Thursday, April 06, 2006
Two things conspired to really get my hackles up this week. First there was an email from a dear friend of mine, Bill Northern. Bill is a bone fido (boom boom) animal psychic, a wonderful man, gentle as can be. The email was one of those doing the rounds of the web, supposedly written by an airline pilot, Captain John Maniscalco. It laments the events of 911. I could take it apart piece by piece but most of you reading this know the answers. His letter is based around the old idea that America, the innocent friend who just helps out the whole world, was viciously attacked for no good reason.
It got me thinking that perhaps there really are citizens out there who are still this ignorant.
One of my favourite op-ed writers pens his column Global Eye for The Moscow Times. He has a way with language that makes me want to worship at his feet. He is virally anti-American and so I was not surprised when his latest offering went out of its way to point out that Bush is actually not the idiot the world likes to think. In fact, says Floyd, and I would have to agree, he has done just what he set out to do, looted the US government along with his friends at Haliburton and Carlyle, caused untold misery and trouble in the Middle East, also being looted by his cronies, and basically torn a once strong, proud, nation apart.
I sent copies of his column to some friends and family. Oddly enough one sent to someone at MSN was barred because MSN didn't like its contents, as it told me on it's refusal form. I hope that was a glitch, but who knows, perhaps the corporate big brothers of the world now censor what their workers can see.
I mistakenly sent one to a chap I had thought I would not hear from again. We had been very involved in online gaming until one day he suddenly disappeared.
This is Floyd's piece:
Global Eye
Vision Quest
By Chris FloydPublished: March 31, 2006
Once again we must take up the cudgels for President George W. Bush, who is being increasingly maligned for his alleged lack of strategic vision in Iraq. This chorus of petty carping from partisan dead-enders has been exacerbated of late by all the hand-wringing media reports about "civil war" breaking out among the ungrateful beneficiaries of the president's selfless crusade for peace and enlightenment in the Middle East.These charges are, as always, pure bunkum. As we have often noted here before, Bush is pursuing a remarkably effective "win-win" strategy in Iraq, a highly flexible vision that is even now ripening to fruition. The savage militias, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, sectarian hatred and gruesome tortures that are turning Iraq into a howling moonscape of fear and chaos are but precision tools in the artful hands of the Leader, as he patiently crafts the ultimate victory.
The war aims of the Babylonian Conquest have always been obvious to anyone who concentrates on the operational reality of the action, ignoring the ludicrous cornball about democracy and security that Bush dishes out to gull the rubes back home. The reality clearly shows that Bush had three primary objectives in launching the invasion. First and foremost was the transfer of large portions of the national wealth of Iraq -- and the United States -- into the coffers of his political cronies, corporate backers and family members. Second was the frantic acceleration of the long-running, bipartisan militarization of America, which is now almost wholly dependent on war and rumors of war to keep its heavily mortgaged economy afloat. Third was planting a permanent military presence in Iraq to "project dominance" over the strategic oil lands and serve as staging areas for further operations in regime change and political extortion as needed. ("Nice little country you got there, Abdul; too bad if something, like, happened to it -- you savvy? Now howzabout signing that free trade agreement already?")None of these aims have been harmed in the slightest by Iraq's death spiral into civil war. The Bush faction's war profiteering and fraud -- on a scale surpassing anything ever seen in world history -- has fueled a ruthless political machine that, despite its growing unpopularity with the U.S. people, now controls all three branches of government and has overthrown the Constitution, openly declaring that its leader is beyond the reach of "judicial review, congressional oversight or international law," as The Washington Post reported, rather belatedly, this week. Swollen by the swag of aggressive war, the elite interests represented by the Bush regime -- oil, military-related industries and predatory venture capitalists like the Carlyle Group -- have had their already inordinate sway over American society and policy increased by several magnitudes. They will remain ascendant for decades to come, no matter what happens in Iraq, or in any U.S. election.Indeed, the murderous chaos that will inevitably spill across the region, and the world, from the collapse of Iraq will only mean more boffo box office for the fearmongers and warmongers of the Bush faction -- and even greater feasting for their oil barons, already gorged on record-breaking profits after just three years of bloodshed. The whack-a-mole "Long War" gleefully envisioned by the Pentagon will thus be extended indefinitely, bringing more militarization, more draconian "war powers," and further destruction of those pesky civil rights and constitutional liberties that hinder the elites in their exercise of raw power.Civil war also enhances the prospect of permanent U.S. bases. The Sunni minority, once the most vociferous opponents of American occupation, now look -- vainly -- to U.S. forces as their last-ditch protection against the deadly militias of the Shiite majority. The Shiite-led government relies on U.S. military might to prop up its rickety state system. The Kurds (who are busy ethnically cleansing their own enclave, as The Washington Post reports, and imprisoning people for criticizing the corruption of Kurdish leaders, as The New York Times reports) are happy for the Americans to plant vast, minatory fortresses down south to keep the troublesome Arabs in line. And so the permanent bases are being sunk deep into Iraqi soil; the Pentagon has already "authorized or proposed almost $1 billion" for bases in 2005-06, The Associated Press reports.
And if Iraq cracks apart completely -- the "three-state solution" proposed by Leslie Gelb, doyen of that bastion of bipartisan Establishment wisdom, the Council on Foreign Relations -- why, so much the better. It will be much easier to wangle basing agreements, oil deals, insider investments and those all-important arms contracts out of weakened mini-states struggling for survival than from a strong, unified nation looking out for its own interests. As the gates of hell blow open in Iraq, the marvelous adaptability of Bush's strategy becomes apparent. When the promised "cakewalk" did not materialize, Bush shifted to the near-genocidal fury of the Fallujah assault and the systematic tortures of Abu Ghraib. When these tactics failed to quell the resistance, Bush gave the Pentagon the greenlight to arm, infiltrate and manipulate militias and terrorist groups, even to the point of goading them into action, The New Yorker reports. If you can't have cake, then chaos might serve your turn just as well.Civil war looks like a profitable gambit for now -- except for all the pointless suffering, of course. But Bush has never cared about that. A true visionary, he keeps his eyes on the prize, on the only kind of "victory" he has ever sought in Iraq: loot and domination for his ruthless clique. Whatever happens next, they've already won.
Annotations'If You Start Looking at Them as Humans, How Are You Gonna Kill Them?'The Guardian, 29 March, 2006 Fear Up Harsh: The Iraqi Civil War in ContextEmpire Burlesque, March 28, 2006 Opening Statement of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul WolfowitzHouse Armed Services Committee, Aug. 10, 2004 Testimony on Denying Terrorist Sanctuaries: Wolfowitz, Pace, BrownU.S. Department of Defense, Aug. 10, 2004 Pentagon granted authority to pay, equip foreign forcesLos Angeles Times, Oct. 30, 2004 Seymour Hersh: The Coming WarsThe New Yorker, Jan. 17, 2005 The Salvador OptionNewsweek, Jan. 14, 2005 Leslie Gelb: The Three-State SolutionNew York Times, Nov. 25, 2003 Children of Abraham: Death in the DesertEmpire Burlesque, March 19/27, 2006 Redirecting Bullets in BaghdadNew York Times, March 26, 2006 Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Atrocity in BaghdadNew York Times, March 25, 2006 Court Case Challenges Power of PresidentWashington Post, March 26, 2006 Civil War? What Civil War?Salon.com, March 23, 2006 A Government with No Military and No TerritoryTomDispatch.com, March 9, 2006 The Battle for Baghdad 'Has Already Started'The Independent, March 25, 2006 30 Beheaded Bodies Found; Iraqi Death Squads BlamedNew York Times, March 27, 2006 Extended presence of U.S. in Iraq looms largeAssociated Press, March 21, 2006 The Supplemental Pentagon Spending Bill: Eternal Funding for a Never-Ending WarCounterPunch, March 27, 2006 Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo to British Adviser SaysNew York Times, March 27, 2006 Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in KirkukWashington Post, June 15, 2005 US audit finds 'spectacular' waste of funds in IraqChristian Science Monitor, Jan. 27, 2006 Free Press Stumbles in KurdistanLos Angeles Times, March 27, 2006 Death squads operated from inside Iraqi government, officials sayKnight-Ridder, March 12, 2006 What Bush was Told About IraqNational Journal, March 2, 2006 Iraq's death squads: On the brink of civil warThe Independent, Feb. 26, 2006 Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal JanjaweedEmpire Burlesque, Aug. 27, 2004 Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism is Now in OperationEmpire Burlesque, Jan. 25, 2005 Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Foment TerrorismEmpire Burlesque, Nov. 1, 2002 Requests for Iraqi Base Funding Make Some Wary of Extended StayLos Angeles Times, March 24, 2006 Abizaid says U.S. may want to keep bases in IraqReuters, March 15, 2006 Hillary Clinton, War GoddessAntiwar.com, Jan. 23, 2006 Cost of Rebuilding Shifts to IraqisUSA Today, March 24, 2006 US Has "Black" Torture Chamber in IraqDeep Blade Journal, March 19, 2006 U.S. Plans New Bases in the Middle EastWashington Post, March 22, 2006 How Abu Ghraib Lives OnTime, March 6, 2006 Ring of Fire: The Fallujah InfernoEmpire Burlesque, Nov. 19, 2004 CIA Vet: Proof Bush Deceived America on WarTomPaine.com, Jan. 13, 2006 ....
And this is the reply:
Ok guys Im back now after a little over 8 months of intensive phyiscal conditioning and a rather trying surgery to fix my eye. Yes my vision is back to 20/20 and yes ive gotten my wings back along with my Commission. No I dont approve of this war in Iraq never have never will. However I will not tolerate the Nazi like labeling the United States military has been given. Yes the CIC has made many politcal moves that I as a citizen disapprove of. However I know that in january 2008 Bush will be gone forever and an new administration bent on ending the war and bringing U.S. forces home, excuse me here... so because King Bush gets to abdicate his responsibility for this god-awful mess . . . that's okay? And I'm not happy about the US bringing their forces home. They broke it, they should be forced to fix it, and Bush should become the mayor of Baghdad for life! and further more the U.S. Economy is only strained simply because we spend far to much money on foreigners money and aid given to countries who claim to be allies and are far from it. What? Your country gives less money now than it did when Clinton was around and the economy boomed under him. Of course, he didn't lead you into a US$500 billion war, didn't allow his cronies to loot the US treasury, didn't scare congress into buying huge redundant weapons from countries in which his family has an interest. THESE might just be some of the reasons the economy is in the toilet and average americans are suffering. Money given for medical and disaster relief, Humanitarian aid missions that are seldom returned (were these supposed to be loans? All the other countries who give so generously much more than a very stingy US of A don't seem to expect their money back. There are 18 countries who - when the playing fields are levelled by GDP figures etc - are actually MORE generous than the US but strangely we seldom hear about them wanting their money back.) when nature strikes anywhere within the United States and if on the rare occasion aid is offered its in pitiful amounts no where near the level of aid given by the U.S. Okay this is just so much nonses it makes me want to puke. When you ask countries to help you invade a sovreign state, lying to them that this state poses a threat, and they refuse, and you fling mud at them like some demented child in a sandbox, you need to grow up. You also need to learn a few facts. When your country faced the disaster that was Katrina no less than 95 countries gave help in various form. There are 192 countries in the world, 37 in Asia, 53 in Africa, 15 in micronesia, and so on. It's pretty safe to say that of the countries that could give, all gave, and then some. Iran offered oil, Venezuela helped where the US government and US oil giants did not, and Cuba offered medical help. Do not tell us that when you needed help no one came. So think about this, those of you who are in hong kong....or china....or india.....or sweden or africa. Where were all of you when the world was hanging on a knife's edge during ether of the world wars? Ummmm... Hong Kong was under British rule, and eventually occupied by the Imperial Japanese army. China was ummm occupied by the Imperial Japanese - those same Japanese to whom the US businessmen sold steel. The same Imperial Japanese the Americans listened to when turning their back on China as it bled and pleaded for help. When the true great evil the Nazis raged across europe and the Imperialism of the Japanese ravaged China, where were your countries? Excuse me, but where the hell was yours! South Africa was divided along English and Arikaans lines, with the English joining forces with the allies. India was a British colony and subject to the rule of the crown. Soldiers from India and Nepal were fully engaged in the war effort. I think Sweden was nailed by the Nazis before the average Americn even realised there was a war. I know where my country was and it wasnt bathing in the blood money stolen from murdered jews.ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... sorry... is that why Ford is being sued for using nazi slave labour? Which countries, exactly, are you talking about here? And might I remind you of a few things. The only reason the US was officially involved in the war was after Pearl Harbour... i.e. when you had been dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict. Secondly, contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, you did not single handedly win the war - any of them. Thirdly as is your wont, your troops were undisciplined and pretty sodding useless by all accounts, I can't tell you how many times your pilots bombed the allies because they couldn't read a map.
However lets move to modern times, Where were you all when Saddamn Gassed 1 million of his own people? Would that be the gas the US sold to him? And are those chemicals different from the tonnes of napalm the US dropped on Vietnam, or the chemical weapons used in Fallujah? Can you actually prove that the gas came from Saddam? Where was YOUR country when this happened? Or his sadistic sons mutilated and tortured at a whim? As opposed to being tortured and mutilated by your forward thinking commanders? Oh yes I remember! you where imposing economic sanctions and then secretly breaking them when no one was looking. As I recall the US was the barking dog behind the sanctions - and they were lying it seems. Even though no one could find the chemical weapons, your leaders lied and bullied and forced through heinous sanctions that cost around six million people their lives. See, the reference to Nazis isn't that far off. It makes not the slightest difference to the dead whether they died in a concentration camp or through lack of medicine.
Bush isnt my favorite President, I dont approve of his policy neither here or abroad. Iraq and her people have a long hard road ahead Centuries of cultural and tribal differences and hatred have to be over come if a united Iraq is to survive. They were surviving until the US invaded them and bombed them back to the last century. The U.S. is guilty of Two things.Personally I know the US is guilty of several books worth of things. 1. waiting to long to act on removing Saddam. Or supporting him in the first place. 2. Going into Iraq for totally the wrong reason. WMD is a moot point compared to the suffering that has been allowed to go on there. So you think it's a great idea to go in and cause more? The failures in Iraq isnt on our heads its on yours. Wow... let's see... dictator in relatively stable little country under a secular government where women had pretty good rights - bombed to smithereens, a haven for terrorists, under threat from extremists, depleted uranium all over the place, decades of environmental damage...yeah we sure screwed that one up. We have not abandoned Iraq all of you have. We wish you had too, really. Your U.N. its charter was designed to prevent another hitler to ensure another world war would never happen again! Lets face it. by failing to act against Saddam by failing to bring him to justice or even attempting to do so the U.N. has failed in its charter, There is no denying that had Saddam been able to build the armed forces needed he would have become the next hitler or worse yet the next stalin. Yes there is. You have no proof of these allegations. And please don't try to pass this one off as "saving the world". We noticed how you kept very quiet when you thought you had a pipeline deal with the Taleban. We notice how you KNEW Saddam had chemical weapons, you had sold them to him after all. We notice that Saddam's row with Kuwait was over oil and he had no intention of going anywhere else. We noticed that he was just fine when you were helping him in the Iran Iraq war. Whos taste for Genocide would be boundless. Let's count America's tally, shall we? So before pointing the blame at the U.S. for the invasion try taking a long hard look at yourselves and wonder why our international body and why no one else wanted to do a thing to bring a genocidal manic to justice? Possibly because no one wanted to wade in and slaughter women and children to do it. Possibly because those of us with a teeny bit of foresight could have predicted that this would happen. Because we knew, and you should have known, that whoever runs that country will be a tyrant and they really need to sort it out for themselves. Bush isnt my favorite President and I dont approve of his policy, however I can say this. Saddam will not murder another innocent again. Indeed, it's a great pity the same cannot be said about Bush. In 2008 Bush's time will be over (and will he be brought to justice?) and hopefully a candidate with more isolationist views will go into office with a very valuable lesson from all of this. To leave the rest of the world alone and let them handle their own problems. This includes humanitarian issues. Yes, please...please...please do. But as you've been interfering in the affairs of sovreign countries for more than six decades, as you've been bullying and killing and tortuing and bribing and drugging and all those really wicked things that you do on a global scale for such a long time to preserve the "interests" of your fat cat businessmen... I strongly doubt that you will leave us alone.
It got me thinking that perhaps there really are citizens out there who are still this ignorant.
One of my favourite op-ed writers pens his column Global Eye for The Moscow Times. He has a way with language that makes me want to worship at his feet. He is virally anti-American and so I was not surprised when his latest offering went out of its way to point out that Bush is actually not the idiot the world likes to think. In fact, says Floyd, and I would have to agree, he has done just what he set out to do, looted the US government along with his friends at Haliburton and Carlyle, caused untold misery and trouble in the Middle East, also being looted by his cronies, and basically torn a once strong, proud, nation apart.
I sent copies of his column to some friends and family. Oddly enough one sent to someone at MSN was barred because MSN didn't like its contents, as it told me on it's refusal form. I hope that was a glitch, but who knows, perhaps the corporate big brothers of the world now censor what their workers can see.
I mistakenly sent one to a chap I had thought I would not hear from again. We had been very involved in online gaming until one day he suddenly disappeared.
This is Floyd's piece:
Global Eye
Vision Quest
By Chris FloydPublished: March 31, 2006
Once again we must take up the cudgels for President George W. Bush, who is being increasingly maligned for his alleged lack of strategic vision in Iraq. This chorus of petty carping from partisan dead-enders has been exacerbated of late by all the hand-wringing media reports about "civil war" breaking out among the ungrateful beneficiaries of the president's selfless crusade for peace and enlightenment in the Middle East.These charges are, as always, pure bunkum. As we have often noted here before, Bush is pursuing a remarkably effective "win-win" strategy in Iraq, a highly flexible vision that is even now ripening to fruition. The savage militias, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, sectarian hatred and gruesome tortures that are turning Iraq into a howling moonscape of fear and chaos are but precision tools in the artful hands of the Leader, as he patiently crafts the ultimate victory.
The war aims of the Babylonian Conquest have always been obvious to anyone who concentrates on the operational reality of the action, ignoring the ludicrous cornball about democracy and security that Bush dishes out to gull the rubes back home. The reality clearly shows that Bush had three primary objectives in launching the invasion. First and foremost was the transfer of large portions of the national wealth of Iraq -- and the United States -- into the coffers of his political cronies, corporate backers and family members. Second was the frantic acceleration of the long-running, bipartisan militarization of America, which is now almost wholly dependent on war and rumors of war to keep its heavily mortgaged economy afloat. Third was planting a permanent military presence in Iraq to "project dominance" over the strategic oil lands and serve as staging areas for further operations in regime change and political extortion as needed. ("Nice little country you got there, Abdul; too bad if something, like, happened to it -- you savvy? Now howzabout signing that free trade agreement already?")None of these aims have been harmed in the slightest by Iraq's death spiral into civil war. The Bush faction's war profiteering and fraud -- on a scale surpassing anything ever seen in world history -- has fueled a ruthless political machine that, despite its growing unpopularity with the U.S. people, now controls all three branches of government and has overthrown the Constitution, openly declaring that its leader is beyond the reach of "judicial review, congressional oversight or international law," as The Washington Post reported, rather belatedly, this week. Swollen by the swag of aggressive war, the elite interests represented by the Bush regime -- oil, military-related industries and predatory venture capitalists like the Carlyle Group -- have had their already inordinate sway over American society and policy increased by several magnitudes. They will remain ascendant for decades to come, no matter what happens in Iraq, or in any U.S. election.Indeed, the murderous chaos that will inevitably spill across the region, and the world, from the collapse of Iraq will only mean more boffo box office for the fearmongers and warmongers of the Bush faction -- and even greater feasting for their oil barons, already gorged on record-breaking profits after just three years of bloodshed. The whack-a-mole "Long War" gleefully envisioned by the Pentagon will thus be extended indefinitely, bringing more militarization, more draconian "war powers," and further destruction of those pesky civil rights and constitutional liberties that hinder the elites in their exercise of raw power.Civil war also enhances the prospect of permanent U.S. bases. The Sunni minority, once the most vociferous opponents of American occupation, now look -- vainly -- to U.S. forces as their last-ditch protection against the deadly militias of the Shiite majority. The Shiite-led government relies on U.S. military might to prop up its rickety state system. The Kurds (who are busy ethnically cleansing their own enclave, as The Washington Post reports, and imprisoning people for criticizing the corruption of Kurdish leaders, as The New York Times reports) are happy for the Americans to plant vast, minatory fortresses down south to keep the troublesome Arabs in line. And so the permanent bases are being sunk deep into Iraqi soil; the Pentagon has already "authorized or proposed almost $1 billion" for bases in 2005-06, The Associated Press reports.
And if Iraq cracks apart completely -- the "three-state solution" proposed by Leslie Gelb, doyen of that bastion of bipartisan Establishment wisdom, the Council on Foreign Relations -- why, so much the better. It will be much easier to wangle basing agreements, oil deals, insider investments and those all-important arms contracts out of weakened mini-states struggling for survival than from a strong, unified nation looking out for its own interests. As the gates of hell blow open in Iraq, the marvelous adaptability of Bush's strategy becomes apparent. When the promised "cakewalk" did not materialize, Bush shifted to the near-genocidal fury of the Fallujah assault and the systematic tortures of Abu Ghraib. When these tactics failed to quell the resistance, Bush gave the Pentagon the greenlight to arm, infiltrate and manipulate militias and terrorist groups, even to the point of goading them into action, The New Yorker reports. If you can't have cake, then chaos might serve your turn just as well.Civil war looks like a profitable gambit for now -- except for all the pointless suffering, of course. But Bush has never cared about that. A true visionary, he keeps his eyes on the prize, on the only kind of "victory" he has ever sought in Iraq: loot and domination for his ruthless clique. Whatever happens next, they've already won.
Annotations'If You Start Looking at Them as Humans, How Are You Gonna Kill Them?'The Guardian, 29 March, 2006 Fear Up Harsh: The Iraqi Civil War in ContextEmpire Burlesque, March 28, 2006 Opening Statement of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul WolfowitzHouse Armed Services Committee, Aug. 10, 2004 Testimony on Denying Terrorist Sanctuaries: Wolfowitz, Pace, BrownU.S. Department of Defense, Aug. 10, 2004 Pentagon granted authority to pay, equip foreign forcesLos Angeles Times, Oct. 30, 2004 Seymour Hersh: The Coming WarsThe New Yorker, Jan. 17, 2005 The Salvador OptionNewsweek, Jan. 14, 2005 Leslie Gelb: The Three-State SolutionNew York Times, Nov. 25, 2003 Children of Abraham: Death in the DesertEmpire Burlesque, March 19/27, 2006 Redirecting Bullets in BaghdadNew York Times, March 26, 2006 Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Atrocity in BaghdadNew York Times, March 25, 2006 Court Case Challenges Power of PresidentWashington Post, March 26, 2006 Civil War? What Civil War?Salon.com, March 23, 2006 A Government with No Military and No TerritoryTomDispatch.com, March 9, 2006 The Battle for Baghdad 'Has Already Started'The Independent, March 25, 2006 30 Beheaded Bodies Found; Iraqi Death Squads BlamedNew York Times, March 27, 2006 Extended presence of U.S. in Iraq looms largeAssociated Press, March 21, 2006 The Supplemental Pentagon Spending Bill: Eternal Funding for a Never-Ending WarCounterPunch, March 27, 2006 Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo to British Adviser SaysNew York Times, March 27, 2006 Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in KirkukWashington Post, June 15, 2005 US audit finds 'spectacular' waste of funds in IraqChristian Science Monitor, Jan. 27, 2006 Free Press Stumbles in KurdistanLos Angeles Times, March 27, 2006 Death squads operated from inside Iraqi government, officials sayKnight-Ridder, March 12, 2006 What Bush was Told About IraqNational Journal, March 2, 2006 Iraq's death squads: On the brink of civil warThe Independent, Feb. 26, 2006 Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal JanjaweedEmpire Burlesque, Aug. 27, 2004 Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism is Now in OperationEmpire Burlesque, Jan. 25, 2005 Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Foment TerrorismEmpire Burlesque, Nov. 1, 2002 Requests for Iraqi Base Funding Make Some Wary of Extended StayLos Angeles Times, March 24, 2006 Abizaid says U.S. may want to keep bases in IraqReuters, March 15, 2006 Hillary Clinton, War GoddessAntiwar.com, Jan. 23, 2006 Cost of Rebuilding Shifts to IraqisUSA Today, March 24, 2006 US Has "Black" Torture Chamber in IraqDeep Blade Journal, March 19, 2006 U.S. Plans New Bases in the Middle EastWashington Post, March 22, 2006 How Abu Ghraib Lives OnTime, March 6, 2006 Ring of Fire: The Fallujah InfernoEmpire Burlesque, Nov. 19, 2004 CIA Vet: Proof Bush Deceived America on WarTomPaine.com, Jan. 13, 2006 ....
And this is the reply:
Ok guys Im back now after a little over 8 months of intensive phyiscal conditioning and a rather trying surgery to fix my eye. Yes my vision is back to 20/20 and yes ive gotten my wings back along with my Commission. No I dont approve of this war in Iraq never have never will. However I will not tolerate the Nazi like labeling the United States military has been given. Yes the CIC has made many politcal moves that I as a citizen disapprove of. However I know that in january 2008 Bush will be gone forever and an new administration bent on ending the war and bringing U.S. forces home, excuse me here... so because King Bush gets to abdicate his responsibility for this god-awful mess . . . that's okay? And I'm not happy about the US bringing their forces home. They broke it, they should be forced to fix it, and Bush should become the mayor of Baghdad for life! and further more the U.S. Economy is only strained simply because we spend far to much money on foreigners money and aid given to countries who claim to be allies and are far from it. What? Your country gives less money now than it did when Clinton was around and the economy boomed under him. Of course, he didn't lead you into a US$500 billion war, didn't allow his cronies to loot the US treasury, didn't scare congress into buying huge redundant weapons from countries in which his family has an interest. THESE might just be some of the reasons the economy is in the toilet and average americans are suffering. Money given for medical and disaster relief, Humanitarian aid missions that are seldom returned (were these supposed to be loans? All the other countries who give so generously much more than a very stingy US of A don't seem to expect their money back. There are 18 countries who - when the playing fields are levelled by GDP figures etc - are actually MORE generous than the US but strangely we seldom hear about them wanting their money back.) when nature strikes anywhere within the United States and if on the rare occasion aid is offered its in pitiful amounts no where near the level of aid given by the U.S. Okay this is just so much nonses it makes me want to puke. When you ask countries to help you invade a sovreign state, lying to them that this state poses a threat, and they refuse, and you fling mud at them like some demented child in a sandbox, you need to grow up. You also need to learn a few facts. When your country faced the disaster that was Katrina no less than 95 countries gave help in various form. There are 192 countries in the world, 37 in Asia, 53 in Africa, 15 in micronesia, and so on. It's pretty safe to say that of the countries that could give, all gave, and then some. Iran offered oil, Venezuela helped where the US government and US oil giants did not, and Cuba offered medical help. Do not tell us that when you needed help no one came. So think about this, those of you who are in hong kong....or china....or india.....or sweden or africa. Where were all of you when the world was hanging on a knife's edge during ether of the world wars? Ummmm... Hong Kong was under British rule, and eventually occupied by the Imperial Japanese army. China was ummm occupied by the Imperial Japanese - those same Japanese to whom the US businessmen sold steel. The same Imperial Japanese the Americans listened to when turning their back on China as it bled and pleaded for help. When the true great evil the Nazis raged across europe and the Imperialism of the Japanese ravaged China, where were your countries? Excuse me, but where the hell was yours! South Africa was divided along English and Arikaans lines, with the English joining forces with the allies. India was a British colony and subject to the rule of the crown. Soldiers from India and Nepal were fully engaged in the war effort. I think Sweden was nailed by the Nazis before the average Americn even realised there was a war. I know where my country was and it wasnt bathing in the blood money stolen from murdered jews.ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... sorry... is that why Ford is being sued for using nazi slave labour? Which countries, exactly, are you talking about here? And might I remind you of a few things. The only reason the US was officially involved in the war was after Pearl Harbour... i.e. when you had been dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict. Secondly, contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, you did not single handedly win the war - any of them. Thirdly as is your wont, your troops were undisciplined and pretty sodding useless by all accounts, I can't tell you how many times your pilots bombed the allies because they couldn't read a map.
However lets move to modern times, Where were you all when Saddamn Gassed 1 million of his own people? Would that be the gas the US sold to him? And are those chemicals different from the tonnes of napalm the US dropped on Vietnam, or the chemical weapons used in Fallujah? Can you actually prove that the gas came from Saddam? Where was YOUR country when this happened? Or his sadistic sons mutilated and tortured at a whim? As opposed to being tortured and mutilated by your forward thinking commanders? Oh yes I remember! you where imposing economic sanctions and then secretly breaking them when no one was looking. As I recall the US was the barking dog behind the sanctions - and they were lying it seems. Even though no one could find the chemical weapons, your leaders lied and bullied and forced through heinous sanctions that cost around six million people their lives. See, the reference to Nazis isn't that far off. It makes not the slightest difference to the dead whether they died in a concentration camp or through lack of medicine.
Bush isnt my favorite President, I dont approve of his policy neither here or abroad. Iraq and her people have a long hard road ahead Centuries of cultural and tribal differences and hatred have to be over come if a united Iraq is to survive. They were surviving until the US invaded them and bombed them back to the last century. The U.S. is guilty of Two things.Personally I know the US is guilty of several books worth of things. 1. waiting to long to act on removing Saddam. Or supporting him in the first place. 2. Going into Iraq for totally the wrong reason. WMD is a moot point compared to the suffering that has been allowed to go on there. So you think it's a great idea to go in and cause more? The failures in Iraq isnt on our heads its on yours. Wow... let's see... dictator in relatively stable little country under a secular government where women had pretty good rights - bombed to smithereens, a haven for terrorists, under threat from extremists, depleted uranium all over the place, decades of environmental damage...yeah we sure screwed that one up. We have not abandoned Iraq all of you have. We wish you had too, really. Your U.N. its charter was designed to prevent another hitler to ensure another world war would never happen again! Lets face it. by failing to act against Saddam by failing to bring him to justice or even attempting to do so the U.N. has failed in its charter, There is no denying that had Saddam been able to build the armed forces needed he would have become the next hitler or worse yet the next stalin. Yes there is. You have no proof of these allegations. And please don't try to pass this one off as "saving the world". We noticed how you kept very quiet when you thought you had a pipeline deal with the Taleban. We notice how you KNEW Saddam had chemical weapons, you had sold them to him after all. We notice that Saddam's row with Kuwait was over oil and he had no intention of going anywhere else. We noticed that he was just fine when you were helping him in the Iran Iraq war. Whos taste for Genocide would be boundless. Let's count America's tally, shall we? So before pointing the blame at the U.S. for the invasion try taking a long hard look at yourselves and wonder why our international body and why no one else wanted to do a thing to bring a genocidal manic to justice? Possibly because no one wanted to wade in and slaughter women and children to do it. Possibly because those of us with a teeny bit of foresight could have predicted that this would happen. Because we knew, and you should have known, that whoever runs that country will be a tyrant and they really need to sort it out for themselves. Bush isnt my favorite President and I dont approve of his policy, however I can say this. Saddam will not murder another innocent again. Indeed, it's a great pity the same cannot be said about Bush. In 2008 Bush's time will be over (and will he be brought to justice?) and hopefully a candidate with more isolationist views will go into office with a very valuable lesson from all of this. To leave the rest of the world alone and let them handle their own problems. This includes humanitarian issues. Yes, please...please...please do. But as you've been interfering in the affairs of sovreign countries for more than six decades, as you've been bullying and killing and tortuing and bribing and drugging and all those really wicked things that you do on a global scale for such a long time to preserve the "interests" of your fat cat businessmen... I strongly doubt that you will leave us alone.
# posted by Inkonkoni @ 9:56 AM 
