It's time for you to start apologizing, Mr. Bush

[najeena]

Bush's half-assed admittal of mis-speaking today (y'all took it wrong) was a surprise, because I don't think the man has much of a conscience. If I were him, I'd wake up in a cold sweat every night, thinking about what I'd done.

 

[drhark]

only time will decide who's right and who's wrong

 

[PrimaDonna]

2 important things not to forget:

1) If there's any hotbed of terrorist activity in Iraq it's only now, after the war. Chaos, disorder, and infiltration of 'terrorists' followed the fall of Saddam because the U.S. didn't provide the same level of security and stability. Sure life under Saddam's tyranny was marked by strict oppression, but at least it was predictable (opposition equalled torture/death) and didn't include relatively indiscriminate bombing of cities (yes we know the Kurds were attacked by Saddam, but that's 'cause they tried to secede and help Iran in the war against Saddam). US forces secured the oil ministry and oil refineries and neglected other civilian infrastructures...shows you the administration's true priorities...which should make clear the real reasons for this war: money: power: Halliburton's/Cheney's intent to profit from uncontested contracts and the administration's need to control oil and establish hegemony.

2) Another thing that bothers me is when people try to blame Middle Eastern tyranny on "radical Islam." Let's not forget that Saddam's Baathist regime was socialist and very secular. Saddam was at odds with religious leaders, probably because he didn't want them to become too powerful. Let's just be honest and admit that the oppression in Islamic countries is because of the regimes' thirst for power and domination, not because of "radical Islam."

 

[A_Wanderer]

On point number two; The existence of un-Islamic regimes across the Arab Muslim world is a critical factor in the Islamist ideology, it is this percieved deviation from the path of Allah that drives them, they wish to eliminate all of the petrodollar fueled royal families and socialist dictators and replace them with pure Islamic governments. That is why the liberalisation of the Arab world is important, to remove the dictatorships and stem the support the Islamist ideology recieves from the opressed peoples.

Freedom and democracy are not instant cure-alls for the problems of the world, they have a heap of problems associated with them and people can become disolusioned very quickly but when looking at the problem of religious inspired terror and the factors contributing towards it poor governance and lack of political freedom is high up on the list. You sound like a realist and to that all I can say is that the price of that obscure stability that existed under Saddam is being dug out the desert sands (www.massgraves.info). Do not be so quick to excuse one form of slaughter and condemn another - that can often be the worst form of hypocrisy.

There is nothing wrong with securing oil refineries and infrastructure; I hope that you havent forgotten the results of the Iraqi army torching the oil wells in its retreat from Kuwait. It would be negligent not to secure them, in addition it is the money resulting from that which will in the long term ensure a viable state can continue to exist.

The idea that the US is just there to take the oil is laughable, if they wanted cheap oil they could have just had the sanctions lifted, we know that France and Russia were enjoying the benefits of the smuggled oil and getting china to vote to lift the sanctions would be easy enough. And at the end Saddam would still be in power, there would be cheap oil and Iraq could become strong again and restart all of its side projects at will - everybody wins .

 

[drhark]

2 important things not to forget:

1US forces secured the oil ministry and oil refineries and neglected other civilian infrastructures...shows you the administration's true priorities...which should make clear the real reasons for this war: money: power: Halliburton's/Cheney's intent to profit from uncontested contracts and the administration's need to control oil and establish hegemony.

Gee, we're sure getting rich off of this war! Bush's popularity has skyrocketed since he plunged us into war, killed our soldiers, ruined our international reputation. My how his power has grown!
I wonder how much Halliburton's kicking back to Cheney for this one. They sure owe him for starting this war for him. Clinton sure was dumb, he could've started a war for his friends and made millions, even billions!.

 

[stagman]

It's both Saddam's and the the UN's fault that it came to war. End of Story.

 

[hiphop]

Fuck apologizing.

Generally, I´d rather have liars pay for their lies. Uh, now that´s gonna be a long bill.

 

[Jamila]

thank you for having the courage to speak your mind and for starting this post -

Bush has always talked out of both sides of his mouth. That's why he doesn't know what he's saying most of the time.

 

[dazzledbylight]

I don't think he ever linked Saddam directly. Perhaps you have a quote? I'm not sure about lurid tales either.

you don't remember Condi talking about 'mushroom clouds'?

 

[A_Wanderer]

OF COURSE CONDI LINKED SADDAM TO AL QAEDA MICHAEL MOORE PROVED IT SO OBVIOUSLY YOUR RIGHT WING HACKS

“Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11.”

PROOF, THEY LIED THE LIARS LIED SO MUCH FOR THIS ILLEGAL HALLIBURTON NEOCON ZIONIST OCCUPATION WAR.

/end striking impression of the pop-left mind.

Now of course this was the Dr. Rice said on November 28th of 2003

"Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11. It’s not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself
and his regime involved in 9/11, but, if you think about what caused 9/11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York. This is a great terrorist, international terrorist network that is determined to defeat freedom. It has perverted Islam from a peaceful religion into one in which they call on it for violence. And they’re all linked. And Iraq is a central front because, if and when, and we will, we change the nature of Iraq to a place that is peaceful and democratic and prosperous in the heart of the Middle East, you will begin to change the Middle East...."

So you see the arguments used prior to the war of democratic change in the Arab world stand and are used today

 

[Klink]

On point number two; The existence of un-Islamic regimes across the Arab Muslim world is a critical factor in the Islamist ideology, it is this percieved deviation from the path of Allah that drives them, they wish to eliminate all of the petrodollar fueled royal families and socialist dictators and replace them with pure Islamic governments. That is why the liberalisation of the Arab world is important, to remove the dictatorships and stem the support the Islamist ideology recieves from the opressed peoples.

Freedom and democracy are not instant cure-alls for the problems of the world, they have a heap of problems associated with them and people can become disolusioned very quickly but when looking at the problem of religious inspired terror and the factors contributing towards it poor governance and lack of political freedom is high up on the list. You sound like a realist and to that all I can say is that the price of that obscure stability that existed under Saddam is being dug out the desert sands (www.massgraves.info). Do not be so quick to excuse one form of slaughter and condemn another - that can often be the worst form of hypocrisy.

There is nothing wrong with securing oil refineries and infrastructure; I hope that you havent forgotten the results of the Iraqi army torching the oil wells in its retreat from Kuwait. It would be negligent not to secure them, in addition it is the money resulting from that which will in the long term ensure a viable state can continue to exist.

The idea that the US is just there to take the oil is laughable, if they wanted cheap oil they could have just had the sanctions lifted, we know that France and Russia were enjoying the benefits of the smuggled oil and getting china to vote to lift the sanctions would be easy enough. And at the end Saddam would still be in power, there would be cheap oil and Iraq could become strong again and restart all of its side projects at will - everybody wins .

I have to disagree here. The first paragraph represents to me a form of moral absolutism for which I can gather no argument. What about liberalism makes it inherently better than an islamic republic? Is it freedom? Freedom is a sticky word that represents an internal feeling. It's not an absolute concept as neo-liberal doctrine would have us believe. I also encourage you to remember that the best that wars of this nature have accomplished in the past is to replace unfriendly dictators or democratic governments with more friendly ones. Case in point equals America's numerous interventions in Latin America. If we believe that our liberlaism is somehow inherently superior to other ideological forms, then we are as intellectually oppressed as the islamic fundamentalists.

I will insist that neo-liberal wars on words like "terror" are almost as ideological and religiously inspired as the jihad. If freedom and the people are the real issue here (which, make no mistake they are not) then perhaps you are right in that we should not be so quick to excuse this slaughter after having condemned Saddam's. That is just as hypocritical.

What the Iraqi's did to the Kuwaiti oil fields is neither here nor there as are the actions of France and Russia. Their wrongdoings do nothing for the validation of THIS war. Outsourcing responsibility is lazy. The idea that the Americans are not in Iraq to take oil is even more laughable. The US has a clear, long history of coercive, economically driven intervention...re Latin America, again. Lifting sanctions, as you demonstrated, was not an option. The only thing the US fears more than high oil prices is a hostile arabic republic with nuclear capabilities. No doubt this war killed two problems. Why does the US fear high oil prices? Because western economies still run on oil. There is a direct correlation between oil supply, prices and the economy...hence the OPEC crisis in 1973 and the advent of modern era global free trade. It is clear that the growth in china's economy is and will continue driving oil prices up. The Americans economy (as well as ours), highly dependent on oil, requires a foothold and another friendly government in the middle east. Of course, I doubt they will find a long standing one with the mess they have made out of the lives of millions of Iraqis. If the US is not there for oil, then what are they there for? Since I don't have access to the admin, I can only tell you what was publicly put forward; The reason and the results.

Whether the US believed, falsified, lied or misinterpreted evidence of WMD is also irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the entire world did the same thing. Legitmacy lies in the truth os falsity of the justification. The United States and a small group of allies went to war on the major premise of a threat from WMD and it was a false one. With this evaporates the major legitimate cause for the war. Idle chit chat about the benefits of democracy in Iraq is nothing but smoke and mirrors, a "weapon of mass distraction", a red herring. War is a matter of life, death and hardship for millions of people. The decision to go to war is not one to be taken lightly. The Bush admin's fear of WMD in Iraq may in fact have been legit, but fear is not enough to justify war. The burden of proof is on the aggressor, like in any argument. The US was the aggressor here. It was up to them to prove Saddam had weapons. I see no such evidence. Did Saddam get rid of them in the lead up to the war? Any answer here is just a guess. Sorry, the responsibility for justifying this war is on the US. Fact: The US went to war on the major premise that Iraq was an immediate threat to their security. Fact: False. So where does the justification come? Costs and benefits to us are a ridiculous measure of justification because they are ours, and only too self serving.


Jon

 

[STING2]

I have to disagree here. The first paragraph represents to me a form of moral absolutism for which I can gather no argument. What about liberalism makes it inherently better than an islamic republic? Is it freedom? Freedom is a sticky word that represents an internal feeling. It's not an absolute concept as neo-liberal doctrine would have us believe. I also encourage you to remember that the best that wars of this nature have accomplished in the past is to replace unfriendly dictators or democratic governments with more friendly ones. Case in point equals America's numerous interventions in Latin America. If we believe that our liberlaism is somehow inherently superior to other ideological forms, then we are as intellectually oppressed as the islamic fundamentalists.

I will insist that neo-liberal wars on words like "terror" are almost as ideological and religiously inspired as the jihad. If freedom and the people are the real issue here (which, make no mistake they are not) then perhaps you are right in that we should not be so quick to excuse this slaughter after having condemned Saddam's. That is just as hypocritical.

What the Iraqi's did to the Kuwaiti oil fields is neither here nor there as are the actions of France and Russia. Their wrongdoings do nothing for the validation of THIS war. Outsourcing responsibility is lazy. The idea that the Americans are not in Iraq to take oil is even more laughable. The US has a clear, long history of coercive, economically driven intervention...re Latin America, again. Lifting sanctions, as you demonstrated, was not an option. The only thing the US fears more than high oil prices is a hostile arabic republic with nuclear capabilities. No doubt this war killed two problems. Why does the US fear high oil prices? Because western economies still run on oil. There is a direct correlation between oil supply, prices and the economy...hence the OPEC crisis in 1973 and the advent of modern era global free trade. It is clear that the growth in china's economy is and will continue driving oil prices up. The Americans economy (as well as ours), highly dependent on oil, requires a foothold and another friendly government in the middle east. Of course, I doubt they will find a long standing one with the mess they have made out of the lives of millions of Iraqis. If the US is not there for oil, then what are they there for? Since I don't have access to the admin, I can only tell you what was publicly put forward; The reason and the results.

Whether the US believed, falsified, lied or misinterpreted evidence of WMD is also irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the entire world did the same thing. Legitmacy lies in the truth os falsity of the justification. The United States and a small group of allies went to war on the major premise of a threat from WMD and it was a false one. With this evaporates the major legitimate cause for the war. Idle chit chat about the benefits of democracy in Iraq is nothing but smoke and mirrors, a "weapon of mass distraction", a red herring. War is a matter of life, death and hardship for millions of people. The decision to go to war is not one to be taken lightly. The Bush admin's fear of WMD in Iraq may in fact have been legit, but fear is not enough to justify war. The burden of proof is on the aggressor, like in any argument. The US was the aggressor here. It was up to them to prove Saddam had weapons. I see no such evidence. Did Saddam get rid of them in the lead up to the war? Any answer here is just a guess. Sorry, the responsibility for justifying this war is on the US. Fact: The US went to war on the major premise that Iraq was an immediate threat to their security. Fact: False. So where does the justification come? Costs and benefits to us are a ridiculous measure of justification because they are ours, and only too self serving.


Jon

What is fact is that Saddam's regime failed to verifiably disarm of all WMD per multiple UN security Council resolutions and the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire agreement. Military action was authorized by the UN if Saddam failed to comply with the resolutions and verifiably disarm. Saddam failed to account for thousands of stocks of WMD which inspectors as late as 1998 noted that he had.

While its true WMD has yet to be found in Iraq, it does not change the fact that Saddam failed to verifiably disarm of the unaccounted for stocks of WMD as listed by the UN weapons inspectors in the 1990s.



The regimes past behavior, the invasion and attacks on four different countries in area's vital to the planets energy supply, the murder of 1.7 million people, the use of WMD more times than any leader in history, and finally the failure of the regime to comply with the resolutions and ceacefire agreement of the first Gulf War all made military action a necessity and was in fact long overdue.

 

[Klink]

Besides the horrific failure of similar past economically driven wars all over the world that have resulted in the slaughter of millions of people, I leave you with a moral argument:

"The last temptation is the greatest treason; to do the right deed for the wrong reason."
-TS Eliot


Even if this is the "right deed" there are hosts of web sites that can give you brief summaries of US foreign interventions and their results. Many have been far more disastrous for the people than Saddam's regime and many have led to the installation of right-wing dictatorships at the expense of freedom/liberalism and deomcracy. Here's 1 I like. There are plenty more.


http://www.ilaam.net/Sept11/AmericanCarnage.html

Best,
Jon

 

[Klink]

Again, no disrespect to Americans here. I very much like the US, but I find this an interesting read.

Jon



A History of American Carnage

by Larry Mosqueda, Ph.D. - The Evergreen State College

Like all Americans, on Tuesday, 9-11, I was shocked and horrified to watch the WTC Twin Towers attacked by hijacked planes and collapse, resulting in the deaths of perhaps up to 10,000 innocent people.

I had not been that shocked and horrified since January 16, 1991, when then President Bush attacked Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq and began killing 200,000 people during that "war" (slaughter). This includes the infamous "highway of death" in the last days of the slaughter when U.S. pilots literally shot in the back retreating Iraqi civilians and soldiers. I continue to be horrified by the sanctions on Iraq, which have resulted in the death of over 1,000,000 Iraqis, including over 500,000 children, about whom former Secretary of State Madeline Allbright has stated that their deaths "are worth the cost".

Over the course of my life I have been shocked and horrified by a variety of U.S. governmental actions, such as the U.S. sponsored coup against democracy in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in the deaths of over 120,000 Guatemalan peasants by U.S. installed dictatorships over the course of four decades.

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the horror I felt when the U.S. overthrew the governments of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped to murder 3,000 people. And it reminded me of the shock I felt in 1973, when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Chile against the democratic government of Salvador Allende and helped to murder another 30,000 people, including U.S. citizens.

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the shock and horror I felt in 1965 when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Indonesia that resulted in the murder of over 800,000 people, and the subsequent slaughter in 1975 of over 250,000 innocent people in East Timor by the Indonesian regime with the direct complicity of President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissenger.

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S. sponsored terrorist contra war (the World Court declared the U.S. government a war criminal in 1984 for the mining of the harbors) against Nicaragua in the 1980s which resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent people (or as the U.S. government used to call them before the term "collateral damage" was invented--"soft targets").

I was reminded of being horrified by the U. S. war against the people of El Salvador in the 1980s, which resulted in the brutal deaths of over 80,000 people, or "soft targets".

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S. sponsored terror war against the peoples of southern Africa (especially Angola) that began in the 1970's and continues to this day and has resulted in the deaths and mutilations of over 1,000,000. I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt as the U.S. invaded Panama over the Christmas season of 1989 and killed over 8,000 in an attempt to capture George H. Bush's CIA partner, now turned enemy, Manual Noriega.

I was reminded of the horror I felt when I learned about how the Shah of Iran was installed in a U.S. sponsored brutal coup that resulted in the deaths of over 70,000 Iranians from 1952-1979. And the continuing shock as I learned that the Ayatollah Khomani, who overthrew the Shah in 1979, and who was the U.S. public enemy for decade of the 1980s, was also on the CIA payroll, while he was in exile in Paris in the 1970s.

I was reminded of the shock and horror that I felt as I learned about the how the U.S. has "manufactured consent" since 1948 for its support of Israel, to the exclusion of virtually any rights for the Palestinians in their native lands resulting in ever worsening day-to-day conditions for the people of Palestine. I was shocked as I learned about the hundreds of towns and villages that were literally wiped off the face of the earth in the early days of Israeli colonization.

I was horrified in 1982 as the villagers of Sabra and Shatila were massacred by Israeli allies with direct Israeli complicity and direction. The untold thousands who died on that day match the scene of horror that we saw last Tuesday. But those scenes were not repeated over and over again on the national media to inflame the American public.

The events and images of last Tuesday have been appropriately compared to the horrific events and images of Lebanon in the 1980s which resulted in the deaths of tens of thousand of people, with no reference to the fact that the country that inflicted the terror on Lebanon was Israel, with U.S. backing. I still continue to be shocked at how mainstream commentators refer to "Israeli settlers" in the "occupied territories" with no sense of irony as they report on who are the aggressors in the region.

Of course, the largest and most shocking war crime of the second half of the 20th century was the U.S. assault on Indochina from 1954-1975, especially Vietnam, where over 4,000,000 people were bombed, napalmed, crushed, shot and individually "hands on" murdered in the "Phoenix Program" (this is where Oliver North got his start). Many U.S. Vietnam veterans were also victimized by this war and had the best of intentions, but the policy makers themselves knew the criminality of their actions and policies as revealed in their own words in "The Pentagon Papers," released by Daniel Ellsberg of the RAND Corporation.

In 1974 Ellsberg noted that our Presidents from Truman to Nixon continually lied to the U.S. public about the purpose and conduct of the war. He has stated that, "It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled."

I was continually shocked and horrified as the U.S. attacked and bombed with impunity the nation of Libya in the 1980s, including killing the infant daughter of Khadafi. I was shocked as the U.S. bombed and invaded Grenada in 1983. I was horrified by U.S. military and CIA actions in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Brazil, Argentina, and Yugoslavia. The deaths in these actions ran into the hundreds of thousands.

The above list is by no means complete or comprehensive. It is merely a list that is easily accessible and not unknown, especially to the economic and intellectual elites. It has just been conveniently eliminated from the public discourse and public consciousness. And for the most part, the analysis that the U.S. actions have resulted in the deaths of primarily civilians (over 90%) is not unknown to these elites and policy makers. A conservative number for those who have been killed by U.S. terror and military action since World War II is 8,000,000 people. Repeat--8,000,000 people. This does not include the wounded, the imprisoned, the displaced, the refugees, etc. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated in 1967, during the Vietnam War, "My government is the world's leading purveyor of violence." Shocking and horrifying.

Nothing that I have written is meant to disparage or disrespect those who were victims and those who suffered death or the loss of a loved one during this week's events. It is not meant to "justify" any action by those who bombed the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. It is meant to put it in a context. If we believe that the actions were those of "madmen", they are "madmen" who are able to keep a secret for 2 years or more among over 100 people, as they trained to execute a complex plan. While not the acts of madmen, they are apparently the acts of "fanatics" who, depending on who they really are, can find real grievances, but whose actions are illegitimate.

Osama Bin Laden at this point has been accused by the media and the government of being the mastermind of Tuesday's bombings. Given the government's track record on lying to the America people, that should not be accepted as fact at this time. If indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind of this action, he is responsible for the deaths of perhaps 10,000 people-a shocking and horrible crime. Ed Herman in his book The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda does not justify any terrorism but points out that states often engage in "wholesale" terror, while those whom governments define as "terrorist" engage is "retail" terrorism. While qualitatively the results are the same for the individual victims of terrorism, there is a clear quantitative difference. And as Herman and others point out, the seeds, the roots, of much of the "retail" terror are in fact found in the "wholesale" terror of states. Again this is not to justify, in any way, the actions of last Tuesday, but to put them in a context and suggest an explanation.

Perhaps most shocking and horrific, if indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind of Tuesday's actions; he has clearly had significant training in logistics, armaments, and military training, etc. by competent and expert military personnel. And indeed he has. During the 1980s, he was recruited, trained and funded by the CIA in Afghanistan to fight against the Russians. As long as he visited his terror on Russians and his enemies in Afghanistan, he was "our man" in that country.

The same is true of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who was a CIA asset in Iraq during the 1980s. Hussein could gas his own people, repress the population, and invade his neighbor (Iran) as long as he did it with U.S. approval.

The same was true of Manuel Noriega of Panama, who was a contemporary and CIA partner of George H. Bush in the 1980s. Noriega's main crime for Bush, the father, was not that he dealt drugs (he did, but the U.S. and Bush knew this before 1989), but that Noriega was no longer going to cooperate in the ongoing U.S. terrorist contra war against Nicaragua. This information is not unknown or really controversial among elite policy makers. To repeat, this not to justify any of the actions of last Tuesday, but to put it in its horrifying context.

As shocking as the events of last Tuesday were, they are likely to generate even more horrific actions by the U.S. government that will add significantly to the 8,000,000 figure stated above. This response may well be qualitatively and quantitatively worst than the events of Tuesday. The New York Times headline of 9/14/01 states that, "Bush And Top Aides Proclaim Policy Of Ending States That Back Terror" as if that was a rationale, measured, or even sane option. States that have been identified for possible elimination are "a number of Asian and African countries, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and even Pakistan." This is beyond shocking and horrific-it is just as potentially suicidal, homicidal, and more insane than the hijackers themselves.

Also, qualitatively, these actions will be even worse than the original bombers if one accepts the mainstream premise that those involved are "madmen", "religious fanatics", or a "terrorist group." If so, they are acting as either individuals or as a small group. The U.S. actions may continue the homicidal policies of a few thousand elites for the past 50 years, involving both political parties.

The retail terror is that of desperate and sometime fanatical small groups and individuals who often have legitimate grievances, but engage in individual criminal and illegitimate activities; the wholesale terror is that of "rational" educated men where the pain, suffering, and deaths of millions of people are contemplated, planned, and too often, executed, for the purpose of furthering a nebulous concept called the "national interest". Space does not allow a full explanation of the elites Orwellian concept of the "national interest", but it can be summarized as the protection and expansion of hegemony and an imperial empire.

The American public is being prepared for war while being fed a continuous stream of shocking and horrific repeated images of Tuesday's events and heartfelt stories from the survivors and the loved ones of those who lost family members. These stories are real and should not be diminished. In fact, those who lost family members can be considered a representative sample of humanity of the 8,000,000 who have been lost previously. If we multiply by 800-1000 times the amount of pain, angst, and anger being currently felt by the American public, we might begin to understand how much of the rest of the world feels as they are continually victimized.

Some particularly poignant images are the heart wrenching public stories that we are seeing and hearing of family members with pictures and flyers searching for their loved ones. These images are virtually the same as those of the "Mothers of the Disappeared" who searched for their (primarily) adult children in places such as Argentina, where over 11,000 were "disappeared" in 1976-1982, again with U.S. approval. Just as the mothers of Argentina deserved our respect and compassion, so do the relatives of those who are searching for their relatives now. However we should not allow ourselves to be manipulated by the media and U.S. government into turning real grief and anger into a national policy of wholesale terror and genocide against innocent civilians in Asia and Africa. What we are seeing in military terms is called "softening the target." The target here is the American public and we are being ideologically and emotionally prepared for the slaughter that may commence soon.

None of the previously identified Asian and African countries are democracies, which means that the people of these countries have virtually no impact on developing the policies of their governments, even if we assume that these governments are complicit in Tuesday's actions. When one examines the recent history of these countries, one will find that the American government had direct and indirect influences on creating the conditions for the existence of some of these governments. This is especially true of the Taliban government of Afghanistan itself.

The New York Metropolitan Area has about 21,000,000 people or about 8% of the U.S. population. Almost everyone in America knows someone who has been killed, injured or traumatized by the events of Tuesday. I know that I do. Many people are calling for "revenge" or "vengeance" and comments such as "kill them all" have been circulated on the TV, radio, and email. A few more potentially benign comments have called for "justice." This is only potentially benign since that term may be defined by people such as Bush and Colin Powell. Powell is an unrepentant participant in the Vietnam War, the terrorist contra war against Nicaragua, and the Gulf war, at each level becoming more responsible for the planning and execution of the policies.

Those affected, all of us, must do everything in our power to prevent a wider war and even greater atrocity, do everything possible to stop the genocide if it starts, and hold those responsible for their potential war crimes during and after the war. If there is a great war in 2001 and it is not catastrophic (a real possibility), the crimes of that war will be revisited upon the U.S. over the next generation. That is not some kind of religious prophecy or threat, it is merely a straightforward political analysis. If indeed it is Bin Laden, the world must not deal only with him as an individual criminal, but eliminate the conditions that create the injustices and war crimes that will inevitably lead to more of these types of attacks in the future.

The phrase "No Justice, No Peace" is more than a slogan used in a march, it is an observable historical fact. It is time to end the horror.

In a few short pages it is impossible to delineate all of the events described over the past week or to give a comprehensive accounting of U.S. foreign policy. Below are a few resources for up to date news and some background reading, by Noam Chomsky, the noted analyst. The titles of the books explain their relevance for this topic.

For the most current information see www.commondreams.org

For information on how the media distorts the news see www.fair.org

For excellent links on the Middle East see al-awda.org/newyork/links.html

For background reading by Noam Chomsky see:

Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (with Ed Herman)
Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians Deterring Democracy



E-mail your comments to amirali@ilaam.net

 

[drhark]

Jon, could you do me a favor and break down these numbers into categories of civilian casualties vs. armed combatants, those killed directly by US soldiers vs. non US soldiers, etc..., and coould you give us a little background on each of these conflicts... and could you please give an estimate in human lives the cost of the US not being involved in each instance? And why aren't the Germans and Japanese we killed mentioned?

Because without this perspective the above article is a bunch of meaningless drivel from a left wing propagandist indoctrinating American college kids.

 

[Klink]

Jon, could you do me a favor and break down these numbers into categories of civilian casualties vs. armed combatants, those killed directly by US soldiers vs. non US soldiers, etc..., and coould you give us a little background on each of these conflicts... and could you please give an estimate in human lives the cost of the US not being involved in each instance? And why aren't the Germans and Japanese we killed mentioned?

Because without this perspective the above article is a bunch of meaningless drivel from a left wing propagandist indoctrinating American college kids.

Specifically, what can you reduce to drivel? He has his facts right according to many sources...some of them official US government sources (I did a quick google search to verify many...of course there were variations). He did mention that 90% of the 8 million casualties are estimated to be civilians and that, as you can see from the Iraq war, is a very reasonable assumption.

Japanese and German killings are not mentioned because there is a clear distinction between the remnants of WWII and the wars fought since then.

American deaths are not relevant to the point he is making. He's trying to show that the economic and "national" interests of American governments has almost always outweighed human life, liberalism, democracy and especially foreign human life. However, search for it. I'll bet the American death count (soldiers included) hardly exceeds 100,000 since WWII. I think 50,000+ invading US troops were killed in Vietnam. Regardless, the number is not even remotely proportional to the pain and suffering self-righteous Western governments have placed on other innocents.

Quite frankly, I find this a quite reasonable essay. He condemns both terrorism by the states and by individuals. He's trying to help. If you visit terror on others it will be visited back on you...simple, irrefutable, historical fact from decades and centuries of historical observation. The failure of people to realize that the US MO in Iraq is no different from any of these other interventions (in its cause and effects) and is equally state sponsored terror, is an achilles heel. This terror will be visited back on all Americans 9and westerners) over the next generations (although I can only hope it's not). It's sad to me that people do not realize this.

Who and who was not directly killed by US troops may be relevant to you, but it's not to the loved ones and fellow nationals of the 8 million killed with either direct or indirect assistance from the US gov't.

dr, in a friendly way, I strongly urge you to be more critical of the US gov't and its history of interventions. You might be surprised to know that I supported the war in Iraq in early 2003. I made my assumptions, but I found out how easy it would have been to denounce it had I known the facts. It should have been easy for me to get them, but I didn't want to admit I'd been wrong. I'm ashamed of my former support. Had I known the history and frequency of US/Western foreign wars, I would likely have denounced it from the start. But, it started for me with getting the facts. If one is interested in intellectual growth, one must seek it. That's not to say that you'll have the same conclusions; only that you might understand someone else's point of view on a dreadful situation. If that is all that comes out of it then that is a good step towards understanding and living together.

I really can't stress enough that the 'left-wing drivel' is not derogatory to me. I became a moderate lefty (not meaning socialist) not because anyone told me to or because of the people around me. I evaluated my own morals and had many arguments with myself on the issues of left and right. At the end of the day I could only justify one approach. I concluded that that economically, socially and politically, the moderate left is a pretty well justified position with a bad name in one part of the world. That may not be the case for you and this is a whole other debate. The point is that calling something left-wing does not defeat the point.

Again, I'm very interested in what you find to be less than believable here and what you find to be drivel.

Kindest regards and I look forward to you reply.

Jon

 

[drhark]

I don't have the time to dispute each statement made by this guy, but I label it left wing drivel because it's straight out of Chomsky, need I say more. It's a selective use of facts and a liberal interpretation of those "facts".

One random vague statement this guy threw out there was:
"A conservative number for those who have been killed by U.S. terror and military action since World War II is 8,000,000 people"

OK, fine. How many were killed by terror and how many by military action, or both? Is Terror defined as any killing occurring outside of a his definition of a "just war". What about Kosovo?

Proof positive that this guy is spouting left wing drivel is this statement:
"I was horrified in 1982 as the villagers of Sabra and Shatila were massacred by Israeli allies with direct Israeli complicity and direction. The untold thousands who died on that day match the scene of horror that we saw last Tuesday. But those scenes were not repeated over and over again on the national media to inflame the American public."

Ok, so now he brings Israel into it. So we're now responsible for anything our allies do.

MOst of the other examples of deaths this guy gives have to do with some dictator or government that we supported, totally ignoring the fact that most of this shit was going on during civil wars where any side that won was gonna kill a lot of people.

This guy is a Chomskyite propagandist, a bad one at that and he shouldn't be teaching college students at least without a warning lable so they know what they're getting.

And no, I don't think he's trying to help anything.

"If you visit terror on others it will be visited back on you...simple, irrefutable, historical fact from decades and centuries of historical observation."

Um.... Britain seems to be doing fine. So much for "Historical Karma"

This guy is pissed at the US for "propping up dictators" and he's pissed at Bush for "removing dictators"

Why doesn't this professor applaud Bush for talking tough to dictators and encouraging freedom "power to the People" movements? (Hey, maybe John Lennon would be a Bushie today)

Because his head is, well, you know where.

 

[Klink]

I'm not so sure this a selective use of facts. I think it's a good sample of facts because his essay could have been 100 pages if he'd wanted it to.

Noam Chomsky does not produce "left wing drivel". He may be far left of centre but relegating him to rubbish simply because his conclusions have led him to be to the left on the political spectrum does not defeat what he says. Again, as far as a lot of people in the world are concerned, Bush is a right wing nut job and a terrorist. They make the same claims you're making about Chomsky (although Chomsky's not behind the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people). Somehow I don't think that putting down a person and labeling them puts down their argument.

This guy obviously defines terror in two ways. There's "retail" terror, like the 9/11 attacks, where a small group of criminals, perhaps even with true grievances, commit illigitimate acts. Then there's "wholesale terror" which is the terror that states visit on the people and governments of foreign countries. Wholesale terror is often the root cause of retail terror and it is wholesale terror of which he has accused the US (and no doubt, many others). If you think about it, the terror visited upon the US has originated in places in which the US has been involved in the past.

Re the civil wars comment. What you're forgetting here is that the civil wars you're talking about are mostly the result of western colonialism in the first place. There's already a huge western factor in that violence. The US often supported the side that was economically and politically advantageous to them in the cold war. They treated the people as a means to gain capitalist end, not as an end in themselves and that's why these periods were characterized by massive bloodshed, both directly by US troops and indirectly by the gov't. The problems that remain in these countries today still have the scars of US intervention.

What does him bringing Israel into it have to do with anything? Israel has always been financially, militarily and morally supported by the US. These acts were morally, if not financially and militarily sponsored by the United States. You're saying the US has no responsibility? The people whose families were killed: they're not going to hold you responsible? Come on.

Again, I see a lot of labeling in your post, but I'm not sure that you're defeating this guy's point. You're also saying that Chomsky's followers should come with warning labels. You're assuming that Chomsky's influence is a bad thing, but I don't see why you say that? What if I said that all right wing nut jobs and warmongers (ie Bushies) should come with warning labels? I highly doubt you'd accept that, yet my point is the same as yours, except, again, Chomsky is not a mass murderer waging illegitimate war.

You don't think he's trying to help anything. That's ok. But I happen to think he's trying to make you think about where the attacks of 9/11 (and most other terror on the US) originated. It's our own foreign policy, he's saying. These are not just madmen. They are madmen created by US imperialist ventures the world over. I'm sorry that you don't find this appealing, but America's intervention in foreign countries is well documented.



Iraq
2003-Present

Palestine
1948-Present

Iraq
1991-2003

Afghanistan
2001-Present

Colombia
1960s-Present

Yugoslavia
1992-Present

Congo/Zaire
1961-Present

Cuba
1959-Present

Guatemala
1953-Present

El Salvador
1980-Present

East Timor
1975-1999

Haiti
1987-1994

Somalia
1993

Afghanistan
1979-1992

Nicaragua
1981-1990

Panama
1989
Page Two:

Libya
1981-1989

Iran
1988

Grenada
1979-1984

Chile
1964-1973

Costa Rica
Mid-1950s, 1970-71

Dominican Republic
1963-1966

Vietnam
1945-1974

Cambodia
1955-1973

Laos
1957-1973

Thailand
1965-1973

Indonesia
1965

Brazil
1961-1964

British Guiana/Guyana
1953-1964

Iraq
1963
Page Three:

Haiti
1959

Indonesia
1957-1958

Middle East
1956-1958

Iran
1953

Eastern Europe
1948-1956

Albania
1949-1953

Korea
1945-1953

Philippines
1945-1953

Marshall Islands
1946-1958

China
1945-1951

Hiroshima & Nagasaki
August 1945

Philippines
1899-1902

America and Africa
1607-1890

Just out of curiosity, why do you think the attacks of September 11 happened?

It is historical fact (not karma) that if you visit terror on others it will be visited back on you. Britain has had nowhere near the interventionist foreign policy adventures that the US has had in the last 50 years. That's partly because the Brits are not able to keep up with the US military and because they don't have to....the US takes care of a lot of it for them. Believe me, they're happy to let the US take the lead and incur the majority costs of war and the image of western terror. It is this which makes the US both a terrorist aggressor and a recipient of terror. If you were a terrorist with limited resources and had the choice between the US or Britain, whom would you attack to make your point heard? It's the same reason the Palestinians attack Israel, the same reasons the Cheychans attack Russia. It's no secret.

Re: your last point about applauding Bush. Bush does not talk tough to dictators because they are dictators. He talks tough to any country that threatens US foreign interests, in particular the oil supply. If he's concerned about "freedom for the people" then why is his administration and his family good friends with the "Monarchy" in Saudi Arabia which is guilty of massive human rights abuses? If he's talking tough to dictators, then why isn't he doing anything about this one? It's inconsistencies like these that highlight the US gov'ts MO in Iraq and reveal the ugly face of US intervention around the world. Freedom only comes to the people if it suits US interests and often it hasn't. Remember those times the US installed brutal dictators after having ousted democratic governments (see the article again).

dr, again, I would encourage you to be less trusting of the government. Criticize them a little, hold them accountable for what they say and scrutinize their motives. You're abviously a smart person. Try to see through the BS and I garantee you that you will.

Jon

 

[Klink]

BTW, I should mention that Israel is annually and cumulatively the number one benefactor of US foreign aid. The link below provides some stats for you regarding this. Israel has benefitted from almost $100 billion in US sponsirship over the last 45 years. Do you think the families and fellow nationals of those killed by this US capital are not going to hold the US somehow responsible? Of course they are. Wouldn't you?



1. US > Israel funding figures: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

2. Facts and figures about the number of Israeli's and Palestinians killed: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

Notice the discrepancy between US and Palestinain deaths. Given the amount of support for Israel from the US gov't, who other than Israel, is responsible for those deaths?

3. Congressional report on US foreign aid to Israel:
http://www.usembassy.at/en/download/pdf/israel_asst.pdf



Jon

 

[drhark]

I'm wondering how this prof., if he were in power, would handle Iran today. He would say he's opposed to Iran possessing a nuclear weapon but he would understand why they would want to do so and would do absolutely nothing to stop them. He believes the world was a peaceful little vacuum until the US came along and wreaked havoc on world peace. He seems to forget that the USSR was swallowing up Eastern Europe, subjugating millions to the "terror" of communist dictatorships. Do we mind our own business and watch the world fall? Do we stand by as Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba? Do we stand by as this true "imperialist agressive power" installs a foothold in Central America?
This guy believes in moral relativism, meaning, "we're no better than they are." I strongly disagree. If you agree with him, I cannot argue with you.

********It is historical fact (not karma) that if you visit terror on others it will be visited back on you.*****

Facts are facts, and this is not a fact. You cannot claim it as a fact. But your fallacious statement is based on the concept of Karma whether you know it or not. Now the concept of karma may be sound on a personal level, but it simply does not apply to nations. Wishful thinking. Stalin died before he could be "visited back". The entire USSR or Russia has not been "visited back" by terror on the scale that it has comitted.

*******Britain has had nowhere near the interventionist foreign policy adventures that the US has had in the last 50 years. *****

Again you're being very selective. You're limiting it to the last 50 years and ignoring the British Empire. If you would like to discuss interventionist foreign policy or "true" imperialism, this is where you start.

******That's partly because the Brits are not able to keep up with the US military and because they don't have to....the US takes care of a lot of it for them. ******

Does the US get any credit?

*****Believe me, they're happy to let the US take the lead and incur the majority costs of war and the image of western terror. It is this which makes the US both a terrorist aggressor and a recipient of terror. ****

You and I have opposing views on the definition of terror. My understanding includes airplane hijackings, holding civilians hostage, suicide bombers specifically targeting civilians, dictators torturing and killing civilians intentionally, etc. Your understanding seems to be anyone killed, intentionally or not, through the direct or indirect action of the US, Israel, or other "western" powers. We simply cannot have a valid discussion if we're so far apart on this.

****If you were a terrorist with limited resources and had the choice between the US or Britain, whom would you attack to make your point heard? It's the same reason the Palestinians attack Israel, the same reasons the Cheychans attack Russia. It's no secret.******

What would you do with Israel? The powers that be in the Arab world deny their right to exist. Israel would not go without a fight. If we were not involved, there would be bloodshed on a scale never before seen on this earth. There are many who are powerful in the Arab and Muslim world who would like to see the entire Israeli population eliminated (Yes, killed). You cannot deny this. There are not any powerful Israelis who would eliminate the entire Arab population. We are siding with the side that does not vow to exterminate the other side.

******This guy obviously defines terror in two ways. There's "retail" terror, like the 9/11 attacks, where a small group of criminals, perhaps even with true grievances, commit illigitimate acts. Then there's "wholesale terror" which is the terror that states visit on the people and governments of foreign countries. *****

So he won't categorize casualties, which would be necessary for an honest discussion, but he'll categorize and paint all US military action with the broad brush of "wholesale terrorism". It's a cute analogy but so overly simplistic for an intellectual. I don't buy it. I think it's a load of crap

*****Wholesale terror is often the root cause of retail terror and it is wholesale terror of which he has accused the US (and no doubt, many others). *****

Sounds nice but way off base. Radical Islamoc ideology, poverty, oppression are higher on the list than US "terror".

*****If you think about it, the terror visited upon the US has originated in places in which the US has been involved in the past.*****

Well, we're involved everywhere in one way or another so your statement doesn't mean much. I don't think any of the 9/11 hijackers were Guatemalan.

Terror visited upon the U.S. has originated in Islamic nations where hatred of Israel has been spread. What the fuck did Israel ever do to Indonesia, Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia for that matter? Oh, it doesn't matter because of your karma rule.

***********Noam Chomsky does not produce "left wing drivel". He may be far left of centre but relegating him to rubbish simply because his conclusions have led him to be to the left on the political spectrum does not defeat what he says. Again, as far as a lot of people in the world are concerned, Bush is a right wing nut job and a terrorist. They make the same claims you're making about Chomsky (although Chomsky's not behind the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people). Somehow I don't think that putting down a person and labeling them puts down their argument.********

Bush is behind the deaths of "Hundreds of thousands"???? Hyperbole. Lets discuss reality here. Come up with at least 200K deaths by US bombs or bullets since 1/01 and we can have a rational conversation.
I'm not making claims about Chomsky, I'm giving my opinion of him. Chomsky couldn't be more wrong. Being intelligent doesn't exempt one from producing drivel. In fact, I could argue that so called "Intellectuals" are people that have their head so far in the clouds or up their ass that they would be more inclined to drivel.

Labeling one's beliefs as drivel is my refutation of another's opinion based on flaws in logic and perspective. Labeling a US president as a right wing nut job or terrorist is pure hyperbole. You're welcome to believe that but you won't get far in any honest political discussion. So yes, I'll label him as well as put down his argument.

*****Re the civil wars comment. What you're forgetting here is that the civil wars you're talking about are mostly the result of western colonialism in the first place. There's already a huge western factor in that violence. The US often supported the side that was economically and politically advantageous to them in the cold war. They treated the people as a means to gain capitalist end, not as an end in themselves and that's why these periods were characterized by massive bloodshed, both directly by US troops and indirectly by the gov't. The problems that remain in these countries today still have the scars of US intervention.*****

You're changing the argument from the US to western colonialism. But let's use that premise with the Western hemisphere. (Guatemala, Chile, Dom. Rep., Nicaragua, etc.) You're going to blame 20th century civil wars on Spanish and Portuguese colonialism from the 15, 16 and 17th centuries?

Yes, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries still bear the scar of democracy imposed on them by the US.

POP QUIZ: How many dissenters would the beloved Che Guevara have killed to date had he had the good fortune to control the fate of a Latin american nation (I guess he tried to take over a few different ones)?

*****These are not just madmen. They are madmen created by US imperialist ventures the world over.*****

Wow, what a statement. Did we create Hitler and Pol Pot too?

I'm glad you took the time to compile that list but did I miss WWI and WWII? Oh yeah, you chose Hiroshima & Nagasaki to represent WWII. Again, selective memory.

****America and Africa
1607-1890 ****
??????? Does 7/4/1776 mean anything to you?

POP QUIZ:
1. Where would you rather live, North or South Korea?

2. In what era would you prefer to live in Iran. Shah or present day?

********Re: your last point about applauding Bush. Bush does not talk tough to dictators because they are dictators. He talks tough to any country that threatens US foreign interests, in particular the oil supply. If he's concerned about "freedom for the people" then why is his administration and his family good friends with the "Monarchy" in Saudi Arabia which is guilty of massive human rights abuses? If he's talking tough to dictators, then why isn't he doing anything about this one? It's inconsistencies like these that highlight the US gov'ts MO in Iraq and reveal the ugly face of US intervention around the world. Freedom only comes to the people if it suits US interests and often it hasn't. Remember those times the US installed brutal dictators after having ousted democratic governments (see the article again).**********

Bush has put it out there ad nauseam (State of the Union 04, 05, Convention speech 04, Inauguration speech 05 and countless other times) that his philosophy is that free people will not resort to hatred and terrorism. Helping the cause of freedom will help the US become safer. Now you can say he just wants oil, or he savors his frienship with his good buddies the Saudis, or put any random words in his mouth. I tend to believe that he means what he says, realizing this is a simple yet powerful ideal being applied to a complex world. Now you'll say I'm blindly following while you'll rack your brain thinking of every other dark ulterior motive under the sun for the sake of criticism. In the meantime the Middle east stays a cesspool of poverty, opression, terrorism, violence, religious intolerance among other things. One guy stands up post 9/11, rejects the Middle East status quo, promotes the idea of freedom as a vehicle for peace and security. So what if we benefit economically as well. The whole world benefits.
If you disagree with his philosophy, then argue it on the merits and come up with your big solution instead of complaining about blood-for-oil, hegemony, palestine, blah blah.

Bush laid it out there. Now you make your case why you think freedom and democracy won't help to end terrorism and poverty.


********dr, in a friendly way, I strongly urge you to be more critical of the US gov't and its history of interventions. You might be surprised to know that I supported the war in Iraq in early 2003. I made my assumptions, but I found out how easy it would have been to denounce it had I known the facts. It should have been easy for me to get them, but I didn't want to admit I'd been wrong. I'm ashamed of my former support. Had I known the history and frequency of US/Western foreign wars, I would likely have denounced it from the start. But, it started for me with getting the facts. If one is interested in intellectual growth, one must seek it. That's not to say that you'll have the same conclusions; only that you might understand someone else's point of view on a dreadful situation. If that is all that comes out of it then that is a good step towards understanding and living together.

I really can't stress enough that the 'left-wing drivel' is not derogatory to me. I became a moderate lefty (not meaning socialist) not because anyone told me to or because of the people around me. I evaluated my own morals and had many arguments with myself on the issues of left and right. At the end of the day I could only justify one approach. I concluded that that economically, socially and politically, the moderate left is a pretty well justified position with a bad name in one part of the world. That may not be the case for you and this is a whole other debate. The point is that calling something left-wing does not defeat the point.*******

Jon, whether you know it or not, judging by the ideas you've put forth in this discussion, you're not a moderate liberal. You're out a bit farther on the wing there and I'm very thankful that people with your views on foreign policy are not in power in this country.

As a typical liberal, you lecture me on learning history and acheiving intellectual growth. Please don't. I don't need this coming from one who self admittedly was oblivious to the "history and frequency of US/Western foreign wars'' until a few years ago.

A "little" education is a dangerous thing.



******dr, again, I would encourage you to be less trusting of the government. Criticize them a little, hold them accountable for what they say and scrutinize their motives. You're abviously a smart person. Try to see through the BS and I garantee you that you will.*******

I'm glad you think I'm smart, that means alot to me. I'm sure it has something to do with attending non government schools.

As for you, when you lack a solid knowledge of history and feel you have to criticize only for the sake of criticism, you end up on a wild goose chase of conspiracy theories, assignments of blame, propaganda, self doubt, and moral relativism that the BS is so high you don't realize you're in it.

Good Day.

 

[drhark]

Why do liberals always bring up body counts to try to demonstrate the evil of the imperialistic, hegemonic, oppressive, corporate, warmongering, oil thirsty U.S. TO THE EXCLUSION OF
the freedom, human rights and prosperity that have been secured to millions and millions and millions through US actions?

Yes we're a superpower and if you're reading this post today it is because we are a superpower.

You should thank God for this beacause I don't think the USSR would have been a very friendly world steward.

And read the Declaration of Independence if you don't know why this is, for fuck's sake.

 

[Klink]

Why do liberals always bring up body counts to try to demonstrate the evil of the imperialistic, hegemonic, oppressive, corporate, warmongering, oil thirsty U.S. TO THE EXCLUSION OF
the freedom, human rights and prosperity that have been secured to millions and millions and millions through US actions?

Yes we're a superpower and if you're reading this post today it is because we are a superpower.

You should thank God for this beacause I don't think the USSR would have been a very friendly world steward.

And read the Declaration of Independence if you don't know why this is, for fuck's sake.

I went to school in Boston, where US history, the study of the declaration of independence and the constitution were graduation requirements.

Why do we bring up those things? Because freedom has rarely been the goal and rarely been the result...that's why. We don't believe that imperial market expansion should come at the cost of human lives. You're talking about freedom, as if that was ever the goal of US government intervention. Unfortuntely, history has proven that this is not the case. As I've mentioned to you already the US government has, on several occasions, even replaced democratically elected governments with ruthless dictators. Do you have any idea how Pinochet was empowered in Chile, or how the democratic government of Guatemala was overthrown? There are many examples. I hear a lot of lip service being provided to "freedom" and "human rights", yet most of the countries the US has invaded in the last 50 years do not have those things and the US has often been the country to take them away. I recall a passage in the declaration of independence that goes, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." So much for the inalienable right of life in the declaration of independence.

Your analysis is also very Machiavellian, in that you assume that "freedom" should come at any cost. You're simply asking yourself if the ends justify the means and not whether the means themselves (like war, and the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians) are legitimate. What's worse is that you're making this judgement on behalf of the real people who are going to suffer the consequences. You're not even giving them the choice. So much for democratic values as percribed in the constitution. So much for the equality of people, as perscribed in the decalration of independence.

I don't see how one can evaluate things without a body count. These are human lives we're talking about. Human lives are the costs and causes of war and much of what happens during and after a war will be dictated by the human costs. So much for the guarantee of life in the declaration of independence.

I know very well that the US is a superpower and that the basis for US society has been a fundamental model to the free world, but I must ask you if you think that really means that I should be grateful for the millions of civilian murders? Would you accept that if it were another country that came and killed US civilians? I doubt it, since you seem to support your government's war for oil, falsely using the murder of US civilians and the threat to US civilians as excuses.

The USSR is no alternative, but why is that relevant? These interventions have nothing to do with freedom. The cold war was the height of US economic intervetion and the time when they installed dictators and repressed people just as the soviets did at home. I am thankful for our freedoms, but don't consider them only "our" right. The people that the US (and other western governments) has directly and indirectly murdered and oppressed have those same rights...and we, the free, the carriers of rights, freedom and democracy, took those things away. Why? Because it suited our economic will. The US government invaded Iraq to benefit economically from greater control over oil supply and so that corporations would benefit from the reconstruction contracts. Unfortunately, the war will cost yus and our children in both lives (soldiers and terrorism) and money (the debt). It is navel-gazing policies like this one, and the apathy of the people in the West that have created and will continue to create retail terrorism in our own countries.

I don't believe in God.

Jon

 

[Klink]

You might also want to read up on your government's intervetions. Here's one example:

Augusto Pinochet, who, with US help, deposed the democratically elected Salvador Allende. Take a look and make your conclusions. This is not a great site but the basics are there. Note the date: Spetember 11, 1973.


Pinochet's rise to power in the Junta of 1973:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973#Military_coup_of_1973

The US role in the Junta:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973#U.S._role_in_1973_coup


About Pinochet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

His crimes: http://www.trentu.ca/~mneumann/pinochet.html



Perhaps these can better illustrate the nature and results of US government foreign intervention.

Jon

 

[Klink]

I don't really worry about where you label my position on the political spectrum. Left and right are just words...neither here nor there. I draw my conclusions from facts and my analysis of history. If that where I land that'e where I land. Your conception of "the middle" is only yours. The middle, in your country is pretty far to the right of that of the rest of the modern world. Relativism...

You attribute terrorism to poverty and oppression, forgetting your own complicity.

I'm not going to respond again to attacks on my knowledge of history or what would happen if people with my perspective were in power. I grew up with both American adn foreign views on US intervention and I know the extent of my knowledge on history. Lets just say its grown considerably since 2003, which explains why i don't support the war anymore.

I also know that people with your perspective in power have unjustifiably murdered millions. That's all I can say about that.

What I claimed was fact is the best we can do. The CIA, which is an instrument of this govt, supports this claim, whereas only you support yours.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2005Jan13.html

Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground

War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

Low's comments came during a rare briefing by the council on its new report on long-term global trends. It took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1,000 U.S. and foreign experts. Within the 119-page report is an evaluation of Iraq's new role as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.

President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism. But the council's report suggests the conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in the chaos of war.

"At the moment," NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist activity."

Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular government.

Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Middle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."

But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resentment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. They found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say, they are now using against U.S. troops. Foreign terrorists are believed to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and U.S. intelligence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changing alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents.

"The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.

According to the NIC report, Iraq has joined the list of conflicts -- including the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand -- that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical Islamic ideology.

At the same time, the report says that by 2020, al Qaeda "will be superseded" by other Islamic extremist groups that will merge with local separatist movements. Most terrorism experts say this is already well underway. The NIC says this kind of ever-morphing decentralized movement is much more difficult to uncover and defeat.

Terrorists are able to easily communicate, train and recruit through the Internet, and their threat will become "an eclectic array of groups, cells and individuals that do not need a stationary headquarters," the council's report says. "Training materials, targeting guidance, weapons know-how, and fund-raising will become virtual (i.e. online)."

The report, titled "Mapping the Global Future," highlights the effects of globalization and other economic and social trends. But NIC officials said their greatest concern remains the possibility that terrorists may acquire biological weapons and, although less likely, a nuclear device.

The council is tasked with midterm and strategic analysis, and advises the CIA director. "The NIC's goal," one NIC publication states, "is to provide policymakers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information -- regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy."

Other than reports and studies, the council produces classified National Intelligence Estimates, which represent the consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies on specific issues.

Yesterday, Hutchings, former assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said the NIC report tried to avoid analyzing the effect of U.S. policy on global trends to avoid being drawn into partisan politics.

Among the report's major findings is that the likelihood of "great power conflict escalating into total war . . . is lower than at any time in the past century." However, "at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux as they have in the past decade."

The report also says the emergence of China and India as new global economic powerhouses "will be the most challenging of all" Washington's regional relationships. It also says that in the competition with Asia over technological advances, the United States "may lose its edge" in some sectors.

Staff writer Bradley Graham and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

This isn't rocket science.

You quote Bush rhetoric a lot, but much of what Bush says has been a) a lie (WMD!!) or b)not consistent with his intelligence or history.

The last 50 years is selected not out of convenience but because the wars since then have been the interventionalist, imperialist wars that have caused terrorism. To say that the interventions of 500 years ago have the same relevance as those of 10 years ago is flawed. Historical proximity is relevant.

Your responses to the argument are not really comprehensive or evident. I don't see where you've reasonably contradicted anything the article has said.

Jon

 

[Scarletwine]

For a complete list of interventions see:

www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html

Caution disturbing.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8159.htm

 

[Nube Gris]

"The USSR is no alternative, but why is that relevant? These interventions have nothing to do with freedom. The cold war was the height of US economic intervetion and the time when they installed dictators and repressed people just as the soviets did at home. I am thankful for our freedoms, but don't consider them only "our" right. The people that the US (and other western governments) has directly and indirectly murdered and oppressed have those same rights...and we, the free, the carriers of rights, freedom and democracy, took those things away. Why? Because it suited our economic will. The US government invaded Iraq to benefit economically from greater control over oil supply and so that corporations would benefit from the reconstruction contracts. Unfortunately, the war will cost yus and our children in both lives (soldiers and terrorism) and money (the debt). It is navel-gazing policies like this one, and the apathy of the people in the West that have created and will continue to create retail terrorism in our own countries."

Klink it is so true, the scariest thing is that the whole world thinks this way.
Well done!....., but i do Believe in God

salud

 

[all_i_want]

freedom can never be given, it can only be taken

your president's idea of 'freedom' is nothing but a joke.

 

[drhark]

freedom can never be given, it can only be taken

your president's idea of 'freedom' is nothing but a joke.

???? If it can be taken, it can be given. think about it.

For example, the freedom of the French was taken by Germany then given back to them by the Allies.


As for as Iraq, we'll see what happens. Liberals are usually wrong about these things.

 

[drhark]

[BThe US government invaded Iraq to benefit economically from greater control over oil supply and so that corporations would benefit from the reconstruction contracts. [/B]

You seem so sure about this. You must have seen F 9/11

 

[BVS]

Liberals are usually wrong about these things.

Actually that's shit. But I'm glad you pop up now and then. Because honestly you don't bring anything to this forum. Once you say something usually you leave and never retrurn.