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bignate
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
Location: Hell's Ditch
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 Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 2:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| You suggested, moreover, that the much smaller northern European nations (namely Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK) are morally superior to the U.S. because these states act differently than the U.S. (Someone, in an earlier thread, also asserted that Switzerland was morally superior to the U.S. because Switzerland was neutral; the U.S. should be more like Switzerland in its foreign relations.) |
This all started from your statement that the US is doing more for crisis areas in the world, and thus are doing a better job than those other nations. My opinion is that though the US donated huge sums of money, they do it upon the basis of benefiting their own interests, not out of philanthropy. First you state the US is the most generous nation, I give some information that that may not be totally true...and you say I am Anti-American
| Quote: |
| Then I suggested that you should look at studies like Donnelly's, where it is shown that the U.S. is in a complicated position, unable to act neutrally anywhere in the world, and thus cannot afford the luxury of acting, for example, as the Scandinavian states do. |
But what about Britain, they have in recent years transformed their foreign aid delivery as well.....I understand that the US needs to maintain strategic positioning in the world, my point is a lot of people see this aid as purely philanthropic, and it is simply not....that is my point, not that the US is evil, just that it uses the guise of aid to further political and economic gains...and if you can't see the difference, I am sorry....
| Quote: |
| You, however, showed no interest in investigating the issues that Donnelly raises and that I reported here. And this derives from your antiAmerican bias. |
I never said that I didn't want to investigate.....I don't have access to it, I can't really comment on it can I |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:55 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:55 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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Gopher,
Let's also discuss all the charitable work the CIA has done in Somalia........
Giving millions. Millions which paid for arms, the money returning to American benefactors and industries.........
Very charitable.
Let's also not mention the abysmal % of GNP that they give as international aid.........I guess they need every cent (trillion) for the armed force and THEIR rule of law.
Americans as individuals are very charitable. Their government is not and should be chastized for acting like a "business" with only profit and "interest" in mind.
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:56 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Cigar_Guy wrote: |
| The problem you'll find with a lot of European statist-types is that they only end up counting government aid, rather than private donations. Personally I'm inclined to measure the opposite way. |
And are you sort who agrees with the quote in my signature? |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Your worldview is the preprogrammed X-Files worldview, full of dramatic assertions and unrestrained outrage and rhetoric, but devoid entirely of facts and real analysis. |
Gopher,
I think people are very tired of your condescending attitude -- always saying "you are not informed, buy some books", "you don't do any research" , "you just never supply facts". You are WRONG.
Also disingenious how you ask like a 6 year old kid, in arguement, "But why??" or like a lawyer , always saying there are extraneous circumstances, we don't know all the details, but who, who , who ------ I ask, who is the conspiracist , you sound like one to me. Not facing up to the smoke and seeing the fire.
I have supported arguements here with a litany of facts, sources. So you can't throw that at me. See the article below about Somalia but I have read many more this week, including a NY times article which pretty much lays bare how the U.S. supplied arms and "profited". What do you think the Somalis were doing with the money??? buying grain and bread??? And America as the world's leading arms producer is thankful to have these clients -- ask many people in places like Colorado or Wyoming.....
as to
| Quote: |
| "unrestrained outrage" |
OF COURSE!!! WHEN PEOPLE ARE BEING KILLED OVER GEOPOLITICAL FINE TUNING AND SUIT AND TIE POLITICS AND PROFITEERING AND MILITARY GAMES. I DAMN WELL AM HONOURED TO BE OUTRAGED. WHEREVER IT HAPPENS I WILL SCREAM, WHOEVER IT IS. I DON'T CARE WHO GETS UPSET, YOURSELF INCLUDED.
you can stick with your calm, logical, dispassionate arguements that destroy people's lives with signatures of pens and posturing.....
DD
| Quote: |
Efforts by CIA fail in Somalia, officials charge
By Mark Mazzetti The New York Times
Published: June 7, 2006
WASHINGTON A covert effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to finance Somali warlords has drawn sharp criticism from American government officials who say the campaign has thwarted counterterrorism efforts inside Somalia and empowered the same Islamic groups it was intended to marginalize.
The criticism was expressed privately by United States government officials with direct knowledge of the debate. And the comments flared even before the apparent victory this week by Islamist militias in the country dealt a sharp setback to American policy in the region and broke the warlords' hold on the capital, Mogadishu.
The officials said the CIA effort, run from the agency's station in Nairobi, Kenya, had channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past year to secular warlords inside Somalia with the aim, among other things, of capturing or killing a handful of suspected members of Al Qaeda believed to be hiding there.
Officials say the decision to use warlords as proxies was born in part from fears of committing large numbers of American personnel to counterterrorism efforts in Somalia, a country that the United States hastily left in 1994 after attempts to capture the warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid and his aides ended in disaster and the death of 18 American troops.
The American effort of the last year has occasionally included trips to Somalia by Nairobi-based CIA case officers, who landed on warlord-controlled airstrips in Mogadishu with large amounts of money for distribution to Somali militias, according to American officials involved in Africa policy making and to outside experts.
Among those who have criticized the CIA operation as short-sighted have been senior Foreign Service officers at the United States Embassy in Nairobi. Earlier this year, Leslie Rowe, the embassy's second-ranking official, signed off on a cable back to State Department headquarters that detailed grave concerns throughout the region about American efforts in Somalia, according to several people with knowledge of the report.
Around that time, the State Department's political officer for Somalia, Michael Zorick, who had been based in Nairobi, was reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington's policy of paying Somali warlords.
One American government official who traveled to Nairobi this year said officials from various government agencies working in Somalia had expressed concern that American activities in the country were not being carried out in the context of a broader policy.
"They were fully aware that they were doing so without any strategic framework," the official said. "And they realized that there might be negative implications to what they are doing."
The details of the American effort in Somalia are classified, and American officials from several different agencies agreed to discuss them only after being assured of anonymity. The officials included supporters of the CIA-led effort as well as critics. A CIA spokesman declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the American Embassy in Kenya.
Asked about the complaints made by embassy officials in Kenya, Thomas Casey, a State Department spokesman, said: "We're not going to discuss any internal policy discussions. The secretary certainly encourages individuals in the policy making process to express their views and opinions."
Several news organizations have reported on the American payments to the Somali warlords. Reuters and Newsweek were the first to report about Mr. Zorick's cable and reassignment to Chad. The extent and location of the CIA's efforts, and the extent of the internal dissent about these activities, have not been previously disclosed.
Some Africa experts contend that the United States has lost its focus on how to deal with the larger threat of terrorism in East Africa by putting a premium on its effort to capture or kill a small number of high-level suspects.
Indeed, some of the experts point to the American effort to finance the warlords as one of the factors that led to the resurgence of Islamic militias in the country. They argue that American support for secular warlords, who joined together under the banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, may have helped to unnerve the Islamic militias and prompted them to launch pre-emptive strikes. The Islamic militias have been routing the warlords, and on Monday they claimed to have taken control of most of the Somali capital.
"This has blown up in our face, frankly," said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research organization with extensive field experience in Somalia.
"We've strengthened the hand of the people whose presence we were worried most about," said Mr. Prendergast, who worked on Africa policy at the National Security Council and State Department during the Clinton administration.
The American activities in Somalia have been approved by top officials in Washington and were reaffirmed during a National Security Council meeting about Somalia in March, according to people familiar with the meeting. During the March meeting, at a time of fierce fighting in and around Mogadishu, a decision was made to make counterterrorism the top policy priority for Somalia.
Porter J. Goss, who recently resigned as CIA director, traveled to Kenya this year and met with case officers in the Nairobi station, according to one intelligence official. It is not clear whether the payments to Somali warlords were discussed during Mr. Goss's trip.
The American ambassador in Kenya, William M. Bellamy, has disputed assertions that Washington is to blame for the surge in violence in Somalia. And some government officials this week defended the American counterterrorism efforts in the country.
"You've got to find and nullify enemy leadership," one senior Bush administration official said. "We are going to support any viable political actor that we think will help us with counterterrorism."
In May, the United Nations Security Council issued a report detailing the competing efforts of several nations, including Ethiopia and Eritrea, to provide Somali militias and the transitional Somali government with money and arms - activities the report said violated the international arms embargo on Somalia.
"Arms, military mat�riel and financial support continue to flow like a river to these various actors," the report said.
The United Nations report also cited what it called clandestine support for a so-called antiterrorist coalition, in what appeared to be a reference to the American policy. Somalia's interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf, first criticized American support for Mogadishu's warlords in early May during a trip to Sweden.
"We really oppose American aid that goes outside the government," he said, arguing that the best way to hunt members of Al Qaeda in Somalia was to strengthen the country's government.
Senior American officials indicated this week that the United States might now be willing to hold discussions with the Islamic militias, known as the Islamic Courts Union. President Bush said Tuesday that the first priority for the United States was to keep Somalia from becoming a safe haven for terrorists.
The American payments to the warlords have been intended at least in part to help gain the capture of a number of suspected Qaeda operatives who are believed responsible for a number of deadly attacks throughout East Africa.
Since the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, American officials have been tracking a Qaeda cell whose members are believed to move freely between Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and parts of the Middle East.
Shortly after an attack on a hotel in Mombassa and the failed attempt to shoot down a plane bound for Israel that took off from the Kenyan city, both in November 2002, the United States began informally reaching out to the Somali clans in the hopes that local forces might provide intelligence about suspected members of Al Qaeda in Somalia.
This approach has brought occasional successes. According to an International Crisis Group report, militiamen loyal to warlord Mohammed Deere, a powerful figure in Mogadishu, caught a suspected Qaeda operative, Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, in April 2003 and turned him over to American officials.
According to Mr. Prendergast, who has met frequently with Somali clan leaders, the CIA over the past year has increased its payments to the militias in the hopes of putting pressure on Al Qaeda.
The operation, while blessed by officials in Washington, did not seem to be closely coordinated among various American national security agencies, he said.
"I've talked to people inside the Defense Department and State Department who said that this was not a comprehensive policy," he said. "It was being conducted in a vacuum, and they were largely shut out."
Marc Lacey contributed reporting from Nairobi for this article, and Helene Cooper from Washington.
WASHINGTON A covert effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to finance Somali warlords has drawn sharp criticism from American government officials who say the campaign has thwarted counterterrorism efforts inside Somalia and empowered the same Islamic groups it was intended to marginalize.
The criticism was expressed privately by United States government officials with direct knowledge of the debate. And the comments flared even before the apparent victory this week by Islamist militias in the country dealt a sharp setback to American policy in the region and broke the warlords' hold on the capital, Mogadishu.
The officials said the CIA effort, run from the agency's station in Nairobi, Kenya, had channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past year to secular warlords inside Somalia with the aim, among other things, of capturing or killing a handful of suspected members of Al Qaeda believed to be hiding there.
Officials say the decision to use warlords as proxies was born in part from fears of committing large numbers of American personnel to counterterrorism efforts in Somalia, a country that the United States hastily left in 1994 after attempts to capture the warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid and his aides ended in disaster and the death of 18 American troops.
The American effort of the last year has occasionally included trips to Somalia by Nairobi-based CIA case officers, who landed on warlord-controlled airstrips in Mogadishu with large amounts of money for distribution to Somali militias, according to American officials involved in Africa policy making and to outside experts.
Among those who have criticized the CIA operation as short-sighted have been senior Foreign Service officers at the United States Embassy in Nairobi. Earlier this year, Leslie Rowe, the embassy's second-ranking official, signed off on a cable back to State Department headquarters that detailed grave concerns throughout the region about American efforts in Somalia, according to several people with knowledge of the report.
Around that time, the State Department's political officer for Somalia, Michael Zorick, who had been based in Nairobi, was reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington's policy of paying Somali warlords.
One American government official who traveled to Nairobi this year said officials from various government agencies working in Somalia had expressed concern that American activities in the country were not being carried out in the context of a broader policy.
"They were fully aware that they were doing so without any strategic framework," the official said. "And they realized that there might be negative implications to what they are doing."
The details of the American effort in Somalia are classified, and American officials from several different agencies agreed to discuss them only after being assured of anonymity. The officials included supporters of the CIA-led effort as well as critics. A CIA spokesman declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the American Embassy in Kenya.
Asked about the complaints made by embassy officials in Kenya, Thomas Casey, a State Department spokesman, said: "We're not going to discuss any internal policy discussions. The secretary certainly encourages individuals in the policy making process to express their views and opinions."
Several news organizations have reported on the American payments to the Somali warlords. Reuters and Newsweek were the first to report about Mr. Zorick's cable and reassignment to Chad. The extent and location of the CIA's efforts, and the extent of the internal dissent about these activities, have not been previously disclosed.
Some Africa experts contend that the United States has lost its focus on how to deal with the larger threat of terrorism in East Africa by putting a premium on its effort to capture or kill a small number of high-level suspects.
Indeed, some of the experts point to the American effort to finance the warlords as one of the factors that led to the resurgence of Islamic militias in the country. They argue that American support for secular warlords, who joined together under the banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, may have helped to unnerve the Islamic militias and prompted them to launch pre-emptive strikes. The Islamic militias have been routing the warlords, and on Monday they claimed to have taken control of most of the Somali capital.
"This has blown up in our face, frankly," said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research organization with extensive field experience in Somalia.
"We've strengthened the hand of the people whose presence we were worried most about," said Mr. Prendergast, who worked on Africa policy at the National Security Council and State Department during the Clinton administration.
The American activities in Somalia have been approved by top officials in Washington and were reaffirmed during a National Security Council meeting about Somalia in March, according to people familiar with the meeting. During the March meeting, at a time of fierce fighting in and around Mogadishu, a decision was made to make counterterrorism the top policy priority for Somalia.
Porter J. Goss, who recently resigned as CIA director, traveled to Kenya this year and met with case officers in the Nairobi station, according to one intelligence official. It is not clear whether the payments to Somali warlords were discussed during Mr. Goss's trip.
The American ambassador in Kenya, William M. Bellamy, has disputed assertions that Washington is to blame for the surge in violence in Somalia. And some government officials this week defended the American counterterrorism efforts in the country.
"You've got to find and nullify enemy leadership," one senior Bush administration official said. "We are going to support any viable political actor that we think will help us with counterterrorism."
In May, the United Nations Security Council issued a report detailing the competing efforts of several nations, including Ethiopia and Eritrea, to provide Somali militias and the transitional Somali government with money and arms - activities the report said violated the international arms embargo on Somalia.
"Arms, military mat�riel and financial support continue to flow like a river to these various actors," the report said.
The United Nations report also cited what it called clandestine support for a so-called antiterrorist coalition, in what appeared to be a reference to the American policy. Somalia's interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf, first criticized American support for Mogadishu's warlords in early May during a trip to Sweden.
"We really oppose American aid that goes outside the government," he said, arguing that the best way to hunt members of Al Qaeda in Somalia was to strengthen the country's government.
Senior American officials indicated this week that the United States might now be willing to hold discussions with the Islamic militias, known as the Islamic Courts Union. President Bush said Tuesday that the first priority for the United States was to keep Somalia from becoming a safe haven for terrorists.
The American payments to the warlords have been intended at least in part to help gain the capture of a number of suspected Qaeda operatives who are believed responsible for a number of deadly attacks throughout East Africa.
Since the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, American officials have been tracking a Qaeda cell whose members are believed to move freely between Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and parts of the Middle East.
Shortly after an attack on a hotel in Mombassa and the failed attempt to shoot down a plane bound for Israel that took off from the Kenyan city, both in November 2002, the United States began informally reaching out to the Somali clans in the hopes that local forces might provide intelligence about suspected members of Al Qaeda in Somalia.
This approach has brought occasional successes. According to an International Crisis Group report, militiamen loyal to warlord Mohammed Deere, a powerful figure in Mogadishu, caught a suspected Qaeda operative, Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, in April 2003 and turned him over to American officials.
According to Mr. Prendergast, who has met frequently with Somali clan leaders, the CIA over the past year has increased its payments to the militias in the hopes of putting pressure on Al Qaeda.
The operation, while blessed by officials in Washington, did not seem to be closely coordinated among various American national security agencies, he said.
"I've talked to people inside the Defense Department and State Department who said that this was not a comprehensive policy," he said. "It was being conducted in a vacuum, and they were largely shut out."
Marc Lacey contributed reporting from Nairobi for this article, and Helene Cooper from Washington. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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As an appendum to my arguement --- also a thought about "charity" and how they give to developing countries......
| Quote: |
Top 8 arms exporters in 2004 Country Current US dollars 1990 US dollars
United States $18,500,000,000 $5,400,000,000
Russia $4,600,000,000 $6,200,000,000
France $4,400,000,000 $2,100,000,000
United Kingdom $1,900,000,000 $985,000,000
Germany $900,000,000 $1,100,000,000
Canada $900,000,000 $543,000,000
China $700,000,000 $125,000,000
Israel $500,000,000 $283,000,000
The United States is by far the largest exporter of weapons in the world, selling more weapons than the next 14 countries combined. Military sales account for about 18 percent of the national budget, far and away the greatest proportion of any other nation. (Estimated budget authority as presented in the President's budget.) Some say American governments cannot reduce arms sales because of the consequent fall in GDP. (See John Ralston Saul's The Collapse of Globalism, 2005)
U.S. arms are sold either as foreign military sales (FMS), in which the Pentagon is an intermediate negotiator, and direct commercial sales (DCS), where a company directly negotiates with its buyer. Many sales require a license from the State Department. The Defense Department manages the excess defense articles (EDA), weapons from the US military given away or sold at bargain prices, emergency drawdowns, assistance provided at the discretion of the President, and international military education and training (IMET).
From 1989 to 1996, the global value of direct commercial arms sales was US$257 billion, of which 45% was exported from the US. According to the 2005 annual US congress reports, 58% of all US arms trade contracts are made with developing countries. |
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