the_stop_the_war_coalition May192004 *** * The Stop the War Coalition *** "That violence was originally perpetrated by the American government, the British government and by the military and the only way to end the cycle of violence is for the US and British troops to come out immediately." 19 May, 2004, 04:43 GMT 05:43 UK Berg father backs anti-war stance Mr Berg blames the US administration for his son's death The father of Nick Berg - the US civilian beheaded in Iraq - has sent a message of support to the Stop the War Coalition. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3727293.stm 040519 ... kx21 **** 3) Absolute Truth- The Beheading of American Berg Died for Bush, Rumsfeld 'Sins' - Father Thu May 13, 3:05 PM ET Extracted from iLink:- "Does_absolute_truth_exist_in_the_human_spaces" 040519 ... Dosquatch Mr. Berg is delusional. Appropriate blame lies with the fucking nutcase holding the knife. Whatever the Bush administration may or may not have done, I'm reasonably comfortable with the belief that they have not sawed off anybody's head. The fucking nutcase says US actions forced him. Bullshit. The fucking nutcase says the US needs to pull out or blah blah blah. Bullshit. The fucking nutcase is a FUCKING NUTCASE, so he and all of his statements should be treated as such. The fucking nutcase KNOWS he's a fucking nutcase - if he thought he were behaving in a reasonable and appropriate manner, he would not be wearing a bag on his head. Reactionary blame-shifting helps nobody. 040519 ... kx21 Oops... The "M Spark" from * iLink:- Moral_Failure * Speaks the Moment_of_Truth:- U.S. Cardinal Accuses Bush of Moral Failure in Iraq 040519 ... . Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is responsible for berg beheading not bush 040519 ... kx21 "The_beheading_of_american" Who is the "MasterMind" that led to The_Beheading_of_American in Iraq? The War_President - Bush (as well as the War_Promoter - Blair?) Why_not? Given the Limus_Test:- What is the probability that Nick Berg the American beheaded in Iraq, "without" the US-Led invasion & occupation in Iraq? PCA : Zero... Is that the Final_answer? Copyright 2004 kx21.com 040519 ... ! (Litmus_Test, instead of Limus_Test) 040519 ... iMay192004 "a_wrong_War_in_the_21st_century" 040519 ... sixstop Nick Berg's father is a car carrying Marxist. 040519 ... Dosquatch Issue 1: Berg is beheaded, tragic as that is. pulling troops out will not change this. criticizing Bush will not change this. offering unprovable theories about how it wouldn't have happened if we weren't there will not change this. retroactive policy decisions are not possible, and would not change this even if they were. Issue 2: your implication is that policy decisions should be made based upon how a fucking nutcase might or might not react. this is not a sound basis for decision-making, especially when said decisions are intened to end certain behaviors of said fucking nutcases like random beheadings or crashing planes into tall buildings. For instance. Issue 3: PCA? Hoo, buddy, we're way past political correctness at this point. Did I miss anything? 040519 ... sixstop i love the whole implication that we're ruining Iraq. . .but not Afghanistan. You hardly ever hear criticism of the work being done in Afghanistan when essentially we're doing much of the same rebuilding... 040519 ... dosquatch True, I did miss that. Thank you. 040519 ... kx21 *** * Freedom and Democracy (FADE) *** How many "beasts" did Bush adminstration has in the Space of FADE? All the Beasts in FADE... iLink:- "The_beast_in_Freedom_and_Democracy" Copyright 2004 kx21.com 040519 ... iMay192004 "A_Picture_is_Worth_1000_words" Wordshttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40140000/gif/_40140195_us_poll_gra416.gif 040519 ... bird The key differences between Iraq and Afghannistan are this, sixstop: *We don't have an Afghan equivalent to Ahmed Chalabi who fueled 50 flavors of neocon imperialist fantasy by blowing smoke up everyone's ass hoping that BushCo could fix it so that he gets installed as their new president. And before you trot out the news that his offices were raided by US troops and Iraqi police today, let me clue you in on the realpolitik of the situation as it stands today: Chalabi is disliked as an opportunisitic outisder among the Iraqi people, rumblings have been coming from our own people in diplomatic channels that "in order to win, we have to lose" - to be pro-american in Iraq is to risk one's credibility knowing the US's role in the last 24 years of Iraq's history, This is the reason that Sistani's influence as a moderate is waning while Sadr's popularity and influence with the public are growing steadily, This administration has shown itself to be fond of cheap theatrics and i would not put it past them to think that they are doing Chalabi a favor by letting him have the appearance of having gone "off the reservation" to by him a little credibility *The amount of money being spent on any attempts at recontruction of Afghanistan has already been surpassed several times over by the amount of money spent on Iraq *The rationale behind our actions in Afghanistan hasn't been hastily changed every time there's been a problem *The parts of Afghanistan that do resemble any sort of democracy are actually tun by Afghans instead of Bush partisans like Paul Bremer, *we can't openly try to exploit Afghanistan's biggest resource because there's no legitimate way to position ourselves as being in control of the world's biggest opium supply, and since there's almost no legitimate commercial market for natural opium our approach to that matter would be more than a little bit "laissez_faire" *and the other, most pressing difference between the Iraq occupation and the Afghan occupations is that so far, we haven't shifted most of our troops and funding out of a largely unfinished Iraq campaign to go running off on another invasion and if you've been paying attention lately, you'd know that outside of Kabul, Afghanistan is still pretty much run by tribal warlords who only play ball with Hamid Karzai because they are being paid to and that the Taliban, though diminished is still active and quite troublesome on that note, do tell me, what "substance" have YOU added to any debate here, sixstop? 040520 ... bird And no, the issue isn't how the nutcases are going to react to what we do, it's a gioven that those who do hate us and want us dead aren't going to be persuaded to change their mind about it. the issue is how the rest of the general public is going to react, how much of the general population's support we stand to lose and how many new nutcases we'll create along the way as a result. It's case-and-effect here, kiddies. Stop azsuming that any of this shit happens in a vacuum. 040520 ... blather spell check cause-and-effect, assuming 040520 ... Dosquatch I make no assumptions that any of this happens in a vacuum. I firmly believe in karma and the butterfly effect. In some small way, the fact that Berg was beheaded is the fault of all of us. We know someone who knows someone who knows someone who said something that influenced some decision that Berg made at some point in his life, that ultimately put him in a bad place at a bad time. Everything we do has an influence, and we influence everybody that we contact, and by their proxy we influence everybody that we don't contact. So Berg's death is my fault. And it it yours. And it is the fault of Berg himself. Does that mean that Berg deserved to die? I don't know the man, but I'd like to think that the answer is "no". Does that mean that we all should be punished because he died? Absolutely not. Unequivocally and without a doubt, not. See, I also believe in personal responsibility. See, all of these little indirect influences that we have are situational. You are put in a situation, good or bad, but ultimately it is UP TO YOU to decide how you will behave in that situation. Ultimately, it was up to the guy with the knife. Ultimately, it is his blame to bear, and all accusations, vitriol, and retribution should be so directed. Are we responsible for the situation the nutcase is in? Yes, in a cosmic balance sort of way. Are we responsible for his actions? No, that's his choice. Not mine, not yours, and not the Bush administration's. Certainly, the administration has done some things I do not agree with. Lay blame for those things where they belong. But Berg's death is not among the list of charges. The US has a nasty habit of meddling with the governments of others. I think it is fitting that many of the complete whacko dictators that we've had to contend with, we were instrumental in appointing. I keep hoping we'll take the subtle hint, but alas. But that does not make US citizens bad people, and it does not make our military evil. It just means that our leaders are as completely inept as those of any other country. 040520 ... bird The question/argument of whether Nick Berg deserved to die is something of a straw-man argument, no one outside of a few deranged reactionaries and the people who did it would say that he did. and until someone can offer up some definitive answers to the cloudy things around Berg's fate, the tin-foil hat theories i've run across (and echoed here) make more sense than the "official story" does I keep hearing arguments trying to mitigate, minimize or absolve people of responsibility for some of our country's actions by saying "but....but..but we're at war" and yet, if we want to venture down that road, we open the door for our enemies to claim the same justification for their crimes and render our desire to lay claim to the "moral high ground" a sham 040520 ... Dosquatch The fact that we are at war alone invalidates any claim to a moral high ground. Ghandi claimed the moral high ground. M King, Jr. claimed the moral high ground. Any hint of violence immediately and irrevokably contradicts the notion of moral high ground. Which is not to say that we should throw ideals to the wind and have at it with our basest desires, far from it, but I think it would be quite healty for all of us to lose the rose-colored glasses and accept the situation for what it is. The problem with the moral high ground as an ideology is that it doesn't make allowances for self-defense. "Turn the other cheek," it says. The problem is, against a cruel enemy, this is an invitation to inflict even greater harm. The moral high ground is an absolute, and as such, with no provisions for reasonable self-defense, it tends to be unhealthy in practice. 040520 ... bird this then leads us to the other problem: i'll link it in a second... 040520 ... dosquatch This may seem an obvious question, but are bird and birdmad the same person? 040520 ... birdmad link: method_of_approach answer to question: yes 040520 ... sixstop so whats the alternative? I have no tolerance for anyone who thinks terrorists and rogue states can or should be contained or befriended. And don't hand me any of this "well why don't we go after country X, too." Its not sound intellectually. Your position on Iraqi's view of Americas involvement in history in the last 24 years conveniently exempted the first gulf war where Bush Sr wanted to oust saddam then, but due to UN pressure from member nations(we now know were on the take for iraq's oil), as well as Bush Sr's own wimpiness and worrying about an election year, we never finished what we started. It can not be disputed that Saddam possesed and developed many weapons 'proscribed.' We've now found SARIN gas in an artillary shell. 4 liters. Enough to kill about 60,000 people. The same stuff the Japanese terrorists of AUM used in Japan. We didn't even know this kind of thing was in Iraq. You're ready to believe we stormed this freak's compound just to produce a conspiracy and improve his face in the eyes of Iraqi people, yet you still ignore the observation that Iraq is in the news and not Afghanistan. This guy, chablii, is not the reason. Iraq is in the news out of pure political motivation. Afghanistan has dropped off the map because its not as hot a topic on the news, yet troops are still under fire there, as well. Iraqs true political and national history is more justifiably rooted in its trouble with the UK at the turn of last century than with the US. Yet there isn't anyone around talking about Britain's opression anymore, or how they're to blame for dividing ethnic tribes of muslims arbitrarily. It's all weak. I want a specific question answered, and I'll only use one point because I want to see where your schools of thought are bred from. Fact: Saddam had weapons he shouldn't have had, and programs underway he hid from inspectors. Given this, he was in violation of the UN resolutions 687 and 678. He had almost 11 years to destroy them in agreement with the original ceasefire agreement he signed with the UN/US forces. What should have been done instead? 040520 ... bird I know troops are still under fire in Afghanistan... the cadre of idiots in charge of this war reduced most of the forces and materiel we have in Afghanistan which is why as a Nation-Building experiment it's still not going all that well.... the point i'm making and HAVE BEEN MAKING FOR QUITE SOME TIME NOW is that while an invasion of Iraq may have been ultimately necessary - it shouldn't have been done until the Afghanistan mission was truly completed (I.e dead osama, dead Mullah Omar, incarceration or other neutralization of remaining AQ and Taliban survivors in the immediate vicinity) White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card's remarks back in the summer of 2002 turned out to be quite prophetic ("From a marketing perspective, you don't introduce new products in August") and the whores we call our national media bought the gambit hook, line and sinker and got everyone whipped up with a fever to invade Iraq based on what has thus far proven to be shaky justifications As for the Weapons, other than ONE shell which tested positive (in a field test designed for the sake of caution to be oversensitive - like the cache of farm chemicals we thought was nerve and mustard gas last year and the two trucks that we thought were mobile weapons labs last year) for what MIGHT be Sarin (has that been officially confirmed yet? Gimme a link) where are they, are we certain that they had them because Rumsfeld, Cheney, Schulz and Weiberger kept the Purchase Order slips...and isn't it awfully convenient that the "Sarin" shell turns up the same day as the President of the ICG gets assassinated? Where are the great arsenals? Don't say "give it more time" We didn't give the UN inspectors more time, did we? your "Fact" as you present it remains unproven. and on the subject of UN resolutions, here's a scorecard of some of the ones our governement has de-railed: us_un_resolutions_veto_list_read_this And nowhere did i say we should "befriend" terrorists, fuck knows we are in bed with enough "Rogue States" as it is which is part of how we end up with the terrorist problems we have. You probably also missed one of my remarks, i forgot where i made it, where i pointed out that under Winston Churchill in his early political career, when he was in charge of military affairs for the British Empire in the Middle East was the first person to use chemical weapons against the Iraqi people... ..here, in fact, are his words on the subject: "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effects should be good, and it would spread a lively terror." But, My concern does not lie very heavily with what the British did, because i am not British and thus, the effects of their actiosn sice we gained our independencce from them are somewhat secondary. The decision of American leaders to replace the British as the prevalent power player in the Middle East (and the rest of the world)are more my concern And somewhere (again, i forgot where i wrote it, though i think, back when we were on speaking terms The Spork might have nicked it from me and been the one that posted it here) I've been extremely critical of Bush Sr's abandonment of Iraq in the aftermath of Desert Storm, he incited the Shi'ites in the south to rise up against Saddam and then hung them out to dry when they needed our help and as a result, over 100,000 of them were killed in the resulting crackdown i reiterate, the "fact" you present as the backbone of your argument remains unproven...what are you going to tell me next as a fact, that they bought yellowcake from Niger? I was not opposed, on principle, to the eventuality of having to intervene in Iraq, but i have, from the beginning been opposed to the timing of the action as it relates to the so-called "war on terrorism" and incompetency with which this affair has been handled 040520 ... sixstop while I can appreciate the point of view that we should've finished up in Afghanistan, there are 3 parts that breaks down for me: 1: We can't use things like tear gas because of international weapons conventions declared those things to be included in the WMD class. Good enough for domestic cops for non violent resolutions, but not good enough for war? 2:"Don't say "give it more time" We didn't give the UN inspectors more time, did we?" Well you know what? When 12 years have passed like they did since the original date Saddam was supposed to disclose his arsenal and research, or even half that much time. . .i'll give that point of view credence 3: We've found weapons labs(not mobile ones). We've found missle technology that exceeded the stipulated range for his self defense. we've found nuclear research plans partially destroyed AFTER we invaded after analising the remains. We've found migs buried in the sand, plans for unmanned jet flight. Missle technology fresh from france. Night vision technology from russia and germany. As far as the sarin, we didn't have any indication he had this type of chemical agent, so we don't know if there was a stockpile, or if it was a stray. Regardless, 4 liters is plenty to cause massive amounts of sucky death, and its more likely that it was part of a cache given Saddam and the Baath party's rather than some other militant group scurrying through Iraq, or remnants from 25 years ago. It harldy matters. 4 liters is enough to be its own cache as far as I'm concerned. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/iraq/main560449.shtml It IS fact Saddam had weapons he shouldn't have had. Your spin is weak. My original question remains unanswered. 040520 ... sixstop while I can appreciate the point of view that we should've finished up in Afghanistan, there are 3 parts that breaks down for me: 1: We can't use things like tear gas because of international weapons conventions declared those things to be included in the WMD class. Good enough for domestic cops for non violent resolutions, but not good enough for war? 2:"Don't say "give it more time" We didn't give the UN inspectors more time, did we?" Well you know what? When 12 years have passed like they did since the original date Saddam was supposed to disclose his arsenal and research, or even half that much time. . .i'll give that point of view credence 3: We've found weapons labs(not mobile ones). We've found missle technology that exceeded the stipulated range for his self defense. we've found nuclear research plans partially destroyed AFTER we invaded after analising the remains. We've found migs buried in the sand, plans for unmanned jet flight. Missle technology fresh from france. Night vision technology from russia and germany. As far as the sarin, we didn't have any indication he had this type of chemical agent, so we don't know if there was a stockpile, or if it was a stray. Regardless, 4 liters is plenty to cause massive amounts of sucky death, and its more likely that it was part of a cache given Saddam and the Baath party's rather than some other militant group scurrying through Iraq, or remnants from 25 years ago. It hardly matters. 4 liters is enough to be its own cache as far as I'm concerned. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/iraq/main560449.shtml It IS fact Saddam had weapons he shouldn't have had. Your spin is weak. My original question remains unanswered. 040520 ... phil anti-coalition 040521 ... bird we've found "plans" and "weapons-related program ativities" i have lots of plans the rationalization that the government tried to sell to the american public and the world at large wasn't that Iraq was planning to make a knife and hold it to our throats, the rationalization was that the knife existed and was already poised to strike. Had the plan for occupation been better formulated and the rationalization given from the outset that this was EXPLICITLY about regime change and not some paranoid fantasy about pre-emption i would have less cognitive dissonance about the situation Instead we IGNORE the North Korea issue (Nukes THAT CAN FUCKING REACH CALIFORNIA IF THEY WANT THEM TO, Gulag/prison city of 200,000, inmates who are largely dissidents and other political prisoners used as chemical test fodder), we practically abandon or at the very least downsize the hell out of the Afghsnistan mission and after trying to bolster their case by concocting a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, go charging in half cocked thinking that once we toppled Rumsfeld's old buddy Saddam (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/) that the_democracy_fairy was just going to magically unfuck the place (Ken Adelman's "Cakewalk" remarks of February 13, 2002 - http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1996-2002Feb12?language=printer) "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps. " so it would seem that half of the argument was "Let's do it now, because they're weaker and because it will be easy" which runs in direct controversy with the other prong of the argument which says "Let's do it now because they could kill us all" You can't have it both ways. It hasn't been a "cakewalk" and beyond motive, we have NOT proven means or opportunity. there are about a dozen people from my past i would like to kill if i could, but until i explicityly threaten them, my fevered imaginings of their demise are not prosecutable as crimes 040521 ... minnesota_chris nukes that can reach California? Who cares about California... oh, sorry Birdmad... um, yeah. 040521 ... dosquatch ... unless you discuss how you might kill those people with some of your friends, at which point it becomes conspiracy and you are guilty of a crime even if no harm ever befalls those who you have in mind. 040521 ... bird (he*s mad....MAD I TELL YOU!) true, that's why i generally don't discuss those matters. as long as the "who" and the "how" remain relatively unknown, i have little to worry about 040521 ... dosquatch Speaking of cognitive dissonance, please explain: We were wrong for moving on Iraq without being fully finished with Afghanistan, but we are also wrong for NOT moving on North Korea when the first two are unfinished? 040521 ... sixstop i wasn't asking for your myopic view of wether or not it could or even would strike the US, given the chance. Its irellevant to what I want to know about you. I asked you a very straight forward question. I'm still waiting for a simple answer on what you think, rather than a long and ultimately useless and un-persuasive diatribe. Given a fact, which you are either dodging, or still calling a lie; Saddam had weapons and materials he shouldn't have had. Given the 11 years to comply with the original cease fire agreement he signed, what should have been done instead? What should have been done instead? 040521 ... kx21 Let_There_be_light: "If_that's_a_defeat_we_need_more_defeats_like_that" 040521 ... bird Not quite, but nice try. I'm saying that the priority should have been laid out as follows (with everyting after Afghanistan NOT undertaken until any other situations realistically allowed for the re-assignment and deployment of military personnel...Remember, the mission isn't accomplished just because a statue got knocked over): 1) Afghanistan - Removal of Taliban, and COMPLETE dissolution/neutralization of AQ and sympathetic elements in the immediate area and remanding the pursuit of loose ends to the intelligence community. 2) Diplomatic resolution with N. Korea and neighboring states (ESP. China) with a clear military contingency plan which is flexible and more geared towarf the "Worst Case Scenario" than the "Best case sceario" that the Pentagon used for Iraq - As China would be a wildcard in that situation and as they are, by sheer force of military numbers, the de-facto "other superpower" a military resolution in that region is the least desirable, a political re4solution is the best chance to avoid what could otherwise escalate into a full-scale global war if not handled with a great deal of diplomatic skill. 3. Iraq - intervention based not on Weapons ("errr....ummm, no, weapon plans, umm... err, no...weapons related program activities...gotta love how the bar on that one keeps lowering") but based on more credible grounds like humanitarian reasons and maybe even an honest balls-out admission that on top of getting rid of the monster we helped create, that we want a piece of the oil and everyone who comes along for the ride is welcome to a slice of the pie sice hell knows that the terror connection was bogus and the weaposn issue is sketchy at best. The problem with the current administration is that much like Rome's last emperors, they don't seem to grasp or appreciate the strategic and logistical problems of administering multiple wars on multiple fronts, they are unwilling to admit their failures where they have occurred and they failed to even consider that things could go as badly as they have 040521 ... bird I can't respond to a "fact" that i don't have enough proof of to accept as a fact. I'm like the apostle Thomas on this one insofar as i'm not going to believe it until i see it. so because someone tells me that one time they saw a rabbit sitting next to an egg, i'm supposed to believe that it's the easter bunny, because so far that's about all of the credence i can lend to the Sarin shell Considering the time spent by both the UNSCOM inspection teasm and by our own military, until someone shows me an arsenal of the as yet mythical "Weapons of Mass Destruction" i'm not going to answer. If i was still willing to believe things that had not been materially proven to me, i would still be going to church 040521 ... kx21 iLink:- "Miss_the_Forest_for_the_Trees" 040521 ... sixstop Myopic again. I never mentioned an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction(although you can certainly make the case he had them because he used them.) I said weapons he wasn't supposed to have. Do you remember all the weapons and technology that was on the 'proscribed' list? Once again, I understand your vision of how the timeline should've unfolded, and I see the wisdom in being able to look at it that way; I didn't need a re-cap. I also didn't need your opinion on what you think is going on in the brain of congressmen that have been in power since we pulled out of the first Gulf War. I certainly wanted Saddam gone for humanitarian reasons, like a 12-year-old child (and under)annual mortality rate around 11,000 - and I'm sure many Americans felt the same. Unfortunately many more americans took a "not our problem," stance, and a "Who the fuck are we," stance on the matter during the last 10 years... So, one more time. Given the fact that Saddam had weapons and technology, as well as development underway that he should not have had, and the 11 years he had to deal with it... what should have been done? 040521 ... sixstop and here's your fact that he had weapons and technology and programs he should not have. http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html 040521 ... bird "We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone. We are actively engaged in searching for such weapons based on information being supplied to us by Iraqis" by Iraqis like Ahmed Chalabi, who was the key "source" of information that Deputy SecDef Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of the Neo-Con gang at DoD relied on, whose INC faction may have been responsible for betraying a rival faction's coup attempt against Saddam back in the late 90's, and who as it now turns out might well have been spying for Iran (and wouldn't that be a big ol' slab of Irony if it proves true...we played both sides of their war against each other way back when and now the Ayatollahs may have used us for their dirty work...and to think, the Pentagon had been paying that jackpipe Chalabi's organization $340,000 a month for the last year or so and were grooming him to be the new puppet...whoops...bummer) 040521 ... bird as for what the regime was guilty of, hey, nobody's denying that, but well, hey the people who were so hot to have this war should have thought of that when they were supporting him because that's when he was REALLY on a tear. Bush I's failure was not to finish that job 13 years ago Clinton's failure was not to take up that cause with the kind of broad international support he could have garnered for it and finish the job and Bush II's failure was to take the situation and turn it into a dick-waving contest, wherein Saddam could manipulate the opinion of much of his population by pointing at postwar damage from the last war and from the bombings undertaken during the Clinton terms as well as the effects of all the economic sanctions and using it as a propqganda tool to say "look how the americans hurt all of you to get to me, the bastards" at which point he's appealing to the same sort of blind, unreasoning nationalism that ultimately ends becoming a Toby Keith song if it were to be written in America ...and then on top of that to allow his cronies to totally fuck up the job 040521 what's it to you? who go blather from