No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
It's easy to list all the horrible things that went on in Iraq. But plenty of horrible things go on in this county. They would still be under a ruthless dictator, but they wouldn't have endless suicide bomings, and a foriegn country up thier ass. It's not like we don't have tons of opression going on over here. The problem is that many Americans (Bush included) act like we have some perfect country that everyone should replicate. But the reality is that we are constantly loseing our "freedom". The cops kill innocent people all the time. The government covers shit up. People still live in rampant poverty while a small minority profit of the backs of others. For fuck sakes what's so bad about a gay guy smoking some weed with his husband? Bush would have you believe it's the end of the world and has to be stopped. That's an opressive dictator. Just cuz our dicatorship is comprised of several rulers, doesn't make it any better.
If that's your attitude did you vote in the last election? If you were harrassed by police officers unfairly would you seek compensation in court or talk to an ombudsman? And do you know of mass graves in America? Are you aware of the president's opponents being fed to shredding machines? Do you know of an arm of the FBI whose sole purpose is to rape the daughters and wives of the president's political rivals? Could you tell me when an American president used chemical weapons on an ethnic minority as part of a campaign to move them en masse to detention centers? Has the president shut down any newspapers that print stories he disagrees with? Headz wanna know homey.
No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
You have to agree that there is a certain something something about this nation that sets it apart from most western liberal democracies. People on the right might say that's a good thing, but there are plenty of intelligent, free-minded people who feel otherwise.
The left is no sillier with their Nazi Germany analogies than the right.
It's easy to list all the horrible things that went on in Iraq. But plenty of horrible things go on in this county. They would still be under a ruthless dictator, but they wouldn't have endless suicide bomings, and a foriegn country up thier ass. It's not like we don't have tons of opression going on over here. The problem is that many Americans (Bush included) act like we have some perfect country that everyone should replicate. But the reality is that we are constantly loseing our "freedom". The cops kill innocent people all the time. The government covers shit up. People still live in rampant poverty while a small minority profit of the backs of others. For fuck sakes what's so bad about a gay guy smoking some weed with his husband? Bush would have you believe it's the end of the world and has to be stopped. That's an opressive dictator. Just cuz our dicatorship is comprised of several rulers, doesn't make it any better.
If that's your attitude did you vote in the last election? If you were harrassed by police officers unfairly would you seek compensation in court or talk to an ombudsman? And do you know of mass graves in America? Are you aware of the president's opponents being fed to shredding machines? Do you know of an arm of the FBI whose sole purpose is to rape the daughters and wives of the president's political rivals? Could you tell me when an American president used chemical weapons on an ethnic minority as part of a campaign to move them en masse to detention centers? Has the president shut down any newspapers that print stories he disagrees with? Headz wanna know homey.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The irony is that poor areas are know to house the worst polluion dumps and chemical factories, so yes the Pres does allow chemicals to be used on his enemies (the poor).
Black people are constantly moved en masse to detention centers. You think they voted for Bush??????
Every heard of Gitmo? Did you hear about the stuff that was being done to prisioners in Iraq?
Ever heard about the white house leaking the name of a secret agent because she was the wife of a political rival?
The paper PRINTING may not be shut down but the STORY is.
BTW yes I voted, and just like in Iraq the elections here are a joke.
Do you seriously think everyone who gets harassed by police gets compensated? Hell police don't even get fired when they shoot innocent people or beat the crap out of them on video tape. And really what is a fair price for the police to blow away your child? There is none you ignorant fuck!
Mass graves? Yea there is a big one in DC being filled with young people's bodies so the president can't wage his chrisitan supremicy power bid on the world.
No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
Absurd arguments like yours are a lot more common and characteristic of your side than "America is a dictatorship" comments are from ours. It's perfectly accurate to say your remarks represent the mainstream of right wing thinking, whereas someone talking about the US dictatorship obviously comes from the deranged fringe. And one, however stupid and wrong, is at least straightforward and clearly based on subjective opinion, ie honest but dumb, whereas the other relies on manipulation and sophistry, ie dishonest and dumb.
No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
I said it was a specific kind of dictatorship where %5 or less are making all the rules and keeping all the profits. I don't think it's Nazi Germany, but I also don't buy that we are the greatest thing ever. America still has a long way to go.
And do you know of mass graves in America? Are you aware of the president's opponents being fed to shredding machines? Do you know of an arm of the FBI whose sole purpose is to rape the daughters and wives of the president's political rivals? Could you tell me when an American president used chemical weapons on an ethnic minority as part of a campaign to move them en masse to detention centers?
And do you know of mass graves in America? Are you aware of the president's opponents being fed to shredding machines? Do you know of an arm of the FBI whose sole purpose is to rape the daughters and wives of the president's political rivals? Could you tell me when an American president used chemical weapons on an ethnic minority as part of a campaign to move them en masse to detention centers?
And do you know of mass graves in America? Are you aware of the president's opponents being fed to shredding machines? Do you know of an arm of the FBI whose sole purpose is to rape the daughters and wives of the president's political rivals? Could you tell me when an American president used chemical weapons on an ethnic minority as part of a campaign to move them en masse to detention centers?
No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
Absurd arguments like yours are a lot more common and characteristic of your side than "America is a dictatorship" comments are from ours. It's perfectly accurate to say your remarks represent the mainstream of right wing thinking, whereas someone talking about the US dictatorship obviously comes from the deranged fringe. And one, however stupid and wrong, is at least straightforward and clearly based on subjective opinion, ie honest but dumb, whereas the other relies on manipulation and sophistry, ie dishonest and dumb.
Basically this is a lot of name calling. If you want to engage a particular argument I have made then please go ahead. But don't come out and say my views are dishonest or absurd without referencing a specific issue. I agree, America should not be compared to Saddam's Iraq. And you'd be surprised at how liberal I am on everything from Gay marriage to the progressive income tax. My arguments for the Iraq war, and for continuing to fight for an elected government there, are rooted in my liberalism. Since I think political freedoms are universal values, I see no reason why they should be excepted from Iraq. Furthermore, we already intervened in Iraqi history--first in 1979 when we gave international recognition to the coup that brought Saddam to power; during the 1980s when we sold him spare parts and agricultural credits; in 1991 when we drove his army from Kuwait only to allow him to put down the rebellions we encouraged; and throughout the 1990s by keeping sanctions on Iraq and defending the no fly zones we created. We were already engaged in Iraq. So I supported this latest intervention because we and the international community owed Iraqis something better than a torture state. And despite all of the violence in Iraq, I say it's still better than it was under him. I've been there and can say this from some experience. If you want to take on those points I welcome it.
No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
Absurd arguments like yours are a lot more common and characteristic of your side than "America is a dictatorship" comments are from ours. It's perfectly accurate to say your remarks represent the mainstream of right wing thinking, whereas someone talking about the US dictatorship obviously comes from the deranged fringe. And one, however stupid and wrong, is at least straightforward and clearly based on subjective opinion, ie honest but dumb, whereas the other relies on manipulation and sophistry, ie dishonest and dumb.
Basically this is a lot of name calling. If you want to engage a particular argument I have made then please go ahead. But don't come out and say my views are dishonest or absurd without referencing a specific issue. I agree, America should not be compared to Saddam's Iraq. And you'd be surprised at how liberal I am on everything from Gay marriage to the progressive income tax. My arguments for the Iraq war, and for continuing to fight for an elected government there, are rooted in my liberalism. Since I think political freedoms are universal values, I see no reason why they should be excepted from Iraq. Furthermore, we already intervened in Iraqi history--first in 1979 when we gave international recognition to the coup that brought Saddam to power; during the 1980s when we sold him spare parts and agricultural credits; in 1991 when we drove his army from Kuwait only to allow him to put down the rebellions we encouraged; and throughout the 1990s by keeping sanctions on Iraq and defending the no fly zones we created. We were already engaged in Iraq. So I supported this latest intervention because we and the international community owed Iraqis something better than a torture state. And despite all of the violence in Iraq, I say it's still better than it was under him. I've been there and can say this from some experience. If you want to take on those points I welcome it.
Yea, and same groups that got involved in Iraq then are getting involved now. I disagreed with them then and I disagree with them now. Bush Jr is just trying finish his daddy's little crusade and it's sickning. If you so for all this go join the Army. Quit your yappin and put you ass where your mouth is. Or do you just want everyone else to die for your points of view. You say you've been there...as a solider or a tourist?
Speaking of......one by one I and others have countered you points and you've had nothing to say. So don't act all high and mighty like your really ready to debate. You just want to spout your talk and leave. Just like Bush you want to pretend other peoples points don't exist.
And BTW what kind of liberal thinks we should invade another country and force them to be like us? You so eager to "reference a speciffic issue" try this one.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The irony is that poor areas are know to house the worst polluion dumps and chemical factories, so yes the Pres does allow chemicals to be used on his enemies (the poor).
Black people are constantly moved en masse to detention centers. You think they voted for Bush??????
Every heard of Gitmo? Did you hear about the stuff that was being done to prisioners in Iraq?
Ever heard about the white house leaking the name of a secret agent because she was the wife of a political rival?
The paper PRINTING may not be shut down but the STORY is.
BTW yes I voted, and just like in Iraq the elections here are a joke.
Do you seriously think everyone who gets harassed by police gets compensated? Hell police don't even get fired when they shoot innocent people or beat the crap out of them on video tape. And really what is a fair price for the police to blow away your child? There is none you ignorant fuck!
Mass graves? Yea there is a big one in DC being filled with young people's bodies so the president can't wage his chrisitan supremicy power bid on the world.
If you are going to site a bill of particulars to bolster your argument, you should at least make them consistent with your point. For example, you mention the leaking of Valerie Plame as an example of how the president's advisers "shut down" a story. Have you been reading any of the major papers? Are you aware there is a special prosecutor looking into this matter right now? You mention how poor people live near chemical waste facilities. But there have also been laws requiring corporations to clean up these sites on the books for 25 years now. Regardless, you are equating the use of nerve gas from helicopters with increased cancer rates of poor communities that live near superfund sites. Your discernment capabilities also fail when you compare the Anfal campaign in northern Iraq, which was indiscriminate, with the disproportionate number of minorities arrested on largely drug crimes that are sent to prison. In one case, security forces emptied every home in every village of all Kurds. In another case, narcotics retailers are sent to prison for violating what is in my opinion an unfair drug law. It's a problem, but are these things comparable? Same can be said for your comparison of mass graves, holes in the ground dug for scores of civilians and the growing number of American soldiers from a volunteer army who return home in coffins. Also, if you are going to mention Gitmo, you might want to mention that the people who are sent there were picked up on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
Absurd arguments like yours are a lot more common and characteristic of your side than "America is a dictatorship" comments are from ours. It's perfectly accurate to say your remarks represent the mainstream of right wing thinking, whereas someone talking about the US dictatorship obviously comes from the deranged fringe. And one, however stupid and wrong, is at least straightforward and clearly based on subjective opinion, ie honest but dumb, whereas the other relies on manipulation and sophistry, ie dishonest and dumb.
Basically this is a lot of name calling. If you want to engage a particular argument I have made then please go ahead. But don't come out and say my views are dishonest or absurd without referencing a specific issue. I agree, America should not be compared to Saddam's Iraq. And you'd be surprised at how liberal I am on everything from Gay marriage to the progressive income tax. My arguments for the Iraq war, and for continuing to fight for an elected government there, are rooted in my liberalism. Since I think political freedoms are universal values, I see no reason why they should be excepted from Iraq. Furthermore, we already intervened in Iraqi history--first in 1979 when we gave international recognition to the coup that brought Saddam to power; during the 1980s when we sold him spare parts and agricultural credits; in 1991 when we drove his army from Kuwait only to allow him to put down the rebellions we encouraged; and throughout the 1990s by keeping sanctions on Iraq and defending the no fly zones we created. We were already engaged in Iraq. So I supported this latest intervention because we and the international community owed Iraqis something better than a torture state. And despite all of the violence in Iraq, I say it's still better than it was under him. I've been there and can say this from some experience. If you want to take on those points I welcome it.
Stage-managed "Democracy" from start to present
Do you not remember all the lefties raving on about another Vietnam? While your lot were wink winking about cheaper oil? Who was wrong?? The revisionism continues at such a fast pace that it's impossible to keep up with the matters facing us right now. This article is pretty concise.
DAVID MORGAN REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
PHILADELPHIA???If the United States succeeds in shepherding the creation of a post-war Iraqi government, a former National Security Council official says, it won't be the first time that Washington has played a primary role in changing that country's rulers.
Roger Morris, a former State Department foreign service officer who was on the NSC staff during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, says the CIA had a hand in two coups in Iraq during the darkest days of the Cold War, including a 1968 putsch that set Saddam Hussein firmly on the path to power.
Morris says that in 1963, two years after the ill-fated U.S. attempt at overthrow in Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs, the CIA helped organize a bloody coup in Iraq that deposed the Soviet-leaning government of Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem.
"This takes you down a longer, darker road in terms of American culpability ....
"As in Iran in '53, it was mostly American money and even American involvement on the ground," says Morris, referring to a U.S.-backed coup that brought the return of the shah to neighbouring Iran.
Kassem, who had allowed communists to hold positions of responsibility in his government, was machine-gunned to death. And the country wound up in the hands of the Baath party.
At the time, Morris continues, Saddam was a Baath operative studying law in Cairo, one of the venues the CIA chose to plan the coup.
In fact, he claims the former Iraqi president castigated by President George W. Bush as one of history's most "brutal dictators" was actually on the CIA payroll in those days.
"There's no question," Morris says. "It was there in Cairo that (Saddam) and others were first contacted by the agency."
In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious prot??g?? in 1979.
"It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says.
His version of history is a far cry from current American rhetoric about Iraq ??? a country that top U.S. officials say has been liberated from decades of tyranny and given the chance for a bright democratic future.
There's no mention of America's own alleged role in giving birth to the regime.
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the claims of CIA involvement in the Iraqi coups but said Morris' assertion that Saddam once received payments from the CIA is "utterly ridiculous."
Morris, who resigned from the NSC staff over the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, says he learned the details of American covert involvement in Iraq from ranking CIA officials of the day, including Teddy Roosevelt's grandson, Archibald Roosevelt.
Now 65, Morris went on to become a Nixon biographer and is currently writing a book about U.S. covert action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He regards Saddam as a deposed U.S. client in the mold of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
"We climb into bed with these people without really knowing anything about their politics," Morris says. "It's not unusual, of course, in American policy. We tire of these people, and we find reasons to shed them." But many experts, including foreign affairs scholars, say there is little to suggest U.S. involvement in Iraq in the 1960s.
David Wise, a Washington-based author who has written extensively about Cold War espionage, says he is only aware of records showing that a CIA group known as the "Health Alteration Committee" tried to assassinate Kassem in 1960 by sending the Iraqi leader a poisoned monogrammed handkerchief.
"Clearly, they felt that Kassem was somebody who had to be eliminated," Wise says.
Morris contends that little is known about CIA involvement in the Iraqi coups because the Middle East did not hold as much strategic importance in the 1960s and most senior U.S. officials involved there at the time have since died.
But even if the United States played no role in the rise of Iraq's Baath party, experts say Washington has obviously had to confront unintended consequences of former U.S. policies ??? including those of Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director before becoming president.
"There are always some unintended consequences," says Helmut Sonnenfeldt, guest scholar in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and former NSC staffer.
"There were unintended consequences in World War I that brought the rise of Hitler."
The United States and other Western powers supported Saddam's regime during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, even after the Baghdad government used chemical weapons to kill thousands of Kurdish villagers in Halabja.
The 1988 atrocity recently was a cornerstone of U.S. justifications for its war to topple Saddam's regime.
Before war broke out last month, a flurry of U.S. headlines also called attention to reports that pathogens used by Iraq for its biological warfare program came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a
private Manassas, Va.-based biological samples repository called the American Type Culture Collection.
Officials at the two institutions said shipments of anthrax, West Nile virus, botulinum toxins and other pathogens were sent to Iraq in the 1980s with U.S. commerce department approval for medical research purposes.
Even Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program, which U.S. officials said was on the verge of producing a nuclear bomb last year, got under way with help from a 1950s Eisenhower administration program to share the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy called "Atoms for Peace."
That is according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based group co-founded by media mogul Ted Turner and former U.S. senator Sam Nunn to reduce the global threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
James Phillips, senior Middle East analyst for the Heritage Foundation, disagrees that Bush's war in Iraq is the result of CIA involvement.
But he says the United States did turn a blind eye to the chance to topple Saddam during the 1991 Gulf War, just as it left Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network after Soviet forces left that country.
"I am reminded of the biblical expression about the sins of the father," Phillips says.
"The first Bush administration was the one that decided to cut off aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan and set them adrift. And they were also the ones who decided not to go to Baghdad during the first Gulf War."
No. Volumen said explicitly that America was a dictatorship. this is the view I might add of DJ Shadow who said recently in Uncut that America was "basically Nazi Germany." We would not have to make these points if people on the left were not so silly with their analogies.
Absurd arguments like yours are a lot more common and characteristic of your side than "America is a dictatorship" comments are from ours. It's perfectly accurate to say your remarks represent the mainstream of right wing thinking, whereas someone talking about the US dictatorship obviously comes from the deranged fringe. And one, however stupid and wrong, is at least straightforward and clearly based on subjective opinion, ie honest but dumb, whereas the other relies on manipulation and sophistry, ie dishonest and dumb.
Basically this is a lot of name calling. If you want to engage a particular argument I have made then please go ahead. But don't come out and say my views are dishonest or absurd without referencing a specific issue. I agree, America should not be compared to Saddam's Iraq. And you'd be surprised at how liberal I am on everything from Gay marriage to the progressive income tax. My arguments for the Iraq war, and for continuing to fight for an elected government there, are rooted in my liberalism. Since I think political freedoms are universal values, I see no reason why they should be excepted from Iraq. Furthermore, we already intervened in Iraqi history--first in 1979 when we gave international recognition to the coup that brought Saddam to power; during the 1980s when we sold him spare parts and agricultural credits; in 1991 when we drove his army from Kuwait only to allow him to put down the rebellions we encouraged; and throughout the 1990s by keeping sanctions on Iraq and defending the no fly zones we created. We were already engaged in Iraq. So I supported this latest intervention because we and the international community owed Iraqis something better than a torture state. And despite all of the violence in Iraq, I say it's still better than it was under him. I've been there and can say this from some experience. If you want to take on those points I welcome it.
Yea, and same groups that got involved in Iraq then are getting involved now. I disagreed with them then and I disagree with them now. Bush Jr is just trying finish his daddy's little crusade and it's sickning. If you so for all this go join the Army. Quit your yappin and put you ass where your mouth is. Or do you just want everyone else to die for your points of view. You say you've been there...as a solider or a tourist?
Speaking of......one by one I and others have countered you points and you've had nothing to say. So don't act all high and mighty like your really ready to debate. You just want to spout your talk and leave. Just like Bush you want to pretend other peoples points don't exist.
And BTW what kind of liberal thinks we should invade another country and force them to be like us? You so eager to "reference a speciffic issue" try this one.
Dude,
I've countered plenty of people on this board who have disagreed with me. One of the reasons I don't always engage you is because I'm not sure we agree on the basic facts of the matter or even the definition of words. Most of the time you throw some third grade insults at me and restate some far left bumper sticker. I've been to Iraq as a journalist. But do you think that anyone who favors this war should have to go and fight it. And seriously, why is it worth anyone's time to counter you when you say, "Bush Jr is just trying finish his daddy's little crusade and it's sickning." What are you basing that on? The burden is on you to explain how you came across this inside information.
Now you end your tirade with a question about invasions and liberalism. I would point out that many liberals favored the invasion of Germany in world war 2, they also favored President Clinton's intervention in Kosovo when he stopped the ethnic cleansing of Albanians there. Liberals often say they wish someone had invaded Rwanda so as to stop the 1994 genocide. Liberals also favored sending garrisons to East Timor to protect that fledgling state's independence. As for the "force them to be like us," I don't think that's necessarily what we are trying to do in Iraq. But since you brought it up, do you think that Iraqis wanted to be left alone and live under Saddam Hussein. Here was someone who was deliberately starving and malnourishing his children. He required everyone to join the army. Those who left had their ears chopped off or their tongues lashed out. Preventing this sort of thing is not forcing people to live like us.
Do you not remember all the lefties raving on about another Vietnam? While your lot were wink winking about cheaper oil? Who was wrong?? The revisionism continues at such a fast pace that it's impossible to keep up with the matters facing us right now. This article is pretty concise.
DAVID MORGAN REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
PHILADELPHIA???If the United States succeeds in shepherding the creation of a post-war Iraqi government, a former National Security Council official says, it won't be the first time that Washington has played a primary role in changing that country's rulers.
Roger Morris, a former State Department foreign service officer who was on the NSC staff during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, says the CIA had a hand in two coups in Iraq during the darkest days of the Cold War, including a 1968 putsch that set Saddam Hussein firmly on the path to power.
Morris says that in 1963, two years after the ill-fated U.S. attempt at overthrow in Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs, the CIA helped organize a bloody coup in Iraq that deposed the Soviet-leaning government of Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem.
"This takes you down a longer, darker road in terms of American culpability ....
"As in Iran in '53, it was mostly American money and even American involvement on the ground," says Morris, referring to a U.S.-backed coup that brought the return of the shah to neighbouring Iran.
Kassem, who had allowed communists to hold positions of responsibility in his government, was machine-gunned to death. And the country wound up in the hands of the Baath party.
At the time, Morris continues, Saddam was a Baath operative studying law in Cairo, one of the venues the CIA chose to plan the coup.
In fact, he claims the former Iraqi president castigated by President George W. Bush as one of history's most "brutal dictators" was actually on the CIA payroll in those days.
"There's no question," Morris says. "It was there in Cairo that (Saddam) and others were first contacted by the agency."
In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious prot??g?? in 1979.
"It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says.
His version of history is a far cry from current American rhetoric about Iraq ??? a country that top U.S. officials say has been liberated from decades of tyranny and given the chance for a bright democratic future.
There's no mention of America's own alleged role in giving birth to the regime.
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the claims of CIA involvement in the Iraqi coups but said Morris' assertion that Saddam once received payments from the CIA is "utterly ridiculous."
Morris, who resigned from the NSC staff over the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, says he learned the details of American covert involvement in Iraq from ranking CIA officials of the day, including Teddy Roosevelt's grandson, Archibald Roosevelt.
Now 65, Morris went on to become a Nixon biographer and is currently writing a book about U.S. covert action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He regards Saddam as a deposed U.S. client in the mold of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
"We climb into bed with these people without really knowing anything about their politics," Morris says. "It's not unusual, of course, in American policy. We tire of these people, and we find reasons to shed them." But many experts, including foreign affairs scholars, say there is little to suggest U.S. involvement in Iraq in the 1960s.
David Wise, a Washington-based author who has written extensively about Cold War espionage, says he is only aware of records showing that a CIA group known as the "Health Alteration Committee" tried to assassinate Kassem in 1960 by sending the Iraqi leader a poisoned monogrammed handkerchief.
"Clearly, they felt that Kassem was somebody who had to be eliminated," Wise says.
Morris contends that little is known about CIA involvement in the Iraqi coups because the Middle East did not hold as much strategic importance in the 1960s and most senior U.S. officials involved there at the time have since died.
But even if the United States played no role in the rise of Iraq's Baath party, experts say Washington has obviously had to confront unintended consequences of former U.S. policies ??? including those of Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director before becoming president.
"There are always some unintended consequences," says Helmut Sonnenfeldt, guest scholar in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and former NSC staffer.
"There were unintended consequences in World War I that brought the rise of Hitler."
The United States and other Western powers supported Saddam's regime during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, even after the Baghdad government used chemical weapons to kill thousands of Kurdish villagers in Halabja.
The 1988 atrocity recently was a cornerstone of U.S. justifications for its war to topple Saddam's regime.
Before war broke out last month, a flurry of U.S. headlines also called attention to reports that pathogens used by Iraq for its biological warfare program came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a private Manassas, Va.-based biological samples repository called the American Type Culture Collection.
Officials at the two institutions said shipments of anthrax, West Nile virus, botulinum toxins and other pathogens were sent to Iraq in the 1980s with U.S. commerce department approval for medical research purposes.
Even Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program, which U.S. officials said was on the verge of producing a nuclear bomb last year, got under way with help from a 1950s Eisenhower administration program to share the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy called "Atoms for Peace."
That is according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based group co-founded by media mogul Ted Turner and former U.S. senator Sam Nunn to reduce the global threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
James Phillips, senior Middle East analyst for the Heritage Foundation, disagrees that Bush's war in Iraq is the result of CIA involvement.
But he says the United States did turn a blind eye to the chance to topple Saddam during the 1991 Gulf War, just as it left Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network after Soviet forces left that country.
"I am reminded of the biblical expression about the sins of the father," Phillips says.
"The first Bush administration was the one that decided to cut off aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan and set them adrift. And they were also the ones who decided not to go to Baghdad during the first Gulf War."
Spare parts and agricultural credits?
This is kind of my point now isn't it. We were behind the coups that brought Saddam to power. I have written here and published, Saddam was a former client. This is one of the reasons I supported the war.
I want to retract something -- Volumen's comments are neither "deranged" or "dumb" and he did back his stuff up. I was reacting more to Vitamin's reaction than to what Volumen said. Sorry.
Basically this is a lot of name calling. If you want to engage a particular argument I have made then please go ahead. But don't come out and say my views are dishonest or absurd without referencing a specific issue.
You act like all those facts and dates you rattle off proves anything. My issue is the way you argue. It's full of shit.
As far as name calling I'm going to indulge in one more -- saying you're liberal on most things continuing to defend US policy on Iraq after this many lies represents an all too widespread pathology. It seems that when it comes to the question of war, many on the right are simply incapable of admitting a mistake, sort of the way Bush couldn't think of a single thing he had done wrong when asked point blank what mistakes he's made. He could not name a SINGLE THING. It goes straight to the realm of mental illness. I honestly believe most engaged and committed republicans are suffering from a form of mental illness.
This war was built on a foundation of nothing but one lie after another. That's why soliders are dying over there. That's why many Iraqis actually preferred life under Saddam -- because at least they knew where they stood. You could trust Saddam to be Saddam. We lost faith with that country -- hell, the entire world -- when Bush took over. In this sense we deserve whatever we get from our enemies. Evil begets evil.
The biggest problem with republicans is their inability to recognize the effect of lying. They believe (with some reason, considering how boldly they lie at this point and how much they get away with) that anything can be believed if repeated enough times. They refuse to recognize the anger that is generated when someone feels lied to. Virtually every big lie, every major scandal in American politics of the past 50 years, has been the result of some republican(s) who simply didn't know right from wrong. These are people without honor. Karl Rove made a career out of dirty tricks and "rat fucking," and now he is the defacto leader of the world. This is truly the darkest time in American history.
You argue the same way these people do. I acknowledge your superior grasp of historical trivia and the idea that you're probably a lot more moderate than you often come off, but I also think you suffer from the same sort of derangement that finds excuses for the inexcusable, and that like most of your comrades that you completely lack any sense of moral relativity. Anyone who can find any defense for gitmo, any whatsoever, has clearly lost track of their moral compass.
The biggest problem with republicans is their inability to recognize the effect of lying. They believe (with some reason, considering how boldly they lie at this point and how much they get away with) that anything can be believed if repeated enough times.
Yes, and evidently this also works for neo-cons who want to convince people that they are 'liberal' by tossing the word around, ahem... liberally.
I'm sorry BeardedID, would you rather I argue through images, emoticons or break dancing? Aren't facts and historical context essential to making an argument. And please expand on this big lie theory of yours. Just because lots of people say the president lied, does not mean he did. And the one sound point you made about the marginality of Volumen's argument, which I responded to twice by the way, has been nullified. So you agree with him that there is no difference between poor people who live near superfund sites and gassing Kurds with VX. You can't endorse a statement and talk about anyone's moral compass. I never said I had no problems with Gitmo, though most of my problems are about due process and lack of transparency. But it's also to place Gitmo in the context of a war against terrorists. Do you propose we don't go after them at all.
Ever heard about the white house leaking the name of a secret agent because she was the wife of a political rival?
The paper PRINTING may not be shut down but the STORY is.
If you are going to site a bill of particulars to bolster your argument, you should at least make them consistent with your point. For example, you mention the leaking of Valerie Plame as an example of how the president's advisers "shut down" a story. Have you been reading any of the major papers? Are you aware there is a special prosecutor looking into this matter right now? You mention how poor people live near chemical waste facilities. But there have also been laws requiring corporations to clean up these sites on the books for 25 years now. Regardless, you are equating the use of nerve gas from helicopters with increased cancer rates of poor communities that live near superfund sites. Your discernment capabilities also fail when you compare the Anfal campaign in northern Iraq, which was indiscriminate, with the disproportionate number of minorities arrested on largely drug crimes that are sent to prison. In one case, security forces emptied every home in every village of all Kurds. In another case, narcotics retailers are sent to prison for violating what is in my opinion an unfair drug law. It's a problem, but are these things comparable? Same can be said for your comparison of mass graves, holes in the ground dug for scores of civilians and the growing number of American soldiers from a volunteer army who return home in coffins. Also, if you are going to mention Gitmo, you might want to mention that the people who are sent there were picked up on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Actually the Plame story and the press argument were 2 seperate points. That's why I put spaces between them. Because I was trying to take your arguments point by point. The Plame story is an example of how the administration is making personal life threatning attacks on it's political rivals. Bush may not have had her raped, but his cronies blowing her cover could get her killed. See I'm making a comparison to your staments about Iraq and what goes on here. Am I being clear enough?
The statement about stories being shut down was just a simple statment. Even when stories get repotred they often don't get anything done. Repoting something doesn't eqal action being taken on the matter.
Laws requiring corperations to clean up sites. And those are working right? Yes, that's why Bush trew the Koto treaty out the window. Once again laws don't mean things are actually getting done.
There's no point in going through the rest of the stuff. No everycase isn't exactly the same. You just playing the lesser of 2 evils game. People volueered for the Army so that makes it for Bush to lie his way into a war that gets the voluteer killed? That's fucked up. Did they really voluteer to be his personal cannon fodder. Do you realize that plenty of people in the Army don't want to be there and think the war is wrong. Did you hear about the guy who had a relative shot him in the foot so he wouldn't have to go back? The point is plenty of screwed up stuff goes on here and we need to fix that before we start pushing our bullshit on some other country.
Just because lots of people say the president lied, does not mean he did.
He and his people said that Iraq had WMD and that he was trying to by "yellow cake". These were lies. But I'm sure you believe that the intellegence comunity just screwed up and it's their fault.
You are clearly on of the worst reporters around. You are just towing the party line and talking major bullshit.
Let me guess you think trees have to be clear cut so they grow back even??????
If you want me or your opponents to take you seriously, then you should expect us to address what you write. You have defended the original argument that America is a dictatorship and in a subsequent post tried to compare the atrocities of Saddam with what I admit are social justice problems in America. I was refuting you on your own terms. As for the volunteer army, it's condescending for you to call them "cannon fodder." I visit Walter Reed pretty regularly and that is not the view of many of the injured soldiers who are there. Many of them believe, as I do, that they are fighting for an elected government against a terrorist insurgency comprised of Baathists and al-Qaeda.
Are you aware there is a special prosecutor looking into this matter right now?
That prosecuter has gotten like a fourth the money as Kenneth Starr.....................
A little something by E.L. Doctoro.
>I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of >our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be.
> On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the > lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. > He knew what death was. > Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a > war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could > bear. > > But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind > for it. > You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the > WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to > the stage > in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, > smiling and > waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't > understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course > of a speech > written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave > young > Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. > > But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an > emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because > he has no > capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for > the thousand > dead young men and women who wanted be what they could be. > > They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or > wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a > terribly torn > fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance > of aborted > life.... They come to his desk as a political liability which is why > the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their > coffins > from Iraq. > > How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets > nothing. > He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, > unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled > plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a > disaster. > He does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism his war > in Iraq has > licensed it. > > So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have > fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. > He had > not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those > who knew > those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when > it is one > of the options, but when it is the only option; you go not because > you want > to but because you have to. > > This president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer > the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This > president > and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing --- > to take > power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of > themselves > and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. You > become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent > becomes > inappropriate. > And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does > not > sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children. > > He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the > families of the dead; he does not feel for the thirty five million > of us who live > in poverty; he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford > health insurance; he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are > turning > black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to > work overtime > at time-and-a-half to pay their bills --- it is amazing for how > many > people in this country this President does not feel. > > But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is > relieving > the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax burden for > the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we > breathe > for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the safety > regulations > for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is > depriving > workers of their time-and-a- half benefits for overtime because > this is > actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional > class. > > And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and > the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing > to our > democracy is choking the life out of it. > > But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I > remember the millions of people here and around the world who > marched against the > war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneously aroused oversoul of > alarm and > protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? > After all, this > was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little > wars > all over the world most of the time. > > But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of > people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of > mankind. It > was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was > morphing > into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history > was turning > its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing > not to > advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse > the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a > people, now > extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means > than pre-emptive war. > > The president we get is the country we get. With each president the > nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our > malleable > national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of > lawlessness that > govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints > are cast > in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his > characteristic > trouble. > > Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather > report. He > becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we > sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid > and > ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, > and the > monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a > figure of such > moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves. > > E.L. Doctorow
If you want me or your opponents to take you seriously, then you should expect us to address what you write. You have defended the original argument that America is a dictatorship and in a subsequent post tried to compare the atrocities of Saddam with what I admit are social justice problems in America. I was refuting you on your own terms. As for the volunteer army, it's condescending for you to call them "cannon fodder." I visit Walter Reed pretty regularly and that is not the view of many of the injured soldiers who are there. Many of them believe, as I do, that they are fighting for an elected government against a terrorist insurgency comprised of Baathists and al-Qaeda.
Vitamin
Once again I qalified my statment by saying what I ment by dictatorship. Call it oligarcy, or monothocracy or what ever. I've made it clear that my point is a small percentage of people hold the power in this country and that's not the deffinition of a democracy. In fact a real democracy has really yet to be seen.
It's not condescending to call solidiers cannon fodder cuz that's what they are being used for. What's condescending is the dissmissive nature you and other conservatives take of any opposing view. Once again your trying the old coservative trick of twisting the argument to make it look like you give a shit. Sure plenty of soldiers believe what you believe and plenty believe like me that the war is wrong and they want the fuck out of their. And in case you forgot Timoty McVey was a solider and look how he turned out. Being in the Army doesn't mean you belive all the shit your told to do. Once again it comes back to social injustce because lots of people join because they have no other options in life.
As I said the stuff Saddam did may not be 100% equal to the things that go on here, but (once again) my point is that there are incredible similarities and only amount to the lesser of 2 evils and that's still fucked. Just cause our evils aren't as bad does not make them good.
Vitamin: I'm sorry BeardedID, would you rather I argue through images, emoticons or break dancing?
D: No, I wouldn't. Well actually yes to images and break dancing, no to emoticons.
Vitamin: Aren't facts and historical context essential to making an argument.
D: Yes, I agree they're important.
Vitamin: And please expand on this big lie theory of yours.
D: JFK, Watergate, Iran Contra, WMD. Trying to impeach a president over lying about getting a blowjob is also a pretty big sort of a lie.
Vitamin: Just because lots of people say the president lied, does not mean he did.
D: So true.
Vitamin: And the one sound point you made about the marginality of Volumen's argument, which I responded to twice by the way, has been nullified.
D: Uh, ok.
Vitamin: So you agree with him that there is no difference between poor people who live near superfund sites and gassing Kurds with VX.
D: I don't remember him saying that, nor do I agree with that idea.
Vitamin: You can't endorse a statement and talk about anyone's moral compass.
G: I don't understand this sentence. And this is my big point here. You said to Volumen: "Also, if you are going to mention Gitmo, you might want to mention that the people who are sent there were picked up on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan." And I replied, "Anyone who can find any defense for gitmo, any whatsoever, has clearly lost track of their moral compass." To which you reply:
Vitamin: I never said I had no problems with Gitmo, though most of my problems are about due process and lack of transparency. But it's also to place Gitmo in the context of a war against terrorists. Do you propose we don't go after them at all.
D: This is a pretty black and white example of the mentally disturbed way you and your people like to argue. CAN YOU SEE IT DUDE?
Are you aware there is a special prosecutor looking into this matter right now?
That prosecuter has gotten like a fourth the money as Kenneth Starr.....................
No kidding!!!!!! Clinton gets a hummer (which was wrong) and the Conservative waste millions in tax payer dolars and time. Bush lies, starts a war and blows a agents cover and maybe we might just get around to finding somebody if we feel like it. When some one actually goes to jail for blowing Plame's cover I'll print this thread and eat it. They are already making excuses.......well her name might have been passed around but the middle person may not have known she was an agent so it wasn't against the law for the first and last person to give her name to a reporter. Yea, Vitamin good thing we have all those laws.
"(George Bush) cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves." --E.L. Doctorow
That about sums up this whole mess to me.
Regardless of politics, interests or aspirations, I feel George Bush is simply not a compassionate or whole HUMAN BEING, thus his shortcomings on many fronts.
I think a big root of the republican problem is a sense that the more you can get away with -- good things, bad things, whatever you can do to have your way -- the smarter and more superior you are. And if you can beat other people, you are better than them. But in competition as practiced by the republican, truth is not the core value; it's an occasional ally.
Your typical republican was not raised with much love. Karl Rove's personal history is a pretty interesting case study. George W. Bush is another example.
To the typical republican, logic and reason are more important than truth and love, because logic and reason are things that can protect a young person growing up in a hostile environment where there is not a lot of truth or love to be found.
Unfortunately, without truth or love, logic and reason can become mightily perverted, to the point where thousands of people wear "Club Gitmo" t-shirts from Rush Limbaugh, all the while insisting that they have logic and reason (not to mention GOD) on their side.
In fact, many republicans were so unloved as children that they're actually suspicious or contemptuous of understanding, kindness and compassion, seeing these as nothing more than signs of weakness.
I think there needs to be a lot of thought given to the question of republicanism as mental illness.
I would never want anyone to live under a dictatorship. Hussein was a totalitarian dictator who I wouldn't wish on anyone.
That being said, I think you can make a pretty good argument that Iraqis went from one bad situation to another. That they are in fact, not better off now.
Saddam Hussein tortured people
The new Iraqi security forces torture people
Saddam Hussein rounded up random, often innocent people and threw them in prison
American and Iraqi forces often round up all fighting age men in neighborhoods and streets and throw them in jail and keep them there for extended times, abusing them, not letting them know their charges, not informing their families of their whereabouts or conditions after raids.
Saddam Hussein was known for widespread corruption.
American and Iraqi reconstruction efforts are full of corruption.
Oil production is lower now than under Hussein.
Power production is lower now than under Hussein.
Personal safety is much worse now then under Hussein.
Crime is worse then under Hussein.
Unemployment is worse now then under Hussein.
The government has no legitimacy as shown by its inability to stop terrorist attacks.
Kurds are attempting to evict Arabs from the North just as Hussein did to them.
The invasion has increased support for Islamism and Al Qaeda
There are a whole new generation of radicalized Muslims around the world who are angered at the U.S. Just as Afghanistan led to a new generation of Islamists, the Iraq invasion has done the same thing to Muslims who were never radical before, but are now because of the U.S.'s actions.
Iraq has become a center of Islamism and terrorist because of the U.S. invasion. Islamists are increasingly taking over the insurgency from the Saddamists.
The civil war for all intense and purposes has begun in Iraq. And rather than your earlier thought from posts way back that Shiite and Kurdish militias would rise up and put down the insurgency and silence the Sunni resisters, what we're seeing is a lot of revenge killings. There are reports of Shiite and Kurdish death squads. Sunni and Shiite students are assassinating each other at major Iraqi universities.
All of this is exactly what Zarqawi wants.
Oh yea, and no Iraqis were killing Americans before the invasion. Now there's about 1 a day.
I think a big root of the republican problem is a sense that the more you can get away with -- good things, bad things, whatever you can do to have your way -- the smarter and more superior you are.
To the typical republican, logic and reason are more important than truth and love,
Unfortunately, without truth or love, logic and reason can become mightily perverted,
Forgive the harsh words, but I think that Vitamin's an idiot.
"Facts" do not outweigh injustice.
Would you, (Vitamin) be ok with your family killed, if it were in the interest of corporate America?
If Vitamin can't even get a sane grasp on Rawkus why do people on here entertain his mums on serious politics.
U.S. auditors have found that $8.8 billion in reconsturtion money spent under Paul Bremer is unaccounted for. Another $3.4 billion earmarked by Congress for reconstruction has been used on "security." Auditors found one fund of $600 million in cash in which no paperwork was kept on how it was spent.
Iraqi businessmen have complained that they had to pay bribes to Iraqi middlemen and Americans in the Provisional Authority under Bremer to get any contracts or jobs.
$11-$26 million in Iraqi property taken over by the U.S. from the Iraqi Central Bank is unaccounted for. Auditors have found much of the money went to fake employees and for non-existent work.
Auditors found on example of a U.S. officer delivering supplies to an Iraqi hospital. When the goods arrived the price for the goods had doubled. The U.S. officer said that $1 million increase was his "retirement package."
Auditors found hat Iraqi oil exports were unmetered. Speculation is that extra oil was being sold to help fund the U.S. war effort in the country. Christian Aid estimates that about $4 billion in oil exports was unaccounted for.
Auditors were going through 300 contracts worth $332.9 million when they found that 154 out of the 198 contracts did not contain evidence of any work.
January 2005 a report by auditors accused the new Iraqi government of fraud, corruption and waste. They found that the entire spending for the new interim Iraqi government from October 2003 to June 2004, worth $8.8 billion was not properly accoutned for.
London Times 7/7/05
Iraqi security forces set up by Americans and the British are routinely torturing detainees.
In the rush to create new Iraqi security forces, many ex-Hussein soldiers and officials are being put back to work.
A State Department report in Feburary, 2005 said that Iraqi authorities have been accused of torture and mistreatment of prisoners.
Iraqi National Guard have been accused of killing prisoners and dumping them in the Euphrates.
Boston Globe 7/15/05
U.S. investigators say the Pentagon can't account for the $1 billion its spending each week on the war in Iraq. One auditor said, "I can't understand how we're spending $1 billion a week."
One example was an auditor who said that the Pentagon spent a "questionable" $1.4 million on services through the Halliburton Co.
Boston Globe 7/17/05
2 studies, one by the Saudi government, one by an Israeli think tank on foreign fighters in Iraq found that majority of them were not terrorists beforehand, but had been radicalized by the U.S. invasion. Most were found to be young Arabs who were responding to calls by clerics and Islamists to drive the Americans out of Arab land. The author of the Israeli study said, "I am not sure the American public is really aware of the enormous influence of the war in Iraq, not just on Islamists but the entire Arab world." Case studies found that foreign fighters considered the U.S. invasion an attack on Islam and Arab culture. Almost all of the foreign fighters are Arab and Sunni going to fight Shiites Arabs.
A 2005 CIA National Intelligence Estimate said "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills, and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalized' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself."
Christian Science Monitor 7/18/05
Shiites linked with Sadr and the Badr brigade in parliament are calling for Shiite militias to protect them from attacks.
Associated Press 7/18/05
State Department report in July, 2005 said that Iraq's electricty can't meet demand, oil production is below prewar levels, barely half of Iraqis has access to safe drinking water. Iraqi unemployment is estimated at between 25-50%. Fuel and food subsidies have resulted in a huge budget deficit. U.S. and Iraqi auditors have not been able to account for billions in spending. At least 3 U.S. officials and many Iraqis are facing corruption charges.
New York Times 7/24/05
There are reports of Shiite death squads operating in the interior ministry targeting Sunnis.
Many Iraqis are saying that the civil war has begun.
Zarqawi has called Shiites "monkeys" and an affront to God.
Ayatollah Sistani has called on the government to "defend the country against mass annihiliation."
The new security forces being trained by the U.S. might increases the changes for civil war because 80% of them are Shiites and Kurds. The units often sent to hot spots are Shiite and Kurds.
A Sunni professor from Baghdad Univ. said, "The people feel taht the army does not come to serve them, but to punish them. The people hate them."
After 2 Sunnis working on the constitution were shot in Baghdad, some Sunnis accused the Shiites of committing the killings.
Der Spiegal 7/25/05
Shiite Ayatollah Sistani has said the constant attacks on Shiites constitutions "extermination" and that Iraq is headed towards "genocide."
5 times in the last 4 weeks regular Sunnis and Shiites were gunned down on the road to Baghdad airport as part of sectarian revenge killings between the 2 groups. Basra, Baghdad and areas with mixed Shiite and Sunni populations are plagued with increasing sectarian violence.
There are constant gas and fuel shortages due to insurgent attacks. There's a water shortage in Baghdad. Power to the capitol has been to cut to only 4 hours of electricity a day.
July 21, 2005 U.S. admitted that barely half of Iraq's new police have even mastered basic training and are completely unqualified. 2/3 of the new army are not deployable. There are almost as many insurgents as Iraqi forces capable of combat right now.
Foreign investment has stayed away from Iraq because it's too dangerous.
Imam Saghir says that the civil war has begun.
Sunnis charge the Shiite Badr brigade of killing Sunnis.
Britain's Observer has reported security forces acting as death squads torturing and killing Sunnis arrested on terrorism charges. A government spokesman even admitted that this is going on.
Politicians in the Shiite south and Kurdish north are increasingly calling for separation from Iraq.
Some Kurds are calling for an expansion of their area to hundreds of kilomters South which is predominately Sunni Arab. Arabs in Kirkuk say that Kurds are trying to drive them out of the city.
Business Week 8/1/05
The U.S. has been pressuring the new government to include more Sunnis itno negotiations over the Constitution but the Shiites are resisting because they blame the Sunnis for the crimes of Hussein.
Hey Vitamin. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but you really did avoid my point about Bush abandoning the quest to bring the 9/11 attackers to justice in favor of invading Iraq.
I'm not interested in getting into an argument over the benefits of invading Iraq, becuase it's a complex Issue. I am glad that Saddam is no longer in power, but I'm not convinced that it has made Iraq a better place for its people in the short term. That's all I will say about that.
I do want to know what you think about Bush abandoning the hunt for Bin Laden, though. I have yet to hear a good reason for that and I think it's extremely bizarre that so many people are completely unconcerned about it. It is common knowledge that he was the mastermind behind the heinous 9/11 attacks and is most likely working on plans to deliver another terrorist attack as soon as possible. Why on Earth did we need to direct so much of our military resources to Iraq, when the issue of Saddam's tyrany could have waited, just as Kim Jong Il's tyranny remains (relatively) unchallenged.
If you would, I'd like you to address this issue without changing the subject or reverting to personal attacks (not that I think you have been doing the latter in this particular thread).
Comments
Mud the far cars
You have to agree that there is a certain something something about this nation that sets it apart from most western liberal democracies. People on the right might say that's a good thing, but there are plenty of intelligent, free-minded people who feel otherwise.
The left is no sillier with their Nazi Germany analogies than the right.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The good old right wing let's grade our own performance on the lowest standard we can find argument.
The irony is that poor areas are know to house the worst polluion dumps and chemical factories, so yes the Pres does allow chemicals to be used on his enemies (the poor).
Black people are constantly moved en masse to detention centers. You think they voted for Bush??????
Every heard of Gitmo? Did you hear about the stuff that was being done to prisioners in Iraq?
Ever heard about the white house leaking the name of a secret agent because she was the wife of a political rival?
The paper PRINTING may not be shut down but the STORY is.
BTW yes I voted, and just like in Iraq the elections here are a joke.
Do you seriously think everyone who gets harassed by police gets compensated? Hell police don't even get fired when they shoot innocent people or beat the crap out of them on video tape. And really what is a fair price for the police to blow away your child? There is none you ignorant fuck!
Mass graves? Yea there is a big one in DC being filled with young people's bodies so the president can't wage his chrisitan supremicy power bid on the world.
Absurd arguments like yours are a lot more common and characteristic of your side than "America is a dictatorship" comments are from ours. It's perfectly accurate to say your remarks represent the mainstream of right wing thinking, whereas someone talking about the US dictatorship obviously comes from the deranged fringe. And one, however stupid and wrong, is at least straightforward and clearly based on subjective opinion, ie honest but dumb, whereas the other relies on manipulation and sophistry, ie dishonest and dumb.
I said it was a specific kind of dictatorship where %5 or less are making all the rules and keeping all the profits. I don't think it's Nazi Germany, but I also don't buy that we are the greatest thing ever. America still has a long way to go.
I wasn't silly with my analogy, I spelled it out.
Basically this is a lot of name calling. If you want to engage a particular argument I have made then please go ahead. But don't come out and say my views are dishonest or absurd without referencing a specific issue. I agree, America should not be compared to Saddam's Iraq. And you'd be surprised at how liberal I am on everything from Gay marriage to the progressive income tax. My arguments for the Iraq war, and for continuing to fight for an elected government there, are rooted in my liberalism. Since I think political freedoms are universal values, I see no reason why they should be excepted from Iraq. Furthermore, we already intervened in Iraqi history--first in 1979 when we gave international recognition to the coup that brought Saddam to power; during the 1980s when we sold him spare parts and agricultural credits; in 1991 when we drove his army from Kuwait only to allow him to put down the rebellions we encouraged; and throughout the 1990s by keeping sanctions on Iraq and defending the no fly zones we created. We were already engaged in Iraq. So I supported this latest intervention because we and the international community owed Iraqis something better than a torture state. And despite all of the violence in Iraq, I say it's still better than it was under him. I've been there and can say this from some experience. If you want to take on those points I welcome it.
Yea, and same groups that got involved in Iraq then are getting involved now. I disagreed with them then and I disagree with them now. Bush Jr is just trying finish his daddy's little crusade and it's sickning. If you so for all this go join the Army. Quit your yappin and put you ass where your mouth is. Or do you just want everyone else to die for your points of view. You say you've been there...as a solider or a tourist?
Speaking of......one by one I and others have countered you points and you've had nothing to say. So don't act all high and mighty like your really ready to debate. You just want to spout your talk and leave. Just like Bush you want to pretend other peoples points don't exist.
And BTW what kind of liberal thinks we should invade another country and force them to be like us? You so eager to "reference a speciffic issue" try this one.
If you are going to site a bill of particulars to bolster your argument, you should at least make them consistent with your point. For example, you mention the leaking of Valerie Plame as an example of how the president's advisers "shut down" a story. Have you been reading any of the major papers? Are you aware there is a special prosecutor looking into this matter right now? You mention how poor people live near chemical waste facilities. But there have also been laws requiring corporations to clean up these sites on the books for 25 years now. Regardless, you are equating the use of nerve gas from helicopters with increased cancer rates of poor communities that live near superfund sites. Your discernment capabilities also fail when you compare the Anfal campaign in northern Iraq, which was indiscriminate, with the disproportionate number of minorities arrested on largely drug crimes that are sent to prison. In one case, security forces emptied every home in every village of all Kurds. In another case, narcotics retailers are sent to prison for violating what is in my opinion an unfair drug law. It's a problem, but are these things comparable? Same can be said for your comparison of mass graves, holes in the ground dug for scores of civilians and the growing number of American soldiers from a volunteer army who return home in coffins. Also, if you are going to mention Gitmo, you might want to mention that the people who are sent there were picked up on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stage-managed "Democracy" from start to present
Do you not remember all the lefties raving on about another Vietnam? While your lot were wink winking about cheaper oil? Who was wrong?? The revisionism continues at such a fast pace that it's impossible to keep up with the matters facing us right now. This article is pretty concise.
DAVID MORGAN
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
PHILADELPHIA???If the United States succeeds in shepherding the creation of a post-war Iraqi government, a former National Security Council official says, it won't be the first time that Washington has played a primary role in changing that country's rulers.
Roger Morris, a former State Department foreign service officer who was on the NSC staff during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, says the CIA had a hand in two coups in Iraq during the darkest days of the Cold War, including a 1968 putsch that set Saddam Hussein firmly on the path to power.
Morris says that in 1963, two years after the ill-fated U.S. attempt at overthrow in Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs, the CIA helped organize a bloody coup in Iraq that deposed the Soviet-leaning government of Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem.
"This takes you down a longer, darker road in terms of American culpability ....
"As in Iran in '53, it was mostly American money and even American involvement on the ground," says Morris, referring to a U.S.-backed coup that brought the return of the shah to neighbouring Iran.
Kassem, who had allowed communists to hold positions of responsibility in his government, was machine-gunned to death. And the country wound up in the hands of the Baath party.
At the time, Morris continues, Saddam was a Baath operative studying law in Cairo, one of the venues the CIA chose to plan the coup.
In fact, he claims the former Iraqi president castigated by President George W. Bush as one of history's most "brutal dictators" was actually on the CIA payroll in those days.
"There's no question," Morris says. "It was there in Cairo that (Saddam) and others were first contacted by the agency."
In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious prot??g?? in 1979.
"It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says.
His version of history is a far cry from current American rhetoric about Iraq ??? a country that top U.S. officials say has been liberated from decades of tyranny and given the chance for a bright democratic future.
There's no mention of America's own alleged role in giving birth to the regime.
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the claims of CIA involvement in the Iraqi coups but said Morris' assertion that Saddam once received payments from the CIA is "utterly ridiculous."
Morris, who resigned from the NSC staff over the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, says he learned the details of American covert involvement in Iraq from ranking CIA officials of the day, including Teddy Roosevelt's grandson, Archibald Roosevelt.
Now 65, Morris went on to become a Nixon biographer and is currently writing a book about U.S. covert action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He regards Saddam as a deposed U.S. client in the mold of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
"We climb into bed with these people without really knowing anything about their politics," Morris says. "It's not unusual, of course, in American policy. We tire of these people, and we find reasons to shed them." But many experts, including foreign affairs scholars, say there is little to suggest U.S. involvement in Iraq in the 1960s.
David Wise, a Washington-based author who has written extensively about Cold War espionage, says he is only aware of records showing that a CIA group known as the "Health Alteration Committee" tried to assassinate Kassem in 1960 by sending the Iraqi leader a poisoned monogrammed handkerchief.
"Clearly, they felt that Kassem was somebody who had to be eliminated," Wise says.
Morris contends that little is known about CIA involvement in the Iraqi coups because the Middle East did not hold as much strategic importance in the 1960s and most senior U.S. officials involved there at the time have since died.
But even if the United States played no role in the rise of Iraq's Baath party, experts say Washington has obviously had to confront unintended consequences of former U.S. policies ??? including those of Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who was CIA director before becoming president.
"There are always some unintended consequences," says Helmut Sonnenfeldt, guest scholar in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and former NSC staffer.
"There were unintended consequences in World War I that brought the rise of Hitler."
The United States and other Western powers supported Saddam's regime during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, even after the Baghdad government used chemical weapons to kill thousands of Kurdish villagers in Halabja.
The 1988 atrocity recently was a cornerstone of U.S. justifications for its war to topple Saddam's regime.
Before war broke out last month, a flurry of U.S. headlines also called attention to reports that pathogens used by Iraq for its biological warfare program came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a private Manassas, Va.-based biological samples repository called the American Type Culture Collection.
Officials at the two institutions said shipments of anthrax, West Nile virus, botulinum toxins and other pathogens were sent to Iraq in the 1980s with U.S. commerce department approval for medical research purposes.
Even Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program, which U.S. officials said was on the verge of producing a nuclear bomb last year, got under way with help from a 1950s Eisenhower administration program to share the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy called "Atoms for Peace."
That is according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based group co-founded by media mogul Ted Turner and former U.S. senator Sam Nunn to reduce the global threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
James Phillips, senior Middle East analyst for the Heritage Foundation, disagrees that Bush's war in Iraq is the result of CIA involvement.
But he says the United States did turn a blind eye to the chance to topple Saddam during the 1991 Gulf War, just as it left Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network after Soviet forces left that country.
"I am reminded of the biblical expression about the sins of the father," Phillips says.
"The first Bush administration was the one that decided to cut off aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan and set them adrift. And they were also the ones who decided not to go to Baghdad during the first Gulf War."
Spare parts and agricultural credits?
Dude,
I've countered plenty of people on this board who have disagreed with me. One of the reasons I don't always engage you is because I'm not sure we agree on the basic facts of the matter or even the definition of words. Most of the time you throw some third grade insults at me and restate some far left bumper sticker. I've been to Iraq as a journalist. But do you think that anyone who favors this war should have to go and fight it. And seriously, why is it worth anyone's time to counter you when you say, "Bush Jr is just trying finish his daddy's little crusade and it's sickning." What are you basing that on? The burden is on you to explain how you came across this inside information.
Now you end your tirade with a question about invasions and liberalism. I would point out that many liberals favored the invasion of Germany in world war 2, they also favored President Clinton's intervention in Kosovo when he stopped the ethnic cleansing of Albanians there. Liberals often say they wish someone had invaded Rwanda so as to stop the 1994 genocide. Liberals also favored sending garrisons to East Timor to protect that fledgling state's independence. As for the "force them to be like us," I don't think that's necessarily what we are trying to do in Iraq. But since you brought it up, do you think that Iraqis wanted to be left alone and live under Saddam Hussein. Here was someone who was deliberately starving and malnourishing his children. He required everyone to join the army. Those who left had their ears chopped off or their tongues lashed out. Preventing this sort of thing is not forcing people to live like us.
Vitamin.
This is kind of my point now isn't it. We were behind the coups that brought Saddam to power. I have written here and published, Saddam was a former client. This is one of the reasons I supported the war.
You act like all those facts and dates you rattle off proves anything. My issue is the way you argue. It's full of shit.
As far as name calling I'm going to indulge in one more -- saying you're liberal on most things continuing to defend US policy on Iraq after this many lies represents an all too widespread pathology. It seems that when it comes to the question of war, many on the right are simply incapable of admitting a mistake, sort of the way Bush couldn't think of a single thing he had done wrong when asked point blank what mistakes he's made. He could not name a SINGLE THING. It goes straight to the realm of mental illness. I honestly believe most engaged and committed republicans are suffering from a form of mental illness.
This war was built on a foundation of nothing but one lie after another. That's why soliders are dying over there. That's why many Iraqis actually preferred life under Saddam -- because at least they knew where they stood. You could trust Saddam to be Saddam. We lost faith with that country -- hell, the entire world -- when Bush took over. In this sense we deserve whatever we get from our enemies. Evil begets evil.
The biggest problem with republicans is their inability to recognize the effect of lying. They believe (with some reason, considering how boldly they lie at this point and how much they get away with) that anything can be believed if repeated enough times. They refuse to recognize the anger that is generated when someone feels lied to. Virtually every big lie, every major scandal in American politics of the past 50 years, has been the result of some republican(s) who simply didn't know right from wrong. These are people without honor. Karl Rove made a career out of dirty tricks and "rat fucking," and now he is the defacto leader of the world. This is truly the darkest time in American history.
You argue the same way these people do. I acknowledge your superior grasp of historical trivia and the idea that you're probably a lot more moderate than you often come off, but I also think you suffer from the same sort of derangement that finds excuses for the inexcusable, and that like most of your comrades that you completely lack any sense of moral relativity. Anyone who can find any defense for gitmo, any whatsoever, has clearly lost track of their moral compass.
Yes, and evidently this also works for neo-cons who want to convince people that they are 'liberal' by tossing the word around, ahem... liberally.
Actually the Plame story and the press argument were 2 seperate points. That's why I put spaces between them. Because I was trying to take your arguments point by point. The Plame story is an example of how the administration is making personal life threatning attacks on it's political rivals. Bush may not have had her raped, but his cronies blowing her cover could get her killed. See I'm making a comparison to your staments about Iraq and what goes on here. Am I being clear enough?
The statement about stories being shut down was just a simple statment. Even when stories get repotred they often don't get anything done. Repoting something doesn't eqal action being taken on the matter.
Laws requiring corperations to clean up sites. And those are working right? Yes, that's why Bush trew the Koto treaty out the window. Once again laws don't mean things are actually getting done.
There's no point in going through the rest of the stuff. No everycase isn't exactly the same. You just playing the lesser of 2 evils game. People volueered for the Army so that makes it for Bush to lie his way into a war that gets the voluteer killed? That's fucked up. Did they really voluteer to be his personal cannon fodder. Do you realize that plenty of people in the Army don't want to be there and think the war is wrong. Did you hear about the guy who had a relative shot him in the foot so he wouldn't have to go back? The point is plenty of screwed up stuff goes on here and we need to fix that before we start pushing our bullshit on some other country.
He and his people said that Iraq had WMD and that he was trying to by "yellow cake". These were lies. But I'm sure you believe that the intellegence comunity just screwed up and it's their fault.
You are clearly on of the worst reporters around. You are just towing the party line and talking major bullshit.
Let me guess you think trees have to be clear cut so they grow back even??????
If you want me or your opponents to take you seriously, then you should expect us to address what you write. You have defended the original argument that America is a dictatorship and in a subsequent post tried to compare the atrocities of Saddam with what I admit are social justice problems in America. I was refuting you on your own terms. As for the volunteer army, it's condescending for you to call them "cannon fodder." I visit Walter Reed pretty regularly and that is not the view of many of the injured soldiers who are there. Many of them believe, as I do, that they are fighting for an elected government against a terrorist insurgency comprised of Baathists and al-Qaeda.
Vitamin
A little something by E.L. Doctoro.
>I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of >our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be.
> On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the
> lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die.
> He knew what death was.
> Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a
> war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could
> bear.
>
> But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind
> for it.
> You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the
> WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to
> the stage
> in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd,
> smiling and
> waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't
> understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course
> of a speech
> written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave
> young
> Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
>
> But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an
> emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because
> he has no
> capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for
> the thousand
> dead young men and women who wanted be what they could be.
>
> They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or
> wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a
> terribly torn
> fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance
> of aborted
> life.... They come to his desk as a political liability which is why
> the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their
> coffins
> from Iraq.
>
> How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets
> nothing.
> He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew,
> unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled
> plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a
> disaster.
> He does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism his war
> in Iraq has
> licensed it.
>
> So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have
> fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did.
> He had
> not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those
> who knew
> those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when
> it is one
> of the options, but when it is the only option; you go not because
> you want
> to but because you have to.
>
> This president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer
> the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This
> president
> and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing ---
> to take
> power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of
> themselves
> and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. You
> become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent
> becomes
> inappropriate.
> And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does
> not
> sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children.
>
> He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the
> families of the dead; he does not feel for the thirty five million
> of us who live
> in poverty; he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford
> health insurance; he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are
> turning
> black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to
> work overtime
> at time-and-a-half to pay their bills --- it is amazing for how
> many
> people in this country this President does not feel.
>
> But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is
> relieving
> the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax burden for
> the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we
> breathe
> for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the safety
> regulations
> for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is
> depriving
> workers of their time-and-a- half benefits for overtime because
> this is
> actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional
> class.
>
> And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and
> the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing
> to our
> democracy is choking the life out of it.
>
> But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I
> remember the millions of people here and around the world who
> marched against the
> war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneously aroused oversoul of
> alarm and
> protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen?
> After all, this
> was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little
> wars
> all over the world most of the time.
>
> But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of
> people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of
> mankind. It
> was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was
> morphing
> into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history
> was turning
> its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing
> not to
> advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse
> the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a
> people, now
> extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means
> than pre-emptive war.
>
> The president we get is the country we get. With each president the
> nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our
> malleable
> national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of
> lawlessness that
> govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints
> are cast
> in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his
> characteristic
> trouble.
>
> Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather
> report. He
> becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we
> sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid
> and
> ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving,
> and the
> monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a
> figure of such
> moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.
>
> E.L. Doctorow
Once again I qalified my statment by saying what I ment by dictatorship. Call it oligarcy, or monothocracy or what ever. I've made it clear that my point is a small percentage of people hold the power in this country and that's not the deffinition of a democracy. In fact a real democracy has really yet to be seen.
It's not condescending to call solidiers cannon fodder cuz that's what they are being used for. What's condescending is the dissmissive nature you and other conservatives take of any opposing view. Once again your trying the old coservative trick of twisting the argument to make it look like you give a shit. Sure plenty of soldiers believe what you believe and plenty believe like me that the war is wrong and they want the fuck out of their. And in case you forgot Timoty McVey was a solider and look how he turned out. Being in the Army doesn't mean you belive all the shit your told to do. Once again it comes back to social injustce because lots of people join because they have no other options in life.
As I said the stuff Saddam did may not be 100% equal to the things that go on here, but (once again) my point is that there are incredible similarities and only amount to the lesser of 2 evils and that's still fucked. Just cause our evils aren't as bad does not make them good.
D: No, I wouldn't. Well actually yes to images and break dancing, no to emoticons.
Vitamin: Aren't facts and historical context essential to making an argument.
D: Yes, I agree they're important.
Vitamin: And please expand on this big lie theory of yours.
D: JFK, Watergate, Iran Contra, WMD. Trying to impeach a president over lying about getting a blowjob is also a pretty big sort of a lie.
Vitamin: Just because lots of people say the president lied, does not mean he did.
D: So true.
Vitamin: And the one sound point you made about the marginality of Volumen's argument, which I responded to twice by the way, has been nullified.
D: Uh, ok.
Vitamin: So you agree with him that there is no difference between poor people who live near superfund sites and gassing Kurds with VX.
D: I don't remember him saying that, nor do I agree with that idea.
Vitamin: You can't endorse a statement and talk about anyone's moral compass.
G: I don't understand this sentence. And this is my big point here. You said to Volumen: "Also, if you are going to mention Gitmo, you might want to mention that the people who are sent there were picked up on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan." And I replied, "Anyone who can find any defense for gitmo, any whatsoever, has clearly lost track of their moral compass." To which you reply:
Vitamin: I never said I had no problems with Gitmo, though most of my problems are about due process and lack of transparency. But it's also to place Gitmo in the context of a war against terrorists. Do you propose we don't go after them at all.
D: This is a pretty black and white example of the mentally disturbed way you and your people like to argue. CAN YOU SEE IT DUDE?
No kidding!!!!!! Clinton gets a hummer (which was wrong) and the Conservative waste millions in tax payer dolars and time. Bush lies, starts a war and blows a agents cover and maybe we might just get around to finding somebody if we feel like it. When some one actually goes to jail for blowing Plame's cover I'll print this thread and eat it. They are already making excuses.......well her name might have been passed around but the middle person may not have known she was an agent so it wasn't against the law for the first and last person to give her name to a reporter. Yea, Vitamin good thing we have all those laws.
That about sums up this whole mess to me.
Regardless of politics, interests or aspirations, I feel George Bush is simply not a compassionate or whole HUMAN BEING, thus his shortcomings on many fronts.
Your typical republican was not raised with much love. Karl Rove's personal history is a pretty interesting case study. George W. Bush is another example.
To the typical republican, logic and reason are more important than truth and love, because logic and reason are things that can protect a young person growing up in a hostile environment where there is not a lot of truth or love to be found.
Unfortunately, without truth or love, logic and reason can become mightily perverted, to the point where thousands of people wear "Club Gitmo" t-shirts from Rush Limbaugh, all the while insisting that they have logic and reason (not to mention GOD) on their side.
In fact, many republicans were so unloved as children that they're actually suspicious or contemptuous of understanding, kindness and compassion, seeing these as nothing more than signs of weakness.
I think there needs to be a lot of thought given to the question of republicanism as mental illness.
I would never want anyone to live under a dictatorship. Hussein was a totalitarian dictator who I wouldn't wish on anyone.
That being said, I think you can make a pretty good argument that Iraqis went from one bad situation to another. That they are in fact, not better off now.
Saddam Hussein tortured people
The new Iraqi security forces torture people
Saddam Hussein rounded up random, often innocent people and threw them in prison
American and Iraqi forces often round up all fighting age men in neighborhoods and streets and throw them in jail and keep them there for extended times, abusing them, not letting them know their charges, not informing their families of their whereabouts or conditions after raids.
Saddam Hussein was known for widespread corruption.
American and Iraqi reconstruction efforts are full of corruption.
Oil production is lower now than under Hussein.
Power production is lower now than under Hussein.
Personal safety is much worse now then under Hussein.
Crime is worse then under Hussein.
Unemployment is worse now then under Hussein.
The government has no legitimacy as shown by its inability to stop terrorist attacks.
Kurds are attempting to evict Arabs from the North just as Hussein did to them.
The invasion has increased support for Islamism and Al Qaeda
There are a whole new generation of radicalized Muslims around the world who are angered at the U.S. Just as Afghanistan led to a new generation of Islamists, the Iraq invasion has done the same thing to Muslims who were never radical before, but are now because of the U.S.'s actions.
Iraq has become a center of Islamism and terrorist because of the U.S. invasion. Islamists are increasingly taking over the insurgency from the Saddamists.
The civil war for all intense and purposes has begun in Iraq. And rather than your earlier thought from posts way back that Shiite and Kurdish militias would rise up and put down the insurgency and silence the Sunni resisters, what we're seeing is a lot of revenge killings. There are reports of Shiite and Kurdish death squads. Sunni and Shiite students are assassinating each other at major Iraqi universities.
All of this is exactly what Zarqawi wants.
Oh yea, and no Iraqis were killing Americans before the invasion. Now there's about 1 a day.
Forgive the harsh words, but I think that Vitamin's an idiot.
"Facts" do not outweigh injustice.
Would you, (Vitamin) be ok with your family killed, if it were in the interest of corporate America?
If Vitamin can't even get a sane grasp on Rawkus why do people on here entertain his mums on serious politics.
Really?
Guardian - UK
7/7/05
U.S. auditors have found that $8.8 billion in reconsturtion money spent under Paul Bremer is unaccounted for. Another $3.4 billion earmarked by Congress for reconstruction has been used on "security." Auditors found one fund of $600 million in cash in which no paperwork was kept on how it was spent.
Iraqi businessmen have complained that they had to pay bribes to Iraqi middlemen and Americans in the Provisional Authority under Bremer to get any contracts or jobs.
$11-$26 million in Iraqi property taken over by the U.S. from the Iraqi Central Bank is unaccounted for. Auditors have found much of the money went to fake employees and for non-existent work.
Auditors found on example of a U.S. officer delivering supplies to an Iraqi hospital. When the goods arrived the price for the goods had doubled. The U.S. officer said that $1 million increase was his "retirement package."
Auditors found hat Iraqi oil exports were unmetered. Speculation is that extra oil was being sold to help fund the U.S. war effort in the country. Christian Aid estimates that about $4 billion in oil exports was unaccounted for.
Auditors were going through 300 contracts worth $332.9 million when they found that 154 out of the 198 contracts did not contain evidence of any work.
January 2005 a report by auditors accused the new Iraqi government of fraud, corruption and waste. They found that the entire spending for the new interim Iraqi government from October 2003 to June 2004, worth $8.8 billion was not properly accoutned for.
London Times
7/7/05
Iraqi security forces set up by Americans and the British are routinely torturing detainees.
In the rush to create new Iraqi security forces, many ex-Hussein soldiers and officials are being put back to work.
A State Department report in Feburary, 2005 said that Iraqi authorities have been accused of torture and mistreatment of prisoners.
Iraqi National Guard have been accused of killing prisoners and dumping them in the Euphrates.
Boston Globe
7/15/05
U.S. investigators say the Pentagon can't account for the $1 billion its spending each week on the war in Iraq. One auditor said, "I can't understand how we're spending $1 billion a week."
One example was an auditor who said that the Pentagon spent a "questionable" $1.4 million on services through the Halliburton Co.
Boston Globe
7/17/05
2 studies, one by the Saudi government, one by an Israeli think tank on foreign fighters in Iraq found that majority of them were not terrorists beforehand, but had been radicalized by the U.S. invasion. Most were found to be young Arabs who were responding to calls by clerics and Islamists to drive the Americans out of Arab land. The author of the Israeli study said, "I am not sure the American public is really aware of the enormous influence of the war in Iraq, not just on Islamists but the entire Arab world." Case studies found that foreign fighters considered the U.S. invasion an attack on Islam and Arab culture. Almost all of the foreign fighters are Arab and Sunni going to fight Shiites Arabs.
A 2005 CIA National Intelligence Estimate said "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills, and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalized' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself."
Christian Science Monitor
7/18/05
Shiites linked with Sadr and the Badr brigade in parliament are calling for Shiite militias to protect them from attacks.
Associated Press
7/18/05
State Department report in July, 2005 said that Iraq's electricty can't meet demand, oil production is below prewar levels, barely half of Iraqis has access to safe drinking water. Iraqi unemployment is estimated at between 25-50%. Fuel and food subsidies have resulted in a huge budget deficit. U.S. and Iraqi auditors have not been able to account for billions in spending. At least 3 U.S. officials and many Iraqis are facing corruption charges.
New York Times
7/24/05
There are reports of Shiite death squads operating in the interior ministry targeting Sunnis.
Many Iraqis are saying that the civil war has begun.
Zarqawi has called Shiites "monkeys" and an affront to God.
Ayatollah Sistani has called on the government to "defend the country against mass annihiliation."
The new security forces being trained by the U.S. might increases the changes for civil war because 80% of them are Shiites and Kurds. The units often sent to hot spots are Shiite and Kurds.
A Sunni professor from Baghdad Univ. said, "The people feel taht the army does not come to serve them, but to punish them. The people hate them."
After 2 Sunnis working on the constitution were shot in Baghdad, some Sunnis accused the Shiites of committing the killings.
Der Spiegal
7/25/05
Shiite Ayatollah Sistani has said the constant attacks on Shiites constitutions "extermination" and that Iraq is headed towards "genocide."
5 times in the last 4 weeks regular Sunnis and Shiites were gunned down on the road to Baghdad airport as part of sectarian revenge killings between the 2 groups. Basra, Baghdad and areas with mixed Shiite and Sunni populations are plagued with increasing sectarian violence.
There are constant gas and fuel shortages due to insurgent attacks. There's a water shortage in Baghdad. Power to the capitol has been to cut to only 4 hours of electricity a day.
July 21, 2005 U.S. admitted that barely half of Iraq's new police have even mastered basic training and are completely unqualified. 2/3 of the new army are not deployable. There are almost as many insurgents as Iraqi forces capable of combat right now.
Foreign investment has stayed away from Iraq because it's too dangerous.
Imam Saghir says that the civil war has begun.
Sunnis charge the Shiite Badr brigade of killing Sunnis.
Britain's Observer has reported security forces acting as death squads torturing and killing Sunnis arrested on terrorism charges. A government spokesman even admitted that this is going on.
Politicians in the Shiite south and Kurdish north are increasingly calling for separation from Iraq.
Some Kurds are calling for an expansion of their area to hundreds of kilomters South which is predominately Sunni Arab. Arabs in Kirkuk say that Kurds are trying to drive them out of the city.
Business Week
8/1/05
The U.S. has been pressuring the new government to include more Sunnis itno negotiations over the Constitution but the Shiites are resisting because they blame the Sunnis for the crimes of Hussein.
I'm not interested in getting into an argument over the benefits of invading Iraq, becuase it's a complex Issue. I am glad that Saddam is no longer in power, but I'm not convinced that it has made Iraq a better place for its people in the short term. That's all I will say about that.
I do want to know what you think about Bush abandoning the hunt for Bin Laden, though. I have yet to hear a good reason for that and I think it's extremely bizarre that so many people are completely unconcerned about it. It is common knowledge that he was the mastermind behind the heinous 9/11 attacks and is most likely working on plans to deliver another terrorist attack as soon as possible. Why on Earth did we need to direct so much of our military resources to Iraq, when the issue of Saddam's tyrany could have waited, just as Kim Jong Il's tyranny remains (relatively) unchallenged.
If you would, I'd like you to address this issue without changing the subject or reverting to personal attacks (not that I think you have been doing the latter in this particular thread).
I will respond to your questions and comments by the close of business. Gotta meet my man for lunch.
Vitamin