Canada renews pressure on Tehran
 
Kazemi was arrested for taking photos outside a Tehran prison(8*and was later raped,tortured, and killed by the agents of the Islamic regime in Iran)
Canada has renewed its demands on Iran to return the body of journalist Zahra Kazemi and reopen a criminal inquiry into her death in Iranian custody.
Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew said he made the demands in a phone call to his Iranian counterpart.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4414909.stm

http://www.homa.org/Details.asp?ContentID=...47&TOCID=2083225413

and:

http://www.homa.org/Details.asp?ContentID=...48&TOCID=2083225413

when we feel lost we should refer back to the good books (Bible ,etc)
Well in there it,it mentions whoever brings peace to the Middle east is the Antichrist. Now question yourself what is the best way to bring peace in that region. Well the best way is neutralize Israels enemies. As you know Iraq, Iran and Syria all supporting the terrorist groups in Palastine. They have Iraq undercontrol. Next on the agenda is Iran and Syria. Both have been given stern warnings. Then again the attack on Iraq should pose as a deterent. Will that work, only god knows. And then the question about the so called roadmap to peace. If that works out, and as you can see no violence in that area for sometime. WHAT DOES THAT MAKE BUSH? AND ARE YOU GONNA TRUST HIM?

horns, the NYTimes article you link to says that unamed "military officials" say that an unnamed "Iraqi scientist" told them that "more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda".

"Proven"? Wow.

at this point it seems that the link to al Qaeda and terrorism was the proven crime:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/21/internat...wanted=all&position=

The man made of milk in Helsinki writes:
"Bottom-line: The world sees this matter now as a results-oriented analysis. If the Weapons of Mass Destruction are found and clearly proven, then the Anglo-American alliance of the willing will likely escape long-term damage. But if not, if there is no clear, convincing proof of the existence of the WMD, then the Anglo-American leaders may well be justly prosecuted as war criminals"

To which one must respond: In a pig's eye.

The United States of America is now in control of 25% of all the Middle East's Oil reserves, and there isn't anything anyone in the world can do about it. If you would make war, terroristic or otherwise, against the U.S.A. we will "embrace" with you in a deadly dance that you WILL loose.

After 9/11 the message to the international community of despots and tyrants who promote terrorism is clear.

Democracy is coming to a nation near you, GET DRESSED!!!

Hey, Helsinki Jim, your discussion about the WMD may be a moot point with all the other discoveries that are going on in Iraq. Here's the URL to once pretty important discovery:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83619,00.html

I say, if we've been able to stop things like this, its a pretty worthwhile effort. As for WMD, didn't anyone else read that weapons-grade uranium was found? I'm no scientist, but doesn't that stuff have something to do with killer weapons?

I guarantee people with ADD have a better idea whats going on right now than any of you single-thought punks. Go fuck yourself author.

yeah. that is kinda true and i never thought about it like that either. its a shame that so much blood has been spilled, but how in the world could Saddam be ousted by an uprising of his own people really. The Shiites figghting the Sunnis fighting the Kurds fighting Islamic extremists. There's nothing that can be orchestrated behind the scenes there without ripping the country apart with more bloodshed than imaginable.
I think the whole world just wants Saddam dead or out of there right now. this has gone on long enough with enough carnage.

Edited by author 04-18-2003 01:57 PM
hornsofthedevil, I was going to point out the flaw in your argument, the assumption that as a result of this war "a progressive and modern free society" will be "placed in the middle east". I'm not convinced that that's how this war is going to turn out.

Then I thought a bit about countries the US has successfully invaded/defeated in the last 60 years (Germany, Japan, S. Korea, Granada), versus countries where the US covertly helped put/keep a "friendly" regime in power (Central America, Iran, Iraq, many others).

One possible argument for this war is that the US has a better record as a conquerer than as a behind-the-scenes manipulator.

(Edited 4/18/04, changed defended to defeated; if that were a Freudian slip, what would it mean?)

this military action is for a lot of reasons. one that should be mentioned is that it is imperialism plain and simple-and you know what, i'm all for it. When a progressive and modern free society is placed in the middle east, everyone will benefit. forst being the Iraqi people because their oppression will end. the rest of the arab states are gonna watch how it works too. 3/4 of Arab women are illiterate. the combined GDP of every country in the region is less than that of Spain.

with all that oil -- that is what those governments have provided their people. its pathetic.

-when arab nations kept their people starved and poor we looked the other way.

-when arab nations refused to give theri people even the most basic human rights we looked the other way

-when arab nations funded savage militant islamic schools that bred viloence we looked the other way

-when arab nations instructed their newspapers to blame the west for the people's injustices we looked the other way.


when 15 of their desperate starving men fly planes into the twin towers and kill 3,000 people we stopped looking the other way. this regime will be replaced with a modern free government and history will judge the US and Britain. Not an armchair ideoligist who wants peace at the cost of other peoples unending suffering.

Edited by author 04-06-2003 12:57 AM
"The breathalyser argument assumes the role of world's policeman (and judge and executioner) for the UN, which was not its brief when it was established and which it could not assume even if it wanted to while one overbearing member ignores its resolutions. As for the US taking on that role, that would be unacceptable to many within the US and pretty much everyone outside it."

Huh? Am I the only person who read all of those op-eds after 9/11 saying that the guv'mt should do more to stop terrorism before it kills thousands of Americans?

Screw "the world's policeman" nonsense -- what Americans seem to want is for their government to do whatever is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks. Would Iraq *really* deveop WMD and then pass them along to terrorists to use in attack on U.S. citizens, possibly even within the United States? I have no idea how likely that is. Is it worthwhile to knock off a dictator to reduce the possibility? Absolutely.

This is also why the "well, are you going to go after SA, Syria, etc." argument doesn't quite wash. If we have evidence that a) those countries are aiding terrorists and b) developing WMD -- absolutely, and the rather stunning victory over Iraq will put them on notice (an undermanned U.S. force takes almost complete control of the country in less than a month and with absurdly low casualty rates -- there is no non-nuclear, non-Western country that could hold out more than a few months against a serious U.S. attack). Otherwise, there are other means to pressure them. And, unfortunately, there are some countries like North Korea where a U.S. invasion would also be a good idea, but the political and military situation makes it impossible.

Long article on what this war is really about:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/def...50&CID=1051-031103A

I have no disagreement with the main content of this blog entry. My only comment is that the reference to attention-deficit disorder is inappropriate and insulting. Having a short, MTV-spawned three-second attention span is not the same thing as ADD. In general, comparing undesirable behaviors to mental disorders is bad form, even for a blog, and should be avoided if you don't want to annoy people who might otherwise actually agree with you.

I have no doubt that weapons of mass destruction will be found at some point, even if they have to be imported - the point is too politically charged to be allowed to fail. I also have no doubt that this will be added to the long line of conspiracy theories that US history seems so prone to: once they are found it will be impossible to say with certainty who put them there, and once the question of where they came from is raised it will be impossible to put it to rest. All we will ever have to go on is the line of argument we had before war was declared, which was convincing to Bush, Blair and their close associates and unconvincing to much of the rest of the world. The opinion of the American public has not yet been reliably gauged and probably never will be, given that opinion polls are notoriously misleading, using small survey sizes of usually limited geographical scope and self-selected respondents.

The breathalyser argument assumes the role of world's policeman (and judge and executioner) for the UN, which was not its brief when it was established and which it could not assume even if it wanted to while one overbearing member ignores its resolutions. As for the US taking on that role, that would be unacceptable to many within the US and pretty much everyone outside it.

Edited by author 04-04-2003 10:42 AM

Yer missing the point. I'm no fan of the US president, but his point all along has been that Iraq has failed to comply with UN administered inspections for weapons. Iraq may or may not have WMD (whatever they are), and the mainstream and "alternative" media have fixated on the possibility, but the causus beli (sic) is more boring than that.

Think of it more along the line of a drunk that refuses to blow into a breath-a-lizer for a cop and gets arrested for refusing the test. The state (as in you and me and everyone around) has a distinct interest in keeping dangerous drunk drivers off the road. It isn't that the driver may or may not be drunk, but the driver been weaving all over the road and refuses to allow us to determine in an objective way whether the driver is drunk or not.

The Iraqi government has been weaving all over the road and a little over a decade ago they wrecked into Kuwait. Since then they have hemmed and hawed about taking the breath-a-lizer, and the the liquor companies (France, Russia, Germany) have been trying to get them out of taking the breath-a-lizer. Since we've been in a recent fender-bender with some atrocious alcoholics (Al Qaeda), we know we've got to get the drunks off the road, and that is what this conflict is about.

I wouldn't be surprised if we never found anything in Iraq. It wouldn't be surprising if Iraq had gotten rid of WMD's a while back, but couldn't make the admission because it would make it sound like some western humiliation forced on them. It could be that this is all a grevious mistake, a communication error between societies, worthy of a Greek epic.

Maybe if we didn't care about democracy prevailing over totalitarianism, we could have soft pedaled the inspections, let Hussein keep his "face," and gotten the verifications we needed to know that he is no drunk (has no WMD). But proceding that way is as much part of our central nature as opening up to inspectors is to a totalitarian regime's.

But all that is speculation. In due time we'll find out what's what and history will undoubtably have a different perspective. The actual existance of WMD or other banned things in Iraq is a staw man that a lot of people are beating, but was not the central reason for the Iraq conflict.