Reply posted to alt.politics.

--

FF

I see it didn't take long for the Ward Churchill "blowback" rhetoric to be
picked up.

I don't know who Ward Churchill is, but I first person I heard use the term
is Chalmers Johnson.

Apparently MP feels that inspectors being kept out for a decade, and then
led around on a short leash, qualifies as "were working".

Apparently your information is incorrect. Have you read any of the reports
by Butler, Ritter, or Blix? Or even the latest round of inspections by the
US team?

Give me ten minutes to hide a 20 dollar bill in my office. I'll give
you one minute to find it. If you can't find it, then it's not there.
Nobody would agree to that, yet that's exactly what they say is true in
Iraq. And Iraq is a hell of a lot bigger than my office.

Your analogy is simplistic, misleading and has nothing to do with the
weapons inspections in Iraq.

Dan White wrote:
"Rob Mitchell" wrote in message
...

I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind of
environment you have in Iraq, at least not one that is favourable to the
US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for many years, and in the
end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will be brought in, and all the
while, N. Korea will be making 8 A-bombs/year, or so I've heard.
(according to Professor Graham Allison of Harvard -the number may not be
accurate, who really knows.)



History may not support your guess. Look at Italy, Germany and Japan after
WW2. People said the exact same thing about those places, and look at them
now. I think we were in Japan for 7 years, and people said they were
basically unable to support a democracy. I don't see a reason for your
extremely negative spin on the potential outcome in Iraq other than sour
grapes. If some form of democracy and real peace comes out of Iraq the
skeptics will have nothing left to complain about. I'd say that so far Iraq
is on track. I don't know the final outcome, either, but I see no reason to
conclude that the effort is sure to fail. But, you are entitled to your
opinion of course.

dwhite


I'd love to be proven wrong. As for fighting insurgencies, perhaps
Vietnam would be a better example. Japan might be a reasonable
comparison, I don't know enough about it other than it was bombed pretty
heavily at the end.

One encouragement that I have seen is that in order to win this kind of
fight you have to build alliances with the factions. The US seems to
have a good alliance with the Kurds, and possibly with the Shia. Other
than that, I haven't heard or read much that is promising.

Rob

If some form of democracy and real peace comes out of Iraq the
skeptics will have nothing left to complain about. I'd say that so far
Iraq
is on track.

Iraq is on track all right, to becoming a theocracy. With a 60% Shiite
majority it's a very real and very likely possibility. Probably not at all
what GW and his warlords had in mind. Can you say blowback?

"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Rob Mitchell" wrote in message
...

I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind of
environment you have in Iraq, at least not one that is favourable to
the US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for many years, and in
the end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will be brought in, and
all the while, N. Korea will be making 8 A-bombs/year, or so I've
heard. (according to Professor Graham Allison of Harvard -the number
may not be accurate, who really knows.)


History may not support your guess. Look at Italy, Germany and Japan
after WW2. People said the exact same thing about those places, and
look at them now. I think we were in Japan for 7 years, and people
said they were basically unable to support a democracy. I don't see a
reason for your extremely negative spin on the potential outcome in
Iraq other than sour grapes. If some form of democracy and real peace
comes out of Iraq the skeptics will have nothing left to complain
about. I'd say that so far Iraq is on track. I don't know the final
outcome, either, but I see no reason to conclude that the effort is
sure to fail. But, you are entitled to your opinion of course.

"Eighteen months after we occupied Germany, the nation was de-Nazified and
pacified. Eighteen months after we occupied Iraq, Islamic fundamentalism is
on the rise and, as Colin Powell now concedes, "We are fighting an intense
insurgency [and] .... it’s getting worse." -- Pat Buchanan, The American
Conservative Magazine, Oct 25 2004.

Looks like conservatives like Pat Buchanan are also putting forth an
extremely negative spin that must be sour grapes.

Rick Cook wrote in
:

Dan White wrote:
"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...

What's astounding to me is the total lack of skepticism towards the
administration. It's almost like people desperately want to believe
the convenient party line. But when they positively claim evidence
of WMD and all they can turn up is yellow cake, aluminum tubes, and
bogus mobile weapons labs doesn't it cause you to wonder? And when
they claim Iraqi support of terrorism in the wake of 9/11, but all
that can be proven are links to anti-Israeli terrorist groups,
doesn't it begin to strain the credibility?

It seems clear that the policy to invade Iraq was set first, and the
justification was adapted later to suit the circumstances.



There's your problem in a nutshell. You are accusing the admin of
some secret motivation in Iraq that you can't really explain without
sounding like a Michael Moore kook. So what was the real story,
Nate? Can you answer without using the terms "Bush's father," or the
"Saudi connection," or "Halliburton"?

For somebody who is so intent on investigating and picking apart all
details of the Iraq situation, I'd like to see you put the same
effort into telling us all the REAL reason we went there, AND provide
the same good, solid evidence you are demanding of the rest of us.

dwhite


You're wasting your time, Dan.
Nate is so deeply committed to his position that he warps the entire
world to 'support' it. Naturally in his view the administration and
those who agree with them are capable of any kind of perfidity,
stupidity, lie or underhanded act to further a policy whose
motivations cannot be in any sense pure.

The eagerness to mischaracterize the opinions of the opposition is one
of the distinguishing hallmarks of the neo-cons.

Of course I never said anything approaching your attribution of
perfidity, stupidity, or even lie ... but that doesn't keep you from
saying I have.

As for the "purity" of the administration's actions, give me a break.
What do you want us to think they are choirboys or something?


What you're seeing is the perversion of politics in our age into a
game in which one's opponents cannot merely be wrong, but must be
utterly evil. (And yes, you can find exactly the same twisted thinking
on the other side of the political divide as well.)

Oh, I agree entirely. Most of the "good vs evil" guys are not coming
from my side of the political divide, though.

It's tragic and it's going to cost this country dearly.

Too late, it already has. Failure to see things in anything but a rigid
ideology has given us tax cuts on top of staggering deficits, it's given
us the ascendancy of the Christian fundamentalists, its given us the
ill-advised (to put it mildly) war in Iraq. You don't have my side of
the political divide to thank for those things.

You'll note in this case he ignored all the evidence of groups which
attacked Americans directly because it contradicts his illusion.

Nonsense. You want to justify the invasion of Iraq based on the murder
of Leon Klinghoffer during the Achille Lauro hijacking 20 years ago???
Wow, now there's a reach for you.

There's simply no point arguing with him. He can't teach, he won't
learn and he just wastes your time.

(And for the record -- and the ideologues who might be listening -- I
am
a long way from uncritically supporting the Bush II or any other
administration. But we can expect that statement to be ignored.)

Sure doesn't look that way from what I've seen of your posts.

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:45:55 GMT, (Doug Miller) wrote:

In article , "mp" wrote:

Israel is the worst violator of UN resolutions in the world.

How about supplying some examples?

In this case, mp is factually correct. The problem is that the UN,
stacked heavily by anti-semitic interests has passed numerous resolutions
that condemn Israel for various actions. Things such as detaining and
*gasp* imprisoning Palestinians who were building bombs or facilitating
those building bombs to kill Israelli civilians are roundly condemned and
various resolutions have been passed to instruct Israel to "cease and
desist" such violations of Palestinian civil rights. Numerous other
examples exist, most of which essentially tell Israel that it has no right
to protect its borders or civilians and that any actions to do so
constitute the violation of Palestinian civil rights and autonomy. The
resolutions essentially ignore the fact that those who are attacking Israel
deny its very right to exist while condemning Israel for any slight that
inconveniences those who have devoted their lives to its destruction.




+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:55:35 -0800, "mp" wrote:

If some form of democracy and real peace comes out of Iraq the
skeptics will have nothing left to complain about. I'd say that so far
Iraq
is on track.

Iraq is on track all right, to becoming a theocracy. With a 60% Shiite
majority it's a very real and very likely possibility. Probably not at all
what GW and his warlords had in mind. Can you say blowback?


You know mp, you become even less credible when you pick up and start
echoing talking points. Especially talking points with very little
semantic meaning.


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Rick Cook" wrote in message
...

There's simply no point arguing with him. He can't teach, he won't
learn and he just wastes your time.


I know, I said the same thing myself a week ago. Your post on
terrorist activity in Iraq was good, and provided everything a
reasonable observer would want to see. Couple this with the 12 year
cease fire, violation of every resolution, and it is plain we had to
act. People also forget that it also became necessary to force the
UN's hand. Bush was right when he said that the UN will become
irrelevant if it cannot enforce its own resolutions. Funny as it
sounds, Bush probably helped save the UN by following through on its
"threats."

"Plain we had to act" ... "violation of every resolution" ... "had to force
the UN's hand". Yeah, sure. You conveniently forget that all of those
claims for urgency of action, violation of resolutions, and need to force
the UN hand were all because Iraq didn't disclose its WMD programs to our
satisfaction.

Of course the tragic joke is that we now know that it had no WMD programs
to disclose.

(Doug Miller) wrote in
. com:

In article , "mp"
wrote:
The weapons inspections were working, and Blix was almost finished.
There was no need to rush in. What Bush did is create a record level
of anti-American sentiment not just in the middle east but throughout
the world. There will be blowback for years to come.

You're either very young, or very naive, if you believe that there was
not already substantial anti-American sentiment in the middle east and
throughout the world before Bush ever took office.

Straight out of Fox News for you, Doug:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114608,00.html

Dave Hinz wrote in
:

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:48:06 GMT, Doug Miller
wrote:
In article , "mp"
wrote:
The weapons inspections were working, and Blix was almost finished.
There was no need to rush in. What Bush did is create a record level
of anti-American sentiment not just in the middle east but throughout
the world. There will be blowback for years to come.

You're either very young, or very naive, if you believe that there
was not already substantial anti-American sentiment in the middle
east and throughout the world before Bush ever took office.

Apparently MP feels that inspectors being kept out for a decade, and
then led around on a short leash, qualifies as "were working".

Give me ten minutes to hide a 20 dollar bill in my office. I'll give
you one minute to find it. If you can't find it, then it's not there.
Nobody would agree to that, yet that's exactly what they say is true
in Iraq. And Iraq is a hell of a lot bigger than my office.

Oh, another of those people that still think the WMDs are there, somewhere.

Really. How sad.

Rob Mitchell wrote:
Dan White wrote:

"Rob Mitchell" wrote in message
...

I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind of
environment you have in Iraq, at least not one that is favourable to the
US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for many years, and in the
end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will be brought in, and all the
while, N. Korea will be making 8 A-bombs/year, or so I've heard.
(according to Professor Graham Allison of Harvard -the number may not be
accurate, who really knows.)



History may not support your guess. Look at Italy, Germany and Japan
after
WW2. People said the exact same thing about those places, and look at
them
now. I think we were in Japan for 7 years, and people said they were
basically unable to support a democracy. I don't see a reason for your
extremely negative spin on the potential outcome in Iraq other than sour
grapes. If some form of democracy and real peace comes out of Iraq the
skeptics will have nothing left to complain about. I'd say that so
far Iraq
is on track. I don't know the final outcome, either, but I see no
reason to
conclude that the effort is sure to fail. But, you are entitled to your
opinion of course.

dwhite


I'd love to be proven wrong. As for fighting insurgencies, perhaps
Vietnam would be a better example.

Mercifully the situation in Iraq has very little in common with Vietnam.
Most of what we were fighting in Vietnam, especially after Tet, was the
North Vietnamese army, with heavy outside support from the Soviet Union
and China. It was not actually an 'insurgency' in the usual sense of the
term.

The Iraqi insurgents don't have the outside lines of supply and they
have only very limited support bases in other countries. Militarily,
it's a much simpler proposition.

Japan might be a reasonable
comparison, I don't know enough about it other than it was bombed pretty
heavily at the end.

Actually Japan isn't a very good example either. The Japanese remained
under the control of their government, and especially the Emperor, up to
the end of the war and beyond. When the Emperor told the Japanese to
stop fighting, they stopped. There hasn't been a figure in Iraq with
that kind of power and prestige for hundreds of years.

Germany is a much closer example, or perhaps Greece or Italy. In all
cases the countries were able to establish working democracies. This is
in spite of a Communist-backed insurgency/civil war in Greece.

One encouragement that I have seen is that in order to win this kind of
fight you have to build alliances with the factions.

Well, someone has to build alliances. In this case I think that's the
job of the Iraqi government. It's worth noting that the Iraqi government
is working hard to do exactly that.

The US seems to
have a good alliance with the Kurds, and possibly with the Shia. Other
than that, I haven't heard or read much that is promising.

Actually one the best things that happened along those lines is the
outcome of the election. The Shia parties won a strong majority, but not
enough to govern. They're going to have to form a coalition, probably
with the Kurds (who are Sunni Muslims) and that means that an awful lot
of stuff is going to have to be negotiated between the various parties
in the assembly.

It's reason to be a little more optimistic, but not euphoric.

Rob

mp wrote:

Iraq is on track all right, to becoming a theocracy. With a 60% Shiite
majority it's a very real and very likely possibility. Probably not at all
what GW and his warlords had in mind. Can you say blowback?


MP

Don't the Iraqi people have the right to choose the form of government
that they want? Separation of religion and state is a western ideal,
but is not Islamic. Islam is a way of life, and governs all aspects of
life, both religious and civil. I don't think we should even try to
force our form of government on them, let alone insist on a government
friendly to the USA.

You and I may not like the Iranian form of government
(democracy+theocracy), but I think that over time, if we continue to
engage them rather than shut them out and threaten them, positive
changes will take place. They have elected representatives and there is
a struggle within the society today to find a better balance. Sometimes
it works, sometimes it is violently repressed.

Two years ago, a Canadian journalist (dual Iranian citizenship) was
taking pictures outside a prison in Tehran. She was arrested and died
while in custody, allegedly by being beaten/tortured. Canada pressed
Iran to investigate and eventually there was an investigation. Some low
level guards were charged and found guilty. Now, there are ripples
within the government, following further pressure that may lead to some
higher ups being charged too. There has been good pressure from the
Europeans, and Iran values those trading relationships. The Canadian
position is that by engaging people rather than isolating them you can
pressure them to improve their human rights.

I'm sure I'll get hammered for this, too naive etc, but diplomacy does
work sometimes. The alternative is more violence, killing and hatred.

In this case, mp is factually correct. The problem is that the UN,
stacked heavily by anti-semitic interests has passed numerous resolutions
that condemn Israel for various actions. Things such as detaining and
*gasp* imprisoning Palestinians who were building bombs or facilitating
those building bombs to kill Israelli civilians are roundly condemned and
various resolutions have been passed to instruct Israel to "cease and
desist" such violations of Palestinian civil rights. Numerous other
examples exist, most of which essentially tell Israel that it has no right
to protect its borders or civilians and that any actions to do so
constitute the violation of Palestinian civil rights and autonomy. The
resolutions essentially ignore the fact that those who are attacking
Israel
deny its very right to exist while condemning Israel for any slight that
inconveniences those who have devoted their lives to its destruction.

Israel has every right to protect itself, but they don't have the right to
encroach on Palestinian territories and treat the Palestinians the way they
do. Most of the resolutions against Israel have to do with human rights
abuses against the Palestinians. If Israel's objective is to protect it's
land and borders it could achieve it quite easily by building it's
separation barrier along the green line and getting out of the territories.
That would be acceptable to most members of the United Nations, as well as
to the Palestinians themselves. The problem is that Israel does not have any
interest in a separate autonomous Palestinian state. They prefer to keep the
Palestinians under their thumb while they continue to expand the
settlements.

Iraq is on track all right, to becoming a theocracy. With a 60% Shiite
majority it's a very real and very likely possibility. Probably not at all
what GW and his warlords had in mind. Can you say blowback?


You know mp, you become even less credible when you pick up and start
echoing talking points. Especially talking points with very little
semantic meaning.

Please spare me the bit about talking points as I don't follow any party
lines nor do I care what they have to say on the matter.

It's well known that the Shiite majority wants an Islamic state and they'll
likely get it unless a third party runs political interference.

Don't the Iraqi people have the right to choose the form of government
that they want?

You bet!

Separation of religion and state is a western ideal, but is not Islamic.
Islam is a way of life, and governs all aspects of life, both religious
and civil. I don't think we should even try to force our form of
government on them, let alone insist on a government friendly to the USA.

Agreed. Democracy or Theocracy, it's their choice. However, a Theocracy (and
a closer association with Iran) would not serve the interests of the current
US administration.

In article . 201, Nate Perkins wrote:
(Doug Miller) wrote in
.com:

In article , "mp"
wrote:
The weapons inspections were working, and Blix was almost finished.
There was no need to rush in. What Bush did is create a record level
of anti-American sentiment not just in the middle east but throughout
the world. There will be blowback for years to come.

You're either very young, or very naive, if you believe that there was
not already substantial anti-American sentiment in the middle east and
throughout the world before Bush ever took office.

Straight out of Fox News for you, Doug:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114608,00.html

Nate, you really, really, *really* need to work on your reading comprehension.

I never disputed the contention that there is considerable anti-American
sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere, nor even that it's gotten worse in
the last few years. My point is that this is _nothing_new_.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
"Dan White" wrote in
news
"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...

What's astounding to me is the total lack of skepticism towards the
administration. It's almost like people desperately want to believe
the convenient party line. But when they positively claim evidence
of WMD and all they can turn up is yellow cake, aluminum tubes, and
bogus mobile weapons labs doesn't it cause you to wonder? And when
they claim Iraqi support of terrorism in the wake of 9/11, but all
that can be proven are links to anti-Israeli terrorist groups,
doesn't it begin to strain the credibility?

It seems clear that the policy to invade Iraq was set first, and the
justification was adapted later to suit the circumstances.


There's your problem in a nutshell. You are accusing the admin of
some secret motivation in Iraq that you can't really explain without
sounding like a Michael Moore kook. So what was the real story, Nate?
Can you answer without using the terms "Bush's father," or the "Saudi
connection," or "Halliburton"?

"The real story?" OK, here's the real story. The American people were
told that Iraq represented a "grave and gathering threat" that might
next manifest itself in terms of "a mushroom cloud."

Now we know there are no WMDs. There was no collaborative relationship
with Al Qaeda. The "evidence" for mobile weapons labs, aluminum tubes,
drones, etc etc all turned out to be bulls**t.

So now the administration says that our real reason to go into Iraq was
to "spread freedom and democracy." Right. As if the country or
Congress would have supported going to war for that reason alone.

And of course you guys want to claim that anyone who recognizes or
questions this shifting rationale for war is "a Michael Moore kook."


For somebody who is so intent on investigating and picking apart all
details of the Iraq situation, I'd like to see you put the same effort
into telling us all the REAL reason we went there, AND provide the
same good, solid evidence you are demanding of the rest of us.

Who knows? The effort would be pure speculation and a waste of time.
Perhaps you are looking for some kind of conspiracy theory? DAGS -- you
can probably find one to suit your taste.

Or maybe you want me to say it's all about oil (well, ok, I do believe
that if Iraq had no oil we probably wouldn't care).

Personally I think that what we are seeing is the probable outcome when
the group in power sees everything in black and white rather than in
shades of gray. Add to that the apparent desire to make a bold mark on
history, and an apparent inability to distinguish good counsel (Colin
Powell and Richard Clarke) from bad counsel (Doug Feith and Ahmed
Chalabi), and you get a pretty reckless mix.


Do you think it is possible for us to eliminate terrorism in our country and
leave the Middle East status quo in tact at the same time? Do you think we
should even try to make sure another attack doesn't happen again?

dwhite

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Rob Mitchell" wrote in message
...

I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind of
environment you have in Iraq, at least not one that is favourable to
the US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for many years, and in
the end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will be brought in, and
all the while, N. Korea will be making 8 A-bombs/year, or so I've
heard. (according to Professor Graham Allison of Harvard -the number
may not be accurate, who really knows.)


History may not support your guess. Look at Italy, Germany and Japan
after WW2. People said the exact same thing about those places, and
look at them now. I think we were in Japan for 7 years, and people
said they were basically unable to support a democracy. I don't see a
reason for your extremely negative spin on the potential outcome in
Iraq other than sour grapes. If some form of democracy and real peace
comes out of Iraq the skeptics will have nothing left to complain
about. I'd say that so far Iraq is on track. I don't know the final
outcome, either, but I see no reason to conclude that the effort is
sure to fail. But, you are entitled to your opinion of course.

"Eighteen months after we occupied Germany, the nation was de-Nazified and
pacified. Eighteen months after we occupied Iraq, Islamic fundamentalism
is
on the rise and, as Colin Powell now concedes, "We are fighting an intense
insurgency [and] .... it’s getting worse." -- Pat Buchanan, The American
Conservative Magazine, Oct 25 2004.

Looks like conservatives like Pat Buchanan are also putting forth an
extremely negative spin that must be sour grapes.

If you know anything about Pat Buchanan you would know this has nothing to
do with conservatives in general. Buchanan ran as a third party candidate,
remember? He is extremely protectionist, and just about nothing would
satisfy him.

dwhite

"mp" wrote in message
...
I know, I said the same thing myself a week ago. Your post on terrorist
activity in Iraq was good, and provided everything a reasonable observer
would want to see. Couple this with the 12 year cease fire, violation
of
every resolution, and it is plain we had to act.

Enforcement of UN resolutions is up to the Security Council, not the US.
If
you want to play UN cop, then there are other countries in the
neighbourhood
that are in violation of many more UN resolutions, like Israel and Turkey.
I
don't see them on the attack list.

That's because Bush doesn't see everything in black and white as you are
doing here. He is working diplomatically as much as possible.


People also forget that it
also became necessary to force the UN's hand. Bush was right when he
said
that the UN will become irrelevant if it cannot enforce its own
resolutions.

How hypocritical can you be? Israel is the worst violator of UN
resolutions
in the world.

Let's not turn this into Israel bashing. They have enough problems.


Funny as it sounds, Bush probably helped save the UN by following
through
on
its "threats."

The weapons inspections were working, and Blix was almost finished. There
was no need to rush in. What Bush did is create a record level of
anti-American sentiment not just in the middle east but throughout the
world. There will be blowback for years to come.


Yet they want to build a statue of Bush in the center of Baghdad. Go
figure.

dwhite

In article , "mp" wrote:

Israel has every right to protect itself, but they don't have the right to
encroach on Palestinian territories and treat the Palestinians the way they
do. Most of the resolutions against Israel have to do with human rights
abuses against the Palestinians.

OK, fine. Examples, please, so we can judge that for ourselves instead of
taking your word for it.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

Rob Mitchell wrote in
:

Don't the Iraqi people have the right to choose the form of government
that they want? Separation of religion and state is a western ideal,
but is not Islamic. Islam is a way of life, and governs all aspects
of life, both religious and civil. I don't think we should even try
to force our form of government on them, let alone insist on a
government friendly to the USA.

You and I may not like the Iranian form of government
(democracy+theocracy), but I think that over time, if we continue to
engage them rather than shut them out and threaten them, positive
changes will take place. They have elected representatives and there
is a struggle within the society today to find a better balance.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it is violently repressed.

Yes, the Iraqi people do have the right to choose the form of government
that they want.

I think the question is whether or not it is worth it to send our
country to war in Iraq, when the most likely outcome of a fully free
election is probably the victory of the Shiite theocratic parties. Is
it worth going to war in Iraq if the outcome is a government that looks
like Iran's?

Two years ago, a Canadian journalist (dual Iranian citizenship) was
taking pictures outside a prison in Tehran. She was arrested and died
while in custody, allegedly by being beaten/tortured. Canada pressed
Iran to investigate and eventually there was an investigation. Some
low level guards were charged and found guilty. Now, there are
ripples within the government, following further pressure that may
lead to some higher ups being charged too. There has been good
pressure from the Europeans, and Iran values those trading
relationships. The Canadian position is that by engaging people
rather than isolating them you can pressure them to improve their
human rights.

I'm sure I'll get hammered for this, too naive etc, but diplomacy does
work sometimes. The alternative is more violence, killing and hatred.

I think it works frequently. The US has a lot of tools to influence
oppressive regimes -- economic, diplomatic, political, military. Too
often lately, we rely on the military option alone.

(Doug Miller) wrote in
m:

In article . 201,
Nate Perkins wrote:
(Doug Miller) wrote in
y.com:

In article , "mp"
wrote:
The weapons inspections were working, and Blix was almost finished.
There was no need to rush in. What Bush did is create a record level
of anti-American sentiment not just in the middle east but
throughout the world. There will be blowback for years to come.

You're either very young, or very naive, if you believe that there
was not already substantial anti-American sentiment in the middle
east and throughout the world before Bush ever took office.

Straight out of Fox News for you, Doug:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114608,00.html

Nate, you really, really, *really* need to work on your reading
comprehension.

I never disputed the contention that there is considerable
anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere, nor even
that it's gotten worse in the last few years. My point is that this is
_nothing_new_.

More hairsplitting, Doug?

Just because a problem previously existed in a minor form, it does not
mean that it is desirable for the problem to manifest itself in a much
more major form.

The weapons inspections were working, and Blix was almost finished.
There was no need to rush in. What Bush did is create a record level
of anti-American sentiment not just in the middle east but
throughout the world. There will be blowback for years to come.

Maybe so, but on the other hand, it may discourage some countries or
individuals from actively pursuing that anti-American sentiment for fear of
being attacked by the USA.

"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
"Dan White" wrote in
news
"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...

What's astounding to me is the total lack of skepticism towards
the administration. It's almost like people desperately want to
believe the convenient party line. But when they positively claim
evidence of WMD and all they can turn up is yellow cake, aluminum
tubes, and bogus mobile weapons labs doesn't it cause you to
wonder? And when they claim Iraqi support of terrorism in the
wake of 9/11, but all that can be proven are links to anti-Israeli
terrorist groups, doesn't it begin to strain the credibility?

It seems clear that the policy to invade Iraq was set first, and
the justification was adapted later to suit the circumstances.


There's your problem in a nutshell. You are accusing the admin of
some secret motivation in Iraq that you can't really explain
without sounding like a Michael Moore kook. So what was the real
story, Nate?
Can you answer without using the terms "Bush's father," or the
"Saudi
connection," or "Halliburton"?

"The real story?" OK, here's the real story. The American people
were told that Iraq represented a "grave and gathering threat" that
might next manifest itself in terms of "a mushroom cloud."

Now we know there are no WMDs. There was no collaborative
relationship with Al Qaeda. The "evidence" for mobile weapons labs,
aluminum tubes, drones, etc etc all turned out to be bulls**t.

So now the administration says that our real reason to go into Iraq
was to "spread freedom and democracy." Right. As if the country or
Congress would have supported going to war for that reason alone.

And of course you guys want to claim that anyone who recognizes or
questions this shifting rationale for war is "a Michael Moore kook."


For somebody who is so intent on investigating and picking apart
all details of the Iraq situation, I'd like to see you put the same
effort into telling us all the REAL reason we went there, AND
provide the same good, solid evidence you are demanding of the rest
of us.

Who knows? The effort would be pure speculation and a waste of time.
Perhaps you are looking for some kind of conspiracy theory? DAGS --
you can probably find one to suit your taste.

Or maybe you want me to say it's all about oil (well, ok, I do
believe that if Iraq had no oil we probably wouldn't care).

Personally I think that what we are seeing is the probable outcome
when the group in power sees everything in black and white rather
than in shades of gray. Add to that the apparent desire to make a
bold mark on history, and an apparent inability to distinguish good
counsel (Colin Powell and Richard Clarke) from bad counsel (Doug
Feith and Ahmed Chalabi), and you get a pretty reckless mix.


Do you think it is possible for us to eliminate terrorism in our
country and leave the Middle East status quo in tact at the same time?
Do you think we should even try to make sure another attack doesn't
happen again?

Dan, didn't you just make a big deal out of plonking me? And here you
are, replying again.

To answer your question, I don't think it is ever possible to completely
eliminate the threat of terrorism in the US. But I think our pursuit of
ill-advised policies increases the likelihood of terrorism in the US.
Iraq is a prime example of a policy that does just that -- it increases
anti-Americanism abroad, increasing the ability of the fundamentalists
to recruit. It provides a training ground for their jihadists to gain
experience. And it provides them an opportunity to destabilize the
secular Middle East.

Instead of flexing our military muscle in the Middle East, we would be
better off to exercise some of the other tools in our toolbox. Economic
incentives, for one. Cultivate economic development and mutual trade
with the moderate countries in the Middle East. Prosperity and economic
development are bigger promoters of democracy than military might is.

Close our bases in Saudi Arabia. Those just give the Al Qaeda types
fuel for their fire, and it does little for us in a practical military
sense. Move them all to Qatar or elsewhere.

Stop our one-sided support for the Israelis. Use the threat of
withdrawing our foreign aid from Israel to force them into ceasing
settlement expansion. Promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on
mutual recognition and the 1967 boundaries. The Arab-Israeli conflict
has been the centerpoint of terrorism in the Middle East for decades,
and our recent work to promote Mideast peace has been window-dressing at
best.

And of course we should try to make sure another attack doesn't happen
in America again. Fundamental to that is to look critically at why the
first attack was allowed to happen. Frankly a lot of the administration
and a lot of the government agencies were all asleep at the wheel.
Frankly a lot of them are still miscommunicating and acting
inefficiently in this regard.

I think your implication is that by fighting them over there, we can
avoid fighting them over here. I think this is a bad assumption.
Really, it only took 19 of them to do the 9/11 attacks. Don't you
suppose that they can fight us with a few tens of thousands over there
and still find a way to send another 19 here?

"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Rob Mitchell" wrote in message
...

I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind
of environment you have in Iraq, at least not one that is
favourable to the US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for
many years, and in the end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will
be brought in, and all the while, N. Korea will be making 8
A-bombs/year, or so I've heard. (according to Professor Graham
Allison of Harvard -the number may not be accurate, who really
knows.)


History may not support your guess. Look at Italy, Germany and
Japan after WW2. People said the exact same thing about those
places, and look at them now. I think we were in Japan for 7
years, and people said they were basically unable to support a
democracy. I don't see a reason for your extremely negative spin
on the potential outcome in Iraq other than sour grapes. If some
form of democracy and real peace comes out of Iraq the skeptics
will have nothing left to complain about. I'd say that so far Iraq
is on track. I don't know the final outcome, either, but I see no
reason to conclude that the effort is sure to fail. But, you are
entitled to your opinion of course.

"Eighteen months after we occupied Germany, the nation was
de-Nazified and pacified. Eighteen months after we occupied Iraq,
Islamic fundamentalism
is
on the rise and, as Colin Powell now concedes, "We are fighting an
intense insurgency [and] .... it’s getting worse." -- Pat Buchanan,
The American Conservative Magazine, Oct 25 2004.

Looks like conservatives like Pat Buchanan are also putting forth an
extremely negative spin that must be sour grapes.

If you know anything about Pat Buchanan you would know this has
nothing to do with conservatives in general. Buchanan ran as a third
party candidate, remember? He is extremely protectionist, and just
about nothing would satisfy him.

Precisely, the policies of the Bush camp and of the neoconservatives (is
that the PC term?) are not representative of conservatives in general.
It isn't hard to find quite a few conservatives expressing reservations
toward or opposition to the war.

Are we to believe that all of these conservatives are just "putting
forth an extremely negative spin" that "must be sour grapes?"

"Nate Perkins"


Instead of flexing our military muscle in the Middle East, we would be
better off to exercise some of the other tools in our toolbox. Economic
incentives, for one. Cultivate economic development and mutual trade
with the moderate countries in the Middle East. Prosperity and economic
development are bigger promoters of democracy than military might is.


How much oil do we need to buy before you consider it cultivating
economic development? And wasn't Iraq sanctioned by the UN for
10 years or more? That seems like a big incentive to me.



Close our bases in Saudi Arabia. Those just give the Al Qaeda types
fuel for their fire, and it does little for us in a practical military
sense. Move them all to Qatar or elsewhere.


Is that what the Saudis want? Aren't we protecting them from
a hostile take over?


Stop our one-sided support for the Israelis. Use the threat of
withdrawing our foreign aid from Israel to force them into ceasing
settlement expansion. Promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on
mutual recognition and the 1967 boundaries. The Arab-Israeli conflict
has been the centerpoint of terrorism in the Middle East for decades,
and our recent work to promote Mideast peace has been window-dressing at
best.


Nonsense. Arafat had 95 percent of what he asked for. He wanted
the elimination of Israel, not co-operation. Even with Israel gone we
would still have terrorists because the extremists hate western culture,
what our freedoms have introduced into the world.



And of course we should try to make sure another attack doesn't happen
in America again. Fundamental to that is to look critically at why the
first attack was allowed to happen. Frankly a lot of the administration
and a lot of the government agencies were all asleep at the wheel.
Frankly a lot of them are still miscommunicating and acting
inefficiently in this regard.


Hindsight is 20/20 but I think they got the hint.



I think your implication is that by fighting them over there, we can
avoid fighting them over here. I think this is a bad assumption.
Really, it only took 19 of them to do the 9/11 attacks.


Not true. They had quite a bit of training and support from entities
that are out of business or on the run.


Don't you
suppose that they can fight us with a few tens of thousands over there
and still find a way to send another 19 here?


I didn't see any solutions from you except spend money in the mideast and
turn support away from Israel. I don't think you understand what they want.
The extremist don't want to live peacefully with the west and they'll keep
the moderates from it if they can.

That's because Bush doesn't see everything in black and white as you are
doing here. He is working diplomatically as much as possible.

You have a short memory. As you don't seem to recall, Bush was hell bent on
charging into Iraq, while the rest of the world was saying let's give
diplomacy a chance.

Let's not turn this into Israel bashing. They have enough problems.

Merely stating the facts isn't Israel bashing.

In article ,
ate says...
Don't the Iraqi people have the right to choose the form of government
that they want? Separation of religion and state is a western ideal,
but is not Islamic. Islam is a way of life, and governs all aspects of
life, both religious and civil.

Right! A way of life in which blasphemy is a capital crime, as is
converting a Muslim to any other religion.

And once the clerics take over, don't expect any more elections - other
than the kind Saddam had.

So we're spending billions to convert a secular dictatorship into a
religious dictatorship. Yep, just what the hawks had planned.

--
Homo sapiens is a goal, not a description

In article , "mp" wrote:
That's because Bush doesn't see everything in black and white as you are
doing here. He is working diplomatically as much as possible.

You have a short memory. As you don't seem to recall, Bush was hell bent on
charging into Iraq, while the rest of the world was saying let's give
diplomacy a chance.

What, *twelve*years* isn't enough of a chance?

Let's not turn this into Israel bashing. They have enough problems.

Merely stating the facts isn't Israel bashing.

OK, so state some facts: cite the UN resolutions that Israel is in violation
of, and let's examine them.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "mp"
wrote:
That's because Bush doesn't see everything in black and white as
you are
doing here. He is working diplomatically as much as possible.

You have a short memory. As you don't seem to recall, Bush was hell
bent on
charging into Iraq, while the rest of the world was saying let's
give
diplomacy a chance.

What, *twelve*years* isn't enough of a chance?

To be accurate, diplomacy was successful. Iraq had been
disarmed befor the US invaded.

If you want to prove me wrong, just show me the WMDs that
Iraq did not declare to UNMOVIC.

--

FF

On 15 Feb 2005 13:19:24 -0800, wrote:
Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "mp"
wrote:
That's because Bush doesn't see everything in black and white as
you are
doing here. He is working diplomatically as much as possible.

You have a short memory. As you don't seem to recall, Bush was hell
bent on
charging into Iraq, while the rest of the world was saying let's
give
diplomacy a chance.

What, *twelve*years* isn't enough of a chance?

To be accurate, diplomacy was successful. Iraq had been
disarmed befor the US invaded.

Riiiiiight. Tell you what, Fred. Give me 20 bucks, and 12 minutes
to hide it. Then, come into my office, and I'll give you a minute
to find it. If you can't, then it's not there, right?

If you want to prove me wrong, just show me the WMDs that
Iraq did not declare to UNMOVIC.

I suppose you don't acknowledge the sarin shell that injured
our guys who were disarming it, right? I mean, it only had
enough sarin in it to kill a few thousand, so it doesn't count
and all?

If you want to prove me wrong, just show me the WMDs that
Iraq did not declare to UNMOVIC.

I suppose you don't acknowledge the sarin shell that injured
our guys who were disarming it, right? I mean, it only had
enough sarin in it to kill a few thousand, so it doesn't count
and all?

You don't think a 30 year old expired relic from a previous conflict is
enough to justify a $300 billion and counting invasion, do you?

What about the 500 tonnes of chemical and biological agent stockpile that
Bush told the world Iraq was in possesion of? That's one million pounds of
chemical agents. The same stuff that Rumsfeld told us he knew where it was,
"in the area in and around Tikrit". How much of that alleged stockpile has
been found? The correct answer is not even one microscopic pore.

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 23:36:09 -0800, "mp" wrote:

Iraq is on track all right, to becoming a theocracy. With a 60% Shiite
majority it's a very real and very likely possibility. Probably not at all
what GW and his warlords had in mind. Can you say blowback?


You know mp, you become even less credible when you pick up and start
echoing talking points. Especially talking points with very little
semantic meaning.

Please spare me the bit about talking points as I don't follow any party
lines nor do I care what they have to say on the matter.

It's well known that the Shiite majority wants an Islamic state and they'll
likely get it unless a third party runs political interference.


Come on Nate. You came up with the phrase "blowback" all on your own?
That ranks right up there with "gravitas" and "hubris" just to name a
couple other meaningless terms churned out by the DNC and picked up by
every major news correspondent.




+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
"Dan White" wrote in
:

"Rick Cook" wrote in message
...

There's simply no point arguing with him. He can't teach, he won't
learn and he just wastes your time.


I know, I said the same thing myself a week ago. Your post on
terrorist activity in Iraq was good, and provided everything a
reasonable observer would want to see. Couple this with the 12 year
cease fire, violation of every resolution, and it is plain we had to
act. People also forget that it also became necessary to force the
UN's hand. Bush was right when he said that the UN will become
irrelevant if it cannot enforce its own resolutions. Funny as it
sounds, Bush probably helped save the UN by following through on its
"threats."

"Plain we had to act" ... "violation of every resolution" ... "had to
force
the UN's hand". Yeah, sure. You conveniently forget that all of those
claims for urgency of action, violation of resolutions, and need to force
the UN hand were all because Iraq didn't disclose its WMD programs to our
satisfaction.

Of course the tragic joke is that we now know that it had no WMD programs
to disclose.

Frankly, and I've said this in the past, I never cared whether they had
WMD's locked and loaded or not -- as far as justifying action is concerned.
WMD's were never stated to be an imminent threat -- that was something the
dems like to ascribe to Bush. He said they were a "gathering threat" and
they certainly were. I'm sure even you wouldn't disagree with the
scientists who attest to the fact that Saddam had the intent to restart his
nuclear program as soon as he could. There was plenty of justification of
taking out this loose cannon, but I'm not going to 'splain it again!

I also don't believe we can say there were no WMD's so confidently. The
evidence showed they were hiding something, and God knows we telegraphed our
punch for months and months.

dwhite

"mp" wrote in message
...
That's because Bush doesn't see everything in black and white as you are
doing here. He is working diplomatically as much as possible.

You have a short memory. As you don't seem to recall, Bush was hell bent
on
charging into Iraq, while the rest of the world was saying let's give
diplomacy a chance.


What world to you live in, honestly??? People with your position are the
same ones who usually ask why we didn't/don't go into N. Korea or Iran since
we went into Iraq. The answer is that there is a need for extensive
diplomacy until that step is taken. Iraq's number was up, diplomancy had
been exhausted, and the UN was becoming more and more corrupt to the point
of complete uselessness.

dwhite

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
"Dan White" wrote in
:

If you know anything about Pat Buchanan you would know this has
nothing to do with conservatives in general. Buchanan ran as a third
party candidate, remember? He is extremely protectionist, and just
about nothing would satisfy him.

Precisely, the policies of the Bush camp and of the neoconservatives (is
that the PC term?) are not representative of conservatives in general.
It isn't hard to find quite a few conservatives expressing reservations
toward or opposition to the war.

Are we to believe that all of these conservatives are just "putting
forth an extremely negative spin" that "must be sour grapes?"

"All these conservatives"? Politics 101 says that Repubs are strong on
defense, and Dems are weak on it. There's nothing "neo" about taking action
to defend ourselves even if it isn't PC with countries that are either
corrupt or have a different agenda from ours.

Pick another example. Buchanan is off the far end of the spectrum when it
comes to protectionism.

dwhite

"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
Rob Mitchell wrote in
:

I'm sure I'll get hammered for this, too naive etc, but diplomacy does
work sometimes. The alternative is more violence, killing and hatred.

I think it works frequently. The US has a lot of tools to influence
oppressive regimes -- economic, diplomatic, political, military. Too
often lately, we rely on the military option alone.

Name one modern instance where war was used before diplomacy was tried.

dwhite

"Upscale" wrote in message
...
The weapons inspections were working, and Blix was almost finished.
There was no need to rush in. What Bush did is create a record level
of anti-American sentiment not just in the middle east but
throughout the world. There will be blowback for years to come.

Maybe so, but on the other hand, it may discourage some countries or
individuals from actively pursuing that anti-American sentiment for fear
of
being attacked by the USA.


Exactly. That part of the world is ruled by whoever has the biggest stick.
They do not respect weakness (aka diplomacy when there is nothing to back up
the diplomacy).

dwhite