Why the U.S. Cannot Correct Its Military Blunders in Iraq

[knightroar]

"Going to War with the Army You Have"
Why the U.S. Cannot Correct Its Military Blunders in Iraq

By Michael Schwartz

The Latest American Theory about the Iraqi Resistance

In early February, a Newsweek team led by Rod Nordland produced a detailed account of current theorizing among American and Iraqi officials about the structure of the Iraqi resistance.

Here, in brief, is what these officials told Newsweek: The initial American assault on Iraq was so successful that Saddam Hussein's plan for systematic resistance fell apart almost immediately, leaving a dispersed, unruly guerrilla movement with little or no coherent leadership. In the two subsequent years, however, the Saddamists formed a wealthy and savvy leadership group in Syria. In the meantime Abu Massab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda, asserted his domination over the on-the-ground resistance. Pressure from recent American offensives drove the two groupings into an increasingly comfortable alliance. Here is how Newsweek described developments since last summer, based on an interview with Barham Salih, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister:


"According to Salih, ‘The Baathists regrouped and, in the last six or seven months, reorganized. Plus they had significant amounts of money, in Iraq and in Syria.' Those contacts and networks that Saddam's key cronies began developing months before the invasion now paid off. An understanding was found with the Islamic fanatics, and the well-funded Baathists appear to have made Syria a protected base of operations. ‘The Iraqi resistance is a monster with its head in Syria and its body in Iraq' is the colorful description given by a top Iraqi police official…. Zarqawi's people supply the bombers, the Baathists provide the money and strategy."

The current situation was succinctly summarized for Newsweek by Brig. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, the Deputy Minister of the Interior: "Now between the Zarqawi group and the Baathists there is full cooperation and coordination."

This portrait has been further fleshed out in other accounts, including a New York Times report in which U.S. Commanding General George W. Casey declared that the Baath Party in Syria was "providing direction and financing for the insurgency in Iraq."

This new theory about the nature of the Iraqi resistance helps to illuminate the renewed saber-rattling against the Syrians, which began even before the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister. On January 25, for example, former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, writing together for the first time, made the connection explicit in a Washington Post op-ed. They asserted that the Bush administration must have a "strategy for eliminating the sanctuaries in Syria and Iran from which the enemy can be instructed, supplied, and given refuge in time to regroup." The new theory may also help to explain why (according to such diverse sources as Newsweek and former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter) the U.S. is considering using assassination squads to eliminate enemies. One whole category of targets for these squads (if formed) would certainly be the Syrian-based leadership of the resistance.

And then, at the end of February, came news of the first fruits of American operations based on this new insight, the capture in Syria of Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, a half brother and political lieutenant of Saddam, and one of only 11 of the original "deck of cards" Saddamist leaders who still remained at large. The capture vindicated the saber-rattling as well, since high level Iraqi officials told reporters on February 28 that the "capture was a goodwill gesture by the Syrians to show that they are cooperating" with the new American campaign to decapitate the insurgency by removing its Syrian-based leadership.

The New Theory Is Probably Not Accurate

This new portrait of the Iraqi resistance may be an accurate description of one aspect of the ongoing war; and its key new element -- a working alliance between Saddamist exiles and Zarqawi's fighters inside Iraq -- may be an important new development. But the foundation upon which these descriptions are built -- that these forces now dominate the resistance, supply its leadership, or provide the bulk of its resources -- is likely to prove profoundly inaccurate.

This is most easily seen by consulting -- of all sources -- the CIA, which issued a contrary report about the time the Newsweek article appeared. According to the CIA, the Zarqawi faction and his Saddamist allies were "lesser elements" in the resistance, which was increasingly dominated by "newly radicalized Sunni Iraqis, nationalists offended by the occupying force, and others disenchanted by the economic turmoil and destruction caused by the fighting." There is, in fact, a vast body of publicly available evidence in support of the CIA's perspective, including, for example, most first-hand accounts of the resistance in Falluja and other cities in the Sunni triangle.

In the short, dreary history of America's Iraq war, our leaders have repeatedly acted on gross misconceptions about whom they were fighting -- sometimes based on faulty intelligence, but sometimes in the face of perfectly accurate intelligence. This is, in all likelihood, another instance where they believe their own distortions, and it is worthwhile attempting to understand the underlying pattern that produces this almost predictable error.

One way to characterize this propensity to mis-analyze the resistance is to see that all the portraits thus far generated of the Iraqi resistance have been based on the assumption that it is organized into a familiar hierarchical form in which the leadership exercises strategic and day-to-day control over a pyramid shaped organization. Such a structure is described by both military strategists and organizational sociologists as a "Command and Control" structure. After the battle of Falluja, Air Force Lt. General Lance Smith even used this phrase to characterize Zarqawi's operation: "Zarqawi… no doubt …is able to maintain some level of command and control over the disparate operations."

This command-and-control image applies well to a large bureaucracy or a conventional army; but invariably provides a poor picture of a guerrilla army, which helps explain American military failures in Iraq. Whether or not Zarqawi maintains command and control over his forces (who are, as far as we can tell, not guerrillas) no one exercises such control over the forces that fought against the Americans in Falluja or Sadr City and those that are currently fighting a guerrilla war in Ramadi and other Sunni cities that boycotted the recent elections.

Guerrilla wars violate the command-and-control portrait in two important ways: local units must, by and large, supply themselves (since an occupation army would be likely to interdict any regular shipments of supplies); and they are likely to have substantial autonomy (since hit-and-melt tactics do not lend themselves well to central decision making).

This lack of command and control is a curse and a blessing. On the negative side, lack of central coordination means that guerrilla armies are normally doomed to small, disconnected actions -- a severe limitation if the goal is to drive an enemy out of your country. On the positive side, they are less vulnerable to attacks on supply lines and to the targeting of commanding officers -- two key strategies of conventional warfare.

The resistance in Iraq reflects this dialectic of guerrilla war. The mujaheddin in Falluja, for example, seem to have been notoriously decentralized; even local clerical leadership reportedly achieved only a tenuous discipline over the troops. This same lack of discipline, however, made it impossible for the U.S. to identify and eliminate key leaders. During the second battle for the city in November, their hit-and-run tactics allowed them to hold out for over a month against a force with overwhelming technological and numerical superiority.

The command and control portrait is not a useful tool when it comes to analyzing a large component of the Iraqi resistance, and it is of little use if it is applied to the movement as a whole.

The Drumbeat of Command and Control

Nevertheless, the U.S. military has assumed such a structure at every juncture in the war.

In the Fall of 2003, when the resistance first began to trouble the occupation, U.S. military strategy was based on the conviction that the resistance was led by Saddam Hussein and the "deck of cards" leadership. Here we see command-and-control logic applied for the first time.

By mid-December 2003, the occupation forces had arrested or killed the vast majority of the men on that deck of cards, while Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay Hussein had died in a spectacular gun battle, and Saddam himself had just been captured in a dirt dugout. Occupation authorities confidently predicted that the Baathist "bitter enders" were done for and the resistance would subside, since without its leaders, local fighters were expected to be rudderless and ineffective.

Instead the disparate parts of the resistance became stronger, and in April 2004 emerged with a victory in Falluja -- after a siege of the city, the Marines pulled back without taking it -- and a bloody standoff in Najaf. By then, American intelligence had discovered Abu Massab al Zarqawi and declared that he was actually the linchpin of the resistance.

Once again, a command-and-control portrait of the enemy remained dominant, and the second battle of Falluja was fought in good part on the basis of that theory: to disrupt or destroy the Zarqawi leadership group. But despite the expulsion of the guerrillas (and just about the entire population of Fallujans) from the city, the rebellion quickly spread to other cities and intensified, refuting the claim that the decapitation of the movement would be incapacitating.

The command-and-control theory has, in fact, turned out to be as resilient as the resistance itself. American commander Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, for instance, explained the post-Falluja battle of Mosul to the New York Times by saying that Zarqawi and/or his leadership team had moved to that city and fomented the uprising, ignoring the indigenous character of the mujaheddin who were fighting there. Later, it would be announced that Zarqawi had set up a new "nerve center" south of Baghdad and a major new search-and-destroy operation would be mounted there.

Even after these actions failed to quell the fighting, the occupation forces clung to command-and-control logic. General Kamal, for example, told Newsweek, "Even if Zarqawi continues to elude capture, nailing al-Kurdi [one of Zarqawi's lieutenants] was a critical score. It might -- just might -- -eventually help change the course of this war." Similar statements were made a month later when Saddam's half-brother, identified as a key leader and funder of the insurgency, was captured in Syria.

Evident in all of this is the faith that American military leaders have in a strategy of identifying and targeting the supposed leaders of the insurgency. Despite the direct evidence of an increasingly ferocious movement, the capture of a key leader, it has repeatedly been claimed, could "change the course of the war."

Why the U.S. Military Can't Abandon "Command and Control" Logic

So why does the U.S. military relentlessly build its anti-insurgency strategy around the idea of decapitating the leadership of the Iraqi resistance? The answer lies just beneath the surface of Donald Rumsfeld's now infamous statement, "You go to war with the Army you have."

This is a comment pregnant with meaning for organizational sociologists, because it illustrates a familiar pattern of organizational problem-solving. If a product is not selling well, for example, an engineering organization might conclude that better engineering of the product was in order; a manufacturing firm, that more efficient production technology was needed; and a marketing company, that better advertising would do the trick. This sort of organizational idée fixe has led to some truly horrendous failures in business -- and military -- history. For example, when a flood of automobile buyers began to demand fuel-efficient cars during the first oil crisis in the early 1970s, the American automobile industry did not have the capacity to produce such vehicles. Instead of investing vast resources in developing that capacity, it tried to use its superior marketing skills to win Americans back to luxurious gas guzzlers. That is, the Big Three "went to war with the army they had" and convinced themselves that they were facing a marketing problem. The results: a permanent crisis at General Motors (during which it lost world leadership in the industry), a fundamental restructuring of Ford, and the demise of Chrysler.

Or take the French in World War II. They knew about the new German tanks that had made World War I trench warfare obsolete, but the French army was only equipped to fight in the trenches. So they "went to war with the army they had," devising a trench-war strategy that they managed to convince themselves would contain the German Panzer divisions. They lost the war in three weeks.

The American army is also fighting with the army it has. This army is the best equipped in the world for advanced conventional warfare -- with tanks, artillery, air power, missile power, battlefield surveillance power, and satellite imaging to support highly mobile, well equipped, and superbly trained soldiers. No supply route is safe from its firepower, and no conventional army would be likely to hold its ground long against an American assault. But the most intractable part of the resistance in Iraq is fighting a guerrilla war: they do not have long supply lines and they rarely try to hold their ground.

Guerrilla armies hide by melting into the local population. (Everyone knows this, including, of course, American military men.) To defeat them, an occupying force must have the intelligence to identify guerrillas who can disappear into the civilian world; and it must station troops throughout resistance strongholds in order to pounce upon guerrillas when they emerge from hiding to mount an attack. American military strategists know this, too. But these lessons -- painfully drawn from Vietnam -- can't be implemented by the army that Donald Rumsfeld sent to war.

The Americans, in fact, have neither of these resources. Anti-guerrilla intelligence, after all, requires the cooperation of the local population, which, at least in the Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq, the U.S. has definitively alienated, largely through its use of blunt-edged conventional army attacks on communities that harbor guerrillas. And it cannot station enough troops in key locations because too small an occupation force is spread far too thinly over contested parts of the country. Estimates for the size of an army needed to pacify Iraq range upward from General Eric Shinseki's prewar call for "several hundred thousand" troops.

The American military simply lacks the tools it needs to fight the guerrillas, just as in the 1970s the Big Three automakers lacked the production system needed to produced fuel-efficient automobiles, and the French army lacked the technology it needed to defeat German tanks in 1940. In response, military leaders are doing exactly what their organizational forbears did: They continue to develop theories about how to win the war "with the army they have." This backward logic leads inevitably to imagining an enemy that might be far more susceptible to defeat with the tools at hand; that is, an opponent with long supply lines (from Syria, for example) and a command-and-control leadership (Zarqawi and his Saddamist allies, for example) capable of being "decapitated." This portrait of the enemy then justifies a military strategy that seeks, above all, to kill or capture the theorized leaders. Such tactics almost always fail (even when leaders are captured); and in the process of failing, only alienates further the Iraqi population, producing an ever larger, more resourceful enemy.

The newest portrait of the resistance as a Zarqawi-Saddamist led amalgam will sooner or later die a lonely death -- in all likelihood to be replaced by yet another command-and-control portrait of the insurgency whose features are as yet unknown. As long as the U.S. continues to fight "with the army it has," it will also continue to generate -- and act on -- distorted (sometimes ludicrous) descriptions of the nature of the rebellion it faces.

Michael Schwartz, Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has written extensively on popular protest and insurgency, and on American business and government dynamics. His books include Radical Politics and Social Structure, The Power Structure of American Business (with Beth Mintz), and Social Policy and the Conservative Agenda (edited, with Clarence Lo). His email address is Ms42@optonline.net@optonline.net

Copyright 2005 Michael Schwartz

http://www.mojones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/03/why_the_military_is_failing_in_iraq.html

[Bag Sniper]

Wow .... a Syrian/Iraq connection ? Get out .... no shit eh ? Well I'll be damned .... Syria ? huh .... really ... gosh .... Syria ?

Ono and I and others were pointing to Syria well over a year ago .... but the rest of the lefty flatliners were screaming North Korea .... Syria .... well fuck .... imagine that ....

Speaking of Syria .... looks like the little fuckers may be moving exclusively into the Bakka Valley ... anyone want to make a bet that's as far as they'll go .... anyone want to take a guess at why they *won't* be leaving Bakka anytime soon ....

I'm still in numbed shock ... Syria ... Iraq .. fuck me .... I'm stunned ...

[knightroar]

bump

[Bag Sniper]

Attention whore.

Never seen a guy bump his own thread using a "I'm a fuckin moron and can prove it" sign before ....

[zapcomix]

Wow .... a Syrian/Iraq connection ? Get out .... no shit eh ? Well I'll be damned .... Syria ? huh .... really ... gosh .... Syria ?

Ono and I and others were pointing to Syria well over a year ago .... but the rest of the lefty flatliners were screaming North Korea .... Syria .... well fuck .... imagine that ....

Speaking of Syria .... looks like the little fuckers may be moving exclusively into the Bakka Valley ... anyone want to make a bet that's as far as they'll go .... anyone want to take a guess at why they *won't* be leaving Bakka anytime soon ....

I'm still in numbed shock ... Syria ... Iraq .. fuck me .... I'm stunned ...
Couldn't have said it better myself.

[SCHICKERED]

I dont know if ONO is comfortable being aligned with "Bag" but should that be the case,you both must have seen the same Fox report.

[Ono]

Oddly enough....FOX, CNN, the big three media outlets and the BBC never really mentioned this to my recollection.

Basically, I had been reading reports from Global Security, NEIN, Jane's Defense, Debka and the Sarindar Program as told by Ion Pacepa, the highest ranking defector from the Soviet Bloc and Romanian KGB.

[undertaker]

Syria? Wow!
All the time I've been blaming the Icelanders. I am embarrassed.

Orson

[involved]

You might want to look at Iran,Yemen and don't forget Saudi Arabia, if the US was attacked and occupied don't you think Canada and Mexico would help you? :add06: . I think that's a given , why would it any different over there ?

[Trinity]

pssst how about member nations of the OIC?

shhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

[undertaker]

You might want to look at Iran,Yemen and don't forget Saudi Arabia, if the US was attacked and occupied don't you think Canada and Mexico would help you? :add06: . I think that's a given , why would it any different over there ?

Actually, one of the reasons the US entered WW1 was German and Mexican talks about Mexico declaring war on the US. The revelation of these secret talks bore heavily on Wilson and Congress to declare war on Germany.

At the end of WW2, crowds in Mexico city celebrated the end of the war in Europe. Except the celebration was based on the rumor that Germany had won.

Canada and the US have the world's longest undefended border and have been staunch allies through two world wars. Given the present state of affairs, I don't think Canada COULD help us. And I question whether SOME in Canada WOULD help us.

Orson

Just another little nothing for you.

[involved]

There was no mention on the CBC,it is strange ? :add09:
Oddly enough....FOX, CNN, the big three media outlets and the BBC never really mentioned this to my recollection.

Basically, I had been reading reports from Global Security, NEIN, Jane's Defense, Debka and the Sarindar Program as told by Ion Pacepa, the highest ranking defector from the Soviet Bloc and Romanian KGB.

[commonam]

Here's a bump for your self esteem, KR.

It's been quite a while since I read an article that uses so many words to say so little. The 20/20 hindsight value of the Syrian connection aside, it's really a narrow piece of research.

Using two or three quotes from senior American DoD officials, it comes to the striking conclusion that the entire war effort is predicated on the insurgency having a rigid command and control structure. Come, now. Ask any ground pounder MP, SP or infantryman who's working the streets if they think there's nothing happening at the lower levels of battle.

It's also interesting how the the author praises the insurgents' ability to hold out for a month. Was that counting the 3 week warning they had? Had the desire to minimize innocent casualties been cast aside, the insurgencey could have been stopped with a a few B-52 strafings. But no, that isn't what happened. Let's read it the way it really happened: The insurgents got their asses handed to them in Fallujah, then they got chased out of Ramadi.

This article makes a few very selective observations, while ignoring the proponderance of evidence that the US military is well aware of what they are up against. It doesn't mean that they've got all the answers, but most officers will, and have for quite some time been, quick to point out that there will be more suicide attacks, IEDs, etc.

The author also completely ignores the precedent set by the frist round of elections, and the the possibility of a continuing trend in the next phases leading to Iraqi self rule, which could marginalize the insurgence with ever decreasing military effort expended by the US. Read my lips: It's the citizens who will take back Iraq.

The psychoalanysis of "You fight with the army you've got" statement? Come again? It's a really simple statement; the anithesis of "You fight with the army you dream of". Reading anything else into it is for full-time students residing in ivory towered buildings. And yet, a 4th grader with an introductory course in critical thinking could pick that claptrap to pieces.

KR, apparently the crushing blow to your volunimous predictions of the downfall of the Bush admin and neoconservatism wasn't enough. That's OK, there's a place in the world for masochists as well.

[Ono]

There may have been........and I may have posted that too........but it was quite some time ago, and I can't remember. I'll have to search.

[Ono]

There was no mention on the CBC,it is strange ? :add09:

I found the thread.......which started about 13 months ago.......if you're interested:

http://www.itshappening.com/showthread.php?t=27787&page=13&pp=15&highlight=sarindar

[involved]

thanks... :)

[Simon666]

Basically, I had been reading reports from Global Security, NEIN, Jane's Defense, Debka and the Sarindar Program as told by Ion Pacepa, the highest ranking defector from the Soviet Bloc and Romanian KGB.
Ion Mihai Pacepa is not the highest ranking defector from the Soviet Bloc and is often talking out of his ass, simply writing whatever the right wants to readas that makes him sell more books and gets him his paycheck.

[ProudAmerican]

Wow .... a Syrian/Iraq connection ? Get out .... no shit eh ? Well I'll be damned .... Syria ? huh .... really ... gosh .... Syria ?

Ono and I and others were pointing to Syria well over a year ago .... but the rest of the lefty flatliners were screaming North Korea .... Syria .... well fuck .... imagine that ....

Speaking of Syria .... looks like the little fuckers may be moving exclusively into the Bakka Valley ... anyone want to make a bet that's as far as they'll go .... anyone want to take a guess at why they *won't* be leaving Bakka anytime soon ....

I'm still in numbed shock ... Syria ... Iraq .. fuck me .... I'm stunned ...

I was just pointing this out to Simon in the "What happens to Lebanon" thread. Syria won't leave Bekaa Valley, not without a helluva fight.

[Simon666]

Sarindar is just an invention by Pacepa to sell his stories to rightwing papers and boost his book sales a bit. There is no way he was in a position to know as first of all Pacepa defected in 1980 while Saddam was barely president in 1978, although ever since 1968 Saddam was quite powerful. On top of that, Iraq was back in those days on quite good terms with the US which helped him against Iran, so there was no need whatsoever for such a program. As Pacepa defected in 1980, there is no way for him to find out whatever happened after 1980. On top of that, Sarindar is a term onlycoined by him, noone else in the intelligence community, not even in the US can confirm this. Also, Romania is also part of the so called New Europe and if it could assist the US president by providing info to the US public about such a program, they surely would declassify those parts of the Ceaucescu days. Another factor is that Romania also took an independent position in the Soviet Bloc, took an independent course from Moscow and had business relations with the west, the Soviets didn't trust the other member states of the Soviet Bloc much and Romania should rank even lower.

So all things considered, what mister Pacepa has to say regarding Sarindar makes little if no sense at all. To get in such a high position in the Securitate, the most feared, ruthless and oppressive intelligence service of the entire Soviet Bloc, one also doesn't achieve that by being mister nice guy but rather by being a professional liar and manipulator of people.

[Bag Sniper]

I dont know if ONO is comfortable being aligned with "Bag" but should that be the case,you both must have seen the same Fox report.

I'm certain Ono is quite comfortable being aligned with me or rather she's quite comfortable in the fact that we both typically come to the same conclusions given most any world scenario.

And I might add we are both correct in those conclusions whether the world events play out immediately or are bore out with time.

My sources of study are many fold as are Ono's ... anyone who reads from a single source, no matter what that is, is a perfunctory dumbass.

Our track record for correct analysis and prediction is so long and established that it has allowed me to develope this tried and true theorum:

You leftists haven't been right about fuck yet ... not one damned thing

[Droog]

You leftists haven't been right about fuck yet ... not one damned thing

It's an odd phenomenom presently. Whatever happened to liberalism?

[Simon666]

Our track record for correct analysis and prediction is so long and established that it has allowed me to develope this tried and true theorum:

You leftists haven't been right about fuck yet ... not one damned thing
You should be a comedian. I'm laughing my ass off at that remark and that you belive it yourself almost brings me to tears, both from laughing and compassion of your intellectual state.

:add09:

[Hobbes]

I'm certain Ono is quite comfortable being aligned with me or rather she's quite comfortable in the fact that we both typically come to the same conclusions given most any world scenario.

And I might add we are both correct in those conclusions whether the world events play out immediately or are bore out with time.

My sources of study are many fold as are Ono's ... anyone who reads from a single source, no matter what that is, is a perfunctory dumbass.

Our track record for correct analysis and prediction is so long and established that it has allowed me to develope this tried and true theorum:

You leftists haven't been right about fuck yet ... not one damned thing

Horse crap. Find me one example where you suggest that Syria is supporting the Iraqi insurgency.

And just because this guy has speculated that very thing, doesn't make it so. Find me one shred of proof.

I wouldn't find it very hard to believe, but you could at least try to support your ridiculous assertions of foreknowledge with fact...

[Bag Sniper]

Ah yes .... hobbes and simonprickprickprick ... the thread concerning Syria and Iraq is on the old board and is waaaay before your time ... research it yourselves if you feel the need .... and as I pointed out we've been correct even as born out through time .... as we're seeing even now more than a year after the discussion .....

My suggestion to you two .... exercise a lot less mouth work and a lot more ear work and you just might learn something ....

You leftists haven't been right about fuck yet ... not one damned thing ...

tata children ....

[Hobbes]

Ah yes .... hobbes and simonprickprickprick ... the thread concerning Syria and Iraq is on the old board and is waaaay before your time ... research it yourselves if you feel the need .... and as I pointed out we've been correct even as born out through time .... as we're seeing even now more than a year after the discussion .....

My suggestion to you two .... exercise a lot less mouth work and a lot more ear work and you just might learn something ....

You leftists haven't been right about fuck yet ... not one damned thing ...

tata children ....

Didn't think so.

I've been here almost two years, and all I recall you saying was the tired old "Iraq moved it's WMDs to Syria." Not the same thing.

I concluded, and said here repeatedly, that no WMD would be found in Iraq. I believe I was right about that.

Shall I continue?

[Bag Sniper]

Didn't think so.

I've been here almost two years, and all I recall you saying was the tired old "Iraq moved it's WMDs to Syria." Not the same thing.

I concluded, and said here repeatedly, that no WMD would be found in Iraq. I believe I was right about that.

Shall I continue?

Didn't think so what ? I answered your question ... almost two years ... well golly fuck ..... as I said the discussion was before your time and I've been here since 2001 ... so fucking what hobbes ....

So you were right (so far) that no WMD's have been found in Iraq .... 50-50 chance eh ? Your guess was based more on your hatred of Bush than any sensible clues considering the entire world for the last 2 decades all agreed sodom was packing bugs ...

Continue all you like ... I could care less really ..... the discussion is out there if you want to find it (them) ....

[Fat Tone]

You might want to look at Iran,Yemen and don't forget Saudi Arabia, if the US was attacked and occupied don't you think Canada and Mexico would help you? :add06: . I think that's a given , why would it any different over there ?
are you fucking kidding me with that question ?? Canada and Mexico ?? In my opinion the only way we could help fix the Mexican immigration problem and send them packing would be for mainland USA to be invaded.

[involved]

You say that with such ERNEST.....enjoy the bubble.
Actually, one of the reasons the US entered WW1 was German and Mexican talks about Mexico declaring war on the US. The revelation of these secret talks bore heavily on Wilson and Congress to declare war on Germany.

At the end of WW2, crowds in Mexico city celebrated the end of the war in Europe. Except the celebration was based on the rumor that Germany had won.

Canada and the US have the world's longest undefended border and have been staunch allies through two world wars. Given the present state of affairs, I don't think Canada COULD help us. And I question whether SOME in Canada WOULD help us.

Orson

Just another little nothing for you.

[Ono]

Let's see.......Saturday, April 17, 2004 2:10 p.m. EDT
King Abdullah: Al-Qaida WMDs Came From Syria

Jordan's King Abdullah revealed on Saturday that vehicles reportedly containing chemical weapons and poison gas that were part of a deadly al-Qaida bomb plot came from Syria, the country named by U.S. weapons inspector David Kay last year as a likely repository for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"It was a major, major operation. It would have decapitated the government," King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle. Jordanian officials estimated that the death count could have been as high as 20,000 - seven times greater than the Sept. 11 attacks.

King Abdullah said that trucks containing 17.5 tons of explosives had come from Syria, though he took pains not to implicate Syrian President Bashir Assad in the al-Qaida plot, saying, "I'm completely confident that Bashir did not know about it."

In his testimony before Congress last year, weapons inspector Kay said U.S. satellite surveillance showed substantial vehicular traffic going from Iraq to Syria just prior to the U.S. attack on March 19, 2003.

While Kay said investigators couldn't be sure the cargo contained weapons of mass destruction, one of his top advisers described the evidence as "unquestionable." .......

Then we have the Duelfer Report which states that there was considerable vehicular movement out if Iraq and into Syria.

Then we have Syria lying to the US about giving refuge to members of Saddam's regime......remember they just handed over some of those members.

Then we have Ion Pacepa telling us about the Sarindar Program.

And now this........the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyassa reports that one ton of explosives was reported missing from a Syrian base in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, a few weeks before the explosion that killed Rafik Hariri. As the UN-sponsored investigation continues, French investigators (not further identified) allegedly have managed to learn that the explosives used in the blast are of a type only recently acquired by the Syrian army.

Also, local sources indicate that Beirut morgues still contain the unidentified and unclaimed bodies of several blast victims. If true, this appears consistent with the Lebanese interior ministry's unique crisis management methodology revealed by the Mohammed Ghalayni debacle two days ago. That is (in linear flow-chart form): Crisis - Run - Hide - Deflect - Deny - Capitulate - Run - Hide. There are more dimensions to it than this, but you get the picture.


Is anyone going to say that there is not a high possibility that Iraq's WMD were moved to Syria/Lebanon?

[Bag Sniper]

Is anyone going to say that there is not a high possibility that Iraq's WMD were moved to Syria/Lebanon?

Yes ... simonprickprickprick ... he claims there is ZERO chance ... because he's been there and has personally seen the Bekka Valley is a wide open lush tranquil farming region with absolutely no military activity whatsoever.

Furthermore he's traced *all* reports and intelligence briefs from a multitude of international government studies to one single internet post and they are all linked to a vast rightwing international conspiracy to besmurch the character of Assad and Sodom and save Bush's ass on the WMD issue ....

[Hobbes]

Is anyone going to say that there is not a high possibility that Iraq's WMD were moved to Syria/Lebanon?

Yes. I base that on the very low possibility that they had any to move in the first place.

What I think is highly likely is that many of the higher-ups in Baghdad moved themselves, their families, their fortunes and their furniture into Syria before we blew it all to bits (or took it away).

[Bman]

Is anyone going to say that there is not a high possibility that Iraq's WMD were moved to Syria/Lebanon?



Well OUR OWN GOVERNMENT has stated that there is NO EVIDENCE of that having happened.

Now maybe you think they are lying.. They USUALLY do lie.. but one would expect the lie to be IN THEIR FAVOR , if they are going to tell it

Bman

[Simon666]

LetJordan's King Abdullah revealed on Saturday that vehicles reportedly containing chemical weapons and poison gas that were part of a deadly al-Qaida bomb plot came from Syria, the country named by U.S. weapons inspector David Kay last year as a likely repository for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Key word is reportedly. The Jordanians have never specified what was in the trucks, regular explosives or what else. The notion that they were chemical weapons and poison gas is pure speculation.



"It was a major, major operation. It would have decapitated the government," King Abdullah told the San Francisco Chronicle. Jordanian officials estimated that the death count could have been as high as 20,000 - seven times greater than the Sept. 11 attacks.
Too bad they can't provide any evidence to substantiate those claims.



King Abdullah said that trucks containing 17.5 tons of explosives had come from Syria, though he took pains not to implicate Syrian President Bashir Assad in the al-Qaida plot, saying, "I'm completely confident that Bashir did not know about it."
Note: it mentions 17,5 tons of explosives, not chemical weapons and poison gas as speculated in some mainly propaganda outlets.



In his testimony before Congress last year, weapons inspector Kay said U.S. satellite surveillance showed substantial vehicular traffic going from Iraq to Syria just prior to the U.S. attack on March 19, 2003.
What he didn't mention is that this isn't abnormal, it is an insinuation. There were also large vehicular traffic towards Jordan and Turkey. As part of an oil smuggling scheme that was public knowledge, lots of tanker trucks delivered oil to Syria, Jordan and Turkey. It is absolutely not abnormal for people who drive large amounts of flammable goods to transport whatever they can and get the hell out in the runup to the war, before the US starts bombing everything to pieces.



While Kay said investigators couldn't be sure the cargo contained weapons of mass destruction, one of his top advisers described the evidence as "unquestionable." .......
Politically motivated speculation. They also had a "slam dunk" case against Iraq, much was discovered to be false afterwards and I'm referring to defector testimonies.



Then we have the Duelfer Report which states that there was considerable vehicular movement out if Iraq and into Syria.
Again, there were similar movements from Iraq to Jordan and Turkey and vice versa. Syria is however singled out for political reasons as to provide insinuations and a convenient excuse for the Iraqi WMD screwup.



Then we have Syria lying to the US about giving refuge to members of Saddam's regime......remember they just handed over some of those members.
Bullshit. That doesn't prove they were lying. If they just found him and handed him over, it would on the contrary be pretty good evidence of cooperation. Keeping in mind that Saddam and sons as well as most of the deck of most wanted was captured and killed in Iraq and didn't escape to Syria is further evidence pointing in that direction.



Then we have Ion Pacepa telling us about the Sarindar Program.
Pacepa has been nagging about his Sarindar bullshit for years. His credibility is zero, you ought to know better to mention him as credible source.



Is anyone going to say that there is not a high possibility that Iraq's WMD were moved to Syria/Lebanon?
Me. When were these Iraqi WMD produced and who produced them as Kay found no evidence of large scale WMD production after 1991 and not a single scientist has come forward. I'm beginning to think little goblins or cave trolls produced the Iraqi WMD.

[Bag Sniper]

Well OUR OWN GOVERNMENT has stated that there is NO EVIDENCE of that having happened.

Now maybe you think they are lying.. They USUALLY do lie.. but one would expect the lie to be IN THEIR FAVOR , if they are going to tell it

Bman

Link ? There's too much fishy shit going on over there right now and I seriously think Assad's sphyncter is flinching ... and that's happening for a reason ....

[Simon666]

Yes ... simonprickprickprick ... he claims there is ZERO chance ... because he's been there and has personally seen the Bekka Valley is a wide open lush tranquil farming region with absolutely no military activity whatsoever.

Furthermore he's traced *all* reports and intelligence briefs from a multitude of international government studies to one single internet post and they are all linked to a vast rightwing international conspiracy to besmurch the character of Assad and Sodom and save Bush's ass on the WMD issue ....
Even if all that were true, it would STILL be less ridiculous than what you guys are claiming.

[Bman]

Link ? There's too much fishy shit going on over there right now and I seriously think Assad's sphyncter is flinching ... and that's happening for a reason ....



No link needed... Provide me a link where the US government suggests that there is HARD EVIDENCE (as opposed to speculation) that WMD was moved to Syria.

Bman

[Fat Tone]

No link needed... Provide me a link where the US government suggests that there is HARD EVIDENCE (as opposed to speculation) that WMD was moved to Syria.

Bman


we had hard evidence that they were in Iraq.....so, would you trust any Govt info that they were in Syria ?? I doubt it.

[Bman]

we had hard evidence that they were in Iraq.....so, would you trust any Govt info that they were in Syria ?? I doubt it.


So who was right?


The people who said there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq (like Scott Ritter and Hans Blix) or people like Don Rumsfeld who said they were there and he personally knew where they were??

WHO IS CREDIBLE and who is not?

Bman

[Bag Sniper]

Well I just posted this link in the Syria/Lebanon thread ....

http://www.worldthreats.com/middle_east/Syria.htm

Judge it what you will but I'll take comfort in that the sources contributing to the report have more credible sources and more informed sources than hobbes, Bboy and simonprickprickprick pooled together ...

If not then these 3 would be sitting in a think tank somewhere ... yet to the casual observer ... they are not ....

[Hobbes]

we had hard evidence that they were in Iraq.....so, would you trust any Govt info that they were in Syria ?? I doubt it.

Hard evidence? Now you're just making shit up...

[Fat Tone]

So who was right?


The people who said there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq (like Scott Ritter and Hans Blix) or people like Don Rumsfeld who said they were there and he personally knew where they were??

WHO IS CREDIBLE and who is not?

Bman


Good question. The one rub I have always had...is that these guys were so fucking cocksure about the WMD issue......that if they were in fact lying, they knew that they would be held accountable. George Tenet...." Slam Dunk" remember ? Shitty intel period. There is no denying that Sadaam certainly wanted the world to THINK he had them. But they certainly are not there now it seems.

[Bman]

Well I just posted this link in the Syria/Lebanon thread ....

http://www.worldthreats.com/middle_east/Syria.htm

Judge it what you will but I'll take comfort in that the sources contributing to the report have more credible sources and more informed sources than hobbes, Bboy and simonprickprickprick pooled together ...

If not then these 3 would be sitting in a think tank somewhere ... yet to the casual observer ... they are not ....




Oh you outdid yourself here.. .You're now citing www.worldthreats.com

LOL... Good one.. I guess you won't mind if I cite www.rense.com as a credible source or www.stevequayle.com also

Let's read about the founder and owner of www.worldthreats.com


http://www.worldthreats.com/About%20Us.htm


WorldThreats.com was founded by Ryan Mauro, the Youngest Hired Geopolitical Analyst in the North America.

The website was founded with a goal of providing information the general public does not know in an easy-to-read fashion that will not overwhelm any reader. Many have expressed their astonishment at the low level of knowledge the average person accumulates before making a strong opinion on world events. This is often done to accommodate their political beliefs (ex. Democrats tend to take the facts that support their anti-Bush views, while Republicans tend to take the facts that support their pro-Bush views). In conversation, we can all remember a time when we told such a strong-minded person a piece of information, which was subsequently dismissed as lies or propaganda, as it goes against the person’s predetermined analysis.


This website aims to remove those barriers that separate a common consensus on national security matters and lead to difficulty in executing an educated, well-researched response to those matters.


Beginning at age 11 or 12, research on the geopolitical affairs of several countries began by the founder. It quickly turned into more than a hobby. In December 2002, the author was hired as the youngest geopolitical analyst in the country (at age 16) by Tactical Defense Concepts (www.tdconcepts.com), a maritime-associated security company.

Towards the end of June 2003, WorldThreats.com was launched as a suggestion by Ryan’s boss, and after viewing his years of intense research and writing.


Around the fall of 2003, Ryan joined the Northeast Intelligence Network (www.homelandsecurityus.com), which specializes in tracking and assessing terrorist threats. Since then, Ryan has been published in WorldNetDaily.com, Newsmax.com, StrategyPage.com, WorldTribune.com, HomelandSecurityUS.com, JRNyquist.com, "The Eurasian Politician", and in the Turkistan Newsletter (Turkistan Bulteni). He is a frequent writer and featured guest analyst for Milnet.com as well.

He has appeared on radio shows including The Al Rantel Show, WIBG Radio, WorldNetDaily Radioactive with Joseph Farah, Jeff Nyquist Program, Kevin McCullough Show, Laurie Roth Show, Tovia Singer Show, Stan Major Show, and Preparedness Now.

Ryan has been mentioned in articles in publications including the Alternative Press Online, Asbury Press, and the Coast Star. He is currently signed to the William Morris Agency. He is also the author of the forthcoming book "Death to America: The Unreported Battle of Iraq".



HAHHAHA... he works for the NORTHEAST INTELLIGENCE NETWORK??? Oh, man.. now THERE is a credible organization....!!!! hahaha...

Keep fishing, Bag boy

Bman

[Bman]

Good question. The one rub I have always had...is that these guys were so fucking cocksure about the WMD issue......that if they were in fact lying, they knew that they would be held accountable. George Tenet...." Slam Dunk" remember ? Shitty intel period. There is no denying that Sadaam certainly wanted the world to THINK he had them. But they certainly are not there now it seems.



No.. they KNEW they would not be held accountable and NONE of them have been

Bman

[Fat Tone]

No.. they KNEW they would not be held accountable and NONE of them have been

Bman


I guess that is why Tenet is still head of the CIA ?

[Bman]

I guess that is why Tenet is still head of the CIA ?


Tenet, as I recall stepped down for personal reasons, just a few weeks before President Bush awarded him the MEDAL OF FREEDOM, the highest civilian award in existence.


So.. no.. Tenet was not held accountable for anything

Bman

[Ono]

Simon: Jordanian authorities said the attack would have mixed a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, which they said has never been done before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents.

[Bman]

In fact, not only was George Tenet NOT HELD ACCOUTABLE.. he was REWARDED for lying to the President about WMD (if you believe that account)



Bush Gives Medal of Freedom to 'Pivotal' Iraq Figures

By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page C01


Trumpeting America as liberator, the White House conferred the highest civilian honor yesterday on three men intimately involved with the decision to invade Iraq or the troubled aftermath of the invasion.

President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tommy Franks, the now-retired Army general who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; former CIA director George Tenet, who told Bush it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction; and L. Paul Bremer, who presided over the first 14 months of Iraq reconstruction.

Past recipients have included Mother Teresa, Mr. Rogers, Rosa Parks and Pope John Paul II.

In the East Room of the White House, Bush said he had chosen the trio because they "played pivotal roles in great events" and made efforts that "made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty." Before an invited audience of 120, which included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and his nominated replacement, Condoleezza Rice, Bush hung the heavy gold medals, on royal-blue velvet ribbons, around the men's necks. Franks and Tenet grinned broadly. Bremer later wiped his eyes.

Some Democrats questioned the choice.

"My hunch is that George Bush wasn't using the same standard when honoring Tenet and Bremer that was applied to previous honorees," said David Wade, a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who lost last month's presidential election to Bush. And Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, said yesterday he "would have reached a different conclusion" on Tenet. "I don't think [he] served the president or the nation well," Levin said.

The president heralded Tenet for being "one of the first to recognize" the growing threat to America from "radical terrorist networks." He made no mention of the failures outlined by the 9/11 commission that forced the administration to overhaul the nation's intelligence operations.

He praised Franks for his Iraq war plan, which utilized "a force half the size of the force that won the Gulf War" to reach Baghdad in less than a month, "the fastest, longest armored advance in the history of American warfare." Bush did not note that more Americans have died after the toppling of Saddam Hussein than during that initial charge.

Bremer, Bush said, "worked day and night in difficult dangerous conditions" to rebuild Iraq and help leaders chart the country's political future. "Every benchmark . . . was achieved on time or ahead of schedule, including the transfer of sovereignty that ended his tenure," the president said. He did not add that the transfer was hurriedly arranged two days early because of fears insurgents would attack the ceremonies.

The Medal of Freedom was established by President Harry Truman in 1945 as a way to honor allies who had helped the war effort, and most initial recipients were not American citizens, said Jim Salmon, who tracks the medal's history for a Web site. In 1963, President John Kennedy, by executive order, restricted the award so that it could be given only by the president. Since that time, presidents have used the medal to honor a wide variety of individuals in sports, arts, letters, charity and social justice.

Yesterday's medals, said Salmon, "are a unique situation. This is not the norm, for there to be three people in the same genre, with the same basic events," honored so quickly after their service or after pointed questioning by congressional leaders, as all three men were in the past two years.

Reporters peppered White House press secretary Scott McClellan yesterday in two sessions over the timing of the medals and whether the ceremony indicated that the president had forgiven Tenet, who resigned in June after seven years leading the agency, for intelligence failures dealing with 9/11 and Iraq.

"They have made many incredibly positive contributions to our nation," McClellan said. The recipients "have worked to liberate some 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq from oppression and tyranny. And they have worked to help transform a very dangerous region in the world that has been a breeding ground for terrorism, a breeding ground from where people hijack planes and flew them into buildings."

Paul Rieckhoff, a former Army lieutenant who served in Iraq and now runs an organization of veterans against the war, said the awards are "a slap in the face to the troops" from "an administration that loves the big PR move. . . . It validates how out of touch Washington is with the reality of what is on the ground in Iraq."

And Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon, who monitors Iraq, suggested that if the president wanted to honor service in Iraq, he could have selected other people to honor. "I wouldn't expect him to show any wavering" over the decision to go to war, O'Hanlon said of the president, "but I'm troubled by the use of this award in a different way. He could have called attention to the bravery in Iraq, without having to make it about the most controversial figures in the whole operation."

In Iraq yesterday, U.S. military officials announced combat deaths of two Marines, bringing the toll to 10 Marines in three days. A suicide bomber blew up seven people and wounded at least 13 at a Green Zone checkpoint in Baghdad. Military brass announced that the U.S. military would have a record high of 150,000 troops on the ground in the nation through the Jan. 30 election and "a little bit after." In Mosul, gunmen killed a provincial council member, and soldiers discovered eight more bodies of Iraqis, bringing to more than 150 the number of likely victims of insurgents targeting Iraqi police and security forces in that city in the past six weeks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63623-2004Dec14?language=printer

[Bman]

Simon: Jordanian authorities said the attack would have mixed a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, which they said has never been done before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents.


Didn't the US come out and say that they weren't sure that was true?? That the chemicals were simply those types used to make conventional explosives?

Bman

[Simon666]

Simon: Jordanian authorities said the attack would have mixed a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, which they said has never been done before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents.
No really? Care to provide a source for that?

[Fat Tone]

In fact, not only was George Tenet NOT HELD ACCOUTABLE.. he was REWARDED for lying to the President about WMD (if you believe that account)



Bush Gives Medal of Freedom to 'Pivotal' Iraq Figures

By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page C01


Trumpeting America as liberator, the White House conferred the highest civilian honor yesterday on three men intimately involved with the decision to invade Iraq or the troubled aftermath of the invasion.

President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tommy Franks, the now-retired Army general who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; former CIA director George Tenet, who told Bush it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction; and L. Paul Bremer, who presided over the first 14 months of Iraq reconstruction.

Past recipients have included Mother Teresa, Mr. Rogers, Rosa Parks and Pope John Paul II.

In the East Room of the White House, Bush said he had chosen the trio because they "played pivotal roles in great events" and made efforts that "made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty." Before an invited audience of 120, which included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and his nominated replacement, Condoleezza Rice, Bush hung the heavy gold medals, on royal-blue velvet ribbons, around the men's necks. Franks and Tenet grinned broadly. Bremer later wiped his eyes.

Some Democrats questioned the choice.

"My hunch is that George Bush wasn't using the same standard when honoring Tenet and Bremer that was applied to previous honorees," said David Wade, a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who lost last month's presidential election to Bush. And Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, said yesterday he "would have reached a different conclusion" on Tenet. "I don't think [he] served the president or the nation well," Levin said.

The president heralded Tenet for being "one of the first to recognize" the growing threat to America from "radical terrorist networks." He made no mention of the failures outlined by the 9/11 commission that forced the administration to overhaul the nation's intelligence operations.

He praised Franks for his Iraq war plan, which utilized "a force half the size of the force that won the Gulf War" to reach Baghdad in less than a month, "the fastest, longest armored advance in the history of American warfare." Bush did not note that more Americans have died after the toppling of Saddam Hussein than during that initial charge.

Bremer, Bush said, "worked day and night in difficult dangerous conditions" to rebuild Iraq and help leaders chart the country's political future. "Every benchmark . . . was achieved on time or ahead of schedule, including the transfer of sovereignty that ended his tenure," the president said. He did not add that the transfer was hurriedly arranged two days early because of fears insurgents would attack the ceremonies.

The Medal of Freedom was established by President Harry Truman in 1945 as a way to honor allies who had helped the war effort, and most initial recipients were not American citizens, said Jim Salmon, who tracks the medal's history for a Web site. In 1963, President John Kennedy, by executive order, restricted the award so that it could be given only by the president. Since that time, presidents have used the medal to honor a wide variety of individuals in sports, arts, letters, charity and social justice.

Yesterday's medals, said Salmon, "are a unique situation. This is not the norm, for there to be three people in the same genre, with the same basic events," honored so quickly after their service or after pointed questioning by congressional leaders, as all three men were in the past two years.

Reporters peppered White House press secretary Scott McClellan yesterday in two sessions over the timing of the medals and whether the ceremony indicated that the president had forgiven Tenet, who resigned in June after seven years leading the agency, for intelligence failures dealing with 9/11 and Iraq.

"They have made many incredibly positive contributions to our nation," McClellan said. The recipients "have worked to liberate some 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq from oppression and tyranny. And they have worked to help transform a very dangerous region in the world that has been a breeding ground for terrorism, a breeding ground from where people hijack planes and flew them into buildings."

Paul Rieckhoff, a former Army lieutenant who served in Iraq and now runs an organization of veterans against the war, said the awards are "a slap in the face to the troops" from "an administration that loves the big PR move. . . . It validates how out of touch Washington is with the reality of what is on the ground in Iraq."

And Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon, who monitors Iraq, suggested that if the president wanted to honor service in Iraq, he could have selected other people to honor. "I wouldn't expect him to show any wavering" over the decision to go to war, O'Hanlon said of the president, "but I'm troubled by the use of this award in a different way. He could have called attention to the bravery in Iraq, without having to make it about the most controversial figures in the whole operation."

In Iraq yesterday, U.S. military officials announced combat deaths of two Marines, bringing the toll to 10 Marines in three days. A suicide bomber blew up seven people and wounded at least 13 at a Green Zone checkpoint in Baghdad. Military brass announced that the U.S. military would have a record high of 150,000 troops on the ground in the nation through the Jan. 30 election and "a little bit after." In Mosul, gunmen killed a provincial council member, and soldiers discovered eight more bodies of Iraqis, bringing to more than 150 the number of likely victims of insurgents targeting Iraqi police and security forces in that city in the past six weeks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63623-2004Dec14?language=printer


So now you move from W lied to Tenet lied. Sweet.

[Bman]

The "blister agent" was sulfuric acid... which every damn one of you carries around in his car battery!!! No need to get it from Syria (via Saddam)... just go get it at Walmart

Bman





Jordan says major al Qaeda plot disrupted
Authorities: Chemical cloud would have been released in Amman
April 26, 2004

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- Jordanian authorities said Monday they have broken up an alleged al Qaeda plot that would have unleashed a deadly cloud of chemicals in the heart of Jordan's capital, Amman.

The plot would have been more deadly than anything al Qaeda has done before, including the September 11 attacks, according to the Jordanian government.

Among the alleged targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence.

U.S. intelligence officials expressed caution about whether the chemicals captured by Jordanian authorities were intended to create a "toxic cloud" chemical weapon, but they said the large quantities involved were at a minimum intended to create "massive explosions."

Officials said there is debate within the CIA and other U.S. agencies over whether the plotters were planning to kill innocent people using toxic chemicals.

At issue is the presence of a large quantity of sulfuric acid among the tons of chemicals seized by Jordanian authorities. Sulfuric acid can be used as a blister agent, but it more commonly can increase the size of conventional explosions, according to U.S. officials.

Nevertheless, U.S. intelligence officials called the capture of tons of chemicals that together could create several large conventional explosions "a big deal."

The plot was within days of being carried out, Jordanian officials said, when security forces broke it up April 20.

In a nighttime raid in Amman, Jordanian security forces moved in on the terrorist cell. After the shooting stopped, four men were dead. Jordanian authorities said. They said at least three others were arrested, including Azmi Jayyousi, the cell's suspected ringleader, whom Jordanian intelligence alleges was responsible for planning and recruiting.

On a confession shown on state-run Jordanian television, Jayyousi said he took orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a suspected terrorist leader who has been linked to al Qaeda and whom U.S. officials have said is behind some attacks in Iraq.

"I took explosives courses, poisons high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning," Jayyousi said.

Jordanian intelligence suspects Jayyousi returned from Iraq in January after a meeting with al-Zarqawi in which they allegedly plotted to hit the three targets in Amman.

In a series of raids, the Jordanians said, they seized 20 tons of chemicals and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades.

The first alleged target was the Jordanian intelligence headquarters. The alleged blast was intended to be a big one.

"According to my experience as an explosives expert, the whole of the Intelligence Department will be destroyed, and nothing of it will remain, nor anything surrounding it," Jayyousi said.

Details of the alleged plot were shown Monday on Jordanian television, including graphics of how the cell apparently intended to carry out the attack.

In an videotape shown on Jordanian TV, Hussein Sharif said Jayyousi recruited him as a suicide bomber.

"The aim, Azmi told me, was to execute an operation to strike Jordan and the Hashemite Royal family, a war against the crusaders and infidels," Sharif said. "Azmi told me that this will be the first chemical attack that al Qaeda will execute."

Jordanian authorities said the attack would have mixed a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, which they said has never been done before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents.

A Jordanian government scientist said the plot had been carefully worked out, with just the right amount of explosives to spread the deadly cloud without diminishing the effects of the chemicals. The blast would not burn up the poisonous chemicals but instead produce a toxic cloud, the scientist said, possibly spreading for a mile, maybe more.

The Jordanian intelligence buildings are within a mile of a large medical center, a shopping mall and a residential area.

"And there is no one combination of antidote to treat nerve agent, choking agent and blistering agent," the scientist said.

Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, has been accused of plotting chemical attacks before, and authorities said it would not be his first attempt to strike Jordan.

In 2000, a Jordanian court charged him in absentia with planning to blow up a hotel and attack tourist destinations.

U.S. officials have said he was behind the 2002 assassination of American diplomat Lawrence Foley, who was gunned down outside his home in Amman.

According to the televised confessions, $170,000 came from Zarqawi via messengers from Syria.

In last week's raid, Jordanian forces seized cash, bomb-making equipment and weapons, investigators said.

CNN was not allowed access to any of those arrested. But the videotaped confessions offer a rare glimpse inside an alleged terrorist operation.

The Jordanian government said the videotapes were made with the full cooperation of the suspects and their attorneys.

CNN's John Vause, Henry Schuster and David Ensor contributed to this report.








Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/26/jordan.terror

[Bman]

So now you move from W lied to Tenet lied. Sweet.




Dude... W REWARDED Tenet for providing the false information

What part don't you get????

Bman

[Alli]

Dude... W REWARDED Tenet for providing the false information

What part don't you get????

BmanYea, that's why he resigned for 'personal reasons' *scoff*

[Spectre]

So now you move from W lied to Tenet lied. Sweet.

Umm, I think the point is that SOMEBODY fucked up, yet everyone got rewarded.

[Bman]

Yea, that's why he resigned for 'personal reasons' *scoff*


Well, had the President not rewarded him, I wouldn't have believed that he resigned for personal reasons..

but its obvious Bush didn't FIRE HIM.. then turn around and GIVE HIM THE HIGHEST civilian award possible?????



Doesn't make sense.. unless maybe they cut a deal... "hey dude.. you take the fall, it'll help me in the election polls and I'll give you the Medal of Freedom..."


Bman

[Alli]

Doesn't make sense.. unless maybe they cut a deal... "hey dude.. you take the fall, it'll help me in the election polls and I'll give you the Medal of Freedom..."


Bman OMG, how did Tenet help in the polls? That's a good one. :add09:

[Bman]

Umm, I think the point is that SOMEBODY fucked up, yet everyone got rewarded.


OF COURSE!!!!!

Because it wasn't a FUCK UP.. they planned it that way

Everyone got "rewarded" for doing what Bush asked them to do


Bman

[Bman]

OMG, how did Tenet help in the polls? That's a good one. :add09:


In my opinion it helped Bush because it took the focus off the CIA... Everyone said, "well.. Tenet is gone now.. it was his fault"

Look at what Fat Tone posted in this thread.. he still believe Tenet was "punished" somehow... so did alot of other Americans..

Bman

[Spectre]

OMG, how did Tenet help in the polls? That's a good one. :add09:

Alli, come on, that's pretty obvious. The word scapegoat comes to mind.

[Simon666]

Jordanian authorities said the attack would have mixed a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, which they said has never been done before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents.
That's really trustworthy, Arab government officials reporting on plots against them. I'd rather trust Joseph Stalin claiming all those purged were traitors.

[Alli]

In my opinion it helped Bush because it took the focus off the CIA... Everyone said, "well.. Tenet is gone now.. it was his fault"

Look at what Fat Tone posted in this thread.. he still believe Tenet was "punished" somehow... so did alot of other Americans..

Bman
Fine, Fat Tone can think what he wants. I don't think all the bad intel was Tenet's fault either, but he was the head of the org too.

[Bman]

Fine, Fat Tone can think what he wants. I don't think all the bad intel was Tenet's fault either, but he was the head of the org too.


So who's fault was it?

Bman

[Spectre]

In my opinion it helped Bush because it took the focus off the CIA... Everyone said, "well.. Tenet is gone now.. it was his fault"

Look at what Fat Tone posted in this thread.. he still believe Tenet was "punished" somehow... so did alot of other Americans..

Bman

It's kind of funny, here in our MIS department, our director recently left in pursuit of another job. Well we found a replacement for him and the first thing he (sort of) jokingly said when he came in was "well, for the next 6 weeks, everything is Mike's (the old director) fault."

[Bman]

That's really trustworthy, Arab government officials reporting on plots against them. I'd rather trust Joseph Stalin claiming all those purged were traitors.


I posted the article from CNN that basically stated outright that the US wasn't buying the whole "toxic cloud" theory.. and THAT is why they didn't make a big deal of it to the US media...

Ono knows that.. i showed her that same article at least 5 times in the past year, yet she still tries to spin it that chemical weapons somehow came from Syria...

But even if they DID, so what?? Syria has its own chemical weapons programs.. why on earth would they need SADDAM'S?????

Bman

[Ono]

Anonymous U.S. officials have been quoted playing down the WMD wrinkle, suggesting the chemicals may have been meant to merely amplify a conventional explosion. But then much of our "intelligence" bureaucracy is still wedded to the discredited notion that secular tyrants and fundamentalist terrorists don't cooperate (see Hezbollah). They may also be defensive about their earlier, dismissive assessments of Zarqawi's significance.

Plotter Hussein Sharif Hussein was shown on Jordanian television saying the aim was "carrying out the first suicide attack to be launched by al Qaeda using chemicals." A Jordanian scientist described a toxic cloud that could have spread for a mile or more. So was it really a foiled WMD attack? Here's hoping someone is trying to get to the bottom of this.

The provenance of the operation is also of note. The bomb trucks and funds are said to have entered Jordan via Syria. Last fall General James R. Clapper Jr., director of satellite intelligence for the Pentagon, said there had been an unusual amount of traffic--including possibly WMDs--between Iraq and Syria in the lead-up to war.

The terror cell's ringleader, Jordanian Azmi Jayyousi, said he was acting on the orders of Zarqawi, whom he first met at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan: "I took courses, poisons high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." Mr. Jayyousi said this attack had been plotted from Zarqawi's new base of operations in Iraq. A Jordanian court sentenced Zarqawi to death this month for plotting the 2002 murder of U.S diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005016

[Bman]

The terror cell's ringleader, Jordanian Azmi Jayyousi, said he was acting on the orders of Zarqawi[/B], whom he first met at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan: "I took courses, poisons high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." Mr. Jayyousi said this attack had been plotted from Zarqawi's new base of operations in Iraq. A Jordanian court sentenced Zarqawi to death this month for plotting the 2002 murder of U.S diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005016



Well if you're going to quote terrorists, why not quote Zarqawi himself??


http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040430-103554-6701r.htm


Tape takes credit for failed attack


By Maggie Michael
ASSOCIATED PRESS


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A tape purportedly made by al Qaeda operative Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi acknowledged his group was behind a failed plot to destroy Jordan's secret service headquarters and warned the U.S.-allied government it faced "terrifying events."

But the speaker on the seven-minute audiotape aired yesterday denied having a chemical weapon, as Jordanian officials asserted. Jordanian state television has broadcast confessions by militants reputedly linked to al-Zarqawi in which they say the group was plotting al Qaeda's first chemical bomb attack.
(none)
The speaker on the tape, who introduced himself as Musab al-Zarqawi, called the accusation of a chemical bomb attack "a mere lie."
"God knows, if we did possess it, we wouldn't hesitate one second to use it to hit Israeli cities, such as Eilat and Tel Aviv," the speaker said.

The tape was broadcast on an Internet site known as a clearinghouse for statements by al Qaeda and other extremist groups. Excerpts also were broadcast by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel.

Earlier this week, a purported al-Zarqawi statement appeared on the same Web site taking responsibility for an April 24 suicide boat attack on Iraq's oil terminal in the Persian Gulf that killed three American service members..

The speaker on yesterday's tape said the Jordanian General Intelligence building was targeted for attack because "Jordan has turned itself into a hidden base of supplies for the occupying army in Iraq."

The building also housed a "big database used by the enemy of Islam to track down holy warriors," the voice said. The speaker called the structure the "Arabs' Guantanamo," referring to the prison for terrorist suspects at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

The voice on yesterday's tape could not immediately be authenticated as that of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian wanted by the United States for organizing terrorists to fight U.S. troops in Iraq on behalf of al Qaeda.

The United States has offered a $10 million reward for al-Zarqawi's capture. He is believed to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden's and is known as an expert in poisons.

Al-Zarqawi also is blamed for orchestrating the 2002 assassination of U.S. aid worker Laurence Foley, 60, outside his Amman home. Al-Zarqawi was sentenced to death in absentia by a Jordanian military court.

Security forces smashed the terror cell plotting attacks against targets inside Jordan by arresting six militants in at least two raids over the past month, Jordanian officials said.

Four other suspected militants died last week in a shootout with police in Amman.

The militants reportedly planned to strike other buildings in Amman, such as the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister's office, officials said.
Al-Zarqawi said the four men shown on Jordanian television had been tortured into confessing.

[Ono]

OK Bman......we'll go with your assessment that there is NO POSSIBILITY of WMD being moved, or harbored, or attempted to be used.

[Bman]

OK Bman......we'll go with your assessment that there is NO POSSIBILITY of WMD being moved, or harbored, or attempted to be used.


No.. there is always a POSSIBILITY..

Just NO EVIDENCE

I never said there was NO POSSIBILITY.. because no one can prove a negative..

Bman

[Ono]

Well.....that's the last thing I said in post #30. I list the possibilities mingled with some oddly coincidental facts.

[ProudAmerican]

Yes. I base that on the very low possibility that they had any to move in the first place.



Man how can you say there was a very low possibility that there was any weapons to move?
Lets go back a few years. Now, say your a tyrannical madman with leftover WMD that the world wants you to get rid of. For years and years you give inspectors the runaround and finally you get rid of the inspectors. Four or so years goes by and you've been unmonitored and probably did pretty much what you want. Now in those 4 or 5 years are you going to:

A. Finish getting rid of those nasty WMD's that everyones been after you to get rid of. OR
B. Restart your weapon programs and hide what WMD's you got.

I know this might be oversimplifying things abit but that's the short version.

[Bman]

Man how can you say there was a very low possibility that there was any weapons to move?
Lets go back a few years. Now, say your a tyrannical madman with leftover WMD that the world wants you to get rid of. For years and years you give inspectors the runaround and finally you get rid of the inspectors. Four or so years goes by and you've been unmonitored and probably did pretty much what you want. Now in those 4 or 5 years are you going to:

A. Finish getting rid of those nasty WMD's that everyones been after you to get rid of. OR
B. Restart your weapon programs and hide what WMD's you got.

I know this might be oversimplifying things abit but that's the short version.



Yet , even the BUSH APPOINTED inspectors who went there to assess the issue found that it was LIKELY SADDAM GOT RID OF ALL OF HIS WEAPONS before 1992

How can you folks say that he HAD THEM when every person who has looked into it has concluded that there WERE NONE?

Bman

[Fat Tone]

OF COURSE!!!!!

Because it wasn't a FUCK UP.. they planned it that way

Everyone got "rewarded" for doing what Bush asked them to do


Bman


Are you calling that stupid fucking medal around Tenet's neck a reward ?? And when did I say Tenet was ever punished ??

[Bman]

Well.....that's the last thing I said in post #30. I list the possibilities mingled with some oddly coincidental facts.


you want odd coincidental facts??

How but the odd coincidence that Bush's father was meeting with Osama's brother on 9/11/01?

How about the odd coincidence that the head of Paki intelligence (who later was linked to financially supporting Mohammad Atta) was meeting with Porter Goss on the morning of 9/11/01??

How about the odd coincidence that both the Bush family and the Bin Laden family (along with the government in Pakistan) have PROFITED ENORMOUSLY from 9/11?

how about the coincidence that the Terrorists were able to live in FLORIDA, where President Bush's BROTHER JEB is the governor, for about 2 years while they took flying lessons.. without EVER RAISING AN EYEBROW from the government.


Odd coincidences are a strange thing.. you never know where they might lead

Bman

[Bman]

Are you calling that stupid fucking medal around Tenet's neck a reward ?? And when did I say Tenet was ever punished ??



Well, maybe you could explain this exchange:


No.. they KNEW they would not be held accountable and NONE of them have been

Bman





I guess that is why Tenet is still head of the CIA ?

Fat Tone



you seem to be implying that Tenet was "held accountable" (ie punished)


BTW, that "stupid fucking medal" happens to be the civilian equivalent of the Medal of Honor... Oh well...

http://www.medaloffreedom.com/

[Leonidas]

you want odd coincidental facts??

How but the odd coincidence that Bush's father was meeting with Osama's brother on 9/11/01?

How about the odd coincidence that the head of Paki intelligence (who later was linked to financially supporting Mohammad Atta) was meeting with Porter Goss on the morning of 9/11/01??

How about the odd coincidence that both the Bush family and the Bin Laden family (along with the government in Pakistan) have PROFITED ENORMOUSLY from 9/11?


Odd coincidences are a strange thing.. you never know where they might lead

Bman

Hey bman, if you had to give a percentage for the chances that high levels of the American government were in someway involved with 9-11. What would you say. 10%, 25%, 50%?

-- Just curios.

[Fat Tone]

Well, maybe you could explain this exchange:








you seem to be implying that Tenet was "held accountable" (ie punished)


BTW, that "stupid fucking medal" happens to be the civilian equivalent of the Medal of Honor... Oh well...

http://www.medaloffreedom.com/


I know what the medal is.....is that your idea of a reward ?? It is stupid because Tenet got one. And, are you saying tenet really did resign because he wanted to sppend more time with his family ?? C'mon Bman.

[Bman]

I know what the medal is.....is that your idea of a reward ?? It is stupid because Tenet got one. And, are you saying tenet really did resign because he wanted to sppend more time with his family ?? C'mon Bman.


Are you saying Tenet and the President lied about why he resigned?

So why did Tenet resign?? Let's hear YOUR theory

It easy to poke holes at everyone else's theory

Bman

[Bman]

Hey bman, if you had to give a percentage for the chances that high levels of the American government were in someway involved with 9-11. What would you say. 10%, 25%, 50%?

-- Just curios.



I would say from what I have read, there was a greater than 75% chance that SOMEONE in the US government at some level was working closely with someone in Paki intelligence to support Al Qaeda activities

That's why the 9/11 investigation has never focused on Pakistan.. That's why they won't put Padilla on trial.. That's why Musharaff is untouchable.. that's why the US did nothing about Khan's WMD proliferation.. That's why Osama is still walking free.

Bman

[Fat Tone]

Are you saying Tenet and the President lied about why he resigned?

So why did Tenet resign?? Let's hear YOUR theory

It easy to poke holes at everyone else's theory

Bman


Of course I'm saying that. Is that kind of thing new to you ?? Saving face in politics ?? it was because it was made to look like he was not sacked.....and the medal...for his superb ability in maintaining the CIA as the pinnacle of great intelligence gathering. LMFAO.

[Leonidas]

I would say from what I have read, there was a greater than 75% chance that SOMEONE in the US government at some level was working closely with someone in Paki intelligence to support Al Qaeda activities

That's why the 9/11 investigation has never focused on Pakistan.. That's why they won't put Padilla on trial.. That's why Musharaff is untouchable.. that's why the US did nothing about Khan's WMD proliferation.. That's why Osama is still walking free.

Bman

Any idea on who? Any motive?

[Bman]

Any idea on who? Any motive?


No.. I don't know who.. If I did, I'd probably be dead.


The motive would be finacial, as the Bible tells us, "The love of money is the root of all evil"

Alot of people have become FILTHY FILTHY rich from 9/11 and its aftermath.. Almost no one has benefitted more than Musharaff and Bush, though

Bman

[Ono]

I would say from what I have read, there was a greater than 75% chance that SOMEONE in the US government at some level was working closely with someone in Paki intelligence to support Al Qaeda activities

Bman

That makes a nice segway into this thread:

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1289

[Leonidas]

No.. I don't know who.. If I did, I'd probably be dead.


The motive would be finacial, as the Bible tells us, "The love of money is the root of all evil"

Alot of people have become FILTHY FILTHY rich from 9/11 and its aftermath.. Almost no one has benefitted more than Musharaff and Bush, though

Bman

You're saying Bush personally profited from 9-11? How so?

[pilobolus]

You're saying Bush personally profited from 9-11? How so?

Americans have never voted a wartime president out of office, would be one way to prfit...not that I am conspiratorially minded, mind you.

[Bman]

You're saying Bush personally profited from 9-11? How so?



Yes, Bush's family and closest advisers (including James Baker) profited from the investments in the Carlyle Group.. which we all know is a big military contractor, etc, etc, etc... I'm sure you know all about that...

For Bush and Musharaff, however, the biggest benefit may not have been "financial" in a direct sense, but instead the events of 9/11 allowed both to INCREASE their exerciseable power over their people and allowed both to keep their positions of power.

Musharaff is a military dictator who seized power from a democratically elected government in a coup... Pakistan was supposed to have new elections back in 2002.. 9/11 allowed Musharaff to put that off indefinitely, with no recourse from the western world.

For Bush, it seems likely his reelection was made possible by the war in Iraq... Exit polls (for what they are worth) showed continuity of leadership "during a time of war" was high on the list of things that were important to those that voted for Bush

Bman

[Bman]

one more "odd coincidence" to add to the list

how about the coincidence that the hijackers (including Mohammad Atta, who received the $100,000 from the head of Paki intelligenc) were able to live in FLORIDA, where President Bush's BROTHER JEB is the governor, for about 2 years while they took flying lessons.. without EVER RAISING AN EYEBROW from the government.


Bman

[Fat Tone]

Yes, Bush's family and closest advisers (including James Baker) profited from the investments in the Carlyle Group.. which we all know is a big military contractor, etc, etc, etc... I'm sure you know all about that...

For Bush and Musharaff, however, the biggest benefit may not have been "financial" in a direct sense, but instead the events of 9/11 allowed both to INCREASE their exerciseable power over their people and allowed both to keep their positions of power.

Musharaff is a military dictator who seized power from a democratically elected government in a coup... Pakistan was supposed to have new elections back in 2002.. 9/11 allowed Musharaff to put that off indefinitely, with no recourse from the western world.

For Bush, it seems likely his reelection was made possible by the war in Iraq... Exit polls (for what they are worth) showed continuity of leadership "during a time of war" was high on the list of things that were important to those that voted for Bush

Bman


Correct me if I'm wrong...but didn't Bush quash a huge bid that the Carlyle group was going after ?? Can't remember the name of the program, but it is gone.....so, how did Bush directly profit from 9/11 through the Carlyle group....and hook a brutha up with links to such.

[Bman]

Correct me if I'm wrong...but didn't Bush quash a huge bid that the Carlyle group was going after ?? Can't remember the name of the program, but it is gone......


Not that I recall.. Can you give me a link?

Bman

[Bman]

so, how did Bush directly profit from 9/11 through the Carlyle group....and hook a brutha up with links to such.

It may not have been "directly"

That said, the links for how Bush is linked to the Carlyle Group are infinite.. here are a few..




http://www.bushwatch.net/bushmoney.htm

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20041101&s=klein

http://www.hereinreality.com/carlyle.html

[Fat Tone]

Not that I recall.. Can you give me a link?

Bman

working on it now.

[Fat Tone]

This is one thing I could dig up.


24) Bush Senior received $1.18 billion from the Saudis through the Carlyle Group.



This amount is from training Saudi military forces. And Bush’s father didn’t seem a dime of those contracts. He didn’t join the Carlyle Group until April 1998, nearly six months after Carlyle sold the defense contractor used in the deal to another firm. As for Dubya, his “connection” is also a fraud. He left the Carlyle Group when he ran for governor of Texas, months before the Saudi contracts were made.

Newsweek also makes a good point about a fact that Michael Moore leaves out: Other members of the Carlyle Group include high-level Clinton staff members.

Despite the emphasis on this “connection”, Moore gives no evidence that Bush acted on behalf of the Carlyle Group. In fact, the Carlyle Group even lost money under the Bush Administration when he cancelled an $11 billion program for an advanced artillery
http://www.worldthreats.com/Michael%20Moore/Responding%20to%20Moore%20Part%20Two.htm

[Bman]

Despite the emphasis on this “connection”, Moore gives no evidence that Bush acted on behalf of the Carlyle Group. In fact, the Carlyle Group even lost money under the Bush Administration when he cancelled an $11 billion program for an advanced artillery http://www.worldthreats.com/Michael%20Moore/Responding%20to%20Moore%20Part%20Two.htm


Oh, you must mean the CRUSADER ARTILLERY


From taxpayer.net, a nonpartisan taxpayer watchdog group


Bailout Watch


CRUSADER: The weapon that can't be killed
June 7, 2002

While the economy has been sliding since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the defense industry has been strong with war in Afghanistan and prospects of war in Iraq, the Philippines, and elsewhere around the world. The Carlyle Group, an equity firm with a major holding in United Defense Industries, has been a core beneficiary of the post-Sept. 11 defense boom and it may have a project that was all but dead thanks to its impressive payroll.

The Carlyle Group counts numerous former government officials on its payroll including former President Bush, former British Prime Minister John Major, former Secretary of State and President Bush point man in Florida, James Baker, and former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt. The chairman of the firm, Frank Carlucci, was Secretary of Defense under President Reagan and was on the wrestling team at Princeton University with current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

One of the biggest projects that United Defense Industries (UDI) is counting on is the Crusader Artillery System. The system is a self-propelled 155mm howitzer with a resupply vehicle and was intended to be the fastest firing and most accurate field artillery piece ever, but has run into serious problems concerning its weight that seemed certain to lead to its demise. UDI also built the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the two programs combined for 41 percent of UDI's sales in 2001.

When the Crusader was first designed it was too heavy for transport by Army aircraft and there was talk in Congress about canceling the project as the military moved toward the faster, lighter force of the future. There was even talk about the project being canceled by the Pentagon during Secretary Rumsfeld's full scale military review last year. President Bush even supported canceling the project during his presidential campaign. However, UDI redesigned the Crusader with reduced weight and the project survived, in fact prospered, in the post-Sept. 11 world.

On Sept. 26 UDI signed a $665 million contract with the Army through April 2003 to complete the development phase of the Crusader. In the fiscal year 2002 defense appropriations bill that passed Congress Dec. 13 and the president signed in January, the Crusader received more than $487 million.

Now Carlyle and the Crusader face their toughest challenge. Recently, Secretary Rumsfeld announced that the program would be canceled. In a show of how difficult it can be to kill a defense project, the full House approved the $475 million proposed by the president for the Crusader for FY2003. The Senate Armed Services Committee also left the Crusader money in their authorization bill saying it would wait to hear from Secretary Rumsfeld before making a final decision.

Some defense analysts feel that even though the Crusader does not fit into plans for transforming the military, it placates some Pentagon officials who are resistant to change. Even if the project is canceled, UDI has already received $2 billion from the program and would receive more to shut it down.
The Carlyle Group certainly has more than enough connections to the right officials to keep the Crusader from being terminated. But their spokesman, Chris Ullman, denied that the company's managers, directors, or advisors ever personally lobbied for the Crusader or other government contracts now in the hands of United Defense and other Carlyle subsidiaries and investments. However, records show that from 1998 through 2001 UDI allocated more than $1 million a year for lobbying on the Crusader and its other bread and butter project, an upgrade for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

UDI was desperately defending the Crusader program because it has recently lost out to General Dynamics Corp. on a $4 billion contract for an armored-vehicle. The company went so far as to file a protest with the General Accounting Office.

The Carlyle Group often buys a share of companies and sells them within five years. The group purchased United Defense LP in October 1997 for $850 million. Carlyle has been able to turn around sagging businesses and UDI was no exception. The year after Carlyle purchased it, UDI lost $122 million, but last year it reported an $18.8 million net profit. The Crusader was critical to the turnaround.

In late October Carlyle Group filed an initial public offering (IPO) for UDI. The IPO conveniently took place one day after Congress approved the defense appropriations bill and raised $237 million. Carlyle officials said they were looking for an exit strategy from ownership of UDI and some analysts said that the IPO was part of that strategy. In its Securities and Exchange Commission filing, UDI said 16 percent of its revenue in 2000 was from the Crusader.

Carlyle officials admitted that they decided on the IPO only after the terrorist attacks. In its stock-offering prospectus, United Defense said, "The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have generated strong Congressional support for increased defense spending. We believe that domestic and international defense spending will grow over the next several years as a result of an increased focus on national security by the U.S. government and its allies" (Los Angeles Times 01/10/02).

About the same time as Carlyle purchased UDI, the United Defense LP Employees Political Action Committee was established and has since contributed more than $300,000 to a few dozen members. In the 2000 elections the UDI Political Action Committee (PAC) made contributions to at least 50 members of Congress, including 15 on the House Appropriations Committee and 26 on the House Armed Services Committee.

Among the beneficiaries of United Defense political contributions: Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla.), whose district has a Crusader assembly plant, $7,000; Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa), whose district also has a plant, $10,000; and Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), a member of the appropriations committee and an early proponent of the Crusader, $4,500. The United PAC increased their contributions from $49,500 in 1998 to $180,000 in the 2000 election cycle.

http://www.taxpayer.net/bailoutwatch/crusader.htm

[Bman]

For those who ask, "What motive would someone have for allowing the WTC attacks to occur???"

This pretty much BY ITSELF provides an answer


Carlyle officials admitted that they decided on the IPO only after the terrorist attacks. In its stock-offering prospectus, United Defense said, "The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have generated strong Congressional support for increased defense spending. We believe that domestic and international defense spending will grow over the next several years as a result of an increased focus on national security by the U.S. government and its allies" (Los Angeles Times 01/10/02).


anyone know how many hundreds of millions of dollars change hands in an IPO????

and that is just ONE SMALL PART of Carlyle's holding

Bman

[Fat Tone]

For those who ask, "What motive would someone have for allowing the WTC attacks to occur???"

This pretty much BY ITSELF provides an answer


Carlyle officials admitted that they decided on the IPO only after the terrorist attacks. In its stock-offering prospectus, United Defense said, "The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have generated strong Congressional support for increased defense spending. We believe that domestic and international defense spending will grow over the next several years as a result of an increased focus on national security by the U.S. government and its allies" (Los Angeles Times 01/10/02).


anyone know how many hundreds of millions of dollars change hands in an IPO????

and that is just ONE SMALL PART of Carlyle's holding

Bman


What companies profited after Pearl Harbor Bman ?? Is this not a strident normal and expected consequence/ expense....when a nation goes to war ??

[Bman]

What companies profited after Pearl Harbor Bman ?? Is this not a strident normal and expected consequence/ expense....when a nation goes to war ??


EXACTLY...

which is why our leaders are so eager to get us into WARS.. Don't you understand that?

Bman

[Fat Tone]

EXACTLY...

which is why our leaders are so eager to get us into WARS.. Don't you understand that?

Bman



It's ALL about the Benjamins in your opinion ?? Correct ?? So, you are saying all of our leaders...not just Bush....you consider this to be a non partisan travesty....right ?

[Bman]

It's ALL about the Benjamins in your opinion ?? Correct ?? So, you are saying all of our leaders...not just Bush....you consider this to be a non partisan travesty....right ?


LOL... OF COURSE.. I've BEEN SCREAMING FOR YEARS that there IS NO DIFFERENCE between Clinton and Bush... Bush and Kerry... its all the same cabal!!!!! Look at their policies and WHO ACTUALLY WINS and who loses??

Its all the same..

Bman

[involved]

A friend sent this to me awhile ago,don't know if the pages are still there,you might find Fattones article. http://linkthing.com/carlyle_group_cluster.html
Not that I recall.. Can you give me a link?

Bman

[Fat Tone]

LOL... OF COURSE.. I've BEEN SCREAMING FOR YEARS that there IS NO DIFFERENCE between Clinton and Bush... Bush and Kerry... its all the same cabal!!!!! Look at their policies and WHO ACTUALLY WINS and who loses??

Its all the same..

Bman



I guess your screams fell on deaf ears with me.

[Bman]

I guess your screams fell on deaf ears with me.


The biggest frustration to me is that those who HATED CLINTON the most.. are the ones that LOVE BUSH the most..

and yet.. they are ONE and the F'ING same

Bman

[Spectre]

The biggest frustration to me is that those who HATED CLINTON the most.. are the ones that LOVE BUSH the most..

and yet.. they are ONE and the F'ING same

Bman

But there's an R next to Bush's name. Didn't you know that that makes all the difference?

[lotimer]

The biggest frustration to me is that those who HATED CLINTON the most.. are the ones that LOVE BUSH the most..

and yet.. they are ONE and the F'ING same

Bman


I do see some similarities. However Clinton was a bit wiser on foreign policy and not as aggressive. Unlike Bush, Clinton's lies didn't get our soldiers killed.

Clinton also seemed like a supporter of health care for the needy, unlike this administration which is for the abolishment of all social services (they won't come out and say that, but really it is what they're for).

[Alli]

Clinton also seemed like a supporter of health care for the needy, unlike this administration which is for the abolishment of all social services (they won't come out and say that, but really it is what they're for).
Based on what, specifically?

[Bman]

A friend sent this to me awhile ago,don't know if the pages are still there,you might find Fattones article. http://linkthing.com/carlyle_group_cluster.html


Yes, that scandal blew up in the face of the Carlyle group.. I wrote about that at the end of last year but no one gave a shit then, and they don't now


Basically, Bush appointed Carlyle Partner James Baker (his lawyer during the Florida election ballot court fight) to go around and "inform" foreign nations that Iraq was not going to pay back debt racked up under Saddam... In addition, Baker was trying to get these nations to "forgive" that debt and "negotiate a deal" (something he failed to do , for the most part)..

At the SAME TIME, the Carlyle Group (remember, Baker is a SENIOR PARTNER) sent a letter to Kuwait ( who held more IRAQI DEBT than anyone due to reparation owed Kuwait after Saddam invaded them) that basically said:

"Dear Kuwait... Under Saddam, Iraq owed you $10s of Billions of dollars... As you know, George Bush ousted Saddam and it is likely you will now get MUCH less from Iraq than you believe you are owed.. In essence, the NEW IRAQ ain't gonna pay you , FOLKS!! HOWEVER.... Mr. Bush has sent his personal emmisary, Mr. James Baker to "negotiate" the debt settlement on behalf of Iraq.... Mr. Baker will be soon paying you a visit.. We advise you to HIRE THE CARLYLE GROUP at a nominal fee of a few BILLION DOLLARS to represent YOU IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH MR. BAKER. We believe you will get a MUCH MORE FAVORABLE settlement if you hire us"

UNBELIEVEABLE!!! can you imagine that.. YET IT HAPPENED.. its a FACT

Bman

[Claire Aiden]

My friends,

There isn't a war without military blunders. There isn't a war without innocent victims. There isn't a war without misteps. Why do we try to impose a standard on modern military actions that have NOT been imposed on past military actions.

Is it because the cause was more clear? Was it because the threat was greater? I confess I have not read the whole thread here because it will not change my thoughts or my opinions. Does that make me rigid? No, it doesn't, it makes me convicted.

When there is a principle for which one is willing to die (and I am) then those bugaboos such as oppression and imminent threat have to take precedence for me. I like living in a land which values the pursuit of happiness. One cannot pursue happiness in an oppressive atmosphere. One cannot pursue happiness in an atmosphere of fear.

Americans are not used to living under the cloud of fear, apprehension, and suspicion. And they shouldn't be. For whatever America's faults, it has always stood for those principles which are basically humanitarian. They have in their own revolution fought for them, and have tried to help others fight for them. America cannot impose its values on others. It can impose its possibilities.

I have been long absent from this site. But some things need to be said.

Much affection,
Claire

[Spectre]

Unlike Bush, Clinton's lies didn't get our soldiers killed.

*Cough* *Cough* Somalia *Cough*

[Fat Tone]

The biggest frustration to me is that those who HATED CLINTON the most.. are the ones that LOVE BUSH the most..

and yet.. they are ONE and the F'ING same

Bman


I voted for Clinton twice.

[Bman]

I voted for Clinton twice.


well in your case, it is no surprise to me, then, that you support Bush

at least you are consistent

Bman

[Alli]

*Cough* *Cough* Somalia *Cough*
Thanks spectre!

[Spectre]

My friends,

There isn't a war without military blunders. There isn't a war without innocent victims. There isn't a war without misteps. Why do we try to impose a standard on modern military actions that have NOT been imposed on past military actions.

Is it because the cause was more clear? Yes Was it because the threat was greater? Yes I confess I have not read the whole thread here because it will not change my thoughts or my opinions. Does that make me rigid? No, it doesn't, it makes me convicted.

When there is a principle for which one is willing to die (and I am) then those bugaboos such as oppression and imminent threat have to take precedence for me. I like living in a land which values the pursuit of happiness. One cannot pursue happiness in an oppressive atmosphere. One cannot pursue happiness in an atmosphere of fear.

Americans are not used to living under the cloud of fear, apprehension, and suspicion. And they shouldn't be. For whatever America's faults, it has always stood for those principles which are basically humanitarian. They have in their own revolution fought for them, and have tried to help others fight for them. America cannot impose its values on others. It can impose its possibilities.

I have been long absent from this site. But some things need to be said.

Much affection,
Claire

What does all the rest of what you said have to do with anything?

[Claire Aiden]

What does all the rest of what you said have to do with anything?

Perhaps nothing, Spectre. Perhaps everything.

I value your opinions.

Claire

[lotimer]

Based on what, specifically?


Well I've been hearing Bush wants to cut funding for medicaid somewhat (not totally, but some) which of course doesn't surprise me in the least bit.

The modern Republican party (Republicans and Democrats seem to change over the decades, so I'm referring to post-WW2 GOP) has a history of being against social services that assist the poor. They balk at it saying things like "Why should we help lazy bums?!" and "This is an ownership society! Everyone for themselves!" and other cold things. They are strongly for corporate subsidies and giving handouts to rich corporations but VEHEMENTLY opposed to any form of assistance to the needy.

It's why our health care system is so fucked up, and will get atleast twice as fucked up over Bush's second term. Republicans do not care because alot of republican politicians have white-picket-fence lives and don't have to worry about money. They don't care about the people that must work atleast 2 full-time jobs to pay medical bills AND the rent.

Let's not forget the fact that Bush also wants to privatize social security, only to fatten the pocketbooks of rich wall street sleuths.

[Spectre]

Perhaps nothing, Spectre. Perhaps everything.

I value your opinions.

Claire

I value everyone's opinions to some degree. I just don't think it's fair to hear you go on about this principle that you're willing to die for and somehow equating that to the war in Iraq when there was no need for you or anyone else to die in the first place, yet 1500 souls so far have. That's the point. I'm all for fighting and dying for my country. I was about a month away from signing up for military service after 9/11 when I met my current fiance and decided I wanted to be with her instead. But if I'm going to fight and die for my country there better be good goddamned reason for it and, so far, that reason hasn't been shown to me regarding this war.

[Claire Aiden]

And if you are going to quote me, please do not enhance it with your "yes's". :D

Claire

[Spectre]

And if you are going to quote me, please do not enhance it with your "yes's". :D

Claire

LOL, sorry, didn't know how else to respond there. Should have broken the quote up.

[Alli]

Well I've been hearing Bush wants to cut funding for medicaid somewhat (not totally, but some) which of course doesn't surprise me in the least bit.

The modern Republican party (Republicans and Democrats seem to change over the decades, so I'm referring to post-WW2 GOP) has a history of being against social services that assist the poor. They balk at it saying things like "Why should we help lazy bums?!" and "This is an ownership society! Everyone for themselves!" and other cold things. They are strongly for corporate subsidies and giving handouts to rich corporations but VEHEMENTLY opposed to any form of assistance to the needy.

It's why our health care system is so fucked up, and will get atleast twice as fucked up over Bush's second term. Republicans do not care because alot of republican politicianshave white-picket-fence lives and don't have to worry about money. They don't care about the people that must work atleast 2 full-time jobs to pay medical bills AND the rent.

Let's not forget the fact that Bush also wants to privatize social security, only to fatten the pocketbooks of rich wall street sleuths.
#1 he doesn't want to privatize social security. That contribution would be voluntary.
#2. Unfortunately people have been working 2 jobs for a decent life way before 2000.
#3. Please cite specific examples on how the admin wants to demolish social services.

[Fat Tone]

Well I've been hearing Bush wants to cut funding for medicaid somewhat (not totally, but some) which of course doesn't surprise me in the least bit.

The modern Republican party (Republicans and Democrats seem to change over the decades, so I'm referring to post-WW2 GOP) has a history of being against social services that assist the poor. They balk at it saying things like "Why should we help lazy bums?!" and "This is an ownership society! Everyone for themselves!" and other cold things. They are strongly for corporate subsidies and giving handouts to rich corporations but VEHEMENTLY opposed to any form of assistance to the needy.

It's why our health care system is so fucked up, and will get atleast twice as fucked up over Bush's second term. Republicans do not care because alot of republican politicianshave white-picket-fence lives and don't have to worry about money. They don't care about the people that must work atleast 2 full-time jobs to pay medical bills AND the rent.

Let's not forget the fact that Bush also wants to privatize social security, only to fatten the pocketbooks of rich wall street sleuths.


have you ever wondered why we never see ads on TV for Health insurance ?? Only Car insurance ? ( aside fromAFLAC of course )

[lotimer]

have you ever wondered why we never see ads on TV for Health insurance ?? Only Car insurance ? ( aside fromAFLAC of course )


I recall seeing an ad from humana or whatever it's called now.

[Claire Aiden]

I value everyone's opinions to some degree. I just don't think it's fair to hear you go on about this principle that you're willing to die for and somehow equating that to the war in Iraq when there was no need for you or anyone else to die in the first place, yet 1500 souls so far have. That's the point. I'm all for fighting and dying for my country. I was about a month away from signing up for military service after 9/11 when I met my current fiance and decided I wanted to be with her instead. But if I'm going to fight and die for my country there better be good goddamned reason for it and, so far, that reason hasn't been shown to me regarding this war.

But you didn't. I would have. A difference of philosophy, of opinion. Whatever. I know people have a hard time digesting this whole thing. They shouldn't, but apparently they do. I respect that. I can't steer you back to many months of previous posts, but don't judge me too quickly, there are those here who will tell you that I am not only educated, but reasonable and also prudent.....

Claire

[lotimer]

#1 he doesn't want to privatize social security. That contribution would be voluntary.
#2. Unfortunately people have been working 2 jobs for a decent life way before 2000.
#3. Please cite specific examples on how the admin wants to demolish social services.


Medicaid cuts - http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=515693

HUD Cuts- Near bottom of http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=bondsNews&storyID=7559454

[Claire Aiden]

Oh....and if we are going to talk about medicare, medicaid, or other entitlement programs, lets separate it from Iraqi blunders....they are totally unrelated.

OK?

Claire

[Bman]

But you didn't. I would have. A difference of philosophy, of opinion. Whatever. I know people have a hard time digesting this whole thing. They shouldn't, but apparently they do. I respect that. I can't steer you back to many months of previous posts, but don't judge me too quickly, there are those here who will tell you that I am not only educated, but reasonable and also prudent.....

Claire


The bottom line is this:

IF THE WAR WAS WORTH DYING FOR, then there was no need to BASE IT ON FALSE ASSERTIONS (ie, that Saddam had WMD, that he was working with terrorists, etc)

If the war was WORTH DYING FOR, it was worth telling the American people the TRUTH..

That didn't happen.. therefore, the war is a sham.. and I hate to break it to you, but most folks don't want their kids to die for a sham... Whether it be the Jim Jones or the "Hale Bopp" death cults, or the fraudulant war in Iraq

Bman

[Spectre]

But you didn't. I would have. A difference of philosophy, of opinion. Whatever. I know people have a hard time digesting this whole thing. They shouldn't, but apparently they do. I respect that. I can't steer you back to many months of previous posts, but don't judge me too quickly, there are those here who will tell you that I am not only educated, but reasonable and also prudent.....

Claire

I didn't what, join? I only didn't join because I met a woman who changed my mind. After the Iraq however, I became infinitely thankful that I didn't join. I just refuse to be the kind of person that blindly agrees with our government going to war. In fact I think it's dangerous folly for anyone to think that way.

For the record, I'm not judging you at all. Only the post you made. I'm educated as well and for the most part reasonable too and I am far from the type that judges a book by it's cover.

[PakinHeet]

#1 he doesn't want to privatize social security. That contribution would be voluntary.
#2. Unfortunately people have been working 2 jobs for a decent life way before 2000.
#3. Please cite specific examples on how the admin wants to demolish social services.

Hello Alli. Just dropped by to say hi.

[Claire Aiden]

Do you really believe the American people care one way or another about the WMD? The American people (very probably the silent majority) only give a shit that Saddam Hussein was a heinous dictator who massacerd Kurds at will and anyone who disagreed with him. Whatever the published excuse was, I don't care, and neither does most of America. Most of america does not publish on this board. We care that people were massacred for what they think. We care that people were killed because they didn't agree with him. I still believe there are and were wmd which were moved, but even if I am mistaken, does that make Saddam any better???? Shame on anyone who thinks so. A mindset is a funny and unique thing. He had/has one that was a threat to this country and everything we stand for. Whether he had the firepower to back it up, is quite frankly, irrelevant, because if he didn't then, he would eventually.

Regards,
Claire

[Bman]

Do you really believe the American people care one way or another about the WMD? The American people (very probably the silent majority) give a shit that Saddam Hussein was a heinous dictator who massacerd Kurds at will and anyone who disagreed with him. Whatever the published excuse was, I don't care, and neither does most of America. Most of america does not publish on this board. We care that people were massacred for what they think. We care that people were killed because they didn't agree with him. I still believe there are and were wmd which were moved, but even if I am mistaken, does that make Saddam any better???? Shame on anyone who thinks so. A mindset is a funny and unique thing. He had/has one that was a threat to this country and everything we stand for. Whether he had the firepower to back it up, is quite frankly, irrelevant, because if he didn't then, he would eventually.

Regards,
Claire


So you're for war with Cuba and China then, I would assume?

Bman

[Spectre]

Do you really believe the American people care one way or another about the WMD? The American people (very probably the silent majority) give a shit that Saddam Hussein was a heinous dictator who massacerd Kurds at will and anyone who disagreed with him. Whatever the published excuse was, I don't care, and neither does most of America. Most of america does not publish on this board. We care that people were massacred for what they think. We care that people were killed because they didn't agree with him. I still believe there are and were wmd which were moved, but even if I am mistaken, does that make Saddam any better???? Shame on anyone who thinks so. A mindset is a funny and unique thing. He had/has one that was a threat to this country and everything we stand for. Whether he had the firepower to back it up, is quite frankly, irrelevant, because if he didn't then, he would eventually.

Regards,
Claire

So by your logic, it's probably a good idea to invade 100s of countries. Boy, we better start funding the shit out of our military because that's going to take a lot of tomahawks.

[Spectre]

Goddamn it Bman, I'm sick of you thinking like me all the time, lol.

[Claire Aiden]

So by your logic, it's probably a good idea to invade 100s of countries. Boy, we better start funding the shit out of our military because that's going to take a lot of tomahawks.

Good boy! You got it....:) It has taken a lot of tomahawks in the past, and will take more in the future.

Look, I don't think that America shoud impose its fundamentals on other countries. We live in a world of different cultures and different philosophies. But when there is an angry philosophy that would quash others, then yes, that needs addressing. But there is nothing sinister about freedom. There is only something sinister about oppression.....and may those who believe in it go down in flames.

Religions may exist in peace because of differences in philosophy....even governments may exist in harmony because they are willing to co-exist....Fantatics have no place in the world order because they will be the death of it.

Sincerely,
Claire

[Spectre]

Good boy! You got it....:) It has taken a lot of tomahawks in the past, and will take more in the future.

Look, I don't think that America shoud impose its fundamentals on other countries. We live in a world of different cultures and different philosophies. But when there is an angry philosophy that would quash others, then yes, that needs addressing. But there is nothing sinister about freedom. There is only something sinister about oppression.....and may those who believe in it go down in flames.

Religions may exist in peace because of differences in philosophy....even governments may exist in harmony because they are willing to co-exist....Fantatics have no place in the world order because they will be the death of it.

Sincerely,
Claire

What's your definition of opression?

[Claire Aiden]

:) Definition of oppression:

Oppression is the repression of the individual to think without undue force of a government or political machine, to live in an atmosphere of fear, to be unable to use his or her own brain to formulate ideas, goals, or desires based on his or her own natural impulses. To be castrated by some influence other than than internal guide.

Does that do it for ya'?

:D

Claire

[Bman]

Look, I don't think that America shoud impose its fundamentals on other countries. We live in a world of different cultures and different philosophies. But when there is an angry philosophy that would quash others, then yes, that needs addressing.




Look.. I don't know you.. but you DON'T MAKE SENSE and it drives me UP A FREAKIN' WALL


Look what you're saying:

"But when there is an angry philosophy that would quash others, then yes, that needs addressing

Ok... PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME (because I'm stupid)

How was Saddam promoting an ANGRY philosophy?? Did Saddam bomb the living Christ out of Washington DC in some sort of camel version of the "shock and awe"????

Did Saddam "level Houston" to "flush out insurgents", or was that Bush that leveled the city of Fallujah??

you live in a FANTASY world where George Bush IS NOT the commander of a VIOLENT, AGGRESSIVE war machine...

Yet the truth is.. we ATTACKED IRAQ , even though it was NO THREAT to our nation.. ACCEPT it as fact, because it is. As you pointed out in your first post on this thread, ALL WARS RESULT IN THE KILLING OF INNOCENT PEOPLE...

so why did we START ONE WITH IRAQ???

WHY???? WHY WHY WHY???????????????????????????????

Bman

[Spectre]

Look.. I don't know you.. but you DON'T MAKE SENSE and it drives me UP A FREAKIN' WALL


Look what you're saying:

"But when there is an angry philosophy that would quash others, then yes, that needs addressing

Ok... PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME (because I'm stupid)

How was Saddam promoting an ANGRY philosophy?? Did Saddam bomb the living Christ out of Washington DC in some sort of camel version of the "shock and awe"????

Did Saddam "level Houston" to "flush out insurgents", or was that Bush that leveled the city of Fallujah??

you live in a FANTASY world where George Bush IS NOT the commander of a VIOLENT, AGGRESSIVE war machine...

Yet the truth is.. we ATTACKED IRAQ , even though it was NO THREAT to our nation.. ACCEPT it as fact, because it is. As you pointed out in your first post on this thread, ALL WARS RESULT IN THE KILLING OF INNOCENT PEOPLE...

so why did we START ONE WITH IRAQ???

WHY???? WHY WHY WHY???????????????????????????????

Bman

*Ahem* My reason for asking the definition of opression

[Bman]

*Ahem* My reason for asking the definition of opression


This kind of insanity is why I can only take IH in smaller doses these days..

Its like there's a madness out there that makes people think Saddam was behind 9/11 and Saddam was about to invade the US and Saddam has been leveling our cities and making us stop at checkpoints and firing at our vehicles and blowing up our sewers and power plants and bridges and somehow, we're just fighting back against him

Bman

[Spectre]

This kind of insanity is why I can only take IH in smaller doses these days..

Its like there's a madness out there that makes people think Saddam was behind 9/11 and Saddam was about to invade the US and Saddam has been leveling our cities and making us stop at checkpoints and firing at our vehicles and blowing up our sewers and power plants and bridges and somehow, we're just fighting back against him

Bman

No shit man. I'm right with you. I don't even know how it happened either. It's like, one day, people were about civil liberty and thinking for themselves and anti-government, and 9/11/01, everyone unanimously decided to surrender all thinking ability to the current administration.

[Claire Aiden]

BMan....I regret that you cannot understand me, or in the alternative find what I say abhorrent.

We attacked Iraq because it was necessary. Let me explain so you don't go crazy on me.

We need, as people of the world, some choices. If we don't have them, then we are are puppets on a stage. I ask you to consider that. All of my personal predilections for perfection may not be right, but neither is any regime that would oppress that which we are as individuals.

Please don't be moronic. I am not talking about W. Do you think it would be any different if this was Clinton, Reagan, Eishenhower or FDR.There is a PRINCIPLE involved here. You can't see it. And I cant convey it. I will again disappear, but it won't be because I didn't try. Freedom is a thing that is elusive. It is hard to define, and even harder to capture. Freedom doesn't mean American freedom, it means freedom to do what is in your mind to make you happy....

So peace...and out...you obviously don't want debate on it, but the hammer. I hand you the hammer with good will and hope you have good luck with it.

Sincerely,

Claire

[Spectre]

We need, as people of the world, some choices. If we don't have them, then we are are puppets on a stage. I ask you to consider that. All of my personal predilections for perfection may not be right, but neither is any regime that would oppress that which we are as individuals.

That's the entire point though. Iraq chose to be a nation under the control of a dictator. If the people of Iraq (at least the majority) truely wanted out from under his rule, they would have gotten out from under his rule. We didn't like the CHOICE that they made so we decided to opress them by bombing their population into a pulp and installing a Western type of government in its place. I have a problem with playing God and deciding what nations need to change as we see fit and which don't. That is the scariest idea I've heard here yet.

[Claire Aiden]

OK, I am not going to argue with you.

Claire

[Spectre]

OK, I am not going to argue with you.

Claire

Umm, well I call it debate, but whatever. I mean what do you want, for us to just say, oh okay, we agree with you now. The whole point of this place is to discuss varying opinions of topics of current events. I simply don't agree with you at all. If you can't handle people not agreeing with you then it might be better off if you did leave because you might get your feelings hurt.

[Claire Aiden]

Umm, well I call it debate, but whatever. I mean what do you want, for us to just say, oh okay, we agree with you now. The whole point of this place is to discuss varying opinions of topics of current events. I simply don't agree with you at all. If you can't handle people not agreeing with you then it might be better off if you did leave because you might get your feelings hurt.


Over the past three years, I have disagreed here with the best of the best. I just don't think it is necessary anymore. I've already argued with the best. And you are one of them, but I choose not to.

My best to you and your philosophies.

Claire

[knightroar]

hello Claire, long time no see

[Spectre]

Over the past three years, I have disagreed here with the best of the best. I just don't think it is necessary anymore. I've already argued with the best. And you are one of them, but I choose not to.

My best to you and your philosophies.

Claire

Well, I can understand the feeling of frustration. Sometimes I question why I come back to this place day after when I know that I more than likely won't change any minds. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. Anyway, take care.

[Claire Aiden]

Well, I can understand the feeling of frustration. Sometimes I question why I come back to this place day after when I know that I more than likely won't change any minds. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. Anyway, take care.


And you as well. May the light of understanding (from wherever it comes) shine on you) and may you have peace.

My very best,

Claire

[ProudAmerican]

That's the entire point though. Iraq chose to be a nation under the control of a dictator. If the people of Iraq (at least the majority) truely wanted out from under his rule, they would have gotten out from under his rule. We didn't like the CHOICE that they made so we decided to opress them by bombing their population into a pulp and installing a Western type of government in its place. I have a problem with playing God and deciding what nations need to change as we see fit and which don't. That is the scariest idea I've heard here yet.

You know Spectre I can understand your disagreements with the right but damn it seems as if you've gone off the deep end these days.

"Iraq chose to be a nation under the control of a dictator". Even as I type them I can't imagine anyone saying them. You know damn good and well the Iraqi's had no way of overthrowing Saddam himself. Most of those people are happy to be out from under Saddam. The only ones who aren't are the Sunni's, and there's been talk of them coming around.

[Leonidas]

"Iraq chose to be a nation under the control of a dictator".

Ugh.

[Noovuss]

That's really trustworthy, Arab government officials reporting on plots against them. I'd rather trust Joseph Stalin claiming all those purged were traitors.
You already do trust STALIN you little ENTITY of TROLLS

[Ono]

That's the entire point though. Iraq chose to be a nation under the control of a dictator. If the people of Iraq (at least the majority) truely wanted out from under his rule, they would have gotten out from under his rule. We didn't like the CHOICE that they made so we decided to opress them by bombing their population into a pulp and installing a Western type of government in its place. I have a problem with playing God and deciding what nations need to change as we see fit and which don't. That is the scariest idea I've heard here yet.

This sounds like you're blaming the victims.

[zapcomix]

That's the entire point though. Iraq chose to be a nation under the control of a dictator. If the people of Iraq (at least the majority) truely wanted out from under his rule, they would have gotten out from under his rule. We didn't like the CHOICE that they made so we decided to opress them by bombing their population into a pulp and installing a Western type of government in its place. I have a problem with playing God and deciding what nations need to change as we see fit and which don't. That is the scariest idea I've heard here yet.
Seeing how Saddam used chemical weapons on his own people, who tried to stand-up, I can understand their fear. Iraqi's did not choose Saddam.

[undertaker]

Well, that silly Claire is back with all of that dumb common sense stuff. Just ignore her.

Orson X

Welcome back Claire! ;)

[Bman]

BMan....I regret that you cannot understand me, or in the alternative find what I say abhorrent.

We attacked Iraq because it was necessary. Let me explain so you don't go crazy on me.

We need, as people of the world, some choices. If we don't have them, then we are are puppets on a stage. I ask you to consider that. All of my personal predilections for perfection may not be right, but neither is any regime that would oppress that which we are as individuals.

Please don't be moronic. I am not talking about W. Do you think it would be any different if this was Clinton, Reagan, Eishenhower or FDR.There is a PRINCIPLE involved here. You can't see it. And I cant convey it. I will again disappear, but it won't be because I didn't try. Freedom is a thing that is elusive. It is hard to define, and even harder to capture. Freedom doesn't mean American freedom, it means freedom to do what is in your mind to make you happy....

So peace...and out...you obviously don't want debate on it, but the hammer. I hand you the hammer with good will and hope you have good luck with it.

Sincerely,

Claire




You make it sound like the Iraq war was primarily about LIBERATING people living under a dictatorial regime, despite the fact that THIS WAS NOT OFFERED TO THE AMERICAN people as the reason why we needed to go to war. You seem to forget all about the UN inspectors and the UN resolutions, etc, etc.. When Colin Powell went to the UN he brought pictures of alleged Iraqi WMD sites.. He did not show pictures of "mass graves" or Saddam's torture prisons.. He did not lay out the details of Iraq's human right's violations.. Why is that?? Because THAT IS NOT THE REASON given for going to war.

People like you are rightly embarrassed that this country gave its approval to a war BASED ON FALSE INFORMATION. Now you try to "spin it" as if WMD was really just an afterthought.. but we're really there because the poor Iraqi people were so oppressed, that we just HAD TO DO something.

In the meantime, much more egregious violations of human rights and dignity occur all over the world. In Pakistan, the military dictator that OVERTHREW a democratically elected government continue to rule in absolute tyranny. Women in Pakistan have been sentenced to "gang rape" as a punishment for an alleged crime.. yet where is the OUTCRY for the oppressed people of Pakistan?? President Bush calls the dictator in Pakistan "our friend".

Where is the outcry against abuses of human rights and the oppression suffered by the 1.2 BILLION people who live in China?? THere is none.. Instead, the Bush Administration and Clinton Administration before them work to EXPAND more investment in China and increase our ties to the Communist regime in China. One could spend all day typing and still not begin to list exhaustively the names of dictators and despots that are SUPPORTED in part or entirely by US policies, covert activities and outright military support. Saudi Arabia comes to mind off the top of my head.

Indeed the argument that the Iraq war was about FREEDOM FOR IRAQIs breaks down under any serious analysis. I believe most people KNOW THAT , but there are many that still continue (in my opinion, disingenously) to promote that falsehood in an effort to clear their own guilty consciences.

Bman

[Bman]

Not that anyone will read it, but this article SUMS IT UP.. to a T

End of debate.

Bman


No WMD But Plenty of Death and Destruction
by Jacob G. Hornberger


President George W. Bush’s handpicked investigator charged with investigating whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has now rendered his final report: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Period. No stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. No nuclear weapons. No factories to produce them. No air-conditioned, modernistic labs hidden under the sand. Nada. It turns out that Saddam Hussein had disarmed many years before President Bush had repeatedly said that the United States needed to invade Iraq to "disarm Saddam." In the pre-war debate between Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, there is now no doubt as to who was telling the truth and who was not.

That means that all the fear that was instilled in the American people by Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz was ill-founded. The horrible thoughts that pervaded people’s minds that Saddam Hussein’s terrorists would break into their homes and spray chemical and biological weapons in their faces were groundless. Hundreds of yards of duct tape wasted. All the gas masks people bought during those scary times unnecessary. The horrible thoughts of Saddam’s mushroom clouds rising above American cities that kept people awake at night – all baseless.

As The Future of Freedom Foundation repeatedly pointed out before the war, Saddam Hussein and the nation of Iraq never posed any danger to the United States. None. After all, don't forget that Saddam was once ranked among the close dictatorial allies of the U.S. government. In fact, U.S. officials trusted Saddam Hussein so much that they even authorized the delivery to him of the WMD about which they later complained. (See: "Where Did Iraq Get Its Weapons of Mass Destruction?" and "Reagan’s WMD Connection to Saddam Hussein.") Moreover, it is now clear that despite all the hullabaloo about needing to "disarm" Saddam of the WMD that the United States and other Western countries had delivered to him, Saddam had in fact disarmed after the Persian Gulf War.

More important, as FFF repeatedly emphasized before the war, the nation of Iraq never attacked the United States or even threatened to attack the United States. That makes the U.S. attack on Iraq a war of aggression, a war that was termed a war crime by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and which has long been banned by the UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory. It also makes the continued occupation of Iraq a legal and moral travesty.

The responsibility for all this lies jointly with Bush and John Kerry. Bush went to war without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, and Kerry and his congressional cohorts permitted him to do so by means of an unconstitutional and cowardly delegation to the president of Congress’s power to declare war.

As it has become increasingly clear that the obsessive ruminations of U.S. officials regarding Iraq’s WMDs lacked reality, U.S. officials have returned to "regime change" to justify their invasion and war of aggression against Iraq. "Isn’t the world better off without Saddam Hussein?" they repeatedly challenge people who challenge what they have done.

The correlative question, however, which they have never answered is, "Is the world better off without the tens of thousands of innocent people you have killed in this invasion and war of aggression and with the tens of thousands of innocent people who are now maimed or impoverished as a consequence?" Didn’t they have a right to live? Didn’t they have a right to seek happiness in their own way, albeit under tyranny, without losing their lives, eyesight, arms, legs, or other body parts? The uncomfortable truth that we can only hope will begin to seep into the conscience of every single American is that an estimated 10,000–30,000 innocent people, including both American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians, are now dead – 3 to 10 times the number of innocent people killed at the World Trade Center. (Note: The Pentagon doesn’t keep count of Iraqi dead and maimed because they are foreigners, not Americans.)

While U.S. officials people blithely cast off the Iraqi dead and wounded as "casualties of war" and "collateral damage," every single one of these tens of thousands of dead and maimed people were as innocent as the victims in the World Trade Center, given that none of them had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks on the American people. No matter how tragic were the deaths, injuries, and destruction on 9/11, those attacks cannot morally justify the death, injuries, and destruction wreaked by the Pentagon and the CIA on tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi people.

When there is terrorist retaliation on Americans for the deaths and maiming of these innocent people, U.S. officials, including those in the Pentagon, will respond the same way they responded after 9/11: "They have attacked us because they hate our ‘freedom.’" What they will actually be referring to is the "freedom" of the U.S. government to kill innocent people abroad, just as they did with the brutal sanctions regime that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children under the rationale of "regime change" and just as they did with the invasion and war of aggression against Iraq that is now being justified under that same morally bankrupt rationale of "regime change." After all, let's not forget the brutally callous statement by former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, who in response to a question from "60 Minutes" as to whether the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children had been worth the attempt to oust Saddam from power, said: "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it." In other words, in the minds of U.S. officials "regime change" was worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis during the 1990s and it was worth the lives of tens of thousands more in 2003.

Just think, after the presidential election U.S. officials will be "free" to invade other countries where people are suffering under dictatorships for the purpose of "regime change" so that they can challenge people with, "Isn’t the world better off without those dictators?" You know, places like Pakistan, Vietnam, North Korea, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Syria, and Burma. At an average of 20,000 dead per country, that would mean only 200,000 more innocent people killed for purposes of "regime change." Would the world be better off without them? Who cares? Wouldn’t the world be better off without their dictators? And after all, let's not forget that the dead and maimed will only be foreigners and will just be considered "casualties of war" or "collateral damage." Moreover, since the Pentagon doesn't count foreigners it kills and maims anyway, we won't really have to concern ourselves with accurate numbers.

October 13, 2004

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/hornberger5.html

[Simon666]

*Cough* *Cough* Somalia *Cough*
Somalia wasn't based on lies. That would have been Kosovo.

[Simon666]

Seeing how Saddam used chemical weapons on his own people, who tried to stand-up, I can understand their fear. Iraqi's did not choose Saddam.
Well boo-hoo, cry me a river. In the 1980s and 1991, the US government didn't care or even assisted so excuse me if I don't buy their purported care.

[Bman]

Well boo-hoo, cry me a river. In the 1980s and 1991, the US government didn't care or even assisted so excuse me if I don't buy their purported care.


Right..

These righteous folks who are so upset that Saddam may have "gassed the Kurds" need to go back and read what then Secretary of State James Baker (Bush's personal adviser and lawyer) and Donald Rumsfeld (Reagan's special envoy to Iraq) had to say about it..

I won't post it all here, but basically, they dismissed the allegation as "the price of doing business with Iraq" who they were propping up against Iran...

In addition, a UN Resolution condemning Saddam's alleged gassing of the Kurds was proposed, but NEVER SAW THE LIGHT OF DAY after the US threatened to veto it

Bman

[Hobbes]

As it has become increasingly clear that the obsessive ruminations of U.S. officials regarding Iraq’s WMDs lacked reality, U.S. officials have returned to "regime change" to justify their invasion and war of aggression against Iraq. "Isn’t the world better off without Saddam Hussein?" they repeatedly challenge people who challenge what they have done.

Hehehe....

There are plenty of people the world would be better off without, but I'm not allowed to kill them..... :mad_08:

[Spectre]

Sigh.....

Okay people, poor choice of words in saying chose. The point was, if they wanted out from under Saddam's rule, they could have gotten out. Democracy is something that should be won by blood, sweat, and tears of the people under opression, not a third party that is just as mistrusted as the government we deposed.

[Spectre]

Bman, that article in itself sums up my feelings on this war better than anything I've read on IH in 3 years.

[Hobbes]

Seeing how Saddam used chemical weapons on his own people, who tried to stand-up, I can understand their fear. Iraqi's did not choose Saddam.

Au contraire

Wednesday, 16 October, 2002, 11:41 GMT 12:41 UK
Saddam 'wins 100% of vote'


Voting day brought many public displays of patriotism

Iraqi officials say President Saddam Hussein has won 100% backing in a referendum on whether he should rule for another seven years.
There were 11,445,638 eligible voters - and every one of them voted for the president, according to Izzat Ibrahim, Vice-Chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2331951.stm

[Aziraphael]

Attention whore.

Get fucked


So only right wingers are allowed to bump.

Everyone gets a regulation bump, it can be used once and only once on your thread. Why whould it be any different for KR.

And to Bag Sniper, when did the "lefties" (or as you prefer to know them, those people who you can blame for all the ills of your country) connect north Korea with helping Iraq. If anyone gets awards for connected the unconnected it is the current Bush administration.


------edit-------

Bman's article gets another "here, here" from me.

[Bman]

Bman, that article in itself sums up my feelings on this war better than anything I've read on IH in 3 years.


Which one?

Bman

[Aziraphael]

Which one?

Bman


post 152 I think

[Bman]

post 152 I think


Yes, I think you're right

that's from www.lourockwell.com

anyone who doesn't read every article on that site each day (they change them every day) is doing themselves an enormous disservice

Bman

[Bman]

Sigh.....

Okay people, poor choice of words in saying chose. The point was, if they wanted out from under Saddam's rule, they could have gotten out. Democracy is something that should be won by blood, sweat, and tears of the people under opression, not a third party that is just as mistrusted as the government we deposed.


Spectre.. I was thinking about this last night and I agree with you

The point of the matter is this:

When people living under a dictator or repression get to the point where they value freedom (or deposing their cruel leader) MORE THAN THEY VALUE LIFE OR ITS COMFORTS, they RISE UP, overthrow the government and cut the tyrants head off.. We saw that in France in the 1700s.. We saw it in the Republics of the former Soviet Union in the late 80s and 90s.. We saw it in Czechloslavakia where and in Romania where the people shot the dicator and his wife and left their bodies laying the street..

So why don't ALL PEOPLE rise up against ALL tyrants?? it's because they weigh the COSTS/BENEFITS and they determine that they value their lives, their comforts in life and their cities and towns more than they value overthrowing their government.

That is the choice that the Iraqi people lived with for years under Saddam.. They may not have liked him, but they WEREN'T WILLING TO DIE TRYING TO DEPOSE HIM.

But then along comes the US and WE MADE THAT DECISION FOR THEM.. We said, "well... you may NOT WANT TO DIE, to get rid of Saddam", but we think you'd be better off with him gone.. and IF IT MEANS 10s of THOUSANDS OF YOU MUST DIE , then so be it..


but the Iraqi's are saying..NO.. we dont' WANT to pay that price... if we did, we would have risen up on our own.. If we thought 10s of thousands of lives were worth removing Saddam, we could have simply stormed his palace with 100,000 people and beheaded him and his sons.. but 10s of thousands of lives are TOO HIGH of a price... so we did not


The US , however, TOOK THAT CHOICE away from 10s of Thousands of Iraqis and forced them to DIE so that they dont' have to live (as a nation) under Saddam..

that's an immoral decision that was NOT OUR'S TO MAKE

Bman

[zapcomix]

Well boo-hoo, cry me a river. In the 1980s and 1991, the US government didn't care or even assisted so excuse me if I don't buy their purported care.
What a putz! There is no rational thinking here. simple-pimple-simon

[Bman]

ANSWER:

The three stooges

http://www.nrk.no/img/582268.jpeg

[involved]

Why the U.S. Cannot Correct Its Military Blunders in Iraq

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."—Interview with CBS News, Washington D.C., Sept. 6, 2006

"And I suspect that what you'll see, Toby, is there will be a momentum, momentum will be gathered. Houses will begat jobs, jobs will begat houses." —Speaking with reporters along the Gulf Coast, Gulfport, Miss., Aug. 28, 2006

"And the question is, are we going to be facile enough to change with—will we be nimble enough; will we be able to deal with the circumstances on the ground? And the answer is, yes, we will."—Washington, D.C., July 25, 2006

"One thing is clear, is relations between America and Russia are good, and they're important that they be good."—Strelna, Russia, July 15, 2006

"We shouldn't fear a world that is more interacted."—Washington, D.C., June 27, 2006.

"I've reminded the prime minister—the American people, Mr. Prime Minister, over the past months that it was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship."—Washington, D.C., June 29, 2006

"I was not pleased that Hamas has refused to announce its desire to destroy Israel."—Washington, D.C., May 4, 2006

"If the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon they could proliferate."—Washington D.C., March 21, 2006

"I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein, you're a threat. And the 9/11 attacks extenuated that threat, as far as I—concerned."—Philadelphia, Dec. 12, 2005