Spook:
Yawn. What have we gotten into? 200 dead in 9 months. Oh gee. Guess it wasn’t worth getting rid of saddam hussein. You have proved us all so right. Yup Yuperooo.
Guess we will just have to get along with this program without you. But Libya giving up its weapons must be because of Rascal’s “how to implement” policy? hahhahahahah Yup. Keep watching. Keep learning. We will take care of you. hahahahah
Next stop Syria? I am all for it. Gosh but where would we find the international law to support such an effort? I know. We can contact the French and Germans to see if they will allow it. Oh, they have policies to allow pre-emptive action? Well, well, guess we will just have to go ahead. Especially since we have both french and german approval. ahhahahahahaha
particularism indeed. Allons y
Neoconartist Lie #23: No one in a position to know doubted that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Dragging that old time ‘moral ambiguity’ out from under its rock one more time:
“Two government sources tell TIME that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is arguing over ground rules for her appearance in part because she does not want to testify under oath or, according to one source, in public.”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,565974,00.html
"Separately on Sunday, Israeli military activities continued in the West Bank, where a six-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammad Naim Isryda, was shot in the chest and killed while playing near his house in the Balata refugee camp on the edge of Nablus . . . "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20118-2003Dec21.html
Mr. Smith: you could negate the validity of all your well-argued though highly disagreeable viewpoints in the eyes of many if you take that kind of dismissive attitude towards the killing of children. Spook: your post without comment was appropriate.
Why is the life of a child worth more than a man, woman? I may be a male adult but I take exception with the idea that somehow men dying in battles, wars, etc. is somehow acceptable or natural or less tragic than the death of women and children. Therefore cannot agree with your point.
Why did the six year old boy die? Why is it being mentioned here? An Israeli military action as opposed to a suicide bomber deliberately targeting civilians is very different in my book. Take for example, the deliberate targeting of noncombattants with accidental or the highly euphemistic “collateral” damage. Big difference no?
These guys can answer your question as to what the difference is between a terrorist wantonly killing children with a bomb and a soldier recklessly using lethal force to control civilian populations:
"Mr. Ariel Sharon
We, citizens of Israel who fulfill our duty as reserve soldiers, fighters and officers, veterans of Sayeret Matkal, have chosen to walk at the head of our camp, as we have been taught. Out of concern for the future of Israel as a Jewish, Zionist, Democratic state, and out of fear for its moral character we declare that:
We shall no longer lend a hand in the occupation of the territories
We shall no longer take part in the deprivation of basic human rights from millions of Palestinians
We shall no long serve as a shield in the crusade of the settlements
We shall no longer corrupt our moral character in missions of oppression
We shall no longer deny our responsibility as soldiers of the Israeli DEFENSE force.
We fear for the fate of the children of this country, who are constantly subjected to an evil that is unnecessary, an evil in which we have participated. We have long ago crossed the line of those who fight for their own protection; we stand facing the border of those who fight to conquer another people."
Signed, thirteen former operators with Sayeret Matkal (Israeli counter-terrorism special forces)
http://www.isayeret.com/sniping/jenin-snipers.jpg
"We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel . . . were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people."
http://www.seruv.org/
No offense but I think that this has become way off topic. I am not really interested in discussing Israel. There is already a thread on this. But I will finish by noting that while these individuals are certainly entitled to their opinions, I don’t believe that the Arabs would allow the Israelis/Jews to live very long if they were in control. Comparatively speaking, the Israelis have treated the Palestinians extremely humanely under the circumstances. Finally, I would argue that the Palestinian Authority has been far harsher to its people as have the roaming gangs of thugs who patrol West Bank and Gaza cities.
The US is being advised by Israeli special ops in Iraq as to how to deal with the insurgents and as a result is going down the same road Israel went down in Lebanon.
The latest post-invasion strategic mistake the US is making now is trying to raise a Phalange-style proxy army to fight its battles in Iraq. This will create stresses along the ethnic faultlines in Iraqi society and is laying the foundations for civil war:
December 22nd, Iraqi web log:
[color=blue]"These last few days have been truly frightening. The air in Baghdad feels charged in a way that scares me. Everyone can feel the tension and it has been a strain on the nerves. It’s not so much what’s been going on in the streets- riots, shootings, bombings and raids- but it’s the possibility of what may lie ahead. We’ve been keeping the kids home from school, and my cousin’s wife learned that many parents were doing the same- especially the parents who need to drive their kids to school.
We’ve been avoiding discussing the possibilities of this last week’s developments
Hi girls!
Interesting post. It will be very interesting to see the emerging strategy of the United States in the coming months in light of the fact that the recent attempt to install a proxy U.S. security force (locally hired Iraqi police) is running into a stunningly versatile contumacy.
Given that many of the “rational right” on this forum advocate a foreign policy based on serving U.S. interests alone, a la Condoleeza Rice:
Condoleeza Rice: “American foreign policy in a Republican administration should refocus the United States on the national interest,”
“There is nothing wrong with doing something that benefits all humanity, but that is, in a sense, a second-order effect.”
Will strategists such as the fanatical Wolfowitz et al. allocate U.S. resources and mobilize U.S. capabilities to achieve a civil war in Iraq?
Let’s hear what the “rational right” have to say on this!
Dunc
Without the source of that dire letter (yawn) QUAGMIRE AGAIN!!! I would not really be inclined to give much credence to the source. Yet another hysterical Robert Fisk talking about impending doom? Sounds like it.
Big Dunc:
Realigning the US foreign policy to take into account US interests first is normal and rational. This does NOT mean that the US is going to go Hitler on the rest of the world. Calm deep breaths rational thought needed.
Let’s see what happens. All this gloom and doom. So busy focusing on the negative. Just like CNN’s recent reports focusing on hospitals that lack sufficient facilities in Iraq. And in the US and in Europe, this problem does not exist? So why the two year waits in the UK and the lack of health coverage in America? etc. etc. Iraq must now have a perfect health care system in 9 months or America is failing in Iraq? Give me a break.
To date, 215 US soldiers killed in combat since May 1 as I predicted, the total including the war at year end is around 400. Now while I certainly do not want to downplay anyone’s deaths, in the context of a military campaign this is an UNQUALIFIED success. More people were murdered in DC last year than died fighting in a war in Iraq.
Things are getting better but we will have the score card ready to read and examine in April 2005. This will be two years into the effort and should prove one way or another where Iraq will be headed. I am far more confident about the success of Iraq than I am about Afghanistan where I think keeping al Qaeda out is the best we can achieve.
Now Saddam and 42 of the top 55 have been captured or killed. Al Qaeda is 2/3rds gone. With the al Qaeda in Iran, we could nail down 90 percent of the leadership. The fact that Iran is not helping can hardly be blamed on the US. Now Sudan and Libya are on the right side of the fence. Saudi Arabia is engaging in serious debate if not implementing actual reform and there is a long way to go but the unfettered sending of money to support al Qaeda has stopped and at least the money that still goes through can be better traced. The best thing that could happen to the Palestinians would be similar decapitation of its top gangsters so that real democracy might have a chance. Until then, blaming Israel is a fool’s game. That’s like blaming the police for trying to break up a racketeering/extortion/protection ring.
Hi girls!
Well, I’ve recovered from my shrill, hyperventilating reaction to Condoleeza’s articulation of U.S. foreign policy. I did my yoga stretches and put on my favorite falling waterfall CD.
Fred Smith
I never said that nor was I implying that. I was asking a specific question regarding the fanatical/fundamentalist Wolfowitz et al. and their emergent strategy in Iraq. I am curious to know what the “rational right” think of the following:
Will Wolfowitz et al. allocate U.S. resources and mobilize U.S. capabilities to reach the objective of establishing civil war in Iraq?
Dunc
[color=blue]"Bremer also recently allowed the creation of a new force, comprising former members of five political party militias, to pursue insurgents with American training and support.
‘The Americans promised to limit our security forces to a professional army and a professional police,’ said Ghazi Yawar, a member of Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council. ‘They should not tolerate these militias. They should be dissolving them.’
Yawar and his fellow Sunni Muslims, a minority that had long ruled Iraq, are concerned that Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of the population, and Kurds, who have lived autonomously for 12 years, will have little incentive to demobilize their militias after the occupation.
‘The Americans have to deal with this issue,’ he said. ‘It would be irresponsible to leave it up to the Iraqis.’"[/color]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35053-2003Dec27_2.html
The non-negotiable cornerstone of US policy in Iraq is to leave when a pro-US/Israel government is securely established – and no sooner. The US has slowly come to realize that it won’t be a democratically elected Iraqi government, which is the reason why it is now actively establishing a pro-US coalition of militias which will govern Iraq by force and which will be impossible to dislodge except by force once it gains a foothold in Iraqi government.
The plan also is to leave enclaves of US soldiers in Iraq to keep the militia in power and provide stability in general.
So this little noted event is the key to US policy in Iraq now and in the near future but is a quick-fix solution based on the same bad judgement that has been exercised by US policy makers from the beginning. There is not going to be a quick way out of this now.
Prediction: civil strife, likely leading to warring between ethnic groups in Iraq which will further destabilize it.
An Iraqi civil war is not in the interests of anyone including those on the right. Give the Iraqis and the Americans a bit more credit. I do not believe that Iraq must have a pro-American policy and it certainly need not be pro-Israel, but if it truly becomes a semi-democracy with respect for basic human rights, I hardly think that America or Israel either for that matter will have a problem with Iraq. Saddam’s Iraq was far different from this.
See excerpts from the Economist on Saddam’s capture (www.economist.co.uk).
Nobody emerges with much credit from the saga of Iraq. The future may be more hopeful
IT WAS a heartening way to end a bloody year. The sight of a murderous dictator being plucked like a rat from a hole in the ground offered a rare and pleasing spectacle of virtue armed and evil vanquished. But if the tyrant’s capture is a cause for celebration, it should also prompt a moment’s sober reflection. As will probably become clear when he is eventually put on trial (see article), few people or governments, in the West, the Arab world or beyond, emerge with credit from Saddam Hussein’s long and sorry saga of misrule.
Saddam was no creature of the West. It was the Soviet Union that armed him to the hilt. But the bloody coup that brought the Baathists to power in 1963 may (the historians are still in the dark) have had some help from the CIA. When he invaded Iran, starting a war that lasted for most of the 1980s and may have consumed as many as a million lives, many outsiders found it convenient to use him. The West came to see him as a bulwark against the threat Ayatollah Khomeini posed to the Arab states and their oil. The French sold him aircraft and missiles, and the Americans fed him battlefield intelligence.
Arabs today castigate America for having aided the man it nowadays calls a monster. This proves American hypocrisy, they say. But Arab regimes bankrolled his war against Iran, and Arab masses cheered him on. In 1988, when the American State Department called his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds [b]
[quote=“fred smith”]Arabs today castigate America for having aided the man it nowadays calls a monster. This proves American hypocrisy, they say. But Arab regimes bankrolled his war against Iran, and Arab masses cheered him on. In 1988, when the American State Department called his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds [b]
Without understanding more about that particular act, I am not free to comment with any particular knowledge of the issue, though I am sure that would not stop our more Liberal posters from doing so. 
Let me check into this and get back to you on it.
I will say one thing however. I am sure the issue is more complex than you are painting it and there must be a reason for threatening to veto the act. I am sure Reagan did not secretly dream of annihilating the Kurds. Also, how doesthis differ from say Albright and Clinton’s inaction in Rwanda where millions died? Just curious as to where we are going to direct our outrage.
From today’s Christian Science Monitor:
csmonitor.com/2003/1229/p09s01-coop.html
But the worries over unpleasant exchanges with France and Germany overshadowed the fact that many other European countries had joined the “coalition of the willing.” Besides the 12,000 troops from Britain, other Europeans that contributed to the multinational force include Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Spain, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. And logistical support is provided by Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal.
Yet, while editorial writers and politicians anguished over the Bush administration’s insensitivities toward the French and the Germans, US allies in Asia were stepping up to the plate.
In particular, the democratically elected governments of both Japan and South Korea have been generally supportive of US policy in Iraq and have pledged materiel and manpower to join coalition forces. Indeed, Japan pledged active involvement in the Paris Club, the informal group of official creditors studying ways to reduce Iraq’s debt, before Mr. Baker even left on his trip last week. In another sign of solidarity, Japan is likely to forgive up to two-thirds of the $4 billion Iraq owes Japan. And Tokyo has offered $5 billion for reconstruction in Iraq.
It appears that France and Germany allowed local politics to stand in the way of an opportunity to take principled actions to thwart despotism and terrorism.
But the positions of the Europeans who opposed coalition actions in Iraq shouldn’t have been given so much weight. It was an unnecessary slight to those Asian countries who did choose to stand up and offer their support - and who were widely ignored by the US and European media.
Neoconartist fibs #4 & #8: This had little or nothing to do with Israel and they joined the coalition out of conviction.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1229/dailyUpdate.html?s=entt
Not allowing local politics to stand in the way:
“The bad news is that roughly 75 percent of Poles oppose their deployment. Polish officials will tell you Poland sent troops to Iraq to help keep the Americans in Europe. But the public doesn’t make such connections, and most people don’t understand what their boys are doing there or what Poland is getting out of it.”
Well guess what spook:
I am sure that it took quite a lot to get the Koreans, Japanese, Thais and Filipinos over to Iraq too and most of their people do not support this either but… when you consider who is the NO. 1 guarantor of their security then it becomes obvious.
Saddam Lite
“The presence of a powerful secret police … will mean that the new Iraqi political regime will not stray outside the parameters that the US wants to set,” said John Pike, an expert on classified military budgets at the Global Security organisation. “To begin with, the new Iraqi government will reign but not rule.”
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/04/1073151210964.html
“Operation Iraqi Freedom” in the end then has come to this: a U.S. controlled secret police including some members of the former Saddam secret police, the Mukhabarat, which will answer to the CIA and keep any elected Iraqi government ‘in line.’ A carbon copy of life under Saddam – albeit Saddam Lite and without the UN sanctions to make life miserable or worse for the average person in Iraq.
Was this not simply the forerunner of the act that finally was passed on sanctions against Iraq under GB1? I think GB also resisted sanctions until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (though I may be wrong) and that the eventual sanctions were a more lenient version of the ones in the original prevention of genocide act.
Would appreciate anyone who knows more to check the facts for me.
What significance is this?
Well, surely people like Pilger, who were against sanctions on Iraq because they harm the Iraqi people, must also, for consistency, have been against the original act?
Just a thought…
