What could go right in Iraq - What to do
Rev_Blair @ Tue Apr 13, 2004 8:18 pm
Hmmm...they say that those from the west just want to kill their children and steal their money...to keep them poor and sick and powerless.
The US shows up dropping daisy cutters into residential neighbourhoods, leaving a mess of depleted uranium all over the country, guards the oil wells while the hospitals are being looted, privatises everthing, requires that none of the profits stay in country, installs a hand-picked pro-US government, cancels local elections, raids homes on nothing more than rumours, arrests people and holds them indefinitely without charge, shuts down the local press....I can go on for hours...and you say that the US hasn't made the radical Mullahs dreams come true, Karra?
Stop and think for minute. Maybe read the original Frankenstein novella. Maybe consider the deeper implications of the phrase, "We reap what we sow."
Indelible @ Tue Apr 13, 2004 11:17 pm
$1:
Order was preserved when other countries were reminded who truly has the big stick.
unfortunately bush and tony blair have the "big stick" in their left hand.
what order has been preserved? there is more disorder now than there was before. the "greater horror" that you see now is being ignored all around the world yet it is still being ignored. why did it have to be put down?
the US might not have enslaved its people but sure has put down iraq. and, it is on the fast track to becoming the 50-something-th state. (i won't even try to put them in order)
Scape @ Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:22 am
This orgy of violence is sickening and no one here wants it but they do and it is why they must be put down. With every Japanese national they threaten to burn alive and every Russian they chop to pieces they gain more media attention for what they are, evil. This further justifies why the US must stay there and 'stay the course'. Saddam was not contained under the UN and saying that he was no threat while he defied UN sanctions and inspectors, tried to shoot down planes patrolling no-fly zones, slaughtering Kurdish uprisings and using money from the food for oil program to bribe UN officials shows that he was a rouge nation, a failed state and a cancer that needed to be removed. Did you cheer when Saddam's Son's were killed? I know quite a few Iraqi's did. How can such evil be tolerated? When the US invaded, they did not have any Iraqi translators, they did not protect the schools or the museums or the hospitals, they went strait for the wells and the Iraqi army. Why? The Iraqi army would pose the most immediate threat and the wells would produce the income to make the schools, hospitals and museums. Saying that the US should have secured the hospitals, museums, and schools before the primary objectives were secured would have divided the focus of an already complicated operation. They needed a quick, decisive strike to knock out the Iraqi army and secure the primary assets of oil production, power grids and water. Most of the power grids and water was smashed to bits and the oil was expected to be set aflame by the Iraqis like they did in Gulf war 1 that is why it was so important to get them 1st for capping the flames would have been a major ecological and economical disaster.
Rev_Blair @ Wed Apr 14, 2004 4:25 am
So why, in downtown Bagdad, did the US put a massive guard around an office building? Burning the Ministry of Oil would have done no great harm, and a few blocks away civilians were dying because the hospital had been looted.
Not protecting things like hospitals and museums is a war crime, my friend. It is against treaties that the US has signed. So is bombing civilians. So is not enforcing the peace after an invasion. Don't apologise for the Bush regime, they are criminals and belong in prison.
Their actions have brough no order either, only chaos and dissent. They have done more to promote violence and terrorism against the west more than any radical cleric in the Middle East.
Nobody was cheering for Saddam, Scape. It was the US that put him there though. The US and Britain opposed lifting the sanctions once it became clear that the sanctions were harming the Iraqi people and not Saddam. The US got caught spying which got the weapons inspectors kicked out the first time.When the inspectors got back in the US refused to give them time to work. The US looked the other way, actively argued against sanctions when the Kurds got gassed all those years ago too.
Starting an illegal and unilateral war based on deception then breaking a myriad or international laws is no way to get rid of a dictator. In the end it just encourages a new dictator to appear. History is incredibly clear on that.
Scape @ Wed Apr 14, 2004 5:56 am
When democracy's were in their infancy landowners were the voters. Why was that? They were the ones who had the power, nobles who had an unruly serf kicked them off their land and the serf starved. Land was power. It was the basis of all productivity. To deny that simple truth would just get your ass kicked to the curb no matter how 'wrong' you thought it was. Now, that power is no longer land but oil as it is more productive and lucrative than gold. Try to deny an oil patch in Alberta and you quickly find that no matter what you do the oil patch will be drilled. We don't have a choice if it will be drilled and we have a limited choice on how it is to be drilled.
That same force is at play here. It was only a matter of time before Saddam was made to heel. Saying that hospitals were not protected and that is akin to war crimes is madness. Letting him have one more day in power was a far worse war crime. Shit or get off the pot already, was 10 years of waiting not enough? Although you may not cheer for Saddam, inaction is a far worse crime. The US did put him there and they did try to get him to get his act together at the expense of the Kurds, Israel, and Iran. They did give him ample opportunity but he did invade Kuwait, gas Kurds and he did many horrid things that were on par with North Korea. Saddam had no intention of ever working with the West that made instability that your not seeing on the nightly news although it does bubble up in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco. Was that 'illegal'? Was that as bad or worse than a CIA black op?
UN inspectors were not given time to 'finish the job' because the cat was already out of the bag. The UN had 10 years to impose effective sanction's and proved it was not up to the task. How many weapons, troops and dissidents were already being exported from that failed state? Was Saddam a threat to Israel? Yes, thus a threat to US interests in that theater. The US had to act before they had yet one more powerful enemy with WMD's.
karra @ Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:46 am
$1:
"We reap what we sow."
Here's the thin edge . . . .
$1:
GLOBAL JIHAD
Berkeley lecturer urges 'uprising' against U.S.
Muslim scholar declares at rally 'you haven't seen radicalism yet!'
Posted: April 13, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
A University of California at Berkeley lecturer speaking at an anti-war rally Saturday called for a Palestinian-style intifada, or uprising, against the United States in response to American actions in the Middle East.
Hatem Bazian, a native Palestinian with a Ph.D. in Islamic studies, stirred up the San Francisco crowd, asking three times, to resounding affirmations, "Are you angry?"
The comments at the outdoor rally held at United Nation's Plaza were caught on a digital camera's movie format by a reader of the popular weblog Little Green Footballs.
An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people attended the "emergency" action organized by the radical anti-war group International A.N.S.W.E.R. in response to the increased fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
The International A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition is an umbrella group tied to the World Workers Party, a Marxist organization that supports authoritarian regimes and communist dictatorships.
The lecturer in Berkeley's Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies Departments continued:
"Well, we've been watching intifada in Palestine, we've been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don't have an intifada in this country?
Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream ... giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we're sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it's about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here.
And we know every – They're gonna say some Palestinian being too radical – well, you haven't seen radicalism yet!"
On his website, Bazian says he teaches courses on Islam, Islamic law, Sufisim, Arabic, and politics of the Middle East at U.C. Berkeley as well as at San Francisco State University, Berkeley Graduate Theological Union and Diablo Valley College.
He also provides "guidance to the community on issues pertaining to Islam and Muslims in the Bay Area."
Bazim, his website says, was chairman of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate Assembly and from 1995-1999 was coordinator of the Graduate Minority Students Project of the Graduate Assembly, "through which he spearheaded statewide efforts to defeat proposition 209," which sought to eliminate affirmative action programs in California.
He is co-host and assistant producer of the radio program "Islam Today" in the Bay Area and was a translation consultant for the San Francisco Chronicle on stories relating to Islam, Muslims and world politics.
Vietnam will be 'child's play'
At the rally Saturday, Bazian said the Vietnam War will be regarded as "child's play" compared to the U.S. experience in Iraq:
"And the people in Iraq understand who's the foreigner in the country. It's not the Arabs who are coming to help. Even if more Arabs who come to help, they understand who's helping and who's opposing them. The – it took the British three years to unite the Iraqis against them. And it took less than a year for the – for the Bush administration to unite all the Iraqis. And they need to understand: what took place in Vietnam will be child's play to what will take place in Iraq ... ."
A Berkeley student at the rally expressed support for Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops, charging "the occupation is a source of tremendous violence against Iraqis."
"In light of that, you know, I think we've got to support the resistance; we've got to say that we support attacks against the occupying forces," he said. 'So I mean – and you can imagine what kind of an inspiring thing that is for people in Palestine, for people in Bolivia, for people in Argentina, Colombia, all over the world, facing down the barrel of a US-supplied gun. Seeing the people of Iraq fight back, that's what we need."
An unidentified speaker encouraged attacks on U.S. troops worldwide:
"We stand here – we stand here recognizing that the war on Iraq is illegal, that the war on Iraq is illegal, and that resistance, that resistance against this war is protected by international law. It is legitimate, and that we – and we in this movement support the resistance against American imperialism by any means necessary."
Berkeley lecturer urges 'uprising' against U.S.
Muslim scholar declares at rally 'you haven't seen radicalism yet!'
Posted: April 13, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
A University of California at Berkeley lecturer speaking at an anti-war rally Saturday called for a Palestinian-style intifada, or uprising, against the United States in response to American actions in the Middle East.
Hatem Bazian, a native Palestinian with a Ph.D. in Islamic studies, stirred up the San Francisco crowd, asking three times, to resounding affirmations, "Are you angry?"
The comments at the outdoor rally held at United Nation's Plaza were caught on a digital camera's movie format by a reader of the popular weblog Little Green Footballs.
An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people attended the "emergency" action organized by the radical anti-war group International A.N.S.W.E.R. in response to the increased fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
The International A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition is an umbrella group tied to the World Workers Party, a Marxist organization that supports authoritarian regimes and communist dictatorships.
The lecturer in Berkeley's Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies Departments continued:
"Well, we've been watching intifada in Palestine, we've been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don't have an intifada in this country?
Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream ... giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we're sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it's about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here.
And we know every – They're gonna say some Palestinian being too radical – well, you haven't seen radicalism yet!"
On his website, Bazian says he teaches courses on Islam, Islamic law, Sufisim, Arabic, and politics of the Middle East at U.C. Berkeley as well as at San Francisco State University, Berkeley Graduate Theological Union and Diablo Valley College.
He also provides "guidance to the community on issues pertaining to Islam and Muslims in the Bay Area."
Bazim, his website says, was chairman of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate Assembly and from 1995-1999 was coordinator of the Graduate Minority Students Project of the Graduate Assembly, "through which he spearheaded statewide efforts to defeat proposition 209," which sought to eliminate affirmative action programs in California.
He is co-host and assistant producer of the radio program "Islam Today" in the Bay Area and was a translation consultant for the San Francisco Chronicle on stories relating to Islam, Muslims and world politics.
Vietnam will be 'child's play'
At the rally Saturday, Bazian said the Vietnam War will be regarded as "child's play" compared to the U.S. experience in Iraq:
"And the people in Iraq understand who's the foreigner in the country. It's not the Arabs who are coming to help. Even if more Arabs who come to help, they understand who's helping and who's opposing them. The – it took the British three years to unite the Iraqis against them. And it took less than a year for the – for the Bush administration to unite all the Iraqis. And they need to understand: what took place in Vietnam will be child's play to what will take place in Iraq ... ."
A Berkeley student at the rally expressed support for Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops, charging "the occupation is a source of tremendous violence against Iraqis."
"In light of that, you know, I think we've got to support the resistance; we've got to say that we support attacks against the occupying forces," he said. 'So I mean – and you can imagine what kind of an inspiring thing that is for people in Palestine, for people in Bolivia, for people in Argentina, Colombia, all over the world, facing down the barrel of a US-supplied gun. Seeing the people of Iraq fight back, that's what we need."
An unidentified speaker encouraged attacks on U.S. troops worldwide:
"We stand here – we stand here recognizing that the war on Iraq is illegal, that the war on Iraq is illegal, and that resistance, that resistance against this war is protected by international law. It is legitimate, and that we – and we in this movement support the resistance against American imperialism by any means necessary."
Jihad-------> comin' to a hood near you.
Rev_Blair @ Wed Apr 14, 2004 4:29 pm
Well Scape, after those Kurds were gassed Reagan and Bush I did everything they could to keep from having sanctions incurred in Iraq, so your timeline doesn't make sense. There's that shot of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam right after it happened. Rummy knew that it happened. He didn't care because all he wanted was the money.
$1:
Saying that hospitals were not protected and that is akin to war crimes is madness.
No, it is fact. An invader is required to at least attempt to keep law and order and to protect hospitals, national treasures (museums etc) and infrastructure required by the civilian population. The US made no such attempt and because they made no such attempt they are in breach of the Geneva Conventions. Not that complicated...they broke the law.
$1:
The US did put him there and they did try to get him to get his act together at the expense of the Kurds, Israel, and Iran.
Reagan and Bush Sr. encouraged Saddam to attack Iraq and supplied some of his weapos of mass destruction. They acted to keep sanctions from being imposed after Saddam gassed the Kurds. Bush Sr. fully and totally supported him until he invaded Kuwait, when it turned out that the invasion upset the Saudis. Bush Sr. then promoted a lie about Kuwaiti babies being torn from incubators and tossed on the floor to help him build a coalition.
The Israelis were never seriously sacrificed. If you think back to the reports during the first Gulf War, you'll find that most experts doubted that Saddam had a long-range delivery system for his WMD. SCUDs were not thought to be suitable because of the high onboard temperatures. SCUDs were fired at Israel, but it was clear very quickly that they were not carrying WMD.
The Israelis were asked not to fight back, and complied, because so much of the Arab world saw the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia as a total and complete affront to their religious beliefs that it was feared that if Israel got involved the US would be fighting against religious extremists from all over the Middle East.
The US troops never left Saudi Arabia and those fears became reality when Osama declared war on the US. Nobody paid much attention to that though. Even the first attack on the WTC didn't wake anybody up. The second attack woke them up, but they still refuse to examine how come they are being attacked.
$1:
UN inspectors were not given time to 'finish the job' because the cat was already out of the bag.
It turns out the cat was never in the bag. Saddam said he didn't have any weapons or weapons programs. The weapons inspectors weren't finding any weapons or evidence of weapons programs. Powell went to the UN and showed some pictures of cartoon trucks. The vast majority of the world said that was not good enough. The US illegally invaded Iraq (a war crime). Now they can't find any weapons or evidence of weapons programs either.
$1:
The UN had 10 years to impose effective sanction's and proved it was not up to the task.
When the subject of dropping or changing the sanctions was brought up it opposed in the Security Council by the US and Britain. It was the US, through 3 presidents, four terms, and both major parties that kept the ineffective and harmful sanctions in place.
$1:
How many weapons, troops and dissidents were already being exported from that failed state?
How many weapons, CIA operatives, military advisors and mercenaries does the US export every year? How many innocent people die all over the world because of that? How many babies starve or die of disease or just get blown up because of American foreign policy? Maybe we need forced regime change in the US...
Indelible @ Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:12 pm
sorry dudes....
i re read my post and it made no sense whatsoever.....so just ignore what i said there.
Scape @ Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:52 am
Was it supposed to be in the right hand then?
When law and order is enforced it is enforced with a man with a badge or a man with a gun? You see the badge but you know the gun is there. If the Nuremberg crimes were prosecuted on all the leaders of the US since 1945, every dam one would be executed. Is that going to happen? NO! Why not? They are crimes aren't they? Why aren't they being dragged out and beaten for the heathens they are and burned at the stake? Why isn't Joe six pack upset and demanding the Bush empire be forced to pay for reparations that Prescott Bush earned from the blood money from the slave labor of the Jews? News Flash, Life ain't fuckin fair and the Victor gets to write the history books. Now I agree the bastards in power are covered in the filth of power that was unavoidable. Rumsfeild was in a photo op with Saddam in the 80's when he knew that his aid was killing people. That farm aid was to an ally that was fighting an even greater evil. One great truth of life is that we do not have the choice between good and evil but bad and worse. Would you choose Stalin over Regan? You and I do not have the choice all we can do is make the best with the shit we have been dealt. Crying over split milk is the same as crying over war crimes. If you win, no one will have authority over you. You know dam well the west did just as many heinous crimes as the Germans and Japs in WWII but they are the bad guys cuz we won.
No matter how innocent you paint Saddam he was a dog of war of the US. That, in and of itself should be proof that he was dangerous and needed to be put down. He was no ordinary dog of war, he was a rabid dog that was attacking its master and that was not in anyones best interests but his.
Rev_Blair @ Thu Apr 15, 2004 4:34 am
No, Scape. Sorry, but you are wrong. As long as some nations consider themselves above the law, it is very difficult to enforce that law on others. Besides, the US lost Vietnam...how come Kissinger has never stood trial for that? By your theory he should be in prison right now.
By allowing the US to commit crimes, we are encouraging other leaders to do the same. It increases the violence in the end, does not reduce it.
We know that as a society too...that's why we don't like crooked cops. Not that they still aren't a problem, but they now stand a much better chance of being prosecuted for their crimes. The US is the crooked cop here. Beating and killing people to hide the fact that it is on the take.
Bush's stupid little announcement about the Gaza strip yesterday shows just how fucked up things really are. The entire world, including the US, has stood against the Israeli settlements in the West Bank until now. Bush just decided that those settlements are legitimate. Do ya think that might increase terrorism a bit? Do ya think maybe anti-Israeli/anti-American sentiments in the rest of the Middle East might boil over now? Oh, but when they do you'll be standing there yelling about how bad the Palestinians are.
Scape @ Thu Apr 15, 2004 5:27 am
Kissinger should stand trial. Not for losing the war but for linebacker II but that is another topic.
$1:
By allowing the US to commit crimes, we are encouraging other leaders to do the same. It increases the violence in the end, does not reduce it.
Ok, that is funny. We are 'allowing' the US. Wait, who has the guns? Who has the economy to back it up? Survival of the fittest is natures highest law. Obey it or your dog meat. Not saying that flaunting your strength will not make it your weakness, but they have the right of force to do as they please and until we have a better way that is the way the game will be played. The Russians tried the same play in Afghanistan and got pwned but that was because they were up against an enemy backed by the US who sold them stingers.
Crooked cops are a sign of corruption but the US is not being a cop here, they are at war. Big difference. They are not trying to impose world order or they would have taken on North Korea and China but they know that fight would not be worth fighting for the downside would be far greater than in Iraq.
Bush and Israel are one and the same. Their interests are parallel. The US would LOVE to aid a moderate Arab nation like Egypt if they even had a shred of credibility to back up what they say but they don't and the whole Muslim world couldn't organize ants to a picnic if they tried and that is why the US is forced to be an ally of the Jewish State. Not that they care to take sides it is just that the Arabs can't get their shit together. Sorry, but Palestinian suicide bombers are not an effective foreign policy. Israel is not big enough for the Jews and Arabs, they can not share it so the Palestinans are doomed to be exterminated, it is only a matter of time.
RoyalHighlander @ Thu Apr 15, 2004 6:38 am
Rev_Blair Rev_Blair:
Hmmm...they say that those from the west just want to kill their children and steal their money...to keep them poor and sick and powerless.
The US shows up dropping daisy cutters into residential neighbourhoods, leaving a mess of depleted uranium all over the country, guards the oil wells while the hospitals are being looted, privatises everthing, requires that none of the profits stay in country, installs a hand-picked pro-US government, cancels local elections, raids homes on nothing more than rumours, arrests people and holds them indefinitely without charge, shuts down the local press....I can go on for hours...and you say that the US hasn't made the radical Mullahs dreams come true, Karra?
Stop and think for minute. Maybe read the original Frankenstein novella. Maybe consider the deeper implications of the phrase, "We reap what we sow."
The US shows up dropping daisy cutters into residential neighbourhoods, leaving a mess of depleted uranium all over the country, guards the oil wells while the hospitals are being looted, privatises everthing, requires that none of the profits stay in country, installs a hand-picked pro-US government, cancels local elections, raids homes on nothing more than rumours, arrests people and holds them indefinitely without charge, shuts down the local press....I can go on for hours...and you say that the US hasn't made the radical Mullahs dreams come true, Karra?
Stop and think for minute. Maybe read the original Frankenstein novella. Maybe consider the deeper implications of the phrase, "We reap what we sow."
That does kind of state what the US has done so far hasnt it??.. but also lets try to look for the positives too... How about you list the good things that have happened since the US went in?? Could you do that too please Rev?? That wahy no one can say that your opinions arent biased in any way.. I would like to see you post the good things that have come from all this, not just the bad...
Rev_Blair @ Thu Apr 15, 2004 9:40 am
I'm not seeing a lot of good there, RH. They got rid of a brutal dictator, but their actions in Iraq and elsewhere, as well as what we've seen in history, indicate that the next guy will be just as brutal. In the meantime they've done away with local elections, jailed people without charge, allowed even less press freedom than Saddam did, destroyed infrastructure, bombed residential areas, used deleted uranium weapons...the list is long and ugly.
Power shortages are still rampant...moreso than they were before the bombing began, the hospitals are still a mess, clean water is rare, violence and unrest are rampant.
At least the war crimes the US committed in Afghanistan (and they committed many of the same crimes there) are somewhat tempered in an improvement in freedom and quality of life for at least some people. That is not the case in Iraq. The improvements that have been made are largely self-serving.
karra @ Thu Apr 15, 2004 11:14 am
It has been proven time and again that the woolly-headed socialist's magic wand, when waved about in a frenzy or otherwise and accompanied by large amounts of drivel and incessant ranting, does not cure all that ails a country in the midst of war and/or reconstruction.
Numerous reports report attempts to make it happen - with negative and sometimes tree splitting results. A recent report reports a not unusual oddity of two hard left types running frantically and hysterically amok in a large prairie somewhere in Manitoba during a thunderstorm while waving magic wands. The predictable result was more predictable than the weather forecast.
Further investigation revealed both fried, sunnyside-up hard lefties had also placed a tooth under their pillow the night before with a note to the Tooth Fairy. An autopsy revealed the expected and not unusual results that the pair of them were completely brainless but contained within their craniums was a record player needle stuck on the same track. Located at the scene of this fry-up was a note purportedly from the Tooth Fairy herself suggesting they keep a civil tongue in their heads and floss. The Tooth Fairy left a contact address and phone number for queries: Tooth Fairy, Groom Lake, Area 51, Nevada, USA 90210 Tel: 1-800-GFY-SELF.
Spittle soaked hard left types have been advised and cautioned not to attempt this at home but get their hindquarters to the location of their concern and establish forequarters where they will discover much to their delight that freedom of the press has been curtailed, personal rights and freedoms that never existed prior to invasion have been instituted but not fully at this time; the electrical supply is constantly being upgraded but as most people are aware, this takes time particularly when a completed and up and running supply is destroyed by terrorists; violence and unrest are typical results when fanatical self-serving mental mullahs and insane imams confuse the poor and deluded - it is being dealt with.
Expected outcomes in a country once ravaged by a dictator, his mental sons and thieving family, but now in the throes of birthing a democracy.
As to the rest of your myopia - blah, blah, blah . . . . ad infinitum and so on and so forth . . . . . Yaaaawwwwnnnnn......
Rev_Blair @ Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:18 pm
Do you have a single fact to refute what I said, Karra? No? Then be quiet and let the grown-ups talk.