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Posted April 13, 2003
May Not be Jeane Dixon but Here's a Prediction
Can't we just go ahead and predict it now? The US is going to have giant air force/army bases around the oil pumps in Iraq. There will be giant air force/army bases (bigger than currently exist anywhere) at each corner of Iraq as well. The US won't give a good God damn about the rest of the country of Iraq or its people. That's just business.
The US will attack Syria. Syria has OIL. They may not even take the whole country though. The oil in Syria is in the extreme NE corner of the country. Why buy the cow when you can bag its utters?
Regarding "Has America Gone Commie?" by Christopher Deliso:
Has America gone commie? In a word, no. America has gone fascist. The economic system is State Socialism. The political system is autocracy masquerading as democracy. And the social system is conformist tyranny, fueled with equal parts religious fervor and fanatic patriotism. Just like Germany in the '30s.
I see lots of speculation about "who's next" after Iraq – will it be Syria? Will it be Iran? – or will it be, most likely of all, us?
Losing the Peace
In recent days, there has been much made of the fact that US Military has captured certain parts of Baghdad. Watching the statue fall from it's stand made me wonder what will happen after Saddam Hussein is killed, caught or whatever.
Once the initial feelings of gratitude in Iraq die down, the real battle for winning the peace begins. In this case Bush & Co. are losing the peace.
Like Afghanistan, Iraq is made up of different tribes, religious sects that feuds extending centuries. Second Like Afghanistan, Iraqi territory is carefully watched by regional powers including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey that each want to carve out spheres of influence.
If Iraqi experience is anything like Afghanistan experience the peace is already lost. Unknown to most Americans due to the Media 's apparent lack of interest, The supposed liberation of Afghanistan has been accompanied by bad blood. Since 2001, Afghanistan has suffered a rash of assassinations, bombings and ethnic feuds that have been part of their political culture for centuries.
In Any case, the peace has yet to be won in either Iraq or Afghanistan despite the Chickenhawks and their supporters say in the so-called mainstream media
Sissy Canadians?!
I have noticed that you do not print letters that tell why we are at war, you print only the letters that are suppose to evoke a response. I was watching News the other day, and they had a former attorney general on, he stated under the law you are aiding, and comforting the enemy, that makes you capable of being charged with treason. Why not print letters from everyone, then you would be honest news?
Who invited the sissy Canadians to speak about our president? They can shut their pie-holes, and hibernate. My son serves proudly, and soon his brother will too. I just hope the war is over before my 2nd son goes in, in June. If it is not I know they serve so that we may live, and anyone who wants to try to tell me different can email me. Screw you protesters who only protest cause you are wussies. Go to hell, and get out of the United States, Canadians can kiss my ass.
Jacques Liberté replies:
A 'sissy' Canadien needs no such invitation! Is America's emulation the fallen arrogance of Major General Wade Hampton, who, fantasizing only of the occupation of Montreal, his achievement was only humiliation by the Voltigeurs at the Battle of Chateauguay?! (The preference should be the New York militia!) Such are the sissies?!
War Island
This war has not only disgusted me but irritated me to the point that I thought I had to come up with some solution. My answer is we need to have a little island someplace, with a few natives and some buildings on it and all the little war mongers can just go there and blow things up and shoot people.
They could wear uniforms and strut around, act tough, foam at the mouth, start wars, and just really whoop it up. Of course I don’t know how many of these blowhards actually know how to fire a gun so they may have to chain the natives to a pole or something so they can actually hit them. They can lob hand grenades at the natives and destroy their meager personal possessions and just really have a high old time. They could even install a puppet ruler and then overthrow him, then run around jabbering about freedom and democracy.
If they really wanted to be tough, they could even have some of the natives shoot back at them, they wouldn’t actually have to hit our heroes of course.
They could even have a big enough island that it would have a golf course on it, and then our brave soldiers could get in eighteen holes after killing the natives and blowing up their stuff. All these little warmonger creeps could go there and just destroy things to their hearts content, pat each other on their snotty asses and the real army could go back to its real job, which is protecting the United States.
Regarding "How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War" by Michael Lind:
Kia ora from New Zealand.
I have just read (and am printing) Michael Lind's fine article. It is logical, reasoned, well written, and most informative.
For me, only one large question remains, and maybe Mr. Lind has a theory: why on earth has Tony Blair – who had so much to lose and apparently so little to gain – fallen for this neocon nonsense? I can understand John Howard – who has put material gain ahead of national reputation and the lives of Australian soldiers – but for the life of me (and my English husband, Ron) I cannot conceive of any logical reason for Tony Blair's bizarre and fatal decision to defy the stated wishes of his electorate.
~ Joan Druett, Research Fellow, Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria University, New Zealand
"A majority of Americans voted for either Al Gore or Ralph Nader in 2000. "
A majority of American did not vote in 2000. But even assuming that the first statement was true in terms of Bush vs Gore, it is definitely BS in that adding other third parties to the Bush side would make just as silly a commentary.
"Were it not for the overrepresentation of sparsely populated, right-wing states..."
...America has a spread of representation for a reason. Rural areas and sparsely populated areas were where the USA came from and we fought a Revolution to free ourselves from the more populous and distant urban center of Jolly old England so that we could have a more fair system of representative democracy. ...
"the foreign policy of the world's only global power is being made by a small clique that is unrepresentative of either the U.S. population "
Translation, 'though the polls show the vast majority of the public support the war, we the establishment of old party hacks in the East Coast Liberal elite do not and we are the real population of the country so the rest of you mindless people out there in Middle America should shut up'. ...
"Claims that the purpose is not to protect the American people but to make the Middle East safe for Israel are dismissed by the neocons as vicious anti-Semitism."
They say it because it is true. The left has been a bunch of raving anti-Semites since Stalin decided to purge Trotsky. Heck, they love to do the same thing as this very article and for that matter the same as good old Hitler did, paint Jews as controllers of Media, owners of all business and banks. This very article is loaded with hate-mongering. A Good Jew is one who agrees to all the left wants and lord help any Jew who disagrees with them, since they must be nasty old Zionists who deserve whatever fate the friendly little Palestinians want for them. The circle of politics comes full circle, with Hitlereans saying the same sh*t as Stalinists in a modern version of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk.
"But everything that the US has done since then would have been different had America's 18th century electoral rules "
Got to love this conclusion. Basically it says that the USA should dump its constitution so that the left can be in control and any thing that stands in the way of that is an anachronism. ...
One of the best articles I have read on the current political climate in Washington. I only wish you had written it several months ago.
I
do take exception with the fact that Bush wasn't in it for the oil. His
oil ties may not be that strong, but Dick Cheney's are and the Neocons
alone couldn't have made the war happen. Which is what will save other
countries from a US-led invasion. The citizens of the US will still be
wondering if we did the right thing, as we are used to defending the US
not effecting "regime changes" and liberating "foreigners."
The European community will also not be supportive and will have learned
from the Iraq experience. Americans do not want to be hated by the world.
So untimely what will happen is that cracks will begin to form in the
administration and the "unholy alliance" will fracture. Bush
will not win reelection and there will be an anti-Israel backlash, which
will help us get back into the good graces of the middle-east.
~ Susan Baker, Los Angeles, California
I was pleased to read Michael Lind's column on "How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington". Finally, someone is talking about the root problem of our foreign policy that has been behind the Iraq invasion, as well as several other planned invasions the neocons have up their sleeves.
Since 9/11, I have been reading quite a lot about Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. and wondering why they seemed to be setting the course for American foreign policy. I finally went to their website at newamericancentury.org and read for myself the intent of this organization and its members.
I feel that their proposed policy of "American global leadership" that is attained by preemptive military force is a radical change in our foreign policy. This needs to be made known to the American public and debated in both the Senate and House. I intend to write to my Senators and Representative to encourage such action. I believe such a foreign policy as proposed by the members of PNAC is immoral, and will only lead to further wars and terrorism throughout the world. As Americans, we need to try to stop this insane policy before it goes any further.
I do agree that the events that have given more power to these neocons are "bizarre", but I am not so sure that they were "unforeseeable contingencies". Consider that Jeb Bush, the brother of the President and the Governor of the state where there were questions about the 2000 election, is one of the original signers of PNAC's Statement of Principles (June 3, 1997). Also, consider the difficulties of the "independent commission" that is investigating 9/11, as well as the fact that a major warning of terrorist activity from Osama bin Laden that appeared in the N.Y. Times online version on 9/9 was immediately scrubbed after the attacks. Thirdly, consider that we have heard no further reports about the anthrax letters that were sent out mainly to Democratic politicians and the media. The last we heard about those incidents was that the anthrax was an American strain.
Thank you, Mr. Lind, for getting to the core of the issue.
~ Sandra Hareld, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Why does Michael Lind parenthetically explain Wilsonian and presidential transition but leave Trotsky and Reverend Ian Paisley up to the reader's means? If President Bush is thinly educated (MBA from Harvard and BA from Yale), my education must be near transparent – undergraduate student at an obscure Midwest university.
(Eric Garris, this article, "Who Buries Dead Iraqi Soldiers?," provides some insight into your question about Iraqi dead.)
Israel No Longer Needed
This is something I have been saying for along time.
The Palestinian Uprising and 911 made Israel the Dien Bien Phieu defeat story of the region. Israel had represented an American-backed garrison holding the Middle East in some degree of control with its missiles pointed at every Arab capital and the Mossad plotting assassinations of hostile leaders.
The crisis proved that Israel plus America's other lackey states in the region could no longer keep things under control. This is exactly what happened with French control over Vietnam and Indochina more broadly in 1954. Afterwards, there was the "Americanization" of Indochina.
We are now seeing the Americanization of the Middle East. Israel will fade in importance, and eventually sections of Israeli society (especially the racist settlers from Long Island, San Fernando Valley and Palm Beach) will become hostile to the US.
This is exactly the opposite of those who have argued that the Iraq war is primarily designed to benefit Israel. I know this challenges your position, but I think you should consider this alternate line of thinking, which sees Israel as an armed vassal state. Having spent a great deal of time in Israel doing business and interacting with many different sections of the tech elite and government/academia/military nexus, I can attest that Israel does not see itself in the end as having lasting influence over the US, but rather in a state of increasing economic and military dependency.
I now fully expect Bush to urgently ram a Palestinian Bantustan state down the throats of the Israelis so that there will be greater Arab acceptance of his Napoleonic march.
Read also in Haaretz from a couple days ago: "Will Bush Change His Spots?"
Interestingly, I remember Saddam Hussein issuing a full page editorial in the Wall Street Journal in Spring of 1991, just prior to the invasion of Kuwait calling for the US to switch their support from Israel to him. He argued that he and thus Iraq was much better positioned to be the American Guarantor (Praetorian guard) of the region since they could enjoy Arab legitimacy and thus rule the region much more effectively.
Ironically, Saddam was right about Iraq being the best point of control compared to Israel. As usual, good ideas are only adopted due to necessity and rarely by choice.
Regarding "Picking Up the Pieces" by Alan Bock:
Hmmmm, didn't quite pan out that way.
Alan Bock replies:
Did you actually read it or just absorb what you expected by osmosis? But just for fun I'll quote Andrew Sillivan, who has been as enthusiastic a supporter of this war as just about anybody, in his Thursday post urging people to celebrate and enjoy celebrating: "But today, this morning, the war isn't fully over; Tikrit hasn't fallen; order hasn't been restored; Saddamite remnants could still wreak havoc. None of this detracts from the victory. None of it. But it surely cautions us against hubris or overconfidence. We now have a country to restore and a long war to wage."
Some war enthusiasts are at least somewhat realistic about the aftermath the taxpayers are about to be committed to. Those who think tearing down a statue while Iraqis dance in the street proves that those who were not enthusiastic about a preemptive act of aggression by the country they love were simply wrong! wrong! wrong! may not have considered all the long-term implications.
Regarding "King George Returns" by Justin Raimondo:
The phenomenon probably started with Alexander Hamilton, the most un-American of the founding generation. Hamilton was born in the British West Indies; the America he envisioned, therefore, was a continent-sized empire in service to an abstract idea, and not tempered by native American attachments to locality or to concrete self-government.
Hamilton's idea of English liberties was far outside the mainstream of the American Revolution. The mainstream ideology of the Revolution was variously known as the "seventeenth century commonwealthmen," the country party, or the Anglo-republicans. It was populist, decentralist and petty bourgeois, and has since been repeatedly reincarnated as antifederalism, Jeffersonianism, agrarianism, etc.
Hamiltonianism, on the other hand, was an American transplant of the court party ideology. It sought to create a mirror image of Walpole's regime in England: a centralized state, safely removed from significant direct popular influence, to promote the moneyed interests through mercantilist policies. For the traditional anglo-republican ideas of non-interventionism, militias, free juries, and the posse comitatus, it substituted standing armies and a Mansfieldized judicial system. Hamilton was the author of the Pacificus letters, which took a position on presidential war powers much like that of today's neocons.
~ Kevin Carson, Mutualist.net
Saddam General Hospital
It is with horror that I read in today’s Daily Mirror the story of 12-year-old Ali Ismaeel, the boy in Baghdad who lost both his arms and suffered massive third degree burns in a missile attack on his home – which killed both his father and his mother – and is now fighting for his life in the Saddam General Hospital, which chief surgeon, Mowafak Gabrielle, says, “is now the only working hospital in Baghdad.”
I am outraged that the hospital treating Ali is the only one still fully working in all of Baghdad. Regardless of the chaos in Baghdad, the US and UK military are more than capable of securing a safe zone around this hospital, and they are also capable of airlifting all the supplies this hospital desperately needs, within 24 hours, if they but had the will. ...
(The great staff at Antiwar.com continues daily to do an outstanding job at providing first-rate journalism and an unparalleled selection of links to important current stories about the war and the peace movement. Many thanks from a grateful reader and supporter.)
~ Miles Smoljo, Toronto, Canada
Regarding "The Ends of Alliance in Iraq" by Christopher Deliso:
It's good that I'm typing this response because my handwriting, at this moment, would reveal too much about my mood and present state of mind.
One point brought up by almost every antiwar writer is that any aggressive action by the United States translates into lost "friends" among the international community. First off, what, exactly, has the "international" community done for the United States? I've been on this earth for a little over a half a century and, for the life of me, I don't remember anyone helping the US with anything except for the British and a handful of small nations who owed us, big time.
Take the Russians, for instance. Since the Bolshevik revolution at the beginning of the 20th century, the US has pumped food, money and monster loads of equipment and technology into their dying, communist regime and they haven't done squat for us. Our frigging "lend lease" program provide the Russians with military aircraft and trucks to help them fight off the Germans in WWII and the best they've done for us was to give us a Cold War that almost sucked America's coffers dry. We help them, they spy on us and steal from us. They wouldn't even have a space program if it wasn't for US help. Although they have been and are continually praised by America's liberal media and the best and brightest Hollywood entertainers, Russia remains one of the world's most brutal and inhuman nations who couldn't find its ass with both hands without US assistance. I don't know about Mr. Deliso but when someone kicks dirt in my face a few times, I get the message.
And how about those French? I'm no history wiz kid but the only Frenchmen worth squat who comes to mind included Frederic Bastiat (his writings on liberty), Jean LaFitte (a French pirate operating near an island off Louisiana who helped US defeat British in War of 1912) and Alexis de Tocqueville (who visited the US around 1800 and wrote Democracy in America praising the US and its people) but they are long dead. Their thoughts on freedom and liberty were and are alien to the modern French mindset and we can only wonder how the French gene-pool managed to spawn such great men. How many time during this past century did we come to the aid of the French and how many time have they spit on us in return? I repeat what some other American recently said: "If we had just stayed the hell out of France in WWII, we wouldn't have lost a single man while saving their thankless asses from the Germans."
What need be said about the Germans? After we beat the crap out of them in WWII we proceeded to rebuild their nation, both physically and economically. Then we left our military on their soil to protect their worthless, thankless asses clear up until the present. We even freed their Eastern brothers and they are still bitching about how much that has drained their economy! They, like the French, want to see a United States of Europe created for the sole purpose of beating down US economic power in the world they see as an affront to the Old World belief that government, not individuals, know what is best. What these socialists don't understand is that only free markets and free people can ever hope to even compete against the United States economic power. If it wasn't for America Mercedes Benz would have gone out of business a long time ago!
And, of course, we can't forget about the Arab world. Up until the middle of the last century, they spent most of their time in the desert living in tents, riding on camels and burning camel dung for heat at night until Americans flew in with technology and equipment and began to pump oil out of their ground. So, what have they done in return? They kicked out our oil companies, took over production then began to sell us the oil at inflated prices! They traded in their camels for Rolls Royces and Mercedes, scrapped their tents for marble and gold mansions, then proceeded to tell the world: "look what we have done!" And although they are praised by America's liberal media, they continue to threat women as less than human and their religion demands the end to both Christianity and Judaism.
Finally, that great institution, the United Nations, unfortunately built my Americans on American soil with American money, has never been our friend. Funded practically single-handedly by the American taxpayer, the U.N. has, since its inception, been run by communists and tyrants, both large and small. Housed in New York, its members have brought spies, terrorists and common criminals on to our soil and they have operated with impunity to our laws and our customs. A majority of its membership has fought US policy at every turn and feed the liberal media with anti-American sentiment with fierce determination. Under UN direction, the United States has lost thousands of our best Americans who left our shores to fight to free others around the world from the Korean War to Desert Storm and only now, unhampered by the United Nations, America may finally free the Iraqi people. The United Nations, as an organization, is and will continue to be America's number one enemy. The American people should demand that the UN be banished from our shores!
Mr. Deliso, the United States owes nothing to anyone! We have shared our wealth, sacrificed the best of our young military men and women, and given our leading-edge technology to help other nations throughout our history. Our private citizens have traveled around the world providing money, food, medical care and disaster relief whenever another nation suffered. And, as Colin Powell recently remarked, the United States has asked for nothing in return from other nations "except for a small piece of ground to bury our dead." You can not cite a single instance in which any other nation has come to our aid during times of disaster – in the last part of the 20th century America suffered hurricanes, floods, mud slides, fires, tornadoes and hundreds of other natural disasters and no one, I mean NO ONE offered to help us! When our twin towers were taken down, not a single nation even offered to help clean up the city or help with our suffering. Some even had the gall to suggest that we deserved this terrorist destruction! So if you don't like the fact that the majority of Americans are fed up with the rest of the world, we suggest that you and your friends pack it up and move to any other nation of your choosing where you will be happier. Certainly, we would enjoy life more without all of you.
~ Rod Sexton, CPA, United States Marine Corps
Backtalk editor Sam Koritz replies:
While it does seem that your history lesson leaves out a few things, I have to agree that foreigners (especially certain Saudis) aren't showing much appreciation for US foreign policy. Let's save $100,000,000,000 per year and pull our troops out of all of their countries. That'll show'em.
Regarding "Armageddon" by Morgan Strong:
I'm a Christian, and unfortunately, I have to say that you're absolutely right. True Christianity is a religion of peace and compassion, but the American church has gone off the deep end. You have no idea how much it saddens me (or maybe you do) to see other Christians exporting hate and suffering like this. History seems to have come full circle; now it's the Protestants killing Muslims and burning heretics, while the Pope stands up for justice.
What Can I Do?
I'm 14 years old my name is Megan and even though I'm 14 physically I don't have the normal mentality of a 14 year old, I understand quite well everything that goes on around me. I would like information e-mailed to me about what I can do to help and support the antiwar beliefs. I don't believe in war and I also don't agree with President Bush sending out or fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters, to fight a war that they didn't cause nor know anything about. I think that if Bush wants Saddam dead so badly then he should do it himself instead of sending in others to do it for him. Please e-mail me information about anything I can do to help in anyway, God Bless you all and keep up what your doing.
Executive Director, Alexia Gilmore replies:
Thank you so much for writing us. There are any number of things you can do and I will point you to some specific actions – however, first, I'd like to say that we at this site really do believe that informed individuals who think for themselves and stand up for their beliefs are the most powerful force in the world – so students should become educated, think deeply about the world, and use compassion in judging others. So, judging by your concerns as expressed in your letter, you are already starting down this path. Keep it up!
Here are some additional suggestions you might consider: volunteering for a peace group, such as the Committee for Conscientious Objectors (you might be a bit young for them, but I'm not sure); depending on where you live you might also contact any local Friends (Quakers) groups as they have been just about the staunchest antiwar groups of all (just google search them). Our local newspaper prints student letters one day a week – you might check and see if your local paper does the same thing and consider writing a letter expressing your point of view. Or you might start a web page for students to discuss this issue – that would be a great thing to do, by the way, as we get lots of letters from students who are passionate both pro and con the war and having a dedicated site for them would be wonderful. I'm sure we'd be happy to link to out from our site.
Hope this helps and best wishes. Let us know how things go.
Al Jazeera Bombing
Is
there any definitive account of the bombing of the Al Jazeera news
crew in Baghdad? One person told me that there was no way a tank could
have hit the building (I don't know where she got the story). An online
article said that a tank had fired and another said that it was missiles
that hit the building.
Any light for us in the dark?
Managing Editor Eric Garris replies:
Your friend was probably listening to Jack Jacobs, the MSNBC news analyst. He was swearing up and down that it was impossible for a tank to hit it, especially by accident. The Pentagon later admitted it had targeted both the Palestine Hotel (where the Western journalists were) and the al-Jazeera office, because US troops came under fire from snipers.
I hadn't heard that tank fire hit al-Jazeera. The reports always said a missile hit it, and that is what the Pentagon admits to.
Many of the journalists at the Palestine Hotel have said that there was no sign of snipers, and that the tanks took two minutes to aim very deliberately. There were no witnesses as to whether there were really snipers at the al-Jazeera office. US fire also hit an Abu Dabai TV crew that was on the street.
It is interesting that that less than 24 hours before the incident, Rumsfeld was slamming several media outlets in his daily briefing, and they included three of the four media outlets hit (al-Jazeera, Abu Dabai TV, and Reuters). It could be a coincidence. It is also worth noting that only one media outlet was bombed in Kabul during the Afghan War – al-Jazeera.
Many media outlets and organizations are saying that it was deliberate. French TV has a story based on video. I am not sure, but I am attaching a few stories:
"Hotel hit 'deliberate': French TV"
"Is there some element in the US military that wants to take out journalists?" by Robert Fisk