Good luck in your job search!
p.s.
The jobs web site www.monster.ca shows 20+ engineering jobs in northern ontario...
"Perhaps when I settle down more firmly I can do more serious work to enlighten people about the real facts."
I wish you success but getting people to learn facts is a tough job.
I knew that would happen. It's the result of years and years and years of Liberal government and a partially state funded broadcaster (CBC) which knows that their position is more secure if Liberal ideology (ie. America bashing) is promoted non-stop. Ontario is particulary bad with that. Some year, perhaps you should move to Western Canada where we have a more balance view of the world and normally don't tune our dials to CBC.
"Iraq The Model are currently choosing to delete any posts (including all of my recent ones)"
-Foddy
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...4163099/
#651362
Why would any rational person want to post comments where their views are considered idiotic?
Alaa, unfortunately very few people fully understand the situation in Iraq. It's worse in the US. Most people just want the US to withdraw, ASAP.
I don't know what specialty of engineering you're in, but there are many engineering jobs in Vancouver:
http://vancouver.craigslist.org/egr/
and if you like Toronto:
http://engineering.jobshark.com/
...Engineering.cfm
http://toronto.craigslist.org/egr/
Louise | 08.02.07 - 11:03 am > ... Western Canada where we have a more balanced view of the world
Dear Louise, do you count your views on the world among the "balanced"?
Anyway, I am sure Alaa is right: Regardless of political persuations, the majority of people (including journalists and other meadia people) in Europe and the Americas are pretty ignorant about Iraq. That also include some presidents and their vicepricks...
Alaa,
Welcome to North America! What a very pleasant surprise. I've followed your blog from the beginning.
Engineers seem to be the fair haired boys/girls these days. So,you should enjoy some success in your search.
Canadian cold...well,that will take some tolerance. But, indeed, a beautiful country & people, and well worth the effort.
My very best to you & your family!
Alaa, not sure of the area of your education, nor the location of where you are, but if applicable, check out INCO (nickel and copper mine). Huge employer of Sudbury ON, they just announced plans for a big expansion. There's also spin off specialty technology businesses that support this company as well located withing the region.
Here's a link to peruse through.
http://www.bioteq.ca/inco.html
That's a nice sentiment Roger, of Oregon.
I am not sure what part of Ontario you are living in but you should look at Research In Motion (Makers of the Blackberry) are located in Waterloo Ontario. Try http://www.rim.com/careers/index.shtml . They have literally hundreds of openings for all sorts positions. They are also a very multi-cultural employer. This means that they are used to people who have difficulty with English, as well as providing amenities such as dedicated prayer rooms an stuff.
Good Luck.
Surprise, surprise!
The Mohammedan parasite has no job and lives on the public dole.
How can this be?
Richard B
You may have missed my reply on the previous topic, where John explained that it was actually Americans not the ITM brothers who actually moderate their site, so I will repeat it here:
John,
Thanks a lot - that makes sense. The whole ITM blog is now really a case of preaching to the converted, which seems to be a pretty pointless exercise.
I had a couple of interesting discussions with some open-minded people over there - BacSI I seem to remember was one - but there are others (e.g. bg) who live in a dreamworld, believing, for example, that there were WMD in Iraq and that they were smuggled into Syria without the knowledge of George Bush.
Louise has of course (maybe deliberately?) completely missed the point, namely that Iraq was touted as the model to be followed in the installation of other democracies in the Middle East (hence, presumably, the name of the blog, Iraq The Model). Since it has turned out to be a model of exactly NOT how to instal a democracy in the Middle East (or anywhere else for that matter), it perhaps explains why ITM is NOT recognising free speech (which should be part of any functioning democracy).
And how ironic that Louise accuses me of posting nonsense, when I caught her out in doing exactly that a few weeks ago (remember the numbers of Iraqi refugees, Louise?). I'm still waiting for her justification and/or response.
Meantime I trust that Alaa will remain open to people of differing opinions (and living in Canada he won't be able to avoid coming across them regularly!).
And the final irony . . .
Louise says "On your own blog you can block my comments, if you wish.", without realising that it seems to be Americans who are moderating ITM, not the actual owners of the blog!!
Foddy | Homepage | 08.03.07 - 3:07 am | #
"there were WMD in Iraq and that they were smuggled into Syria"
Foddy
If you read more than left-wing crap you would know that Sodamn Insane had chemical and biological weapons and tons of uranium at various levels of enrichment. You would also know that much of his CB WMD was shipped to Syria by two methods, truck convoy and by air.
Louise says "On your own blog you can block my comments, if you wish.", without realising that it seems to be Americans who are moderating ITM, not the actual owners of the blog!!
--------------
Actually, Faux-Brain, I do know that. In fact, I even know who some of them are, or at least were. Whether they are still active or not, I couldn't say. So keep on whining. It's nice to see that I piss you off.
Louise
"Actually, Faux-Brain, I do know that. In fact, I even know who some of them are, or at least were. Whether they are still active or not, I couldn't say. So keep on whining. It's nice to see that I piss you off."
You don't piss me off in the slightest. I thoroughly enjoy pointing out the holes in your arguments, and noting the many ironies (the most recent one is even more poignant, now that it appears that you DO know that the moderators of ITM are not the ITM brothers!
Please keep on posting.
Richard B
"You would also know that much of his CB WMD was shipped to Syria by two methods, truck convoy and by air."
You should get together with bg on ITM and tell George Bush about it. He certainly doesn't seem to know. This is too funny!
Ya, right. And I suppose you assume the moderators, if they are still in business, are goverment agents, or some such thing. And by the way, I did not say that the brothers at ITM are not responsible for some, if not all, of the moderation which is currently happening. Why shouldn't they be? After all any print on paper publication has an editorial policy and has people employed to make decisions about what they will or will not publish in compliance with their policy. You're one of these fools who thinks free speech entitles you to storm some one else's gates and spew your bile where it is not welcome. And you are continually sore about it, too, like a child prone to having tantrums.
From the Patriot Post.
THE FOUNDATION
“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
OIF: Good news is bad for surrender monkeys
In our democratic republic, we charge our elected representatives with the conduct of vigorous debate about issues both foreign and domestic. In doing so, we expect them to uphold their oaths to protect and defend our Constitution.
However, politicians often posture and pretend in order to line up constituencies that perpetuate their tenure in office, regardless of constitutional constraints.
Such political posturing is a disingenuous breach of trust at best. When this deceit extends to matters of national security, especially when we are at war and continue to face formidable threats from Jihadi terrorists, it is downright traitorous.
The Democrat Party was, in a bygone era, populated by statesmen. Until JFK (that’s J.F. Kennedy not J.F. Kerry), Democrat leaders, understood the projection of force to protect America’s security and vital interests abroad.
Now, this once-proud political party is infested with hypocritical, nescient, duplicitous, reprehensible, half-witted, asinine, obsequious, meretricious, pusillanimous, indolent, imbecilic, pompous, retromingent, ignominious, ungrateful, sycophantic prevaricators (did I leave anything out?), who flippantly exploit Operation Iraqi Freedom as political fodder for their next campaign.
Truth be told, most Democrats know that the fate of the entire Middle East (and, by extension, much of the free world) depends on the establishment of a stable government in Iraq. They know that Fourth Generation Warfare in the Second Nuclear Age leaves us no choice but to confront Jihadistan on the Iraqi front. After all, if not Iraq now, then where and when?
They also know that much of what is reported in the American media reflects not only the propaganda machines of the Left, but also that of our Jihadi adversaries. This is because these cutthroats understand that our mainstream media is friendly terrain for undermining American will.
Unfortunately, petty party politics prevail, with little regard for the inconvenient truth that Leftist defeatism merely emboldens our enemy and further endangers our troops in Iraq.
Now, however, there is a confluence of analysis from the warfront in Iraq that OIF has turned a corner. Clearly, such news will have significant consequences for those Leftists who have staked their political fortunes on America’s failure, surrender and retreat from Iraq.
In the New York Times this week, two noted and vocal critics of OIF, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, analysts with the Left-leaning Brookings Institution, published an op-ed entitled “A War We Just Might Win.”
Having just returned from a fact-finding tour of Iraq, their op-ed notes, “After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. Today, morale is high. The soldiers and Marines... feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.”
On the politics of Iraq, O’Hanlon and Pollack write, “Viewed from Iraq... the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.”
Their analysis continues: “Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily ‘victory’ but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.”
Also this week, retired Army General Jack Keane testified before the House Armed Services Committee, telling them in no uncertain words, “Your actions here in the Congress appear to be in direct conflict with the realities on the ground where the trends are up and progress is being made. We are on the offensive and we have the momentum.”
That news was so distressing to Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-KS) that she walked out of the committee hearings during General Keane’s testimony, lamenting later that there was “only so much [she could tolerate] after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.” She continued, “Those kinds of [encouraging] comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying, ‘Here’s the reality of the problem’.”
Of course, reality in the alternate universe of the Left dictates that down is up, in is out, left is right, black is white, falsehood is truth, pride is humility, red is blue and, particularly in the case of Iraq, good news is bad.
Adding insult to injury, more bad news for Demos: Marine General Jim Jones conducted a congressionally mandated study of Iraq’s security forces and returned with a favorable report.
This report, combined with the continuing decline of American and Iraqi casualties, has Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid very concerned that their “defeat and retreat” political folly may backfire.
Asked about the political implications should commanding Gen. David Petraeus report significant progress during his scheduled congressional testimony in September, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) replied, “Well, that would be a real big problem for us, no question about that.”
Good news out of Iraq is “a real big problem”? Guess that depends upon whose side you’re on.
like a child prone to having tantrums.
Louise | 08.03.07 - 2:00 pm | #
That is rich. I came here to post an article talking about the left having tantrums because things are looking up in Iraq and find that Louise has labeled Foddy as having tantrums.
Louise and Richard B
You are STILL missing the point (to my complete lack of surprise). The blog we are talking about is called ITM (i.e. Iraq The Model), namely the model for a new type of democracy. For a model like that to suppress any opinon which does not agree with it is hardly a model of democratic principles. NOW do you get it?
It doesn't bother me that some of those who hold a small minority opinion worldwide want to get together and delude themselves that everything in the Iraqi garden is lovely. But if they hold themselves up as an example of how a democracy should work, then they should be prepared to defend themselves in a democratic manner, not delete opinions which they don't agree with.
And what's all this nonsense about spewing bile? What I do is point out inaccuracies, inconsistencies or ironies in some posts I see here. If you don't agree with me, then please argue my points rationally.
Louise
Here's an example of what I talked about above.
You say:
"After all any print on paper publication has an editorial policy and has people employed to make decisions about what they will or will not publish in compliance with their policy."
Are you suggesting that the ITM brothers 'employ' the people who are moderating their blog? I didn't realise it was a commercial operation.
To Faux-Brain, No, that is not what I'm suggesting. Nice try, though.
To Richard B. 
They are sooo predictable, aren't they.
Hey, Foddy! Ask us if we believe that your posts are not getting through at ITM.
After all, you credibility is absolutely stirling.
/sarcasm
Seriously, you're just a sore loser. Ba'athists are history, sweetheart. Deal with it.
Alaa:
In America I think the root of the problem is something we don't talk about much. During the Viet Nam war, when we tried to protect the south half of the country from communism, my generation marched in the streets and said no. We joined with the enemy's propaganda and avoided going to war as best we could. The most radical, anti-American went north to Canada.
I knew a "peace" nik in high school who blew a wheel off a police car with a pipe bomb. He now lives in Canada. (I've always been glad I turned away from his attempts to form a friendship).
The peaceniks turned human morals upside down to justify their existence. While all societies have to protect themself and America's calling has been to protect others when we can, these people (my people) were cowards and they needed a way of thinking that made running away heroic. The human heart is can be relentless in avoiding it's own evil. It is that rationale that justified running away, which poisons the mind of my old friends and my generation. America's sons and daughters of today put my generation to shame and we will not accept their heroism (and our own shame) without a great fight.
The worst of us went to Canada and you will find many of us trying spread these upside down morals there in Canada.
You may be able to do great good speaking up there. There are some very simple truths that puncture this bubble of falsehood: 1) Iraqis want outside help and need to be rescued. 2) Human freedom is a universal need and Iraqis appreciate it too. 3) Evil people understand the value of propaganda so they lie. 4) People living in fear are afraid to speak up and they rely on our empathy to understand their needs an help them. 5) The people in Iraq rely on the MNF to hold down what little saftey they can get. 6) Leaving evil people alone to do as they please doesn't calm them down. It makes them killers.
Good luck living among the Canadians who are basically good people, as well as the sprinkling of American draft dodgers that try to poison their minds.
Oh yeah. This one too:
7) Even though America has done badly in outsmarting the evil in Iraq, it doesn't mean the cause itself is bad. Nor does it mean that the evil is not evil.
Her, Turner, regarding # 7, it ain't over until it's over. The cause is just and justice will prevail.
Louise
"Seriously, you're just a sore loser. Ba'athists are history, sweetheart. Deal with it."
Sorry - I'm a sore loser? And what makes you think I support or supported Ba'athists?
Are you seriously suggesting that the US is somehow WINNING the war in Iraq? I wonder on what basis that might possibly be? I look forward to a good laugh.
At least you and I are not US taxpayers, so it's not our trillion dollars which has gone up in smoke and contributed to killing and wounding tens of thousands of people and ruining the lives of millions more. Perhaps you recall the number forced to leave their homes and even their country. More than your rather sad effort to show that there were a lot of refugees even before the war (fifty thousand in 2002, you said). Approximately 1.5 million (30 times as many) left the country in 2006 and more than 2 million have done so in total and a further 2 million been displaced internally.
And I'm somehow a sore loser??
Let's have some of the good news, if you can manufacture any.
The cause is just and justice will prevail.
Louise | 08.04.07 - 9:22 am |
If the entire world saw justice in allowing a nation to be free of a murderous tyrant, we would not have fools advocating a cut and run policy. Instead we would have discussions on how to achieve victory sooner. Of course instant victory may not be impossible but folks would still not give up on Iraqis because they would still want justice for Iraqis and all other people.
It is very sad that some seem to feel that they are free and tough sh*t for those who aren't. Nobody will be truly free when others are under the heal of a tyrant. If any good can come from the acts of terrorists, it will be that more people have been set free.
Let's have some of the good news, if you can manufacture any.
Foddy | Homepage | 08.04.07 - 10:39 am |
Anbar - to name just one place where the citizens have done a 180 and are taking back their cities and towns by working with our Armed Forces and those of Iraq.
There has been such a drastic change in Anbar that a Marine commander has requested that his men on patrol not be required to wear helmets and body armor. All over Iraq our military people are involved in less and less combat operations and more and more into rebuilding. All of this doesn't prove that we are winning but it does show that your people are loosing. For me, that is good news.
Alaa, best wishes in your search for a job. Contacts are very important, as many jobs that are advertised are in fact already filled.
So it pays to get around and talk to as many people as possible. One contact leads to another.
Are your qualifications recognised in Canada?
Alaa...
Try this website
http://webconnect.sendouts.net/C...roup=HCR&
Key=CN
And www.magna.com
It's an Aurora, Ontario based company that supplies parts to Chevy, Chrysler, etc. It's huge.
Dear Alaa,
I think that you should tell your readers about your qualifications. People want to help but are making wild guesses about the type of work that you should be seeking. I don't think that the information should be detailed enough to leave a trail that could be followed back to you but enough so that folks know the type of work you have been doing.
Does anybody know how hard or easy it is for someone like Alaa to get a work visa for the US. I have worked with many Canadian engineers but they were born there and had Canadian passports.
Richard B
"There has been such a drastic change in Anbar that a Marine commander has requested that his men on patrol not be required to wear helmets and body armor."
Can this be true? 4.5 years after the invasion, troops who invaded a sovereign country and expected to be welcomed with open arms are no longer required to wear helmets and body armour to protect themselves from the locals? What extraordinary progress!
Actually, you will find that the commander has requested that his troops wear LESS body armour, not none at all. But when the same thing happens in Baghdad, and the people who live cooped up in the Green Zone can leave it freely, I will start to agree with you.
But they do say that a drowning man will grasp at a straw.
How soon we forget when we have selective memory. If you go back to the videos made while the invasion was in progress you will see Iraqis waving and grinning at the advancing forces. That phase of the war ended very quickly and Iraqis were happy to beat Sodamn Insane's toppled statue with their shoes.
Phase two of the war in Iraq started with Muslims killing Muslims and will continue for a long time. In spite of all that has happened since phase 2 began, there are a lot of Iraqis that thank God that they have been liberated from the hell that they were in. On the other side are those who hate the Americans for destroying the good life they had at the expense of the majority. There are also those who want America out of Iraq because they are foolish enough to believe that they will become the new dictator or his aids. Mixed into the mess are foreign terrorists instigating Muslims to kill Muslims and they don't give a damn how many Sunnis or Shiites die as long as they are the victors and can have a country from which to launch attacks on the West.
Now we are in yet another phase of the battle to bring freedom to Iraqis. American leaders have abandoned the concept that an entire nation could suddenly go from living under the heal of a tyrant to a peace loving democracy. That an entire army could be trained in a short time and take over security without experience. I am sure that you have never served in the military but if you had you would know that regardless of the amount or length of the training, the real army depends on the years of experience of the officers and non-commissioned officers. The Iraqi Army is rapidly gaining that experience but much of it is from working side by side with experienced American troops.
Even on the civilian side new leaders are learning and old leaders are learning new ways. The days when the tribe with the most guns was in charge are slipping away. Those old leaders who rule by their intelligence and love of their subjects will probably be elected in the future. Those who ruled with trigger fingers and oppressed their subjects will be gone. They will not be gone suddenly. Only fools expect instant democracy but in time they will become part of history.
Before all the tyrants have been booted out, the majority of Iraqis will already be living in a new Iraq. An Iraq that dominates the entire Middle East. Not militarily but economically. While the average Iraqi will not be living in palaces, they will have a standard of living far above that of the citizens of neighboring countries. In fact, above that of many Western nations. Mesopotamians will become leaders in international trade and the oil wealth will become insignificant. Before all this can come to pass, old ways and old events must fade and be replaced with new ways. That will not happen rapidly but I do believe that it will happen but not before the capital of Iraq has been fought for and won. Baghdad will see violence to the end simply because Baghdad is the capital of Iraq.
Long ago Alaa knew that Baghdad would have major problems and that major steps were needed to make Baghdad secure. Urban fighting is the worst kind of combat and the enemy needs to be cut off from his supply's and reinforcement's but that would take a security ring around Baghdad to be most effective. At that time I proposed a "green zone" encircling Baghdad. Had I had the power to make it happen, thousands of Iraqis would have been gainfully employed in its building. Traffic into Baghdad would be channeled into just a few checkpoints. Terrorists attempting to bring in weapons would have to swim them across a canal.
Hindsight has shown that Alaa has had great foresight. Had his ideas been followed, Baghdad would be in a very different situation today. Alaa also said what could happen in Anbar long before it actually did happen. While I was opposed to arming untrained fighters, those untrained fighters have made a huge difference. In addition thousands of Anbar locals are being trained and equipped. As a result AQ is being removed from Anbar providence. In many cities and towns citizens are pointing out the terrorists and Iraq and American forces are killing and capturing those who have been fingered. Where Iraqis are both literally and figuratively giving the terrorists the finger, Iraqis are winning.
Lord only knows how long American forces will be needed in Iraq but this is one American who hopes and prays that we will stay for as long as we are needed. May God bless our troops, the Iraqi troops and those Iraqi civilians who risk their lives to defeat the terrorists.
Somewhere in Iraq is a young girl who knowingly placed herself in harms way to prevent American Marines from driving over a land mine. I pray that she is still well and will enter adulthood in a free Iraq. You will not read of her selflessness in the MSM or see her heroism portrayed in a Hollywood movie but I will not forget her brave act with only a teddy bear to aid her.
Richard B.
Your devotion to a rational and positive outcome to the war is,apparently, hearfelt. But,duration of wars are circumscribed by national self interest and equally by affordabilty. We can argue in to the night as to exactly what America's further interest really is in Iraq. It looks like a majority of Americans are deciding ENOUGH. Get out - it''s just not worth the blood sacrifice.
And, look at that cost - $10Billion a month! Four years and counting. Afghanistan essentialy bankrupted the Soviet Nation. Plus, Russian mothers got enough of the constant body bags.
And, they too were a super power.
So, a good as can solution must be found to this carnage ASAP.
"exactly what America's further interest really is in Iraq."
Self preservation.
Richard B
"You will not read of her selflessness in the MSM or see her heroism portrayed in a Hollywood movie."
A question for you: do you accept that the original story of Jessica Lynch as a heroine and her rescue as a daring escapade?
Richard B
"Now we are in yet another phase of the battle to bring freedom to Iraqis."
This is just so much nonsense! The invasion of Iraq was nothing whatsoever (except only as a possible incidental result) about bringing freedom to Iraqis. It was everything about securing an American presence in a politically troubling area of the Middle East and, to some extent also, oil. But not about making astronomical profits for American (and British?) oil companies, except, again, incidentally. It was about securing control of the oil, to ensure that it wasn't all sold to, for example, the Chinese or others with whom the US didn't see eye to eye.
However, if Bush had come forward with the true intent, he would have virtually no support for the invasion, so he went with WMD (as Wolfowitz said, the one reason everyone could agree on). Read Powell's famous speech to the UN and see how much there is there about bringing freedom to the Iraqi people.
Bush changed his justification for the invasion as time went on, in a desperate attempt to maintain credibility, and you bought it!
The battle now is not about bringing freedom to Iraqis, it's about saving face for Americans.
It's delightful to watch how the left squeaks and sputters and grunts trying to keep the shit-train they built moving. But it's stalled, and starting to roll backwards. The carnage will be horrific! But lovely!
Brian H
Oh dear! Here's another one who can't deal in specifics, so just makes broad unsupported generalisations.
It was hugely amusing to see some of your fellow-travellers on ITM trying to give the US credit for Iraq's recent victory in the Asian Soccer Cup.
I bet a lot of readers here believe the following:
1. Jessica Lynch was a hero, rescued in an a daring attempt under fire.
2. Bush invaded Iraq in order to bring democracy to the Iraqi people.
3. There WERE WMD in Iraq, but they were smuggled out into Syria.
If people believe myths like these, it's no wonder they also believe that things are getting better in Iraq. Actually, at some stage, they are BOUND to get better, but it ain't going to happen soon and it ain't going to happen before the US troops move out.
"1. Jessica Lynch was a hero"
She and most other volunteers are heroes.
"2. Bush invaded Iraq in order to bring democracy to the Iraqi people."
Bush invaded Iraq to bring an end to a tyrannical regime that was supporting terrorists.
"3. There WERE WMD in Iraq, but they were smuggled out into Syria."
You finally got something partly right.
Richard
1. I assume from the fact that you didn't deny it, you accept that the Jessica Lynch story was manufactured for the purposes of propaganda. Sadly for the volunteers, many of them have been regularly lied to by their recruiters and/or commanding officers and/or politicians. Many were told they would not have to serve more than one tour in Iraq, or were told they would be there for a limited time, only to have regulations subsequently changed. They also were provided with sub-standard equipment.
2. Supporting terrorists? Yet another Bush/Cheney lie! Please tell me you've got more than the alleged occasional payments to families of some suicide bombers? Is that it? Another of the great ironies of the Iraq War is that Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq before the invasion (and in fact Saddam and Bin Laden were enemies); now there are a whole host of them. And, ironically again, the biggest number of them come from the US's great ally (and provider of almost all the Sept 11th terrorists) Saudi Arabia!
Read Bush and Powell's contemporary speeches again. The number one reason (and numbers two and three and four reasons) are WMD, WMD and WMD (and the danger - imminent or almost imminent - posed by them to the US). There was also an outside possibility hinted at that they might fall into the hands of terrorists.
3. Even Bush doesn't believe it (or if he does, he's keeping pretty damn quiet about it!).
Come on guys, this is so easy!
Foddy, the last word about the WMD's has not been said yet.
Apart from that, the US (and NATO in AF) are fighting the enemy, period. It doesn't matter in what frikkin country the goddam battlefield is.
Outlaw Mike
WMD's?? Well, the last people looking for them left Iraq a few months ago, so unless Bush goes over there with Barney, I don't know who's going to find them (and who's going to have any credibility if they do).
"The enemy"? An enemy very largely of your own making, especially as far as Iraq is concerned. If the conflict could have been confined to Afghanistan the whole thing would have been much less complicated. And why on earth cosy up to Pakistan, in whose border areas much of the problem arose?
"It doesn't matter in what frikkin country the goddam battlefield is."
I love that (and so would Dick Cheney, for different reasons)! Did you ever read "1984"?
A question for you: Who is "the enemy" and when are you going to be able to say that it has been defeated? For Bush it's been a fantastic opportunity to keep the people afraid and easier to govern; it also allows him to make the vicious claim that people who don't agree with him are unpatriotic and/or boosting "the enemy's" position. How sad to be an American these days (and how different to the situation in early 2001). Americans - largely - used to be looked up to and respected, but not now (and I'm sure that you, living outside the US, recognise this). Fortunately, increasing numbers of Americans are realising this and are deeply embarrassed by it. Hopefully it will not last so much longer, and you will be able to hold your heads up again in pride, not bow them in shame.
"Americans are realising this and are deeply embarrassed by it."
I am not the least bit embarrassed by the fact that their are idiots all around the world. There always have been and always will be. Some are so f'ing dumb that they have to ask - Who is "the enemy and when are you going to be able to say that it has been defeated?". But I will play the stupid game and give my answer. The enemy are those who kill innocent people in an attempt to terrorize others. They will be defeated when mankind understands that such tactics to gain wealth and power will always result in the death of those using such tactics.
Since fools will be born to replace present fools, there will always be someone evil enough to keep trying to oppress others just as there will be fools who aid and abet them. Thus there will be wars and rumors of wars until the end of time. Swift and sure punishment will only diminish terrorist acts, not end them.
"Americans - largely - used to be looked up to and respected, but not now (and I'm sure that you, living outside the US, recognise this). "
Recognize this??? Recognize WHAT exactly? Oh please give me a break! Euros DO think of Americans in sterotypes you know. I don't want to know all that horsedung about lost respect. There was very little to begin with, certainly prior to 9/11.
There's a lot of anti-Americanism here, which, truth to be told, is fueled to a very great extent by the media. The most important media are state funded, and since euro socialism is anti-American, and has been so dominant here, the media are anti-American.
I would say that if our media paid proper attention to the good and the bad, the view the large public has of the US would be much more favorable. But even if that were so, there would be, to some extent, anti-Americanism, for a very humane reason: jealousy.
I don't want to come over as a heel-licker to Americans though. Because on the other hand, I am sure that run-of-the-mill Americans think about Euros in terrible sterotypes too. And I am also convinced that those typical American sterotypes DO exist, even in large numbers.
But taking it all together, it's just that I am fairly content with America's lead in the world. And really, it's not that I want to suck up to Americans. Unlike many who bash the US but do everything to get and live there, I am proud to be a European and a Fleming. This is my place, and I won't swap it for the nicest spot in America. I am even proud of my country, Belgium, if I can forget for awhile the crap of the past thirt years.
But please, stop telling nonsense about the US's loss of 'respect' after 9/11.
"A question for you: Who is "the enemy" and when are you going to be able to say that it has been defeated? "
Simple. The enemy right now is Islamic Terrorism. To me, it doesn't matter whether a jihadi is blown to pieces in Waziristan or New Jersey or Gaza.
And if Islam refuses to become a decent belief system, in spite of the west offering it the right recipe, in twenty years or so Islam ITSELF will become the enemy.
Outlaw Mike | Homepage | 08.06.07 - 6:46 pm > the US (and NATO in AF) are fighting the enemy, period.
If they are, they should go and get you to an asylum for the criminally and dangerously insane asap Period Period Period
Brian H | 08.06.07 - 1:08 am > ...
Please tell us a little more about your delusions. Or are you afraid someone would come to get you to an asylum...?
"I am sure that run-of-the-mill Americans think about Euros in terrible sterotypes too."
Only the French and Italians for me.
Dear Alaa.
I strongly suggests that you turn off the comments section of your blog. The fact that you run a blog, and what you have written in it, should be a great contribution to your CV.
However, the fact that you don't moderate the kinds of comments that turn up in the comments will most likely be held against you.
Thus, again: You should turn off comments for the future, and delete all the previous ones!
Alaa, RobinH is full of it. What does he/she/it know about Canadian employers. Nothing. That's what.
Richard B
"Swift and sure punishment will only diminish terrorist acts, not end them."
In other words, the War on Terror will never be over. Hope you're hanging on to your Halliburton shares.
Outlaw Mike
"I don't want to know all that horsedung about lost respect. There was very little to begin with, certainly prior to 9/11."
Complete nonsense! Read the polls. Here's an example for you, a poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA):
http://tinyurl.com/3e28gv
For example, comparing 1999/2000 with 2005/6, "Favourable Opinion of the US" in Germany went from 78% to 37%; in Indonesia it went from 75% to 30%, in Turkey from 62% to 12%. Only, strangely, in Russia did it go slightly up. But since then US/Russian relations have worsened considerably, so it could have reversed.
The average view in 18 countries of the "US's Influence" went from 40% "mainly positive" in 2005 to only 29% in 2007.
Do you want more poll evidence? There is plenty. Meantime feel free to post some contradictory evidence, if you have any. In the absence of that, it's clear that you are the one talking 'horsedung'.
You should turn off comments for the future, and delete all the previous ones!
RobinH | 08.07.07 - 8:53 pm |
Should that be before or after the book burning?
Richard B
I wonder if you're the only one who hasn't spotted your own inconsistency? Earlier on you were supporting ITM's decision not to post my comments on their site, but here you are criticising censorship! You're going to have to make up your mind which side of the fence you're on, old boy.
Foddy, Foddy, Foddy. When will you learn what the meaning of censorship is?
(heavy sigh)
Send them yo this site http://www.lonesentry.com/iraq/iraq.html
When someone FORCES themselves on someone else, like rapists, tyrantants, dictators, terrorists, etc., can't help but think they're all cut from the same psychotic cloth.
Richard B. | Homepage | 08.08.07 - 7:09 am > Should that be before or after the book burning?
It should be done asap. But I would very much like Alaa to continue his blogging.
The analogy between book burning and turning off comments is next to non-existent.
A better analogy is that commenters on Alaa's blog is like a teenage gang screeming and throwing books at each other in Louise's library. If she didn't stop that she would almost surely be fired. Even in Canada...
I love (metaphorically speaking) to throw books in Louise's library as much as anyone else around. Thus, my advice to Alaa is sincere, based on my best judgement and great respect for Alaa.
Louise
If you could possibly try to construct a logical argument, I will reply to it. At least you didn't post misleading statistics this time, like your earlier suggestion that the number of Iraqi refugees hadn't increased since the invasion, whereas it's now 30 times higher. And despite numerous requests, you STILL haven't either justified this or apologised!
I guess you'd like to 'censor' this post too, wouldn't you?
"I wonder if you're the only one who hasn't spotted your own inconsistency?"
Once something is published it has a different status than something that is not published because it is unwanted garbage.
"The analogy between book burning and turning off comments is next to non-existent.
"You should turn off comments for the future, and delete all the previous ones!"
Burning books or deleting published comments achieves the same end.
Richard B
"Once something is published it has a different status than something that is not published because it is unwanted garbage."
Stupid nonsense. Both involve A deciding that B should not read something written by C. And you know it.
Foddy, as usual you have your head firmly planted. All kinds of publishers pick and choose what will be published in their newspaper, magazine, etc. Very few of the manuscripts submitted actually become printed books. Just because the media is electronic doesn't change the fact that many do not want their space filled with crap so they don't publish everything that comes along.
My newspaper would not publish an article as a letter to the editor so I paid to have it published and even then I needed to have the editor's permission. Maybe what Alaa, ITM and others should do is require a contribution before one can post a comment. So many words per dollar. That would put a crimp in the style of those who comment in blog after blog.
(Heavy sigh, again.) What's the point, Richard? Some fools are so full of themselves they cannot conceive that others have no interest in reading their stupid diabtribes - er - opinions.
Faux-Brain, all publishers ("A"s) with an interest in a loyal readership ("B"s) will publish what they think will keep those readers coming back, whether it's a left wing rag or a right wing rag. Only in Faux Brain's world is that considered censorship.
For those that want censored one sided sites, try bbc.
Besides trolls never pay the bills.
Richard B/Louise
You STILL don't seem to get the point! But firstly, we are not talking about a print magazine or newspaper here. They have limited space available and there are laws and/or conventions as to what they can publish (profanity or personal abuse would not be allowed, for example).
On the Internet, with comparatively few limitations, it is pretty much a case of anything goes. Go and look at some of the stuff on ITM (well, not so much these days because they are deleting almost all comments which they don't like, but certainly in the old days). Personal abuse and profanity were pretty much the order of the day for some posters.
But the main point you don't get and STILL haven't answered, is that ITM is setting Iraq (and itself, by adopting the name) up as the MODEL for democratising the Middle East. They, of all people, should demonstrate that freedom of speech is alive and well.
Anyway, I have received an emailed apology from Omar of ITM, admitting that deletion of my posts was a mistake, so it's clear that he, at least, unlike you guys, realises that.
Finally, a few closing remarks:
"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"; George Orwell.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"; Voltaire
And a couple more, while we're at it:
"Tyrants and dictators will accept no other gods before them. They require disobedience to the First Commandment. They seek absolute control and are threatened by faith in God. They fear only the power they cannot possess -- the power of truth. So they resent the living example of the devout, especially the devotion of a unique people chosen by God."; George Bush
"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." George Bush
With few limits a publisher has full control and it doesn't matter whether s/he is running a newspaper or a blog. If I don't like a publisher's policy I go somewhere else. As with any property, the person who owns that property should be free to do whatever they like as long as they do not interfere with the rights of others. If a businessman wants to hire only those of a certain race, creed, color or religion, that should be his choice. If a owner wants to ban smoking or permit smoking in his restaurant, that is his choice. If I, as an employee, don't like to work in a smoky atmosphere, I shouldn't have accepted work in a place that allows smoking. I have my rights but one of them is not to take rights away from others and that includes freedom of the press.
Within limits, all people should have the right to speak their peace but a publisher has the right not to publish crap.
"What's the point, Richard? Some fools are so full of themselves they cannot conceive that others have no interest in reading their stupid diabtribes - er - opinions."
Louise
WHAT? You mean you don't go to left-wing sites and waste your time trying to give them your opinion?
Richard B
I wonder how many times I have to repeat this until it gets through your skull!
The website I'm talking about isn't entitled "Right Wing Iraqi Gossip" or "We Love Bush and Maliki"; it's called Iraq the Model. A model for what? Of course as a model for other potential free democracies in the Middle East. And what do free democracies uphold? Among other things, free speech. NOW do you get it?
In any case, as I mentioned above, Omar (of ITM) has recognised this and apologised. Perhaps you and Louise would have the courtesy to do so too (wishful thinking, no doubt).
Well that's awfully nice of Omar, now will you quite whining on one site about another? Likely not, but it's worth a try to get you to grow up and act like an adult instead of a spoiled child.
Get your own blog and/or a life. But you're too weak to do it on your own better to cry on someone else's dime right?
Do one on how much you love that false lancet report...
And where are those title police anyhow?
leap_frog
Hurray! Another one who is afraid of free speech! Join the club.
By the way, if you had bothered to read my comments on ITM (before they started to get moderated, like - apparently those of others who offended the thin-skinned US moderators of an Iraqi blog) you would have seen that I said, on several occasions, that I remain to be convinced that the figures in the Johns Hopkins report (published in the Lancet) are correct.
By the way, I'm always amused how people on the right have the habit of making assumptions about the opinions of those who disagree with them. I am regularly accused of being a Leftist, for example, when I have never voted for a left-of-centre political party in my life (in fact I voted Conservative when Maggie Thatcher was around).
I wouldn't dream of accusing you of being anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, anti gay marriage, without knowing your exact views on the topics, so I suggest you don't do so with me. It's so ignorant.
"Foddy, the last word about the WMD's has not been said yet."
Outlaw Mike | Homepage | 08.06.07 - 6:46 pm |
The last word about WMDs will never be said Mike. The faerie tale has taken root and will never be eradicated, but will live on forever in the right-wing fantasy fringes. I point you to the persistent tale of General Giap's supposed “memoirs” written circa 1986, in which he supposedly wrote that the commies had considered giving up their assault on the south but were “enheartened” by the American anti-war movement of the 70s, and so fought on and finally succeeded.
It's a total faerie tale. There was no such book. Giap didn't write his memoirs until 2002, a good 15 years after the right-winger faerie tale was born, and it said considerably different from the faerie tale. But the faerie tale will never die. (And they have several more.).
The tale of the vanishing WMDs will join the ranks with that one, and with “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and the other concocted fables that make up much of the accepted history as accepted by our wingnuts and most extreme partisans.
I wonder how many times I have to repeat this until it gets through your skull!
Foddy
I had ignored that part of your rant. What I should have done is what I normally do and that is to ignore your comments entirely.
The blog "Iraq The Model" is about the country of Iraq becoming a model for the Middle East. If the blog owners pick and choose what comments will be posted, they have that right. Freedom of speech does not take away their right to limit what is said. Freedom of speech doesn't allow one to yell "FIRE" in a theater either.
I have been a reader of ITM since late 2003 but for a long time I did not bother to read the comments because they were bloated with comments from people of your ilk. Now that they have somewhat been trimmed, I read them again. If you read the current comments you will see dozens by and about "Mike". Just as I should be ignoring you, ITM posters should simply ignore Mike, Sod, Ash, Lee C., Robin H. and other trolls like you.
Heaven help me if I ever get so sick that I would go to a left-wing blog to whine and cry because another left-wind blog would not let me post my right-wing comments.
Responding to the WMD threat -- Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom
"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al-Qa'ida and cut off a source of terrorist funding, and this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. ... Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all: Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country and a target of American justice. Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes. Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world -- and will be confronted." --George W. Bush, 1 May 2003
In 2001, President George Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom against al-Qa'ida's state sponsors in Afghanistan -- the Taliban regime. U.S. Special Forces faced brutal opposition but defeated Taliban forces, which allowed for the rise of a democratic government in Kabul.
In early 2002, President Bush set his sites on Iraq's tyrant leader, Saddam Hussein. He estimated, correctly, that Iraq had, and was prepared to provide, Weapons of Mass Destruction to Jihadi terrorists like al-Qa'ida. As The Patriot reported in October 2002, our well-placed sources in the Southwest Asia theater, and intelligence sources within the NSA and NRO, estimated that the UN Security Council's foot-dragging (with substantial help from the French and Russians) provided an ample window for Saddam to export some or all of his WMD to Syria and Iran prior to the launch of OIF.
At that time, we reported that Allied Forces would be unlikely to discover any WMD stores, noting, "Our sources estimate that Iraq has shipped its nuclear WMD components -- including two 'crude nuclear devices' designed to utilize EU235 cores -- through Syria to southern Lebanon's heavily fortified Bekaa Valley." We also estimate that the U.S. used the UN's delay to watch for WMD movements in Iraq -- Saddam knowing that a U.S. invasion was coming soon.
In December 2002 our senior-level intelligence sources re-confirmed estimates that some of Iraq's biological and nuclear WMD material and components had, in fact, been moved into Syria and possibly Iran. That movement continued until President Bush finally pulled the plug on the UN's ruse.
Our sources indicate that Saddam's nuclear components in Syria and Lebanon have been removed or destroyed by Special Forces teams trained for this mission. Little has been said about this operation in order to protect sources and methods.
On 19 March 2003, the U.S. launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. Saddam was quickly deposed, and Iraq has since become the frontline in the war against Jihadistan -- and has attracted Islamic insurgents from around the world in an effort to prevent the seeding of democracy in Iraq.
As estimated, there were no large stockpiles of WMD remaining but, contrary to the Democrats' doubletalk, WMD were found, including 50 deployed Al Samoud 2 missiles, various equipment, including vehicles, engines and warheads, related to the AS2 missiles, 2 large propellant casting chambers, 1,700 gallons of chemical-weapon agents, chemical warheads containing the nerve agent cyclosarin, artillery projectiles loaded with binary chemical agents, and 224.6 kg of expired growth media. Discovered remnants of Saddam's nuclear WMD program included 1.95 tons of low-enriched uranium, 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium, radioactive materials in powdered form designed for dispersal over population centers, and 1000 radioactive components and elements -- all of which was ferried from Iraq to the United States.
It is not known to what extent Saddam, assuming he would return to power after OIF, hid WMD in the desert sands south and west of Baghdad.
Clearly, the concern about Iraq supplying WMD to a surrogate like al-Qa'ida was reason enough to invade -- protecting our vital national interests at home and in the Middle East. Additionally, Iraq had refused to respond to 17 UN resolutions to disarm and Saddam was in violation of the 1991 terms of surrender -- the violation of which was, in effect, grounds to resume the military campaign. Of course, Iraq never stopped military action against U.S. and Allied aircraft enforcing UN-sanctioned no-fly zones.
Bush administration determined, correctly, that Iraq would be a suitable, logical and defensible front line with Jihadistan.
Of course, a battle plan rarely stands after the first shot is fired. The DoD and CIA estimated our active combat role in Iraq to be 90 days. But the insurgency has made Iraq a frontline in our continued war with Jihadi terrorists. As The Patriot has frequently noted, the net effect has been to keep the battle on their turf and not our own.
We are still engaged in spot combat operations in Iraq, and will likely maintain a substantial military presence there for many years to come. Here we would note that at the end of WWII, the U.S. expected to have a military presence in Japan and Germany for perhaps five years -- yet we are still in both countries today.
Let's be clear: American forces are NOT, first and foremost, "fighting for Iraq's freedom." They are fighting for U.S. national-security interests and those of the free world. Ultimately, these two objectives are inextricably bound. Our ultimate objective in Iraq is to establish a forward deployed presence in the Middle East -- military personnel, yes, but primarily equipment -- now that the Saudis have pulled our lease. Our analysts estimate that once the new Iraqi government is seated, the U.S. will be invited to establish permanent military installations in southern Iraq. This presence is critical, given that it would place us in the heart of Jihadistan, with the ability to protect our national interests in the region quickly without having to respond via sea and airlift. Our sources indicate that this new forward presence will comprise part of our Cold War tactical and strategic assets currently in Germany.
In 2005, the White House issued a moratorium on any official comments about Saddam's nuclear WMD, in order to prevent undue public concern, but new information about Iraq's WMD is emerging every week.
In January 2006, Saddam's former military advisor and top general, Georges Sada, now a national-security advisor for Iraq's new government, confirmed that in June 2002, Saddam transported WMD and related technology to Syria aboard retrofitted commercial jets under the pretense of conducting a humanitarian mission on behalf of flood victims. It now appears that they may have done so with the help of Russian special forces.
The Patriot has corroborated evidence that there were such flights during that timeframe, though our sources would not confirm the manifest -- other than to suggest that the flights did not contain humanitarian relief.
More recently, among the 35,000 pieces of intelligence evidence that were not destroyed prior to OIF but which have yet to be analyzed due to the sheer volume of material recovered, was 12 hours of audio recordings. Translation revealed Saddam and his most trusted advisors discussing strategies to conceal his WMD assets from investigators. The tapes are estimated to have been recorded in 1997 or 1998 and were authenticated by the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which has reopened its investigation into the possible location of Iraqi WMD -- particularly nuclear components.
Currently, there is mounting evidence that Saddam's government did provide significant intelligence and operational support for al-Qa'ida prior to 9/11.
The White House has been silent about Iraq's WMD of late, but those opportunistic politicos who have been insisting that Iraq had no WMD are changing their tune -- those with presidential ambitions are much more cautious in their assessment. Sen. Hillary Clinton insisted recently, "[T]here were no weapons," but cautiously conceded, "or if there were ... they were in some way disposed of or taken out of the country." These politicos know that should Saddam's nuclear WMD end up in the hands of an al-Qa'ida terrorist cell in the U.S. (if it has not already) -- and be detonated in a major urban center -- the careers of those who used the WMD issue as political fodder would also go up in smoke.
Success in Iraq is the most critical strategic objective we must achieve to defeat Jihadistan. Once again, as noted by the current NSS, "The advance of freedom and human dignity through democracy is the long-term solution to the transnational terrorism of today."
Despite all the Leftist rhetoric to the contrary, OIF has scored many successes. Of course the faces of liberated Iraqis tell the real story.
Indeed, the democratization of Iraq is essential in order to protect our vital national interests -- both the security of our homeland and the stability of our energy providers in the Middle East. As The Patriot noted prior to the invasion of Iraq, we clearly have long-term objectives to establish one or more bases in southern Iraq as forward deployment strongholds in the region. Currently, DoD has identifies four Iraqi military installations as "enduring bases."
Iraq won't be lost on the ground. Of its 26 million citizens, 80 percent are pro-democracy Shi'a Muslims or Kurds -- and only a small fraction of the remaining 20 percent (Sunnis) are providing quarter for insurgents. The President's supplemental National Strategy For Victory In Iraq articulates a winning strategy there.
Still, Iraq can be lost in the hearts and minds of Americans -- both through a deplet
Still, Iraq can be lost in the hearts and minds of Americans -- both through a depleted national will and in the court of public opinion, where Democrats and their Leftmedia outlets wield a great deal of influence. As such, they are among Jihadistan's most effective public relations advocates.
Okay, Faux-Brain, I'm sure you have seen these or variations of them before, many times, so I know this is pointless, but anyway, here they are again.
Clinton Signs Iraq Liberation Act, November 1, 1998
From the Oval Office, President Clinton told the nation Wednesday evening why he ordered new military strikes against Iraq.
Congressional Resolution to Authorize the use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq passed by both houses of Congress in October, 2002.
And these:
UN Documents of Early 2003 - Part One
UN Documents of Early 2003: Part Two - Unresolved disarmament issues
UN Security Council Resolution 1441
And this. (Heavy sigh.)
Famous forgotten quotations by Democrats, all of which are in agreement with George Bush.
We all know you reject all of these facts, so surely you should understand why we play with you like a cat plays with a cold, dead, stupid mouse.
And by the way, for your information and in a vain attempt to expand your miserably tiny mind just a wee, wee bit, this: "God told me to do it" simply means Bush was following the dictates of his conscience.
Concepts of a Higher Being are many and varied and have occupied philosophers throughout the world all through the ages but you seem to have a very childish idea of what God is, which you, of course, reject.
But, (heavy sigh) it never occurs to you that other people have far more abstract and sophisticated understandings of what a Creator might be. When you grown up, perhaps we can have some interesting discussions about the idea of a God, but until then, just go back to the sandbox and try to play nicely with the other children, will you.
Morning, Richard. You have a good day.
Richard B
"We've removed an ally of al-Qa'ida and cut off a source of terrorist funding, and this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.*
Amazing! We only have to read the first sentence of your lengthy post to see the lies begin. To start with Saddam was not an ally of Al Qaeda; in fact they were enemies. No matter how often you post one of Bush's lies doesn't make it become true. However, Bush's next remark is, by mistake, actually true! No terrorist network would get WMD from the Iraqi regime, but not for the reason Bush was thinking of. The reason is because there weren't any to start with.
The only reason you can be posting this nonsense is a desperate attempt to keep believing it yourself.
"Indeed, the democratization of Iraq is essential in order to protect our vital national interests -- both the security of our homeland and the stability of our energy providers in the Middle East."
Aha! Now we are beginning to glimpse a bit of the truth. The last few words are the closest to it I have seen in a while here. What the war in Iraq is about is to control the sources of energy. Not necessarily (but incidentally) to provide profits to US/British Oil companies. The rationale was to prevent Iraq selling its oils to interests opposed to the US's. But bringing democracy to the Iraqi people as some sort of humanitarian exercise?? Not even on the radar screen.
"because another left-wind blog would not let me post my right-wing comments"
And you can be sure they wouldn't. 
Louise
How amusing that you talk about playing in sandboxes, yet persist with your childish name-calling! Yet another of the many unconscious ironies you are guilty of.
""God told me to do it" simply means Bush was following the dictates of his conscience."
Total nonsense. It means exactly what it says. Why do you find it necessary to act as his apologist?
"abstract and sophisticated"?
Well, Bush is certainly abstract in the extreme, but sophisticated? Don't make me laugh! But if YOU want to have a laugh, I can probably point you to a few websites where you can find some of Bush's more sophisticated remarks.
It's classic BDS.
Louise
You are guilty of precisely the same mistake as leap frog earlier, namely assuming that because I express certain opinions here, it means that I automatically have certain other views.
Tony Blair was a Labour Party Prime Minister, but I opposed his part in the invasion of Iraq. If Clinton had done what Bush did, I would have opposed that too (although I suspect that he probably wouldn't have acted without clear UN authorisation and international support). Therefore your comments about what Democrats might have thought about WMD are completely irrelevant!
Not even a good try, I'm afraid.
Louise
""because another left-wind blog would not let me post my right-wing comments"
And you can be sure they wouldn't."
Pure guesswork. In any case, two wrongs don't make a right.
Perhaps you should find some blogs which don't have a particular left or right wing bias. Those are the ones I usually post on, and it's far more interesting and educational to see two opposing views. It's far more instructional too, to have to defend your views in a discussion rather than just agree and pat each other on the back.
It's pretty clear from the level of debate that goes on here that not many people do that. And as for the idiotic bg on ITM . . .
"…including two 'crude nuclear devices' designed to utilize
EU235 cores -- through Syria to southern Lebanon's heavily
fortified Bekaa Valley."
See what I's tellin’ ya Mike. These airheads have Saddam havin’ nukes and now the nukes are in Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley. (Which is under Lebanese control now.)
They actually believe this stuff. This stuff will be circulating on the wingnut websites forever; they'll never get tired of their faerie tales.
it never occurs to you that other people have far more abstract and sophisticated understandings of what a Creator might be.
That is actually a beautiful line Louise.
Lee, one of the things that we know for sure is that prior to the First Gulf War, the Iraqis moved Air Force squadrons to Iran, of all places, to spare them from the onslaught that was coming.
It makes perfect sense that they did the same with whatever WMD they possessed. During all its existence, the regime worked on WMD. One story among a gazillion is that of the Canadian Gerald Bull, who designed Saddams Supergun, known as "Project Babylon" in Iraq. Bull was murdered in unclear circumstances outside his Brussels apartment in 1990, very likely by the Mossad.
They continuously worked on WMD for well over twenty years. All those efforts must have resulted in a substantial inventory, of which indeed a part was discovered. The fact that Bush waited so long for that half-hearted Res. 1441 certainly gave the Iraqis an ample window to remove stuff, just as they did with their fighter planes twelve years earlier.
Btw, sorry for my violent outburst a couple of weekas ago.
But try to understand the mood I am sometimes in. Amsterdams Mayor has just apologised to muslims for some of the remarks made by the late Theo Van Gogh. A high profile ex-muslim in Holland, Ehsan Jami, has been beaten up very badly by his former co-religionists, big mosques appear to be funded by Milli Gorus and the Muslim Brotherhood, and a demonstration by the organization SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe), scheduled in Brussels on 9/11, has just been forbidden by the Brussels Mayor, "because he fears the immigrant population's reaction might be violent'.
Amsterdams Mayor has just apologised to muslims for some of the remarks made by the late Theo Van Gogh.
Outlaw Mike | 08.10.07 - 4:47 pm |
Interesting that you should mention Theo Van Gogh. I am currently reading the book "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ala. I have only read the first 11 chapters but I find it very interesting reading. Of her book Salmon Rushdie had this to say, "This is an immensely important book--passionate, challenging, and necessary. It should be read as widely as possible, because it tells the truth --the unvarnished, uncomfortable truth." I couldn't agree more with that review. Ayaan was born in Somalia and also lived in Saudi Arabia, and other African countries during her youth. In 1992 Hirsi Alaa came to the Netherlands as a refugee. She learned Dutch (she already spoke English, Arabic, Swahili, and Somalian) and worked as an interpreter in abortion clinics and shelters for battered women. She denounced Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks and now fights for the rights of Muslim women in Europe, the enlightenment of Islam, and security in the West.
P.S.: After shooting and slashing Theo Van Gogh, the peaceful Muslim plunged a knife into Theo's chest through a five page letter. That letter was to Ayaan Hirsi Ala.
Between the Lines: A Big Problem for Democrats
by Joseph Farah
Posted 08/08/2007 ET
Updated 08/08/2007 ET
A ranking Democrat has finally admitted what we all should have realized: The worst nightmare for the party of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would be victory for the United States in Iraq.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Democratic Whip James Clyburn was asked what his party would do if Gen. David Petraeus reports in September that the surge strategy is working very, very well.
"Well, that would be a real big problem for us, no question about that," said Clyburn.
Don't fault Clyburn for admitting the worst news Democrats can hear is that we are beating the enemy on the ground in Iraq, that we are destroying Al Qaeda -- the very terrorists who attacked the United States so dramatically six years ago. Clyburn is simply being honest -- telling us what Pelosi and Reid will simply try to disguise, camouflage and spin to the best of their abilities.
But truth is truth and facts are facts. You know it and I know it. The party that now controls both houses of Congress has a vested interest in victory for Al Qaeda. There is simply no other way to say it. And that is a scary and sobering reality.
The three front-running candidates for president on the Democratic side are also deeply invested in the United States losing in Iraq. Think about what I am saying. Has this ever happened before in American history? Well, yes, it has.
It was the case in 1972 when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and Sen. George McGovern, the father of the modern Democratic Party, was the candidate for the White House.
Those were gloomy times -- with a corrupt, megalomanical president fighting a war with no intention of winning, a Democrat-controlled Congress hellbent on defeat and retreat and a radical socialist as America's political alternative.
Yet the enemy we faced in Vietnam was not really a threat to follow us home. True the enemy was part of a growing international anti-American, Communist empire, but cutting and running in Vietnam would only mean a loss of prestige for the United States and the deaths of millions of innocents in Southeast Asia.
America would recover, though it would take bold new leadership eight years later in the form of Ronald Reagan.
But defeat in Iraq -- a critical battlefield in a global war with Islamofascism, a war that has already come home -- would be far more devastating to our national security. Quite honestly, we might never recover from such a defeat.
That's why this admission from Clyburn, this confirmation of what we suspected all along about the Democrats, is so significant. The worst news Democrats could hear is that the forces of good are triumphing in Iraq.
I don't know whether this is a precipice from which there is any return for the party of Pelosi and Reid. These are turncoats in the truest form of the word. These are people who are secretly -- and, now, not so secretly -- praying for, hoping for and acting in the best interests of victory for Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, who would chop off their heads just as fast as they would chop off yours and mine.
Imagine political power meaning so much to you that you would sell out your own country -- perhaps even the very lives of your children and grandchildren -- to retain it, consolidate it, expand it.
That's what it is all about with the party of Pelosi and Reid. It's not about ideology. It's not that they like Al Qaeda or Islamofascism. But they do have enough disrespect for their nation that they would tolerate -- even welcome -- more death, more carnage, more crisis, more Sept. 11s.
I fear for our nation's future.
Mr. Farah is a nationally syndicated columnist.
__________________________________
"To start with Saddam was not an ally of Al Qaeda; in fact they were enemies"
"What the war in Iraq is about is to control the sources of energy."
The first statement shows a profound lack of knowledge of Arab thinking and the facts. While Al Qaeda was not Saddam's close ally, they shared a common enemy and that made them friends. Such close friends that Al Qaeda had at least one but I believe two training camps in Iraq.
The U.S. has more oil under government land than all of the known reserves in the Middle East. The problem was extraction would be expensive and when oil could be purchased at $28 a barrel, not worth the expense. As oil prices went up, the extraction became more practical and the petroleum industry started developing methods to do so. By using newer technology they now believe that they can extract the oil for as little as $25 a barrel. Some oil land has been leased but as usual the government is doing the right thing later when it should have been done sooner.
Once we get the oil out of the ground, it still has to be refined but we have not built a new refinery (thanks to the environmentalists/Democrats) in 30 years. Nor do we tap known deposits in the Gulf, West Coast, or Alaska. In other words we already control a enough oil and don't need to spend $500 billion to control a tiny bit more in Iraq. In fact Canada is a major supplier and we didn't invade them, why Iraq? duh! Maybe it wasn't about control of oil.
"It makes perfect sense that they did the same with whatever WMD they possessed."
Questions:
1) How much sense does it make that Richard B. would know where the nukes were buried and yet the Bush Administration, whose credibility took a serious hit on account of this issue, does not?
2) We were bombing the hell outta Iraq during the ‘91 Gulf War, but had not threatened to, indeed had clearly said we were not going to, take it clear to Baghdad and oust Saddam. It may make sense that Saddam would want to protect his airplanes for later use, and so remove them from the equation. But, during the ‘03 war our stated purpose was to remove Saddam; there was going to be no “later” for him. Why “spare” his supposed WMDs for the “later” that would never come if he were taken down? (Not to mention that he should have learned that if he gave his goodies away, the other fellas likely would never give them back.)
No Michael; it makes no sense at all. It is barely conceivable this side of the edge of full tilt crazy. And yet it will never be eradicated.
1) How much sense does it make that Richard B. would know where the nukes were buried and yet the Bush Administration, whose credibility took a serious hit on account of this issue, does not?
Lee C. ― U.S.A. | 08.11.07 - 7:24 am |
Ever hear of the Bush Administration doing things that were kept secret because they didn't want the world to know what they were doing or how they did it?
Ever hear of someone "leaking" secret information?
Unlike the wire tap story, the story about the nuke weapons did not get published far and wide because it was not news that fit the MSM agenda. Plus it required fitting some pieces of information together. This much I do know. The U.S. has satellites orbiting the earth and gathering intelligence. Those satellites are capable of taking rather amazing images of things on the surface.
Now suppose that those images reveal activity at a facility that is known to be part of Saddam's nuclear program. Trucks are seen being loaded. Later passes track those trucks and their escort vehicles across Syria and on to a fortified location in the Beqaa Valley in Eastern Lebanon. You would have a good indication that something important had been moved from a nuclear facility to another place but you would not know what had been moved.
How do you find out what was in those trucks? Let's say that you suspect nuclear weapons or components so you gather information from sources at the site in Lebanon. If you reveal those sources, they would be killed so that must be kept secret.
You next assemble a team of well trained specialists and send them to the site. They penetrate the bunker and inspect what is there. They find two crude nuclear weapons, remove some key components for evidence and destroy the rest. What you did and more importantly, how you did it, can not be disclosed. Yet certain facts are hard to conceal, like an explosion the destroys a bunker and everything in it. Plus someone leaks some information.
What does the Bush Administration, CIA, Pentagon do? Confirm what they have done just to show the left that the weapons did exist? Get real!
Now ask yourself - why would the devices be shipped to a part of Lebanon under the control of Syria and Hezbollah? Could it be that the final destination was yet another country nearby? A country hated by Saddam, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah.
Of course all of the above are just a possible chain of events to illustrate that events could happen and that the public would never learn the details.
"While Al Qaeda was not Saddam's close ally, they shared a common enemy and that made them friends."
That is patently NOT true! Why not do some research rather than spout aphorism? This is from Wikipedia:
"Links between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda, as claimed by the Bush Administration (which formed a crucial part of the WMD justification for the Iraq invasion), were non-existent or exaggerated, according to the report of both the United States Government's 9/11 Commission[82] and the Pentagon;[83] despite these conclusions, Vice President Dick Cheney has continued to publicly assert an Iraqi–al-Qaeda link.[84] Recently, the US has acknowledged that the role of al-Qaeda in post-invasion violence in Iraq was overstated.[85] The US also claimed that al-Qaeda was in contact with the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-islam from its inception in 1999; however, Ansar al-islam's founder, Mullah Krekar, has staunchly denied any such link.[86]"
If you want to check the references, go to Wikipedia. It seems you are happy to believe Dick Cheney rather than the facts.
US Oil Reserves? I guess you must be talking about oil shale, which is vastly more complicated to recover than traditional oil - so complicated that it hasn't been done yet (it has to be mined, rather than drilled, to start with). That is a red herring, and you know it.
"Ever hear of the Bush Administration doing
things that were kept secret because they didn't
want the world to know what they were doing or how
they did it?"
The Bush Administration has a history of declassifying any damn thing that they think politically convenient. (Cheney's backroom “declassification” of such selected portions of classified documents containing the specific information as he wanted Scooter Libby to “leak” to the NYT, and only that portion, comes to mind, along with several other instances.) Our entire nation's credibility took a hit over this.
If Saddam actually had nukes, and they got buried in the Bekaa Valley, and Bush and Company let our reputation take that hit when they could have called the IAEA and said, “the nukes are here; here's the evidence; we've got the place under surveillance from on high; go dig ‘em up or we will”, well, I'm willing to call that dereliction of duty and an impeachable offense.
And I'm really not interested in the fantasy speculations you can dream up which might support your faerie tale if only they were true. You guys'll never run out of fantasy speculations, so there's no point in us pursuing them. I shoot ‘em down, ya'll just come up with more fantasy; there is no end to your imaginations. So, go bother someone else. I was talking to Mike; I don't need to bother with a fool such as you.
"Why “spare” his supposed WMDs for the “later” that would never come if he were taken down? (Not to mention that he should have learned that if he gave his goodies away, the other fellas likely would never give them back.)"
You could just as well as µk why the regime prepared for the guerilla war, the preparations of which were apparently so thorough that it cost a hell of a lot of American soldiers their lives.
Richard's info is from The Patriot. I don't know The Patriot. I don't know if it is credible. I have my questions about the credibility of Joseph Farah. I have very serious questions about the credibility of Debka, for that matter. Still, I stand by my opinion that the last word about the WMD has not been said yet.
"…the preparations of which were apparently so thorough that it cost a hell of a lot of American soldiers their lives."
The guerrilla war got started mostly by Sunni ex-soldiers after they learned they weren't going to be called back, and by the Jordanian fanatic Zarqawi who gathered up the Salafi fanatics coming in from, primarily, Saudi Arabia. None of the early stuff is fairly traceable to Saddam nor his highest lieutenants. It started elsewhere than with the Ba'athi high command, and it built slow. They didn't have this ready. They may have had the notion in passing, but they didn't have it ready. That too is a right-winger fantasy generated to divert attention from the fact that the Bush Administration royally screwed up planning for the “day after”, and the insurgency arose and gained life, as a consequence of that fault. (This is one of those “not our fault” rationalizations that does not comport well with the historical facts.)
I stand by my opinion that the last word about the WMD has not been said yet.
Outlaw Mike | 08.11.07 - 12:52 pm |
And the last word may not be said for decades because doing so would reveal stuff that should not be revealed.
However, does it matter? Let's say that Clinton's claims about WMD were bs and that his call for regime change was also bs. That Bush was an ass for believing anything that came from the Clinton Administration. The fact is that we did go into Iraq and did take out that regime. Should we have left after 90 days and gone home leaving the Iraqis to fend for themselves? Whether WMD were found or not does not change the fact that we are there. So what if Clinton lied and Hussein died? We are where we are and need to move ahead, with or without WMD having ever existed in Iraq.
In Ayaan's book Infide the author makes a very good point. Under Islam women are but property. A girl may be forced into a marriage at a young age. Too young to have gotten a good education, if any. A mother is very important to the future well being of her children and especially her son's. Raise a girl like she was but a dog and her son will effectively be an ignorant son of a bitch.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi girls are now attending schools and at the very least will be able to read. If we could accomplish that world wide, the next generation would be better than this one.
I agree with you Michael. If they would have been found we would have positive proof, but because you can't prove a negative, the fact that they haven't been found doesn't mean they weren't there. I believe Syria is the likeliest place to look.
Richard B. | Homepage | 08.11.07 - 4:20 pm > Tens of thousands of Iraqi girls are now attending schools and at the very least will be able to read.
Like they didn't before GWB's criminal invasion of Iraq? You are an idiot and/or a lier, Richard. On second thought, even if you are a lier you must be a complete idiot.
Louise | 08.11.07 - 4:54 pm >... you can't prove a negative...
Yes, yes--- it is very-very difficult to disprove that GWB isn't the "Manchurian candidate" installed and governed by the kings of evil and darkness. Just open your eyes and start to access what he has really done to the USA...
Then imagine how Americans will piss on his grave fifty years from now.
"I stand by my opinion that the last word about
the WMD has not been said yet."
Outlaw Mike | 08.11.07 - 12:52 pm |
And I agree; I will it go one further. There will never be a last word. The WMDs were not there; they did not exist. And Bushie Boy and the neo-cons who led him into this are in total disrepute, and yet, they'll never let give up the hunt. In a couple of years the fables about the escape of the WMDs will be enshrined in right-winger mythology. Just look above for the briefest of glimpses of their commitment to the faerie tale.
Richard B
"And the last word may not be said for decades because doing so would reveal stuff that should not be revealed."
I've seen this argument before, and it's just too funny!
I'll admit on the face of it it's a quite clever; we've got evidence that proves us right, but we can't reveal it. But do you seriously think Bush is going to sit on information for years which can prove that he was not a complete liar and fraud?? You can be absolutely sure that if ANY real evidence of WMD had been found, Bush (and especially Cheney) would have been on to it like a shot and we would all know about it.
Saddam's regime has gone, so what are we talking about here? Highly placed secret sources in a regime which is no longer there? High altitude photography? Powell showed a bunch of this to the world and the UN (all of which proved to be inaccurate).
Surely you've got better than this?
Louise
"because you can't prove a negative, the fact that they haven't been found doesn't mean they weren't there. I believe Syria is the likeliest place to look."
Do you SERIOUSLY believe that Bush hasn't been trying to find the WMD for all he's worth? How come it's left up to conspiracy theorists like you and Richard B to suggest where they are? Don't you remember that Santorum guy claiming that some chemical weapons had been found? If there had been a shred of truth behind it, Bush would have been onto them. I guess even he still has some notion of credibility left.
Cheney is just a piece of work. He keeps dropping hints and innuendo, but without any proof whatsoever. And it seems to work with some people (I guess if you want to believe something badly enough, you will do it whatever the evidence).
"But do you seriously think Bush is going to sit on information for years which can prove that he was not a complete liar and fraud??"
The important point is not whether they believe it; the important point is being able to say it and keep a straight face. Eventually memories will recede and they'll switch from “maybe it happened” to “this happened”. (It'll never make mainstream, but they have their own back channels for keeping the faith alive.)
I have to wonder how some can support Clinton but call Bush a lier when both claimed that Sadamn Husein had WMD and was producing more? To read their bs one would have to believe that Iranians and Kurds were never gassed by Sodamn Insane. Next they will claim that Iraqis did nothing to interfere with UN inspectors because there was nothing to inspect.
I have sometimes wondered where these clowns live but I know for sure that they are in the state of denial.
Richard B
This is classic strawman argument technique! Put up arguments no-one has made and then knock them down.
When have I ever said that Saddam was not involved in using poison gas? Incidentally, if you are referring to Halabja, the US authorities for many years said that Iran was responsible, so you should do some research.
It seems you are trying to change the subject because you realise what weak ground you are on talking the alleged Saddam Hussein connection to Al Qaeda.
Ask the Kurds if Saddam Hussein allowed Al Qaeda to have a training camp in Iraq. But again, does it matter? If every reason given by Clinton and Bush proved to be wrong, the fact remains that Sodamn Insane needed to be removed.
If Bush didn't take action, I suspect that Israel would have done something to stop Iraq from getting nukes but since you have proof that Iraq never attempted to develop WMD, the Israelis would have nothing to worry about. Then again, you probably train pigs to fly.
Just open your eyes and start to access what he has really done to the USA...
Well... for starters, I hear the USA's budget deficit keeps shrinking. I gather we see the Laffer Curve in action here. Bush's 2003 tax cuts seem to be working beyond expectations.
Welcome to North America!...thinker
Outlaw Mike | 08.12.07 - 5:46 pm > I hear the USA's budget deficit keeps shrinking
Hehh-heehh... ROFL!!! Sorry I can't stop laughing... hiiixt-heeehh. Puuh...
Dear Mike. I have a very nice bridge ending up on lower Manhattan for sale. Very-very special price -- just for you!
RobinH, you are showing your age. Wait until you are at least 18 to comment at sites for adults.
Alaa, Good to know that you are at least settled and learning of the obstacles to smooth Canuckism. Ignore those who've never wished Iraq any success, - by which they mean - you especially.
About which, Central and Western Canada should be kept in mind (avoiding Vancouver, B.C. generally a nest of leftist vipers). Yeah, it's cold, but then never 115F, ever. Lots of engineering jobs in Canada.
But if that does not work out, think about an H1-B in the USA (get the job nailed down first, Heh!). Best of luck to you and yours. G]
Gerry,
"Ignore those who've never wished Iraq any success, - by which they mean - you especially."
What an ignorant and totally nonsensical comment. You are 100% wrong. Those who oppose what has been done in and to Iraq wish the people of Iraq well (all of them). In particular they believe that the invasion and continued occupation of their country has caused (and will cause) vastly more upheaval, death and destruction than it has prevented.
That is NOT to say that the world is not better off without Saddam Hussein, but that is beside the point. The world would be also be better off without Mugabe, Kim Jong-il, Abdullah (Saudi Arabia), Karimov (Uzbekistan) and arguably Dick Cheney.
they believe that the invasion and continued occupation of their country has caused (and will cause) vastly more upheaval, death and destruction than it has prevented.
Foddy
I might believe that the earth is flat but that doesn't make it so. There is no doubt that the invasion has caused death and destruction but since it prevented the alternative, there is no way no know how much death and destruction was prevented.
The figures that I have are 2-3 years old but at that time 1.4 million bodies had been found in mass graves. There are also many more tens of thousands who have simply disappeared. Some may have left the country but most are probably in as yet unknown graves. Graves that may never be discovered. Without the invasion would the killing has increased, stayed even, or diminished? There is no way to know but my bet is that it would have escalated. That is what normally occurs when a government starts down that road.
Had Sodamn Insane been left alone, he would have Kuwait and probably more. His weapons would have improved and he might have tried to take on Iran again or some other neighbor. It is also highly likely that he would have supplied WMD to terrorists or used his own personnel to plant them in the USA. In fact I read information about an arms shipment from Iraq that entered the US via Arizona and ended up in West Texas. When I tried to return 3 hours later to the site where I read that, the site was not available. I'll admit that it may have been bs but there are thousands of sites with bs and they don't get shut down within hours of posting new bs.
A factor that can not be ignored is the fact that millions of Iraqis thank God that we did invade but can only wish that we had done so much sooner. Had G.H.W.Bush had the guts to finish the job that Desert Storm started, a lot of lives may have been saved.
Sometime, somewhere we had to stop those bent on attacking the USA. If not now, When? If not in Iraq, Where? If not via an effort to bring peace through freedom, democracy, and potential prosperity; How?
The "ITM brothers" want to get out of Dodge too, right? One wants to "study" in the US, the other-just to get out! If Iraq is such a sweet-smelling garden, I wonder why.
"If Iraq is such a sweet-smelling garden, I wonder why."
If I had been living in hell for four years I would want to leave for awhile even if it had turned into the Garden of Eden and Baghdad is far from that. Most likely Baghdad will still be the bad when the rest of Iraq is secure. The capital is a symbol and I will not be very surprised if the terrorists use it as a symbolic target before September. Their "Tet" offensive.
Richard B
I think I understand why you think the way you do. If I had to rely on the same information you seem to have, I guess I might even do the same. The only problem is that most of it is complete nonsense!
For example, your figure (even 2/3 years old) of 1.25 million bodies in mass graves. Best estimates, including those from US authorities, are around 300,000, and these include military and civilian victims of the 1st (1991) and 2nd (2003 onwards) Gulf Wars. And many of these mass graves were being dug while Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Colin Powell were shaking Saddam's hand and asking how they could help him further.
Please explain in detail how you arrive at your figure of 1,250,000?
While I am waiting, you should know that mass graves are being dug even now, to cope with bodies of those killed in the ongoing conflict - for example, about every 15/20 days in Diyala.
"Had Sodamn Insane been left alone, he would have Kuwait and probably more."
Nonsense. I haven't seen anyone here (or anywhere else for that matter) say that Saddam should not have been kicked out of Kuwait. Have you?
"His weapons would have improved and he might have tried to take on Iran again or some other neighbor."
Purely hypothetical. He was kicked out of Kuwait and everyone agrees he should have been.
"It is also highly likely that he would have supplied WMD to terrorists or used his own personnel to plant them in the USA."
Never hear of the UN weapons inspectors?? They were in the country, looking for (and not finding) WMD. Saddam was under huge pressure, and didn't have the power to do anything to stop it. He would have been under such enormous media, satellite and military scrutiny that he could have done very little of real damage.
"In fact I read information about an arms shipment from Iraq that entered the US via Arizona and ended up in West Texas. When I tried to return 3 hours later to the site where I read that, the site was not available."
How come that doesn't surprise me!! Why not comment on the real news, that the US has "lost" about 190,000 weapons in Iraq, which may well be used against its own troops?
Richard B
I missed this other bit of nonsense:
"Without the invasion would the killing has increased, stayed even, or diminished? There is no way to know but my bet is that it would have escalated. That is what normally occurs when a government starts down that road."
This is more Bush-generated garbage. The last of Saddam's mass killings (without in any way excusing or justifying them) was in around 1991, and in view of the enormous exposure Iraq was under in 2003 and would have continued to be under, the chance of them being restarted was almost inconceivable. Saddam was not entirely stupid and would have known the consequences.
Foddy, I rarely reply to Lee C., RobinH and others because it would be a waste of time. However I have seen far more intelligence and logic in your posts.
In the last 45 years I have seen three intelligent and logical liberals that heard or read something that finally woke them up and they realized that their teachers and professors had filled their heads full of crap. They not only shed their liberal programming but went on to become staunch conservatives. Due to what I thought I was seeing in your comments I held hopes for you but your comments tonight show none of that. In fact they seem to have come from a different person or someone in an altered state of mind. Whatever you are using, it is doing you harm.
Richard B
Firstly, thank you for the compliment (given, but quickly taken away; perhaps I should follow your example of the West Texas arms shipment and believe the first part?).
I am waiting for your logical and reasoned reply, in particular explaining:
1. how you arrive at the figure of 1.25 why (other tmillion Iraqis in mass graves.
2. where you get the idea that anyone would have opposed kicking Saddam out of Kuwait.
3. other than by parroting Bush's speeches, what evidence you have that Saddam would have used WMD in the US (maybe I can remind you that what was done on Sept 11th was done by a group made up very largely of people from Saudi Arabia, a US ally).
4. why the US government would not have publicised the arms shipment into West Texas, if it indeed ever happened. Alternatively, why do you think it was hushed up?
5. what evidence you have to suggest that Saddam would have restarted mass killings which had ceased for 12 years before the invasion.
Your case is almost entirely guesswork and hypothesis; in fact Bush's guesswork and hypothesis, designed to instil fear into people.
If I am so full of crap, please enlighten me. It shouldn't be so difficult. Or should it?
1. how you arrive at the figure of 1.25 why (other tmillion Iraqis in mass graves.
The figure is 1.4 not 1.25 and comes from a video that used figures from the Iraqi group attempting to document and identify the dead.
2. where you get the idea that anyone would have opposed kicking Saddam out of Kuwait.
I said "Had Sodamn Insane been left alone". That says nothing about opposing Desert Storm.
3. other than by parroting Bush's speeches,
I have never heard even one of Bush's speeches. I don't like him and Saudi Arabia is hardly a U.S. "ally". We may not be fighting them but they are at the root of terrorism.
"Until November 2003, when adverse publicity compelled them to take it down, the Islamic Affairs Department (IAD) of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington carried this Islamic supermacism and belligerence on its website: "The Muslims are required to raise the banner of Jihad in order to make the Word of Allah supreme in this world, to remove all forms of injustice and oppression, and to defend the Muslims. If Muslims do not take up the sword, the evil tyrants of this earth will be able to continue oppressing the weak and [the] helpless."
I would say that taking up the sword is advocating the violent overthrow of our "evil" government. Saudi Arabia has spent millions in the U.S. to promote Islam. Since Islam promotes the idea of world domination and the use of any means to achieve that end, no Muslim country can be trusted as an "ally". The best that we can hope for is peaceful coexistence for a time. In case you had not heard, Saddam hated the U.S. and would have been more than happy to supply any means he had to harm us. Just as Iran would not hesitate to supply a nuclear weapon to be used in the U.S. and neither would have SH. If it happens, the streets of cities in the Middle East will once again be filled with huge, cheering crowds.
It doesn't matter what your religion is, even if it is atheism, you are an enemy of Islam and must either convert, submit and be taxed, or be killed. This applies to any and all countries, not just the "Great Satan" or Israel.
4. why the US government would not have publicised the arms shipment into West Texas, if it indeed ever happened. Alternatively, why do you think it was hushed up?
Who the f* knows. Why is Bush hell bent on granting criminals amnesty and opposed to closing a very open border? I would imagine that such thinking would also oppose having the people know how easy it is for a semi with forty tons of ordinance to 'sneak' into this country. Or that a man with known terrorist ties could buy a huge ranch in West Texas. It is possible that there is or was an ongoing investigation and they did not want it revealed but I don't know that.
5. what evidence you have to suggest that Saddam would have restarted mass killings which had ceased for 12 years before the invasion.
Tell the Kurds in the north and Shiaa in the south that mass killings stopped but I don't buy that shit. I saw the videos and 12 year old bodies do not have flesh that is still rotting.
Richard B
So we're now up from 1.25 mill to 1.4 mill!
And your evidence is . . .
An Iraqi video! Further reference please.
Here is some more accurate information (with a named source and, unsurprisingly, an over-estimate by Tony Blair):
"The latest mailing from Radio Free Europe, dealing with the seizure of President Hussein, quotes our Prime Minsiter (Tony Blair) as saying:
'Let's remember all those Iraqis that died under Saddam. The remains of four hundred thousand human beings already found in mass graves.'
It gives as a reference the Prime Minsiter's website (http://www.number-10.gov.uk) and it can be found there under the heading 'PM: Shadow of Saddam lifted of Iraq'
However, Kathleen Ridolfo, who compiles the collections, goes on to say in her own voice, under the heading DEBATE ON HUSSEIN TRIAL BEGINS:
'In all, it is conceivable that some 300,000 Iraqis were killed under Ba'athist rule in Iraq, mostly under Hussein's rule.'
The Prime Minister says that 400,000 have already been found in mass graves. Ridolfo says that 300,000 is a high estimation of the total number killed, not all of them directly under President Hussein."
Kathleen Ridolfo is Iraqi correspondent for Radio Free Europe, which is funded by the US Congress.
"Saudi Arabia is hardly a US ally"
Hmm . ..
From the US State Dept website on 11th July 2007:
"Saudi Arabia has been an important ally in providing political and financial support for Operation Iraqi Freedom and the broader reconstruction efforts taking place in Iraq. Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has also provided operational support for Operation Southern Watch and related programs and since 9/11 has been instrumental in providing regional political and logistical support for the Global War on Terror. Continued military-to-military contacts will encourage the development of a professional military command and armed forces. This will permit a greater level of transparency and cooperation, and allow the Kingdom to assume a greater role in its own self-defense, thereby assisting the United States in achieving its policy goals in the region."
Seems to be a slight difference of opinion here.
I wouldn't dispute the fact that Saddam and his regime did kill people after 1991, but the numbers were greatly fewer than before 1991 and vastly fewer than have died after the invasion. To suggest that he might have continued killings on the scale of pre 1991 is pure fantasy.
Poor idiot Foddy. Do you remember these guys? Middle Eastern dictators prefer to think of themselves as progenitors of a dynasty. Uday and Qusay were being groomed. Perhaps you were in line for the throne, too??? Too bad, so sad.
You are so right Alaa. Here in the west we depend on news reports that are often as bent as those in the east. What things are truly like there are only reported honestly by people like you. You no longer live there, but I hope that will not prevent you from finding out what is going on from friends who are still there, and setting us straight.
Good luck on your job search.
JoeTex
Louise
If you tried to put forward an argument rather than simply insults, I would answer it. All you do is repeat the same old tired red herrings. Let me list a couple of them for you (used either by you or others here):
1. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein.
Actually quite a clever one, because no-one can argue with it without appearing stupid. However, unfortunately, this was not the basis on which Iraq was invaded (and certainly would not have received the support of the Coalition for an invasion). Therefore irrelevant.
2. Only time will tell if there really were WMD in Iraq; they may have been moved elsewhere.
How much time do you want? Colin Powell gave details of the WMD to the UN, including aerial photos (so they were clearly capable of being monitored). None were actually found. The official reports of WMD in Iraq have all found that there were none of any significance whatsoever.
3. Saddam killed an average xxx number of people per year and his sons would have continued where he left off.
Everyone agrees that Saddam as a nasty guy and committed some atrocities. However, these were almost exclusively in the early part of his rule. The numbers killed since 1991 were greatly fewer than before. With the increased monitoring of Iraq by the media, weapons inspectors, aerial photography and the military, it would have been very difficult, not to say political suicide for Saddam to restart any similar sort of activity in future.
4. Saddam colluded with Al Qaeda.
No, he didn't.
5. Saddam was a danger to the world.
No, he wasn't. He had no WMD. How ironic that of the original Axis of Evil, North Korea actually has a nuclear weapon (rudimentary it may be) and what did the US do to prevent it? You tell me.
Why don't you try some valid arguments which haven't been totally and repeatedly destroyed over the last 4 years?
If you can't find any, I suggest you try out some childish insults instead. That conduce would be about the same level as your arguments.
The official reports of WMD in Iraq have all found that there were none of any significance whatsoever.
It gets worse for their position. The Bush Administration's own Search Teams, headed by first David Kay and then Charles Duefler reported that Iraq had no stockpiles of banned weapons, no capacity to produce same, and, while it is not possible to actully prove a negative in a situation like this to the satisfaction of the conspiracy/kook fringes, it didn't look like Saddam had sent any of the non-existent WMDs to or through Syria, as the right-wingers kept wanting to pretend.
Let's suppose that Clinton and Bush were wrong and that Saddam Husein was really a kindly leader who had never even heard of WMD or killed anyone. The fact is that we are in Iraq and fighting terrorists. If you don't like that fact, what is your alternative?
There can be no doubt that there are > one million Islamic men willing to kill so that Islam controls the entire world. As an atheist or member of any other religion but Islam are you willing to convert to Islam? History shows the slaughter that existed when Muslims expanded their area of conquest into Europe. Unless we are willing to submit and maybe even if we do, the streets will once again run red with blood. Those who dispute the word of Mohammad will have their throats slit or be hanged. Unless you really believe that the world is flat or you are willing to lie, that includes you. Prayer in schools will no longer be a bone of contention because everyone will be praying five times a day. Even that will not be sufficient for we have seen that being a devote Muslim doesn't mean that your life is worth anything to other Muslims. If you are a wife and get raped, you are guilty of adultery and will be punished. If your husband beats you several times a day, that is your tough luck, you should have been a better wife.
I am in favor of fighting and killing terrorists wherever they can be found. I am in favor of freeing all of mankind from those who would oppress them. I am in favor of all people being allowed to rule themselves according to the laws they create. As long as those laws are observed within the country that wrote them and are not forced on others, that country can do as it wishes but if they cross any border to force their laws on others, I am in favor of the entire world coming down hard on those people.
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius
Richard B
Well, at least now we know your real agenda is nothing to do with bringing freedom to Iraq.
How ironic that Saddam Hussein would have probably shared your view of killing Muslim extremists!
your real agenda is nothing to do with bringing freedom to Iraq
Foddy
Bringing freedom to Iraq is a big part of my agenda but is secondary to keeping what freedom exists for the rest of world.
Of course SH would and did kill Muslim extremists although not the same type. He killed those who were tying to take him out like the Kurds and Shiia. He supported the type that I am opposed to.
It must really be a thorn in your side that Iraqi civilian deaths are lessening while terrorist deaths are increasing. You and your ilk have been willing to do anything it takes to defeat Bush ever since he beat Gore. Your attempts to oppose everything that is being attempted in Iraq, just to get at Bush, now appears to be falling apart. Bush has found his General Grant and the war is finally going in the right direction. Yes the surge has produced added deaths of our soldiers and Marines but the important fact is that those deaths are minor numbers when compared to the number of terrorists killed or captured since the surge began.
You will must likely still have your chance to gloat. I have little doubt that the terrorists will attempt some spectacular attacks in a last ditch attempt to win more Americans to their side. More Iraqi and American armed forces will die along with many Iraqi civilians and you and the MSM can blame Bush.
Alaa was wise to get out of Baghdad while he still could. I just wish that all Iraqis like him could be lifted out before the terrorists launch their Tet offensive. I also hope that he has covered his tracks so well that he and his family can't be tracked by those peace loving Muslims that you support.
Alaa, the brothers at ITM and millions of other Iraqis have placed a lot of trust in America and I pray to God that we live up to that trust. I may be too old to serve in the armed forces again but I would rather die fighting for our friends than to live in a country overrun with traitors who give aid and comfort to our enemies as some of my generation did in the Vietnam Era. Luckily I was never spit at while in uniform because I would have reacted in a forceful way but I certainly did get glared at by the slime on the left. In 1961 I took an oath to God to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and I have never been released from that oath - nor do I want to be released. My "real agenda" has everything to do with bringing freedom to the people of Iraq and right after with them, the people of yet another country and then another until all countries know the blessings of living in freedom. If my agenda happens,it will be newly free people in Iraq and other nations who will be our greatest help. The EU and the US have too many people who have never fought in combat and would rather be "Red then dead" than to fight for the freedom of others. Freedom that they take for granted.
God bless all men and women who give so much so that others who have lived their lives under tyrants can be free and have justice as God intended. May their great sacrifices not be wasted by cowards who would have "peace" at any price or those who are so filled with hate that they would rather see America fail than Bush win.
Richard B
"It must really be a thorn in your side that Iraqi civilian deaths are lessening while terrorist deaths are increasing."
I'm just watching CNN right now, reporting on the worst day ever for Iraqi civilian deaths since the invasion. I hope you're really proud of what Bush has done to Iraq. I'm absolutely sick that my country was involved in destroying another one.
And I'm STILL waiting for your take on the 190,000 weapons potentially lost to terrorists in Iraq. Where is your outrage?
"I'm absolutely sick"
I will agree with that much.
During the war in Vietnam we had an entire warehouse full of munitions disappear. Supposedly some damned fool thought they were fireworks and thus did not provide security. Bureaucrats have always been a worthless lot and probably always will be. They thrive on red-tape and it makes a wonderful excuse for their bungling.
I would not be surprised to learn that the weapons were taken by a Sunni tribe who needed them to fight AQI. The terrorists may have taken them but they seem to be well supplied by other countries. More likely is that thieves stole the weapons are will sell them to the highest bidder.
Richard B
Hardly outrage, is it. Just blame a damn fool bureaucrat for giving your enemies 190,000 weapons. I guess you're hoping someone is going to try to sell them back to the army!
When Iraq wins a soccer match, the air echoes with gunfire. Guess what! Millions of Iraqis already have weapons. 190,000 AK-47s is but a drop in the bucket. I am not even outraged by the IEDs being shipped in by Iran. Both cases are things that need to be dealt with. Someone either screwed up or is corrupt. Corruption in Iraq is nothing new. Either way I hope that the s.o.b responsible is hanged along with those who smuggle in other weapons.
I hope you're really proud of what Bush has done to Iraq. I'm absolutely sick that my country was involved in destroying another one.
A statement like that is utter crap. YOUR country is not committing the killings. MUSLIMS commit the killings.
If that is the result, muslims killing muslims or yazidis or whatever, too bad for them. It merely proves for the umpteenth time their "culture" is inherently inhuman.
Outlaw Mike
My country created the environment in which these could take place with virtual impunity. There are huge numbers of muslims in places like Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, without this enormous level of violence.
Keep looking and you will find countries with Muslim populations, a high level of violence and no American troops.
Richard B
Likewise you will find countries with high levels of violence and/or suppression with not a Muslim in sight.
"Likewise you will find countries with high levels of violence and/or suppression with not a Muslim in sight."
High levels of violence as in >400,000 murdered and >2,500,000 displaced in four years? You should let the UN know about those countries.
Er, Richard
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head! That (the killing and displacement, not to mention the division of Iraq into factions) is precisely what was most likely to happen and precisely what Bush et al completely ignored before the invasion. Do some reading and find out for yourself what reports they completely discounted said would be the likely result of an invasion of Iraq.
This is one of the many reaons why I was opposed to the invasion at the time and still am now that it has been proved right.
Thanks for reminding us all.
Foddy, I read the reports at the time and some of this report and some of that report were accurate but none of them all correct. I myself could have predicted that Shiites would take any opportunity for revenge after having so many of their sect killed by Sodamn Insane. What I did not foresee is that a fat, communist would lead so many Shiites against Americans but at that time I didn't know that 40% of Iraqis were illiterate.
Something that I have always believed would have made a big difference is if we had put a satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the ME in the early 90's and broadcast news and information to Iraqis. Several of the channels could have been learning channels. A channel or two could have been for religion but with Imams that were neither radical or communist. Although it would be too late to do much good in Iraq, it could still do a lot of good in the area. If it did nothing but raise the literacy rate a few percent, that would help.
The battle in Iraq is finally meeting the goals that I considered most important; killing or capturing terrorists and freeing the people of Iraq. From many reports both goals are moving forward rapidly and a side advantage is that Iraqis are moving away from being this or that to being Iraqis first. This is especially true for Kurds with Sunni not far behind.
The biggest problem is the Iraqi government but that is no surprise. You just don't change from a tyrannical dictatorship to a democracy like flipping a light switch. Without outside interference after the Revolutionary war ended, with well educated and experienced leaders, we still took a dozen years to get our government rolling.
I am away from home and without Internet access 2-3 months each year. During that period my only source of information about Iraq is the MSM. Watching that crap gives me a bad feeling about the battle in Iraq even though I know it can't be trusted. It is when I get home and can dig for multiple sources of information that I learn what is really happening. Four out of four times the facts have always lifted my spirits about Iraq. Here at home I have not watched TV since '96. I have better uses for my time.
Richard B
As a matter of interest, what are these multiple sources of information?
Richard B. | Homepage | 08.17.07 - 8:35 pm, for the life of me, I don't understand why the US hasn't been doing the satelite thingy in the the Middle East for years. Have they forgotten what they did during the Cold War in Europe?
Louise
I guess - without being at all technically minded - because these days the signals could be blocked?
The Soviet Union blocked the Radio Free Europe signal as best they could but people still listened. On the other hand I am mixing two different technologies. I don't know whether it would be possible or impossible to block reception of satellite signals. Thunderstorms can but they are hard for man to create.
Dear Alaa,
It will soon be three weeks since your post. How about a quick note about what is happening. I no longer fear for your safety as when you were in Baghdad but it would be nice to have an update.
Best wishes,
Richard
I should probably just link to this article but it sums up the situation in Iraq so well that I will copy it here.
The Iraqi Quagmire You Don't Hear About
By Michael Cecire
Say there's a group of people in Iraq fighting what looks increasingly like an unwinnable war. The core of this group is made up of foreigners intent on a mission of 'liberation' in a land historically alien to their ideologies. In the process of enacting their designs, this group has suffered considerable casualties, sunk untold sums in resources, and lost many once-reliable friends. Sound familiar? This is the current state of international jihadism, an institution with a situation grimmer and an outlook more despairing than for the US-led coalition.
There is a quagmire going on in Mesopotamia. Lost in the partisan heave-ho is strong evidence of a situation that's proving intractable, perilous, and with no end in sight. Yet, it's not our war; it's the one being waged by the forces of international jihadism. For as much as the Coalition has sacrificed - over a half-trillion dollars, nearly four-thousand dead, over-drafted international political capital, and upsetting the relative stability of certain commodity markets - our enormous commitment is a relative sideshow compared with the problems facing our enemy. Pound for pound, they've lost a lot more than gained and done so at a much more grievous rate than we.
The motivations of anti-coalition forces are vast and often imperceptible to casual observers, but terrorist forces seem to have three major, and perhaps competing, goals in their war in Iraq. First, certain elements seek to remake Iraq into a Sunni-led Islamist State while others seek a Shiite Iranian satellite (perhaps unwittingly). Finally, the jihadists, along with affiliates and sympathizers, yearn to humiliate the west militarily - particularly that of the United States - while demonstrating Islamist cultural and military ascendancy.
Unfortunately for our enemies, none of these goals has come to fruition. While some have become truer than others at various points of the Iraq endeavor, it is highly unlikely that somewhere in Waziristan there's a cave of jihadi intelligence analysts declaring anything resembling victory on any of these fronts. As things presently stand, Sunni opposition has largely fractured between the larger (and more powerful) groups forging alliances with the Coalition in response to the heavy-handedness of their hard-to-get-along erstwhile allies, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. As is now rather well-reported, the terrific gains made by Coalition forces in al-Anbar province are a direct outgrowth of this phenomenon, with further evidence of Sunni tribal cooperation mounting day-by-day. Of course, describing Iraqi Sunnis as a monolith is poor oversimplification, but for the Al-Qaeda in Iraq sorts bent on remaking Iraq as the locus of an international jihadi Sunni state, their support among even the most violently chauvinistic of Sunnis has waned considerably since the summer of 2006.
Meanwhile, Moqtada al-Sadr, the sectarian poster-boy and Iranian stooge, has seen his stock collapse over the past year. His influence has increasingly diminished as he overplayed his once artificially inflated hand. Since then, the Iraqi government and the Coalition has been able to call his bluff, forcing Sadr to flee to Iran on several occasions, fracturing of his once-vaunted Mahdi army, and furthering his party's political isolation. His followers, many of whom form the core of the Shiite extremists, are in one way or another subject to Iranian influence and promote a path towards Iraqi servility to their Persian neighbor. Needless to say, this has not proven to be entirely popular even in Shiite-dominated Iraq since many seem to have higher aspirations than being a Shiite buffer for Iran. Of course, ongoing media coverage of Shiite violence paints a picture of an increasingly belligerent Mahdi Army while merely footnoting that this reality exists due to Sadr's influence steadily imploding. One could make the argument that that, now that the Madhi Army has splintered, its more aggressive factions are hankering for a fight. But the truth remains that the Sadr militias are today far from being able to wield such power as in 2004 when Shiite militias revolted en masse against Coalition forces. Divide & conquer.
Militarily, the United States and some of its allies are seen as being bruised, but this has more basis as a political talking point than as an honest reflection of events on the ground. Without a doubt, morale among US troops is high and continues to rise in proportion to the rate of successes. Where Coalition troops encounter enemy combatants, there is generally but one outcome: victory. Instead, our enemies are increasingly reliant on media misinformation and sensational campaigns to portray their war as being anything other than what it actually is: a downward spiral. Although it's true that the United States military is suffering strains from the extended rigors of warfighting and peacemaking, ours is not a broken army and the enemy sure as hell doesn't have themselves another Afghanistan; as things stand, the enemy is a long way from being able to pop the proverbial corks of (non-alcoholic) champagne and relish American military recession.
Naturally, these are broad points composed of myriad constituent strategies and designs, but as things stand the enemy has a very long road to travel. When Iraq War critics employ loaded terms like 'quagmire' so freely, it's done in a manner that suggests aversion to actual debate on the realities on the ground. This can be best exemplified in Sen. Harry Reid's laughably premature declaration of defeat or Sen. Barack Obama's clumsy reasoning that genocide, as the likely result of impulsive withdrawal, should be of no concern to the United States. Most importantly, such statements highlight an uncomfortable unwillingness on the part of many war detractors to see the situation in a rounder, fuller perspective - that victory is an option and that defeat isn't an exclusively American, or a partisan, problem. Yes, there is much work ahead for the Coalition. And yes, the surprising turnaround of fortune could reverse just as quickly if we do not exploit the situation. But for now, momentum is on our side and not for our enemies.
Richard B
I suppose it is good, in a way, not to want to admit that there are problems, but there comes a time when it becomes just plain stupid.
On the very day you post this, comes a report that the British army is overstretched in Iraq and is planning a pull back:
http://tinyurl.com/2hdq3p
An extract:
"General Dannatt [the head of the British Army], speaking on a visit to Afghanistan, did not repeat the statement he made in October last year that Britain should "get out [of Iraq] sometime soon", but the thrust of British military thinking is clear enough - the key campaign is now in Afghanistan, and anything that can reduce and even eliminate the British commitment in Iraq can help in that task.
"The army is certainly stretched. And when I say that we can't deploy any more battle groups at the present moment, that's because we're trying to get a reasonable balance of life for our people" he told the BBC.
Britain is now down to about 5,500 troops in Iraq (compared to 7,000 when General Dannatt made his remarks last year), and intends to pull them back to the airport and hand Basra province over to Iraqi control, possibly this autumn."
And this, from the same article, is also very relevant:
"Meanwhile more than 100 leading foreign policy experts in the US have been surveyed about the war in Iraq and other security issues by the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine.
A summary of the findings stated: "[The] experts see a world that is growing more dangerous, a national security strategy in disrepair, and a war in Iraq that is alarmingly off course."
More than half say that the surge is "having a negative impact on US national security," according to the summary."
How's that for a dose of reality?
Has the BBC ever had anything good to say about the battle in Iraq?
5,500 British troops leave and shortly thereafter we have 20,000 arriving. My bet is that Moqtada Sadr is not thrilled with what is happening in Iraq any more than you are.
I expect one last big attempt in Iraq which will make you happy but when it fails, much of AQI will be dead, in prisons, or making tracks for the border even though they have CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, the BBC, and a lot of democrats working on their behalf.
Richard B
What on earth are you on about? There were no Al Qaeda members in Iraq when the fighting or resistance or insurgency, call it what you will, started. They just joined the fight later, with their entry into Iraq enabled by the invasion and resulting lack of border controls. This is not really their fight, and whether they are there or not, resistance to the invasion will continue.
I note that you didn't comment on the perhaps more important part of the article, namely the assessment of security by bipartisan experts on the subject. Here is another quote from the American Center for Progress:
"But is Petraeus's plan working?
The index’s experts don’t think so. More than half say the surge is having a negative impact on U.S. national security, up 22 percentage points from just six months ago. This sentiment was shared across party lines, with 64 percent of conservative experts saying the surge is having either a negative impact or no impact at all. When the experts were asked to grade the government’s handling of the Iraq war, the news was even worse. They gave the overall effort in Iraq an average point score of just 2.9 on a 10-point scale. The government’s public diplomacy record was the only policy that scored lower."
I strongly suggest you read the digest of the report here:
http://tinyurl.com/3akjjf
Some findings:
America is winning the war on terror:
Yes: 6%
No: 84%
Rate the impact of additional US troops in Baghdad:
Negative: 53%
Would a troop withdrawal from Iraq lead to terror attacks in the US?
Totally likely: 12%
Totally unlikely: 49%
No correlation: 39%
Only 8% favour military strikes on Iran.
Participants in the survey include people who have served as secretary of state, national security advisor, senior White House aides, top commanders in the U.S. military, seasoned intelligence professionals, and distinguished academics. Eighty percent of the experts have served in the U.S. government—including more than half in the Executive Branch, 32 percent in the military, and 21 percent in the intelligence community.
Their names are listed and, strangely, don't seem to include Rush Limbaugh or Michael Cecire.
Meet the Press 19 August 2003
MR. [Karl] ROVE: Let’s take these—let’s take these one at a time, if we could. Could you start the list again and give them to me one at a time?
MR. [David] GREGORY: There were no WMD.
MR. [Karl] ROVE: Absolutely. Absolutely were not. But you know what, the whole world thought there was.
Typo there: That's supposed to have been 19 August 2007
"There were no Al Qaeda members in Iraq"
Yeah, right! No sand or Arabs either.
Richard B
"Yeah, right! No sand or Arabs either."
No, there was sand and there were Arabs, but there were no Al Qaeda.
Wikipedia:
"Links between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda, as claimed by the Bush Administration (which formed a crucial part of the WMD justification for the Iraq invasion), were non-existent or exaggerated, according to the report of both the United States Government's 9/11 Commission[83] and the Pentagon;[84] despite these conclusions, Vice President Dick Cheney has continued to publicly assert an Iraqi–al-Qaeda link.[85] Recently, the US has acknowledged that the role of al-Qaeda in post-invasion violence in Iraq was overstated.[86] The US also claimed that al-Qaeda was in contact with the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-islam from its inception in 1999; however, Ansar al-islam's founder, Mullah Krekar, has staunchly denied any such link.[87]" (You can check the links by going to the site).
Anyway, what are your comments on the security experts survey?
Anyway, what are your comments on the security experts survey?
Foddy
Experts? Since when?
Do you realize that Wikipedia articles are written by anyone who chooses to do so?
Richard B
It seems you didn't read the link, otherwise you would have realised that I was talking about these experts:
"The Terrorism Index is based on the results of a survey designed by the Center for American Progress and FOREIGN POLICY. Participants in the survey were selected by FOREIGN POLICY and the Center for American Progress for their expertise in terrorism and U.S. national security. No one currently working in an official U.S. government capacity was invited to participate.
The nonscientific survey was administered online from May 23 to July 4, 2007. In the survey, respondents were asked to self-identify their ideological bias from choices across a spectrum: very conservative, conservative, somewhat conservative, moderate, somewhat liberal, liberal, and very liberal. Twenty-five people identified themselves as some level of conservative, 39 identified as moderate, and 44 identified as some level of liberal. In order to ensure balance, the survey was weighted according to ideology to make the number of weighted liberal respondents equal to the number of conservative respondents. Moderate and conservative respondents remained unweighted.
Survey Participants
Madeleine Albright, Jon Alterman, John Arquilla, Ron Asmus, Scott Atran, Andrew Bacevich, Rand Beers, Dan Benjamin, Peter Bergen, Ilan Berman, Mia Bloom, Philip Bobbitt, Joseph Bouchard, Jarret Brachman, Paul Bremer, Matthew Bunn, Daniel Byman, Kurt Campbell, Ted Carpenter, Ashton Carter, Joseph Cirincione, Richard Clarke, Steve Coll, Roger Cressey, Sheba Crocker, PJ Crowley, Matthew Devost, Larry Diamond, Dana Dillon, Jim Dobbins, Daniel Drezner, Lawrence Eagleburger, R.P. Eddy, Robert Einhorn, Michael Eisenstadt, Ivan Eland, Clark Ervin, John Esposito, Douglas Farah, Michelle Flournoy, Steve Flynn, James Forest, William Frenzel, Aaron Friedberg, Jay Garner, Gregory Gause, Leslie Gelb, Fawaz Gerges, William Gertz, Larry Goodson, Slade Gorton, Mort Halperin, Gary Hart, Bruce Hoffman, John Hulsman, Jo Husbands, Robert Hutchings, Michael Jacobson, Larry Johnson, Robert Kagan, Kenneth Katzman, Geoffrey Kemp, Bob Kerrey, Daryl Kimball, Christopher Kojm, Lawrence Korb, Charles Kupchan, Anthony Lake, Anatol Lieven, Thomas Lippman, Jane Holl Lute, Robert Malley, Thomas Marks, John McCarthy, Mary McCarthy, Michael McFaul, Doris Meissner, Steve Metz, Bill Nash, Vali Nasr, William Odom, Charles Pena, Paul Pillar, Daniel Pipes, Christopher Preble, Charles Pritchard, David Rapoport, Susan Rice, Bruce Riedel, Barnett Rubin, Marc Sageman, Michael Scheuer, Steve Simon, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Gayle Smith, James Steinberg, Jessica Stern, Ray Takeyh, Raymond Tanter, Shibley Telhami, Jack Vessey, Edward Walker, Stephen Walt, William Wechsler, Lawrence Wilkerson, Jim Woolsey, Dov Zakheim, Jim Zogby."
Alaa,
Maybe it's time for you to write a book? For someone like you who is well known, www.iuniverse.com is a good self-publisher, from what I hear.
Hi Pat,
I agree that Alaa should write a book but I question self publishing. A good publishing house can do a lot to promote sales.
Best of luck in the job hunt....I really enjoy this blog and wondered if readers of this would be interested in visiting my blog which is still relatively new and is called 'An Unrepentant Communist' Warm greetings to you all from Ireland...
http://unrepentantcommunist.blog...t.blogspot.com/
The excerpt below is from National Review.
And there it was. In one straight news report were two seemingly interchangeable quotes, one from a sitting US Senator (while acknowledging 'military progress,' mind you) and one from the enemy.
So I lifted them yesterday, changed the attribution to generic, and came up with an Audio Daily Double for Jeopardy! that you can play along with at home and even quiz your friends.
Cue Jeopardy! music...
Carl Levin and Muqtada al-Sadr spoke in Baghdad today.
One said he hopes when the Parliament reconvenes in the next few weeks, it will dissolve the government, which he said "cannot produce a political settlement because it is too beholden to sectarian leaders."
"Al-Maliki's government will not survive because he has proven that he will not work with important elements of the Iraqi people," the other was quoted by The Independent as saying.
Which one's Muqtada?
Richard B.,
I think self-publishing (and sales) is a way to get the attention of publishers, and with Alaa's already established base of readers, might be a good deal. The big houses can snap him up after getting attention with the self-publisher.
If it can work for Amy Fisher it can work for Alaa!
Hi Pat,
When an author self-publishes a book, how is international shipping handled?
Levitas
While your overall agenda does seem a bit far to the left (no doubt way too far for most people here), I found your essay "Pots, Kettles and the Colour Black" very interesting.
I particularly like your suggestion that the US should follow the words of Congressman for Texas Ron Paul, in his book 'A Foreign Policy of Freedom':
"I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism....Noninterventionism is not isolationism. Nonintervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations. It does not mean that we isolate ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations."
Alaa or anyone with facts,
I was thinking about the distribution of Iraqi oil revenue. My thought was that the money should be divided on a per citizen basis but how many Iraqis are there? Has a census ever been taken? Does a warm body count or should it be necessary for each warm body to show evidence that they were indeed born in Iraq?
Alaa has talked of the need for identification and it still sounds like a necessity to me. If each Iraqi citizen is required to provide evidence that everyone in their household is an Iraqi just to get an ID card and if that ID card is needed to apply for anything provided by or through the government, such as a drivers license or the right to vote, all citizens will apply and in so doing provide census figures.
Another question that I have is, how do you ensure that all citizens know that they need to apply for an ID? Signs would work if everyone could read but with 40% illiteracy, printed messages are out. I would assume that only a percentage watch TV or listen to the radio. Under different conditions people could go house to house but I wouldn't feel safe doing that real soon.
Richard,
I'm not sure. Check out iuniverse.com. They have a lot of info.
Pat, self publishing costs a lot of money out of the author's own pocket. Reputable publishers can make a highly educated guess as to how well a book will do with respect to sales and revenue for the author. What an aspiring author needs to do is write to a few good publishers describing the book he or she proposes to write, giving a bit of background about his or her authority, experience, etc. in the subject on which he or she writes and let the publisher decide if it is worth publishing. Self-publishing is for folks whose work is not good enough, for whatever reason, to convince the publisher that it will sell well. I'm in the library business and I know a bit about these things. We very, very rarely purchase self-published material unless it is of local interest.
Louis,
Thanks for sharing your view. I am a writer, and I have friends who went this route and did well, but it certainly is not for everybody. I am just tossing out a suggestion.
One means of publishing that has not been mentioned is electronic publishing. I have purchased a few books by going online, paying and then receiving a password to use to download the book.
It makes reading in bed tough to do 
but the profits are high and the book is available to anyone with a computer, Internet, and credit card.
And you are surprised about the "misunderstanding" of the situation in Iraq! Now you see why Iraq is in a mess, it was invaded by people who had no "understanding" of what Iraq is!
Buddy
You are absolutely right - they had no understanding, and, even more sadly - didn't care. As long as everyone involved was a staunch Bush supporter, that was all that mattered. If you read "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", you will see a whole host of examples.
And it's still going on.
Richard B. 08.23.07 - 12:58 am > I was thinking about the distribution of Iraqi oil revenue
Why? In which sense is that part of your business?? If you were a concerned US citizen, you should start thinking about how to stop US government and corporations stealing the Iraqi oil revenue!
Buddy | 08.24.07 - 12:52 pm > Now you see why Iraq is in a mess, it was invaded by people who had no "understanding" of what Iraq is!
Iraq is in a mess because it was invaded. Period! (But people of "understanding" would never have invaded)
Richard B. | Homepage | 08.16.07 - 11:52 am | # I hope that the s.o.b responsible is hanged
You want to hang shrub??? Oh my, oh my!!
Louise | 08.18.07 - 7:15 am > I don't understand why the US hasn't been doing the satelite thingy in the the Middle East for years
But they have been able to push their shit through all channels, including satelites, for decades. Their problem is that there are too few gullible buyers.
Alaa,
Are you doing OK in Canada?
Jeff
My best wishes for you to get good job. It is always difficult to make people accept the real fact, but probably you could make them know the reality once you settle down. My wishes for the both.
custome built conservatories north east
Peter,
Thanks for your concern and good wishes. I am still trying; the trouble is that Canada is so vast that it is difficult to move from one place to the other. I am a civil and structural engineer and it seems that most jobs are not where I am staying at the moment.
Best regards
Alaa
Dear Alaa,
Available employment has always been somewhere else for me. It must be a rule (like Murphy's rule) that jobs are never available where you live. However, I question how much need there is for a civil and structural engineer to report to an office daily. So much of the work is now done on a computer and a good PC will run programs like AutoCad. With high speed Internet it would seem to me that you could work at home and never go to an office after you are hired.
Amazing that all those who supported the invasion and occupation are getting out of Dodge, even the ITM brothers want to "study" in the US.
Welcome to reality Alaa. I hope you get some truth, knowledge and understanding(and a job). Like Robin said- there never should have been an invasion, period!
Another idea! I want to build a 30 x 30 shop building and there are a host of questions that could be answered by a civil and structural engineer. There are none within a hundred miles of where I live. If I hired an engineer, they would not come to my site. Everything would be done via the Internet, telephone, or mail so where that engineer lived or worked would not matter. Maybe you could go into business for yourself and set up a web site that lists your services. The site should also list what information the customer would need to furnish. You would need to have knowledge of local building ordinances but most of those are based on national codes. As your customer I could obtain the required information and send it to you. By email or telephone I could describe the building that I have in mind. From that you could whip up some concept drawings and post them to your website. I would look at them and state what changes I wanted, if any. You could then develop the detailed drawings needed and put them on your website for me to look at, download, etc. If a local authority must approve the design, I could have take your electronic drawings on CD to a surveyor in town who could produce paper copies.
One area where your skills could be applied are for do-it-yourselfers who intend to build using Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF). Many of the web sites for ICF suppliers state that installation of re-bar, supports, etc. must be designed by the customer's engineer. Quad Lock is a Canadian ICF producer http://www.quadlock.com/ and if you were to become familiar with their product, you could supply customers with things like the size of footings and the placement of reinforcement for their intended building. While Quad Lock might supply suggestions, they will not do the actual engineering.
'Amazing that all those who supported the invasion and occupation are getting out of Dodge...'
I never supported an invasion, I supported, and still do, a liberation.
Like I said a thousand times before, the Iraqis got the means to build themselves a decent society on a silver platter.
IF Iraq is ultimately engulfed in chaos, it will be the Iraqis own fault. It certainly won't have been for lack of trying from the US and MNF.
I feel that the U.S. could have done much better. The first thing Bush should have done is to have straightened up the mess that Clinton made of the CIA. Step two should have been to beef up the military to pre-Clinton levels. Step three should have been restart the draft on Sept. 20, 2001. Step four should have been to go to war with the intent of doing whatever was needed to achieve victory as quickly as possible.
Once the decision to liberate Iraq was made, no combat action should have been taken until there was a plan with a high potential of working once Iraq was liberated. In my opinion the liberation phase was a total success and the force was sufficiently large. Post liberation the force was totally inadequate. For one thing all Air Police, Shore Patrol and Military Police that could be spared should have been right on the heals of the combat troops. All functions of the federal government of Iraq should have put under our control and kept under our control until every village, city, town, and providence had locally elected officials working hand in hand with experienced U.S. volunteers. Every municipality in Iraq should have been matched up with American cities, towns, states to get their input.
Prior to any elections, every Iraqi man, woman, and child should have been listed on a census and those over nn years of age given identification that could not be forged. Only when those local governments were functioning properly under the watchful eyes of the Iraqi citizens should national elections have been held.
In parallel with getting the citizens accustomed to self rule, every effort should have been made to get the oil exports increased to help finance massive reconstruction efforts that utilized so many people that Iraq could not do more for lack of workers.
Right along with the civil government authorities should have been a large number of Seabees and Army Corps of Engineers personnel with their mobile electric generators and additional personnel experienced in repairing, building, and maintaining power plants. These military and civilian personnel should have been paired with Iraqi personnel just as quickly as possible and official on-the-job training of Iraqis started.
The Army Engineer Corps should have sent construction battalions and in particular those trained to install and/or repair electrical distribution systems.
With an all out effort, I feel that Iraq would have been locked down so tight within six months that few if any would have considered taking up arms against us. Tribal leaders would have seen the futility of armed resistance and would have decided a hell of a lot sooner that 'If we can't beat them, we might as well join them'.
Hopefully Al Queda and their ilk would have sent every person they could fool into fighting us in Iraq and with so many additional combat forces against them, Al Queda would have dried up their source of fools to recruit a couple of years ago.
The entire goal of all U.S. personnel (military and civilian) should be to work themselves out of a job in Iraq just as quickly as they could train Iraqis to fill that job. The one big drawback to such an all out effort is that the Iraqis would have had freedom and democracy handed to them on a silver platter. The Iraqi army and police would be well trained by now but they would have little experience.
As it has turned out, Iraqis will have paid a dear price if they achieve freedom and citizen rule. Human nature being what it is, they will value what they earn much more than what they have been given. If all goes well, once we are gone, they will fight like hell to keep what they have earned and I doubt that they would fight as hard to keep what had been given to them on a silver platter.
Outlaw Mike
"IF Iraq is ultimately engulfed in chaos, it will be the Iraqis own fault."
Total and complete nonsense. It will be entirely due to an almost complete lack of planning by the Bush administration (and deliberate ignoring of people who pointed it out at the time). Take a look at the very recent comments by the most senior British officers involved in Iraq at the time of the invasion.
"[General Mike] Jackson criticized President Bush for putting the Pentagon in charge of the postwar administration of Iraq rather than the State Department.
"All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste," Jackson wrote. He said the Pentagon did not deploy even half the troops it would have needed for a country the size of Iraq.
He said Rumsfeld and those around him took it as "an ideological article of faith that the coalition soldiers would be accepted as a liberating army."
Jackson also characterized Rumsfeld's claim that U.S. forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical."
In another newspaper interview Sunday, a second retired British general also slammed the United States over its Iraq policy, saying that it had been "fatally flawed."
Tim Cross, a retired major general and the most senior British officer involved in the postwar planning, said he had raised concerns about the possibility of Iraq falling into chaos but said Rumsfeld dismissed the warnings, the Associated Press reported.
"Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," Cross said in the Sunday Mirror newspaper."
You also only have to do the very basic amount of reading on the topic to see that this is exactly correct. Read "Fiasco" and "Imperial Life in the Emerald City". I doubt if anyone here has.
I would not put much faith in what British Generals say. I don't see that they had great success in preventing terrorist acts in the cities that they were supposed to be controlling. Going all they way back to WWI the British misused forces from other UK countries, particularly those from Australia. In Iraq the British didn't have Australian or Canadian forces to do their fighting for them so they did not do so well.
Regardless of what was or wasn't done in Iraq, I see only one option - get it right before we leave. Dictatorships are formed around one man and his cronies at the top level. Democracies are formed around the citizens, not a federal government. Gen. Petraeus seems to be forming local governments and that is a big step in the right direction. If that too fails, the U.S. can not leave Iraq but I believe that it will work. Even if a local tribe is lead by a would be dictator, it will have little effect on Iraq. If a would be dictator is in charge at the federal level, the effect would doom a free Iraq.
Outlaw Mike | Homepage | 09.02.07 - 5:15 pm > ... it will be the Iraqis own fault ...
Yeah, just like it is your personal fault that Belgium has been unable to appoint a government for three months now.
Talk about being engulfen in chaos! But what can you expect of a country of pedofiles and child molesters?
Foddy | Homepage | 09.03.07 - 4:14 am > ... entirely due to an almost complete lack of planning ...
With all respects, Foddy, to discuss what went wrong in Iraq after the illegal invasion, is like discussing what went wrong with with Challenger after the first explosion.
There is a difference, though. Iraq can resurrect itself --- after the occupiers have left.
foddy: "[General Mike] Jackson criticized President Bush for putting the Pentagon in charge of the postwar administration of Iraq rather than the State Department.
Hmmmm. This must be the first time I hear Paul Bremer was a Pentagon guy. Oh yeah, and with all respect for the British soldiers on the ground - the true heroes - I always thought the British contribution was rather meagre for a country of its size.
About that post-liberation period, hah! How well do I remember the much-vaunted "soft" British approach as opposed to the ineffective "rough" American way. It doesn't look like the soft approach impressed the Mehdi army and shitty militias that much.
RobinH, try to get some decent data. Your view of Belgium is a travesty of a caricature. Btw, you from the UK? Didn't you have that "famous" West couple at roughly the same time as we had Dutroux?
Outlaw Mike/Richard B
Yes, pretty much as I expected, it didn't take long to turn on the ally as soon as it begins to expose the truth of what really happened in Iraq. I guess neither of you has read either of the books I recommended.
By the way, talking of the Pentagon, I read a really scary article from the LA Times recently about the Christian influence in the US armed services. Here it is (it's not so long):
"Not So Fast, Christian Soldiers
Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. At least that’s the message the Department of Defense seems to be sending.
Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering “freedom packages” to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.
What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which “soldiers for Christ” hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.
The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department’s “America Supports You” program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the “Military Crusade.”
Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word “crusade” and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.
In the end, the Defense Department realized the folly of participating in any Operation Straight Up crusade. But the episode is just another example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private evangelical groups."
(to be continued)
Part 2
"Take, for instance, the recent scandal involving Christian Embassy, a group whose expressed purpose is to proselytize to military personnel, diplomats, Capitol Hill staffers and political appointees. In a shocking breach of security, Defense Department officials allowed a Christian Embassy film crew to roam the corridors of the Pentagon unescorted while making a promotional video featuring high-ranking officers and political appointees. (Christian Embassy, which holds prayer meetings weekly at the Pentagon, is so entrenched that Air Force Maj. Gen. John J. Catton Jr. said he’d assumed the organization was a “quasi-federal entity.”)
The Pentagon’s inspector general recently released a report recommending unspecified “corrective action” for those officers who appeared in the video for violating Defense Department regulations. But, in a telling gesture, the report avoided any discussion of how allowing an evangelical group to function within the Defense Department is an obvious violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.
The extent to which such relationships have damaged international goodwill toward the U.S. is beyond measure. As the inspector general noted, a leading Turkish newspaper, Sabah, published an article on Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, who is the U.S. liaison to the Turkish military — and who appeared in the Christian Embassy video. The article described Christian Embassy as a “radical fundamentalist sect,” perhaps irreparably damaging Sutton’s primary job objective of building closer ties to the Turkish General Staff, which has expressed alarm at the influence of fundamentalist Christian groups inside the U.S. military.
Our military personnel swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the Bible. Yet by turning a blind eye to OSU and Christian Embassy activities, the Pentagon is, in essence, endorsing their proselytizing. And sometimes it’s more explicit than that.
That certainly was the case with Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. The Pentagon put him in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in 2003. The same year, Boykin was found to be touring American churches, where he gave speeches — in uniform — casting the Iraq war in end-times terms. “We’re in is a spiritual battle,” he told one congregation in Oregon. “Satan wants to destroy this nation . . . and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.” The story wound up in newspapers, magazines and on “60 Minutes.” And, of course, it was reported all over the Muslim world. The Pentagon reacted with a collective shrug.
American military and political officials must, at the very least, have the foresight not to promote crusade rhetoric in the midst of an already religion-tinged war. Many of our enemies in the Mideast already believe that the world is locked in a contest between Christianity and Islam. Why are our military officials validating this ludicrous claim with their own fiery religious rhetoric?
It’s time to actively strip the so-called war on terror of its religious connotations, not add to them. Because religious wars are not just ugly, they are unwinnable. And despite what Operation Straight Up and its supporters in the Pentagon may think is taking place in Iraq, the Rapture is not a viable exit strategy."
Michael L. Weinstein and Reza Aslan (of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation)
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
it didn't take long to turn on the ally as soon as it begins to expose the truth of what really happened in Iraq.
I said "IF" Iraq sinks down in anarchy, Foddy. Right now, I still give them the benefit of the doubt.
You guys, it's amazing. I've been on these boards since fall 2003, and you guys have NEVER been helfpul. NEVER. Always sniping. Always bickering. Never a positive note. Do you actually REALIZE these comments are read by guys you'd never want to meet in real? AQ guys? Sensing the pulse in the west? Sensing the shifts and moods in public opinion? Getting encouraged from what they read by the likes of you? Do you really not REALIZE this is all as much a psychological war as it is a physical war?
You guys have baffled me. Either it's sheer malevolence, plain ignorance or a mixture of both.
WHO would have pulled off a better job in Iraq huh? WHO? With a population either too scared, unwilling or stupid to cooperate? With an infrastructure in shambles? With neighboring countries actively aiding baathists, AQ and what not? WHO would have done better???
Not-a-single-country-on-earth-would-have-done-
better. In spite of all the errors. Give credit where credit is due.
Outlaw Mike | 09.03.07 - 7:41 pm > Your view of Belgium is a travesty of a caricature.
What I am presenting is a caricature of your view of Iraq.
Outlaw Mike | 09.04.07 - 3:15 am > Not-a-single-country-on-earth-would-have-done- better.
Iraq, un-invaded and un-occupied, would have done better.
Robin H
"Iraq, un-invaded and un-occupied, would have done better."
Absolutely.
But, to answer Mike's question with another one, who could possibly have done worse?? The whole exercise seems to have been based on Rumsfeld's fantasy that the Iraqis would welcome the invader with open arms.
Outlaw Mike
"Oh yeah, and with all respect for the British soldiers on the ground - the true heroes - I always thought the British contribution was rather meagre for a country of its size.
About that post-liberation period, hah! How well do I remember the much-vaunted "soft" British approach as opposed to the ineffective "rough" American way. It doesn't look like the soft approach impressed the Mehdi army and shitty militias that much."
Where's the "IF" in that??
Iraq, un-invaded and un-occupied, would have done better.
Oh yeah, most certainly. A total economic breakdown, a continuation of massive human rights abuses, the electricity grid and oil rigs falling apart.
Just try to imagine that Saddam would still be in power. At least the Iraqis now have a prospect for a future, even if it's shaky.
Where's the "IF" in that??
Has nothing to do with my paragraphs about the UK troop level. I just meant to say that IF the Iraqis DO screw up after close to 4,000 MNF troops died for their freedom and security, and western taxpayers poured gazillions of dollars in their country, it'll be their own goddam fault.
But I still think they can pull off something halfway decent.
wow power leveling"Oh yeah, and with all respect for the British soldiers on the ground - the true heroes - I always thought the British contribution was rather meagre for a country of its size.
About that post-liberation period, hah! How well do I remember the much-vaunted "soft" British approach as opposed to the ineffective "rough" American way. It doesn't look like the soft approach impressed the Mehdi army and shitty militias that much."
wow power leveling
wow power leveling
Europe is the problem because Italy and Spain go home
www.radioboville.blogspot.com
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