From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Wed Feb 06 2002 - 22:51:02 MST
On 6 Feb 2002 at 18:35, L' Ermit wrote:
> [Joe Dees 2*] <snip>
>
> [Hermit 2] Refer [url]http://www.rense.com/general3/slant.htm[/url] Iraq has
> suggested that the level of theft is some 300,000 barrels a day. At
> [url]http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Iraq_CIAHits.html[/url] it
> suggests a 1990 value of $14 billion a year. Then from
> [url]http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/iraq.html[/url] we see that this is on
> a total production by Iraq of around 2.5 million barrels per day. Thus
> around 12% of Iraq's production capacity. This is significant in anybody's
> language.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I do not see Saddam looking into the future as far as the
> depletion of the fields; such an eventuality would not occur before his
> natural-causes demise, at any rate. The oil that Kuwait was pumping would
> not have meant that the Iraqi wells would be pumping less. At any rate,
> besides the desire for a seaport and hegemony over the Muslim holy lands,
> bestowing upon Saddam Hussein (he hoped, I'm sure) the mantle of Arab
> leadership by osmosis, the desire for all that other Arabian Peninsula oil,
> and the stranglehold such a control would cede him over the global economy,
> would have to have been a greater consideration by orders of magnitude than
> concern about a 12% that was not missing from what Iraq was at the time
> extracting.
>
> [Hermit 3] And if in 1965 (a very tense period), the US had discovered that
> Russia had been encouraging Mexican oil companies to drill under Texas and
> to supply that oil cheaply to Russian protégés; and if Mexico and Russia had
> refused to back down to American demands for this to cease, what would the
> newspapers have said? How insignificant would this have been? How long would
> it have taken for US troops to invade Mexico? I do think that your argument
> above strains credibility.
>
Only yours. You cannot dismiss or ignore the much greater incentives that Arabian
peninsula conquest posed for such an aggrandizing individual. Well, I guess you can;
you just did.
>
> <snip>
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I do not deny that Kuwait was aware that the squeaky wheel
> would get any US military grease that might be forthcoming, and that in a
> democratic country it was crucial to sway public opinion to their side. I
> also detest the Kuwaiti treatment of women and dissident opinions (as I do
> the Saudi treatment of the same), but the mass gassings of Kurds in the
> north and the mass electrocutions in the south - by electrifying the Umm
> Qasr delta south of Basra during the Iran-Iraq war - when combined with the
> invasion itself, and its distal aims (the rest of the Arabian peninsula)
> simply meant to me that we had a mad, brutal berserker ruling a behemoth
> military that was barrelling like a juggernaut towards the heart of the
> global economy, killing, stealing, pillaging, raping and razing as it went,
> and it quite simply had to be stopped.
>
> [Hermit 3] I wonder how we should view US and UK involvement in
> instantiating the Iran Iraq war, and US supply to Iraq of advanced weaponry
> to prosecute that war? Do you not think that many might see the US as "a
> mad, brutal berserker ruling a behemoth military that was barreling like a
> juggernaut towards the heart of the global economy, killing, stealing,
> pillaging, raping and razing as it went, and it quite simply had to be
> stopped." Including many Russians and Europeans watching the unilateral
> abrogation of the SALT treaty by the US?
>
The troops on either side were not our own; we were pleased to see Iran and Iraq
fighting each other, rather than spreading their Mordor-like regimes over their borders
into the subversion and conquest of other less offensive-minded countries.
>
> <snip>
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I'm quite sure that the not-clean hands of the Kuwaitis were
> involved in a lot of these, but they pale by comparison to the many
> thousands killed, kidnapped and vanished by the Iraqis. I'm also sure that
> many of those that were tried and sentenced did indeed commit the crimes for
> which they were charged, and most probably others as well. I'd like to see
> true democracy, freedom of expression, civil and human rights
> egalitarianism, religious tolerance, and mutual non-aggression in all those
> nations.
>
> [Hermit 3] Do you have numbers to support this assertion?
>
Tens of thousands of Kuwaiti civilians were killed in the Iraqi takeover, and another
7000 simply disappeared.
>
> [Hermit 3] So long as these areas remain economically and ecologically
> marginal tribal territories, your wish is unlikely to be granted. Knocking
> countries developing industrial-military complexii back to ground-zero is
> not the way to achieve such aims.
>
If a cancer begins to grow in a body, you excise it to allow the body to grow in a less
carniverous fashion. When we didn't exercise deterrence over the development of the
military-industrial complex in the third reich, we all know what ensued.
>
> <snip>
>
> [Hermit 2] The rhetoric on both sides was more than a little heated. In
> fact, Iraq "annexed" Kuwait (1990-08-08) only after the US had frozen Iraqi
> assets (1990-08-02) invoked economic sanctions (1990-08-06) and moved troops
> and equipment to Saudi Arabia (82nd Airborne and several fighter squadrons)
> (1990-08-07). Even so, in the January meeting in Geneva between James Baker
> (US Sec State) and Tariq Aziz (Iraq F.M), Iraq had already accepted
> Resolution 660, but believed that the US would attack them whatever they
> did, [quote]You know, at that time, until the resignation of Margaret
> Thatcher, she was telling everybody that 'we will attack Iraq even if Iraq
> withdraws from Kuwait,' you know that. She was asking for the dismantling of
> Iraqi armament even if Iraq withdraws from Kuwait, so what does that mean?
> It means first, that they will not go to United Nations to seek permission
> because mainly she and George Bush were talking about Article 51 of the UN
> Charter, which entitles them to support an ally, Kuwait, to attack Iraq and
> act against Iraq. That was the official position of both the United States
> and Britain. Secondly she was saying we must dismantle Iraq from its
> military power. How could that be done without destroying Iraq, without a
> war? You cannot dismantle the military power of a nation unless there is
> some sort of a war. As it happened in Japan, as it happened in Germany in
> the Second World War, you just don't do that by diplomatic means.[/quote]
> [url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/aziz/2.html[/url]
>
> [Joe Dees 3] But in fact the coalition forces were supported by the UN. And
> OF COURSE we were moving troops into place after the on-the-ground Iraqi
> invasion of Kuwait (but before their paper annexation), to forstall their
> continuing it into the heart of the arabian peninsula.
>
> [Hermit 3] "Were" is the operative word. We were supported by the UN - until
> shortly before the "ground war" when Iraq indicated that it was prepared to
> comply with resolutions 660 and 661. At that point the US elected to "go it
> alone" and asserted that 660 provided a mandate and applied its veto to
> block discussion. The current UN mandates do not support the use of force
> against Iraq, and most of the member states have applied to remove the
> sanctions - which the US has repeatedly blocked by using its veto. The US is
> fully aware that if they were to permit a vote on this today, that all
> sanctions would be lifted immediately. Which is why the US does not permit
> this. [Reports and publicly available UN records].
>
Petainism and Chaimberlainality in the face of aggression is sadly an all-to-frequent
historical occurrence, as is the decision not to oppose naked aggression because
mony might be made with the aggressor. This happened with the US in the Vietnam
war, with the USSR in the Afghanistan war, with China in the occupation of Tibet, and
with Iraq in the Gulf war.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] Knowing what was at stake, Saudi Arabia begged, pleaded,
> cajoled and implored us to intervene; they rightly saw that their very
> existence as an independent country hung in the balance.
>
> [Hermit 3] Saudi Arabia made those pleas after the US had explained that the
> war in Kuwait was inevitable and that Saudia Arabia could choose to be a
> friend or an enemy and provided US defense estimates of Iraqi force (later
> shown to be hopeless exaggerations) and threatened to ground the US supplied
> and operated AWACS/C4 aircraft - which would have exposed Saudi Arabia to
> potential undetected air attack. Saudi Arabia did not have a lot of choices.
> [Reference FAS and US War College Analysis].
>
If an Iraqi push past Kuwait into Saudi Arabia had not been by all objective analysis
extrtemely likely, the saudis would have had more options. Perhaps we sold the
situation a little strongly, but we didn't really have to; it was dire enough for them
already. And not from us; from the Iraqis.
>
> <snip>
>
> [Hermit 2] This is easily countered by the fact that in early February, in a
> joint United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)/World Health Organization
> report, the quantity of potable water was reported as being: [quote]less
> than 5 percent of the original supply, there are no operational water and
> sewage treatment plants, and the reported incidence of diarrhea is four
> times above normal levels. Additionally, respiratory infections are on the
> rise. Children particularly have been affected by these diseases.[/quote]
> Refer also [url]http://www.progressive.org/0801issue/nagy0901.html[/url] and
> other associated resources including the links and instructions to access US
> documents provided at the foot of that page.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] All that they have to do to get their water purified is to
> allow UN inspectors to oversee the use of imported chemicals and equipment,
> to ensure that it is not diverted for chemical weapons manufacturing
> purposes. Saddam would rather have the propaganda and the weapons programs
> than a healthy civilian populace, especially since a healthy civilian
> populace might constitute more of an internal threat to his military rule.
>
> [Hermit 3] This is simply not true. Iraq and the UN have repeatedly
> suggested and submitted such plans, and the US has equally consistently
> vetoed them. At least one director of the UN program resigned over exactly
> this issue, saying that he could not run an aid program under these
> conditions. He is now touring the US and Europe explaining to large
> audiences exactly why the US is at fault. I tend to agree with his analysis.
>
I hope that he has a debate with the chief UN weapons inspector who was tossed out;
they routinely found evidence of massive hurried moves when they sprang surprise
inspections, leading him to conclude that the weapons and manufacturing equipment
was being moved ahead of time, and that their inspections were no surprise, due to
electronic monitoring by the iraqis, iraqi moles within their operation, or both.
>
> [Sorry, I don't have the link handy. If you insist I can find it again. I
> think his name is Bernard somebody]. In addition, these chemicals and
> components are not controlled or registered dual-use technology, which makes
> the US position extremely tenuous. It is likely that it is an illegal
> interference in terms of the UN charter and resolutions applying to Iraq,
> but the US has blocked enquiries down this path. [UN records/News reports].
>
Whether or not something is LISTED as dual use often is a poor indicator of whether
or not it actually CAN be used for nefarious secondary purposes. Chlorine is a prime
example. Industrial water purifiers are another.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] To intentionally atttack public health utilities is not the
> manner in which I would conduct a war; but then again, under such
> restrictions, we might have lost Europe in WW II (although in the Iraqi
> case, defeat was not a concern so much as the human cost of delay was, in my
> opinion).
>
> [Hermit 3] We took six months to build up to the war, refused to accept an
> Iraqi withdrawal, and then deliberately targeted their infrastructure in
> contravention of International law. This has resulted in over 1 million
> deaths and you are saying that the "human cost of delay" was the issue?
> Apropos of this, the same tactic was developed and used by the US during WW
> II and later wars.
>
Actually, the strategy of infrastructure destruction was used before WW II; it was used
during WW I and during the Japanese incursion into China. It was also used by the
Nazis and the Fascists in Europe and North Africa, and by japan in the Phillipines. It's
main purpose is to demoralize the population base of the enemy and thus sap their will
to fight and to support their troops in the field, as well as to curtail the manufacture of
both weapons and non-weapons support items for use by their troops. I think that such
a policy might have worked against Japan (rather than dropping nuclear weapons), but
it would have taken a long time and many more US lives (and maybe more Japanese
lives).
>
> [Hermit 3] Iraq didn't stand a chance. Everybody knew it. Including Iraq.
>
In which case only a madman wouldn't pull out of the conquered territory unilaterally.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I urge you to consider the fact that we let the lion's share of
> 200,000 armored Republican guards out of an encirclement where we could have
> pinned them down and killed every last one, rather than attack them as they
> were leaving so they would be reluctant to return. We were not so
> interested in sparing Iraq casualties as we were interested in leaving them
> a viable military for border defence, should Iran have attempted to take
> advantage of the situation in the south. However, rather than employ them
> for this purpose, Saddam Hussein
> proceeded to use those divisions to slaughter minority citizens in both the
> north and south of his own country, aided by air power, until we stopped
> him from doing so by imposing a no-fly zone and threatening to come to their
> aid.
>
> [Hermit 3] After refusing to accept a surrender, and after discussions with
> a belligerent JCOS Colin Powell, the US President overrode his own CIC,
> General Norman Schwarzkopf, who had wanted to allow the Iraqis to withdraw
> from Kuwait, but without their equipment (1991-02-21), and ordered the
> ground war to begin (1991-02-23) in order to preempt the idea of achieving
> the goal by a TKO. [Refer
> [url=http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin11.html]Behind Colin
> Powell's Legend: Dodging Peace[/url] An short but impressive piece of
> scholarship and analysis, citing both Powell and Schwarzkopf at length to
> tell a quite horrific story of how to force an unwilling enemy into an
> unwinable war.
>
If they were unwilling to defend their conquest, they shouldn't have taken Kuwait in the
first place. The fact that we let four divisions of Iraq's elite Republican Guards ride out
in their remaining tanks was one of the most horrendous mistakes we made during the
conduct of that campaign. This commentator claims that letting them go did not make
a difference with the Shiites and Kurds, but he documents that we DID let them go.
>
http://papers.maxwell.af.mil/research/ay1999/awc/99-149.htm
>
> [Hermit 3] I'd like sourcing on the second half. It does not gel with the
> analysis I've studied, including those of the War College and FAS.
>
Go to:
http://www.island.lk/2001/12/24/featur02.html
When Shiites in the south revolted after the 1991 gulf war, Mr. Hussein sent in
his elite Republican Guards, who strafed crowds, doused the wounded with
gasoline and set them on fire and publicly hanged captives as a lesson to would-
be plotters.
Go to:
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~irdp/ref/ref02.html
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2001/Winter/s&d2-w01.htm
http://www.metimes.com/2K/issue2000-31/reg/iraqi_kurd_warns.htm
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/04/iraq.chronology/
http://www.comebackalive.com/df/dplaces/iraq/index.htm
Also, at:
http://www.kke.gr/cpg/solid/iraq/iraq_3.html
In kurdistan, the north of Iraq, the Kurdish people who are the second biggest
nationality in the multi-national Iraqi state, have been subjected to a systematic
Arab chauvinistic policy coupled with horrific atrocities against them. As an
example, 4500 villages were razed to the ground in Kurdistan; 190000 Kurdish
civilians were rounded up in 1988 and deported to the south and then killed;
many of them were buried alive in mass graves.
Chemical weapons were used several times against Kurdish villages. In one of
the worst acts of genocide, the town of Halabja was bombed in 1988 with
poison gas and 5000 of its inhabitants perished in 3 minutes.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] What Saddam Hussein has done to the Kurds makes what Israel has
> done to the Palestinians look like childs' play, and the Kurds have done
> much less back; how could you support noninterference in the Kurdish
> situation while urging the US to impose a solution in israel and Palestine?
>
> [Hermit 3] Rather than non-interference, I see the Kurds as another group of
> people I would like to see offered an opportunity by the same "rebuild
> Africa a village at a time" proposal (which also addresses the "real"
> problem of the Palestine). 20 million Kurds hated by everyone, with no
> wealth, no skills and with no place to go, located in an area with too many
> interests, and with a geography which admits of no viable independent
> solution, is not something which is going to be addressed in place.
>
> [Hermit 3] Pragmatism again.
>
30 million. And I would approve of them having a homeland in their traditional area
where Iraq, Iran and Turkey meet.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] Of this I am truly ashamed; we should've continued until an
> autonomous Kurdish homeland was established. We turned our backs upon those
> whom we had befriended and who were helping us with our common objectives.
> Kinda like we did with Afghanistan after the Soviet pullout. I sincerely
> hope that we've learned the dire consequences of such behavior now and will
> not repeat such travestous debacles in the future.
>
> [Hermit 3] Additional comment. I don't think it would be possible to create
> a viable Kurdish homeland in that area even if all the people in the
> vicinity could be brought to agree to this. Look at a map. Landlocked
> nations surrounded by enemies are not viable countries.
>
Not without international support and diplomacy to ease the friction with the neighbors
who would be required to cede territory for the formation of their state. It's a hard road,
but the alternative of leaving them twisting in the wind is not a long-term viable option.
the Kurds aren't going to go away simply because others find their existence
inconvenient.
>
> [Hermit 2] It has already been repeated in Bosnia, in Chechnya and in
> Afghanistan where all three have been effectively handed back to Russian
> control.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I don't think so, except in the case of Chechnya, from whence
> came bombings of Moscow and mass kidnappings/murders by Islamic terrorists
> affiliated with Osama Bin Laden; in Bosnia (who handed over several Al
> Quaeda to us recently) and Afghanistan, the Russian contingent (and they are
> minorities in either case) are apparently behaving themselves well.
>
> [Hermit 3] It is an open secret that Putin was the source behind the Russian
> terror. Refer "The FSB Blows Up Russia" co-authored by Yurii Felshtinskii, a
> historian and writer who immigrated to the United States in 1978. His
> writing partner is former FSB Lieutenant Colonel Aleksander Litvinenko.
> Litvinenko, who joined the FSB in 1988, gained notoriety when he called a
> news conference in late 1998 to accuse his FSB superiors of ordering the
> assassination of oligarch and Kremlin insider Boris Berezovsky. Litvinenko
> was arrested, but was later released and managed to flee the country last
> year. He was granted political asylum in Britain this May. The "Novaya
> gazeta" published 22 pages of this book on 2001-08-29 in which they report
> that FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev who was responsible for ordering the
> bombings. I have a lot more detail on this available. This got Vladimir
> Putin from the FSB to the Kremlin and gave the Russians a second crack at
> Chechnya.
>
> [Hermit 3] The FSB might have a new name, but the disinformation techniques
> that worked for the KGB work just as well for them today as they worked in
> other countries in the 70s and 80s.
>
Considering the credibility problems of the Russian-mob-connected Berezovsky, I
would view any damning reports from his underlings concerning his arch-enemy putin
with a mine of salt. There were several bombings some of which MIGHT have
Putinprints on them, but the mass kidnappings did not; some of the definitely
Chechnyan perpetrators were killed.
>
> [Hermit 3] I wrote about Bosnia previously, and it is in the archives. Now
> from my earlier post today:
> [quote]
> [Hermit 2] Let me remind you of what we have accomplished, I was going to
> write, "what we have not accomplished", but recognized that things have
> changed. Perhaps worth starting with Abdul Haq's advice to the US before his
> death that bombing of Afghanistan was unnecessary and a grave mistake. He
> believed that Taliban control could be broken, where needed, by financing
> tribal uprisings - the standard form of Afghan warfare - without foreign
> intervention. Otherwise, he warned, the Northern Alliance would take over
> and bring in the Russians. He pleaded with Washington for restraint, but to
> no avail. Haq was captured by Taliban during a bungled CIA operation and
> hanged. But Haq was right. While the US bombed 160,000 plus Afghans into
> refugee camps, killed some 2,000 civilians, far fewer Taliban and almost no
> Al Q'aida members,
>
We have captured a thousand Al Quaeda and Taliban members, and our bombing
campaigns against their massed troops and fortified front lines surely took out many
thousands more. Over a thousand were killed in the battle for Mazar-I-Sharif alone.
>
> and then hunted for bin Laden, the Bush Administration
> was apparently too preoccupied to notice that its new best friend, Russia,
> had broken its agreement to wait for formation of a pro-US, pro-Pakistani
> regime, and seized half of Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance, armed and
> funded by Russia, directed by the Afghan Communist Party, and under the
> overall command of the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Marshall Viktor
> Kvashnin, deputy KGB director Viktor Komogorov, and a cadre of Russian
> advisors, seized Kabul and all of northern Afghanistan, likely with the aid
> of troops from Uzbekistan and/or Iran, just as he outfoxed the Americans in
> 1999 in a similar coup de main in Kosovo. No wonder they were dancing in the
> streets! I was tempted to laugh myself. The much ballyhooed Afghan "unity"
> conference in Germany produced a sham "coalition" government run by the
> Northern Alliance. The 87-year old deposed Afghan King, Zahir Shah, widely
> blamed for allowing the communists to infiltrate Afghanistan in the 1970's,
> was invited back as a figurehead monarch. The very next day, feuding broke
> among Alliance members. Old communist stalwart Rashid Dostum,
>
Now there's a brite I'd just as soon see kept as far away from the halls of power and
influence as possible. They threw him the smallest bone they thought he'd settle for,
with his appointment as *deputy* defence minister.
>
> who had just
> finished massacring hundreds of Taliban prisoners with American and British
> help,
>
Those prisoners smuggled weapons into the compound and staged a bloody revolt.
>
> threatened war if his Uzbeks did not get more spoils. The Alliance's
> figurehead president, Prof. Rabbani, a respected Islamic scholar, was shoved
> aside by young communists.
>
Rabbani's former rule was so lawless and corrupt that it provided the opening for the
rise and success of the Taliban in the first place. The Afghan people, by and large,
have no fond memories of him and no reason to respect him.
>
> One of CIA's Pushtun "assets", Hamid Karzai, who
> represents no one but himself, was named prime minister.
>
Actually, I tend to think that he is one of the few that does indeed place the interests of
his country over his own. He risked his ass in Taliban-controlled areas attempting to
consolidate resistance just like Abdul Haq did; Haq just lost his, which shows how
dangerous such a mission was, and how many cojones he must've had to carry it out.
He has asked for a multinational police force to come in, disarm the warlords, and
extend the rule of law outside Kabul, but so far, the US has refused his request. I hope
that this is not the first sign that we are repeating our former walking-away mistakes
there.
>
> There was no other
> real Pushtun representation, though they comprise half the population.
>
One of the reasons for that is the fear that Pashtuns would be sympathetic to and
shielding of the Taliban, who were, like their leader Omar, predominately Pashtun, and
got their start in Pashtun Kandahar.
>
>Of
> thirty cabinet seats, two thirds went to Northern Alliance Tajiks, notably
> the power ministries: defense, interior, and foreign affairs. Two women were
> added for window dressing to please the west.
>
Well, the Northern Alliance won; but do not forget that this is an interim government,
and a loya jirga is already in the works. Hamid Karzai has made it clear that if selected
by them he would continue as president until democratic elections could be held, but if
they chose someone else, he would gracefully accept their authority and leave his
appointed post. I think that they're damned lucky to have him.
>
> [Hermit 2] In short, we now have a communist-dominated regime, ruled by a
> king
>
Karzai is no king.
>
>, whose strings are pulled by Moscow
>
Russia is acting responsibly in the situation; the US has no complaints with their
participation. They seem to be genuinely endeavoring to help rather than to extend
puppet state status to Afghanistan. This ain't your old communist USSR, don't forget.
>
> and with 40% of the country
> unrepresented. Quite a bizarre creation. Especially when we consider that
> this was only possible courtesy of current American ineptitude and
> ignorance. IMO it will take quite a while for the full fruits of this
> exercise to become visible.
>
I think that the outcome will surprise you as much as the quick deposition of the
Taliban did.
>
> Right now, it is visibly a severe political
> defeat for American ambitions to use Afghanistan as a gateway to Central
> Asian oil and gas, and while the "evil" Taliban is gone, the Communists are
> in power in Kabul
>
I think that Afghanistan would welcome such industry and the jobs and money it would
provide. as for the 'communists', I guess you forgot that they're a democracy now, and
performing a facilitative, not a commanding, role. If it looks like it's gonna change, the
US would be the first to honk the horn, and it hasn't happened yet.
>
>, the south of Afghanistan is in chaos
>
It's being progressively sorted out; impatient, are we? Is it part of the MTV generation
thingie?
>
>, Pakistan is
> isolated and unloved by all
>
Musharraf is beginning to realize that he can't condemn some terrorists and fund
others. I believe that his beginning of a turnaround will continue and that it'll be the
best thing that has happened to his country in a long time.
>
>, Washington has spent $10 billion to date (and a
> lot more to come if we keep our word)
>
And I hope we do; the WTC atrocity cost easily a dozen times that.
>
>- and Mssrs Vladimir Putin and Ariel
> Sharon are happily killing their own "terrorists".
>
The term does not deserve qualifying quotes when applied to the suicide bombers and
machine-gunners of massed civilians.
>
> How much of this helps to
> fight "evil", prevent further attacks on the US, avenge 911, or indeed to
> achieve any other stated US aim is yet to be explained.
> [/quote]
>
A lot; the milatary chief, Atef, among at least five of the top 24, is dead, the Base's
base has been lost, and its surviving hierarchy are too busy running and hiding to plan
catastrophic attacks in the US.
>
> [Hermit 3] Same tactics, same cast. Only the set changed slightly - and the
> audience. Seems that it is not just US Presidents who are gullible...
>
> [Hermit 2] A slippery slope argument from you? The fact that this decision
> results directly in the death of hundreds of thousands of children does not
> bother you at all? You agree with the immortal words of Madeleine Albright
> when she told CBS in 1996 that containing Iraq was worth the death of
> 500,000 Iraqi children?
> [url]http://home.att.net/~drew.hamre/docAlb.htm[/url]
>
> [Joe Dees 3] It might sound heartless and cruel, but we are facing a
> heartless and cruel adversary; better theirs than mine, and they are
> actively seeking to reify the second alternative.
>
> [Hermit 3] If they are reciprocating, it is difficult to blame them.
>
The WTC attack came BEFORE we went after the perpetrators; if anything, WE are
reciprocating, so i guess you can hardly blame us, ayy?
>
> But I
> think the "if" is important. And my opinion on terrorists is well known.
> Stop them if they pose a threat. Detain them if they don't. If they survive
> that (and you should attempt to ensure it), put them on trial. Do this under
> the full klieglights of the world, and let them be judged by the
> International community. Do the same with our own terrorists. Including
> those in high-office. That way we stand a chance of eventually replacing
> hate with law rather than simply escalating violence.
>
Or giving homicidal nobodies a chance to make a public name for themselves whilst
they preach their cause in the media, like we did with Bin Laden himself. The
difference is that he had money; a lot of fanatics would give their lives to take out a
bunch of infidels, and the chance, if they survive, to denounce the hated and despised
unbelievers on a soapbox for all their fundie droogies to hear, applaud and aspire to is
just gravy to them.
>
> [Hermit 3] Where we can't stop or identify terrorists, we have to make a
> deal with them to remove the threat. Don't kill people's children and then
> try to make a deal with them, the probability the deal will be successful is
> slim and the probability that they will harm you and they can high. Not
> sensible. Iraq already has over a million dead to mourn, at American hands.
>
Not answering aggression is seen by Muslim fanatics as a weakness inviting further
attack, as was amply proven by Bin Laden's recruitment videos showing pics of his
latest terror attacks and gloating over the US's perceived weakness. I'd like to hear
the tristed bastard claim that NOW.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] If Saddam Hussein truly cared about those kids for anything
> except as dead propaganda tools, all he'd have to do would be to abandon WMD
> programs and allow international monitors of the uses to which he put water
> purification equipment and chemicals.
>
> [Hermit 3] He says that he has no such programs and he has offered to
> (although legally he cannot be forced to) show that the water systems are
> safe. The US has persisted in using their veto to prevent Iraq from
> obtaining the water needed to stop the deaths. By your logic, the US does
> not care about these kids except as tools to interfere in Iraq's internal
> affairs. That sounds far worse than Saddam Hussein to me.
>
The US seems to sound far worse than Adolph Hitler to you; you oughta just join up
with your fellow US-haters and act upon that hatred. Iraq could BUY enough bottled
water for all the Iraqis to drink with all that money they're making selling oil under the
table to Jordan and Syria. What the US cares about, and will continue to care about is
Iraq's unending pursuit of WMD's and support of terrorists.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] His hands are the bloody ones; we are just unwilling to give
> him the wherewithal to trade their blood (which he could indeed not spill if
> he wished to spend the gigapetrobucks for their benefit) for our own, a
> chance he would jump at like a frog on speed.
>
> [Hermit 3] What you have stated very conclusively is that our hands are
> bloody and that children are dying because of our choices (rather theirs
> than ours). The question is how to fix the problem. Ten years, and three
> presidents have shown that American policies are futile, and all that you
> are suggesting is more of the same. Which undoubtedly lessens the chance for
> any rational conclusion. Time to question your premises.
>
More and more, I'm leaning toward just going in and ending it. Letting this mad rabid
dog who cynically parades his puppies that he himself starves for pr off his leash is no
solution whatsoever.
>
> [Hermit 3] I am not going to add China to this discussion - that will be
> really messy as they are also involved (heavily) in ME intervention and
> meddling. But it did serve to make the point that the US is as motivated by
> money and power as Russia. Which is all that I was saying.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] Their use of chemical weapons in the extinction of entire
> villages does not appear to be token or inefficacious to me, nor does their
> undoubtable willingness to supply them to third parties for importation and
> use here. And some of the equipment could be modified to produce and
> concentrate much more lethal biological agents. And are you maintaining
> that all starving people in Iraq suffer from dysentery?
>
> [Hermit 3] I have discussed the fact that chemical weapons have a low PoK in
> my previous post - and even when deployed against the unprotected Kurds,
> they were deployed with cluster munitions - and the vast majority of the
> kills were made by the bomblet payloads
>
Not 5000 villagers in three minutes.
>
> [Hermit 3] I remind you that the attacks on the Kurds were made in a war
> situation (with Iran) when Iraq apparently believed that they had made cause
> with Iran. I find this not unbelievable (but still inexcusable). Just as I
> found US hits on Korean "sympathizer villages" unacceptable - and the same
> for SADF hits on suspected Namibian "sympathizers". Civilians are not
> legitimate targets no matter how you kill them. Napalm, cluster bombs or
> gas. They all have the same intended and unacceptable end result.
>
> [Hermit 3] I would appreciate it if you did not attempt to pervert my words.
> I did not say "all starving people in Iraq suffer from dysentery?" However
> the fact that there is some food, and that the UN reports that most PMs
> reflect dehydration consequent on massive infection suggests that most
> deaths are being caused by contaminated water. I have previously provided US
> sourced information on the disease profiles indicates that most mortalities
> caused by starvation are consequent on a range of deliberately generated
> disease, and that the deliberation was done by the US not Saddam Hussein.
> Can you say Q.E.D.?
>
The US did not smuggle the dysentary equivalent of buffalo robes into the Iraqi water
supply.
>
> <snip>
>
> [Joe Dees 3] That's enough money to IMPORT enough clean drinking water for
> the populace.
>
> [Hermit 3] My water bill, in one of the wettest regions of the US, and where
> the water is cheaply sourced from a well, runs at $45 per month.
>
And what percentage of that do you drink? Wash water (for dishes and clothes) does
not have to be dysentary free with the use of soap and drying before use.
>
> As the
> water is, in my opinion unsuited for consumption, I run an expensive reverse
> osmosis and metal filtration system to post-process it. In South Africa,
> where the water was better, but scarcer, water ran me about $20 per month.
> If my memory of exchange rates is right, I paid a lot more than that
> everywhere else in Africa. So your assertion does not sound true to me.
> Would you like to attempt to support it?
>
As I said, you were paying for a lot more than drinking water.
> <snip>
>
> [Hermit 2] This assumes the money is for internal use, it is not. Internal
> money can be created at the cost of inflation (being done) and generating
> debt (already done). It is required for external supplies. And US, World
> Bank and Jane’s Defense Weekly figures on Middle East arms acquisition show
> that any claim that significant diversion of funds is being made for arms
> acquisition is fallacious.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] It's being done not to buy arms, but to develop the internal
> capacity to make them.
>
> [Hermit 3] But the factories that used to manufacture arms are now at one
> with the sands of the desert. Are you forgetting that in a month of non-stop
> bombing, the US carpet bombed Iraq's production facilities with more
> ordinance than they delivered on wartime Germany and Japan combined. US
> defense figures reflect that no industries are functioning effectively - and
> arms industries are no exception. Jane's reflects that arms production has
> ceased. Where are they buying this production capability, and where are they
> putting it
>
Underground, under all those castles, and in one case, a bioweapons production
facility under the Baghdad Hospital.
>
> - and having it, what are they going to do with it? Launch a
> flotilla to attack New York? Their only conceivable use for arms is for
> defense. They don't have the technical capability to achieve air
> superiority, so any adventurism, even against their inept neighbors, will
> lead to their destruction.
>
They were funding a supercannon to deliver such weapons at great range. I'm also
sure that they would find other means to distribute them, and the possibility cannot be
excluded that they would attempt to capture bordering air facilities in order to use their
resources for that purpose. They can also be launched in munitions.
>
> [Hermit 2] No, I don't tell lies. I don’t need to. You are missing the
> points explained above – and more. In mid 1990 Iraq imported more than 70%
> of its basic needs (UN data).
>
> [Joe Dees 3] This is because they were already on a military footing,
> preparing to seize Kuwait and beyond, and indeed had been on such a footing
> since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980. The ability to redirect
> effort and resources towards the production of civilian goods was there, but
> Saddam Hussein was, and is, not interested in such options. Nor do I think
> he ever will be.
>
> [Hermit 3] This is not what the UN says. They think that Iraq expanded their
> industrial base as a part of a deliberate drive to Westernize. Clearly they
> are not now capable of producing sufficient food to feed themselves even
> given that almost all of their energy is of necessity now devoted to that
> function.
>
I sincerely question this statement; please show me how the lion's share of the legal
and illegal monies Saddam receives are being used for agricultural purposes.
>
> Sad. Forty hours a week in a factory and the children at school,
> exchanged for 80 hours a week of sustenance farming by the whole family -
> and they still can't make ends meet. It illustrates the value of modern
> civilization in a very explicit, though hardly attractive demonstration.
>
If they were seroius about expanding their agricultural production, they would be
buying tractors and superseed, and building irrigation systems. The water does not
have to be drinkable to be used for this. In fact, evaporation and recapturing could be
used on a family basis to produce all the potable water needed, and the materials
needed (evaporation vats, rolls of plastic creased properly and collection bowls) are
inexpensive and readily available.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I do not see these as essential; although I like mine, toilet
> paper is not something that is even preferred in much of europe, where they
> have bidets; it is an artifact of american culture. Few people will die
> without aspirin, and those that need it badly could get it from a relative
> of the willow tree. Anyone can ferment disinfectant, if they can resist
> drinking it.
>
> [Hermit 3] When there is no toilet paper and no running water, then contact
> disease (especially cholera) sweeps through communities (or why it is one of
> the first deliveries to a refugee camp - even in Africa).
>
And are ther epidemics of cholera sweeping Iraq? If they were, I doubt that you'd be
concentrating on diarrhea.
>
> [Hermit 3] Aspirin is not just an analgesic, but acts to reduce fever by
> blocking prostaglandin production. When you have no other medication that
> alone can be a lifesaver. Especially in children (NB there are better and
> safer fever reduction agents, as complications can occur when the fever is
> viral rather than bacterial or traumatic), but fever can kill. While
> salicylic acid is easily extracted from various plants, it irritates the
> stomach and the mouth and can trigger uncontrollable bleeding in ulcerated
> patients. Aspirin is much safer as it is not acid. The transformation is
> usually performed by converting salicylic acid and acetic anhydride into
> acetylsalicylic acid and free acetic acid (which is removed). The process is
> time consuming and requires sulfuric acid (another prohibited chemical) and
> good thermal control.
>
Tylenol is better and safer for fever reduction. And it is cheap in bulk, and certainly
affordable by Iraq. I'll bet that the republican guards enjoy sterling medical care.
Sulfuric acid is prohibited because of its uses in manufacturing chemical agents and
explosives.
>
> [Hermit 3] Alcohol is no good as a disinfectant for water as by the time it
> is potent enough to kill bacteria, it is also poisonous to humans. While it
> could, I suppose be used and then removed by fractional distillation, I'm
> not sure how much alcohol they have, and am sure that it would be simpler
> just to boil the water. Unfortunately that takes heat. And heat requires
> power. Which is something else which is scarce in Iraq.
>
Alcohol is also an excellent topical disinfectant.
>
> [Hermit 3] Of course, if they really wanted Chlorine for making poison gas,
> they could produce it from rock-salt - which they have in abundance. But the
> process is inefficient and is definitely not a good way to chlorinate
> industrial quantities of water. Still, it would suffice to produce more than
> enough to produce viable quantities of poison gas. Heck, they could almost
> certainly produce chlorine in sufficient quantities for weapons use more
> cheaply using plastic packaging materials - including the packaging used for
> food supplies. I know I could. So even from a purely practical perspective
> the reasoning is nonsense. Then too, almost anything is dangerous when
> misapplied. Take aspirin. The production of trinitrophenol from aspirin and
> a few other common household substances is trivial (kitchen chemistry but
> with some rather poisonous gas production), and as the end result is a
> remarkable plastique (think C-4) producing a flame velocity of around 7000
> m.s^-1 it makes a good demolition explosive (think shaped charges) and mixed
> with a retarder makes a good propellant as well. In addition, it can be
> trivially converted into various primary explosives (think detonator),
> including accidentally, so I don't suggest experiments unless you really
> know what you are doing (and, given current paranoia, probably not even
> then). So by this reasoning, even aspirin [i]should[/i] by your reasoning,
> be classed as a hazardous precursor chemical and not allowed to be
> distributed. Fortunately chemists are seldom terrorists and the politicians
> haven't realized this yet, so you can still buy all the needed goods at your
> local Walmart if you know what to call it in order not to excite attention
> (i.e. you can't ask for the happy home bomb maker’s kit). But I guarantee
> that any chemically literate person could come up with a dozen ways to
> produce rather nasty substances from one perspective or another in almost
> any environment.
>
But it shouold not be made easier for them to accomplish in bulk when they have
already shown the desire not only to manufacture same, but to use them against
people.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] They cannot buy the chemicals because of the pictures of that
> devastated Kurdish village that were globally seen by populations and world
> leaders. Is your solution to give them the chemicals and accept the deaths
> of those they kill with the misused ones as collateral damage?
>
> [Hermit 3] That required air delivery and most of the kills were caused by
> cluster sub-munitions. They cannot deliver by air as they have a shortage of
> functional aircraft (and pilots),
>
This is one of the primary reasons behind a no-fly zone; to preclude the chemical
assault upon civilian population centers. They don't have many fixed wings left, but
they still have plenty of helos, and they are perhaps better suited to the task of
annihilating small villages.
>
> and any other mechanism requires either a
> very high risk to the personnel delivering such packages or an enclosed area
> (not common). I have shown that they could produce chlorine in other ways in
> sufficient quantity for weapons production, but not for water purification.
> In any case, if they used this method to kill Kurds they would be stupid.
> They could use “legitimate” methods to solve the “problem” - like
> starvation, imprisonment, disease and judicial executions – like the Turks.
> And the people of Iraq are not renowned for stupidity (except perhaps in
> underestimating the American habit of turning on their erstwhile allies).
>
Actually, they have been employing these means.
>
> [Hermit 2] But this was not true prior to 1991 when Iraq was the fastest
> growing regional economy. And it is not caused by him according to every UN
> program that has reported on the situation there. I wonder why you
> [i]believe[/i] otherwise? Can you provide me with a source?
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I believe otherwise because I know about all the money going in
> there,
>
> [Hermit 3] Quantify, accessible source please.
>
Through all the illegal oil being sold to border states 9it's mentioned in the above
URL's) as well as the resale of what is purchased with those petrobillions they are
allowed to sell.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] and I know that if it weren't being misspent, that he'd lose
> his WMD programs,
>
> [Hermit 3] Source? The UN says they don't exist. The US says they do. There
> seems to be a conflict. What [i]evidence[/i] do you have as to which to
> believe? Bearing in mind the difficulty of proving a negative, I assume that
> you have access to material proving the ongoing existence of these programs,
> evidence that I have not seen pass through either Jane's or FAS.
>
I have the testimony of the head of the inspection program.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] a pampered and therefore loyal military,
>
> [Hermit 3] I very much doubt that the military are pampered. During the Gulf
> war, many of the soldiers were malnourished. Are you suggesting that after a
> decade of starvation diet, that they are better off than they were in the
> early 1990s, when you claimed that "because they were already on a military
> footing, preparing to seize Kuwait and beyond" a little earlier? Surely
> their soldiers should have been in better condition back then, prior to
> sanctions and preparing to seize Kuwait and all that?
>
The Republican Guards, Saddam's elite, get fed even if everyone else must starve;
this is one source of their loyalty (another being familial ties with the tribes furnishing
most of their membership).
>
> [Joe Dees 3] and the horror stories he loves to regale swayable people like
> you with.
>
> [Hermit 3] First slippery slope, now ad hominem? Don't like losing? My
> conclusions have been formed as a result of a long process of reviewing
> American and UN source materials, carefully distinguishing between assertion
> and proven issues and classing all material as open to question. This is
> very contrary to the impression you are creating of simply accepting media
> related assertions. I am systematically making the material I have located
> available, so that others can decide for themselves. As an unnecessary
> aside, I am not generally considered swayable. Hell, even you should know
> that this can't be true, or you would presumably not be having such
> difficulty making a case.
>
I did not say that you would be swayed by anything that showed the US in anything
other than a demonic light, or its enemies in anything other than an angelic one.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] I have nothing against providing the Iraqi people with the
> ability to make or import everything they need, so long as such provisions
> are not abused by a certain dictator who has and most certainly would abuse
> them, to our pain and dismay.
>
> [Hermit 3] I don't see this at all. I have shown (Congressional Committee
> evidence) that the US provided Iraq with weaponized biowarfare precursors
> and that the decision to do so was approved by State and Defense - Iraq
> didn't lie about that at all. The US, Britain, French and Germans provided
> them with nuclear and chemical expertise and plants until the very outbreak
> of hostilities and the process was reviewed. Iraq didn't lie about that
> either.
>
The US and its allies miscalculated in considering that Saddam could be a responsible
world leader; the US, at least, is certainly not making that mistake again.
>
> Iraq lost hundreds of thousands of people in the Gulf War. America
> lost 147 in combat and a few hundred more in casualties in a war, which I
> have shown (the memoirs of Powell and Schwarzkopf, statements by Bush and
> State) they appear to have been determined to force on Iraq. Since then Iraq
> has lost over a million people and the US has lost none, but believes
> (Albright) that this cost (which the US is not paying) is worthwhile. The US
> economy boomed due to accelerated Gulf War spending and increased consumer
> confidence (Federal Reserve). The UN thinks that Iraq will have to spend $
> 70 billion to recover just their basic infrastructure. The sanctions have
> cost Iraq at least 150 billion in forex (DOE and CIA estimates). In terms of
> pain, it looks to me that Iraq is doing all the feeling. Asserted US dismay
> (and belief that it is “worthwhile”) is cheap when they are not doing the
> paying.
>
They do not have to pay if they get another leader or the leader they have gets a
permanent attack of reason. Until then, better them than us (and that is the alternative
that Iraq's attempt to assassinate an ex-president proved was Saddam's bottom line). I
would perfer that it be neither, but that is not an alternative acceptable to Saddam.
>
> [Hermit 2] Iraq believes, possibly with reason, that this won't make a
> difference. The example of Iran shows that they may be correct. The UN does
> not believe that Iraq can deliver WMDs. The US possesses WMDs and has the
> ability to deliver them. Are you advocating that the US abandon its WMD
> programs?
>
> [Joe Dees 3] We don't plan to do what Hussein has tried to do.
>
> [Hermit 3] Iraq could not do to anyone what the US has done to Iraq. Period.
> Thus this statement is demonstrably untrue.
>
We have not gassed Iraqi civilians, but HE has, so obviously he has done that which
we were unwilling to do.
And we plan to keep it that way (ref. your above statement), because he would attempt
to do anything he though he could do.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] And the US is indeed reducing their arsenals of nuclear
> weapons, curtailing their chemical weapons programs, and ended their
> biological weapons program (perhaps prematurely, since we need to keep
> biological defence current), we are doing these things as fast as we can
> persuade other major powers with these capabilities to verifiably accompany
> us.
>
> [Hermit 3] Are you deaf to what the rest of the world has said about the
> unilateral abrogation of SALT or don't you care? Same question goes for
> landmines. While the number of missiles has decreased (largely due to the
> reduction in the number of boomers and completely ineffective fixed silos)
> in the last 15 years, the number of warheads has actually increased (due to
> increased deployment of MIRVs) (Jane’s and FAS). Reductions tend to be cost
> cutting driven (Senate Reports, FAS and Jane’s). The weaponized bio and
> chemical materials are largely still stockpiled due to the hazards of
> disposal (EPA and DoD). As the recent stories coming out in Congress about
> the very iffy goings on in various biowarfare labs reflects, research in
> Biowarfare has continued under the guise of preventive measures. The fact
> that the US has limited inspections (Senate record and US Law) and has
> unilaterally abrogated the world's major strategic arms limitation agreement
> (CIS and European analysis and comment, Jane’s and FAS) and failed to ratify
> any others (same) is hardly conducive persuading others to accept our bona
> fides.
>
Total US warheads have decreased from a max of 50,000 to less than a quarter of
that, and we are negotiating with Russia to drop them to less than 3000 apiece. As for
the abrogation of SALT, while I do not agree with Son of Star Wars because I think
that it spends a lot of money failing to protect us against a nonexistent threat, it is not a
warhead-producing program. I support the banning of landmines, all the while
realizing that they are too easy to make to ever be entirely eliminated. The US is the
leading source of personnel presently removing landmines from Afghanistan. And I am
in favor if high-temperature incinerators with extensive exhaust filtration, or chemical
plants designed to deconstruct them to their precursors, to dispose of chemical
weapons
>
> [Joe Dees 3] If you are going to type a moral equivalence between the
> aggrandizing territorial ambitions of that bloodthirsty madman
>
> [Hermit 3] Your assertion. Found it. Saddam Hussein complained about his
> neighbor (Kuwait) stealing from his country and selling what they stole to
> their friends (US oil companies). His neighbor’s friends (UK and US) told
> him to fuck himself. He asked if he could deal with it himself. He was told
> that nobody cared if he did. He did so. The US went stratospheric, made like
> playground bullies (while claiming the moral high-ground) and forced him to
> go home bleeding. Again, I see Bush as being the bloodthirsty madman - not
> Saddam Hussein.
>
Your characterization is proof of your myopia in this matter. Saddam's ambitions
stretched far beyond Kuwait, and had to be blunted. If all he wanted to do was stop
slant drilling, he could've just invaded a half a dozen miles and destroyed the offending
oilwelld, instead of conquering the entire country (which he then annexed) and while
he was being tossed out on his ear, committing Parthian ecocide by torching the whole
damned field.
>
> [Refer
> [url=http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin11.html]Behind Colin
> Powell's Legend: Dodging Peace[/url]. I see Saddam as a small time tribal
> leader, with little grasp of International matters, an aggressive
> disposition and a poor line in rhetoric. Not unlike President Bush II but
> without the religious motivations.
>
US presidents do not have their governmental opposition executed en masse, as
saddam did when he visited the Iraqi parliament one time, or kill the generals that fall
out of their favor.
>
> [Joe Dees 3] and the requested military assistance agaist despots and
> aggressors and the humanitarian aid that the US has endeavored to provide to
> many countries without even a thought of holding on to their territory,
>
> [Hermit 3] I'd like to think that this were true and am (evidently) prepared
> to spend a great deal of effort on the matter. Yet everywhere I look, the
> more I look, the less of what you claim to be the case is apparent to me. My
> conclusion is tending towards the impression that the US seeks a very
> submissive obedience to her every whim, irrespective of the rationality (or
> lack of it), and will act completely without hesitation or compunction if
> this is not offered. That she is completely unmindful of issues of
> sovereignty or International law, like any bully, riding roughshod over the
> interests or legitimate concerns of others. That her interests are
> completely defined by her cupidity and easily driven ill-educated public
> opinion. That she is gullible and tyrannical at the same time - a very
> volatile combination. That she will force her opinion on any other country,
> by fair means or foul. As foul is generally cheaper, foul seems to be
> preferred option. That her political system was designed well, but that it
> was not sufficiently protected from rogues, knaves and selfish fools to be
> self-correcting in the face of the massive deliberate abuse inflicted upon
> her by those most nearly responsible for implementing the mechanisms of her
> political systems. That if any positive change is to occur, it will likely
> be via a memetically driven grass-roots movement, as the formal media and
> the political machines are so incestuously coupled and interdependent that
> change will not come from mainstream sources; and besides, that her media is
> so trivialized and the populace itself very largely so poorly educated that
> her populace is unable to form an independent opinion, and are not only
> unable to address weighty issues, but completely fail to grasp their
> responsibility to ensure that the system operates effectively.
>
Canada's North of you, and Mexico's to the South.
The last three times we committed troops, it was to help others, in fact, Muslims; the
humanitarian aid mission in Somalia (look what THAT got us), the ending of ethnic
cleansing in Bosnia, and the liberation of a captured Kuwait. You can criticize us for
actually being benefitted by some of these, but I never considered a win-win situation
to be a disqualifying factor. The same situation is presently unfolding in Afghanistan;
we are ridding ourselves of a terrorist base, and freeing a whole lot of oppressed and
downtrodden people. You are basically voicing the leftist doppelganger of the 'vast
right-wing conspiracy' argument, but while large corporations do own most media
outlets, they are in zero-sum media competition, and are too greedy to let the chance
to sing a juicy canary song about ANY administration pass them by, especially if it's a
scoop (see Enron and Arthur Anderson).
>
> [Joe Dees 3] then we truly have nothing whatsoever to discuss, because
> obviously we are not just speaking from differing perspectives, but from
> different planets.
>
> [Hermit 3] Only you can decide that. I haven't given up on you yet :-/ I
> think that I am doing exactly what the US constitution was designed to
> encourage.
>
Voicing your misconceptions so that I might remove your ocular scales?
>
> [Hermit 3] Imagining that analysis and constructive criticism constitutes an
> attack is, in my opinion, exactly what the US constitution was most intended
> to avoid. After all, of what value is protected free speech if nobody dare
> say “we are making a mistake”, “our leaders cannot be trusted” or even “we
> are acting wrongly.” I would suggest that in stating that if we disagree
> then discussion is futile, you are also saying that the system is
> irrevocably broken. Having met many Americans (including the majority of
> "ordinary people" as well as scientists, military and political leaders) who
> appear to think otherwise, I am far from reaching that conclusion. Having
> made the US my home, I hope that I may help to make some difference in my
> perspective of the above by working through the system to persuade others
> that the current regime is not the best way to interact with the world. As
> you can no doubt imagine, this discussion is taking huge quantities of time
> that I would rather spend on creating suggestions for the future rather than
> investigating the mistakes of the past, so if you wish to drop the
> discussion, let me know and I will accept that (but you would need to drop
> your assertions about the superiority of the US and the evils of Islam
> (rather than all semitic religions) or be prepared to take up this
> discussion again).
>
I will NEVER stop discussing the truth of the supreme and bloodthirsty memetic
virulence potential of Islam, nor how easily a fundamentalist populace (who are
condemned to death, according to the Koran, should they choose to leave the religion
once they have embraced it) can be seduced and indeed per-coerced down the
slippery slope into memebotic jihadhood. I consider it to be the most profound
challenge to the continued existence and eventual advancement of a civilized,
democratic, egalitarian postmodern world that presently inheres in the globe. The
most profound influence in favor of such continued existence and eventual
advancement of such a world remains the US and Western Europe.
>
> Regards
>
> Hermit
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:42 MDT