I know, I will regret this. I know it with certainty.
Everytime I get involved in this thread I get an ache in my stomach, but anyway I just needed to post the following:
"Richard Perle, who happens to be chairman of Mr. Bush's defence policy board, only this week called the UN "the chatterbox on the Hudson" - despite the fact that it's on the East River (hope his geography is a bit more accurate when he starts ordering the bombing!)
Perle was penning an obituary for the United Nations and he didn't seem too sad to see it go. "What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order...the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions."
And what will replace the UN, in Mr. Perle's fairy tale world? Why the good ole USA of course! It will administer worldwide justice and punishment in the interests of "a new century favourable to American principles and interests"." (from Terry Jones, http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,919899,00.html )
So Mr. Perle has just announced the birth of a new empire. Heil Perle!
By the way, I came across the other day to the answer of an old thread in this same board: Why was the first inspectors team kicked out of Irak? Well, just ask Scott Ritter, who was one of them and openly admitted being a spy. Anyway, not even him found a clue about forbidden weapons.

Wolf
I will not believe one single JOT that comes out from the US army sources; I think they have got totally discredited along last years, and especially from the beginning of this crisis. So I will not care a damn if they say that they have found a smalpox storage, of the damned gate to hell in Saddam´s cellar. If they are as reliable as when they bombed a medicine factory in Sudan, a convoy of refugees in Kosovo, or a bus in Syria, then I guess there is not the least reason to believe anyone wearing an uniform and talking in the bubbling box.
What is exactly the explanation from US government? "Oh, what a pity! We (and others) supported and armed Saddam for decades! How could we do such a mistake? We armed the Taliban, hey, that was not a good idea. We shot Mossadegh and eventually brought Islamic revolution to Iran. We greeted the birth of Pakistan, the first Islamic Republic in history, now a nuclear power. Our "intelligent bombs" have a strange knack to blast Chinese embassies and Syrian buses."
That makes up many mistakes in a row, I am afraid. But surely the guys on top know what they are doing:
"The answer is, now let`s start a new war, transform Irak into a protectorate, support Islamic bigotry in that country, and of course go on selling the Saudis all the weapons they need."
See? New mistakes for the future. Everything goes OK

Check this out!
Saddam is in big trouble now!

Upi

Maybe this will lighten the mood

The Lords of Vengeance
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 24 March 2003

We have become, with a sudden jolt, a divided nation in this time
of war. Demands that Americans leave aside protests, accusations and anger
in order to support our military work in Iraq have gone unheeded by great
segments of the population. Millions of people have poured into the streets
of virtually every city in the country to demand that the bombing be
stopped, and that the troops be brought safely home. Those protests have
been met by equally enraged citizens who see these protests as an aid to
terrorists and an act of treason. Americans scream obscenities at Americans
across lines created by armored police.

This will only get worse, as both groups are hardened in their
opinions and beliefs. In the final analysis, questions of who is right and
who is wrong fall by the wayside, as both sides stand secure in their
rectitude. In such a polarized situation, right and wrong will be
determined between these groups when one side quits.

Caught in the middle is a group far larger than the combined mass
of the citizens described above. This group may be unsure, may fall to one
side or the other on a daily basis, but essentially support the war. It is
to this group in particular that I address my words.

I understand why you support this engagement. At bottom, you do
so because you are loyal. The President has said it must be so, and so it
must be so. The loyalty of this nation's citizenry is now and has always
been our greatest strength. Many of you who support the war are veterans of
other conflicts, and so your support is based upon a desire to stand with
the troops now in harm's way. This is more than honorable.

Many of you believe this must happen because you have been told,
time and again, that Saddam Hussein possesses an awesome arsenal of mass
destruction weapons that he will gladly give to terrorists for use against
us. Your belief that this is so stems from your loyalty - the President has
told you it is true, and so it must be true. It is fearful indeed to
consider weapons like this in the hands of terrorists.

You must know, however, that no proof of either prohibited
weapons possession or connections to terrorism on the part of Saddam Hussein
has been offered by the administration. They have made many accusations,
and offered chunks of evidence, but over the last weeks and months each and
every bit of evidence put forth has been debunked. Sometimes, the press has
proven them wrong, sometimes the weapons inspectors in Iraq proved them
wrong, and sometimes our own intelligence services proved them wrong. No
proof offered by the Bush administration has stood up. None.

Likewise, many of you support this war because of the deplorable
suffering Saddam Hussein has inflicted upon his own people. There is no
denying the barbarous nature of this dictator, and no one worth a damn would
ever lift a finger to defend his actions. You have been told that the Iraqi
people will be freed by this conflict, that democracy is coming to that
tired and torn nation. For many of you, this is more than enough reason to
support this action.

Unfortunately, it is all but certain that the Iraqi people will
see neither freedom nor democracy because of the cultural divisions within
that nation. Iraq is divided into three groups: Shia, Sunni and Kurd. The
Shia make up over 60% of the Iraqi population, and are ideologically and
theocratically aligned with the hard-liners who rule Iran. Should we bring
western-style majority-rules democracy to Iraq, we would be setting the
stage for a debilitating alliance between Iran and Iraq. The Kurds will
never be allowed to rule Iraq or anything else; we have already promised
Turkey this. Only the Sunnis remain as the viable future leaders of Iraq.
Saddam Hussein is a Sunni, and the tribal politics of the Iraqi Sunni
guarantee that whoever replaces Hussein will be as bad as he was to the
other Iraqi groups, or worse.

I fear that too many of you support this war because you have
relied upon our mainstream television news media for information about this
whole issue. It is telling indeed that, in an age where news comes in 24
hour chunks, where viewers have a galaxy of channels to watch and become
informed, some 40% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was directly
responsible for and involved in the attacks of September 11. This simply
isn't true; virtually every non-partisan and objective source considered
credible in America dismisses said connection out of hand. The fact that
this glaring misconception is held by such a large group of Americans shines
a nauseating light upon the level of journalism being practiced by those who
come on our televisions to provide us with the facts. It is also
worthwhile, and disappointing, to note that the Bush administration has done
little, if anything, to disabuse Americans of this very incorrect
connection.

At the end of the day, though, I think I know the true reason why
you support this war. You still see September 11th when you close your
eyes. You still fear blue skies and airplanes. You tremble when your
subway dives down into a tunnel, you grip the wheel tighter when you drive
across a bridge, and your stomach sinks when you know that, again tomorrow,
you must face a day of work in a high-rise office building. You, a mighty
American, citizen of the greatest nation that has ever existed, have been
made to fear on your own soil.

Somehow, somewhere, someone has to pay for that. Afghanistan was
not enough, though our forces destroyed at least as many civilians in
driving out the Taliban as were lost in New York and Washington and
Pennsylvania. It does not satisfy, because you know that in some place
under the stars right now, Osama bin Laden is walking around alive and free.
George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the generals and soldiers who
now wage war in Iraq are your lords of vengeance. They bring the hard fist
of retaliation down upon a nation we have despised for over a decade now.
You speak of fearing chemical weapons, you speak of standing with the
troops, you speak of bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people, but
when all is said and done you watch the terrible blooming of fires and
explosions in Baghdad and a voice whispers within you, "There. Payback.
Finally, payback."

I cannot, and would not, judge you for this, for I feel the same way
about 9/11. Few Americans, even after the time that has passed, can
contemplate that day without feeling a desire to see someone bleed for it.
Yet even that dark and ancient reason must bend to the
consequences. Seventy two hours of war on Iraq have passed, and in that
short time a number of incredibly bad things have happened. We shot down a
British plane with one of our Patriot missiles, killing the crew. An as-yet
uncounted number of American Marines have been killed and wounded in clashes
near Nasiriya, and others have died in a helicopter crash. Twelve Americans
have been captured by Iraqi forces and are being held in an undisclosed
location. Images of their faces were broadcast on the Al Jazeera network,
and it was clear that many were wounded.

Several American missiles have struck targets in Iran, including
a government building that housed the Iranian Oil Ministry. Iran has
reacted to this with anger, and if they decide to roll tanks and engage in
this fight, our forces will be in grave trouble. To the north, Turkish
forces have poured across the border into Iraq. Turkey has for years
coveted the oil fields around Mosul and Kirkuk, and has likewise wished to
crush for all time the Kurds and their hopes for an independent state.

A soldier with the 101st Airborne apparently went mad and
attempted to assassinate his brigade commanders in a grenade attack that
killed one person and wounded a dozen others. The Vietnam war gave us a
term for such an atrocity: "Fragging." The soldier in question has been
detained, and there is an investigation underway, but the blow to morale
among Airborne troops is incalculable.

Baghdad, Basra and several other cities have been bombed
repeatedly, setting ablaze neighborhoods and killing scores of civilians.
Perhaps most frightening is the fact that the Marines who fought in Nasiriya
came under fire from Iraqis wearing civilian clothes. It has been posited
that these were Iraqi troops dressed as common civilians, and this may be
true. It could also be true that the Iraqi people are not greeting American
forces with the joy we were expecting. The fact remains, however, that from
this point on every civilian in Iraq will be considered hostile. This was
the darkest aspect of the Vietnam war, when troops were unable to tell
friend from foe. The confusion led not only to great strain among our
soldiers, but to terrible acts of violence perpetrated against innocent
non-combatants.

Basra has not fallen. Umm Qasr has not fallen. Nasiriya has not
fallen. Resistance has grown exponentially, and our casualties mount.
Looming in the distance is Baghdad and urban warfare, which may begin as
soon as Tuesday. The death toll among our fighting men and women will rise
in horrible fashion if we become engaged in a street-to-street fight for the
capitol city. After that comes Tikrit, family seat and final stronghold for
Saddam Hussein and his supporters, and another potential urban clash.
This wretched list of dreadful news will grow longer with each
passing day. Our brave men and women in the armed services will continue to
die, along with untold numbers of innocent civilians. There is no end in
sight; Bush administration officials who have organized this conflict have
stated clearly, in documents stretching as far back as 1997, that Iraq is
only the beginning of a wider war to reorganize that entire region. You may
have noticed that there has been no exit strategy offered by the
administration for this conflict. There isn't one, because we have no
intention of leaving.

The polarization and anger within this country will strain us to
the breaking point. Across the world, anger at America's actions in this
conflict will rise and rise and rise until we are, truly and at last,
completely despised and completely alone.

Never forget, also, that there are other lords of vengeance in
the world. They have proven, vividly, that they can strike us to the heart
at the time and place of their choosing. None of them are in Iraq, but all
of them will seek our blood in payment for the Muslim civilians who die in
this war. Should this conflict inspire them to act, many Americans will die
within our borders. The resulting constitutional lockdown will end,
forever, the ideas that formed the basis for this country. The war should
be taken to these groups, in their secret places and their bank accounts,
and not past them to Baghdad.

The choice is yours to make. Vengeance comes from the stomach,
and hope from the soul. In this matter, use your eyes and your mind to
decide where you stand. Many terrible things will resolve themselves in a
far better fashion if you can find it within yourself to say six simple
words.

Stop the bombing. Stop the war.

© Copyright 2003 by TruthOut.org

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/printer_032503A.shtml

Newyorkred
It is always an ordeal to sail across your prose, but I think I have understood a couple of points:
-You are insinuating that, not only Irak, but Iran as well should be invaded and conquered without provocation.
-You pretend that this war has started because western leaders are somehow "worried" about Human Rights in the Middle East: this would be, then, a holy war of some sort, to fight for justice.
Aha. Interesting. Now, regarding the knowledge of International law that you display, and considering what is your idea about war, its origins and causes, its geostrategical context and so on, may I reckon what is exactly your commitment in the United Nations? You must be a janitor, no doubt.
I think if Chechnians, Irakis, Palestinians and the others, eventually managed to spread a virus across Europe and the US, they wouldn`t deserve blame. We have earned it.
See the following: it is a Spanish site, but I just would like to show you the pics in it. Scroll down the bar on the right and check the SECOND pic. http://www.rebelion.org/
See? the liberation has started

Carmenm,

Our bad! Apparently you didn't understand what Red said. She said she's been there, and seen the hell, while you keep giving us left wing rhetoric that's part of the extreme socialist propaganda, written by people who prey on weak minds.

By the way, that is a terrible picture. It reminds me of the hundreds I saw of Kurds and Shiites that Hussein was systematically killing. That was called genocide, the picture you offered was for "shock effect," and had little to do with the reality that there will unfortunately be some people killed through collateral damage.

Making matters worse, you have conveniently ignored the fact that American forces are being very careful to avoid collateral damage, and they are being subjected to greater danger because of it. You should tell the truth, not paint a picture that suits your political ambition. It should be beneath your dignity. It also tells me you could care less about the truth, as long as it allows you to denegrate the U.S.

Sorry! I can't buy your offerings. They are totally biased, and without foundation.

LW,

I always tend to believe people who put facts on the table. When I read that "millions of people" are coming out in American cities to protest against the war, I begin to ask myself what the person who has written an article is smoking, or what kind of mushrooms they put on their steak.

The fact is, there have been thousands of protestors in cities, and the fact is that the "vast majority" of people support the war against Iraq, regardless of the reason. That's what matters.

As for the "political retrospective" of the author, he's making assumptions, and has his own point of view, which may be totally wrong. He's condemning the Iraqis in saying they will never have a democratic government.

As for the question as to whether or not Americans are seeking revenge, that's about the dumbest statement he could make. Who in hell wouldn't want revenge for 9-11? It has to be part of our reasoning for action.

Oh! I forgot! That 20% that think it was okay for the twin towers to crumble because the Muslims were just making a "statement."

I'll tell you what. Let's just say, "We're making a statement back."

Maybe it's time for people to hear the truth. Not from others who lay safe and warm in their own beds, have a full belly, and feel relatively safe when they get up in the morning, and pack themselves off to school. Let's hear it from people who went to Iraq protesting this war, intent on being "human shields" to protect the Iraqi people. After all, they are counted amongst your opposition numbers if I'm not mistaken....

----------------------------------------------
Scenes From the Liberation--Courtesy of the Wall St. Journal's "Best of the Web Today" by James Tarranto:

"You just arrived," Ajami Saadoun Khlis of the southern Iraqi city of Safwan tells London's Guardian. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave." He lost his 29-year-old son to Saddam's thugs; the younger man "was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran."

The Telegraph reports from Umm Qasr, another southern Iraqi locale:

"We never wanted to fight--only the diehards did," said one Iraqi, as they grabbed at water bottles and clasped their palms as if in prayer, begging for food. . . .

One man pulled up his shirt sleeve and held up his right hand. Two fingers had been hacked off and his upper arm was criss-crossed with scars.

"This is the price of defiance--of trying to run away," he said, his eyes beseeching. He held up a torn gas mask that had no air canister. "We have one. We draw straws for it. We know if the British and American soldiers leave as they did before, and Saddam survives, he will gas the town." To make sure we understood, he drew his finger swiftly across his throat.

The Times of London describes a horrific scene after a slave revolt:

Iraqi conscripts shot their own officers in the chest yesterday to avoid a fruitless fight over the oil terminals at al-Faw. British soldiers from 40 Commando's Charlie Company found a bunker full of the dead officers, with spent shells from an AK47 rifle around them.

Stuck between the US Seals and the Royal Marines, whom they did not want to fight, and a regime that would kill them if they refused, it was the conscripts' only way out.

And another Guardian report, from Baghdad, notes that civilians have been largely untouched the shocking and awesome bombardment of the Iraqi capital: "So long as the rest of Baghdad remains almost unscathed, ordinary Iraqis appear relatively buoyant, as they reach for the possibility that maybe this war will be less punishing than they had feared."

Meanwhile, some of those "human shields" came to their senses after arriving in Iraq. United Press International has one such report:

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."

The Telegraph has a first-person account from one Daniel Pepper, an American resident of London, who says he "was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam":

I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad--a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, "Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good." He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.

As he realised I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the President spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.

It scared the hell out of me. First I was thinking that maybe it was the secret police trying to trick me but later I got the impression that he wanted me to help him escape. I felt so bad. I told him: "Listen, I am just a schmuck from the United States, I am not with the UN, I'm not with the CIA--I just can't help you."
--------------------------------------------

I guess we can all learn, if the educational system is right. Let's just say that these people did. It's obvious by their statements.

By the way. Their videos will be put out for all to see. Of course, if you want, you don't have to watch. It might be better that way, if you intend to back the stand you do agains the war.

Wolf

Wolf,

How many hijackers were there? (19)

How many were from Iraq? All? Most? Some? None? (none)

How many were from Saudi Arabia? 15, with the other 4 coming from Egypt.
None of them were from Iraq.

Where's bin Laden from? Saudi Arabia.

Where did the funding for 9-11 come from? bin Laden and money from Princes in the
House of Saud, funneled through European accounts. You know, the accounts that
we froze after 9-11.

So far, no Iraqi connection. But there sure as hell is a Saudi connection. Why the hell
aren't we bombing them? Oh, that's right, they cozy up with the Carlysle groub, and
Big Daddy Bush. Hell, even Daddy Bush thinks his son is wrong, or did you miss that
one too?

Do you know the differences in Muslim sects? I guess you know that Saddam is Ba'ath,
and bin Laden is an Islamist fundamentalist who despises Saddam (as does the rest of
the Arab world) and considers him an infidel. Even the White House has admitted that
there's no connection between the two. Saddam is a scumbag who, among other things,
gassed Kurds in his country...thanks to the weapons that the US sold him during the Reagan
administration...but he has no connection to 9-11. Instead, we are playing right into the hands
of bin Laden...the guy who attacked us...and removing the regime he despises most. We
are also being one big giant recruiting office for Al Queda, as enraged Muslims have already
been called to Jihad last Monday. But I'm sure you knew all this already.

Explain why Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Rusfeld and Cheney, among others, developed the
Project For A New American Century back in 1997. 1997, when they specifically used the
term "axis of evil" referring to, in order, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. This attack was in the works
for 6 years. Explain why these bastions of Americanism said that, in order to sway public opinion
in favor of an attack, we would need, quote, "something like a new Pearl Harbor". This attack
on Iraq has nothing to do with 9-11, but dupes like you, who don't know facts, are content to
believe that. Explain why, right now, North Korea and Iran are scrambling to develop nukes.
It's because they know they're next on the list. Look for yourself, and follow the pnac link:
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/0902/29bookman.html

I won't even mention the oil connection, since I'm sure you know all about Brown & Root, and
Bechtel, and Halliburton. Yeah, Halliburton, who did business with Iraq in the 90s even with
our sanctions. By the way, what happened to the Anthrax situation? How about Enron?
Harken energy? Cheney's energy hearings that the GAO decided to drop their investigation
on? Sorry, I'm sure you know of all this. How about ABB and Rumsfeld?

Ho-hum.. now people are quoting entire texts in their postings. We can't have this. I'm sorry. Maybe this thread has reached its end.

Saludos, MadridMan

LW,

You might want to get a grip on yourself, the "reports" you're quoting aren't exactly mainstream, and mostly heresay. You did miss one. Didn't Nostradamus predict that Rumsfeld and Bush would declare war on Iraq, Iran, then N. Korea, in that order?

No matter what, both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are coming down, and so are their government, and organization.

As for whether or not Hussein supports terrorism, it's obvious he embraces it, and the words come out of his own mouth, but you choose to ignore them.

You might want to read the entire thread, and a few other threads we've had on this subject. Your offerings aren't really different than anyone else who sees spooks in everything.

Wolf

NYRed, Wolf, Booklady and others who don't vomit the Socialist's line about our current war, I'm behind you. How admirable is the leadership of Aznar, Blair and the other heads of state that support our effort.
As I've stated before, if free people really wanted to protest, protest despotism and human rights violations. And then perhaps you wouldn't appear so insincere.
For those who question President Bush's ethics, at least, compared to our last leader, he has them.

So now we're tossing around the word Socialist as if that simple rhetorical wave of the hand made the anti-invasion arguments vanish? How quaint. On top of that, we're to believe that anyone who buys this "socialist propaganda" has a "weak mind"?

Now, let's see. I guess I can call you a "Right Winger" and a "Warmonger." Oh look -- poof! -- I no longer have to think about your line of reasoning: everything becomes about facile labels.

Honestly, you'd think grown-ups could do better than this sort of argument-by-name-calling. If you want to convince people of your position, present documentable facts and leave it at that.