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Secret Gov't Documents Will be Declassified 12/31
mozzwald writes "This New Year's Eve, at midnight on the dot, hundreds of millions of pages of U.S. government secrets will be revealed. Or at least they'll no longer be official secrets — it may actually take months or more for the National Archives and Records Administration to make those pages available for public consumption."
> Can't wait 25 years to know how my president mislead us into this Iraq quagmire. We just lost 100 people so far this month and
> counting! Very sad indeed. More American lives have now been lost in Iraq as compared to those that died on 9/11.
I don't know what you expect to find. There's nothing unique about the US intervention in Iraq - it's for exactly the same reasons as all the other meddling in other countries affairs going back through most of the 20th century. No cover ups or conspiracy theories are required - it's been taking place quite openly. You might want to start with `manufacturing consent` or `hegemony or survival` by Noam Chomsky for what's been going on, and how the a free media like that in the US handles it.
What about hundreds of Iraqi people's lives that were lost? That doesn't count eh?
Hundreds? Try hundreds of thousands.
You would be suprised about the anount of documentation. If people lower down in the food chain want to cover themselves the first thing they do is put it in writing. Take the Suez Crisis for example. There is clearly documentation to show that the British used sexed up intelligence to manufacture a war against Egypt to reclaim Suez. If documentation exists to show this then I wouldn't be at all suprised if the same is true of Iraq
"More American lives have now been lost in Iraq as compared to those that died on 9/11."
Why exactly did you draw that comparison? They're two unrelated events. Why not say: more American lives have been lost in Iraq than in Pearl Harbor? Even if 10,000 lives had been lost on 9/11, there would still be no justification for attacking Iraq based on it, and thus no bench mark to compare against.
Yeah, but the point is no one will care.
We don't need to open secret archives to know the Iraq war was a bunch of bullshit but no one really cares.
It's true that automobile deaths are extremely prevalent, but they are usually more the result of 1) poor training or 2) excessive alcohol consumption or 3) road rage. It's something that cannot be easily dealt with because it concerns the whole of society. People will always get angry, people will always get drunk, and people will always get mad. It's part of human nature that probably is very hard, if not impossible, to change. It's unlike racism, where you have one clearly defined ethnic group targeting another. Oh, and accidents may also happen due to carelessness, which cannot be avoided.
On the other hand, the war is a single product of a single administration and the entire US public's attitudes (apathy, ignorance?) towards a single issue. It's much more preventable; it's much more treatable. Thus, naturally we'll be more easily angered about a more preventable bad decision by the administration and its incompetence and arrogance. Perspective is much less the issue here as opposed to the ability to succeed.
-FeCl3
Cogito, ergo sum, fosho!
I'm not very much for the state having secrets to its people -- the state is created by the people because they needed one, after all. If there still is a great need to keep a secret (just a small need doesn't cut it for me), then so be it, I guess. BUT, any fact kept secret without reson to do so i an abomination! There should be measures taken to ensure that everything that can be revealed is revealed (not the other way around).
I'm not talking specifically about the USA here -- I'm not an american -- but the same thing applies to any state.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
It makes perfect sense to compare two deadly events by counting deaths. For example, the Asian tsunami was far deadlier than hurricane Katrina. That doesn't make hurricane Katrina justified, but it does give one some perspective.
In this case, it's clear that Bush is deadlier to Americans than Osama bin Laden. The comparison suggests that we reevaluate our priorities.
Jim: How am I going to explain the missing documents to the Mail?
Sir Humphrey: Well this is what we normally do in, circumstances like these. [hands over a file]
Jim: [reading] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, a few others lost in the flood of 1967. [to Humphrey] Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?
Sir Humphrey: No a marvellous winter, we lost no end of embarrassing files.
Jim: [reading] Some records which went astray in the move to London, and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for liable or breach of confidence, or cause embarrassment to friendly governments. [to Humphrey] Well that's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at? [Humphrey says nothing] How many does that actually leave? About a hundred? Fifty? Ten? Five? Four? Three? Two? One? Zero?
Sir Humphrey: Yes Minister.
Oh, well that completely excludes him from being able to comment on the semantics and euphemisms used by the mass media to mask the truth.
Is it a will as in "they will do it", or one as in "they should, but will come up with a reason not to do it"?
I've seen my share of US politics lately, so I'm compelled to ask.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What about hundreds of Iraqi people's lives that were lost? That doesn't count eh?
How many would Saddam have killed if he'd remained in power?
He had gassed his own people, killing far more than have died in this current 'war'. The Iraq/Iran war was so horrendous it was almost like WWI was in Europe, only with more effective weaponry including but not limited to--yep, you guessed it--chemical weapons. Iran had some soldiers whose job it was to walk, unarmed and unequipped, over land mines to clear them out for armed personnel.
I doubt if you're going by strict numbers, you can say that more lives have been lost as a result of removing Saddam from power in this way than to leave him in power.
Unless, of course, we bail out of Iraq. In that case, there will probably be a civil war which could cost hundreds of thousands more.
If you only care about American lives, nobody disagrees that more would have been spared if the US had stayed out (in the short term, at least).
I was against the invasion, but that's because I don't think it's worth a single American life to help people who are not among our own, unless it's of extreme strategic significance (obviously if Iraq had WMD to give to terrorists to kill us with, this would qualify).
Moreover, I doubt Americans have the attention span nor the understanding of geopolitics to support this 'police action' as is needed to prevent a civil war, and I think we WILL bail out either after the 2008 or 2010 elections (in the US). Therefore, even from a compassionate perspective, this was a mistake; not because we can't win, but because the American people don't have the testicular fortitude anymore to do what is necessary to win.
Latewire
Actually I am always amazed at the amount of incredibly damaging stuff that gets released in the US. For example, things like Operation Northwoods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods ), which although never carried out, was a plan to stage terrorist attacks on US assets and blame it on Cuba as an excuse for war.
Then there are minutes of meetings that provide evidence of war crimes by certain individuals. For example, minutes were released of Henry Kissinger saying "Anything that flies on anything that moves" , which were his bombing orders for Cambodia. If they had evidence like that against Milosevic, his trial would have been over within days.
Fortunately these damning revelations are largely ignored by the US media. If they were not, perhaps they would stop releasing them in the first place.
AFAIK you'll need to wait at least another 10 years. (didn't bookmark the story about it, sorry) But, do you really think they will ever release the truth about the JFK assassination? Or that the how and why is properly documented? I would be surprised. My only question is if LBJ knew about it.
It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
What crack are you on? There were reports coming out even years ago saying that in 2003 alone, the US led invasion on Iraq killed more people than Saddam killed in the last 20(!) years combined!
Sources:
182,000 gassed in the late 80's by Saddam.
57,617 MAX Iraqi deaths in this war.
Your own what? Race? A more important human?
My beliefs were not the point of my post, I was just revealing my 'bias'. I will now further elaborate on my beliefs:
I don't feel this country owes anybody else a thing. Meddling in the affairs of others is likely the most avoidable cause of terrorist attacks on this country and a poor public image in the eyes of other nations. All we have to do is nothing, and nobody can blame us for anything. Obviously, we don't have the cash to be doing this stuff anyway (look at our deficit), and we NEVER get paid. IMO, if we're to go out and be the world's police, the world should pay us back (and more than just buying our Gov't bonds).
If the US had stayed out of WWI, there may have never been a WWII. If the US hadn't helped the Sudan kick Bin Laden out, he may not have been in Afghanistan. How big do we have to F'up, and how much money (which we don't have) do we have to waste before we stop with this foolishness?
Latewire
Has everyone forgotten our invasion of Afghanistan? Seriously, after 9/11 the push was to Afghanistan and NO ONE protested. Before the Iraq war millions protested, with some cities having the largest protests in their entire history Iraq's debacle with the UN inspectors set off the start to invading Iraq, and than Saddam kept bluffing and refusing to say he didn't have chemical weapons or to allow UN inspections to resume. I swear people are trying to rewrite current history to make Iraq immediately after 9/11 and completely caused by 9/11. Maybe that works better for the conspiracy theories, but it doesn't really fit the reality I lived through.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Some reports count the death of insurgents and deaths caused by insurgents as "US" deaths. Some reports count "avoidable" deaths in Iraq, but use different (and arbitrary) definitions of "avoidable" for US-occupied Iraq and the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. So please be sure to cite a specific report so we can dismantle it properly.
These points are moot, however, since a death count is a stupid metric to use in the first place. For instance, we lost many more people fighting World War II than we ever did at Pearl Harbor, but it doesn't mean it wasn't a worthwhile fight. The reasons we should not be in Iraq are many, but at best the death count issue should only be brought up to argue why, if we leave for other reasons, we should do so as quickly as possible.
"More American lives have now been lost in Iraq as compared to those that died on 9/11."
Why exactly did you draw that comparison?
Look at it this way:
By his orders Bin Laden sent 2,700 Americans to their deaths.
By his orders George W. Bush sent 3,000 Americans to their deaths.
Who is America's enemy?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I don't follow that logic. Wouldn't a saboteur simply set up a televsion or radio and watch/listen to a station to determine if it goes off the air?
Your posts are both misleading and full of inaccuracies.
.htm. Among other things, they contain the minutes from Rumsfeld's meetings with Saddam during the early 1980's, when the US-Iraq special relationship developed.
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1. You seem to be implying that the amount people killed as a result of Saddam's policies during the Iraq-Iran war would be related to the amount of people that would be killed between 2003-present in a non-invaded Iraq. I don't see why this would be the case. The circumstances in those time periods would be entirely different. Most importantly Saddam was completely supported and backed by the US during the Iraq-Iran war, which was most likely what allowed him to carry out such atrocities. If you don't believe me, then feel free to read the publicly available declassified records available from the National Security Archives at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index
2. Of course Iraq is of "extreme strategic significance". The country has one of the largest energy reserves in the world, and if the US manages to stabilize Iraq enough for US oil companies to invest in it at the expense of the Iraq people, then the US will have increased its superpower status substantially. Read the "Crude Designs" report (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/cru dedesigns.htm) for an analysis of this.
3. As "A beautiful mind" correctly points out, your figure of 57,617 Iraqi deaths in the war is completely false. Look at the Iraq Body Count's webpage that you linked to. They explicitly state that that number refers to the number of iraq deaths REPORTED. That's a big difference between that and the total number of Iraq deaths, which is probably around 600,000. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_mor tality_before_and_after_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq)
4. The philosophy you propose seems ignorant and racist. I don't see why an American life should be worth more than others, as you suggest when you say "I don't think it's worth a single American life to help people who are not among our own". And why is it so important that the US get "paid back". If the US does save lives as a result of its actions, then shouldn't that in itself be enough compensation. Furthermore, inaction which you propound as a guiding principle of US politics is completely unrealistic. The US's economy is tightly linked to that of many other countries, and US companies have a presence in many other countries. These facts alone necessitate that the US be involved in world politics, and humanitarian reasons should justify this as well.
5. You claim that the US owes nobody anything else and that the US should get paid back for police work that it has done in the past. What "police work" are you refering to? Most of US military intervention has been to protect and secure the interest of US companies, and things are the other way around: The US owes other countries for unjustified intervention in the past. Here are some examples:
* The invasion of Panama in 1989 (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Panama)
* The US-backed coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002 (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_coup_attem pt_of_2002)
* 25 years of US sanctions against Cuba that have been repeatedly denounced by the UN (See http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10529.doc
* US sanctions against Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of over 500,000 children (See http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/200
The best methods available for surveying casualties tells us that the body count is around the most probable number of 655 thousand....
I wouldn't be so sure that study is reliable.
655,000 War Dead? A bogus study on Iraq casualties
The Iraq Body Count project take on it.
Some additional discussion.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell