There Are Lies, Then There Are Lies

John Norman Podhoretz asks—rhetorically—who it is that is lying about Iraq. It’s a very clear and logical piece on the word and deed preceding the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom (the length is necessary for this type of chronicle). All the purported facts contained therein are easily verifiable, including one I routinely bring up when in a discussion about alleged Iraqi WMD: President Clinton’s policy on the subject. (Yes, as a matter of fact I do keep it handily bookmarked.) Also included in the Podhoretz piece are the words of today’s leading lights in the Democrat party, such as Senator John Kerry, Vice President Al Gore, Senator Edward Kennedy and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Unfortunately, I suspect that those who have a vested interest in believing that President Bush and members of his administration “lied” about the pretext for invading Iraq will ignore this essay as they have ignored any Democrat's words of assertion that the Iraqis possessed WMD before it was discovered that they did not.

However, the few critics of the present Iraq conflict who can’t quite block Operation Desert Fox out of their minds will sometimes attempt to justify President Clinton’s conduction of that military operation. Some of the more surreal attempts include praise for the former president for not invading Iraq even though he threatened to do so! That’s right. Some people actually give President Clinton a pat on the back for not backing up his words with meaningful action--for selling woof tickets* as a matter of sound presidential policy. Therefore, when America's enemies observed that its leader was all talk and no action and reacted accordingly, that means that this observed presidential trait was a good one.

That's an example of what happens to one's thinking when one cares more about the ascendance of his/her political party than about long-term security for all of us.

From this observation and from many others, one can conclude that no amount of calm reason on the subject of Iraq will get through to the “Bush-lied” crowd because conclusions based on calm reason doesn’t support the main goal: sufficiently hampering President Bush’s presidency and all of his endeavors, most especially the Iraq War.

Still it’s nice to have the whole he-said/she-said/they-did scenario laid out in one place. It’s a good reference paper.

*Verbally spoiling for a fight without the intention and/or ability of backing up one's words.

(Thanks to Lucianne)

Comments

[Steve]

baldilocks said: ignore this essay as they have ignored any Democrat's words of assertion that Iraq possessed WMD before it was discovered that they did not.
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We really do not know what Saddam possessed in the months between lets say May of 2002 to March of 2003. That could also include materials he possessed but kept outside the country. I thought I should keep reminding people of that.
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I've been gone and I'll have to leave here pretty soon to go to work but I would like to get something in. I know that people do not like to talk about this and it doesn't seem like there is much that anyone can do when looking into these things. So what am I talking about? It is just that the BBC is owned by the House of Rothschild. This media ownership, if I remember right, (I am working off the top of my head) also extends the Rothschild ownership and news media influence to other nations in Europe. George Soros (527s, Ickes, Podesta) is connected to the House of Rothschild as well (and who knows what else besides).

The House of Rothschild, the Bank of England are also connected to BCCI and also Royal Ordinance. Royal Ordinance armed Saddam in the 1980s and actually sent a load of ordinance to Baghdad in September of 1990. That is more than one month after Saddam invaded Kuwait and British and American soldiers were being shipped in. Russian (the darling nation of the BBC-left) Intelligence helped Saddam in Baghdad in both the first Gulf War and the second Gulf War.

There does appear to be a number of very wealthy people that have an agenda all their own and their unseen presence is what we may be feeling in many of these baffling stories that are not worth nearly the attention they've been receiving.

Its a tough world in many ways and bankers and billionaires play upon the world stage and have their own agendas. The military plays something along the lines of the street cops of a city but much of their action is manipulated and/or hampered by the various plots of people who can move hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

I know people may say they've heard it before and that even if true what more is there to do? But I thought I would bring it up anyway.

[justin]

Baldilocks, see Kevin Drum's response to Podhoretz's arguments, which is pretty much what the left has been saying all along.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007530.php

[wayne]

The sad thing about your point is that due to the unending false charges spat forth by the media and the commies on the left, people have started to believe the charges are true.

President Bush hasn't stepped up and defended his position in any way. He could have told all of the full measure of Iraqi involvement in terrorism inside the US (Oklahoma City, the '93 WTC bombing).

He could tell the full list of Saddamns' mass murders AND his murder rate during the years since Desert Storm of Kurds, Shiites, and anyone he or his sadistic kids felt like.

He could go over the comparison between the minor abuse at Abu Ghraib verses the apalling horrors that Saddamn inflicted. Especially, he could list a whole host of other evidence of Saddamn's WMD programs that will embarrass the Hell out of certain countries (I just finished Bill Gertz book "Treachery" on this subject) that fed the beast.

But Bush sits in silence and gets buried beneath all of the BS about how his staffers handled the activites of some scumbag traitorous CIA Clintonista whore and her liberal State Department-puke husband who conspired to betray our country so as promote their liberal anti-American cause from total embarassment and defeat.

The only thing that matters to the left is destroying everything Bush tries to do and he won't even lift a finger to stop them. His silence speaks of guilt and the left are tasting blood in the water.

Mark my words, if Bush doesn't pull a miracle out of his hindquarters within the next 4 months, you will see the Commiecrats take over Congress in 2006 and Bush impeached over the very lies and distortions of history you are speaking of in 2007.

[teal marie]

Last paragraph excerpt -

"And so long as we are hunting for liars in this area, let me suggest that we begin with the Democrats now proclaiming that they were duped..."

Damned fools don't care if their lies destroy the nation. As long as it destroys Bush, they'll think they achieved something. Dispicable soreheads. I do not believe they will prevail.

There was nothing in Podhoretz's article that you, Baldi, and your knowledgable commenters haven't brought forward already in this blog. Repeatedly, and I must say, patiently.
It was good to read it all compiled in one article.

[Justin]

Great to hear you are all in agreement. Please write your Senator to encourage the Phase II investigation into whether the Administration misused intelligence, that way the Administration will be cleared for good.

[teal marie]

Oh, I know a little pig who isn't afraid of selling big bad woof tickets*.
La la la la la! XD

[Steve]

There are a couple of interesting points that I would like to say and they only be interesting if you've spent sometime looking over things and watching all this develop.

Laurie Mylroie did say that Iraq was part of Operation Bojinka in her interview with PBS.

Sabah Khodada did say the the United Nations did send people out to Salman Pak to investigate that site. The date he gave was after the Bojinka bust.

Salman Pak did have Kuwaiti citizens in prison there and they were held underground.

Salman Pak did have the stolen Boeing 707 fuselage from Kuwait.

Salman Pak is where the looted Kuwaiti records were taken as well.

Salman Pak was where the Iraqi citizen Abu Nidal trained the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood also called the Syrian National Salvation Front. Abu Nidal also had operated out of the Syrian army controlled Bekka valley in Lebanon. That is where the Iranian controlled group Hezbollah operates.

Ziad Jarrah's familly long had ties to the Abu Nidal organization even back when the Soviet Uniion was still operating in Eastern Europe. The Abu Nidal Organization was long known to recruit German students that were from Islamic countries. Ziad Jarrah's familly was wealthy had had sone business in chemicals with Libya.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood left Amman, Jordan when King Hussein (father of King Abdullah died) died in 1999. They went from there to Baghdad at the time that Iraq and Syria were growing closer and re-openning the Aleppo (home of Al Qaeda and Brtherhood) to Mosul (HQ of Ansar al Islam and home to Baathists after Saddam's fall, Saddam's sons killed there) railroad. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood had been in Iraq over the years and trained by Abu Nidal. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was involved in 911 from their Saudi funded operations in Spain.

This is also the time that Zarqawi was released from jail in Jordan after, I believe, 4 or 5 years in. These Zarqa Jordan Palestinians make up a few dozen of the prisoners at Gitmo.

Zarqawi ran an Al Qaeda camp in Herat. He was said to have gotten his biological weapons training from the government of Iraq. His abilities were mainly in Ricin but the Herat camp also had something to do with nuclear material as well.

Zarqawi made his way from Herat in Afghanistan to Baghdad by first stopping in Iran where he had met with Iran's IRGC. It appears that Iran's IRGC is also connected to the European terror network of Zarqawi's called Al- Tawhid.

Zarqawi and two dozen others from Afghanistan stop in Baghdad and stay at Uday Hussein's hospital in May of 2002. Uday Hussein is in charge of the Fedayeen Saddam that train at Salman Pak. Salman Pak is where Saddam's research in germs originated with the female scientist named Dr. Germ. Salman Pak does not come under the military's administration but under the administration of Iraq's intelligence agency.

Hamas (a Brotherhood offshoot) also left Jordan at this time and went to Syria. And Hamas is funded and headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Hamas had plotted to blow up the New York subways like in London around July 31 or August 1 of 1997. It was luckily foiled and a veritable bomb factory was found in Brooklyn.

Abdul Rahman Yasin came from Baghdad to mix the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in February of 1993 on the 2nd anniversary of Iraq's surrender.

Also about 15 weeks after Clinton won the election in Novermber of 1992 when Saddam stepped outside to fire his shotgun and declare that the mother of all battles was on.

There were said to be 5 different terror organization involved in the 1993 World Trade Center plot. One of those being the Abu Nidal Organization.

Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the bomb in 1993, was allowed to leave the country and go back to Bagdad. There is simply no way he should have been allowed to leave the country with the evidence there was on him. The reason appears to be that the F.B.I. did not want to share the information they had in the case that made it appear Iraq had done it. They were able to block that information being shared with the CIA, or the National Security Division of the FBI, because as long as there was an outstanding fugitive in the case they were not required, or not actually allowed, to share that information with anyone else.
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The three Bojinka plotters are interesting. They are Ramzi Yousef (half-Baluchi and half Palestinian), Abdul Hakim Murad, and Khalid Shiekh Mohammed. Ramzi Yousef is supposedly born in Pakistan and Murad and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are supposedly born in Kuwait.

The invasion of Kuwait was assisted by Palestinian terror organizations that included Abul Abbas and Abu Nidal. And it was thought by them that Kuwait would become a Palestinian homeland. Kuwait is where Arafat started the PLO back in the mid 1960s. The Palestinians living and working in Kuwait helped Saddam secure Kuwaits assets and records as well as give Saddam's military the phone numbers and addresses of key Kuwaitis.

In the time period before the Gulf War other witnesses met Ramzi Youssef, who was described as an “explosives expert” employed by the Iraqi National Oil Company, at Dr. Barbouti’s office in London.

Youssef was part of a team of Barbouti’s agents or employees who were to be “on the ground” in Kuwait, awaiting the Iraqi invasion in August 1990. They were tasked with assisting and cooperating with the Iraqi invasion force. Youssef had prior knowledge of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

During Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq created a false identify for Youssef using the identity of a dead Pakistani named Abdel Basit. This was done in order to hide Iraq’s involvement in an impending program of international terrorist attacks. Ramzi Yousef left the United States on the stolen Kuwaiti passport of Abdul Basit Karim. The British mysteriously will not cooperate in investigating this oddity with their own Kuwaiti files they keep, but instead lie to people investigating this angle by saying that Yousef and Karim are the same people.

When Ramzi Yousef is arrested in Islamabad in February of 1995 after the failed Bojinka plot he is found hiding in a privately owned safehouse near the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.

The Iraqi Ahmed Hikmat Shakir is found in October of 2001 with documents linking him to Yousef, Murad, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. These documents also link him to the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the USS Cole bombing in October of 2000 and others. After the USS Cole operation Iraq allowed Iran to overfly their country. An article in the Christian Science Monitor in April 2002 seemd to imply that Saddam was going to use flase flag operations to implicate Iran.

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was the Iraqi that worked at the Kuala Lumpur Airport in early January of 2000 where he assisted future hijackers to a high level Al Qaeda meeting at the home of Yazid Suufat, Zacharias Mousaouwi's employer. Yazid is also a chemist who went to school in California and he is linked to an unfinnished CBW plant being built in Afghanistan.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed is said to be the mastermind of the 911 attacks and who is supposedly a relative of the other Bojinka plotter Murad and and Yousef. They are all suppose to be Baluchis from Baluchistan on the border between Pakistan and Iran. The Baluchis have been used by Saddam's intelligence against Iran like Iran uses the Kurds against Iraq.

Saddam handles his contacts with his Baluchi terrorists through the United Arab Emirates. The same country that did much of the money transfers to the hijackers and Mohammed Atta once claimed to be from.
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Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani meets with Mohammed Atta multiple times in Prague. Samir Al Ani is not a diplomat but instead belongs to a special forces unit of Saddam's military refered to as M8. In the June 2000 meeting Atta is rejected in his attempt at flying into Ptague from Germany and so has to take a bus to meet with Al Ani for only an hour or two. Atta cannot leave the terminal but his whole meeting takes place off-camera as though the Iraqi agent knew where to go to get away from the cameras. The one disputed meeeting among many that Atta and Samir Al-Ani had in Prague in early April of 2001 was found to be all the more possible because in the Prague Embassy Samir Al-Ani's dairy had an entry for a meeting with a Hamburg student at that time. Atta, who mysteriously claimed to be from the United Arab Emirates when he applied as a student in Germany in 1992, then begins to recieve, along with other hijackers, money from a bank in the UAE. In Spain Mohammed Atta met with Imad Yarkas (Aleppo Syria and of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in Spain) that controlled and recruited the Hamburg cell. The Muslim Brotherhood of Syria had originally come from Egypt in the 1930s. Mohammed Atta did his college urban planning paper on Aleppo. Mohammed Atta is Egytian and two Egyptians involved in the World Trade Center plot in 1993 said that Iraq was involved and there names are Mahmud Abu Halima and Mohammed Salameh who is also described as "Osama's best friend".

Atta was constantly hounding a crop dusting business about getting a plane. This meant that some agent was in the works and a type of agent that only a state sponsor would be known to have. Iraqis in Prague were trying to buy crop dusters there in the mid to late 1990s.
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Osama, in the video captured in Afghanistan, seemed to enjoy the fact that many of the hijackers did not know it was a suicide mission. This could possibly indicate that it was not actually his mission because of the callousness that would show to others in that case.
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It was said that before 911 Saddam seemed to be preparing himself for something and that included moving his two wives to Syria, or maybe it was Tikrit, can't remember.
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It was probably from the Island of Trinindad that in the summer of 1998 US intelligence heard that Libya had hired someone to crash planes into targets in the United States. That someone must have been Abu Nidal because it was at about that time that Abu Nidal was on the move from Libya via Tehran to Baghdad and/or Salman Pak. About a year before the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was to leave Amman Jordan for Baghdad. Also it was in early February of 1998 that Al Qaeda and Al-Zawahiri met in Baghdad to make the agreement for Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad to join with Al Qaeda. Saddam subsequently sent Al-Zawahiri 300,000 dollars. That is also the time in which the whited-out document found after the fall of Saddam invites a representative of Osama to come to Baghdad for a meeting which takes place a few weeks later. Now back to Abu Nidal, Libya and 1998. Sabah Khodada spoke of a very famous terroist at Salman Pak that was wanted in Europe and was simply refered to as the Ghost. Trinidad has had ties to Libya and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Venezuela has had Libyan advisors in the country working in Venezuela's oil company. Venzuela has also got and Iranian Bank operating there as well as Taliban that have moved there since 911. And Venezuela has connections to 911 through a man named Tarek William Saab and an associate of Hani Hanjour by the fake name of Fattah. Tarek also helped Hezbollah (Iran) in their trial in Argentina over the bombing of a Jewish community center there. Hebollah is all over the tri-border region in South America near Ciudad. Hugo Chavez was the first leader of a nation, in 2000, to meet with Saddam in Baghdad since Gulf War I. Shortly there after Chavez recieved a million dollars worth of illegal oil to the Dutch Island of Curacao from Saddam. Trinidad has a population of Morrocans (Almoravids) that were once the Muslim inhabitants of Morocco and Southern Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. They belong to the Islamist group called Jamaat al-Murabiteen. Islamist want to recover all lands once under Islamic rule and Spain is refered by them as Andalusia.
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I'll leave that there for now its late an I am getting tired and fuzzy minded.

[Steve]

As for Operation Bojinka in the Philippines in January 1995. It was later in October of 2002 that Saddam's agents were removed from the Philippines because of their ties to Abui Sayyaf and the death of Mark Wayne Jackson.

Baluchistan (Iraq's old connections from there) is where much of the Iraq style insurgency is being tranfered from Iraq to Afghanistan today.

I had read that Farouq Hijazi and an Iraqi man named Mamouri took the Bojinka plot that was connected to Salman Pak and turned it into what eventually became 911.

[wayne]

Lord, if you don't answer another of my prayers today let everyone in this country read the last 2 posts.

Amen

[Eric]

Justin:

Drum is one of the war opponents who have revised history so that the burden of proof was on the US and UN rather than on Iraq.

The problem here is that different standards have been applied. Kevin Drum ignores the standard of compliance placed on Iraq, that the burden of proof was on Iraq to comply with UN resolutions and that, in fact, Iraq was non-compliant anyway.

The UN inspectors' job was as verifiers, not detectives ... that the inspectors were forced to become detectives was at the root of the failure of the inspections. In other words, Drum's blame case begins with false assumptions. He ignores the history, reinterprets the inspections themselves and the state of the inspections when the invasion begin. If there was disagreement within our Intel, that was secondary. The fact of uncertainty itself added to Iraq's guilt, since it was Iraq's responsibility to resolve any uncertainties.

Intel's failure over Iraq is largely due to the nature of the mission. Intel is a huge undertaking that requires focused planning and much development, and under the best of circumstances, it's a guessing game anyway (collapse of USSR, anyone?). Intel on Iraq was far from the best of circumstances. That kind of development didn't happen for Iraq because it wasn't supposed to be necessary. Why should Intel have to prove what is already proven? Furthermore, whatever Intel we had was already tied up with, and dependent on, the inspections that Saddam had successfully obstructed.

While I agree that our Intel needs major 21st century reform, from the policymakers on down, I am less critical of Intel over Iraq. Why? Because they were given a losing hand by our politicans. I keep going back to this point: Iraq was guilty and it was their responsibity to prove innocence, not ours to prove guilt. Intel should never have been needed, because the conditions were already set that placed all responsibility for accurate information on Iraq. If the UN resolutions had been strictly enforced, rather than turned into an improvised containment mission due to a cold political calculation, Intel wouldn't have been in such an untenable position as they found themselves in 2002.

Drum doesn't seem to consider 'What If'? What if we re-did Rez 1447 but the inspections had been allowed to run their course? Does Drum believe Saddam would have complied to the UN standard? (Does anyone reasonably believe that, assuming that full compliance would have meant the effective end of Saddam's regime and Saddam's 'zero sum' style?) If Saddam remained 'guilty', what were the alternative outcomes? If we don't invade yet don't find Saddam 'innocent', then the only reasonable outcome would have been a return to the failing containment and sanctions regimen, Saddam in power, a large US troop presence in Saudi Arabia, with added proof about the weakness of UN/US enforcement, how much the West cared about oppressed peoples, and the notion that Saddam served the US interest. Whatever assets, HumInt or otherwise, we had in Iraq would have been destroyed. For Al Qaeda and anti-Americans the world over, it would have been QED.

Domestically, a post-9/11 failed 'internationalist' enforcement would have given the realists - already deeply embedded in our government - firm control over policy. After all, realists believe we should have left well enough alone in Iraq and treated Saddam as a useful ally in the WOT. For Drum, it's disingenuous to accept Podhoretz's liberal positions where they suit the Dems and then revise the state of affairs in order to blame the Bush admin for the point we crossed the threshold and undertook what any reasonable observer knew for years would be a difficult, costly nation-building.

Drum sets his line at 2002, right? Well, President Clinton said in July 2003:

"Let me tell you what I know. When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it.

**But we didn't know.**

So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions.

I mean, we're all more sensitive to any **possible** stocks of chemical and biological weapons. So there's a difference between British -- British intelligence still maintains that they think the nuclear story was true. I don't know what was true, what was false. I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying, Well, we probably shouldn't have said that. And I think we ought to focus on where we are and what the right thing to do for Iraq is now. That's what I think."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0307/22/lkl.00.html

... again, Kevin Drum insists on placing the burden of proof on the Bush admin, when in fact, it wasn't. The responsibility to resolve uncertainty and disagreement and to prove Iraq was not a threat was squarely on Iraq.

[Steve]

Ramzi Yousef was also refered to as "Rashid the Iraqi". I've never seen it explained to me why he is named "Rashid" the Iraqi. But one explanation would be that at the time of Ramzi Yousef's various plots before his arrest in February 1995 Iraq's director of Intelligence's name was Mani abd-al-Rashid.

The Lebanese Ziad Jarrah (from a wealthy family) was in contact with his Turkish girl friend almost constantly, her name was Aisel Senguen. They had lived some of their time together while they were going to school in East Germany. She came to meet him in the summer of 2001 in Hollywood, Florida after the "muscle" hijackers had arrived. Al-Haznawi was the name of hijacker that Ziad lived with. Ziad Jarrah brought Al-Haznawi to Holy Cross hospital in June of 2001 to doctor Dr. Christos Tsonas because Haznawi had a dark lesion on his leg. Dr. Tsonas' prescription was found at Haznawi's apartment after September 11, 2001. It is Jarrah that has familly connections to Libya but I don't know if that is the source. The deaths of people around the nation after 911 from exposure through the mail to anthrax were about right for the date September 11 because it takes a couple of weeks to get the symptoms after exposure.

A couple more interesting things and that is that Farouq Hijazi and Mamouri were the two Iraqis said to have been involved in the Bojinka plot of January 1995. This I am not real sure of but Mamouri went on to Italy and became Iraq's ambassador to Italy and became Saddam's liason with the Afghans (foreign fighters in Afghanistan). Mala Krekar of Milan Italy became the leader of Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq that Al-Zarqawi now leads.

Farouq Hijazi went on to Turkey to become Iraq's ambassador to Turkey. Farouq Hijazi was named as Saddam's personal liason to Osama bin Laden and Farouq had made a trip to Pakistan in December 1998 during, or after, Operation Desert Fox to meet with Osama bin Laden. That is also the sametime that Abu Nidal arrived in Baghdad from Tehran. Anyway, Turkey would match the nationality of Ziad Jarrah's girlfriend whom he was in constant contact with to include a trip by her to Florida when the muscle men of Saudi Arabia had arrived in Florida. All of the muscle men had spent time in Iran previously as well.
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Below are a few observations. Take them or leave them:

Well, it may not be significant, but Sibel Edmond's problems in the FBI had been that she reported that she had encountered a Turkish organization illegally trying to recruit within the FBI, if I remember right. She was among other translaters there that were using their skills in the Farsi language of Iran to do translation for the FBI. She had gotten in trouble because she had retranslated more accurately a previous translation. A retranslation done by request from an FBI agent in Arizona I believe. Something like that. Not all of this concerning Sibel Edmonds may actually relate to Faruoq Hijazi and Turkey.

One last thing that is a little farout and that is that Ziad Jarrah was on flight 93 that crashed into a field in Pensylvania. They were reported to have been wearing a reddish bandanna of some sort which matches an Iranian terror group. The "Cresent of Embrace" memorial that is now being placed at the site of the airlines flight crash has had complaints because, as everyone knows, that like the cross is to Christianity so is the cresent to Islam. The money for that memorial came from the Heinz Foundation. That is Mrs. Heinz-Kerry wife of John Kerry. The Heinz Foundation makes a lot of contributions to the Tides Foundations which is able to insulate the giver to the Tides Foundation from the organization that the money ultimately goes to. Tides Foundation gives to Palestinian Muslim and Islamic groups. There may be a large Iranian population in San Francisco because that is where John Kerry went to address his Iranian constituency and that is where Hani Hanjour went alone. The hijackers seemed never to have travelled alone. Hani Hanjour is the one hijacker that is possibly connected to Hugo Chavez. The Hugo Chavez that, I believe, received the oil shipment to the Island of Curacao by way of the Clinton pardoned Marc Rich.

[Steve]

Steve said: Ziad Jarrah brought Al-Haznawi to Holy Cross hospital in June of 2001 to doctor Dr. Christos Tsonas because Haznawi had a dark lesion on his leg.
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I guess I forgot to enter that Dr. Tsonas later believed the lesion he saw in June of 2001 to have been cutaneous anthrax. It is interesting because the hijackers came up with a bogus story that he got it bumping into a suitcase. If the lesion was something common and from a common mishap why wouldn't they just say what happened. Bumping into a normal suitcase does not give a person a lesion.

[justin]

Eric, as usual, I don't disagree with many of your points in an abstract sense. But, I think the burden of proof argument is ultimately meaningless. It is basically impossible for someone to prove the absence of something to a 100% certainty. There is virtually nothing Iraq could have done to meet that burden--if one were determined to go to war and use that as a pretext, one could do it no matter what Saddam did or didn't do. Plus, what is the burden--more likely than not? Beyond a reasonable doubt? Was there a neutral observer to determine whether the burden has been met?

Plus, I think that the (technically correct) burden of proof arguments cloud the ultimate, real world issue, which is--Was the decision to go to war, at the time, a good one? Given that we live in a world with limited resources, was invading Iraq in 2003 the best use of those resources? It's one thing for a judge or jury in a trial to rule that the burden of proof hasn't been met, and that therefore the law dictates that there should be x outcome. But it's entirely different to say that Iraq has not met it's burden, so therefore we should commit our limited military resources to a full scale and difficult war.

But, back to the topic of this thread--there is at least enough evidence to question whether the administration mis-used intelligence to sell the war. I'm not saying it's true, but it's a colorable argument. We should all support the congressional investigation to settle this once and for all.

"There is no doubt that he has chemical weapons stocks… With respect to biological weapons, we are confident that he has some stocks of those weapons and he is probably continuing to try to develop more… With respect to nuclear weapons, we are quite confident that he continues to try to pursue the technology that would allow him to develop a nuclear weapon… So there's no question that he has these weapons, but even more importantly, he is striving to do even more, to get even more."

Vice President Cheney
NBC Meet the Press with Tim Russert
September 8, 2002

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

Secretary Powell
FOX News Sunday Interview with Tony Snow
September 8, 2002

[Steve]

I could say more about Justin's post but I'll leave it at this for now.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/printable.asp?ID=559
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Former President Bill Clinton:

President Clinton: "We Have To Defend Our Future From These Predators Of The 21st Century. They Feed On The Free Flow Of Information And Technology. They Actually Take Advantage Of The Freer Movement Of People, Information And Ideas. And They Will Be All The More Lethal If We Allow Them To Build Arsenals Of Nuclear, Chemical And Biological Weapons And The Missiles To Deliver Them. We Simply Cannot Allow That To Happen. There Is No More Clear Example Of This Threat Than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His Regime Threatens The Safety Of His People, The Stability Of His Region And The Security Of All The Rest Of Us." (President Clinton, Remarks To Joint Chiefs Of Staff And Pentagon Staff, 2 /17/98)
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President Clinton: "Earlier Today I Ordered America's Armed Forces To Strike Military And Security Targets In Iraq... Their Mission Is To Attack Iraq's Nuclear, Chemical And Biological Weapons Programs And Its Military Capacity To Threaten Its Neighbors ..." ("Text Of Clinton Statement On Iraq Attack," Agence France Presse, 12/17/98)
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Former Vice President Al Gore:

Gore: "You Know, In 1991, I Was One Of Those Who Put Partisanship Completely Aside And Supported President Bush At That Time In Launching The Gulf War. And In That War, We Saw How Saddam Had Threatened His Neighbors And Was Trying To Get Nuclear Weapons, Chemical Weapons, And Biological Weapons. And We're Not Going To Allow Him To Succeed." (CNN's "Larry King Live," 12/16/98)
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Gore: "[I]f You Allow Someone Like Saddam Hussein To Get Nuclear Weapons, Ballistic Missiles, Chemical Weapons, Biological Weapons, How Many People Is He Going To Kill With Such Weapons? He's Already Demonstrated A Willingness To Use These Weapons ..." (CNN's "Larry King Live," 12/16/98)
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Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY):

Sen. Clinton: "I Voted For The Iraqi Resolution. I Consider The Prospect Of A Nuclear-Armed Saddam Hussein Who Can Threaten Not Only His Neighbors, But The Stability Of The Region And The World, A Very Serious Threat To The United States." (Senator Hillary Clinton [D-NY], Press Conference, January 22, 2003)
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Sen. Clinton: "In The Four Years Since The Inspectors, Intelligence Reports Show That Saddam Hussein Has Worked To Rebuild His Chemical And Biological Weapons Stock, His Missile Delivery Capability, And His Nuclear Program. ... It Is Clear, However, That If Left Unchecked, Saddam Hussein Will Continue To Increase His Capability To Wage Biological And Chemical Warfare And Will Keep Trying To Develop Nuclear Weapons." (Sen. Hillary Clinton, Congressional Record, 10/10/02, p. S10288)
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Sen. John Kerry (D-MA):

Sen. Kerry: "The Crisis Is Even More Threatening By Virtue Of The Fact That Iraq Has Developed A Chemical Weapons Capability, And Is Pursuing A Nuclear Weapons Development Program." (Sen. John Kerry, Congressional Record, 10/2/90, p. S14332)
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Sen. Kerry: "If You Don't Believe ... Saddam Hussein Is A Threat With Nuclear Weapons, Then You Shouldn't Vote For Me." (Ronald Brownstein, "On Iraq, Kerry Appears Either Torn Or Shrewd," Los Angeles Times, 1/31/03)
----
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC):

Sen. Edwards: "Serving On The Intelligence Committee And Seeing Day After Day, Week After Week, Briefings On Saddam's Weapons Of Mass Destruction And His Plans On Using Those Weapons, He Cannot Be Allowed To Have Nuclear Weapons, It's Just That Simple. The Whole World Changes If Saddam Ever Has Nuclear Weapons." (MSNBC's "Buchanan And Press," 1/7/03)
-
Sen. Edwards: "The Question Is Whether We're Going To Let This Man [Saddam] Who's Been Developing Weapons Of Mass Destruction Continue To Develop Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Get Nuclear Capability, And Get To The Place Where If We're Going To Stop Him, If He Invades A Country Around Him, It'll Cost Millions Of Lives As Opposed To Thousands Of Lives." (MSNBC's "Hardball," 2/6/03)
----
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV):

Reid: "The Problem Is Not Nuclear Testing; It Is Nuclear Weapons ... The Number Of Third World Countries With Nuclear Capabilities Seems To Grow Daily. Saddam Hussein's Near Success With Developing A Nuclear Weapon Should Be An Eye-Opener For Us All." (Sen. Harry Reid, Congressional Record, 8/3/92, p. S11188)
----
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN):

Bayh: "In My Opinion - And I Do, As You Know, I'm Fairly Hawkish On Iraq. I'm Inclined To Support Going In There And Dealing With Saddam. But I Think That Case Needs To Be Made On A Separate Basis - His Possession Of Biological And Chemical Weapons, His Desire To Get Nuclear Weapons, His Proven Track Record Of Attacking His Neighbors And Others." (CNN's "Late Edition," 8/4/02)
-
Bayh: "The Question Is, Do You Want Saddam Hussein Having Chemical Weapons, Having Biological Weapons, Possibly One Day Having A Nuclear Weapon? Do You Want To Have To Deal With That? And If The Answer Is No, Then What Do You Do About It And When Do You Do Something About It?" (CNN's "Live Event/Special," 12/1/01)
----
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE):

Biden: "First Of All, We Don't Know Exactly What He Has. ... We Know He Continues To Attempt To Gain Access To Additional Capability, Including Nuclear Capability. There Is A Real Debate How Far Off That Is, Whether It's A Matter Of Years Or Whether It's A Matter Of Less Than That, And So There's Much We Don't Know." (NBC's "Meet The Press," 8/4/02)
----
Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM):

Richardson: "The Threat Of Nuclear Proliferation Is One Of The Big Challenges That We Have Now, Especially By States That Have Nuclear Weapons, Outlaw States Like Iraq." (ABC's "Good Morning America," 5/29/98)
----
Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL):

Sen. Graham: "I Don't Know If I've Seen All The Evidence, But I've Seen Enough To Be Satisfied That There Has Been A Continuing Effort By Saddam Hussein Since The End Of The Gulf War, Particularly Since 1998, To Re-Establish And Enhance Iraq's Capacity Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Chemical, Biological And Nuclear." (CBS' "Face The Nation," 12/8/02)
----
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):

Durbin: "One Of The Most Compelling Threats We In This Country Face Today Is The Proliferation Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction. Threat Assessments Regularly Warn Us Of The Possibility That North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Or Some Other Nation May Acquire Or Develop Nuclear Weapons." (Sen. Dick Durbin, Congressional Record, 9/30/99, p. S11673)
----
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI):

Feingold: "With Regard To Iraq, I Agree, Iraq Presents A Genuine Threat, Especially In The Form Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Chemical, Biological, And Potentially Nuclear Weapons. I Agree That Saddam Hussein Is Exceptionally Dangerous And Brutal, If Not Uniquely So, As The President Argues." (Sen. Russell Feingold [D-WI], Congressional Record, 10/9/05, p. S10147)
----
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL):

Nelson: "And My Own Personal View Is, I Think Saddam Has Chemical And Biological Weapons, And I Expect That He Is Trying To Develop A Nuclear Weapon. So At Some Point, We Might Have To Act Precipitously." (CNN's "Late Edition," 8/25/02)

Nelson: "Well, I Believe He Has Chemical And Biological Weapons. I Think He's Trying To Develop Nuclear Weapons. And The Fact That He Might Use Those Is A Considerable Threat To Us." (CNBC, "Tim Russert," 9/14/02)
----
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV):

Sen. Byrd: "The Last U.N. Weapons Inspectors Left Iraq In October Of 1998. We Are Confident That Saddam Hussein Retains Some Stockpiles Of Chemical And Biological Weapons, And That He Has Since Embarked On A Crash Course To Build Up His Chemical And Biological Warfare Capabilities. Intelligence Reports Indicate That He Is Seeking Nuclear Weapons ..." ("Threats And Responses," The New York Times, 10/4/02)
----
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA):

Pelosi: "Others Have Talked About This Threat That Is Posed By Saddam Hussein. Yes, He Has Chemical Weapons, He Has Biological Weapons, He Is Trying To Get Nuclear Weapons." (Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Congressional Record, 10/10/02, p. H7777)
----
Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA):

Harman: "I Certainly Think [Saddam's] Developing Nuclear Capability, Which, Fortunately, The Israelis Set Back 20 Years Ago With Their Preemptive Attack, Which, In Hindsight, Looks Pretty Darn Good." (Fox News' "The Big Story," 8/27/02)
----
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO):

"Gephardt Said He's Seen 'A Large Body Of Intelligence Information Over A Long Time That He Is Working On And Has Weapons Of Mass Destruction. Before 1991, He Was Close To Having A Nuclear Device. Now, You'll Get A Debate About Whether It's One Year Away Or Five Or Six." (Morton M. Kondracke, "Gephardt Pushes Consensus Action Against Iraq Threat," Roll Call, 9/23/02)
----
Former Secretary Of State Madeline Albright:

Madeline Albright: "Iraq Is A Long Way From [Here], But What Happens There Matters A Great Deal Here, For The Risk That The Leaders Of A Rogue State Will Use Nuclear, Chemical Or Biological Weapons Against Us Or Our Allies Is The Greatest Security Threat We Face, And It Is A Threat Against Which We Must And Will Stand Firm." ("Secretary Of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary Of Defense William Cohen And National Security Adviser Sandy Berger Participate In Town Hall Meeting," Federal News Service, 2/18/98)
---------
Entry from David's Blog - http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/

[jeff]

For a great laugh, see Barbra Streisand's call to impeach Bush, a compendium of every debunked Angry Left canard.

[Tully]

LOL. Don't waste your time preaching to the zealots, folks. If it isn't in the dogma of the Chimpy McHitler Church of The Apocalypse, it's obviously all lies. Even when it comes from the half-dozen or so official investigations to date, that are all in concurrence.

The CMCotA strategy right now is to keep insisting on more investigations, on the assumption that if they just look long and hard enough, all the other investigations will turn out to be completely wrong. It's almost like watching Usherian creationists looking for loopholes in lab manuals on carbon-dating.

[justin]

Steve, I think you misunderstand me, or I'm not stating my position well enough. I'm not sure I understand the rhetorical point of pointing out that many Democrats were also wrong about the war. OK, so what? I'm not trying to defend Democrats who voted for or supported the war, and I hold them responsible for leading us into this as well, including whether they misused intelligence to support the war.

Plus, I know you are cutting and pasting these quotes, but you should also realize the context of some of these. For example, the Pelosi quote was in opposition to the war:
http://www.house.gov/pelosi/UnilateralUseofForce101002.htm.

Byrd opposed the war, and I'm not really sure of the actual source of the quote as it is not in the NY Times archive, but only on conservative websites, some of which attribute it to Kennedy.

For the record, I also thought Saddam had WMDs, so you could also insert "I think Saddam is dangerous and has WMDs" Justin, Oct. 2002. But, I opposed the war, especially when we got closer to the war and evidence was coming out that our intelligence was shaky.

Also, please understand the Democrats argument--that they were only provided with the intelligence that supported the President's position and were not told about dissenting points of view by the Executive branch. I have no idea whether that is true, but again, it's a serious claim and deserves to be answered. If it's not true, an investigation should answer that question too.

Tully, what 1/2 a dozen investigations are you talking about. Did you find that Saddam/nuke evidence yet?

[Eric]

Justin:

WE were the neutral observers. The US is the same nation that had decided it was in its own geopolitical interests to support Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, the same hegemony that has been accused of inadequately discouraging the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and then refused regime change as an option until 1998. I recall a news report last year where one of the American intel guys who interrogated Saddam said that Saddam believed until the invasion that the US would eventually return to him as an ally. Not unrealistic - if the realists regained control of our foreign policy, we probably would have done just that.

Given that history and given that we weren't overly economically reliant on Iraq (unlike the Euros), what other nation was better suited to balance the international interest with bilateral relations in Iraq? If anything, the record shows we accomodated Saddam too much.

-- Was the decision to go to war, at the time, a good one? --

"At the time" is an important qualifier, because at the time, it wasn't known yet that terrorist sabotage and murder would effectively counter the unprecedented billions of dollars, IOs, US agencies and NGOs positioned to (relatively) quickly build up the post-Saddam Iraq. It wasn't known yet that so much of the international community and public opinion would choose to abandon Iraq when challenged by terrorists. Ironically, the 'major combat' phase (which I thought would be protracted and immensely costly for US forces) and the Iraqi majority's willingness to work for liberal political reform, which were considered - at the time - as the two big questions, turned out favorable.

I think the two major miscalculations were the degree to which Iraq's civil infrastructure and technocracy would collapse post-Saddam, and the degree to which the 'secular' Baathists were willing to work with transnational Islamic terrorists on a nothing-off-limits guerilla campaign. Al Qaeda in Iraq wasn't established without inside (and outside) help. Both of those miscalculations added to further miscalculations on post-war security and stability ops. Rumsfeld calculated that we should employ a self-conscious reduced 'footprint' of military occupation in order to speed up Iraqi 'ownership' and self-reliance. In hindsight, the LACK of a comprehensive (old-school? imperial? colonial?) military occupation allowed too many gaps for the Baathist insurgents and transnational terrorists to exploit. Political correctness sounds good in theory, but it doesn't always work well in practice.

At the time, how did OIF fit with the War on Terror? OIF did bring the war to a level where we could invest our hegemonic resources into wide regional reform via a state level operation, in contrast to a 'Team America' extermination approach that called for us to hunt down terrorists around the globe without addressing causes.

Look up liberals like Tom Barnett and Fareed Zakaria, both of whom agreed with the decision for Iraqi regime change in the global context of the WOT, and have since become prominent critics of the Bush admin's follow-up for a decision they (still) support.

My take (from http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2004/10/contextualizing-argument-over.html):

Contextualizing the argument over Operation Iraqi Freedom

Introduction. I think the major disagreements over Operation Iraqi Freedom can be simplified to three divergent areas, which I have labelled the Three Strategic Forks. This is probably an over-simplified explanation, but that's just how smart I am not. I use the terms "realist" and "liberal" in the political science sense, and I incorporate the terminology of Tom Barnett, of whom I am a big fan.

The first fork is Isolationism versus Intervention.

Isolationists come from a broad swathe, from radicals who want to remove US influence from the world, to dogmatic realists who see 9/11 as the punishment for liberal Wilsonianism, to Michael Moore types who see the War on Terror as the elites' distraction from the masses-versus-elites populist issues they care about.

Interventionists would be the majority of us, folks who accept the notion of US intervention overseas, although the range and type of preferred intervention differs. For example, if you think the US was right to topple the Taliban and disrupt al Qaeda's terrorist factories, even if you do not support OpIF, then you are an interventionist.

After taking the Intervention fork, the second fork is what I call the Revenge Mission versus Global Solutions.

Most realists equate security with threat, so they prefer the revenge mission option for the War on Terror, i.e., kill the terrorists (the symptoms) - which makes Operation Enduring Freedom acceptable - and focus on keeping the wild things out of the homeland by building higher walls and stronger gates.

Most liberals - the majority of Americans - prefer global solutions, i.e., addressing the global causes of the 9/11-related terrorist phenomenon as well as the symptoms. Liberals consider the spread of democracy and globalisation as the best solution for 9/11-related terrorism.

A good summary of President Bush Jr's liberal approach to the War on Terror: "Among the momentous effects of Al-Qaeda's violent strikes against the United States on September 11, 2001, was a re-orientation of American policy toward the Middle East. The new paradigm adopted in Washington viewed much of the world as being divided into opponents versus supporters of terrorism. Furthermore, the roots of terrorism were ascribed to Mideast regimes that caused social and economic failures while pursuing the interests of small groups of ruling elites."

After taking the Global Solutions fork, the third fork is what I call the Slow Burn versus the Race.

After more-or-less marching in step at the first two forks, many folks disagree at this third strategic fork.

At this stage, the "Core" (a Tom Barnett term) actors who oppose Operation Iraqi Freedom want a Slow Burn. They agree with the liberal belief that the Middle East must be reformed, but they want to make a realist compromise. As such, they concede Operation Enduring Freedom and a limited increase in engagement with the Middle East, but they are unwilling to bear the commitment, cost and uncertainty of comprehensively engaging the causes of terrorism in the "Gap." Instead, they would rather remain with pre-9/11 rituals and processes (e.g., the President Clinton approach to terrorism) where they are comfortable. They believe, or convince themselves, the natural flow of globalisation will eventually solve the causes. Beyond that, they will react to symptoms as they flare up.

The "Core" actors who support OpIF view the war on terror as a race where the "Core" must 'connect' the Middle East to democracy and globalisation before this proactive, aggressive, and capable enemy can 'disconnect' the region. The attacks of 9/11 were intended as an opening 'System Perturbation' (again, Barnett-speak) to disconnect the democratic, globalised community from encroaching on the Muslim world. OpIF, in this context, is an opening counter-Perturbation that replaces the pre-9/11 paradigm of the West's limited, self-conscious and self-serving engagement in the Middle East with intensive interaction between the globalised "Core" community and the region.

The greater purpose of OpIF, therefore, is to compel the globalised community to a deeper, long-term commitment to the Middle East - the same deeper commitment many folks in the "Core" oppose. This assessment further holds forth that the terrorists are rapidly moving to sever the vital connections between the Middle East and the globalised community, using the methodology exemplified by the enemy in Iraq with his 'anti-war' enabler in the West. If we fail to succeed in this strong liberal push now, in OpIF, then we will lose the connections needed to effect change in the oppression-extremism dichotomy squeezing the Middle East.

In sum, those who support the Slow Burn refuse to reach past their own comfort zone. Those who support the Race believe the Slow Burn by itself cannot work, because of the existing pre-9/11 conditions that extinguished the Slow Burn in the region, and because post-9/11, the proactive terrorists will do their best to disallow the Slow Burn to work.

We must respect the enemy. In my opinion, the terrorists are racing and they fully realize what is at stake for them in Iraq. For those in the race - terrorists, Iraqis and nation-builders - the central battle of the War on Terror, in the present and for the future, is unequivocally being fought right now in Iraq.

- Eric

[Steve]

Justin said two things:

1: Given that we live in a world with limited resources, was invading Iraq in 2003 the best use of those resources? It's one thing for a judge or jury in a trial to rule that the burden of proof hasn't been met, and that therefore the law dictates that there should be x outcome.

2: I'm not sure I understand the rhetorical point of pointing out that many Democrats were also wrong about the war.

As for number #1, judges and juries will not be deciding such issues. Such issues are for the legislative and the executive branch as they should be. And as for #2 above I am pointing those things out because I agree with their assessments. My whole point is that Saddam's regime was a threat just as they had claimed. It is their current claims in the comfort zone (in some sense) that has been provided them now that Saddam is out of the way and Homeland Security has been stepped up that I find disingenuous. I do not believe anything that the anti-war left has to say because I believe that Saddam's regime was ultimately a very big threat. It can hardly be overstated. Many (except the Arafat huggers) of these same anti-Iraq war voices would be nagging about the threat of Saddam right now if he hadn't been removed. It isn't the issues that Democrats are consistent about, they are only consistent in that nauseating, nagging, selfish, opportunistic, and unhelpful tone.

And I do think that the quality of the lives of the Iraqi people and the Kurds are important to everyone. And all the talk that we could have, or would have, been able to carry on into the future with Saddam's regime anywhere like we did between 1991 and 1998 is just not true.

[Tully]

Go light another candle at the Church, Justin. You've proved repeatedly that you're congenitally unable to actually read any of the relevant investigative reports without whining that they don't knock down your self-constructed straw men. Even when you've been pointed at them repeatedly.

[Bill O..]

While I do think that there are way to many "me too" bandwagon democrats who went along with the Iraq invasion who are now backpedaling that is not the reason that the Bush poll numbers and support for the war are in the tank. Bush and company stated repeatedly in the lead up that this war would be a cakewalk(greeted with sweets, it would take no longer than 6 months,Iraqi oil would pay for the it, etc).There is just to much documentation for you to bluff that they said this. Either Bush and company are completely incompetent, hence their naive optimism or they lied about the severity of what we are now facing. Remember when they were talking about invading Iran/Syria in the second term? Which ever the case the majority of Americans would not have gone along with this terrorist breeding project had they understood it would end up like this. If Bush had delivered one quarter of the ridiculous claims he made about Iraq hardly any one would get any attention for talkinkg about forged documents or the lack of WMD's. If you want to talk about wolf tickets -"..last throes", "..turn the corner", "..stay the course", "...100,000 trained Iraqis", "..it will pay for itself" , "..fight them there instead of here", etc.

Steve just in case I misunderstood you -are you saying the British Broadcasting Company is owned by the Rothschilds?

[Justin]

Eric, thanks for the analysis, although I'm not exactly sure where I'd fit. I am for am active US foreign policy that includes democracy promotion and nation building, but I thought that, post 9/11, Iraq was the wrong place to do it. So, I guess I would be in the "slow burn" category for Iraq. I think while the goal of establishing a democracy in the heart of the middle east is a laudable goal, the risk was too great, just as I think that invading a number of African countries and installing a representative democracy is good and theory, but unworkable in practice.

Steve, it was certainly reasonable to believe that Iraq had WMDs before the war. What I have taken issue with is your assertions that Iraq did in fact have WMDs that have somehow gone missing, or an active WMD program, as well cooperative ties with Al Quada. I also think that there is evidence to indicate the administration may have at least overstated the WMD claim before the war in order to market the war to the public. As promised when the Phase 1 report was being prepared, this should be investigated and put to rest for good. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

As a side note, I have to admit taking a certain pleasure in Bush's awful approval ratings. I'm looking forward to the 2006 elections.

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.
htm

[Justin]

Go light another candle at the Church, Justin. You've proved repeatedly that you're congenitally unable to actually read any of the relevant investigative reports without whining that they don't knock down your self-constructed straw men. Even when you've been pointed at them repeatedly.

Tully, you crack me up, really. I'll take it you can't actually cite any of these reports that back up whatever claims you are trying to make, otherwise you would cite them rather than pathetically attempting insults.

Just to be clear, my "straw man" arguments were that Saddam was not actively trying to reconstitute his nuclear program. So, you can tell me that the government of Niger thought that Iraq was implying that they wanted to buy uranium at some point in the future as proof, but that's pretty pathetic. It's also rather ironic that the Senate report you did cite to earlier actually directly contradicts you on page one. And you accuse me of being close-minded? OK, Tully.

[Eric]

Steve (channeling Justin):

"Given that we live in a world with limited resources, was invading Iraq in 2003 the best use of those resources?"

I think "limited resources" is a main argument in favor of targeting Iraq. Why Iraq in the context of the WOT (rather than Iraq for its own sake)? My views, not speaking for the Bush admin:

1. While causes for the 9/11 terror phenomenon can be found in many areas, our military doesn't have an unlimited and elastically fungible capacity for war. What if, with Afghanistan on-going in addition to the MANY other duty obligations thrust on our military, we were limited to one major military campaign? Choose one: where should that take place?

2. Distrust of the American psyche. What is often characterized as peace movements in our country are actually conflict avoidance movements. If there was a 'rush to war', it's because of the American preference for disengagement and isolationism. Not a good trait for a liberal hegemony: look at our history of abandonment despite severe moral and humane cost (North Korea, South Vietnam, pre-OIF Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda). If the goal was to solve the Iraq dilemma in the context of the WOT, how long would that post-9/11 window of opportunity remained open before the American people withdrew into the same-old insular shell of denial about the liberal cost of pre-OIF Iraq? It's very possible that if the inspections had been drawn out long enough in 2003 (a few months?, a year?), it would have happened again - we would have lost our willingness to enforce and thereby solve the dilemma. It's in our nature to take the self-serving easy way out, and only occasionally we have a President who takes the harder path.

3. The goal was solution, not war. Remember, the war was a means to an end, not an end within itself. The liberal goal was reform of Iraq, from failed state to liberal, globalised beacon. Saddam was given every opportunity, and then some, to reform of his own accord. Other nations have done so. Saddam, unfortunately, proved to be a zero-sum actor addicted to games of 'chicken'. Plus, the resolutions were such that compliance likely meant his regime's end where his fate in Iraq probably would have been more Mussolini or Romanoff than Gorbachev.

4. (Because of 1?) The Bush admin, contrary to a common criticism, has relied HEAVILY on robust bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. See: post-war UN in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Roadmap in Israel/Palestine, Euro pressure on Iran, Asian pressure on nK, diplomacy with Pakistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, etc.. Therefore, other potential military targets have been handled diplomatically. It remains to be seen how much diplomacy can accomplish in these states.

5. In terms of controversial, provocative pre-9/11 US intervention in the ME, the Iraq mission topped the list. In fact, Osama bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war against us was mostly predicated on opposition to the US's Iraq mission. Saddam's own rhetoric had become increasingly Islamist to tap into the growing anti-American Islamofascist movement. In fact, the Iraq mission summed up everything that was wrong with US pre-9/11 interaction in the ME. Even if Iraq was contained in the realist sense, it was immensely cancerous in the liberal sense. It was evident after 9/11 that Iraq needed to be solved ASAP.

5. Iraq's central position in the ME, religiously, economically, ethnically and geographically. Iraq is literally, on many levels, the 'hub' of the ME. If Iraq can be transformed into a positive, hopeful projective influence in the region, good things can happen on all sides of Iraq.

5a. Afghanistan, OTOH, is a fringe nation. It explains why the terrorists have flocked to Iraq rather than Afghanistan. The terrorists understand Iraq's geopolitical importance in the WOT better than most Americans do.

6. Systemic limitations. The underlying tension in the enemy combatant vs Geneva Convention, the CIA secret prisons controversy, and Gitmo vs Amnesty International debates is the fact that the US is a state actor - in fact, the leading state actor. We give legitimacy to the international state order, and while we have the most power in that global order to act independently, we are also bound by that same state order. Terrorists are totally unbound as stateless actors. In an assymetric war where the hegemony is bound by a code and other limitations, much smaller groups of terrorists can fight state powers effectively with a kind of jiujitsu warfare that can neutralize our strengths by attacking our weaknesses. The fact is, our hegemonic power is not fungible and we cannot fight on the terrorists' level, as much as we give lip service to Hollywood fantasies of CIA covert ops and Delta Force exterminating al-Qaeda mano-a-mano (without once punching a detainee) in the Hindu Kush mountains, entirely removed from civilian populations.

My assumption is that the extremism driving the 9/11 terrorist phenomenon can never be entirely exterminated, but it can be marginalized, like the KKK was (ruthlessly) marginalized in the US. How do you marginalize it? Not solely by killing terrorists in the best Team America style, although that's a necessary component. Rather, state-level multi-tier (economic, cultural, educational, political) regional reform. In other words, to borrow from Mao's concept (fish in water), if the 9/11 terrorist phenomenon needs a certain environment to thrive and multiply, we change the pH of that water - poison their entire environment. On their side, the terrorists have potent poison of their own to spread in our water.

7. Assymetrical. In a clash of would-be global orders, our best argument is a shared system, to build a system and structure, and offer real popular hope. The terrorists best argument is hate, conflict, death and destruction. Our argument is a lot more delicate and vulnerable, expensive to implement and enforce, and requiring of hard-won public support and trust. Fear and hate are a lot easier and cheaper to create than trust. Where terrorists only need hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of personnel to violently break down a society in order to dominate it gangland style, we require billions of dollars and, collectively, millions of personnel to build up, reform and protect our preferred consensual societies. It can take decades to train a builder (a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, a missionary) and a second to cut her head off (sorry, Margaret Hassan just flashed in my mind).

So, OIF in the context of WOT, to me, represents a state trying to defeat and marginalize an assymetric opponent by using that state's best hegemonic state-level strengths. The terrorists, recognizing the fundamental threat of a 'new' Iraq, are using their best stateless strengths to break it down via jiujitsu warfare.

Turns out, the terrorists methods make for compelling political arguments. How many opponents of OIF would still be opponents if the terrorist death and destruction elements were removed? What does it say about those people who are won over by the terrorists' distinct style of political debate over the rightness or wrongness of OIF?

[Eric]

Bill O,

I don't think anyone in the Bush admin invited the terrorists into Iraq. Why do you think the terrorists are so eager to destroy this 'new' Iraq - even if it means killing thousands of 'non-combatant' Muslims? It's as important for them that Iraq fails as it is important for us that Iraq succeeds. Iraq is the central battlefield in the War on Terror. There is no fallback position. If we can take the terrorists' best hit in Iraq and win, we are equipped to defeat the terrorists everywhere. The same goes for them. They beat the hegemony in Iraq, we lose the War on Terror and they become leading actors everywhere - the barbarians ascendant.

It makes sense that Al Qaeda in Iraq would launch attacks from Iraq into contiguous territories. We are bounded systemically from attacking terrorist allies in neighboring states. We can fight on the Syrian border but we can't cross it. The terrorists are not bounded by borders from attacking our allies, their enemies. But to say Iraq is THE breeding ground for terrorism is self-centered. From Chechnya, to Indonesia, to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Iran, to the Phillipines, there are many 'breeding grounds' for terrorism and many targets.

As far as how Bush may have sold the ease of nation-building, hey, stuff happens in war. You know, 10 years after going to war with Japan over Pearl Harbor, a lot of GIs were wondering why they were fighting swarms of Red Chinese (allies in WW2) defending Korea (liberated from Japan) while deploying from Japan (enemies in WW2). 60 years after liberating Korea from Japan, we're still there, now defending it from other Koreans. Weird, but stuff happens.

In Iraq, we're defending another ally. If things had fallen right and the resources brought to bear for the nation-building of Iraq had been able to fulfill their intended purpose, given the cooperation of the majority of Iraqis, the mission could have been that easy. But you know, the enemy has a vote, allies disappoint, plans fall apart and grand strategy doesn't hold up in practice. Weaknesses overlooked in battlegames show up on the battlefield. Minor considerations become major. How many great commanders have predicted 'home by Christmas' in a 1st year of a war only to be fighting 3-4 years and thousands of dead later? Stuff happens. Besides, given the history of nation-building, even with the unprededented resources that were positioned for Iraq, why would anyone think nation-building would be quick or easy even under the best of circumstances?

This War on Terror, to quote Rumsfeld, is going to be a "long, hard slog". Our days of denial are behind us and it's time for us to lead in earnest; we're paying the price for conflict avoidance and decadent leisure.

[Steve]

Eric said: Afghanistan, OTOH, is a fringe nation. It explains why the terrorists have flocked to Iraq rather than Afghanistan. The terrorists understand Iraq's geopolitical importance in the WOT better than most Americans do.
---
It is partly Iraq's geopolitical position in the heart of the Middle East but that is hardly it.

There is the revenues of the second largest oil reserves in the world. The Bush administration is not after the oil. That would be France, Russia and China, and the U.N. and an assortment of individual opportunists.
-------------------------
I do not know why I spend my time with people trying to discuss these things. General Meyers said that what we are doing in Iraq is very important and the stakes are high, and indeed they are. The only people I want to hear from concerning the need for this war is, lets just say, the top 25 currently serving Generals actually involved in conducting the war. The rest of us are worthless and we kid ourselves into thinking we've got something to say. With all we have access to on the Internet we still know next to nothing. All our airy words about "liberal democracy", hegemony, hubris and whatever else means very little even coming from Tom Barnett and it means even less coming from anyone of us.

I'm sorry but I sense simply a lack of some very basic awareness about who we are dealing with concerning Saddam and his sons and the whole current picture with respect to oil revenues and Islamic states and their long entrenched relationship to Islamic radicals and their global plans and ideology.

Iraq's regime was going through some big changes. It had always been active during the 1990s in various parts of the world with terrorists. This notion that people are trying to sell that Saddam had spent 1991 to 2002 sitting on his hands is just not the way to look at it. You simply do not understand how these regimes operate.

I've been on this site discussing things along these lines for 4 months I am guessing. It seems as though I am trying to fill a sieve. Things should stick with you and you should start to get a picture of things. When a quarterback hands off the ball to the halfback he doesn't stand and look at the ball itself, he raises his head and tries to take in the field of play. If you even know what I am talking about right now then you ought to be able to say that compared to last year you understand, and can picture better, the world situation with respect to terrorist groups, state sponsors, drugs, weapons, and state funding. I can say that and I expect that next year at this time I will have that picture much more filled in than today. Especially if I quit wasting so much of my time on these sites typing.

Things that you ("you" talking to anyone) read should stick with you and I mean really stick. They accumulate and go into a ever growing picture. The little thing I said about Hamas looking to set off bombs in a New York subway around August 1, 1997 should stick with you. Someday you might just look into that and find out what the immediate context for that event was. You might find out the names of the guys invloved and who they worked for and where the funding comes from. You might also find out that there have been other foiled plots by the same organization or the same funders. Maybe this same group did something in Europe too. Anyway, you hopefully get the point and all this ought to lead to more and more understanding of this terrorist picture. Once you see the vastness and complexity of it, and all this subject's possibilities it will change the way you think, I would think.

I've got a feeling that possibly one problem with people in the U.S. is that they are just waking up to the fact that there is a terrorist threat in the world. And they are associating it too much to the war in Iraq. But they do not realize that Europe has been into it since the 1980s and the United States has been into it on its own soil since the first Gulf War. If a quarter of the terror plots before 911 had not been stopped I think people would have been much more aware of things. I was somewhat aware in 1998 or 1999 of what may have been developing in the world in regards to terrorism and when 911 happened I knew enough to know Osama bin Laden was invloved. So I do not object to, or whine about, the current situation we find ourselves in regards to terrrorism because I sort of saw it coming eventually anyway. And please do not try and pass off some idea that you know, or a political party knows, how to solve this.

Did you know that Imad Mugniyah worked for Yasser Arafat's Force 17 in the late 1970s? That is kind of interesting.

I don't know about you but I sometimes read slow and sentence by sentence while trying to think of every thing I can think of in relation to what I am reading as well as what else was going on in the world at the time.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.

Google on this it will come to the top. By now it should say deeper things to you than just flat words:

"Al-Douri: Iraq's Connection with Radical Islam"

The following is long for a website link but it is easier than reading all the books sited. Just try and get around to reading it and try and picture what is going on:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1144699/posts

[Warthog]

I saw a great bumpersticker the other day. "They risk their asses so we can run our mouths". Pray for them and pray for victory.

[Steve]

As for the owners of BBC and the House of Rothschild, The Bank of England, BCCI, Royal Ordinance, the arming of Iraq, and George Soros, New York Times, and whatever else.

I don't know yet. After watching so many mysterious things since the Clinton administration I sense a lot of people smarter, more informed, and more experienced people than me know, that there are factors invloved that are the result of some wealthy people targeting their money and personal connections towards an agenda that I do not believe that our enlisted soldiers in Iraq would appreciate.

There are a lot of things to look into and I do not have the time to do it all but if, and when, I care to that will be my business.

When I mentioned that earlier about BBC and the Rothschilds I barely remember having read something along those lines some time ago. It is probably a little more complicated than that, of course, but like I said I was just mentioning it. But if it is somewhat so about BBC and all of that, it brings up some interesting issues, thoughts and observations. Wouldn't it? Shouldn't it?

[Steve]

From what it seems after what I've read there are people not only in Iraq counting on us but also people in Lebanon. Our sticking to this is going to help them.

If Lebanon could change partly as a result of Iraq on its own that would be great.

[justin]

Eric--If I may, your argument seems to have to basic components--(1) We had to act militarily against someone, and Iraq was the best candidate (and we had to strike while the US people were ready) and (2) Establishing a liberal democracy in the heart of the middle east is a great way to fight terrorism (through the battle of ideas).

I agree with point 2 in theory, but as I've said before, I think in practice it is extremely risky and unprecedented, and the likely outcome was that Iraq turns into a failed state, ripped apart by civil war. I really hope I am wrong, and at this point it is too early to tell what the final result will be, but I am optimistic.

What I don’t understand, and I guess disagree with on a basic level, is that Iraq was (pre-OIF) any more than peripherally connected to the war on terror, or more specifically, our fight against Al Quada. I would go so far as to say that Iraq and Al Quada’s philosophies are pretty incompatible (a jihadist movement v. a secular dictatorship). True, common enemies make strange bed-fellows, but Iraq and Al Quada were not moving very quickly into a collaborative direction. At bottom, Iraq is a state actor and is still deterred by threats of violence from other states (i.e., the US).

I realize that I am greatly oversimplifying the pre-OIF Iraqi threat, and I recognize that there were very compelling reasons for regime change (some of the best coming from Lawrence Kaplan), and my opposition to the war was not quite as strong as it seems when I am debating certain people on this board (my main pet peeve having more to do with the execution of the war, including the administration’s apparent support for torture).

Now, we have caused Iraq to be a central front in the WOT, and it is a war we cannot lose. This is a state of affairs that was caused by the invasion, whereas before, Iraq was a two-bit dictatorship that, while it posed a threat to the world order, I believe that it was a threat that could be contained without a full-scale invasion. Now, Iraq has turned into a training ground for terrorists, similar to pre-9/11 Afghanistan.

I do have to take exception to something you said responding to Bill:
How many great commanders have predicted 'home by Christmas' in a 1st year of a war only to be fighting 3-4 years and thousands of dead later? Stuff happens.

I think the point is many people were saying that Bush’s assessments were to rosy. Paul O’Neill saying the war would cost over $100 billion and being silenced by the Administration, and Shinseki saying that we would need at least 300,000 troops and being shot down by the Administration.

Steve, the problem that I have with your web-of-connections style is that it completely lacks perspective. It’s a tactic Michael Moore and Chomsky use on the left, and it often veers into paranoia. You can connect any event to any other if you try hard enough.

[Steve]

Justin,

You need to be more specific in your claim that I make too much of certain connections.

Are you speaking of the Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Rahman Yasin, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir (WTC1993, Embassy bombings, USS Cole), Yazid Suufat, Operation Bojinka, Salman Pak, Abdul Basit Karim, Palestinian terror groups HQ in Baghdad and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, connections?

Or are you speaking of the Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda, WMD, war in Somalia, connections?

The Ansar al-Islam, Iraq, Zarqawi's group-Uday's Hospital, Afghanistan, Farouq Hijazi-Al Qaeda, Abu Wa'el, war in Northern Iraq around 911 after August 19, 2001 terror conference, Lawrence Foley's death, connections?

Iraq and the sharing of WMD training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan?

Are you speaking of the Farouq Hijazi-Turkey, Jarrah's Turkish girlfriend, and Sibel Edmond's complaint? That one I put under take it or leave it.

Are you talking about the openning of the Aleppo (Spain's Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and 911 connections) to Mosul connections between Syria and Iraq before the war and the Iraqi money, WMD equipment, and former regime Baathists, and the Saudi Wahhabist preacher recruiting in Aleppo before 911?

Are you talking about the Belarus that wanted to become part of Russia again? After having illegally sold Saddam plasma sprayers, sophisticated computer automated machine tools, gyroscopes, and magnets started to open up a free trade zone between themselves, Iraq, Syria, and Libya? The Belarus that had begun having uninspected direct flights into Baghdad that was followed by other countries doing the same? The Belarus that when after a meeting with Abdul Tawab Howeish (Deputy Prime Minister and Military Industrialization Minister) Howeish then bragged out loud that he was receiving the latest in military technology? This brag, along with Saddam bragging that he could get anything he wanted dispite the sanctions.

The Taha Yassin Ramadan and his control over the assignment of oil-for-food contracts and the Arab Liberation Front and their involvement in the death of Abigail Litle?

Or the connections between Abu Sayyaf and the Iraqi regime going back to Operation Bojinka on up to the death of SGT Mark Wayne Jackson in a terror plot in Zamboanga City, Philippines that invloved a bomb at an elementary school?

This could go on but I am not sure specifically what you are refering too?

http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles
/Vol3Issue11/Vol3Issue11BrookePFV.html

[The 311 train attacks] in Spain also have disturbing connections to a wider European trend. Jamal Zougam, the Moroccan held in connection with the attacks, had ties to Ansar Al-Islam, the Kurdish group situated in Northern Iraq. During last year authorities in Europe uncovered massive Ansar al Islam recruiting operations in Britain, Italy, Germany, Norway and Spain. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the shadowy leader of Al-Ansar, focused his efforts on recruiting converts to Islam and developing sleeper cells.

I remember reading something more than a year ago that there were two Iraqis surrounding the plot to bomb the Christmas Square in Strasbourg, France at the turn of the year 2000. It included a later plan to release sarin gas into a meeting of the European parliamnet in February. That plot had connections to Mala Krekar's Milan, Italy as well. And remember that I told you that Iraq's ambassador to Italy was said to be Saddam's liason with the Afghans. Italian Intelligence has said that Aleppo, Syria is an Al Qaeda hub and the U.S. FBI and CIA were allowed access there after 911. As for Trinidad, the article I read states that the CIA is keeping a closer eye on that Island since 911, why?

Now, remember that former Iraqi regime Baathists are also with Al-Zarqawi. From the Watchtower article:

Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri (whose two sons have sworn 'fealty' to Usama bin Laden) is in league with Zarqawi and Al Qaeda elements.

In planning for the post-war occupation, Iraq undertook a number of measures to facilitate the insurgency, including the hiding of funds and equipment in Syria, construction of a network of safe houses, hiding of arms and explosives and planning for attacks on coalition troops. It's inconcievable to think that the Islamic Holy Warrior aspect of their defense wasn't included as an integral part of the insurgency.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is running this insurgency in coordination with the al-Zarqawi network and former Sunni Iraqi army personnel. A good deal of evidence would suggest that he is the former regime's primary connection with Islamic fundementalists.

There are other articles out there that talk of this terror network that includes former Iraqi Baathist regime elements but I am not here to try and take you through everything.

Justin,

Very very very very very very very important article for you to read all the way through:

http://frontpagemagazine.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20148

Its kind of strange but I didn't realize that the link that baldilocks gave was to the article I just sited for justin too read. I believe it is word for word the same article.
-----

As for this article link below, I am reposting it for anyone to look at completely because it is a pretty good overall view. It needs to be read just for starters if a person is going to discuss Iraq:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1144699/posts
----------------
The subject of Iraq is so large and has so many aspects to it that it isn't really right to pick on any one small detail and behave as though that makes or breaks the whole picture concerning our confrontation with Saddam.

[Bill O..]

Eric you make some decent arguments however:

-Terrorism has gone up world wide since the invasion. Bush was unsuccessful in suppressing the governmental report on this.

-The terrorist have been bombing our allies in their countries despite the “fighting there so we don’t fight them here” rationale (e.g. UK, Jordan, Spain, etc). Then there are the countries they have attempted terrorism –most recently Australia. Keep in mind there was no terrorism in some of these countries until after they participate in the invasion. While the US was perceived to hold the moral high ground in invading Afganistan the inverse is true for the Iraq invasion. The occupation of Iraq is a world wide recruitment tool for Al Qaida and Bush’s own report hat he attempted to suppress make this case.

-The occupation continues to suffer from grossly negligent planning. Remember when Bush/Rumsfeld fired Shinseki for telling the truth that this adventure would require 300,000 troops? The missing 8.5 billion dollars? Rumsfeld letting the looting happen? Not sufficiently equipping our forces? Not training Iraqi troops fast enough and lying about the numbers US trained Iraqis. Literally putting 20 -22 year old children of heritage foundation members in charge of critical institutions in Iraq? And increasingly more information comes out about how little planning went into the post-invasion. Yes there were Allied set backs during World War II that required rethinking plans. With the Bush group it is very clear there were no plans for the post invasion being heeded to begin with and there just isn’t the competence to make the tactical adjustments to make the occupation work. When Bush says the US will stay the course he is really covering up for the fact that they have no clue as to how to change the current situation. The situation in Iraq is getting and the current “course” is just not working. If these people were serious or competent they would at least the attempt to make the changes to try to win this.

-And while I don’t think that bubble boy Bush intentionally planned on breeding terrorists it’s hard to see how someone could not have foreseen that happening as a result of the invasion. Or to put it another way someone invades your country, accidentally or intentionally kills members of your family, allows criminals to totally obliterate your home/work place, makes the infrastructure worse than when the tyrant was in charge and places incompetent children of Heritage foundation ideologues (literally) into key decision making positions –I suspect you might have a hard time not having negative feelings towards you occupiers. Google some of the Iraqi polls results on there attitudes towards the occupation and to Americans.

-Either Bush was too incompetent to have been aware of what potential pitfalls the Iraq invasion would have and to plan alternate contingencies or he did know the difficulties and risks but did not care to share the reality with the citizens of this democracy. In either case his poll numbers are in the tank, as I said earlier, because of the fatal discrepancy between the scenario he and his handlers described and the reality of the occupation. To add to this he fired, demoted or swift boated all the people in his government that were actually knowledgeable and up front with what was really actually going to happen and prepare appropriately: Powel, Shinseki, etc. We know all know with out a doubt that what Powel, Shenseki, etc. were right and Bush/Neo-cons were wrong and now America is paying for their miscalculations.

Steve I thought you were stubborn, could not admit that you often don’t know what you are talking about and did not actually read some of the sources you site. Now I am realizing that you are just flat out “black helicopters and alien probes” nuts. The BBC has never been owned by the Rothschilds (or Templar Knights, the Vatican, space aliens, etc.) or any other private citizens. The BBC is a semi-independent governmental institution of the UK. To use your own yardstick Steve -everyone knows this and you can look this up on the internets. When I was an American living in the UK I had to purchase an annual television license issued by the UK government. The funds collected by the UK government for this license is a TV tax that is used specifically to fund the BBC. The only people that “own” the BBC are the citizens of the UK. Try not to stare directly into the sun Steve.

[Steve]

I've had a lot to say here besides my mentioning of the BBC and where its possible ownership and influences ultimately come from. I thought it worth mentioning and I still do. The news media has always investigated others by following the money trail and I think people ought to spend some time familiarizing themselves with some of the things I put out there. Like every other subject (including anti-Iraq war sites) out there on the Internet it has got its portion of people who are far out. It is not asking too much to have people investigate that aspect of things and find some worthwhile material on it. I'm afraid it is not so simple as this idea that these dues you speak of is the whole story in regards to what influences the BBC. PBS, and the programs it shows, have plenty of other funding besides veiwer donations and a government stipened.

[Steve]

If anyone cares to get started here are some links that may be helpful:

BBC Watch:

http://www.bbcwatch.co.uk/
----

New York Times Watch

http://www.timeswatch.org/
----
camera.org is maybe the best for watching over the Washington Post:

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=38

----
For all these news sources hyper claims about other people's lack of veracity they have all done too much themselves for me to bother much with them anymore. Talk about polls, what about the indications of declining readership of many of these papers. These news sources are the ones getting impeached lately and its too bad people can't start proceedings against them based on all the evidence of just the last 15 years.

[Steve]

Commentary Magazine in I believe it was the August 2005 edition (it may be at you local library) went over the Mohammed Al-Dura incident in the Gaza Strip and it really had to make you think about just what news outlets are willing to do to arrange and participate in staged incidents.

http://www.discoverthenetwork.com/
printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6960

Below is a portion about the BBC in the above article link. The map of connections the site usually provides with its articles of people and organizations has been turned off in this case.
--
As to its view of capitalism and the United States, the BBC’s choice of commentators for its coverage of the American election in 2004 spoke volumes. One of the only Americans chosen to explain the U.S. elections to the British people was hatchet-man and propagandist for Democratic President Bill Clinton’s Administration Sidney Blumenthal. Another was Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The third was former Central Intelligence Agency director (and this panel’s only moderate) James Woolsey. The fourth was a self-identified hater of President Bush, Daddy Warbucks for leftwing organizations supporting Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, and billionaire financier whose hostile currency speculation in the British Pound led him to be known as “the man who broke the Bank of England” George Soros. The fifth and final American election commentator chosen by the BBC was anti-Bush documentarian and radical Michael Moore. This is how the BBC fulfills its charter requirements for “impartiality” and a “respect for truth.”

[Bill O..]

But Steve you did not mention "influneces " you said the Rothschilds owned the BBC. That is akin to saying that Mellon-Scaife owns the Department of Transportation. That is insane. Paying for a televsion license is not paying dues. It's really paying a tax to the UK government. The BBC is not Sams club. There is no secret where the money to fund the BBC comes from. You can stand in a UK post office and see for your self. The money comes out of license owners pockets.

[Bill O..]

Steve I guess all this frantic googling you are doing is more of you "just having some fun"?

[Steve]

Bill, lets get something cleared up here. You mention thnigs in a very emotional way on this site and I am not the only one that has alluded to it. I am not doing anything "frantically" and your mentioning of this more than twice has given me clues to your state of mind.

I don't have to be to work until after 5:30pm and I've got clothes in the dryer. I am already aware of certain things and I talk about them here. If you talk as though you want links I just sit here and remember back at the things I've rememered reading and google around for it and then post it, wow. Is there some other process you can imagine me doing here? The Dany Shoham article I sited above I read more than a year and a half ago and I went out and found it. You are correct in thinking that I am having some fun here, isn't everyone else?

[Steve]

I almost didn't catch the post above the frantic google remark about the ownership of the BBC. I'll go looking for it in my own time but I do recall it mentioned that the BBC was owned and in a sense privately. And those same owners have other media outlets in Europe. What that article meant by what it was saying I did not go any further into. I am not real familiar, and neither are you I am sure, about how British society is arranged. These things are more complicated than the simple view that they are owned by everyone and are responsive therefore to everyone. I am quite sure that is not accurate either.

[justin]

Steve, I say the moon landings were faked, and here is a web-site to back me up:

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm

[the point I'm making, if it's not clear, is that you can find anything on the internet with a google search, but you need to use some sort of critical filter to decide whether the information is worth addressing.]

And Steve, I read the Podhoretz article, which I addressed in my first post above. See
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005

It's pretty pathetic when the right's response to this boils down to "Bill Clinton believed it too" or the "Democrats sort of said the same thing". You guys are losing this one, sorry.

[Eric]

I guess I can only speak for myself, but in supporting OIF, I didn't think the mission would be easy, quick and cheap. I disagree that the Bush admin had no plan for post-war Iraq. They had a decent plan, with massive resources and personnel positioned. It just didn't work as planned. Mistakes were made plus we face a determined resourceful assymetrical unrestricted enemy. It happens.

The better question is how well the leaders have adjusted mission, and in that, I'm not a fan of the Bush admin's track record. I was deeply dismayed in 2004 by Kerry and the Democrats. The Dems failed to understand that the US by 2004 needed a SUPERIOR war-time President, not an anti-war President. In the Dems' utter failure to grasp the situation, we all suffer.

Anyway, the idea of escalation as failure doesn't make so much sense to me - that's what happens in war. Terrorism is a methodology. The terrorists aren't killing mindlessly; they're people, not a force of nature. If the terrorists are escalating, it's because they're zero-sum actors who perceive an escalated threat to their desired end-state. They'll stop the killing either when we win or they win. If we don't believe they want to dominate globally, they at least want to dominate regionally in the ME. In Iraq, we want to transform, globalise and 'connect' Islam's heartland. For the terrorists, this new 'connected' Iraq in Islam's heartland is cancerous; the terrorists need to 'disconnect' Islam from the West. They'll try to chase us out the best way they know how.

The thing that needs to be understood about the 9/11 terror phenomenon is that it is also a globalising movement. Unlike ours, it's anti-nationalistic. The terrorists are born and raised somewhere, obviously, but their allegiance is to the Islamist movement. A realist would respond that the counter to a regionally based anti-national movement is to fortify the region's states. A liberal like me would respond that fortification of states is important, but it doesn't go far enough: the anti-national movement in the ME has grown because of the popular rejection of failed states and, related, alienation from the West's nation-based globalised system (Barnett's "Gap" concept). Fortifying the failed states, sans fundamental reform, may help to a point, but it's not a solution. The realists say today what they said in shaping Reagan's Iraq policy: the choice is between state oppression or Islamofascism. The liberal says that Reagan was wrong and that, in fact, the former drives the latter. After we trapped our nation in Iraq via Gulf War I, we've needed to create a third choice that breaks the destructive cycle that got us to 9/11.

In that liberal interpretation, even if the pre-OIF Iraq was 100% anti-Islamist (which it wasn't), it was still a driver of the 9/11 terror phenomenon. Again, because of the UN/US 'oppression' of Saddam's Iraq, the pre-OIF Iraq became a perfect nexus of the West's -systemic- failure in and alienation of the ME. How many Americans today remember how much hope accompanied the 1991 Gulf War in the ME that America - the champion of the free world who had just vanquished the USSR - was now going to transform the ME into liberal modernity? To borrow from a great American poet: what happens to a dream deferred?

Until Iraq can be transformed into an Islamist state, it's in the terrorists' best interests that the Western version of Iraq is a (profitably for them) failed state. Also key in their strategy is to continue the pre-OIF discourse of ascribing Iraq's failure to the US, so that Iraq's failure is not just a failure of Iraqis but a defining failure of the West in the ME.

One of these days, I'll probably talk about my criticisms of OIF. Last night, I was sharing a drink (or two) with a fellow Columbia milvet, a former Army SSG and EOD team leader who served in OIF I. He had a lot of interesting things to say from his view from the ground about mistakes made but also unfair criticisms. Talking to him also led me one step closer to re-enlisting as a Civil Affairs soldier (I'm former Army Intel) - we need more CA troops, a lot more.

I'll just leave off with this recent Tom Barnett statement from his weblog, talking about his latest book:

"The knee-jerk, Vietnam-like reaction is to back off once the going gets tough and to resort to naturally selfish principles of me-firstism (reflecting the reach for the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11) and I wanted to fight that impulse most of all. So I felt the real challenge in this section would be to make the counter-intuitive argument following the difficulties of the Iraq occupation: don't just go home and lick your wounds but instead make a truly vigorous counter-response of showing the world just how serious you are about this complex subject of nation-building and shrinking the Gap."

I largely agree with Justin's point that, embarking upon OIF, we weren't (necessarily) equipped to finish OIF. However, I believe the only way to develop sufficient capability to finish OIF was to embark upon OIF. The Great Depression generation didn't become the Greatest Generation in WW2 because they entered the war against the Axis fully capable of defeating two of the great military powers of the world, not to mention the follow-up Cold War. Those Americans rose to the challenge. This WOT - including Iraq - is our American generation's challenge. If those Americans could rise from poverty to victory, what will it take for us to rise from luxury to victory?

[Steve]

No, justin we are winning this one, sorry.

Our premises are different. It isn't about the idea that democrats or Bill Clinton said it too. The point is that they were not wrong to have said that and they were not lying. I am somewhat aware of the almost monthly accurances back in the 1990s of deception practiced by Saddam during the inspections and the ultimate futility of it when all along it was Saddam's agreement to turn over all the materials. Look up Hussein Kamel or Wafiq Samarri just for starters. Intelligence gathering has very rarely involved video of the things you have come to know about and that seems to be what is the only thing that will satisfy some people.

The other premise that we are at odds about is the question of Saddam's regime being a threat to the United Sates.

On April 21, 2001 the BBC reported word for word a speech by Saddam where he claimed to be joined with the Palestinians in the 2nd (Al Aksa) Intifada. He then talked of attacking the United States. But it isn't like that was the first time or some big suprise. He was set upon launching attacks against the United States and many have good reason to think that he had already been.

Justin, I just do not think you get the picture with regards to Saddam and the United States. I'll throw in this little-big thing, remember the United State Military found floor plans of US schools in Iraq.

[Justin]

Steve said:
No, justin we are winning this one, sorry.

Well, 57% of the country thinkgs that Bush misled the US into war, so you're not exactly winning on that front.

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.
htmhttp://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

[Eric]

-- Well, 57% of the country thinkgs that Bush misled the US into war, so **you're** not exactly winning on that front. --

You mean "WE'RE not exactly winning ...", right? It would not do us well to forget that WE are on the same side of the jihad, including the psy-ops/propaganda/information front of it.

[Justin]

Eric, I suppose your're right--while I'd like to see and investigation and the Republicans go down in flames in 2006, I don't want to see the US lose its resolve now and pull out of Iraq. Hopefully though, a Democrat will be able to articulate why we are there now better. Maybe I'm simple-minded, but the case would be that while the WMD case was bogus (especially in hindsight), establishing a democracy in Iraq is in our interest, and it is certainly vital to our security that we not let Iraq turn into a failed state and breeding groind to the next generation of militants. But I'm stuck with W. until 2008,

I'm sure this is mainly the partisan in me speaking, but I have very little confidence in this Administration's competence to win this war, but great confidence in our military leadership and troops to win and estabish a stable quasi-democracy despite W.'s apparent incompetence.

[grandpa stole bets]

[whole lot of crap that had nothing to do with the topic at hand]

[teal marie]

That's some baaaaaaaaad BDS you got there.
Let's not win the war. It will disappoint the losers and they'll NEVER stop whining! Why, it would almost be worth losing if they'd shut the f up!
Miserable cretins.

[Steve]

I'll be voting Republican in 2008 and I am happy that I've done so in the past. I am very much aware of why I am going to be doing that.

[Bill O..]

Eric it was learned today that the terrosist that murderd those poor people at that wedding in Jordan were Iraqis. This is the first time I have ever heard of Iraqis directly commiting the terrorist act(i.e. literally detonating the bomb) outside their country. Unfortunately I think this is a drop from the growing pool of Iraqi terrorist caused by the occupation. This is what I was talking about Bush breeding terrorist.

[skinner]

Bill O youre a camels sphincter
Yore logic dazzles the mind " may a crazed yak lay an egg on your'e boyfreinds toaster oven

[Bill O..]

Skinner you want dazzling logic? Invading Iraq when we were attacked by Al Qaeda and their Saudi backers will go down in history as one of the dumbest ideas in US history. Your grandchildren(god forbid) will be studying your stupidity and gullability in their US history class. They will ask themselves how great the US could have continued to be if the debt, terorism and wholesale selling of America to China had not been enabled by people like you Skinner. As nuts as Steve clearly is Skinner you are only half a zoloft away from being him. Feel free to harness your logic and enlist Skinner.

[justin]

Wow, Teal, it doesn't take much for you to become unhinged and make absolutely no sense.

[Steve]

Bill and justin you guys just do not see the picture of things. I've been wondering for a long time if it is willfull or simply and inability. What the United States has done in going into Iraq was the greatest thing we could have done. I know what you must be thinking but you need to step back from that and take another look.

Read Steven Emerson and Evan Kohlmann. Read Laurie Mylroie and Rohan Gunaratna. Read this post:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1144699/posts

Read this interview:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/
interviews/khodada.html

Read this interview:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
shows/gunning/interviews/mylroie.html

Desist from making rash judgements with your mouth or keyboard until you've read more. I can sense a lack of understanding of this situation on your part.

[Bill O..]

If you remember Steve the last time I gave your arguement a good faith consideration and actually took time to read a number of your links/substantiation the sources you cited either did not say what you claimed or out right made the exact opposite argument you claimed it would make. Remember that Steve? Citing things might seem scholarly to some people but in reality the citations have to actually support your arguement to mean something. Otherwise Steve you are just a lonely nut case.

[Steve]

Well Bill, like always you never explain yourself. You just claim I've done this or that thing and leave it at that. You also seem to think you've done such a great job yourself in informing people when you've done no such thing.

All the while I've been sharing information and also several summaries of my own thoughts from some of what I've read. You, on the other hand, have done very little of anything and I've had people say that they've found me informative.

I am not saying that 100% of every link I give has got either totally accurate information or has got the full story. In the case of the Free Republic link it is a pretty good start at getting a better overall picture of Iraq. I'll let people read those things and they can investigate more for themselves. Your sarcasm, on the other hand, contains nothing.

[teal marie]

Justin, you can pretend you don't understand me, but you can't pretend I don't understand you.

There's a reason why you have a baton sinister on your little pink escutcheon.

[justin]

Oh, and someone owes Dick Durbin an apology (turns out we were studying North Korean and Vietnamese interrogation techniques to use on Gitmo prisoners):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/opinion/14blochemarks.html

[Steve]

If past lies and distortions can so totally discount information from that source then why is it that the New York Times is used so cavalierly by you justin?

[justin]

If past lies and distortions can so totally discount information from that source then why is it that the New York Times is used so cavalierly by you justin?

The NYT has a lot of flaws, but it is one of the most intensely scrutinized new sources around. When they make a mistake or show bias (which certainly happens), you hear about it. If something is reported in the Times, I tend to trust it while screening it for inherent biases that are part of every news organization. When some random website reports badly, nobody really cares or points it out. Do you really no see the difference between the NYT and FrontPage or whatever it's called?

[skinner]

Once again bill OHH!!!! youre stupid analizeing ,about,behavior is moot, where Im concerned and you have a major case of, running at the mouth desease , you need a moist toweleete , the size of Modesto.
We should have ovethrown Sadam
in the early 80s. tell that to youre partners sisters grand kids

[Bill O..]

Skinner here is a link to a picture of Runsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in the 80's:
http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/cia_iraq.htm>http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/cia_iraq.htm
On this trip Rumsfeld was giving chemical weapons to Iraq on behalf of Reagan. Shortly after Rumsfelds trip Saddam used gas on the Kurds. In that period after the gasssing Saddam was still a strong middle east ally of the US under Republican presidents up untill the Kuwait invasion. That whole period before Saddam invaded Kuwait nary a peep from any Republicans about torture, rape or anything else that had to do with human rights. In fact unless it had something to do with fighting communists republicans just weren't ineterested in "nation building". Do you remeber when the clown you voted for had oppostion to nation building as one of his camapagn issues during his first run for the White House? Probably not.

Skinner America is getting wise to the Bush scam. Look at that drunken rodeo clowns poll numbers. Some of you dead enders should just wipe the egg off your faces, join the reality based community and start fixing the absolute dire mess your past mass ignorance frenzy has placed this country in. Yes I know it stings your ego that Karl Rove simply pressed a buton and you foamed at the mouth on command for years like a good monkey and now history has made you look like a chump but get over it. Most of the dead ender Nixon supporters had to why can' you?. Maybe they can organize a support group for you. Either that or you should just stop talking garbage, quit the 101st fighting keyboardist and go enlist in the real military you claim to believe in so much.

[skinner]

Bill Ohh!! You assume Im not aware of this shit You also assume Im an mindless idiot waving a flag Let me repeat myself { I } think we shouldve gotten rid of Sadam in the early
8o's. A better scenario would have
been Iraqs Facist military and Irans religious facists zealot military would have annihilated each other to the point that only freedom seeking intelligent muslims remained And ,they, are the majority This only happens , In fairy tales it seems and the majority never rules in the mideast . You cry babies need to quit finding fault and let, US KNOW WHAT YOU'D DO IM ALL EARS

[Bill O..]

I should quit finding fault Skinner? In the lead up to the war people like you and the rest of the pro-Bush, pro-war, pro-debt, pro-outsourcing crowd accussed us "moonbat" war critics of "hating America" for pointing out that the war time presidents entire plan to invade Iraq was not only based on a faulty premise but also just poorly thought out and do much more long term bad than long term good. And while some of you just cant accept that you fell for a blatantly obvious con job there is no way you and yours can blame the results of the neo-con poor planning on anything other than the poor planning that you continue to rubber stamp. Its as if the war was organized by a bunch of 18 year old first year undegrad coffee house intellectuals. And now that every bad thing that us "moonbats" (a.k.a. adults) warned would go wrong with this hairbrained fantasy scheme is now happening you want us to tell you, the people that got us into to this mess what our "bright ideas" are to get out of the mess that you and the rest of the mouth breathers created. As if we all all agreed to this to begin with. Did I forget to remind you that you and your self indulgently frothing at the mouth ilk got us into this mess to begign with? Oh I did? This was the whole point of us "moonbats" warning about the faults of the Bush invasion plan to begin with - so we could have avoided being in the situation we are now in. I will say this though the more we continue to do the same thing the worse it gets in Iraq. "Staying the course" is clearly not working. Stop enabling.

[skinner]

This is it asshole You dont Know a damn thing about me and you are listening impaired I did not need to be convinced about anything You dumbshit for the third and final time >>>>{" I } >>>,
think we should have taken sadam out in the early 80"s " You should be taken out and flogged for youre stupid Generalizations
Youre an obnoxious nauseating whiney girly man and you should write youreself love letters and giv us all a break TAKE A WALK

[baldilocks]

Oh, and someone owes Dick Durbin an apology (turns out we were studying North Korean and Vietnamese interrogation techniques to use on Gitmo prisoners)

Justin, you have't discovered the Rosetta Stone. It's been known for a long time that SERE schools use the methods that they use, based on VN and NK. People like these authors and you never paid attention until now is all. Many of the other survival schools use some variations of the techniques.

And unless we implemented mass murdering procedures ("Pol Pot, Gestapo, Gulag"), Durbin'll get nothing from me but my middle finger.

[teal marie]

Bravo! Oorah and Semper Fi.

Will that be crushed velvet for the footstool or tuck and roll?
Tassles? hehee

[baldilocks]

Bill O Says:

Either that or you should just stop talking garbage, quit the 101st fighting keyboardist and go enlist in the real military you claim to believe in so much.

Sell the ignorant, illogical and unconstitutional chickenhawk meme elsewhere, Bill. Those that regularly comment on a veteran's blog under an alias and without submitting an email address, would do well to refrain from casting aspersions regarding the intestinal fortitude of others.

[Steve]

One thing that I've learned since 911 is the nature of New Yorkers and maybe a little about the nature of New York politics. Justin I believe is from New York and I've noticed that New Yorkers are very often like justin and/or Bill O. Now, when the twin towers were hit I was fairly content in my part of the world and I naturally saw New York as a place that had something in common with myself. That may seem strange to me now but as of September 2001 I thought that I should care about what might happen to New Yorkers. At that time I realized the country had a little good and bad in its history and that possibly we all shared a little in both of those aspects. But I have come to realize that New Yorkers have attributed every evil perpetrated in this nation on to some other people and that they have claimed all that is good for themselves. Whatever weird stuff New Yorkers have been doing either culturally, economically, crimminaly, or whatever, to themselves or to others, may have something to do with what ultimately happened to them on that day.

Whatever 911 may have really been about concerning possibly New York's own faults there has been a lot of concern, security dollars, and a lot of military effort from people all around the country expended on their behalf. All this for a city of people that if 911 and 3,000 deaths had happened in my midsized town on 911 it would be on the 9th page by 914.

Like I've said I've gotten a enough of a general feel from a number of different people over the Internet to see more of what New Yorkers are like and I am going to keep that in mind if, or when, there should be a next time.

Lets just say that on this day next week something truly catastrophic were to have really done someting to New York City and that it was big enough to have effected its output of what it calls "culture", and what it feeds the rest of this nation in news media and attitude. In other words New York City and its people fell silent. What, I am wondering, do these hypothetical dead New Yorkers want us to feel about them after they are gone? What if the country becomes noticably more pleasant after that city is thru? What then? A lot of the underhanded political maneuverings that have been reported on in this nation's blogs no matter what part of the country they may appear very often originated with political operators in New York.

One thing that can't be helped is that I'll feel bad for many of the people but all the same it will be a little different next time for me because what I've come to learn of them since 911 certainly will have its effect also.
------------------
Just curious. Is Bill O. and/or Justin homosexual? I've read some things said about them recently and it seems it goes unanswered or not denied. Is this something everyone here has known already?

[Bill O..]

Baldi:"Sell the ignorant, illogical and unconstitutional chickenhawk meme elsewhere, Bill. Those that regularly comment on a veteran's blog under an alias and without submitting an email address, would do well to refrain from casting aspersions regarding the intestinal fortitude of others."

Me: "..unconstitutional.."? Let me see if I got this straight Baldi. I was against occupying Iraq, my reasons for being against it have been bourne out in spades, I have never advocated that others place their lives in harms way for this occupation and thus it makes sense that I should not be in the millitary. People like Steve et al rant endlessly zoloft free and in episodic form about how much we need to be in Iraq, that this is the fight of our lives and our American duty to occupy Iraq, he is obviously not in the millitary and I doubt he will ever go. hmmm... something here seems a tad askew. I know you won't answer but I'll just go ahead and throw it out there -how specifically am I the illogical one Baldi? But I actually dont think it is a question of logic as much as ..uh.. walking the walk, ..putting up or shutting up..not being a hypocrit.

And speaking of people "..that regularly comment on a veteran's blog under an alias and without submitting an email" I've noticed again your sock puppet Teal Marie only seems to post, generally, when you do Baldi. Is this a Pavlovian thing or a Clark Kent/ Super man type of arangement? Again this confirms my earlier general observation that he/she/it that refers to itself as Teal Marie is incapable of any substantial independent thought beyond what Baldi thinks and like a very basic motion detecting alarm only seems to be acivated by your presence Baldi.

[teal marie]

Steve, I think that Justin and Bill O are scared. Refusing to wake up, denial, projection: all coping mechanisms. Not very effective, certainly counter productive, but it's all they know how to do. It makes them feel better about things they can't control to come here and play The Lone Iconoclast, Snark of Wisdom to the rest of us. It never occurs to them we've heard it already, for years, sometimes.

Take heart, please.

And I recon the two as sort of aspiring to metrosexual, bu only achieving mulish most of the time. Zitty and insecure. I don't think they're homosexual, as they don't show any wit or humor. I could be wrong, I've know some real drags. But you know what? They were still witty. I'm sticking to my theory. Not Gay. Does that help at all?

[teal marie]

Sock puppet? Dayam.

I don't show my email because
I don't need another stalker. The last one hasn't decomposed yet.

And here I was wondering if Justin and Bill O are the same person. They answer for each other but don't converse. Similar typos. Similar hysteria. When I harpoon one of them the other fusses.
So are you?

[Steve]

Hysteria is right. They do not answer with positives but in just negatives. My posts vary from right-on to pretty-much-on and person can glean some information from them for themselves. Few articles are 100% useful but few are totaly worthless. I could go on doing this idefinitetly and if this thread ended up being 300 posts long I would have contributed to people's understanding of Iraq, Islamist groups, WMD, the Middle East in general. But with them it is all about those cute little cutting words they put in their post that must be working over at the Daily Kos or somewhere else. There kind must be left all to themselves in those sites just gnawing and biting at the air with those funny words they've come up with and accumulated.

I mentioned earlier and maybe no one caught it but the economy is experiencing a boom in Iraq. Ours is not doing too bad either.

[Bill O..]

Steve you can play the blogospherer sage all you want but all you do is google, cut and paste. Apparently "Teal Marie" is not acquainted with these simple computer functions as she confuses them for someone that actually knows what they are talking about and is not still living in mom’s basement. Are you guys living together? Steve you are a self deluded fraud. Your nuttiness (or ignorance) was brightly illuminated when you:

-said the BBC, a governmental institution, was owned by the Rothschilds.
-posted a link about aluminum tubes to substantiate your argument that actually contradicted your point altogether.
-spoke authoritatively about the New York Times, what liberals think about it and when directed to the Daily Kos when it definitively displayed that you were talking out your ass you refused to read it.
-After expressing strong opinions about the NY Times I asked you what makes the New York Times liberal -your response was uncharacteristically brief but very typically child like.

And now you claim the Iraqi economy is booming. Well you got the booming part right. With at least %50 percent unemployment its hard to see you are not pulling things out of your ass. As for our economic recovery you have obvioulsy only read the happy talk talking points.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/165844_aflcio23.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=118323
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north296.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0409-10.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/8-30-05pov.htm

want some more links or maybe I should copy an paste garbage like you do.

[Bill O..]

"Teal Marie" you have never come close to "harpooning" me. If you had an original point or included information that proves that you've actually read something more substantive than the covers to comedy CD's then I would feel "harpooned". But as it stands you are so under-informed that Steve seems smart to you. Is he your child? Save your self some time and just type "me too" when Baldi posts again "teal marie".

[justin]

Wow, this is great. Steve and Teal's arguments have come down to Bill and I being homosexuals (I'll keep you guessing Steve), Bill and I not being homosexuals because we have no wit, and Bill and I being the same person because we are liberal and have poor typing/spelling skills (Baldilocks could confirm Bill and I are not in fact the same person if she wanted to).

And, on the previous thread, I pointed out that Steve is citing rants cut and pasted from right wing websites, and the sources on the sites contradict the points they are making (a Washington Times article cited for the proposition that WMDs were removed from Iraq that doesn't say that, and a UN report for the proposition that WMDs were removed from Iraq that doesn't say that either). I linked to both primary sources, and Steve's response is to cut and paste more 1000 word ramblings from another website. I spent 3 minutes checking those cites too, but will refrain from being more obnoxious than I've already been. Let me just say that I don't buy the theory that lots and lots of unsourced statements make something more true.

And Teal, I've never actually seen you make any point whatsoever, other than to insult liberals. Not that you need to make a point, I'm just pointing it out.

Finally, with Steve, this is all I need to know about him going forward:

Steve said,
Whatever weird stuff New Yorkers have been doing either culturally, economically, crimminaly, or whatever, to themselves or to others, may have something to do with what ultimately happened to them on that day [on 9/11].

So, Steve, we had it coming? Go ^#&* yourself.

[Steve]

OK, maybe I should have used "boom" but rather that there has been good economic news lately out of Iraq. It was late (or early) and I was getting a little tired and didn't choose my words carefully. The story originaly appeared in the Washington Post blog if anyone is curious enough to find it but nonetheless reported to be so.
---
And yes, the BBC, owned by the Rothschilds. That is what the article said and when I mentioned it earlier. The article was not a conspiracy type article either and if I remember right the article seemed to be coming more from the left about the issue. When I mentioned above about the Rothschilds it was along with other things as well. It was meant to be read not as the full story on the subject but something people should keep in mind when considering the news from either the BBC or New York Times. The "ownership" is not the people of Britain anymore than I have much to say to the companies that have my 401K money. It might be worthwile to know who "owns" these companies and where their ultimate interests are. Isn't that kind of investigation what they do to others?

Maybe I'll spend the time looking into it myself but possibly someone else with the will and the time will look into the BBC question. There may be a book at the local library that is critical of the BBC (there are several there aboout the New York Times) and I'll get around to it. I am sure it is all just so wonderfull.
----
And also my response to you about the New York Times being liberal was well done and it was you who were being childish the whole time just as you are now. My opinions about the New York Times were done casually and you appear to be the one with the "strong" opinions. I will state it again that the the New York Times is a "liberal" newspaper.

I did watch a little bit of a 30 minute interview with the founder of the Daily Kos and was not impressed. He is no William Kristol, lets put it that way. It kind of became obvious where he was ultimately coming from in the interview I watched if you know what I mean.

Also there is this. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (Daily Kos founder)posted on April 1, 2004, about the Americans who were torn hung from a bridge in Fallujah-

"I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."
----
What is it that you thought my point was about the alumminum tubes? You have said many times that my posts make your points but you will not say what it is your point actually is. Or maybe it is hard to find your point in all of that mom's-basement type of vitriol you're obviously well practiced at and have gotten from somewhere else.
---
So, you want me to have a melt down at Donald Rumsfeld because some high explosive left the country prior to the war? Or, because he fired someone for saying something about the Russian's help in removing materials (contrary to Res. 1441) out of Iraq? I can understand both of those things happening in a grown-up and imperfect world. It would seem to be more of a mom's-basement type reaction to get all that upset over those things.

Real disturbing though is what happened in the events surrounding the death of Ron Brown and the military's handling of his remains and possessions.

[baldilocks]

Bill, Bill, Bill. The "he/she did it too!look what she/he did!" does not work with me. I may not have children, but I know how to deal with them.

As for the chickenhawk concept, yes, it's quite unconstitutional to suggest that those who have never been in the military have no right to advocate for war. It's called the first amendment. However, since you aren't the government, but a mere individual, you certainly have the right to advocate for the chickenhawk concept.

But not here.

And keep pushing my insult meter and you'll find yourself having to get around my ban again.

[Bill O..]

Steve you can deny it all day long but you are talking out of your ass. There is no need for a invesitgation of who owns the BBC. The information is out in the public and on the internets and yes they have books now too. Here is a link for Britsih children on the BBC website that explains the BBC relationship to the British government which repeats everything Iv'e told you already.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/business/aims/publicsectorrev3.shtml> http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/business/aims/publicsectorrev3.shtml

But since you are a copy and paste "intellecual" who cant be bothered to read something while not being reluctant to suggest it to others here is the first paragraph of what the link says about the BBC which certifies you as a fool:

"The state rather than shareholders own these. The government establishes policy, and ensures they perform their functions properly. Much of the financing comes from the Treasury, through taxation or grants. The government imposes tight controls. The relevant Government Minister can influence the choice of a corporation's Board and Chairperson. If serious problems arise, the Minister is questioned in Parliament, and is ultimately responsible."

And there are so many more examples just like this one Steve of you just being %100 flat wrong.

It not that you say that New York Times is liberal the problem is that you can not say what specifically makes it so "evidentally" liberal other than "well everyone know this".

Baldi:"Bill, Bill, Bill. The "he/she did it too!look what she/he did!" does not work with me. I may not have children, but I know how to deal with them."

Me: Children also apply a diffrent set of moral standards to themselves than they do to others.

Baldi: "As for the chickenhawk concept, yes, it's quite unconstitutional to suggest that those who have never been in the military have no right to advocate for war. It's called the first amendment. However, since you aren't the government, but a mere individual, you certainly have the right to advocate for the chickenhawk concept."

Me: Yes Baldi just like you said I am not the government so no it is not unconstitutional for me to suggest that someone is being a hypocrite for not doing the thing that they cheerlead for or that they actually take repsonability for their mistakes and fix the historic mess that they contributed to. Why you are brining up the first amendment in this context is beyond me. But I will go along: What I said is protected speech under the first amendment. By contrast, an example of the violation of the first amendment would be say throwing a father and son out of a shopping mall for wearing an antiwar t-shirt which actually did happen.

[baldilocks]

Bill O: What I said is protected speech under the first amendment. By contrast, an example of the violation of the first amendment would be say throwing a father and son out of a shopping mall for wearing an antiwar t-shirt which actually did happen.

Wrong in both cases. Because neither I nor that shopping mall are making laws abridging free speech and the 1st amendment refers only to Congress making laws abridging same. Private property and all.

Just to prove it, I'll ban you and you can go see if a court will take your case when you take action against me.

[baldilocks]

A polite request will get you unbanned. No groveling necessary. However, you will refrain from spewing chickenhawk nonsense or exercise your free speech rights elsewhere.

[Bill O..]

Actually, Baldi, the courts said that their first amendment rights WERE violated as the mall was a de facto public space. This forum, however, is not ;)

Why are you bringing up the first amendment when it has absolutely nothing to do with my point which was people like Steve who are for this occupation should act on principal,stop being hypocritical and sign for the service? For someone like Steve to do otherwise is hypocritial. He talks the talk now people like him should walk the walk.

[Steve]

Bill I served 3 years in the armed services when I was younger and I must of been doing better than I realized because I got an Army Medal of Commendation out of it. I thought I sort of sucked (at least a little anyway) while I was in. At the time I knew so little about the military I didn't realize until years after I got out what a compliment that medal was. But I am a little old to be in now. See how I answered you so very normally.

My support for this war is not based upon my own safety, per se. Believe it or not it is based on the safety, or future, of just about anything you can think of. That would include hateful New York and all its whatever. And the hateful Washington D.C. and all its whatever.

The future of Saddam's regime, and all that entailed, was one of a growing and never ending tit-for-tat and tit-for-wham terror war and threat spreading to who knows what cities all over the world.

Just what would an attack in Cairo killing 1,500 people and being traceable to Saddam do for the balance of the Middle East. I don't know how but Cairo would have struck back and then what? Just like Saddam's targeting of his French friend's oil tankers carrying Iranian oil in the 1980s he might just lash out at Paris if it dared to take a stand against a terror event in a French friendly city in another part of the world. This might include a post Saddam Iraq after Saddam's death for any number of reasons and one of those possibilities according to Peter Arnet was Uday assassinating his father. Then Uday would be the world sized Arafat (they are a match) with the 10 or more billion dollars to match Arafat's.
---
The fact that US school floor plans (schools have been targets as far back as the 1970s) were found in Baghdad/Iraq shows that they were thinking up any number of possible targets in the US. Imagine the meetings that must have taken place and the things discussed prior to them going out and obtaining those floor plans.

I hate sometimes to mention specifics like school floor plans because there is a tendency to get tunnel vision on just those floor plans without understanding the context of those plans in the hands of several of the terror groups based, or partly based, in Baghdad over the past decades.
---
New York Times is a "liberal" newspaper.
---
I will more than guess that BBC has a complex system of actual ownership that does not really include the taxpayer as owner and especially in the sense that "owner" means control. And that BBC does have ownership-like influences coming from the very wealthy who would be having the same influences even if it were considered privately owned. In fact it is also possible that because it is not dependent on its performance in the private sector those individuals that are influential over the BBC have greater and more personal oppressive control over BBCs content.

Is the PBS's Reverend Bill Moyers a public or corporate actor? Is Democracy Now! a grassroots movement or a corporate movement?
---
As for those thrown out of the mall for their anti-war T-Shirts maybe that is a shame, sort of. But there are many more stories of the oppression of those that have been pulling for this Iraqi democracy.

[Steve]

Testing one, two, three?

[Justin]

BILL '"Oh Bill" " I love you
still" BUT am I ever gonna hear those wedding VOWS !!!! " wont you marry me BILL OHH!!! I still love you so BILL "wont you marry me Bill ??? " Ive got the wedding bell blues " Am I ever gonna hear those wedding Bells BILL youre girlfreind JUSTIN

[baldilocks]

"Justin"

Cut it out.

[Steve]

Is it just me or isn't everyone else here not really sure how to take justin's comment? There is a definite pause, isn't there, while we all take the time to wonder.

[justin]

Baldilocks--for the record, that "Justin" posting above wasn't me (check the IP address). Could I ask that you change the name or remove the comment? Thanks.

[baldilocks]

Justin,

Um yes, thanks, I figured that out.

The name written as "Justin" rather than without the quotation marks should make that obvious.

[justin]

Thought so, but I'm not very quick sometimes. Thanks.

[skinnerI]

I hear San Francisco Is a
lovely place for gay couples to honeymoon { although lots of silly jelious spats may occur].
Im so happy for the fiancees

Its just perfect for the two!!!
S.F. has just recently banned handguns and they seek to ban
Armed forces recruiting from all schools Plus the mayor will, Shirley, try to bring back gay marraige ilicence. I think they may decide to relocate . I cant think of any other group of people more worthy, to wish them
on.