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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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 Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:32 pm Post subject: Macleans's: How George Bush Became Saddam |
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This is great! Go Bushie and your dolt supporters on this board.
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070920_100442_7900&source=srch&page=1
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It was embarrassing putting my flak jacket on backwards and sideways, but in the darkness of the Baghdad airport car park I couldn�t see anything. �Peterik, put the flak jacket on,� the South African security contractor was saying politely, impatiently. �You know the procedure if we are attacked.�
I didn�t. He explained. One of the chase vehicles would pull up beside us and someone would drag me out of the armoured car, away from the firing. If both drivers were unconscious�nice euphemism�he said I should try to run to the nearest army checkpoint. If the checkpoint was American, things might work out if they didn�t shoot first. If it was Iraqi . . . he didn�t elaborate.
Arriving in Baghdad has always been a little weird. Under Saddam Hussein it was like going into an orderly morgue; when he ran off after the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003 put an end to his Baathist party regime, the city became a chaotic mess. I lived in Iraq for almost two years, but after three years away I wasn�t quite ready for just how deserted and worn down the place seemed in the early evening. It was as if some kind of mildew was slowly rotting away at the edges of things, breaking down the city into urban compost.
Since 2003, more than 3,775 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, while nearly 7,500 Iraqi policemen and soldiers have died. For Iraq�s civilian population, the carnage has been almost incalculable. Last year alone, the UN estimated that 34,500 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 wounded; other estimates are much higher. As the country�s ethnic divisions widen, especially between Iraq�s Arab Shia and Arab Sunni Muslims (the Kurds are the third major group), some two million people have been internally displaced, with another two million fleeing their homeland altogether. Entering Baghdad I could tell the Sunni neighbourhoods, ghettos really, by the blasts in the walls and the emptiness, courtesy of sectarian cleansing by the majority Shias. The side streets of the Shia districts seemed to have a little more life to them.
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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But wasn't Saddam tried, convicted & summarily executed for crimes against humanity?
What does turd-burglar Bush have to worry about?
CIA Saddam's policies & decisions led to far much more suffering, death & injustice, didn't they? |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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From the same article, a particular comeuppance for Mr. Rhhee, but also for others who buy what BushCheney is selling. As it has in the past, the US helps create its own worst enemies. It helped create bin Ladin in Afghanistan, but tells th world he's a maniac creted solely from his own fnaticism. It helped fund Saddam, and gave him legitimacy, to fight Iran, then claimed he was a madman who was enabled solely by his own ego-maniacal power. It now has created the insurgency and is the prime force behind the rise (though this is a joke: al Queda in Iraq is STILL a small percentage - 4 to 8 percent - of the insurgency) of AQII. And we all know what the US and Britain did to Iran.
There is far more in this article. It's a must-read. Americans should forward it to their representatives. In particular, those running for president.
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America�s other main enemy is al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is to Osama bin Laden�s al-Qaeda what a cheap watch is to a Swiss timepiece�effective, easily reproduced, and disposable. Al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before the invasion, but today it, along with Iran, are the two strongest arguments the U.S. makes for �staying the course.� Al-Qaeda in Iraq is essentially a religious criminal gang that kills anyone who threatens its power or differs from its Salafist views on establishing a perverse form of an Islamic state. Its death squads and enormously destructive truck bombs have killed thousands of Shias, but Sunnis, too, have suffered al-Qaeda�s violent nihilism. Car bombs, assassinations and �religious punishments,� including decapitations and cutting off the fingers of smokers, have put Sunni Iraq under a Mordor-like shadow of terror and justified collective punishment from the Shias. In his testimony to Congress, Gen. Petraeus pointed out the lethal threat of al-Qaeda. But this should come as no surprise to an American general�because the U.S. Army helped create al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The American role in the promotion of the terrorist organization is not some mad conspiracy theory, but a well-documented attempt by the U.S. government to demonize the insurgency and make it appear to be the central front in the war on terror. This was as great a mistake as disbanding the Iraqi army, which the U.S. did in May 2003, or perhaps even greater, since it led to the sectarian downward spiral that has destroyed the country.
When the insurgency started in the summer of 2003, it was made up primarily of the same class of alienated Sunnis who are now part of the tribal Anbar Awakening. The insurgents I spent time with in 2003 and 2004 were, in essence, nationalists who didn�t like the U.S. Army driving around their villages, kicking down their doors and shooting their cousins at checkpoints. They were also deeply suspicious of American plans for democracy, because they feared it would lead to Iran taking over the government. Some hated Saddam, some liked him, but Saddam wasn�t the issue. For want of a better term, they are the equivalent of rednecks who believe in God, their country, and the right to bear arms.
But rather than come up with an intelligent counter-insurgency policy, reach out to traditional tribal social structures and try to understand why American soldiers were getting killed, U.S. military leaders did what Americans have gotten very good at doing in the last few years. They made up a story, which they repeated on the news for U.S. domestic consumption�and then started to believe themselves. In this story, evil foreign terrorists led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a chubby Jordanian freelance terrorist, were setting upon the popular U.S. Army. AMZ, as the U.S. Army jauntily called him, existed, but he was a minor figure unlikely to get much of a following on his own in Iraq. Jordanians are not greatly respected by Sunni tribal Iraqis, who tend to view them as the metrosexuals of the Middle East. I used to watch the nightly news with insurgents�they called themselves the �resistance��and they would laugh at what U.S. spokesmen were saying about the insurgency and Zarqawi�s prominence. But from the U.S. perspective, �tribal freedom fighter,� as the former Sunni insurgents are described today, does not sound as good as �foreign terrorist� or �anti-Iraqi fighter� when you are trying to demonize people fighting your occupation.
The ploy backfired. As AMZ (he was killed in June 2006) got more and more airtime, he gained more and more legitimacy, money and volunteers. It was as if Japanese whalers were mounting a �Save The Whales� campaign on television. Thanks to the Americans, al-Qaeda in Iraq became the Greenpeace of the jihadi world.
AMZ�s foreign fighters were never more than a tiny percentage of the insurgency, but they got all the credit, especially when their car bombs began killing civilians. Al-Qaeda in Iraq also had a tremendous appeal among the Sunni Iraqi underclass, just as Osama bin Laden�s al-Qaeda appeals to poor, angry Muslims the world over. Provinces like Anbar are very poor and very hierarchical, with a large and resentful social stratum at the bottom. Local Iraqis were drawn to al-Qaeda�s Salafist fundamentalism because it freed them from the conservative, tribal oppression that governed their lives. Al-Qaeda was able to take over some of the insurgency�and still controls chunks of Iraq�precisely because it was revolutionary, not conservative, and offered poor people in An��bar a chance to kick some rich sheik and Baathist ass, as well as kill Americans and Shias. In part, al-Qaeda was part of a class war fuelled by profound anger and so��cial resentment. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 4:12 am Post subject: |
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From the same article, a particular comeuppance for Mr. Rhhee, but also for others who buy what BushCheney is selling. As it has in the past, the US helps create its own worst enemies. It helped create bin Ladin in Afghanistan, but tells th world he's a maniac creted solely from his own fnaticism. It helped fund Saddam, and gave him legitimacy, to fight Iran, then claimed he was a madman who was enabled solely by his own ego-maniacal power. It now has created the insurgency and is the prime force behind the rise (though this is a joke: al Queda in Iraq is STILL a small percentage - 4 to 8 percent - of the insurgency) of AQII. And we all know what the US and Britain did to Iran.
There is far more in this article. It's a must-read. Americans should forward it to their representatives. In particular, those running for president. |
1. The US was correct to fight the cold war. You are now being a Monday morning quarterback.
2. There were also major cold war sucesses like weaking the USSR who was out to get the US and protecting South Korea. In fact you have benefited from US policy since if the US didn't save South Korea in 1950 they you wouldn't be training people in EFL.
3. Ayatollah Khomeni was also a fascist bigot who was after the US. What ought the US have done about Iran then? Just take it?
4.Saddam invaded Iran on his own. At the time he invaded Iran US Iraq relations were quite unfriendly.
5. More than anything else the major cause of terror is that mideast regimes and elites encourage it. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
1. The US was correct to fight the cold war. You are now being a Monday morning quarterback.
2. There were also major cold war sucesses like weaking the USSR who was out to get the US and protecting South Korea. In fact you have benefited from US policy since if the US didn't save South Korea in 1950 they you wouldn't be training people in EFL.
3. Ayatollah Khomeni was also a fascist bigot who was after the US. What ought the US have done about Iran then? Just take it?
4.Saddam invaded Iran on his own. At the time he invaded Iran US Iraq relations were quite unfriendly.
5. More than anything else the major cause of terror is that mideast regimes and elites encourage it. |
Think you might get around to reading and responding to the article posted? |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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No, he just likes to make excuses for failed US policy.
Hey Joo, if the "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" policy is sensible (hello Saddam and bin Laden) then you should consider the fact that blow back is a reasonable outcome (9/11). |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
| Hey Joo, if the "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" policy is sensible ... |
Age-old sophisticated delusion.
Indeed, doesn't the Republic have something to say of this ... paranoid clap-trap? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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"Octavius Hite"
Sometimes looking back things don't turn out well. Sometimes there are no good policy choices. If the US had to no choice in the cold war. There are also consequences for doing nothing as well.
Give you an example most would agree now that the US made a huge mistake in Iran in 1953. But the US made another mistake not assassinating (or kidnapping and throwing him in a secret prision ) the Ayatollah Khomeni before he came to power in Iran. Non intervention.
It seems clear the US made a mistake by NOT sending heavy weapons to the Northern alliance of Aganistan during the 1990s. Non intervention.
You see it goes both ways. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:39 pm Post subject: Re: Macleans's: How George Bush Became Saddam |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
This is great! Go Bushie and your dolt supporters on this board.
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070920_100442_7900&source=srch&page=1
| Quote: |
It was embarrassing putting my flak jacket on backwards and sideways, but in the darkness of the Baghdad airport car park I couldn�t see anything. �Peterik, put the flak jacket on,� the South African security contractor was saying politely, impatiently. �You know the procedure if we are attacked.�
I didn�t. He explained. One of the chase vehicles would pull up beside us and someone would drag me out of the armoured car, away from the firing. If both drivers were unconscious�nice euphemism�he said I should try to run to the nearest army checkpoint. If the checkpoint was American, things might work out if they didn�t shoot first. If it was Iraqi . . . he didn�t elaborate.
Arriving in Baghdad has always been a little weird. Under Saddam Hussein it was like going into an orderly morgue; when he ran off after the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003 put an end to his Baathist party regime, the city became a chaotic mess. I lived in Iraq for almost two years, but after three years away I wasn�t quite ready for just how deserted and worn down the place seemed in the early evening. It was as if some kind of mildew was slowly rotting away at the edges of things, breaking down the city into urban compost.
Since 2003, more than 3,775 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, while nearly 7,500 Iraqi policemen and soldiers have died. For Iraq�s civilian population, the carnage has been almost incalculable. Last year alone, the UN estimated that 34,500 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 wounded; other estimates are much higher. As the country�s ethnic divisions widen, especially between Iraq�s Arab Shia and Arab Sunni Muslims (the Kurds are the third major group), some two million people have been internally displaced, with another two million fleeing their homeland altogether. Entering Baghdad I could tell the Sunni neighbourhoods, ghettos really, by the blasts in the walls and the emptiness, courtesy of sectarian cleansing by the majority Shias. The side streets of the Shia districts seemed to have a little more life to them.
Continued Below |
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So because some reporter equates Bush to Saddam that automatically makes it true 
Ever hear of logic? |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:56 pm Post subject: Re: Macleans's: How George Bush Became Saddam |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
So because "some reporter" equates Bush to Saddam that automatically makes it true
Ever hear of logic? |
Some reporter? Yes, it is just an opinion.
So is this child's:
But mommy, THE EMPEROR IS NAKED !!!
Pure & unadultered, straight from the mouths of babes.
Lame Little Bunny |
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