Slashdot Mirror
UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
Sunil Sood writes "Yes, its that time of year again - no, not the New Year but when the UK National Archives release a whole lot of previously "classified" information (many govt papers in the UK, with only a few exceptions, are classified secret for a 'standard' 30 years) As normal, you have the usual combination of the amusing: The design of a coin to mark the UK joining the EEC was changed, after Prince Philip said he did not like the 'little p', and the more serious: it was believed the USA had plans for US airborne troops to seize the oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1973."
Why doesn't the US do this?
AC
You should listen to all the Nixon tapes - that guy had lots of crazy ideas. None where ever carried out though.
Until SCO divulges the infringing code?
*winks and waits for his -1, Offtopic*
And it makes refrence that British Intel thought it would be likely that the US would invade, not that they were planning a direct attack. Its kind of a misleading headline.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
ours is 50 years, though. there was a /. post a few months back, regarding the unclassification of the documents from roswell on the date of the "alien landing". if i remember correctly, it reported the weather, and had nothing about little green men in a saucer...
This invading Saudi Arabia story seems designed to create big flamewars and generate page-hits.
As a news story, it's pretty insignificant. The US has plans to do a million scary, evil things, but none usually happen. It's called covering all the bases.
What do you think military think-tanks and war games are for? They think up possible scenarios for just about anything and then research ways to acheive the considered goals. The ideas that work are made into operation plans and filed away for the off-chance that such a situation might arise.
The British feared the US would invade. The report doesn't cite specific sources for this scenario. Likely it was the speculation of a few half-informed analysts. I'm sure there are reports circulating through classified networks arbout Libya's plan to join the EU and take it over. Or Syria's plan to grab the Golan Heights.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
GRRRR. Why is /. so UK centric? Aren't the editors aware that there are people in other countries that read this site?
I have a shitty sig!
As usual, a grab bag of interesting things to be gleaned from declassified documents, although perhaps more interesting for their social context than for their political content, like the stuff with Massey-Ferguson and the ministerial scandal where the first thought was "Is this a security risk" rather than "Lets spin this to make it look good." We notice that resignations occurred. these days, the guilty parties would be given a slapped wrist and told to be more careful next time.
How times change.
"How fine you look when dressed in rage."
> US airborne troops to seize the oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1973."
Huh - they wouldn't try anything like that today!
Resulting in this:
http://cryptome.org/pixel-net.htm
Sorry, I meant this:
http://cryptome.org/mil-dead-iqw.htm
Were the Monkees playing for the Americans? Brits? Or were they just a bunch of guys that didn't write their own music?
It should be noted that the intro to this piece -- and indeed, the BBC headline itself -- are a little misleading.
1. There is only one real fact in the piece: The British ambassador to Washington said that the American secretary of defense told him that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force." Earthshaking, huh?
The rest of the piece is just more-or-less informed speculation.
2. Of course, I'm not trying to say American military planners *didn't* draw up contingency plans for seizing oil assets. In fact, quite the opposite: If they didn't, then they weren't doing their jobs. The BBC seems to consider this a remarkable revelation, but allow me to humbly suggest it would be more remarkable if military planners *didn't* include this fairly obvious scenario in their contingency planning.
- Alaska Jack
Is when Allies release previously classified documents, that could be potentially quite embarrasing to other Allies.
That plan to sieze oil fields for example, could be egg on the face of the US if it was released at the wrong time.
Who knows what other "interesting" documents were de-classified at the wrong time.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
The Pentagon is huge. I mean, really really big. And it's totally full of people who do nothing all day but sit around and plan out how the US would invade every single square foot of land on earth if we needed to. So obviously we had a plan to invade S.A. and Kuwait, just like we still do now (along with Latvia, Upper Volta, Cleveland, and anywhere else you can imagine.
And, btw, the report lists as a specific source the US Secretary of Defense, who said "it was no longer obvious that the United States could not use force".
All's true that is mistrusted
We currently have PLANS to invade Canada, we have for years, the Canadians have the same "Plans" I figure buffalo might be in serious trouble.....
.....
So what we had plans, not a serious OP or we would have done it.
If anyone remeber the gas crunch and sitting at gas station for Hours on end... Too bad we didnt
or at least hear about current plans about the Iraq situation. I could actually afford to bet at least 100€ on it, at least at the time of de-classification, that the US had planned more than they let us in on. And that would be BEFORE any claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction were even made.
So nice that, hopefully, not everything remains as a secret...
-Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
Here are some related links:
US ready to seize Gulf oil in 1973
Was America preparing a war for the Gulf oil in 1973?
Britain Warned of U.S. Plans After War
U.S. Mulled Seizing Oil Fields In '73 British Memo Cites Notion of Sending Airborne to Mideast
And this news item found originally on Reuters ties up nicely to the above:
U.S. OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation) Imports Set Record in 2003, Trend Seen Up
CRAP! I live in Rochester! >_<
Informatus Technologicus
The warplan devised in the 20's for the defeat of Japan...
Even though the so called secret plans are only supposition on the UK MOD's part, the USA certainly has plans for invading just about every country on earth. This is not due to sinister intent, just responsable planning. The world is a strange and dangereous place where allies of today can quickly turn into deadly ennemies (Japan of the 30's, Iran in the 70's, Panema in the 80's, etc). The price of being unprepared is just too high in this day & age.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
My personal favorite 'secret' documents. Hmm. I wonder if that could be used today...?
The headline was misleading because it implied that the US was planning an attack - the reality was that Brit Intelligence thought that the US may have been planning an attack/invasion as opposed to having the actual invasion plans.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Wow, a pathetic troll. Seems to me like a large part of the past 40 years had Israel fighting for its very existence against the Arab states you claim the US and Israel are bent on destroying.
Also, where was the hate mentioned?
This guy is way out there
Has it occured to anyone that our Government (and any other industrialized nation) has "plans" on the books for just about every imaginable scenario? And should?
It's called "preparedness", kids. Thats what you pay tax dollars for. You pay tax dollars so that your country won't be caught with it's pants down when the shit hits the fan. Any government worth it's shit draws up plans in advance, anticipating what may happen. Thousands of them. Some of these plans are too scary for normal citizens to know about. But they have to be made.
The Arab oil embargo could have seriously crippled the American economy. That alone is reason enough to go to war. There would be rioting in the streets if the gas pumps stopped flowing, the machines stopped working, and industry ground to a halt. Think about that for a moment before running off thinking an invasion of Saudi Arabia & Kuwait is the byproduct of some oooh-so-evil secret Military comittee tucked away inside a super-secret mountain fortress, controlled by the psychic vampire Illuminati Freemasons.
Put your little conspiracy thoery hat back under your chair and get a grip. The Government is made up of people like you and me. If you had access to the same information they did, you would have made exactly the same arrangements, and outlined exactly the same contingencies.
Bowie J. Poag
Turner: What the hell does Counter Intelligence care about a bunch of goddamned books! A book in Dutch! A book out of Venezuela! ...mystery stories in Arabic! What the hell is so important about...(he stops dead.Still.) Oil fields. This whole damn thing was about oil. Wasn't it?
Atwood: Wait!
Turner:
Atwood: Yes, it is! It still is!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Your post just proves trolls aren't doing much tonight.
This guy is way out there
I don't care if they deem it acceptable to reveal their "secrets" about designs of coins, but wouldn't it be common courtesy to keep our military secrets ... well, secret, until we divulged them ourselves?!? Our secrets aren't their's to give up ... and we don't need any added tension with the Middle Eastern countries right now. Shame on the UK for this.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Did they finally admit to knowledge of 007's actions?
~Chris Hammond
Yet the US continues to treat this tyrannical monarchy as a "partner". Its all about money folks. Most major political figures since the 70s have prospered in one way or another from Saudi money. From Frank Carlucci (fmr Defense official) to Kissinger (former Dr. Strangelove impersonator) to Will Kennard (former FCC Chair) to former UK PM John Major to former President George Bush have been deeply involved in lobbying, consulting, or arms deals with the Saudi government. Most of this is facillitated by the Carlyle Group, a defense firm selling arms and influence to the highest bidder.
We buy their oil, they buy our weapons (and A LOT of them, no other arms buyng nation is even close) and they also enrich those making these deals happen - see again, the Carlyle Group. The word to people currently in office is clear - if you want to get rich when you retire, and I mean RICH, you make things easy for the Saudis now. They will take care of you later, typically to the tune of many millions of dollars.
Amazingly this means many people who were once US government officials spend their days brokering weapons deals with a nation that is deeply involved with terrorism abroad and despotism at home.
If you RTFA, you'll note the planned possible US invasion of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (and potential UK invasion of Abu Dhabi) was a potential response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo. That embargo was the Arab counterstrike against the US and Israel after the humiliating victory by Israel in the Yom Kippur War. That war, as anyone alive since then remembers, was so named after Egypt and Syria, surrounding Israel, combined in unprovoked sneak attack on Israel's holiest day, marked by national fasting and release from all work, including military. The cowardly attack was met with devastating counterforce from Israel, fighting once again for its existence (and the survival of its genome). So decisive was the Israeli recovery that disadvantageous borders, designed by the UN and exploited several times in the preceeding 25 years by hostile Arab neighbors, were pushed back into defensive border zones.
So a couple of Arab governments sacrifice many of their men to further their agenda of hatred and misdirection from their own tyranny, lose when their cowardly attempt at genocide underestimates the Israelis, and are immediately backed up by even more cowardly Arab governments with oil as a global economic tool. Which itself fails a few months later, when global economics takes the economy more seriously than the Arab vendetta, and some Arab governments break ranks.
When you look at the scenario, it's obvious that your statement is literally preposterous, turning its sights on the target of the hatred and greed: Israel. Arab governments have been flimsily uniting for over 40 years to destroy Israel for just the kind of evil you cite, coupled with a genocidal urge that was almost executed on the Israeli population immediately before the period we're discussing. Now that you know the actual facts, will you condemn the Arab countries for attempting on Israel the exact acts you found so contemptuous when portrayed in the reverse?
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make install -not war
Read the 5th and 6th paragraphs of the link:
The British assessment was made after a warning from the then US Defence Secretary James Schlesinger to the British Ambassador in Washington Lord Cromer.
The ambassador quoted Mr Schlesinger as saying that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force."
I guess directly naming and quoting the then US Defence Secretary isn't "specific" enough for you.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Things become declassified some time after it no longer serves any purpose to keep those things secret. There is no magical automatic expiration date on sensitive information. 50 years is probably quite long enough for most information to become irrelevant, but it would certainly be "ridiculous" to claim that all information should be declassified after fifty years. So long as the government has the authority to keep some things secret, it's well within that authority to keep things secret for fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand years. You may believe that fifty-year-old secrets are "ridiculous", but you can't justify that belief without knowing exactly what the secret is.
The fact that this guy willfully taped all of this stuff is even more amazing than the content.
Nice put, Doc Ruby. I bet you'll just love this anti-Israeli, anti-American piece of euro trash
This guy is way out there
Technology news how?
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
From the article:
In the event, there was no military action. The oil embargo faltered and was ended a few months later. Israel and Egypt went on to sign a peace agreement.
Wow, imagine the embargo not faltering on its own, and the U.S. rolling in to take some oil fields. That would have made life more interesting back then, especially if we went into Kuwait and the Soviets goaded the Iraqis into trying to throw us out. A variant of the Gulf War being fought in 1973, with the U.S. as aggressor and Iraq as pseudo-defender. Definite alternate-history novel fodder here.
~Philly
Either a) Oil would be 10 cents a gallon and democracy would be everywhere in the MidEast. b) There'd be chaos everywhere.
The BBC -- growing ever more akin to their tabloid cousins -- does this story every New Year's. Anyone old enough to read ought to read the story a second time to eliminate all the scaffolding, sensationalism and speculation added by the Beeb.
Americans tend to treat the BBC with a lot more reverence than it has deserved lately.
And, yes, for those who weren't alive yet in 1973, the notion that Western nations might eventually sieze the oilfields if the OPEC nations didn't end the embargo was under public discussion. No secrets there.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Anybody find the papers online anywhere? I fumbled around the UK website but couldn't find anything.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
OK, that wasn't falmebait, the parent was. Apparently one of my enemies is modding tonight
This guy is way out there
Now this here make Karl Malone real sad. I know the Easter Bunny don't give you none of the present you want for your Christmas list, but that ain't not no way to treat no holiday mascot. Now if you're going to insult the Easter Bunny, don't expect him to not plaster the side of your shelter with a dozen egg. You get that? Ah, that's good. Until next time, don't badmouth them mascot. This here Karl Malone.
True story.
I checked his journal, some posts, his homepage. I didn't see much to complain about, in spite of his claim to be "right wing", or his defensive denial of antisemitism. If he wants Israel to dump Sharon, and to find a better Palestinian policy than mass punishment for their terrorist army, I agree. If he's sensible enough to see that Israel is severely limited with the hypocritical, murderous tyrant Arafat at the top of the Palestinian meatgrinder, I'm with him. When people want the bravely out-of-range rightwing demogogues in charge of the Israeli and American military to get out of the way of their peoples' desire for peace, I'm with them. When they feel the same way about Arab left-right-whatever-they-call-it-today tyrants warring to mislead away from their own tyrannies, I'm with them. The truth about these monsters is bad enough without reversing history, like the relentless Arab military attacks on Israel, so I have to comment. But the more important truth is that we're all being set against one another in the name of geopolitics that is just a way for rich old men to make a buck at our expense, at the risk of the civilization that decent people have miraculously scrabbled together.
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That war, as anyone alive since then remembers, was so named after Egypt and Syria, surrounding Israel, combined in unprovoked sneak attack on Israel's holiest day, marked by national fasting and release from all work, including military.
Unprovoked? Israel was occupying the Golan Heights and the Sinai. Sneak attack? Who attacked first in the '67 conflict?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Yes, we can now tell exactly what implants were undertaken by OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence not Open Source Initiative) after the severe injuries he sustained in a plane crash:
A 20.1:1 zoom lens along with a nightvision function in the left eye.
Bionic legs allow him to run at more than 67 mph and make great leaps. (Annoying sound effect sold seperately)
A Bionic right arm with the equivalent strength of a bulldozer.
source: The Six Million Dollar Man
Notice I got modded down for my first post?
This guy is way out there
it might not fit in with popular opinion, but it's dead on correct
This user is using recycled stolen posts to karma whore
Please mod bomb this karma whore.
Or do ya just hate jews?
mod parent up... sure it's not "patriotically correct", but they're good points!
2 1337 4 u!
1973 - 1967 = 5 years. During which Israel occupied the Golan Heights and the Sinai, in which Egypt and Syria had massed troops for a 1967 invasion of Israel, which Israel anticipated and prevented. This is not a secret, as Egypt's Nasser had been posturing for his Arab buddies for months and years with a plan to attack. His mutual aggression pact with Syria, Jordan and Iraq is well documented, as they attempted to surround Israel in 1967. Israeli intelligence allowed their much weaker position to be well defended, and the underlying morale mismatch between the Israeli and Arab forces saw Israel turn the tide against the larger encircling force. In six days the Arab forces were defeated, with the Egyptian airforce destroyed. Israel was in a position to sieze much territory, inflict much damage, in the nearly unbroken military tradition since antiquity. Instead, Israel took control only of the territory used as a platform for the massed Arab armies. And the Sinai was reverted to Egypt after a reliable peace was forged between them.
In 1973, Israel was not so well informed, and the sneak attack by the recondite Egyptian and Syrian force was able to kill many civilians. But again the tide was turned. Egypt's government learned its lesson, and 7 years later Sadat was in power to forge the inevitable peace between the two neighbors. Syria has never accepted its obvious defeats, that it purchased with its own blood as well as its neighbors. Mainly because it covets Israeli reserviors, more strategic than oilfields in that desert region. Just ask the Lebanese, who have been subjugated by Syria for decades, their country used as a killing floor by Israeli-baiting Syrians, who use terrorists as a proxy army to kill Israeli civilians. And there's the value of Israel as a dump for Palestinians who have been penned in refugee camps in Syria and other Arab countries, without even the communities available in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Don't expect the conflict in the region to end until all these murderous hawks, from Assad to Arafat to Sharon, are replaced with actual representatives of their people, who actually benefit from peace, rather than the war machine which produced and perpetuated them.
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Just because hitler felt like baking your brothers in the oven doesn't give a bunch of hippies with dreadlocks the right to dislocate the natives of the desert so they can pray to their Fairy God (tm) in the sky. The better alternative the US was better off with was to say "Fuck you Israel" and to stop spending billions of dollars on that welfare state. If would've been different if American Arabs were as rich as American Jews. Deustchland Uber Alles.
Rumsfeld's war plan (12 years of planning):
1- Station troops around Iraq (Turkey's approval assumed)
2- Lauch invasion
3- Make more plans
Approved by GWB, glanced at by TB.
I didn't notice, but I do notice a lot of my "progressive" posts tend to get modded as "trolls" and "flamebait", despite my inclusion of facts, reason, and even logical charity, as well as the absence of inflammatory language. A lot of the metamods I am offered also register troll/flamebait on merely controversial material. And only the old bugbears of nazism and associates seem to garner the same mod censure on the right. I chalk it up to a puerile denial of sinister history among the youthful Slashdot population. And do what I can to keep the sensible viewpoint of respect for humans, and faith in hope, alive in these pages. I commend you for doing the same.
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make install -not war
So it was the *Jews* who attacked Pearl Harbor? Thanks for clearing that up for the rest of us. Aside: you should probably also consider that if the US hadn't got involved in the European theatre of WW2, then the Soviets would have ended up in a massively more powerful position there, and had a reasonable chance of actually winning the cold war.
"That is what the US Secretary of defence said, whom, I'm sure, had the Cuba crisis fresh in mind."
Fresh?
Little boy, the Cuba missle crisis was a full decade before this incident. Like most kids, you group stuff into "important, it was after I was born" "ancient and boring, before I was born"
"That sounds remarkably like bullying to me."
Oh dear! Bullying!
Little boy, the world is not a fair fight; there are simply winners and losers. Right or wrong depends on which side of the fence you sit.
This isn't a fair contest, its the art of war. An opponent has to believe you will go to war for diplomacy to succeed.
I know idiots think that "people need to sit down and talk", but that's fairy-tale stuff.
1. King Hussein of Jordan, flew into meet Golda Meir (then PM of Israel) to warn her of an imminent attack. Golda simply humored the King based on advice from Moshe Dayan.
2. The Israeli's knew an attack was coming, they just thought (due to bad intel) it was coming a few hours later.
3. Apparently Moshe Dayan had an emotional breakdown during the early part of the war and reporters interviewing him, asked the PM not to let him on TV, cause his demenour would scare the public.
Anyways, after initial losses, the Israelis gave it to the Arabs but good. The Arabs were so pissed thier sneak attack didn't work, and that once again the Israeli's had defeated them on the land they drove the Christians out of, (who in turn drove the Jews out of, who in turn drove the Canaanites out of, and so on) that they blamed the US and placed the embargo.
"It's called the greater good, dumbass. But then America isn't interested in that, is it?"
Actually we are; we just think the greatest good is for us to survive with our standard of living intact. You may not agree with this viewpoint; that's why we have a huge military; to ensure this is the only *important* viewpoint.
Everything beyond that is whining.
He's an idiot.
We love you guys, and we deeply regret the friendly fire incident. We are greatly embarassed and I hope something more should be done (improvements in operations, payments to the family and the governments of the UK).
In the time of crisis the US and England have always stood by each other and always will (except for the crap in 1776 and 1812, but we're both *so* over that). We are brothers, we have a common heritage, and we share common goals.
God bless the british. God bless the us.
Your history is well off the wall. Please read a book or ten.
If you can't address the issue head on, open the can of Israeli history (or propaganda, depends on who's reading it) with the the Theme from Exodus in the background.
The bottom line is that Israel did not make a formal declaration of war and wait for the Arabs to mobilize their defenses before making their first strike in '67. It does not change the fact that Israel's action was a "sneak" attack. It is why I perceive your characterization of the Arab's attack in '73 as being somewhat hypocritical.
The '73 "sneak" attack was pretty much inevitable. Israel was occupying lands that 5 years ago belonged to Syria and Egypt. If one is going to dictate borders on the political theory of "I can beat your ass if you try to take it back", one shouldn't be wailing with shocked outrage when the other side actually makes the attempt.
I don't think the conflict will end until the United States makes credible moves towards removing its economic support of Israel or cease meddling in Israeli politics. They are indirectly culpable for the current political state as all the other actors.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
From the BBC article:
"It was thought that US airborne troops would seize the oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait "
The fact is that as the only superpower, America is the dominant country and is making the same mistakes that us Europeans made when we were in control. Unfortunately, whereas the last 500 years saw defeat on the batlefield as being the ultimate cost, we now see weapons of mass distruction. Look at the Europeans attempts to solve terrorism in Northern Ireland, the Basques or Schleswig-Holstein, and then see how unhelpful voilent "solutions" have been.
We know (sadly all too well) that you cannot fight terrorism with a gun - killing people only creates a new generation of terrorists - you can fight a country but you cannot fight ideas. I might suggest that the money that the US gives to Israel would be better spent on sending the Arab worlds brightest students to good American universities so thay can learn science over religion and take their ideas back with them.
In 1967 Egypt had blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. A blockade is seen as an act of war by all countries. Israel had every right to attack Egypt and any country in a military alliance with it the instant the blockade started.
Sometimes, life is stranger than art, I suppose.
Those are interesting details, especially illuminating the value of Israel's alliance with Jordan. Perhaps if we had people of the stature of Meir and Hussein today, we might see their people led out of this mess, rather than deeper into it. Meanwhile, I note that you merely tweak the *degree* of surprise, several hours, which accounts for the early Israeli losses. The attempt at a sneak attack is no less sleazy for its near, and then ultimate, failure. That attack, of any kind, is emblematic of the Arab-Israeli war that has been waged with few respites as long as there's been an Israel for Arab governments to barely hang together to attack.
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There are no saints in that region, no matter how you may paint it, Doc. It's one turn of barbarism for another, over and over, across the decades.
My (1978) freshman year chemistry lab partner was an ex Black Beret (when that meant airborne commando) munitions expert. We were thrown out of class for making C4 instead of the titration that day; over another beer later he told me all about his training to seize oilfields and to blow up the Aswan Dam. That was his specialty. The TA really got annoyed.
Luckily, we don't need saints. We just need people who care more about peace than supporting the war machine. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". Even the clatter of keyboards in this discussion is a better alternative to war than the barrage of gunfire.
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make install -not war
The US had to suffer from the oil embargo because it armed Israel. Israel would have certainly been slaughtered were it not for the US. The US continues to suffer from it's links to Israel. 9/11 happened because the US continues to aid Israel despite it well-documented atrocities. Move all the Jews in the area into the US. This would be a lot cheaper than giving them billions every year in arms and cash; and spending billions more in domestic security; not to mention the cost (monetary and human) of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel should learn how to be a better global citizen or fight its own fights. Enough of my tax dollars have gone to clean up Israel's never-ending mess.
You do realize the blockade of the straits of Tiran was an act of war, regardless of who fired the first shot, don't you?
The Arabs blocked the Straits of Tiran? Boo hoo, get your shipping from Haifa or Tel Aviv. Gunboat diplomacy is gunboat diplomacy. Its then the jobs of the Ministry of Propaganda to make the assholes smell like roses.
Or do ya just hate jews?
No, but I hate people who distort the truth rather than scrupulously defend unpopular truths. I also hate people who think killing civilians is justified because they're Jews or Muslims.
What should I think of someone too craven to publicly stand by their statements?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
One of the many reasons for the 9/11 planebombings was the tremendous value in misdirecting world and Arab priorities away from the repression by Arab governments of their Arab citizens. If the US had pursued a policy of energy independence after the 1973 embargo (itself a collusion between Arab governments and American oil companies), we the people of the US would have spent a lot less money on weapons, oil and diplomacy, not to mention lives. But that alternative would feed an economy of development, instead of the war machine that controls most governments and their media allies. If you want to be the latest to load the Jews into trains for some kind of relocation for their own good, your conscience deserves to review the history of treating people like cattle. Why not demand that your tax dollars accompany regime change of the intransigent warlords, Arafat and Sharon, who gain only from strife? Instead of feeding the insatiable leaders of the Arab world who have already struck devastating blows against the US, and who fan the flames of hunger for more?
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make install -not war
What you call a right, I call a rationalization. I guess North Korea has the "right" now to start lighting off nukes on the United States, by your way of thinking.
BTW, I'm not even arguing whether Israel had the "right" to attack in '67. I only pointed out that Israel did not declare war or wait for its enemy to mobilize its air defenses. That is a sneak attack. There's no point in pretending that somehow Egypt was more ignoble in its attack in '73, because they didn't "warn" Israel they were going to retake their lands on a particular date.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I'm not going to choose sides on this debate. I don't have the first hand knowledge and experience to make that judgment.
I don't know who struck first.
Strategically, Israel could have struck first on a religous holiday, to take advantage religous or patriotic sentiment. This has been suggested in James Bamford's book on the NSA, titled "Body of Secrets". It certainly wouldn't be the first time it has happened, or could have possibly happened - he also details how the US governement were planning to down one of their own planes, and blame it on Cuba, so they could then have an excuse to invade that country.
After a quick google search, here are two items worth reading
BAMFORD "LIBERTY" ACCOUNT REPUDIATED
Response to charges made in Secrecy News on July 17, 2001
I don't think this post should have been rated "5" informative, as that implies it is factual. It is probably opinion, with strong racism throughout.
Why did I post ? I FIND THE RACISM OFFENSIVE.
As they say, there are three sides to a story
Of course, there is likely to be a response to this post, consisting of
btw, I'm an Australian, my genetic backround is Anglo-Saxon and Keltic, but who cares ?. I don't give a fuck where you are from, or what religous beliefs you have, as long as you are a decent human being.
Yes, I've met both Jews and Arabs, and as indivuals, they were decent human beings. Neither am I going to blame them as individuals for crimes their cultures, populations or governments may or may not have committed.
Of course, feel free to have a go at me for using obscenities ... my mother would.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
>Panema in the 80's
Panama was NEVER an enemy of the US... they sold drugs when they were "friends". They just stopped sending the profits to CIA black ops, and then they became enemies.
Enemies of the United States are usually a matter of political convenience: from what country did the Sept 11 hijackers -- and their funding -- come from?
Was it Iraq? Or was it Saudi Arabia?
Which country has contributed money to the GW Bush election campaign via "multinational" oil companies?
You never hear this in the US "fair and balanced" supposedly "liberal media".
Initially the Isreali intel guys figured the Arabs would never be able to coordinate enough to take advantage of their numerical advantages.
But as Yom Kippur approached, the intel guys definitely knew something was up. They figured an attack was coming. They didnt know the hour. A double agent, who the Israeli's called "the in-law" told them it would be in the afternoon, when it was a few hours earlier.
I really still don't understand why Dayan told Meir to humor King Hussein, instead of listening to him. After all, she could have used the opportunity to call up the reserves, and it would have made them look even better, fewer Israeli casualties those first few days. And no-one would have to suffer through Dayans lament about the end of the third temple.
I guess Moshe Dayan figured he would scramble everyone after they were finished with the rites of Yom-Kippur.
I guess this is one of those times, when the military-intellegence guys relied too heavily on one intellegence asset (who was Nasser's In-Law I believe) and got bit for it.
Good quote, Doc. I've always liked it. But I believe we all start out good, or at least neutral with a tendency toward pacifism. Then someone kills half your family and spoils your whole day. Suddenly, what matters but the war machine?
That's the downward spiral that violence assures. That's why the rest of us, with our hope intact, have an obligation to drag the wounded back into humanity. Cruelty is contagious, as is compassion. When we hesitate, we offer the advantage to cruelty to get to us first. Anyone can claim an inheritance of vengance, but anyone who can justify making peace has a selfinterest in acting on that chance. It is a credit to all those who have, that we inside the US enjoy relative peace, and a debt we can repay by reinvesting it elsewhere.
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make install -not war
Easy to second-guess the private minds of people who've been dead for generations. Hindsight shows the Jordanians to be almost as threatened by the PLO as the Israelis during that period, the early 1970s. But Dyan, so used to fighting Arabs for survival, might not yet have realized that King Hussein was his ally, what with the Egypt-Jordan military alliance of 1967 so current.
I was sad when Hussein died, although AFAIK his son, who succeeded him, has not made matters worse in the current disastrous context. Contrast that with Syria's succession from "President" (king) Hafez Assad to his son, who has heated up the war Syria wages from Lebanon on Israel through Hamas. It is specifically there that I believe Israel's military force, if useful at all, would best be threatened: an ultimatum to Syria to stop its terrorist army in Lebanon, or face military response against Syrian troops, cowardly hiding behind their terrorist servants. Although I deplore war, it is foolish denial to believe that the current war inside Israel is anything but, and that a war can be won by surrendering. It is only more foolhardy to believe that the war can be won by Israeli military action against Palestinian civilians, even as collateral damage in the military fight against Palestinian terrorists.
Force must be wound down over there. That must start with appropriate counteractions, like unpalatable but legal (and occasionally diplomatically productive) military counterbalances. And treatment of terrorism as crime, to be controlled by a selfinterested partnership of Israeli and Palestinian police. Once the appropriate parties are aligned, the polarization of all the people will have a chance to revert to the self preservation inherent in civil societies. Until then, there's only the downward spiral of violence.
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make install -not war
I'm glad someone recognizes that there's no such thing as a "liberal media". Some of these dopes are just so INSISTANT. If you try to explain things to them, they don't listen. It drives me nuts.
The media is too dumb/lazy to be liberal. They'd much rather just listen to whatever the Bush administration has to say and take at face value.
How come they can arrest me for "conspiracy" to say, rob a bank and use "plans" I have drawn up as proof of that, even if said plans are only fantasy, but if the US comes up with a plan to say, nuke a whole country, that's perfectly fine?
What if the US started coming up with "plans" for ways to turn the government into a dictatorship? Such plans surely would be kept secret. If unearthed would they be illegal? I don't know of any laws against it since laws regarding conspiracy to commit an illegal act apparently don't apply to politicians.
That's what the military does. I am sure we have plans that contemplate the invasion of Canada if they don't get their mad cows under control.
Plus if we had siezed the oil 30 years ago we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now and there would be a free middle east.
Just goes to show you can put something off for so long but eventually you have to do the job.
Yes, after the Arab countries started the '67 war, which they lost badly. Hint: If you start a war and lose, your lands might wind up being occupied by an outside force.
Sneak attack? Who attacked first in the '67 conflict?
So the Israeli's should have sat around and waited for the Arabs to attack when they had a chance to destroy their Air Forces on the ground and take the initiative? Don't you think we would have blown the Japanese strike force steaming towards Pearl Harbor out of the water if we had detected it before it launched it's attack?
If I feel like you are going to attack me then I am legally justified in attacking you first to remove that threat. Assuming I can prove that I felt threatened then this is considered to be self-defense (at least in my state).
But then, I guess all the Arab armies surrounding Israel weren't a threat after all were they?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Why the defensiveness? Why the apologetic tone? Of course the headline is misleading, British intelligence believed there was some good probabilities, given the situation at the time, that the US was considering seizing the oil fields. But why apologize if indeed the Nixon Administration HAD seriously considered invasion if (as the article points out) the oil embargo was unreasonably prolonged and/or the Arab-Israeli conflict reignited into war?
Most of Slashdot's readership was not born in 1973, I think it's fair to say. And probably haven't even considered the impact of the 1973 oil embargo on the West, from a national security standpoint. As Carter would declare later in the decade, the use of oil as an economic weapon to harm the United States is the "moral equivalent of war." In the event of an intractible OPEC causing severe economic, and thus political, upheaval, it is in the interest of the United States, and any other nation, to take steps necessary to resolve the situation, by force if necessary.
In 1973, the oil embargo was extremely dangerous. Today, largely as a result of the 73 and 78 crises, the world has diversified its energy suppliers and this is far less of an issue. Oil is a fungible commodity, a lesson the Arabs have learned since. Saudi Arabia for instance, has publicly renounced the use of oil as an economic weapon, as have the Iranians. In hindsight, the embargo was folly, as the end result was a DECREASE in the market share of Middle East oil as an energy source. Today, the oil producing Gulf states need the West more than the West needs the Gulf. So no more embargos from OPEC.
Blockades have been considered acts of war since time immortal. During the Civil War Lincoln was reluctant to actually declare a blockade against the South because that would have implied that the South was actually a nation-state. We called the blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis a "Quarantine" and sought a FAS unanimous vote to made it "legal" (at least in the eyes of the world if not the letter of the law).
A blockade is not gunboat diplomacy. Putting an Aircraft Carrier (or in the old days a battleship or ship of the line) off somebodies coast is gunboat diplomacy. Moving a division to somebodies border is gunboat diplomacy. Stopping ships that belong to that nation (or firing on them/sinking them if they refuse to yield) and declaring to the World that you will not allow ships into or out of their ports is a blockade -- and an act of war.
The minute an act of war is committed by one nation upon another nation that nation is justified in taking whatever means are necessary to defend itself. Even the UN charter says that.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
face it, you can't win, they are running circles around you losers.
Such a bleak outlook.. Perhaps if you tried for a more positive look on things. What America needs right now is an upbeat agenda, a presidential candidate that doesn't make the other side look bad, but instead says that this is how he wants the country to be like, and what he would do to make it happen. That's what I seem to miss in presidential elections, not the dissing, but the visionaries, the ones who say, "I hope for a better tomorrow."
> Your post just proves trolls aren't doing much tonight.
It's Trollish New Year tonight.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Blockades have been considered acts of war since time immortal. During the Civil War Lincoln was reluctant to actually declare a blockade against the South because that would have implied that the South was actually a nation-state. We called the blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis a "Quarantine" and sought a FAS unanimous vote to made it "legal" (at least in the eyes of the world if not the letter of the law).
And therefore Cuba would have been justified to launch the nukes based in Cuba because the US conducted an act of war? (The blocade)
The minute an act of war is committed by one nation upon another nation that nation is justified in taking whatever means are necessary to defend itself. Even the UN charter says that.
Please produce the section in the UN charter that defines a blockade of a waterway that a country does not control as an act of war.
(Geez, you people are the kings of rationalization...)
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
That's exactly what he's trying to say. Go read it again. I suggest that it is a very *sober* outlook; something that is dearly missing in the U.S. these days.
It's like a lot of the posts to the 'kicking a caffeine habit' - you won't get very far if you don't take a long, reasoned look at the situation. Some ugly truths need to addressed. Time's running out.
Unprovoked? Israel was occupying the Golan Heights and the Sinai.
Yes, after the Arab countries started the '67 war, which they lost badly. Hint: If you start a war and lose, your lands might wind up being occupied by an outside force.
Hint: If you insist on occupying land that you won in a war, you shouldn't be surprised that countries will organize attacks against you to take it back. Or are you suggesting Russia was being a warlike aggressor when they proceeded to conduct war after '43 to regain the territories taken from them?
But then, I guess all the Arab armies surrounding Israel weren't a threat after all were they?
Never my point. My point is that it is hypocrisy to characterize an opponent's "sneak" attack as ignoble, but your "sneak" attack as not ignoble. And its ridiculous to think one is historically entitled to land lost 2000 years ago, and yet consider property claims only 5 years ago as irrelevant.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
WWII is over, grandpa.
The billions spent on Israel every year should be re-directed to domestic research in alternate energy.
I'd also send Israel an invoice for all the US tax dollars we have already spent on them. A hundred billion dollars would put a lot of good American people back to work in high-paying, high-tech jobs.
As a bonus, the terrorist crosshairs will likely move off of the good old US of A.
Not with Cuba, though, but another country. And remember the starts of Vietnam war and Korea wars too. They were artificially made.
Also makes you wonder if Kennedy was killed because he didn't allow those sick admirals and generals to have their way.
WW2 was the last big war that will ever be fought between the great powers of the World
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha
as a patriotic American who actually has some understanding of geopolitical history
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
It wasn't about oil prices
hahahahahahaahhaahahahahahahahaha
Now suppose we were facing the prospect of a nasty winter in the Northeast
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Yeah, and a big "fuck you too" buddy
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letting millions of your people freeze to death
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The point here is that any nation-state would have done the same if it was in our shoes during the 70s
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
China will never be more powerful then the US
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
we still have our nuclear deterrent
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dude please do go on with yer bad self, it's great
Israel always repays its debt, although the US and Israeli budgets are structured to ensure that Israel stays current. I'd like to see an actual accounting. It would also be instructive to see an alternate budget for US troops stationed in the region, taking Israel's place in the American hegemony. BTW, if you think the terrorists will lose interest in our juicy country, especially considering how our terrorized reactions play right into their Arab (and other) nationalist fantasies, you are in real denial. Moreover, if you think the US tech economy would benefit from the loss of its trading and development partners in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, you really need to learn even some basics about either technology or economics.
The real choice is not between investing in democratic partners for peace, and "alternative" (renewable) energy. The real choice is between investing in renewable energy, or the oil industry which includes the weapons industry, all of which are made of oil. Which means dropping the support of Arab tyrannies which repress their people to steal all the oil profits, while they direct attention and money at red herrings like the Palestinians who have been abandoned by every Arab country, except as propaganda.
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make install -not war
Nuclear Weapons have changed this equation
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I'm sick of my country having to bail out the rest of the world all the time
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you will never see the US "fall"
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Before that would happen we'd drag the rest of you down with us.
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Same goes for Russia
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BTW: My country isn't an "empire".
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dude where do you GET your MATERIAL? it KILLS!!
Don't you think we would have blown the Japanese strike force steaming towards Pearl Harbor out of the water if we had detected it before it launched it's attack?
hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
If I feel like you are going to attack me then I am legally justified in attacking you first
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Assuming I can prove that I felt threatened
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this is considered to be self-defense (at least in my state).
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
dude this is better than Richard Pryor's best!
You are aware that "multiple theaters" was standard US doctrine until very recently? That all these advisors were really saying was that the US cut back on the military a little too much during the 1990s?
Nuke the Russian tank divisions with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles while they're still in the process of occupying Finland. Provide military assistance to Sweden and make a stand in Norway and in the northernmost Sweden (for Kiruna and the other mines).
This is why I am amazed why our last two governments have been talking the public to accept that we must NATO for our safety's sake.
The owls are not what they seem
Luckily, standonguard.com has been taken offline since it outlined the Canadian takeover of the United States. Celine Dion was part of the second wave.
America is the dominant country and is making the same mistakes that us Europeans made when we were in control.
Not really. We are not trying to establish empire or colonies. We are also quite sensitive to the death and mistreatment of native populations. The modern US is quite different from old colonial Europe, and of course modern Europe is quite different as well.
A muslim scholar that I know personally as a noble man (a rich consultant yet well-educated in Islam, preaches to people and help the poor) was arrested by Indonesian police for planning to do terrorism.
He was arrested by police staffs without uniform and without any warrant.
After interrogating and beating him for days and not able to proof their accusations (it keeps on changing), they just let him go. Not even with a single apology.
But I'm still happy for him, some just gone missing forever.
And this is happening a LOT in Indonesia nowadays, the Christian extrimists (I know there are a lot of peaceful Christians, but the radical ones are unfortunately have managed to secure some high places in Indonesian gov) in the police force are arresting local muslim figures with false accusations.
These only started to happen after the US gov pressured Megawati (our president) "to do something about the terrorists in Indonesia".
And what then the US gov, the human rights defender, have to say about these things? None, nada, zip, zilch.
And it's still going on.
And people are wondering why muslims are pissed off to the Americans ?
"Not really. We are not trying to establish empire or colonies."
So what do you make of the fact that America has more military bases than any other power in history?
"We are also quite sensitive to the death and mistreatment of native populations. The modern US is quite different from old colonial Europe"
Old Europe exploited the undeveloped world, often believing that they were doing the good christian thing ("civilising the natives"). The US has no such excuse.
I remember after 9/11 the world cried for America. What have you done with that goodwill? - terrorised the "evil muslims". Wow you're the best. U S A. U S A. U S A. U S A. U S A. U S A. U S A. U S A. U S A. U S A. Yeeha.
I worked in the Defence industry in the UK for a while, my favourite piece of classification was when one of our design specs was upgraded from its current level to a higher one because some big-wig felt it was now more important.
This meant we couldn't now read our design document or the comments on the document without being approved for the higher level of security. This cost us 2 months on the project, paid for by the taxpayer.
There is so much rubbish that is classified, for instance our change log used to be classified. The change log was the request NUMBERS only, no descriptions and a statement of its current status. Because the project had a high level of classification the log MUST have a high level as well.
The military does not make sense, and if you want REALLY bizarre security try working on a cross border defence project where you can't send your design docs without them being refered to the censor.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Parsons in pasadena was approached with a reconstruction contract in Iraq a year before the bombs started falling.
This is insightful? Absurdly funny maybe, but insightful?!?
When Noriega's troops were kidnapping & beating US citizens (resulting in a number of deaths), yeah I'd call that being an enemy of the US. When the link from Noriega's Govt to drug running was established, they were confronted & they refused to stop, I'd also call that being an enemy of the US.
I don't buy Iraq's financing of 9/11 either, but IMHO that's only a very minor public justification for invading Iraq. More pertinant was their continual disrespect for the the terms of the cease-fire in GW1 in which it was clear that non-respect of the terms would entail their dismemberment.
Are you aware that the KKK has financed both republicans & democrats? Both parties should be banned as they're demonstratably corrupt, right? NOT!
You never hear your version of reality in the media (other than in the checkout line) because they are too busy looking over their shoulders for the "Black Helicopters"...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Corporate welfare.
What Bush hasn't explained is where the hydrogen to power these automobiles will come from.
The Soviets had an extreme amount of armor in Europe during the cold war. The NATO bases around Europe would only be speed bumps for them, we had NOTHING conventional that would stop them. (after a lot of complaining about their military power in europe, they moved it to the other side of the Urals, where conscripts are maintaining it still)
As for nuking them in finland: Should they have nuked them earlier, while they were still in Soviet, thus instead starting WW3 themselves? Or should they have waited till Soviet had taken over another country, and nuke them there instead? It's not like they would go in and then pull back, sort of ruins the whole point.
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
It's ironic that the declassified documents talk about US plan to seize Middle East oil. Just last year, some consultant was presenting a similar plan to DoD... Now that USA carried out an outright invasion, I guess no need for covert plans anymore...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Not really. We are not trying to establish empire or colonies.
What about Iraq? A puppet regime with no popular support, backed by huge amounts of American military might.
We are also quite sensitive to the death and mistreatment of native populations
What, like the Palestinians? Or the the Iraqi Kurds (unless its using them as a stick to beat the Saddam regime with) - check out Hallabja, the 1988 VX gas attack and the Republican administrations attempts to ignore it.
Fuckwit.
Chris
These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.
The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."
So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".
not counting the native americans ...
...is we still have plans for nuking their asses and they should learn by now when to shut their fucking mouths...
There's plenty of damaging information about Kissinger already in the public domain. See The Trial of Henry Kissinger, a book that makes the case for his indictment.
I always thought the best way was the silent way where over 30 to 100 years you maintain a steady emigration to a particular country so that you have a sympathetic significant % of the nations population.
Not exactly true. In the US, there is a time limit on classification. I believe it is current 25 years for documents classified secret. If at the end of this time period a document will be automattically declassified, unless certain steps are taken to prevent this declassification.
Basically, at the 25 year mark it goes from a default of classified until to explicitly declassified, to a default of declassified, unless explicitly classified.
Of course, you must still go through a FOIA request to get access to the documents.
The Economics of Website Security
Saudia Arabia and Kuwait are both un-Democratic dictatorships. It's clear that we need to invade, topple their regimes, and liberate their people, (AND their oil, while we're at it).
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
The US is just as much empire building as Europe was, it's just acting the way the European colonial powers did when they tried to retain some semblance of power: By installing local puppet regimes instead of direct rule.
Your point is lost because you seem to completely forget which popular US Agency Noriega worked for in the first place. (hint, starts with central).
You believe tha the US may invade whatever place they please if that place is using its sovereing power to decide what to do with their own natural resources?
I mean, just curious, it is always good to know if there are nutcases out there that believe the US owns the world and all its natural resources.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It was enough to watch Margaret Thatcher paying a visit to Pinochet during his detention in London, and the unashamed attempts of the current Labour goverment (Labour! a party founded by Socialists nonetheless) to avoid Pinochet's extradition to Spain by all means to understand the shameful support that the UK gave and received from the brutal dictator.
Shame on the UK for that (which I say with pain because I have been welcomed here as a resident).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
everyone is getting WAY to worked up about this. Its just some random document saying that the US may have has plans take take the oil feilds if it was needed. I don't understand why everyone get so worked up over everyone elses comments. It seems as if you have a "concervative idea(ie the one i mentioned above)" you get a crapload of angry replies saying your wrong. (OMB he said "concervative"!). The same goes for conspiracy theories. From my own experince it seems the people who usually support conspiracy theories are not satisfied with anything. If the US had needed to go to war for some reason, and decided not to. You'd all be posting about why the us should have gone to war. There is no point in arguing just for the sake of aposing whats already there.
"if it weren't for us you'd all be speaking German"
actually, the soviets defeated the germans. we moved mainly to stop the soviet advance westward. go read something about the battle of stalingrad and after
His point is also lost because he's a fucking idiot.
More great quotations from Philip.
My personal favourite, said to the President of Nigeria, who greeted him in traditional African dress:
'You look like you're ready for bed!'
For those Fox News viewers out there...
The majority of Sept 11 Hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, there are demonstable links between Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda, but very few obvious links between Iraq and Al Qaeda...
However to quote the Travel Journal of Bob Harris reporting from Bali...
Add to that the research that showed that people who relied on Fox News were more likely to be wrong about current affairs and America is looking worse and worse... And before anyone starts I live in America and like it... mostly.
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
Bad example -- Russia was the country that was attacked , not the one that started the war in the first place (like the Arabs did). A better example would be something like: Would it have been ok for West Germany to launch a sneak attack against the Soviet Union to retake East Germany and Berlin? Would West Germany then have the right to be upset when the USSR completely steam rolled over them -- as the Arab countries were steam rolled over by Israel?
Never my point. My point is that it is hypocrisy to characterize an opponent's "sneak" attack as ignoble, but your "sneak" attack as not ignoble. And its ridiculous to think one is historically entitled to land lost 2000 years ago, and yet consider property claims only 5 years ago as irrelevant.
This has nothing to do with land. This has everything to do with defensive borders. The Israeli's returned the Sinai to Egypt after they signed a real Peace Treaty (hint: Cease fires aren't Peace Treaties). They would likely return the Golan Heights to Syria if Syria would sign a Peace Treaty and end their declared state of war.
Your ignoring the obvious fact that (with the exception of Egypt) all of the nations around Israel are technically still at war with her. If you were surrounded by countries that were at war with you -- countries with populations that wish to see you pushed back into the Ocean -- you'd be doing everything in your power to defend yourself as well. All the moreso if your collective history included several thousand years of obsession and genocide.
And as for the land lost 2,000 years ago argument that's really getting old. The simple fact of the matter is, whether it's right or wrong, Israel does exist. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. Until the Arabs learn to accept this simple fact there will be no peace. Should the Arab countries ever grow powerful enough to actually defeat Israel (who probably has nuclear weapons) they will have the US to contend with.
That's reality and it's not going to change anytime soon. Sorry if you can't bear to hear that.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
that's conjecture and/or slam on your education. 'probably' ...?(question mark). If he had declared that at fact and then attacked it, it would be straw man. This post is probably a waste of time as your response was probably just an attempt at a quipy comeback(this as well isn't a straw man).
What about Iraq? ...
... A puppet regime with no popular support, backed by huge amounts of American military might.
Following in Germany and Japan's footsteps hopefully.
What regime? The government is still being setup. Well at a national level that is. In towns and villages the locals are often heavily involved.
No popular support? You confuse a small number of Baath party holdouts and jihadists with the public at large. The public may be suspicious, we have abandoned them before, but they are hopeful we will be keeping our promise to help clean up the mess and then leave.
Military might. Necessary to introduce stability. Again, Germany is a good example. I was surprised to find out that Nazi holdouts conducted sabotage and harassment through 1947, two years after their defeat.
What, like the Palestinians?
When has the US military conducted operations against them?
Or the the Iraqi Kurds (unless its using them as a stick to beat the Saddam regime with) - check out Hallabja, the 1988 VX gas attack and the Republican administrations attempts to ignore it.
The Iraqi's did that, not the US. No need to check it out, I'm old enough to remember it. Everyone was quite horiffied. That's when and why we stopped providing Saddam with anything he wanted and questioned the policy of arming Iraq to counterbalance Iran.
So what do you make of the fact that America has more military bases than any other power in history?
We have learned that big oceans on our borders do not necessarily make us safe. The bases tend to be part of mutual defense treaties. Also we leave when we are no longer wanted. Didn't the Philipines ask us to close some base and we did? Germany, Italy, Japan, and Korea for example have not asked us to do so. They actually consider US forces to be an integral part of their national defense.
Of course, and Africans as well. That is why I used the phrase "modern US". The original post was comparing old Europe to the current US. The "modern" qualification was appropriate.
The description of how the current 'growing economy' is done openly, which is by not growing at all but from reducing taxes, reducing interest rates so that on paper it looks like a gain while the same or less money has been made and spent. ie cooked books form of 'growing'; it's only on paper. Such a paper growth doesn't fit with the definition of economy or one doing well:
'Definition 1
Activities related to the production and distribution of goods and services in a particular geographic region.
Definition 2
The correct and effective use of available resources.'
The real economy and it's engine are shrinking(jobs and money from those jobs to spend on things). The growth you speak of is phony and GDP is a very crude guide for standard of living which doesn't account for whole lot of variables.
Look up stats based on the definition of economy and you'll be looking up stuff like employment and expendable income, and you'll get a better picture of whose doing better.
You are a bit offtopic, the US did not invade and occupy. The fact remains that when the modern US military shows up it tends to help cleanup some mess and leave. Your tangent merely explores the cold war's communist/anticommunist conflict. The intent was to stop the spread of communism not to establish colonies. The US sometimes supported local groups that did not deserve support, however in many cases the opposition was merely local proxies of the Soviet Union. Much of what went on during the cold was the US and Soviet Union fighting using proxies. Again, true but offtopic. Empire and colonies was not our goal.
shut up you pansy, you've got shit flowing from your fingertips.
We are no more responsible for the current problems in the world then the UK or France are
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Sure, the US has done "bad things" (tm) in our time
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BTW, for all the things we've done, we were never imperialists.
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Now whose living in delusions?
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dude you are TOO FUCKING FUNNY!!
And therefore Cuba would have been justified to launch the nukes based in Cuba because the US conducted an act of war? (The blocade)
Actually no our blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis was not an act of war. In the first place the blockade was limited to offensive weapons. We did not blockade ships leaving Cuban ports or ships attempting to enter Cuban ports with non-military (food, medicine, oil) cargos. In the second place we had every other nation in the entire Western Hemisphere (not to mention our NATO allies) backing us up. To quote from a website on the matter:
The last sentance of that paragraph is the most important. The Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were a threat to the entire Western World -- not just the United States.
Likewise, Article 51 of the UN Charter states:
I would also quote from this website from your reading pleasure:
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Umm, Israel didn't wait for the Arabs to mobilize their defenses before making a "first strike" in '67? The Arab states had virtually their entire armies deployed on their border with Israel posed to attack. How much more mobilized could they have gotten? Gee, guess the Israelis should be punished for not calling them up and warning them that they were going to attempt to destroy the forces that were getting ready to destroy them.
Yeah the '67 war was a war of Israeli aggression. Whose fucking history book are you reading from? Even the Arab leaders of the time announced that they were going to "push the Zionist invaders back into the sea".
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Hell, I'm no four star General but if I was getting ready to start a war (as the Egyptians were) I'd already have my air defenses mobilized. The Egyptians have nobody to blame for the destruction of their Air Force but themselves. Just as we had nobody to blame for the destruction of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor but ourselves.
Heck, if the Arab states had been a little smarter about it, they probably win in '67, Israeli first-strike notwithstanding. "Let's leave all of our airplanes lined up in neat rows waiting to be bombed" Guess they should have taken the lesson from Pearl Harbor.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Oh, and I forgot to point out in my other reply to your post that there was already a declared state of war between the nations in question had already existed since 1948. Perhaps your history book didn't tell you that?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Look up the definition of ironic. This is not such a case.
Ironic is when someone claims a position that is opposite of his actions. Or something along those lines, I'm no english expert.
Most of the September 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but they certainly weren't funded by the Saudi government - Al Qaeda is committed to the overthrow of the Saudi royal family. If the US government avoids talking about Saudi Arabia it's not because their money supported the hijackers, but because their support for a fundamentalist dictatorship in the Middle East doesn't fit well with their supposed goal of democratizing the region.
How can you possibly not have your jaw touch the ground with this story? There is no other way to view the incident except, that the communism craziness was so crazy, everyone lost their minds, and no one could see that the whole plan is counter to the existance of the government to begin with. And getting it TO Kenndey, that final neighsayer of all plans, really means that the lower down numbskulls couldn't even see the complete ridiculousness of the plan. There is no "good way" to see this scenario.
You are being careless with the facts.
Egypt had ordered the UN Emergency Force out of Sinai, moved 100,000 troops and 1,000 tanks into Sinai, committed an act of war, and made clear their hostile intent. A state of war already existed. There was no need for Israel to declare war. The Arabs were aready mobilized. The attack by Israel was akin to the Normandy invasion, not Pearl Harbor.
Here are a few choice quotes and events from the weeks leading up to the attack...
I don't think the conflict will end until the United States makes credible moves towards removing its economic support of Israel or cease meddling in Israeli politics.
There is a far more fundamental problem than that: the willingness of the Muslim and Arab nations to accept the existence of the Jewish state of Israel.
$10 says this post gets modded down
hahahahahahahahahaha
our blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis was not an act of war
hahahahahahahahahahahaha, since you earlier represented a blockade AS AN ACT OF WAR, which it is unless WE do it?
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
dude you're losing your edge
Yeah the '67 war was a war of Israeli aggression. :)
hahahahahahahahaha glad to see you're finally coming around to agree with the opposite point of view
silly shakrai
I only pointed out that Israel did not declare war or wait for its enemy to mobilize its air defenses. That is a sneak attack.
And you agree that it was a sneak attack? And then blame Egypt for not being prepared for a sneak attack?? Call a spade a spade, shak, and accept that you've taken an untenable position, which will lead to self-contradiction. Oh, it already has.
silly shakrai
Your attitude is betrayed by your spurious reference to the _Exodus_ movie: military and political history is just a medium for you to distort the events of Israeli defense into agression. There is no "bottom line", there's just a series of wars that leave Israel defending its existence from misleading Arab governments, and the opportunistic, myopic spin that would have the Arabs drive Israelis into the sea.
As is universally recognized in the community of those who understand the distinction between legal and illegal acts of war, the 1967 war was precipitated by the Egyptian surprise naval blocade of Israel, to which Israel responded decisively. Hardly a "sneak attack" when the war was begun with a traditional strike by Egypt on Israel, in conjunction with a public war treaty among the other Arab countries surrounding Israel. Only a contortionist with an agenda could reverse the blame here.
The 1973 attack was despicable, as it was launched not to "retake" the buffer territory that Israel captured, but as yet another attempt to proactively destroy the country. On a surprise day, the holiest day each year when Israelis are proscribed from all work, including military. And as usual, the attack targeted Israeli civilians, also busy praying. When Israel won the war against the odds, without attacking civilian targets while causing extreme damage, they did not use their advantage to claim more territory than necessary to remove the disadvantages that emboldened the attacking Arab countries. And when a real peace treaty was signed with Egypt, that buffer territory was returned immediately. Rather than your strawman "political theory" of daring Arabs to cross some line, the buffer territory was taken in an effort to keep Arab troops *away* from the line. And it worked for 5 years, until a momentary alliance among the Arab governments, usually at each others throats for territory, offered a slim chance for victory in combination with a sneak attack.
How do you feel about the propriety of the subsequent oil embargo? Or its failure, due to Arab government greed? Or the unbroken history of internal repression, mass murder and tyranny in those Arab countries, as they attack Israel and the US with anything possible, until an actual risk of losing something permanent is in the equation?
By your own values (which I don't share) the Arabs "deserved" the destruction of their militaries and border territories in 1967 and 1973, because they attacked first to start a war, which Israel could fight only for its life. Israel, by your values, was entitled to actually conquer the attacking countries, using its unchallenged military power in the wake of their decisive victories. But it didn't. If there's a political theory at work here, it's that a chance at peace is more valuable than mere victory.
One way to end the conflict in the Middle East, at least in its Arab/Israel version, is to withdraw US support for Israel. When Arab countries destroy Israel, by definition the conflict will be over. Of course, a new conflict will immediately arise. First, among the Arab countries which occupy the territory. Next, between the Palestinians and their new Arab overlords, as the Israeli democracy gives way to expanded Arab tyrannies. Then, as these conflicts spread, among other countries which get sucked in, particularly as the Saudis and Iranians take their battle for Muslim brainwashing franchise dominance from the madrassas to the streets (already underway in all the countries mentioned). Watch as Pakistan heats up in the conflict, probably dragging India in. When that nuclear keg explodes, watch China to get in, and Russia, and everybody else. Until there's nobody left.
There are so many permutations of these paths to doomsday, who can say which one we'd actually take. Meanwhile, when American policy favors peace over the military/oil industry, with diplomats running the show rather than arms dealers, we'll have a shot at resolution. Arafat, Assad, Sharon, Khameni, Mubharak, El Saud, and the rest of the
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make install -not war
i'm sure i'm not the only one to have had brand name cd players / midi systems that stopped reading cd's after a couple of years, (probably because the lens has become dirty/oily).
as dvd players use the same technology, it will probably be this that gets them before any of the electronics has a chance to fail.
while the same also applys to no-name brands you haven't paid $$$'s more for something with a couple of extra features and a better logo.
strangley i also know of some old, well used players that seem to refuse to fail.
This UID is 7651 digits too high to subjectively infer IQ from.
What untenable position have I taken? I'm not the one that criticized Egypt and Syria for their surprise attack in '73. I criticized them for the motives behind the surprise attack (extermination of the Jewish race). I also pointed out that it is hypocrisy to say that Israel "deserved" it because "they started the war of aggression in '67" when in fact the '67 war was started by the Arab powers and their posturing leaders who wanted to "drive the Zionist bastards back into the sea".
My position is many things -- pro-American, pro-Israeli, pro-Freedom but it's not untenable by any stretch of the imagination.
And I didn't blame Egypt for not being "prepared" for the sneak attack. I'm quite glad they weren't -- otherwise the map in the middle east might look very different. I guess it's a good thing that the Arabs don't know anything about modern warfare.
Lest you think I'm a hypocrite I don't frown on sneak attacks -- if you are going to war with somebody why warn them that it's coming? For all the finger-pointing at Egypt and Syria for the "sneak-attack" in '73 the Israelis had more then enough warning that it was coming. They just choose not to listen to the signs (as we did before Pearl Harbor) -- they nearly paid the price for it. Had the Mossad done it's job (or had the political leadership listened to it) the Arab armies would have been slaughtered at the border and the war wouldn't even have been a contest.
I do frown on racist Arab leaders that refuse to accept that Israel has the basic right to exist -- and then refuse to accept their complete and utter defeats at the hands of the IDF. They should count themselves lucky that Israel isn't an aggressive warlike state otherwise the Star of David would probably be flying over Cario and Damascus right now. Up until the 1950s-60s that's typically what happened to states that started wars and then lost. In any event it's a moot point nowadays -- Israel has nuclear weapons and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Until the Arabs learn to accept this simple fact of reality they will continue to live under the boot of the IDF. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
I see many things but I see no self-contradiction in any of my statements. Feel free to point any out -- or are you incapable of doing anything other then saying "silly shakrai" and posting as AC?
silly shakrai
Silly Anonymous Coward.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
long-established Brit attitude that "this is Britain, so why in hell can't those thick Irish not acknowledge it!?" It happens that a 1980 study ordered by the Crown Privy Council (eight members of Govt and Parliament who advise the queen on long-term policy matters) was produced by a task force of several British military and MI6 intelligence agencies, and in the end, the final details were assembled personally by the prime minister -- Maggie Thatcher. She passed it along to the queen and the Privy Council one copy each for the members and one for the queen). The key "advisory" was that the Brits Army could not defeat the IRA, and that the IRA couldn't deat the BA ... A summary was released by Thatcher's press office. But two months later the IRA published the entire document (of about 40 pages, if I recall)! Seems they had a friend (if not a mole) right there in the Privy Council, or in Thatcher's own office! Happens that all the members of Parliament were pissed off that they were reading a document in the public press AFTER the IRA had
gotten hands on it weeks before. The Brits had the same kind of problem in Palestine, with Israelis and Palestinians each having moles operating within British HQs (which at the time was the King David Hotel -- later blown to bits by the Irgun Zeva'i Le'umi (Jewish saboteurs). In Dublin, 1921, the IRA assassinanted 21 British agents in one nite after infiltrating MI5 there. And, throughout the Cold War, while the Russians were able to plant many agents in all Western capitals, they hardly had reason to plant any in London because there were so many Brits anxious to pass along nuclear and military intelligence to Moscow, free of charge ... So the Brits have long suffered from very weak counter-intelligence -- while themselves being very successful in penetrating enemy intel services. Nothing much has changed over the past 100 years in the under-cover business!
PS: On the website there's a 75,000-word file (originally issued by the US State Dept, 17 years after end of WWII) on so-called Irish neutrality during WWII, the details clearly showing it to be a sham, that in exchange for wheat, medical supplies and military signal equipment (that would enable networking with the Brits for the defence of "the republic" against any German landing threats) the Dublin gov't agreed to deny any rights to German flight or naval crews that entered Irish air- or water-spaces, whie allowing Allied flights and ships to pass along en route to their bases, or to have a/craft and ships repairs to allow them to get back to their bases. The whole deal was smoke and mirrors. But even after reading the 75,000 words, I guarantee that 95% of visitors will continue to believe that "Irish neutrality" or "collaboration with the Nazis" was official policy, and respected by the US and London.
The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
"Friends" and "enemies" of any country are nearly always a matter of political convenience. I believe it was Churchill who said something along the lines of, "nations don't have allies, only interests," and he was right. The Saudis aren't our friends, and they never have been, but we have a common enemy in Iran (which has a more Al Quaeda-compatible religion than Saudi Arabia anyway). It's all a matter of common interest.
Also, to answer your question, they came from Saudi Arabia, and their funding came from the Saudis, the Iranians, the pre-war Afghanis, and of course the good ol' US of A (more than anybody likes to admit, really).
And as for the "supposedly 'liberal media'", some parts of the media have a liberal slant, and some parts of the media have a conservative slant. The problem is that the media isn't supposed to have ANY slant. Their job is to report the news and let their viewers/readers/listeners/etc make up their own damn mind, but people have gotten to the point that they just blindly accept anything being shoved down their throats.