Please, Tell Me Why
christi...@ev1.net
>Glenn Satan's Sadistic wrote:
>
>>...HERO Saddam ...
>
>Why do you consider him such a hero
>that you idolize those who installed him?
Relevance ?
USA
Saddam in the first place. Be decent: don't accept treason.
Learn from your mistakes for once, won't you?
There's nothing about Christ in Bush's crime sprees. Those
with functional ethics don't go along with wrongdoing.
Do some reading and learn something for a change, if you can:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=4&u=/ap/20031113/ap_on_re_us/war_politics
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20031112_59.html
http://www.bushflash.com/vets.html
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20031107/ts_usatoday/11941765
http://www.corpwatch.org/bulletins/PBD.jsp?articleid=7308
http://www.corpwatch.org/bulletins/PBD.jsp?articleid=7912
http://www.stopwar.ca/articles/crime.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-war-protest,0,5461851.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=4465
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16846-2003Nov8?language=printer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1082289,00.html
christi...@ev1.net
<snip>
>>Why are you ignoring this?
>>http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
No, I am not ignoring it, PEACE FOR AMERICA !
I agree with it
USA
Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism . Two
suggestions:
1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
wars to an expanded global criminal investigation, using special
forces where needed, but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration? On a military
sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary sovereign objects
in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks. Going after regimes "that
hate us". Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of
the American public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
to strike anew and at their pleasure.
2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
PNAC is real and a present threat to peace.
Be legally rid of Bush and the rest of the PNAC crime organization,
on behalf of America and the rest of the world.
christi...@ev1.net
So true
On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 11:01:20 -0700, "iconoclastic" <he...@home.com>
wrote:
>
>"Glenn (Christian Mystic)" <christi...@ev1.net> wrote in message
>news:3ef26533....@news.ev1.net...
>>
>> Talk about polution !
>>
>> >
>> >The big energy barons wanted a pipeline in Afghanistan.
>> >
>
>
>Glen, not one of these idiots has been over there or even knows anyone who
>is over there.
>
>For sure the mental misfits have never designed, built and installed a cogen
>system, directly worked with or directly worked against any energy company.
>I have and let me tell you, of all the people or companies, they would love
>massive controls and restricted oil flow.
>
>They have zero knowledge of anything concerning energy or oil or those who
>are against all the free world was built upon.
>They are like the three year old discussing sex.
>
USA
That's treason.
No real Christian would ever support such crimes.
"Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/opinion/11KRUG.html
>
>November 11, 2003
>Support the Troops
>By PAUL KRUGMAN
>
>Yesterday's absurd conspiracy theory about the Bush administration has a way
>of turning into today's conventional wisdom. Remember when people were
>ridiculed for claiming that Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, eager to fight a
>war, were hyping the threat from Iraq?
>
>Anyway, many analysts now acknowledge that the administration never had any
>intention of pursuing a conventionally responsible fiscal policy. Rather,
>its tax cuts were always intended as a way of implementing the radical
>strategy known as "starve the beast," which views budget deficits as a good
>thing, a way to squeeze government spending. Did I mention that the
>administration is planning another long-run tax cut next year?
>
>Advocates of the starve-the-beast strategy tend to talk abstractly about
>"big government." But in fact, squeezing government spending almost always
>means cutting back or eliminating services people actually want (though not
>necessarily programs worth their cost). And since it's Veterans Day, let's
>talk about how the big squeeze on spending may be alienating a surprising
>group: the nation's soldiers.
>
>One of George W. Bush's major campaign themes in 2000 was his promise to
>improve the lives of America's soldiers - and military votes were crucial to
>his success. But these days some of the harshest criticisms of the Bush
>administration come from publications aimed at a military audience.
>
>For example, last week the magazine Army Times ran a story with the headline
>"An Act of `Betrayal,' " and the subtitle "In the midst of war, key family
>benefits face cuts." The article went on to assert that there has been "a
>string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in
>pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and
>the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty."
>
>At one level, this pattern of cuts is standard operating procedure. Just
>about every apparent promise of financial generosity this administration has
>made (other than those involving tax cuts for top brackets and corporate
>contracts) has turned out to be nonoperational. No Child Left Behind got
>left behind - or at least left without funds. AmeriCorps got praised in the
>State of the Union address, then left high and dry in the budget that
>followed. New York's firefighters and policemen got a photo-op with the
>president, but very little money. For that matter, it's clear that New York
>will never see the full $20 billion it was promised for rebuilding. Why
>shouldn't soldiers find themselves subject to the same kind of bait and
>switch?
>
>Yet one might have expected the administration to treat the military
>differently, if only as a matter of sheer political calculation. After all,
>the military needs some mollifying: the Iraq war has turned increasingly
>nightmarish, and deference toward the administration is visibly eroding.
>Even Pfc. Jessica Lynch has, to her credit, balked at playing her scripted
>role.
>
>So what's going on? One answer is that once you've instilled a Scrooge
>mentality throughout the government, it's hard to be selective. But I also
>suspect that a government of, by and for the economic elite is having
>trouble overcoming its basic lack of empathy with the working-class men and
>women who make up our armed forces.
>
>Some say that Representative George Nethercutt's remark that progress in
>Iraq is a more important story than deaths of American soldiers was redeemed
>by his postscript, "which, heaven forbid, is awful." Your call. But it's
>hard to deny the stunning insensitivity of President Bush's remarks back on
>July 2: "There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are
>such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring 'em on. We got the
>force necessary to deal with the security situation." Those are the words of
>a man who can't imagine himself or anyone close to him actually being in the
>line of fire.
>
>The question is whether the military will start to feel taken for granted.
>Publications like Army Times are obviously going off the reservation.
>Retired military officers, like Gen. Anthony Zinni - formerly President
>Bush's envoy to the Middle East - have started to offer harsh, indeed
>unprintable, assessments of administration policies. If this disillusionment
>spreads to the rank and file, the politics of 2004 may be very different
>from what anyone expects.
>
>
>
>Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
>
Support the troops: stop Bush.
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
> "...THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
>
> Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism .
Real ?
> Two
> suggestions:
> 1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
> wars to an expanded global criminal investigation,
Someone blows himself up, in a place crowded with civilians, for some cause,
and YOU need some "investigation" ?
Boy what a DUNCE
> using special forces where needed,
Just as we are presently doing.
> but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
> international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
> local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
> Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration?
Man/Lady, you really need to get some glasses
> On a military sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary
>sovereign objects in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks.
Cough, the idea is to end ALL terrorism, which kinda removes any requirement
all terrorisms be "related"
> Going after regimes "that hate us".
You mean like what you keep trying to convience me, with your accusation
that I somehow believed Iraq to have been some kind of threat to me, should
have been the ONLY reason to attack Saddam's support of terrorism ?
> Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of the American
public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
> justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
> organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
> according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
> to strike anew and at their pleasure.
So why have you insisted on it ?
> 2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
> friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
> counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
> tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
> assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
You mean, return to doing nothing like we did before 9-11 ?
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
> When you support Bush, you support those who brought you
> Saddam in the first place. Be decent: don't accept treason.
Don't support Bush, never did
> Learn from your mistakes for once, won't you?
They who put Saddam into power, learned from theirs, and even removed him,
but yet you still hold their mistake against them, So MUST ask you, why
bother learning from one's mistakes ?
> There's nothing about Christ in Bush's crime sprees. Those
> with functional ethics don't go along with wrongdoing.
Evidently, you don't go along with correcting one's wrong doing either
> Do some reading and learn something for a change, if you can:
Reading does not require believing everything which you read
<snip>
USA
USA
but you can't take him anywhere nice.
"...Sunday, November 16, 2003
Bush faces angry Brits on trip
Security is heightened for 100,000 expected to protest war in Iraq
By Ellen Hale / USA TODAY
Comment on this story
Send this story to a friend
Get Home Delivery
LONDON -- President Bush will be here this week for what is being
hailed as the first state visit of an American president. But an
occasion that should be full of pomp and glory is turning into a
political nightmare for Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's closest ally
in the war on terrorism and in Iraq.
As many as 100,000 anti-war activists and demonstrators are expected
to march through London during what probably will be the most
extensive security operation for a visiting head of state. Already
nixed for what critics claim are public relations reasons: the
traditional carriage procession through London and the customary
address before Parliament.
"The visit will be an acid test for Blair," says David Baker, a
political scientist at the University of Warwick, north of London.
"How can he sound like he still supports Bush and the war in Iraq
without looking like the president's poodle? This visit can serve him
no good."
The invitation, extended more than a year ago, was envisioned as a
three-day celebration of the special relationship between Britain and
the United States. Now it could be ill-timed for Blair, given the
continued hostilities in Iraq and failure to find banned weapons
there.
Adding to his dilemma and the storm surrounding Bush's visit:
* Growing anger over the plight of British citizens held as suspected
terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.
* Import taxes imposed by the Bush administration to protect the
ailing U.S. steel industry.
* An environmental dispute over four polluted U.S. ships due to be
scrapped here. The first arrived from the USA this week.
Many here say Blair's cozy relationship with Bush keeps him from
criticizing the president's actions. They say Britain's leadership is
too conciliatory toward America. In a poll in the Times of London last
week, half of the nearly 1,000 respondents said they believe the
relationship between Blair and Bush is bad for their country.
How Blair emerges from the controversial visit depends on how he
finesses it. Though his leadership is not under threat, the prime
minister's public support is at the lowest level of his tenure.
In a Mori poll conducted in September for the Financial Times, 50
percent of respondents said he should resign. Sixty percent of Britons
say they are dissatisfied with Blair, the Mori polls show.
"Bush needs this visit to look like he has some friends
internationally," Baker says. "But too much gushing about Blair will
only hurt Blair. I'm sure his people are busy telling Bush not to be
too fulsome in his praise."
Blair was Bush's strongest advocate in the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, despite significant British public disapproval of both
conflicts. He also publicly pushed Bush toward action on the road map
peace plan in the Middle East. That effort, which aimed to create a
Palestinian state in 2005, has faltered amid continuing violence.
Meanwhile, the British prime minister and his government have been
waiting for the final report from an investigation into the suicide of
a leading government scientist. The scientist apparently was the
source of a claim that the government exaggerated its report on deadly
weapons in Iraq to justify going to war.
To distance himself from Bush, Blair probably will tout his role as
the crucial bridge between Europe and the United States. He also will
probably portray himself as strongly pro-Europe, Baker says.
Though the Vietnam War provoked far greater outrage here than the war
in Iraq, few U.S. presidents have prompted more disapproval in modern
times. A poll by the Times showed that half of Britons said Bush isn't
"up to the job of being American president." Sixty percent said
America's standing in the world has declined under Bush.
"People are just astounded that Tony Blair invited him over," says
Ghada Razuki, who will be leading demonstrations during Bush's stay.
Blair said that he welcomed the visit even if Bush's "enemies rub
their hands at what they see as the potential embarrassment" of the
planned protests.
A state visit is considered the highest honor for a visiting leader of
another country and the ultimate display of British protocol. Though
other U.S. presidents have made official trips to Britain, this visit
is the first to be designated a state event. The government holds two
a year; Russian President Vladimir Putin was feted earlier.
Only President Woodrow Wilson has stayed in Buckingham Palace, as
George and Laura Bush will, although several presidents have visited
there. The pinnacle of the visit will be the dinner banquet Wednesday
in the palace ballroom, in which the two heads of state -- with Queen
Elizabeth -- will sit next to each other. About 150 people will
attend..."
USA
Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism . Two
suggestions:
1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
wars to an expanded global criminal investigation, using special
forces where needed, but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration? On a military
sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary sovereign objects
in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks. Going after regimes "that
hate us". Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of
the American public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
to strike anew and at their pleasure.
2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
PNAC is real and a present threat to peace.
Be legally rid of Bush and the rest of the PNAC crime organization,
on behalf of America and the rest of the world.
It's in your own best interests to resist Bush in every possible
legal way.
USA
>...a DUNCE
You must be, to imagine there were any valid reason
for Bush to invade Iraq.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=401995§ion=news
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
>
> Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism .
Real ?
> Two
> suggestions:
> 1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
> wars to an expanded global criminal investigation,
Someone blows himself up, in a place crowded with civilians, for some cause,
and YOU need some "investigation" ?
Boy what a DUNCE
> using special forces where needed,
Just as we are presently doing.
> but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
> international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
> local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
> Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration?
Man/Lady, you really need to get some glasses
> On a military sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary
>sovereign objects in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks.
Cough, the idea is to end ALL terrorism, which kinda removes any requirement
all terrorisms be "related"
> Going after regimes "that hate us".
You mean like what you keep trying to convience me, with your accusation
that I somehow believed Iraq to have been some kind of threat to me, should
have been the ONLY reason to attack Saddam's support of terrorism ?
> Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of the American
public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
> justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
> organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
> according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
> to strike anew and at their pleasure.
So why have you insisted on it ?
> 2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
> friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
> counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
> tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
> assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
You mean, return to doing nothing like we did before 9-11 ?
>
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
>
>
> PNAC is real and a present threat to peace.
>
> Be legally rid of Bush and the rest of the PNAC crime organization,
> on behalf of America and the rest of the world.
<USA> wrote in message news:k3vervgrt2jsr7lkh...@4ax.com...
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
Real ?
Boy what a DUNCE
<USA> wrote in message news:r2vervsa3v28i47il...@4ax.com...
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
> Bush lied
Your mind reading ability is non-existant, as evidenced by your inability to
read mine
> to profit himself,
What profits ?
> getting our troops harmed and killed.
> That's treason.
> No real Christian would ever support such crimes.
None of them exists
> "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/opinion/11KRUG.html
Note "opinion"
<opinion snipped>
USA
wrote:
>Between 21,000 and 55,000 DEAD!
>Again, why did we kill these people? What did they do to us? There is
>no justification. No wmd, no Saddam-Al Qaeda connections, no imminent
>threat. Actually there was no threat whatsoever. This is mass murder
>of unspeakable proportions.
>How do the bible thumpers, who have unconditionally supported all of
>this administration's policies, justify killing between 21,000 and
>55,000 innocent people? What does the bible say about killing between
>21,000, and 55,000 people for no reason whatsoever?
>Did anyone ask these people if they were willing to die so that the
>rest of their countrymen would not have to live under the yoke of
>Saddam?
>Between 21,000 and 55,000 DEAD! And that's only the dead. Who knows
>how many have been maimed. How many kids will not be able to walk ever
>again? How many have been orphaned? And we are not even done yet.
>This is a crime against humanity. Saddam has nothing on Bush.
>
>
>WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov 11 (OneWorld) -- Between 21,000 and 55,000
>people have died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (news -
>web sites) and its aftermath, according to a new report that also
>warned of rapidly deteriorating health conditions for those who
>survived.
>
>London-based Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians
>for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), concluded that the war's
>continuing impact--particularly the failure of occupation authorities
>to ensure security-- has resulted in a further deterioration of the
>Iraqi population's health status. IPPNW's U.S. affiliate, Physicians
>for Social Responsibility, joined in the report's release Tuesday. The
>report's funding was provided by Oxfam and the Polden-Puckham
>Charitable Foundation.
>
>"The health of the Iraqi people is generally worse than before the
>war," according to an executive summary of the 12-report, which noted
>that the state of health in Iraq was already poor by international
>standards. It said women and children were particularly at risk due to
>the breakdown in law and order and damage to infrastructure and that
>women were also being affected by the emergence of religious
>conservatism after the war.
>
>The report, entitled "Continuing Collateral Damage: The Health and
>Environmental Costs of War on Iraq 2003," is the follow-up to a
>pre-war study released last November that predicted at the time that
>between 49,000 and 261,000 people could be killed in an invasion of
>Iraq over three months.
>
>The much lower estimated death toll in the seven months that followed
>the March 20 invasion is due primarily to the quick collapse of Iraqi
>military resistance and the fact that no weapons of mass destruction
>were used.
>
>The report says that 172 U.S. and British combatants were killed
>during the war period (March 20 to May 1) and another 222 died between
>May 2 and October 20. It estimates the number of civilians killed
>during the war at between 5,708 and 7,356. From May 2 to October 20,
>the report estimates civilian deaths resulting from hostilities at
>between 2,049 and 2,209.
>
>The major unknown, according to the report, is the number of Iraqi
>military deaths during the war. As few as 13,500--or as many as
>45,000--soldiers and paramilitary fighters are believed to have been
>killed, based on extrapolations from death rates of between three and
>ten percent found in the units around Baghdad, as well as U.S.
>military estimates that 2,320 Iraqi soldiers were killed in and around
>Baghdad alone[... ]
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/20031111/wl_oneworld/4536725251068563485&cid=655&ncid=1473
>
>wpf
>
>______________
USA
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/opinion/11KRUG.html
>
Support the troops: protect them from crooks such as the Bush gang.
USA
>
>From The Knoxville News-Sentinel, 11/7/03:
>http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_2409062,00.html
>
>Who really supported troops?
>
>By DON WILLIAMS
>
>
>So just who truly supported the troops?
>
>Those who sent them to Iraq with no clear plan for bringing them home
>again or those who warned, don't go there, it's a quagmire?
>
>Donald Rumsfeld once said with a wink and a grin that you can't have a
>quagmire in the desert - it's too dry - but if this is not a quagmire,
>then give me another word for it.
>
>We can't move forward, we can't back out.
>
>We pour money and human lives into it, and it only gets worse.
>
>Six months after George W. Bush leapt from a jet plane onto an
>aircraft carrier and declared victory, the number of dead American
>soldiers accelerates towards the 400 mark.
>
>The wounded are numbered in the thousands, many with life-threatening
>lacerations and burns, others with mutilations they will carry to
>their graves.
>
>Estimates of dead Iraqis range from a few thousand to more than 30,000
>- the Pentagon pretends to have no hard numbers on the Iraqi dead -
>and the killing grows again with each passing week.
>
>It's hard to imagine how this war can ever end.
>
>We can't even identify the enemy.
>
>Bush suggests that Saddam Hussein is still running the show, but he
>also said Saddam had aerial drones and stockpiles of anthrax and other
>weapons of mass of destruction; he continues to imply that Saddam was
>responsible for bringing down the World Trade Center, none of which
>appears to be true.
>
>Others say Syrians, Iranians, Pakistanis and Saudi extremists are
>flowing into Iraq to attack Americans.
>
>No one knows for sure except the bloodthirsty killers attacking our
>troops as Bush's so-called victory and international support melt away
>like desert mirages.
>
>For all intents and purposes, the United Nations, Doctors Without
>Borders, the Red Cross, many contractors and businessmen and lots of
>ambassadors are fleeing the scene.
>
>The Turks have decided not to send soldiers after all.
>
>Little of the money and troops pledged by so-called allies are
>forthcoming, and major opponents of the invasion - France, Russia and
>Germany - are sitting in smug silence.
>
>This week I watched talking heads on TV discuss a plan to put hundreds
>of thousands of Iraqis in charge of their own security, so we may draw
>our troop levels below 100,000 next year - an election year.
>
>We're betting $87 billion on top of billions already spent that it
>will work or that it will at least allow cover for our eventual
>departure.
>
>President Nixon had a similar plan in Southeast Asia.
>
>About 35 years ago he began turning South Vietnam's security over to
>the Vietnamese, and we know what happened next.
>
>The North Vietnamese moved in, while Americans flew away, betraying
>millions.
>
>Iraq is not Vietnam, but the tribal differences there are more
>pronounced, if anything.
>
>You can almost hear the sizzle as the fuse burns toward civil war
>between Shiites and Sunnis, while the Kurds seek more autonomy in the
>north.
>
>Meanwhile, increasing numbers of American soldiers come home with lost
>limbs and night terrors, only to find waiting lists at Veterans
>Administration hospitals and red tape impeding their treatment.
>
>Few trumpets herald the return of the wounded and dead.
>
>They are secreted into the country like bad news.
>
>No press may show the unloading of our soldiers' flag-draped coffins.
>
>So who really betrayed our soldiers a year ago, and who really had
>their best interests at heart?
>
>Those who lied and manipulated press coverage in their drive to war?
>
>Those who cut veterans benefits on the sly?
>
>Those who attended rallies and waved flags, as if war were just a big
>football game?
>
>He who said, "Bring 'em on," from a distance of 10,000 miles?
>
>Those who wrote letters and phoned radio stations to denounce anyone
>who raised questions about the war?
>
>Those who made secret deals with Halliburton while scuttling
>last-minute political deals that might have prevented war?
>
>In my humble opinion, supporting our troops is about giving diplomacy
>many chances to work.
>
>It's about not getting our young men and women killed or turning them
>into killers or otherwise scarring them for life.
>
>It's about not letting gray-haired men who never fought send them into
>war for obscure reasons.
>
>It's about telling them the truth about just who our real enemies are.
>
>And, if that truth is so horrible it means they must go to war, it's
>about having a plan to bring them safely home again.
>
>______________________________________________________
>
>While Americans were dying in Vietnam and demonstrating in America,
>our hawkish President did neither.
>http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=216
>
>Harry
No wonder Bush is repeating the mistakes of Viet Nam, he deserted
so he never learned what they were.
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
<USA> wrote in message news:k3serv8rkn2jmuj2o...@4ax.com...
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
<USA> wrote in message news:q3servcv0hl5me8bv...@4ax.com...
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
Real ?
Boy what a DUNCE
(?????)
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
>
>
> PNAC is real and a present threat to peace.
>
> Be legally rid of Bush and the rest of the PNAC crime organization,
> on behalf of America and the rest of the world.
<USA> wrote in message news:7mgfrvs4skstdk9v8...@4ax.com...
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
> "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/opinion/11KRUG.html
As stated, last time, note "opinion" (as in NOT a fact)
<opinion snipped>
USA
>http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=art
>icle&sid=547
>
>The national media continues to adhere to the Bush Administration's "see no
>quagmire," but Americans are seeing Vietnam.
>By Stewart Nusbaumer
>
>Belle Fourche, South Dakota-The heartland of America is upset, and becoming
>more upset. With Americans dying everyday in Iraq, sometimes several a day,
>occasionally more than several, the national self-confidence of an easy and
>fast victory is gone and is being replaced by a haunting fear that a past
>war gone terribly wrong is revisiting America.
>
>"Iraq is turning into another Vietnam," says Jerry, a disabled Vietnam
>veteran wearing a cowboy hat with a POW-MIA patch on its side. "I definitely
>don't agree with this war."
>
>With summer fishing past and ice fishing not arrived, the sports enthusiasts
>in the 212 Bar, which doubles as a bait-and-tackle shop, have little to
>distract them from the depressing news coming out of Iraq.
>
>"Why are we over there?" Betty asks. "We have lots of problems here."
>
>"I'm more and more wondering why we went there to begin with," Lanny the
>bartender says, with deer and antelope heads mounted on the wall above him.
>"They are just picking our guys off everyday." Lanny offers his reason why
>our troops are in Iraq: "Scratch Iraq and you get black gold."
>
>Last week in my favorite New York bar, the Night Café, Tom insisted New
>Yorkers were solidly opposed to this war when it began and are more opposed
>to the war now. "Only whacko hawks support this war, and for some reason
>they never fight in the wars. This is just like Vietnam."
>
>In San Francisco, where I was last month, the echo of "Vietnam" was in the
>air of the cafes of North Beach, expressing fear that an ugly past has
>returned. It's not surprising that the latest Senator to lash out against
>the war, Senator Feinstein, is from California. She called the war
>"illegitimate."
>
>According to CNN/USA Today/Gallup Polls, in April -- when the war was
>supposedly winding down -- 76 percent of the public approved of President
>Bush's handling of the war while only 21 percent disapproved. That 76
>percent approval rating has now plunged to 45 percent, according to a recent
>CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, and the disapproval has risen from 21 percent to
>54 percent.
>
>Although a majority of Americans now disapprove of Bush's handling of the
>war, the mainstream media's coverage of the war has hardly changed. It
>remains out of touch with what is happening in Iraq and out of touch with
>what Americans are thinking. There are brief glimpses of the bloody reality,
>such as CNN showing wounded U.S. soldiers in hospitals, and there is an
>occasional airing of hostility toward the war. But the balance remains
>terribly lopsided, the message is profoundly wrong, and the overall coverage
>is rigged. The coverage is rigged by a media that is focused more on profit
>than on presenting the truth, by a media more concerned with not
>antagonizing the Bush Administration than informing the American people.
>
>Still, the word "Vietnam" is being heard more and more in America, in homes,
>in bars and cafes, on call-in radio talk shows, where people think and
>discuss without the heavy censorship of the corporate media. In response,
>the big media has finally turned to the analogy of Vietnam, but only to
>discredit the idea that Iraq is another Vietnam.
>
>Is Iraq A New Vietnam?
>
>Last week MSNBC's military analyst, retired Colonel Jake Jacobs, dismissed
>the idea that Iraq is becoming Vietnam. He gave three reasons why these are
>not similar.
>
>In Vietnam, the U.S. fought against large military units, while in Iraq our
>troops are confronting only small groups of combatants, often only two or
>three fighters.
>
>But what Vietnam is the retired colonel comparing Iraq with? In the earlier
>stages of the Vietnam War, when French troops did the fighting, later when
>U.S. military advisors became active, the opposing Vietnamese forces were
>nearly always organized in small guerrilla units. It is normal for
>insurgents to conduct their military operations in small units, only later
>after they become better equipped and better organized do they band together
>into larger fighting units.
>
>As for Iraq, this war is at an early stage so guerrillas are conducting
>operations in small hit-and-run formations and using remote control bombs to
>strike "soft" targets where the U.S. forces and their allies, such as the
>Italians, and of course the local "collaborators," are most vulnerable. This
>is no different than Vietnam during the earlier stages of that war; in fact
>it is the same.
>
>It is crucial to remember that the goal of guerrillas -- including the Iraqi
>guerillas -- is not to militarily defeat the larger and stronger traditional
>military force, but to undermine security and spread fear and chaos
>throughout the country which will choke off economic development and
>increase the number of locals opposing (both passively and actively) the
>occupying forces. And I must say that the Iraqis guerrillas are doing a
>sterling job. Security in Iraq is deteriorating, popular opposition to the
>U.S. is increasing (a recent report by the CIA points this out) which will
>both embolden and swell the ranks of the insurgency and give them the
>civilian pool of supporters they need to be effective. Sounds like Vietnam
>to me.
>
>Next, Colonel Jacobson claimed that in Vietnam we possessed knowledge of the
>enemy; we knew our enemy was the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. In
>Iraq we have not been able to identity the enemy; we do not know who is
>actually attacking on our troops.
>
>The Colonel is correct, yet this is also irrelevant.
>
>The U.S. military understood the enemy organizations in Vietnam, but the
>Viet Cong had infiltrated the civilian social structure and so military
>intelligence had no idea where and who the actually soldiers were. During
>the day a farmer, at night planting a mine! During the day a government
>worker, at night a VC soldier! This brought chaos and confusion, which
>favors the guerrillas who are not responsible for running the government,
>not responsible for public utilities and the well-being of the people.
>
>Knowledge of armies, then, is worthless if this information does not result
>in tactical battlefield knowledge or in strategic advantage. In the case of
>Vietnam, the media's talking heads had a field day displaying their wisdom
>about the Vietnamese enemy, but nothing they said affected the war.
>
>Actually, in Iraq we know that there are three types of combatants; whether
>they are tactically united or maintain separate operations we do not know.
>It is probably both, working together on certain operations and separately
>on others. There are the Saddam Hussein loyalists, there are the
>nationalistic anti-Americans, and there are the foreign Islamics. As the war
>continues, the Hussein loyalists will lose influence to the Iraqi
>nationalists and the foreign Islamics, because the former have greater
>credibility amongst Iraqis and the latter possess the most resources and
>battle skills. Both groups are settling in for a long war, preparing to
>slowly wear down and bleed the United States. Just like in Vietnam.
>
>Finally, Jake Jacobson said, in Vietnam there were safe areas, whereas in
>Iraq most of the country is now pacified.
>
>Yet, in the beginning of the Vietnam War much of the country was also
>secure, only later when the guerrilla forces became larger and more
>powerful -- augmented by traditional forces from North Vietnam -- did the
>entire country become vulnerable to attack.
>
>In fact, the pacified areas of Iraq are not stable. In the south, the Shiite
>Muslims dominate while in the north the Kurds are in control, either or both
>could decide that their future does not lie with an Iraq nation state, one
>that historically abused and suppressed their people. Either or both could
>take up arms against the central authorities and turn on the U.S. military.
>
>Further, both Syria and Iran have long borders with Iraq, both are hostile
>to the United States which they view as not engaging in nation building but
>empire building, and both are allowing if not encouraging foreign combatants
>to enter Iraq. Like with South Vietnam, the neighbors of Iraq are not
>comfortable with U.S. rule in their region.
>
>The Future Is Here
>
>It's not unusual for Americans to be ahead of their media; in fact, it is
>rather common.
>
>"I agree with something should have been done about Hussein," says Lanny the
>bartender in South Dakota, "but this is 2nd chapter Vietnam. Us sticking our
>nose into somewhere we shouldn't be."
>
>In one sense, Iraq does appear to be different than Vietnam: Iraq is
>deteriorating faster than Vietnam did, and Americans are seeing the truth
>faster than in the 1960s.
>
>"I'm sick of this," says Joe a World War II veteran and a solid Republican
>who lives in Missouri but is visiting South Dakota. "There was Korea, there
>was Vietnam, and now there is Iraq. It just keeps going on and on, I'm sick
>of it."
>
>Driving to the airport, on the radio a young woman announces the results of
>an opinion poll. The question, "Should more reservists be sent to Iraq?" The
>result, 62 percent say no, while only 30 percent say yes. I missed whether
>it was a South Dakota or a national poll. Actually, it doesn't matter.
>
>In New York and California and the Great Prairie states, I saw an America
>that has not forgotten Vietnam, to the great chagrin of our hawks, and an
>America that is more and more rejecting the Bush Administration's effort to
>lead America into another quagmire. Fueled by the remembrance of Vietnam,
>Americans are withdrawing their support for this war. It's not easy for them
>to express opposion to an ongoing American war, but they are. Not screaming
>their opposition, but painfully, often reluctantly expressing confusion and
>disapproval of the war.
>
>Regardless of the drumbeat from the media insisting the Iraq War is
>necessary and we will win, the American people are increasingly seeing an
>unnecessary war that will end badly. Americans are not waiting for the light
>at the end of tunnel, they already see the end. And it's just like Vietnam.
>
>
>--
Isn't it.
USA
>Only 100,000 ? And the population of London is ?
They're not stupefied into genuflecting to Bush as you are.
Georgie Ghoul and Vehicular-Manslaughter Laura don't
have the decency not to go where they're not wanted.
USA
>
>From The Washington Post, 11/16/03:
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46460-2003Nov15.html
>
>CIA Finds No Evidence Hussein Sought to Arm Terrorists
>
>By Walter Pincus
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>
>Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A20
>
>The CIA's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found no
>evidence that former president Saddam Hussein tried to transfer
>chemical or biological technology or weapons to terrorists, according
>to a military and intelligence expert.
>
>Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
>International Studies, provided new details about the weapons search
>and Iraqi insurgency in a report released Friday.
>
>It was based on briefings over the past two weeks in Iraq from David
>Kay, the CIA representative who is directing the search for
>unconventional weapons in Iraq; L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil
>administrator there; and military officials.
>
>"No evidence of any Iraqi effort to transfer weapons of mass
>destruction or weapons to terrorists," Cordesman wrote of Kay's
>briefing.
>
>"Only possibility was Saddam's Fedayeen [his son's irregular terrorist
>force] and talk only."
>
>One of the concerns the Bush administration cited early last year to
>justify the need to invade Iraq was that Hussein would provide
>chemical or biological agents or weapons to al Qaeda or other
>terrorists.
>
>_________________________________________________________
>
>The Bush lies keep gushing out like Old Faithful.
>
>Harry
Only a truly sick unit would want innocents to die for Bush's lies.
USA
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/opinion/11KRUG.html
>
Opinions which represent reality are discernible as such because the
ignorant merely try to complain that they'd be opinions, when they can
not in any way refute them.
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
<USA> wrote in message news:hh6grvk5s4qrprj6q...@4ax.com...
> "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/OPINION/11KRUG.html
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
> "Glenn \(Christian Mystic\)" <christi...@ev1.net> wrote:
>
> >Only 100,000 ? And the population of London is ?
>
> They're not stupefied into genuflecting to Bush as you are.
They are a minority
Alexander Kalinowski
: Bush lied to profit himself, getting our troops harmed and killed.
Alex:
No, he led the US to war out of a different reason.
: That's treason.
Alex:
Either that or what you do is libel. Or is it slander?
: No real Christian would ever support such crimes.
Alex:
Assuming it was a crime. Which is what I dispute. And you are not the one to
make the final judgement on whether it is or not.
: "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
--
Waiting for you to return.
Alexander Kalinowski
: "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
Alex:
Well, from what do you take the right to call another bunch of people
crooks? Freedom of speech? Sorry honey but I don't agree with such ideas of
freedom of speech. When you charge another of a crime, you have to provide
evidence in court. Only after they are convicted criminals you can call them
crooks. What you are spreading here is *propaganda*, plain and simple.
Projecting your own opinion as if it was fact, when exactly that is being
put in doubt by many people, such as mine.
Alexander Kalinowski
: "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
Alex:
Propaganda.
: Opinions which represent reality are discernible
Alex:
Well, yours simply doesn't and you will meet stiff politcal resistance by
those people who come to a different judgement. You are not entitled to
judge Bush a criminal, not being a judge in court presiding over that "case".
You have a right to have an opinion to some extent but what you are doing
here is rather propaganda and an *abuse* of freedom of speech. One can think
of the events as criminal in nature. But if one claims they are de facto
such, one has to prove one's charges in court first. You also have a right
to "judge" at the next election. And that's about it.
: as such because the
: ignorant merely try to complain that they'd be opinions, when they can
: not in any way refute them.
Alex:
Sure and the truth is that Bush is not a crook and that you are one of the
ignorants. Seems pretty much like a stalemate to me.
Again, the more I experience America's version of free speech, the more I am
opposed to it. Actually what Bush should be able to do is to hire a team and
sue all people who call him a crook or similar as if it was fact before he
being convicted in court (of treason).
No problem with someone saying "I am absolutely against what Bush and his
people do and I in fact think it constitutes treason but that would be for
some judges to decide". But to claim that he is a crook and that it's
obviously so would be like me claiming you are obviously a pedophile.
Pure propaganda. Trying to enforce one's own world view on others by
sticking a bad label to another and thus trying to shy others from siding
with the other.
And that is exactly what I call abuse of freedom of speech. I think there
should be a law to hold people accountable for such.
Alexander Kalinowski
Alex:
Yeah, listen to me: the Arab world is mainly stuck in the Middle Ages. The
only thing the Arab mainstream knows is shove or be shoved. And while they
charge the US of being a bully, they secretly wish they could bully others
just the same. The US has effectively entered a *blood feud* with
significant parts of the Arab world. And a troop withdrawal from Iraq - how
would that be perceived? As if Arab fanaticism can beat US/western technology.
We're already in a World War, only it's not as open as the ones before.
But the way to win this is not militarily, agreed. It's by talking. By
making sure that the Arabs grow up. That the rule of the stronger vanishes
and gets replaced by solidarity. The Arab mainstream is noticeable backwater
with people caring about their immediate friends and relatvies and not
giving a hoop about the fate of people they don't know, except if it relates
to them personally.
: "...THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
: Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism . Two
: suggestions:
: 1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
: wars to an expanded global criminal investigation, using special
: forces where needed, but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
: international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
: local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
: Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration? On a military
: sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary sovereign objects
: in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks. Going after regimes "that
: hate us". Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of
: the American public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
: justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
: organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
: according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
: to strike anew and at their pleasure.
: 2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
: friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
: counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
: tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
: assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
: http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
: PNAC is real and a present threat to peace.
: Be legally rid of Bush and the rest of the PNAC crime organization,
: on behalf of America and the rest of the world.
--
Alexander Kalinowski
: <USA> wrote in message news:e978rv0ep76kbm4au...@4ax.com...
:> "...THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
:>
:> Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism .
: Real ?
:> Two
:> suggestions:
:> 1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
:> wars to an expanded global criminal investigation,
: Someone blows himself up, in a place crowded with civilians, for some cause,
: and YOU need some "investigation" ?
Alex:
Sure. Prevention. Of such a thing happening again.
: Boy what a DUNCE
:> using special forces where needed,
: Just as we are presently doing.
:> but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
:> international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
:> local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
:> Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration?
: Man/Lady, you really need to get some glasses
:> On a military sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary
:>sovereign objects in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks.
: Cough, the idea is to end ALL terrorism, which kinda removes any requirement
: all terrorisms be "related"
Alex:
I thought the idea was to get the Arab world to *grow up* finally. To force
them to let go of their mentality.
:> Going after regimes "that hate us".
: You mean like what you keep trying to convience me, with your accusation
: that I somehow believed Iraq to have been some kind of threat to me, should
: have been the ONLY reason to attack Saddam's support of terrorism ?
Alex:
The aim wasn't even that. The aim was establishing a western regime in the
heart of the arab world. The Arabs will have to change. Or else there will
be no peace and we will all get drawn into the abyss. The conflict between
the west and the middle east has all the potential for a world war. And the
fault for that lies with the Arabs almost entirely. They are immature and
backwater. They only know the rule of stronger, they cannot face criticism
and always have to shift blame as admitting fault was a sign of weakness and
then you will have to live your whole life being pushed around by others.
Let's get this clear: it was the Iraqi people's fault only that they got
invaded. They allowed themselves to be ruled by an a**hole like Saddam
Hussein and they didn't give the slightest hoop about the fate of the
Kuwaitis back in 1990. And when the sanctions hit them, they still didn't
blame Saddam because they preferred to place blame on an external scapegoat.
Too many of them cooperated with Saddam and too many didn't stand up against
him. Surely, Saddam's regime was much worse than the current occupation.
Where were anything similar back then? Where were the resistance fighters
who were ready to sacrifice themselves to bring peace and freedom to Iraq
during the 90s?
Nowhere. The Iraqis and the Arab mainstream has to completely embarrassed
before the eyes of the world. They have quite well succeeded in playing the
powerless victim. But in truth, they are responsible for their suffering.
*They* are too blame. They always state reasons for hows and whys. But I
don't accept any excuse. They have to face who they are. Or else they will
have to be forced to face who they are - with all the possible consequences.
:> Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of the American
: public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
:> justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
:> organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
:> according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
:> to strike anew and at their pleasure.
: So why have you insisted on it ?
:> 2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
:> friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
:> counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
:> tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
:> assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
: You mean, return to doing nothing like we did before 9-11 ?
Alex:
Military and law enforcement operations won't help, except temporarily. The
weak point of the terrorists lies in cutting of the fresh supplies of mainly
young men willing to blow themselves up. That has to be done by making it
unfashionable to be one of those. And I think that can be done if one is
only skillful enough.
:>
Alexander Kalinowski
: Harry Hope <riv...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Alex:
If you call other people sick, you might end up in trouble in case they
don't like your calling them sick and decide to silence you one way or the
other.
Alexander Kalinowski
:>...a DUNCE
: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=401995§ion=news
Alex:
Sure there was and is: to force the Arab mainstream to change. As valid now
as it has been then.
Alexander Kalinowski
: Harry Hope <riv...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Alex:
Right. Iraq isn't a jungle like Vietnam. Perhaps the US should do to Bagdad
what they did to Berlin in 1945? After all, after WW2 there was no
resistance movement to speak of. People new, if they f**k with the
occupiers, they'll get bombed to pieces. Nowadays, I can afford to not act
against Fedayeen or terrorists in my neighborhood because - hey, I am
unarmed. I am *an innocent civilian*. <g> I don't even have to fight. We'll
let the Fedayeen and the terrorists kill Americans until they have to leave
and there won't be any negative repercussions for *me*. Because I am an
innocent civilian. They just won't kill me just because I don't work against
the terrorists as good as I could.
No, there are two ways to win a guerilla war for the occupying force. They
both have to do with influencing the behaviour of the majority of civilians
of the occupied people:
a) Just stand any attacks with striking back in full force. Help the
civilians as good as you can, hoping to win over the hearts and minds. Play
the good and peaceful guys to the full extent.
b) Be the bad guy. In areas where terrorists are known to operate freely,
punish the "innocent civilians" mercilessly and swiftly without remorse. A
dirty way. But effective to quell a rebellion.
I don't like neither way to be honest, although the latter seems to be more
promising. The former most likely won't work.
I think there is a 3rd way, the most favourable way: winning the war
ideologically. And the Bush administration has failed miserable on that
front so far. They are being perceived as the bad guys on a grand scale.
Not a very good management of that level of war.
USA
Demand validity and accuracy, and don't settle for less.
USA
You can't refute a single word of it, and that's obvious.
>...One can think...
I suggest that you begin doing so at your earliest convenience.
>...You also have a right
>to "judge" at the next election. And that's about it.
That's not so when elections are subverted.
You haven't the intelligence to wonder why Bush is so busy
trying to grant immunity from prosecution to all his profiteer
pals, have you.
USA
USA
>In alt.religion.christian USA wrote:
>: Bush lied to profit himself, getting our troops harmed and killed.
>
>No, he led the US to war out of a different reason.
Care to elaborate? Hint: those weren't reasons, they were lies.
>: That's treason.
>
>Either that or what you do is libel. Or is it slander?
It's neither. Learn what the words really mean, and
why truth doesn't qualify as either.
>: No real Christian would ever support such crimes.
>
>Assuming it was a crime. Which is what I dispute. And you are not the one to
>make the final judgement on whether it is or not.
Lying to get innocents killed to rob their bereaved survivors
is wrongdoing, or else you merely have no functional ethics.
War profiteering is no ordinary crime: it's also treason.
USA
I needn't do so at all. The standard medical definitions of psychoses
and sociopathy have that covered quite adequately.
> you might end up in trouble in case they
>don't like your calling them sick and decide to silence you one way or the
>other.
So you admire those who can't stand the exposure of dissent using
inappropriate methods to try to hide from it.
That's not healthy, either.
Do get qualified assistance and advice.
USA
It's not even supposed to be managed well, it's merely profiteering.
The Bush mob is devoid of any decent ideology: they're fascists.
USA
>... to force the Arab mainstream to change...
That's not a valid objective.
USA
>I thought the idea was to get the Arab world to *grow up* finally. To force
>them to let go of their mentality.
That's not a logical idea.
You'd have to make them become far more irrationally violent
to match the Bush gang, for example.
>...They are immature and
>backwater...
Not really, but you're sure a bigot to try to pretend it.
>... it was the Iraqi people's fault only that they got
>invaded...
No, they didn't force Bush to refuse to negotiate.
>...Too many of them cooperated with Saddam ...
You mean like Rumsfeld?
"...THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism . Two
suggestions:
1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
wars to an expanded global criminal investigation, using special
forces where needed, but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration? On a military
sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary sovereign objects
in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks. Going after regimes "that
hate us". Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of
the American public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
to strike anew and at their pleasure.
2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
PNAC is real and a present threat to peace.
Be legally rid of Bush and the rest of the PNAC crime organization,
on behalf of America and the rest of the world.
It's in your own best interests to resist Bush in every possible
legal way. It's also in the best interests of your descendants.
USA
>...listen to me...
Why? Even reading what you type shows that you are
a bigot blaming the victims for the crimes of fascists.
>... the Arab world is ...
It's obviously not your area of expertise.
"Blind Imperial Arrogance - Vile Stereotyping of Arabs by the U.S.
Ensures Years of Turmoil
Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 08:12 PM EDT
"At least since World War II, American strategic interests in the
Middle East have been, first, to ensure supplies of oil and, second,
to guarantee at enormous cost the strength and domination of Israel
over its neighbors .."
By Edward Said*
The great modern empires have never been held together only by
military power. Britain ruled the vast territories of India with only
a few thousand colonial officers and a few more thousand troops, many
of them Indian. France did the same in North Africa and Indochina, the
Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese and Belgians in Africa. The key
element was imperial perspective, that way of looking at a distant
foreign reality by subordinating it in one's gaze, constructing its
history from one's own point of view, seeing its people as subjects
whose fate can be decided by what distant administrators think is best
for them. From such willful perspectives ideas develop, including the
theory that imperialism is a benign and necessary thing.
For a while this worked, as many local leaders believed - mistakenly -
that cooperating with the imperial authority was the only way. But
because the dialectic between the imperial perspective and the local
one is adversarial and impermanent, at some point the conflict between
ruler and ruled becomes uncontainable and breaks out into colonial
war, as happened in Algeria and India. We are still a long way from
that moment in American rule over the Arab and Muslim world because,
over the last century, pacification through unpopular local rulers has
so far worked.
At least since World War II, American strategic interests in the
Middle East have been, first, to ensure supplies of oil and, second,
to guarantee at enormous cost the strength and domination of Israel
over its neighbors.
Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike
all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but
to educate and liberate. These ideas are by no means shared by the
people who inhabit that empire, but that hasn't prevented the U.S.
propaganda and policy apparatus from imposing its imperial perspective
on Americans, whose sources of information about Arabs and Islam are
woefully inadequate.
Several generations of Americans have come to see the Arab world
mainly as a dangerous place, where terrorism and religious fanaticism
are spawned and where a gratuitous anti-Americanism is inculcated in
the young by evil clerics who are anti-democratic and virulently
anti-Semitic.
In the U.S., "Arabists" are under attack. Simply to speak Arabic or to
have some sympathetic acquaintance with the vast Arab cultural
tradition has been made to seem a threat to Israel. The media runs the
vilest racist stereotypes about Arabs - see, for example, a piece by
Cynthia Ozick in the Wall Street Journal in which she speaks of
Palestinians as having "reared children unlike any other children,
removed from ordinary norms and behaviors" and of Palestinian culture
as "the life force traduced, cultism raised to a sinister
spiritualism."
Americans are sufficiently blind that when a Middle Eastern leader
emerges whom our leaders like - the shah of Iran or Anwar Sadat - it
is assumed that he is a visionary who does things our way not because
he understands the game of imperial power (which is to survive by
humoring the regnant authority) but because he is moved by principles
that we share.
Almost a quarter of a century after his assassination, Sadat is a
forgotten and unpopular man in his own country because most Egyptians
regard him as having served the U.S. first, not Egypt. The same is
true of the shah in Iran. That Sadat and the shah were followed in
power by rulers who are less palatable to the U.S. indicates not that
Arabs are fanatics, but that the distortions of imperialism produce
further distortions, inducing extreme forms of resistance and
political self-assertion.
The Palestinians are considered to have reformed themselves by
allowing Mahmoud Abbas, rather than the terrible Yasser Arafat, to be
their leader. But "reform" is a matter of imperial interpretation.
Israel and the U.S. regard Arafat as an obstacle to the settlement
they wish to impose on the Palestinians, a settlement that would
obliterate Palestinian demands and allow Israel to claim, falsely,
that it has atoned for its "original sin."
Never mind that Arafat - whom I have criticized for years in the
Arabic and Western media - is still universally regarded as the
legitimate Palestinian leader. He was legally elected and has a level
of popular support that no other Palestinian approaches, least of all
Abbas, a bureaucrat and longtime Arafat subordinate. And never mind
that there is now a coherent Palestinian opposition, the Independent
National Initiative; it gets no attention because the U.S. and the
Israeli establishment wish for a compliant interlocutor who is in no
position to make trouble. As to whether the Abbas arrangement can
work, that is put off to another day. This is shortsightedness indeed
- the blind arrogance of the imperial gaze. The same pattern is
repeated in the official U.S. view of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
the other Arab states.
Underlying this perspective is a long-standing view - the Orientalist
view - that denies Arabs their right to national self-determination
because they are considered incapable of logic, unable to tell the
truth and fundamentally murderous.
Since Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, there has been an
uninterrupted imperial presence based on these premises throughout the
Arab world, producing untold misery - and some benefits, it is true.
But so accustomed have Americans become to their own ignorance and the
blandishments of U.S. advisors like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, who
have directed their venom against the Arabs in every possible way,
that we somehow think that what we do is correct because "that's the
way the Arabs are." That this happens also to be an Israeli dogma
shared uncritically by the neo-conservatives who are at the heart of
the Bush administration simply adds fuel to the fire.
We are in for many more years of turmoil and misery in the Middle
East, where one of the main problems is, to put it as plainly as
possible, U.S. power. What the U.S. refuses to see clearly it can
hardly hope to remedy.
Edward Said is a professor at Columbia University and the author of
"The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After" (Pantheon, 2000).
Published in the Los Angeles Times, July 22
Copyright © 2003 Palestine Chronicle. All trademarks and copyrights
on this page are owned by their respective owners..."
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2003072220124284
Iconoclast
<USA> wrote in message news:jhmirvc6h6df4c06n...@4ax.com...
> Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
>
> You haven't the intelligence to wonder why Bush is so busy
> trying to grant immunity from prosecution to all his profiteer
> pals, have you.
You not only have no intelligence, no intellect, filled with lies and have a
head full of dung.
Why don't you move to Iran?
In your complete ignorance have you ever found what party the majority of
Corporate millionaires belong to?
You are delivering the SAME crap that Hitler delivered in the early
thirties. You will, out of ignorance, deny that.
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
"Alexander Kalinowski" <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote in
message news:bpai97$1j87qn$6...@ID-168899.news.uni-berlin.de...
USA
Now for a word from an idiot, showing how someone can be dupable:
"Iconoclast" <ic...@home.net> wrote:
>... not only have no intelligence, no intellect, filled with lies and have a
>head full of dung.
No wonder you're a cooladesucking bushcultie then.
>... delivering the SAME crap that Hitler delivered ...
So, is it your lack of cerebral capacity that forces you
to support those who promote such fascism?
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
<USA> wrote in message news:1hmirvgsee883kjac...@4ax.com...
> "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/opinion/11KRUG.html
<snip>
> Demand validity and accuracy, and don't settle for less.
Good idea, OPINIONS are LESS
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
about our might, threats, or will,,,, when the body bags come in we become
weak-kneed COWARDS
Why should we expect ANYONE to really respect us ?
<USA> wrote in message news:e07grv8n7m7mt9kj1...@4ax.com...
> "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=ar
t
> >icle&sid=547
> >
> >The national media continues to adhere to the Bush Administration's "see
no
> >quagmire," but Americans are seeing Vietnam.
> >By Stewart Nusbaumer
> >
> >Belle Fourche, South Dakota-The heartland of America is upset, and
becoming
> >more upset. With Americans dying everyday in Iraq, sometimes several a
day,
> >occasionally more than several, the national self-confidence of an easy
and
> >fast victory is gone and is being replaced by a haunting fear that a past
> >war gone terribly wrong is revisiting America.
> >
> >"Iraq is turning into another Vietnam," says Jerry, a disabled Vietnam
> >veteran wearing a cowboy hat with a POW-MIA patch on its side. "I
definitely
> >don't agree with this war."
> >
> >With summer fishing past and ice fishing not arrived, the sports
enthusiasts
> >in the 212 Bar, which doubles as a bait-and-tackle shop, have little to
> >distract them from the depressing news coming out of Iraq.
> >
> >"Why are we over there?" Betty asks. "We have lots of problems here."
> >
> >"I'm more and more wondering why we went there to begin with," Lanny the
> >bartender says, with deer and antelope heads mounted on the wall above
him.
> >"They are just picking our guys off everyday." Lanny offers his reason
why
> >our troops are in Iraq: "Scratch Iraq and you get black gold."
> >
> >Last week in my favorite New York bar, the Night Café, Tom insisted New
> >Yorkers were solidly opposed to this war when it began and are more
opposed
> >to the war now. "Only whacko hawks support this war, and for some reason
> >they never fight in the wars. This is just like Vietnam."
> >
> >In San Francisco, where I was last month, the echo of "Vietnam" was in
the
> >air of the cafes of North Beach, expressing fear that an ugly past has
> >returned. It's not surprising that the latest Senator to lash out against
> >the war, Senator Feinstein, is from California. She called the war
> >"illegitimate."
> >
> >According to CNN/USA Today/Gallup Polls, in April -- when the war was
> >supposedly winding down -- 76 percent of the public approved of President
> >Bush's handling of the war while only 21 percent disapproved. That 76
> >percent approval rating has now plunged to 45 percent, according to a
recent
> >CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, and the disapproval has risen from 21 percent
to
> >54 percent.
> >
> >Although a majority of Americans now disapprove of Bush's handling of the
> >war, the mainstream media's coverage of the war has hardly changed. It
> >remains out of touch with what is happening in Iraq and out of touch with
> >what Americans are thinking. There are brief glimpses of the bloody
reality,
> >such as CNN showing wounded U.S. soldiers in hospitals, and there is an
> >occasional airing of hostility toward the war. But the balance remains
> >terribly lopsided, the message is profoundly wrong, and the overall
coverage
> >is rigged. The coverage is rigged by a media that is focused more on
profit
> >than on presenting the truth, by a media more concerned with not
> >antagonizing the Bush Administration than informing the American people.
> >
> >Still, the word "Vietnam" is being heard more and more in America, in
homes,
> >in bars and cafes, on call-in radio talk shows, where people think and
> >discuss without the heavy censorship of the corporate media. In response,
> >the big media has finally turned to the analogy of Vietnam, but only to
> >discredit the idea that Iraq is another Vietnam.
> >
> >Is Iraq A New Vietnam?
> >
> >Last week MSNBC's military analyst, retired Colonel Jake Jacobs,
dismissed
> >the idea that Iraq is becoming Vietnam. He gave three reasons why these
are
> >not similar.
> >
> >In Vietnam, the U.S. fought against large military units, while in Iraq
our
> >troops are confronting only small groups of combatants, often only two or
> >three fighters.
> >
> >But what Vietnam is the retired colonel comparing Iraq with? In the
earlier
> >stages of the Vietnam War, when French troops did the fighting, later
when
> >U.S. military advisors became active, the opposing Vietnamese forces were
> >nearly always organized in small guerrilla units. It is normal for
> >insurgents to conduct their military operations in small units, only
later
> >after they become better equipped and better organized do they band
together
> >into larger fighting units.
> >
> >As for Iraq, this war is at an early stage so guerrillas are conducting
> >operations in small hit-and-run formations and using remote control bombs
to
> >strike "soft" targets where the U.S. forces and their allies, such as the
> >Italians, and of course the local "collaborators," are most vulnerable.
This
> >is no different than Vietnam during the earlier stages of that war; in
fact
> >it is the same.
> >
> >It is crucial to remember that the goal of guerrillas -- including the
Iraqi
> >guerillas -- is not to militarily defeat the larger and stronger
traditional
> >military force, but to undermine security and spread fear and chaos
> >throughout the country which will choke off economic development and
> >increase the number of locals opposing (both passively and actively) the
> >occupying forces. And I must say that the Iraqis guerrillas are doing a
> >sterling job. Security in Iraq is deteriorating, popular opposition to
the
> >U.S. is increasing (a recent report by the CIA points this out) which
will
> >both embolden and swell the ranks of the insurgency and give them the
> >civilian pool of supporters they need to be effective. Sounds like
Vietnam
> >to me.
> >
> >Next, Colonel Jacobson claimed that in Vietnam we possessed knowledge of
the
> >enemy; we knew our enemy was the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.
In
> >Iraq we have not been able to identity the enemy; we do not know who is
> >actually attacking on our troops.
> >
> >The Colonel is correct, yet this is also irrelevant.
> >
> >The U.S. military understood the enemy organizations in Vietnam, but the
> >Viet Cong had infiltrated the civilian social structure and so military
> >intelligence had no idea where and who the actually soldiers were. During
> >the day a farmer, at night planting a mine! During the day a government
> >worker, at night a VC soldier! This brought chaos and confusion, which
> >favors the guerrillas who are not responsible for running the government,
> >not responsible for public utilities and the well-being of the people.
> >
> >Knowledge of armies, then, is worthless if this information does not
result
> >in tactical battlefield knowledge or in strategic advantage. In the case
of
> >Vietnam, the media's talking heads had a field day displaying their
wisdom
> >about the Vietnamese enemy, but nothing they said affected the war.
> >
> >Actually, in Iraq we know that there are three types of combatants;
whether
> >they are tactically united or maintain separate operations we do not
know.
> >It is probably both, working together on certain operations and
separately
> >on others. There are the Saddam Hussein loyalists, there are the
> >nationalistic anti-Americans, and there are the foreign Islamics. As the
war
> >continues, the Hussein loyalists will lose influence to the Iraqi
> >nationalists and the foreign Islamics, because the former have greater
> >credibility amongst Iraqis and the latter possess the most resources and
> >battle skills. Both groups are settling in for a long war, preparing to
> >slowly wear down and bleed the United States. Just like in Vietnam.
> >
> >Finally, Jake Jacobson said, in Vietnam there were safe areas, whereas in
> >Iraq most of the country is now pacified.
> >
> >Yet, in the beginning of the Vietnam War much of the country was also
> >secure, only later when the guerrilla forces became larger and more
> >powerful -- augmented by traditional forces from North Vietnam -- did the
> >entire country become vulnerable to attack.
> >
> >In fact, the pacified areas of Iraq are not stable. In the south, the
Shiite
> >Muslims dominate while in the north the Kurds are in control, either or
both
> >could decide that their future does not lie with an Iraq nation state,
one
> >that historically abused and suppressed their people. Either or both
could
> >take up arms against the central authorities and turn on the U.S.
military.
> >
> >Further, both Syria and Iran have long borders with Iraq, both are
hostile
> >to the United States which they view as not engaging in nation building
but
> >empire building, and both are allowing if not encouraging foreign
combatants
> >to enter Iraq. Like with South Vietnam, the neighbors of Iraq are not
> >comfortable with U.S. rule in their region.
> >
> >The Future Is Here
> >
> >It's not unusual for Americans to be ahead of their media; in fact, it is
> >rather common.
> >
> >"I agree with something should have been done about Hussein," says Lanny
the
> >bartender in South Dakota, "but this is 2nd chapter Vietnam. Us sticking
our
> >nose into somewhere we shouldn't be."
> >
> >In one sense, Iraq does appear to be different than Vietnam: Iraq is
> >deteriorating faster than Vietnam did, and Americans are seeing the truth
> >faster than in the 1960s.
> >
> >"I'm sick of this," says Joe a World War II veteran and a solid
Republican
> >who lives in Missouri but is visiting South Dakota. "There was Korea,
there
> >was Vietnam, and now there is Iraq. It just keeps going on and on, I'm
sick
> >of it."
> >
> >Driving to the airport, on the radio a young woman announces the results
of
> >an opinion poll. The question, "Should more reservists be sent to Iraq?"
The
> >result, 62 percent say no, while only 30 percent say yes. I missed
whether
> >it was a South Dakota or a national poll. Actually, it doesn't matter.
> >
> >In New York and California and the Great Prairie states, I saw an America
> >that has not forgotten Vietnam, to the great chagrin of our hawks, and an
> >America that is more and more rejecting the Bush Administration's effort
to
> >lead America into another quagmire. Fueled by the remembrance of Vietnam,
> >Americans are withdrawing their support for this war. It's not easy for
them
> >to express opposion to an ongoing American war, but they are. Not
screaming
> >their opposition, but painfully, often reluctantly expressing confusion
and
> >disapproval of the war.
> >
> >Regardless of the drumbeat from the media insisting the Iraq War is
> >necessary and we will win, the American people are increasingly seeing an
> >unnecessary war that will end badly. Americans are not waiting for the
light
> >at the end of tunnel, they already see the end. And it's just like
Vietnam.
> >
> >
> >--
>
> Isn't it.
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
> "...THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
>
> Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism .
Real ?
> Two
> suggestions:
> 1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
> wars to an expanded global criminal investigation,
Someone blows himself up, in a place crowded with civilians, for some cause,
and YOU need some "investigation" ?
Boy what a DUNCE
> using special forces where needed,
Just as we are presently doing.
> but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
> international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
> local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
> Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration?
Man/Lady, you really need to get some glasses
> On a military sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary
>sovereign objects in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks.
Cough, the idea is to end ALL terrorism, which kinda removes any requirement
all terrorisms be "related"
> Going after regimes "that hate us".
You mean like what you keep trying to convience me, with your accusation
that I somehow believed Iraq to have been some kind of threat to me, should
have been the ONLY reason to attack Saddam's support of terrorism ?
> Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of the American
public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
> justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
> organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
> according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
> to strike anew and at their pleasure.
So why have you insisted on it ?
> 2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
> friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
> counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
> tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
> assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
You mean, return to doing nothing like we did before 9-11 ?
>
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
>
>
> PNAC is real and a present threat to peace.
>
> Be legally rid of Bush and the rest of the PNAC crime organization,
> on behalf of America and the rest of the world.
<USA> wrote in message news:5n6grv8vqukjrkil9...@4ax.com...
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
Real ?
Boy what a DUNCE
<USA> wrote in message news:cogfrvch8f7qb9o89...@4ax.com...
> Harry Hope <riv...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >From The Knoxville News-Sentinel, 11/7/03:
>
>http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_24090
62,00.html
USA
>http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=1069
>
>Tell Us The Truth!
>11/16/2003 @ 10:21am
>
>"The truth is the truth. Not just the government's truth or the church's
>truth or the truth that won't upset the advertisers and stockholders but THE
>TRUTH and the TRUTH is that when the very institutions that we depend on to
>inform us and guide us omit any part of the truth for any reason whatsoever
>then that is called a lie." -- Steve Earle
>
>Furious with the Bush Administration's deceptions, and even more furious
>with the failure of major media outlets to expose and challenge those
>deceits, thousands of Americans are chanting, "Tell us the truth!" Their
>cries are being met not with the stony silence of Washington but with a
>protest chorus that mixes rock, rap, folk, soul and alt-country into a call
>to arms.
>
>The Tell Us the Truth Tour has set the sentiments of millions of angry
>Americans to music, and taken the show on the road. Traveling by bus across
>the eastern United States on a tour that began November 7 in Madison,
>Wisconsin and will finish November 24 in Washington, some of the most
>innovative artists in American music -- and a comrade from Britain -- are
>raising a ruckus about the Bush administration's push for greater media
>consolidation and for international economic policies that are devastating
>the economies of both the U.S. and its trading partners.
>
>"Media consolidation needs smashing and globalization needs unmasking," says
>Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, who
>has joined the tour along with keyboardist Mike Mills of REM, British folk
>rocker Billy Bragg, genre-bending singer-songwriter Steve Earle, rapper
>Boots Riley of The Coup and Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers.
>They'll be joined at a number of later shows by singer Jill Sobule and
>comedian Janeane Garofalo, and perhaps by other artists. Morello, who is
>performing as The Nightwatchman on the tour, sums up the sentiments of the
>musicians who have donated their time to the effort by explaining that,
>"When presidents and politicians lie, it is the job of the press to expose
>those lies. When the press fails, the lie becomes the law. The point of the
>Tell Us the Truth Tour is to help others make connections, and to show them
>that activism can change the policies of this country."
>
>The core group kicked off the tour at the National Conference on Media
>Reform in Madison, Wisconsin, where AFL-CIO President John Sweeney joked
>during his remarks about "opening for Billy Bragg" and a crowd of 1,700
>ended the first night of the conference dancing to a version of the Chambers
>Brothers 1968 hit Time Has Come Today that featured Chambers and Riley
>trading vocals and chanting, "Now the time has come... to tell us the
>truth."
>
>Bragg, who has gained international acclaim for his work with the family of
>Woody Guthrie to put music to lyrics that were left without tunes at the
>time of the folk music legend's death, helped organize the tour and has
>insisted from the start that the music be as strong as the message. "Bush is
>a serious threat, not just to America but to the world," says Bragg, who
>gave up a chance to join protests against the President's visit to Britain
>this week in order to join the tour. "We're talking about that threat, the
>message will get through. But this isn't a seminar. This is a show, we want
>people dancing, singing, getting into the music."
>
>People are doing just that. While Bragg performs overtly political songs,
>such as his anti-WTO epic "NPWA (No Power Without Accountability)," he also
>does favorites such as "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward" and "Sexuality."
>Earle offers up a sampling of his recent songs, including the brilliant
>"John Walker's Blues." Playing acoustic guitar, Morello sings new songs,
>some written in preparation for the tour. Riley raps and Chambers turns in
>brilliant blues performances. Mills even straps on a guitar and sings,
>trying out a great version of Macy Gray's "I Try" at some shows. Invariably,
>the highlights each night are the ensemble performances, featuring all the
>musicians. In addition to "Time Has Come Today," the group has perfected a
>remarkable song cycle that begins with Chambers singing Curtis Mayfield's
>"People Get Ready" and then slides into Bragg singing Van Morrison's "Tupelo
>Honey," samples some Marvin Gaye and then closes with the whole group
>joining Chambers again to sing: "People get ready, there's a train
>comin'/You don't need no baggage, you just get on board."
>
>The music is so good at times that it is, indeed, easy to forget the
>politics. But the message never gets lost. Working with the AFL-CIO, Common
>Cause, Free Press, the Future of Music Coalition and Morello's Axis of
>Justice, the tour features at every stop information about the current fight
>to block Federal Communications Commission rule changes that would further
>media consolidation and the struggle to prevent corporations and the Bush
>administration from undermining workers rights, human rights and the
>environment by developing a Free Trade Area of the Americas. And, while the
>emphasis is on entertainment, the band members frequently draw the show back
>to fundamental, and often dramatic, messages. Morello closes his set in
>silence, holding a clenched fist above his head as, invariably, the crowd
>erupts in thunderous applause. But most nights the loudest sound of all are
>those chants of "Tell us the truth!" Riley says that's the signal to him
>that the crowds understand what is at stake, and what the struggle is about.
>"All we're doing is bringing people some more information, telling them how
>to get connected with these movements and getting them energized," says
>Riley.
>
>After performing Sunday night in Atlanta (Variety Playhouse) and Monday
>night in Tampa (Tampa Theater), the tour will hit Miami where, on Wednesday
>night, it will join the People's Gala for Global Justice. The Gala, one of a
>number of protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas Ministerial
>being held this week in Miami, is expected to draw more than 10,000 people.
>After Miami, the tour roars up the east coast to the Philadelphia area
>(Keswick Hall: November 21), New York (Webster Hall: November 22), Boston
>(Berklee Performance Center: November 23) and, finally, Washington, DC (930
>Club: November24).
>
>In Washington, the tour will perform at the 930 Club, not far from the White
>House. Morello says they will bring some bad news to the current occupant.
>"I'm certain Bush won't be reelected," explains the activist musician. "From
>the economy being in the toilet to American kids dying every day in a war we
>should never have gotten into, that's not a very solid resume. All of his
>personal jack- assed-ness aside, the one thing that was clear at the end of
>the day is that The Dixie Chicks were right. They had every right to be
>embarrassed that that guy is from Texas."
>
>-- For more information on the Tell Us the Truth Tour, and information on
>how to obtain tickets to upcoming shows, visit the official website at
>www.tellusthetruth.org
>
>-- For more information on Morello's political work, check out the
>www.axisofjustice.org website. For more information on Billy Bragg, go to
>the www.billybragg.co.uk website. For more information on Steve Earle, go to
>the www.steveearle.com website. All of these websites contain details
>regarding the Tell Us the Truth Tour.
>
>-- With Robert W. McChesney, John Nichols is a co-founder of Free Press, the
>media reform network that organized the National Conference on Media Reform.
>The Free Press website is www.mediareform.net
>
>
>
>--
The brave, the ethical, the decent all want this truth.
It's the only thing that's right for the USA.
"Glenn \(Christian Mystic\)" <christi...@ev1.net> wrote:
>We are a weak people ...
>weak-kneed COWARDS
>
>Why should we expect ANYONE to really respect us ?
Speak for yourself. Your cowardice and weakness are what make
you unable to resist wrongdoing in the form of the Bush fascist war
crimes, and real Americans don't share your deficits of that nature.
USA
(Bring_ALL_the_war_criminals_to_justice) wrote:
>> Over the last two years, I've discovered documents of the Defense
>> Intelligence Agency proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the
>> Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions
>> against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War.
>> The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children,
>> would pay, and it went ahead anyway.
>>
>> The primary document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," is
>> dated January 22, 1991. It spells out how sanctions will prevent Iraq
>> from supplying clean water to its citizens.
>
>
>more at http://www.progressive.org/0801issue/nagy0901.html
Decent human beings can not and will not support those who
torture and kill innocent children as Bush does.
USA
>Hitler was a better man than Bush.
>1) He actually worked for a living before entering politics
>2) He served on the front lines in combat
>3) He could speak fluently and coherently
>4) At least Hitler had the balls to pick on someone his own size,
>instead of just third world countries
>
>
>U.S.'s 'Iron Hammer' Code Name 1st Used by Nazis
>
>
>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's code name for a crackdown
>on resistance in Iraq was also used by the Nazis for an aborted
>operation to damage the Soviet power grid during World War II.
>
>"Operation Iron Hammer" this week launched the 1st Armored Division's
>3rd Brigade into the roughest parts of Baghdad to ferret out the
>attackers who have killed scores of U.S. troops since Iraqi leader
>Saddam Hussein was ousted in April.
>
>A Pentagon official said the name was chosen because of the "Old
>Ironsides" nickname of the 1st Armored Division. He was unaware of any
>connection to any Nazi operation.
>
>"Eisenhammer," the German for "iron hammer," was a Luftwaffe code name
>for a plan to destroy Soviet generating plants in the Moscow and Gorky
>areas in 1943, according to Universal Lexikon on the www.infobitte.de
>Web site.
>
>A researcher at Britain's Imperial War Museum confirmed the existence
>of Eisenhammer.
>
>+
>
>"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism
>by those who have not got it." - G. B. Shaw
>
>
>The First Church of Common Sense
>
>Want to know what's REALLY going on in Iraq?
>http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/wakeup.html
>
> Cowboys and Idiots: The Reagan Administration
>Ronnies' "Brave freedom fighters" are now Bushs'
>"evildoers" who "hate our freedoms".
>http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/reagan.html
>
>The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roller Empire
>The God-Awful Truth about Christian Zionism
>http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/armageddon.html
>
>
>
Remember, real Christians don't support Nazis such as Bush.
USA
>THE WAR ON TERROR:
>War for Oil. War for Israel.
>
>Bush is the son of oilman George Bush senior, of the Bush oil family,
>who made their money in the oil industry.
>
>The Bush cabinet is almost exclusively composed of oilmen.
>
>Their election campaign was funded by oil companies including
>Halliburton. It was the most expensive campaign in history.
>
>They made Halliburton man Dick Cheney their Vice President.
>
>
>They attacked Afghanistan to enable their Centgas oil pipeline.
>
>They attacked Iraq for Iraq's oil.
>
>They attacked both to eliminate opposition to Israel's crimes.
>
>Syria & Iran are next.
>
>Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine is the source of the hatred
>and terrorism that threatens Israel and the West. The US government
>funds and arms that hideous occupation, which is why they were a
>target on September 11. They were warned about September 11 but they
>let it happen. September 11 enabled them, by deception, to attack
>Afghanistan & Iraq.
>
>After destroying Iraq they awarded the most lucrative reconstruction
>contracts to Vice President Dick Cheney's company Halliburton - and
>the other companies that funded them all into power.
>
>They promised to hold Iraq's oil revenues "in trust for the Iraqi
>people." They lied. They are taking that money. They are spending that
>money on their own companies.
>
>Most of Iraq's oil revenues are now unaccounted for.
>
>
>Oil & The Bush Cabinet:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1138000/1138009.stm
>
>Bush & Big Business:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1306000/1306777.stm
>
>Explaining Arab Anger:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1552000/1552900.stm
>
>Terror War & Globalisation:
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0973110902/mastersearchhome
>
>Oil Wars:
>http://www.thedebate.org/
>
>Afghanistan Oil Pipeline:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1984459.stm
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2016340.stm
>
>"There are now hopes the [oil pipeline] plan can be revived following
>the removal of the Taleban"
>
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3006149.stm
>
>"Halliburton's role expands." "The company formerly run by US vice
>president Dick Cheney is to operate Iraqi oil fields, new documents
>reveal."
>
>(Cheney is under investigation for corporate fraud in relation to his
>dealings at halliburton!)
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2119981.stm
>
>
>U.S. the only country NOT to oppose Israel's crimes:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3115114.stm
>
>
>The US government was warned about the September 11 attacks:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2267160.stm
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1992852.stm
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3092141.stm
>"the attacks could have been prevented"
>
>
>The War on Terror has INCREASED the Threat of Terror:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3101364.stm
>
>
>Iraq will be poor for years:
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3158348.stm
>
>No WMD in Iraq (no surprise):
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3160602.stm
>
>
>The worst criminals in the world are in the middle of perpetrating the
>worst crime-spree in history. They do so by deception. They do so with
>the support of their corporate-funded media. They do so with our
>taxes. They do so in our names.
>
>THEY MUST NOT GET AWAY WITH IT. THEY MUST BE STOPPED.
>
>Acheson Intelligence Group
Now that's well said.
USA
(Bring_ALL_the_war_criminals_to_justice) wrote:
>> In a report issued Oct. 23 entitled, "Iraq: the missing billions,"
>> U.K.-based Christian Aid reveals that the fate of $4 out of
>> $5 billion transferred to the Coalition Provisional Authority
>> (CPA)'s Defense Fund for Iraq (DFI) remains unknown.
>>
>> The only funds accounted for appear to be about $1 billion in
>> pre-war funds transferred from the U.N. Oil for Food Program.
>> However, the CPA has not disclosed the fate of $2.5 billion in
>> seized state assets and $1.5 billion from oil revenues handed
>> over to the Development Fund for Iraq and held in the U.S.
>> Federal Reserve Bank.
>
>
>more at
>http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1659&mode=thread&order=0
Remember, real Christians don't support robberies, either.
penitent leper
<christi...@ev1.net> wrote:
>We are a weak people who lack any real resolve, the world need not worry
>about our might, threats, or will,,,, when the body bags come in we become
>weak-kneed COWARDS
>
>Why should we expect ANYONE to really respect us ?
Quite the contrary. We are the planet's biggest bullies, as
intelligent nations worldwide recognize. From our fascistic defense
of poor little Israel which has nothing standing between it and Arab
hordes (except, of course, the Pentagon), to our imposing the cruelest
martial law in Iraq, which was a beaten and defenseless nation even
before we invaded it Hitler-style, "Amerikan" has become a term of
opprobrium globally.
And that's as it should be, since we abandoned the ethics of Jesus
of Nazareth and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in favor of
Caesar's state-religion. Long ago, we could have taken the path of
Civilization. Instead, we took the path of Empire, and the world's
suffering has increased, and is increasing, by untold degrees.
We are the biggest pigs, the highest consumers, on earth. It's
only fitting that we're also the biggest scoundrels. Bushfeld, after
initiating a unilateral, pre-emptive invasion against a country which
had not attacked us, is now holding his hands out, begging for
assistance from other, non-involved nations, to repair the physical
damage we've done - not to mention the religous and political damage:
We'll give Iraq democracy? Their first concern: To have Islamic
government. Our response: To hell with you. Three cheers for
"democratization" !
Those body bags are merest tokens of what is to come. I'm not
talking about the poor soldiers who, as with the Vietnam grunts, have
had their heads pumped full of lying Bushfeld bullshit. I'm talking
about karma. We live by the sword and now we're dying by the sword.
And a few body bags are nothing compared to the carnage we are
bringing on ourselves with the deliberate provocation, alienation,
marginalization, willful misunderstanding, and generally poor
treatment of hundreds of thousands of Moslems across the world, and
even here at home, in This, The Freest Country On Earth - where, once
the Patriot Act 2 comes into effect by being attached as riders to
bills - even American citizens will fall victim to John Ashcroft's
military dictatorship. Ashcroft: whose assurances that he hasn't used
his universal-spying powers, is just as convincing as would have been
Hitler's assurances that, although plans had been drawn up for the
invasion of Poland and the extermination of the Jews, they hadn't
(YET) been acted upon.
The real "weak-kneed cowards" are the Bush junta. The heroes are
those here and around the world who resist it. Amerika, no longer
America, is being run by a destructive band of thugs, a true den of
thieves. That their leader masquerades as a Christian only
underscores the malevolence of the whole endeavor.
- pl -
USA
You are right, of course, and decent Americans are doing
all they can to stop the Bush abuses of the USA and of
the world.
Alexander Kalinowski
: Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
: It's fact.
Alex:
You're a child molestor - aren't you?
: Look it up.
Alex:
Not my job. :-)
Alexander Kalinowski
: Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
:>In alt.religion.christian USA wrote:
:>: Bush lied to profit himself, getting our troops harmed and killed.
:>
:>No, he led the US to war out of a different reason.
: Care to elaborate?
Alex:
Sure: Bush and his administration seek to turn out right in the end, so that
they can (continue to) feel better than the rest of world, being Americans.
Due to have won WW2 against Hitler (the ultimate evil), parts of the US have
started to feel like the force of ultimate goodness. That notion was spurred
by the defeat of the Soviets via the Cold War. Bush's calculation is this:
there will be a bloody price to pay but we will establish a democracy down
there, the Arabs will slowly but steadily forced to respect us and we will
all be safer and in the end we'll turn out right. We're going to be the ones
that have brought peace and stability and prosperity and democracy to the
Middle East. And the rest of the world will have to look up to us for it.
The US. The world's leading nation. It's pure vanity there too.
Only it won't work out like that. Because of awareness of that too will
arise.
: Hint: those weren't reasons, they were lies.
Alex
Not at all, He didn't spoke about it that explicitly to begin with.
:>: That's treason.
:>
:>Either that or what you do is libel. Or is it slander?
: It's neither. Learn what the words really mean, and
: why truth doesn't qualify as either.
Alex:
Assuming it was established that what you say is truth. Which it ain't. So
my above words are valid still. :-)
:>: No real Christian would ever support such crimes.
:>
:>Assuming it was a crime. Which is what I dispute. And you are not the one to
:>make the final judgement on whether it is or not.
: Lying to get innocents killed to rob their bereaved survivors
: is wrongdoing, or else you merely have no functional ethics.
Alex:
Sure. But then lying by claiming that this is what another did when they
didn't do that is likewise wrongdoing. And it seems as if it is you who has
no functional ethics to be honest. :-)
:>
Alex:
But then again, we have fortunately noone at hand who has done that lately.
Alexander Kalinowski
: Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
Alex:
Well, definitions like those are no good at all, as the behaviour of people
has to be correctly interpreted and that is where the trouble comes in.
There you clearly have deficiencies. In other words: you adopt the position
of a judge without having the capabilities to be a good judge. Therefore
your conclusions have to be considered invalid. And you have to be treated
accordingly. :-)
:> you might end up in trouble in case they
:>don't like your calling them sick and decide to silence you one way or the
:>other.
: So you admire those who can't stand the exposure of dissent using
: inappropriate methods to try to hide from it.
Alex:
Oh, exposure of dissent is fine. Unjustified insults and slander is not.
Regardless of the state of law, such behaviour cannot be tolerated and must
be acted against. One way or the other.
: That's not healthy, either.
Alex:
According top the world view of a person who has now repeatedly demonstrated
lack of measure of judgement. I think I can live with your conclusion
all-in-all. :-)
: Do get qualified assistance and advice.
Alex:
You advice has been duly noted and gets politely declined. :-)
Alexander Kalinowski
: Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
Alex:
Before I forget it: there's a 4th way and I think it's Bush's way... to
simply sit things out.
: It's not even supposed to be managed well, it's merely profiteering.
: The Bush mob is devoid of any decent ideology: they're fascists.
Alex:
Do you even know, do you even have the slightest idea, what fascism is?
Alexander Kalinowski
: Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
:>... to force the Arab mainstream to change...
: That's not a valid objective.
Alex:
It's not only valid. It's mandatory. They will be forced to change by people
like me. Change or die. That's the alternative.
Johnny Asia
> Remember, real Christians don't support Nazis such as Bush.>>
"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this
great nation," the leader of another country once wrote. "We must take
steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland." -
Adoph Hitler, writing about creation of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.
"Today Christians ... stand at the head of Germany ... I pledge that I
never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity ..
We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We
want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in
the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the
poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture
as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years." -
Adolph Hitler - The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1
(London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872.
Consider this quote from Hermann Goering, president of the Reichstag,
Nazi Party, and Luftwaffe Commander in Chief:
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in
England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But,
after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy
and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it
is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a
communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be
brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers
for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works
the same in any country."
A Kind of Fascism Is Replacing Our Democracy
By Sheldon S. Wolin
Sheldon S. Wolin is emeritus professor of politics at Princeton
University and the author of "Politics and Vision: The Presence of the
Past" and "Alexis de Tocqueville: Between Two Worlds."
July 18, 2003
Sept. 11, 2001, hastened a significant shift in our nation's
self-understanding. It became commonplace to refer to an "American
empire" and to the United States as "the world's only superpower."
Instead of those formulations, try to conceive of ones like
"superpower democracy" or "imperial democracy," and they seem not only
contradictory but opposed to basic assumptions that Americans hold
about their political system and their place within it. Supposedly
ours is a government of constitutionally limited powers in which equal
citizens can take part in power. But one can no more assume that a
superpower welcomes legal limits than believe that an empire finds
democratic participation congenial.
No administration before George W. Bush's ever claimed such sweeping
powers for an enterprise as vaguely defined as the "war against
terrorism" and the "axis of evil." Nor has one begun to consume such
an enormous amount of the nation's resources for a mission whose end
would be difficult to recognize even if achieved.
Like previous forms of totalitarianism, the Bush administration boasts
a reckless unilateralism that believes the United States can demand
unquestioning support, on terms it dictates; ignores treaties and
violates international law at will; invades other countries without
provocation; and incarcerates persons indefinitely without charging
them with a crime or allowing access to counsel.
Americans are now facing a grim situation with no easy solution.
Perhaps the just-passed anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
might remind us that "whenever any form of Government becomes
destructive ..." it must be challenged. -
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
Alexander Kalinowski
: Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
:>I thought the idea was to get the Arab world to *grow up* finally. To force
:>them to let go of their mentality.
: That's not a logical idea.
Alex:
Very logical if one is intimate with the at times immature views of the Arab
mainstream.
: You'd have to make them become far more irrationally violent
: to match the Bush gang, for example.
Alex:
That could happen. I doubt that. Germany was blundered into submission
through the bombardment of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin. There was no real
partisan war after 45 - because the Germans knew that if they supported
partisans, they'd risk anewed bombardment of their cities, women and
children inclusive. German *civilians* were fed up with far, thanks to the
bombardment. That's one big difference to WW1. And because of that, the US
and others were able to catch their ear and teach them new ways. I see no
problem with establishing democracy in Iraq and then possibly Shiites voting
their way, for example. Just as fascist parties were outlawed in Germany
after 45, you can outlaw parties that have certain agendas that are not
beneficial to the development of the wider region. People can elect - but no
Arab Nazis, nor some other parties that are not committed to a just and free
development of the new Iraq.
:>...They are immature and
:>backwater...
: Not really, but you're sure a bigot to try to pretend it.
Alex:
Yes, they are. Just one example: instead of blaming Saddam for the
consequences of the sanctions, they blamed the UN and the US.
Another is: they refuse to see that these events have been brought to them
because *they* didn't pay enough attention to what their government did in
1990. Too many cooperated, too many didn't resist.
Yet another one: they oppose what is good and right (democracy) because it
is western. They don't want to adopt such western thought just because we
are rivals in the eyes of those.
:>... it was the Iraqi people's fault only that they got
:>invaded...
: No, they didn't force Bush to refuse to negotiate.
Alex:
No. The Middle East is a lair of antagonism against the west. I don't think
for a second that the Arabs have any special regards for us Germans because
we opposed the war in the UN SC. We're a tool to use. And when we would
cease to be of use, they'd discard us right away.
What truly is the case that after the decay of the CCCP and the dissolution
of the two opposing blocks there is a certain undercurrent in the Arab
populace that wants to rise to power. Bin Laden wants to unite the tribes and
lead them against the West. The Arabs have astonishingly well managed to
drive a wedge between western allies.
What do you think why the Kosovo war was fought? It was to sent out a
message to people like Milosevic all over eastern Europe: "You won't be
allowed to do what you want. There won't be a gold rush for you
non-democrats out there. Eastern Europe will be integrated and certain
ethics will be uphold. Don't even think of fooling around."
If Milosevic had been allowed to do as he wanted to, there was the danger of
people in other eastern nations catching on and destabilization of the
entire region would have been the consequence.
:>...Too many of them cooperated with Saddam ...
: You mean like Rumsfeld?
Alex:
To fight another evil? Yes. Just like one cooperates with Bin Laden to fend
off a bigger evil, namely the Soviets. Perfectly okay (and smart) in my
mind.
What was dumb was not disposing of those folks after they had ceased to be
of use. Thus the 2 gulf wars. Thus 9/11.
: "...THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
: http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-10-26PaxAmericana.html
Alex:
You know that this means some kind of war, no? That your opponents will try
to shut you down by every possible legal way too, no?
Alexander Kalinowski
: Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
:>...listen to me...
: Why? Even reading what you type shows that you are
: a bigot blaming the victims for the crimes of fascists.
Alex:
Either that or you are accusing people of being bigots and fascists who
aren't because you need to villify people to feel like you are on of the
good guys. And you protecting people who need some measure of self-awareness
from even a spark of truth about what idiotic assholes they are.
:>... the Arab world is ...
: It's obviously not your area of expertise.
Alex:
Obvious in your eyes, that is. I say: we'll see. You will be opposed by any
means. Legal or not. I am not particularly picky when I go to war. All that
matters is that I am in the end the last man standing.
: "Blind Imperial Arrogance - Vile Stereotyping of Arabs by the U.S.
: By Edward Said*
: http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2003072220124284
Alex:
I don't read the articles you post and frankly speaking I don't care much
what stands in there. I draw my insight into Arab nature from years of
daily experience and observation, just like I draw my insight about assholes
like from personal experience and observation. It's clear that folks like
you need to villify others. You always have to find some "weak" people so
that you can side with them against some alleged "oppressors". What is truth
and what is not secondary for folks like you. All that matters is that the
"ignorance" and the "evil" is being fought. I have had enough run-ins with
folks like you. And I think I can handle you. :-)
Cr...@nospam.com
<al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
And, by Jiminy, the Prince of Peace would surely approve!!!
_______________________________________________________________________________
Posted Via Uncensored-News.Com - Accounts Starting At $6.95 - http://www.uncensored-news.com
<><><><><><><> The Worlds Uncensored News Source <><><><><><><><>
USA
Stephen Zunes, AlterNet
October 1, 2001
1. Who are the Arabs?
Arab peoples range from the Atlantic coast in northwest Africa to the
Arabian peninsula and north to Syria. They are united by a common
language and culture. Though the vast majority are Muslim, there are also
sizable Christian Arab minorities in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and
Palestine. Originally the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula, the Arabs
spread their language and culture to the north and west with the
expansion of Islam in the 7th century. There are also Arab minorities in
the Sahel and parts of east Africa, as well as in Iran and Israel. The
Arabs were responsible for great advances in mathematics, astronomy and
other scientific disciplines while Europe was still mired in the Dark
Ages.
While there is great diversity in skin pigmentation, spoken dialect and
certain customs, there is a common identity which unites Arab people that
has sometimes been reflected in pan-Arab nationalist movements. Despite
substantial political and other differences, many Arabs share a sense
that they are one nation, which has been artificially divided through the
machinations of Western imperialism and which came to dominate the region
with the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th
century. There is also a growing Arab diaspora in Europe, North America,
Latin America, West Africa and Australia.
2. Who are the Muslims?
The Islamic faith originated in the Arabian peninsula, based on what are
believed to be divine revelations by God to the prophet Mohammed. Muslims
worship the same God as do Jews and Christians, and share many of the
same prophets and ethical traditions, including respect for innocent
life. Approximately 90 percent of Muslims are of the orthodox or Sunni
tradition; most of the remainder are of the Shi'ite tradition, which
dominate Iran but also has substantial numbers in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen
and Lebanon. Sunni Islam is nonhierarchical in structure. There is not a
tradition of separation between the faith and state institutions as there
is in the West, though there is an enormous diversity in various Islamic
legal traditions and the degree with which the governments of
predominately Muslim countries rely on religious bases for their rule.
Political movements based on Islam have ranged from left to right, from
nonviolent to violent, from tolerant to chauvinistic. Generally, the more
moderate Islamic movements have developed in countries where there is a
degree of political pluralism in which they could operate openly. There
is a strong tradition of social justice in Islam, which has often led to
conflicts with regimes that are seen to be unjust or unethical. The more
radical movements have tended to arise in countries that have suffered
great social dislocation due to war or inappropriate economic policies
and/or are under autocratic rule.
Most of the world's Muslims are not Arabs. The world's largest Muslim
country, for example, is Indonesia. Other important non-Arab Muslim
countries include Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran,
Turkey and the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, as well as
Nigeria and several other black African states. Islam is one of the
fastest growing religions in the world and scores of countries have
substantial Muslim minorities. There are approximately five million
Muslims in the United States.
3. Why is there so much violence and political instability in the Middle
East?
For most of the past 500 years, the Middle East actually saw less
violence and warfare and more political stability than Europe or most
other regions of the world. It has only been in the last century that the
region has seen such widespread conflict. The roots of the conflict are
similar to those elsewhere in the Third World, and have to do with the
legacy of colonialism, such as artificial political boundaries,
autocratic regimes, militarization, economic inequality and economies
based on the export of raw materials for finished goods. Indeed, the
Middle East has more autocratic regimes, militarization, economic
inequality and the greatest ratio of exports to domestic consumption than
any region in the world.
At the crossroads of three continents and sitting on much of the world's
oil reserves, the region has been subjected to repeated interventions and
conquests by outside powers, resulting in a high level of xenophobia and
suspicion regarding the intentions of Western powers going back as far as
the Crusades. There is nothing in Arab or Islamic culture that promotes
violence or discord; indeed, there is a strong cultural preference for
stability, order and respect for authority. However, adherence to
authority is based on a kind of social contract that assumes a level of
justice which -- if broken by the ruler -- gives the people a right to
challenge it. The word jihad, often translated as "holy war," actually
means "holy struggle," which can sometimes mean an armed struggle
(qital), but also can mean nonviolent action and political work within
the established system.
Terrorism is not primarily a Middle Eastern phenomenon. In terms of
civilian lives lost, Africa has experienced far more terrorism in recent
decades than has the Middle East. Similarly, far more suicide bombings in
recent years have come from Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka than from Muslim
Arabs in the Middle East. There is also a little-known but impressive
tradition of nonviolent resistance and participatory democracy in some
Middle Eastern countries.
4. Why has the Middle East been the focus of U.S. concern about
international terrorism?
There has been a long history of terrorism -- generally defined as
violence by irregular forces against civilian targets -- in the Middle
East. During Israel's independence struggle in the 1940s, Israeli
terrorists killed hundreds of Palestinian and British civilians; two of
the most notorious terrorist leaders of that period -- Menachem Begin and
Yitzhak Shamir -- later became Israeli prime ministers whose governments
received strong financial, diplomatic and military support from the
United States. Algeria's independence struggle from France in the 1950s
included widespread terrorist attacks against French colonists.
Palestine's ongoing struggle for independence has also included
widespread terrorism against Israeli civilians, during the 1970s through
some of the armed militias of the Palestine Liberation Organization and,
more recently, through radical underground Islamic groups. Terrorism has
also played a role in Algeria's current civil strife, in Lebanon's civil
war and foreign occupations during the 1980s, and for many years in the
Kurdish struggle for independence. Some Middle Eastern governments --
notably Libya, Syria, Sudan, Iraq and Iran -- have in the past had close
links with terrorist organizations. In more recent years, the Al-Qaeda
movement -- a decentralized network of terrorist cells supported by Saudi
exile Osama bin Laden -- has become the major terrorist threat, and is
widely believed to be responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks
on the United States. Bin Laden himself has been given sanctuary in
Afghanistan, though his personal fortune and widespread network of
supporters has allowed him to be independent on direct financial or
logistical support from any government.
The vast majority of the people in the Middle East deplore terrorism, yet
point out that violence against civilians by governments has generally
surpassed that of terrorists. For example, the Israelis have killed far
more Arab civilians over the decades through using U.S.-supplied
equipment and ordinance than have Arab terrorists killed Israeli
civilians. Similarly, the U.S.-supplied Turkish armed forces have killed
far more Kurdish civilians than have such radical Kurdish groups like the
PKK (the Kurdish acronym for the Kurdistan Workers' Party). Also, in the
eyes of many Middle Easterners, U.S. support for terrorist groups like
the Nicaraguan contras and various right-wing Cuban exile organizations
in recent decades, as well as U.S. air strikes and the U.S.-led sanctions
against Iraq in more recent years, have made the U.S. an unlikely
crusader in the war against terrorism
4. What kind of political systems exist in the Middle East?
There are a variety of political systems in the Middle East. Saudi
Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Morocco and
Jordan are all conservative monarchies (in approximate order of absolute
rule). Iraq, Syria and Libya are left-leaning dictatorships, with Iraq
being one of the most totalitarian societies in the world. Egypt and
Tunisia are conservative autocratic republics. Iran is an Islamic
republic with an uneven trend in recent years towards greater political
openness. Sudan and Algeria are under military rulers facing major
insurrections.
Lebanon, Turkey and Yemen are republics with repressive aspects but some
degree of political pluralism. The only Middle Eastern country with a
strong tradition of parliamentary democracy is Israel, though the
benefits of this political freedom is largely restricted to its Jewish
citizens (the Palestinian Arab minority is generally treated as
second-class citizens and Palestinians in the occupied territories are
subjected to military rule and serious human rights abuses). The largely
autocratic Palestinian Authority has been granted limited autonomy in a
series of non-contiguous enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
surrounded by Israeli occupation forces.
5. What sort of political alliances exist in the Middle East?
All Arab states, including the Palestinian Authority, belong to the
League of Arab States, which acts as a regional body similar to the
Organization of African Union or the Organization of American States,
which work together on issues of common concern. However, there are
enormous political divisions within Arab countries and other Middle
Eastern states. Turkey is a member of the NATO alliance, closely aligned
with the West and hopes to eventually become part of the European union.
The six conservative monarchies of the Persian Gulf region have formed
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), from where they pursue joint
strategic and economic interests and promote close ties with the West,
particularly Great Britain (which dominated the smaller sheikdoms in the
late 19th and early 20th century) and, more recently, the United States.
Often a country's alliances are not a reflection of its internal
politics. For example, Saudi Arabia is often referred in the U.S. media
as a "moderate" Arab state, though it is the most oppressive
fundamentalist theocracy in the world today outside of Taliban-ruled
Afghanistan; "moderate," in this case, simply means that it has close
strategic and economic relations with the United States.
Jordan and Egypt are pro-Western, but have been willing to challenge U.S.
policy on occasion. Israel identifies most strongly with the West: most
of its leaders are European-born or have been of European heritage, and
it has diplomatic relations with only a handful of Middle Eastern
countries. Iran alienated most of its neighbors with its threat to expand
its brand of revolutionary Islam to Arab world, though its increasingly
moderate orientation in recent years has led to some cautious
rapprochement. Syria, a former Soviet ally, has been cautiously reaching
out to more conservative Arab governments and with the West; it currently
exerts enormous political influence over Lebanon. Iraq under Saddam
Hussein, Libya under Muammar Qaddafi and Sudan under their military junta
remain isolated from most of other Middle Eastern countries due to a
series of provocative policies, though many of these same countries
oppose the punitive sanctions and air strikes the United States has
inflicted against these countries in recent years.
6. What is the impact of oil in the Middle East?
The major oil producers of the Middle East include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Algeria.
Egypt, Syria, Oman and Yemen have smaller reserves. Most of the major oil
producers of the Middle East are part of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, or OPEC. (Non-Middle Eastern OPEC members include
Indonesia, Venezuela, Nigeria and other countries.) Much of the world's
oil wealth exists along the Persian Gulf, with particularly large
reserves in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. About one-quarter of U.S.
oil imports come from the Persian Gulf region; the Gulf supplies European
states and Japan with an even higher percentage of those countries'
energy needs. The imposition of higher fuel efficiency standards and
other conservation measures, along with the increased use of renewable
energy resources for which technologies are already available, could
eliminate U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil in a relatively short
period of time.
The Arab members of OPEC instigated a boycott against the United States
in the fall of 1973 in protest of U.S. support for Israel during the
October Arab-Israeli war, creating the first in a series of energy
shortages. The cartel has had periods of high and low costs for oil,
resulting in great economic instability. Most governments have
historically used their oil wealth to promote social welfare,
particularly countries like Algeria, Libya and Iraq, which professed to a
more socialist orientation. Yet all countries have squandered their
wealth for arms purchases and prestige projects. In general, the influx
of petrodollars has created enormous economic inequality both within
oil-producing states and between oil-rich and oil-poor states as well as
widespread corruption and questionable economic priorities.
7. What is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict about?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essentially over land, with two
peoples claiming historic rights to the geographic Palestine, a small
country in the eastern Mediterranean about the size of New Jersey. The
creation of modern Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of the goal of the
Jewish nationalist movement, known as Zionism, as large numbers of Jews
migrated to their faith's ancestral homeland from Europe, North Africa
and elsewhere throughout the 20th century. They came into conflict with
the indigenous Palestinian Arab population, which also was struggling for
independence. The 1947 partition plan, which divided the country
approximately in half, resorted in a war which ended in Israel seizing
control of 78 percent of the territory within a year. Most of the
Palestinian population became refugees, in some cases through fleeing the
fighting and in other cases through being forcibly expelled in a policy
of ethnic cleansing. The remaining Palestinian areas -- the West Bank and
Gaza Strip -- came under control of the neighboring Arab states of Jordan
and Egypt, though these areas were also seized by Israel in the 1967 war.
Israel has been colonizing parts of these occupied territories with
Jewish settlers in violation of the Geneva Conventions and UN Security
Council resolutions. Historically, both sides have failed to recognize
the legitimacy of the others' nationalist aspirations, though the
Palestinian leadership finally formally recognized Israel in 1993. The
peace process since then has been over the fate of the West Bank
(including Arab East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, which is the
remaining 22 percent of the Palestine, occupied by Israel since 1967. The
United States plays the dual role of chief mediator of the conflict as
well as the chief financial, military and diplomatic supporter of Israel.
The Palestinians want their own independent state in these territories
and to allow Palestinian refugees the right to return. Israel, backed by
the United States, insists the Palestinians give up large swaths of the
West Bank -- including most of Arab East Jerusalem -- to Israel and to
accept the resettlement of most refugees into other Arab countries. Since
September 2000, there has been widespread rioting by Palestinians against
the ongoing Israeli occupation as well as terrorist bombings within
Israel by extremist Islamic groups. Israeli occupation forces, meanwhile,
have engaged in widespread killings and other human rights abuses in the
occupied territories.
Most Arabs feel a strong sense of solidarity with the Palestinian
struggle, though their governments have tended to manipulate their plight
for their own political gain. Neighboring Arab states have fought several
wars with Israel, though Egypt and Jordan now have peace agreements and
full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. In addition to much of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel still occupies a part of
southwestern Syria known as the Golan Heights. The threats and hostility
by Arab states towards Israel's very existence has waned over the years.
Full peace and diplomatic recognition would likely come following a full
Israeli withdrawal from its occupied territories.
8. What has been the legacy of the Gulf War?
Virtually every Middle Eastern state opposed the Iraqi invasion and
occupation of Kuwait in 1990, though they were badly divided on the
appropriateness of the U.S.-led Gulf War that followed. Even among
countries that supported the armed liberation of Kuwait, there was
widespread opposition to the deliberate destruction by the United States
of much of Iraq's civilian infrastructure during the war. Even more
controversial has been the enormous humanitarian consequences of the
U.S.-led international sanctions against Iraq in place since the war,
which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis,
mostly children, from malnutrition and preventable diseases. The periodic
U.S. air strikes against Iraq also have been controversial, as has the
ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and in
the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Since Iraq's offensive military
capability was largely destroyed during the Gulf War and during the
subsequent inspections regime, many observers believe that U.S. fears
about Iraq's current military potential are exaggerated, particularly in
light of the quiet U.S. support for Iraq during the 1980s when its
military was at its peak. In many respects, the Gulf War led the oil-rich
GCC states into closer identification with the United States and the West
and less with their fellow Arabs, though there is still some distrust
about U.S. motivations and policies in the Middle East.
9. How has the political situation in Afghanistan evolved and how is it
connected to the Middle East?
Afghanistan, an impoverished landlocked mountainous country, has
traditionally been identified more with Central and South Asia than with
the Middle East. A 1978 coup by communist military officers resulted in a
series of radical social reforms, which were imposed in an autocratic
matter and which resulted in a popular rebellion by a number of armed
Islamic movements. The Soviet Union installed a more compliant communist
regime at the end of 1979, sending in tens of thousands of troops and
instigating a major bombing campaign, resulting in large-scale civilian
casualties and refugee flows. The war lasted for much of the next decade.
The United States sent arms to the Islamic resistance, known as the
mujahadin, largely through neighboring Pakistan, then under the rule of
an ultra-conservative Islamic military dictatorship. Most of the U.S. aid
went to the most radical of the eight different mujahadin factions on the
belief that they would be least likely to reach a negotiated settlement
with the Soviet-backed government and would therefore drag the Soviet
forces down. Volunteers from throughout the Islamic world, including the
young Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden, joined the struggle. The CIA
trained many of these recruits, including Bin Laden and many of his
followers.
When the Soviets and Afghanistan's communist government were defeated in
1992, a vicious and bloody civil war broke out between the various
mujahadin factions, war lords and ethnic militias. Out of this chaos
emerged the Taliban movement, led by young seminary students from the
refugee camps in Pakistan, educated in ultra-conservative Saudi-funded
schools, which took over 85 percent of the country by 1996 and imposed
long-awaited order and stability, but established a brutal totalitarian
theocracy based on a virulently reactionary and misogynist interpretation
of Islam. The Northern Alliance, consisting of the remnants of various
factions from the civil war in the 1990s, control a small part of the
northeast corner of the country.
10. How have most Middle Eastern governments reacted to the September 11
terrorist attacks and their aftermath?
Virtually every government and the vast majority of their populations
reacted with the same horror and revulsion as did people in the United
States, Europe and elsewhere. Despite scenes shown repeatedly on U.S.
television of some Palestinians celebrating the attacks, the vast
majority of Palestinians also shared in the world's condemnation. If the
United States, in conjunction with local governments, limits its military
response to commando-style operations against suspected terrorist cells,
the U.S. should receive the cooperation and support of most Middle
Eastern countries. If the response is more widespread, based more on
retaliation than self-defense, and ends up killing large numbers of
Muslim civilians, it could create a major anti-American reaction which
would increase support for the terrorists and lessen the likelihood for
the needed cooperation to break up the Al-Qaeda network, which operates
in several Middle Eastern countries.
While few Middle Easterners support bin Laden's methods, the principal
concerns expressed in his manifestoes -- the U.S.'s wrongful support for
Israel and for Arab dictatorships, the disruptive presence of U.S. troops
in Saudi Arabia and the humanitarian impact of the sanctions on Iraq --
are widely supported. Ultimately, a greater understanding of the Middle
East and the concerns of its governments and peoples are necessary before
the United States can feel secure from an angry backlash from the region.
Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics and chair of the
Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He
serves as a senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign
Policy in Focus Project. ..."
USA
"'The idea of a Muslim terrorist is an oxymoron," computer science student
Sohaib Kahn, who said he lost a cousin in the World Trade Center attack, told
the crowd in his turn. "To kill a civilian is a major sin in Islam, as is to
even think about suicide. The people who did this may say they are Muslim, but
there is no way to justify their actions under Islamic law.""
http://www.news.ucf.edu/FY2001-02/010917.html
"Please, don't put us all together with them,'' Olajuwon said. ``Not only is it
unfair, but it would be incorrect. Look at the bombing in Oklahoma City. It was
committed by someone who would represent himself to be a Christian. But we do
not blame that act on Christianity."
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/87/story_8779_1.html
"Muslims must condemn Osama bin Laden's calls for the murder of civilians
whether or not he was involved in planning or funding the attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon. At the same time, Mr. Bush should stop evading
the fact that the motivation for bin Laden's ire is not freedom and democracy
(however he might feel about those issues) but disastrous American
interventionist foreign policies. America has not been a sleeping giant, but a
sleepwalking superpower blundering across the world stage making enemies without
understanding why.
[...]
As I reflect on these things, one thought keeps returning to my consciousness. A
glorious act of jihad (struggle in the way of God) took place on September 11th.
It was not the provocative murder of innocent civilians by the embittered
terrorists. It was the brave fight by the passengers on the plane from
Pittsburgh that successfully foiled the conspirators from attacking one more
target and who knows how many more innocent lives. They could have had no motive
other than to please God, for their death was a virtual certainty. But unlike
the hijackers, the passengers' purpose was to save life, not to destroy it. Of
this Allah, the Exalted and Glorified, has truly said: "We ordained … that … if
anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people"
(5:32)."
http://www.islam-online.net/English/views/2001/09/article10.shtml
Sadly, such things are being ignored by those who want to turn
the USA into a prejudicial police state:
"U.S. Congress has gone a step further and is considering legislation that would
declare being Palestinian a federal crime. If passed, H.R. 5500 would create a
new category of federal crime: "international terrorism alleged to have been
committed by Palestinian individuals or individuals acting on behalf of
Palestinian organizations." If the act becomes law, an entirely new office will
be established in the Department of Justice solely for the purpose of monitoring
Palestinian individuals and organizations.
While such a bill ought to bear the title the "Injustice Against Palestinians
and Their Sympathizers Act," it is instead, with that characteristic falsehood
in labeling for which Congress is famous, called the "Justice for American
Victims or Terrorism Act." The bill was introduced by Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
and lists, among its co-sponsors, the infamous Rick Lazio (R-NY). Lazio, it will
be recalled, lost the New York U.S. Senate race this year after making a
McCarthyesque attempt to link his opponent Hilary Clinton to terrorism because
some Muslims had contributed to her campaign."
http://www.islam-online.net/english/Politics/2000/1/Article29.shtml
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USA
>I don't read ...
That's not really something of which you should attempt to boast,
and besides it was already obvious that something causes you to
be rather totally ignorant of reality.
What a shame you don't even read up on how to be logical or hold
valid ethics.
Many Arabs of the Middle East, and many followers of Islam set an
example you'd be better off to follow.
"Islam condemns terrorism
Egypt-USA, Politics, 9/22/2001
Egyptian Minister of Awqaf (religious Endowments) Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq averred
that Islam condemned all forms of terrorism and murder of innocent people. He
said that no convincing evidence was provided regarding identifying the
perpetrators of the terrorist acts in the United States, calling for more
efforts to stamp out terrorism.
"Charges should not be directed to Islam and Muslims without evidence," added
Zaqzouq.
Previous Stories:
Muslem legal scholars assert Islam's rejection of terrorism (9/20/2001)
Tantawi receives Welch (9/19/2001)
Egyptian officials express condolences at US embassy (9/19/2001)"
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/010922/2001092231.html
"ISLAAM CONDEMNS
ALL ACTS OF TERRORISM
The barbaric attack upon the Twin Towers of the world Trade Centers in New York
City USA on the morning of September 11, 2001 through the hijacked passenger
planes and the resulting devastation and massacre of thousands of innocent
unarmed civilians is unconditionally condemned in Islaam and as such by all
Muslims.
In the Holy Qur’aan, which Muslims believe to be the last revelation from Allaah
(God), revealed through Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
him) who Muslims believe to be the last prophet and Messenger of Allaah, Allaah
says, with reference to slaying of one son of Aadam (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) by his other son:
"That was why We prescribed this for the children this of Israel:
‘He who killed one person, unless it be a person guilty of man-slaughter
(murder) or of spreading chaos (mischief) in the land, should be looked upon as
though he has slain all mankind, and he who saved one life should be regarded as
though he has saved the lives of all mankind.’" (Chapter 5 verse 32)
http://www.daar-ul-ehsaan.org/terrorism.htm
"Muslim American Leader Condemns Terrorism
I know there are a lot of Islamic scholars throughout the world who have
condemned these terrorist acts and called on their people to condemn them,"
Basha said."
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01100913.htm
"the act of inciting terror in the hearts of defenseless civilians, the
wholesale destruction of buildings and properties, the bombing and maiming of
innocent men, women, and children are all forbidden and detestable acts
according to Islam and the Muslims. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy,
and forgiveness, and the vast majority have nothing to do with the violent
events some have associated with Muslims. If an individual Muslim were to commit
an act of terrorism, this person would be guilty of violating the laws of
Islam."
http://www.onetruegod.net/Terror.htm
"Within a week of the Sept. 11 attacks, Amira Quraishi and a group of her
friends in New York City had incorporated a nonprofit called Muslims Against
Terrorism. "
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47669,00.html
"16-10-01 Rice Says This War is Against Terrorism, Not Against Islam
U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told viewers throughout the Arab
world, "Our war on terrorism is not a war against Islam. ..."
http://www.usembassy.org.uk/terror221.html
USA
By Edward Said*
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2003072220124284
It takes courage, integrity, and love as Jesus would have one
feel it, to learn about others as they are and refuse to hate or victimize them.
USA
USA
>... immature views ...
That's your problem, not that of your intended victims.
Your antisemitism and fascism betray you.
USA
So you admired Hitler as the Bush family does?
Your opinons are so Nazi, so fascist.
They're also ghoulishly mistaken.
USA
>There's something happening here
>Robert Scheer - Creators Syndicate
>
>11.18.03 - Here we go again. Only now it's the "Iraqification" rather than
>the "Vietnamization" of a quagmire war in another distant and increasingly
>hostile land.
>
>Washington's puppets are once again said to be on the verge of getting their
>act together, and the American people are daily assured that we are about to
>turn the corner. Soon we will be able to give Iraq back to the Iraqis, and
>some distant day the United States will get out. In the meantime, U.S.
>troops must continue in a "support role" while being maimed and killed with
>increasing frequency.
>
>Sorry to appear so jaded, but it has been nearly 40 years since I was
>briefed in Saigon by U.S. officials about the great progress being made in
>turning the affairs of South Vietnam over to Washington's handpicked leaders
>of that country. I was also told with great emotional forcefulness that it
>would be irresponsible to just leave, given the dire consequences for world
>freedom.
>
>Iraq is not Vietnam, and this is not 1964. But there are enough pillars for
>this analogy that we should remember some of the lessons of our last attempt
>to remake a nation in our image.
>
>First, we never managed to build "our" stable Vietnam government; one gang
>of incompetents and thieves simply replaced another, until -- 10 years and
>millions of deaths later -- we finally left, under the most ignominious
>circumstances.
>
>Second, after Saigon fell, the anticipated security disaster for the United
>States and the region didn't happen. To the contrary, communist Vietnam and
>communist China soon went to war with each other, leaving the U.S. in a far
>stronger position to exert its influence on both of those nations and the
>rest of Asia.
>
>Third, and perhaps most important, in Vietnam then and Iraq now, guerrilla
>tactics by "the locals" and overwhelming American firepower killed or maimed
>a large number of innocent people on all sides. All in a war without a clear
>purpose and sold to the American people by U.S. political leaders willing to
>lie to them.
>
>For me, there are two particularly symbolic victims, one from each war. They
>stand out for their parallel experiences, marked by tragedy and bravery
>before and after their experiences in battle. Ron Kovic and Jessica Lynch
>were both working-class kids vulnerable to the siren song of jingoism, and
>both suffered serious injuries that will keep them in considerable pain
>throughout their lives -- long after the movies made about them and the
>reasons for the wars they fought in have been mostly forgotten.
>
>Kovic and Lynch are true heroes, not because they were severely wounded in
>battle but because they refused to give in to despair and emerged as decent
>people with clear, honest voices. Both refused the easy positions -- either
>retreating into private silence or touting the government's line that their
>sacrifice was worth it. Each went public to talk about the nonsensical
>realities of war in general, their wars in particular and how they were
>individually treated by their government.
>
>"They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch told ABC's Diane
>Sawyer of the way the military packaged her story for the media. "It hurt in
>a way, that people would make up stories that they had no truth about."
>
>Kovic served two tours with the Marines in Vietnam and has been a peace
>activist for three decades now. I first met him in the early 1970s while he
>sat in his wheelchair contemplating the vast rows of graves in a West Los
>Angeles military cemetery. Recently, he met with families of some of those
>killed in Iraq and with wounded soldiers. Compare this to President Bush,
>who has been unwilling to attend funerals of those killed in Iraq.
>
>Lynch is still grappling with just how she was used as a propaganda tool by
>a Pentagon that sought to turn her into a female action figure. But the
>stance she has taken against further manipulation of her suffering reveals a
>sterling character far stronger than the macho movie image placed on her
>when she was a prisoner of war. As Lynch told her biographer, Rick Bragg:
>
>"We went and we did our job, and that was to go to war, but I wish I hadn't
>done it -- I wish it had never happened. I wish we hadn't been there, none
>of us.. I don't care about the political stuff. But if it had never
>happened, Lori [Piestewa, a fellow soldier and her best friend] would be
>alive and all the rest of the soldiers would be alive. And none of this
>would have happened."
>
>Amen.
>
>(c) 2003 Creators Syndicate
>
>
>URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16006
>
>
>
>
>
>--
Those who can really remember Vietnam agree that Iraq is an
even bigger mistake.
USA
USA
<al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
>...Bush and his administration seek to turn out right in the end...
Only to someone too gullible to read up on any of them ...
They're not in Iraq for democracy.
USA
<al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
[...]
>
>: It's fact.
>
>Alex:... a child molestor ...
Poor sick Alex is into harming children so much that he blows the
limbs off of them in Iraq, and deprives those of our troops of the
protections of his parents, in his ghoulish lust to hurt children.
USA
>http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1118/p09s02-coop.html
>
>PITTSBURGH – Perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best 150 years ago
>when he excoriated "this shallow Americanism, with its passion for
>sudden success." And Americans' appetite for immediate gratification
>has only accelerated since then, to the point where today they gorge
>on fast food, sound bites, and one-liners. They breathe, move, think,
>and take in everything amid a culture of fast and faster.
> Which brings us to the morass the US faces in Iraq. Many
>Americans are asking how an apparently decisive, quick military
>victory over Iraq could have turned just as rapidly into such violence
>and chaos. Those sound bites they crave told them back in March this
>wouldn't happen.
> Frontline troops in the invasion were led to believe they'd come
>home as soon as Baghdad was liberated, and the Department of Defense
>predicted that US troop strength in Iraq would decline to 30,000 by
>the end of summer. Vice President Dick Cheney painted a rosy picture
>of Iraqi oil production financing reconstruction by year's end.
>Defense department officials believed that stability and democracy
>would be achieved in fairly short order.
>How could the Bush administration have been so wrong?
> Because it got caught up in the same culture that celebrates the
>speedy victories and simplistic happy endings of Hollywood action
>movies. Poor planning and hubris are clearly among the reasons, too,
>as is the administration's refusal to accept contrary advice. The
>CIA's warning that a quick military victory would be followed by
>guerrilla war was ignored. The State Department's Future of Iraq
>Project, which predicted much of the postwar chaos, was bypassed. Top
>Army officials' estimate that hundreds of thousands of US troops would
>be needed to occupy Iraq was discounted.
> But obviously Emerson's mid-19th-century insight tapped deeply
>into the American culture and character that contributed to this mess.
>Yes, Americans like quick victories, immediate results. They measure
>success and failure by short-term consequences. Their leaders and
>public expect instant solutions to problems. They ignore the long-term
>consequences of their actions and decisions.
> This administration's passion for sudden success runs deeper than
>the war against Iraq. The UN inspectors' painstaking and, hence,
>time-consuming effort at containing and dismantling Iraqi weaponry was
>belittled. Tax cuts promise instant cash and lasting deficits. The
>administration relies on the military option because it holds out the
>illusion of fast in-and-out results. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the
>US achieved rapid military victories, only to get bogged down in the
>long-term effort of creating a stable, democratic society.
> The domestic response to Sept. 11 also focused on immediate,
>albeit illusory, results. Thousands of aliens were rounded up and
>thrown into harsh detention, yet virtually none were ultimately
>determined to be terrorists. The Patriot Act was rushed through
>Congress with little thought about far-reaching effects on civil
>liberties.
> Now that the lightning-quick military victory of spring has
>turned into a quagmire, the administration has called on Americans to
>dig in for the long haul, and emphasizes patience and perseverance.
>But the time for considering the long-term consequences ought to be
>before a decision to go to war is made. Lasting success requires
>recognizing mistakes, not blindly persisting in them.
> A long-term approach to terrorism and dictatorship would
>emphasize multilateral action and diplomacy, the very tools the
>administration disparaged in Iraq. That approach has worked in the
>past where quick military action hasn't. The Reagan
>administration'sbombing of Libya in 1986 may have madeAmericans feel
>good, but it may have been the reason Libya planted a bomb on a Pan Am
>jet that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1989. After that, the
>US took a different, nonmilitary approach, getting the UN Security
>Council to impose sanctions on Libya. It took more than a decade, but
>Libya eventually turned the two agents believed responsible for the
>bombing over for trial, and agreed to pay compensation.
> Americans must move beyond immediate gratification and the search
>for instant victory or defeat. The US military victory over Iraq will
>not be a success if, as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak predicted,
>"it spawns a hundred more bin Ladens." The US might do well to heed
>the advice a Viennese newspaper gave more than 125 years ago to the
>Prussians, who'd just as easily triumphed over France: "Victory is a
>poor adviser, and nations tend to slip on the blood they have shed."
It's always preferable to read those who actually make sense,
such as the above.
penitent leper
Another great post. Jesus' refusal to act like the Bush
administration behaves, caused him to end up on the Roman
administration's cross. "Blessed are you," he said, "when they revile
and persecute you and excommunicate you and kill you, THINKING THEY
ARE DOING GOD'S WILL." Bush and Ashcroft have explicitly indicated
that they think they are doing God's will in the Middle East - whereas
in fact they are doing Caesar's will. To paraphrase Woody Allen, If
Jesus came back today and saw what the Bush administration is doing in
His/God's name, he wouldn't be able to stop throwing up.
- pl -
penitent leper
Exactly. Not only Vietnam, but the way we treated Native
Americans, Mexicans, Asians, Blacks, Catholics, etc. - and continue to
treat those who have the temerity Not To Be Amerikans.
- pl -
USA
That's right.
At some point, we really need to become civilized.
USA
True words.
The Bush hero Hitler made a point of abusing Christ's name, too.
penitent leper
Yes, and I hope it's not too late, seeing as the militarist
dictatorship is so entrenched. We could have created a Great American
Civilization, but we opted for the Tragik Amerikan Empire.
- pl -
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
from battle = cowardness
We are COMMITTED
<USA> wrote in message news:39dlrv4sk7f0c7v8r...@4ax.com...
> "Gandalf Grey" <ganda...@infectedmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=1069
> >
> >Tell Us The Truth!
> >11/16/2003 @ 10:21am
> >
> >"The truth is the truth. Not just the government's truth or the church's
> >truth or the truth that won't upset the advertisers and stockholders but
THE
> >TRUTH and the TRUTH is that when the very institutions that we depend on
to
> >inform us and guide us omit any part of the truth for any reason
whatsoever
> >then that is called a lie." -- Steve Earle
> >
> >Furious with the Bush Administration's deceptions, and even more furious
> >with the failure of major media outlets to expose and challenge those
> >deceits, thousands of Americans are chanting, "Tell us the truth!" Their
> >cries are being met not with the stony silence of Washington but with a
> >protest chorus that mixes rock, rap, folk, soul and alt-country into a
call
> >to arms.
> >
> >The Tell Us the Truth Tour has set the sentiments of millions of angry
> >Americans to music, and taken the show on the road. Traveling by bus
across
> >the eastern United States on a tour that began November 7 in Madison,
> >Wisconsin and will finish November 24 in Washington, some of the most
> >innovative artists in American music -- and a comrade from Britain -- are
> >raising a ruckus about the Bush administration's push for greater media
> >consolidation and for international economic policies that are
devastating
> >the economies of both the U.S. and its trading partners.
> >
> >"Media consolidation needs smashing and globalization needs unmasking,"
says
> >Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave,
who
> >has joined the tour along with keyboardist Mike Mills of REM, British
folk
> >rocker Billy Bragg, genre-bending singer-songwriter Steve Earle, rapper
> >Boots Riley of The Coup and Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers.
> >They'll be joined at a number of later shows by singer Jill Sobule and
> >comedian Janeane Garofalo, and perhaps by other artists. Morello, who is
> >performing as The Nightwatchman on the tour, sums up the sentiments of
the
> >musicians who have donated their time to the effort by explaining that,
> >"When presidents and politicians lie, it is the job of the press to
expose
> >those lies. When the press fails, the lie becomes the law. The point of
the
> >Tell Us the Truth Tour is to help others make connections, and to show
them
> >that activism can change the policies of this country."
> >
> >The core group kicked off the tour at the National Conference on Media
> >Reform in Madison, Wisconsin, where AFL-CIO President John Sweeney joked
> >during his remarks about "opening for Billy Bragg" and a crowd of 1,700
> >ended the first night of the conference dancing to a version of the
Chambers
> >Brothers 1968 hit Time Has Come Today that featured Chambers and Riley
> >trading vocals and chanting, "Now the time has come... to tell us the
> >truth."
> >
> >Bragg, who has gained international acclaim for his work with the family
of
> >Woody Guthrie to put music to lyrics that were left without tunes at the
> >time of the folk music legend's death, helped organize the tour and has
> >insisted from the start that the music be as strong as the message. "Bush
is
> >a serious threat, not just to America but to the world," says Bragg, who
> >gave up a chance to join protests against the President's visit to
Britain
> >this week in order to join the tour. "We're talking about that threat,
the
> >message will get through. But this isn't a seminar. This is a show, we
want
> >people dancing, singing, getting into the music."
> >
> >People are doing just that. While Bragg performs overtly political songs,
> >such as his anti-WTO epic "NPWA (No Power Without Accountability)," he
also
> >does favorites such as "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward" and
"Sexuality."
> >Earle offers up a sampling of his recent songs, including the brilliant
> >"John Walker's Blues." Playing acoustic guitar, Morello sings new songs,
> >some written in preparation for the tour. Riley raps and Chambers turns
in
> >brilliant blues performances. Mills even straps on a guitar and sings,
> >trying out a great version of Macy Gray's "I Try" at some shows.
Invariably,
> >the highlights each night are the ensemble performances, featuring all
the
> >musicians. In addition to "Time Has Come Today," the group has perfected
a
> >remarkable song cycle that begins with Chambers singing Curtis Mayfield's
> >"People Get Ready" and then slides into Bragg singing Van Morrison's
"Tupelo
> >Honey," samples some Marvin Gaye and then closes with the whole group
> >joining Chambers again to sing: "People get ready, there's a train
> >comin'/You don't need no baggage, you just get on board."
> >
> >The music is so good at times that it is, indeed, easy to forget the
> >politics. But the message never gets lost. Working with the AFL-CIO,
Common
> >Cause, Free Press, the Future of Music Coalition and Morello's Axis of
> >Justice, the tour features at every stop information about the current
fight
> >to block Federal Communications Commission rule changes that would
further
> >media consolidation and the struggle to prevent corporations and the Bush
> >administration from undermining workers rights, human rights and the
> >environment by developing a Free Trade Area of the Americas. And, while
the
> >emphasis is on entertainment, the band members frequently draw the show
back
> >to fundamental, and often dramatic, messages. Morello closes his set in
> >silence, holding a clenched fist above his head as, invariably, the crowd
> >erupts in thunderous applause. But most nights the loudest sound of all
are
> >those chants of "Tell us the truth!" Riley says that's the signal to him
> >that the crowds understand what is at stake, and what the struggle is
about.
> >"All we're doing is bringing people some more information, telling them
how
> >to get connected with these movements and getting them energized," says
> >Riley.
> >
> >After performing Sunday night in Atlanta (Variety Playhouse) and Monday
> >night in Tampa (Tampa Theater), the tour will hit Miami where, on
Wednesday
> >night, it will join the People's Gala for Global Justice. The Gala, one
of a
> >number of protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas
Ministerial
> >being held this week in Miami, is expected to draw more than 10,000
people.
> >After Miami, the tour roars up the east coast to the Philadelphia area
> >(Keswick Hall: November 21), New York (Webster Hall: November 22), Boston
> >(Berklee Performance Center: November 23) and, finally, Washington, DC
(930
> >Club: November24).
> >
> >In Washington, the tour will perform at the 930 Club, not far from the
White
> >House. Morello says they will bring some bad news to the current
occupant.
> >"I'm certain Bush won't be reelected," explains the activist musician.
"From
> >the economy being in the toilet to American kids dying every day in a war
we
> >should never have gotten into, that's not a very solid resume. All of his
> >personal jack- assed-ness aside, the one thing that was clear at the end
of
> >the day is that The Dixie Chicks were right. They had every right to be
> >embarrassed that that guy is from Texas."
> >
> >-- For more information on the Tell Us the Truth Tour, and information on
> >how to obtain tickets to upcoming shows, visit the official website at
> >www.tellusthetruth.org
> >
> >-- For more information on Morello's political work, check out the
> >www.axisofjustice.org website. For more information on Billy Bragg, go to
> >the www.billybragg.co.uk website. For more information on Steve Earle, go
to
> >the www.steveearle.com website. All of these websites contain details
> >regarding the Tell Us the Truth Tour.
> >
> >-- With Robert W. McChesney, John Nichols is a co-founder of Free Press,
the
> >media reform network that organized the National Conference on Media
Reform.
> >The Free Press website is www.mediareform.net
> >
> >
> >
> >--
>
> The brave, the ethical, the decent all want this truth.
>
> It's the only thing that's right for the USA.
>
>
> "Glenn \(Christian Mystic\)" <christi...@ev1.net> wrote:
>
> >We are a weak people ...
> >weak-kneed COWARDS
> >
> >Why should we expect ANYONE to really respect us ?
>
> Speak for yourself. Your cowardice and weakness are what make
> you unable to resist wrongdoing in the form of the Bush fascist war
> crimes, and real Americans don't share your deficits of that nature.
>
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
"penitent leper" <bast...@peak.org> wrote in message
news:p4jlrvspqo1ev2sht...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 16:17:37 -0600, "Glenn \(Christian Mystic\)"
> <christi...@ev1.net> wrote:
>
> >We are a weak people who lack any real resolve, the world need not worry
> >about our might, threats, or will,,,, when the body bags come in we
become
> >weak-kneed COWARDS
> >
> >Why should we expect ANYONE to really respect us ?
>
> Quite the contrary. We are the planet's biggest bullies, as
> intelligent nations worldwide recognize. From our fascistic defense
> of poor little Israel which has nothing standing between it and Arab
> hordes (except, of course, the Pentagon), to our imposing the cruelest
> martial law in Iraq, which was a beaten and defenseless nation even
> before we invaded it Hitler-style, "Amerikan" has become a term of
> opprobrium globally.
>
> And that's as it should be, since we abandoned the ethics of Jesus
> of Nazareth and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in favor of
> Caesar's state-religion. Long ago, we could have taken the path of
> Civilization. Instead, we took the path of Empire, and the world's
> suffering has increased, and is increasing, by untold degrees.
>
> We are the biggest pigs, the highest consumers, on earth. It's
> only fitting that we're also the biggest scoundrels. Bushfeld, after
> initiating a unilateral, pre-emptive invasion against a country which
> had not attacked us, is now holding his hands out, begging for
> assistance from other, non-involved nations, to repair the physical
> damage we've done - not to mention the religous and political damage:
> We'll give Iraq democracy? Their first concern: To have Islamic
> government. Our response: To hell with you. Three cheers for
> "democratization" !
>
> Those body bags are merest tokens of what is to come. I'm not
> talking about the poor soldiers who, as with the Vietnam grunts, have
> had their heads pumped full of lying Bushfeld bullshit. I'm talking
> about karma. We live by the sword and now we're dying by the sword.
>
> And a few body bags are nothing compared to the carnage we are
> bringing on ourselves with the deliberate provocation, alienation,
> marginalization, willful misunderstanding, and generally poor
> treatment of hundreds of thousands of Moslems across the world, and
> even here at home, in This, The Freest Country On Earth - where, once
> the Patriot Act 2 comes into effect by being attached as riders to
> bills - even American citizens will fall victim to John Ashcroft's
> military dictatorship. Ashcroft: whose assurances that he hasn't used
> his universal-spying powers, is just as convincing as would have been
> Hitler's assurances that, although plans had been drawn up for the
> invasion of Poland and the extermination of the Jews, they hadn't
> (YET) been acted upon.
>
> The real "weak-kneed cowards" are the Bush junta. The heroes are
> those here and around the world who resist it. Amerika, no longer
> America, is being run by a destructive band of thugs, a true den of
> thieves. That their leader masquerades as a Christian only
> underscores the malevolence of the whole endeavor.
>
> - pl -
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
families of the Palestinian SUICIDE BOMBERS;
ENCOURAGING poor kids to get themselves killed, so that their families can
have a better life
"Alexander Kalinowski" <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote in
message news:bpajeo$1ktmbu$2...@ID-168899.news.uni-berlin.de...
> In alt.religion.christian USA wrote:
> : Harry Hope <riv...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> :>
> :>From The Washington Post, 11/16/03:
> :>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46460-2003Nov15.html
> :>
> :>CIA Finds No Evidence Hussein Sought to Arm Terrorists
> :>
> :>By Walter Pincus
> :>Washington Post Staff Writer
> :>
> :>Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A20
> :>
> :>The CIA's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found no
> :>evidence that former president Saddam Hussein tried to transfer
> :>chemical or biological technology or weapons to terrorists, according
> :>to a military and intelligence expert.
> :>
> :>Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
> :>International Studies, provided new details about the weapons search
> :>and Iraqi insurgency in a report released Friday.
> :>
> :>It was based on briefings over the past two weeks in Iraq from David
> :>Kay, the CIA representative who is directing the search for
> :>unconventional weapons in Iraq; L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil
> :>administrator there; and military officials.
> :>
> :>"No evidence of any Iraqi effort to transfer weapons of mass
> :>destruction or weapons to terrorists," Cordesman wrote of Kay's
> :>briefing.
> :>
> :>"Only possibility was Saddam's Fedayeen [his son's irregular terrorist
> :>force] and talk only."
> :>
> :>One of the concerns the Bush administration cited early last year to
> :>justify the need to invade Iraq was that Hussein would provide
> :>chemical or biological agents or weapons to al Qaeda or other
> :>terrorists.
> :>
> :>_________________________________________________________
> :>
> :>The Bush lies keep gushing out like Old Faithful.
> :>
> :>Harry
>
> : Only a truly sick unit would want innocents to die for Bush's lies.
>
> Alex:
> If you call other people sick, you might end up in trouble in case they
> don't like your calling them sick and decide to silence you one way or the
> other.
USA
Your assessment is accurate.
Change, however, is possible.
We realized that what we were doing in Vietnam was wrong
(at least those of us who could figure as much out), and it took
years for that to be resolved. Now, one can hope that the use
of the internet will accelerate the process of correction.
USA
>The Guerrilla Advantage in Iraq
>
>Don't underestimate the insurgents. History is on their side.
>
>By Michael Keane
>
>November 18, 2003: (Los Angeles Times) As recently as two weeks ago,
>Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, called
>the guerrilla attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq "strategically and
>operationally insignificant."
>
>Insignificant? Actually, it is difficult to identify any military or
>political objectives that the guerrillas are not making real progress
>toward achieving.
>
>The insurgents have successfully struck a blow at coalition military
>forces. According to an extensive survey by Stars and Stripes, 49% of
>troops reported that their unit's morale was low or very low.
>
>Friendly governments, like Japan's, have either delayed their troop
>commitments or, like the Italians, are debating their current
>commitments.
>
>
>
>And there are indications that the ranks of the insurgents are
>swelling with every successful strike against U.S. forces and other
>targets.
>
>The guerrillas have successfully delayed the reconstruction and
>economic recovery of Iraq and substantially raised the costs of these
>efforts. Recurring attacks on miles of unguarded Iraqi pipelines have
>continued to impair the coalition's ability to improve the vital flow
>of oil out of the country.
>
>Also, as a result of direct attacks on their offices and personnel as
>well as the absence of security generally, the 15 largest aid
>agencies, including the Red Cross, have been driven out of Iraq.
>
>Finally, the insurgents have achieved political success by properly
>appreciating that the "center of gravity" is the will of the
>adversary.
>
>Last week, the widely reported results of a top-secret CIA study
>indicated that Iraqis are losing faith in the U.S.-led occupation
>forces, resulting in increasing support for the resistance.
>
>Also last week, after calling back to Washington the civilian
>administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, the Bush administration announced
>that it would transfer power to a provisional Iraqi government by June
>2004.
>
>Following on the heels of a string of guerrilla attacks and the
>disturbing results of the CIA study, it is a move that appears to be
>taken out of desperation. It took Afghan guerrillas almost 10 years to
>force the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Iraqi guerrillas could
>plausibly achieve the same result against the United States before the
>end of next year.
>
>Sanchez's dismissive remark regarding the guerrillas reveals the
>contempt that conventional forces typically feel for guerrillas.
>
>For example, when American commanders characterize the guerrillas as
>"cowardly," it only betrays the coalition's frustration in dealing
>with the guerrillas' hit-and-run tactics.
>
>The belief that guerrilla warfare is unsophisticated or inferior is as
>wrong as it is widespread. As Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Samuel B.
>Griffith II noted, "This generalization is dangerously misleading and
>true only in the technological sense. If one considers the picture as
>a whole, a paradox is immediately apparent, and the primitive form is
>understood to be in fact more sophisticated than nuclear war or atomic
>war or war as it was waged by conventional armies, navies and air
>forces."
>
>Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, has stated that
>the number of insurgents "does not exceed 5,000." The U.S. has about
>130,000 troops in Iraq. Yet during World War I, Lawrence of Arabia was
>able to tie down 200,000 Turkish troops with only 3,000 guerrillas.
>The Americans' numerical advantage is also exaggerated because the
>number of American combat-trained troops in Iraq is only 56,000; the
>remainder represent a support-and-logistics infrastructure.
>
>The final outcome of the guerrilla war in Iraq has yet to be written,
>but the verdict of history is not encouraging.
>
>Throughout the ages, able leaders have demonstrated the ability of
>guerrilla tactics to humble a conventional force that is both
>physically and technologically superior.
>
>The Roman commander Fabius the Cunctator fought a successful delaying
>action against Carthage. William Wallace harassed English King Edward
>Longshanks. T.E. Lawrence led a successful Arab revolt against the
>Ottoman Empire. The Viet Cong inflicted a long, torturous war on the
>United States.
>
>Experience strongly suggests that there is very little hope of
>destroying a revolutionary guerrilla movement after it has acquired
>the sympathetic support of a significant segment of the population,
>ranging from 15% to 25%. This support does not need to be actively
>sympathetic; it merely needs to not betray the insurgents. The
>intensely tribal nature of the Iraqi populace, where almost half of
>all marriages are between first cousins, buttresses this solidarity.
>
>Lt. Gen. Sanchez's comment that the guerrilla attacks are
>"insignificant" is evocative of an exchange between an American
>officer and a North Vietnamese colonel just before the fall of Saigon.
>
>"You know you never defeated us on the battlefield," the American
>said.
>
>The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment.
>
>"That may be so," he replied, "but it is also irrelevant."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Michael Keane is the author of the "Dictionary of Strategy & Tactics,"
>to be published in 2004 by the Naval Institute Press. He also is a
>lecturer on strategy at USC's Marshall School of Business.
>
>Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-keane18nov18,1,3848522,print.story?coll=la-headlines-oped-manual
Bush believed the Iraqis would be wimps like he is.
Others can't be wusses quite the way Bush is.
USA
>U.S. Tough Tactics Risk Inflaming Iraq Insurgency
>Tue November 18, 2003 10:13 AM ET
>
>By Luke Baker
>BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq have launched their fiercest
>military campaign since major combat ended in May, but experts fear
>the aggressive "show of force" may inflame an anti-American insurgency
>rather than douse it.
>
>In the past 10 days, fighter jets have dropped 500 lb. (230 kg) bombs,
>satellite-guided missiles have been fired, and tanks have pounded
>suspected guerrilla hideouts in a display that may be spectacular but
>could ultimately backfire.
>
>"I don't think this present campaign is going to produce what the
>Americans want, which is security on the ground for Iraqis and U.S.
>forces," said Phillip Mitchell of the International Institute for
>Strategic Studies in London.
>
>"It's only going to ensure that the population becomes more allied
>with the pro-Saddam, anti-American insurgency... The risk is that
>these sort of actions will actually inflame hatred."
>
> - click full story -
>http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=KIZIRSHS1SKEMCRBAELCFEY?type=reutersEdge&storyID=3844444
The Iraqis aren't clueless, and they know Bush is even worse
for them than Saddam ever was ...
USA
>Criminal violence skyrockets in Baghdad
>
>
>
>WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The number of violent deaths in Baghdad increased
>exponentially -- from 40 to 55 times -- after the fall of Saddam Hussein's
>repressive regime, data show.
>
>Prior to the war there was an average of 16 violent deaths a month. In August
>2003 however there were 872 violent deaths, with 498 of them from firearms. In
>September that number dropped to 667 violent deaths, but again more than half --
>372 -- were attributed to firearms, according to Army Capt. Brian Song, a
>military lawyer with the Army Corps of Engineers.
>
>Every household in Iraq is allowed to keep one weapon, usually an AK-47, for
>personal protection under Coalition Provisional Authority rules.
>
>The Iraqi police force numbers around 55,000 people and is expected to grow to
>75,000.
Bush, the terrorist, making America's young people get themselves
killed so that his rich friends can get richer, as the innocent people
of Iraq suffer so horribly ...
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
<USA> wrote in message news:e978rv0ep76kbm4au...@4ax.com...
> "...THE PEACE ALTERNATIVE
>
> Demand our government focus on the real War on Terrorism .
Real ?
> Two
> suggestions:
> 1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
> wars to an expanded global criminal investigation,
Someone blows himself up, in a place crowded with civilians, for some cause,
and YOU need some "investigation" do decide whether he was a terrorist?
Boy what a DUNCE
> using special forces where needed,
Just as we are presently doing.
> but the emphasis must be on a coordinated
> international effort among US and foreign intelligence agencies and
> local police to hunt down the real terrorists.
> Where is the emphasis from the Bush administration?
Man/Lady, you really need to get some glasses
> On a military sledgehammer approach. Invasions to crush stationary
>sovereign objects in revenge for unrelated terrorist attacks.
Cough, the idea is to end ALL terrorism, which kinda removes any requirement
all terrorisms be "related"
> Going after regimes "that hate us".
You mean like what you keep trying to convience me, with your accusation
that I somehow believed Iraq to have been some kind of threat to me, should
have been the ONLY reason to attack Saddam's support of terrorism ?
> Emotionally appealing stuff maybe to a certain segment of the American
public. But not a real smart way to root out and bring to
> justice individual members of shadowy, de-centralized, transnational
> organizations composed of criminal religious fanatics that are,
> according to George Tenet, the head of the CIA, re-organized and ready
> to strike anew and at their pleasure.
So why have you insisted on it ?
> 2) Try LISTENING for a change. To other peoples, governments,
> friends and foes alike. Turn off the bellicose rhetoric; it is
> counterproductive. That alone will go a long way toward defusing
> tensions and might even open the door to more cooperation and
> assistance from around the world in the war on terrorism..."
You mean, return to doing nothing like we did before 9-11 ?
<USA> wrote in message news:ovelrvg3tngtcp2dv...@4ax.com...
> Anonymous...@See.Comment.Header
> (Bring_ALL_the_war_criminals_to_justice) wrote:
>
> >> In a report issued Oct. 23 entitled, "Iraq: the missing billions,"
> >> U.K.-based Christian Aid reveals that the fate of $4 out of
> >> $5 billion transferred to the Coalition Provisional Authority
> >> (CPA)'s Defense Fund for Iraq (DFI) remains unknown.
> >>
> >> The only funds accounted for appear to be about $1 billion in
> >> pre-war funds transferred from the U.N. Oil for Food Program.
> >> However, the CPA has not disclosed the fate of $2.5 billion in
> >> seized state assets and $1.5 billion from oil revenues handed
> >> over to the Development Fund for Iraq and held in the U.S.
> >> Federal Reserve Bank.
> >
> >
> >more at
> >http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1659&mode=thread&order=0
>
> Remember, real Christians don't support robberies, either.
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
Yes. Why doesn't he move to Iraq ?
"Iconoclast" <ic...@home.net> wrote in message
news:OYeub.10607$6G3.1516@fed1read06...
>
> <USA> wrote in message news:jhmirvc6h6df4c06n...@4ax.com...
> > Alexander Kalinowski <al...@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:
> >
> > You haven't the intelligence to wonder why Bush is so busy
> > trying to grant immunity from prosecution to all his profiteer
> > pals, have you.
>
> You not only have no intelligence, no intellect, filled with lies and have
a
> head full of dung.
>
> Why don't you move to Iran?
>
> In your complete ignorance have you ever found what party the majority of
> Corporate millionaires belong to?
>
> You are delivering the SAME crap that Hitler delivered in the early
> thirties. You will, out of ignorance, deny that.
>
>
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
<USA> wrote in message news:jnelrvsqk2n3sp80l...@4ax.com...
> BushB...@modoracle.com (Oil War Afghanistan Iraq Syria Iran) wrote:
>
> >THE WAR ON TERROR:
> >War for Oil. War for Israel.
> >
> >Bush is the son of oilman George Bush senior, of the Bush oil family,
> >who made their money in the oil industry.
> >
> >The Bush cabinet is almost exclusively composed of oilmen.
> >
> >Their election campaign was funded by oil companies including
> >Halliburton. It was the most expensive campaign in history.
> >
> >They made Halliburton man Dick Cheney their Vice President.
> >
> >
> >They attacked Afghanistan to enable their Centgas oil pipeline.
> >
> >They attacked Iraq for Iraq's oil.
> >
> >They attacked both to eliminate opposition to Israel's crimes.
> >
> >Syria & Iran are next.
> >
> >Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine is the source of the hatred
> >and terrorism that threatens Israel and the West. The US government
> >funds and arms that hideous occupation, which is why they were a
> >target on September 11. They were warned about September 11 but they
> >let it happen. September 11 enabled them, by deception, to attack
> >Afghanistan & Iraq.
> >
> >After destroying Iraq they awarded the most lucrative reconstruction
> >contracts to Vice President Dick Cheney's company Halliburton - and
> >the other companies that funded them all into power.
> >
> >They promised to hold Iraq's oil revenues "in trust for the Iraqi
> >people." They lied. They are taking that money. They are spending that
> >money on their own companies.
> >
> >Most of Iraq's oil revenues are now unaccounted for.
> >
> >
> >Oil & The Bush Cabinet:
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1138000/1138009.stm
> >
> >Bush & Big Business:
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1306000/1306777.stm
> >
> >Explaining Arab Anger:
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1552000/1552900.s
tm
> >
> >Terror War & Globalisation:
> >http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0973110902/mastersearchhome
> >
> >Oil Wars:
> >http://www.thedebate.org/
> >
> >Afghanistan Oil Pipeline:
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1984459.stm
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2016340.stm
> >
> >"There are now hopes the [oil pipeline] plan can be revived following
> >the removal of the Taleban"
> >
> >
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3006149.stm
> >
> >"Halliburton's role expands." "The company formerly run by US vice
> >president Dick Cheney is to operate Iraqi oil fields, new documents
> >reveal."
> >
> >(Cheney is under investigation for corporate fraud in relation to his
> >dealings at halliburton!)
> >
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2119981.stm
> >
> >
> >U.S. the only country NOT to oppose Israel's crimes:
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3115114.stm
> >
> >
> >The US government was warned about the September 11 attacks:
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2267160.stm
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1992852.stm
> >
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3092141.stm
> >"the attacks could have been prevented"
> >
> >
> >The War on Terror has INCREASED the Threat of Terror:
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3101364.stm
> >
> >
> >Iraq will be poor for years:
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3158348.stm
> >
> >No WMD in Iraq (no surprise):
> >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3160602.stm
> >
> >
> >The worst criminals in the world are in the middle of perpetrating the
> >worst crime-spree in history. They do so by deception. They do so with
> >the support of their corporate-funded media. They do so with our
> >taxes. They do so in our names.
> >
> >THEY MUST NOT GET AWAY WITH IT. THEY MUST BE STOPPED.
> >
> >Acheson Intelligence Group
>
>
> Now that's well said.
USA
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/iraq_us_poll
>
>Approval of US handling of postwar Iraq is waning: poll
>
>Wed Nov 19,11:53 AM ET
>
>
>WASHINGTON (AFP) -
>
>Support for Washington's handling of Iraq since President George W.
>Bush declared an end to major combat there on May 1 has plummeted,
>falling to 42 percent from 80 percent in an April 23 poll, according
>to a new survey.
>
>Fifty-five percent of those polled disapproved of how the United
>States has handled post-war Iraq, marking the highest negative
>response to the question since US tanks entered Baghdad in April, USA
>Today reported.
>
>______________________________________________________
>
>Another nail in Georgie's coffin.
>
>Harry
As people become more aware, Bush becomes less acceptable to them.
USA
>From The Washington Post, 11/19/03:
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59639-2003Nov18.html
>
>By Salim Lone
>
>Wednesday, November 19, 2003; Page A27
>
>F-16s are bombing civilian neighborhoods in pro-resistance cities.
>U.S. military commanders in Iraq are threatening mayors, tribal chiefs
>and farmers with stern measures unless they curb the militants
>attacking coalition troops.
>
>And from across the Atlantic, British Prime Minister Tony Blair labels
>all those fighting occupation forces as "fanatics."
>
>Even as the new and potentially laudable strategy of giving primacy to
>quick Iraqi sovereignty is being embraced, U.S. administrator L. Paul
>Bremer reassures the world that the interim Iraqi constitution will
>embody "American values."
>
>All those who have goodwill toward the United States and Iraq must be
>in utter despair at the coalition's refusal to countenance the
>far-reaching changes in policy that are needed to contain this
>internationally destabilizing crisis.
>
>So a temporary occupation, which was the most that even pro-U.S.
>Iraqis were prepared to tolerate, has been turned to war again, as if
>widespread use of force is the only way to better protect coalition
>troops.
>
>_______________________________________________________
>
>Bush quagmire? Nope. Bush quicksand.
>
>Harry
It's only appreciated by those who enjoy seeing innocent civilians suffer and die.
USA
Laborers
Even though seven million Iraqis are unemployed1, U.S. sub-contractors are rebuilding
the Iraqi infrastructure with cheap migrant labor from South Asia.2 The use of Asian
laborers is at odds with President Bush's emphasis on the importance of Iraqis taking
on the job themselves.
Bush has said the key to "rebuilding a democratic and prosperous Iraq is the Iraqi
people themselves."3 Paul Bremer, the Bush appointee overseeing post-war Iraq,
likewise has talked of the need to turn around the country's 60 percent unemployment
rate and "to fix a very sick economy."4
However, the head of the Iraqi Jobless Association, Kasem Hadi, is critical of the
Bush Administration's lack of progress. "Following four rounds of talks with
[Bremer's] representatives, we made no progress regarding the unemployment crisis,"5
Hadi says.
Meanwhile, U.S. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, one of Bremer's colleagues, has
raised questions about the reliability of foreign workers. "You find [them] in
out-of-the-way corners taking 15 minute naps," she notes.6
At the same time, officials of the Iraqi Governing Council are concerned that large
American contractors, including Halliburton and Bechtel, may be inflating the cost of
the reconstruction projects. The Iraqi governors told members of the U.S. Congress
that Iraqi companies could be doing the work at 10 percent of the cost.7
Sources:
1. "Iraq: 7 Million Jobless Persons," Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, InfoProd,
8/27/03.
2. "Contractors in Iraq Accused of Importing Labour and Exporting Profit," Financial
Times/UK, 10/14/03.
3. Presidential Radio Address, 7/23/03.
4. Interview of Paul Bremer by Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News, 7/14/03.
5. "Iraq: 7 Million Jobless Persons," Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, InfoProd,
8/27/03.
6. "Contractors in Iraq Accused of Importing Labour and Exporting Profit," Financial
Times/UK, 10/14/03.
7. Letter to OMB Director Joshua Bolten from Rep. Henry Waxman, 9/30/03..."
http://www.misleader.com/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df10162003.html
They're harming the Iraqis every way they possibly can, and
doing them no good at all.
Glenn (Christian Mystic)
> In alt.religion.christian "Glenn \(Christian Mystic\)"
<christi...@ev1.net> wrote:
> : <USA> wrote in message
news:e978rv0ep76kbm4au...@4ax.com...
<snip>
> :> Two
> :> suggestions:
> :> 1) Demand money and resources be shifted from the Pentagon's
> :> wars to an expanded global criminal investigation,
>
> : Someone blows himself up, in a place crowded with civilians, for some
cause,
> : and YOU need some "investigation" ?
>
> Alex:
> Sure. Prevention. Of such a thing happening again.
But hardly to determine if this someone is/isn't a terrorist, such is an
open & shut case
<snip>
> : Cough, the idea is to end ALL terrorism, which kinda removes any
requirement
> : all terrorisms be "related"
>
> Alex:
> I thought the idea was to get the Arab world to *grow up* finally. To
force
> them to let go of their mentality.
Wrong, most Moslems are peace loving, and disagree with the
fanatics/terrorists
It is wonderful being an American Jew, roughly half my friends, could have
been my enemies IF I were an Israeli-Jew, and being Semites, brothers by
blood, such shouldn't be, These friends are Iraqis, Iranians, and
Palistinian (its the neighborhood that I live it, next door to a MOSQUE
I have been a bit disturbed by your posts, they border on / are racism. As a
Jew, knowing our history, I can spot such rather quickly. The "Arab world"
is grown up already. Its the FEW who are terrorizing the world
> :> Going after regimes "that hate us".
>
> : You mean like what you keep trying to convience me, with your accusation
> : that I somehow believed Iraq to have been some kind of threat to me,
should
> : have been the ONLY reason to attack Saddam's support of terrorism ?
>
> Alex:
> The aim wasn't even that. The aim was establishing a western regime in the
> heart of the arab world. The Arabs will have to change.
One, they are NOT all "Arabs" the "Arabs" are citizens of Saudi ARABIA, my
friends get turned off, real QUICK when they are called "Arab", try "the
Moslem world"
> Or else there will
> be no peace and we will all get drawn into the abyss. The conflict between
> the west and the middle east has all the potential for a world war.
Who blew up the Oklahoma city's government building ? An American ! The War
On Terrorism isn't. or shouldn't be, a war against Moslems, it is against
terrorism, as Bush says ANYWHERE, and EVERYWHERE
> And the
> fault for that lies with the Arabs almost entirely. They are immature and
> backwater. They only know the rule of stronger, they cannot face criticism
> and always have to shift blame as admitting fault was a sign of weakness
and
> then you will have to live your whole life being pushed around by others.
>
> Let's get this clear: it was the Iraqi people's fault only that they got
> invaded. They allowed themselves to be ruled by an a**hole like Saddam
> Hussein and they didn't give the slightest hoop about the fate of the
> Kuwaitis back in 1990. And when the sanctions hit them, they still didn't
> blame Saddam because they preferred to place blame on an external
scapegoat.
> Too many of them cooperated with Saddam and too many didn't stand up
against
> him. Surely, Saddam's regime was much worse than the current occupation.
> Where were anything similar back then? Where were the resistance fighters
> who were ready to sacrifice themselves to bring peace and freedom to Iraq
> during the 90s?
Dead, Saddam had them executed, sorry bud, I cannot totally agree with what
you said above.
<snipped the rest; I can't agree with "blaming the victoms">
USA
>What's amazing about the Iraq war is that Bush senior himself, Brent
>Scowcroft, and many other Republicans also opposed this war, but nobody
>in the media besmearched these Republicans as treasonous or of being
>anti-American, only Democrats have been labelled that. And I especially
>agree with Molly Ivins' last paragraph here, the solution for Iraq is to
>have proportional representation. THAT would be a real democracy, not
>the appointed puppet government they have there now.
>
>Abel Malcolm
>
>From:
>
>http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv
>
>OF WARS AND ELECTIONS
>By Molly Ivins
>
>THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2003
>
>AUSTIN, Texas -- Sheesh, it's hard to keep up with this administration.
>Just a few days ago, we were going to stick it out, no matter what.
>Like Horton the Elephant, we would be faithful, 100 percent -- never
>give up, never surrender.
>Now we're going to bug out before next year's election, Paul Bremer has
>been called in for an emergency confab, troops must be down to 105,000
>by spring. The CIA, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, has sent a
>report from Baghdad saying the whole thing's going south. We're back to
>bombing Baghdad. Forget a constitution, we have to hand it all over to
>the Iraqis right away.
>
>I'm glad all this bug-out stuff is coming from the administration -- if
>some liberal said it, we'd all be accused of treason.
>
>Here's the problem in a nutshell: Just a few weeks ago, the Bush
>administration set out to persuade us all that the glass in Iraq is not
>half-empty, it is half-full. And indeed, this may be so, but that's a
>conclusion that depends on one's point of view. But the one thing we do
>know without regard to point of view, politics, spin or public relations
>is that the number of attacks against American troops have been steadily
>increasing from 20 to 25 to 30 a day.
>
>Now this may be, as President Bush has said in a weirdly Panglossian
>moment, evidence of our progress. He's the only president we've got,
>and if he says it's progress, it must be, right? For all I know (never
>having been to Iraq), what we're witnessing is indeed increased
>desperation on the part of the attackers. This would be easier to
>diagnose if only we knew who was attacking us.
>
>According to the experts, we are being attacked by: A) remnant Sadden
>Hussein loyalists, B) anti-American terrorists and jihadists from all
>over hell and gone who are now gathering in Iraq because it's easier to
>knock off Americans there or C) Iraqis of no particular flavor who
>really dislike being invaded by a foreign power and then occupied by
>same. According to the CIA memo acquired by the Inquirer, even the
>Shiites in the south now see us as an occupying power.
>
>Here's what I think is the real problem. It's not so much that the
>number of attacks on Americans per day in Iraq has been creeping up.
>It's that after these successful attacks on convoys, choppers or
>patrols, hundreds of Iraqis gather around the smoking results and cheer.
>Call me alarmist, but I think that's a bad sign. I suspect they do not
>like being occupied by a foreign power. They do not seem to think our
>intentions are benevolent.
>
>To be sure, a good public relations campaign, masterminded by Karl Rove
>and other geniuses, could probably solve this unfortunate problem of
>perception in Iraq (it has worked so well here), EXCEPT, we don't have
>enough people who even speak the language to mount a p.r. campaign, or
>for that matter, to direct traffic, train cops, get intelligence or
>anything else we need to do.
>
>So, here's the Bush administration with this sudden new emphasis on us
>getting the hell out of there. If you think I am going to disagree or
>make fun of them for doing such a 180, you are sadly mistaken. We have
>seen the 180 many times before with Bush, usually when reality intrudes
>on ideology.
>
>Bug out before the election next year, that's fine by me. I don't like
>seeing Americans killed by people we thought we had gone to help. I
>suspect this is the ultimate no-win situation -- the sooner we're out,
>the better. I do hold a grudge against all those folks in the
>administration who convinced most Americans that his war was a dandy
>idea. There was no nuclear weapons program. There were no weapons of
>mass destruction. Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al Qaeda, and if anyone
>sees an outbreak of peace and democracy in Middle East, let me know.
>
>I don't think the Bush administration lied to us about Iraq. I think
>it's worse than that. I think they fooled themselves. I think they
>were conned by Ahmad Chalabi. I think they indulged in wishful thinking
>to a point of near criminality. I think they decided anyone who didn't
>agree with them was an enemy, anti-American, disloyal. In other words,
>I think they're criminally stupid.
>
>Since I keep trying to find helpful suggestions from any source, let's
>see if a fast political handover will help any. But there are already
>signs that the Iraqi Governing Council, which we appointed, is either in
>trouble or nonfunctional -- so why don't we try that bottom-up method of
>democratization I've been mentioning, with proportional representation
>for Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites mandatory as the elections move up. Anyone
>for grass-roots?
>
>From: http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv
>
>"In the end, through the long ages of our quest for light, it will be
>found that truth is still mightier than the sword":
>
>Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Graduated from West Point at the top of his
>class, then served brilliantly in WW1, WW2 & the Korean war)
>
>Educate yourself and go to these links:
>
>http://www.buzzflash.com & http://www.moveon.org &
>http://www.veteransforpeace.org & http://www.salon.com &
>http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/LiberalFAQ.htm &
>http://www.barbrastreisand.com
It's always good to read the words of those who actually understand things.