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Message |
    
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 10875
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 12:02 pm: | 
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Paul, neo-conservatism is a believe that freedom comes through democracy and that the U.S. should use power to reach that goal and that all people want to live in a free democracy. It, is on the whole, a very optomistic philosophy. How Bush and Cheney have, probably, subverted it for their own use is another story. How they assumed that the three major ethnic/religious groups in Iraq would come together is another thing I don't understand.
Sadaam, who in the end had nothing to hide, but he did put up road blocks, especially as respects inspecting his palaces, and not I use the plural.
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The SLK Effect
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 976
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 5:58 pm: |
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Paul,
Again, are you going to acknowledge the many failures of the UN or not?
Why isn't the UN in the Dafur yet?
joeltfk-Please define "real kids."
-SLK |
Paul Surovell
Supporter
Username: Paulsurovell
Post Number: 580
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 7:09 pm: |
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SLK,
Yes, the UN has had many failures, of which Iraq is one of the biggest. But in that case the Bush administration is to blame, not the United Nations.
I'm glad you raised the question of Darfur, because that's another example where the Bush administration has failed to exert leadership in the Security Council, in this case, on behalf of a peacekeeping force in Darfur.
Mothers Take Action: Darfur, a local group affiliated with South Mountain Peace Action, has circulated a petition by Africa Action calling for the US to support a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.
Africa Action continues to implore the Bush administration to support a UN peacekeeping force. From current website:
http://capwiz.com/africaaction/issues/alert/?alertid=8533111&type=CU
Quote:Failure of U.S. Leadership on Darfur Cannot Continue in March /
Write to Ambassador Bolton Today
Dear Friend,
Africa Action had billed February as a key moment for the U.S. to assert its leadership in the United Nations (UN) as President of the UN Security Council to achieve a resolution that would stop the genocide in Darfur. The past several months of escalating activism has successfully forced the U.S. Mission to the UN to give much greater priority to the issue of protection for the people of the western region of Sudan, but it has not yet produced a Security Council resolution at the United Nations for a multinational protection force intervention. Please write to Ambassador John Bolton at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations today, to ask him to continue to work towards a resolution to the genocide in Darfur. Africa Action has a full campaign update on our website, www.africaaction.org.
Africa Action notes that the Bush Administration has made a public commitment to a resolution that would authorize a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur, but in fact, nothing has changed on the ground for the people of Darfur. The need for a UN peacekeeping mission has become more urgent in recent weeks as the security situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate, and a growing crisis on the border with Chad threatens regional stability. New obstacles to a UN peacekeeping force have erupted as the government of Sudan has sought to characterize any such intervention as an invasion of Sudan by the western world, threatening the outbreak of a regional war.
While these new obstacles cause concern, they demonstrate the urgent need for the U.S. to redouble its efforts to negotiate with the African Union and the rest of the international community for immediate action that can protect the people of Darfur and send the strong message to the government of Sudan that despite historical precedent, genocide will no longer be tolerated in any region of the world – including in Africa. If the U.S. has sufficient political will to end the genocide, it has the ability to negotiate diplomatically with all parties concerned to achieve a UN protection force in Darfur. Please consider joining us and write to Ambassador Bolton today.
Africa Action will build on the momentum of February and continue to apply pressure in March. February saw a rise in media coverage about Darfur, which contributed to the pressure on the U.S. to take action at the United Nations. To increase the media focus on Darfur, and thereby maintain a spotlight on U.S. leadership at the United Nations, we are launching a grassroots media campaign in March, urging all activists to write letters to the editors of local papers on Darfur and encourage community and religious leaders to sign op-eds on Darfur. To support increased media coverage on Darfur, Africa Action will offer a media training by conference call on Wednesday, March 8th at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. Please RSVP to mobilize@africaaction.org with “media training” in the subject line. You can get on the call by dialing 1-866-613-5223 passcode 7662722. We will issue a media alert through our CAPWIZ system on March 15th.
Thank you for your perseverance in the campaign to stop genocide in Darfur. We hope that you will join us as we continue to use our power to protect the people surviving genocide in Darfur.
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Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 5859
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 7:21 pm: |
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Quote: Kids (even most college kids) do not read a paper or watch the news and are completely uninformed, therefore their opinions are worthless and only regurgitate the garbage forced on them by their parents
DING DING DING...We have a winner for the most cynical ridiculous post of the week!! |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4117
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 7:53 pm: |
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There will be peace in the Sudan when every male of the species between 10 and 40 years of age is dead. |
joeltfk
Citizen
Username: Joeltfk
Post Number: 367
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 8:32 pm: |
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"joeltfk-Please define "real kids." "
Breathing homosapiens of school age. Do I need to define homosapiens or school for you? |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 143
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 10:15 pm: |
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Unknowing oracle, be careful, or the world dominating ones will silence you.
They have the power, you know.
And, get a sense of humor.
Meanwhile, I sleep better knowing my country dominates the world.
jd |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 144
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 10:23 pm: |
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this is about one week old.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein told his Cabinet in the mid-1990s that the U.S. would fall victim to terrorists possessing weapons of mass destruction but that Iraq would not be involved, tapes released Saturday at an intelligence summit reveal.
Hussein also can be heard speaking with high-ranking Iraqi officials about deceiving United Nations inspectors looking into Iraq's weapons program, which his son-in-law, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, oversaw.
The tapes, which U.S. officials have confirmed are authentic, are part of a much larger cache of information on the nation's weapons programs. Six translators listened to the recordings for CNN. (Watch how the tapes show Hussein discussed terrorism with Cabinet -- 2:46)
Former U.N. weapons inspector Bill Tierney, who translated the tapes for the FBI, provided the recordings to a nongovernmental meeting in Arlington, Virginia, called Intelligence Summit 2006.
U.S. officials who have reviewed the tapes said Hussein was "fixated" on acquiring weapons of mass destruction and preventing U.N. inspectors from finding out.
On the tapes, Kamel and Hussein discuss whether Iraq should disclose information about its biological weapons program to U.N. inspectors. Iraq had previously denied having any such program.
"The question becomes, do we have to disclose everything or continue to keep silent?" Kamel said to Hussein. "I think it would be in our interest not to, because we don't want the world to know about what we possess because it has become clear to the countries who are forced to be allies of the U.S. that our position is untenable."
Kamel defected to Jordan in August 1995, the highest ranking member of Saddam's inner circle to do so. He returned to Iraq in February 1996 and was executed on the orders of Saddam's son, Uday.
The date of the recording is not known. But Kamel told CNN in September 1995: "No, Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. I am being completely honest about this."
Kamel acknowledged that he was told to keep secrets from U.N. inspectors.
"The order was to hide much of it from the start, and we hid a lot of that information, he told CNN. "These were not individual acts of concealment but as a result of direct orders from the top."
In another recording, an unidentified man tells Hussein that the U.N. weapons inspections are meaningless because the regime still maintains the intent and the technical knowledge to reconstitute its weapons programs.
"Sir, they cannot deprive us our will, and despite the pressures they bring to bear on us through monitoring, and despite the fact we were not able to put to use our missile technology, the time is not their side," the unidentified man said.
"No matter how much they take from us, the factories will be in our brains and souls, and the people who can make missiles out of stones and use them with success in four days can certainly achieve a great deal in one, two, or five years."
He tells Hussein "when it comes to time, they will be the losers."
Hussein also said on one of the tapes that he warned British and U.S. officials of an imminent attack employing weapons of mass destruction.
"Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 and I told the British as well, I think," Hussein tells then-Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. "I told them that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction."
He added, however, that Iraq would have no part in it. August 2 is believed to be a reference to the date of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which sparked the Gulf War the following year.
"This is coming. This story is coming, but not from Iraq," Hussein said.
Aziz is currently in U.S. custody and facing charges of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
A U.S. official said the tapes "do not change the story" on Saddam's weapons programs in any substantive way.
"We already knew he had them in the early '90s and wanted to get them again after he lost them but was not able to," the official said.
A spokeswoman for Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte said the tapes were "fascinating," but they "do not reveal anything that changes their postwar analysis of Iraq's weapons programs, nor do they change the findings contained in the comprehensive Iraq Survey Group report."
The Survey Group report, written by Charles Duelfer and published in October 2004, concluded that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in March of 2003, but the regime intended to resume its WMD programs once U.N. sanctions were lifted.
Of the tapes, Duelfer said, "The tapes tend to reinforce, confirm, and to a certain extent, provide a bit more detail, the conclusions which we brought out in the report."
The tapes, which were obtained by the U.S. government sometime after the invasion of Iraq, are part of about 35,000 additional boxes of material on Iraq's weapons programs and efforts, said an aide to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, who has reviewed the tapes.
The material is awaiting translation, the aide said, and the Bush administration is contemplating making all the material public for journalists and academics to translate and review.
The International Intelligence Summit describes itself on its Web site as a nonpartisan, nonprofit forum that promotes an exchange of ideas among members of the international intelligence community.
The summit's main sponsor is the Michael Cherney Fund, whose Web site describes the fund's main objective as "helping realize the intellectual potential of the post-Soviet emigres to Israel."
The summit Web site states that the group supports the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which have prompted widespread violence across the globe.
"In solidarity with the people of Denmark and in support of freedom of speech, the Intelligence Summit offers free conference admission to Danish passport holders," it states.
Tierney told ABC News, which first reviewed portions of the tapes, that he provided the tapes to the Intelligence Summit because it is wrong for the U.S. government to keep them from the public.
"Because of my experience being in the inspections and being in the military, I knew the significance of these tapes when I heard them," Tierney told ABC.
Former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus, the president of the Intelligence Summit with whom Tierney shared the tapes, is now a private attorney and works pro bono "to help hundreds of intelligence agents obtain lawful permission to declassify and publish the hidden secrets of our times," according to Loftus' Web site.
CNN's David Ensor, Octavia Nasr, Justine Redman and David de Sola contributed to this report.
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Nohero
Supporter
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 5131
Registered: 10-1999
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 10:43 pm: |
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A little detail from the preceding post, which might have been missed -"The Survey Group report, written by Charles Duelfer and published in October 2004, concluded that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in March of 2003" Just something which should be kept in mind, in any discussion of this issue. |
The SLK Effect
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 980
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 10:51 pm: |
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joeltfk-
Such hostility! What, Broeback Mountain not winning enough awards tonight? Who am I kidding, it probably one best "love story" flick for 2007 as well....
I just wanted clarification on "real kids" because it seems like such a stupid and silly thing to say to Sylvester. Who doesn't know any "real kids"?
Paul,
So the US is 100% to blame because it threw the Iraqi punch the UN should of thrown long ago? Give me a break....so now everyone is waiting for the US to step up the the Dafur plate while the UN is doing.....what?
Just goes to show the UN is useless (an organization that has Sudan on the HR commission no less)....Your reservation to criticize the UN is very revealing...
-SLK
Call me impatient, but when in the hell is this Iraqi Civil War everyone is screaming about happening.....?
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Paul Surovell
Supporter
Username: Paulsurovell
Post Number: 581
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 1:05 am: |
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Joel,
With regard to your "one-week-old" information, here's some related information I posted on June 20, 2003. The links at the end are especially helpful:
Quote:It is accepted by all sides that the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger to develop nuclear weapons was based on forged documents.
As Seymour Hersh pointed out in the New Yorker, the claim and the forged documents were a key element in the CIA's classified briefing to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was crucial in convincing the Committee to support the War Powers Resolution.
Bush made the false nuclear weapons warning in his State of the Union Message.
So we have irrefutable proof that a major component of Bush's warnings on WMDs -- perhaps the most frightening component -- was a Big Lie.
Regarding the warnings that Iraq had huge quantities of chemical and biological weapons that were an imminent threat to the United States -- I submit that if US intelligence had solid evidence that such weapons existed, it would have provided at least one example to Unmovic, so it could discover the weapons, prove the Iraqis were lying, and thus set the stage for military action by the Security Council.
A corollary to this is that the Bush administration feared and therefore opposed continued inspections by Unmovic because they knew nothing significant would be found, which would have diminished the chances for war.
It should be recalled that Saddam was not accused of producing new chemical weapons, but of failing to destroy weapons that he had before 1991. However, because of their limited shelf life, most if not all of these chemicals would have been degraded and rendered militarily useless by 2003.
Finally, the Bush administration was aware of Gen. Hussein Kamel's claim that all Iraqi WMDs had been destroyed by the mid-'90s.
Sources:
nuclear material: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1
degradation of chemical weapons: http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/us030409.html
Gen. Hussein Kamel: http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.html
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Paul Surovell
Supporter
Username: Paulsurovell
Post Number: 582
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 1:44 am: |
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SLK,
The United Nations is the vehicle through which the nations of the world have the opportunity to work together for the common good. Whether the UN succeeds or fails is not the fault of the institution but of the actions of the member countries.
As you recall, the UN successfully acted to remove Saddam's military forces from Kuwait and forced him to destroy his WMDs. The UN was in the process of confirming that the WMDs were destroyed when President Bush ordered one of history's most devastating military attacks against Iraq (shock-and-awe) under the false pretext that Americans were threatened by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Your proposition -- that the United Nations should have attacked Iraq instead of the United States -- ignores the reality that most of the rest of the world preferred to allow the inspections process to be completed so that the issue could be resolved peacefully and legally.
America and Iraq have already paid heavily for the President's unjustified and unecessary war based on falsehoods.
The imperative now is to focus on the optimal way to conclude our military involvement in Iraq. At South Mountain Peace Action's February 8th Forum with Families of the Fallen for Change, members of the community outlined 5 withdrawal proposals and the President's victory strategy.
In the coming weeks SMPA and Families of the Fallen for Change will issue a report on our forum with recommendations that will be presented to our Senators, Congressmen and the White House.
There is a place on our website for people to submit comments on the proposals:
http://www.beaboutpeace.com/archives/2006/02/feedback_and_qu.html
The report will be released on Be About Peace Day, Saturday March 18th.
Details at www.BeAboutPeace.com
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The SLK Effect
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 989
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 8:31 am: |
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Paul,
How convienently cute. The UN does no wrong, it is the countries themselves.
I understand what components make up the UN and how it works, but they are the captain of their ship.
You mean to tell me in the last 6 months, th UN, with all the countries it deals with, could not come up with some kind of military force to send to Dafur? Instead, they are going to wait to see what the US will do about it?
Yeah, the UN seem really concerned about it....
Do me a favor, enough of protesting America's actions, ok? Why don't you protest the UNs lack of leadership?
-SLK |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 5863
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 9:19 am: |
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What is amazing to me is that you, SLK, can post the following
Quote:How convienently cute. The UN does no wrong, it is the countries themselves.
I understand what components make up the UN and how it works, but they are the captain of their ship.
And not see that what you are saying regarding the UN is exactly what many of us "libs" are saying about the US. That the states (in the case of Katrina for example) are the components and the Bush administration is the ship. So how is it that the UN is a failure and the WH is exempt from blame? In their individual instances.
You seem to be saying is that the ship of the UN fails not because of the member states but because of the UN's leadership, but that the ship of the US doesn't fail for exactly the same reason.
And it is not really comparing apples to oranges, which would be my best guess at your defense of this way of thinking. |
The SLK Effect
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 992
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 9:26 am: |
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As per this WSJ OP-ED, this is why I am not so quick to jump on the Anti-Iraq bandwagon so quick....
Open the Iraq Files
American spooks don't want to release Saddam's secrets.
Friday, March 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
When the 9/11 Commission bullied Congress into creating the Directorate of National Intelligence, we doubted that another layer of bureaucracy on top of the CIA would fix much of anything. Our skepticism has since been largely reinforced--most recently by the DNI's reluctance to release what's contained in the millions of "exploitable" documents and other items captured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These items--collected and examined in Qatar as part of what's known as the Harmony program--appear to contain information highly relevant to the ongoing debate over the war on terror. But nearly three years after Baghdad fell, we see no evidence that much of what deserves to be public will be anytime soon.
For example, if it hadn't been for the initiative of one Bill Tierney, we wouldn't know that Saddam Hussein had a habit of tape-recording meetings with top aides. The former U.N. weapons inspector and experienced Arabic translator recently went public with 12 hours (out of a reported total of 3,000) of recordings in which we hear Saddam discuss with the likes of Tariq Aziz the process of deceiving U.N. weapons inspectors and his view that Iraq's conflict with the U.S. didn't end with the first Gulf War.
In one particularly chilling passage, the dictator discusses the threat of WMD terrorism to the United States and the difficulty anyone would have tracing it back to a state. With the 2001 anthrax attacks still unsolved, that strikes us as bigger news than the DNI or most editors apparently considered it.
In another disclosure, The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes was told by about a dozen officials that Harmony documents describe in detail how Saddam trained thousands of Islamic radicals in the waning years of his regime. So much for the judgments of many in the intelligence community--including Paul Pillar, the latest ex-spook to go public with his antiwar message--that the secular Saddam would never consort with such religious types.
To its credit, the DNI did bless the recent release of about two dozen documents from Afghanistan as part of a West Point study painting a portrait of al Qaeda's organizational structure. They show that al Qaeda functioned like a corporation in some ways, with fixed terms for employee benefits such as family leave, and seem to vindicate the once-controversial decision to move quickly to destroy al Qaeda's base of operations in Afghanistan.
But these tantalizing tidbits represent only a fraction of what's in U.S. possession. We hear still other documents expand significantly on our knowledge of Saddam's WMD ambitions (including more on the Niger-uranium connection) and his support for terrorism, right down to lists of potential targets in the U.S. and Europe. Former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle accuses the DNI of "foolish restraint" on releasing information that could broaden understanding and bolster support for a war that is far from won. Representative Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.) echoes that criticism. And after chatting with the Congressman and with someone we agreed to describe as a "senior intelligence official familiar with the program," we largely agree.
The intelligence community has a point that some caution must be exercised. For example, the senior intelligence official pointed out, some documents describe in detail rapes and other abuses committed by Saddam's regime--details that could still haunt living victims in such an honor-bound society as Iraq. But while it would seem to make sense to screen the documents for such items--and perhaps terrorist recipes such as ricin--we still can't understand how that justifies the current pace and method of making information public.
And our alarm bells really rang when the intelligence official added another category of information that's never slated to see the light of day: "We cannot release wholesale material that we can reasonably foresee will damage the national interest." Well, what exactly does that mean and who makes the call? The answer, apparently, is unaccountable analysts following State Department guidelines.
But consider just one hypothetical: Is it in the "national interest" to reveal documents if they show that Jacques Chirac played a more substantial role in encouraging Saddam's intransigence than is already known? No doubt some Foggy Bottom types would say no. But we'd strongly disagree. The "national interest" exception is so broad and vague that it would end up being used to justify keeping secret the merely embarrassing.
What's more, according to Mr. Hoekstra, the DNI release plans don't call for making any documents publicly available per se, but only through scholars in the manner of the West Point study. As he puts it, the decision to move everything through analysts and carefully chosen outsiders is an "analog" method in a "digital" age, when we could be calling on the interpretive wisdom of so many by putting much of it on the Internet.
Yesterday Mr. Hoekstra introduced a bill to require the intelligence community to be more forthcoming with the Iraq and Afghanistan documents. "I'm beginning to believe the postwar intelligence may be as bad as the prewar intelligence," he says. Another person who sees vast room for improvement is Iraqi scholar Kanan Makiya, who founded the Iraq Memory Foundation. While he shares the DNI's concerns about potential damage to some people mentioned therein, he also says the U.S. government has gone too far and needs to find better ways to grant access to this information.
America went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan because we believed that the truth about the regimes in those countries justified it. Why should so much of that truth now be deemed so sensitive?
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The SLK Effect
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 993
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 9:28 am: |
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Duncan-
When did I exempt Bush from ANY blame? The problem here is people are placing the ENTIRE blame on him, or at least appear to be, which is simply not the case.
Why is that so hard to comprehend?
-SLK |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 5864
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 9:34 am: |
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It's not hard to comprehend at all, but most of your posts on that topic seem to exempt him from the lion's share of blame. And I guess I just see him as the head of our gov't and as such ultimately responsible for the disasterous way that it was handled.
Perhaps I should grow up a bit, but I do believe the Buck Stops Here. And basically a fish rots from the head down. He took no proactive steps to ameliorate the suffering and devastation in NOLA and surrounding environs.
He doesn't deserve the ENTIRE blame, on that I will agree. But he sure as hell deserves a LOT of it. |
Paul Surovell
Supporter
Username: Paulsurovell
Post Number: 583
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 10:05 am: |
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SLK,
I'm not sure what the WSJ op-ed is supposed to prove. It doesn't challenge the fact that Iraq destroyed all its WMDs long before the US invasion. It lays out some suggestions from secret documents that no one can assess because we can't see the documents.
So we're supposed to believe insinuations based on secret information? Sounds a lot like the line that the Congress and public were given to justify going to war. A line that proved to be based on falsehoods.
By the way, Richard Perle, who's cited to support the premise of the piece, rejoiced in the aftermath of the invasion, saying that a key achievement of the invasion was that the United Nations had been rendered irrelevant. And of course Richard Perle is a leading ideologist of the neocon faction that advocates US world domination through military force. A vision that not only is in direct conflict with the UN Charter and thus the US Constitution, but also with basic American values.
I'll post the link to Perle's statement later.
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The SLK Effect
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 997
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 10:20 am: |
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Paul-
And I should pay attention to a NEwe Yorker piece? They don't have an agenda?
Oh, and you are really that naieve enough to believe (or better yet, TRUST)Iraq destroyed all their WMDs or just playing dumb?
I know very much who Perle is...."US domination by military force??????" Ummmm, yup, thats it...
Un freaking believable....
-SLK |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5292
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 10:46 am: |
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Perle doesn't believe in US world domination through military force anymore than peace activists hope weaken the United States and topple capitalism.
Maybe that's a bad example..... |
Threeringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 74
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 6:23 pm: |
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The UN has been a cesspool of corruption and incompetence from the time of the 1st Secretary General, Alger Hiss, to the hapless Kofi Annan.
The recent escapades of UN "peacekeeping" forces could be put on a DVD called Blue Helmets Gone Wild and sold on late night TV.
I agree with many of those posting that the Iraq invasion was a mistake, but for different reasons. It isn't that we acted unilaterally, but that the war was illadvised and unnecessary because Saddam posed no military threat. When and if the US does go to war, we should never seek the permission or consent of any international organization. Rather, Congress should have a full debate, vote on a Declaration of War and proceed accordingly.
We don't have to stay in the UN. Rep. Ron Paul has been introducing HR 1146, The American Sovereignty Restoration Act for several years. This bill would effectively end our involvement in the UN. Of course the votes are not there. Yet.
I suppose I've said something to offend everyone, but if not, I'll close with this joke:
If you want the government to intervene in the domestic economy, you're a liberal. If you want the government to intervene militarily in the affairs of other countries, you're a conservative.
If you want the government to intervene in the domestic economy and militarily in other countries, you're a moderate. If you want to leave people alone, you're an extremist.
Cheers |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4120
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 - 8:02 pm: |
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Alger Hiss ?!?!?!?!
I would have guessed U Thant, but it was actually Trygve Halvdan Lie of Norway.
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Threeringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 75
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 8:07 am: |
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tjohn,
Hiss was the SG of the Un Charter conference in 1945. Lie was the first SG proper. So I guess it depends on how you want to look at it. I still don't like the UN, though.
Cheers
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Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 873
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 8:33 am: |
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maplescorp - will you be posting the winning entry? |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4122
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 10:28 am: |
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Threeringale,
I hate the UN, too. I hate having neighbors. Why, if I was the only human being in the world, I wouldn't have to get along with anybody.
The UN is far from perfect, but I am reminded of what Churchill had to say about democracy. |
maplescorp
Citizen
Username: Maplescorp
Post Number: 135
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 11:00 am: |
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Winning entries will be decided toward the end of March, and posted online with contestant's permission. They will also be invited to read their entries at the organization's Rally in town on March 19.
This contest, march, and rally is sponsored by SOMA Stop the War (www.somastopthewar.org)
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Threeringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 76
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 6:59 pm: |
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tjohn,
I don't know if I would say I hate the UN. I would say it is a useless organization. The world survived for thousands of years without the UN and will surely survive without it. I don't hate having neighbors, actually I kind of like my neighbors. I'm not sure if you are comparing neighbors on your street to countries gathered together as the UN. I can't go along with that. We should try to set a good example for other countries, but avoid meddling in their internal politics. There is more wisdom in this quote from John Quincy Adams than there is in the entire UN Charter:
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
Cheers |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 155
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 7:15 pm: |
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From the world wide dominator's internet service to the world.
As I wrote a few days ago, one of the defining moments in the American Civil War was when half the officer corps resigned their commissions and went south to fight for their new "country." That's what happens when you have a real civil war; that's what didn't happen in Iraq. Ralph Peters reports from Baghdad:
Among the many positive stories you aren't being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets.
It's routinely declared a failure by those who yearn for the new Iraq to fail. But an increasingly capable Iraqi military has been developing while reporters (who never really investigated the issue) wrote it off as hopeless.
What actually happened last week, as the prophets of doom in the media prematurely declared civil war?
* The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.
* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.
In the recent flare-up, sectarian issues had not been a problem in a single Iraqi unit.
There's lots more. Peters concludes:
As I head home after far too short a stay with our wonderful soldiers, I can only offer Post readers my honest assessment:
Serious problems remain. No question about it. We'll hear more bad news (some of it may even be true). But from my heart I believe that the odds are improving that, decades from now, we'll look back and see that our sacrifices were worth it. I found Baghdad a city of hope, its citizens determined not to be ruled by terrorists, fanatics, militias or thieves.
We are doing the right thing.
This is a gigantic struggle for indescribably high stakes. We're trying to help a failing civilization rescue itself, to lift a vast region out of the grip of terror and fanaticism, and to make this troubled world safer for our own citizens. Don't let anyone tell you we're failing in Iraq.
One thing that distinguishes Peters from most reporters who comment on Iraq is that Peters actually knows what he's talking about. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 5902
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 7:33 pm: |
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It is hard to take seriously a "reporter" who pens this gem...
Quote:Serious problems remain. No question about it. We'll hear more bad news (some of it may even be true).
The curfew made the management of the troubles much easier and I applaud the good work of the Iraqi military.
As for Civil War, I think it is a long stretch to compare our civil war and the factors leading up to it, to what is happening in Iraq right now.
I hope and pray that there isn't all out civil war, but it seems really hard to assemble a nation out of states which have no history as a nation except as unified by that psycho currently on trial in Baghdad. |
The SLK Effect
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1094
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, March 10, 2006 - 4:30 pm: |
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hey when is this silly war protest again...this weekend or next? |
Montagnard
Citizen
Username: Montagnard
Post Number: 1903
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 11, 2006 - 4:34 pm: |
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The U.N. was necessary because it took the combined actions of many countries to defeat Germany and Japan in the Second World War. Neither Britain nor the Soviet Union nor the United States alone could have beaten them, and in the peace that followed, it was generally agreed that stronger international institutions would make future wars less likely.
The U.N. has always been an imperfect organization and probably always will be. It will always have the equivalents of Jack Abramoff and Freedom Fries congressmen. There will always be significant divisions between its members and some who want the organization itself to fail (a role once played by the Soviet Union and more recently by the United States).
However, the limits of American imperial power have clearly been reached in Iraq, and in future the United States will have to collaborate more with other nations in achieving its goals. The necessity of the United Nations and its various agencies will likely be felt more keenly in the years to come. |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 170
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, March 11, 2006 - 5:53 pm: |
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Our imperial power is not overextended.
I expect global domination within two years.
Certainly before Bush leaves office, upon which event,
Sbenois is elected Maximum Leader for Life.
jd |
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