cluestick4u, horny:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm

Edited by author 08-12-2003 12:15 AM
hornsofthedevil: Democracy? What the hell are you talking about? Give the Iraqis a one-man-one-vote system and they'll elect a theocratic government almost immediately.

Democracy - at least in that sense - is not possible in Iraq.

And nobody who sponsored this war ever believe that it was. Democracy in Iraq is a lie, and everybody with access to, say, the State Department knows that. It's obvious, and was obvious to the government before they began this fiasco.

As for this "it's a war for human rights" - you've really chugged down the republican cool-aid.

The US government does not give a shit about human rights abroad. We sponsored a wave of torture-and-death-squad regimes in South America - Pinochet, for instance. IRAN-CONTRA? Selling weapons to pay for death squads? Might ring a bell? Nobody involved went to jail and Reagan hid behind his Altzheimers? In fact, most of those guys are right back in power, and it shows.

Human rights my ass.

We also wouldn't send even a thousand troops to the Congo, which was a Class A slaughter and we've been doing out best to ignore Liberia.

Believe me: we've never fought a war for civil rights, and probably never will. They're a convenient excuse or a subsidiary motive, but never in history have they been primary, as far as I know. Civil War possibly excepted, I don't know enough about the period and I've heard a lot of conflicting opinions.

Want proof? Look at the civil rights records of, say, the French in Algeria. Systematic torture used as a political tool of repression, openly. They were our allies, and we didn't say a word.

Yes, it's a different government now, but we're not breathing down the neck of China, or Indonesia, or half of Africa.

Whatever it is, it is NOT a war for Civil Rights. Period. They may be a useful byproduct, but that is all they are to the people who started this war.


Neither is this war about wealth distribution and inequality: the Indians and the Chinese and the Africans and the Mexicans and all kinds of other large nations and small ones are dirt poor, well below the standard of living in even Iran.

No Jihad from those guys, even the ones (like India) with ample reasons to want revenge for being colonised. Not a squeak. Many indians are, in fact, fairly greatful to the British for the infrastructure they built and the institutions they established, although you'll be hard pushed to find an academic who'll admit that.

So that one's right out of the window: it's not about poverty.

I don't think it actually matters why the Arabs hate us, or the Muslims in general have antipathy. I really don't. Israel certainly didn't help (let's remember that the 500,000 Jews in the area had been there for hundreds of years living in relative peace before Israel was created.)

What matters is where the hell do this bunch of Yahoos who grabbed power in this country through direct manipulation of the electoral system (I'm talking here about the 95,000 black people taken off the voters rolls as "felons" in Florida, by the way, not about the recount fiasco) get off on fucking up relations with the Arabs for possible the rest of all of our lives?

Muslim terrorism towards the west has been, largely, about Israel - a would which will not stop bleeding, but is far from fatal: we have managed, for a long time, to have relative peace and safety while the Israelis struggle for existance. However, had we specifically targeted those directly responsible for 9/11 - publishing, say, a list of names of the Saudis who funded the operation and asking for them to be executed, then we could have been seen to demand justice for our dead in a fair and open fashion.

We could also have sent special forces to where-ever we could find Actual Terrorists and exterminated them in a systematic fashion.

In short: we could have fought terrorism like it's close neighbour and cousin: organized crime.

Instead we started a War Without End, smashed the international community wide open, enraged and frightened every Muslim nation there is, and have come dangerously close to declaring a War on Islam.

This is not a good idea. It will get us control of the oil, but it will not make us safer. It won't help Israel survive, nor will it help economic and social development in the region.

It is a shortsighted, militaristic and imperialst response: get over there, take their stuff, deal with the consequenses.

I'll point you to "Rebuilding America's Defences," a policy paper by Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and a bunch of the current crew: http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

They suggest that what would really get this country back on it's feet is a New Pearl Harbor. Well, that happend.

Now they're rolling out a lot of the rest of this strategic program for, and let's be frank here, Permanent Sole Superpower Status. Or, in layman's terms, Total World Domination.

Read it. It's all right there, from 2000.

The middle east, were it not for oil, would be another shithole like South America. Unless they were becoming communist, we'd ignore them. We'd continue to bail out Israel and hoped they'd all sort it out eventually.

This war is not about terrorism. It's about energy policy, pure and simple. Bush is the best friend Big Oil ever had. He's just grabbed a third of the world's supply for their convenient exploitation. Now, oil being as important as it is, I can see the rationale for that. I might even consider that, in the long run, securing a permantent supply of cheap oil is actually a sensible thing to do - as sensible as, say, making sure your people can eat.

But we can't actually get down to examining those reasons because, frankly, yahoos keep getting distracted by "oh, the terrorists" or "oh, the human rights" or "oh, the little orphan babies."

That's all fucking bullshit: questions like "could OPEC tank the world economy, and might they do it if we push them too hard?" - now that, that is a real question and a good one.

Questions like "how much oil is there left, and what's going to happen as prices rise?" also excellent.

Even the ever-unasked "what if the american economy tanks because of all of this borrowing? if we can ship in cheap oil from a vassal state, can we actually rebuild without going through the 1930s all over again?"

All of these are good questions, and as an EvilPragmatist, I'd be willing to discuss the necessity of invading Iraq for energy supply or balance of trade reasons.

But don't give me this crap about "we did it for terrorism" or "we did it for human rights".

No, dude, we did it for Oil. It may turn out, over the 50 year, end-of-cheap-oil timespan to be the smartest thing an American Government ever did, but it's an oil war and the rest is window dressing for fools like you who believe it.

Ed, you bastard!
i don't have time to do all this typing!

anyway, i see many of your points. i hope you see some of mine.

some of the biggest you lose on me though. i am more than weary of the "the mistakes of our past dictate the policies of our future" argument. Pinochet was a grave mistake that no one within contact will tell you was the best decision, but like individuals countries are BOUND to make mistakes. I've made many in my life as you have in yours. It would really be impossible for any powerful nation to travel a course that didn't inadvertantly fund a dictator.
show me a list of the dictators France supported(supports), or the ones that Germany kept relations with, i bet the list of bloodthirsty rulers Britain funded(i think maybe Idi Amin was one of them)is quite long, and Russia does not have a sterling record either. If it wasn't nearly impossible to negotiate the treacherous waters of world diplomacy without human rights getting secretly stomped on by some leaders, then we would have a better or perfect record.
Thes kinds of arguments make the grand assumption that the worlds ills somehow are all the responsibility of the United States. Our government doesn't say we don't want to help - there is a logical, realistic group that says that often says we CANNOT help. Not without exacerbating the situation and causeing more bloodshed.

Of course, Rwanda was a catastrophe that the US dropped the ball on. It happens - the UN is often entangling and misguided. Here we have probably the biggest mistep in regards to protecting human lives and it didn't happen because of the neocons - it was Clinton. No matter who is in charge, the United States doesn't exist in a vacuum. All the free nations of the world bear the burden. In fact, there would be a lot more resources(troops, vehicles) to deal with situations like Rwanda if our european friends had maintained a fucking military instead of relying on our troops protection and pursuing their socialist dreams. Never in the history of the world has there been so many countries reliant upon one for military protection.


Liberia has THREE fighting factions. Even you can realize that it is an almost impossible situation to sort out. A peacekeeping force is one thing, but shouldn't it come from established countries in Africa with elected officials and military forces? arguably the elements are there to sort the thing out with support from the US and little troops. Are we turning our back on Africa?
absolutely NOT. the aid package for AIDS that Bush just passed is one of massive funding that will help immensely in a plaque that has ravaged that country. Quite a gesture for our "evil empire" that doesn't care about humanity.

As for oil in Iraq - does the fact that the oil business will benefit mean that it is inherently a bad thing? what exactly is the Iraq economy going to be sustained on? short of selling sand by the pound, i think the Iraqis only choice is to sell oil to the US. Will we be ripping them off? i haven't seen any figures for that, but i hope not...


i strongly disagree that terrorism can be fought with surgical precision by sending special forces into remote foreign lands to execute the perpetrators. What kind of a strategy is that? Could that be MORE difficult? How would that have worked with the Taliban?
"Um, well, we have intelligence that says this terrorist is hiding in Kabul - so we're going to go in and kill him."
If i'm not mistaken, Mogadishu is the LAST time we will attempt that hairbrained plan.

i also disagree that this is a war without end. Hell, that was stated on and on about the cold war, but eventually Russia and eastern europe realized what the middle east will - that a free society prospers and one that opresses will always be plaqued by poverty, unrest, and violence. The thing about the leaders of the middle east is that they have exported their revolution by utilizing Islamic fundamentalism to demonize the west. The House of Saud pours its money into the sick and twisted wahhabi schools because the more Islamic zealots chanting "death to usa" they create, the longer they can avert an uprising against them.

it won't work though, the clock is ticking for them.
History will judge the liberation of Iraq and one can look no further than the monotheistic lunacy that was WWII Japan for an example of rebuilding a nation. Germany is another good example. Neither of those nations were robbed and looted and made into mini Americas like your crazy "imperialism" accusations suggest.

In fact, i could think of no word more unfit for the situation than "imperialism", what nations have we occupied and integrated with like the Romans. Did we do that in Grenada? Panama? No?
okay then. i fail to see this idea you have that we are going to "get over there, take their stuff, deal with the consequenses"
You have no basis for that assumption.

its hard for the discussion here not to turn into geopolitical bickering and the two of us will carp away until Boing boing closes the thread....

ACK! - your link doesn't work for me. i wanted to peruse that paper, maybe you can fix it...

HOTD: google "rebuilding america's defences" - the PDF is in the first few links.

Give it a read, let me know what you think.

> Venzuala is run by a ruthless dictator

Okay, and this is where you your last shred of credibility. Is that really how your media is portraying it? Or are you just spreading lies?

Unlike Bush, Hugo Chavez was *elected by the people of Venezuela*.

his elections are suspect at best. paying the poor to vote for him isn't a free elction is it?

Edited by author 08-12-2003 04:22 AM
hornsofthedevil: Ok, so you're basically saying that, *if* Iraq turns out to be a pretty decent place to live when all is said and done, then it's all good?

Ok, two points:

1> Would you bet, say, your home on the assertion that in 15 years the standard of living in Iraq will have risen to 25% higher than it was before the first Gulf War? Or are you just guessing that it might turn out alright in the end?

2> How do you explain Afghanistan? It's still a monsterous shit hole and the US Govt. has basically completely lost interest. No funds were made available for nation building, bin Laden was neither captured nor killed and it is not clear that any great good was achived by that enterprise other than getting rid of the Taliban. Who, by the way, are making something of a comeback and now negociating to help "keep the peace."

I **really** don't think that the people who are deciding to do these things, fight these wars, mount these invasions are **nearly** as nice as those who made the Marshal plan were. The Marshal plan folks clearly acknowledged the causes of WW2 in the war reparations levied against the Germans and understood that investment and trade could be the answer.

I don't see that happening in Afghanistan. I see that we went in, botched the capture and execution of the heads of Al Quaeda by giving them, oohhhh, roughly one full month's notice that we were coming for them, and then by fucking up and letting them all escape into Pakistan - that bastion of liberty, life, and nuclear muslim fundamentalism, we ensured that they could continue their struggles indefinitely.

There are three bottom lines:

A> What was the stated purpose of the Govt. in invading Iraq?
B> Has that purpose been definiteively achived?
C> If not, who is to blame?

Stated purpose: enforce a UN resolution, prove WMDs are present, and make sure they don't end up in the hands of terrorists if they exist. Also, get rid of Hussein and liberate the Iraqi people.

More or less accurate?

Has it been achived? Well, Iraq is still a shit hole. There are no weapons so far. The UN is mad as hell at being used as a pretext for war but otherwise ignored, and in the unlikely event that there were any terrorists in Iraq, once again, they had plenty of warning and buggered off for Syria and thence parts unknown, if not to Iran.

You can't nail jelly to a tree, and terrorists don't fight in wars. They leave and kill your people later.

Who's to blame? Well, let's see... Cheney and Wolfowitz, the President, of course, perhaps Pearle... In short, the government, and no one else.

Even on these very simplistic stated terms, the entire show has been a fiasco so far. The Iraqi people are so liberated they're hiding in basements and trying to stop their daughters getting raped on the way to college. The troops are losing it on a broad scale, and in general it's a fucking mess. And yes, they were already going to college: Hussein was a socialist, not a Taliban-style fundamentalist. Women actually had pretty decent rights in Iraq, to the extent that anybody had any rights at all.

Yes, I'm glad the people are liberated, assuming they ever get control of their country back and don't immediately appoint a theocratic dictator to rule over them.

We fought and won a stupid, unnecessary war.

As an anti-terrorism measure, it is laughable. As a measure to defang WMD-holding nations, it's been (so far) a demonstrable waste of time, with repeated and laughable attempts to prove non-complliance with the UN requirements.

I really think you have to look at Operation Northwoods, and the lies used to start the Viet Nam war (i.e. there was no attack on the boats at the Gulf of Tonkin) to understand how the pieces fit. We are, once again, being lied to by our government. These lies are about terrorism, about who funded 9/11, about weapons of mass destruction, about what is happening in Iraq, and about who, on the world stage, we can trust.

Why do our government and media lie to us - it is so that we will support their wars, believing them necessary to our own survival.

Remember: the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked the President for permission to blow up troop ships in Cuba and mount terror attacks on the US population in order to forment hatred and anger towards Cuba. This is on the record, above ground, legitimate data. These are not some random bunch of people, these are the men placed in charge of planning and executing the final defense of the United States of America. And the proposed killing hundreds of american soldiers as a propoganda stunt to trick the american people into supporting a war. They *asked*for*permission*to*carry*out*this*plan* - no more than a hair's breadth away.

Liars and traitors and none were made accountable. They should all have been shot.

That was the lie then. Today, it is a different lie, for different purposes.

The lie today is that we are surrounded by dangerous terrorists, when in fact FBI investigations of the terrorists in the USA who perpetrated 9/11 were blocked at every hand and turn, long before the attacks occured. We knew of the threat, but were not allowed to investigate it or prevent it, they say.

The lie is that we do not know who funded the attacks, or who supported those planning and executing them. The lie is that we cannot follow the money trail. The lie is that the war on Iraq will make us safer. The lie is that there was ever a threat from the Iraqis.

This is the lie: that we are in danger, that this regime will protect us, and that we must control everything around us to be safe. This is fascism.

It requires complete obedience, a stilling of debate, a consolidation of power, a numbing of the human sensibilities, a denial of basic human rights and a stripping of constitutional protections. You wonder why Cory is having a cow about Mike Hawash when the facts are so obviously reassuring - it is because he sees the bigger picture, one in which a small cabal has hijacked American Democracy and is, as rapidly as possible, turning us into an Empire State to go forth and conquer.

They lie to us to control us, to bend us against our will by misrepresenting reality. To feed a person a lie is to bend their mind to your will. Understand: the Joint Chiefs of Staff nearly sunk a ship full of Americans to start a war with Cuba. The President lied about an attack on a ship to start a war with Vietnam, which we lost.

They are lying to you once again. And their purpose, this time, is not to invade Cuba or fight communism, which was the previous incarnation of what we now know as "terrorism," the mandatory fear for which you must surrender your rights.

This time the stakes are much, much higher than mere survival. It's nothing less that the Sustained Single Superpower Status outlined in Rebuilding America's Defences.

A single superpower. One nation so strong that no other nation may even approach their strength, for fear of being brought low for daring even to challenge American Might. This is the articulated goal of this administration, put on paper in Rebuilding Americas Defences.

This time we know why they are lying to us. This time we know the goal.

The goal is to rule the world.

This is the choice we face. It is not a choice between preeminence today and preeminence tomorrow. Global leadership is not something exercised at our leisure, when the mood strikes us or when our core national security interests are directly threatened; then it is already too late. Rather, it is a choice whether or not to maintain American military preeminence, to secure American geopolitical leadership, and to preserve the American peace.

That's from Rebuilding America's Defences.

Let's be perfectly clear about what this means: American Peace == Pax American == Pax Romana == We are in charge here and if you squeak, we will kill you.

What do you think "secure American geopolitical leadership" means when paired with "maintain military pre-eminence?" It means "we are in charge here - we lead the world. And if you don't like it, we will kill you".

It's all dressed up nice, but if you think about what these words mean when put together like this, it's simple. They are saying: We have a much bigger army than everybody else, and if we keep it that way, we can rule the world for as long as we like.

That's the plan. And you have it, in black and white, from their own mouths two years ago. You have to translate this document from War Machine to Human Being to see it. It's a plan to build an army so massive, so powerful that nobody will even dare help anybody else to try to stand up to American Might.

This is the Stated Goal of these bastards and now they run the country.

By lying to us about the danger represented by Iraq and bin Laden, they have inflamed our mislead hostility to the point where we are willing to suspend our rights and go to war with countries who present no credible threat to us.

Don't defend these people or support them. They are lying scum and the worst of human history was wrought by men such as these. Shun them.

Mr. Ed says...
"Jews who saw the Nazi regime in Germany say that this government reminds them of the Nazis in the early days of their power. Ok? They were there, and they make that comparison."

What a bunch of CRAP. Nobody, NOBODY who was sent to a concentration camp would dare compare the US to Nazis. I say the Mr. Ed is a LIAR.

rrsafety, Mr. Ed's comparison is not to the concentration-camp era Nazis of 1944, but to the Nazis of 1933.

Read the link so thoughtfully provided by urafool:

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm

Very chilling indeed.

Ed. You are killing me.
that post is so gawdawful long i don't know where to begin. i'm really tempted to bring this discussion back to Mike Hawash - who i read toiday WAIVED his rights to appeal the conviction. That is the most damningevidence that this guy was a clear threat to everyone in this country. He made an average of $360,000 at Intel and the legal services that would provide him with were exceptional. which all but shows that the evidence against him is overwhelming and profiling him was something that, however unfortunate, saved lives. the good overwhelmingly outweighs the bad in this scenario.

now i can't reply to all of your points man, but i commend you on your tenacity - just a few things.

Afghanistan- i don't want to be an apologist for the obviously slow development of this country, but understand that Afghanistan is like no other situation the US has intervened with before. In fact, offhand i don't think a parallel can be drawn to any situaion in the last century. Afghanistan has been rvaged by war for what, 20 soild years and then left to stagnate under a quasi medieval rule for another ten. there is virtually no infrastructure there. people are still getting all of their water out of wells. I REALLY wish the media would do more to cover the porgress in Afghanistan(i think the NY Times has a "Kabul notebook" section sometimes), because i am rooting for real changes to happen soon there. Hell, i'd like to visit that country at one point(i highly reccomend the movie "Kandahar" to anyone who hasn't seen it). But again, Afghanistan would take close to twenty years to catch up with modern society even if the Taliban disapeared without a conflict. The good thing is that Afghanis are now returning to their homeland at a steady rate.

I am not as hardcore right wing as you think. i have faith in freedoms and liberty more than Mr Asscroft(i loathe him) or Bush(hes a moron). But most of the neocons agenda is one where there is a trade off - if tyranny is abolished and liberties and a free market is established, there is less strife and i think, as a sidenote, it benefits anyone who has corporate interests. Is this inherently evil? no,
Tyranny and cruel despots are inherently evil. They breed terrorism, war, ignorance and oppression. look at the modern free civilizations today- Mexico, Czech Republic, Canada, Argentina, any of the scores of free countries and understand that the people are not blowing themselves up, buying into idiotic zealotry, and mulitating genitalia of women. Tyranny is responsible for that - not "American might" as you put it.

I don't even like the WTO! I think its a highly organized leverage game that is unfair to smaller countries and working class of the world. It ignores anti trust standards we are supposedly glued to in this county, to whip together a congregation of scheming corporations.

But i digress. The UN should be mad as hell. they should be mad at themselves because they have become a joke - they are not an institution to maintain peace anymore. They are an institute that caters to the lowest common denominator of of the nations of the world. Libya chairs their human rights council? there is no defense for that. The UN has proven themselves ineffective and unable to recognize the needs of people. those needs being freedoms and liberties.

Your allusins to an Empirical approach are still curiously present in your post Ed. There has been no precednet set to suggest the building of a US empire, nor is there one reason to. Ther is no money or future in an empire my firend. this has been proven time and time again throughout histoyr and our leaders are well aware of that. its counter porductive and a pipe dream.

The war in Iraq was about establishing a progressive free nation in the middle east. There isn't ONE there(besides Israel). Its time for Arabs to see that Arabs can run their own country if they have the chance. they haven't had the chance yet because they have been caught in the clutches of dictators and despotic families who take from their own people and don't give anything back. Quite honestly, we are responsible for much of that long history by turning a blind eye to numerous uprisings, believing the lies of those leaders and focusing on our efforts to stem the spread of communism(which is responsible for the deaths of more people than any other institution in the history of man).

ACK!
i STILL haven't read the "rebuilding america's defenses" article. i can assure you though, if i post again you're getting one or two sentences from me. I got a deadline here....

If Ian Clarke is the "co-inventor" of Freenet, who is the other inventor(s)? My understanding is that it is based on his 1999 thesis which he did on his own (not counting his thesis supervisor).

HOTD:

You are hiding your head in the sand. Rebuilding America's Defences is **exactly** a plan for an american empire in all but name. What do you think the quotes I made meant?

It is a plan for an empire and it is not disguised: becoming a permanent sole superpower and extending american influence into all areas of the globe is empire. This is not an "allusion" - this is the stated goal of the current government before it came to power.

And you are ducking on Afghanistan: yes, it's a fucked up place. However, we have made no attempt at nation building - we installed Karzai and then ran like hell.

Anyway, I think I coughed up this particular pretty fucking thoroughly yesterday. Read up on Northwoods and Rebuilding America's Defences and see how the world looks after that.

I'm not kidding. It took me a long time to assimilate what Operation Northwoods meant - that "they" - the most powerful military men in America - had considered terrorism against their own population to be the best move against Cuba. That still scares the crap out of me.

It is hard evidence that our government, at least in the past, was capable of doing just about anything to meet its ends, welfare of the people be dammend.

Anyway, I'm done. I've said what I've got to say, and I've pointed to some under-integrated but perfectly solid history. Thanks for poking me into actually putting this stuff in writing, HOTD.

Cheers!

Edited by author 08-12-2003 03:19 PM
don't misinterpret this as bitterly trying to get a last word in...

but you have NO basis for your empire "theory". It would be more than a half baked speculation if we had made mini-Americas out of Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Germany, Japan.

You say we "ran away " from Afghanistan, but you are contradicting yourself. Would you prefer we stayed in force and exacted supreme control and influence? THAT would be an empirical move. not stationing a progressive leader and supporting from a distance.

History demostrates clearly that we have no desire to integrate and colonize the far reaches of the globe. Your theory is without basis if it has no example to support it.

Cheers bro!

(uh, i just know you are going to reply to that...)

HOTD, you haven't got around to reading Rebuilding America's Defences yet, have you?

Read it and get back to me about that "no basis for empire" bit.

And, yes, we left Afghanistan because there was nothing there we needed. Remember that Karzai used to work for Unocal.

Cory makes the mistake of riding the ship as it goes down.

HOTD makes the mistake of engaging Mr.Ed, when the sharper amongst us lost him at his jewish grilfriends parents friends who say "it's a feel in the air" as a proof for America being worse than Nazi, Germany.

You see really really smart and witty poeple like Cory have a hard time when their opinion parts with reality. For Cory it would mean he would have to rethink too much of what he has bought into, so it is easier just to go down with the ship. But hey Dennis Miller turned from the Dark Side.

Would't be the first time somebody left the USA to find freedom (of one sort or another):

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/09/...cles/06encrypt.html

Oh, and for those of you who would tell me to get the hell out if I don't like/love it: On an number of occasions, I have been quite happy that I no long reside in the USA, thank you very much.

Remember folks, it's best to read the bill of sale before buying into the American Dream(tm). I am convienced that the current amended state of the constitution is approaching irrversability... and it's not like the 60s are going to happen again any time soon.

I'm not a liberal, but I know freedom when I feel it.