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war mongers and other scum

category national | miscellaneous | news report author Friday April 11, 2003 16:33author by blogg Report this post to the editors

Well, the war appears to be won. There could be surprises - and the occupation forces might have problems. History shows conquerors regretting their victories. Vietnam was 7 years with victory just another 50,000 troops away. But this is probably a true victory.

OK, war monger friends - promoters of Empire - what will you root and cheer next? An interesting question. Probably "liberation" of Syria. Or its desert. Will we "find" weapons there. The weapons we are not finding in Iraq. Will we find something and call it a WMP. The sad thing is those cheering on the war change their slogan every couple weeks. It will be nice if our goal is simply the liberation of the Iraqi people. Here is a review of the changing reason for war.

9/11 - Bush repeated the big lie often. Get revenge and stop terrorism. No matter that there was no connection. The terrorist camp we found was deep in Kurdish controlled Iraq, but the news media hardly tell you that. So, with the 9/11 excuse being torn apart....

Then it was WMB - weapons of mass destruction. Well, we've found none. The news media have hyped the finding of gas masks and anti-dotes. Talk about a non-sequitur. So, without any expectation of finding WMB...

Then it was Liberate an oppressed people. Regime change. Kill Saddam. Kill him and all will crumble. Liberate and Iraqis will welcome us. But that has not happened. So, now we will turn to...

____________ - fill in the blank. There will probably be a new theme within a week or two. It will prevent the Iraqi people from ruling themselves, it will keep our troops in Iraq on a long term basis, and it will point our military at Syria and Iran. It will give our American corporations the big oil concessions and "rebuilding" what we destroyed. But it will not be about liberating the Iraqis. There will be "problems" with turning over government to them "too soon".

Perhaps the new cheer will be "stabilize" the Middle East. We will be told our military is needed there to help the region - to bring more of the region to "democracy". Today we are still seeing the "Operation Freedom" banners on the TV. Soon we will watch talking heads ponder our white man's burden of how we cannot leave until we have stabilized some other countries and reduced future threats to our "security". That will go on for years - as we threaten other countries with invasion unless they do our bidding.

If you are older, then you remember how Hitler wrote exactly what he was going to do and how a big criticism of world leaders was they did not believe what was plain to read. And how the world suffered. Well, now a group of unelected theorists have been working for ten years writing how the USA should dominate the world and become an empire. They planned this Iraq war and advised Bush on this war. With only one exception they are all draft dodgers. (Rumsfeld) Our congress did not decide on this new course for our country.

The New American Century. These fellows appear to have little respect for democracy in that this policy was not decided upon by our US Congress. They wanted war with Iraq long before 9/11. They are Bush's and Rumsfeld's closest advisors. They lay it all out at their web site. And this is the plan that is being followed in the Middle East. To read some counter arguments, check Foreign Policy in Focus

Local (Bellingham, Whatcom County, Washington State)

Regarding a previous post. Since the Bellingham police did not arrest the protestors shutting down I-5, this should negate my accusation of a double standard. Good point - in this suggests tolerance by local police for extreme action by both sides. However, the reason I-5 protestors are not arrested is the goal is reopening the highway asap and moving them off is quicker than arrests. Further, jurisdiction is an issue - the Freeway is federal. So - the point is taken but the issue is not so clean.


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Thur, April 3 9:05 am

War. The rescue of Jessica was a very slick operation. Now we learn that she fought as a true soldier before her capture. This highly technical operation is what we do so well. We applaud the rescuers and Jessica.

War. It is not so cheap for our side. Do you know we lost 5 tanks on Tuesday? And at least seven APCs (Armored Personell Carriers) Do you know that we are taking about 30 seriously wounded soldiers a day? Seriously enough to require air med evacuation. You can estimate twice that number for lessor wounds not needing evacuation. That puts our casualties at maybe 100 per day. When will we learn this from our American media - our "free" press? Try a year or two from now. "Fog of war" is the excuse. Bull. Propaganda for the war effort is what we get. The foreign press is reporting the numbers now. Try this Russian web site, or the International Herald Tribune.

The Bellingham Herald finally ran a distorted story today on the anti-Canadian flyers being put on their parked cars in our shopping malls. But the Herald wrote as if only one note was found on one car. The facts are many Canadian cars have been getting the messages.

A good article on how to spot distorted stories is posted by the Asia Times.

Another good site that focuses on facts and the truth is Orcinus.

News. To read the Bham Herald, to watch TV news, you get a story of an overwhelming victory by US forces, few US casualties, and a motivation to rescue a country just begging for us to free them. To read foreign reports you learn that our forces are being stopped outside every city, that we are having high casualties, and that the war is far from over. We also learn that our goal is not the freedom of Iraq but the conquest of Iraq and the domination of the Middle East. Like the Germans of WWII, we will get stories of victory until suddenly we learn of catastrophies. Are our missiles hitting civilian markets? Yes. But our American news media misled us. Only free foreign press are reporting the truth.

Will we win the war? Oh yes, probably. Are there good examples in the past similar to our situation that went bad? Yes. Try our American revolution. The British were the super power and had a vast majority of Americans on their side. They were outraged at our hiding behind trees and using unusual tactics to beat them. To the amazement of the world, we sent them packing. The war in Iraq is getting expensive in dead and wounded Americans. We are over extended. The Iraqis have not collapsed like Rumsfeld predicted. We are the subjects of a disinformation campaign for war purposes. We need to learn the truth and let our opinions be guided by facts, not blatant propaganda posing as news.

Wed, April 2 8:05 am

At the Bellis Faire parking lot, flyers are being put on windshields of cars with Canadian license plates that read: "We in America are disappointed in Canadians and your government. You are not welcome in America. Go back where you belong and stay there." Also happening in other parking lots on the north side of Bellingham. Nothing in the Bellingham Herald about this. Oh, it is news in Canada and Seattle. Just not with Herald editors. Now our socalled patriots are doing their best to wreck the local economy.

And then there is that story of the American soldiers killing 7 people in a car that "would not stop when warned". A big distortion by American corporate media. It was 10 people, all women and children, and the "warning shot" was followed immediately by machine gun fire at the passengers, leaving them no time to respond. The British soldiers are amazed how trigger happy we Americans are. Read the original story by the British reporter at the scene who watched the shooting - and compare with the Herald's false headline "Civilians in van ignore warnings; 7 killed". Or read two stories at Truthout, one of the links on the right of this page that provides you accurate news reports of the war - not the sugared and cleansed patriotic reporting of American media.

Bellingham police conveniently overlooked over 200 violations of Bellingham Code, BMC 10.24.120(1), that reads "The frequent, repetitive or continuous sounding of any horn or siren attached to a motor vehicle, except as a warning of danger or as specifically permitted or required by law." For almost an hour truckers completely blocked all downtown traffic on all streets and blasted away all conversations in stores as they did their macho demonstration last Saturday. Police smiled, waved and stopped all traffic for them. Ahh, but the city quickly prosecuted Ellen Murphy for handing out flyers about toxic depleted uranium at the military recruiting center. Double standard is routine practice in Bellingham.

Finally, much is being made in corporate media about that "terrorist camp" in northern Iraq that was found a couple days ago. What you are not told is the camp was inside the Kurdish controlled zone that the Iraqi army has not been near for 10 years. Yah, that Biara camp. It was setup and supplied by Iran, which was only a mile or two away. Iraq had nothing to do with it.

American corporate media deceive you and I by leaving out vital facts as well as distorting the stories. Why? All part of the war effort. Normal in all wars. To learn what is really happening you need to read foreign press reports. Check out the links on the right hand column.


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New web sites - with link in right hand column.
http://english.aljazeera.net - the Arab news service.
It is being blocked just now. By our government?
Body Counts - the best effort found.
George Bush was an Army deserter - here is the documentation.
During the Vietnam war, he avoided combat and just went awol.

Peace Events this week:
Fools for Peace: April 1 - Tuesday. Beginning at 4pm in Maritime Heritage Park. General foolishness. Costumes encouraged: Be Bush or a general, or Commander Wrongway Peachfuzz or whatever strikes your foolish fancy. The location is on Holly Street and Whatcom Creek (between the Museum and the ReStore)

Ship of Fools: April 1 - Tuesday. Exhibit opening of the Ship of Fools - Artists reaction to War and Society - at the Blue Horse Gallery. 7:00pm - 9:30pm. 301 W. Holly.

Tue, April 1, 2003 12:35 pm

Of course, April Fool. But we can wish, can't we. I don't mean local ownership - we can wish for local news coverage.

8:15 am

The Bellingham Herald has been sold to a group of local investors in Bellingham. Gannett Corporation will hold a press conference this afternoon in Alexandria, Virginia - Gannett headquarters - to announce this. The reason is unsure, but this is the first sale of a Gannett daily ever. It is scheduled for 3 pm East Coast time, noon Bellingham time. I will post a followup at noon today.

This bodes very well for better local coverage of political issues. The local investors are motivated by a desire for better local news. It should be in tomorrow's Herald.

Mon, Mar 31 8:40 am

Freedom of the Press? Our right to learn from different points of view what is happening? That is typically thrown out the window in war time and Americans are fed the official 'rah rah we are winning and they are sneaky immoral bastards' line of news. No big surprise. What continues to baffle me is how supposedly educated citizens can go blind in time of war and believe what our American corporate media feeds them.

For over a week now, the Al-Jazeera web site has been blocked by what experts call a very impressive attack to deny Americans the ability to read their reporting. Is Al-Jazeera to be trusted over American media or will they just report the Arab viewpoint. Well, that is for us citizens to decide. Not for our government to decide. That is the whole point of a free press. But our war monger fellow citizens get steamed when any reports run contrary to the official Pentagon and Rumsfield party line. By searching the Internet web sites one can find snipets of Al-Jazeera news which is most interesting.

This web site will try to not predict a long war. Others are doing this. What is interesting is our news reports for a week now have each day said we are advancing on Baghdad. Yet if you look at a war map in the newspaper from over a week ago you will see we have not moved forward an inch. Still south of Karbala -where we were on Saturday, March 22. The foreign web sites have better reporting. For war support purposes we get rosy pictures. Our press did not tell you about the Iraqis who have fed our Marines who are without food and water up near Al Kut. Supply lines are in trouble.

The big question - what is the purpose of this war. Well, check out "Practice to Deceive" in the Washington monthly. The invasion of Iraq is the opening of an extended war against Islam by the US. We are reaching for Empire. And the defeat of Islamic governments. Next? Syria and Iran. Already Rumsfield is threatening them.

In the post Friday, I remarked how not reporting wounded American soldiers tends to "cheapen" the war. This apparently needs explanation. If our press makes the war seem to be without the full number of casualties then we think the war is easy and cheap - cheap in American soldiers injured. Those wounded deserve to be honored and counted. Casualty reports should include wounded as well as dead. Many wounded are crippled for life. To not even report their injuries while reporting dead is to insult their sacrifice.

The first need for citizens of a free country is to be informed. Else, your opinions and actions are based on false information. You need to search the Internet to learn what is happening. It can take time. And we need our government to allow a free press and not work to block our learning the truth. We are the judges of the truth - not our government. We may make mistakes but that is part of our right as citizens. This web site is about our right to know what is happening.

My opinions are secondary and are posted because this is my web site. It is called a 'blog'. We need more in Bellingham. Please inform me of any others and I'll link to them. I intend to list links dealing with the depleted uranium issue. From what I've been able to learn, the danger is real.

Related Link: http://nwcitizen.com/2003.html
author by Out out brief candlepublication date Fri Apr 11, 2003 18:23author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Yeah, good idea..Syria's next. Then, Iran, Libya and that should do the trick for the time being. N. Korea can be left to fester until it implodes of its volition.

author by Dick Dowlingpublication date Fri Apr 11, 2003 18:35author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Now that the Iraqi government has fallen, can we politely ask any Iraquis who claimed to be "refugees" here in Ireland to please go home ? I noticed a couple of years back that the Kosovars showed no inclination to leave Ireland even after Yugoslavia was forced to get out of Kosovo. In fact there are still Kosovars in Ireland, claiming to be "refugees". This is spurious. Kosovars, Iraqis: please Go Home Now.

author by Aidanpublication date Fri Apr 11, 2003 18:49author address author phone Report this post to the editors

They can savour the delights of living in a broken country littered with unexploded ordinance and ,mines.

Or all the fun of struggling to find, food, water, medical supplies, and basic necessities in economies starved of resources.

Being an additional body for an over stretched government to food and house.

And the fun painful memories of torture and oppression.

Anyone who has made the difficult and dangerous journey to live in Cavan and to be greeted by your kind of racism is fine to stay by me.

As is anyone who wants to return and rebuild.

But spare us your attitude "dick".

author by Out out brief candlepublication date Fri Apr 11, 2003 19:19author address author phone Report this post to the editors

It's so gracious of the anti-war movement to uphold the right of the Iraqi people to live under the obscene tyranny of Saddam Hussein.

author by Dick Dowlingpublication date Fri Apr 11, 2003 19:35author address author phone Report this post to the editors

They've been telling us how they can't go home because of Saddam Hussein. Now he's gone but they'll still be here, just like the Kossovars.

I saw a crowd of them in Dublin, telling us how much they love Blair and Bush. So why don't they go to England or US ? Of course the poster who yelped "racism" is just following the example of Pavlov's dog--an unthinking and inane reaction. Let me spell it out for him/her (probably wasting my time): it's not racist to suggest that people who tell us their homeland has been "liberated" should be encouraged to go back there.

author by mr. diasporapublication date Fri Apr 11, 2003 23:23author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I too hope one day to return to Ireland when it has been liberated from the evil mafia-like grip of Fianna Fail and the rats in anoraks ......

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