[JamesP]

George Soros | A Self-Defeating War

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081606P.shtml

"The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11," writes George Soros, "a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts - Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia - a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world. Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued; a plot that could have claimed more victims than 9/11 has just been foiled by the vigilance of British intelligence."

[FDRfollower]

I thought this would be a good thread to post this. You've heard me rake Magoo over the coals for his historically insane thinking, well, I decided to post part of Thucydides documentory of the Peloponnesian war that sounds awfully like a description of the world, if the neo-cons were in total control. This is the part of the book, where Thucydides departs from his usual text, to give a broader view. This is from book 3 from the 6th year of the war.

So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression
which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur.
Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed;
struggles being every, where made by the popular chiefs to bring in
the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians.
In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to
make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the
command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and
their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the
foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties. The
sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and
terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as
the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or
milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety
of the particular cases. In peace and prosperity, states and
individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find
themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war
takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough
master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their
fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the
places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been
done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their
inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and
the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary
meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity
came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation,
specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness;
ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.
Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting,
a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme
measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.
To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a
still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either
was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In
fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of
a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended until even blood
became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those
united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such
associations had not in view the blessings derivable from
established institutions but were formed by ambition for their
overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested
less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. The fair
proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the
stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge
also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of
reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an
immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at
hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize
it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious
vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety
apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence.
Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues
clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the
second as they are proud of being the first. The cause of all these
evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from
these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in
contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the
fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political
equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought
prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended
to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for
ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of
vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what
justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party
caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal
readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of
the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion
was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to
arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate
part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not
joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to
escape.

[FDRfollower]

Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by
reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so
largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became
divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end
to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath
that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their
calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were
more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this
contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their
own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they
feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations
of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had
recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking
that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure
by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of
precaution.

Notice the EEEERRRRIIIIEEEE similarity to the thinking of Magoo, and Sdboreel and other regressives that have posted on the anti-war issue mostly. Since we're talking about the 5th Century BC, I find it faintly amusing, the similarities between what Thucydides was describing and our regressives today. So, roughly, that's 2,400 years of regression. :D Talk about never growing up!!

Oh, and the link, if you don't want to buy the book, is {click} (http://history.eserver.org/peloponesian-war.txt) , although, I have some questions about the translation.

[FDRfollower]

Hi JamesP.

What do you think of old George becoming a major investor in Halliburton?

[Thelonious]

Another very popular assertion that everyone seems to believe but nobody bothers to take a real hard look at is "The world changed on September 11th"

Really??? What exactly changed? Did Al-Queda suddenly gain a million new recruits? No. Did US military power suddenly colapse? No. What really changed? The ONLY thing that changed between Sept 10 and Sept 12 was the attitude of many Americans.
"The world changed on September 11th" is a phrase usually used to mean, Terrorism became a huge danger and now we have to fight it at all costs. This is not true. Terrorism was a danger before that, and the cost of fighting terrorism can often be much worse than the terror itself.

[Thelonious]

Yes, and about the war on Terror.

If you fight Terror with Terror you're likely to get a much worse situation than you started with.

[JamesP]

FDR: Please provide details. Incestuous ties to war-profiteering are no surprise, but I'm not aware of any recent news of this kind.

Thellonious:
I agree fully. "The world changed" not on 9-11, but afterward, when Americans abandoned principle & morality to follow an inept Bush administration down a path of fear, violence, revenge, torture and corruption.

[Thelonious]

James,
I think "abandoned principle & morality" might be a little strong. The big change was only that the thinking of so many Americans became overwhelmed by fear. (yes, you touched on this) Fear of dying. They didn't abandon principle as much as they used the (rather ridiculous) principle of ANYTHING TO SAVE ONE SINGLE SOLITARY LIFE.
A lot of the rhetoric after 9/11 would be silly if it weren't so warped. "The greatest tragedy the world has ever seen" bla bla bla. 3000 people dead? Killed almost instantly as well. Let's talk concentration camps. Let's talk the Trail of Tears - 4000 men, women and children killed over a 2000 mile forced march in the snow at gunpoint. Who was holding the guns? American Troops, my friends. Except for the spectacular film footage, and the fact that those towers were famous, there was nothing really all that interesting about 9/11. More people die from Tobacco. More people are killed in Darfur in a week.

[JamesP]

I would agree that, although a terrible & diabolical act of criminal violence occurred on 9-11, it's scope has been magnified & exagerated in the American psyche.... by television cameras and the simple, prideful notion that "such things can never happen to us".

With respect to "abandoning principle & morality", I would maintain that most of the world remains "appalled & disappointed" at what we Americans have become as a result of 9-11. A people & government who were once a source of stability & justice in the world has become a nation of cowardly bullies that:
- justify horror in the name of self-interest,
- have replaced rationality, humanity and the belief in a "free society" with simple "fear & vengeance"
- and condone corruption, incompetence, torture and mass slaughter of innocents.

[FDRfollower]

FDR: Please provide details. Incestuous ties to war-profiteering are no surprise, but I'm not aware of any recent news of this kind.


Olberman watch (http://www.olbermannwatch.com/archives/2007/03/olbypal_soros_b.php)

Foreign Policy (http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/3776)

Wonkette (http://wonkette.com/politics/george-soros/george-soros-buys-2-million-shares-of-halliburton-241746.php) Funny site!

world net daily (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54532)

Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2007-02-14T233646Z_01_WAO000067_RTRIDST_0_SOROS-HOLDINGS-ADDITIONS-URGENT.XML&rpc=66&type=qcna)

Investors Business Daily (http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=258336799504103&type=right)

OpEd News (http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/link.php?id=31597)

AIM (http://www.aim.org/special_report/A2089_0_8_0_C/)

and so on and on and on..... :)

[Thelonious]

I would agree that, although a terrible & diabolical act of criminal violence occurred on 9-11, it's scope has been magnified & exagerated in the American psyche.... by television cameras and the simple, prideful notion that "such things can never happen to us".

With respect to "abandoning principle & morality", I would maintain that most of the world remains "appalled & disappointed" at what we Americans have become as a result of 9-11. A people & government who were once a source of stability & justice in the world has become a nation of cowardly bullies that:
- justify horror in the name of self-interest,
- have replaced rationality, humanity and the belief in a "free society" with simple "fear & vengeance"
- and condone corruption, incompetence, torture and mass slaughter of innocents.

James,
With all due respect, I have not abandoned principle or morality. I don't believe Americans have either. The current administration may have, though I doubt that they had any principle or morality to begin with.

"the world remains "appalled & disappointed" at what we Americans have become"... Really??? What have I become??? I have become appalled and disapointed, that the Bush administration has been so horribly criminally incompetent.

Not every German was a concentration camp guard just because Hitler was in power.

[JamesP]

James,
With all due respect, I have not abandoned principle or morality. I don't believe Americans have either. The current administration may have, though I doubt that they had any principle or morality to begin with.

"the world remains "appalled & disappointed" at what we Americans have become"... Really??? What have I become??? I have become appalled and disapointed, that the Bush administration has been so horribly criminally incompetent.

Not every German was a concentration camp guard just because Hitler was in power.

My view is that we, Americans, are responsible for our government and it's actions.

The fact that we not only elected GWB, but re-elected him after we'd seen 4 years of his administration, witnessed Iraq (complete with "shock & awe" and Abu Ghraib) and understood their penchant for mis-information is a hard fact to dismiss in assessing the nature of the American people.

This administration rejects accountability at every stage. We, the people, should not. The last election was a late start, but a start nevertheless. A people so susceptible to fear and that hold principle so loosely, however, is vulnerable and a cause for concern.

We seem, generally, to be a weak people with a strong military. There are exceptions and, gratefully, more everyday.

[JamesP]

FDR: All about Soros investing in Halliburton at these links.

What's the Bush story in a nutshell?

[Thelonious]

James,
I honestly understand the philosophical angle that you're coming from. That said...
I feel NO responsibility for what those bozos Bush and Chenney did. I did not take the oath of office. Dubya did. And when he did he became responsible for the actions of the exective branch of government. People who voted for the moron share that responsibility. I sincerly hope that they are ashamed. I remind folks often that I did not vote for that bozo. I am proud that I never voted for Dubya or his father, or the braindead actor. My conscience is clean.
Am I playing the blame game? Yes, the world has a right to know who is to blame, and it isn't Thelonious.
We need to make it clear to ourselves and the world, that Dubya is responsible for this and that when he leaves office America will become a force for good in the world. (I pray that it will) Your rhetoric above does not aid in this effort.

[Thelonious]

BTW James, did YOU vote for Dubya, and that's why you keep saying "we"???

[JamesP]

James,
I honestly understand the philosophical angle that you're coming from. That said...
I feel NO responsibility for what those bozos Bush and Chenney did. I did not take the oath of office. Dubya did. And when he did he became responsible for the actions of the exective branch of government. People who voted for the moron share that responsibility. I sincerly hope that they are ashamed. I remind folks often that I did not vote for that bozo. I am proud that I never voted for Dubya or his father, or the braindead actor. My conscience is clean.
Am I playing the blame game? Yes, the world has a right to know who is to blame, and it isn't Thelonious.
We need to make it clear to ourselves and the world, that Dubya is responsible for this and that when he leaves office America will become a force for good in the world. (I pray that it will) Your rhetoric above does not aid in this effort.

I, of course, understand and agree, in part, with your point of view.... but not the part about Dubya being responsible (at least not solely). The American people are responsible for empowering the simpleton and his cronies (unless of course there was "massive" fraud in the 2004 election).

Clearly, you would agree that there should have been no contest in that election and that, even with a degree of fraud by the Republicans, Bush should have been sent home in shame by the overwhelming will & judgement of the American people.

It didn't happen. I see it as more about "us" than "him".

And no, I didn't vote for him, but my friends and relatives did and "they" are responsible for the enormous net increase in human suffering that has occurred as a result. Now, maybe more than ever, politics matters in America.

and check this:

"The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed that a majority of Americans say going to war in Iraq was a mistake and half call it a hopeless cause. But among Republicans, roughly three in four say the United States made the right decision in going to war and call the cause worthy."

It staggers the imagination and begs the provocative (& "tongue in cheek")question asked in another thread:

1 - "Do republicans have souls?"

as well as:

2 - "Do they get all of their news, info & world-view from right-wing radio"
or
3 - "Is it the simple lure of tax cuts that perpetuates their support for anything seen as "Republican" (even horrific, illegal, immoral & unnecessary war);

and that brings us right back again to question #1.

[Michael DeM]

I completely get what you're saying, James. I feel exactly the same way. We are all to blame in some way or another for what has happened in the past 7 years, particularly on the war. The Bush regime is to blame for leading us into war. The Democrats are to blame for going along with the war. The media is to blame for not questioning the war enough. And the American public is to blame for not rising up in massive numbers and demanding that every warmongering politician be thrown out of office before the war even started. I guess it's just the culture we live in right now. The American people haven't yet gotten to the point where they have rejected war as a normal means of conducting foreign policy. There do seem to be some signs of hope, though. I was just reading this article earlier today.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/?pid=185299

[MAGI]

You GO, Michael Dem!
Love it!

Hope YOUR future is in government, "We The People" need young people of your caliber!

:thumbup:

[Wafflepudding]

America could fight terror with terror, it is effective, but it's not what it's being done (or at least not "right"). The Romans were particularly succesful in fighting their threats striking fear into their enemies but they resorted to tactics no sane person of this or any other civilized nation would approve. It's morally unacceptable and really, to become a fascist state with complete disregard for human life isn't worth preventing a thousand 9/11s.
War on terror is not a false metaphor, it's a loaded term, like the war on drugs, designed to drum up popular support.

[JamesP]

Michael: very encouraging article.
Maybe "we, the people" have learned something from the "dark days" of the Bush administration.

[Thelonious]

...I feel exactly the same way. We are all to blame in some way or another for what has happened in the past 7 years....

Michael,

You are out of your mind. And you are blaming the victim. If I lie to you and you believe me, is it your fault, because you trusted me? NO! I am to blame, because I am the liar. My mother lectured me not to steal. I stole anyway. That is my mother's fault, because she didn't lecture hard enough. BULLCRAP!!!!

The Commander in Chief is responsible. The Commander in Chief lied to Congress (it is well documented) The Commander in Chief lied to the American people (uranium from Africa, and on and on) One man took an oath to uphold the constitution, then he took us to war with no plan for after the war. It is NOT my responsibility to see that the best possible preparations are made for millitary action. It is not yours. It is not anybody's, except The Commander in Chief's. Many people opposed the Bush-Chenney war from the very start. Now they are protesting in front of Pelosi's house, as if she were to blame. It's insanity. Tell the truth. Bush Chenney Rumsfeld and to a lesser extent Rice, Powel, Wolfowitz and others... Followed by Rush Limbaugh, Idiot O'Reilly, The Fox Propaganda station, followed by all the people who actually Voted for Dubya..... just about all of the blame has been allotted...

[Thelonious]

Michael: very encouraging article.
Maybe "we, the people" have learned something from the "dark days" of the Bush administration.


That would be a nice topic for a new thread. What have we learned from the dark days of the Bush administration?

[Thelonious]

...fight terror with terror, it is effective...

Waffle,

It is no longer clear just how effective it is. Times have changed since Rome. If you look at the last 50 years or so, guerilla warfare, or insurgency if you will has been very effective and nearly impossible to defeat. Population increases and the politicization of massive populations has made controlling occupied countries much harder than in colonial days.

My Brother-in-Law last summer during the Lebanon War said that Hizballah just needed to be beaten into submission. Well, Israel beat as hard as they could with fantastic modern weapons, and Hizballah is stronger than ever.

Fighting terror with terror is VERY unlikely to work.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Thelonius, so, according to you, U.S. Congress was a victim of Bush administration "lies" at the time Congress voted to authorize the 2ND war in Iraq, and innocently, blindly, without forewarning, without foreknowledge and without information contrary to Bush administration "lies," Congress then voted to authorize the 2ND Iraq War after years of U.S. sanctions against Iraq. No, Thelonius, WHO were "lied" to about the reasons for sanctions against Iraq and the Iraq War that was about "regime change," NOT weapons of mass destruction purported to the American people to be a threat to United State's soveriegn territory, was We, the people by Bush I's administration beginning in 1991, perpetuated by the Clinton administration and upped by Bush II's administration AND supported by Congress.

Thelonius, if weapons of mass distruction was NOT the reason for the U.S. government's sanctions against Iraq that was to effect "regime change" and, failing that, going to war with Iraq to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, what was?

The articles below shed substantial light on reasons for the Iraq War:

Harper's Magazine

November 2002

Cool War: Economic sanctions as a weapon of mass destruction

By Joy Gordon

http://www.scn.org/ccpi/HarpersJoyGordonNov02.html

AND

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/iraq.html

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



5/27/2003

The Internally Stated US Goal of Securing the Flow of Oil from the Middle East

As early as April 1997, a report from the James A. Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University addressed the problem of "energy security" for the United States, and noted that the US was increasingly threatened by oil shortages in the face of the inability of oil supplies to keep up with world demand. In particular the report addressed "The Threat of Iraq and Iran" to the free flow of oil out of the Middle East. It concluded that Saddam Hussein was still a threat to Middle Eastern security and still had the military capability to exercise force beyond Iraq's borders.

The Bush Administration returned to this theme as soon as it took office in 2001, by following the lead of a second report from the same Institute. <2> This Task Force Report was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, another group historically concerned about US access to overseas oil resources. The Report represented a consensus of thinking among energy experts of both political parties, and was signed by Democrats as well as Republicans. <3>

The chief reason why dollars are more than pieces of green paper is that countries all over the world need them for purchases, principally of oil. This requires them in addition to maintain dollar reserves to protect their own currency; and these reserves, when invested, help maintain the current high levels of the US securities markets.

The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century, concluded: "The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments."

The Task Force meetings were attended by members of the new Bush Administration's Department of Energy, and the report was read by members of Vice-President Cheney's own Energy Task Force. When Cheney issued his own national energy plan, it too declared that "The [Persian] Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy." It agreed with the Baker report that the U.S. is increasingly dependent on imported oil and that it may be necessary to overcome foreign resistance in order to gain access to new supplies.

Later the point was made more bluntly by Anthony H. Cordesman, senior analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies: "Regardless of whether we say so publicly, we will go to war, because Saddam sits at the center of a region with more than 60 percent of all the world's oil reserves."

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



5/27/2003]

As Henry Liu has written vividly in the online Asian Times (4/11/02),

"World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy. The world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies. To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their currencies, the world's central banks must acquire and hold dollar reserves in corresponding amounts to their currencies in circulation. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making it stronger. This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.

"By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in US assets, creating a capital-accounts surplus for the US economy. Even after a year of sharp correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared with emerging markets."

But central bankers around the world do not expect either the US dollar or the US stock markets to sustain their current levels. As William Greider in The Nation (9/23/02) has pointed out:

"US economy's net foreign indebtedness--the accumulation of two decades of running larger and larger trade deficits--will reach nearly 25 percent of US GDP this year, or roughly $2.5 trillion. Fifteen years ago, it was zero. Before America's net balance of foreign assets turned negative, in 1988, the United States was a creditor nation itself, investing and lending vast capital to others, always more than it borrowed. Now the trend line looks most alarming. If the deficits persist around the current level of $400 billion a year or grow larger, the total US indebtedness should reach $3.5 trillion in three years or so. Within a decade, it would total 50 percent of GDP."

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:

The war in Iraq never was about weapons of mass distruction that threatened the sovereign territory of the United States of America. The simple, false reason for the Iraq War disseminated to We, the people, the left saw right through and strongly opposed.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2148



The Coming October War In Iraq

A Conversation With Scott Ritter
by William Pitt

July 26, 2002

Room 295 of the Suffolk Law School building in downtown Boston was filled to capacity on July 23rd with peace activists, aging Cambridge hippies and assorted freaks. One of the organizers for the gathering, United For Justice With Peace Coalition, handed out green pieces of paper that read, "We will not support war, no matter what reason or rhetoric is offered by politicians or the media. War in our time and in this context is indiscriminate, a war against innocents and against children." Judging from the crowd, and from the buzz in the room, that pretty much summed things up. The contrast presented when Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, entered the room, could not have been more disparate. There at the lectern stood this tall lantern-jawed man, every inch the twelve-year Marine Corps veteran he was, who looked and spoke just exactly like a bulldogging high school football coach. A whistle on a string around his neck would have perfected the image.

"I need to say right out front," he said minutes into his speech, "I'm a card-carrying Republican in the conservative-moderate range who voted for George W. Bush for President. I'm not here with a political agenda. I'm not here to slam Republicans. I am one."

... Scott Ritter had come to Boston with a political agenda, one that impacts every single American citizen. Ritter was in the room that night to denounce, with roaring voice and burning eyes, the coming American war in Iraq. According to Ritter, this coming war is about nothing more or less than domestic American politics, based upon speculation and rhetoric entirely divorced from fact. According to Ritter, that war is just over the horizon.

"The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing to have 20,000 Marines deployed in the (Iraq) region for ground combat operations by mid-October," he said. "The Air Force used the vast majority of its precision-guided munitions blowing up caves in Afghanistan. Congress just passed emergency appropriations money and told Boeing company to accelerate their production of the GPS satellite kits, that go on bombs that allow them to hit targets while the planes fly away, by September 30, 2002. Why? Because the Air Force has been told to have three air expeditionary wings ready for combat operations in Iraq by mid-October."

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:





"As a guy who was part of the first Gulf War," said Ritter, who indeed served under Schwarzkopf in that conflict, "when you deploy that much military power forward - disrupting their training cycles, disrupting their operational cycles, disrupting everything, spending a lot of money - it is very difficult to pull them back without using them."

"You got 20,000 Marines forward deployed in October," said Ritter, "you better expect war in October."

His purpose for coming to that room was straightforward: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Democrat Joe Biden, plans to call a hearing beginning on Monday, July 29th. The Committee will call forth witnesses to describe the threat posed to America by Iraq. Ritter fears that much crucial information will not be discussed in that hearing, precipitating a war authorization by Congress based on political expediency and ignorance. Scott Ritter came to that Boston classroom to exhort all there to demand of the Senators on the Committee that he be allowed to stand as a witness.

Ritter began his comments by noting the interesting times we live in after September 11th. There has been much talk of war, and much talk of war with Iraq. Ritter was careful to note that there are no good wars - as a veteran, he described war as purely awful and something not to be trivialized - but that there is such a thing as a just war. He described America as a good place, filled with potential and worth fighting for. We go to just war, he said, when our national existence has been threatened.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



According to Ritter, there is no justification in fact, national security, international law or basic morality to justify this coming war with Iraq. In fact, when asked pointedly what the mid-October scheduling of this conflict has to do with the midterm Congressional elections that will follow a few weeks later, he replied, simply, "Everything."

"This is not about the security of the United States," said this card-carrying Republican while pounding the lectern. "This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation."

Ritter was sledding up a pretty steep slope with all this. After all, Saddam Hussein has been demonized for twelve years by American politicians and the media. He gassed his own people, and America has already fought one war to keep him under control. Ritter's presence in Iraq was demanded in the first place by Hussein's pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction, along with the ballistic missile technology that could deliver these weapons to all points on the compass.

According to the Bush administration, Hussein has ties to the same Al Qaeda terrorists that brought down the World Trade Center. It is certain that Hussein will use these terrorist links to deliver a lethal blow to America, using any number of the aforementioned weapons. The argument, propounded by Bush administration officials on any number of Sunday news talk shows, is that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, and the unseating of Saddam Hussein, is critical to American national security. Why wait for them to hit us first?

"If I were an American, uninformed on Iraq as we all are," said Ritter, "I would be concerned." Furthermore, continued Ritter, if an unquestionable case could be made that such weapons and terrorist connections existed, he would be all for a war in Iraq. It would be just, smart, and in the interest of national defense.

Therein lies the rub: According to Scott Ritter, who spent seven years in Iraq with the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams performing acidly detailed investigations into Iraq's weapons program, no such capability exists. Iraq simply does not have weapons of mass destruction, and does not have threatening ties to international terrorism. Therefore, no premise for a war in Iraq exists. Considering the American military lives and the Iraqi civilian lives that will be spent in such an endeavor, not to mention the deadly regional destabilization that will ensue, such a baseless war must be avoided at all costs.

"The Bush administration has provided the American public with little more than rhetorically laced speculation," said Ritter. "There has been nothing in the way of substantive fact presented that makes the case that Iraq possesses these weapons or has links to international terror, that Iraq poses a threat to the United States of America worthy of war."

Ritter regaled the crowd with stories of his time in Iraq with UNSCOM. The basis for the coming October war is the continued existence of a weapons program that threatens America. Ritter noted explicitly that Iraq, of course, had these weapons at one time - he spent seven years there tracking them down. At the outset, said Ritter, they lied about it. They failed to declare the existence of their biological and nuclear programs after the Gulf War, and declared less than 50% of their chemical and missile stockpiles. They hid everything they could, as cleverly as they could.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



After the first lie, Ritter and his team refused to believe anything else they said. For the next seven years, the meticulously tracked down every bomb, every missile, every factory designed to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weaponry. They went to Europe and found the manufacturers who sold them the equipment. They got the invoices and shoved them into the faces of Iraqi officials. They tracked the shipping of these materials and cross-referenced this data against the invoices. They lifted the foundations of buildings destroyed in the Gulf War to find wrecked research and development labs, at great risk to their lives, and used the reams of paperwork there to cross-reference what they had already cross-referenced.

Everything they found was later destroyed in place.

After a while, the Iraqis knew Ritter and his people were robotically thorough. Fearing military retaliation if they hid anything, the Iraqis instituted a policy of full disclosure. Still, Ritter believed nothing they said and tracked everything down. By the time he was finished, Ritter was mortally sure that he and his UNSCOM investigators had stripped Iraq of 90-95% of all their weapons of mass destruction.

What of the missing 10%? Is this not still a threat? Ritter believes that the ravages of the Gulf War accounted for a great deal of the missing material, as did the governmental chaos caused by sanctions. The Iraqis' policy of full disclosure, also, was of a curious nature that deserved all of Ritter's mistrust. Fearing the aforementioned attacks, Iraq instituted a policy of destroying whatever Ritter's people had not yet found, and then pretending it never existed in the first place. Often, the dodge failed to fool UNSCOM. That some of it did also accounts for a portion of that missing 10%.

Ritter told a story about running down 98 missiles the Iraqis tried to pretend never existed. UNSCOM got hold of the documentation describing them, and demanded proof that they had, in fact, been destroyed. He was brought to a field where, according to Iraqi officials, the missiles had been blown up and then buried. At this point, Ritter and his team became "forensic archaeologists," digging up every single missile component they could find there.

After sifting through the bits and pieces to find parts bearing serial numbers, they went to Russia, who sold Iraq the weapons in the first place. They cross-referenced the serial numbers with the manufacturer's records, and confirmed the data with the shipping invoices. When finished, they had accounted for 96 of the missiles. Left over was a pile of metal with no identifying marks, which the Iraqis claimed were the other two missiles. Ritter didn't believe them, but could go no further with the investigation.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



This story was telling in many ways. Americans mesmerized with stories of lying Iraqis who never told the weapons inspectors the truth about anything should take note of the fact that Ritter was led to exactly the place where the Iraqis themselves had destroyed their weapons without being ordered to. The pile of metal left over from this investigation that could not be identified means Iraq, technically, could not receive a 100% confirmation that all its weapons were destroyed. Along with the other mitigating factors described above, it seems clear that 100% compliance under the UNSCOM rules was impossible to achieve. 90-95%, however, is an impressive record.

The fact that chemical and biological weapons ever existed in the first place demands action, according to the Bush administration. After all, they could have managed to hide vast amounts of the stuff from Ritter's investigators. Iraq manufactured three kinds of these nerve agents: VX, Sarin and Tabou. Some alarmists who want war with Iraq describe 20,000 munitions filled with Sarin and Tabou nerve agents that could be used against Americans.

The facts, however, allay the fears. Sarin and Tabou have a shelf life of five years. Even if Iraq had somehow managed to hide this vast number of weapons from Ritter's people, what they are now storing is nothing more than useless and completely harmless goo.

The VX gas was of a greater concern to Ritter. It is harder to manufacture than the others, but once made stable, it can be kept for much longer. Ritter's people found the VX manufacturing facility that the Iraqis claimed never existed totally destroyed, hit by a Gulf War bomb on January 23, 1991. The field where the material they had manufactured was subsequently buried underwent more forensic archaeology to determine that whatever they had made had also been destroyed. All of this, again, was cross-referenced and meticulously researched.

"The research and development factory is destroyed," said Ritter. "The product of that factory is destroyed. The weapons they loaded up have been destroyed. More importantly, the equipment procured from Europe that was going to be used for their large-scale VX nerve agent factory was identified by the special commission - still packed in its crates in 1997 - and destroyed. Is there a VX nerve agent factory in Iraq today? Not on your life."

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



This is, in and of itself, a bold statement. Ritter himself and no weapons inspection team has set foot in Iraq since 1998. Ritter believed Iraq technically capable of restarting its weapons manufacturing capabilities within six months of his departure. That leaves some three and one half years to manufacture and weaponize all the horrors that has purportedly motivated the Bush administration to attack.

"Technically capable," however, is the important phrase here. If no one were watching, Iraq could do this. But they would have to start completely from scratch, having been deprived of all equipment, facilities and research because of Ritter's work. They would have to procure the complicated tools and technology required through front companies, which would be detected. The manufacture of chemical and biological weapons emits vented gasses that would have been detected by now if they existed. The manufacture of nuclear weapons emits gamma rays that would have been detected by now if they existed. We have been watching, via satellite and other means, and we have seen none of this.

"If Iraq was producing weapons today, we would have definitive proof," said Ritter, "plain and simple."

And yet we march to war, and soon. A chorus of voices was raised in the room asking why we are going. What motivates this, if not hard facts and true threats? According to Ritter, it comes down to opportunistic politics and a decade of hard anti-Hussein rhetoric that has boxed the Bush administration into a rhetorical corner.

Back in 1991, the UN Security Council mandated the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions were placed upon Iraq to pressure them to comply. The first Bush administration signed on to this, but also issued a covert finding that mandated the removal of Saddam Hussein. Even if all the weapons were destroyed, Bush Sr. would not lift the sanctions until Hussein was gone.

Bush Sr., and Clinton after him, came to realize that talking about removing Hussein was far, far easier than achieving that goal. Hussein was, and remains, virtually coup-proof. No one could get close enough to put a bullet in him, and no viable intelligence existed to pinpoint his location from day to day. Rousing a complacent American populace to support the massive military engagement that would have been required to remove Hussein by force presented insurmountable political obstacles. The tough talk about confronting Hussein continued, but the Bush and Clinton administrations treaded water.

This lack of results became exponentially more complicated. Politicians began making a living off of demonizing Hussein, and lambasting Clinton for failing to have him removed. The roots of our current problem began to deepen at this point, for it became acceptable to encapsulate a nation of 20 million citizens in the visage of one man who was hated and reviled in bipartisan fashion. Before long, the American people knew the drill - Saddam is an evil threat and must be met with military force, period.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



In 1998, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Iraqi Liberation Act. The weight of public American law now demanded the removal of Saddam Hussein. The American government went on to use data gathered by UNSCOM, narrowly meant to pinpoint possible areas of investigation, to choose bombing targets in an operation called Desert Fox. Confrontation, rather than resolution, continued to be the rule. By 1999, however, Hussein was still in power.

"An open letter was written to Bill Clinton in the fall of 1999," said Ritter, "condemning him for failing to fully implement the Iraqi Liberation Act. It demanded that he use the American military to facilitate the Iraqi opposition's operations inside Iraq, to put troops on the ground and move on up to Baghdad to get rid of Saddam. Who signed this letter? Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Robert Zoellick, Richard Perle, and on and on and on."

The removal of Saddam Hussein became a plank in the GOP's race for the Presidency in 2000. After gaining office, George W. Bush was confronted with the reality that he and many within his administration had spent a great amount of political capital promising that removal. Once in power, however, he came to realize what his father and Clinton already knew - talking tough was easy, and instigating pinprick military confrontations was easy, but removing Hussein from power was not easy at all. His own rhetoric was all around him, however, pushing him into that corner which had only one exit. Still, like the two Presidents before him, he treaded water.

Then came September 11th. Within days, Bush was on television claiming that the terrorists must have had state-sponsored help, and that state sponsor must be Iraq. When the anthrax attacks came, Bush blamed Iraq again. Both times, he had no basis whatsoever in fact for his claims. The habit of lambasting Iraq, and the opportunity to escape the rhetorical box twelve years of hard-talking American policy, were too juicy to ignore.

The dearth of definitive proof of an Iraqi threat against America began to go international. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld appeared before NATO not long ago and demanded that they support America's looming Iraq war. Most of the NATO nations appeared ready to do so - they trusted that America's top defense official would not come before them and lie. But when they tried to ask questions of him about the basis for this war, Rumsfeld absolutely refused to answer any of them. Instead, he offered this regarding our utter lack of meaningful data to support a conflict: "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence."

Scott Ritter appeared before NATO some days after this at their invitation to offer answers to their questions. Much of what he told them was mirrored in his comments in that Boston classroom. After he was finished, 16 of the 19 NATO nations present wrote letters of complaint to the American government about Rumsfeld's comments, and about our basis for war. American UN representatives boycotted this hearing, and denounced all who gave ear to Ritter.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Continued:



Some have claimed that the Bush administration may hold secret evidence pointing to a threat within Iraq, one that cannot be exposed for fear of compromising a source. Ritter dismissed this out of hand in Boston. "If the administration had such secret evidence," he said, "we'd be at war in Iraq right now. We wouldn't be talking about it. It would be a fait accompli." Our immediate military action in Afghanistan, whose ties to Al Qaeda were manifest, lends great credence to this point.

Ritter dismissed oil as a motivating factor behind our coming war with Iraq. He made a good defense of this claim. Yes, Iraq has the second-largest oil reserves on earth, a juicy target for the petroleum-loving Bush administration. But the U.S. already buys some 68% of all the oil produced in Iraq. "The Navy ships in the Gulf who work to interdict the smuggling of Iraqi oil," said Ritter, "are fueled by Iraqi oil." Iraq's Oil Minister has stated on camera that if the sanctions are lifted, Iraq will do whatever it takes to see that America's oil needs are fulfilled. "You can't get a better deal than that," claimed Ritter.

His thinking on this aspect of the coming war may be in error. That sort of logic exists in an all-things-being-equal world of politics and influence, a world that has ceased to exist. Oil is a coin in the bargaining, peddled as influence to oil-state congressmen and American petroleum companies by the Iraqi National Congress to procure support for this baseless conflict. Invade, says the INC, put us in power, and you will have all you want. There are many ruling in America today, both in government and business, who would shed innocent blood for this opportunity.

Ritter made no bones about the fact that Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Like most Americans, however, he detests being lied to. His work in Iraq, and his detailed understanding of the incredible technological requirements for the production of weapons of mass destruction, leads him to believe beyond question that there is no basis in fact or in the needs of national security for a war in Iraq. This Marine, this Republican who seemed so essentially hawkish that no one in that Boston classroom would have been surprised to find wings under his natty blue sportcoat, called the man he cast a Presidential vote for a liar.

"The clock is ticking," he said, "and it's ticking towards war. And it's going to be a real war. It's going to be a war that will result in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. It's a war that is going to devastate Iraq. It's a war that's going to destroy the credibility of the United States of America. I just came back from London, and I can tell you this - Tony Blair may talk a good show about war, but the British people and the bulk of the British government do not support this war. The Europeans do not support this war. NATO does not support this war. No one supports this war."

It is of a certainty that few in the Muslim world support another American war with Iraq. Osama bin Laden used the civilian suffering in Iraq under the sanctions to demonstrate to his followers the evils of America and the West. Another war would exacerbate those already-raw emotions. After 9/11, much of the Islamic world repudiated bin Laden and his actions. Another Iraq war would go a long way to proving, in the minds of many Muslims, that bin Laden was right all along. The fires of terrorism that would follow this are unimaginable.

Scott Ritter wants to be present as a witness on Monday when the Foreign Relations Committee convenes its hearing, a hearing that will decide whether or not America goes to war in Iraq. He wants to share the information he delivered in that Boston classroom with Senators who have spent too many years listening to, or propounding, rhetorical and speculative fearmongering about an Iraqi threat to America that does not exist. Instead, he wants the inspectors back in Iraq, doing their jobs. He wants to try and keep American and Iraqi blood from being spilled in a military exercise promulgated by right-wing ideologues that may serve no purpose beyond affecting the outcome of the midterm Congressional elections in November 2002.

"This is not theory," said Ritter in Boston as he closed his comments. "This is real. And the only way this war is going to be stopped is if Congress stops this war."

On the web: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee: http://foreign.senate.gov/committee/

William Rivers Pitt is a teacher from Boston, MA. His new book, 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence,' will be published soon by Pluto Press.

[Wafflepudding]

It is no longer clear just how effective it is. Times have changed since Rome. If you look at the last 50 years or so, guerilla warfare, or insurgency if you will has been very effective and nearly impossible to defeat. Population increases and the politicization of massive populations has made controlling occupied countries much harder than in colonial days.

My Brother-in-Law last summer during the Lebanon War said that Hizballah just needed to be beaten into submission. Well, Israel beat as hard as they could with fantastic modern weapons, and Hizballah is stronger than ever.

Fighting terror with terror is VERY unlikely to work.

Before saying anything else keep in mind, I'm against that kind of solutions for moral as well as ideological issues. I am in no way advocating a regression to the days of Rome.

Yes, times have changed since Rome. In 200 BC or 300 AD nobody would have frowned upon an imperialist war, nobody questioned atrocities like razing cities, killing the men and taking the women and children as slaves. I believe the Bush administration is willing to "fight terror with terror" in that style, but so far it hasn't been able to do so, at least to the full extent of what it means, because tactics like that are too unsavory for the modern world.

Let me take it to a more modern context: if America was indeed fighting terror with terror, Baghdad would be a smoldering, radioactive crater, there would be concentration camps instead of interrogation camps, and all the other sorts of horrors we have seen regimes that genuinely tried to subdue peoples through terror or exterminate them altogether.

The success of guerrilla warfare has been largely dependant on the context, not because of some inherent tactical superiority. There are also many other guerrilla campaigns that so far have failed to meet their objectives (the civil wars in Africa without a clear victor, the FARC, the contras). And really, if you're counting Afghanistan and Vietnam in there you're failing to aknowledge that those were rather unique in that they were both supplied by superpowers and without Soviet and American material aid, it's questionable (IMO improbable) that the mujahadeen and the vietcong would have been as succesful as they were. Guerrilla has always been about gaining the support of the local population, if said population is scared of it's collective wits, fragmented or altogether exterminated, the guerrilla dies, it's that simple. If Israel, using your own example, would have exterminated the Palestinians there wouldn't be a "Palestinian problem", and if they would have annexed Lebanon it wouldn't be swarming with Hizbollah right now. It would draw international condemnation, but the Israelies has proven they don't really care about that.

Again, it is feasible to win this way, we would only lose our humanity, our values, and everything America has stood for in the first place. That is an unacceptable cost.

And while I'm at it, considering that this will be my last post for today, I might as well spill my own crazy CT: It's not even about the oil, it's about the huge juicy reconstruction contracts, it's about the enormous revenues PMCs and defense contractors are having, it's about Americans not feeling safe because the false sense of security bubble every administration had created and nurtured since the end of the cold war finally bursted, in a tragic way.

I've heard so many say that Bush, the interests that put him in office, and his cronies plans have backfired. have they? they profit no matter who wins or who dies, they're selling the weapons and the equipment. The more hardware the insurgents and terrorists destroy, the more money they make selling replacements. They couldn't care less how many infantrymen die, they just sell the body armor, it's more profitable for the armor to fail and be replaced, etc etc etc. They didn't NEED to stage 9/11, they didn't have to do any of that insane, stupid, illogical "controlled demolition" crap, they could have just seized the opportunity when it came along, or hell, maybe they knew about the plans of the hijackers and let it happen anyway, it's not important at all. That's my theory.

[Michael DeM]

To effectively reply to your post, Thelonious, I'm going to use a little trick that I saw Jane of Arc and Magi use a couple of times.
Black=Thelonious
Red=Michael DeM

Michael,

You are out of your mind.What's your point? And you are blaming the victim.I don't recall blaming the Iraqi people in my last post. If I lie to you and you believe me, is it your fault, because you trusted me?If I have reason to believe you are lying but blindly trust you anyway, then it would be both of our faults. NO! I am to blame, because I am the liar. My mother lectured me not to steal. I stole anyway. That is my mother's fault, because she didn't lecture hard enough. BULLCRAP!!!!It's a slightly different situation. I'm assuming you didn't send your mother a resolution asking for permission to steal. And I doubt that you had radio and television commentators continuously defending your actions. Furthermore, I don't have reason to believe that you had poll ratings of 60% support for your thievery when you first started doing it.

The Commander in Chief is responsible. The Commander in Chief lied to Congress (it is well documented) The Commander in Chief lied to the American people (uranium from Africa, and on and on) One man took an oath to uphold the constitution, then he took us to war with no plan for after the war. It is NOT my responsibility to see that the best possible preparations are made for millitary action. It is not yours. It is not anybody's, except The Commander in Chief's.I never said it was our responsibility to see the best possible preparations are made for military action. I'm saying that it's our responbility to indentify and prevent needless acts of military aggression against other countries. Many people opposed the Bush-Chenney war from the very start.EXACTLY. They knew better. Why didn't more people protest the war from the start? Better yet, why didn't more of our politicians have good judgment concerning the legality of the war? Now they are protesting in front of Pelosi's house, as if she were to blame. It's insanity. Tell the truth. Bush Chenney Rumsfeld and to a lesser extent Rice, Powel, Wolfowitz and others... Followed by Rush Limbaugh, Idiot O'Reilly, The Fox Propaganda station, followed by all the people who actually Voted for Dubya..... just about all of the blame has been allotted... All of those people hold a heavy share of the blame. However, you can't leave out those who enabled them. The O'Reillys and Limbaughs of the world wouldn't be on the air if their shows didn't get such high ratings. And the Bushes and Cheneys wouldn't even be in office if the American public were more disinclined to their policies. Elected officials get most of their power from the bottom up.

[JamesP]

I've heard so many say that Bush, the interests that put him in office, and his cronies plans have backfired. have they?

It's an excellent question.
Hard to believe that they could truly be so naive, shortsighted, so poorly prepared and so incompetent.
It is likely that something darker is at work here.
Turning a multi-trillion dollar surplus into a multi-trillion dollar deficit requires the cover of a prolonged conflict.... a "war on terror" .... no clear enemy and no clear ending.

The industries that they are closest to, oil & defense, have never before seen such profits. Is this the result of "errors, miscalculations and blunders" or is something more "Machievellian" afoot here?

[JamesP]

Michael,

Obviously, I'm with you.

We must demand accountability at all levels for the tragic disaster of this administration and it's acts.

The American people have so many villains to blame, but we must also accept our responsibility for empowering them.

We stood by and cheered the spectacle of "shock & awe" as our military dropped over a quarter million 2-ton bombs on civilian cities in a country that had not attacked us and posed no threat.

Obviously, such things should never happen again. We still have work to do here before we can return again to being both a "great" and "good" country.
Recent polls indicate that a staggering 75% of Republicans in the USA still believe that going to war in Iraq was "worth it" .....even though all of the rationale's used to justify it have proven to be false. The blood remains on our hands. Until we totally & collectively reject this war and it's proponents , we can't begin the trip back to being a moral and responsible nation.

[Thelonious]

...
We stood by and cheered the spectacle of "shock & awe" as our military dropped over a quarter million....

James,

Maybe you and MichaelDem cheered. I didn't. I was praying that Dubya knows what he's doing. (He didn't) I was praying that he had much better information than I did. (He didn't) I was praying that the CIA had provided the info for a foundation for a brilliant plan whereby the occupation could proceed without falling into anarchy and civil war. (a few history courses have taught me that occupations of large multiethnic countries whose institutions have been destroyed by war often leads to large-scale bloodshed).
I also prayed because I had a weird queasy feeling.... If President Hussein has all these chemical and biological weapons, why isn't he using them???? Is the US Millitary REALLY ready for the expected chemical attacks??? It didn't make sense.

[Thelonious]

...All of those people hold a heavy share of the blame. However, you can't leave out those who enabled them. The O'Reillys and Limbaughs of the world wouldn't be on the air if their shows didn't get such high ratings. And the Bushes and Cheneys wouldn't even be in office if the American public were more disinclined to their policies. Elected officials get most of their power from the bottom up.

Exactly, and that is why I tell Republican voter and RightWing Wackos that THEY are to blame. They choose to be ignorant. They choose to be closed minded. They support Limbaugh and Hannity and other ideological sources of disinformation, ant THEY got us into this mess. And THEY ought to get out there and start campaigning for Democratic Candidates, or THEY will get just more of the same.

So we agree that the Executive Branch of Government and the rightwing wackos "hold a heavy share of the blame". We agree on that. I would estimate their share of the blame at 96%. And you?

If we were to spread the blame equally, out of 300 million American Citizens my share would be, I think 0.000000033% . Since I voted against Bush Twice, even campaigned against him, my real share is probably much lower.

Michael, I wrote that you are out of your mind because those who "hold a heavy share of the blame" were not even mentioned in your post about how an abstract "WE" are to blame.

In a truly just world, Bush, Chenney and Rumsfeld would be hanged for criminal negligence.
Playing philosophical games about how truly we are all to blame has the practical impact of giving my republican brother-in-law another tactic by which to avoid HIS OWN resposibility for having supported this dingbat administration.

[MAGI]

James,

Maybe you and MichaelDem cheered. I didn't. I was praying that Dubya knows what he's doing. (He didn't) I was praying that he had much better information than I did. (He didn't) I was praying that the CIA had provided the info for a foundation for a brilliant plan whereby the occupation could proceed without falling into anarchy and civil war. (a few history courses have taught me that occupations of large multiethnic countries whose institutions have been destroyed by war often leads to large-scale bloodshed).
I also prayed because I had a weird queasy feeling.... If President Hussein has all these chemical and biological weapons, why isn't he using them???? Is the US Millitary REALLY ready for the expected chemical attacks??? It didn't make sense.


I also prayed because I had a weird queasy feeling.... If President Hussein has all these chemical and biological weapons, why isn't he using them???? Is the US Millitary REALLY ready for the expected chemical attacks??? It didn't make sense.

Exactly! ............and atomic bombs yet......!
Without a doubt our so called leaders knew there were no WMDs to fear!

Though many of us protested loud and clear, it wasn't enough...........and I believe that is why Michael Dem, James and so many of us feel a sense of guilt, hence, "we".

I have brothers that feel as your brother-in-law. We had a huge disagreement when one of The Dixie Chicks said they were ashamed bush was from Texas, when they were on tour in the UK.
I said I didn't especially care about all their songs but I firmly believed in their politics! Ever since, politics at our gatherings are off limits.......

Honestly, I don't know their feelings even at this moment. I am in contact with them almost daily, saw them both in the hospital last Friday, one has lung cancer and the other just had a colostomy reversed, and I love them..........so........

T. It's sickening to think of all the destroyed lives, the destruction in the ME, our ruined standing in the world, the debt we have, and those miserable !@#$&*s still in charge!

They ALL should face a firing squad in my opinion and the little that I know of you from what I've read (don't know how you feel about corporal punishment), you're pretty close to how I feel about so much of all this! (for lack of description).

[JamesP]

1 - So we agree that the Executive Branch of Government and the rightwing wackos "hold a heavy share of the blame".

2 - If we were to spread the blame equally, out of 300 million American Citizens my share would be, I think 0.000000033% . Since I voted against Bush Twice, even campaigned against him, my real share is probably much lower.

3 - Playing philosophical games about how truly we are all to blame has the practical impact of giving my republican brother-in-law another tactic by which to avoid HIS OWN resposibility for having supported this dingbat administration.

Thelonious:

I am in general agreement on points 1 & 2.

On point 3, I think that we should each own up to our responsibility as Americans to influence and guide our country, one person at a time, if necessary.

It's not enough any more to stay silent & respectful as the right wing grunts, bangs their chest and makes war noises. The result this time has been real war, real carnage, real human suffering on a collossal scale.... and this time our country was on the wrong side of the moral divide.

It's not acceptable anymore to "go along to get along". This attitude by the left has worked so very well for the bellicose right.

Still today, candidates for high office can't speak of "peace" for fear of being viewed as "weak". They can't talk of trying to "negotiate, understand, reach out or, God forbid, "appease". We can talk of killing, though... and even "torture". This is a language that too many of us buy into and too many others politely accept.

It's time to call the brother-in-law the greedy, ignorant, blood-drenched bastard that he is and throw him out of the house. We must condemn "war-mongering" in the same way that racism became openly condemned and no longer tolerated in America.

There really is a "culture war" in America .... rational,thoughtful, compassionate Americans have been losing it for years.
It's how we ended up with 8 years of "the ignorant cowboy and his cronies"..... and hundreds of thousands of innocents dead, maimed, suffering the loss of loved ones.... and hating Americans for it... and too many young Americans "killing & being killed" for no good reason.

It's time to shout bloodthirsty radicals of all nationalities and religions back into the caves where they belong.

[Thelonious]

A. we should each own up to our responsibility...........

B. It's time to call the brother-in-law the greedy, ignorant, blood-drenched bastard that he is and throw him out of the house. .....
.....
C. It's time to shout bloodthirsty radicals of all nationalities and religions back into the caves where they belong.

James,

I owned up to my ENORMOUS share of the responsiblity in my point 2 above. I really doubt that your share of the blame is any larger, and that our combined shares is NANOSCOPIC and therefore worthy of NO discussion whatsoever.

Regarding my brother-in-law, He doesn't need to hear that James is willing to take the blame. He needs to know that he is resposible for the Iraq mess, the disgusting Padilla afair, and so on... I remind him often.

Regarding shouting at bloodthirsty radicals, yes, of course. My brother-in-law is one. I also intend to shout at naive idealists who like to use terms like, "we all are responsible", which to the 0.0000000016% may actually be true, but practically speaking this nonsense is just that. Nonsense which distracts us from the job at hand. (convincing the Reagan Democrats that they made a HUGE mistake voting for Dubya twice)

[JamesP]

More hopeful signs every day that the Bush administration world-view is finally being rejected:


Britain Stops Using 'War on Terror' Phrase
By JILL LAWLESS
AP
LONDON (April 17) - A member of Tony Blair 's Cabinet on Monday brought out into the open a quiet shift away from the U.S. view on combatting extremist groups, acknowledging that British officials have stopped using the expression "war on terror " favored by President Bush .

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, a rising star of the governing Labour Party, said the phrase strengthens terrorists by making them feel part of a bigger struggle.

"In the U.K., we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone, and because this isn't us against one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives," Benn told a meeting in New York organized by the Center on International Cooperation think tank.

He said the real struggle pits the "vast majority" of the world's people "against a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world and their idea of being part of something bigger."

[Jennifer_SFBA]

The article I'm posting below appeared to me to fit here, "The "War on Terror" is a False Metaphor." I hope it will also bring compassion and understanding to people who hate and who propound war against Iraq's people as they see it and recognize it in them too.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9613



April 17th, 2007 7:15 pm
Va. Tech Massacre Resonates in Iraq

By Larry Kaplow / Austin American-Statesman

When asked if he saw the news about “the incident,” appliance dealer Abdel Saheb al-Haidary was confused.

Misunderstanding the question about the shooting spree at Virginia Tech, he pointed to where a car bomb blew up last week and said, “You mean the one down here?”

Iraqis learned of the Virginia Tech massacre on TV and radio news and filtered it through their own daily experiences with violence and tragedy.

Al-Haidary, 43, was puzzled.

Shouldn’t people in America be at peace amid their relative good life, he wondered, “How can such a thing happen?”

Other Iraqis offered sympathy and also pleaded for recognition of their own plight.

“I was moved,” furniture salesman Ridha Ali al-Qaysi, 53, said of seeing the Virginia shootings on TV. “But then I thought about it and I thought this is a message (to America) about what is happening in Iraq.”