Our shallow victory

[I. M. Esperto]

Although many in this country have celebrated our military victory in Iraq
as some sort of awe-inspiring achievement, the fact is that the most
powerful military the world has ever seen, with all the latest, up-to-date,
high-tech weaponry, attacked a much weaker adversary crippled by over 12
years of strict economic sanctions, internationally supervised disarmament,
and constant low-grade warfare in the form of bombing sorties on select
targets in its southern and northern no-fly zones. For all practical
purposes, Iraq was a defenseless foe by virtue of having no air force and,
by comparison, crudely equipped forces. Did anyone really believe we would
not win this war?

Hundreds of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed in this war, with many
more severely injured, disfigured and maimed. Homes, businesses and entire
families have been wiped out under a hailstorm of 20,000 bombs dropped on
Iraq in just under a month. For generations to come, many more will suffer
the debilitating consequences of radioactive debris left behind by our use
of depleted uranium weaponry. Several thousand Iraqi soldiers were killed in
a brave but futile effort to defend their homeland against an invasion by
the world's superpower. Yet, in all of Bush's speeches to pray rightfully
for our troops and mourn the deaths of our own soldiers, not once did I hear
him exhort us to pray for the Iraqi survivors and respectfully mourn the
many Iraqis killed in this war. Is such lack of compassion for non-
Americans really something of which to be proud?

Even before the announcement of the end of fighting, the White
House began spewing forth belligerent threats in the direction of Syria,
Iran and North Korea. With an ominous sense of déjà vu, unfounded
allegations of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction have now been
launched at Syria. Do we as Americans really agree with Bush's push for
never-ending war?

Our leaders' patriotic call to pummel weaker nations may be a real ego-
booster to some who otherwise feel powerless in life, but U.S. citizens are
paying the ultimate price in many ways. For one, this war has only served to
create more hatred and resentment around the world against the U.S., making
us much less secure in the long run.

[BEagle]

Bad day, was it?


Yes, Bush and the Poodle probably decided to do it without much hard evidence - sorry about the Iraqi soldiers, tragic for the non-combatants - but how many thousands more would have been murdered by Saddam's thugs if nothing had been done?

But I also harbour certain doubts..........

[Anyface]

Whilst I see little to justify the war legally I have no doubt that the civilian losses were small in comparison to the deaths that Sadam's regime would have been responsible for in the next few years. A ruthless dictator was removed, the biggest question now is can the US/UK replace him with a significantly better government?:sad:

[I. M. Esperto]

That is a civil affair, and none of our business. FYI, all Iraqi's have the right to bear arms. Baghdad had 45 gunshops that sold AK 47's etc. for $250 to practically anyone. Let them take care of the problem, not us.

It was a phony war.
It was fought for reasons not stated. These reasons are obvious to anyone
who is inquisitive to search the internet to read about it in foreign
newspapers.

Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the
Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential
men had the plan drawn up. The group, the Project for the New American
Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three
Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency
of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.

In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year, the
group called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" and a
shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the
use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam.

And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to
power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless
there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl
Harbor." That event came on Sept. 11, 2001. By that time, Cheney was vice
president, Rumsfeld was secretary of defense, and Wolfowitz his deputy at
the Pentagon.

The next morning - before it was even clear who was behind the attacks -
Rumsfeld insisted at a Cabinet meeting that Saddam's Iraq should be "a
principal target of the first round of terrorism," according to Bob
Woodward's book Bush At War. What started as a theory in 1997 was now on its
way to becoming official
U.S. foreign policy.

Now there is a new and demonstrable connection, but it is not the kind that
the Bush Administration had in mind. In fact, it is more likely to fuel the
speculations of conspiracy theorists than it is to put their fears to rest.
It turns out that a money trail runs-albeit rather circuitously-from the
lucrative business of rebuilding Iraq to the fortune behind Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden's estranged family, a sprawling, extraordinarily wealthy Saudi
Arabian dynasty, is a substantial investor in a private equity firm founded
by the Bechtel Group of San Francisco. Bechtel is also the global
construction and engineering company to which the U.S. government recently
awarded the first major multimillion-dollar contract to reconstruct
war-ravaged Iraq. In a closed competitive bidding process, the United States
Agency for International Development chose Bechtel to rebuild the major
elements of Iraq's infrastructure, including its roads, railroads, airports,
hospitals, and schools, and its water and electrical systems. In the first
phase of the contract, the U.S. government will pay Bechtel nearly
thirty-five million dollars, but experts say that the cost is likely to
reach six hundred and eighty million during the next year and a half.

When the contract was awarded, two weeks ago, the Administration did not
mention that the bin Laden family has an ongoing relationship with Bechtel.
The bin Ladens have a ten-million-dollar stake in the Fremont Group, a San
Francisco-based company formerly called Bechtel Investments, which was until
1986 a subsidiary of Bechtel. The Fremont Group's Web site, which makes no
mention of the bin Ladens, notes that "though now independent, Fremont
enjoys a close relationship with Bechtel." A spokeswoman for the company
confirmed that Fremont's "majority ownership is the Bechtel family." And a
list of the corporate board of directors shows substantial overlap. Five of
Fremont's eight directors are also directors of Bechtel. One Fremont
director, Riley Bechtel, is the chairman and chief executive officer of the
Bechtel Group, and is a member of the Bush Administration: he was appointed
this year to serve on the President's Export Council. In addition, George
Shultz, the Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration, serves as a
director both of Fremont and of the Bechtel Group, where he once was
president and still is listed as senior counselor.

Rick Kopf, the general counsel of the Fremont Group, which manages some
eleven billion dollars in assets, confirms that the bin Laden family
invested about ten million dollars in one of Fremont's private funds before
September 11, 2001. He noted that the bin Laden family has not enlarged its
stake since then, but he declined to provide additional details about its
association with the firm. He also chose not to discuss the origin or the
nature of the relationship between the bin Laden and Bechtel families, both
of which made fortunes in huge construction projects in the Arab world. The
Fremont Group evidently does not go in for connecting the dots. As Kopf
said, "Ownership is private and is not disclosed."

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Iraq had no real
connection with al Quaida or Osama bin Laden. This will be looked at as the War of 1,812 lies.

[soddim]

What a load of drivel! An Arab nation oppressed for years by a despotic regime and unable to mount a civil war to rectify matters was liberated at great expense and risk by a coalition of countries that could no longer stand back and ignore the problem. That is what actually took place and whether or not it was a walkover in the end some of our forces came under fire and some gave their lives. Please do not belittle their efforts with the worthless sentiments expressed by this thread.

[I. M. Esperto]

Not drivel, just facts, ugly facts that the American public doesn't seem to know about.

[soddim]

I. M. Esperto - you may have given facts but I cannot agree that they ugly. The Bin Ladin family business is not tarred with the same brush as the son Osama and you cannot simply quote their involvement with the Bechtel company as an ugly fact. I have lived in a compound in the desert built by the Bin Ladin construction business and there are numerous examples of their work throughout Saudi Arabia. You will have to do better than that if you want to convince me that you have not put drivel on this forum.

[A Civilian]

Well, after finding this sickening site I have to agree with everything that IME said. If disgusting things like this are allowed to happen in America in this day and age then there is no hope left for them.

http://www.thankyoutony.com/aboutsite.html

Incitement to violence is not acceptable. Dtails deleted.

[Ozzy]

A Civilian, I take it your tongue is firmly lodged in yer cheek!

Ozzy

[GLOC]

Firstly, and very importantly, I do not want to take away the sacrifice the coalition troops have made over the years to "free Iraq" and their continuing fight to rid the world of scum. They have served as they are required to by their respective governments, and served well.

If you don't live in this part of the world (The Middle East), it is hard to grasp the reality of what is going on here unless you experience it first hand.

This war was not for humanitarian reasons, purely politics. By securing Iraq, the US has effectively broken the "Cartel" of the Saudi mafia and its motley OPEC crew. They now have the opportunity to hand mold the Iraq oil industry, with its reserves being the second largest in the world. If you want to consider human rights abuse and basically murder....look no further than the house of Saud and its corrupt hangers on in the Saudi government. The Americans have been at loggerheads with the Saudi's over quite a few issues lately and now have the opportunity to move on to new alternatives. These opportunities did not exist prior to the removal of the Saddam Government.

The Middle East is as corrupt and volatile as it was prior to the fall of Saddam, and this will not change in the near future. In fact watch this space, it may even get worse.

:sad:

[soddim]

One regime at a time - you can bet the present one in Saudi will not remain long unless it reforms.

[MarkD]

I think it's sad that lies had to be told... in order to justify taking out a vicious man and a horrendous regime. It shouldn't need WMDs to be there, the gassing of the Kurds should have been enough to take him out. If the lawyers had to be mollified with a few fairy stories, it doesn't make me sleep less and I hope it doesn't make President Tone sleep less either.

[A Civilian]

...taking out a vicious man and a horrendous regime...

That we supported when it suited our purposes always remember that.

[I. M. Esperto]

Civilian - Correct. Hussein was our ally against Iran.

Pres. Bush Sr. engineered the Desert Storm war by assuring Hussein that we would maintain a hands off policy if Iraq invaded Kuwait for stealing Iragi oil by diagonal drilling along it's border.

See:

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1990 19

Excerpts From Iraqi Document on Meeting with U.S. Envoy

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 -- On July 25,President Saddam Hussein of Iraq summoned the United States Ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, to his office in the last high-level contact between the two Governments before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2. Here are excerpts from a document described by Iraqi Government officials as a transcript of the meeting, which also included the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz. A copy was provided to The New York Times by ABC News, which translated from the Arabic. The State Department has declined to comment on its accuracy............................

[SOMAT]

I M Esperto,

By god you are having a bad couple of days, aren't you?! Having got all that bile out of your system, I hope you feel better!

Most, but not all, of what you say is complete left-wing claptrap! Effectively, your hatred for Bush and the system is so all-consuming that I suspect that, to spite them, you would have preferred that Saddam and his clique had stayed in power and would have assuaged your conscience by confining yourself to telling the Iraqi tyrant he is a naughty boy now and again; and I'm sure he would have listened too, as he did to most appeasers over the years (that last statement is my attempt at 'irony' by the way).

Typically, like most left-wing, anti-war ranters, you embrace the blame culture, and that blame is nearly always directed at only one side. You contend that everything the Coalition has done, and will continue to do in the future, is a harbinger of doom for the future that will upset some deranged terrorist or cause some catastrophic economic or ecological disaster: your underlying message is that no good will come of anything; the words 'optimism' and 'goodwill' do not feature in your vocabulary. You have, in short, become incapable of seeing the wood for the trees.

I suggest you lighten up before you make yourself ill. :sad:

[MarkD]

Is there a statute of limitations for "associating with bad company"? GWB and Tone can't be accountable for decisions back in the Carter/Reagan, Callaghan/Thatcher era - more power to them to set the record right.

[I. M. Esperto]

SOMAT - Left wing? Moi? I was Pat Buchanan's 4th District NJ Comgressional Delegate when he ran for president. I am a member of the John Birch Society.

You are a Troll, and nothing more in this thread.

I have given documented evidence of the treachery in high places. You chose to ignore it.

Pres. Bush is your hero. He is not mine. He is damaging the USA, profiting from it, and we pay for it.

[rivetjoint]

Can you offer any practical solutions to the problem then?

[Fox3snapshot]

Solar Power,

Then we won't need to be here in the sand pit and the place will cave in on itself......summers coming too so lets get on with it!

:E

[newswatcher]

"Patrick Buchanan's conservatism lies somewhere to the right of Ronald Reagan's, neck and neck with George Wallace. His ideology is a grotesque agglomeration of demagogism, facism, bigot-ism, and sore-headism. His vision of the ideal America is White and Christian, bristling with weapons, strictly regimented, DEFINITELY Drug-Free (except for cigarettes probably), English only, with prayer, biblical teaching and 'creationism' (cretinism) in the schools, and no abortions ever, for any reason. People who did not agree with these rules (in his dream world) would be deleted somehow, all Blacks, Mexicans, Jews, freaks and oddballs just edited out."

see also

http://www.realchange.org/buchanan.htm

[I. M. Esperto]

Rivetjoint - Was your question directed at me? If so, I suggest a reading from Pat Buchanan's "The Conservative" of a few weeks ago. The article is "Whose war?".

Now, I realize that this is all liberal clap-trap, but never the less, Buchanan poses a few interesting questions, and some obvious solutions.

Of course, I'm not qualified to speak, according to SOMAT.

See what you think.

[Scud-U-Like]

Suppose you believe the conspiracy theorists. What's the big deal? America secured her cheap gasoline and the Iraqi people were freed from tyranny. The ends justified the ends.

Meanwhile, I'm glad to see I. M. has, as last, fessed-up to being a member of the American political lunatic fringe. Not that he ever concealed it very well.

[I. M. Esperto]

Scud -
Interests - Ho Hum
Occupation - Hey Ho.

Get a life.

[timex]

IME so in your opinon what should we have done? Left him alone? He was always given options.. 3rd richest man in the world? He could have walked away.
Lots of Iraqi troops had no choice but to fight, especially when they had a gun held to their heads.

[I. M. Esperto]

Of course we should have left him alone. He was no threat to the USA.

If the UN thought he was a threat, that's quite another thing, but the UN did not. This whole thing was/is about oil, power, money, and it smacks of the USA being a world policeman. I don't want to see that happen.

During the Primary, I liked John McCain better than Bush. I wrote a letter to The Times of Trenton supporting John McCain and criticical of George Bush. I particularly lambasted Bush's open border policy in Texas which allowed thousands of illegal Mexicans into Texas right under his nose.

I ended the letter with the sentence "Bush must be stopped".

A few days after the letter was published, as my wife and I were going down the driveway to the car to dine out, a local policeman with 2 civilians approached us. I was asked if I had written a letter to the Trenton Times, and I replied in the affirmative, and was told to go back in the house, as 2 Secret Service men wanted to question me.

We sat around the kitchen table, and one of the men produced a 9 page form which contained the information they sought from me.

They got to the point - My letter contained a threat to George Bush, a canditate for President. They percieved this threat by my closing sentence.

I assured them that this was my appeal to the Republican voters of NJ to stop Bush's attempt to become the Presidential Candidate for the Republican Party, and nothing more. This was to be done by means of the ballot box, obviously, and anyone should see.

At that point the cop left, and the 2 SS men continued to grill me for an hour and a half, after which they had me pose for Polaroid shots of me. I took out my black pocket comb, brushed my hair down Adolph Hitler style, and held the comb under my nose to resemble Hitler's moustache, and extended my right arm in the Heil Hitler salute fashion, and said, "OK, take your picture."

No no, that's all wrong, they said, so I just stood there and they snapped the shot and left.

I never heard another word about this.

From that moment on, I became VERY suspicious of Bush. My suspicions are well founded.

[solotk]

Well done I.M.

You could have added "At least I flew combat aircraft, something Bush never did" There is actually some doubt as to whether he actually flew/qualified in the F-102.

As regards your other "rant" or "conspiracy theories" as some other posters would have it.

I say , Rant or Prophecy?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3012847.stm

Points 12-15 make interesting reading. The points before them are important and imposing too, like a studio front lot, with about as much substance behind. The proposal from the US, is the Money from oil comes under US control, to be used in the rebuilding of Iraq. Now, if it comes under US control, who will get the rebuilding work again?

Now if you could just find a Bin Laden owned/connected construction company that gets a contract in rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure, the delicious irony will be complete:mad:

[soddim]

I say again, the Saudi Bin Ladin Construction Company has nothing to do with Osama Bin Ladin.

[BarryMonday]

The secret service had no option but to investigate you after you wrote your letter. Obviously they had to satisfy themselves that you were not a gun toting lunatic who went round shooting at USA Presidents.

Had they not done so and had you later featured in a shooting, or any attempt on the President's life they would stand to be charged with dereliction of duty. You were simply being eliminated as a suspect.
Your behaviour with the hair and comb probably convinced them you were just a harmless looney!:D

[Fox3snapshot]

Of course Bin Ladin construction company has nothing to do with Osama......not now that the family have disowned him, though he still profit shares with them....but that's OK isn't it?????

Scary thing is the company is doing so well, they have wonderful signs all over the UAE, specifically on Sheikh Zayed road, which reinforces my original point.....unless you live in this part of the world you will never appreciate the irony of this whole mess!

But quite a funny quip either way soddim....we gotta keep our sense of humor don't we....???

:p

[BlueWolf]

Well said all through, I.M.E.

Of course, Bush would have been stopped, had the US election been run according to that trusty old formula, "the candidate who has the biggest number of people voting for him will be the winner" rather than the curious abomination of democracy emloyed in the US, obviously designed by accountants and approved by lawyers.

Whether the world would have been a better or worse place had the result been different is anyone's guess.

Thank Christ the Secret Service doesn't have any interest in the letters I write concerning Helen Clark!

You are a Gentleman, Sir, and a thinker and a patriot. Keep it up.
:ok:

[I. M. Esperto]

Thanks Blue Wolf.

I've written scores of letters about stopping one or another politician, but was never investigated until I took on Bush.

[ghost-rider]

Blue Wolf,

Excuse my ignorance, who's Helen Clarke ? :confused:

[I. M. Esperto]

Ghost Rider:

This may answer your question:
http://www.abc.net.au/asiapacific/location/pacific/GoAsiaPacificLocationPacStorie_803238.htm

[ghost-rider]

Oops ! :uhoh:

Sorry, I should have realised. I thought Blue Wolf was referring to a US politician.

[Scud-U-Like]

newswatcher

I found the Pat Buchanan link you posted throughly absorbing. It is well balanced and the articles are all properly attributed. I knew the guy was a bigot, albeit, a very subtle, cunning and ostensibly amiable one (sound like anyone we know?), but the link shows him to be the hypocritical and prejudiced hate-monger he really is. Thankfully, there's about as much chance of him becoming President as there is of me becoming Chief of the Air Staff.

[I. M. Esperto]

Buchannan is an opinionated man. I share many of his opinions, and I admire him warts and all.

A free man is entitled to his opinions, and to discriminate accordingly. That is known as the thought process, and will never change. If it makes me a "bigot" in the minds of some, so be it, and Amen.

[Nani]

Mr.Esperto,

Do you,by any chance,subscribe or contribute to Middle American News?

[I. M. Esperto]

Nani - No, I never heard of it. I do subscribe to The Conservative.

[Paterbrat]

Actualy IM poor fellow was feeling quite neglected at JB, his posts kept sliding down and falling off because no-one would read them so he's moved in an attempt to raise a response. Must have been quite thrill to get the SS in, now that is reaction.

[I. M. Esperto]

Brat - You are indeed a figment of you're own imagination, and a damned Troll as well.

[con-pilot]

Well old George W. must be doing something right. If the ultra liberals and the ultra conservatives hate him and he still has a 70%+ approval rating he can’t be doing all that bad.

:E

[Paterbrat]

So your talking to yourself then IM. Tut Tut!

[Ignition Override]

What an interesting squabble! At least y'all have kept it a bit under control-more so than those rascals who get personal about airline ops. Well done, at least so far.

Here is the reason for using my #2 favorite icon (the skull) for this entry.

According to a fairly recent tv show here, on either A&E, TLC, possibly on the Discovery Channel, a former CIA field operative described his work and training with some of the Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. This happened during the Clinton years. This agent said that a large number of weapons had been given to Kurdish forces in preparation for a serious attack on Saddam's army.

For some reason, former President Clinton decided not to begin the operation. I realize that this is a complex subject, but i f we can assume that plans were in place for a replacement regime or leader, does anybody know why Clinton backed out of the overall scheme? Was he afraid of the serious foreign policy reactions, even just his approval ratings plummeting among the UC Berkeley, UW Madison crowd etc, or was he aware of and apparently serious about the need for such an operation?:suspect:

[I. M. Esperto]

The CIA was supporting a Civil War, where the Kurds would seceed from Iraq, and become an independent State.

Saddam knew this, and reacted accordingly, just as Abraham Lincoln did.