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Powell Aide Says Case for War a 'Hoax'
PBS recently aired an interview with Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (Ret), Chief of Staff at the Department of State from Aug 2002 - January 2005, addressing some of the skepticism surrounding the pre-war claims made by the Bush administration. Wilkerson claims in no uncertain terms that he "participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council." This is not the first time that Wilkerson has spoken out against the administration and intelligence community.
Everyone outside the US already knows this.
I wonder whether he'll be marked - crazy, unreliable, or simply unpatriotic
I've been watching Wilkerson's speeches and interviews and opinions since early 2005. He's been one of the highest ranking officials to speak about the cabal that is in control of the White House now, but he also has inferred that the cabal has been in power for longer than the currency administration has been. For those who are anti-Bush, do not believe the Clinton was not part of the power party, either.
I strongly believe that the true case for war was to keep the petrodollar in power. I also believe that almost every war and military action we've been involved in since 1913 has been primarily for control of the global currency base, not for oil or trade or communism or any of the usual suspects.
Iran's current oil bourse theories came along just before the power party started beating the war drums against Iraq. I posted today the link to the Cheuvreux Report that reconfirms my crazy tinfoil hat theories about the control of the dollar, and this time from a huge international investment bank. War is the health of the State, said Randolph Bourne. For millenia, war was always about directly controlling others. Yet in the recent centuries, war has been about controlling others indirectly -- by controlling the means of barter between people.
No matter what Bush or Rice or Clinton or Nixon or Kennedy have said, hindsight lets us see what they were really about -- making sure that their peers and families and cronies were at the front of the welfare lines when our Federal Reserve was handing out newly printed paper dollars. To believe anything else is to continue to be a pawn to the system.
a) old news
b) anyone with two neurons to rub together should have figured this out before the shooting started
c) the public at large isn't going to get outraged about this (or anything else) unless gas prices go back up to $3/gal
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's too bad that there are no news organizations left that do any kind of investigative reporting. It would be nice to have this guy's claims analyzed by a third party. Oh well, I guess profits are more important than protecting the People of the US from their government.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
War is almost always a hoax, and war other than in self-defense always is.
The only just reason for war is because the alternative would be even worse - that by not going to war we would have doomed even more people to slavery or death. That is almost never the case.
It clearly was not the case here, even if every allegation made against Hussein had been true, although most of them were not. The hypothetical murder of some relatively small number (hundreds or thousands) of people, via a terrorist attack Hussein had little reason and less ability to commit, would not justify the actual murder of hundreds of thousands or millions (keep in mind the long-term effects of depleted uranium, not just on Iraqis, but on US forces as well).
This war and the mindless support US citizens have given it will go down as one of the greatest crimes of modern history, and those who knowingly support it deserve at least as bad as what is coming to them, and probably worse.
But, as is almost always true of almost every war, the innocent - including those in the US - will suffer far, far more.
That of course is one of the many good reasons not to start one.
Nonaggression works!
...there'll be an interview with another crew-cut dude with a dot-mil e-mail address, not retired, who'll say the first dude had an axe to grind and is totally wrong. And he'll be right. And the first guy will have been right, too, well, mostly...
Yeah, but Fox is slanted.
Wait, I thought it was PBS that was slanted.
Hillary's moving to the right!!
But Condi's a snappier dresser.
Act before midnight tonight, and we'll throw in a debate on global warming!
Step Right Up! Choose yer channel, make yer choice!
(Get away from me, Mod, ya bother me...)
So is this enough for an impeachment hearing? People go to jail for murder with less evidence that we have about Bush, Clinton, and Bush, Sr. Do we have enough for Congress to begin a real case? Or is this just dreaming because not enough people in Congress have the balls to go through with it?
Developers: We can use your help.
I really feel bad for him.
He should have either run for President or gotten out after Clinton and not come back.
Bush & Cheney took all the credibility he had built up and wasted it by sending him to the U.N. to tell fairytales.
You can read the speech here but it isn't really worth doing, as so many of the facts provided in that speech have been proven false and were apparently known to be false at the time the speech was given.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Snopes confirms that it was a hoax.
Note that he claims to not have *known* that it was a hoax at the time that he participated and that some of his superiors were in the same boat.
I suspect this would be the likely defense if there *were* an investigation (which I don't expect) - "It wasn't *me* - I had no idea!"
The part that I find to be *more* damning is where he lists the items that the "intelligence community" *failed* to predict - fall of the Soviet Union, etc. The implication seems to be that the entire system is so flawed that preventing "hoaxes" like this in future will be difficult because it's almost impossible to know what is and is not true and whether or not you have all the data.
He's able to label the Iraq situation as a hoax only in *hindsight*, as he examines data not available to him at the time. This seems similar to the analyses done after 9/11 where there were suggestions (again, in hindsight) that the "intelligence community" should have known and been able to prevent 9/11 from happening. Hindsight's 20/20, after all...
Have fun,
Nathan 'Nato' Uno
http://web.unos.net/
Did you miss the "stuff that matters" part?
Please keep in mind that it doesn't say "stuff that matters to ObsessiveMathsFreak". If you don't want political news, go into your preferences and turn it off.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
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Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940), nicknamed "the fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye," was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. Butler was awarded the Medal of Honor twice during his career, one of only 19 people to be so decorated. He was noted for his outspoken left-wing views and his book War is a Racket, one of the first works describing the military-industrial complex. After retiring from service, Butler became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, communists, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s. Butler came forward to the U.S. Congress in 1934 to report that a proposed coup had been plotted by wealthy industrialists to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
The problem is that politicians could lie and get away with it. Before the war Bush & Co were pretending that we were in danger from Iraq, and now that they've been proven wrong no one called them on the original claims. If I call the police and falsely claim there's a robbery when there isn't, I will be fined for false call. Bush made a false call which caused 2,000+ Americans and unknown number of Iraqis to die - and he just got away with it.
We need some sort of accountability system that would force politicians to pay for their mistakes. Require them to publicly estimate cost of war and take all outstanding costs from their personal bank accounts. Wolfowitz estimated war to cost around half a billion, and so far we ended up with more than $200 billion (yes, two hundreen billion US dollars) of extra costs. If Bush & Co were forced to pay all outstanding costs, they would've estimated the cost of war honestly, and people wouldn't be misled into supporting war.
Same thing for human cost. Require pro-war politicians to gather signatures. It's way too easy to say "I support a war" while sitting at home in front of TV. Make a law that starting a war would require million or so legally binding signatures from people to cover in case we run out of troops. There's always so many vocal pro-war supporters, but when it comes to actually fighting the war we always seem to run out of people. Make war supporters actually carry the cost of war, and they will actually start using their brains first.
Obama 2012: our incompetent asshole is slightly less of an incompetent asshole than the other incompetent asshole !
I've personally always fealt this was the right war, but for the wrong reasons. The Bush administration needed to come up with some reasons to go to war, but they didn't want to admit the truth of why, so they made up these cock-and-bull stories.
I can't really speak to what the Bush administrations true motives were. I suspect, that, mostly, Bush did think that Saddam Hussein was a growing threat to the US and the Western World, and didn't want to give him any chance to acquire any more WMD than he had. Maybe they sexed up the intelligence (which, btw, if they did do, I don't condone).
Why do I feel this was the right war? Perhaps my limited knowledge of history is incorrect, but, it is my current understanding that Europe and the US have played 'chess' with the Middle East for most of the 20th century, and that, to a large extent, Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq because earlier administrations had propped him up. The U.S. has, purportedly, done some very bad things in the region, including: Iran had, at one time, a democratic government. The CIA apparently helped overthrow the democratic government and install a dictator (I don't know that he was a *bad* dictator per se, but still), which lead to the Iranian revolution which installed the current Theocracy we all know and love. It my understanding that the US then propped up Saddam Hussein as a sort of first-line-of-defense against Iran.
Personally, I feel America needs to give the middle east an apology for so much meddling, and get the hell out of their business. But, alas, Saddam Hussein was part of that meddling. And so, to try to get things somewhat 'right' before leaving, we are forced to meddle some more. And that, I feel, is the truest and best justification for the current actions in Iraq. To turn over the future of Iraq to the Iraqi people. As for Iran, as much as I don't like the current government (espcially the hate-mongering, former-terrorist president of Iran) it should also be recognized that, for to some extent, the current government of Iran represents the people of Iran, and outside of defending ourselves against them, we need to let their politics run their own course.
Of course, I may be completely wrong. I can only go by the history that I have learned, and it is within possibility that the history I've been taught is either completely wrong, or incomplete in some critical way.
The sad thing is though, that what history will likely remember is that we entered into this action on bad intelligence and bull-crap stories from Bush & Cheney, LLP. And, because we entered into it the wrong way, with the wrong communication to the Iraqi people, and the rest of the Muslim world, it will probably have the wrong outcome - forcing us to meddle further in Middle Eastern affairs.
First let me say, I'm a Bush supporter. I'm in the Reserves, and I participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). I was lucky enough to be 1500 miles from the front lines, unlike the rest of my unit, but in any event I was there and I've got the tee-shirt to prove it. When the war first started, I was completely in favor of it. Today, I don't regret that we went in at all, and think in the long run the Iraqi people (and by extension the rest of the Middle East) will be much better off with a participatory democracy than living under the heel of a thug.
Having said all that, it's becoming more and more worrisome to me the degree to which the administration apparently ignored or possibly fabricated evidence. I remember saying at the time that it was a fool's errand to use WMD and/or terrorism as the reason to go to war, and that it seemed more like slick marketing than actual strategery. We had plenty of reasons to go in, and none of them had anything to do with WMDs or terrorism. Like the fact that the Iraqi forces habitually fired on US and UK aircraft patrolling the UN mandated No Fly Zones (considering that just prior to the war, I was working in the Turkish command center that controlled the Northern No Fly Zone and had friends and, literally, family flying over Iraq, yeah, I kinda took it personally).
But apparently someone, somewhere, decided that overt acts of aggression in violation of a cease-fire agreement weren't sufficient reason to justify reopening hostilities. So they decided to use weak or non-existant evidence to justify it, instead. Stupid. Just fucking stupid.
So now here we are, not-quite-three years later. We've spent billions of dollars, have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground, and have thousands of war dead. What's the solution? Well, on the right you have people saying "It wasn't a lie, it was just a mistake." Well, when it comes to something of this magnitude, does it really matter if the root was incompetence or malfeasance? Sure, maybe from a criminal point of view (for instance, I'm not convinced there's a case for impeachment here). But not a whom-do-you-trust-to-run-the-country point of view.
Then on the left we have people like Murtha and Kennedy screaming that we should leave, RIGHT NOW GODDAMNIT!!! That's just insane, we can't leave the Iraqis in a worse position than we found them. That would be like walking away from a car stuck underwater with a woman trapped inside. I mean, what kind of man does that?
So here's what I want to see from politicians: be willing to say "Looks like we screwed up. We completely apologize to the Iraqi people and ask that you forigive us. We promise, to our citizens and the world, that we'll never again invade another country without an individual declaration of war passed by the Congress, ensuring that there will be a full debate before we, as a nation, take the lives of other human beings. We also promise that, now that we're in Iraq, we need to do right by the Iraqis and help them fix all the problems we caused. To that end, we'll follow the policies implemented by the Iraqi National Congress, and be willing to lend whatever assistance they request of us.[1]" Any politician who can say that, consistently, with a straight face, would get my vote.
[1] I know this would be effectively giving the Iraqi government a blank check, but I think that would be worth it to gain some much needed good will.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Here are some current "facts" from the Bush administration that are being accepted without question by the media and most of the US population:
If we withdraw from Iraq the terrorists will win.
This statement seems to imply that unless the USA maintains 100,000+ troops in Iraq for many years then the insurgents will overrun Iraq and set up Bin Laden as a dictator of Iraq. This is obviously false at a number of levels. At a most basic level, the insurgents lack the capability to defeat the Shiite militias. In the broader picture, even if the USA sets up a stable democracy after many year of occupation, there is no guarantee that the Iraqi people will not elect a government with strong ties to organizations that the USA considers to be terrorist organizations. Whether it is a good idea for the USA to maintain substantial trooop levels in Iraq for many years to come is unclear without substantial impartial detailed study. If these studies have been done at all, the results have certainly not been presented to the American people. Instead, we are merely given some simplistic message about how the terrorists will win unless we do what the Bush administration wants.
Social security is broken.
The way social security works is that people who are working pay into the system and that money is used to pay benefits for people who are retired. Strictly speaking, it's not possible for the system to break. The government just transfers the money that is collected from the workers to those receiving retirement benefits. In order to cushion the effect of the baby boom generation, however, the government was collecting more than it was paying out. The problem is that the rest of the government started borrowing against this surplus and now the Bush administration is looking to avoid having to pay it back. Whether the current system is optimal is certainly open to debate but the idea that the system is "broken" is obviously false.
The Bush administrion did nothing illegal in order the NSA to listen in on American phone conversations
From the Bill of Rights in the US constitution:
I'm not a constitutional scholar but that seems to rather clearly state that some kind of warrant is required. Maybe there's a loop hole and maybe there isn't but it is certainly not factual to blatantly assert that it is legal for the US government to listen in on American phone conversations without a warrant.The reason Clinton got impeached for parsing words, is because the Republicans controlled Congress & they managed to get Articles of Impeachment passed. The Impeachment died in the Senate... because the Republicans couldn't convince 75% of the Senators that it was a good idea.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Building WMDs on any large scale is a HUGE undertaking. Sure, anyone with a little knowledge can cook up poison gas in their bath tub but to make it on a military scale is very complex you need:
1) Chemical plants (or bio incubator sites) to make tons of the stuff.
2) Railrods or fleets of trucks to bring in precursor chemicals.
3) A source for the precusros, either from overseas or from plants in country.
4) Then you have to develop some sort of delivery system, shells, bombs, planes, boats etc.
5) You need thousands of people to support the operation: scientists, engineers, security people, administrative people etc.
6) Power plants to run the various factories.
7) Then you ned to train people in use of the delivery system.
During WWII the Germans tried to proect ahd hide some of their plants in caves. The locations were usually easy to spot due to the huge infrastructure needed. And even though many of the factories were deep enough not to be damaged by bombs, many of them could effectively be shut down by cutting off access to power or the transportation net. And factor in that there were UN inspectors on the ground as well as electronic survelliance, and the possibility of Sadam developing stockpiles of wepaons on the sly becomes slim to none.
We were definitely lied to.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Cost us $400B in direct losses and 1000+ lives so far with no end in sight. Some of that $400B goes to companies closely affiliated with Bush and Cheney. Bush gets blanket immunity from impeachment under the guise of "war on terror", domestic economy goes down the shitter, international relations follow, constitutional rights are infringed upon... Sure beats Clinton screwing an intern. Why was Clinton impeached and this fella is still in the office like nothing happened?
He didn't get his star.
Seriously.
Possibly, but not every 06 gets their star and it's pretty clear real quickly if you will or will not. Most are neither bitter nor disgruntled - they've had fine careers; reached a level above the "done a good job" retiremnet point (i.e. LT Col or 05); and really acre about the Army (as an instituion) and it's Soldiers.
The telling point was how White and Shinseki were brushed aside because they didn't toe the line and had teh balls to say what they thought it would take to invade and occupy Iraq (every time I heard Rumsfeld talk about how several hundered thosuand was 200k not 300k it reminded me of Clinton's "that depends on what your definition of is is" defence.); it was equally telling how the Army had to go to a retired General to get a new Chief of Staff - a job that any GO would give their right nut or ovary for and the Vice Chief turns them down and umor had it so did several other GOs.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Bringing politicians to account - isn't that what a democracy is supposed to do?
Blame your fellow Americans for the way they voted in the last election. If the "people" don't care about being lied to or don't care about complete idiocy and incompetence they *deserve* to bear all the consequences of the incompetence, mistakes and lies of their leaders.
The American people had a chance to "bring Bush to account" and they gave him a big thumbs up.
How dare you question the motives of someone who agrees with the majority of people here! You can only question the motives of *unpopular* people, silly!
Whatever. This is not news, as Wilkerson has been saying this for months. And it's not interesting, because Wilkerson offers no new facts, only opinions.
It's kinda like Richard Clarke's book: if you look at his actual facts, it does not add up to a serious condemnation of Bush. It's only when you add his opinions that it becomes an attack on Bush. Same thing here: he obviously disagreed with the policy, and he is disgruntled for that and perhaps other reasons, and he is speaking out, but he is not actually giving us new or interesting information.
But that doesn't matter: he agrees with "us" so therefore "we" were right all along!
Reduce the number of election machines at urban polling places in Ohio. Long lines. Turn away thousands of voters for Kerry.
SOP for the Corrupt Ohio Republican Party.
Because it's anti-Bush. Since 80%+ of /. readership is liberal, it gets posted.
In response to the article, I think it's the general consensus of everyone involved that we invaded Iraq for no good reason. Problem is, now that we've done so, we have to stick it out until Iraq is able to run themselves again.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Actually, Clinton never balanced the budget, that was a myth that was created by the government in power at the time. Rmemeber, Clinton's "balanced budget" came from a few key elements:
Greenspan was inflating the currency base faster than even. The CPI did not keep up with the M3 money supply. This put more money into the economy, inflating consumer prices but also inflating the stock market, causing higher than expected profits which in turn put more money back into the government in the form of taxes. More money gave the government more spending allowances, but inflationary cycles can't last forever before someone realizes that the growth was due to the printing press at the Fed, not real economic growth.
Clinton's regime also used social security income as an income line item, instead of storing it in a non-existant "social security lockbox." That's like asking your boss for a loan against future income, and then calling that loan income even though you'd have to pay it back someday.
Lastly, much of government's real debt was listed as long term liability instead of actually calling it debt, so certain payable line items were taken off the budget books.
Viola, fake balanced budget. If any private individual or corporation balanced their books this way, they'd go to jail.
You're right of course, but why would anyone pay attention to the word of an individual who places career advancement over doing the right thing?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
What son, when stepping into his father's footsteps, does not feel the urge to outrun his old man.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
If the president had to sell the war on the cost up front there would have been no support whatever. The cost is now around $ 800 per citizen. If you are a middle class tax payer that is more around 2k per family member. Some are claiming much higher.
But Bush was able to sell the war on a deferred payment plan which includes record deficits and raiding surpluses. If Bush said we are going to war and we are going to tax petro an extra 10 cents a gallon to help pay for it he would have gotten booed of the stage. There should always be a cost for all citizens to go to war as some families are called to pay the ultimate sacrifice.
I swear the most important number on peoples mind is the price of gas at the pump. The president's approval rating inversely proportional to the price of gas that fuel pump.
In another news story today, Bush announced he will cut the deficit by cutting domestic programs. Is it safe to assume that, after this story aired, PBS will be one of the programs cut?
There are at least three possible explanations.
1. Hoax: intentional falsification of intelligence reports.
2. Honest mistake: Saddam's bluff took in the intelligence community, and every time his scientists lied to him they were lying to Western eavesdroppers.
3. Dishonest mistake: starting with the desirability of a war as a premise, drop any conflicting assessments onto the floor and assume that whatever you want to hear is the truth.
Draw your own conclusions, but read Woodward's _Plan of Attack_ first.
"I'd prefer to see the squabble of democracy to the efficiency of dictators." --Lawrence Wilkerson
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Video: http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=event&EveI
Transcript (pdf): http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Doc_
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
I don't think most rational humans want to see Iraq become a terrorist state. This is why we need to stay the course at this point and why playing politics with the Iraqi war is going to do more damage than good to a potential presidential canidate.
Would you personally be willing to die to "stay the course"? Would you ask your children to die for this cause? You're assuming that we can win the war in Iraq. If we can't win, then letting more of our bravest and most patriotic citizens die needlessly is equivalent to murdering them.
If anyone in this administration, including the president, lied or ignored evidence in order to push this war on the people, then they should be executed for treason.
Yawn. I was not criticizing the things he saw, I am criticizing the things he was talking about that he did NOT see. That is what "opinion" refers to. Like when he asserts Cheney put undue pressure on the CIA, while also admitting he has no actual knowledge that this happened. It's a boring game Wilkerson is playing, but suckers who Want To Believe buy it.
Those with an anti-Bush agenda seem to forget that from the late 90's up until the war literally every single one of those I mentioned were in 100% agreement over Iraq's pursuit, aquisition and stockpiling of chemical, biological and nuclear materials with the ulitmate goal of manufacturing WMD's. Maybe they were all wrong (you really think everyone worldwide was so misled?), however if you believe recent reports from certain Iraqi sources about mass movements of materials to Syria just prior ot the invasion then the jury is still out on this. But lying?
This is a lie. And for many of us, becoming anti-Bush (I have been a conservative Republican for 25 years) has to do with the obvious lies of the Bush administration (that we elected the first time) that you insist on propagating. You lie to members of all parties and your lie is often repeated by members of both parties, but it is a lie, even to those who are conservative but no longer have a party to turn to.
You can really only call it a hoax if it was deliberate. Giving Bush some slack . . .
Bush has very little, if anything, to do with this. The ones accussed of the hoax are Vice President Richard Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. The evidence points to these two as the crux of the Iraq war. It is entirely possible that President G. W. Bush is merely a dupe, an easily-played pawn used by a group of high-level government officials, including people like ex-Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz. There is strong evidence to support the idea that President Bush has been kept in a fact-free zone, a bubble of security and ignorance so profound, he will take the blame when it comes out how the government lied to the citizens of the US to lead us into a senseless war.
This is only my opinion, but: Bush might be innocent of anything but ignorance, stupidity, and gullibility. Cheney and Rumsfeld are guilty motherfuckers who have betrayed their country for a personal agenda.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Pehaps this is only sour grapes that the Clinton administration failed to capitalize on setting up a war that would ensure Al Gore's Whitehouse instead of George Bush's. After all, look at how many statements were made about the dangers accumulating in Iraq before George Bush became President:
... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
s /1998_cr/s981010-iraq.htm
February 1, 1998: "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction." - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
February 4, 1998: "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." - President Bill Clinton
February 17, 1998: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Bill Clinton
February 18, 1998: "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser.
February 18, 1998: "If a soldier's life needs to be lost let it start with mine." - an un-named American GI expressing his support for President Clinton's policy on Iraq.
February 26 1998: "A democratic Iraq is certainly in our interest, but it is above all for the sake of the Iraqis that we must replace Saddam." - Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., said in floor speech.
February 26 1998: "Saddam's feet will be held to the fire. We'll see if he complies. If not, we'll thump him." - Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo. and senior Democrat on the House National Security Committee
October 9, 1998: "We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." - Letter to President Clinton. - Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others.
November 10, 1999: "Hussein has
October 10, 1998: Senator Kerry speaks for quite some time about the burgeoning Iraqi threat http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/congres
The president has very little control over the domestic economy.
Uhm.... wrong.
The President has quite a bit of control over the domestic economy. The reason the economy was good under Clinton was because he obeyed one rule with the economy: do not spend more than you make.
There is a direct correlation between a balanced federal budget and the economy. Yes, Clinton enjoyed a false economic boom, but he was doing everything right to *foster* that boom. The national debt plays directly into the confidence of both domestic and foriegn investors, which provides incentive for economic growth. The economy can turn terrible even with strong confidence, that's true; but a good balanced federl budget is a positive influence.
President Bush has helped destroy an already-ailling economy by massively increasing federal spending, while reducing federal incomes. This is terrible for the economy.
Think about this:
Would your family be prosperous for long if you continually spent more than you made?
Or, put another way, what's the easiest way to destroy your finances? A: rack up credit card debt.
The President has made many choices that were against the better interest of domestic economic strength. He doesn't get off the hook so easily.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I have a class this semester where the teacher encourages political debate, he is a liberal and I am a neo-con (I love that), so we get into the topic of the war in Iraq, and he says "You know why we went into Iraq right? OIL!" and so I politely responded "See, I just don't see what we have to gain by overtaking Iraq, in terms of oil." to which he responded "That's right, we don't! It's not worth it!". He made my point quite cleary, and quickly realized the quandary he had gotten into so we moved on at that point. The fact that Iraq exports oil is not just a coincidence, it is not a reason for going to war but it WOULD explain why Iraq is so corrupt, that is the only correlation I, myself, can make between the Iraq war and oil.
Then on the left we have people like Murtha and Kennedy screaming that we should leave, RIGHT NOW GODDAMNIT!!! That's just insane, we can't leave the Iraqis in a worse position than we found them. That would be like walking away from a car stuck underwater with a woman trapped inside. I mean, what kind of man does that?
If you knew anything about congressman Murtha you would know he is (or was) considered fairly conservative - which is why his speaking out had such impact. Of course, I expect him to be branded a 'leftist' now, especially since that's equivalent to being called a communist these days.
Also, to make your analogy more appropriate, remember that the woman trapped in the car has a gun and wants to kill you.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
I'm not one to defend Bush - I have no doubt whatsoever that the pretexts for war were a hoax. But I'm not totally convinced that this was a war solely over oil. Sure, oil was a factor. But I'm also sure that many neocons sincerely believed that by bringing democracy to Iraq they could lead the way for widespread democratisation of the Middle-East. When someone is as 'successful' as Bush I'm not convinced that money is the only consideration. I think Bush really did want to go down in the history books as the President that liberated the Middle-East. He believed that the success of post-WWII policies such as the Marshall Plan showed that this was possible. Before the invasion of Iraq many neocons accused liberals of racism for implying that somehow the population of the Middle-East were less amenable to democratisation than the populations of the fascist European countries. Unfortunately I don't think they understood the long tradition of liberty in Europe that made the transition to democracy, even in countries like Spain, a smooth one.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
> Sounds like Iran is next on the list
Perhaps I'm naive, but I like to think even our current Moron in Chief realizes that we can't take on Iran right now.
However, I fully expect him to do something stupid that will cause Iran to become overtly involved in Iraq.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I remember that Clinton signed the treaty for membership in the International Criminal Court, though he didn't submit it for ratification to the Republican Congress. And I remember that Bush nullified Clinton's signature when he took over a couple of years later.
I don't know what you remember, but the facts show there was a big difference.
--
make install -not war
Wilkerson never attacks Bush or the administration.
Nonsense. He said Cheney was intentionally putting undue pressure on the CIA (despite, again, having no such knowledge). How is that not an attack on the administration?
This is also the same guy who accused Cheney and Rumsfeld of being in a "cabal" to undermine State, and even the President. Said Feith was also in the cabal, and was "the stupidest blankety, blank man in the world." These are not attacks?
Yes, he does not attack Bush strongly, directly, but I didn't imply that directly: I was speaking there specifically of Clarke. I didn't say or intentionally imply Wilkerson was attacking anyone, even though he obviously was.
Why some people take this as an attack Against George W. Bush is puzzling.
How you can say the things he said do not constitute an attack against the administration is likewise puzzling.
Read your constitution
Duurrrr, we have a constitution? You don't say!
When one reads about modern chemical weapons, one is struck by the almost ridiculous levels of lethality of these agents. Nerve agents like Vx can kill after an exposure measured in miligrams, with volumes comparable in size to a pinhead.
Ever wonder why this stuff has to be so lethal?
It turns out that the biggest problem in chemical warfare is that of DISTRUBUTION. It is very, very difficult to deliver an agent over an area with sufficient concentration to ensure the desired effect. Modern agents are so lethal because it is so difficult to bring a target into contact with the agent AT ALL that it must be lethal no matter how small the exposure - or it just won't work very well. And even then, you're still talking about volumes in terms of tanker trucks, not soda cans.
Planning for chemical strikes during the Cold War involved massed regiments of artillery, and in some cases, special delivery aircraft that resembled crop dusters - and even then, the primary intent behind chemical warefare wasn't the first-order casulties, but rather second-order area denial, and incidental effects from forcing your enemy into his NBCW gear. (If you've never lived in a gas mask and bunny suit before, it's a terrible pain in the ass that greatly reduces combat effectiveness)
The only terrorist attack to make use of chemical weapons picked probably the best place in the world to try it - the Tokyo subway, where you have an enclosed space with a super-high population density. They released 1l or Sarin into this space (in trains!) and killed only 16 people, with most of the injured being from panic/trampling rather than poisoning from the agent.
They would have done much better with plain old ordinary explosives - compare to the death toll during the London subway bombings, which was a target with a much lower population density.
Unless you are capable of fielding a massive delivery system, there just isn't much "mass" destruction with chemical weapons. They are horribly inefficient, and really, not much of a threat at all in real terms. They're really more of a threat to those who would try and use them than the intended targets.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
This is something i found after a quick google search: http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqweapons.html
Back when Powell introduced the bogus intelligence information in front of the U.N. and it turned out to be cribbed from 10-year-old studies available on the Internet, it should have been a big red light for Americans. Now even the people who were on the fence then and are having second thoughts now are mostly doing it because they're looking at maybe a $1 trillion cost eventually. They still ignore the depth of corruption in our government. Our legislators routinely take bribes to write laws, in many cases just parroting the legislation as handed to them by corporate lawyers, complete with spelling errors. But we continue to call it campaign financing or the reality of politics, or dismissing the critics as cynical or self-promoting or simply calling them "liberals" as if the term itself invalidates anything they say. The country is screwed up. In my opinion it's beyond saving. All we can do is watch it go down the drain and hope the disintegration process isn't too painful.
The American Right increasingly uses the logic of non sequitur and ad hominen in their less than substantive attacks upon the left. Ironic, as well as a further indication of Contemporary Conservatism's continuing plunging fall into the abyss of moral relevance, which began in 1968 when Nixon played his "southern strategy", and openly courted the racist vote.
One ugly godawful thing to have done to the party of Lincoln.
Nixon won, and the GOP has never looked back. Now neoconivving trotskyites speak for contemporary conservatives, and self-confessed American traitors are welcomed with open arms in under the Big Circus Tent of Republican Inclusiveness, the party of nothing, for everybody.
Ever stop to think that maybe some people who wish to harm Americans are reacting self-defensively to previous Administrations' wrongful actions against them? You solution for this is 10 eyes for an eye?
And he spake a parable unto them,
Can the blind lead the blind?
shall they not both fall into the ditch?
--Luke 6:39
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
Our "defense" department is only minimally defensive. The fundamental design of our military is offensive and aggressive, built on the projection of power globally.
The primary example of this is the aircraft carrier and its associated air power elements, which allows the US to attack any target in the world within a week if not a day. This advantage subjugates any defenses of a target country.
ICBMs are likewise designed for intimidation and aggression. Whereas the soviet-era ICBM standoff was defense by mutual destruction, now our ICBMs threaten any country not armed with similar capability with instantaneous death.
Our long-range bomber fleet is likewise a power projection (offensive) unit, for the delivery of bombs over distances thousands of miles from our borders
Even ground forces have been reconfigured for maximum mobility, so that full effective ground combat can be waged anywhere in the world in the span of a month. This delay is considered acceptable since that provides a month for our air and sea forces to gain air superiority and soften any defenses.
The implicit reason for this is maintenance and coercion of our economic projects throughout the world, in order to sustain the resource consumption of America's economy. Our overconsumption leads to the reality that we must project power (via offensive threats) in order to "defend" our "security" (availability of resources)
This can only be concluded to mean we are an imperialistic aggressive country. Any pretensions to the contrary is strictly propaganda.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
> Because it's anti-Bush. Since 80%+ of /. readership is liberal, it gets posted.
:-(
How do you figure? I'd say that 80% of slashdot dislike Bush because they have some common sense. Most of the posters might be centrist, but they are not liberal. Hell, most Democrats are not even liberal any more.
Let's talk about dismantling the cult of capitalism, cutting the military by 90%, outlawing the death panalty, and making the industrialists follow reasonable eco-friendly practices. That would be liberal.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
30% Informative
40% Offtopic
30% Overrated
Hmm, we seem to have a particularly humourless set of moderators today. Or have I been too obscure again?
(Mercury Theater, 1938, radio play "The War of the Worlds", previously the biggest, most famous perpetrated hoax upon the nation, inducing mass panic, and the case study leading to the genesis of modern day psyops?)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Why would the rich like a small government that they can't control, over a large corrupt government that they can? It's not like citizens have any choice in the matter.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Only 30% of the eligible population elected this government.
We don't live in a democracy. We live in a republic. To make politicians accountable, that's the first thing you have to realize.
You also have to realize that citizens of a republic have certain responsibilities. And I'm not talking about the patriotic bullshit that we're told by government schools, media, and other institutions. I'm talking about being an active, capable, independent member of political society. I'm talking about being able to withhold your vote if there are no candidates you agree with, if the only decision is between the lesser of two evils.
We're beyond government "ignoring the Constitution". We're beyond government "breaking the law". We're beyond government turning on it's own citizens. We're way into the realm of applied political science, here. So this is a crash course:
Politicians in the US are using the "anything we can get away with" method to screw us out of our freedoms, our property, and a large chunk of our labor. And they can do so because a large percentage of Americans aren't capable members of the republic. Many of us are dependent upon the empire. We have government jobs, government loans, government housing, business tax breaks, welfare, military pay, military benefits, social security. Each of these things is a chain that binds you to this government and anything it wants to do. As long as you are dependent upon government, this government will act like it owns you. It will tax you, find you work, feed you, house you, and when things get tough, it will send you to die in war. You are their nigger.
So if you and your family can't do that: if you can't live without government hand outs, if you can't eat without a government job and US money, if you can't heat your house without oil extracted at the point of a gun or coal strip-mined with the help of a court order, you are a slave already. You don't get to complain about how your master treats you. That's the first step: become a citizen deserving of freedoms. Be capable of asserting your independence. Take responsibility for being a member of the republic.
And the alternatives should be clear by now. As the president has said: it's us versus them. It's us, peaceful, freedom-loving individuals who are concerned for the future of America, versus them, lying, warmongering sycophants who are in it for themselves. It's those that build and create versus those that take and destroy. And here's how we'll win:
Stop voting. Don't register. Stop using US currency. Stop paying taxes.
Forget about protesting. Forget about democracy. Forget about "working within the system". That's all bullshit to keep idiots occupied. These four steps, taken on a massive scale, will bring down the US government faster than you can say "military coup". And it will do so peacefully, fairly, "democratically" even.
That's how you get your country back. But here's how you keep it:
If you find a politician you agree with, and you think he will win, get a written copy of what he plans to do. Get physical proof of all his political beliefs. Scrutinize it like a lawyer would. Don't fall for any vague crap. This is your contract. You are exchanging your vote, and your sovereignty, for this politician's word. Get it in writing.
Now, when you vote for the politician, and he wins, and he doesn't do what he said he would do, or does anything that is against the contract you have with him, sue him in court. Sue him for damages. Find co-plaintiffs. Demand to be relieved from your contract. Find another politician you can trust. Or, don't, and learn to live without government. But, most importantly, remember:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Is it possible to moderate an entire story "Flamebait"?
Just ask Ireland when they really had issues with terrorism.
Well, AFAIK, the Irish terrorists never were suicidal. But, ignoring that, how and why did the terrorism in Ireland go away? Why did the Baader-Meinhof and the Brigate Rosse disappear? They are no longer in existence because their motivating power, international communism, disappeared. Don't fight the symptoms, fight the cause of the disease.
To stop islamic terrorism, the first thing one must know is that they are islamic. Their acceptance of suicide comes from their religion. Therefore, the only effective way to fight terror is by fighting religion. Not only their own kind of religion, but all kinds of religious fanatism must disappear. The kind of fanatism that drives islamic suicidal bombers is the same kind of fanatism that motivated Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, to avenge the death of his own religious leader, David Koreesh, by bombing a public building. When people become fanatics, any religion is as bad as the other.
If the USA wants to be safe from terror, the first step would be to remove from office all people like the Kansas board of education members that are trying to impose religious fanatism on the school curriculum, and the NASA administrator, or whatever his title is, who is trying to impose religious fanatism on scientific research.
It is an immoral act for the aggressor to revise the cause for war after engaging.
Revisionisms by the Intelligence Brief:
"My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
[. . .]
The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people."
--GW Bush - March 17, 2003
"Iraq had a weapons program. Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program. The credibility of this country is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful and the world is now more peaceful after our decision; the strong desire to make sure free nations are more secure -- our free nations are now more secure; and the strong desire to spread freedom. And the Iraqi people are now free and are learning the habits of freedom and the responsibilities that come with freedom."
--GW Bush June 9, 2003
"Some in this chamber, and in our country, did not support the liberation of Iraq. Objections to war often come from principled motives. But let us be candid about the consequences of leaving Saddam Hussein in power. We're seeking all the facts. Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day. Had we failed to act, Security Council resolutions on Iraq would have been revealed as empty threats, weakening the United Nations and encouraging defiance by dictators around the world."
--GW Bush, January 29, 2004 State of the Uninon Address
Just when did Conservatives become concerned that UN Security Council resolutions might be revealed as "empty threats"? Did anyone inform John Bolton of this?
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
This can't be the same plan. This document seems to think that invading Iraq is a good idea.
As a non-American, I find it slightly disturbing that the US is now justifying its Iraqi invasion as 'spreading democracy'. This has traditionally not been a strong point of American foreign policy e.g. the Vietnamese people would have voted for 'Uncle Ho' (Ho Chi Min - Communist leader) had the US allowed those elections to go ahead. Now we're seeing the 'wrong' (for the US, the EU and Israel) result in Palestine.
The danger is that the US will intervene whenever there is a free and fair election result with which it doesn't agree - then we're back with the US installing and supporting their own dictators (Saddam Hussein anyone?) with all of their attendant power abuses simply to keep the 'wrong' people out of (legitimate) power.
History always repeats!
I think it will be a long time before we will be able to view these events with any clarity or impartiality. But just to provide a counter point for the discussions here are three articles that site sources that support the claim the contraband weapons did exist and explains what happened to them.
1 22637-6257r.htm
NY Sun article
http://www.nysun.com/article/26514
Middle East Forum
http://www.meforum.org/article/755
Washington Post
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041028-
It seems to me the plan is going exactly how Al Qeada envisioned it. Everything seems to fall in place for them, including the latest row over cartoons.