What is REALLY going on in Iraq?

by Canteen Kevin Mon Feb 16, 2004 16:56

It's all Al-Qaida that's leading the resistance now, funny how there was ZERO Al-Qaida presence in Iraq under Saddam. Well done Bush you cretin!

by Joe Mon Feb 16, 2004 17:25

Rich try actually reading what the 'hard left' wrote about Iraq both before the war and now during the occupation rather than imagining you know already. That the war and occupation would provoke an Islamic upsurge was very, very obvious.

But really I have to laugh, first we have the pro-war crowd jumping on here every time the invaders found a can of deoderant and Fox reported is as 'possible WMD'. Then we had them telling us that Saddam was responsible for the resistance and when he was captured that it was now all over. And now they discover that its 'really' Al-Queda running the show. That is when they are not trying to do the 'nothering to see here folks, its all over' routine.

by kokomero Mon Feb 16, 2004 17:50

These people can not operate in a vacuum. They are obviously getting support from the local population, otherwise how can you explain how they can melt away without being captured? As Mao said freedom fighters are fish in the sea. All of this despite massive American firepower and total air-superiority, satellites etc. Welcome to low-tech war my friend, your cruise missiles and intelligent weapons will do you no good against a really determined enemy prepared to tear up the rule book, and remember to order plenty more body-bags if you plan on staying! The price of cheap oil will be paid in blood and not in $ from now on!

by conor (wsm personal capacity) Mon Feb 16, 2004 17:56

What is REALLY going on in Iraq?
asks Rich

maybe he should be asking "whats really going on in Libya?" as another mad dictator now becomes a great statesman - I could really see this one blowing up in their faces.

Don't mention the torture, don't mention the prisions, don't mention elections

we have a new oil buddy !

And, just on the off-chance, that any one is REALLY interested in the welfare of ordinary people in Iraq (no more then bush and blair give 2 fecks about the ordinary libyian or suadi arabian)

this blog is excellent

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

by R Isible Mon Feb 16, 2004 19:43

....and Blair

by jac Mon Feb 16, 2004 20:26

More to the point; will someone please tell us what's going on in this f*****G hall of smoke and mirrors country of ours?

by David C. Mon Feb 16, 2004 21:17

Saddam fought brutally against Islamic fundamentalism all his life (Remember the war against Iran?), which is why the US supported him. Even hiding in his bunker he warned the Iraqi resistance against associating with Al-Qaeda (note how the Americans have hushed up the fact of Saddam's anti-Al-Qaeda campaign). American commanders on the ground report miniscule numbers of 'foreign fighters'. Even the pleading letter cited above (if authentic - it reads like more naive American nonsense) merely asks Al-Qaeda for help that it has obviously not provided. Now Saddam is defeated and Iraq moves towards fundamentalism.

The more I look at the unfolding of events after September 11th, 2001, the more I am amazed (stunned, even) at how much of a complete, total and utter success it has been for Osama Bin Laden. On a range of 1 to 10, it was 1000. It was a success on the kind of biblical scale that must convince the fundamentalist Bin Laden that God had a hand in it and favors his acts. This utter and complete success could never have been achieved without George Walker Bush. Look at the facts:

- Al-Qaeda's principal stated goal - to force the withdrawal of American forces from Saudi Arabia - was achieved. The Americans, under Bush, fled Saudi Arabia as soon as they physically could. Saudi Arabia teeters on the brink of fundamentalism.

-America is now weakened and humiliated - its military strength shown to be feeble against small numbers of motivated individuals and its 'intelligence' revealed as nonsense. Bin Laden and Bush have demonstrated clearly that the immense resources of the US merely hide extreme incompetence, impotence and fear.

-The Iraqi Baath party and Saddam Hussain - who built a secular, modern and middle-class Arab state and who were therefore the chief ideological threat to Bin Laden's fundamentalism in the Arab world - are gone. A fundamentalist Iraq under Shira law is more likely now than at in time in the past century.

-America is now despised throughout the world. Bin Ladin cannot hope for a majority of the world's population to support him, but with Bush's help he has successfully removed that support from his principle enemy - America. He (and Bush) have successfully dislodged America from the moral 'high ground'.

- Support for Bin Laden and his cause has exploded among Islamic nations. In some countries, such as nuclear-armed Pakistan, he is supported by as much as 80% of the population. The number of people throughout the world who are willing to act against America has increased by orders of magnitude.

And he has done all this in 3 years with a handful of men while hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. He has played Bush and America like a violin.

There was and is absolutely no link between Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi resistance. But there is a link between Al-Qaeda and the Bush administration (in addition to the long friendship between the Bush and Bin Laden families, that is). The Bush administration, its policies and its ideology, is a pivotal tool in Al-Qaeda's campaign to fundamentally change the world. It has used that tool brilliantly.

by jac Tue Feb 17, 2004 02:13

And the rest of us are ok

by JMcK Tue Feb 17, 2004 17:34

This letter, purportedly written to senior al-Qaeda leaders by Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, was circulated by the PENTAGON and after it was allegedly seized in a raid on a safe house in Baghdad on January 23rd 2004. It was leaked to the New York Times, which reported on it February 10th . Since then neocon groups like the Project for the New American Century.

The message in the letter is coincidentally one the Pentagon is eager to get out:

1. The US military are "grinding down the armed opposition in the occupied country": "There is no doubt that our field of movement is shrinking and the grip around the throat of the mujahidin has begun to tighten," writes the cowering Al Qaeda man.

2. The letter "admits" that the U.S.-led occupation is making steady progress : "With the spread of the army and police, our future is becoming frightening," quakes the fearless young al-Zarqawi.

3. By taking credit for 25 "martyrdom operations" the letter suggests that foreign Islamist fighters, rather than Iraqi groups, are responsible for suicide bombings, as the US military has claimed.

4. The letter hopes to foster sectaranism between Muslim groups by appearing to be an appeal for help in launching a "sectarian war" against Iraq's Shi'a Muslim population.

This is an obvious contradiction to the US/Neocon propaganda that Islamist extremists work together to accomplish their goals regardless of their own sectarian affiliation. Remember the claim that a "coherent terror network" in which Iran plays the dominant role was operating in Iraq?

"The terror network is more complex, and far more united, than most our analysts have been willing to accept," wrote Richard Perle last September in an articlepublished in National Review Online. "The divisions and distinctions of the past no longer make sense; the terror mafias are working together, and their missions are defined by the states that protect, arm, fund and assist them: Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia."

Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute wrote last September that Tehran hosted a terrorist summit last August that included Hezbollah's chief of operations Imad Mughniyah; AL-ZARQAWI; al-Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawarhiri; bin Laden's son Saad, and Iranian intelligence officials.
Now the same "network" is supposed to be inciting sectarian dissent among the Ummah?

This propaganda should be treated with the same caution all letters "discovered" by the Pentagon deserve.

by Idiot Tue Feb 17, 2004 17:42

You said "The Iraqi Baath party and Saddam Hussein - who built a secular, modern and middle-class Arab state and who were therefore the chief ideological threat to Bin Laden's fundamentalism in the Arab world - are gone. A fundamentalist Iraq under Shira law is more likely now than at in time in the past century."

This is offensive and shows a lack of research that is unforgivable. It also demonstrates the type of gouging analysis typical of the 'moral' left. If you look at the history, which I will not spell out for lazy people like you, you shall see Saddam had a commitment from '68 to build a military state, had no commitment to secularism, and destroyed the economic base of the country and alienated the middle class creating a clientele network around him.

Also if you look at the facts and stop totalising a community, the Shia, that have fought among themselves and are divided (remember the Shia fought for Saddam in the Iran- Iraq war and the majority of soldiers were Shia) you will find that Iraq's future is not clear and is very divisive.

by Idiot Tue Feb 17, 2004 17:47

By David C, please remove it. It has factual inaccuracies and its reasonable style lulls uninformed victims into a false sense of security. It is dangerous and should go.

by ipsiphi Tue Feb 17, 2004 18:16

Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, is currently missing.
He has been upgraded to the tippy toppy list of Al Q type terrorists, which actually ought interest us, as it signal a new stage in "realism" in the very far from finished or even full on "war on terrorism" or indeed "the jihad".

The Wall Street Journal (europe) of Feb. 10th 2004 Vol xx11 no 7
focussed on his supposed dissappearance which is causing a lot of "worry".
front page article "elusive jordanian slips the counter terrorist net". It told about the second day of the Iraqi war when 40 cruise missiles were fired on the norther n town of Khurmal, destroying what Gen Tommy franks had called a "massive terrorist facility".
According to the WSJ the point of the attack was to kill Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, amongst the confirmed dead was included his lieutenant known by the alias "Abu Taisir".
Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi is 37 years old, and has been pursued for yonks and yonks, and is now believed to be leading AlQ operations in Saudi Arabia, recruiting fundamentalist muslims to join the "Jihad" against the US/UK occupation forces in Iraq.
Mr Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi real name is Ahmad Fadil Nazzal Al-Khalayleh he dropped out of school at 17 and is credited with one of the most effective "cross horizontal fluid organisation skills" in the world. He was the founder of the second of "the bases" in Afghanistan known as "Herat" which was far from the Osama better known base near the Torra Bora in "Kandahar". It was at "herat" where he assembled his first network of mainly Jordanians from the poorer tribal community of the Bani Hassan.
He is the sort of man were he not a "mad mullah" that would make a very good CEO of a multi-national corporation, or indeed a very good anti-globalisation mobiliser. However he is not such a man, he is "exceedingly" dangerous, having been implicated in the aborted "racin" attack on London last year, having been detected in France, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan and just about everywhere.
According to a German interrogation of one of his followers in 2001, Shadi Abdellah, recruits were smuggled through Iran to Herat a distance of 480km.
In mid 2001, he visited Kandahar and was given 35,000$ by Osama, and thus his "network" became linked to Al Qaeda.
Next he overlapped with the Kurds, forging links with the group "Ansar al Islam" which is fundamentalist, kurdish and well the usual rocket toting, racin cooking type of people.

nothing has been heard of him for a long time, he is very much suspected as the author of the Aug 2003 attack on the UN HQ in Iraq. And he was sighted in Iraq at this time. Certainly the closest clue is the arrest of one of his associates in Baku, Azerbaijan in Sept 2003 a Mr Abu Atiya.
the best intelligence on his make-up comes from the Germans and Jordanians, and till the CIA presented the tape in January, he seemed almost forgotten about. But he is in many ways more interesting than Osama. He is much more "real", and much a genuine "threat" to the "West" and "Israel".
If he is alive, then it seems he will become a focus for many extremists in the future, and as is usual in these things, the CIA (& others) will shake the bag to see what falls out.
********************************************

Interestingly the same Wall St. Journal carried an opinion piece in it's editiorial on "the troublesome rock", which focussed on Mr Aznar of Spain's problems with the UK in relation to Gibraltar. Curious, Aznar had addressed the joint houses of Congress somed days previous, yet had been ignored by the US press, the WSJ mention of Aznar's "failure" in his 8 year presidency to solve the "Gibraltar problem" seemed a bit rancourous a way to say goodbye to him no?

******************************************
associated links:-

aznar's papered audience at Congress.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=63319
Gibraltar election results 2003.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62446
WSJ europe.
http://online.wsj.com/public/us

by ipsi Tue Feb 17, 2004 18:25

you may be entitled to an award of 10,000,000$ which is a lot of money by anyone's standards the increase of 5 million being approved by Colin Powell on Feb 12 2004.

you can check his photo at this site, and maybe if you're a Garda or something similar you could keep an eye out for holder of Jordanian passport number Z264958
Now be careful, he is a sly boy, and uses a number of aliases.
http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20040213-11.html


if you've info and want to shop a mad mullah today your info will be treated in complete confidence visit:-

http://www.cia.gov/cia/english_rewards.htm

by David C. Tue Feb 17, 2004 20:06

You have requested that a point of view with which you disagree be removed from this site so that it cannot be read by others. Your obvious direct experience with totalitarian authority is interesting. A little hint - the concept of 'freedom' only works when it is applied to everyone, rather than to just oneself. And thank you for the complement on my writing style.

Now - lets discuss the issue:

My point is that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are mortal ideological enemies who have never and could never cooperate. Bin Laden's rants against 'the socialists' in Iraq were as filled with venom as those against the US/UK - and it rings true. Bin Laden clearly prefers an unstable, violent Iraq under US occupation and heading towards Shira law.

Saddam Hussein's Baath party obviously sought to build a fascist military state that was a cleptrocracy and a nightmare for those who were forced to live in it, and who were killed because of it (300,000 people, by the latest counts). I am in no way defending Saddam Hussein, who should spend the rest of his life in a prison. But it is also a fact that Iraq was not an Islamic state like Saudi Arabia, etc and it is also a fact that until the Iraq/Iran war (and perhaps even until 1991) Iraq was an economically successful, modern state.

Saddam Hussein and America were both Osama Bin Laden's enemies. He (with Bush's help) has cleverly set them up to fight each other. He can only win.

by .. Wed Feb 18, 2004 07:58

Yes indeed, delete the propaganda and it's outriders by all means. And good riddance.

The US cannot take the reality that their military and intelligence machine is falling apart in Iraq . See then lie the more they die! Remember Viet Nam? Oh look, don't worry about the 50,000 dead young men , we are putting men on the moon. So what is it now.....another mrobe on Mars? Mars settlements? And the idiots can't even protect themselves in Iraq....ha ha ha

by Idiot Wed Feb 18, 2004 10:52

I agree that Osama and Saddam would not have been buddies as their politics are far apart. However the claim that Saddam was in any way ever progressive is false. On the eve of Saddam's accession to the Presidency the GDP of Iraq stood around $4,200 per person, 9 years later in 1988 it was $1,756. Then the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments told Saddam that he wasn't getting any more 'protection money' and in 2 year it halved to $868. So before the yanks arrived Saddam had screwed the economy which by 1990 was reliant on $6 billion P/A of yank and Turk food aid.

Iraq once was a successful country by middle eastern standards but that was before the Ba'athists and Saddam. Reinstate the King (with a British nod).

by rich Wed Feb 18, 2004 12:16

Since the beginning of the Iraq War as of 18th February only 378 American soldiers were killed by hostile fire.
The remaining 166 fatalities were due to accidents.
Coalition wounded in both hostile and non-hostile action number over 3000.

Out of upwards of an average 150,000 service personnel based at any one time in Iraq that is incredibly light for the scale of fighting since March 20 when battle commenced.

The Iraqi military in contrast were effectively defeated in three weeks and suffered in excess of 10,000 casualties.

The insurgency far from inflicting “Vietnam” like casualties is barely making its presence felt on the ground.
Sure they are getting a lot of press coverage – the death of an individual American is big news but practically the American forces have unlimited resources in man power to make up for any losses.

Remember that overall in Vietnam the Americans lost 58000 lives but the NVA ( North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong lost in excess of 3 million personnel.
Despite the loss of this regional war the Americans triumphed in defeating Soviet aggression world wide over the 40 years of the Cold War.

The battle against rogue nations ( nations hostile to America) and terrorists has become a long running low level conflict and is bound to continue for decades.
For the Americans total victory is not certain but the defeat of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the crushing of Saddam Hussein’s regime have been major and decisive victories ( think in terms of D-Day and El Alamein)

If Al-Qaeda and anti-western and anti-American governments want to defeat the United States conventionally or unconventionally ( propaganda only works superficially) they have their work cut out unless they succeed in getting the support of a rival superpower.
Not likely as Russia and China and India the only serious or emerging rivals to American power are already knee deep fighting Islamic insurgencies inside their own territories.

The only threat to "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and to victory in the "War on Terror" is therefore not from outside America but from within.
Howard Dean the most "peacenik" Democrat candidate has been rounted by John Kerry who despite is past peacenik connections is however a cold warrior of the Kennedy mode.
Remember that he voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act. He maybe preaching anti-Republican Democrat rhetoric but the policies of preemption and aggression against threats to the United States will be continued by a Kerry Administration if he should unseat Bush from the White House.

The Presidential election is dominated not by the Iraq war but the economy.
Bush has ballooned the deficit and growth is sluggish. This and not the war could cost him the White House.

by Joe Wed Feb 18, 2004 12:58

I think Rich you are failing to see the wood for the trees above.

Of course the US (pop 250 million, No1 economy in the world, No 1 military) can indefiently occupy Iraq (pop 25 million, very fucked economy, no military). This is indymedia .ie after all and we know that Britain managed to occupy all of Ireland for 800 odd years and still hangs on to a sixth.

But a cost exists for doing so. The obvious one is in military losses but actually the British ruling class like the US one was not really upset by the deaths of limited numbers of its occupying forces. They tended to be 'economic conscripts' drawn from the poorest sections of the working class and therefore quite expendable. Or like the US in Iraq the Brits quite quickly recruited large numbers of locals into its proxy local army and police forces. Losses that consisted of one load of Irish (or Iraqis) killing another were not to be taken seriously.

Their are other costs. One is the problem the US ran into in Vietnam. The economic costs of military occupation and the politicial radicalisation that came with oppposing the war started to generate a significant movement inside the borders of the US that started to ask some more fundamental questions then what the hell was the US doing in SE Asia. A lot of ex soldiers started to get involved and as anyone who knows their history of revolutions will tell you this is where things can get very hairy for the ruling class.

So despite the fact that as you claim "that overall in Vietnam the Americans lost 58000 lives but the NVA ( North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong lost in excess of 3 million personnel." the US was still forced to flee Vietnam. The images of marines fleeing the embassy by chopper while leaving thousands of local collaborators outside the gates will be remembered for some time yet. BTW I say claim above because you (amusingly) seem to have generated your estimate of NLF losses by conflating not only the various military units involved but by also adding all civilians AND best of all the South Vietnamese who were fighting for the Americans. But I guess to you they are all 'gooks' huh?

There is a third danger which was the significant one in Ireland in 1922 and in most of the other British colonies. It may well be what proves significant in Iraq. That is that the act of fighting an occupying armies is profoundly destabilising for business as usual in the country being occupied. Here in 1919 we had a wave of 'soviets' being set up and large scale land seizures. May Day in Burr (tiny town) saw some 10,000 demonstrate. The problems for the Brits was that if they did not negotiate a stable departure with a respectable local ruling class they might end up with a nationalist rebellion becoming a class one.

That is the biggest current problem for the US in Iraq. Neither they nor their proxy 'ruling' council can bring stability. So lots of other forces are developing, some of them they very ones that the US claimed it was invading Iraq to defeat. Others, the ones I'm more interested in, are pushing forward the interests of the Iraqi working class.

These things are not measured in the 500 US soliders killed so far or the 8,000 or so shipped home injured.

by iosaf ipsiphi Wed Feb 18, 2004 17:53

I think you ought rethink your ideas, I have sourced both online and in hard copy the emergence of the info on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom you described as a senior Al Qaeda figure in Iraq, I think it is quite clear from the information I left yesterday that he is not in fact a senior Al Qaeda figure.

Does that change in any way your confidence in the USA kicking _the right_ ass?

& thus keeping us all safe?

It's just that I worry, after all London and Barcelona came very close to anthrax/racin attack, and now it emerges that the attackers weren't from the team we thought they were.

But I'm ok I've had a vaccine, and so too has Bertie.

by Rich Wed Feb 18, 2004 20:05

"It's just that I worry, after all London and Barcelona came very close to anthrax/racin attack"

Let me get this straight.
While on one hand left wingers like yourself claim that the current "war on terror" is merely a sinister plot dreamt up by Wolfowitz as an excuse to colonise the world you can say in the same breath that America is not doing enough to fight the war on terror?

Give me a break...

And Joe you're telling me about sections of the American people and U.S. military rethinking their ideology after the "defeat" in Vietnam?
Who the hell do think John Kerry is? He grew up and got a taste for luxury hotels and stretch limos and corporate interests.
Where do you think the peacenik hippies went? They grew up and became middle of the road Democrat voters!

If you think for a nanosecond that John Kerry is not going to continue the "War on Terror" you are an idiot!
If you think the majority of middle aged former dope smoking hippies have not "sold out" and become solid conservative democrat voters or soccer grannies driving SUV's then your an idiot!
If you think that there is a revolution of Marxism imminent in (Capitalist and LOVING IT) America just because 500 plus troops get knocked off in distant Iraq your an imbecile.
YOU DIG?

by David C. Wed Feb 18, 2004 20:23

Counting deaths on both sides is not a valid way of determining who is winning and who is losing, and there are obviously significant differences between the Vietnam and Iraq situations. Even so, the US death toll of almost 550 in less than a year far, far outnumbers the US death toll in Vietnam for the first 3 years of that war. If the Shia population, under Al Sistani's leadership, begin active resistance to the Americans then we could easily see several hundred troops per month killed. Another factor is the effect of modern body armor on the killed/wounded ratio - many who would have been killed are now survivor amputees. The American death toll would have been 1000 to 2000 so far if these survivors had not had body armor.

Note that the Americans are already retreating. They are now falling back to a small number of bases on the periphery of Iraqi cities and restricting patrols - in effect abandoning Iraq to the poorly-trained beleaguered Iraqi collaborator forces. Things may turn around for Iraq, but the worst case is very bad indeed.

The fact that America has to hide its war dead is a powerful argument that what it is suffering there is not sustainable.

Not to mention the costs, the loss of moral leadership, the effect of the intelligence fiasco, etc, etc, etc.

They're fu#@ked...

Oh, by the way, it looks like the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi letter is not authentic. Do any of you really trust anything you hear from the US anymore? Seriously?

by David C. Wed Feb 18, 2004 21:03

Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/17/EDGGO50R3P1.DTL

by Terra Firma Thu Feb 19, 2004 04:00

I wish you were right. I wish the US army had been routed in Iraq. I hoped there would have been a mountain of bodybags by now.

Unfortunately, the US adventure in Iraq has been highly successful. Unfortunately for the rest of the world.

by David C. Thu Feb 19, 2004 07:47

Anyone who hopes for 'a mountain of bodybags' - either Iraqi or American - has some serious problems with basic humanity.

The best thing that could happen now is for Iraq to settle down into a stable, non-violent, democratic country. To wish for Iraq to remain violent just to 'get back' at the americans is sick...

by Rich Thu Feb 19, 2004 11:09

On one hand your against the American liberation of Iraq but on the other you want Iraq to be a free democratic country.
The ONLY reason that Iraq has a CHANCE of becoming a free deomcratic is because of the invasion in 2003 and the defeat of Saddam Hussein.
You are against the liberation of Iraqis because the Americans did it and not the UN or the EU. You would rather see the Iraqis still under the boot of Saddam rather than have your precious notions of unilateralism and international law undermined as fairytales.
Don't lie to yourself or to anybody else at the least the nutter commenting before you was being honest.
The hard left wanted the liberation of Iraq to fail and wanted to see American tanks and trucks burning and the twisted corpses of dead GI's lying in heaps.
Why?
The same reason they were secretly joyful when they saw the Twin Towers crumble and delighted that thousands of innocents died.
They hate America because its freedom, capitalism, wealth and democracy.
They hate America because their dream of a utopian society under Communism not only failed but was the greatest genocidal disaster in history.
They hate America because they have to admit they are wrong.

Frankly you don't care about the Iraqis or anybody suffering under tyrants.
You want to see the tyrants overthrow America so you can condescend.

You forget that if tyranny and terrorism wins the war on terror then you and me and everybody will not be given the luxury to protest or debate the finer points.
We will instead be chained together as slaves under the cracking whips of slave masters.

by Joe Thu Feb 19, 2004 11:31

Rich I'm sorry to see you choose to tilt at some rather odd windmills rather than responding to what I wrote. I broadly agree with what you imagined was a response to me. You seem to be trying to refight Vietnam rather than discuss Iraq in that regard.

My section of what you call the 'hard left' would love to see the liberation of Iraq. But the US has occupied it, not liberated it, so liberation involves kicking them out as well. Saddam, Bin Laden and Bush are three side of the same coin, oil millonaires. None of them have anything to offer the people of Iraq except more exploitation.

by Moreover Thu Feb 19, 2004 13:31

It's increasingly obvious that Bush and his neocon cronies were planned and carried out the attacks on the Twin Towers. Why?

Because the Amerikkkan industrial-military complex demands war. Oil and war is what makes Amerikkka strong. People's lives are of no importance.

by Idiot Thu Feb 19, 2004 14:54

The letter attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's does not appear to be authored by him. He dropped out of school at the age of 15 and became active in pious Islamist organisations, the Arabic he uses is proficient but is not the high Arabic style of this letter. However after looking at this and various other documents there is no doubt that this could be Al-Qaeda due to the use of language, Arabic forms, and idioms in the text. All the same there are some very skilled forgers in Washington who would know how to fool all but the most discerning eye.

by iosaf ipsiphi Thu Feb 19, 2004 16:13

no i won't give you a break.

>>>>>>>my words>>>>"It's just that I worry, after all London and Barcelona came very close to anthrax/racin attack"
>
Let me get this straight.
While on one hand left wingers like yourself claim that the current "war on terror" is merely a sinister plot dreamt up by Wolfowitz as an excuse to colonise the world you can say in the same breath that America is not doing enough to fight the war on terror?

=
where have I claimed it was a plot?
and why didn't you answer my question.
-source your ideas.

I have suggested that america is misguided in it's tactics on "the war on terror" and have consistently maintained that an invasion of iraq would not serve European security concerns, be they right or left wing secuiity concerns. It is perfectly reasonable to wish not to be attacked by muslim extremists groups as it is to oppose the imperialist strategy of the West.

oh & why not use your real name so we can compare your rant this week to your rant last month.

by David C. Thu Feb 19, 2004 21:00

When two criminals fight each other, and one beats the other, you can't say "that guy's a good person - he just beat a criminal", even though the beaten criminal deserved it. When two thugs fight, they're both still thugs, regardless of who wins - especially if lots of innocent people get killed and maimed in the brawl. See how that works?

We will see over the next decade what the results of the Iraq invasion were (remember what happened when Yugoslavia was freed from Tito's dictatorship). If it brings peace and prosperity to Iraq (and ends the sanctions) then it may be a net good. If it ties up the American military for a decade and/or frightens America away from war-mongering in other places (like China), then it may be a net good. If it humiliates and exposes the extremist leadership of the US, and in doing so brings about a more civilized leadership, then it may be a net good. If Iraq descends into civil war that kills hundreds of thousands or millions then it will, of course, be a nightmare. We will see.

But here are some facts:

Fact #1: Saddam Hussein is a bad man. He ethnically cleansed the Kurds, He started 2 wars. He ran a very brutal state. He wrote very bad romance novels. It is a good thing that he is no longer in power.

Fact #2: The US, under the Bush administration, did not and does not care one tiny little iota about the bad things that Saddam Hussein did. To the US the Iraqis are 'ragheads', 'sand-niggers', etc who's bodies are not even worth counting as they are killed with impunity. Many of the troops on the ground are explicit in this racism, and although the American leadership is a little more diplomatic, its actions and statements show clearly that it is of the same mind. Anyone who thinks that the US had any motivation at all other then greed and fear is naive and simple-minded. (BTW: The US under Clinton was a little different - Bosnia and Kosovo appear to have been true humanitarian wars, which is why they were viscerally despised by the American right).

America is universally hated because of the arrogance of its foreign policy. Anyone who thinks that the entire planet hates the US because of its 'freedom' is delusional, ignorant and very probably American.

Here is a very interesting point: Osama Bin Laden is a fugitive with kidney disease living in a cave in Afghanistan , and yet to the war-hungry right-wingers like Rich (and the Bush administration) he is a 'slave master' under who's 'cracking whips' we are in imminent danger of living - denied 'the luxury to protest or debate'. Why do they fear him so much? Why are they so afraid? America has elevated this guy to the status of a super power, without opposition, even from the left.

America is losing. It is losing the battle, the war and it's place in the world. It *should* be afraid.

by ipsiphi Thu Feb 19, 2004 23:25

and David interestingly referred to Osama's kidney condition, the treatment of which is the only known proven link between Saddam Hussein's regime and Osama. It is believed (that means it is put about regularly) that Saddam sent a surgeon to the base (at kandahar) to help Osama on that one.
As for Osama living in a cave, I think everyone stopped believing that one after the Tora Bora suffered an earthquake "or similar" at 6.2 on the richter scale in the closing months of 2002.
Now I can happily sit and read daily "updates" from people like "Rich" who slavishly reproduce intelligence rumours without sourcing them but what I can't suffer is the complete idiocy of the philosophy behind them, which is support for the current Bush dynasty strategy on steming the development of extremist Islamic terrorism, or it's usual attempt to frame our legitimate defence concerns and wish to live in peace with our neighbours to the east and south in terms of North American greed politics.

Nor can I really deal with being "lumped together" with supposed "lefties" who are held to have supported "saddam". We never did, we opposed a foolish war, a war which has not secured our borders or guaranteed our future. For many reasons we succesfully argued in the public domain.

Nor can I accept anyone who writes that I (or my ilk) were secretly delighted by September 11. I think looking at our reactions to that day which we made that week, through our forum, indymedia or it's allied networks.

by rich Fri Feb 20, 2004 11:30

“Why do they fear him (Osama) so much? Why are they so afraid? America has elevated this guy to the status of a super power, without opposition, even from the left.”

We don’t fear him. That’s why we went to war in Afghanistan and defeated him and his Taliban allies.

Osama Bin Laden was never elevated to the power of a superpower.
He is threat to America because on September 11, 2001, four airliners full of innocent passengers were used a missiles to kill thousands more innocent men, women and children on American soil.

If he were a superpower he wold have been able to defend himself.

Think of John Hinkley Jnr. after wounding President Reagan buried under Secret Service men. Same deal.

Who fears Osama Bin Laden?
The left do. They have been baying at us for the past three years NOT to attack Al-Qaeda. NOT to encourage MORE attacks.
They told us we should NOT attack Saddam because it will lead to MORE attacks from terrorist.
YET at the same time they say there NEVER was a link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda!

The ONLY way to halt Al-Qaeda in its tracks was to attack or use aggressive diplomacy against countries with a long record of supporting terrorist – Iraq, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea.

These countries have traded WMD secrets between each other. America signed non-proliferation threaties many times over decades as did most of the UN.

If countries like Iraq defied International order by not disclosing whether it had or did not have WMD then the responsibility of the powers that be are to uphold international order.

If the UN Security Council was unwilling to enact its resolution 1441 then America had to uphold it.

Consistently during the Cold War the left ( under Soviet control) protested against nuclear weapons.
Their protests were aimed squarely at the US while completely ignoring the vast nuclear arsenal that the Soviets possessed. The Soviets were holding the world to ransom and the ONLY card that the US had to play to stop A soviet world empire was its own nuclear arsenal.

The left have always be fearful and cowardly.

by PEOPLE - POWER Fri Feb 20, 2004 17:53

"The Hard Left consistently claim that the insurrection in Iraq is due to PEOPLE POWER. "

Who would that be now excatly? I haven't heard anyone say that the resistance is about PEOPLE POWER.
Most I've heard is that many elements from the old regieme as well as some fundamentalists are being joined by patriots, fighting for pride.

I'd love to see how you neo cons would react if invaded.

Lets see the record after being attacked by a bunch of saudia arabians you invaded iraq, and while pakistan was organising a huge black market in nuclear arms you invaded... iraq, and instead of being welcomed as liberators you are facing 20 military attacks a day, of course 20 attacks a day is just some sort of tiny minority you say. Just like Vietnam hey.

I don't know how you neo com armchair generals get your kick out of this but you will never win because people believe in freedom and no one will bow down under your empire!!!!

by Idiot Fri Feb 20, 2004 18:04

"The US, under the Bush administration, did not and does not care one tiny little iota about the bad things that Saddam Hussein did. To the US the Iraqis are 'ragheads', 'sand-niggers', etc who's bodies are not even worth counting as they are killed with impunity. Many of the troops on the ground are explicit in this racism, and although the American leadership is a little more diplomatic, its actions and statements show clearly that it is of the same mind. Anyone who thinks that the US had any motivation at all other then greed and fear is naive and simple-minded."

This is, in my opinion, untrue. If you look at the downward spiral of the Ba'thist regime you cannot miss the key factor of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the change in stance of the U.S. after this event. Historically the US has backed democracies and dictatorship, basically it hasn't given a cockfucker which one was in place as long as it could extract and could rely on the ruling elite to remain America's friend and client. You could do whatever you liked as long as you played the game.

These days that dynamic has started to change, human rights matter. Chomsky has written about the other superpower-public opinion and he is spot on. Towards the end of the bi-polar system during America's support for Iraq over Iran questions started to be raised in US media and in congress about human right abuses in Iraq and if America should support Saddam. This resulted in questions being asked of Iraq that had never been asked before. Iraq would of been systematically required to clean up its actions, however something else happened- it invaded Kuwait.

If this was still a bipolar world the Yanks would be in Haiti right now defending the client government they don't have to so they aren't. They don't give a fuck anymore because there is no choice, every emerging state must play the game or fall. So that means that the Yanks are no longer obliged to uphold regimes that give them bad press and almost nothing else. Obviously they support the Chinese whatever happens because it'd be stupid not too, but smaller rule breakers don't need to be supported so they won't be. That is why the end of the cold war was a good thing.

by David C. Fri Feb 20, 2004 21:43

Rich - what happened to "you and me and everybody...chained together as slaves under the cracking whips of slave masters" if "terrorism wins the war on terror"?!!! (What a moron idea - "terrorism winning the war on terror"! It's like saying "our enemy is not the Germans, our enemy is artillery". Americans can be so UNBELEIVABLY dumb! ).

Face it: Americans are absolutely wetting-their-pants terrified. That is why they will spend themselves into debt, tear up the Bill of Rights, violate any law, abandon any ally, etc etc. for the promise of 'security'. They are completely petrified. Bin Laden has put the fear of God into them. They are shitting themselves with fear - its all they can talk about. You KNOW this is true, Rich. You must read the papers! (Oh wait! I forgot. You're American!)

Please, please, please tell me how "Iraq defied International order by not disclosing whether it had or did not have WMDs". Please, please, oh please explain to me how Iraq violated UN Security Resolution 1441. Isn't it obvious by now that the only party in this whole Iraq fiasco who was telling the truth was Saddam Hussain? Am I missing something here? THEY HAD NO WMDs! NONE! The Americans (like Rich) have been reduced to spouting silly nonsense that is becoming very embarrassing. THEY HAD NO WMDs!! THEY WERE TELLING THE TRUTH ALL ALONG!!! IRAQ (and the rest of the world) WAS RIGHT, AND THE USA/UK WAS WRONG!. Get it? It is very, very simple, really.

Idiot - Your analysis makes a lot of sense (for example I doubt that the interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo could have happened in the cold war), but I think that it only applies to a 'rational' US administration , like Bush #1 or Clinton. I think that the current Bush administration is actively trying to get back into a cold war situation in any way they can, because opposition to an enemy is a fundamental part of their identity. Our friend Rich inadvertently provides a good example of this mentality. These people really love war. They hate peace - peacekeepers, the peace sign, peaceniks, the peace process, the 'peace' greeting, etc. They think it to be weak. They really, really, deep-down prefer war to peace (as does Bin Laden). They are satan's foot-soldiers....

by WMD's and all that Sat Feb 21, 2004 07:19

David C wrote:
Bush administration is satan's foot soldiers...

____

Interesting perspective but have you any proof?

Anyway, the argument from the Anti-American Left is:

WMDs Not Found = Don't Exist

This is clearly an error.

They should answer these questions before saying anything else:

http://www.worldthreats.com/middle_east/Iraq-WMD.htm

There is also increasing evidence that vital WMD components were shipped to Syria shortly before the invasion:

by David C. Sat Feb 21, 2004 21:54

It was obvious that WMDs did not exist BEFORE the war (to most of the world, anyway).
It is obvious that WMDs do not exist now (to David Kay, for example, who spent 9 months and $800 million looking for them).
It will be obvious that WMDs do not exist in the future (except to those for whom ideology is is more important than reality).

Maybe they have been teleported by terrorist space aliens into the the Nth dimension. I know there's no proof of this but "absence of proof is not proof of absence", as Rumsfeld said about iraqi WMDs before the war.

I don't know if the whole God/Satan view of the world is valid or not, but I do know that the policies of the American administration go against my deepest moral principles again and again and again and again. They are for war, pain, hate, greed, ignorance, power, etc. I am not.

by Phuq Hedd Sat Feb 21, 2004 22:08

because they sold them to him. E.g. the gas used against the Iranians. They knew that he had no nuclear weapons and that he had no WMDs or they would never have dared to invade.

That much was clear to all the millions that marched against the war. It was probably even clear to the retarded neocons that backed the illegal, destabilising and popularly reviled war.

It is clear that Bush and Blair were both advised by their secret civil servants in charge of analysing these things that there were no WMDs and that Bush and Blair both used political repression of this information so that it wouldn't get in the way of the propaganda.

Wake up and smell your own shit Rich.

by Lone gunman Sat Feb 21, 2004 23:10

You got to look a bit closer to Europe for this;
Germany; BAYER ,sold Saddo in the Iran Iraq war pesticdes that have dual use.IE kill bugs or people,as well as components and plants to produce the gasses.Note however that most of the chemical battlefield gasses used by both Iran and Iraq on each other were of first generation gas.IE chlorine,mustard and phosenge.Which any university lab or talented person could make.
Russia,sold numerous bits and pieces of hardware to both sides to make war gas.
France and China ditto.
NOTE to all.The US Army stopped and disbanded its production and stockpiling of chemical munitions in 1977,under Nixon.
It was stopped because;[1] it was ineffective[2] too uncontrolable [3] expensive [4] too unstable to stockpile and had too short a shelf life. To dispose of this stuff the US army has paid out sofar over 123million dollars in class actions ,pollution cleanups,and disposal.This also included ripping up most of Radford arsenal[the primary manufacturing site].There are no war gas production facilities in the US anymore.
So it is highly unlikely thart the US sold Saddo any war gas,etc. Try our European neighbours or some renegade Russian or North Korean lab headsNot that those kind of weapons are as good or as terrifying as the pouplar media or the paranoid misinformed make them out to be.
For those who would like some factual info on war gas etc,read Yellow Rain ,by Sterling Seagrave.gives the whole sorry state on chemical warfare from both the West and East

by kokomero Mon Feb 23, 2004 14:20

They should answer these questions before saying anything else:

http://www.worldthreats.com/middle_east/Iraq-WMD.htm

Interestingly enough there are 12 seperate references in the test to Israeli sources of one form or another, and these sources are the only sources mentioned outside of US ones (see quotes below).

Apart from the motivations of the Israelis in this matter I would be very concerned if I were American or British and went to war on the basis of uncorroborated "information" from a party with a vested interest in trying to undermine its neighbours by any and all means at its disposal including downright lies.

Among the information (later corroborated by Israeli intelligence sources) the defector contributed:

--the presence of an underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad

Israeli television also reported in late March that Iraq was hiding missile launchers and SCUDs on specially designed trucks that were often hidden under bridges

In December of 2002, Israel claimed that Syria was hiding Iraqi mobile biological weapons labs, chemical and biological components and munitions

Israeli satellite photos showed it occurred at night and the crews wore protective suits.

It is believed by Israeli intelligence that in March, Iraq moved WMD from sites in Baghdad to the al-Anbar region, which has deep underground bunkers.

By the end of May, the United States began sincerely considering that WMDs had moved to Syria, as Israel had claimed.

As intelligence was gathered, by late June, Israeli Air Force commander Halutz was confident enough to predict that Iraq’s WMD would be found, probably in Syria.

In the middle of summer, Israeli intelligence remained confident that Iraq had moved WMD components, equipment, material and scientists to Syria

Towards the end of summer 2003, Israel identified the placement of Iraqi WMD goods in Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon.

Now, it would be common to ask for the reason the Bush Administration has not revealed that WMDs are in Syria and/or Lebanon. According to Israeli intelligence sources, it is likely because exposure of that would lead to a domino effect where evidence would leak out that Iraq’s programs had roles played by Egypt, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia.

by David C. Tue Feb 24, 2004 02:08

I'm telling ya - terrorist space aliens from the the Nth dimension....

by A.C. Gregory III - September 11th brigade Thu Jul 15, 2004 01:48 al-n-d at verizon dot net

Abu musab al-zarqawi is a perverse mind in a perverse culture.
He is even telling the world now that the Shi'a are the biggest threat to HIS FORM OF ISLAM as well as being totaly nut's he is at war with the Iraq people and they house him and allow him to stay in the country this will not end until we take of the gloves and start to really go after these people like the animals they are