrorism than Iraq. It is centrally located, inherently rich, and of all the Arab countries the least Islamist and the most secular. Militarily, it is a country of wide open spaces. It has an infrastructure of many military bases, particularly air bases, which are Saddam’s legacy. Today, in Northern Iraq, which is distinctly friendly to the U.S., our military forces are settling in for a long stay. Bases in Northern Iraq will enable us to keep a very close eye on all those “friendly outposts of Islam” such as Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States.”
Back, in other words, to the discussion of the national interests of the Coalition members suppressed by the removal of the “root of all instability” thread from this blog a couple of days ago by the Ladymichaelists: none so deaf as they who WILL not hear…
Hank– “That mistake exposes your own prejudice in the matter”
You mean my prejudice that Americans, on the whole, are lazy, greedy bastards who would gladly slaughter babies to put gas in their tanks? Imagine that.
“Or will you agree that we should try to discern which of the two diametrically opposed views is the real voice of the ordinary mass of the Iraqi people?”
No, we can just agree that it is better to withdraw American troops from an illegal invasion and occupation to secure American oil interests in Iraq. All other questions are secondary.
And really just the opposite side of the coin from those we will term as Hankcharlescmarjeffists which is some kind of fascism.
“They thus must be presumed”
Why don’t you stop trying to presume and just accept that they are people who are pissed off that the US is getting away with theft and murder?
Is oil a secular interest? Well, I guess so then.
“they favour civil war which will present further opportunities to indulge their intellectual bad faith”
Maybe Arabs are just tired of getting bullied and looted.
I know you use the word after a hard night of drinking, so lose the faux pious attitude.
pissed off- adj : aroused to impatience or anger; “made an irritated gesture”; “feeling nettled from the constant teasing”; “peeved about being left out”; “felt really pissed at her snootiness”; “riled no end by his lies”; “roiled by the delay” [syn: annoyed, irritated, miffed, nettled, peeved, pissed, riled, roiled, steamed, stunng]
Jon, from the same article;you were asking why your tax dollar:
“Toward the end of his acceptance speech [of the Congressional Gold Medal] , Blair took careful note of what must cross the mind of every American by saying to us:
“And I know it’s hard on America, and in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I’ve never been to, but always wanted to go… I know out there there’s a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, ‘Why me? Why us? And why America?’”
The Prime Minister answered his own question:
“Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.”
Hmm… interesting. Bet Iraq would be a great place to start an empire.
Wow… what a load of horsehockey.
But I do admit that I am no longer working to keep up with the drivelanche (thanks for the great word Kit!) the fascist contingent in manufacturing on the site, many things I might interject will be out of context and irrelivent to what you think you are talking about.
I’m out. Have a nice night. Peace.
And even my typos might be irrelevant. Whoops! So much for my proofing skills.
And another thing, during your disrespectful bashing sessions of Nadia, LadyBird and Michael, try to remember that all three of them (probably) speak English as a second language and are already disadvantaged while trying to defend their point of view from you. When subjected to the bashing they take, it is probably to be expected that they will tend to bash back. Maybe a more respectful treatment will elicit the same.
To say we must stay in Iraq to save it from chaos is a lie http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5290367–107865,00.html
This is a fiasco without parallel in recent British history. Iraqis must run their country: we’ve made enough mess of it already
Simon Jenkins
Wednesday September 21, 2005
Guardian
Don’t be fooled a second time. They told you Britain must invade Iraq because of its weapons of mass destruction. They were wrong. Now they say British troops must stay in Iraq because otherwise it will collapse into chaos.
This second lie is infecting everyone. It is spouted by Labour and Tory opponents of the war and even by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell. Its axiom is that western soldiers are so competent that, wherever they go, only good can result. It is their duty not to leave Iraq until order is established, infrastructure rebuilt and democracy entrenched.
Note the word “until”. It hides a bloodstained half century of western self-delusion and arrogance. The white man’s burden is still alive and well in the skies over Baghdad (the streets are now too dangerous). Soldiers and civilians may die by the hundred. Money may be squandered by the million. But Tony Blair tells us that only western values enforced by the barrel of a gun can save the hapless Mussulman from his own worst enemy, himself.
The first lie at least had tactical logic. The Rumsfeld doctrine was to travel light, hit hard and get out. Neoconservatives might fantasise over Iraq as a democratic Garden of Eden, a land re-engineered to stability and prosperity. Harder noses were content to dump the place in Ahmad Chalabi’s lap and let it go to hell. Had that happened, I suspect there would have been a bloody settling of scores but by now a tripartite republic hauling itself back to peace and reconstruction. Iraq is, after all, one of the richest nations on earth.
Instead the invasion came with tanks of glue. Decisions were taken, with British compliance, to make Iraq an experiment in “ground zero” nation-building. All sensible advice was ignored on the assumption that whatever America and Britain did would seem better than Saddam, and better than our doing nothing. Kipling’s demons danced through Downing Street. Britain did not want to colonise Iraq. Yet somehow Blair’s “fighting not for territory but for values” needed territory after all, as if to prove itself more than a soundbite.
The scenes broadcast yesterday from Basra show how far authority in southern Iraq has collapsed. This is tragic. When I was there two years ago the south was, in its own terms, a success. While the Americans were unleashing mayhem to the north, the British were methodically applying Lugard-style colonialism in Basra. They formed alliances with sheikhs, bribed warlords and won hearts and minds by going unarmoured. There was optimism in the air.
British policy demanded one thing, momentum towards local sovereignty and early withdrawal. There was no such momentum. An ever more confident insurrection was allowed first to impede and then dictate the timetable of withdrawal. Sunni terrorists now hold American and British policy in their grip. The result has been an inevitable civil collapse. We do not even know on which side are the Basra police.
The British government — and opposition — is in total denial. Ministerial boasts can’t conceal the gloom of private briefings. Blair has done what no prime minister should do. He has put his soldiers at a foreign power’s mercy. First that power was America. Now, according to the defence secretary, John Reid, it is a band of brave but desperate Iraqis entombed in Baghdad’s Green Zone. He says he will stay until they request him to go, when local troops are trained and loyal and infrastructure is restored. That means doomsday. Everyone knows it.
Iraqis of my acquaintance are numb at the violence unleashed by the west’s failure to impose order on their country. They are baffled at the ineptitude, the counter-productive cruelty of the arrests, bombings and suppressions. They are past caring whether it was better or worse under Saddam. They know only that more people a month are being killed than at any time since the massacres of the early 1990s. If death and destruction are any guide, Britain’s pre-invasion policy of containment was far more successful than occupation.
Infrastructure is not being restored. Baghdad’s water, electricity and sewers are in worse shape than a decade ago. Huge sums — such as the alleged $1bn for military supplies — are being stolen and stashed in Jordanian banks. The new constitution is a dead letter except the clauses that are blatantly sharia. These are already being enforced de facto in Shia areas.
British soldiers are in a war over whose course, conduct and outcome their leaders have no control. Their government’s exit strategy is no longer realistic, indeed is dishonest. Talk of reducing troop levels from 8,000 to 3,000 next year has been abandoned. Everyone seems on the wrong planet. Meanwhile daily groping for good news and the sickening litany of the bad is reminiscent of Vietnam. Nobody reads Barbara Tuchman on folly.
Signalling withdrawal would, it is said, give a green light to the gangs and private militias, to revenge attacks, ethnic cleansing and even partition. That threat is no longer meaningful since these are all happening anyway. The militias have reportedly infiltrated at least half the police and internal security forces in each area. Barely a tenth of the army is considered loyal to the central authority. That a Basra police station should be vulnerable to al-Sadr irregulars is appalling.
The 150,000 foreign troops on Iraqi soil are overwhelmingly committed to self-protection. They do not do law and order any more. Power is finding its new locus, in the mafias, sheikhdoms, militias and warlords that flourish amid anarchy. Where there is no security, the gunman is always king.
The alleged reason for occupying Iraq was to build security and democracy. We have dismantled the first and failed to construct the second. Iraq is a fiasco without parallel in recent British policy. Now we are told that we must “stay the course” or worse will befall. This is code for ministers refusing to admit a mistake and hoping someone else will after they are gone. By then the Kurds will be more detached, the Sunnis more enraged and the Shias more fundamentalist. A hundred British soldiers will have died.
America left Vietnam and Lebanon to their fate. They survived. We left Aden and other colonies. Some, such as Malaya and Cyprus, saw bloodshed and partition. We said rightly that this was their business. So too is Iraq for the Iraqis. We have made enough mess there already.
British soldiers may indeed be the best in the world. But why then is Blair driving them to humiliation?
“We were not afraid. We are here to protect our country,” said Pvt. Tarek Hazem, 28, of Baghdad, his hands and uniform still red with the blood of men he helped treat when the building exploded. “All we feel is motivated to kill terrorists.” Source
It’s ashame that nothing like this ever gets posted here. I wonder what Tarek Hazem would think of Ladybird.
Michael not only speaks English as a second language but has a secondhand knowledge of English newspapers and their reputation. The Guardian is a notorious rag of liberal moralising and Simon Jenkins is its prophet.His ‘thought piece’ is not datelined “Baghdad” of course.The source I quoted above, a Mr. Walsh who actually lives in Baghdad, was 440 yards from a 500lb bomb that the people supported by Michael used to kill 112 workers. That writer states, if I must quote it again:
Why don’t you ask Mr. Jenkins to get out of his local pub and go and talk to Mr. Walsh in Baghdad Michael or, better still, why don’t you go there and talk to him yourself. Too bad you went to Paris instead — although very understandable…
In post #10 above i gave the link to the article in which the American resident in Baghdad working for an American company expressed his frustration following muslim terrorist bom outrages as follows:
I am delighted and warmed to see just reported in the Washington Times that a major player in the muslim world has finally spoken up:
“Jordan’s King Abdullah II told a gathering of American rabbis yesterday that Jews and Muslims are irrevocably “tied together by culture and history” and that he is willing to take radical measures to combat Muslim extremists.
“We face a common threat: extremist distortions of religion and the wanton acts of violence that derive therefrom,” the king said. “Such abominations have already divided us from without for far too long.” “
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050922–120909-9902r.htm
This is a brave man risking his life to take a stand against the Ladymichaelists. Let all those of us who oppose the “abominations” which the Ladymichaelists support reach out a hand to the man.
The other side of the Ladymichaelist coin:
” …In the first decades of its existence, Israel was widely admired as the national refuge which Jews deserved and an egalitarian society as well. The Six-Day War of 1967 was the turning point. The Soviet Union and its clients, Egypt and Syria, were humiliated. Vengeful Soviet propagandists worldwide threw the book of communist insults at Israel, calling it Hitlerite, imperialist, an occupying power, the tool of the United States, and the rest of it.
Here was a blinding example of the kind of manipulation of public opinion that George Orwell immortalized in “1984” as a Two Minute Hate — and it worked.…”
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19577
Remind anyone of the Ladymichaelist techniques on this blog?
Gott mit uns: On Bush and Hitler’s rhetorichttp://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/942
September 1, 2004
With 49.3% of New York City residents in a recent Zogby poll believing that some people in our government knew of the 911 attack in advance and allowed it to happen, the President as right-wing evangelical prophet is under siege in his Madison Square Garden bunker. Convention watchers should take careful note of the theocratic nationalist rhetoric at the Republican convention this week.
When was the last time a Western nation had a leader so obsessed with God and claiming God was on our side?
If you answered Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany, you’re correct. Nothing can be more misleading than to categorize Hitler as a barbaric pagan or Godless totalitarian, like Stalin.
Yet, Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post Editor Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, reported that Bush told him virtually the same thing prior to the attack on Iraq. When Woodward asked him if he has consulted his father, the 41st President of the United States before ordering the invasion of Iraq, Bush commented that “He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength; there is a higher father that I appeal to.” The obvious implication is that Bush the Younger believes he is on a mission from God and a Holy Crusade in the Middle East.
As Bush has invoked the cross of Jesus to simultaneously attack the Islamic and Arab world, Hitler also saw the value of exalting the cross while waging endless war: “To be sure, our Christian Cross should be the most exalted symbol of the struggle against the Jewish-Marxist-Bolshevik spirit.”
–
Revised and updated October 17, 2004 –
Bob Fitrakis is the Editor of the Free Press (freepress.org), a political science professor, attorney and co-author with Harvey Wasserman of George W. Bush vs. the Superpower of Peace.
Here’s another good read: The Most Dangerous Cult in The World:
“Religion is poison.“
–Chairman Mao Tse-tung
*ducking to avoid fascist flames* :-P
There sure alot of Jew haters on this blog…
Didn’t Hitler hates jews too…?
Hitler = 10 million dead jews.
Arabs/Ladybird/Michael/Keld Belch = Dreams of 10 mllion more dead Jews.
Click Here
BAGHDAD — The Gulf of Mexico is 7,000 miles away, but Iraqis are worried about hurricanes Katrina and Rita: They fear the storms will divert U.S. money and attention from Iraq.
“Our hearts and our prayers are with the victims,” Planning Minister Barham Saleh says. “But one should also keep in mind the importance of reconstruction in Iraq. You cannot leave Iraq alone, because failure is not an option here.”
Source: Click Here
oh yeah, and few thousand Americans as well…
UN Human Rights Body to Scrutinise U.S. Abuses
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30355
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 (IPS) — The U.N. Human Rights Committee, scheduled to meet in Geneva next month, has written to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) calling for any available evidence of human rights abuses by the United States — particularly in the aftermath of its global war on terrorism.
The 18-member committee, comprising of independent human rights experts, will take up “issues of specific concerns relating to the effect of measures taken (by the administration of President George W. Bush) in the fight against terrorism following the events of 11 September 2001,” the day the United States was subject to terrorist attacks.
The primary focus will be “on the implications of the USA Patriot Act on nationals and non-nationals, as well as problems relating to the legal status and treatment of persons detained in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and other places of detention outside the USA.”
The U.S. Congress adopted the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 in order to provide “appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism.”
But virtually all human rights organisations, both domestic and international, have criticised the Act as seriously threatening civil liberties and freedoms in the United States.
“The USA Patriot Act was destined to foster abuses, as it weakened the system of checks and balances on law enforcement while setting aside due process safeguards under the law,” says Jumana Musa, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA.
Alarmingly, Musa added, the Patriot Act has inspired a proliferation of copycat laws worldwide, prompting abuses that the United States has officially pledged to counter.
“The boast that the United States is now the world’s only superpower has a grim undertow in the area of human rights; no one can tell Washington what to do or not do, no matter how egregious its cruelties,” says Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy.
“Most governments deserve to be censured by a human rights committee. The United States, far from being an exception, is among the most culpable — in particular because of its large-scale foreign policy efforts pursued under the rubric of a ‘war on terrorism’ over the last four years,” Solomon told IPS.
The rhetorical use of “human rights” as a political football has mired its transcendent importance in the muck of self-serving hypocrisies based on the tacit precept that might makes right, he added.
“The character of the Bush administration is such that the U.S. delegation to the United Nations will — in practice — indignantly refuse to recognise a single standard of human rights whenever such a standard would put the U.S. record in a negative light,” said Solomon, author of the recently-released book ‘War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.’
The U.S.-based Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute at the University of California in Berkeley has detailed some 180 alleged human rights violations by the United States, including 11 types of violations of individual rights and 19 types of violations of government duties.
These violations include enforcement of the Patriot Act, and also allegations of killings, torture, detentions and other “inhuman treatment” in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Last July, the Berkeley City Council submitted to the Human Rights Committee a report prepared by the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, titled “Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11″.
In June, four independent experts of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights expressed “deep regrets” that “the Government of the United States has still not invited us to visit those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Guantanamo Bay naval base”.
The Bush administration has also turned down a similar request from the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and a joint request by the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on torture and health.
“Such requests were based on information, from reliable sources, of serious allegations of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, arbitrary detention, violations of their right to health and their due process rights,” the four experts said in a statement released in June.
They also said that many of the allegations have come to light through declassified government documents. “The purpose of the visit would be to examine objectively the allegations first-hand and ascertain whether international human rights standards that are applicable in these particular circumstances are being upheld with respect to those detained persons,” the experts added.
When the Human Rights Committee meets in Geneva from Oct. 17 to Nov. 3, it is expected to discuss the submissions made by the Bush administration. These submissions include Washington’s periodic reports on how it has helped enforce the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The committee was established to specifically monitor the implementation of the Covenant and the Protocols to the Covenant in the territory of States parties. The committee convenes three times a year for sessions of three weeks’ duration.
Under article 40 of the Covenant, States parties must submit reports every five years on the measures they have adopted which give effect to the rights recognised in the Covenant and on the progress made in the enjoyment of those rights.
The United States will be appearing before the committee for the first time in the post-Sep. 11 period.
Although only members of the committee and representatives of the relevant state party may take part in the dialogue, NGOs are encouraged to submit written information or reports to the committee.
Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy pointed out that for a long time, officials in Washington have been dismissive of the human rights pretensions of regimes that clearly are human rights violators, while much of what Washington does to violate human rights is “coated with a veneer of righteousness”.
A multi-track monologue discourse from Washington — in tandem with tremendous economic, political, diplomatic and military power — can be bought to bear on the United Nations, he said.
“A superpower that is striving to remake the 60-year-old world body in its own image can hardly be expected to submit to institutional scrutiny of its actual human rights record. The self-designated role of Uncle Sam at the United Nations is to preach and teach without reflecting or learning,” he argued.
A harsh truth is that a pronounced form of jingoism is at the core of the Bush administrations approach to the United Nations, Solomon added.
“Human rights violations come in many shapes, styles and sizes. The United States, like many other countries, has a government well-practiced at dodging accountability and proclaiming its own virtues,” he said.
“But the U.S. record, as assessed by independent organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is reprehensible,” Solomon noted. (END/2005)
You’re welcome for the word “drivelanche,” Jon. It’s a useful one.
Let’s review a few incontrovertable facts, admitted by both sides in this debate:
1) The invasion of Iraq was predicated on the assertion that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction that they were about to give to terrorists. That turned out to be untrue.
2) American soldiers detained thousands of Iraqis, and tortured a number of them. Most had no involvement in terrorism.
3) Iraq is not stable, or safe, or likely to become so in the forseeable future.
4) The United States will spend over 200 Billion on this operation.
5) A minimum of 12,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.
6) Nearly 2000 Americans have been killed and thousands more permanently disabled. Tens of thousands more have had their lives disrupted by having their terms of service extended without notice, and being rotated back to Iraq for 6–12 months at a time. Many have lost jobs, some have lost their families.
7) Local law enforcement and emergency services, including those responsible for dealing with Hurricane Katrina, have complained that the extended absence of so many reservists from their duties as firemen, policemen, and other first responders has hampered their ability to deal with emergencies and with routine law enforcement.
Now, I honestly don’t know if Iraqis are better off now than they were under Hussein. Having a brutal dictator with working electricity and water, or having an ineffective, fractured legislature with car bombs going off and a foriegn power in your streets is a Hobson’s choice if ever there was one. I do know that how Iraqis choose to live is a choice for Iraqis to make, and for Iraqis to bear the burden of.
But I do know, beyond the shadow of a doubt that AMERICANS are less well off as a result of this invasion, and that our government’s first priority ought to be OUR welfare.
If the American people are to be asked to sacrifice to intervene in the affairs of another nation at the cost of our blood and our money, we have the right to ask what benefit it brings us, and the cause of freedom and prosperity as a whole. This invasion has, thus far, brought one tangible benefit — the removal of a tyrant — one among dozens around the world who richly deserve any fate that justice can serve them.
The problem is that the benefit to the Iraqis, in the near term, or the long term, is unclear. But the harm to the United States and its citizens is brutally clear. 200 Billion Dollars, 2000 dead, tens of thousands disabled, our international image besmirched, and our resources streched thin.
That’s a lot for the NeoCons to answer for with so little benefit to those they were elected to serve.
It would be great if the ‘experts’ actually read it before commenting…
I think the comrades must have decided to pay Michael by the word. What a silly billy he is!
Kit — why do you say your facts are “incontrovertable”? Is it perhaps to make respond “Oh, in that case I accept whatever conclusion you come up with”? Are not some of them incomplete? Are not some of them of dubious relevance? And How does your conclusion flow from your “facts”? Are you not guilt of picking and choosing some facts and avoiding others equally if not more relevant to the overall question? Is not this casuistry?Have you even begun to address the question of your country’s interests in the region when you say ” our government’s first priority ought to be OUR welfare” as if the war had nothing to do with that welfare?Have you given no attention to the quality and motives of those who are REALLY trying to leave your country’s our “image” besmirched? And why are you concerned with images more than reality? Am I turning into Jon by asking you long strings of leading questions?
Predicated on the fact that Saddam was in material breach of 1441 and every other resolution related to disarmament, support for terrorism, etc., since 1991. The disarmament requirements were put in place as terms of original cease fire. 12 years later, and after having been caught repeatedly lying about disarmament and failing to implement the other cease fire requirements, The US/UK decided to verify compliance themselves. Sorry Saddam. We didn’t want to risk it any longer.
Yeah — and the soldiers who were abusing detainees are under arrest.
Thanks to the civilized world for all of their compassion for Iraqis and practical help.
I wonder what a few more 9/11’s would cost the US and the world? Oh, and thanks again for your help…
That is a lot and a tragedy. I wonder who is killing more now? The US soldiers or the baathist insurgents/terrorists?
That level of causalties was reached within the first 30 minutes of the somme battle. I’m sure liberals find it strange that soldiers continue to do their duty. They just can’t understand it.
Really? I heard Michael Moore complaining. I heard some democrats trying to cover Blanco’s incompetent ass with this nonsense. Tell me, how many LA NG soldiers were available during Katrina? How many were actually deployed and when? Not to mention thoussands of other NG troops/materials offerred from other states. When were they deployed? Blanco dropped tha ball. Failed to establish security and support during evacuation and immediate aftermath, thus making it impossible for relief org’s like Red Cross to get in when they were ready. The Federal government is NOT ALLOWED to provide active duty military for domestic security purposes.
The lack of international support, and the actions of the terrorists, make your equation uglier and uglier each day.
Same argument could have been used during WWII. We will be safer when we win. We will be better off when we win. Wars tend to be ugly matters full of sacrifice and casualties, etc.
You expect certainty in an uncertain world. Ain’t gonna happen.
With a bit more help, at least rhetorically for god’s sake, the odds for success would increase. Is that not worthy? could the combined power of the civilized world truly fail to overcome a dictator? Would it not send a message to the other baddies?
It was congress under Clinton who voted to support the overthrow of Saddam. Don’t try to pretend that Bush invented Saddam.
Kit,
Re: Iraqi WMD, you might want to spend a few minutes (5–10) reviewing unscom’s high level summary of events in Iraq.
It is blatantly clear that Saddam did not comply with the letter or the spirit of UN cease fire requirements.
UNSCOM: CHRONOLOGY OF MAIN EVENTS
Instead of immediately forcing compliance, the UN let it drag on for over a decade, and still balked when the moment of truth arrived.
1) The invasion of Iraq was predicated on the assertion that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction that they were about to give to terrorists. That turned out to be untrue.
Actually it was predicated on many assertions including that Saddam PROBABLY had large stockpiles of WMDs (which is apparently what he wanted everyone to think) and that he would DEFINITELY resume their production once the sanctions were lifted and the world looked the other way (both of which would have happenned by now). Since Saddam HAD employed terrorists against the US (an assassin against former President GHW Bush), it was hardly speculation that he might be inclined to give chemical or nuclear materials to one of the terrorist organizations he was harboring (including Zarqawi) for anonymous use against the US.
KIT: 4) The United States will spend over 200 Billion on this operation.
CHARLES: I wonder what a few more 9/11’s would cost the US and the world? Oh, and thanks again for your help…
It would have cost a hell of a lot more than 200 billion. The US had 1 million more Americans looking for jobs in the 3 months after 9–11.
5) A minimum of 12,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.
As Charles pointed out, mostly by the terrorists, but you also have to factor in the Iraqis that WOULD have been killed by Saddam at this point, would be holed away in political prisons for almost barely any reason, and would have died from the continued sanctions. The removal of Saddam stopped that. But don’t let that stop your weeping over Saddam’s passing.
KIT:6) Nearly 2000 Americans have been killed…
We lost over 1500 in a TRAINING accident for the invasion of Normandy. No doubt that discretionary war wasn’t worth it either.
Local law enforcement and emergency services, including those responsible for dealing with Hurricane Katrina
Ha ha ha! Are you so ignorant of the size and capabilities of the US forces to believe we don’t have the resources to do both…and more?
Now, I honestly don’t know if Iraqis are better off now than they were under Hussein.
I bet you don’t.
Having a brutal dictator with working electricity
Only if you were in his good graces. Saddam routinely used access to electricity and water to punish those he who didn’t kiss his ring with enough passion. Northern Iraq had not had ANY power or water for 10 years. The biggest problem with electricity now is the rapidly expanding Iraqi economy and the overly cheap access to energy. People can now afford lots of air conditioners and new cars, so they buy them.
I do know that how Iraqis choose to live is a choice for Iraqis to make, and for Iraqis to bear the burden of.
My how compassionate! And when Iraq devolves into a civil war which ends up embroiling 5 adjacent M.E. countries as well, I’m sure you’ll have a really righteous feeling way down deep.
But I do know, beyond the shadow of a doubt that AMERICANS are less well off as a result of this invasion, and that our government’s first priority ought to be OUR welfare.
The fact that you don’t connect Iraq’s well-being to America’s only shows how ignorant you are of the whole situation.
The problem is that the benefit to the Iraqis, in the near term, or the long term, is unclear.
In the sense that benefits of democracy are always unclear, you are right. In the sense that the terrorists will ultimately lose, you are wrong. The terrorists’ actions are the Iraqi elected goverment’s BEST publicity. That’s why people like Ladybird WANT to believe those actions are being cleverly orchestrated by the Coalition (err…the US, of course, wants to control Iraqi oil…why are the BRITISH involved in that plot?)
CMAR, your argument is beneath contempt. Implying that anyone who disagrees with this policy is Neville Chamberlain is the worst kind of rhetorical bankruptcy.
First, comparing this operation to WWII is disingenuous in the extreme. There is no equivalence between the threat from Saddam Hussein, and that posed by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. We didn’t declare war on Hitler, he declared it on us after we declared war on his ally, Japan. And yes, of course, we should have, and did, prosecute that war to its end. We had been attacked on American soil. Declaring war on Hitler was overdue, and inevitable, since we had a number of mutual defense agreements with Great Britain and France.
If Hussein had been invading Saudi Arabia, then I would have supported intervention, as I did during the first Gulf War when Hussein invaded Kuwait. Your assumption that you are dealing with a quietist or a disciple of Michael Moore is unfounded.
Arguing that we had legal justification under UN resolutions is absurd. The UN did not authorize the operation. I don’t believe it is too obtuse to insist that the Security Council is the legitimate authority on whether a UN security resolution has been violated. I grant that it is (barely) arguable whether or not this war was legal under the law of nations, but the contempt for international law that this administration continues to manifest makes me doubt whether enforcing UN resolutions was the purpose for this fight. We certainly haven’t sprung to enforce them in Sudan, or Israel.
And yes, I have read the resolutions, and the UNSCOM summary. I find nowhere in it a resolution authorizing the use of military force by the US to enforce a UN resolution in this matter.
The argument for this war at the time of its inception was, as a senior administration official put it at the time “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” There are a raft of scary quotes that can take up needless space on this board to the effect of “We can’t wait for the UN, Hussein is going to give Bin Laden a (dirty bomb, cask of anthrax, nuke…take your pick.)”
The argument that this invasion has anything whatsoever to do with 9/11 or with stopping attacks on American soil has been so thoroughly discredited, that it is hard to know where to begin. Please articulate your argument that our continued occupation of Iraq is making Americans safer at home.
You make the argument that “most” of the Iraqi civilian casualties have been caused by the “terrorists.” I wasn’t aware that the number of casualties inflicted by both sides had been calculated by any legitimate authority. I do know that more than 12,000 civilians are dead, that we have bombed residential neighborhoods, and that we conduct urban assaults in populated areas on a regular basis. Being a soldier trained in urban and anti-insurgent ops myself, I do know that these sorts of operations do cause large numbers of civilian casualties. I do know that NONE of them would have died in this conflict if the invasion had not happened.
How many of them Saddam might have murdered is another question, of course, but while that is our concern, it does not obligate us to unseat him, or to occupy Iraq for years on end.
If tyranny alone justifies intervention, then where next, NeoCon saviors? Sudan? Iran? Syria? Myanmar? Nepal? North Korea? Red China? Of course if this administration had supported the International Criminal Court, we would have had a forum to argue for Security Council action against malicious despots…
Calling your partners in debate “ignorant,” and using hectoring tones will not address my question. Neither does the ridiculous blood libel that I am looking forward to Civil War — which is, by the way, the most likely outcome of this invasion and feckless occupation. Saying that the Iraqis have a right to their future without an occupying force in their streets is not indicative of a lack of compassion, it is an expression of faith in self-determination.
Now that all the abuse, canard, and cliche’ baiting has been dealt with, my question is simply put. What is this war doing for Americans? It is not mercenary, after 2000 dead and 200 Billion to ask why we are there, and what reasonable purpose is served by staying, especially if the most likely outcome of our current policy is a Sunni-Shia-Kurdish bloodbath.
The way Iraq is run is a matter for Iraqis. The maintanance of peace and civil order is a matter for their government.
I think any person of good will cares what happens to the Iraqis. But I do not blush to admit that I care about Americans more.
KIT,
your argument is beneath contempt. Implying that anyone who disagrees with this policy is Neville Chamberlain
I’m glad you didn’t miss that unstated implication.
comparing this operation to WWII is disingenuous in the extreme. There is no equivalence between the threat from Saddam Hussein, and that posed by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.
Saying it doesn’t make it so.
We didn’t declare war on Hitler, he declared it on us after we declared war on his ally, Japan.
Well if you had read the first link I provided on that article of mine, then you would know that there is some doubt about that. We went to war in Europe because we believed Germany had and was aiding Japan…which turned out not to be true. Was our war with Germany predicated on a LIE???
Otherwise — since you claim the US government should act only for the immediate good of Americans — what was Germany going to do to us?? They were involved in a two front war with the USSR and the British Empire…both of which dwarfed them in population.
But we neglected our war with Japan (Tojo-bin-forgotten?) and sent a million soldiers to Europe. Why?
We had been attacked on American soil.
Heard of 9–11? “Oh! But not by Saddam!” Well, Germany didn’t attack us in 1941 either.
Declaring war on Hitler was overdue, and inevitable, since we had a number of mutual defense agreements with Great Britain and France.
No. we. didn’t have any such treaty. If that were true, then why didn’t we go to war with Germany in 1940 when it invaded and CONQUERED France?? Read a history book, will you?
But war with Hitler WAS overdue and inevitable: for the reason I gave at my blog which you read. The same was true for deposing Saddam.
I have read the resolutions, and the UNSCOM summary. I find nowhere in it a resolution authorizing the use of military force by the US to enforce a UN resolution in this matter
The UN is nothing more than the nations that make it up. The point is that Saddam was not in compliance. It was US primarily that beat him out of Kuwait; the US who had successful captured the Republican Guard, the US (with British help) that had contained Saddam for 12 years. Consequently it was the US that had the responsibility to depose Saddam even France could not be convinced to go along.
That’s right. I think I already have explained why that “smoking gun/mushroom cloud” very well could have occurred in a few years after the sanctions were lifted and the world looked the other way. The Administration believed the threat *might* be more immediate, and — since protecting Americans was its first duty — chose not to take Saddam’s word on it since he had lied before.
the ridiculous blood libel that I am looking forward to Civil War
Uh huh.
If tyranny alone justifies intervention, then where next, NeoCon saviors? Sudan? Iran? Syria? Myanmar? Nepal? North Korea? Red China?
As the opportunity presents itself as it did for Saddam, why not?
Of course if this administration had supported the International Criminal Court, we would have had a forum to argue for Security Council action against malicious despots…
Well, France and Russia certainly did not have to wait for the US in order to indict Saddam. Do you think Bush or Clinton would have stood in their way? Heck, if one couldnt’ build a case against SADDAM for the ICC, then who COULD it? But that’s the problem with the ICC. It is only useful against member nations like the US who CARE about keeping treaties. Any US President who advocated such a treaty for the US should be impeached.
???HOW could exposing Americans to such a court be good for AMERICANS???
I’m beginning to doubt your genuineness.
What is this war doing for Americans?…I think any person of good will cares what happens to the Iraqis. But I do not blush to admit that I care about Americans more.
Umm…heard of 9–11? Do you remember what happened when we left a time-bomb called Afghanistan ticking just because it was a disaster not happening on American soil? Nuff said.
you didn’t read it very well then…Here’s a little taste:
Here’s the rest…Click Here
I suggest you go back to elementary school and learn how to read better.
Does the “all necessary means” text confuse you or something?
Sigh.
“I suggest you go back to elementary school and learn how to read better.”
“Read a history book, will you?”
I can see there’s no point in attempting adult conversation here. You argue like six-year old bullies on a playground. I will pray that you all learn that ridicule and insult are not argument, and that those who are honest with their inquiries do not have to be rude and flippant. There’s no need for me to come back here. If I want to know what the lot of you “think,” I’ll just listen to Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
Enjoy talking to yourselves.
It was the “all necessary means to uphold and implement” that confused wasn’t it. ;-)
“I suggest you go back to elementary school and learn how to read better.”
Wow, that’s a bully to you…I wish I had went to your school, I would have gone far. I could have been the Uday of your school.
He is(Rush) an idiot and I’d love to do Ann Coulter… :-)