posted on April 12, 2003 05:05:47 PM new
LOL, Cheryl
Another viewpoint...
Seumas Milne
The Guardian
"The wider global impact of this war was spelled out by North Korea's foreign ministry this week. "The Iraqi war shows," it declared, with unerring logic, "that to allow disarmament through inspections does not help avert a war, but rather sparks it", concluding that "only a tremendous military deterrent force" can prevent attacks on states the US dislikes."
"As the administration hawks circle round Syria and Iran, a powerful boost to nuclear proliferation and anti western terror attacks seems inevitable, offset only by the likelihood of a growing international mobilisation against the new messianic imperialism. The risk must now be that we will all pay bitterly for the reckless arrogance of the US and British governments."
posted on April 12, 2003 05:58:24 PM new
Very humorous smiley graphic, cheryl!
helen - messianic imperialism? Do you think the U.S. really has imperialist ambitions? I'm not being facetious - I just can't remember you taking that position specifically.
If American policy was imperialist, we would have more than 50 states today. Japan, Germany, and Grenada, for instance.
As to "reckless arrogance," the U.S. and Britain would reflect both of those traits if we allowed despotic regimes to harbor terrorist organizations and weapons of mass destruction.
posted on April 12, 2003 06:27:48 PM new
So far, we have found no weapons of mass destruction or terrorist organizations in Iraq. You, of course must believe that we have, in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.
There are a lot of contentious ethnic groups in the area but that is not justification for invasion.
posted on April 12, 2003 07:07:14 PM new
helen -
Do you believe we won't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
I'll go on record as saying I'm sure we will.
My reason for saying so is this; if they had destroyed the huge amounts of WoMD we all know were found by inspectors, there would be a coherent paper trail and other evidence.
They lied about their missile's capabilities - we've proven that already.
Their Minister of Information lied, telling the citizens through official channels (state-controlled television) that American forces were nowhere near Baghdad when we were watching the proof on TV.
Why wouldn't they lie about WoMD?
posted on April 12, 2003 07:10:10 PM new
Oh, I forgot - the Ansar Al-Salaam (sp?)terrorist group WAS proven to be in Iraq, and some of the information captured from their camps is apparently quite valuable.
posted on April 12, 2003 07:34:39 PM new
In addition to Blix, leaders all over the world doubt that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The fact that such weapons have not been used to repel this invasion is suggestive that they were not available. We won't know until the inspectors return to finish their job.
With the search for WOMD, the Bush administration is simply looking for an acceptable excuse for the invasion of Iraq. If the liberation effort is sucessful, then WOMD will not be an issue.
posted on April 12, 2003 08:06:46 PM new
I find it interesting that Hans Blix now says he doubts Iraq has no WoMD.
During the early days of the war, I read a quote on a CNN screen crawler that said Blix didn't think Saddam would USE them because of the negative world reaction.
Which is is it, Hans?
Of course the "Bush was using WoMD to plow his way in" story is circulating now. Funny how some disparage our leaders so freely in America, then slink off into obscurity when the accusations directed at those leaders prove to be baseless.
posted on April 12, 2003 08:10:51 PM new
And I doubt the inspectors are ever going back, helen. Not because they didn't try, but because we now have real access.
posted on April 13, 2003 05:41:44 AM new
[url=Blix: US was bent on war[/url]
War against Iraq was a foregone conclusion months before the first shot was fired, the chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has claimed. In a scathing attack on Britain and the US, Mr Blix accused them of planning the war "well in advance" and of "fabricating" evidence against Iraq to justify their campaign.
Letting rip after months of frustration, he told the Spanish daily El Pais: "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the [weapons] inspections."
Mr Blix said Iraq was paying a "a very high price in terms of human lives and the destruction of a country" when the threat of banned weapons could have been contained by UN inspections.
The 74-year Swedish diplomat made clear that he believes he was misled by President Bush. At a White House meeting last October Mr Bush backed the work of Unmovic, the UN inspection team.
But at the time Mr Blix knew "there were people within the Bush administration who were sceptical and who were working on engineering regime change". By the start of March the hawks in Washington and London were growing impatient.
He said he believed that finding weapons of mass destruction had been relegated as an aim and the main objective had become the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Special report
Iraq: latest news and analysis
Chronology
11.04.2003: Timeline: day 23 of the war
posted on April 13, 2003 05:59:04 AM new
Helen,
There's interesting discussions here in our area about former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter being a child predator. Unfortunately I can't get into the Times Union Library without paying. Here's what I can get.
"ARREST WASN'T FIRST TIME POLICE HAD EYE ON RITTER "
01/21/2003 Page: A1
Colonie Former U.N. arms inspector reportedly was under inquiry when cops charged him in 2001 The Internet sex case that led to the arrest of a former U.N. weapons inspector was not his first involvement with police on that type of crime, a person familiar with the case said Monday.
posted on April 13, 2003 06:14:14 AM new
helen -
There was no source listed for this article. Could you please provide it so we know who's making these allegations of what Blix supposedly said or "believes"?
As far as Blix' statement that the threat of WoMD in Iraq could have been contained by UNMOVIC, maybe that's a risk HE felt comfortable with living in Sweden, which is hardly a pro-active participant in the war on terrorism. Most Americans don't feel the same way if the polls regarding approval for the war are any indication.
As far as planning for war months in advance, it should have said the US was planning years in advance. It's not as if no one saw where this was going long ago; I'm glad our government practices contingency planning. Things change.
If Blix actually said the U.S. "fabricated" evidence, I'd like to read it in strict context. That would be headline news.
From what was provided, it's pretty much a flimsy, fluffed-up hit-and-run sort of article.
posted on April 13, 2003 06:55:00 AM new
Thanks helen and colin -
As expected, the article turns out to be composed primarily of paraphrasing with only one apparently complete sentence.
Why do you suppose the Guardian ran what could have been a big story without printing these inflammatory quotes it attributes to Blix?
hmmm . . . mysterious . . .
Nonsense, say the disarmament experts. "It's clear there wasn't much," said Professor Wright, "otherwise they would have run into something by now. After all, they've taken Baghdad." Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector who spent four months badgering the United States and Britain in vain for reliable intelligence information about the whereabouts of lethal weapons, now says he believes the war was planned on entirely different criteria, well before his inspection teams went back into Iraq in December.
"I think the Americans started the war thinking there were some [weapons]. I think they now believe less in that possibility," he told the Spanish daily El Pais. "You ask yourself a lot of questions when you see the things they did to try to show that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons, like the fake contract with Niger."
Anxious to find a "smoking gun", a team of US disarmament experts has been set up to question Iraqis involved in weapons programmes, while others comb sites and analyse samples in the field using mobile labs.
The move has alarmed the weapons inspectors at the UN, where Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, pointedly said last week: "I think they are the ones with the mandate to disarm Iraq, and when the situation permits they should go back to resume their work."
The US team has attempted to lure some of the inspectors, who are recognised as the sole legitimate international authority on Iraq's weapons programmes.
The latest theory being touted in Washington by the usual unnamed government sources is that the Iraqis have moved their weapons out of the country, very possibly into Syria. This claim appears to have originated with Israeli intelligence – which has every motivation for stirring up trouble for its hostile Arab neighbours – and has been bolstered by reports of fighting between Iraqi Special Republican Guard units and US special forces near the Syrian border.
Disarmament experts do not give the claim much credence. After all, any suspicious convoy or mobile laboratory would almost certainly be spotted by US planes or spy satellites and bombed long before it reached Syria.
But the notion does provide the hawks in Washington with a compelling plot device not unlike the McGuffin factor in Alfred Hitchcock's films – a catalyst that may or may not have significance in itself but that gets the suspense going and keeps the story rolling.
If the Bush administration should ever seek to turn its military wrath on Damascus, the weapons of mass destruction it is failing to find in Iraq might just provide the excuse once again.
13 April 2003 09:58
posted on April 13, 2003 07:22:23 AM newHelenjw The Guardian is a well respected news source.
The Guardian has been under fire for being extremely biased against Israel and the US. Everyone (other than helen) should do a little research and see how many other organizations have blasted the Guardian for it's extremely biased reporting. The Guardian has exercised a heavily pro-Palestinian message for years.
For helen the Guardian is the last word. Don't be a helen, be smarter than that.
You are continuing to make a fool of yourself with your silly insults.
Back to Korea...This statement by KCNA, affirms the first post that I made about N. Korea seeing a link between disaramament and a greater propability of war.
Drawing parallels with the US showdown with Iraq, North Korea said that bowing to demands to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons development would lead to inspections and disarmament, setting the stage for a US invasion.
''The Iraqi war launched by the US preemptive attack clearly proves that a war can be prevented and the security of the country and the nation can be ensured only when one has physical deterrent force,'' said KCNA, the North's state-run news agency. It did not specifically refer to nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
posted on April 13, 2003 08:03:48 AM new
North Korea's recent "aggressive" rhetoric was nothing more than ill-timed posturing designed to attract attention to a country floundering both economically and politically. It appears that nothing will come of it other than some additional US interest.
Baghdad Helen- others' supposed insults may in your opinion make fools of them but it is your ability to do so without insults that is noteworthy here. Continuing to cite unquestionably biased news sources to support your ultra-liberal positions is no less boring than austbounty's doing of the same to support his anti-semitic ramblings. We got your anti-war position a long time ago. Another broken record.
[ edited by stusi on Apr 13, 2003 08:11 AM ]
posted on April 13, 2003 08:12:24 AM new
Iraq is the size of California - how long would it take to thoroughly search that?
Considering Saddam's devious history, I suspect that when large amounts of weapons are found, they'll be located in clever hiding places such as farms or underground storage bunkers.
Interesting that the Independent downplays the items which have been found, and that helen chose not to include this quote at all:
"The few "discoveries" trumpeted in the media – the odd barrel here, a few dozen shells there – have not been on a scale that could reasonably justify the unprovoked military invasion of a sovereign country, and in most cases have been proven to been no more than rumour, or propaganda, or a mixture of the two."
I know helen loves analogies, so here's one - the good old "tip of the iceberg" concept. Again, why couldn't Saddam account for the huge amounts of banned materials CONFIRMED to have existed by the venerated UN inspectors?
In another attack on the President by the Independent (which, again, helen chose not to note), the paper fails to credit the inspectors with quantifying these vast quantities of deadly items.
"In his State of the Union address in early February, President Bush was quite specific about the materials he believed Saddam was hiding: 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and nerve gas. These days, he does not mention weapons of mass destruction at all, focusing instead on the liberation of the Iraqi people – as if liberation, not disarmament, had been the project all along."
Seems kinda slanted . . . "the materials HE believed Saddam was hiding," not "the materials the UN inspectors say are unaccounted for."
As for Bush not mentioning WoMD now, why does he need to? He's on record for saying why we went to Iraq in the first place . . . he never said how quickly the evidence would be presented.
In summation, I'd rather have the Bush Administration deciding what represents a threat or "smoking gun" than the Independent.(I know helen, "smoking gun" . . . another analogy).
Well, gee stusi, We know that all newspapers have some degree of bias. What news source do you prefer?
I will continue to use the Guardian because I think that it's an excellent newspaper.
ferncrest
To explain the analogy question that you still address.... We were talking in that thread about dead children and your analogy compared the need to sacrifice these innocent children and civilians as amputation or to removing a cancer leading to save the victim or (liberation) That comparrison was not sympathetic or equivalent and scored no points for your case. Analogies are used to explain and persuade - not to disgust.
You said,
"A surgeon removes a cancerous growth to save the victim. He doesn't like it when that requires an amputation, but he sleeps at night because the patient survived.'
uaru
Since you started the grade school insults, on this thread, the new people here should know your posting style. Hmmm...
Remember, discuss the topic, not the poster....or the poster will discuss you.
posted on April 13, 2003 09:40:06 AM new
They will not find any WOMD. It is not in the plan, never was.
Don't you people remember, the Bush administration claimed they knew EXACTLY where Saddam had hidden it all. The administration just wasn't willing to give up that information because it would compromise intelligence methods and such.
WELL?
We own the country now, go get them!
What do you mean you lied to try and force the UN to side with you in a war?
That is so, so, so dishonest!.....and par for the course.
A politician will call you intelligent to keep you ignorant. I tell you that you are ignorant so that you may want to be intelligent - Eugene Debs
[ edited by mlecher on Apr 13, 2003 09:40 AM ]
posted on April 13, 2003 11:05:53 AM new
Another goofy spin on what's being posted from helen . . .
The thread started with a photo of a child holding an American flag and helen decides the thread is about dead children . . .
The people who wrote to say they appreciated my post weren't disgusted, helen. They saw the relevance of the analogy. And as I recall, no one jumped to thank you for your input or your self-important sharing of that thesis on empathy . . .
You want to talk about dead children, helen? Then let's discuss the children murdered by Saddam's regime while their parents watched in order to extract confessions. Or is that too disgusting for you? I assure you it disgusts me.
Read my post again and you'll see that my point was that the U.S. probably saved MILLIONS of Iraqis by liberating Iraq from Saddam's regime. MILLIONS are thought to have been murdered by his brutal regime already.
History has long accepted the concept that a few must be sacrificed for the good of the many.
I hurt when I see injured or dead children, helen, but I sleep at night knowing that someone (The Bush Administration and our military)in this crazy world cares enough about freedom to fight for it.
Here's the "analogy" post helen's still in denial about:
posted on April 9, 2003 06:11:15 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I read the frantic, desperate posts by some of those still opposed to the U.S. government's liberation of the Iraqi people, I have to laugh.
If your life is spent in some paranoid fantasy world where doubting your own government makes each day more bearable, I pity you.
Get a clue - the loss of life in the liberation process is lamentable but unavoidable. Furthermore, by intervening, the U.S. has SAVED lives. Probably millions, based on the past history of Saddam's regime.
THESE PEOPLE WANT US THERE, and despite their losses, they have clearly shown their support for America, their liberators. Why? Because THEY KNOW that without our help, they would NEVER have broken Saddam's stranglehold on them. The tortures, rapes, and murders would have continued ad infinitum; they had nothing powerful enough to confront and overcome that evil.
Enter the USA, THE FRICKIN' GOOD GUYS, FOR GOD's SAKE! (Why is it so hard for some Americans to figure that out?"
We came, we sacrificed, we liberated.
Someday, just as we did with post-World War II Germany and Japan, you'll be able to add "WE LEFT" to that string. And those two countries haven't fared badly, have they, all you squawking nay-sayers? They didn't become eternal monuments to this imperialist dogma you love to espouse, did they?
A surgeon removes a cancerous growth to save the victim. He doesn't like it when that requires an amputation, but he sleeps at night because the patient survived.
I'll bet some of the misguided minds who post on this site would recognize amputation as the only alternative if THEIR lives were on the line . . .
posted on April 13, 2003 12:55:06 PM new"In addition to Blix, leaders all over the world doubt that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The fact that such weapons have not been used to repel this invasion is suggestive that they were not available. We won't know until the inspectors return to finish their job."
"With the search for WOMD, the Bush administration is simply looking for an acceptable excuse for the invasion of Iraq. If the liberation effort is sucessful, then WOMD will not be an issue."
Helen's posts hit the nail on the head imo.
(clarity)
[ edited by kraftdinner on Apr 13, 2003 12:56 PM ]
posted on April 15, 2003 07:42:15 AM new
N Korea does have to worry. Not only is their commie economy collasped, but it is highly doubtful they have the technology to deliver a warhead and it has never been demonstrated that they can in fact make a deliverable warhead.
N Korea would collapse faster than Iraq when we whack the N Korean leadership as we did in Iraq.
Remember, these same "sky is falling" scenarios are coming from the same folks who said Afghanistan would be paved with dead civilians, and that Iraq would be a blood bath.
These people that dream this defeatist stuff up hate Bush and can not stand that he has successfully collapsed two beligerent countries, and will collapse more.
I have only one question- Where are the hundreds of thousands of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan that all the anti-war Bush hating commies talked about in their propaganda ?
There were more people killed on the highways than US soldiers lost in both of these wars !!!
What we have is a magnificent all volunteer military under excellent leadership from the president on down.
Cheryl