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BrentA
Gym climber
estes park
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I kinda thought we were the bullies, and the world is just standing up to us with "terrorism".
Privatizing public utilities is much less menacing to them.
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Ouch!
climber
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LEB, it seems you have bought the Bush line that Iraq blew up the twin towers. Further discussion is rather pointless since anything that begins with a false premise is about as useful as tits on a boar hog.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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LEB; Ouch's "My country, always evil" is only an indication of his own sad pathology, and not indicitive of the climbing community in general.
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nailbomb
climber
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my country, always clockin' mad dollars...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Saddam was well known for particularly oppressing the Islamist extremists that we are also fighting. No terrorist from Iraq ever hurt anybody in the United States. Now that Saddam and his oppressive security establishment are gone, the terrorists have moved into Iraq and have killed thousands. Saddam, bastard that he was, wasn't threatening anybody, Colin Powell said so himself in Egypt just before 9-11.
In mean time, we pulled most the troops our of Afghanistan and let Bin Laden go. You have to ask yourself, if terrorism is the reason for all this war, are we fighting in the right places?
Unfortunately, US foreign policy is far from innocent. We have supported dictators like Saddam during the periods of his worst crimes, and continue to support kings and dictators like in Saudi Arabia (remember where the hijackers came from?) Egypt (in the top 3 for US aid) and so on.
Terrorism is wrong, but if somebody put a king in charge of the US, I'd fight em.
Think about if I walked over to you and casually stepped on your fingers. You'd make a big noise and if I didn't get off, you'd start beating at my legs, acting hysterical, or even use a weapon on me if you had one. I could act indignant and say, look this woman is a terrorist. I'm just standing my ground here. See, she's trying to infiltrate my shoes!
Giving in to the terrorists? Bush gave Bin Laden the things he wanted most.
1. Bin Laden wanted the US bases out of Saudi Soil. Bush removed them.
2. Bin Laden wanted infidel Saddam removed from Iraq. They were sworn enemies.Now Iraq will be an Islamic state sooner or later. It was secular under Saddam.
The war on terrorism is just an excuse to secure oil (and more importantly, the dollar standard for world oil sales) and foster security for Israel. All the money is going into overseas wars that stir up the terrorists more, very little goes to securing our borders, railways and ports. They don't mind if a terrorist sneaks through once in awhile and blows something up because it shores up support for the fearless leader and his violent actions. We need fear to continue to give up our money and freedom for unjustified wars. If the administration wasn't willing to sacrifice lives to get what they want, we wouldn't still be in Iraq.
And an unjustified war is a big deal. That's why we invaded Iraq in 1991 remember. We needed to stop their unjustified invasion of Kuwait. They had almost 400 billion in claims on them for that action and the courts recently decided that Iraq needed to pay something like 54 billion in reparations.
We feel cocky because we know we're too powerful to be stuck with our own reparations. We're sure we won't suffer because we invaded the wrong country.
or will we? Karma is a bitch, it just takes time to work it's way around.
Personally, I think we'd be better off cleaning up our act and joined the UN in cracking down on bullies, rather than doing it ourselves.
from a lefty site, but the truth is the truth:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0708-27.htm
"Mr Bush has undermined global security by legitimizing a doctrine of ‘preemptive war. “ What nation cannot use Mr Bush’s rationale — “to counter a sufficient threat to our national security...to forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively” — in its own interest to attack a neighboring state”? The threshold which prevents nations from legitimately making war on other nations has been dramatically lowered by the Bush administration.
Even worse, as I have argued previously on this page, the American president’s “National Security Strategy” justifying preemptive war provided economic reasons as examples of a casus belli: a disrespect for private property, policies which do not “support business activity,” and a refusal to commit to “tax policies — particularly lower marginal tax rates — that improve incentives for work and investment.” If one parses that last statement, it says that if another nation that taxes the wealthy to provide services for the poor, the United States may consider it has a sufficient cause for preemptive war."
That worries me. That's just wrong.
But hey, I'm outnumbered and the wheels of our nation's politics are in motion. Wonder where we're going?
Peace
Karl
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WBraun
climber
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Nice post Karl.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Karl, Talk to some of the jar heads that were involved in the initial invasion of Iraq.
Why did all the dead Iraqi tank crews have Syrian passports and pockets full of Franklins?
Why was the ONLY pitched battle, when they stumbled into a terrorist training camp?
Why were the Fedaheen Sadam almost always Syrian (Hizbulah) or Saudi (Al Queda) with passports stamped "reason for entry, Jihad"?
You are talkin out your ass man!
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Ouch!
climber
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Actually, in declaring A "War on Terrorism" instead of pursuing a bunch of renegades to punish for criminal acts against the US, gave the bastards a perverted status of legitimacy in the eyes of many around the world. Sort of creating an adversarial conflict between two warring nations. Bush's subsequent monumental blunders enhanced their standing and allowed them to grow disproportionally to what might have been expected. Bush's exposure as deceitful has hurt our cause with former friends.
Civilized warfare does not exist. It is a non-sequitur. The Islamic extremists are engaged in total war, without regard for any human life, including their own. This was apparent in the suicide attacks on the twin towers.
They probably could have been stopped, should have been contained, and not let loose on the world with stupid remarks like, "Bring it on".
I don't know how it could have been f*#ked up any worse. Now there is the devil to pay and all the stiffupperlipmanship won't matter at all.
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WBraun
climber
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What's this mean TGT? I'm ignorant of most of this stuff and find all this very interesting.
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cactus
Trad climber
okanagan
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Why do some americans wear Canadian flags when they travel internationally? Because they are ashamed of being a$$hole yanks.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Read several of the first hand accounts of the Iraq invasion. The speed of media now means that the kinds of personal histories that were published say 20 years after WWII were in print months after this time.
Try these
The March Up. Written by a retired USMC Maj Gen and M Sgt.
Generation Kill. The same events viewed by a Rolling Stone reporter stuck in the point Humvee with a recon platoon.
Thunder Run Zumwalt's book on the 3rd ID's taking of Baghdad.
I had a conversation with a young Lt. at Tahquitz last year that confirmed the same stories. It turns out that the only ones that would fight for Sadam were criminal gangs and Jihadis.
My kid is in and out of the sandbox several times a month and is in a position that allows a good overview of the reality. The unspoken (for both military effectiveness and geopolitical reasons) truth is that Iraq is being used as a jihadi magnet. It's easier to kill them there than Europe or N Africa.
The long term goal is the transformation of that region to a democratic form and from what I've heard it's probably going to work. But, if the idle Saudi and other assorted Wahabists are willing to present themselves for collecting their 47 virgins, our kids are more than willing to oblige them.
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Ouch!
climber
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Werner, TGT has been watching Faux News and listening to Rush Lumballs. If that had been fact, Bush would have screamed it to the world. Jeez! What utter bullshit these chickenhawk neocons come up with to try to hang on to a lost argument.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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No! Iv'e been talking to them that's been there, done that and have the green shirt. That includes my own son.
How's that, you self loathing pice of pond slime.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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So, TGT, at the time of the first Iraqi war, what had the Islamic world done to the United States? If we had to list what the US had done to them, we could start the list with.
1. One sided support for Israel
2. Putting Saddam in Power and supporting him
3. Engineering the overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Iran and replacing him with the despotic shah.
4. Supporting the tyrannical and undemocratic kings of Saudi Arabia.
5. I could go on and on
So what if there were Syrians in Iraq in 1991. If Iraq invaded the US, would we have some Canadians and Mexicans on our side too?
It's the golden rule man. If you switch shoes with the guy who's supposed to be the enemy, if it still looks just and fair, then I'm behind it 100%
It's true that we now have a big problem. We've pissed off the Muslim world. That's undeniable. Many of those Muslim countries are going to be filthy rich and powerful due to increasing oil profits. That's undeniable too. How are we going to prevent them from "getting even?" Easy, the same way as ever before, by making sure we control the governments through more kings, dictators, and bogus governments. Seems like the plan anyway.
If it was up to me, and it obviously isn't. I'd publically express regret any wrongs done to the Muslim world, and convene a conference of all our enemies and naysayers, with extensive moderators and mediation, and show respect, and willingness to work out any differences that it might be possible to address. We might still have to agree to disagree about some things, but even respect and dialog have a way of taking off enough edge that folks don't want to shoot anymore.
Sure, there would still be some extremists but they need the common folk to support them or they're just a fringe element like Timmy McVeigh.
I know it sounds too simple, but it's worked for me
Peace
karl
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Ouch!
climber
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TGT, yours is the common failing of the zealot. You are not smart or reasonable enough to see the difference in critizing the war and not the warriors. Soldiers have no voice in the matter and will fight and die for their buddies, even when they are sorely used by crooked politicians and inept leaders. When people make up bullshit stories to reinforce stupid arguments, they are not doing the warriors any favors and they just sound silly.
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Ouch!
climber
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LEB, There is a forest somewhere among all those trees. Keep looking.
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Ouch!
climber
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The jihad magnet is and has always has been bullsh#t. When Bush did not get the loving greeting he expected in Iraq and the fighting intensified after he declared it over, The Jihad magnet became a fallback position to justify the blunders.
How incredibly stupid is a concept to bring democracy to Iraq by inviting outsiders to come in and kill countless thousands and lay waste to the country. Only in the mind of a Bush. Brilliant.
The truth is, the thing is out of control and Bush hasn't a clue how to get out except more deceit and death. Afghanistan is threatening to become another situation like Iraq. What will he do if it blows up in his face.
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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Lois, I know you're a nice person and that's what scares me and makes me most sad.
"Putting aside the whole issue of whether it was appropriate to invade Iraq, why must we as a nation or else we as individuals be "soft" on our enemies." It is a mentality and viewpoint which I simply cannot grasp. If someone attempts to harm me, why must I "care" about him. What am I missing?"
Putting aside the whole issue of whether it is appropriate to bomb buses, why must they as a nation or else as individuals be "soft" on their enemies? It is a mentality and viewpoint they simply cannot grasp. If we harm them, why should they "care" about us? What am I missing?
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""If you bomb our cities," Osama bin Laden said in one of his recent video tapes, "we will bomb yours." There you go, as they say. It was crystal clear Britain would be a target ever since Tony Blair decided to join George Bush’s "war on terror" and his invasion of Iraq. We had, as they say, been warned...
"It is easy for Tony Blair to call yesterdays bombings "barbaric" - of course they were - but what were the civilian deaths of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the children torn apart by cluster bombs, the countless innocent Iraqis gunned down at American military checkpoints? When they die, it is "collateral damage"; when "we" die, it is "barbaric terrorism".....
"But here’s the problem. To go on pretending that Britain’s enemies want to destroy "what we hold dear" encourages racism; what we are confronting here is a specific, direct, centralised attack on London as a result of a "war on terror" which Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara has locked us into. Just before the US presidential elections, Bin Laden asked: "Why do we not attack Sweden?"
"Lucky Sweden. No Osama bin Laden there. And no Tony Blair.
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"It’s strange that for a White House that writes screenplays, the words of Osama bin Laden appear so uninteresting. Whenever Bin Laden speaks, no one bothers to read through his speech. The questions are always: Was it him? Is he alive? Where is he? Never: What did he say?
"There are real perils in this. Let me show you why. On 13 February, 2003, Bin Laden’s latest audiotape was broadcast by the Arabic satellite channel, al-Jazeera. This, remember, was five weeks before the Anglo-American invasion.
"In that message, Bin Laden made a statement in which he said that "it is beyond doubt that this crusader war is ... directed against the family of Islam, irrespective of whether the Socialist party and Saddam survive or not ... Despite our belief and our proclamation concerning the infidelity of socialists, in present-day circumstances there is a coincidence of interests between Muslims and socialists in their battles against the Crusaders."
"And there you have it. Bin Laden, who hated Saddam - he told me this himself, in person - made a call to his followers to fight alongside an Iraqi force which included Saddam’s Iraqi Baathist "Socialists". This was the moment when Iraq’s future guerrilla army fused with the future suicide bombers, the message that would create the detonation that would engulf the West in Iraq. And we didn’t even notice. The US "experts" waffled about whether Bin Laden was alive - not what he said. For once, Bush got it right - but he was too late. Always, as they say, read the text.
http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles516.htm
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Nice post, Lois. I am confused on one thing though – what kind of an animal has four feet and feathers?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Hi Lois
I wrote a couple extensive posts above in large degree because you posed the question. I hope you'll find the answers to some of your questions in them, or at least tell me where they don't made sense to you.
Peace
Karl
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nailbomb
climber
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The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders . . . All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism."
-HERMANN GOERING, Nazi Gestapo
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dammit Lois Read my posts and say something! ;-)
Let's say somebody's dog ate my cat. It was attacked! I'm pissed off so I go Dog hunting and kill your dogs, even though there's plenty of proof they didn't eat my cat.
Fair enough eh? My cat WAS attacked! and I heard your dogs barking years earlier.
Maybe I rationalize that it doesn't matter than your dogs didn't eat my cat. If I got a new cats, your dogs would want to eat her. Dogs hate cats because of their FREEDOM!
Going to the wrong war with the wrong folks is a BIG deal. Iraq didn't attack us. THEY were ATTACKED by US. What are their rights to respond by the defense ethics you have written?
See, there is always the danger of things swinging both ways.
and don't forget, if you come after me for killing your cat eating dogs, you're a terrorist.
PEace
Karl
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Ouch!
climber
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LEB, even HowDeanWeird is smart enough to see we were attacked.
The big lie by the Bushies neocons was Iraq's being involved in WMDs and ties to Al Qaeda.
They should be impeached for treason and murder against their own people and crimes against humanity for making war because of a blatant lie.
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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Nailbomb said: The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders . . . All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism."
-HERMANN GOERING, Nazi Gestapo
WooHoo! Godwin's law!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Pay no attention to the fat guy behind the curtain. Saddam denied having WMDs.
Besides, we DO have WMDs and we WILL use them if attacked, so why the double standard? Israel has em too, and will use them if attacked.
Preemptive war was an excuse to do what we planned for many years.
Peace
Karl
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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Lori, we are never going to understand each other. As far as I'm concerned, you haven't read more than 15% of the words in any of my posts (For instance, you never told me whether or not 1 billion Chinese people deserve motorhomes and SUV'S? Not to mention where you got this "martial arts expert" thing). If you had then I have a hard time believing that you are telling me that the "terrorists" have ABSOLTUELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER for attacking "us", the Allies of Evil. I'm confounded and having a hard time with any sort of response. I'm posting here for two main reasons: One, I haven't interacted much with Americans since right around 9/11 and I'm trying to understand where the collective American mind is at now; Two, I'm hoping that one of these "intelligent" climbers you spoke of will tell me to get the fvck out of this country if I don't like it and can show me some actual numbers and scientific analysis that will convince me to get on a plane nexdt week and never be heard from here again. The more I read, the more speechless and alarmed I get.
Let's try a little more Mespotomian and Persian history. This is going to be a cut and paste, but I'll chime in with a few missed details that come to mind. It's also going to long as I'm tired of hearing back rhetoric from people who don't know shlt about history, so if you can't read it then don't.
IRAQ [PLUS A BIT OF IRAN AND OTHER] HISTORY
Late 1800s -- British control Middle East in order to have a land route to India
[Why were the British so anxious to be in India? Ok, it would be easy to get off topic here as the War on Drugs is the longest war in US history and was the first war "declared" against nobody, hence it is by defintion unwinnable. Illicit narcotics production has skyrocketed since the "war" was declared by Nixon. Almost like how "terror" has increased since the war on it began. Hmmm, go figure. Interested parties should consider two must-reads on this topic: Martin Booth's "Opium: A History, and "The Politics of Herion in SE Asia: CIA complicity in the global drug trad" by Alfred W. McCoy, PhD (I'll post some choice excets if anyone wants them). Anyway:
"The Qing dynasty of China entered into a long decline beginning in the 1800's, beset by increasingly aggressive foreign powers that clamoured for two-way trade with China. Europeans bought porcelain, silk, spices and tea from China, but could sell little in return [hmmm, sounds about like the Chinese filling your Wal-marts and all they get back is these measly paper dollars http://www.energybulletin.net/6459.html]. The drain on silver in Europe further strained finances already squeezed by European wars.
"Opium itself had been manufactured in China since the 15th century. It was mixed with tobacco in a process invented by the Spanish, but dominated by the Dutch by the 18th century. Faced with the health and social problems associated with opium use, the Chinese imperial government prohibited the smoking of opium in 1729.
However, the British began manufacturing opium in India in quantity starting in the mid-18th century, learning the art from the Mughal state, which had traded in opium in the land trade since at least the reign of Akbar (1556-1605), and began an illegal trade of opium for silver in southern China. In 1764, when the British conquered Bengal, they began to see the potential profit in opium, which up until this point had been primarily out of Netherlands-controlled Jakarta. Profits approached 400%, and poppies grew almost anywhere.
British exports of opium skyrocketed from an estimated 15 tons in 1720, to 75 tons in 1773, shipped in over two thousand "chests", each containing 140 pounds of opium. "Relax, the fact of the matter is that white people tried to get the Chinese addicted to drugs so they could make money. Don't freak out because you can't handle it that the British were brutal monsters in the past. Right-wingers, god it's not enough that your politics of selfishness dominate our dying world, you want to seem like angels too. Give me a break."]
1904 -- British Navy shifted from coal to oil [Hmmmm, being that they ruled the world's seas from being stuck on that miserable little island I wonder where they thought they were going to get all that oil?]
1916 - British/French in Sykes-Picot agreement arbitrarily draw national borders in Middle East; southern Mesopotamia including Baghdad was to be administered by Great Britain. Arabs were needless to say upset by this secret agreement when it was published by the Russian government in 1917.
1917 - British forces invaded Mesopotamia and occupied Baghdad; Iraq became British Mandate
1918-Great Britain uses systematic aerial bombardment for first time in history to put down rebellions in Iraq.
1921 - British Colonial Office draws line across Southern Iraq creating Kuwait to prevent Iraq access to Persian Gulf. [Wait a minute, you mean there was no such thing as the Kuwaiti people until the Brits decided there was? That's odd. Sounds a bit like Kashmir or Palestine:
Brother Leader of the Revolution Moammar Ghadhafi:
"It is an obligation to solve Kashmir problem peacefully because doing that will solve the problem of the everlasting rifted relation between the two sister neighbors, that is India and Pakistan.
Semantically, the meaning of the word “ Shikak” is taken from the notion of the breakup of one thing into two or more parts. Originally. What is called now Pakistan, Bangladesh and India was one geographical nation before the incidence of the breakup. They are sisters, indeed.
"This breakup originated from a colonial conspiracy to avoid leaving behind a great nation with such demographic and geographic magnitude and such gigantic potentialities. The colonialism was the instigator of the different sectarian and doctrinal conflicts and the evidence is that before its incidence, the population was coexisting, peacefully, for a long period of time in the Indian peninsula.
"Therefore, British colonialism is responsible for the committed religious slaughters and the violent bloody clashes of that time. It’s this colonial conspiracy that escalated the situation to an unsolvable point that led to the breakup of that one and only entity into two sections, on sectarian and doctrinal basis, which is originally a reactionary and colonial theory.
"It’s none of the interests of the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula to be disrupted and to have their potentialities dissipated and to lose those advantages, let alone to kill each other. http://www.algathafi.org/kashmiri/kshmer-en.htm]
1932 - Iraq joins League of Nations and recognized as sovereign state
Late 1940s - after WWII British power begins to wane and America steps in. George Kennan, U.S. State Department stated in 1948," The US has about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming, and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about such vague and unreal objectives as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
1951 - Mossadeq takes power in Iran and declares that they will control their own oil.
1953 -After 2 years of U.S. sponsored sanctions CIA supports plot to overthrow Mossadigh and place Shah in power. American Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf Sr. helps Shah develop SAVAK secret police. Following Mossadeq's fall, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Iran's monarch) grew increasingly dictatorial. With strong support from the USA and the UK, the Shah further modernised Iranian industry but crushed civil liberties. His autocratic rule, including systematic torture and other human rights violations, led to the Iranian revolution and overthrow of his regime in 1979. After more than a year of political struggle between a variety of different groups, an Islamic republic was established under the Ayatollah Khomeini by popular vote. [wait a minute, so the Iranian's didn't like US in control of their oil (not to mention the expats and their families who showed up in shorts and bikinis like they were in Orange County) nor the dictator that we gave them. So they kicked him out and everybody voted for the Ayatollah. Interesting... Also interesting that they don't have problems with internal strife other than the CIA supporting rouge militias. I'm starting to get confused. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8628.htm"
1958 - popular revolution led by Abd al-Kassem Quassim overthrows British-installed king of Iraq
1959-Saddam Hussein was one of assassins who wounded Quassim
1963 -coup aided by CIA overthrows Kassem. Baathist party briefly in power. Hussein runs torture center
1968 - Baathist Party comes to power for good in Iraq
1972-Iraq announces the nationalization of oil. Pres. Nixon plots with Shah to arm Iraqui Kurds. Iraq placed on list of nations supporting terrorism
1975-Iraq Vice-president Saddam Hussein and Shah reach agreement ceding control of Shatt-al-Arab waterway to Iran. Kurdish aid abruptly stopped. Concerning the Kurds who were left in the lurch, Henry Kissinger said , " Covert operations should not be confused with missionary work".
1979-Shah is overthrown. National Security adviser Brzezinski publicly encouraged Iraq to attack Iran to take back the Shatt-al-Arab waterway - which the U.S had forced Iraq to cede to Iran four years earlier.
1980-"Carter Doctrine" states U.S. will intervene militarily to protect U.S. access to oil. Iraq invades Iran at U.S. urging.
1982-Iraq removed from terrorist nation list.
1984-U.S restores full diplomatic relations with Iraq. Pres. Reagan authorizes intelligence sharing with Iraq. At same time U.S. begins sharing intelligence and selling weapons to Iran. [This was right about when Donald Rumsfled was shaking hands with Saddam and giving him CIA satellite maps of Iranian troop positions so that he could more effectively gas them .
1985-Oliver North tells Iran that U.S. will help Iran overthrow Saddam Hussein. [Do I need to here.....?]
1986-U.S increases aid to Iraq [?!?!?!?!]
1987-Norman Schwartzkopf Jr. Named head of CENT-COM. U.S bombs Iranian oil platforms.
1988-Cease fire signed between Iran and Iraq. Center for Strategic and International Studies begins 2 year study predicting outcome of war between U.S and Iraq. Saddam Hussein announces $40 billion plan to peacefully rebuild Iraq.
1989-War Plan 1002 originally conceived to counter Soviet threat is adjusted to name Iraq as main threat in region. Plan renamed 1002-90.
January 1990 - CENT-COM stages computer games testing 1002-90. U.S. War College report states that "Baghdad should not be expected to deliberately provoke military confrontations with anyone. Its best interests now and in immediate future are served by peace".
February 1990-Schwartzkopf tells congress of need to increase U.S. military presence in Gulf region
May 1990 - At Arab summit Saddam accuses Gulf states of waging economic war against Iraq. The Iraq economy has been devastated by the war. Iraq had borrowed billions to wage war against Iran. Price of oil was down because Gulf states were dumping oil on world market. Kuwait was slant drilling with American equipment [sold to them by Brent Scowcroft's oil firm] into Iraqi oilfield Kuwait and Saudi Arabia at behest of U.S. demanded immediate repayment of loans to Iraq.
July 1990 -- Saddam accuses Kuwait of conspiring to destroy Iraq economy. Iraq troops mass on Iraq border
August 2, 1990 -Iraq invades Kuwait.
August 3, 1990 -U.N. passes Resolution 660 condemning Iraq
August 6, 1990 - U.N. passes Resolution 661 levying sanctions against Iraq. At this time Iraq imports 70% of it's food.
August 7, 1990 - U.S. tells Saudi Arabia that Iraq troops are massed on their border and convinces reluctant King Faud to accept U.S.troop deployment. Satellite photos show no troops massing on Iraq side of border.
August 8, 1990 -U.S.dispatches 40,000 troops to "protect" Saudi Arabia. Iraq announces it is annexing Kuwait.
August 12, 1990 - Iraq suggests withdrawal of it's troops from Kuwait be linked to Israel withdrawal from occupied territories. U.S. rejects. Later proposal to withdraw troops not linked to Israel rejected by U.S.
back to WWFOR Iraq Interest Network page
September 2, 1990 -Iraq begins rationing food.
November 8, 1990 - with no significant change in crisis U.S. doubles number of troops in area to 400,000
November 29, 1990 - U.N. authorizes use of force if Iraq doesn't voluntarily leave Kuwait by January 15, 1991.
December 22, 1990 - Infant mortality has doubled due to sanctions
January 9, 1991-U.S threatens destruction of Iraq if not out of Kuwait by January 15.
January 12, 1991 - Congress authorizes use of force if Iraq not withdrawn by January 15.
January 17, 1991 - U.S. begins air assault. 42 days of 2,000 sorties a day throughout Iraq and Kuwait.
February 13, 1991 - U.S kills 1,500 civilians at Al-Amariyah shelter
February 15, 1991 - Pres. Bush urges Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam.
February 21, 1991 - Russia announces that Iraq has agreed to full and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait. U.S rejects plan and says that if Iraq not out of Kuwait by noon February 23 a ground attack will proceed.
February 23, 1991 - ground assault begins
February 26, 1991 -- Iraq announces it's troops are withdrawing from Kuwait. U.S bombs road that would be used to retreat and kills thousands from air including civilians in "turkey shoot".
February 28, 1991-Iraq and U.S. agree to cease-fire
March 2, 1991 - 24th Mechanized Infantry slaughters thousands of Iraqi soldiers in post cease fire battle. No Americans die.
March 1991 - U.S-encouraged rebellions against Saddam are put down. Schwartzkopf allows Saddam helicopters to fly through U.S. lines to kill Shiites in south and Kurds in North. He refused to allow rebelling members of the Republican Guard in the South get weapons from their storehouses.
http://www.ilaam.net/War/IraqEmbargo.html
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"It will not come as news to anyone that the US dominates the world economically and militarily. But the exact mechanisms by which American hegemony has been established and maintained are perhaps less well understood than they might be. One tool used to great effect has been the dollar, but its efficacy has recently been under threat since Europe introduced the euro.
"The dollar is the de facto world reserve currency: the US currency accounts for approximately two thirds of all official exchange reserves. More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all world exports are denominated in dollars. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in dollars.
"But the more dollars there are circulating outside the US, or invested by foreign owners in American assets, the more the rest of the world has had to provide the US with goods and services in exchange for these dollars. The dollars cost the US next to nothing to produce, so the fact that the world uses the currency in this way means that the US is importing vast quantities of goods and services virtually for free.
"Since so many foreign-owned dollars are not spent on American goods and services, the US is able to run a huge trade deficit year after year without apparently any major economic consequences. The most recently published figures, for example, show that in November of last year US imports were worth 48% more than US exports1. No other country can run such a large trade deficit with impunity. The financial media tell us the US is acting as the 'consumer of last resort' and the implication is that we should be thankful, but a more enlightening description of this state of affairs would be to say that it is getting a massive interest-free loan from the rest of the world.
"While the US' position may seem inviolable, one should remember that the more you have, the more you have to lose. And recently there have been signs of how, for the first time in a long time, the US may be beginning to lose.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5949.htm
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"The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long before 9/11, in November 2000 - selling his oil for euros. The oil sales permitted in that program aren't very much. But when the sanctions would be lifted, the sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been moving to the euro. The U.S. dollar is in a sensitive period because we are a debtor nation now. Our currency is still popular, but it's not backed up like it used to be. If oil, a very solid commodity, is traded on the euro that could cause massive, almost glacial, shifts in confidence in trading on the dollar. So one of the first executive orders that Bush signed in May [2003] switched trading on Iraq's oil back to the dollar."
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"In 2005-2006, The Tehran government has a developed a plan to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-denominated international oil-trading mechanism. This means that without some form of US intervention, the euro is going to establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project for U.S. global domination, Tehran's objective constitutes an obvious encroachment on U.S. dollar supremacy in the international oil market.
http://www.energybulletin.net/2913.html
Hmmm, this is all really odd. you mean to tell me that the two countries MOST opposed to the Iraq war were the two wealthiest Euro states? And who were the most gung ho? The Brit's with their pound plus Spain and Italy, the two poorest Euro nations. How odd. And somehow we've got back to gold again....http://news.goldseek.com/GoldLetter/1119621601.php.
Lois, one thing you probably don't know about me is that I was actually kidnapped and held hostage by Islamic freedom fighters (IMU) in Central Asia several years ago. I don't need to hear any boo-hoo, poor us, the victimized American people bull-shlt. Yes, I knew within a hour that we'd have to kill at least one of them to escape, and no that wasn't a problem for me in the situation I was in at the time, BUT I didn't let that diminish my ability to rationally look back afterwards to question and try to understand WHY I was targeted when Australians, Germans, Russians, and Ukranians all skated free. when I got out of the situation I looked into it and found out that "THEY" DON'T EVEN KNOW HALF THE REASONS THE HAVE TO HATE US. Do you?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Sounds like a fine plan to me Lois.
Of course the devil is in the details of everything we do. Some folks deal fairly with others even if they are in a position of advantage, others don't.
There are plenty of leased land farmers and sharecroppers in India who are virtual slaves. Not a Republican or Democrat issue but an issue of those with power leveraging over those without it.
But, particuarly looking at the peak oil threat, it's possible that you and your tenents will someday be important contributers to your own security and your communities viability. My hat's off to you.
But I agree with Singha, that you don't seem to have read very carefully.
Peace
Karl
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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Holy Crap! I haven't read 15% of KDB's words either. That's one long post.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 10, 2005 - 02:47am PT
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Hi Lois
It's good that you admit that you are not in command of the historical facts. You basically admit that for you, 9-11 came out of the blue, the first blow in what was previously a war of words. That's only your assumption.
You make a long argument that says that use of violence goes over the line, and invites retaliation, but you don't know what violence has been committed in your name and won't be expecting retaliation from the ones affected.
Bush kills a lot of folks and makes you feel safer, but are you? Osama is still loose, Zawahiri (the #2) is still out there. the leader of the Taliban is free, and Iraq is now free, free to become a fundamentalist state sometime in the future.
The problem is that many people in the world are just like you. If you kill their dad or their Mom or their sister, even if it's by accident, or because they are collateral damage, they get mad and want to get even. They want war, even if, like you, they were peaceful before.
Can you see where this leads? There are many, many more innocent victims of State violence and terrorist violence than there were a few years ago. Every new round of killing breeds new victims wishing revenge.
Nobody can stop the development of biological weapons by even small countries that can easily be smuggled into this country. We can't be safe and no amount of killing will make us safe. Peace and understanding are the only answer in the long term.
That's not going to happen unless some divine light shines on us. The future is looking kinda dim right now.
Maybe if we could just fit all the people lusting for war and revenge on a single island and let them fight each other, the hatred and misunderstandings could start to die out. I hope you can shoot!
peace
karl
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 10, 2005 - 12:02pm PT
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Yes this is true, LEB, we should take care of each other with a true heart.
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 10, 2005 - 12:59pm PT
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*cough*
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 10, 2005 - 05:01pm PT
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I quite agree Lois that, ideally, and maybe in the past, we could simply delegate our thinking to the politicians that we hire to serve our interests, just as we trust our physicians.
However, sometimes both Politicians and Physicians can be mistaken, even corrupt. That's when what could be taken for granted before turns into a hassle, an investigation, a second opinion, and a need for education.
Everybody can't be an expert on everything, it's very true. But, you have posted your views advocating a certain perspective. You are standing up and influencing public opinion and you have to take responsibility for that. If you use examples that conflict with fact, you need to be told that, even if you were sold a bill of goods by propaganda artists selling a war under false pretenses.
I was never a political guy. I have WAY better things to do with my time than study this stuff. I was forced to do so when I started to see danger signs in world events. I can't wait to stop keeping informed, although we've reached a point where I despair of regaining enough trust in our system, Republican or Democrat, where I can go back to being politically asleep with impunity.
You have a right to your opinion and I respect that you have arrived at it in good faith, You are obviously neither unintelligent nor a bad person. You basically diagnosed yourself. You have your views based on what you've been told, which is limited and not analyzed with critical facts.
To be told so is merely therapy for the problem, just as you might tell a patient that the cure the witch doctor prescribed might be dangerous.
We are all in a similar boat to some degree. Hopefully, by having these dialogs, we'll be forced to see the perspective of "the other side" and consider it as well. Those who merely wish to call names detract from this process, but I'm open to questioning my assumptions and the spin that I've heard. I'm careful to listen to right wing news,listen to Christian radio, read the BBC, log onto Arab News, Haaetz in Israel, Al Jazeera, and more, so I get a balance of everybody's views.
We all have to fight the very human tendency to believe what we want to believe, and that's not just in politics.
Peace
Karl
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Khun Duen Baad
climber
Retirement
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Jul 10, 2005 - 05:52pm PT
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Lois,
I wonder if you would allow me to recommend a few books for you if you haven't been through any of them yet? I have a few of them here I would be willing to ship and loan to you if you are interested. I mean it, these are select and, I feel, important in understanding the broad range of topics we are discussing; I don't have the time to break it down unless I know where you're coming from. As you start to get your information dialed, they other pieces, like the ones I'm tlaking about, fit in easier. I thought that timeline was very concise, even with the attached links. All of it can't be more than an hour of reading. Funny how societies with the most labor-saving devices have, inversely, the least amount of free time. Maybe that's why Indians read four times as much as Americans?
Shooting at the Moon : The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos (history but written in a novel-like style making it more readable [enjoyable] for many), Roger Warner.
The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Alfred McCoy
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley
The Art of War, Sun Tzu (recommend the Thomas Cleary translation, this book would maybe help you understand "divide and conquer" tactics like those that are used to divide us into a two-party system, "liberals" and "conservatives", us and them, barbarism and civilization, etc.)
_
I'm not sure you appreciate some historical correlations such that, for exapmle, the Sugar War was a war we fought for drugs (sugar) [same as tea and coffee] and energy (sugar and slaves). Ever heard of the Boston Tea Party? Man (and woman) have been fighting for energy since the beginning of time, it just takes different forms through the ages. First hunting grounds, then arable land, wood, slaves, coal, etc. All of it is hyrdocarbon energy from the sun that is stored, one way or another, in organic matter over billions of years until we find a way to burn (or use, by slaves have to be fed, housed, controlled, transported, etc) it and release it into the atmosphere. The Industrial Revolution dramtically increased man's intake of energy dramatically:
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"The answers [as to why so much beef is consumed in spite of such environmental damage] involve understanding the relationships among Spanish cattle, British colonialism, the American government, the American bison, indigenous peoples, the automobile, the hamburger, and the fast-food restaurant".
— Richard Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), p.222
To summarize his detailed account:
As Spanish colonization of the Americas took hold, cattle were introduced in places like Argentina, Central America etc.
By the seventeenth century cattle was so abundant, that one could be killed for the hide and the remaining meat left to rot.
Around the Industrial Revolution, England was the “beef-eating capital of the world.” Not only to increase food for a growing population, but also to keep wages down, and due to the influence of wealthy meat industry leaders and landowners, beef consumption was made affordable to more and more people.
The British Empire distributed much rum and meat to its military forces, thus helping to subsidize the sugar and meat industries.
To support an increasing demand, Britain would look to its empire, its colonies and other areas for additional beef and support of grain production.
American meat industries, eager to make profits from the British demand looked to increase their cattle production.
However, they had to overcome problems including available rangeland and meeting the specific taste requirements of the British which, involved having fatter cows.
But Indians and buffalo were in the lands that cattle producers needed for rangeland.
Hence, this led to the famous near extermination of the bison, which would also “deal” with the Indian problem.
From just 1870 to 1880, millions of buffalo were reduced to “virtual extinction.” (The famous Buffalo Bill and others profited from hunting expeditions.)
This destroyed the Indians of the Plains, to whom buffalo were central in their culture as both a major food source and spiritual power. They were moved off to reservations and other lands but no means of real chance of continued meaningful existence.
To meet demands of fatty beef by the British, corn was increasingly fed to cattle. Furthermore, the price of grain was so cheap, it was advantageous to feed corn to cows. Thus, this formed a symbiotic relationship to the extent that even today, “the price of corn is closely linked to the demand for the price of cattle” (p.227).
After World War II, the surge in automobile use (helped by a $350 billion project to construct 41,000 miles of highways in the United States) led to the growth of the suburbs and fast-food restaurants that were making beef, and in particular, the hamburger a prime choice. (See also, for example, Eric Schossler's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001), a New York Times bestseller. It provides a lot of details about the rise of the fast food industry and its various impacts.)
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption/Beef.asp
[Incidentally, I stopped eating red meat about 6 years ago when I discovered that it takes 340 gallons of water to produce one pound of ground beef]
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We need to make a few disassociations. First, Iraq and 9/11 had NOTHING to do with each other until we, the peaceful American people, made something up. We're only talking about them in the same thread because we are talking about the big picture, don't start thinking they have anything to do with each other. Additionally, Iraqi and Iranian people are two entirely different races, Arabic and Persian respectively, and have about as much in common as a Botson Irish Catholic, and an Indonesian Catholic; as they say in Asia "Same same, but not the same". But now we are making these connections for them and forcing them into an alliance (whilst trying to divide and conquer, a whole other topic), just like OBL said we would, as I previously posted.
There are a few reasons why I think the people who want the troops to come home now are even bigger a$$holes than those who wanted them to go in in the first place. I was getting on a plane in Bangkok when we started dropping bombs on Baghdad and landing in SF I went straight out to the protests with the rest of the misguided hippies. However, having spent a few years looking even deeper into the issue I had several amazing revelations:
1. This war isn't about oil, it's about the rest of the oil
2. This is going to happen either way, it is the natural course of events. Nothing will change until A LOT of white people die. GWB, Inc. are doing an effective job of making sure that that happens.
3. The machine must come to a grinding halt at some point. GWB, Inc. are doing an effective job of making sure that that happens.
4. Both the richest and pooerest 2% of the world population will be least affected by global strife and a potential die off, I'm not likely to be either.
5. My president is going out on a serious limb to do this for me, who am I to not appreciate that? You're right Lois, they're not only about personal greed because OUR greed (mine and yours) is the only thing that feeds theirs. They are the herders, we are the sheep. I hope you don't really still believe that this country was set up so that "every man gets a vote" (recent election issues completely aside) Did you know that Iraqis didn't get their food ration until they voted?:
"The suffrage requirements of the frontier states were more democratic than eastern ones. Beginning with Kentucky in 1792, all but two western states embraced white male adult suffrage; in the East, all but two states retained either a property or taxpaying qualification for all or part of the period from 1820 to 1860. Several western states even enfranchised aliens who had established permanent residence and Indians who had given up tribal citizenship. The new West's rapid movement toward universal white manhood suffrage was facilitated by insecure land titles, the erosion of social distinctions, the desire to attract new settlers, and the belief that Indians could eventually become enough like whites to exercise political rights intelligently. Electoral competition everywhere also encouraged politicians to lower suffrage qualifications so they could portray themselves as champions of popular democracy."
"With the advent of the second American party system, Democrats and Whigs hotly disagreed about the scope of political rights. The Democrats, worried less about civic virtue and more about each man's need to defend himself against governmental tyranny, viewed the suffrage as an inherent right of white males. The Whigs largely accepted republican notions of a hierarchical organic society and therefore treated the suffrage as a privilege. But by 1850, electoral pressure had converted most Whigs to the idea of white male democracy."
_
I want to give you that 9/11 was "crossing the line", not because I agree with you, but because I want to agree on something so we move on to the bigger issues. But I'm sorry Lois, it my feeling that your statement contains absolutely zero understnading of any other culture. You view their acts and motivations from inside your own cultural framework when you can't even vaguely imagine the world they live in. I can't even begin to address it in depth. I'm 100% certain "they" will tell you the the United States of America crossed the line a long fvcking time ago, if they didn't do it by eagerly and ferociously attacking an innocent country and KILLING 25,000 of their civilians who had NO WEAPONS, NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER TO OBL, AND NEVER COMMITTED ANY HOSTILE ACT TOWARD THIS COUNTRY. Who is the nation of six-year olds here? Wait a minute, where was the USS Cole when it was attacked?
Let me tell you how it sounds from here:
"Mah field nigger jussa snuck up behind me 'n wholluped me upsahd muh head wit a gol darn shovel! Now Ah wanna know, what inna HELL wrong wit them goddamn ingrates? They was ova in AFREECA swingin' frum tree like monkies 'till we brung 'em over n' give'm jobs anna roof ova thuh heads and thuh good knowledge and LOVE of his Lord Jesus, not to mention some good whippin' disipline theh done needed. Ya turn yer head on 'em for one minute and they take a CHEAP SHOT like that atch ya. Ooooooo, boy now that's crossing the line. Cheap shottin' nigger kint even STEP UP like man with his family's silver plated dueling pistols. Jerold, I tell ya, these people just don't respect life or their own worth, we needa educate'm."
You want to know why this makes me so angry? Because ALL (READ: NONE) of the evidence we have now, we had BEFORE the war. And myself and 80% of the rest of the world were sitting here staring at you bunch of blood-thirsty psychos wondering if you didn't even see the words on the pages in front of you??? What about the yellowcake uranium story did you believe? Or how about the schematic design of what a mobile weapons lab could THEORETICALLY look like if we were to design one ourselves? Or how about the fact that any sarin he could have had had LONG SINCE degraded into useless sludge? Don't tell me you took your president's word for it because it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, I'm very sorry.
I want you to tell me that when we were rounding up Japanese Americans in the 40's siezing their property, and putting them into concentration camps out in the desert that you would have have told me that those people had crossed the line, too.
This is where we could quickly get on a tangent about torture, the definitions, and goals of it's use. Do you expect me to believe that my government wouldn't be on the cutting edge of torture?; that we are going to let the terrorists have better torture methods than we do?
Lois, I can understand why you would feel let down that your government wasn't able to stop 19 guys who had been in the country for years and were directed by a guy with a cane and dialysis machine from a cave in Waziristan. I think you should take a few days and pour over every single detail of the chain of command on that day, cross reference the points you question, and formulate your own opinion as to why you think it happened. I think you'll find a significant range of sources and times put together here:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&timeperiod=1:00am%20Sept%2011%202001
_
Don't believe anything you read, and only half of what you see. Or, wait, is that the other way around. Lois, type "saddam statue" into Google and tell us what comes back. BTW, I should make it clear that you shouldn't believe anything I say either, I want you to consider things, look into them (both sides of the story, I watch Fox news and love Bill O'Reilly) then make a decision.
Here, let me help you:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2842.htm
Army report confirms Psy-ops staged Saddam statue toppling
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=641
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3024.htm
The point I'm making here is that since we had no evidence to begin with, and we have no evidence now of WMD, and since we attacked them (for no reason) then that by definition mean that we are MURDERERS. RED RUM RED RUM RED RUM RED RUM We are also, by definition, terrorists:
terror
n 1: an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety [syn: panic] 2: a person who inspires fear or dread; "he was the terror of the neighborhood" [syn: scourge, threat] 3: a very troublesome child.
Even Fatty will probably tell you that terror is about fear, violence is simply a method (and the only one available). Did you expect Al Qaeda to sail over here and seige Ft. Bragg? Give me a break. Did an Iraqi jet fly over and drop a bomb ont he White House?
"NEVILLE WATSON: Without a doubt. I mean, the end of the Saddam Hussein rule is one for jubilation but the way it has been ended is one of great sorrow, because the bombing, the so-called ‘shock and awe’, was one of the most horrific things that I have ever seen. It was designed, as all terrorism is, to create fear by the use of violence and it amazes me that the description of ‘shock and awe’ was not one dreamed up by the opponents of America, it was dreamed up by themselves, and I'd go as far to say that what we saw in the bombing of Iraq was terrorist activity. It was designed to create fear by the use of violence. And that bombing will go down in history as one of the most unjustified and most horrific that we have seen of late."
"Marines draped the statue of Saddam Hussein with an American flag. When the crowd reacted negatively to that gesture, the US flag was replaced with a pre-1990 Iraqi flag, missing the words "God is Great"." So we get to use "In God We Trust", but they don't get to use "God is Great". Brilliant.
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Have you ever heard of Prescott Bush?
"President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Trading With the Enemy Act. On October 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City. Prescott Bush's business interests seized under the act in October and November 1942 included:
Union Banking Corporation (UBC) (for Thyssen and Brown Brothers Harriman)
Holland-American Trading Corporation (with Harriman)
the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation (with Harriman)
Silesian-American Corporation (with Walker)
"Bush's interest in UBC consisted of one share. For it, he was reimbursed $1,500,000. These assets were later used to launch Bush family investments in the Texas energy industry."
"Toby Rogers has claimed that Bush's connections to the Silesian-American Corporation makes him complicit with the corporation's mining operations in Poland which used slave labor out of Oswiecim, where the Auschwitz concentration camp was later constructed. Allegations that Prescott Bush profited from slave labor or the Auschwitz concentration camp remain unsubstantiated."
"There are unsubstantiated rumors concerning Prescott Bush's associations with the Nazi party. The Anti-Defamation League has stated, "Rumors about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, have circulated widely through the Internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated." [1] The rumors began with extreme right-wing attacks on George H.W. Bush during his 1980 presidential run and were renewed during his 1988 run."
"The New York Herald-Tribune referred to the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, as "Hitler's Angel" and mentioned Bush only as an employee of the investment banking firm Thyssen used in the USA. The label was ironic, since by the time the Tribune article appeared, Hitler had turned on Thyssen and imprisoned him. Shortly after George W. Bush's election as US president, Canadian bloggers, apparently affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche, began a determined effort to circulate reports that Prescott Bush himself had been known as "Hitler's Angel"."
"In any case, it is now indisputable that Prescott Bush (via his business interests) was extensively involved with and enabled the rise of Nazi Germany, and its war machine. This has been clearly shown in recently declassified (2003) documents from the National Archives [2] No apology was ever offered by Prescott Bush or (since his death) by any Bush family member for his activities with Nazis or Nazi Germany. This despite the fact that many of these activities occurred after Nazi outrages such as Kristallnacht, and the savage invasions of Austria, Czechsolovakia, Poland, France, Denmark, and Norway. It should also be noted that much of the current Bush Family fortune can be traced back (directly or indirectly) to Nazi profiteering."
"It could be argued that Prescott Bush's motivations with regard to the Nazis were strictly selfishly financial and not philisophical in nature. There is, however, strong evidence that Prescott Bush was a strong eugenicist. Bush was an acquitance of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and herself an avowed eugenicist. Margaret Sanger is on record favoring infanticide, compulsory sterilization, and (arguably) genocide [3]. In fact, Prescott served as Treasurer for Planned Parenthood's first national fund raising campaign in 1947 [4]
It should also be noted that the alliance between Hitler and the Harriman-Bush mileu went beyond mere business interests. Another area where they worked together extensively was race science--i.e. eugenics. For example, in 1932, W.A. Harriman arranged the Third International Eugenics Conference in New York, where Hitler's leading race scientist, Dr. Ernst Rudin, was unanimously elected president of the International Federation of Eugenics Societies. After studying the eugenics laws of California and Virginia, which had resulted in thousands of forced sterilizations in the United States, Dr. Rudin wrote the Nazi "Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases in Posterity," which led to thousands of forced sterilizations and millions of exterminations in Nazi Germany."
Now we are quickly getting to the BCCI scandal, but I'll let you pursue that on your own if you're interested.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/
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OBL doesn't give a shlt about your western "values" (alcohol, strip clubs, porn, eating the pig, gluttony) as long as you keep them to yourself, but that's not the business we're in, is it? Tell me again how a president who believes that God and sent him on "The Walk" and talks to him isn't a religious fanatic?
"I asked God for blessing on him and the troops. He saluted, I saluted back and left the room."
Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? President Bush said, ‘Well, no," He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’"
Let me get this straight, he didn't ask his father, the former head of the CIA and the only ex-president who reads his daily CIA briefings?
___
Finally getting to Pearl Harbor as it seems nobody else wants to break the news to you on this one. When I read your post I actually had to go ask somebody if Americans still believe that story. Whether or not FDR knew (or where and to what extent) is one thing, that he goaded them and needed it to happen is indisputable.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408
7 December - 1:50 P.M. Washington time. Harry Hopkins, who was the only person with FDR when he received the news of the attack by telephone from Knox, wrote that FDR was unsurprised and expressed "great relief." Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about December 7th in This I Remember p 233, that FDR became "in a way more serene." In the NY Times Magazine of October 8, 1944 she wrote: "December 7 was...far from the shock it proved to the country in general. We had expected something of the sort for a long time."
7 December - 3:00 PM "The (war cabinet) conference met in not too tense an atmosphere because I think that all of us believed that in the last analysis the enemy was Hitler...and that Japan had given us an opportunity." Harry Hopkins (top KGB agent and FDR's alter ego), Dec. 7 Memo (Roosevelt and Hopkins R Sherwood, p. 431).
We're going to have to leave the Chinese and their potential motorhomes out of it for now.
I just read HowweirdDean's most recent post and I'm with the elcapfool in never posting here again. I don't have any tollerance left and I found the answers I was looking for. HWD is truly an imbecile beyond my comprehension.
Lois, if you are going to see OutFoxed then you should also see The Control Room and make your own comparisons.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 10, 2005 - 05:54pm PT
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You had me sit down for that? (Edit: Referring to Lois' post above)
I could have told you what news you were listening to without any revelation.
Sure Fox is fun to watch. But that's why you still believe that "They hate us because we're free." which is the most transparent propaganda BS I've ever heard. Even Bin Laden got sick enough of hearing to to retort "Sweden is even more free, why don't we attack them."
So continue with Fox, but find something to balance it. You owe it to yourself to rent the DVD of "Out-Foxed." all about Fox News. Dr. Dean should see it too so he can get all excited.
If you get a few opposing views, you can at least consider both sides, and see what degree of spin you are getting. Something from outside the US, anywhere, is more likely to deduct the automatic US cheerleader bias.
You don't have to be an expert to have an opinion, but you should be sure that you are listening with an open mind.
Peace
karl
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Ouch!
climber
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Jul 10, 2005 - 06:06pm PT
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" I really do like Fox News and yes that IS where I get much of my information."
Classic case of the Fox guarding the Henhouse.
Al Jazeera is far and away more fair and balanced than Fox.
Fox News is to democracy as sandpaper to a hemorrhoid.
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 10, 2005 - 06:10pm PT
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"Have a cold Rove?"
Just allergic to bullsh#t.
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 10, 2005 - 06:50pm PT
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"KEB, some people here try to sound sophisticated and try to 'snow job' people by acting ultra-intelligent, when, in fact, they don't know their arse from a hole in the ground. BTW, they will slam Fox News all the time but none of them will ever produce any evidence that Fox is slanted toward the right. They just seem slanted because they are "fair and balanced" and next to the normal media propaganda outlets that makes them look slanted to the right. "
Dooooood. Not only have I yet to see you post something intelligently written that wasn't written by someone else, you clearly don't even read other people's posts. I guess this fits in with the whole 'where is the outrage over dead Israeli children' when the media is swamped with it. The bias of Fox has been recanted in much detail on this forum, and even on recent threads. Just poke around a bit...I seem to recall entire threads devoted to it in past months. I realize that you want very badly for Fox to only 'seem' slanted due to your wishful bias of the 'rest' of the major media outlets, but the only way for you to maintain this idea is to continue burying your head up...er...in the sand. I know it easier to look to media that supports your desired worldview but you don't ever actually learn anything that way.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 10, 2005 - 07:03pm PT
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I just read HowweirdDean's most recent post and I'm with the elcapfool in never posting here again. I don't have any tolerance left and I found the answers I was looking for.
Damit Jason, just when some cool guys like you and elcapfool show up and get some interesting stuff going, and now you guys are leaving. Man, I’m bummed about that.
All over some dumbass comments made by the loser Howyweirdo?
I say shove it up his ass and make him suffer ......
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 10, 2005 - 07:10pm PT
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Personally, I don't think either of you have watched enough Al Jazeera to have ANY idea how bias their reporting is or isn't. And Howweird apparently doesn't even know what bias IS to begin making some sort of distinction.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Jul 10, 2005 - 07:23pm PT
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hey billohreally-
what do you know about al jazeera, besides whatever donald rumsfeld says about them?
lois-
what bothers me about so many of my fellow americans, yourself included, is that you take no responsibility for the fact that you are fairly ignorant about certain things. you wrote something above about how you think your opinion should still be valid and meaningful in spite of your overall ignorance of world history, but what efforts do you make to edumucate yourself, other than ask your husband two questions a month?
do you lack intellectual curiosity?
do you lack the time to learn about the world for yourself?
i challenge you to read KDB's books, perhaps your husband will stop looking so pale when you ask your questions each month.
say, do you listen to any ragae music?
"don't know your past, don't know your future"
"how many people did that one catch"
"how many nations did that one ctch"
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Ouch!
climber
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Jul 10, 2005 - 07:29pm PT
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Go here and read it daily for a few days, as well as Fox and the other outlets. Read the London and Tel Aviv outlets. Then tell me who is biased. Single point information is like single issue voters. Woefully out of it.
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 10, 2005 - 07:30pm PT
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Check em out for yourself. One cool and democratic thing about them is many stories have a space for posting below them. Folks from every extreme do post and it's possible to rate posts. I'd like to see Fox news do that.
http://www.aljazeera.com/
Peace
karl
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Jul 10, 2005 - 07:37pm PT
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reagrding elcapguy's statement-
when gW was told that iraqis were attacking the supply chain and support vehicles during the push into iraq, killing american soldiers there, rather than fighting the attack helocopters and tanks on the front lines, he responded, "they fight like terrorists".
he was right.
they fight in the way that they expect will have the greatest impact upon their adversaries. they determine their best options, based upon their own resources and opportunities.
when you guys complain about being attacked on 9/11, does it occurr to you that our country has the military resources to extend into other countries, and that we are fairly unique in that regard? what exactly would be an "acceptable" type of attack? since our military is w/out equal, if you were going to attack the US, would you attack the military?
i am not excusing the terrorists who took down the WTC, but i also don't think it should be such a great suprise, and in light of the less than benign foregin policy that our country has shoved down the throats of the rest of the world for the last 50-100 years, i also think we should feel fortunate that it didn't happen any sooner. what should be a suprise to us is that it wasn't worse.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jul 10, 2005 - 08:00pm PT
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"they fight in the way that they expect will have the greatest impact upon their adversaries. they determine their best options, based upon their own resources and opportunities."
Exactly. This is the way that the Arabs defeated the Turks. Ever see "Lawrence of Arabia"? Read "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and substitute "American" for "Turk" for a prescient view of today's events.
Too bad the gentleman in the White House spent his youth on cocaine and booze. Otherwise he might have educated himself as to the world and its history.
LEB: Imagine this: After Dec.7, 1941 FDR had declared war on Costa Rica.
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Ouch!
climber
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Jul 10, 2005 - 08:29pm PT
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After 9/11, the saga of Afghanistan may be recorded in history as one of the worst failures in foreign policy and military operations.
Instead of applying overwhelming force, Bush tried to do it on the cheap, reserving the main thrust for the debacle in Iraq.
Sneering at the rest of the world and going it alone, instead of remaining focused on the job at hand and pouring resources into making Afghanistan more than a subsidized opium farm for Al Qaeda.
What will his hubris dictate if the Taliban succeeds in overwhelming Pakistan and the nuclear weapons? No leader in that part of the world is safe if they side with the US. They can exist only in heavily fortified enclaves, pretty much isolated from their own people.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Jul 10, 2005 - 09:15pm PT
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"you forgot poland"
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jul 10, 2005 - 09:52pm PT
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Howweird,
Fortunately, French troops are in Afghanistan helping hunt down Al Quaeda.
Somebody has to do it.
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HovvweirdDean
climber
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Jul 10, 2005 - 10:08pm PT
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You don't even count. "Sneering it alone"
Hey England, Holland going at the world and, Australia, etc. You ain't sh#t in Ouch's eyes. You don't sh#t in Ouch's eyes. You ain't even count. "Sneering at the world and going it alone"
Hey England going at the world and going at the world and going it alone.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 11, 2005 - 12:55am PT
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Lois, just as your time is limited, mine is too. Rent "Outfoxed" it's entertaining, it's all about fox news. It'll tell you why Fox news is not really news
Peace
karl
PS. For an example, there was a study between viewers of Fox News and viewers of the Daily Show, (A comedy show about politics) The Daily Show viewers had more accurate knowledge of political facts than the Fox viewers. That's pretty sad.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 11, 2005 - 01:32am PT
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Hi Lois
No it's not like "Darts" It because Fox news hasn't bother to disabuse their viewers of lies like
1. The reason for terrorism is because they hate our freedom
2. Iraq was involved in 9-11
3. Iraq had WMDs at the time of the invasion
The fact that you appear to still believe those lies makes you an obvious Fox viewer.
I have perfect faith that you are a nice person, a good person.
It's not the worst fault in the world that you have been mislead, and that you, probably with good intentions, ask questions as if you are seeking knowledge and yet don't pay enough attention to the answers you are given. You didn't get to be a professor or a medical professional without tons of complex reading. This leads me to suspect you are either being lazy, or blind with denial because you don't want to question your beliefs, or just wasting our time.
Let's say one of your students says "I believe in drinking herb tea for allergy problems, what's wrong with that?"
You start an explanation of the body's reaction to preceived irritants, histamine response, and yada, yada, but the student says
"Could you just make it simple? The steam from the tea opens my nose and I feel better, what's wrong with that?"
You might say, "I've seen people die from allergies! Their throats close up if they don't get epi in time, then they need some anti-histamine that will kick in before the epi wears off!"
Then the student might say "I dunno, In the Spring my nose runs, I drink my tea for 3-4 weeks and my nose gets better. The herb book says that doctors treat us with artificial drugs in excess quantities."
How are you going to deal with that student?
Yes, they and their nose are harmless to themselves, but they don't have any business practiciing medicine, nor have they got knowledge from different sources, that might broaden their perspective.
I'm sure you're just fine. If you want to propagate your opinion here, you'll have to back it up with facts or be called on it. If you came to learn, you have to read the course materials
Peace
karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 11, 2005 - 01:54am PT
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Just for you and Howard, Something from the Amazon review page of OutFoxed
David Cole
Iinnocuously enough. On Monday, June 21, a producer from Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor called to ask me to appear as a guest that evening to comment on a front-page story in the New York Times claiming that the Bush Administration had overstated the value of intelligence gained at Guant?namo and the dangers posed by the men detained there. I'm generally not a fan of shout-television, and I had declined several prior invitations to appear on O'Reilly's show, but this time I said yes. Little did I know it would not only be my first time, but also my last.
I sat in the Washington studio as the taping of the show began in New York with a rant from Bill O'Reilly. He claimed that "the Factor" had established the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and then played a clip from Thomas Kean, head of the Senate's 9/11 Commission, in which Kean said, "There is no evidence that we can find whatsoever that Iraq or Saddam Hussein participated in any way in attacks on the United States, in other words, on 9/11. What we do say, however, is there were contacts between Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Iraq, Saddam--excuse me. Al Qaeda."
I was impressed. O'Reilly, who had announced his show as the "No Spin Zone," was actually playing a balanced soundbite, one that accurately reported the commission's findings both that there was no evidence linking Saddam and 9/11, and that there was some evidence of contacts (if no "collaborative relationship") between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Maybe all those nasty things Al Franken had said about O'Reilly weren't true after all.
But suddenly O'Reilly interrupted, plainly angry, and said, "We can't use that.... We need to redo the whole thing." Three minutes of silence later, the show began again, with O'Reilly re-recording the introduction verbatim. Except this time, when he got to the part about Kean, he played no tape, and simply paraphrased Kean as confirming that "definitely there was a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda." The part about no link to 9/11 was left on the cutting-room floor.
Now it was my turn. O'Reilly introduced the segment by complaining that we are at war and need to be united, but that newspapers like the New York Times are running biased stories, dividing the country and aiding the enemy. "The spin must stop--our lives depend on it," O'Reilly gravely intoned. He then characterized the Times story that day as claiming that the Guant?namo detainees were "innocent people" and "harmless." He said the paper's article "questions holding the detainees at Guant?namo."
I noted that the Times had said nothing of the sort. And I pointed out that the article relied on a CIA study finding that the detainees seemed to be low-level and had provided little valuable intelligence.
That didn't convince O'Reilly, however, who again criticized the Times for misleading its readers by terming the detainees innocent and not dangerous. I replied that he was misleading his own viewers, by exaggerating what the Times had said. "No, I'm not," he retorted. So far, the usual fare on newstalk television.
But then I decided to go one step further: "It seems to me like the pot calling the kettle black, Bill, because I just sat here five minutes ago as you re-recorded the introduction to this show to take out a statement from the head of the 9/11 commission stating that there was no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
Apparently O'Reilly does not like being called "the pot." He exploded, repeatedly called me an "S.O.B." and assured me that he would cut my accusation from the interview when the show aired. He also said I would "never ever" be on his show again. At this point, I wasn't sure whether to take that as a threat or a promise.
Sure enough, when The O'Reilly Factor aired later that night, both Thomas Kean's statement about 9/11 and my charge about O'Reilly deleting it were missing. All that was left was Bill O'Reilly, fuming at the liberal media's lack of objectivity and balance, and ruing the divisive effect "spin" has on our national unity.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 11, 2005 - 02:03am PT
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I hear he's a tiger with a lufa pad though
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 11, 2005 - 03:07am PT
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Hi Lois,
It's quite OK if you are busy and don't have time to do research. You should read the posts answering the questions that YOU POSED. I just think that if your time is that limited, you are wasting our time by asking us to post responses to your questions if you don't have time to read the responses.
If it took the one line, simplest analogy of Pearl Harbor and Costa Rica to get you to see the other side, it just means you aren't reading the rest of the the posts very well, because I know you are smart enough to comprehend better if you tried.
I didn't ask you to read ANY books btw.
You wrote:
"And, BTW, although I am not particularly thrilled about us being in Iraq anymore than you are - is it possible that he really did believe that there were WMD there? Does everything and everyone have to be evil or sinister? Could it ever be that someone in command does something because he really believed it to be in the best interest of people under his charge at that time .....and he did so based upon incorrect information. Incompetence in intelligence - yes, absolutely - evil, sinister and ulterior motives? Not necessarily."
Which just leads me to think you are wasting my time because the answers were covered earlier in the thead. But to make it simple and cover it again:
1; Just before 9-11 Colin Powell made a speech in Egypt saying Saddam had been disarmed and wasn't a threat anymore,.
2. The Secret Downing Street memos prove that the administration knew the WMD evidence was very weak, that Saddam wasn't a threat, and that "Intelligence was being FIXED" to justify war.
3. Inspectors were on the ground in Iraq with full access. They weren't finding anything. There was no way Saddam could attack while the place was being combing by the UN. It's laughable to think there was an immediate threat that justified an attack.
4. Ambassador Wilson, debunking lies about Nigerian Uranium, yada yada
It's that simple. You want to give the Bushies the benefit of the doubt, and because you don't have time to read the posts or study, there will always be doubt. So why bother to type this? It's all above in this thread but you're still asking the question. Why Bother? Tell us the valuable things that you do know and learn about the things you don't when you have time.
PEace
Karl
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 11, 2005 - 10:45am PT
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"hate America"
That's how the Jodies/Howies of the world see anyone who opposes White House policies. They must hate America!
Then again, the Jodies of the world believe the world is 6000 years old, so reasoned thinking is not exactly one of their strengths.
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HovvweirdDean
climber
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Jul 11, 2005 - 03:11pm PT
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WMD's in public service. (I feel still all us, you are look attacks against admit them that Saddam had WMD's it is honorable opportunity to kill always be sore election). They don't look at Saddam had after convince wastill us. Well, I that WMD's honorable have no PROOF there libs weren't lying WMD's and supportunity to get rid our breath trying WMD's will part of why weren't lying you we were. The year+ leading to Somallies. Lois, and of think it is fairly a smalia, Haiti, or us, you won't look at us?
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 11, 2005 - 03:30pm PT
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"Lois, you won't ever convince them that they weren't lying. The libs still can't get over the Bush/Gore election. The libs will always be sore losers. To them, it is hate and blame America first(unless it is Clinton going to Somalia, Haiti, or the Balkans). They have no PROOF that Bush lied. They don't look at the man's honorable history in public service. They don't admit that Saddam had WMD's and used them and in the year+ leading up to the war had ample opportunity to get rid of them. They won't admit that WMD's were only a small part of why we went in there. (I feel stressing WMD's in the first place was a mistake by Bush). He said after 9/11 that if you weren't for us you were against us. Well, I think it is fairly obvious that Hussein and his regime hated us, wanted to kill us, and supported terrorist attacks against us and our allies. Lois, you are wasting your breath trying to talk sense into these close-minded people. "
Actually there is a ton of proof that Bush has lied..over and over and over. You never SEE any of it cause your lips...er eyes/ear are glued to Hannity, O'Reiley, Limbaugh and a slew of other misinformative 'sources' who invent and spin more than they discover or investigate.
His 'honorary history in public service' has been looked at very carefully and it is clear that he was more interested in politics than serving (bailing on the guard to go work on a congressional campaign), is happy to take public money for private projects (building a stadium for his baseball team) and as Governor of Texas sent the state spiraling toward financial ruin and got out just in time to be President and left the mess for his successor to clean up.
There is no proof that Saddam had WMD's in the year before the war at ALL! In fact all of the actual exsperts who have reported on this issue have stated that the capacity of Iraq to produce, and their stockpiles of WMD's had been destroyed before 1998. Stressing WMD's was CLEARLY a mistake in the first place by Bush because it WASN'T TRUE but he knew the only way he could even come close to sellin the war was if he convinced Americans that Iraq was an 'imminent threat' to our lives. He had to shift the momentum of the post-9/11 fear of terrorism to Iraq and WMD's was the only thing that would stick.
Which terrorist attacks did Saddam support against us exactly? There waqs some evidence that he was suppoting some of the attack in Israel but only after we jumped all over him in 2002/2003. The reports that I have heard were that IRAN was the one actively supporting attacks against the USA. Meanwhile actual and documented WMD's have been researched and produced in N. Korea.
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 12, 2005 - 04:20am PT
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While the images of sexy 20-something ahram chicks is nice...lets not hijack too hard eh?
http://usconservatives.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200507070938.asp
"It is doubtful that these attacks will influence British policy, at least in any way favorable to al Qaeda or its ideological allies. Londoners are no strangers to terror attacks. According to the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, there have been 126 terrorist incidents in London since the late Sixties, making it among the most targeted European capitals. (Note: There have been 309 attacks in Paris over the same period.) London has been attacked not only by the IRA, but also the Popular Front for the Liberation, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Abu Nidal Group, and now al Qaeda. Not to mention the Blitz during World War II. If Hitler's Luftwaffe could not break Britain's will, what chance do the terrorists have?"
For those of you who still make arguments about Europe being removed from the terrorist threat or somesuch nonesense.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 12, 2005 - 08:11am PT
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I'd agree with that.
The american public is only just beginning to grapple with the dawning realisation that what the threats their government told them to to be afraid of are imaginary, and that they were lied to and abused by them.
It's true that america has little experience of war and terrorism compared to europe, but that doesn't make it any less sad that the US reaction to terrorism - to buckle and cry, then lash out apparently randomly in a frenzy of jingoism, racism and stupidity - was so exactly what the terrorists wanted.
The british people will simply do what we've always done with terrorists - take the hits and stay standing so the police and intelligence services can do their jobs.
With luck, americans will see our example and learn to stop crying, wipe their noses and do what needs to be done instead of demanding that the government, the army, the UN, France anyone but them, solves their problems for them.
Good luck.
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Wrathchild
climber
right behind you
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Jul 12, 2005 - 10:00am PT
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Lois wrote "Now it is true that I have not been reading your posts carefully but in my own defense, KBD, they are sooo....oooo long. It is hard to read and digest as much as you offer however interesting and enlightening it might be. I think if you offered some of these ideas in smaller packages I might get more of it."
That's exactly why KDB left the forum. He took the time to carefully answer your questions and include links for further investigation, but you didn't bother to read it fully before responding.
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slayton
Trad climber
Morongo Valley, Ca
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Jul 12, 2005 - 04:05pm PT
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LEB
Because, as you say, you are so busy I have a simple suggestion for you to better utilize your time if a more thorough comprehension of history is indeed a goal of yours:
Type less. Read more.
S
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 12, 2005 - 06:14pm PT
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"HowDumbBush: BTW, they will slam Fox News all the time but none of them will ever produce any evidence that Fox is slanted toward the right. They just seem slanted because they are "fair and balanced" and next to the normal media propaganda outlets that makes them look slanted to the right. "
Fox couldn't come up with a better distortion of the truth. When you give criminals like Oliver North and fabricators like Coulter a mouthpiece, you tend to get a much deserved rep. Agenda dictates "truth" in media at Fox exactly as it does in policy in the administration. The lot are criminals and liars that parasitically live off fear and hate - this is not journalism. And the majority of males at both Fox and the administration outside of a select few were almost all draft dodgers to a man.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jul 12, 2005 - 08:17pm PT
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"July 9, 2005
Jihad Is Knocking
Another Episode in the War between Christendom and Islam
by Bruce Thornton
Private Papers
The slaughter in London is another grisly wake-up call that likely will go as unheeded as earlier ones. Already the standard narrative is being trotted out: evildoers created by what the New York Times predictably called the “root causes of terrorism”: autocracy, or economic stagnation, or Palestinian suffering, or globalization's dislocations, or Western historical sins, or the war in Iraq (the cause will depend on the political prejudices of the pundit) have “hijacked” Islam and distorted its peaceful message. And now they are using Islam to justify murder in order to further their own ambitions or dysfunctional psychic needs. Given this explanation, so the story goes, we must be careful not to demonize all Muslims and assure them that we respect their religion and culture. The tale is then wrapped up with fierce threats against the terrorists and protestations of admiration for Islam.
Believing this delusion requires that one ignores fourteen centuries of Islamic jihad against the West, a war of conquest and colonization ratified by centuries of Islamic theology and jurisprudence. Indeed, what we call Islamic radicals are in fact Islamic traditionalists; it is the so-called “moderates” — those wanting to compromise Islam so it can coexist with Western ideas such as secular government, separation of church and state, and human rights — who are the radicals and innovators. The terrorists are simply fulfilling the traditional and orthodox command of their religion to battle the infidels who resist the revelation of Mohammed and the global socio-political order mandated by Islam.
Listen to one of the most respected and influential of Muslim clerics, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, on the legitimacy of jihad: “It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar Al-Harb [the Domain of Disbelief where the battle for the domination of Islam should be waged] is not protected. Because they fight against and are hostile towards the Muslims, they annulled the protection of his blood and his property." (See Andrew Bostom:).This interpretation is entirely consistent with fourteen centuries of Islamic theology and jurisprudence, which in turn is based on the Koran's injunction to “slay them [infidels] wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter . . . . Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.” And this jihad is to continue “until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.”
Islam's divinely sanctioned entitlement to global domination explains the symbolic value of the London attacks: one day after London was chosen to host the 2012 Olympics, and right in the middle of the G8 summit in Scotland. For both the Olympics and the G8 represent a global order that rivals Islam, one based on Western ideals and institutions, a social and political order in which Islam has no exalted position but is simply one religion among many. And, we should add, a global order whose notions of individual rights and secular government are incompatible with Islamic law.
So much is obvious — facts of the historical record. Yet listen to a respected historian in a conservative magazine: “Muslim holy wars (“jihads”), as taught in the Koran, were first and foremost a personal inner struggle for moral purity” and only secondarily a war against infidels. So all those Muslim armies that conquered the Christian Near East, North Africa, Egypt, Spain, Sicily, the Balkans, all that plunder, slaughter, rape, enslavement, kidnapping, and destruction were only the “secondary” jihad. How could such blindness to the obvious, masquerading as sophisticated “tolerance,” not arouse contempt in the minds of our adversaries? They tell us over and over that they are waging jihad in order to establish the global hegemony of Islam, and we tell ourselves that these Muslims don't understand their own religion. Millions and millions of Muslims all over the world cheer for the jihadists and support them materially and psychologically, millions idolize bin Laden and celebrate the murder of Westerners, but we tell ourselves that they are a minority of confused souls whose minds have been addled by poverty or autocracy or anger over the Palestinians.
In any conflict it's a good idea to take seriously the motives the enemy professes and not rationalize or explain them away in terms of your own cultural assumptions. The murderers we call terrorists are traditional jihadists, as much as were the first Islamic armies that swept away the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman civilizations of the Mediterranean. They are not going to be bought off with votes, a free press, more cable channels, Wal-Mart, or any other material good that to us constitutes the good life. They are fighting for a spiritual cause, the establishment of Islam as a global order in fulfillment of the will of Allah, and the reduction of all those who will not become Muslims to dhimmi, inferiors who acknowledge the superiority of Islam and the rightness of their subjection to it.
The next few weeks will show whether the British have advanced as far down the road of dhimmitude as have the Spaniards, who responded to the murder of their citizens not with the force and resistance their ancestors showed for seven centuries, but with fear and appeasement. As for us, we'd better discard our illusions that the jihadists, as Thomas Freidman put it, are “a cancer within the [Islamic] body politic” and accept instead that jihad just may be a vital organ. Then maybe we can see this war for what it is: one more episode in the long struggle between what used to be called Christendom and a religion of aggressive conquest and colonization.
©2005 Victor Davis Hanson"
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Wrathchild
climber
right behind you
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Jul 12, 2005 - 09:06pm PT
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Be honest, who among us hasn't wanted to chuck a few grenades at Wal-mart?
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 12, 2005 - 09:13pm PT
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Doesn't one also have to ignore 1500+ years of Christian crusade against the mid-east? I mean this article could literally just have the words 'Islam' replaced with 'Christianity' and the names changed to those of any myriad of Christian leaders. I mean seriously...
"Then maybe we can see this war for what it is: one more episode in the long struggle between what used to be called Christendom and a religion of aggressive conquest and colonization. "
Which religion of aggressive conquest and colonization exactly? I mean Christianity has sponsored more wars and more coloniztion attempts than any other faith in at least the past 2,000 years.
Could this article be any more biased and blameful? Are people so blind that they can not see that they are simply playing their part in the cyclical saga of the West vs. the East? We aren't doing ANYTHING differently than the western Euros of 1,000 years ago. Shakespeare would have one hell of a laugh I have no doubt.
"..and bomb them all to hell..in the name of the Lord."
Rev. J. Falwell
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 12, 2005 - 09:19pm PT
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The fight isn't with radical Islamics per se, I'm equally frightened of all fundamentalist extremists - Islamic and Christian alike. The problem isn't with a particular religion - the problem is with the extremists in all religions. These factions simply actualize the darker reality of religion that demonizes and dooms the followers of {insert religion of joice} down the street who are your neighbors as much as an Islamic extremist on the other side of the world.
You could swap "Christian" for "Muslim" and "Crusade" for "Jihad" in your posted diatribe and it would reflect as much murder, rape, and genocide. We won't even discuss the past and ongoing Christian role in the genocide of aboriginal peoples around the globe.
Biased, clueless, and hustling a christian agenda...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jul 12, 2005 - 11:18pm PT
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I've read the Bible, Bagivad Gita, Secret of the Golden Flower, (Taoist),I Ching and the Koran, more theologians and philosophers than I care to remember. I don't particularly subscribe to any of them.
Only one has a consistently reoccuring theme of death and enslavement for the "other" and a theological premise for the enslavement of non believers. (find a corillary to the Dehimi in any other major religious tradition.) They hate us for who we are and what we believe. Little things like that all men and woman are created equal and that the state and religion are two different things. What we do is of no consiquence to those that dream of Andalus. That we exist at all is an afront enough to justify any slaughter of inocent life. Do most Moslems take these thing to heart? No, but they do not object in mass either. To do that would risk being branded, heretical.
Christianity has certainly been warped in past history to evil ends. Even Zen Buhdist beliefs were warped into the Bashio code that became facist Japan. If the west isn't willing to face up to the fact that we are dealing with an esentially facist belief system that has predominated the medrass and mosque in a huge part of the world, civilization eventually will decline into a Mad Max meets Gengis Khan world. We are only at the beginning of a struggle between those that see it as a devine birthright to live in a nuclear eighth century and a 3000 year tradition of western democaracy that started in Greece.
Some times you just have to pick sides.
I kind'a have gotten used to "civilization" Even with all its faults it sure beats the alternative.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 13, 2005 - 02:09am PT
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"Christianity has certainly been warped in past history to evil ends."
And still is to this day as far as I'm concerned...
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 13, 2005 - 05:25am PT
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"civilization eventually will decline into a Mad Max meets Gengis Khan world."
Wow. You're really scared, aren't you?
It's a shame you're not brave enough to live with your fear. Instead you advocate someone else eliminating what you're scared of not because it's harming you but just because you're frightened of it.
What a way to live your life, hiding under your bed and demanding shrilly that someone kill the horrible monster you believe is going to eat you. Neither strong enough to live with it nor brave enough to do something about it yourself.
You poor weak man.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 13, 2005 - 12:28pm PT
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Dr. Strangelove speaketh!
You love the bomb--admit it.
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Mar 21, 2008 - 03:54pm PT
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Amusing to see VDH exposed "again" and held up as the "Classicist". What of Lysistrata, Tom Paine, Locke, Madison, Twain or any other of the great "thinkers" who would never partake of this "Socratian poison". Take a gander at the "War Prayer" for starters, VDH....
Addend: Since OBL's stated game plan is to bleed US out man by man (4k?) and dollar by dollar (_,,_k,_,,.00?) why tf would you "capitulate"...
OBL's handed yall his playbook, yet many refuse to draw up the X's and O's....seriously. OBL sez he wants a "Long War", an economic War. Dick Cheney sez it will be a "Long War". Find out who wins (Dubai based Contractors) in "The Occupation"
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Mar 21, 2008 - 03:58pm PT
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Holy bump batman!
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Mar 21, 2008 - 04:00pm PT
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I missed it 1st time...The "Loising" is happening...again.
Reagan capitulated in the ME; good times ('cept for that nasty gas we sold "em")
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 21, 2008 - 04:04pm PT
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Reagan was overrated.
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 21, 2008 - 04:49pm PT
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"Jesus, 426, I had just met you all then. Look at how polite and formal I was with you all. "
Go f*#k yourself.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Mar 21, 2008 - 05:00pm PT
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He was making a joke, LEB.
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 21, 2008 - 05:05pm PT
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Yep.
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| Messages 1 - 85 of total 85 in this topic |
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