Ending the war in Iraq is right for a lot of reasons. The war was unjustified, unnecessary and unprovoked. It is counterproductive, strengthening al-Qaeda and weakening the moral authority of the United States. It is deadly: Many Americans, and many, many more Iraqis, have been killed or injured as a result of the fighting. And it is costly: Well over $250… return to article
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Reader Comments (659)Come and justify this one, cheerleaders for American Values and Democracy versus the Evil Muslim Terrorists.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 8, 2005 at 10:57 AM “More War crimes.”
I wonder if the depth of research for this story was similar to this one.
Don’t believe everything you read, Rabbit. That goes for all of us.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 8, 2005 at 7:02 PM http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10907.htm
Sometimes it douse get caught on film as these marines seem to be cheering on a war crime. As you watch can you guess the crime?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htmMany civilian deaths do occur based on the type of assaults and weaponry used. That is a sad commentary on the nature of war. Innocents do die, which is all the more reason to be vigilant in our thought processes to ensure if there is a need to go to war and always ask who benefits.
I have provided a link to the number of both civilian and military deaths from past wars. These deaths are never justified.
War tends to bring out the worst on the homefront as well.
http://www.tampaindymedia.org/bin/site/templates/default.asp?area_2=imc/open newswire/2004/Aug/66251.296875.dat
http://www.london-daily.co.uk/art/abude.htm
Some find these trajedies humorous and the butt of tasteless jokes. Can you find the good taste in this video?
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/bushjoke.mov
Posted by beowulf on Nov 8, 2005 at 7:41 PM I agree that innocents inevitably die in war, that it is necessary to be as vigilant as possible, and that they cannot be justified.
That is the nature of a tragedy. Yet I disagree that the inevitability must require that war is never an option. If all the world felt that way, then it wouldn’t be a problem.
But sometimes, bad guys won’t step out into the open; sometimes deadly force kills the wrong people; sometimes tragic mistakes are made.
But to ignore the bad guys; to tell them if you hide behind a civilian population; to tell them be nice or we are going away; is just wrong.
That is not a justification; just the reality of a world that often hands us Hobson Choices.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2005 at 8:02 PM Alink to the deaths in world war 2 that I forgot to paste above.
http://ww2bodycount.netfirms.com/
Posted by beowulf on Nov 8, 2005 at 8:13 PM All the more reason Mr. Kline to ask the right questions even now as we are engaged in a war. Did you get a chance to view any of the films above? The one on Fallujah just made television the world over and hit the airwaves today in Britain. The film is not long and shows with documented footage the use of Mark77(napalm) , an internationaly banned weapon, being used in residentials. The other film, which was never shown in our media, exhibits marines using a wounded Iraqi for target practice. An incapacitated enemy out of the fight is not to be pursued with deadly force. It is a war crime. We would not want our soldiers subjected to the same treatment which is why this behavior is discouraged. The trajedies shown are not limited to this war or country alone by any means. War tends to bring out the worst in humanity and should give us pause.
For the record, I do believe in self defense, but the threat from Iraq was just not there. It was manufactured and paints a negative image of America the world over. This will haunt us in the future and our image as a moral authority will forever remained stained. Watch what the world sees and learn why we are viewed as a greater threat than any other.
Believe it or not, Kline, I understand and can even empathize with your world view. But the patterns in the fabric of hisory display the outcomes of wars started on a mountain of deceit. It never bodes well with the aggressor. In the end we will be broke and impotent.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 8, 2005 at 8:42 PM I agree wholeheartedly with Gen Pace when he says unequivocally that sort of behavior will not be tolerated.
And I believe he means it.
Several convictions have already been laid down.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2005 at 9:03 PM Unfortunately, the punishments are administered at the lowest levels when evidence suggets a condoning at higher levels. Scapegoating a few fanatics will not cleanse this sort of behavior. The officers in charge need to address and answer to the breakdown in command or these actions will only be repeated and possibly on a wider scale. Unfortunately, Fallujah will go down as a war atrocity paralleling the German bombing of London or the RAF firebombing of Dresden. The whole world is talking, why aren’t we listening.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 8, 2005 at 10:15 PM Italy answers to the intelligence charges in their press concerning forged documents that led to war. I think our press could learn a thing or two as they illuminate what was happening on their end as well as ours.
Part 1
http://www.watchingamerica.com/larepubblica000009.html
Part 2http://www.watchingamerica.com/larepubblica000010.html
Posted by beowulf on Nov 8, 2005 at 10:23 PM No need to worry your evil mind about it Natalie the artcile is well researched and it is accurate, so is this one.
Rabbit has shown himself to be very careful about what he believes Natty which is why you have never estbalished a single point against Rabbit in all the time he has known you. You have never been able to make a case for the things you believe and despite your beliefs flying in the face of proven reality, you still maintain them unchanged.
What exactly does a closed minded government propagandist, with a history of avoidance, character attacks and outright lies, have to tell open minded and informed people about sifting the truth from sources? Get a clue Natalie, you are a known Shill, and the proof is all around us. Should anyone wonder why Rabbit is being so rude to this person, just ask and Rabbit will direct you to the evidence that she is a liar, a pretender and a SHILL. NO ordinary Troll this one, she is a genuine SHILL.
Natty what exactly has the apparent liar, Massey got do do with anything? Another Natalie strawman? or just changing the subject?
Obviously the article upset Natty, which is why she came swooping into the room to tackle another dangerous truth threatening the JUNTA. For this reason and to stop the Vapire from sucking the blood out of another issue with her garbage, Rabbit herewith prints the article in full, so Natalie’s innuendos are wasted. You see Natty you are so committed to attacking the man when you cannot attack the facts, that where there is no man you will just find someone , anyone and attack them, claiming he is ours. Do you think anyone takes you seriously Natty? Of course you might attract a troll because you are feeding up their favorite food, lies and unfounded opinions.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 2:51 AM 11/07/05 “La Repubblica”——ROME. In soldier slang they call it Willy Pete. The technical name is white phosphorus. In theory its purpose is to illumine enemy positions in the dark. In practice, it was used as a chemical weapon in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. And it was used not only against enemy combatants and guerrillas, but again innocent civilians. The Americans are responsible for a massacre using unconventional weapons, the identical charge for which Saddam Hussein stands accused. An investigation by RAI News 24, the all-news Italian satellite television channel, has pulled the veil from one of the most carefully concealed mysteries from the front in the entire US military campaign in Iraq.
A US veteran of the Iraq war told RAI New correspondent Sigfrido Ranucci this: I received the order use caution because we had used white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military slag it is called ‘Willy Pete’. Phosphorus burns the human body on contact—it even melts it right down to the bone.
RAI News 24’s investigative story, Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre, will be broadcast tomorrow on RAI-3 and will contain not only eye-witness accounts by US military personnel but those from Fallujah residents. A rain of fire descended on the city. People who were exposed to those multicolored substance began to burn. We found people with bizarre wounds-their bodies burned but their clothes intact, relates Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji, a biologist and Fallujah resident.
I gathered accounts of the use of phosphorus and napalm from a few Fallujah refugees whom I met before being kidnapped, says Manifesto reporter Giuliana Sgrena, who was kidnapped in Fallujah last February, in a recorded interview. I wanted to get the story out, but my kidnappers would not permit it.
RAI News 24 will broadcast video and photographs taken in the Iraqi city during and after the November 2004 bombardment which prove that the US military, contrary to statements in a December 9 communiqué from the US Department of State, did not use phosphorus to illuminate enemy positions (which would have been legitimate) but instend dropped white phosphorus indiscriminately and in massive quantities on the city’s neighborhoods.
In the investigative story, produced by Maurizio Torrealta, dramatic footage is shown revealing the effects of the bombardment on civilians, women and children, some of whom were surprised in their sleep.
The investigation will also broadcast documentary proof of the use in Iraq of a new napalm formula called MK77. The use of the incendiary substance on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997
Now can anyone see why Natty would start talking about some never heard of Jimmy Massey, as an answer to the above?
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 2:53 AM You idiot Jay. The USA has killed at least 100,000 civilians so far and not even a tenth that many real insurgents. This is a little over the top as far as accidental killings goes, and you are ignoring the FACT that the military has targeted CIVILIANS from the outset. They have bombed towns and entirely destroyed whole areas, as well as poisoned the country with Nuclear Waste. You are committing WAR Crimes and the story is right here and it is is factual, not opinions, unless you consider the opinions of UN leaders and Heads of world Humanitarian Organisations.
You have not been killing civilians as an unavoidable accident, douchebag, the whole world is seeing as you are comittinmg Genocide. This is why you have become the most hated country on Earth, not just by Muslims but moire and more by ordinary people everywhere. You don’t get it you sick little creature, but America’s days as the lans of the free, of democracy and huiman rights is not going, it is gone. You have almost reached the bottom of the ladder in all areas of democracy, justice, freedom, economic security and you are probably months or a year away from not dissimilar scenes as those which France has now brought upon itself.
To here an American like you talk about humanity, democracy or justice, is like listening to those same words come out of the mouth of Adolf Hitler. Do you honestly think all those Germans cheering that particular vicious idiot on, were thinking of themselves as supporting the then greatest war crimes of history? Of course they didn’t. Dude you are part of a nation which is irrevecably on a course of abject disgrace in world history. Nobody wants you to change your mind about anything, Rabbit wants you to support your cause to the end. Ideally Rabbit would like to see you and people like you branded on the forehead or something, so when the time comes we can round you all up. You will otherwise slip away with the crowd and pretend you were a resister all along. We do know your type, Jay. You cannot admit a small mistake in written forum, how the hell could you ever admit you backed the anti-christ in the end? I use that image deliberately, because it is the one that your leaders are tossing around, except they claim they are the messiah, and the other side is the anti-christ. So whether or not you are a lunatic Christian, you will be going to hell in a Basket of Judeo Christian making.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 3:08 AM Jay you talk a lot about joining the dots, maybe not you, but we’ll run with it.
You talk about a few low level trials of soldiers who are caught in abuse. You talk as if it is a few isolated incidents which the All Good American military is taking care of.
Only a week or so ago you had the president of the USA fighting to stop a “NEW” bill passing because it tried to “once again”, outlaw torture by the military. They are saying from the very administration that Torture is permissible. They actually sought and GOT exemptions for WAR CRIMES from the start of the IRAQ War. WHY would thyey be seeking exemptions from WAR CRIMES? Does that not indicate some pre-planed intention to you? Hell you’d like to see lots of other people carted off to prison for less evidence than that, whether it be your terror of Drugs or your terror of Terror. As it happens the exemptions will probably not stand in court anyway, because it has since been shown to have been started upon lies which should nullify any exemptions sought on the basis of said false evidence. That exemption has lapsed although there was an attempt to get it renewed recently by your military. That failed.
The Leaders have exempted themselves from Geneva Conventions and every law of humanity, how can you fail to join those dots and still convince yourself any abuses are small scale and localised? Torture and abuses of enemy combatants are common in war, but there is no avoiding the fact that the USA is practising torture, genocide and various other forms of Internationally repugnant behaviour.
No amount of screeching about Terrorists is going to exempt you. The scale and degree of abuse by the USA is clearly endemic, and it is neither justified by the occasional atrocity committed by the enemy, nor is it lessened in it’s intrinsic evil by these.
Rabbit is ready to defend himself and his land too. In fact he has probably shown himself to be far more ready to do it than a poncy little equivicator like JC.
One of the things that has made Rabbit the rock of resistance he is, has been his reluctance to commit violence despite an enormous propensity for it. This means that when the time comes, and Rabbit must step from his corner, he is prepared, committed and absolutely determined that there is no other way. The fight must be there before Rabbit will come, but if there is a need, Rabbit does the deed.
The world is full of bullies, rabbit has met many of them. They are all cowards, every single one of them. The USA is a coward. With a military expenditure greater than the next ten nations on the spending charts. With more and bigger weapons especially Weapons of Mass Destruction than all the other countries in the world combined. With even yet a massive economic power, largely controlling of world economy. Despite all this, you are surrendering the most basic freedoms and human rights in your own country. RYou are as a nation obsessed with TERROR, of a half dozen of the weakest nations on Earth in all the above categories. You are waging unlimited WAR on those small weak nations and claiming the right to use any and all weapons and tactics in the book, yet you screech in outrage whenever the other side even shgoots back, let alone beheads a couple of your discarded cannon fodder. How can you talk about suppoorting your troops and at the same time support them being poisoned by Depleted Uranium weapons, in far higher amounts than their Gulf War brethren suferred to end up with Gulf War Syndrome? How JC?
You are therefore a cowardly nation and that is simple as those figures being added up. Join the dots, dummy.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 3:53 AM Bullies always seem stronger but they are invariably brittle in their strength. One good punch from the Rabbit shut a few down, but always even when the bully was much bigger Rabbit found that determination, the will to go on, was what brought them all undone. No bully can become a bully and be a truly strong person, because strength comes of adversity. The strength of the bul;ly is no more than his confidence. Take that away, and the biggest bully is hollow inside. The US military strength for all its impressive size and whizzbangery, has been remarkably unsuccessful as a tool of oprression. Waging limited warfare, that means not leveling and killing everything in sight, is seemingly beyond this big bully of a nation. The weakest military in the world may have been a good description of Saddams Army by the time 2003 came along. Today a couple of years later, the whole of Iraq, is out of US control. With over seventy attacks a day and rising, a relatively weak force has bogged down the US military. They have no freedom of movement anywhere in the country without huge military escorts which still face attack. Even the massively fortified Green Zone is suffering almost daily mortar attacks. If the American military is not britlle for this alone, then what about the recruiting problems, which will lead to a draft?. What about the fact that combat soldiers are being stoplossed and recycled back into combat faster and faster?. Even the National Guard are over there trying to stop things getting more and more out of hand. Your military is being smashed…..........from the elite regiments….......... to the national guard, join the dots, someone is rendering your country defenceless.
Another little noticed thing is that many of the best and finest of your officers and soldiers got out early on, they were leary of the direction things were taking already in the first Bush term. Rabbit knows for certain that many very fine officers who had plans of staying for careers, and even some longer term career officers pulled the pin over the last few years. Your military is being smashed, for no othyer result than to make your country the most hated on earth. Now isn’t that a great plan for the future defence of USA.
Has it ocurred to anybody that, with the amount of the worlds resources and wealth which have been concentrated within your shores, (25% of worlds resources for decades now), that America is today like a big fat golen mansion on the hill? Imagine the multitudes of desperate and poverty stricken, notice they are already moving in France, and they are getting restless, and increasing in numbers next to your white Americans anyway. Noticed the flow of illegals still flooding USA with the tacit support of your administration? The same admin who is Smashing your defensive capability has opened the borders to foreign invasion, and JC can’t join the dots. Or can he? Rabbit predicts he will have a whole other spin on it all. Or he’ll ignore it. Too hard so ignore it. Run away Jay.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 3:55 AM Rabbit has shown himself to be very careful about what he believes….
The thing which is certain is that the official story is a lie, and by the way Barbara Olsen looks like she has just turned up alive, so you were right about nobody turning up alive, only until yesterday. You see that is the thing with lies Natalie, they eventually can only fall. Only truth is here here to stay and even it must suffer constant assault by such as you.
“May the ghost of Barbara Olson haunt you mercilessly”—Karnack, the Magnificent
Posted by Natalie on Nov 9, 2005 at 5:01 AM That is a very good example Natalie. Rabbit mentioned the story, without committing himself as your quote shows. You immediately debunked it with only half the facts about the story even then. Rabbit pursued it and posted the following.
Rabbit first said.....Anybody heard more about the possibility Barbara Olsen was arrested on a German border recently?.. <b>Then he said this shortly after… <b>In the interests of not wasting space, as far as the Barbara Olson possibly being arrested, I cannot find anything which gives enough credence to it to be worth discussing at this point. This does not say Rabbit rules it out because it is not altogether unnexpected, the best that can be said about it was said here:
.
.“what a coincidence, isn’t it?that the sudden appearance of Barbara Olson, on the non-existent Polish-Austrian border,
happens at the same time that British troops disguised as terrorists are seized, then freed in
a gigantic debacle in Basra, Iraq?
link to www.globalresearch.ca
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/basraSAS.html
let’s forget about the fact that the British spy fiasco PROVES that agents provocateurs have
been blowing up “suicide bombs” in Iraq!!!!!
British and US complicity in fake terrorism is proven!!!!!
not to mention that the Pentagon SHUT DOWN questioning about Able Danger!!!!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169991,00.html
so we have CLEAR KNOWLEDGE and complicity in PREVENTING the US Intelligence officers from
arresting Mohammad Atta!!!!
HOW LONG HAS THE STENCH OF TREASON BEEN SPUMING FROM EVERY ACTION OF BUSH-CHENEY???
And here is this “Tom Flocco” character talking about this ridiculous Olson crap. He is a
charlatan and should be horse-whipped.”
Now that looks like a thoughtful and considered response. When Rabbit finally decided the story had no merit, he made that decision in an informed manner and not as a kneejerk reaction like Natalie proved is all she has.
Rabbit has demonstrated he is careful in what he believes, and Natalie has shown…................nothing as usual.
Good try Natty bad luck it backfired again eh?
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 7:10 AM Natty in an attempt to show the Rabbit is foolish used a prime example of Rabbit’s rational approach, what a goosey girl. Shall Rabbit post some of natalie’s pearls? There are some rippers and I’ll bet you don’t even realise how hilarious some of your antics have been. Go on Dare the Rabbit Natty. Better just ignore this one and attack someones character that’s what you’re best at, and as far as that goes, I wouldn’t give up your day job, assuming this isn’t it.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 7:15 AM Bubble bubble toil and trouble Nattys case is a pile of rubble.
How do seven suicide bombers stay alive after the act Natty?
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 9, 2005 at 8:34 AM Eidolon Lagomorph -
Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool.
But you yourself may serve to show it,
Every fool is not a poet.Alexander Pope
Posted by scorp on Nov 9, 2005 at 3:44 PM Rabbit is in pursuit to the truth, as the official story of 911 has been disproven on all counts.This is not a game of clue, but a road to discovery to expose a criminal elite. But those sycophants who fawn at the feet of big government and remain mesmerized by state propaganda fail to venture into the truth which now is no more than a land laid desolate by lies, inuendo, and a servile public begging for their own demise.
Rabbit is also correct in that not once has anyone so much as ventured to challenge or address the points he has made. That is because most understand the truth but fail to recognize it, for if they did they would be compelled to do something about it. Thus, the nature of the world we live in. People believe they will find safety if they go along with the program in order not to possibly expose themselves as troublemakers. It is similiar to a bandwagon technique. I know this is true because not one word has been uttered by the dissenting side that would profer even the slightest challenege to the truth. they fall into diatribes of liberal or conservative as if this were the cowboys eagles game. They pigeon hole arguments into labeled categories that simplify arguments into manageable targets. A shift outside of this simplicity must make one a conspiritologist. If one refuses the grand states answers to the events of our times, then he has a label applied that can make others feel safe and secure in the popular dogma that they endorse. simplicity, no questions asked, psychotropic drugs, and daily doses of shock therapy keep the masses in line and on target. I ask a question, I recieve a label. That is the nature of the world we live in.
With the Freedom Initiative, the mandatory psychological testing and enforced drugging of all school children, passing in order to make the future generations more pliant to the propaganda, free minds will soon be an endangered species. I am only heartened that the Freedom Initiative has met some resistance at the state level. Our founding fathers warned that the greatest threat to the republic is from within and not from a foreign country. How true. I truly do not expect Mr. Kline or scorp to address state sponsored terrorism or ask difficult questions of the events around them. This is not an attack of character, it just is what it is. For to do so would challenge the illusion that perhaps we are not so grand after all. To pursue the truths of our times is to pursue greatness. I am losing faith in humanity and we will lose ourselves in delusions of grandeur based on little more than fabrications of constructs used for centuries. How does history repeat itself. Our leaders just have to hit the reset button and it will play again.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 9, 2005 at 6:41 PM beowulf,
Beware of Rabbit lies. I have addressed Rabbit’s conspiracy theory and provided refuting evidence in a previous topic, but like you he provided revisionist data and interpretation.
As far as the other difficult issues, since you have already determined that a response would not be forthcoming, I’ll stop putting one together.
I’d sorely hate to disappoint someone with such stongly felt preconceived notions.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 9, 2005 at 7:22 PM I ask a question, I recieve a label.
Ah, forgive me. You already recognized your shortcomings in how you are making assumptions.
Apologies for pointing out the obvious.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 9, 2005 at 7:25 PM Seriously, beowulf, if there is a question that I haven’t addressed, please restate it. I think it is obvious to all that I don’t shirk from a difficult question even, or especially, if I have a response that will inevitably be unpopular. Fear is not in my vocabulary. The closest I can come to that is Loathing.
I am honestly unaware of a question to which you await an answer, but it is entirely possible that I missed it. There is so much gratuitous, preening self-gratification slung about on this site that I often find myself tossing it all up in the air and let the passing wind carry away the chaff. If your question got mixed up in all that, it probably got torn away by a particularly strong and odorous breeze.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 9, 2005 at 8:06 PM British troops to join gulf war games
http://news,bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1012044.stmUs planned attack on Taleban
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south asia/1550366.stmIndia:
http://www.indiareacts.com/print_storyfeature.asp?recno=10PNAC group declaring need for massive military spending, wars against Iraq and Iran desired but the only way to quicken the wanted agenda is with a new pearl harbor.
I have saved and printed every article before, during and after said events. The motives stands only with those who profited. These events were never addressed on this blog, at least not with me. Again, keep it civil and explain who would attack us with double our carrier groups in theater, along with a large British contingent of ships and troops, 40,000 US/Russian troops on the border of Afghanistan, a coming war with Afghanistan stated in the foriegn press, such as the Inda Daily from June 26,2001 and in Janes March 2001 issue, yet no excuse for the attack nor mention of it to the American people? Why attack the US when our leaders needed it the most to justify a war that would rain hell down on the Muslims? PNAC became operational, a document consigned to the dustbin of history, without said attack. These are valid questions, not theories or chaff to be carried away with the wind.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 9, 2005 at 11:30 PM What a clown Jay is to say this:
Beware of Rabbit lies. I have addressed Rabbit’s conspiracy theory and provided refuting evidence in a previous topic, but like you he provided revisionist data and interpretation.
Rabbit has already pointed out and others have too, that Jay Decline has never successfully refuted anything. He was invited some time ago to give an example, but he didn’t and can’t.
He has been crushed like a bug on various threads, where it will be seen he plays the same pathetic avoidance and rhetoric games, then reverts to semantics when pinned down on his mistakes and false assumptions, only to run away like the gutless little proc that he is.
Rabbit makes a statement and invites a rebuttal. JC makes a staement and expects it to be believed. If Jay had even “once” been right at any time, it seems llikely he would point it out, or have there been so many times, you can’t pick which one JC?
JC is a Hubris filled, gutless poser. A troll extraordinare. rabbit has been inviting some friends to look at this troll, they have been and seen and are impressed with him, they have asked if he could be directed their way, their own trolls are quite ordinary. This is rather a wacky little Troll. Rabbit begins to see why he is Lumes favorite, he is kinda special quite a posy poncy peky one, and dumber than a rock.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 2:09 AM Beowulf
It is plain to see that you have kept a sharp and informed eye out for a while. Hope we see you adding your views and info more often, there are as you may know some very enlightened and open minded people on this cosy little corner of the Cyber world. Not too many souls to keep track of, and threads which meander long enough to appeal to “Globetrotters” of the Internet from Oz, Britain, Canada and Germany among others. We have as you can see a couple of quite entertaining “House Trolls” and at least one permanent government Shill. Issues are passed along the line at a reasonable rate of knots, so one does not feel overwhelmed by volume and the hopelessness of it all seems thus a little less.
Rabbit will keep an eye on this thread as JC will need a wack down or two more before he runs away from this one. But Rabbit can tell he is nearly out of steam, once he gets down to summarising his success and prowess and referring to his general invincibilty and how much you’ve fallen into his machiavellian scheme to undermine someone or somethinmg, he is never quite sure what. He is sure he has undermined something though.
Rabbit agrees with this much, he has indeed undermined something, but it was itself a hole to begin with, so he is getting quite deep down there these days. It is hard to know if he is still down there sometimes, all one sees is the dirt flying up.
By the way Beowulf if one speaks allegorically he can’t hear anything, so it is a good way in itself to enjoy a higher lever of taunting than the Troll can actually participate in.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 2:22 AM JAY DeCLINE says:
Seriously, beowulf, if there is a question that I haven’t addressed, please restate it. I think it is obvious to all that I don’t shirk from a difficult question even, or especially, if I have a response that will inevitably be unpopular. Fear is not in my vocabulary.
..........................................................................^^. ................................................Poor Rabbit.
The Rabbit has just gotten up off the floor. His sides and tummy hurts. he wrote the above before getting to this PEARL of JC the CJ. .......................... This is the most PERFECT Self Irony ever. Rabbit must confess, he had previously bestowed the title of King of self Irony on Scoop. But no. JC has just Trumped them all.
Rabbit just read it again and he is almost dead from laughter. Such a mean and sneaky way to injure Rabbit, making him laugh his poor Ears off.
This is so good that Rabbit is off to find others. Lume owns JC, since claiming him, as a favorite, while Rabbit only has Scorpy. This was Rabbit’s choice before, but now he looks jealously at Lume’s troll, such a fancy one it has turned out to be. Clever Lume, how could you have known. JC up until now you have been more like a caterpillar when Rabbit thought you to be no more than a crippled Moth. But NO, dear JAY you are a beautiful Butterfly, a veritable gift to internet debate. No wonder you never reference anything, it all makes sense now…...................................Wow…........................I Impressed and still hurting a bit the Rabbit hops away to find the others.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 2:33 AM Rabbit, what can I say? You completely took Jay out of context and left out the best part:
Fear is not in my vocabulary. The closest I can come to that is Loathing
Loathing! What a man, my sweet Flaky Jay-Jay.
We should be more considerate. It’s not a good day for Republicans in the ol’ Twin Cities.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 10, 2005 at 4:55 AM That part was being left to you Lume, “Fear and Loathing in these times”
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 5:30 AM It all makes me appreciate just why HST had his ashes blown out a giant spud gun.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 10, 2005 at 6:11 AM Rabbit thought it was actually a Fireworks Mortar kind of thing, Hunter got shot out of. Rabbit has his own desire to be shot out of a cannon actually. The problem is Rabbit would prefer to mill the Blackpowder from his own ashes himself. He is not trusting some other pyro to do it well enough. Rather than a Star Shell, Rabbit would prefer to be the Propellant for a really wicked big rocket, Rockets are so much more saticfying than Shells. There would be enough Charcoal left over for a nice big Spider or Golden Willow starburst at the end.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 6:28 AM Rabbit set out to explore the old world with a copy of Fear and Loathing and the Great Shark Hunt, in his swag. Or in his mind, can’t remeber which. He was over here not that long before he kicked it, and made a pig out of himself as to be expected, what a guy.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 6:32 AM I really kind of like the idea of there being nothing left behind but a smoky cloud and the smell of a stinky old fart. Tres chic.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 10, 2005 at 7:11 AM That reminds Rabbit of something actually, Lume may appreciate it and since the thread is meandering, who is a Rabbit to swim against the current?
A few years ago, oldest son had a Billy Cart race for the Boy Scouts. (I think you call it soapbox derby)
Rabbit had his fireworks Company and his pyrotechnics lab at the time, and we lived in the country, a few hundred Kilometers from here. Rabbit had a grand idea whist building the Little Billy Cart, of fitting the thing with a huge rocket. Yes Warner Brothers was on his mind I guess. Rabbit set up the Little vehicle, which was built light, and flexible but smart, with a fitting which allowed for easy fitting of the rocket. Rabbit made a really “Big” Rocket. The biggest Rocket you ever saw. Rabbit uses traditional fireworkers skills and so it was tube rolled by hand from good kraft paper, and choked with a garrotte and tied to give a crude nozzle. thecase and nozzle is then formed on a base and using a former and heavy mallet, or Hydraulic press. The Rocket was not going to fly, it just needed to give thrust. It was so big, even as a fountain it would have been a bit of thrust, and the course for the race was down hill anyway. Of course even visually if it did nothing it should be cool thougt Rabbit. He was of course not putting his then 9 YO son on any vehicle with such a big firework attached this was to be fitted for the DAD’s race, at the end of the day. Finales were Rabbit’s bread and butter in those days, so it all looked good up to the race. How big was the rocket?
It was about eight inches in diameter, and generally normal in relative scale to smaller ones, except the length to width is about 4/1 instead of 6/1. It was a BIG rocket. Rabbit was very happy for it and fondled it a lot in between and the test Rocket of 3/4 scale had perfomed well. Six inch diameter Rocket was bigger than anything Rabbit ever saw before even, so he was a bit premature going public with one even that size after one test.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 8:25 AM The ten or so Dads were all lined up at the start line of the big hill and crack goes the start gun. Most of the Buggys got away from the start line a second before Rabbit as he was lighting the fuse with a match. He could have used electric det but wanted the Warner Brothers effect, the Wily Coyote look to maximum effect. The Rabbit gave a big push with his legs and lauched the buggy forwrd just as there was this almighty BOOM, and the Rabbit the whole crowd who were standing behind the start line, dissapeared in a huge clowd of Smoke. Rabbit came hurtling out of the smoke a second later and was simultaneously trying to see behind to see if anyone was hurt and line up the actually airborne buggy for the landing which seemed imminent. The combination of forward momentum almost co-incided with the arc of the descending hillside, so the landing was for a long time apparently postponed.
There are two of the other drivers who say Rabbit flew over their heads, but no witness to say which one of the two was telling the truth, and they were at different ends of the lineup. The witnesses never emerged from the smoke cloud until the race was over. Rabbit would have won the race easily too, he was way out in front when he landed, but having not had much practice at landing flying Billy Carts, he blew it and broke the One front wheel (It was a Tricycle design for low friction). This made the Rabbit’s buggy a bit hard to steer and he flipped it about ten meters afetr the landing.
The distance was measured from where Rabbit took off, to where he landed and it was Forty one meters. Better than the Wright brothers eh?
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 9:18 AM Rabbit,
I thought you might enjoy this. It is rare to have the grove mentioned in the mainstream.http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1637387,00.html
Posted by beowulf on Nov 10, 2005 at 2:50 PM beowulf,
As I said, I didn’t see the question for all the chaff, not that your question was the chaff.
Stop taking it so personal.
I’m not sure what your asking, I would greatly appreciate complete thoughts here, but I’ll dive into your references and see what I can see.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2005 at 4:56 PM The requested URL /1/hi/world/south asia/1550366.stm was not found on this server.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2005 at 4:59 PM Cwazy Wabbit!
My family owned a cinnabar mine on Monitor Pass. The store room of the old homestead was full of dynamite and blasting caps, rolls of det-cord, jugs of sulfuric and nitric acid, access to limitless quantities of cellulose plus a few packages of Knox gelatin, and little adult supervision. Needless to say, in retrospect, I’m grateful my cousins and I managed to grow up with all our fingers and noses.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 10, 2005 at 5:00 PM I’m sorry, I don’t get it.
The first story is about a war game scenario in the Gulf about 11 months before 9/11.
So? I’m glad that our military and government was smart enough to realize the real dangers of the region and to prepare for it. The success of the subsequent Afghan and Iraq war is no doubt partly because of this.
The second story, six months later is about the participation between the various countries in the area in response to a unyielding Taliban government over possible economic sanctions.
So? Same response.
If I am reading you properly, you believe the people of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century), ie neocons, planned all this in advance and created the events to implement that nefarious plan? And you base all this conjecture on a PNAC-authored study that outlined what responses should be taken in such an event?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2005 at 5:12 PM yes, beowulf, stop taking it so personal. Jay-Jay not only has difficulty discerning the corn from the chaff, he regularly fails to see the forest for the trees. Be kind to Jay-Jay.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 10, 2005 at 5:30 PM In the event of an attack. The New Pearl Harbor mentioned in PNAC could have been Chinese or Irish,...response would not have changed. Tony Blair quipped, we could not have invaded Afghanistan without 911, and yet they were preparing to do just that.
The first one was a story printed 11 months prior, but taking place at exactly the same time as the events of 911 unfolded. In other words , Osama would have known that we would be in the best possible locations and position of a counter srtrike.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1550366.stm
The link will work now. It explains how in March of 2001 Britain was told of how we were planning to strike Afghanistan come October. Most Americans falsely believe the fairytale that we attacked that country because of 911.
The above articles above illustrate that is just not the case. As Tony Blair kindly pointed it out, it offered the justification for it, and not a moment too soon.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 10, 2005 at 10:46 PM And your conclusion then? Are you saying we were planning on attacking regardless of 9/11, or that 9/11 was “orchestrated” to justify it?
If the former, ok. I can accept that. Osama and al Qaeda was a recognized threat before 9/11.
If the latter, well, the former negates the necessity of the later ... and the latter requires that the former doesn’t have the necessary legitimacy to implement.
Yet, as your quoted sources indicate, attacks on Osama and al Qaeda already had sufficient justification.
ie the first WTC bombing, embassies in Africa, USS Cole, there was already a long litany of egregious terrorist acts committed by Osama and al Qaeda.
Granted, that doesn’t disprove the conspiracy (that is an oxymoron - you can never disprove a conspiracy).
But it doesn’t prove it either, or give much credence.
I have no dispute with the facts you present. Only the conclusions you choose to draw from them
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2005 at 11:18 PM I had previously announced among family and friends that I am going to try and get rich in the stock market. I have also revealed my strategy. When a stock has two days of significant price increase, in excess of 10% cumulative, I will wait a few days for the correction, buy at the bottom, sell when it rebounds. I have calculated that if I can net one good trade a week, yielding 3%, I’ll be rich in ten years.
The night before last, I put an order for 100 shares of ATYT at 15.09 with a contingent sell order of 15.5. Yesterday it dropped to 15.08 and my buy order executed. Before the end of the day, it hit 15.53, which is where my sell order executed.
Now, since I prognosticated that, then I should be expecting the SEC to be knocking at my door for rigging the market just so I could make a $54 profit.
Your logic is no different.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2005 at 11:30 PM Actually it is. John O’neil, the FBI agent in charge of the USS Cole case, was pulled from it when he found the explosives used were of Mossad origin. The tapes of the perpetrators of the first WTC attack were released in which they were recieving their instructions from FBI informants. Listen to them and proclaim that alCIAda was indeed responsible. When I listened to the family of Mr. O’neil, who died on his first day of the job in the WTC on 911, they stated that he was concerned that our government was going to allow a terrorist attack to take place and he was adament in trying to prevent it. Your logic is faulty because you have failed to listen to those closest to said events. Pay attention and take your country back.
If you are arguing that the Afghan war was justified, then why not level with the American public in March of 01 when the rest of the world was let in on the plans. Why wait untill after a significant event to rally support for a preplanned war?
John, as presented on PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/
Posted by beowulf on Nov 10, 2005 at 11:55 PM Thanks Beowulf it is interesting to see the Grove, in MSM. It is no longer that rare for “Skull and Bones” to get a mention, and both this issues were things Jay and his wackjob delusional brethren called us conspiracy theorists for believing such lunacy. Now days as with all the truths which catch up to the ignorant sheeple’s delusions, they just refuse to acknowledge it.
Have you noticed how deafening is the silence whenever JC is challenged to produce something specific. The Faerless JC cannot even acknowledge a fact which is contradictory to his delusions. He cannot even acknowledge a challenge to a bombastic claim of having “set people to rights” about anything, let alone do it.
JC is funny and very flexible in his lack of logic, but he is the most abject gutless little twat, Rabbit has ever encountered. His unjustified arrogance, is no more than Scoop’s. His stubbornness no less than WTH, and his ignorance is equal to Thinky. Can anyone remember Thinky? Now that was one dumb son of a bitch. But Jay’s Cowardice is the most stunning aspect about this Troll.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 11, 2005 at 1:58 AM Beowulf, no luck with that url. Here is some tips for using this site.
Go here, and get a Tiny Url link on your browser, its easy. This is important because the ITT format messes up urls if they are too long. Basically if the url gets broken by the width of the comments box, it doesn’t work. So beware when posting even tinyurls on a line with other things.
the next thing to do, is use the following html code. The A should be a lower case, it is done thus to stop the elctrons getting confused and making a dummy link.
and paste the short url in between the Quote marks. The text to be linked between the > < and you have a useful linky thing.
Hope this helps.
Lume, Rabbit had to make his own explosives, even as a kid, so had many close calls then, and later in life. Things started to get a lot safer when Rabbit had a license and bought commercially produced.
Rabbit blew himself through a garage wall as a 13 YO, just trying to blow up a big plastic model ship he had built a few years earlier. WOW was the ship totalled though. This experience of being transported through a previously solid wall, with no more than a numb feeling in his hands and ears, was probably the moment of pyrotechnic awakening.
It took many months to build that model Clipper, but in a fantastic second of sound and fire ENERGY, the whole job was obliterated. There were more pieces than when the model was new in the box. Mother and little sister who came running out from the house to find Rabbit picking himself up from the ground, couldn’t understand why Rabbit was so happy, and grinning so much.
Favorite stuff is good old fashioned Gunpowder, (Blackpowder). It isn’t a true explosive, but with a bit of Titanium it can still make the biggest damned BANG you could want. Titanium Salutes are as good if not better than Flash Powder made from Perchlorates or Chlorates, and they are many times more stable.
The Nitric and sulphuric acids were obviously for Nitro cellulose, unless, was there any mercury? Mercury and Silver Fulminate are not hard, in fact from the sound of what was in your shed, they could even have been making Nitro-glycerine. In the old days they relied on cold running streams for temperature control. No thankyou says the otherwise fairly adventurous Rabbit.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 11, 2005 at 2:20 AM Damn the HTML dispeared. The electrons saw it and said that is theirs and so took it. Rabbit will trick the electrons. Read the following HTML code from top down as if it is from left to right and no spaces.
<a href=
“url”> <
/a>
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 11, 2005 at 2:24 AM I saw the Frontline piece on John O’Neill when it was first aired. It was not about how 9/11 was a fake. It was about how O’Neill recognized the danger but hit bureacratic roadblocks, much from Thomas Pickering, but also from FBI director Frees, who had been warned by Pickering about O’Neill’s “sharp elbows”.
Sorry, same ol same ol.
Your facts get refuted, your logic is exposed as lame, and you come back with other data not previously mentioned and revisionist stories.
Get the story right the first time. I am tired of jumping through your ever-changing hoops.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 11, 2005 at 4:20 AM I did a search on the transcript of the PBS Frontline special on John O’Neill.
The word Mossad is not mentioned anywhere.
As far as informing the world in March 01 of the plans for Afghan and the Taliban, where were you then. Mars?
It was on the news every night as America and the Taliban were facing each other down.
Don’t you read your own references??
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 11, 2005 at 5:26 AM Jay you are going to get clobbered again, afetr that garbled argument. You sure don’t get the point of much do you?
Rabbit will return, but has boats to deliver. Probably someone will be along to crush you like the bug you are before Rabbit returns. Good Luck.
The thing is evidence of 911 being a fake does not come neatly wrapped in a package which calls it thus. You bloody clown! The fact of it being a fake is deduced from examining such evidence. Jesus what a dimwitted Troll.
Fancy in it’s special pompous way, but dumb as shit.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 11, 2005 at 6:28 AM I never said it was in that transcript. I said I listened to his family speak. Does that denote a websight simpleton. I only familiarized you with the man through PBS. You are not very quick are you? So, no, you have failed to refute John O’neil’s family and failed to make a mockery of his memory.
Second, the only mention of Taliban I saw was their visit to Crawford Texas to meet with george Bush. Any other references are for conditioning of the masses only. If you are remotely suggesting they said before 911, that we were going to war with Afghanistan, then send me a link from ABC, CBS , CNN, or FOX. Since, it was all over, you should have no trouble finding an article that predates 911.
I am not even debating a good Goebbels…this is just another of Hitlers Youth. What a waste of my time.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 11, 2005 at 7:52 AM Warned you Beowulf. He uses his few braincells looking up big words and trying to think of nothing to say.
JC is a 100% pure blood Troll. There is NO sign of of any tainted genetics, he has the full compliment of Genes, in fact he has a spare Chromosome, as if you and I thought we had anything special, with our mere 46.
jeez, thinks Rabbit, hope that is the right number. He’ll take a chance, for fun, rather than check. Do a troll trick by spouting something potentially questionable without checking sources to confirm.
Kind of like Spin the bottle with a troll. ...................... Rabbit might lose that one, but he is wearing a hat.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 11, 2005 at 9:36 AM The one admirable quality I can attribute to Jay is consistency. It doesn’t matter that he’s consistently goofy.
Goofiness is another quality I can at least appreciate if not admire.Thank you again, Jay. For all the mirth and amusement you so unwittingly provide.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 11, 2005 at 3:13 PM I think you’re right about the chromosomes, Rabbit. There’s undoubtedly some anal-retentive cellular biologist out there who would be finicky about there being 23 chromosome pairs, but screw him.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 11, 2005 at 3:23 PM Kuya,
I agree that what you posted in the Katrina topic was off-topic, and I hope you’ll forgive me for forcing the thread over here. I have left a redirect at the topic. I hope you found it.
I do think that in this time and age, we cannot ignore the world as we have done so in the past. I am also arrogant (??) enough to believe that our system of government can be a shining beacon of hope to the vast majority of the world who have not had the opportunity to bask in that light. So, yes, I do have a bit of missionary zeal in me. A cultural and educational legacy from our Puritan forefathers, no doubt.
Going in after Iraq so soon after Afghanistan certainly stretched our resources, and perhaps we should have waited. But there is some validity in striking when the iron is hot. Ultimately, the success or failure of democracy in both countries is in the hands of their people, not our military. We can provide cover and shelter while warlord mindsets give way to democratic ones, whether that is at a tribal or nationalistic level. To argue that democracy is strictly a modernization force ignores the fact that many old tribal societies were comparatively as democratic as ours is today.
The Mongol Hoards and The Iroquois come to mind.
If democracy succeeds, if it is allowed to succeed internally, rather than be imposed upon them from foreigners, I do not fear a repeat of the 1979 Iranian Revolution in those other countries. If they be truly democratic, secular or otherwise, I believe they will be only as brutal as their electorate allows them to be.
The strictly realist attitude of the Proxy Wars of the Cold War has proven to be inadequate, ill conceived. Certainly, it was in our national interest to have friends, but in our zeal to confront the opposing regime of that era, the future was mortgaged. I think we, as a country and as a government, have learned from that. But, time will tell.
As a shameless reference to my own blog, I have published some thoughts on what I think is, or possibly should be, the future of the region of Mesopotamia, if you care to read it.
http://sufrensucatash.blogspot.com/2005/11/reblogged-redrawing-iraqs-bordersc can.html
I look forward to hearing your response as well.
Take care.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 11, 2005 at 5:18 PM Kucinich clearly stated there was no proof Saddam had WMD. The presidential campaign website is down, but here is a copy and paste someone out there did to a message board
Kucinich, who led the effort in the House of Representatives in challenging the Bush Administration’s march toward war attempted repeatedly to warn America that there was no basis to go to war: On Sep. 3, 2002, on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Dennis Kucinich said, “I don’t think there’s any justification to go to war with Iraq. There’s no evidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. There’s no… there’s nothing that says that they have the ability to deliver such weapons, if they did have them. There’s been no stated intention on their part to harm the United States.” On Sep. 4, 2002, on Buchanan and Press, Buchanan asked “Congressman Kucinich, does not the President have a clear, factual point here? Saddam Hussein is developing these weapons of mass destruction, he agreed to get rid of them, he has not gotten rid of them. Kucinich replied: “Well, frankly we haven’t seen evidence or proof of that, and furthermore we haven’t seen evidence or proof that he has the ability to deliver such weapons if he has them, and finally, whether or not he has the intent. I think that what we need to be doing is to review this passion for war, that drumbeat for war, that’s coming out of the White House, and to slow down and to let calmer heads prevail and to pursue diplomacy….” On Sep. 7, 2002, Dennis Kucinich gave a speech in Baraboo, Wisconsin, called “Architects of New Worlds,” in which he said “There’s no evidence Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or the ability to deliver such weapons if it had them or the intention to do so. There is no reason for war against Iraq. Stop the drumbeat. Stop the war talk. Pull back from the abyss of unilateral action and preemptive strikes.” See: www.house.gov/kucinich/pr…worlds.htm For more information: kucinich.us For Congressman Kucinich’s Schedule: kucinich.us/schedule.htm To schedule interview with Kucinich or spokesperson: interviews@kucinich.
http://p076.ezboard.com/fpoliticalpalacefrm15.showMessage?topicID=31.topic
Posted by Gazoogle on Nov 11, 2005 at 7:50 PM Yes, of course. Those thousands of Kurds who were killed with chemical weapons, it really was just someone “passing gas”...
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 11, 2005 at 8:24 PM Speaking of “passing gas”, Jay-Jay. What a stinker!
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 11, 2005 at 8:45 PM And thanx for the implicit endorsement of what in the anthropology trade is known as tribal communism. Fine wine from the Cline Bottle.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 11, 2005 at 8:50 PM It looks as though the story of t he gassed Kurds may be suspect as Iran appears to be the guilty party.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5257.htm
Posted by beowulf on Nov 11, 2005 at 11:01 PM If anyone is interested in details of what happened to the
Kurds in northern Iraq after the1991 war, I suggest reading Martyrs’ Day, by the late Michael Kelly.It is a pretty good indication of what would happen to a lot of Iraqis if we pull out too soon.
Also
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 11, 2005 at 11:38 PM It is laready happening. the Balkanization of Iraq was discussed in the Jeruselem Post in 1987. They wanted to divide the country in three parts to have a divided, weak country with a puppet government friendly to the US. Our presence guarantees the plan will be carried out. Again, if you read a Clean Break written by the neocons in 1996, you will gain a greater understanding of how they plan on subverting Iraq, Syria, and Iran in pursuit of their own agenda. This has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with controling the region.
Israel is planning on opening the Haifa pipeline through Jordan and possibly reopening a previous pipeline through Syria. Their motives are clearly stated in their own writings and no amount of propaganda will cloud the truth.Pipeline:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0825-03.htmAn example of encouraged and government chaos:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woiraq204434324sep20,0,3287398, ,print.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlineshttp://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/19/content_3514065.htm
This outrage of carrying out terrorism to pit one group against the other is case in point.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 12, 2005 at 12:05 AM Balkanization of Iraq has always been the plan.
Divide and conquer. Conquer and divide.
The divisions between .... us and them, liberals and conservatives, controlled opposition .... serve the same purpose for the greedy and power seeking warmongers.
Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 12, 2005 at 1:51 AM Gazoogle -
Thanks for the input. Neither one of your links appears to be valid, or current, or whatever. There is, however, a copy of Kucinich’s speech, “Architects of New Worlds”, September 7, 2002, delivered in Baraboo, Wisconsin, at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0911-08.htm
In the speech, Kucinich does state that there are no WMD in Iraq, and he calls for “the cessation of the regime-change policy”. Both points are in direct contradiction of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, for which Kucinich voted in favor.
Coincidentally, UNSC Resolution 1441, November 2002, followed Kucinich’s speech by exactly two months. The UN Security Council voted unanimously, 15-0, for R1441, and R1441 states, in part:
UN Security Council Resolution 1441, November 07, 2003
Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,
Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 (1990) and to restore international peace and security in the area,
* * * * *
Deploring further that Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and unconditionally with UNSCOM and IAEA weapons inspectors, as required by resolution 687 (1991), and ultimately ceased all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA in 1998,
Deploring the absence, since December 1998, in Iraq of international monitoring, inspection, and verification, as required by relevant resolutions, of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, in spite of the Council’s repeated demands that Iraq provide immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), established in resolution 1284 (1999) as the successor organization to UNSCOM, and the IAEA, and regretting the consequent prolonging of the crisis in the region and the suffering of the Iraqi people,
Deploring also that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism, pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to end repression of its civilian population and to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq, and pursuant to resolutions 686 (1991), 687 (1991), and 1284 (1999) to return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwaiti and third country nationals wrongfully detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized by Iraq,
* * * * *
1. Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 (1991), in particular through Iraq’s failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors and the IAEA, and to complete the actions required under paragraphs 8 to 13 of resolution 687 (1991);
2. Decides, while acknowledging paragraph 1 above, to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991) and subsequent resolutions of the Council;
Posted by scorp on Nov 12, 2005 at 2:12 AM Continued -
So, with the entire UNSC and apparently all the other members of Congress believing that there were WMD, whatever provoked Kucinich to change his mind and declare that there were no WMD? Just curious.
For over two years, I have been looking for a confirmed quote from a real live American politician dated before April 2003 stating that Saddam had no WMD. At one time, Kevin Drum, then writing as Calpundit, undertook a major search for this type information. The only two people, other than overt ant-war types, that Drum could find that said Saddam had no WMD before the outbreak of hostilities were Vladimir Putin and Scott Ritter. Interestingly enough, both Putin and Ritter were subsequently shown to have benefitted from the UN’s Oil-for-Food scandal.
So, I certainly appreciate your help in finding the quote.
Posted by scorp on Nov 12, 2005 at 2:13 AM Rabbit is pleased to see that Lume, Beowulf and Gazoogle are keeping up the pressure on the Silly ones. God help the internet if people like Scorpy and Jay are ever free to post there claptrap unchallenged on sites such as these.
Thankfully they spout such twaddle, that there is always likey to be someone who will not be able to let such blatant crap sit unmolested.
Can Rabbit not swap his Troll for Lume’s? To be honest the gloss on Scorpy is fading a bit. His posts are just so boring. He uses so many issues, almost all of which need to be challenged individually, to illustrate his points, which themselves don’t stand up to scrutiny. As such his posts are quite useless to rebut, unless one wished to open aboput twenty other cans of worms simultaneously. Sensible and honest people try to go the shortest most logical path to establish a point. Not Scorpy, his defence lies in spreading so much seed to the wind, that no sane person is going to waste time tackling it point by point because it has just too many assumptions and NEVER a single reference.
Interesting Scorpy mentions Kevin, Rabbit has seen Scorpy over there, Rabbit was sure that it was Scorpy a few times spreading his usual feast of Bullshit, and getting the flogging he deserved, from a very feisty bunch, which seems to populate Washington.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 12, 2005 at 3:38 AM Rabbit is feeling too lazy this fine sunny saturday morning, to want to wade through the Scorpisms, which is really his duty, but Rabbit is feeling lazy, with a Pina Colada and a wee peace pipe in hand, Rabbit is going to read today, and post not much. He will also be spray painting the little yellow sailing dinghy for his oldest son, it gets it’s last coat today.
Son has had to help restore the little sailing dinghy, so he knows how a boat is made.Next week Rabbit’s Son learns to sail.
All men, and Rabbits should learn to sail. It is even better than killing people, for making a man of you. OR Rabbit.
He and his mate can sail a couple of years on the Mirror, and then Rabbit will get a Catamaran, Rabbit like sailing Cats, they go fast and Rabbit likes to go fast as the wind. It is frustrating for rabbit to sail monohulls, it always feels like the wind is going so much faster. It gives a push then flys away. With a catamaran, the boat flys with the wind.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 12, 2005 at 3:45 AM This Article is a must read
It’s clear that the military never needed to use napalm in Iraq. Their conventional weaponry and laser-guided technology were already enough to run roughshod over the Iraqi army and seize Baghdad almost unobstructed. Napalm was introduced simply to terrorize the Iraqi people; to pacify through intimidation. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Negroponte are old-hands at terrorism, dating back to their counterinsurgency projects in Nicaragua and El Salvador under the Reagan Administration. They know that the threat of immolation serves as a powerful deterrent and fits seamlessly into their overarching scheme of rule through fear. Terror and deception are the rotating parts of the same axis; the two imperatives of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy strategy. Napalm in Falluja
The US also used napalm in the siege of Falluja as was reported in the UK Mirror (“Falluja Napalmed”, 11-28-04) The Mirror said, “President George Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet-fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun the world…. Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh…Since the American assault on Falluja there have been reports of ‘melted’ corpse, which appeared to have napalm injuries.”
“Human fireballs” and “melted corpses”; these are the real expressions of Operation Iraqi Freedom not the bland platitudes issuing from the presidential podium.
Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli, who was the head of the Iraqi Ministry of Health in Falluja, reported to Al Jazeera (and to the Washington Post, although it was never reported) that “research, prepared by his medical team, prove that the US forces used internationally prohibited substances, including mustard gas, nerve gas, and other burning chemicals in their attacks on the war-torn city.”
Dr Shaykhli’s claims have been corroborated by numerous eyewitness accounts as well as reports that “all forms of nature were wiped out in Falluja”…as well as “hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds that had perished as a result of those gasses.” An unidentified chemical was used in the bombing raids that killed every living creature in certain areas of the city.
As journalist Dahr Jamail reported later in his article “What is the US trying to Hide?”, “At least two kilometers of soil were removed……exactly as they did at Baghdad Airport after the heavy battles there during the invasion and the Americans used their special weapons.”
A cover up?
So far, none of this has appeared in any American media, nor has the media reported that the United Nations has been rebuffed twice by the Defense Dept. in calling for an independent investigation into what really took place in Falluja. The US simply waves away the international body as a minor nuisance while the media scrupulously omits any mention of the allegations from their coverage.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 12, 2005 at 7:09 AM reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
-Downing Street Minutes
Posted by beowulf on Nov 12, 2005 at 2:22 PM Rabbit;
You’ve got my permission to slap down Jay anytime you feel like it. I’m not jealous. Scorpy is such a tedious old bore though. I think it best if we just talk about him behind his back, so to speak. El que esto chingador y chingada tambien. Solo solamente. He just eats up the editorial page of the Moonie Times and all the freeper chatter and regurgitates it here. It’s a service really.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 12, 2005 at 4:10 PM Yesterday, my wife and I were privileged to attend the Veterans Day observance by the Military Officers Association of America. In addition to honoring those whose service has made our lives more secure for decades, we heard the firsthand accounts of a Captain and a Master Sergeant and their interaction with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Much is being done on a daily basis to help the ordinary citizens and their children as they attempt to learn the responsibilities of self-governing. These acts will be favorably remembered. This is the face of America which is not seen on our six-o’clock news (or foreign broadcasts).
The gains already made in this difficult undertaking are measureable and substantial. When we hear urging for a swift pullout, we need to look past the political noise and seek out the real story from real people.
We owe it to those who have served, to the people of the region, to our country and to ourselves.
Posted by whattheheck on Nov 12, 2005 at 4:47 PM scorp,
I couldn’t find the quotes you were looking for, but there is plenty of the opposite.
All of these were said during the Clinton Admin:
Bill Clinton: “If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, our purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”
Madeleine Albright, Clinton Secretary of State: “We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction.”
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Advisor and Classified Document Thief: “[Saddam will] use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has ten times since 1983.”
Harry Reid: “The problem is not nuclear testing; it is nuclear weapons. ... The number of Third World countries with nuclear capabilities seems to grow daily. Saddam Hussein’s near success with developing a nuclear weapon should be an eye-opener for us all.”
Dick Durbin: “One of the most compelling threats we in this country face today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Threat assessments regularly warn us of the possibility that…Iraq…may acquire or develop nuclear weapons.”
John Kerry: “If you don’t believe…Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn’t vote for me.”
John Edwards: “Serving on the Intelligence Committee and seeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, it’s just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons.”
Nancy Pelosi: “Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons-inspection process.”
Sens. Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry in a letter to Bill Clinton: “We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 12, 2005 at 7:00 PM Jay,
Your quotes are so very true which is why I have continually berated both sides of the aisle for being corporate whores for the military industrial complex. They are all complicit in the spread of disinformation and lies. Instead of rallying against the war, many just talk about how they would have fought it differently. I lost all faith in our government and see no hope in the controlled opposition party called the democrats. We the people have not been represented by either party who, with oversight committees and vast sums of money, could not figure out what internet blogs had been saying all along….no WMDs exist in Iraq.
Another reason Valerie Plame was outed was due to her group preventing a shipment of VX gas to Iraq in order to validate the lies that got us there. If you want to cheerlead those lies Jay, then I would like for you to parade with a straight arm salute everywhere you go in order to identify to the world who you are and what you stand for….the destruction of democracy and the republic for which our forefathers fought for. What a low standard you accept from your government.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 12, 2005 at 7:35 PM This quote might help to understand the world’s ambivalence to Colin Powell’s UN assertions about WMDs:
The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them [which] we are missing.
Gamel Nasser
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 12, 2005 at 7:59 PM republicans democrats whores
pot kettle blackmostly
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 13, 2005 at 6:14 AM Rabbit is sorry to teel WTH this, but you are being duped you poor sod. So a couple of tame soldiers got up and told you how much they are helping the Iraqi’s. What a sad case you are to need to twist your mind to such delusions on no more than brief propaganda exercise. You really think that was just a spontaneous demo, of course you do.
Well don’t let the realisty get in the way of a warm fuzzy story. It must make all those attacks by insurgents just so much harder to understand, eh? Oh of course, you think they are terrorists.
Ten FACTS on the ground which show you have been duped, on veterans day.
These are stories by Veterans of Iraq, they are not feel good bullshit.
This shows what monsters you have become
AND Rabbit’s small empty vessels…... This shows that you are being overtaken .by many others who are seeing the truth. That hole in the ground you wankers are living in, is getting less and less populated.
The best woke up first. The longer it takes for you to accept the lies you have been living, the lower the humanity you own.
Now the even more disturbing thing which you should be aware of WTH, is that JAY DeCline, the lowest common denominator, has just dubbed you Brother.
Hee Hee Hee….................^^...........................
Rabbit is going to keep posting FACTS JC until you go away or grow a brain. So don’t go saying “No matter how many facts I ignore, they just keep on bringing up more.”
Because, you ignorant Troll, the FACTS just keep on coming, and you are just gonna have to keep on running. deny away, dumb little Jay.
The support for Bushler is 36% and Shrinking.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 13, 2005 at 9:31 AM AND Rabbit’s small
empty vessels…... This shows that you are being overtaken by many others who are seeing the truth. That hole in the ground you wankers are living in, is getting less and less populated.another one for good luck.
When even the Mormons are starting to doubt,
things are looking bad.You clowns wouldn’t recognise impending doom of course, so you should be going under the wheels of history any day now. When the whole shooting match goes kapow, don’t you deluded clowns go sneaking away now will you. Rabbit expects JC and Scorpy and WTH to be here on site the DAY after the Deck of Cards collapses, and admitting your failures. You will be expected to admit your defeat when the JUNTA falls and when the immense war crimes and treason become MSM fare. Of course we all know that with your cowardice, and ability to delude yourselves you’ll be pretending you were one of us all along, you will have to change your names, and even then, you will be obvious to the real veterans of truth, we’ll find you.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 13, 2005 at 9:40 AM Loony Booty -
Gamel Abdel Nasser was a Soviet stooge. Lots of that going around.
Posted by scorp on Nov 13, 2005 at 1:23 PM scorpy, Nasser was a leader in the non-aligned movement and throughout his rule played the Soviets against the West and vice versa. But I guess in your “if’n youse ain’t wit’ us, yer agin’ us” mentality, he qualifies as a stooge. I’m beginning to believe the ad homina backstab is the only tool in your belt. By that I mean you dismiss an idea by denigrating the authority and character of its author (you thought it was just name-calling, didn’t you?).
I’m not a great defender of Nasser. He was a tyrant and a fool in many ways. His willingness to suppress both the Egyptian Communist Party and the Muslim Brotherhood significantly contributed to the problems we face today. But he wasn’t a complete idiot and one would be advised to make the effort to understand his role in history and his skills in diplomacy.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 13, 2005 at 4:18 PM Talk about Soviet stooges
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2637.htm
Posted by beowulf on Nov 13, 2005 at 4:30 PM Good find, beowulf.
Primakov was laughing about it because he’s getting paid a big fee to do it. He doesn’t care, of course. Primakov speaks beautiful English, as you would expect a former head of the KGB to do. When he was asked what is this CAPPS II program really about, because obviously even “terrorists” could have credit ratings.
Primakov said that this is one of the steps now being employed along with NICA and new identity upgrade features which are coming to your driver’s license. It is being used to get the people used to new types of documentation and carrying new types of identity cards pursuant to the United States instituting a formal policy of internal passports.And he actually used the words “internal passports.”
It’s like he said and he was pretty knowledgeable. When the NICA (National Identity Card Act) gets passed, the Posse Comitatus Act gets overturned, a few other pieces of legislation yet to be proffered get passed, the White House will have more control over the American people than the Kremlin had over the Russian people when Stalin was alive. He said that and then he laughed.
What Primakov finds funny are what he calls these “right wing flag wavers” that were so anti-communist and now they’re supporting a state policy of internal passports.
The irony is deafening.
Old right wing farts—turn up your hearing aids for the irony is deafening.
So funny I forgot to laugh.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 13, 2005 at 5:39 PM I’m not a great defender of Nasser. He was a tyrant and a fool in many ways. His willingness to suppress both the Egyptian Communist Party and the Muslim Brotherhood significantly contributed to the problems we face today. But he wasn’t a complete idiot and one would be advised to make the effort to understand his role in history and his skills in diplomacy.
In that case, I am sure that I am a greater defender of Nasser than you are. Nasser was trying to establish a place in the world for Egypt and for Muslims, independent (as far as possible) from the machinations of the great powers. I have absolutely no problem with that idea, but I have problems with some of his other ideas and some of his tactics.
Nasser’s greatest failure was in not making peace with Israel in the late 1940s, when it could have made a transforming change in the Middle East. Egypt was the strongest Arab state, and think of the possibilities if Egypt and Israel had worked together for peace, security, economic development, and social development. That was not to be, because Nasser was not foresighted enough and confident enough to make it happen. So we finally got a bedraggled and imperfect peace in 1979, well after Nasser was dead.
The Ikhwan (al-Banna’s organization, not the Sa’udi Ikhwan) was the parent group of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Qa’eda, among other spinoffs. So the Muslim Brotherhood splintered into the third most potent terrorist effort in modern history, following the fascists and the communists.
So, you think Nasser was wrong to suppress the Ikhwan and the communists in Egypt? Nasser was at least a hell of a lot smarter than you are. The fighting in the southern tier of the old Soviet Union from roughly 1980 to the present, except for the current Coalition efforts in Afghanistan, is a product of the two terrorist philosophies that Nasser suppressed in Egypt. If Nasser had not suppressed these terrorists, communist and Muslim, in Egypt, Nasser would have been dead, the Ikhwan would have been dead, the Egyptian communists would have been dead, and the KGB resident would have been in charge in Cairo, barring only the possible intervention of the USA and NATO. Nasser understood that, at some level, and acted accordingly.
…. and you have learned nothing.
Posted by scorp on Nov 13, 2005 at 7:31 PM I found this interesting and informative essay on the history of Islamic Science . It touches directly on some of the issues raised on this thread. When considered in the light of the Bush Administration’s misuse and abuse of Science and what has been happening in Kansas and Dover, Pa. is quite illuminating of the lugubrious forces modern Conservatism has unleashed upon the world.
I hope Jay, WTH, and scorpy will read it and offer their invaluable feedback.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 13, 2005 at 7:39 PM I tend to think it was Nasser’s and after him to a degree Sadat’s suppression of the IB that led them, briefly, and more enduringly, the subsequent splinter groups to violence. It was his prison experience that led Sayyid Qutb to embrace militancy. You’d be well served to study a little history independent of right wing propagandists. As I’ve noted before, he who hears only one side of an argument is effectively conceding from the beginning.
From Wikipedia:
Politics of Egypt
Founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian Brotherhood quickly became a large charitable and educational organization as well as a major political opposition group, campaigning against political and social injustice and British imperial rule, and promoting a conception of Islam that attempted to restore broken links between tradition and modernity. By the end of the 1940s, it is thought to have had as many as a million members.
With few exceptions (and none since the 1970s), the Brotherhood’s leaders and members have demonstrated a commitment to a nonviolent, reformist approach to Islamism.
The Brotherhood has been an illegal organization, tolerated to varying degrees, since 1954; it is still periodically subjected to mass arrests and torture. It remains Egypt’s most popular opposition group, and continues to call for a more open and democratic political system in Egypt.
The ECP was a force for secular democratization of Egyptian society. A goal we are supposed to be encouraging. I know with your irrational hatred of all things communist you’re incapable of understanding that, but there it is.
If the Israelis had shown the least willingness to share Palestine with the Palestinians instead of driving them from their homes and into exile, the Arab Nations might have shown more tolerance. Hard to say what could have been.
I really don’t know what to make of your last paragraph. Very confused conflation of error and ignorance.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 13, 2005 at 8:36 PM I guess the best response to that bit of nonsense is that Nasser is long dead and the Ikhwan is still around.
Violence isn’t a product of any philosophy, but an emotional reaction to prior violence. Any rationalization of violence is just that, a rationalization. It’s just tit for tat and it’s been going on for thousands of years. You can put an end to it with your mind if you are willing.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 13, 2005 at 8:51 PM Loony Booty -
What is with you, are your exams coming up? That’s twice you have tried to assign me homework. For your benefit? Thank you, no. I gotta go unleash lugubrious forces upon the world.
Posted by scorp on Nov 13, 2005 at 9:21 PM This is a hisrory of Hamas first posted in the UPI but now missing. I found the story on the fringe and it is worth noting.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_hamas2.html
http://www.meib.org/articles/9906_me2.htm
Posted by beowulf on Nov 13, 2005 at 9:47 PM Rabbit,
You might enjoy this short video. It does not always play which is no indication of a dead link, you just have to try again. This last time it required about six attempts to open the page. I wonder why.http://www.hategun.com/features/mistaken/index.html
Posted by beowulf on Nov 13, 2005 at 10:02 PM This is the origional UPI press release on Hamas:
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=18062002-051845-8272r
I am sorry I failed to provide it earlier for those who rely only on the MSM for info. It should read as the above link.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 13, 2005 at 10:23 PM How about this from July 20, 2001?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/STE204A.html
Posted by beowulf on Nov 13, 2005 at 10:33 PM Thanks guys. Rabbit knows that Islamic Science was a leader in many regards. When we were running around in the forests of Europe with animal skins and worshipping rocks, Baghdad was the cultural and scientific Capital of the world.
Then when you add the Chinese knowledge and wisdom, there wasn’t much more needed to give the new age, which we pretend is created by America (via Holloywood), a serious push in the right direction. Was it an American who invented the Wheel? If nobody had invented the wheel yet, would America be the place where it would be invented? Would the west?
Scoopy and JC are as always terrified of Rabbit’s posts, “what post? What Rabbit?” they say. Shows craven cowardice. Rabbit always assumes any point in his posts which they don’t answer , is due to them being unable to refute them.
JC has always been scared of the Rabbit. Rabbit is still waiting for JC to give an incidence where he ‘set someone to rights’ on this site. He made the bombastic claim that he had done so repeatedly to someone who didn’t know better at the time, and has since pretended he never said any such thing.
JC should not be scared of the Rabbit. He will not kill you JC. You may get a few small bruises, but any one of them could be a replacement brain for you, just move the seat of consciousness from out of that dark and smelly hole, and put it in a small bump on you head…............ Yes that’s OK, your nose will do…......
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 13, 2005 at 11:45 PM Hello Jay C,
Tried to respond to your post of 11.11.05, but my in-house gremlin wasn’t talking to the ITT gremlin, no electron flow.I also think that democracy-backed-by-strength has the potential to inspire people who have had the boot on their neck for generations. Eastern Europe in the late ‘80s comes to my mind. But when it comes to the use of military force, judicious and even reluctant application should be the rule. As I said back at the Cosby thread, it can so easily lead to the creation of more harmful outcomes than beneficial ones.
This isn’t a pacifistic statement, though. There are too many scenarios I can imagine in which I’d finish off an enemy ever to call myself a pacifist, even though I am and hope to remain forever a peaceful man. And sometimes, push really does come to shove, and the choice of whether to fight or accept abuse becomes inescapable.
As for America being a beacon of hope to other nations, it’s very difficult for me to see how the events of the last two years will foster that role for us in the minds of anyone. The most recent affront, in which 9 senators and the VP (and does his nominal boss agree with him? horrors!) have made it clear that they think putting torture beyond the reach of American means, to achieve an apparently an urgent end, is a bad idea. This goes so far beyond the actual events of Abu Ghraib it boggles the mind. And the legal trickery that is the Guantanamo Bay detention complex is also an affront. It means that our leaders (although not being a follower, I have little use for leaders per se) consider American law to be an encumbrance upon them in their pursuit of national security. It means they need to evade that law when dealing with enemy combatants. I see that as a terrible precedent, having a policy that enables them to step out from under the responsibility to live up to American laws. Executive power during war or not, I’m not happy with this precedent.
Yes I know they didn’t invent that precedent; e.g. Lincoln’s actions during the Civil War were criticized as exerting too much power.
By the way, I also have more than 100,000 Iraqi reasons (as well as over 3000 Afghani reasons) to feel that any chance of our being a role model to the world is endangered rather than enhanced. I truly find those numbers sickening, not to forget the US uniformed dead either.
For me it’s a matter of working hard to live up to ideals that we always say are the ones America upholds, or taking the risk of becoming what we hate by becoming more ruthless, more evasive of legal standards than our adversaries. And since March 2003, I feel we’ve continued to risk that ignoble end.
I can only be thankful that 90 Senators voted to disallow torture. I am still sickened that it wasn’t unanimous.
Our only chance to salvage our role is to make damn sure that Iraq and Afghanistan really are better places when we depart, and that can only be the case if we invest the human and material resources necessary to ensure to a great degree that other repressive regimes don’t just step in and replace the regimes we threw out. It won’t be cheap or quick, but I believe it’s a debt we owe, beyond the question of who’s sitting in the White House.
Posted by Kuya on Nov 14, 2005 at 8:36 AM Kuya,
I would first dispute the recently quoted 100,000 Iraqi death count. And I am not alone.
(from the San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/29/MNG G729ILL11.DTL)
One of the first attempts to independently estimate the loss of civilian life from the Iraqi war has concluded that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have died because of the U.S. invasion.
The analysis, an extrapolation based on a relatively small number of actual documented deaths, indicated that many of the deaths have occurred due to aerial attacks by coalition forces, with women and children being frequent victims, wrote the international team of public health researchers who made the calculations.
....
Previous independent estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq have been far lower, never exceeding 16,000, and other experts immediately challenged the new estimate, saying the small number of actual documented deaths upon which it was based made the conclusions suspect.“The methods that they used are certainly prone to inflation due to overcounting,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, which investigated the number of civilian deaths that occurred during the invasion. “These numbers seem to be inflated.”
I’ll have more later on my own thoughts of the genuine concerns you raised, but I wanted to get this out as soon as possible to invite comment.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2005 at 7:53 PM and from the same article,
When the researchers examined the specific causes of the 73 violent deaths (ed note: that is an absolute count of 73, not a percentage of the alleged 100,000) collected in the study, 84 percent were due to the actions of coalition forces, although the researchers stressed that none were the result of what would have been considered misconduct. Ninety-five percent were due to air strikes by helicopter gunships, rockets or other types of aerial weaponry.
...
The researchers and the editors at the Lancet acknowledged that the study had clear limitations, including a relatively small sample of violent deaths that were examined directly and the researchers’ reliance on individual memories for some of the information.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2005 at 7:56 PM And I would certainly entertain an invitation for someone to quantify those 100,000, if only on how many alleged were caused by American troops as opposed to insurgency troops, if in fact these 100,000 are all directly attributable to combat.
It would be even more interesting to see how many of these deaths were the direct result of a failed healthcare infrastructure, which I would list on the side of the insurgents and their campaign of terrorizing the Iraqi civilian population.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2005 at 8:01 PM Apologies. The source of the article is the Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html
The SFChron URL is merely a reprint of that article.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2005 at 8:31 PM More apologies.
The referenced article is a year old. I though it was new. The current Iraqi death count, from www.iraqbodycount.org, is 27-30,000.
It looks like they have a breakdown. I am looking into it as time permits.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2005 at 8:41 PM Le sRoberts responds to the accusations of a faulty study:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-09/27edwards.cfm
Posted by beowulf on Nov 14, 2005 at 9:09 PM Kuya, Jay -
Iraqbodycount has made a conscientious effort to count all civilians casualties since the start of hostilities. They currently show a maximum of a little more than 30,000 civilian deaths, and a minimum of about 27,000.
In big letters on the IBC home page it says “Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq”. But then in the fine print, they say that 37% of the deaths were from Coalition activities, and the accountable remainder were from Ba’athist and al-Qa’eda terrorists (suicide bombs, car bombs, IEDs) and from criminal elements. I suspect that the small unaccountable remainder may have included internecine warfare and revenge killings.
According to IBC, 30% of the civilian deaths occurred during the first five weeks, and 20% were women and children. I expect that the accuracy of the count has improved as the situation has stabilized.
Saddam Hussein was in office for over 8000 days, and best estimates are that between one million and one and one-half million Iraqi civilians were executed during this time. This includes the 400,000 bodies recovered so far from the mass graves (Google massgraves). Organized killing sprees by Saddam’s people include the Anfal, the Marsh Arab pogrom, and the Shia suppression. It is certain that Saddam executed something in excess of one hundred civilians a day for those 8000+ days. No matter how you calculate it, stopping Saddam eliminated a whole lot of killing and preserved a whole lot of lives.
Posted by scorp on Nov 14, 2005 at 9:52 PM fyi,
Here is how Les Roberts, Lancet report’s lead author, responsed to the criticizisms of Mary Dejevsky, senior editorial writer of the Independent newspaper - considered one of the most rational and honest British newspapers (who) dismissed estimates published in The Lancet
In his response, Roberts wrote that Dejevsky was wrong even to talk in terms of the report’s “extrapolation technique” - the team had sampled, not extrapolated, data. As for the idea that the sample was “small”, Roberts commented:
“This is most puzzling? 142 post-invasion deaths in 988 households is a lot of deaths, and for the setting, a lot of interviews.
So, Roberts is puzzled because he is accused of extrapolating 100,000 deaths from 142??
And 142 death in a population the size of Iraq is not small??
No. I am the one who is puzzled.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2005 at 10:16 PM Even 30,000 is tragic. But tragic is not unconscionable, particularly in light of the era of Saddam, as highlighted by scorp. When trying to put an end to something as horrific as Saddam’s rule, we cannot be paralyzed by such consequences, as tragic as they may be. All we can do is make every reasonable effort to minimize such loss. And I believe that was done.
America’s policy since at least WWII, when our high level precision daylight bombing contrasts very favorably with the British’s preference over much safer, but much more indiscriminate nighttime bombing. The R&D money we put into precision munitions is as much for reducing tragic collateral damage as it is in their effectiveness.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2005 at 10:22 PM During the first Gulf War, 3,400 civilian deaths were reported. A friend of mine, currently an officer serving in Iraq, had access to the actual pentagon numbers and told me that the number was closer to 200,000 civilian deaths with 100,000 military deaths for a grand total of 300,000 during desert storm. This number has been collaberated since. He was telling the truth. Why do you believe the propaganda is any different today?
The battle of Falujah highlights my point as MK77 was dropped on civilian populations. As for Desert Storm, you just have to search the highway of death for an example of indiscriminate bombing. Why Jay glorifies these barbaric acts is beyond me. I will never understanding the mentality that glorifies death. He talks about Saddam, les he forgets who armed and enabled him to carry out any alleged atrocities he may have committed. Men like Jay are good only for parroting propaganda to glorify the Reich. he only understands how to be a good German.An example of my point:
http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/GoebbelsAndMiller.htm
Goebbels’ 1945 Speech on Hitler’s 56th Birthday
Our enemies claim that the Führer’s soldiers marched as conquerors through the lands of Europe — but wherever they came, they brought prosperity and happiness, peace, order, reliable conditions, a plenitude of work, and therefore a decent life. Our enemies claim their soldiers came to the same lands as liberators — but wherever they come there is poverty and misery, chaos, devastation and destruction, unemployment, hunger and mass death. And what remains of their so-called freedom is a life that no one would dare call decent even in the darkest corners of Africa.
You see, the real Hitler is always a super power, just as Nazi Germany was the sole superpower of its day. And there is nothing on earth worse than having the extreme right wing in power during a time when they are the sole super power in a ‘unipolar world’. It was just this super power status that made Hitler as bold and fearless as he was, and it was military superiority that created the myth of German invincibility that survived until the battle of Stalingrad.
I would now prefer not to hear anymore Goebbel liberation speeches out of you scorp and Kline.
Posted by beowulf on Nov 15, 2005 at 12:02 AM Thanks Beowulf, like rabbit said luckily you are here to wack thses idiots.
JC and Scoop, you do play with yourselves. Iraq Body Count is a propaganda effort. It has always existed as an effort to try and minimise things. There are various independant international studies, which variously put the figure of civilian deaths at 100,000 to 250,000.
The most universally accepted figure is 100,000 but it is probably higher. We use the figure 100,000 to be conseravtice, because it is well established.
Some of us have been watching the death figures from the start, very closely, and the truth will one day come out and it is going to blow your mind. Rabbit shall give the following rough estimates and return later with sourcing for them.
—-Innocent Civilian Casualties. between 150,000 and 200,000
—-US Casualties, upwards of 9000 dead and 15-20,000 more wounded. The much higher figure is due to the way they count deaths. Only counted if they die before evacuation.
—-“Private Contractors” and mercenaries, tens of thousands of troops on the ground, many from south American countries, who are fighting for the prize, of US citizenship. Brazil alone has over 4500 dead. None of these deaths are being counted at all. The death figures for these people are not counted. One wonders if the private contractors are reporting their figures anywhere, it doesn’t look like it.
—-Radiation equivelant to at least 40,000 Atom bombs will be blowing around Iraq, for the next several million years, this is already increased the Birth defects in hospitals about 8 times higher than before, and they were high then, the first GULF war resulted in about a tenth as much DEPLETED URANIUM being released and it pushed Birth defects up about seven times higher than pre-war, though some of this can be atrributable to malnutrition from the sanctions. The defects caused by DU are very easily identifiable, and the pattern in the new crop of defects are typical. So six times higher than before, has increased by a factor of another eight since. What it will be in another couple of years does not bear thinking about.
What the eventual death toll will be from this abomination is impossible to predict, beyond an acknowledgement that it will be counted in the millions eventually. That is if we left now, and the Iraqi’s managed to settle down and not fight among themselves too much. Thanks to you wankers, old wounds in Iraq have been opened and deepened, and the escalation of civil war is almost certain.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 12:39 AM Loony Booty -
The ECP was a force for secular democratization of Egyptian society.
*****
I really don’t know what to make of your last paragraph. Very confused conflation of error and ignorance.
I am absolutely certain that you do not know what to make of my last paragraph. You are such a naïve. So, let me spell it out for you.
Marxist theology guaranteed that the all the world would become communist, sort of like bin Laden’s caliphate. Every single time that your communist buddies came to power, they started out as impractical intellectuals, “agrarian reformers”, as in China, or as “a force for secular democratization of Egyptian (Chilean, Angolan, Nicaraguan, whatever) society”, as you choose to characterize it. From these modest beginnings, AND IF they achieved total power, the communists then eliminated great swathes of the <i>bourgeois<i> populace, great swathes of the mid-level communist cadre, and held a pissing contest to determine the top spot in the new communist state. You may find minor variances in this basic pattern, but the broad outlines are absolute and without exception: Soviet Union, China, NorK, Vietnam, Kampuchea. The Soviet Union imposed the same basic pattern on the many vassal states of its Empire. That is where all those football fields of blood came from, of course.
If the communists did not achieve total power, they called themselves socialists (less inflammatory, with all the dead communist bodies and all) and continued toward the same goals. The communists failed to achieve total power in Italy and Greece just after WWII, and in various Asian, African and South American states in the intervening years. The democracies were instrumental in making sure that communism did not prevail, of course, saving untold numbers of lives.
Socialism, left to its own devices, is inefficient and corrupt, as we see particularly in France just now. Communism is different in that it is inefficient, corrupt, and murderous. Consequently the communist states collapsed more rapidly than the socialist states, having killed off all their best and brightest entrepreneurs, among others.
So, Nasser was glad to receive help from the Soviets, but let the communists gain power in Egypt? No. Nobody is that stupid except the socialist and Liberal mid-level cadre.
Posted by scorp on Nov 15, 2005 at 1:32 AM These were the figures from various groups as reported in the BBC at the date indicated.
Civilian toll estimates at 10/04
Iraq Body Count: 14-16,000
Brookings Inst: 10-27,000
UK foreign secretary: >10,000
People’s Kifah >37,000
Lancet: >100,000
Rabbit was being a bit unfair on Iraq Body Count, maybe, but the fact has long been noticed that their count is extremely conservative and other organizations have made much more thorough efforts to find the true numbers. Of course IBC relies completely on media reports, and it is of course obvious that there will have gone many if not most deaths unreported. Although some journalists have been moving independently around Iraq, almost none do anymore, the most common cause for death of independent journalists, has been US military execution. The insurgents are also a risk, but most journalists have been freed without harm by them. This brings the media reporting of deaths into perspective.The Lancet is a very respectable British Medical Journal. These figures are a year old.
In a BBC Newsnight debate – the only debate we have seen on the Lancet report - Michael Clarke of the International Policy Institute challenged the Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton:
“This 100,000 figure, remember, has a huge margin of error. It ranges from 8,000 - which is half what most of the rest of us think it is - to 194,000. And what they’ve done is split the difference and said, ‘Well, we think about 98,000 with some measure of confidence,’ because there is a sort of a confidence statistical factor built into that. But that really isn’t, to my mind, very credible.” (BBC2, Newsnight, November 2, 2004)
Horton replied:
“Well that’s not true. What you just heard isn’t a correct summary of the research.”
Horton began explaining that the figures were higher than previous estimates because this was the first empirical research of Iraqis themselves carried out in Iraq. Newsnight anchor, Gavin Esler, then interrupted, starkly revealing his failure to understand the figures:
“But you haven’t got 100,000 death certificates, you haven’t got 100,000 bodies. You’ve got somewhere between 8,000 and 194,000 is where you’ve put it, and you’ve gone in the middle.”
Horton continued his reply:
“But that again is a misunderstanding of the figures. The most likely estimate of excess deaths is 98,000. It’s +not+ right to say that it’s equally likely it could be between 8,000 and 194,000. The most likely figure is 98,000, and as soon as you go away from that figure, either lower or higher, it’s much less likely it will be much lower or higher.”
Remarkably, Clarke then instantly renounced his claim that the authors had simply “split the difference”, before moving on to a second claim:
“Statistically, that’s a reasonable assumption, but the numbers are too small. I mean remember, seven people - very brave people, who did a series of interviews in 33 different places - but seven people, spent a month interviewing the Iraqi families that they went to visit. And on the basis of interviews, and what Iraqi families told them, they’ve made these extrapolations. But the numbers are really very small. The number of confirmed deaths that they look at is 61 – not 61,000, or 610, but 61.”
Of course the idea that the “numbers are too small” is +exactly+ the kind of issue that the serious scientists, peer reviewers and Lancet editors involved in producing the report would have focused on first in considering the merits of the research. According to the report’s authors, it is simply not true that “the numbers are too small”. Based on the chosen sample size, the 100,000 figure can be advanced “with great certainty”. This is simply a matter of scientific logic.Richard Horton concluded his comments by noting the shocking truth that “there has been no debate” on the Lancet report.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 2:00 AM The above does not prove anything, but it puts the Lancet Study in perspective, scientifically speaking. This means of course it will be useless to trolls so rabbit will go and find something better.
Scorpy, you remind Rabbit of a stupid kid, poking a Lion through the bars, unaware that the door to the lion pen is open. Lume will be by to wack you about the noggin, remember to keep your thumb in your orifice, at all times, and don’t you dare use any references for any imaginary facts.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 2:05 AM Blah. Blah. Scorpy, you are a broken record. You are a fly in amber, frozen in a simulacrum of the past. Your anti-communism is as much a metaphysical invention as ever doctrinaire marxist-leninism was. No more or less addled.
George Monbiot has a sane appraisal of the “death count” controversy in last Tuesday’s Guardian:
The media are minimising US and British war crimes in Iraq
The reporting of the Iraqi death toll - both in its scale and account of who is doing the killing - is profoundly dishonest
George Monbiot
We were told that the Iraqis don’t count. Before the invasion began, the head of US central command, General Thomas Franks, boasted that “we don’t do body counts”. His claim was repeated by Donald Rumsfeld in November 2003 (“We don’t do body counts on other people”) and the Pentagon last January (“The only thing we keep track of is casualties for US troops and civilians”).But it’s not true. Almost every week the Pentagon claims to have killed 50 or 70 or 100 insurgents in its latest assault on the latest stronghold of the ubiquitous monster Zarqawi. In May the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said that his soldiers had killed 250 of Zarqawi’s “closest lieutenants” (or so 500 of his best friends had told him). But last week, the Pentagon did something new. Buried in its latest security report to Congress is a bar chart labelled “average daily casualties - Iraqi and coalition. 1 Jan 04-16 Sep 05”. The claim that it kept no track of Iraqi deaths was false.
Go ahead and click on the link scorpy, it won’t bite. It won’t kill you to read a little bit of Moniot. But don’t you dare get yourself a copy of one of his books and read it. That might cause you to change your perception of what modern progressive socialism is really all about. You can’t let that happen. It might mean that you would have to re-evaluate your self-anointed intellectual and moral perfection. Just keep on allowing yourself to be spoon-fed your opinions. It’s so much easier that way.
Bow tie daddy dontcha blow your top
Everythings under control
Bow tie daddy dontcha blow your top
cause you think youre gettin too old
Dont try to do no thinkin
Just go on with your drinkin
Just have your fun, you old son of a gun
Then drive home in your lincoln——Frank Zappa
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 15, 2005 at 2:38 AM Speaking of Zappa, Scorpy is Dubya’s “Catholic Girl”.
Wonder if he has a tiny little moustache?
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 2:43 AM The most compelling reason to accept the higher figures, is simply that the same individuals and organisations figures have been used to give the sort of figures such as deaths under Saddam, the number of Deaths in the Congo and other conflicts around the world. Our so called leaders, used their figures to justify and explain their actions when it suits them, it is a bit late to shut the door on them as reliable just because this time you don’t like the figures. You can’t have it both ways even though we know that is exactly how you clowns think you can have it.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 2:51 AM “A tongue like a cow, that can make you go WOW!”
Yes, that sounds like our scorpy.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 15, 2005 at 3:04 AM Hee Hee…..............................^^...................................... .....
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 3:09 AM HERE is a succinct lesson in the equal opportunity nature of atrocity for Jay-Jay & scorpy baby. Scroll 2/3 to the bottom of page and enjoy the white column on the right under;
[url=“http://www.corpse.org/”] “WE LOOK FORWARD TO STRENGTHENING MILITARY TIES”
DONALD RUMSFELD [/url]Feel free to poke around. Codescru is a national treasure. Reason enough to rebuild N’awlins just so he can write there.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 15, 2005 at 4:19 AM Hey hey hey all you Trolls in these
Industrial towns
I know you’re prob’ly gettin’ tired
Of all the local clowns
They never give you no respect
They never treat you nice
So perhaps you oughta try
A little friendly advice
And be a Jay Cline
Hey, you’ll love it
Be a Jay Cline
It’s a way of life
Be a Jay Cline
See the world
Don’t make a fuss, just get on the bus
Jay Cline
Add water makes it’s own sauce
Jay Cline
So you don’t forget, call before midnite tonite
The boys in the crew
Are just waiting for you
You never get to move around
You never go nowhere
I know yer prob’ly gettin’ tired
Of all the guys out there
You always wondered what it’s like
To go from place to place
So, darlin’, take a little ride
On the hysterical side
Be a Jay Cline
Just follow the magic footprints
Be a Jay Cline
Hey, you’ll love it!
Be a Jay Cline It’s a way of life
I ain’t gonna squash it
And you don’t need to wash it!
Jay Cline
Hey, I’ll buy you a pizza————————-Zappa Rabbit
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 5:02 AM Rabbit knows it is Scorpy day….................. but the rhymes would have made even Frank blush.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 5:04 AM Luminous Beauty, try that hyperlink again for me please.
I have found this .
But am scared to go looking further without a guide.
Your help as always is greatly appreciated.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:03 AM The heart of darkness in the fog of war. Every soldier, even McNamara and Rumsfeld, begins his life as a civilian, in a society where arson, illegal entry, wanton destruction and murder are not only felonies but heinous crimes. Suddenly in uniform, wandering around in his own personal fog of war, a soldier realizes that all those felonies—arson, arbitrary killing, demolition and torture—are company policy. And he works for that company!
Naïve once, a million years ago, the fog of war clarifies for each soldier. Armed with a rifle and a constantly changing outlook each enlightenment. To become a Kurtz or hold fast to former beliefs while surrounded by men who, more and more, resemble the war criminals on the History Channel
the crux of the biscuit ..... ’
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:08 AM apologies to Jay ... but ...
I dig you Zappa Rabbit.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:11 AM between each and enlightenment insert <i>...day, chooses between a heart of darkness and sudden…<i>
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:12 AM ahh ... the proverbial biscuit and crux thereof.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:13 AM Are you sure you won’t provide the proverbial gravy ??
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:15 AM Please.!? Seriously.
I know asking nicely counts. Thank you in advance.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:20 AM David. Hooo hooo ooo ah ha hee hee hooo! Try .org
If you don’t hear from me for a while, I’m going into the goth sites…
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 15, 2005 at 6:48 AM My eternal gratitude for revealing the way.
I will see you on the other side.
It is only a little scary ....
P.S. we missed Halloween by two weeks.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 7:16 AM Ozzy - See You on the Other Side
Voices, a thousand, thousand voices
Whispering, the time has passed for choices
Golden days are passing over, yeahI can’t seem to see you baby
Although my eyes are open wide
But I know I’ll see you once more
When I see you, I’ll see you on the other side
Yes, I’ll see you, I’ll see you on the other sideLeaving, I hate to see you cry
Grieving, I hate to say goodbye
Dust and ash forever, yeahThough I know we mus be parted
As sure as stars are in the sky
I’m gonna see when it comes to glory
And I’ll see you, I’ll see you on the other side
Yes I’ll see you, I’ll see you on the other sideNever thought I’d feel like this
Strange to be alone, yeah
But we’ll be together
Carved in stone, carved in stone, carved in stoneHold me, hold me thight, I’m falling
Far away. distant voices calling
I’m so cold. I need you darling, yeahI was down, but now I’m flying
Straight across the great divide
I know you’re crying, but I’ll stop you crying
When I see you, I see you on the other side
Yes. I’ll see you. see you on the othe side
I’m gonna see you. see you on the other side
God knows I’ll see you, see you on the other side, yeahI’ll see you. see you on the othe side
I’m gonna see you. see you on the other side
God knows I’ll see you, see you on the other side, yeah
I wanna see you, yeah, yeah, yeah, see you on the other side
God knows I’ll see you, see you on the other side, yeah
I’m gonna see you. see you on the other side
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:15 AM I shrug and chuckle in semi-resigned frustration. Believe me, it aint amusement.
Let’s see…
The Iraqi civilian death toll is as low as 10,000 and as high as 300,000, based on body counts that are simultaneously not done at all and carefully recorded. US military deaths range from 2000 to 9000, depending on who’s doing the counting and how they do it, depending as well upon the margin of error they simultaneously acknowledge and deny.
You can see what I’m getting at. It ends up all being based on partisan choice of sources, because, it seems, no one is honest enough to simply collect and report the confirmable data, that simultaneously doesn’t exist and has been independently verified.
Sheesh! How many damn Ministries of Truth can one planet sustain!
God bless/damn the internet.
Posted by Kuya on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:16 AM ... I claim fair use and ... copyright etc etc be damned ...
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:19 AM Vera Lynn ? -
We’ll meet again….
Let’s say goodbye with a smile, dear,
Just for a while, dear, we must part.
Don’t let the parting upset you,
I’ll not forget you, sweetheart.
We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when,
But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.
Keep smiling through, just like you always do,
‘Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.So will you please say hello to the folks that I know,
Tell them I won’t be long.
They’ll be happy to know that as you saw me go,
I was singing this song.After the rain comes the rainbow,
You’ll see the rain go, never fear,
We two can wait for tomorrow,
Goodbye to sorrow, my dear.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:22 AM ... forgot the italics but the message is there.
Is war and killing all we know? Some may call it hyperbole, but for me it is not.
It makes me sad. Good night. See you all tomorrow.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:29 AM Kuya
Rabbit has no choice but to admit, that the tuth is not easy to get at, as far as actual death counts. The problem is not the internet, but the abuse of it, and of all media sources, by those who would keep the truth from being found or disseminated.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Nov 15, 2005 at 1:01 PM Yup, Rabbit, you can say that again. Simple accurate info on anything at all is not everyone’s highest priority, whether they swing lefty or righty. It’s not the ‘net, it’s the polluters thereof.
Some of whom kiss the administration, some of whom kick it.
Fortunately, though I break away from the virtual world to get blessedly outside (which is where I really belong), away from screens of all descriptions, I also have a stubborn streak. It will take some diligence and time, but I’ll dig around some of the sources that you, luminous, scorp, Jay C and others provide, see if I can wade through the dross and find a nugget or 3 of truth.
Inshallah, bro.
Do appreciate the offerings of y’all who are more well-versed in the various databases, despite expressions of exasperation. Shine on!
Posted by Kuya on Nov 15, 2005 at 3:47 PM Gotta chime in with David in Canada, though. War is a mf’r, better take place for a damn good reason. I’d like to believe that there’s never ever reason enough, but that doesn’t square with what my eyes see.
Posted by Kuya on Nov 15, 2005 at 3:52 PM Hello again Jay C,
Since I’m stuck with indeterminate data on death counts and all, I’m mired in moralistic generalities.Bummer.
Maybe you can tell from my emphasis on the moralistically general but also inescapable duty America has shouldered vis a vis our two war venues, that I fear my country’s notoriously short attention span may well lead to the failure to meet that obligation.
Afghanistan left our radar screen after the Soviets were driven out, and the chaos that resulted from that neglect helped bring about the malignancy of the Taliban.
What’s done is done, and there’s little I can do about the war (no, that’s wars, two at once) in practical terms. I can post mini-blogs of <4000 characters here, opinionate until my tongue turns blue, write reams of letters to elected partisans, and in the end they’ll do what their influentials want them to do. They’ll vote, appropriate funds, investigate and hassle each other, cook the data, and send young people away to fight and die for causes that we can only pray are righteous. And they won’t listen to ordinary folk like me for any longer time than it takes to calculate how to preserve or enhance their role in the power-play.
But if the America’s throwing down of two malignant governments leads to new oppressors taking their places, any chance of us being evaluated as anything but a destructive, manipulative commercial empire will be washed away. Any currency we earned from facing down fascism and communism will be forgotten in less than the time for one generation to pass.
Please understand, I’m not saying we MUST end up with a historical black eye (more like a massive organ failure, with regards to our ever-repeated values), I’m saying that a severe risk is in hand and that the conclusion is far from certain.
Saddam was a murderous Baathist fascist. The Taliban were murderous medievalist reactionaries trying to turn the clock back 1000 years. I’m not sorry they’re off their respective thrones.
But you and I know that democracy, if that’s what is truly evolving in Iraq and Afghanistan, isn’t a magickally powerful wellspring of enlightenment and peaceful progress. There’s no foregone conclusion of prosperity and social dignity in the places we’ve jumped into, even though their respective autocracies got body-slammed. The word democracy can be lied with, misused, said to be present when it’s absent, and used as an emotional trigger word to ignite thoroughly undemocratic ends. If decency, security, and the conditions of a better life have any chance to evolve in our war venues, it will be because the hyperpower who came in to bring about regime change follows through on the rather daunting moral duty it has assumed to invest its wealth and energy toward those ends of stability and dignity for the people we supposedly came to save.
Gonna need a lot more than referenda and the training of armies to do that!
Like y’all who believe that Bush et al is exactly on the right path, I’m stuck with waiting to see. But one thing’s for damn sure, if new oppressors arise in the wake of our involvement in that region, no matter how evil the rulers were who we unseated, it will be us, US, America who bears the historical blame. It will seal once and for all in the minds of billions that when 9/11 went down, we had it comin’.
That would be a truly grotesque turn of events.
I can only pray that the determination to fight evil is followed up by the determination to do the right thing and complete the tougher job of cleaning up the profound mess it has resulted in. It has to be a prayer on my part, because my perceptions and rational mind aren’t comforted.
We dropped the ball in the past, and hundreds of thousands paid the price. We sure as hell better not drop it again.
Posted by Kuya on Nov 15, 2005 at 5:06 PM Kuya,
Thoughtful, articulate and dead on the money to the last!
I truly hope that democracy takes root in both places. I also truly believe it’ll go bad before it can ever get better. We have to play it out, we have to remain until we are truly no longer needed to protect that infant democracy. Senator McCain gave a strongly worded Veteran’s Day speech spelling that out in detail. If your’re curious, I had posted extracts and reference links at
http://sufrensucatash.blogspot.com/2005/11/we-must-get-iraq-rightmccain-calls s-for.html
The old players in Iraq and Afghanistan are still in the game and they will use democracy to solidify their grip before they move against it.
This is clearly evident in Afghanistan after the recent elections. They will use democracy to legitimize their power, until it is time to close the door to all challengers. In our own country, that defining moment happened in 1800, when Jefferson’s democrats won the seat of power from Adams’ and Hamilton’s Federalists. But the old guard quietly passed the torch to the new guys. When Burr, who had tied Jefferson before the contest got decided in Congress, was approached by the Brits who offered to back up any power play he might try for a seat of power out West, our democracy was still as young and fragile as it is now in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t remember the details, but thank God Burr failed. Our success as a young democracy was far from guaranteed.
Fledging democracies always get challenged by the entrenched non-democratic forces, and that is the real danger.
But to those who would argue that the body counts are all that is relevant, I would irately challenge this: If immorality exists at 30,000, then why is 100,000 any more persuasive? It seems they are implicitly arguing that the count matters, so at what point is it not immoral? How many dead is ok? 20,000, 200, 2? Their logic contradicts themselves.
In the debate over counting bodies, what gets lost is the morality. 30,000. 100,000. No. Even one death, committed in deliberate institutional brutality, is immoral. But we recognize as a society the difference between murder one and accidental death. We recognize that blame should be assigned to the cowards who hide behind the innocent and not the police officers who use deadly force to stop them.
It does not make any consequential death any less significant. But we are talking about accountability, not tragedy.
If the body counters can show that American forces in Iraq have forced the battle in urban areas, if they can show we have waged an indiscriminate scorched earth campaign against the population, then I would be much more agreeable to assigning blame to our forces. But we are fighting in populated areas only because that is where the enemy has chosen to fight. I challenge anyone to show one American commander or one American politician who would not prefer to battle the insurgents and the jihadists out in the desert, out in the open, and away from possible collateral damage. But it ain’t gonna happen. The enemy knows they would lose. So they hid in civilian areas, they endanger the civilian population as they use them as human shields.
So who is truly responsible?
We can’t just park our fannies in the desert and taunt the bad guys. Abandoning the populated areas would only give our enemies victory where it counts, and the people in the infested areas would, and already have, suffer the consequences.
Besides, would such inaction absolve us of guilt? Are the 30,000 Iraqi dead more significant than the millions in Rwanda and Dafur, who are dead mostly because of our failure to act? Our absence and failure to act would be more reprehensible than body counters claim our presence in Iraq already is.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2005 at 8:19 PM sufren-spaces!
try this.
http://sufrensucatash.blogspot.com/2005/11/we-must-get-iraq-rightmccain-calls s-for.html
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2005 at 8:22 PM Alright..someting is throwing spaces in the URL.
Here is the relevant miscreant corrected
-get-iraq-rightmccain-
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2005 at 8:24 PM Is torture wrong?
No.
Ok. Got your attention. There have been two arguments against torture. 1) It is not effective, 2) It is morally wrong. Since the first is mute if the second is true, let me start with the second.
Second question:
Is torturing someone worse than killing them?
No.
Is killing someone morally wrong?
Not always.
Both justifiable homicide and self-defense are about killing. Yet neither is morally or legally wrong. We have the right to defend ourselves. When a police officer kills someone in the line of duty, there is always an investigation. Not about whether the officer actually did it, but was it proper? Was it a “good” shooting”? Police have the right to use deadly force to defend themselves. They also have the right to kill someone that person is an imminent threat to someone else’s life.
Therefore, since killing someone is worse than torturing them, then torture cannot be more immoral than killing.
If two guys kidnap my little girl, and I stop the first while the second gets away with her, is it immoral for me to twist the guy’s arm, break it if necessary, to find out where his accomplice is taking her? Yes, it is illegal, but only because we have laws against people taking the law in their own hands. Not because it is inherently wrong.
If two guys enter the country with a nuke, and one is caught, is it wrong to torture him, if necessary, to find out where the nuke is going?
First question:
Is torture effective?
Many have argued that torture does not yield accurate intel because the guy being tortured will say anything to stop the torture.
Yes. He might even tell the truth. And sometimes, in the hands of a competent interrogator, even lies can reveal valuable intel. The value is of intel is not in the telling, but in the interpreting. And if the life of a city the size of New York City is hanging on whether that second guy gets caught, is it not worth it to try?
The rebuttal to this is always the “slippery slope” argument. Where do we draw the line between necessary torture and indiscriminate torture?
But I would counter, where do we draw the line between murder and justifiable homicide? Why is torture inimical to drawing the line and killing someone is not?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:29 PM arghh.. gotta proofread before the Submit, not after,
paragraph after “Not always”:
have the right to kill someone ,B.if</b> that person is an imminent threat
third to last paragraph,
The value of intel is not in the telling
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:34 PM Rereading my posts, I do offer this little bit of encouraging news. After the vote on the Iraqi constitution, three large Sunni parties united and gave up their “boycott” politics in favor of participatory politics.
Some of the old players are learning the new tricks…
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2005 at 9:45 PM Jay , the spaces and sometimes dupilcate letters are the ITT gremlins doing what gremlins do. When the URLs are really long (longer than the comment field) they get broken.
TinyURL.com can be helpful or simply hyperlink your URLs.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 15, 2005 at 10:54 PM Jay for Gods sake will you stop being so bloody pompous. Can you not get it into your head that you are a moron, you do not have either interesting or insightful comments, you are so chock full of bombast that you can’t even see when you are making a complete fool of yourself.
It is also grossly pathetic to keep on posting your blog. You have now posted your blog about ten times, which is the only time you’ve ever posted any sort of link. Do you just cycle between your self agrandising wank fest and this site?
Kuya is indeed right on the money you clown, but it isn’t the same money you are on, in fact Rabbit is in agreement with Kuya on most points and since you are in disgreement with all of us on most points, don’t you think you are being a bit inconsistent?
Rabbit does not think we should be staying in Iraq however Kuya, and the reason for that is very simply democracy. The majority of Iraqis want us out, they have made this clear, and since we have done more harm than good, are causing the bulk of the problems by being there and always have, we owe them at least the respect to get out.
We decided to attack them, on our say so, and by falsifying evidence to make a case. Now this is known, and the WAR Crimes and other atrocities are also mounting up, and we have neither the will nor the money to hold the place together, witness the fact that the security situation is getting worse, fast. The majority is what makes a democracy, not “our” favorites getting the power. It just so happens that the majority of Iraqis vited for a funbdamentalsist government which is anathema to us and to the Iraqis in the long run. they are not going to be moved, with tyhe majority and Iranian backing, so there is nothing more we can do, either to make things much worse or to make them much better.
The only thing we will gain by remaining, is OIL, and increasing hatred, not to mention a lot more deaths. Rabbit sincerely believes the American and allied forces have lost ten thousand at this point, maube more.
As for Jays petty little number games, well if the numbers are not important how about you stop referring to the 3000 dead from 911. Even if they were killed by Muslim fundamentalists alone, which is unlikely, what is 3000, especially next to 30,000 or 100,000, 0r 300,000. The actual figures are quite reliably estimated at 150,000 today for all the reasons outlined in the Lancet article.
Just because people are not as rude to you Jay, as Rabbit, don’t try and kid yourself they think you are anything but a moron. No matter how nmany times this Troll gets Facts dumped on his delusions, he still springs back as cock sure as ever.
There are so many new forms of mental aberration these days, but the conservative denial syndrome is one of the wackiest.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 16, 2005 at 1:40 AM Rabbit just realised what a funny thing JC just did. Our original HTML poser, the mighty JC, has just after all this time, discovered something which we have all discovered when trying to post urls, about the space on the edge of the comment box.
This just shows:
<ol><li>Jay has never posted any sources as said.
Jay does not read others posts
Jay yaps before he thinks.</li></ol>
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 16, 2005 at 1:46 AM
A group of veterans of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Desert Storm sharply criticized the Bush administration today at an event sponsored by Veterans for Common Sense in Washington, DC. Dave Debatto. a former US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent who was assigned in 2003 to Iraq, said he took part in thousands of interrogations in Iraq. He said his orders and those for his colleagues were never to lay hands on anyone, let alone torture anyone. Consequently, Debatto and other interrogators received a lot of intelligence through their cooperation with Iraqis at the outset of the U.S. occupation. However, he said when new tactics were employed in June 2003, things “went south” quickly. Intelligence dried up and Camp Anaconda, his base of operations, became “Mortarville” as it was mortar-shelled day and night.
Frank Ford, a 32-year veteran of military and counter-intelligence assignments, served in Samara, the ancient capital of Mesopotamia, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. His military service began when he served with President Richard Nixon’s Presidential security detail at the Western White House in San Clemente, California.
Ford said at the outset of his assignment in Samara his unit was witnessing 105-100 walk-ins of intelligence sources per day. The only problem was recording and reporting on all the intelligence being provided. After the May 2004 “Wedding Day Massacre” by US troops of a wedding party in the village of Mukaradeeb in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, Ford said things “went south real fast.” He said there was an immediate response from the Iraqis. The soured relations with the Iraqis resulted in walk-in intelligence sources dropping from 105 to 110 a day to 2 to 3, and soon to zero. Immediately, U.S. troops in Samara were besieged. The U.S. response was to pick up all males between the ages of 10 and 100 whereupon they were “bagged, tagged, and brutalized.” These clean sweeps were conducted in 120 degree temperatures. The new American tactic resulted in an escalation of insurgent attacks.
Ford said Iraqis who had cooperated with the United States warned the US military to knock off the torture. Intelligence reports on U.S. torture were sent up the military chain to Washington. The reports were ignored. Ford said, soon, interrogation became extermination. Ford requested a formal investigation of the torture. The response of the U.S. military command in Iraq was to physically assault Ford and take him to a psychiatrist. Ford was told he was imagining torture. Ford said things got uglier when he was ordered out of Iraq to Germany strapped to a stretcher. Soon after, Ford retired from government service.
Ford said soon the U.S. position in Samara first began to disintegrate in June 15, 2003 after former members of the Iraqi Mukhabarat intelligence service, along with “Saddam Fedayeen” former special forces, launched “Operation Viper,” a Tet-style offensive against the U.S. The Mukhabarat warned that five U.S. soldiers would be killed per week. Ford said the insurgency has drastically increased that target number today. Iraq war veteran Garrett Repenhagen said that Abu Ghraib changed things in Iraq. He said that after news of the abuse became public, many Iraqis shifted their support to the insurgency. One starving Iraqi youngster who used to accept a daily meals ready to eat (MRE) package from Repenhagen refused it after the news from Abu Ghraib became known.
Ford, who has a degree in anthropology and specializes in archeology and is familiar with the histories of the current and past countries of the Middle East, said torture has very primal effects on a society in a drastic way. He said the “U.S. restructured the premier torture center in the Middle East,” referring to Abu Ghraib during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
http://waynemadsenreport.com/
This is one good reason that Iraqis want you out..
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 16, 2005 at 3:50 AM Nobody is left in the world who agress that we should have attacked Iraq, or that we are helping in any way. There is almost total opposition to the continued US presence in Iraq outside the USA. The opposition to it is now more than 50% in USA.
If JC understood anything about democracy he would understand that the fact that more Americans want the USA out, than want them in Iraq, makes it the DEMOCRATIC choice.
The fact that more IRAQIs want the USA out of their country than want them to stay, is also the DEMOCRATIC choice.
But is majority rule not the sort of democracy JC is talking about? Is rule by a vocal and violent minority the sort of democracy JC is spruiking for?
It must be because that is the sort of Democracy he supports at home.
Now Jay, which one of the above assumptions of Rabbits, for he has made some assumptions, which of them is false?
If you are so fearless as you once claimed, prove it and answer Rabbit what is wrong with his reasoning, in the above paragraph. If you ignore it, you are being a coward, if you challenge any contention you better be ready to back it up, ir else, Rabbit has just PROVEN that you are not only not a democratic soul, you don’t even comprehend democracy.
Rabbit furthermore challenges you others please, to examine the logic and make your feelings known. Don’t play handies with the troll, help Rabbit to force it out into the open, and maybe the spell will be broken, the Man that is Jay, will shed his Troll skin and be reborn. Or he may self destruct, which is always fun to watch.
OR Rabbit may be wrong in his logic about Democracy meaning the majority choice is the democratic option.
As fro the facts, Jay can challenge that the majority of US people want America out. Or he can challenge that the majority of iraqis want the USA out.
If he cannot refute either, he is left with two options, either he defends the rule by the vocal, violent minority, or he must capitulate, and accept that the USA has become a rogue nation which is practicing violent and wholly undemcratic means of world subjugation. Or some such wording, JC can word the actual description in his own way, if it will help him retain dignity. You have been too pompous and wrong too often to be able to gain respect on this site, before facing some degree of humiliation Jay..,
If you ignore this simple post, long but simple, you know and everyone else will know it is due to cowardice. You are probably a bit brighter than most trolls which is why you do the avoidance thing so often. You probably have mental walls which stop you from facing something but your reason doesn’t allow you to refute them either. Or Rabbit could be giving you far too much credit, you were a long way to the right, and up on the graph thing, certainly by that measure you are least likely to be reasonable.
You are extraordinarily up yourself, and that is always a serious impediment to self improvement.
Try and ignore the Rabbit’s satirical tone and the Rabbitisms, and concentrate on unravelling the riddle which is represented by Rabbit’s challenge.
Or Don’t.
If the Troll suit fits, then wear it.
Posted by Rabbit on Nov 16, 2005 at 3:51 AM Hello Rabbit,
The main reason I think a precipitous departure from Iraq would do more harm than good is because of the numerous armed factions large and small that, I believe, will immediately set upon each other as soon as the occupation forces leave. This might seem like a distinction without a difference from the view that “favors” the occupation continuing, but the distinction I’m really making (speaking only for myself, mind you) is from the view that the US needs to choose the Iraqi leadership. Like the old Yugoslavia, Iraqi is a multi-ethnic nation with little love among the ethnicities, and I think it would be a moot point who’s in charge in the absence of a much more effective law-and-order infrastructure.Of course, we all know that the fear of wild state brutality keeps the “peace” after a fashion, but I already expressed my views about America’s culpability if the new boss is as bloody as the old boss in previous posts.
So it’s not a belief in America’s unalloyed beneficial effects that make me think that a programmed withdrawal is best, after a system is in place that has a prayer of stabilizing Iraq. It’s more a fear that no one could keep the peace there right now.
It’s not as if peace and stability are there now, of course, even with the occupation. But I don’t think the violence would cease if it ended overnight, either. Too much hate between groups that has nothing to do with the occupation, even though they may all have in common a hate for coalition forces.
Maybe another force moving in to replace the coalition countries’ forces would be a possibility, but I can’t think of a single Arab nation nor any alliance who could be nominated. And as for the UN, I have doubts that they’d have the potency to do the job. They might just get chased out.
It’s all going to depend on the quickness with which domestic Iraqi forces can be put in place, and the degree to which any new regime there can govern without becoming the beast du jour.
Not a hopeful situation.
Posted by Kuya on Nov 16, 2005 at 4:06 PM -
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