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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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 Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Just watched a clip of Bill Moyers on Real Time and Maher says the Dumbya has announced they will no longer train Iraqis?? WTF?? |
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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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I used to have a similar thought, in that they likely would know what he had since many in the Bush admin were part of other admins that had sold him, or facilitated his acquisition of the materials to make WMDs. But I always finished that thought with the a line to the effect that whatever they did sell him has either degraded by this time to the point that it can no longer be used as a component or agent in WMD manufacture, or has been accounted for during the inspections during the 90s.
For those that remember there was a man named Scott ritter who was SO vilified for his adamant stance that there were no WMDs, by the MSM, but especially fox and other right wing source that it was, and I don;t use this term lightly, disgusting.
I think the Ritter example is the prime example of what the issues surrounding the media failure are/were, as well as a cultural failure. Conservative media, pundits and even administration officials routinely used phrases and terms like 'unpatriotic' and in many cases stronger terms when speaking on television about ANYONE who opposed the war. O'Reilly still says similar things calling people 'unamerican'.
The issue here was that this thinking spread beyond conservatives. Both houses were controlled by repubicans, administration officials were always on news shows saying similar things and also saying there were wmds. because so many people were saying it, meant it had to be discussed, and because it was being discussed it became a legitimate topic, rather than the farce that it should have been. When the leaders of your country are all going on shows saying Hussein and WMDs, it has a tremendous impact.
Then there's the culture of 'patriotism' in the US, which during the build up to the war was very close to mcCarthyist in nature, with the accusations being leveled against many of those who spoke out against the war. the MSM failed in this case again, because Wolf Blitzer might have someone like Ritter on, and then he'd ask a questions like "so and so says you're a traitor to your country, how do you respond to that?" which legitimized the point of few, no mtter how illegitimate it may have been.
This is why I don't think it's accurate to place blame only on the MSM. The Bush admin and conservatice media(of all types) played an enormous role. The MSM needs to absorb and accept a great deal of responsibility for not having the sack to stand up and say 'that's wrong or inaccurate or etc' but that does not alleviate conservatives (political or media) of the responsibility they bear. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 10:47 pm Post subject: |
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| freethought wrote: |
For those that remember there was a man named Scott ritter who was SO vilified for his adamant stance that there were no WMDs, by the MSM, but especially fox and other right wing source that it was, and I don;t use this term lightly, disgusting. |
I had to opportunity to see Ritter speak. He is the most aggressive public speaker I've ever seen. I saw him after Bush declared "major combat operations" over. He was quite adamant that we hadn't see anything yet.
He has some interesting opinions about Iran, which I don't agree with.
I think that his legal problems (allegedly seeking underage girls for sex) have taken him out of the limelight. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 11:37 am Post subject: |
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mindmetoo
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Really? Has NK tried for South Korea a second time? No. There's a trip wire US force here. Any second move on Kuwait would trip such a wire as well. |
It is interesting that you mentioned North Korea. North Korea managed to get nuclear weapons didn't they?
And a nuclear armed Iraq would be much more powerful than a nuclear armed North Korea cause unlike North Korea , Iraq has oil to finance its military.Also North Korea is surrounded by powerful nations like Japan , China and Russia while Iraq is near rich and weak nations Kuwait and the gulf states.
Saddam after the first gulf war tried to kill a US president , massed troops for another invasion of Kuwait and shot at US plane Are these the actions of someone who decided to quit?
The only reason Saddam did not rearm or invade Kuwait was cause the US was keeping forces in Saddam's face. The US could not do that forever.
As I said Saddam did threaten to re invade Kuwait in 1994. and it wasn't just words either.
| Quote: |
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 8, 1994 TAG: 9410080302
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IRAQI TROOPS MASS AT BORDER CLINTON ORDERS NORFOLK CARRIER TO THE RED SEA THREAT TO KUWAIT LIKELY TIED TO SANCTIONS ISSUE
President Clinton ordered the Norfolk-based carrier George Washington to the Middle East on Friday and put about 15,000 soldiers on alert after 40,000 to 50,000 Iraqi troops were spotted massing on the border with Kuwait. |
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1994/vp941008/10080302.htm
[
Also to contain Saddam the US needed to keep forces in Saudi Arabia. Could the US do that forever?
| Quote: |
Deadlier Than War
By Walter Russell Mead
Wednesday, March 12, 2003; Page A21
Those who still oppose war in Iraq think containment is an alternative -- a middle way between all-out war and letting Saddam Hussein out of his box.
They are wrong.
Sanctions are inevitably the cornerstone of containment, and in Iraq, sanctions kill.
In this case, containment is not an alternative to war. Containment is war: a slow, grinding war in which the only certainty is that hundreds of thousands of civilians will die.
The Gulf War killed somewhere between 21,000 and 35,000 Iraqis, of whom between 1,000 and 5,000 were civilians.
Based on Iraqi government figures, UNICEF estimates that containment kills roughly 5,000 Iraqi babies (children under 5 years of age) every month, or 60,000 per year. Other estimates are lower, but by any reasonable estimate containment kills about as many people every year as the Gulf War -- and almost all the victims of containment are civilian, and two-thirds are children under 5.
Each year of containment is a new Gulf War.
Saddam Hussein is 65; containing him for another 10 years condemns at least another 360,000 Iraqis to death. Of these, 240,000 will be children under 5.
Those are the low-end estimates. Believe UNICEF and 10 more years kills 600,000 Iraqi babies and altogether almost 1 million Iraqis.
Ever since U.N.-mandated sanctions took effect, Iraqi propaganda has blamed the United States for deliberately murdering Iraqi babies to further U.S. foreign policy goals.
Wrong.
The sanctions exist only because Saddam Hussein has refused for 12 years to honor the terms of a cease-fire he himself signed. In any case, the United Nations and the United States allow Iraq to sell enough oil each month to meet the basic needs of Iraqi civilians. Hussein diverts these resources. Hussein murders the babies.
But containment enables the slaughter. Containment kills.
The slaughter of innocents is the worst cost of containment, but it is not the only cost of containment.
Containment allows Saddam Hussein to control the political climate of the Middle East. If it serves his interest to provoke a crisis, he can shoot at U.S. planes. He can mobilize his troops near Kuwait. He can support terrorists and destabilize his neighbors. The United States must respond to these provocations.
Worse, containment forces the United States to keep large conventional forces in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the region. That costs much more than money.
The existence of al Qaeda, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are part of the price the United States has paid to contain Saddam Hussein.
The link is clear and direct. Since 1991 the United States has had forces in Saudi Arabia. Those forces are there for one purpose only: to defend the kingdom (and its neighbors) from Iraqi attack. If Saddam Hussein had either fallen from power in 1991 or fulfilled the terms of his cease-fire agreement and disarmed, U.S. forces would have left Saudi Arabia.
But Iraqi defiance forced the United States to stay, and one consequence was dire and direct. Osama bin Laden founded al Qaeda because U.S. forces stayed in Saudi Arabia.
This is the link between Saddam Hussein's defiance of international law and the events of Sept. 11; it is clear and compelling. No Iraqi violations, no Sept. 11.
So that is our cost.
And what have we bought?
We've bought the right of a dictator to suppress his own people, disturb the peace of the region and make the world darker and more dangerous for the American people.
We've bought the continuing presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, causing a profound religious offense to a billion Muslims around the world, and accelerating the alarming drift of Saudi religious and political leaders toward ever more extreme forms of anti-Americanism.
What we can't buy is protection from Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction. Too many companies and too many states will sell him anything he wants, and Russia and France will continue to sabotage any inspections and sanctions regime.
Morally, politically, financially, containing Iraq is one of the costliest failures in the history of American foreign policy. Containment can be tweaked -- made a little less murderous, a little less dangerous, a little less futile -- but the basic equations don't change. Containing Hussein delivers civilians into the hands of a murderous psychopath, destabilizes the whole Middle East and foments anti-American terror -- with no end in sight.
This is disaster, not policy.
It is time for a change.
Walter Russell Mead is senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author most recently of "Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World."
� 2003 The Washington Post Company |
Also this is imporant
In fact; Saudi Arabia asked the US to remove its forces in response to pressure by the US to crackdown on Al Qaeda
mindmetoo
| Quote: |
He had a decade to do that and didn't. |
The U.S. official said he believes Saddam decided to give up his weapons in 1991, but tried to conceal his nuclear and biological programs for as long as possible.
| Quote: |
| Then in 1995, when his son-in-law Hussain Kamal defected with information about the programs, he gave those up, too |
.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/
1. For the first 5 years after the first gulf war he kept his WMD programs.
2. The sanctions were failing.
3. IF the US didn't have troops in Saddams face there would not not only have been no inspectors in Iraq there would have been no sanctions on Iraq.
4. He wasn't in compliance either.
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Despite not finding any WMD, Kay said his team found that the Iraqi senior leadership "had an intention to continue to pursue their WMD activities. That they, in fact, had a large number of WMD-related activities |
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/
It is the opinon of David Kay that Saddam intended to rearm.
here is more;
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| Duelfer's report said Hussein was pursuing an aggressive effort to subvert the international sanctions through illegal financing and procurement efforts, officials said. The official said the report states that Hussein had the intent to resume full-scale weapons of mass destruction efforts after the sanctions were eliminated, and details Hussein's efforts to hinder international inspectors and preserve his weapons of mass destruction capabilities. |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9790-2004Oct5.html
I think it is safe to say that Saddam did intend to rearm.
Saddam was contained but only as long as the US kept tens of thousands of soldiers in his face. That meant the US had to keep forces in Saudi Arabia. Why didn't Bin Laden start up the mideast version of the Klan in the first place? US forces in Saudi Arabia.
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Given the thousand and thousands of people dead already, it's hard to argue this has saved lives (on balance). |
Saddam Husssein killed 300,000 Iraqis in his 20 years in power (that number doesn't include his war with Iran . What was he going to do in the next 20? (His sons were coming up next) especially if he got to go free? |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo said, "*." |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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You need to see it again? Ok
| Quote: |
Deadlier Than War
By Walter Russell Mead
Wednesday, March 12, 2003; Page A21
Those who still oppose war in Iraq think containment is an alternative -- a middle way between all-out war and letting Saddam Hussein out of his box.
They are wrong.
Sanctions are inevitably the cornerstone of containment, and in Iraq, sanctions kill.
In this case, containment is not an alternative to war. Containment is war: a slow, grinding war in which the only certainty is that hundreds of thousands of civilians will die.
The Gulf War killed somewhere between 21,000 and 35,000 Iraqis, of whom between 1,000 and 5,000 were civilians.
Based on Iraqi government figures, UNICEF estimates that containment kills roughly 5,000 Iraqi babies (children under 5 years of age) every month, or 60,000 per year. Other estimates are lower, but by any reasonable estimate containment kills about as many people every year as the Gulf War -- and almost all the victims of containment are civilian, and two-thirds are children under 5.
Each year of containment is a new Gulf War.
Saddam Hussein is 65; containing him for another 10 years condemns at least another 360,000 Iraqis to death. Of these, 240,000 will be children under 5.
Those are the low-end estimates. Believe UNICEF and 10 more years kills 600,000 Iraqi babies and altogether almost 1 million Iraqis.
Ever since U.N.-mandated sanctions took effect, Iraqi propaganda has blamed the United States for deliberately murdering Iraqi babies to further U.S. foreign policy goals.
Wrong.
The sanctions exist only because Saddam Hussein has refused for 12 years to honor the terms of a cease-fire he himself signed. In any case, the United Nations and the United States allow Iraq to sell enough oil each month to meet the basic needs of Iraqi civilians. Hussein diverts these resources. Hussein murders the babies.
But containment enables the slaughter. Containment kills.
The slaughter of innocents is the worst cost of containment, but it is not the only cost of containment.
Containment allows Saddam Hussein to control the political climate of the Middle East. If it serves his interest to provoke a crisis, he can shoot at U.S. planes. He can mobilize his troops near Kuwait. He can support terrorists and destabilize his neighbors. The United States must respond to these provocations.
Worse, containment forces the United States to keep large conventional forces in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the region. That costs much more than money.
The existence of al Qaeda, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are part of the price the United States has paid to contain Saddam Hussein.
The link is clear and direct. Since 1991 the United States has had forces in Saudi Arabia. Those forces are there for one purpose only: to defend the kingdom (and its neighbors) from Iraqi attack. If Saddam Hussein had either fallen from power in 1991 or fulfilled the terms of his cease-fire agreement and disarmed, U.S. forces would have left Saudi Arabia.
But Iraqi defiance forced the United States to stay, and one consequence was dire and direct. Osama bin Laden founded al Qaeda because U.S. forces stayed in Saudi Arabia.
This is the link between Saddam Hussein's defiance of international law and the events of Sept. 11; it is clear and compelling. No Iraqi violations, no Sept. 11.
So that is our cost.
And what have we bought?
We've bought the right of a dictator to suppress his own people, disturb the peace of the region and make the world darker and more dangerous for the American people.
We've bought the continuing presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, causing a profound religious offense to a billion Muslims around the world, and accelerating the alarming drift of Saudi religious and political leaders toward ever more extreme forms of anti-Americanism.
What we can't buy is protection from Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction. Too many companies and too many states will sell him anything he wants, and Russia and France will continue to sabotage any inspections and sanctions regime.
Morally, politically, financially, containing Iraq is one of the costliest failures in the history of American foreign policy. Containment can be tweaked -- made a little less murderous, a little less dangerous, a little less futile -- but the basic equations don't change. Containing Hussein delivers civilians into the hands of a murderous psychopath, destabilizes the whole Middle East and foments anti-American terror -- with no end in sight.
This is disaster, not policy.
It is time for a change.
Walter Russell Mead is senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author most recently of "Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World."
� 2003 The Washington Post Company |
Hey Elf Trainer anything in the article that is not accurate? |
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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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listen, I know you're dumb, but you've not only missed the point of this thread, but of the entire problem.... You've also taken what amounts to the Bush admin post No WMDs position, which doesn't help your position.
This thread is about THE MEDIA not challenging what were bogus assertions about WMDs. If Bush et al had stepped up and said that Saddam must be removed because X, Y, and Z, with X Y and Z not being WMDs or al qaeda or a MAJOR sponsor of terrorism, then they would have been telling the truth, people would have said, good points, valid points, but I'm not sure we should go to war...
But Bush didn't say that, and the media fell prey to their tactics and BS. That's what this thread is about. Bush didn't really make or emphasis many of the points you've made.... they made really only ONE point, WMDs, and on that they were not only wrong, but were likely deliberately obfuscating the truth.
If you want to post the stuff you've posted, I would suggest a new thread. I would also suggest READING what this one is supposed to be about. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
This thread is about THE MEDIA not challenging what were bogus assertions about WMDs. If Bush et al had stepped up and said that Saddam must be removed because X, Y, and Z, with X Y and Z not being WMDs or al qaeda or a MAJOR sponsor of terrorism, then they would have been telling the truth, people would have said, good points, valid points, but I'm not sure we should go to war... |
Most of the world thought Saddam had WMDs in fact there was no reason not to think he had them. And Saddam was not in compliance.
Bush thought Saddam had WMDs otherwise he would have come up with another excuse for going after Saddam.
But if Bush said the real reason for the war it would have made it even more difficult for Saudi Arabia to go after AL Qaeida.
This was the real reason for the war.
| Quote: |
S Arabia 'real reason for war'
NEWS.com.au ^ | April 3, 2004
Posted on 04/03/2004 1:55:34 AM PST by Piefloater
FORGET Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The real reason the United States invaded Iraq was Saudi Arabia, according to a US intelligence analyst.
Dr George Friedman, chairman of the United States private sector intelligence company Stratfor, said the US had settled on WMD as a simple justification for the war and one which it expected the public would readily accept.
Dr Friedman, in Australia on a business trip, said the US administration never wanted to explain the complex reasons for invading Iraq, keeping them from both the public and their closest supporters.
"That, primarily, was the fact that Saudi Arabia was facilitating the transfer of funds to al-Qaeda, was refusing to cooperate with the US and believed in its heart of hearts that the US would never take any action against them," he said.
Dr Friedman said the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US prompted the strategy to hunt down al-Qaeda wherever it was to be found. But that proved exceedingly difficult.
"The US was desperate. There were no good policy choices," he said.
"Then the US turned to the question - we can't find al-Qaeda so how can we stop the enablers of al-Qaeda."
He said those enablers, the financiers and recruiters, existed in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
But the Saudi government variously took the view that this wasn't true or that they lacked the ability and strength to act, he said.
Dr Friedman said in March last year, the Saudis responded to US pressure by asking the US to remove all its forces and bases from their territory. To their immense surprise, the US did just that, relocating to Qatar.
He said Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda shared a number of beliefs including that the US could not fight and win a war in the region and was casualty averse. There was a need to change that perception.
But close by was Iraq, the most strategically located nation in the Middle East, bordering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey and Iran.
"If we held Iraq we felt first there would be dramatic changes of behaviour from the Saudis," he said. "We could also manipulate the Iranians into a change of policy and finally also lean on the Syrians.
"It wasn't a great policy. It happened to be the only policy available."
Dr Friedman said US President George W Bush faced the difficulty of explaining this policy, particularly to the Saudis. Moves to link Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda failed completely.
"They then fell on WMD for two reasons," he said.
"Nobody could object to WMD and it was the one thing that every intelligence agency knew was true.
"We knew we were going to find them. And we would never have to reveal the real reasons.
"The massive intelligence failure was that everybody including Saddam thought he had WMD. He behaved as if he had WMD. He was conned by his own people." |
| Quote: |
But Bush didn't say that, and the media fell prey to their tactics and BS. That's what this thread is about. Bush didn't really make or emphasis many of the points you've made.... they made really only ONE point, WMDs, and on that they were not only wrong, but were likely deliberately obfuscating the truth. |
Do you have any evidence that Bush thought Saddam didn't have WMDS? |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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Joo said, "*."
Joo further said, "I failed reading comprehension in kindergarten." |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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Sadda, did in fact gas the Kurds.
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The New Republic Online
History Lessen
by Spencer Ackerman
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 02.04.03
It is by now a well-established fact that chemical weapons claimed the lives of over 5,000 Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja on March 16, 1988. It is equally well-established that responsibility for this atrocity lies with Saddam Hussein. Indeed, there is virtual unanimity among the dozens of journalists, government delegations, and international human rights groups who have investigated the matter that Halabja was the first frightful act of Saddam's Anfal campaign, a genocide that consumed almost 100,000 Kurds in all. Yet according to a chilling and incoherent op-ed published in Friday's New York Times, Saddam had nothing to do with the massacre after all.
The author of this revisionist account is Stephen C. Pelletiere, a retired Army War College professor who served as a senior Iraq analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency during the Iran-Iraq war. Pelletiere is the co-author of the 1990 book Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East, which concluded that Iranian gas, not Iraqi gas, murdered the Kurds at Halabja. In his Times op-ed Pelletiere recycles this argument, only this time against the backdrop of a second war with Saddam. He's no more convincing today than he was 13 years ago.
Pelletiere begins by reprising the usual facts--namely, that Halabja was the site of an intense battle between Saddam and the Iranians. He first concedes that Iraq did use chemical weapons, but argues that the Iranians did as well. The Kurdish victims of the chemicals "had the misfortune to be caught up in the exchange." Pelletiere then cites a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, issued shortly after Halabja, to support his conclusion that Iranian gas killed the Kurds. His evidence? The Kurdish corpses "indicated that they had been killed with a blood agent," which the Iraqis, "who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed."
But this claim is wildly implausible. First, interviews by international human rights groups with scores of Halabja survivors reveal no such confusion about who deployed the chemicals. Kurds who were outside their houses during the mid-morning attack "could see clearly that these were Iraqi, not Iranian aircraft, since they flew low enough for their markings to be legible," concluded Human Rights Watch in its 1993 report Genocide In Iraq. In any case, the argument for Iranian culpability neglects the logistics of the Halabja battle itself. The Iranians, who controlled the town on March 15, would have no reason to use chemical agents against the Iraqi counteroffensive on March 16, since the Iraqis retaliated with air strikes and placed no soldiers on the ground against whom such weapons could be used.
Second, even if the victims died of exposure to blood agents, this would be perfectly consistent with the claim of Iraqi responsibility. A 1991 DIA report, since declassified, concluded definitively, "Iraq is known to have employed ... a blood agent, hydrogen cyanide gas (HCN) ... against Iranian soldiers, civilians, and Iraqi Kurdish civilians." Nonetheless, it is far more likely, according to the standard accounts of the attack on Halabja, that mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and tabun--and perhaps even VX and the biological agent aflatoxin, which the Iraqis were also known to possess--were the instruments of Kurdish murder. For example, Human Rights Watch noted that survivors excreted blood-streaked urine, "consistent with exposure to both mustard gas and a nerve agent such as Sarin."
Third, the 1988 DIA report Pelletiere cites to pin Halabja on the Iranians was not the end of the DIA's inquiry. The DIA's April 19, 1988 cable--a month after Halabja--took note of the fact that the Iraqis were already forcibly resettling "an estimated 1.5 million Kurdish nationals," including "an unknown but reportedly large number of Kurds [who] have been placed in 'concentration camps' located near the Jordanian and Saudi Arabian borders." This in mind, the far more plausible story is that Halabja was part of a concerted effort to settle the Kurdish problem "once and for all," in the words of an October 24, 1988 DIA report--by wiping out the Iraqi Kurdish population.
This brings us to the biggest problem with Pelletiere's argument: If the Kurds were legitimate battlefield casualties, why is it Saddam subsequently felt the need to slaughter nearly 100,000 more of them? Pelletiere writes that any other examples of Saddam's chemical deployment on Kurdish victims "must show that [the dead Kurds] were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary guards." But even if Saddam's goal was to root out traitors, it's inconceivable that all or even most of the residents of the dozens of Kurdish villages Saddam subsequently razed were treacherous peshmerga, or that Saddam believed this to be the case. Certainly the testimony of hundreds of Kurdish refugees, who have provided remarkably consistent accounts of the genocide despite being dispersed from Iran to Turkey, refute this. So does the fact that Saddam kept gassing the Kurds after signing the August 20, 1988 ceasefire with Iran, as Samantha Power points out in her 2002 book, A Problem From Hell. And in unguarded moments, members of Saddam's regime have given lie to this rationale as well. Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, entrusted to carry out the Kurdish slaughter, was caught on tape at a Ba'athist meeting in May 1988 boasting about the Kurds, "I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? *beep* them!" (Human Rights Watch believes the tape is mislabeled, recording a conversation that really took place in 1987--i.e., before Halabja.)
What's perhaps most infuriating, though, is that Pelletiere is now reviving his decade-old hobbyhorse as a cynical argument against war with Iraq. "President Bush himself has cited Iraq's 'gassing its own people,' specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein," Pelletiere writes. Considering the Bush administration's "lack of a smoking gun" in the U.N. weapons inspections, he continues, "perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his own people."
Even if Pelletiere had his facts straight on Halabja, his would be a noxious and dishonest argument against war. To begin with, it is an insult to the principled antiwar critics who recognize and condemn Saddam's record of genocide but who still oppose an invasion of Iraq. One such critic is Maryland Democratic Representative Chris Van Hollen, who as a staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 1988 visited Kurdish refugees in Turkey to determine what had happened in Kurdistan. Van Hollen's team documented Iraqi chemical attacks on 49 Kurdish villages, leading him to conclude that "at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, all evidence pointed to the fact that [Saddam] used chemical weapons against the Kurds." More important, though, Van Hollen grasps the distinction that eludes Pelletiere, which is that while Bush invokes the Kurdish genocide in his brief against Saddam, the president does so to establish Saddam's willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, not to argue that, as Pelletiere ludicrously puts it, "we go to war over Halabja." The only one fighting a war over Halabja, it seems, is Stephen Pelletiere. And it's one he'd lost before it had even begun.
Spencer Ackerman , a former associate editor of The New Republic, is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect. |
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=foreign&s=ackerman020403 |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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Faltering 4th Estate 
Why exactly?
Perks, kick-backs? Fear? Threats, intimidation?
Offering all the news that's "fit" to print 
Gimme some truth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_estate |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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Rense? Iamthewithness? |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo: "I am the best argument for thread authors to be able to delete individual posts in threads they start. Well, right behind jinju, McIdiot and go-fer-dumbya." |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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Like pretty much everyone (in theory), I always believed the press really was the Fourth Estate. History teaches us it is not really true. Reporters/newspapers have been controlled/threatened/co-opted since the press was established. However, until 9/11 I actually believed the vast majority were holding up that idea of being the Fourth Estate.
Not anymore. This period of lies, deception, dacapitation of democracy... shows just how important it truly is. If the Fourth Estate does not reassert itself, we can kiss Freedom googbye. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| EFLtrainer wrote: |
| Joo: "I am the best argument for thread authors to be able to delete individual posts in threads they start. Well, right behind jinju, McIdiot and go-fer-dumbya." |
I know you would like to keep info that you don't approve of covered up. |
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