Just One Question for Opponents of the Iraq War
SeeingEyeDog
David
wrote:
>
>Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>
>
To fight a war one must become evil.
Greg
> Organization: Eat Conscience, Shit Ideology
> Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
> Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:47:32 -0500
> Subject: Just One Question for Opponents of the Iraq War
>
> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>
>
question is: What the fuck are we doing in Iraq?
Greg
my real name
cuh...@webtv.net
terrorist.Actually,I am much more in favor of,,,,,,,,,,,, I better not
say it on the intenet.
cuhulin
barne...@aol.com
> What the fuck are we doing in Iraq?
Why, Lookin fer them WMD's
m II
>>What the fuck are we doing in Iraq?
>
>
> Why, Lookin fer them WMD's
>
They haven't found them yet? Idiots. The weapons are located North, West, East,
South and a little North West of Baghdad.
It's a SLAM DUNK!
mike
cuh...@webtv.net
cuhulin
pastork
cuh...@webtv.net
all foreign counties and pour it all into helping New Orleans
rebuild.Whether New Orleans,Seattle,Boston or anywhere else in
America,America comes First to me.
cuhulin
Telamon
"pastork" <lacpas...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Define on topic.
< Plonk >
--
Telamon
Ventura, California
m II
> < Plonk >
If you feel the war on Iraq is legitimate and is NOT being waged by a lunatic
war criminal, please plonk me now.
mike
FDR
>
>
Do you believe there are WMD in Iraq. Do you believe now that Iraq was an
immediate threat to the US?
KA6UUP
> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>
>
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 31, 2005
All those who support the American war in Iraq should make a deal with
anyone opposed to the war. Offer to answer any 20 questions the
opponents wish to ask if they will answer just one:
Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
That is how supporters of the war regard the Baathists and the Islamic
suicide terrorists, the people we are fighting in Iraq.
Because if you cannot answer it, or avoid answering it, or answer
"no," we know enough about your moral compass to know that further
dialogue is unnecessary. In fact, dialogue is impossible. Our
understanding of good and evil is so different from yours, there is
simply nothing to discuss. Someone who was asked a hundred years ago "Do
you believe that whites who lynch blacks are evil?" and refused to
answer in the affirmative was not someone one could dialogue with.
Here are the responses you are likely to receive:
1. The Bush administration is just as evil: for illegally invading a
country that did not threaten us; for "lying" to get us into Iraq; and
because it is a war for corporate profits.
2. Some of those we are fighting may be evil, but not all; some are
simply fighting against foreign occupation of their country.
3. We cannot call anyone evil; only God can make such judgments.
I will respond to these "responses," but what is most important is to
acknowledge that none of them actually responds to the question. Anyone
posing this question to opponents of the war must not let them off the
hook. They must answer the question: Do you believe we are fighting evil
people in Iraq?
Regarding the issue of judging anyone evil, the best response is a
question: Can we judge anyone to be good (not perfect, just good)? Of
course we can. But if we can't call anyone evil, we can't call anyone
good, and we certainly know that there are good people. If there are
good people, there have to be not good, evil people.
Anyone who remains unable to morally judge people who slit the throats
of innocent people, who place bombs in the middle of markets, and who
murder anyone attempting to help women achieve basic human rights is a
moral imbecile.
As for the Bush administration being equally evil, this, too, reveals
the responder's values. It is one thing to believe the war was a
mistake; it is quite another to regard it as a function of the
administration's desire to enrich Halliburton or expand the "American
empire," or because Jewish neo-conservatives pushed docile Gentiles --
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld -- into waging it "for Israel." Such views
are held by people who are so angry and so brainwashed about
conservatives that they have lost the elementary ability to identify
real evil, which is what Islamic and Baathist terrorists and
"insurgents" are.
Finally, the people fighting us in Iraq hate freedom, hate women's
rights, hate non-Muslims, and do all they can to murder innocent Iraqis
and others in order to undermine the march toward freedom in Iraq. They
are not fighting foreign invaders; they are fighting foreign liberators
and domestic democrats.
It is worth again noting that none of those responses directly answers
the question: Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
It is one thing to oppose the war in Iraq; it is quite another to deny
the evil of those we fight there. That is what the Left in America
routinely does. And that is why the culture war in America is as
important as the military war in Iraq.
KA6UUP
> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>
>
Why We Are In Iraq
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 26, 2004
(This speech was given at Georgetown University on October 14, 2004 and
broadcast on C-Span. It has been edited for inclusion on
FrontPagemag.com -- The Editors)
Just before American and British troops entered Iraq to remove the
regime of Saddam Hussein, a videotape of Osama bin Laden was aired on
Al-Jazeera TV. The tape was aired on February 12, 2003, and in it bin
Laden said: “The interests of Muslims and the interests of the
socialists coincide in the war against the crusaders.”
Bin Laden was referring to the fact that four weeks earlier, millions of
leftists had poured into the streets of European capitals and of
Washington, San Francisco and New York to protest the removal of Saddam
Hussein. Their goal was to prevent the United States and Britain from
toppling Saddam and ending one of the cruelest and most repressive
regimes in modern times. The protesters chanted “no blood for oil;” they
called the United States “the world's greatest terrorist state;” they
called America’s democratic government an “Axis of Evil;” and they
compared America’s president to Adolph Hitler.
In America, the demonstrations against the war were organized by two
different groups. One of these was International ANSWER, a front group
for the Worker’s World Party, which is a Marxist-Leninist sect aligned
with the Communist dictatorship in North Korea. The other was the
Coalition for Peace and Justice, an organization which was led by Leslie
Cagan, a veteran 1960’s leftist and member of the Communist Party until
after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Coalition welcomed all factions
of the left and was composed of organizations that ranged from the
Communist Party to the National Council of Churches to Muslim supporters
of the terrorist jihad.
Despite their efforts, the global protesters failed to stop the British
and American military effort or save Saddam’s regime, which fell six
weeks after the initial assault. This ended the filling of mass graves
by the regime, shut down the torture chambers and closed the prison that
Saddam had built for four to twelve-year-olds whose parents had earned
his disapproval. But Saddam’s forces were not entirely defeated and
regrouped to fight a rear-guard guerilla effort against the American
“occupiers.” At the same time, the organizers of the anti-war protests
had already determined to continue their efforts, this time in the arena
of electoral politics. Accordingly, they directed their activists to
march into the Democratic presidential primary campaigns and support the
candidacies of anti-war Democrats like Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean.
The enormous resources in money and manpower that the activists had
mobilized against the war now transformed the campaign of an obscure
governor of Vermont, making Howard Dean the immediate front-runner for
the Democratic presidential nomination. Dean condemned America’s war in
Iraq, and hinted that, if elected, he would make peace at the earliest
possible opportunity and withdraw American forces from the Gulf.
Electoral politics thus became the left’s rear guard attempt to produce
the result their pre-war protests had failed to achieve: an American
defeat in Iraq.
With the resources of the left squarely behind him, Howard Dean raced to
the front of the presidential pack. In the spring of 2003, just prior to
the Iowa caucuses, Dean’s nomination appeared so inevitable that he was
endorsed by the titular heads of the Democratic Party, Jimmy Carter and
Al Gore. So leftist in its view of America’s world role had the
Democratic Party become.
But just as the prospect of this nomination became a reality, Democrats
collectively flinched. Verbal gaffes by the candidate, who remarked that
the world was not safer because of the capture of Saddam, and a
hyper-emotional rhetoric caused many Democrats to wonder if a nominee so
overtly radical could carry the party to victory in the national
campaign in November. Within a few weeks, this question was decided in
the negative as Democrats abandoned Dean and rallied behind John Kerry
-- a candidate with a military record who had originally supported the
war in Iraq but who recently had turned against it under the pressure of
seemingly irresistible Dean tide.
This reversal of views on a matter of war and peace proved to be the
most troubling aspect of John Kerry’s candidacy, and eventually sealed
his electoral defeat. Having been a prominent Democratic supporter of
the war both before and after the fact, he reversed himself on the basis
of a trend in public opinion polls among Democratic primary voters.
Rather than lose the nomination, he was willing to abandon his position
on a matter as grave as war and peace.
This was in stark contrast to the behavior of another Democratic
candidate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, whose deportment could not have
provided a greater contrast. Having been the Democrats’
vice-presidential nominee in the previous election, Lieberman ought to
have been the presidential nominee in this one. But his views on the
removal of Saddam Hussein put him at odds with Democratic primary voters
and with the activists who had brought their resources into the
campaign. Unlike Kerry, Lieberman did not waver in his views of the war
even though it meant sacrificing his presidential ambition.
Patriotism and Treason
Certain issues beneath the surface of the political conversation, carry
a charge so great as to shape the conversation itself. Such are the
issues of “patriotism,” and “treason,” and the question of what
constitutes legitimate criticism of government policy in a time of war.
To listen to the complaints of the left, one would think that
conservative officials were standing ready with pre-drawn indictments
for opponents of the war, or any criticism of government policy in
matters pertaining to Iraq. Yet if any side has deployed the charge of
treason to silence opposition on the war issue, it is the Democrats
themselves, who have accused the President of taking the country to war
under false pretenses, lying to the American people, and getting
Americans killed for no reason, except to line the pockets of his
Halliburton friends. Al Gore has called the President a traitor; the
President has not mentioned Gore’s name.
The reality – for better or worse – is that that no one in America takes
treason very seriously anymore, and hasn’t for a long time. No
individual has been charged with treason in the United States in fifty
years, not since Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally were tried for broadcasting
enemy propaganda to American troops during WWII. Not the Rosenbergs, who
stole atomic secrets for the Soviet Union; not Jane Fonda, who in the
exact manner of the aforementioned traitors appeared on enemy radio in
the midst of a war, denounced American soldiers as war criminals and
called on them to defect. Fonda also collaborated with the Communist
torturers of American POWs. Yet she was not charged with any crime. Nor
were spies like Aldrich Ames, or defectors like John Walker Lindh, who
joined the Taliban to fight against his own country indicted for
treason. So let’s not pretend that there is any real threat in the word
“treason” capable of chilling criticism of current foreign policy. If
there were, Michael Moore would be in jail instead of on the short list
for an Academy Award. When leftists complain that their patriotism is
being questioned in an attempt to stifle their criticism, the claim is a
red herring designed to prevent others from thinking about issues that
affect our national security, or the implications of the positions that
some opponents of the war have taken.
Contrary to the impression conveyed by the left, Republicans have been
extraordinarily polite in confronting those who in assaulting the war
have also Dslandered its supporters. In the first presidential debate
President Bush chided his opponent for attacking the war in Iraq as “the
wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.” To make that claim
“confuses” people, the President said, and is no way to lead a nation
engaged in a war.
The president’s statement was certainly correct as far as it went. But
coming from a leader of the Demcratic Party who might soon be President,
Senator Kerry’s statement actually served to do more than confuse
people. If you are nineteen years old and an American marine in
Fallujah, and are being fired on by terrorists, and the leader of the
Democratic Party who is within a hair’s breadth of being your
commander-in-chief says you shouldn’t be there at all, one can surmise
that that does more than confuse you. It demoralizes you and it saps
your will to fight. It can get you killed. The reckless nature of the
Democratic attacks on this war – with the emphasis on reckless – serves
to encourage the enemy more than reasonable criticism would require;
worse, it probably demoralizes American soldiers on the field of battle
and probably gets some of them killed. This is the subject that is
suppressed when issues of loyalty and the proper tone of criticism are
arbitrarily taken off the table in time of war. But Republicans are too
polite to mention this.
Treason itself is not actually that difficult to define. It is when your
country is at war and you want the other side to win. (Of course the
desire alone would be merely a treason of intention; to meet the legal
definition, there would have to be overt acts.) Are there such people in
America, active in the nation’s public life? Michael Moore is an obvious
example. The following statement by Moore appeared on his website on
April 12, 2004 as the United States was struggling to build a post-war
democracy in Iraq: “First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start
using the proper names for things? Those are not “contractors” in Iraq.
They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They
are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. They are there for the money,
and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it.
Halliburton is not a ‘company’ doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR
PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In
past wars they would have been arrested -- or worse.”
While Moore described America’s role in Iraq as that of a predator and
criminal he described the Saddam diehards and Zarqawi terrorists,
beheading American citizens and killing American troops this way: “The
Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or
‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and
their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?”
There is little doubt whose side of this war Michael Moore is on.
Michael Moore wants America to lose this war and why shouldn’t he, since
he regards the United States as a predatory empire illegally in Iraq,
and “terrorism” as a fiction created by Washington to justify its
imperialistic ambitions.
I have followed Michael Moore ever since the 1980s, when he was fired
from his position as editor of the leftwing magazine Mother Jones. His
firing was triggered when he censored an article mildly critical of the
Sandinista dictatorship that had been written by the socialist Paul
Berman. Moore was too much of a Leninist even for the leftists at Mother
Jones. As a Marxist convinced that America is an empire ruled by evil
corporations, Michael Moore is a self-conceived enemy. The issue of
betraying your country when it is under attack never arises for Moore,
because he denies that there is even a terrorist threat in the first
place. Of course he does. Because in his eyes, America is an aggressor
responsible for the attacks upon itself. American imperialism is the
root cause of the War on Terror. This is not his unique view but is one
shared by many people on the political left and by most of the people
who marched in the “anti-war” demonstrations.
Michael Moore’s hostility to his own country in time of war is a fact,
but what are the consequences? Moore has rooted for the enemy all his
life, first in the Cold War and now in the War on Terror, but his
treasonous sympathies have made a celebrity of him, not a pariah, and
rich into the bargain.
A similar observation can made of about the leaders of the anti-war
demonstrations, whose careers may not be a well rewarded as Moore’s, but
whose commitments and absence of adverse consequences are the same. The
national mobilizations against the war in Iraq were organized and led by
veteran activists who rooted for the Communist enemy in the Cold War.
They did so because, like Moore, they regarded America as an imperialist
empire and the Soviet Union as an advocate for its oppressed global
subjects. Guided by these radical assumptions they marched in the fall
of 2002 and the spring of 2003 to thwart America’s war in Iraq and save
Saddam Hussein.
It should be self-evident that these are not people for whom “peace” is
a priority. When Saddam was faced with a UN ultimatum on November 8th to
disarm “or else,” the opponents of American policy organized no
demonstrations at the Iraqi embassy to persuade Saddam to comply.
Disarming Saddam was not part of their “anti-war” agenda. In the same
illuminating way, there were no demonstrations against the genocide the
Communists carried out in Indo-China after America withdrew its forces
from Vietnam. In its core, the anti-Vietnam movement was not about
bringing peace and justice to Indo-China; it was about defeating America
and helping the Communists to win. The goal of the radicals who
organized the anti-war demonstrations during the conflict in Vietnam and
the confrontation with Iraq are the same: whatever the war, America
should lose.
This goal has now been introduced into the electoral mainstream under
the auspices of the Democratic Party. In Michael Moore’s notorious film,
Farenheit 911, which became a campaign spot for the Democrat Party,
Saddam’s Iraq is presented as a peaceful, even idyllic country cruelly
invaded by a callous and deceitful invader, which is us. The opening of
this anti-American propaganda film was held in the midst of the
presidential election campaign. It was attended by the leader of the
Democratic Party, Terry McAuliffe, by Senators Clinton, Daschle, Harkin,
Boxer and many other celebrating party members. It was an episode that
can be said to mark how far we have slipped morally in this country that
the leaders of one its two great parties are ready to accept any attack
on the sitting commander-in-chief – and through him on the nation itself
– as legitimate, and can do so in a time of war, and thus in effect
don’t take our enemies seriously.
The matter of “treason” is not finally resolved by applying the term.
This reflects the complex allegiances of the citizens a democracy like
ours and also underscores the bad faith in the left’s defensive
complaints. When they are pressed on the issue, “progressives” will be
the first to claim that dissent itself is patriotism, indeed the only
self-respecting patriotism (since, for leftists, embracing the positive
in the American experience is reserved for right-wing jingoists and
yahoos). Leftists will point to the fact that the American founders were
themselves accused of treason and will remind us of Benjamin Franklin’s
quip to “make the most of it.”
In America, the founding principles form the nation first, and only
secondarily the ties of blood and soil. If America is indeed the
greatest terrorist state, as Moore and other leftists proclaim, if
America is an imperialist monster, then America is actively betraying
its founding principles. If this is the case, loyalty to these
principles – loyalty to America -- would demand acts of treason as a
defense of the constitutional faith. The code that leftists like Michael
Moore consciously live by is this: “Loyalty to humanity is treason to
America.” In their own minds, they have no country. They are citizens of
the world, and America is the enemy of humanity (to employ a phrase
Michael Moore’s Sandinista heroes inserted into their national anthem).
Here is how Moore himself defends his disloyalty to his country in the
war on terror as a higher loyalty to its founding principles: “What if
there is no ‘terrorist threat?’ What if Bush and Co. need, desperately
need, that ‘terrorist threat’ more than anything in order to conduct the
systematic destruction they have launched against the U.S. Constitution
and the good people of this country who believe in the freedoms and
liberties it guarantees?” (Stupid White Men, Part One)
To make a judgment on the this issue one has to first decide whether
this nation has really violated and abandoned its founding principles
and is thus worthy of betrayal in the midst of a war. If so, then
Michael Moore is American hero and the left is a progressive force. If
not, then Moore and the left are reactionaries allied with the most
backward-looking and oppressive forces of our time, as well as
self-declared enemies of their native land.
Legitimate Criticism of War Policy
Criticism of government policy is the life-blood of democracy. This
includes war policy. But beginning with the founders, everyone
understands – or used to understand --that there is a necessary
trade-off between liberty and security and that in times of war
sacrifices of the former are regularly made in the interests of the
latter. “Loose lips sink ships” was a slogan memorialized on posters
during World War II. It was an appeal to Americans to voluntarily
restrict their own exercise of free speech to save the lives of
themselves and their neighbors. It was not regarded as a bid to abrogate
the Constitution or the destruction of the First Amendment, which is the
way the leftwing is currently mis-characterizing measures to tighten
America’s defenses against terror. It was a simple recognition that some
speech can weaken a democracy and undermine its self-defense.
In a conflict like the war on terror, where the enemy walks among us and
can kill thousands of civilians at a stroke, it is important to
recognize the difference between criticism made in support of the war
effort and criticism designed to undermine it, even if the actual line
between them is not always easy to discern. Some criticism is
maliciously intended, and some criticism in itself can constitute an
assault on America that weakens our democracy and undermines our defense.
Before the fighting started in Iraq, some critics voiced a concern that
an armed intervention would cause the Arab street to erupt and inflame
the Muslim world. This was the criticism voiced by former National
Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. Scowcroft’s remarks were obviously
made out of concern for the nation’s security. a substantial amount of
the criticism of the war in Iraq is based on similarly legitimate
concerns. Scowcroft's attack on the President's policy was a harsh
criticism. He said that under no circumstances should the America go to
war over Iraq. But it was obviously a criticism based on reasonable
concerns about America’s security, that were proved wrong when Saddam
was toppled in the swiftest and least costly victory on historical
record, and without the immediate consequences that Scowcroft imagined.
A large part of the criticism of the war, however, has been made on
grounds that have nothing to do with American security, and in terms
that are far removed from the realities. Often, as in the case of
Michael Moore’s widely popular rants, these are thinly veiled attempts
to portray America as the problem and the outlaw regime of Saddam
Hussein regime as the victim. Often, the attacks are voiced in such a
way (and to such a reckless degree) as to undermine the security of
Americans and their forces in Iraq. It was one thing for Scowcroft to
imagine negative consequences of great magnitude resulting from the
attempt to remove Saddam and quite another when the initial stage of the
war was won without such consequences for critics on the left to launch
an all-out attack on credibility and morals of the Commander-in-Chief.
Within two months of the fall of Baghdad, Democratic leaders were
assaulting the President as a calculating liar on the basis of 16
reasonable words in a State of the Union Address which have since been
confirmed by a bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee. As Senator
John Edwards, who was one of those leaders attacking the President,
pointed out, a President’s credibility is his most important asset. Why
then attack him as a liar for saying that British intelligence had
reported that Saddam was seeking bomb-making uranium in Niger?
Particularly, when the British had done just that. Yet for weeks in June
of 2003, Democratic leaders piled on the President as a “liar” for those
very words.
It is one thing to make dire predictions in advance of a war, and quite
another to make dire and unsubstantiated claims after the war is under
way and our troops are still under fire in Iraq. In these circumstances,
to say that the President lied to the American people and sent our
troops to die under false pretenses is more than criticism, particularly
when there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate the charge. When
this is done by political leaders who supported the war in the first
place, the betrayal is an even more egregious. Yet that is precisely
what leaders of the Democratic Party did within two months of the
liberation of Baghdad, most shamefully among them Ted Kennedy and Al
Gore, but also John Edwards and Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, and Howard Dean.
Even the charges which followed the failure to locate stockpiles of
weapons of mass destruction are reckless and baseless given the fact
that there is no evidence the President lied about these weapons in
advance of the war, and indeed the evidence would lead to the opposite
conclusion, since all national intelligence agencies, including those of
the Muslim countries of Pakistan and Jordan were saying the same thing.
The vitriolic and personal attacks on the President’s integrity and
morality, while the war was only months old went beyond legitimate
criticism and amounted to an effort to sabotage the war itself in the
hopes that a failed war would unseat the President in the elections in
November. These personal attacks were incitements to the American public
to distrust and hate their President in the middle of a war. To go a
step further, and portray Iraq -- a country whose dictator had invaded
two sovereign nations and murdered a million people -- as an idyllic
place into which American marauders intruded under false pretenses using
their advanced technologies to blow innocent and “defenseless” people to
bits (as Farenheit 9/11 did) is no longer criticism. It is an effort to
sabotage the nation’s war on terror and soften us up for the kill. This
is no longer criticism, nor is it intended as such. It is intended to as
a war within the war, and is directed at all of us -- Democrats and
Republicans alike.
In the real world, of course, matters like these are not always so
easily resolved. There is often an irreducible gray area, which makes
distinctions difficult. Thus, there are incidents common to all wars
that are regrettable and need to be regretted, but which can be
exploited by one’s enemies. The criminal offenses at Abu Ghraib are one
example. As war atrocities go -- as the atrocities committed by our
enemies in this war go -- the incidents at Abu Ghraib were minor. They
were an isolated series of indefensible but unrepresentative acts by
low-level operatives. Still, we hold ourselves to higher standards than
our enemies (and most of our friends) and concern was therefore in
order. But when Abu Ghraib is inflated into a major atrocity and appears
on the front page of the New York Times for more than sixty days running
and is compared by a leading Senator to Saddam Hussein's own torture
chambers, something else was going on. This may have been just an
atrociously irresponsible effort to topple a sitting President. But its
clear effect was to conduct psychological warfare for the enemy camp, to
undermine American leadership and to sabotage the war itself. The New
York Times and Senator Kennedy expressed more outrage about Abu Ghraib
in one day than Imam Ali Sistani the leader of Iraq’s Shi’ite population
did throughout the entire episode, about which he said nothing.
Some people will recklessly exaggerate America's deficiencies -- even in
the midst of a war – in pursuit of political power. Others, however, may
do it out of habitual complacency. It hasn’t really registered on them
that we are at war. Even after 9/11, they continue to think that America
cannot be vulnerable. They haven't absorbed what the 9/11 attacks
revealed. In their thinking, America is still a free country and people
can say what they want. But saying some things still has consequences,
and we ignore them at our peril.
The War Was Not About WMDs
The attacks on the President in the first year of the war in Iraq were
entirely about the rationale for the war. This is odd in itself. If we
were to discover say that Abraham Lincoln had contrived to send a secret
Union force to attack Fort Sumter and blame it on the Confederacy would
that change our view of whether the Civil War was worth fighting? Yet
that seems to be the logic of the opponents of the Iraq War for whom
“missing WMDs” and other elements of the original argument in behalf of
the war have been crucial to rejecting the war itself.
Yet this is a war whose aims and purposes make it very hard to
understand how anyone who is a supporter of human rights, or who
believes in freedom, could be against it. In four years, George Bush has
liberated nearly 50 million people in two Islamic countries. He has
stopped the filling of mass graves and closed down the torture chambers
of an oppressive regime. He has encouraged the Iraqis and the people of
Afghanistan to begin a political process that give them rights they have
not enjoyed in 5,000 years. How can one not support this war?
The rationale for this war was not, as critics claim, stockpiles of
weapons of mass destruction. This is a misunderstanding that was the
product of political arguments during a Democratic primary season that
were intended to unseat a sitting president, but they had grave fallout
for the credibility and security of the nation itself. The resultant
misunderstanding about WMDS is the basis for most of the attacks on the
war in Iraq.
In addressing this issue, it is important to remember that the Democrats
who are now in full-throated opposition to the war, actually authorized
it in the first place. The “Authorization for the Use of Force in Iraq”
is the title of a resolution passed by both the House and the Senate,
with Democratic as well as Republican majorities.
Since Bush has been accused of acting willfully and imperially and
“dividing the nation,” it should be pointed out that not only did he
request and secure a resolution for using force in Iraq from both
political parties, but that this is more than his Democratic predecessor
did in launching his own war in Kosovo. Bill Clinton neither sought to
obtained a congressional resolution to use force in the Balkans. In
gauging the sincerity of the Democratic attacks on Bush’s war-making
decisions in Iraq, as “illegal” and “unilateral,” it is worth
remembering that Bill Clinton never even sought congressional approval
(or UN approval) when he went to war in Kosovo. This didn’t seem to
bother Democrats at the time.
The Authorization for the Use of Force in Iraq that President Bush did
seek and obtain in October 2002 has a total of 23 clauses. These 23
clauses spell out the rationale for the war. Out of all 23 clauses,
there are only two that even mention stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction. If this was the principal argument for the war, the
resolution surely didn’t make much of it. What the resolution did stress
– in twelve separate clauses – were 16 UN resolutions that that Saddam
had ignored or defied.
These Security Council resolutions, were more than mere expressions of
UN opinion. The first two of them 687 and 689 constituted the terms of
the truce in the first Gulf War, whose violation was a legal cause of
war itself. The other fourteen, were failed attempts to enforce them.
This is why we went to war: to enforce the UN resolutions and
international law.
Saddam Hussein had invaded two countries - Iran and then Kuwait, and
used chemical weapons on his own people. We went to war with Saddam
Hussein in 1991 to force him out of Kuwait, which his invading armies
had swallowed. At the end of the war, there was no peace treaty, merely
a truce that left Saddam in place. The truce was sealed by UN
resolutions 687 and 689 and they set established the conditions by which
we - who were still technically at war with Saddam - would allow him to
remain in power. These resolutions instructed Saddam to disarm and to
stop his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
How do we know he had programs for developing weapons of mass
destruction? Because he had gassed the Kurds. Because his own
brother-in-law who was in charge of his nuclear weapons program defected
and told us he did. Because we sent UN inspectors into Iraq under the UN
Resolutions and they located his weapons of mass destruction and
destroyed the ones they found. The UN resolutions -- backed by the armed
power of the United States – partially worked. But only partially, and
only for awhile. Saddam was forced to stop the programs the UN
inspectors discovered, and he was forced to stop repressing the ethnic
and religious minorities in Iraq, as the UN resolutions required. But
without an occupying army in Iraq, the UN proved unable to hold him to
the terms of its resolutions and he remained an internationally
recognized menace. With the help of his allies on the UN Security
Council -- France, Russia and China, Saddam circumvented the sanctions
placed on him, obstructed the inspectors and evaded the terms of the
resolutions until finally, in 1998, he threw the UN inspectors out of
Iraq altogether.
This constituted an act of war in itself, though Clinton Administration
did not have the will to prosecute one. Saddam had broken the truce.
When Saddam threw the UN weapons inspectors out, Bill Clinton fired 450
missiles into Iraq (more than the United States had fired into Iraq
during the entire Gulf War) and got Congress to authorize an Iraqi
Liberation Act, which passed by an overwhelming majority from both
parties. But despite its name, the Iraqi Liberation Act only asked for
authorization to provide military help to Iraqis trying to overthrow
Saddam. It didn't call for an American Army to do the job. Bill Clinton
understood the grave threat that Saddam Hussein presented to
international peace and thought Saddam should be removed and said so,
because Saddam had broken the truce. But Bill Clinton didn’t send an
army to do the job, because in 1998 he was too busy with an intern and
was unable to perform his duties as Commander-in-Chief.
In 1998, Bill Clinton at least understood, as John Kerry and Tom Daschle
and Al Gore also did at the time, that Saddam Hussein had violated
international law and was a threat to the peace. He was an aggressor
twice over. He had shown that he was determined to circumvent the UN
inspections and the arms control agreements he had signed. It was clear
to all –to every intelligence agency in the world -- that Saddam was
determined to break the UN sanctions and to develop weapons of mass
destruction if he could. Why would Saddam throw the U.N. inspectors out
if it weren’t his intention to build weapons of mass destruction and use
them? (The famous Duelfer report says that in fact that he was.)
Saddam was a self-declared enemy of the United States who expressed his
loathing for America in innumerable ways, among them an attempt to
assassinate an American President and the distinction of being the only
head of state to celebrate the destruction of the World Trade Center
after 9/11. Despite leftwing claims to the contrary, there were in fact
major links between international terrorists, including al-Qaeda and the
Saddam regime. These are documented in in Stephen Hayes’ book, The
Connection, which describes the relations between the government of
Iraq, Al Qaeda, and the major world terrorist organizations. Among other
gestures to the Islamic jihad, Saddam had inserted into the Iraqi flag
the proclamation “Allahu Akhbar.” Saddam did not adopt the mantra of
Islamic martyrs because he had a religious revelation. He did it because
Islamic terrorists had adopted the slogan as their war cry and Saddam
wanted to join their war.
Standing between Saddam and his malevolent ambitions in the fall of 2002
was the uncertain power of the United States. It was uncertain because
the first Bush Administration had failed to remove him at the end of the
Gulf War and the Clinton Administration was too paralyzed by ideology
and circumstances to act when the need to repair the mistake became
inevitable. Clinton fired hundreds of missiles into Iraq, but without an
army to remove the tyrant, they were fired to little effect. After his
defeat in the Gulf War, a still-defiant Saddam had boasted that America
could fight a Cold War, but couldn’t endure ten thousand casualties.
After America’s humiliation in Somalia, Osama bin Laden said nearly the
same thing: American soldiers can fight a Cold War but not endure the
will to defeat Islam in a holy war.
In the terrorists’ eyes, America was a paper tiger. This was perhaps the
main cause of the miscalculations made by Saddam that led to his fall.
But his assessment was correct until 9/11. Until that moment, America
had shown itself to be a power unwilling and therefore unable to put an
army in the field for more than four days since the Vietnam truce of 1973.
On September 11, 2001, the world changed because the perceptions of an
American president changed. George W. Bush understood that this strike
against us was a declaration of war. He understood that the world we
live in is a world in which terrorists who are supported by rogue states
like Saddam Hussein’s can get access to terrible weapons with which they
can smuggle into the United States and use to do incalculable damage.
America could not wait for such an attack before responding to the
threat that these regimes represented. The consequences were simply
unacceptable. America had to strike before the threat became imminent.
Since Saddam had already shown that he would defy all attempts to
control him and since he had already demonstrated that he would use
weapons of mass destruction, and since he supported the jihad against
the United States, his regime presented a peril that had to be
confronted. John Kerry and other Democratic leaders spoke eloquently to
these realities and endorsed the measures taken by the President that
led to war. The Bush Doctrine is simply a statement of these realities
along with the will to take the measures necessary to deal with them. It
is to engage the war that has been declared against us by the terrorists
and the regimes harbor them – Iran, Syria, Libya to name three.
In their attacks on the President, opponents of the war and even
Democratic leaders who once knew better have said that Iraq was “no
threat.” But if Iraq was no threat, why was Afghanistan a threat?
Afghanistan is a much poorer country than Iraq. It has no great oil
reserves; it wasn’t about to make a deal with North Korea to buy nuclear
weapons “off the shelf,” as Saddam was when United States troops crossed
his borders. So why was Afghanistan a threat? It was a threat because it
provided the terrorists with a base of operations, and from that base
they were able to deliver a devastating blow to the United States.
Since Afghanistan was a threat, obviously Iraq was an even bigger one,
but so was Iran. Some critics of the war want to know why we didn’t
attack Iran or North Korea, which appear to them more menacing than
Saddam Hussein. There is a certain hypocrisy in these qualms. These are
the same people who are argue that our attack on Iraq was illegitimate.
Nonetheless, the question is worth answering. The difference between
North Korea and Iraq is that as bad as North Korea is, it is not part of
the Islamic jihad that includes al-Qaeda and Hamas, and which Saddam
Hussein had joined. (To cite one instance of his role, $74 billion of
the UN Oil-for-Food funds that Saddam embezzled went directly to finance
the Hamas terrorist organization). The difference, finally, between Iran
and Iraq is that we were actually at war with Iraq and had been at war
since 1991. For a decade U.S. and British warplane had participated in
daily missions over the “No-Fly Zones” in Northern Iraq in order to
prevent Saddam Hussein from dropping poison gas on the Kurds. For ten
years, the United States and Britain were engaged in a low-intensity war
with Iraq to keep Saddam within the restrictions created by the UN
resolutions that he relentlessly defied. This war had failed to
accomplish its task, which is precisely why the United States and
Britain initiated a larger war to finish the job.
The Deulfer Report, issued after Saddam’s removal, which involved the
interrogation of officials of the regime, concluded that Saddam Hussein
had one overriding agenda, which was to remove the UN sanctions, remove
the UN inspectors, and resume his programs to build weapons of mass
destruction. That is what the war was about.
To recap its timeline: After 9/11, George Bush declared that Iraq was in
defiance of the arms control and inspection agreements that were
designed to keep him under control and was therefore an international
menace. In his State of the Union Address, delivered on January 20, 2002
he told Saddam, “You are part of an ‘Axis of Evil’ and you are in
defiance of the 1991 truce agreements. You need to comply with the terms
of the truce you signed, and with the U.N. resolutions, and disarm, open
your borders to UN inspectors and give up your ambitions to acquire
weapons of mass destruction -- or else.” This ultimatum was delivered
fourteen months before we actually went to war.
When Senator Kerry and other critics say the United States “rushed to
war,” it is difficult to imagine what they are talking about. Shortly
after George Bush put Saddam on notice in January 2002, Al Gore gave the
first foreign policy address he had made since the election of 2000. In
this speech, Gore praised Bush for identifying Iraq as one of the
components of an axis of evil. He noted that Bush had come under
criticism for making such a statement, and he made a point of supporting
the President’s decision to do so. Saddam’s regime was, in fact, evil
and a threat to the peace. Gore said America had to do whatever was
necessary to deal with the threat that Saddam represented, even if we
had to do it alone and without our allies’ approval. Al Gore betrayed
his own vision of Iraq, just as the leadership of the Democratic Party
betrayed a war it had signed onto, in the hope of making a seasonal
political gain.
There was no rush to war. In September 2002, nine months after the Axis
of Evil speech and six months before the onset of the war, President
Bush went to the UN and told its delegates the UN must enforce the
resolutions Saddam had disregarded and defied or become “irrelevant.” If
the UN Security Council would not meet its obligations, enforce its
resolutions and defend the peace, the United States intended to do so in
its place. As an earnest of its intent, the United States had already
begun sending troops to the Gulf. The immediate effect of this was to
cause Saddam to readmit the UN inspectors. In the crucial months that
followed, the American president said more than once to the Saddam
regime: “You will disarm, or we will disarm you.” This was not a rush to
war, but a deliberate march to a moment of truth in which Saddam’s
intentions would be tested a final time: Disarm; open your borders to
unobstructed UN inspections -- or else.
In October, following his appearance at the UN, the President went to
Congress and got the authorization he needed to use force against Iraq
if Saddam persisted in the course of obstruction he had pursued for more
than a decade. The vote was 77 to 23 in the Senate, receiving support
from majorities on both sides of the aisle. On November 9, the President
won a unanimous 15 to 0 vote in the Security Council for Resolution
1441. This resolution was an ultimatum that said to Saddam: “You will
disarm, and you will show that you have disarmed by making a
comprehensive report on your weapons of mass destruction ‘or serious
consequences’ will follow.” The deadline for compliance was set for
thirty days hence, or December 7, 2002.
The Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix has since written a book on
these events, which he has called Disarming Iraq. Blix is a Swedish
leftist who, by his own admission, was against going to war despite
Saddam’s failure to comply with the UN resolutions.[1] In his book he
acknowledges that UN Resolution 1441 was diplomatic language for an
ultimatum of war, and that Saddam failed to meet its terms.[2] On
December 7, which was the deadline for compliance the Iraq regime
delivered a 12,000-page report that was essentially a rehash of previous
inadequate and deceptive reports it had submitted and not a serious
answer to the questions that had been asked. Thousands of weapons were
unaccounted for, and the requirements the Security Council had laid down
had not been met.
At this point, the question was whether yet another ultimatum should be
allowed to slip with no consequences to follow. If there is never a
consequence then the entire fabric of “international law” would be a
sham. Neither the word of the United Nations or the United States would
have any credibility. This would create an extremely dangerous
international environment where force would be the only international
abiter. If the word of a great power like United States could be taken
seriously, the only way remaining to deter a future threat would be to
go to war. In sum, not acting on UN resolution 1441 would show contempt
for international law and order (as Prime Minister Tony Blair pointed
out vainly to the French) and would increase the chances of future
conflict with potentially even more deadly consequences than the one
with Iraq.
The reason enforcing the UN ultimatum was summarized with admirable
clarity by President Bill Clinton in 1998, although the disorder of his
personal affairs paralyzed his government and restricted his action to
launching missile strikes against Saddam: “If we fail to respond today,
Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be
emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity,
even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security
Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.”[3]
Senator Kerry and other critics on the left have claimed that Saddam
Hussein could have been contained without going to war, that the weapons
inspections would eventually work to disarm the regime and keep it
disarmed. But this is an empty claim. It presumes the United States
could keep 100,000 troops on the Iraqi border indefinitely and focus the
main energies of government on keeping one rogue state in check. The
only reason the U.N. inspectors were readmitted to Iraq in the first
place was because of the decision taken by Bush to put a massive
American military force on the Iraqi border, and to threaten the
regime’s survival.
If threats are never acted on, they eventually lose credibility. That’s
why enforcing the 17th UN resolution on Iraq was so crucial. The effort
to mobilize enough force – diplomatic and military – to produce Saddam’s
moment of truth on December 7, 2002 had been a year in the making. How
long could the United States focus this kind of attention on Iraq and
deploy these kinds of resources just to see that Saddam Hussein observed
the promises he made? To let this ultimatum pass and continue the cat
and mouse game indefinitely would mean paralyzing the ability of the
United States to deal with the rest of the world. While the
confrontation lasted it would cost of $1 billion a week and would mean
maintaining more than 100,000 troops in the Arab desert (sitting targets
for terrorists). Saddam, on the other hand, would have all the time in
the world to manipulate “world opinion,” delay any result and wear the
allies down. This entire exercise, moreover, would be merely extending
an effort to stop Saddam Hussein from evading sanctions and controls
that had been going on for more than a decade. It should be self-evident
that this “alternative” to war was merely a plan for continuing an
appeasement that had failed.
The Role of the Left
In January 2003, one detour remained on the road to Saddam’s moment of
truth, -- a detour that has since served to obscure the rationale for
the war itself. When the UN Security Council deadline passed December
7th, America and Britain were alone among the major powers willing to
enforce the resolution they had all signed onto. Saddam’s longtime ally
told Secretary of State Colin Powell that even though Saddam had now
defied his 17th UN resolution would veto a decision to go to war “under
any circumstances (quelles que soient les circonstances).”[4] In
January, 750,000 anti-war protesters appeared in the streets of London
to join the French opposition and say no to war. The size of this
demonstration was equivalent to 4 million protesters in the streets of
Washington.
Four million American protesters would not even be the full equivalent
of the political fact that confronted Tony Blair. The protesters were
members of his own party. A proper equivalent would have been if
millions of Republicans had marched in Washington to oppose enforcement
of the Security Council resolution. To meet this opposition Tony Blair
pleaded with President Bush to go back to the U.N. Security Council and
present whatever intelligence information was required to get a second –
albeit entirely superfluous – UN resolution. This, in itself, was an
appeasement of Saddam who had brazenly defied the UN resolution. But
because Tony Blair was such a loyal ally the President said yes.
In retrospect, he should not have done so. First of all, because after
Colin Powell’s presentation of new evidence to the UN, the French
informed him, that no evidence would persuade them – that they would not
vote for a resolution to go to war “under any circumstances.” We now
know that the French had been bribed with millions of dollars stolen
from the UN Oil-for-Food program and the promise of billions of dollars
in oil contracts from Saddam. But this was hardly necessary for their
opposition to action on the resolution they had voted for, since they
had been Saddam’s allies for decades.
There was a second and far more important reason not to go to Security
to persuade its unpersuadeable members (Russia and China were also
Saddam’s allies with a veto over the decision) to vote for another
superfluous resolution. In order to make his case to the recalcitrant
left, Powell had to stretch the available evidence and make claims about
the existence of actual weapons of mass destruction that proved
unsustainable. The reason to go to war was the defiance of the UN
ultimatum (and of sixteen previous UN resolutions). But Colin Powell’s
presentation gave enough of an impression that the reason for war was
the existence of stockpiles of wmds as to cloud and confuse the entire
debate about the war. It was Colin Powell’s presentation that became the
basis for the left’s unprincipled attack on the President for allegedly
“misleading” the nation into war.
The war in Iraq was not about weapons of mass destruction; it was about
Saddam Hussein's ten-year defiance of international law and his manifest
determination to break the UN’s arms control arrangements in order to
acquire weapons of mass destruction. There was no rush to war, but
rather a deliberate march to war authorized by both political parties
and a unanimous vote of the Security Council (which France and Russia
and China had no intention of honoring). It was not unilateral, and it
was not about a “non-existent imminent threat,” as the party of
appeasement has claimed.
In his State of the Union speech on January 28, 2003, right before the
fighting began, the President said in so many words that we were not
going to wait until Saddam Hussein became an imminent threat. We were
not going to wait until Saddam already had the weapons in place and the
plan to attack us was afoot. We were not going to wait until
he struck us first. “Some have said we must not act until the threat is
imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their
intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this
threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all
words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the
sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not
an option.”[5]
This was the president’s message: Saddam will comply with the UN
ultimatum. He will disarm and prove that he has disarmed, or we will
disarm him.
The Party of Appeasement
It was this policy that the Democratic Party and its leaders reluctantly
supported and then opposed after the fact, weakening the war to
consolidate the victory and establish a democratic regime in Iraq. How
did the Democratic Party come to be a party of appeasement in the
approach to war, and a saboteur of the war effort after the fighting has
started? How did it come so powerfully under the influence of an
historically anti-American left?
It is not difficult to date the leftward slide of the Democratic Party.
It began with the McGovern presidential campaign of 1972, whose slogan
was “American come home,” as though America was the problem and not the
aggression of the Communist bloc. The McGovern campaign drew in the rank
and file of the anti-Vietnam left much as the anti-Cold War Henry
Wallace Progressive Party campaign of 1948 and the Howard Dean anti-Iraq
campaign of 2004. McGovern himself was a veteran of the Wallace campaign
and, virtually all the leaders of the anti-Iraq movement, including most
of the Democratic Party leaders who supported it are veterans of the
anti-Vietnam campaign.
I have lived this history as both spectator and actor. My parents were
Communists, and my first political march was a Communist Party May Day
parade in 1948 supporting the the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace
and the Progressive Party campaign against the Cold War, which meant
against America’s effort to contain Communism and prevent the Stalin
regime from expanding its empire into Western Europe. Our change was
this: “One, two, three, four, we don’t want another war/Five, six,
seven, eight, win with Wallace in ’48.”
This campaign was the seed of the anti-war movement of Vietnam, and thus
of the political left’s influence over the post-Vietnam foreign policy
of the Democratic Party. The Wallace campaign marked an exodus of the
anti-American left from the Democratic Party; the movement that opposed
America’s war in Vietnam marked its return. As a post-graduate student
at Berkeley in the early Sixties, I was one of the organizers of the
first demonstration against the war in Vietnam. It was 1962 and the
organizers of this demonstration as of all the major anti-Vietnam
demonstrations (and those against the Iraq war as well) was a Marxist
and a leftist. The organizers of the movement against the war in Vietnam
were activists who thought the Communists were liberating Vietnam in the
same way Michael Moore thinks Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is liberating Iraq.
In 1968, Tom Hayden and the anti-war left incited a riot at the
Democratic Party convention which effectively ended the presidential
hopes of the Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey, who was
Lyndon Johnson’s Vice President was a supporter of the war. This paved
the way for George McGovern’s failed presidential run against the war in
1972.
The following year, President Nixon signed a truce in Vietnam and
withdrew American troops. His goal was “peace with honor,” which meant
denying a Communist victory in South Vietnam. The truce was an uneasy
one depending on a credible American threat to resume hostilities if the
Communists violated the truce.
Three years earlier, Nixon had signaled an end to the draft and the
massive national anti-war demonstrations had drawn to a halt. But a
vanguard of activists continued the war against America’s support for
the anti-Communist war effort in Vietnam. Among them were John Kerry and
Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. They held a war crimes tribunal, condemning
America’s role in Vietnam and conducted a campaign to persuade the
Democrats in Congress to cut all aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia. When
Nixon was forced to resign after Watergate, the Democrats cut the aid as
their first legislative act. They did this in January 1975. In April,
the Cambodian and South Vietnamese regimes fell.
The events that followed this retreat in Indo-China have been all but
forgotten by the left, which has never learned the lessons of Vietnam,
but instead has invoked the retreat itself an inspiration and guide for
its political opposition to the war in Iraq. Along with leading
Democrats like party chairman Terry McAuliffe, George McGovern called
for an American retreat from Iraq even before a government could be
established to deny the country to the Saddamist remnants and Islamic
terrorists: “I did not want any Americans to risk their lives in Iraq.
We should bring home those who are there.” Explained McGovern: “Once we
left Vietnam and quit bombing its people they became friends and trading
partners.”[6]
Actually that is not what happened. Four months after the Democrats cut
off aid to Cambodia and Vietnam in Jaunary 1975, both regimes fell to
the Communist armies. Within three years the Communist victors had
slaughtered two and a half million peasants in the Indo-Chinese
peninsula, paving the way for their socialist paradise. The blood of
those victims is on the hands of the Americans who forced this
withdrawal -- John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean and George McGovern,
and anti-war activists like myself.
It is true that Vietnam eventually became a trading partner (“friend” is
another matter). But this was not “once we left and quit bombing its
people.” Before that took place, a Republican President confronted the
Soviet Union in Europe and Afghanistan and forced the collapse of the
Soviet empire. It was only then, after the Cold War enemy and support of
the Vietnamese Communists had been defeated that they accommodated
themselves to co-existence with the United States.
The “blame America first” mentality so manifest in this McGovern
statement is endemic to the appeasement mentality that the progressive
Senator so typifies: “Iraq has been nestled along the Tigris and
Euphrates for 6,000 years. It will be there 6,000 more whether we stay
or leave, as earlier conquerors learned.” In McGovern’s
Alice-in-Wonderland universe, Iraq did not invade two countries, use
chemical weapons on its Kurdish population, attempt to assassinate a
U.S. president, spend tens of billions of dollars on banned weapons
programs, aid and abet Islamic terrorists bent on destroying the West,
and defy 17 UN resolutions to disarm itself, open its borders to UN
inspectors, and adhere to the terms of the UN truce it had signed when
its aggression in Kuwait was thwarted.
The “blame America first” mentality so manifest in this McGovern
statement is endemic to the appeasement mentality that the progressive
Senator so typifies: “Iraq has been nestled along the Tigris and
Euphrates for 6,000 years. It will be there 6,000 more whether we stay
or leave, as earlier conquerors learned.” In McGovern’s
Alice-in-Wonderland universe, Iraq did not invade two countries, use
chemical weapons on its Kurdish population, attempt to assassinate a
U.S. president, spend tens of billions of dollars on banned weapons
programs, aid and abet Islamic terrorists bent on destroying the West,
and defy 17 UN resolutions to disarm itself, open its borders to UN
inspectors, and adhere to the terms of the UN truce it had signed when
its aggression in Kuwait was thwarted.
During the battle over Vietnam policy, thirty years ago, Nixon and
supporters of the war effort had warned the anti-war left of the
consequences that would follow if their campaign was successful. If the
United States were to leave the field of battle and retreat, the
Communists would engineer a “bloodbath” of revenge and to complete their
revolutionary design. When confronted by these warnings, George
McGovern, John Kerry and other anti-Vietnam activists dismissed them out
of hand. This was just an attempt to justify an imperialist aggression.
Time proved the anti-war activists to be tragically, catastrophically
wrong, although they have never had the decency to admit it.
If the United States were to leave the battlefield in Iraq now, before
the peace is secured (and thus repeat the earlier retreat), there would
be a bloodbath along the Tigris and Euphrates as well. The jihadists
will slaughter our friends, our allies, and all of the Iraqis who are
struggling for their freedom. Given the nature of the terrorist war we
are in, this bloodbath would also flow into the streets of Washington
and New York and potentially every American city. The jihadists have
sworn to kill us all. People who think America is invulnerable, that
America can just leave the field of this battle and there will be peace,
do not begin to understand the world we confront.
Or if they understand it, they have tilted their allegiance to the other
side. McGovern’s phrase “as earlier conquerors learned,” speaks volumes
about the perverse moral calculus of the progressive left. To McGovern
we are conquerors, which makes the Zarqawi terrorists “liberators,” or
as Michael Moore would prefer, “patriots.” The left that wants America
to throw in the towel in Iraq is hyper-sensitive to questions about its
loyalties but at the same time can casually refer to our presence in
Iraq as an “invasion and occupation.” It wants to use the language of
morality but it only wants the standard to apply in one direction. There
is no one-dimensional such standard, and a politics of surrender is not
a politics of peace.
The War At Home
The root cause of the division over the war in Iraq, as over the war in
Vietnam, is a left that is alienated from the national purpose and
believes that mankind will be better off if America loses the war with
radical Islam. In the Cold War, this same left gave moral and political
support to our Communist enemies; in this war it has entered an “unholy
alliance”[7] with radical Islam to defeat us in the war on terror.
Its opposition to America’s wartime agendas is not limited to our
efforts abroad or in Iraq; it is also at war with our homeland security
defenses. There are already more than 350 American cities, which under
the instigation of the political left have signed pledges refusing to
cooperate with Homeland Security, particularly in regard to the
protection of the nation’s borders. This movement is spear-headed by the
American Civil Liberties Union, the National Lawyers Guild and the legal
left which provides not only intellectual leadership but active counsel
for indicted terrorists.
The inspirer of the movement against the Patriot Act is himself an
indicted terrorist, Sami al-Arian, former professor of engineering at
the University of South Florida and head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a
suicide bombing cult responsible for the murders of more than a hundred
innocent people, including two Americans. In 1996, al-Arian founded an
organization called the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom.
Its purpose was to oppose the precursor of the Patriot Act -- an
anti-terrorism bill proposed by the Clinton administration in the wake
of the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Al-Arian became
a leading figure in the civil liberties left, embraced by his colleagues
at the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild,
organizations with long histories of obstructing America’s national
security organizations.
Al-Arian opposed the anti-terrorist act because it outlawed “material
support for terror” and allowed the use of secret evidence in terrorist
cases. But constitutional issues were hardly the motivating factor for
al-Arian whose real motive in opposing the measure was that his
brother-in-law and co-conspirator had been arrested under its
provisions, as a principal in the terrorist organization called
Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Sami al-Arian is still defended by the ACLU and the National Lawyers
Guild, one of whose chief executives, Kit Gage, now heads Al-Arian’s
organization. This “legal left” regards him as a victim of racial
profiling and the Bush Administration’s over zealous prosecution of the
war on terror and alleged disregard for the Bill of Rights. Said
al-Arian on his arrest: “I’m a minority. I’m an Arab. I’m a Palestinian.
I’m a Muslim. That’s not a popular thing to be these days. Do I have
rights, or don’t I have rights?”
The indictment of al-Arian is 120 pages long and consists of years of
tapped phone transcripts showing him involved in planning and financing
suicide bombings in the Middle East. Although he was exposed by
journalists at the Miami Herald in the early 1990’s, the federal
government could not arrest him because of legal obstacles that blocked
their investigations, obstacles that had been put in place by
anti-Vietnam Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s and that were only removed
by the Patriot Act. For nearly a decade, al-Arian was protected by the
president of the University of South Florida, Betty Coster, the
Democratic Party’s senatorial candidate in the 2004 elections.
Sami al-Arian is hardly unique. National Lawyers Guild attorney and
veteran leftist, Lynne Stewart, has also been indicted by the Justice
Department. Like Al-Arian, Stewart is actively defended by the ACLU, the
legal left and the politically sympathetic American Association of
University Professors, as well as radical magazines like Salon.com and
The Nation. Stewart is under indictment for helping her client, the
blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, conduct terrorist activities in Egypt.
Rahman is the leader of the Islamic Group, a terrorist cult that bombed
the World Trade Center in 1993. Lynne Stewart is on record saying she
believes the terrorists are liberationists and freedom fighters. “They
are basically forces of national liberation,” she told the Marxist
publication Monthly Review; “and I think that we, as persons who are
committed to the liberation of oppressed people, should fasten on the
need for self-determination. … My own sense is that, were the Islamists
to be empowered, there would be movements within their own countries …
to liberate.”[8]
How is it possible that people who think of themselves as advocates of
social justice can lend aid and comfort to Islamic radicals who behead
people and blow women’s heads off with AK-47s when they are suspected of
having sexual relations outside of marriage? How can self-styled
progressives embrace such people? They can under the logic that the
enemy of my enemy is my friend. In 1993, Stewart was honored by the
National Lawyers Guild at its annual convention and told her adoring
audience: “We have in Washington a poisonous government that spreads its
venom to the body politic in all corners of the globe. We now resume …
our quests … like David going forth to meet Goliath, like Beowulf the
dragon slayer, … like Sir Galahad seeking the holy grail. And modern
heroes, dare I mention? Ho and Mao and Lenin, Fidel and Nelson Mandela
and John Brown, Che Guevara who reminds us, ‘At the risk of seeming
ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great
feeling of love.’”
The unholy alliance between radical Islam and the American left is
forged by their perception of a common enemy, which is the United
States. They act under the delusion that is common to all radicals who
believe they can “change the world,” that they can give birth to new
world in which “social justice” prevails. This idea of a socially just
world is the contemporary vision of communism and socialism. It is the
secular analog of the 72 virgins that await Islamic jihadists in Muslim
heaven.
Muslim martyrs commit mass murder in order to get into paradise. This is
a precise description of the progressive agenda. Why does the left want
help the Islamic radicals to destroy America? To get into paradise. Call
it socialism; call it Communism; call it social justice. It is a dream
of the future that is so enticing it will justify any crime required to
achieve it.
The radical left does not understand that the root cause of the social
problems that confront is humanity itself. We are the root cause of the
inequalities and injustices that we face. There will never be a socially
just world because the “new” world that revolutionaries create will be
run by the same human beings, who are corrupt and selfish and fallible
by nature. A hundred million corpses in the Twentieth Century, the human
detritus of the socialist experiment attest to this fact. To ignore it –
and this is the basis of the revived political left – is delusional, but
that does not make it any less dangerous. Radicals have a parallel goal
to the goal of the jihadists, which is paradise on earth. And they have
the same enemy, which is the Great Satan, i.e., the United States.
To confront this enemy in our midst we must reverse its perceptions. The
mantra of the left is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” To defend
ourselves we must adopt the view that the friend of my enemy is my enemy.
Click Here to return to Part One of this speech.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq, NY 2004, p. 109
[2] Blix, Disarming Iraq, pp. 106 et seq. Unholy Alliance: “When the
deadline arrived, the Iraq regime provided a report that was generally
conceded not to have met the terms of the ultimatum. U.N. chief
inspector Hans Blix summarized the Iraqi submission: ‘The chemical area
of the text was an updated version of a declaration submitted in 1996.
The missile part also had largely the same content as a declaration of
1996, with updates added. I reported to the Council that our preliminary
examination of the declaration had not provided material or evidence
that solved any of the unresolved disarmament issues.’ These included
the fact that ‘8,500 liters of anthrax, 2,100 kilograms of bacterial
growth media, 1.5 metric tons of VX nerve agent and 6,500 chemical
bombs’ that the U.N. inspectors had ascertained were at one time in
Saddam’s possession were unaccounted for.[2] Resolution 1441 had called
on Saddam Hussein to document their destruction. Even the French
ambassador noted that ‘there was no new information in the
declaration,…’[2] Afterwards Blix wrote of the declaration, ‘My gut
feelings, which I kept to myself, suggested to me that Iraq still
engaged in prohibited activities and retained prohibited items, and that
it had the documents to prove it.’”
[3] Cited in David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance, p. 227
[4] Unholy Alliance, op. cit. p.216; cf. William Shawcross, Allies: The
US, Britain, Europe and the War in Iraq, NY 2004 p. 148
[5] Cited in Unholy Alliance, p. 227
[6] Los Angeles Times, December 25, 2004
[7] David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American
Left, Regnery 2004
[8] Monthly Review, November 25, 2002. Reprinted in
www.frontagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=4764
KA6UUP
> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>
>
The Unholy Alliance Revealed
By Douglas Davis
The Spectator | August 23, 2005
Politics makes strange bedfellows. Stranger still when the odd couple
are fundamentalist Islam and the secular Left. The evolving Black-Red
alliance is growing in France, Germany and Belgium. But, based on the
successful British model, it is now going global to declare war on the
war on terror.
No fewer than three international conferences have been convened in
Cairo, presided over by the former president of Algeria, Ahmed Ben
Bella, under the auspices of the International Campaign Against US and
Zionist Occupations. One outcome is 'The Cairo Declaration Against US
Hegemony, War on Iraq and Solidarity with Palestine.' British
signatories included Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn and, of course, the
indefatigable George Galloway, whose 'fiery' participation won
honourable mention in Egypt's semi-official newspaper, Al-Ahram.
If Iraq was the catalyst for the Black-Red alliance, the Stop the War
coalition provided the cauldron in which the union was consummated. The
result is a pure gestalt: the coalition allows its constituent parts to
pack a far greater collective punch than they could have dreamt of on
their own. Putting a million people on to the streets of London is not,
after all, small potatoes.
The steering committee of the Marxist-Islamist alliance consists of 33
members - 18 from myriad hard-Left groups, three from the radical wing
of the Labour party, eight from the ranks of the radical Islamists and
four leftist ecologists (also known as 'Watermelons' -green outside, red
inside). The chairman is Andrew Murray, a leading light in the British
Communist party; co-chair is Muhammad Aslam Ijaz, of the London Council
of Mosques. Among the major players from the Left are Lindsey German,
who resigned as editor of the Socialist Workers' party newspaper to
become convenor of the Stop the War coalition; John Rees, also of the
SWP, and, of course, George Galloway. Indeed, the first proud progeny of
the alliance is Galloway's Respect party, which fought and won the
London seat of Bethnal Green and Bow, with its substantial Muslim
electorate.
Points of potential disagreement between the hard Left and radical Islam
- democracy, human rights, xenophobia, free-expression, feminism,
homosexuality, abortion, among many others - would seem to pose
insuperable barriers to the union. Not so. The hurdles have been neatly
vaulted in the interest of mutual hatreds: America, Israel,
globalisation, capitalism and imperialism. Anti-Semitism is never far
from the surface.
True, there is some squeamishness within the 'house of horrors'. Dissent
is evident in the Socialist Workers' party but not in the Muslim
Association of Britain, which was inspired by the fundamentalist Muslim
Brotherhood and now shelters under the umbrella of Sir Iqbal Sacranie's
Muslim Council of Britain (it was, let it not be forgotten, the good Sir
Iqbal who, before being scrubbed up and knighted, declared that 'death
is perhaps too easy' for the allegedly blasphemous Salman Rushdie; it
was Sir Iqbal, too, who refused to participate in this year's Holocaust
memorial events because they did not refer to the supposed genocide of
the Palestinians).
Those on the Left who support the alliance have found not only a
revitalising cause but also an unexpected and deep hinterland from which
to draw support. 'The practical benefits of working together are enough
to compensate for the differences,' I was told. 'And success tends to
win the argument.' Such opportunism exposes a strain of pernicious
racism that allows the Left to indulge outrageous bigotry as long as it
is espoused by brown people.
'The far Left will always support Third World peoples against what they
view as an imperialist West,' notes one analyst who has closely followed
the phenomenon. Another says, 'Islamists in the West have skilfully used
the tools of intellectual intimidation to build an inviolate wall around
Islam, giving it a sacred status that brooks no criticism.' The French
Leftist leader Olivier Besançonneau added political piquancy when
explaining his inclusivist approach to the Islamists: 'Are these not the
new slaves? Is it not natural they should unite with the working class
to destroy the capitalist system?'
But there are small voices of doubt. To some within Britain's Trotskyite
Alliance for Workers' Liberty, the unholy marriage is outright heresy.
One Trot describes SWP advocates of the Black-Red alliance as
'demoralised Guardian readers with headscarves', a withering allusion to
the SWP organiser who ordered secular, socialist women to cover their
heads while demonstrating with their Muslim sisters outside the Israeli
embassy in London. And he is scathing of SWP monitors who enforced
gender segregation to mollify Muslim sensibilities at a demonstration in
Trafalgar Square. 'Marxists are secular or they are not Marxists,' said
the Trot with principled purity.
Dogma runs deep. The Islamists accentuate the positive, noting
Galloway's opposition to abortion and his professed religious faith,
which, according to one, 'will surely be welcomed by British Muslims who
see Respect as a real alternative'. And why complain when the Left is so
obligingly on message? Take Spark, the organ of Arthur Scargill's
Socialist Labour party, which hailed Asif Mohammed Hanif, the British
suicide-bomber who attacked a beachfront bar in Tel Aviv, as a 'hero of
the revolutionary youth'. Hanif, declared the paper, had carried out his
mission 'in the spirit of internationalism'.
The fact is the coalition has been a godsend to both sides. The Left, a
once-dwindling band of communists, Trotskyites, Maoists and Castroists,
had been clinging to the dregs of a clapped-out cause; the Islamists
could deliver numbers and passion, but they needed a vehicle to give
them purchase on the political terrain. A tactical alliance became an
operational imperative.
Indeed, the first to advocate the Black-Red alliance was none other than
Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden and ideologue of al-Qa'eda.
In a message delivered in August 2002, he called on sympathisers to seek
allies among 'any movement that opposes America, even atheists'. This
sentiment was refined in London by Abu Hamza al-Masri, the hook-handed
Islamist from Central Casting who is currently fighting extradition to
the United States on terrorism charges. 'We say to anyone who hates the
Americans and wants to throw the Jews out of Palestine - Ahlan wa Sahlan
(welcome). The Prophet teaches that we could ally ourselves even with
the atheists if it helps us destroy [the] enemy.'
But the Tora Bora Award for Chutzpah goes to George Galloway, veteran
champion of Arab and Islamist causes. Appearing on al-Jazeera television
last month, he attacked the West while extolling Islamic virtue. 'It's
not the Muslims who are the terrorists,' he declared. 'The biggest
terrorists are Bush and Blair, Berlusconi and Aznar.... We believe in
the Prophets, peace be upon them. [Bush] believes in the profits, and
how to get a piece of them. That's his god.'
Marx meets Mohammed. High theatre meets low farce. The savvy Galloway,
now more godly than gorgeous, has created a conduit through which
Islamofascism pumps its poison into Britain's political bloodstream. It
would be quite funny were it not so serious.
KA6UUP
liberals, to repeat after me: “The men who flew the planes into the
Trade Towers were evil fuckheads. They were simply a bunch of Ted Bundy
psychos who perverted the teachings of a great and ancient religion to
justify mass murder. As a patriotic American liberal, I will not attempt
to ‘understand’ the terrorists, or ‘explain’ their behavior, or blame
their victims. Instead, I will recognize that the United States, while
far from perfect, is the most progressive and inclusive society in the
history of the world. And it is the fundamentalists of the world,
including many of our own from the right and left, who hate us and want
to destroy us precisely because of our progressive and inclusive
society. Osama and his gang hate women’s rights, gay rights, the
separation of church and state, freedom of speech and religion, and
pretty much everything else about us, except for maybe the 2nd
amendment. So, as patriotic American liberals, in love with our country,
and in love with womens’ rights, gay rights, the separation of church
and state, freedom of speech and religion, and pretty much everything
else about us, except for maybe the 2nd amendment, we must battle all
forms of fundamentalism, foreign and domestic. Okay, folks, let’s do
that again: The men who flew the planes into the Trade Towers were evil
fuckheads...”
Sherman Alexie
FDR
"KA6UUP" <ka6...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:7yvRe.112$I91...@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
Shall we go over there and splash the evil with Holy water and make them
vaporize?
FDR
> SeeingEyeDog wrote:
>
>> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>>
>>
> The Unholy Alliance Revealed
> By Douglas Davis
> The Spectator | August 23, 2005
Let me go get my crucfix.
FDR
> Lately, when I give talks, I encourage the folks, especially the liberals,
> to repeat after me: “The men who flew the planes into the Trade Towers
> were evil fuckheads.
Let me guess. Evil fuckheads, was that John Wayne or maybe it was Charles
Bronson?
They were simply a bunch of Ted Bundy
> psychos who perverted the teachings of a great and ancient religion to
> justify mass murder. As a patriotic American liberal, I will not attempt
> to ‘understand’ the terrorists, or ‘explain’ their behavior, or blame
> their victims. Instead, I will recognize that the United States, while far
> from perfect, is the most progressive and inclusive society in the history
> of the world.
Just how inclusive were we that we didn't let blacks have equal rights until
recently and let women vote?
Then again, the Iraqis aren't going to let theri women have as may rights as
men, but that's the "freedom" we're giving them as a gift.
And it is the fundamentalists of the world,
> including many of our own from the right and left, who hate us and want to
> destroy us precisely because of our progressive and inclusive society.
> Osama and his gang hate women’s rights,
So do conservatives.
> gay rights,
Wow, so do conservatives.
> the separation of church and state,
There is one?
> freedom of speech
Unless you wish the President bad thoughts.
> and religion,
Well, the religion has to be Christian. After all, we don't allow for any
other religion to be taught in school.
and
> pretty much everything else about us, except for maybe the 2nd amendment.
> So, as patriotic American liberals, in love with our country, and in love
> with womens’ rights, gay rights, the separation of church and state,
> freedom of speech and religion, and pretty much everything else about us,
> except for maybe the 2nd amendment, we must battle all forms of
> fundamentalism,
Can we include Pat Robertson fundamentalism in there?
FDR
One last thing. You may call Osama and his buddies evil. I just think they
are power hungry a-holes. I don't think they look at us and care about our
freedoms. They just have a need to show they are powerful by destroying a
big nation. If he cared about freedoms, he would have picked another
target. But he chose the WTC because it represented money, the economy and
an icon of America. Thinking that he cares about all that other crap you
posted is just some patriotic and nationalist rhetoric.
KA6UUP
my mind."
KA6UUP
my mind."
KA6UUP
KA6UUP
my mind."
KA6UUP
> Do you believe there are WMD in Iraq. Do you believe now that Iraq
was an
> immediate threat to the US?
>
>
"THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that Saddam Hussein was connected in any way to al
Qaeda."
So declared CNN Anchor Carol Costello in an interview yesterday with
Representative Robin Hayes (no relation) from North Carolina.
Hayes politely challenged her claim. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you're
mistaken. There's evidence everywhere. We get access to it.
Unfortunately, others don't."
CNN played the exchange throughout the day. At one point, anchor Daryn
Kagan even seemed to correct Rep. Hayes after replaying the clip. "And
according to the record, the 9/11 Commission in its final report found
no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."
The CNN claims are wrong. Not a matter of nuance. Not a matter of
interpretation. Just plain incorrect. They are so mistaken, in fact,
that viewers should demand an on-air correction.
But such claims are, sadly, representative of the broad media
misunderstanding of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Richard
Cohen, columnist for the Washington Post, regularly chides the Bush
administration for presenting what he calls fabricated or "fictive"
links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The editor of the Los Angeles Times
scolded the Bush administration for perpetuating the "myth" of such
links. "Sixty Minutes" anchor Lesley Stahl put it bluntly: "There was no
connection."
Conveniently, such analyses ignore statements like this one from Thomas
Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "There was no question in our
minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda." Hard to
believe reporters just missed it--he made
the comments at the press conference held to release the commission's
final report. And that report detailed several "friendly contacts"
between Iraq and al Qaeda, and concluded only that there was no proof of
Iraqi involvement in al Qaeda terrorist attacks against American
interests. Details, details.
There have been several recent developments. One month ago, Jordan's
King Abdullah explained to the Arabic-language newspaper al Hayat that
his government had tried before the Iraq war to extradite Abu Musab al
Zarqawi from Iraq. "We had information that he entered Iraq from a
neighboring country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed
the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but
they didn't respond." He added: "Since Zarqawi entered Iraq before the
fall of the former regime we have been trying to have him deported back
to Jordan for trial, but our efforts were in vain."
One week later, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told the same
newspaper that the new Iraqi government is in possession of documents
showing that Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's top deputy, and Zarqawi both
entered Iraq in September 1999. (If the documents are authentic, they
suggest that Zarqawi may have plotted the Jordanian Millennium attacks
from Iraq.)
Beyond what people are saying about the Iraq-al Qaeda connection, there
is the evidence. In 1992 the Iraqi Intelligence services compiled a list
of its assets. On page 14 of the document, marked "Top Secret" and dated
March 28, 1992, is the name of Osama bin Laden, who is reported to have
a "good relationship" with the Iraqi intelligence section in Syria. The
Defense Intelligence Agency has possession of the document and has
assessed that it is accurate. In 1993, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden
reached an "understanding" that Islamic radicals would refrain from
attacking the Iraqi regime in exchange for unspecified assistance,
including weapons development. This understanding, which was included in
the Clinton administration's indictment of bin Laden in the spring of
1998, has been corroborated by numerous Iraqis and al Qaeda terrorists
now in U.S. custody. In 1994, Faruq Hijazi, then deputy director of
Iraqi Intelligence, met face-to-face with bin Laden. Bin Laden requested
anti-ship limpet mines and training camps in Iraq. Hijazi has detailed
the meeting in a custodial interview with U.S. interrogators. In 1995,
according to internal Iraqi intelligence documents first reported by the
New York Times on June 25, 2004, a "former director of operations for
Iraqi Intelligence Directorate 4 met with Mr. bin Laden on Feb. 19."
When bin Laden left Sudan in 1996, the document states, Iraqi
intelligence sough "other channels through which to handle the
relationship, in light of his current location." That same year, Hussein
agreed to a request from bin Laden to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on
Iraqi state television. In 1997, al Qaeda sent an emissary with the nom
de guerre Abdullah al Iraqi to Iraq for training on weapons of mass
destruction. Colin Powell cited this evidence in his presentation at the
UN on February 5, 2003. The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded
that Powell's presentation on Iraq and terrorism was "reasonable."
"THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that Saddam Hussein was connected in any way to al
Qaeda."
So declared CNN Anchor Carol Costello in an interview yesterday with
Representative Robin Hayes (no relation) from North Carolina.
Hayes politely challenged her claim. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you're
mistaken. There's evidence everywhere. We get access to it.
Unfortunately, others don't."
CNN played the exchange throughout the day. At one point, anchor Daryn
Kagan even seemed to correct Rep. Hayes after replaying the clip. "And
according to the record, the 9/11 Commission in its final report found
no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."
The CNN claims are wrong. Not a matter of nuance. Not a matter of
interpretation. Just plain incorrect. They are so mistaken, in fact,
that viewers should demand an on-air correction.
But such claims are, sadly, representative of the broad media
misunderstanding of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Richard
Cohen, columnist for the Washington Post, regularly chides the Bush
administration for presenting what he calls fabricated or "fictive"
links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The editor of the Los Angeles Times
scolded the Bush administration for perpetuating the "myth" of such
links. "Sixty Minutes" anchor Lesley Stahl put it bluntly: "There was no
connection."
Conveniently, such analyses ignore statements like this one from Thomas
Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission. "There was no question in our
minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda." Hard to
believe reporters just missed it--he made
the comments at the press conference held to release the commission's
final report. And that report detailed several "friendly contacts"
between Iraq and al Qaeda, and concluded only that there was no proof of
Iraqi involvement in al Qaeda terrorist attacks against American
interests. Details, details.
There have been several recent developments. One month ago, Jordan's
King Abdullah explained to the Arabic-language newspaper al Hayat that
his government had tried before the Iraq war to extradite Abu Musab al
Zarqawi from Iraq. "We had information that he entered Iraq from a
neighboring country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed
the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but
they didn't respond." He added: "Since Zarqawi entered Iraq before the
fall of the former regime we have been trying to have him deported back
to Jordan for trial, but our efforts were in vain."
One week later, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told the same
newspaper that the new Iraqi government is in possession of documents
showing that Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's top deputy, and Zarqawi both
entered Iraq in September 1999. (If the documents are authentic, they
suggest that Zarqawi may have plotted the Jordanian Millennium attacks
from Iraq.)
Beyond what people are saying about the Iraq-al Qaeda connection, there
is the evidence. In 1992 the Iraqi Intelligence services compiled a list
of its assets. On page 14 of the document, marked "Top Secret" and dated
March 28, 1992, is the name of Osama bin Laden, who is reported to have
a "good relationship" with the Iraqi intelligence section in Syria. The
Defense Intelligence Agency has possession of the document and has
assessed that it is accurate. In 1993, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden
reached an "understanding" that Islamic radicals would refrain from
attacking the Iraqi regime in exchange for unspecified assistance,
including weapons development. This understanding, which was included in
the Clinton administration's indictment of bin Laden in the spring of
1998, has been corroborated by numerous Iraqis and al Qaeda terrorists
now in U.S. custody. In 1994, Faruq Hijazi, then deputy director of
Iraqi Intelligence, met face-to-face with bin Laden. Bin Laden requested
anti-ship limpet mines and training camps in Iraq. Hijazi has detailed
the meeting in a custodial interview with U.S. interrogators. In 1995,
according to internal Iraqi intelligence documents first reported by the
New York Times on June 25, 2004, a "former director of operations for
Iraqi Intelligence Directorate 4 met with Mr. bin Laden on Feb. 19."
When bin Laden left Sudan in 1996, the document states, Iraqi
intelligence sough "other channels through which to handle the
relationship, in light of his current location." That same year, Hussein
agreed to a request from bin Laden to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on
Iraqi state television. In 1997, al Qaeda sent an emissary with the nom
de guerre Abdullah al Iraqi to Iraq for training on weapons of mass
destruction. Colin Powell cited this evidence in his presentation at the
UN on February 5, 2003. The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded
that Powell's presentation on Iraq and terrorism was "reasonable."
KA6UUP
>
> Do you believe there are WMD in Iraq. Do you believe now that Iraq was an
> immediate threat to the US?
>
>
Jay Bryant (archive)
June 1, 2004
News media bias is at least as often evident in the stories that are not
reported, or are underreported, than in actual manipulation of the facts
in stories that are reported.
Right now, there are a number of truly important news stories that are
receiving vastly less coverage than they deserve, including the United
Nations Oil For Food Program scandal, the vitriolic opposition to John
Kerry by a majority of the officers who served in his boat squadron in
Vietnam and Al Gore's hate-filled speech at MoveOn.org – which has been
treated as a one-day story (on interior pages in both the NY Times and
Washington Post, with the most inflammatory parts left out.) The truth
is that Gore's manic remarks are at least as over the top as were those
of his friend Howard Dean on the night of the Iowa primary.
But that was then, this is now, and don't look for the mainstream press
to do anything that might help George W. Bush.
The mother of all underreported stories is the growing evidence for a
conspiracy between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.
There is probably no greater divide between those who support President
Bush and his administration on Iraq than this question: is the War in
Iraq a component of the War on Terrorism, or is it a distraction from
the War on Terrorism? For the Administration and its supporters, the
first view is fundamental; with Iraq in the hands of Saddam Hussein, the
War on Terrorism could never be won. This is not quite the same thing as
saying that Saddam and al-Qaeda were in cahoots, but if they were, then
the case is made ipso facto. If moreover, Saddam was somehow implicated
in 9/11, the case is not only made, it becomes of the utmost importance.
Liberal orthodoxy holds that there was no connection. Saddam was a
secularist; Osama and his followers are among the most extreme theists
who have ever lived. They are, therefore, natural enemies. So, over and
over, the media – expressing the liberal view – has refused to give any
credence whatsoever to the proposition that however different the two
men may be on many issues, Osama and Saddam nonetheless fit under at
least one tent quite nicely, and that tent, from at least 1991, has been
the one with the sign that reads "Hate America."
At least two separate lines of evidence point to a pre-9/11 Saddam-Osama
axis of evil. The Czechs have always maintained that 9/11 mastermind
Mohammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer, Ahmad Khalil
Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, in Prague in April, 2001. The CIA, on the other
hand, has maintained Atta was in the US at the time. But in fact, Atta's
whereabouts cannot be established between April 5 and 11, and on the
4th, he and another of the 9/11 hijackers cashed an $8,000 check in
Virginia Beach, VA.
Atta and al-Ani also apparently met in May and June of 2000 after which
Atta flew from Prague to Newark. It all sounds like Atta was an Iraqi
intelligence "asset," and al-Ani was his handler. Newsweek is now
claiming that the whole story was a fiction made up by Ahmed Chalabi
(wasn't everything?) but people who've followed the trail closely aren't
buying it.
Newsweek may not believe in an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection now, but they
used to. In their January 11, 1999 issue, they wrote: "Saddam Hussein,
who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his
intelligence network overseas-- assets that would allow him to establish
a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic
terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the
wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S.
embassies in Africa last summer." Well, as I said once before in this
article, that was then, this is now. Then, the Clinton Administration
wanted a connection, and even that paragon of honesty, Richard Clarke,
told the Washington Post there were links, a statement the Post would
duly print in January of 1999. Now, with a Republican administration,
Clarke will not admit, and the media establishment will not publish,
anything suggesting a connection.
Writer Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, has (in addition to digging
out the 1999 quotes above) detailed the second piece of evidence for an
Iraq/al-Qaeda conspiracy , which centers on another probable Iraqi
intelligence officer named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at an
al-Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. At
least three of the 9/11 hijackers were also present at that meeting. On
September 17, 2001, Shakir was arrested in Qatar and had in his
possession contact information for known al-Qaeda terrorists, including
some with 9/11 connections. He was released, arrested again when his
plane to Baghdad stopped in Jordan. Jordanian intelligence thought
they'd struck a counterintelligence deal with him and sent him on his
way to Baghdad. He has not been heard from since, according to Hayes.
Finding and publicizing an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection is probably even
more important than finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We know
why the Kerrybacking news media won't print it, and probably the only
way to get them to do so is for a top-level Bush Administration figure
to speak out. There may be vital security interests inhibiting such a
statement, or the evidence may still need shoring up.
Or else they're waiting for the right political moment, which I humbly
suggest is now.
Veteran GOP media consultant Jay Bryant's regular columns are available
at www.theoptimate.com, and his commentaries may be heard on NPR's 'All
Things Considered.'
©2004 Jay Bryant
FDR
"KA6UUP" <ka6...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:1LyRe.991$ZL4...@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
FDR
> Pathetic
Yeah, the war in Iraq is.
John S.
SeeingEyeDog wrote:
> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
No we are fighting members of several groups who themselves have been
fighting one-another for centuries. Couldn't tell you whether they are
evil, since I don't know what the word means. I do know we are priming
ourselves for a departure Viet-Nam-style and will leave a total vacuum
of power in our wake. Expect that chaos and much more killing will
occur once we depart.
cuh...@webtv.net
American Gulf Coast is all torn up,many other Cities and Towns (some
Towns have completly disapperead) in America are torn up and
devastated.I would end the "war" in Iraq very,very quickly MY WAY!
starting with Mecca!
cuhulin
David
The 9-11 Commission was a coverup.
David
The East India Company no longer cares about these colonies. They
have new societies to exploit. We are more trouble than we're worth.
They have sucked us dry. We just don't know it yet.
Andre C
>On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:47:32 -0500, "SeeingEyeDog" <loo...@u.org>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>>
>>
>To fight a war one must become evil.
So you are saying that USA and countless other allies were evil
because they fought in WWII
Carter-K8VT
>>
>
> The East India Company no longer cares about these colonies. They
> have new societies to exploit.
Can you say China? Can you say Africa? (No wonder "Lapdog" Tony Blair
wants us to start "investing" in Africa).
dxAce
Carter-K8VT wrote:
Didn't your 'lapdog' Bill Clinton also try to get investment going in Africa?
LMAO at the clueless 'tard boy yet again.
dxAce
Michigan
USA
David
That was before we saw the planet on Christmas Eve, 1968. That
changed everything.
To defeat evil, you must become evil, though.
Dresden
Nagasaki
David
wrote:
Clintons a traitor, too. Very bad policy. But he wasn't a greedy
bastard in weird homosexual secret societies with other inbred rich
fuckers.
cuh...@webtv.net
cuhulin
FDR
"Andre C" <webm...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:08leh19366mbi3qsd...@4ax.com...
Does one not fight fire with fire?
cuh...@webtv.net
will ever stop those waring factions over there.Ladies and Gents,it just
can not be done,Period!
cuhulin
cuh...@webtv.net
people have spontaneously blazed up from fire and since I am sooooo
smart and intelligent,I can tell you why.It is because they had too much
sulphur in their bodies.I want to see that Quest for Fire movie on tv
again.Potassium Permanagrante <-< (spelling,I was in the 22nd Chemical
Company at Fort Hood,Texas in 1965) and another added chemical,and that
is all I will say about that other chemical,not another word from me
about that..
cuhulin
Carter-K8VT
> Didn't your 'lapdog' Bill Clinton also try to get investment going in Africa?
1) I just quoted Blair because he is *currently* in power.
2) Slick Willy is out of power, water over the dam, history, long gone,
finis. Get over it.
3) Contrary to what you seem to keep insisting, I'm no fan or supporter
of Slick Willy...
David
Ahhh...
A better picture is starting to coagulate.
''I was in the 22nd Chemical Company at Fort Hood,Texas in 1965) and
another added chemical,and that is all I will say about that other
chemical,not another word from me about that..''
John S.
Which is why we should have never gone over there to begin with.
Fred Garvin
> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
Let me see, you have many assclowns blowing themselves up to kill as
many people as possible....
I say yes.
--
PCs, like air-conditioners, are useless when you open Windows.
Greg
> From: KA6UUP <ka6...@pacbell.net>
> Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com
> Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
> Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 04:35:15 GMT
> Subject: Re: Just One Question for Opponents of the Iraq War
>
(Snip)
> It is one thing to oppose the war in Iraq; it is quite another to deny
> the evil of those we fight there. That is what the Left in America
> routinely does. And that is why the culture war in America is as
> important as the military war in Iraq.
This, of course, is horse shit. Most reasonable people don't deny the evil
that was the Saddam Hussein regime or the evil of the terrorist insurgents.
But misrepresenting what people believe makes it easier bash the left. Why
aren't we battling the evil in Africa or South America or North Korea? You
gotta quit listening to talk radio so much KATCHUP, you're beginning to
sound like a knee jerk right wing, er, jerk.
Greg
dxAce
Greg wrote:
Say what? KATCHUP?
Folks, we got another one here off his meds.
dxAce
Michigan
USA
dxAce
-=jd=- wrote:
> On Thu 01 Sep 2005 08:56:25p, dxAce <dx...@milestones.com> wrote in
> message news:4317A339...@milestones.com:
> Should we get the net or can you handle this?
I think I can handle him, but I may need some help giving him his meds. It's
gonna take a big dose.
dxAce
Michigan
USA
Greg
> From: dxAce <dx...@milestones.com>
> Organization: Wassamatta U.
> Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
> Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 20:56:25 -0400
> Subject: Re: Just One Question for Opponents of the Iraq War
>
>
>
> Greg wrote:
>
>>> From: KA6UUP <ka6...@pacbell.net>
>>> Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com
>>> Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
>>> Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 04:35:15 GMT
>>> Subject: Re: Just One Question for Opponents of the Iraq War
>>>
>> (Snip)
>>> It is one thing to oppose the war in Iraq; it is quite another to deny
>>> the evil of those we fight there. That is what the Left in America
>>> routinely does. And that is why the culture war in America is as
>>> important as the military war in Iraq.
>>
>> This, of course, is horse shit. Most reasonable people don't deny the evil
>> that was the Saddam Hussein regime or the evil of the terrorist insurgents.
>> But misrepresenting what people believe makes it easier bash the left. Why
>> aren't we battling the evil in Africa or South America or North Korea? You
>> gotta quit listening to talk radio so much KATCHUP, you're beginning to
>> sound like a knee jerk right wing, er, jerk.
>
> Say what? KATCHUP?
>
> Folks, we got another one here off his meds.
>
> dxAce
> Michigan
> USA
>
>
Oh come on Drakeman, don't tell me you don't get it. I'll have to dumb down
my sarcasm for you.
Greg
ka...@sonic.net
It's called descending to the enemy's level, then Pogo takes
over.
ka...@sonic.net
>barne...@aol.com wrote:
>
>>>What the fuck are we doing in Iraq?
>>
>>
>> Why, Lookin fer them WMD's
>>
>
>
>They haven't found them yet? Idiots. The weapons are located North, West, East,
>South and a little North West of Baghdad.
>
>It's a SLAM DUNK!
>
`You forgot the US biolabs, national laboratories, etc.
ka...@sonic.net
wrote:
>
>The former regimists(?) used to be Saddam's henchmen and are fighting
>because they are having second thoughts about being booted out on their
>collective arses. They grew used to calling the shots and, as with the time
>honored "golden rule": those with all the gold, make all the rules /or/
>those who make all the rules get all the gold (it really works either way).
How different from all the old colonial empire-builders, huh?
At least they were the inhabitants of Iraq and didn't schlep
in from other countries.
>They would *really* like to be back in the position of holding all the gold
>at the expense of the rest of the country. I also have it on good authority
>that the former regimists are a bit "climate-sensitive". In other words,
>they don't like to fight in less than ideal weather. This rather speaks to
>a decided lack of determination and resolve on their part. So, in that they
>are seeking to re-establish their former positions of influence and
>prosperity solely for their own, individual personal gain, and don't even
>have the determination to pursue that regardless of the weather, I'd say
>they are evil-cowards too. Plus, they used to do things like feed bound-
>folks feet-first into wood-chippers. Nobody should have to tolerate that.
>
>But, that's just *my* stinkin' opinion.
>
>-=jd=-
ka...@sonic.net
<telamon_s...@pacbell.net.is.invalid> wrote:
>In article <df5nu1$u69$1...@news.netins.net>,
> "pastork" <lacpas...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Define evil.
>> "SeeingEyeDog" <loo...@u.org> wrote in message
>> news:11hcggk...@corp.supernews.com...
>> > Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
>
>Define on topic.
>
>< Plonk >
Do you have the sewage company come along to pump out your
killfile, Oh master plonker?
David
>>
>
> It's called descending to the enemy's level, then Pogo takes
>over.
The reason ''terrorism'' works is because they are willing to be more
brutal than their enemy. The only way to defeat them is to become
them.
cuh...@webtv.net
anything that makes sense except more of your stupid crap.You dont get
the picture at all and you never will! I dont feel sorry for you,I Pity
YOU!
cuhulin
cuh...@webtv.net
countries.Yes,Yes,Yes,a million times YES,I am.
cuhulin
RHF
.
David - On this we would agree.
The 9/11 Commission was a Total Cover-Up
of the Failures of the Clinton Administration [.]
.
However, the Bigger Cover-Up was Congress own Failures :
* Congress' Actions (Intelligence Fire Walls)
* Congress' In-Actions (Lack of Funding)
.
RHF's SOAP BOX :
The Real Roots of the current Problems in the US Intelligence
Services began in 1975. In 1975, Senator Frank Church (Idaho-Dem)
became the Chairman of the Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. This committee
investigated alleged abuses of power by the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAchurchF.htm
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000388
NOTE: This occured under President Ford who replaced Nixon.
FWIW: It was President Jimmy Carter who really built the
"FireWall" between the FBI and CIA.
TBL: Every Congress from 1975 to "9/11" has underfunded the
Domestic Intelligence Services and continued to foster a Legal
'disconnect' between the FBI and CIA.
so say i - my opinions stated as facts ~ RHF
. . . . .
Greg
> From: "-=jd=-" <jd77...@HATpostmark.net>
> Organization: Little... If any...
> Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
> Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 00:58:05 GMT
> Subject: Re: Just One Question for Opponents of the Iraq War
>
> On Thu 01 Sep 2005 08:56:25p, dxAce <dx...@milestones.com> wrote in
> message news:4317A339...@milestones.com:
>
>>
>>
> Should we get the net or can you handle this?
>
Forget the net - get a clue.
Greg
David
wrote:
I can't believe that our spook community follows stupid rules like
that.
an_old_friend
David wrote:
> On 2 Sep 2005 03:24:29 -0700, "RHF" <rhf-new...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
> >David - " The 9-11 Commission was a coverup. "
> >FWIW: It was President Jimmy Carter who really built the
> >"FireWall" between the FBI and CIA.
> >
> >TBL: Every Congress from 1975 to "9/11" has underfunded the
> >Domestic Intelligence Services and continued to foster a Legal
> >'disconnect' between the FBI and CIA.
> >
> >so say i - my opinions stated as facts ~ RHF
> > . . . . .
> >
> I can't believe that our spook community follows stupid rules like
> that.
believe or not it is true
and then on top of all that withing Intel there are often major tuff
battles
David
wrote:
I knew about them.
We should outsource our Intel to Mossad.
SeeingEyeDog
> >>>
> >>To fight a war one must become evil.
> >
> >So you are saying that USA and countless other allies were evil
> >because they fought in WWII
> >
> >
> changed everything.
>
> To defeat evil, you must become evil, though.
>
Fight fire with fire - soooo brilliant Dr. DaviD! - LOL
SeeingEyeDog
> The reason ''terrorism'' works is because they are willing to be more
> brutal than their enemy. The only way to defeat them is to become
> them.
>
Oh genius Dr. DaviD, please enlighten us as to what will become of us if we
do not defeat evil?
SeeingEyeDog
That is how supporters of the war regard the Baathists and the Islamic
suicide terrorists, the people we are fighting in Iraq.
Because if you cannot answer it, or avoid answering it, or answer "no," we
know enough about your moral compass to know that further dialogue is
unnecessary. In fact, dialogue is impossible. Our understanding of good and
evil is so different from yours, there is simply nothing to discuss. Someone
who was asked a hundred years ago "Do you believe that whites who lynch
blacks are evil?" and refused to answer in the affirmative was not someone
one could dialogue with.
Here are the responses you are likely to receive:
1. The Bush administration is just as evil: for illegally invading a country
that did not threaten us; for "lying" to get us into Iraq; and because it is
a war for corporate profits.
2. Some of those we are fighting may be evil, but not all; some are simply
fighting against foreign occupation of their country.
3. We cannot call anyone evil; only God can make such judgments.
I will respond to these "responses," but what is most important is to
acknowledge that none of them actually responds to the question. Anyone
posing this question to opponents of the war must not let them off the hook.
They must answer the question: Do you believe we are fighting evil people in
Iraq?
Regarding the issue of judging anyone evil, the best response is a question:
Can we judge anyone to be good (not perfect, just good)? Of course we can.
But if we can't call anyone evil, we can't call anyone good, and we
certainly know that there are good people. If there are good people, there
have to be not good, evil people.
Anyone who remains unable to morally judge people who slit the throats of
innocent people, who place bombs in the middle of markets, and who murder
anyone attempting to help women achieve basic human rights is a moral
imbecile.
As for the Bush administration being equally evil, this, too, reveals the
responder's values. It is one thing to believe the war was a mistake; it is
quite another to regard it as a function of the administration's desire to
enrich Halliburton or expand the "American empire," or because Jewish
neo-conservatives pushed docile Gentiles -- Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld --
into waging it "for Israel." Such views are held by people who are so angry
and so brainwashed about conservatives that they have lost the elementary
ability to identify real evil, which is what Islamic and Baathist terrorists
and "insurgents" are.
Finally, the people fighting us in Iraq hate freedom, hate women's rights,
hate non-Muslims, and do all they can to murder innocent Iraqis and others
in order to undermine the march toward freedom in Iraq. They are not
fighting foreign invaders; they are fighting foreign liberators and domestic
democrats.
It is worth again noting that none of those responses directly answers the
question: Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
It is one thing to oppose the war in Iraq; it is quite another to deny the
evil of those we fight there. That is what the Left in America routinely
does. And that is why the culture war in America is as important as the
military war in Iraq.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19324
SeeingEyeDog
"David" <ric...@knac.com> wrote
>
> We should outsource our Intel to Mossad.
>
Better we outsource intel to the Chinese Communist Party.
SeeingEyeDog
"-=jd=-" <jd77...@HATpostmark.net> wrote
> >
> > "THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that Saddam Hussein was connected in any way to al
> > Qaeda."
> >
>
> Well, well, well... Carol Costello needs to listen to the following ABC
> report from 1999 where *ABC* linked OBL/AlQ (and other terrorists) to
Iraq.
> Yes folks, you read that correctly, the year was Nineteen-Ninety-Nine(AD)!
> http://www.openfire.us/media/mp3/ABCNews.mp3
>
Another internet myth busted and down the superhighway storm drain.
There were direct meetings between a high level Iraqi official and an OBL
operative in an Eastern European country..
SeeingEyeDog
"KA6UUP" <ka6...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:7yvRe.112$I91...@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> SeeingEyeDog wrote:
> > Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
> >
> >
> Just One Question for Opponents of the Iraq War
> By Dennis Prager
> FrontPageMagazine.com | August 31, 2005
>
> All those who support the American war in Iraq should make a deal with
> anyone opposed to the war. Offer to answer any 20 questions the
> opponents wish to ask if they will answer just one:
David
wrote:
Indeed. The Islamic extremist was soliciting aid which the Iraqi's
refused to provide.
FDR
I guess evil is defined by what side you are on. The Muslims who attack
America say we are evil. The Americans who favor war against the Muslims
say they are evil. Both use a religious compass. I guess in the end you
just root for the home team.
ka...@sonic.net
How totally fucked-up it must be to be you.
ka...@sonic.net
Can't do it -- the curent administration is only interested in
outsourcing (privatizing) socially useful programs.
RHF
.
May be you should ask Jamie Gorelick about her role
in the Clinton Administration to insure that the Fire Wall
between the Foreign and Domestic Intelligence Services
was firmly in place.
.
(OT) : Big Hole in the 9/11 Commission Report . . . Jamie Gorelick
and Richard Clarke part of the Able Danger Cover-Up ?
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.radio.shortwave/msg/4bdc9663c09aeab4
"Able Danger" the dirty little secret of the Clinton Administration.
.
The "Able Danger" Cover-Up will be the biggest Scandal
to hit the former president Clinton Administration.
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/11/181643.php
In fact, is Able Danger bigger than Watergate ? ? ?
.
Why was the Truth about Able Danger hidden
from the 9/11 Commission by Jamie Gorelick ?
.
will the american people ever know the truth ~ RHF
David
Truth hurts, don't it?
David
wrote:
That would require me giving her credibility.
RHF
uncle arnie
> Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
War is hell. If you are fighting a war, you're in hell. Hell is evil.
Anyone in hell is evil. Evil people fighting each other in the hell that
is war. The sophistication of this is at the level of two kids fighting
over a pail and shovel in a sandbox. I don't care whose stuff it is, both
are going home - no more play. It turns out one child isn't from the
neighbourhood and wasn't invited into the other's backyard. But he's got a
lot of older brothers who can beat the hell out the kid whose sandbox it
is. So they do. Then they bust a few windows and rough up his mother.
And they go home with the pail and shovel. And then we wonder why Iran of
North Korea wants nukes. No problem that India, Pakistan, UK, France,
Israel do. They will help with the roughing up, well, most of then, most
of the time.
m II
> If I had my way,I would Imediately STOP all American money and aide to
> all foreign counties and pour it all into helping New Orleans
> rebuild.
I'm afraid Israel won't allow that.
mike
cuh...@webtv.net
our TROOPS.GOD BLESS AMERICA.
cuhulin
cuh...@webtv.net
cuhulin
m II
> You are a Fraidy Cat,that is for Sure!,m II.You are also CHICKEN!
> cuhulin
>
Perhaps. At least I don't lust after dogs like you do OR have bowel
movements on the couch while watching television.
mike
cuh...@webtv.net
movie on tv now,the movie is just now starting.
cuhulin
m II
> I dont either.
You said your dog jumps off the couch and barks at you when you have a
bowel movement on the couch. Were you lying then or are you lying now?
...not that I trust anything a bestialist says anyway...
mike
Honus
"m II" <No...@owl.nest.org> wrote in message
news:mjwSe.222800$HI.178381@edtnps84...
He said "poot", not poop. He's talking about farting.
cuh...@webtv.net
bark.Are you happy now?
cuhulin
cuh...@webtv.net
cuhulin
SeeingEyeDog
"David" <ric...@knac.com> wrote in message
news:vcajh155i958veu9q...@4ax.com...
SeeingEyeDog
"David" <ric...@knac.com> wrote
> >
> >There were direct meetings between a high level Iraqi official and an OBL
> >operative in an Eastern European country..
> >
> >
> Indeed. The Islamic extremist was soliciting aid which the Iraqi's
> refused to provide.
>
And you were the CCP fly on the wall? Bwhahahahah!!!!!!!!!
m II
> He said "poot", not poop. He's talking about farting.
I wondered if he anesthetized the poor animals first. What a tasteless
pervert.
mike
RHF
This has nothing to do with Religion it is a simple fact of
Mans Common Humanity and Universal Respect for Life [.]
.
FDR - Your reply is typical of the mentality of the Political Cadre
of the Democrat Party of the USA.
.
FDR - You Preach HATE For All Those Who Do Not Believe As You Do !
[ Your Fellow American Citizens and See Them as Evil. ]
.
FDR - You equate an Islam-O-Fascist Extremist Terrorists who would
call you an Infidel and Kill you for failing to Believe as He Does :
To an American Christian Born-Again-Believer who would call you
a Sinner and then Kneel Down and Pray with you for Salvation.
.
PRAY THE SINNERS PRAYER :
http://www.christcenteredmall.com/salvationprayer.htm
http://www.brothermike.com/sinner.html
* "Dear God, have mercy on me and save my soul, for Jesus'
sake, amen."
http://www.alaskrafts.com/sp.htm
* "Dear Lord, please forgive me of my sins and come into
my heart. Amen."
http://777.nventure.com/sinnersprayer.htm
* "Heavenly Father, I know that I am a sinner and that
I deserve to go to hell. I believe that Jesus died on the
cross for my sins. I do now receive Him as my personal
Lord and Savior. I promise to serve you the best I can.
Please save me. In Jesus' name, amen."
http://www.allaboutgod.com/sinners-prayer.htm
* "Dear Jesus, I am sorry for my sins. Please forgive me
and give me a new heart. Amen."
http://www.gotquestions.org/sinners-prayer.html
* "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!"
http://www.macgregorministries.org/jehovahs_witnesses/sinners_prayer.html
.
FDR - "IF" you can not see the difference then you are to wed
to the Anti-Christian Doctrine of the Democrat Party of the USA
to be believed.
.
FDR - The Islam-O-Fascist are Evil People who Kill Innocent People
and I will Pray that you can understand that simple fact - Amen ~ RHF
David
wrote:
> .
>FDR - The Islam-O-Fascist are Evil People who Kill Innocent People
>and I will Pray that you can understand that simple fact - Amen ~ RHF
> . . . . .
>
We have Christains bombing cities by remote control. I fail to grasp
the distinction.
War is fucked up. Any religion that helps justify war is fucked up.
RHF
"Christains bombing cities by remote control."
i want to know ~ RHF
cuh...@webtv.net
cuhulin
RHF
of the Democrat Party of the USA.
.
Evil Enemy; who are in-fact Killing Innocent Americans.
.
ZenitH - You see your fellow Americans, who do not think
and believe as you do in the dogma of the Democrat Party
of the USA as the Evil Enemy that must be silenced.
.
ZenitH - This is not surprising because it is 'typical'
Democrat Party of the USA propaganda to preach :
hate, Hate. HATE ! for your fellow Americans and
to Love (the Peace Loving Peoples of) the World.
.
ZenitH - Leading The Way Into The Madness of Hate ~ RHF
. . . . .