Billion-Dollar Mystery in Iraq

A multi-billion dollar mystery is unfolding in Iraq, and it may reach to the highest levels of the Iraqi government.

It involves what the New York Times calls an "extremist Shiite group" that has now reconciled with Prime Minister Maliki and his regime. The group is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of five British contractors who, according to the Guardian, were installing a sophisticated financial tracking system in Iraq's ministry of finance in 2007.

The story so far:

Today, the Times reports:

"An extremist Shiite group that has boasted of killing five American soldiers and of kidnapping five British contractors has agreed to renounce violence against fellow Iraqis, after meeting with Iraq's prime minister.

"The prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, met with members of the group, Asa'ib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous, over the weekend, said Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the prime minister, confirming reports. 'They decided they are no longer using violence, and we welcome them,' he said in a telephone interview.

"Mr. Dabbagh first revealed the negotiations in remarks on Monday to Al Iraqiya, the state television network. 'We have reached an agreement to resolve all problems, especially regarding detainees who do not have Iraqi blood on their hands,' he said. He did not say anything about British victims of the group."

In other words, Maliki met with a bunch of Shiite terrorists, welcomed them with open arms. Why would he do that?

In addition, the Times reports, the terrorists have a "liaison to the government." By coincidence, his name is also Maliki, and he wants to get into the government's favor and take part in the "political process":

"Salam al-Maliki, the insurgent group's liaison to the government, said in a telephone interview that the group had not renounced fighting the Americans. 'Of course we want to get into the political process, because circumstances have improved, and the United States is out right now,' said Mr. Maliki, who is not related to the prime minister. 'We told the government anyone who has Iraqi blood on their hands, you should keep him in jail. We are only fighting the United States.'"

The Guardian, in a related story, suggests that the kidnapping of the five Britons was carried out with government collusion by a team of 80 to 100 men, dressed as Interior Ministry police officials and driving a convoy of 19 white SUVs. Here's the Guardian story:

"An investigation into the kidnapping of five British men in Iraq has uncovered evidence of possible collusion by Iraqi government officials in their abduction, and a possible motive – to keep secret the whereabouts of billions of dollars in embezzled funds.

"A former high-level Iraqi intelligence operative and a current senior government minister, who has been negotiating directly with the hostage takers, have told the Guardian that the kidnapping of IT specialist Peter Moore and his four bodyguards in 2007 was not a simple snatch by a band of militants but a sophisticated operation, almost certainly with inside help. Only Moore is thought still to be alive.

"Witnesses to the extraordinary operation which led to the abductions have also told us that they have been warned by superiors to keep quiet."

And this crucial piece:

"Moore was employed to install a new computer tracking system which would have followed billions of dollars of oil and foreign aid money through the ministry of finance. The 'Iraq Financial Management Information System' was nearly complete and about to go online at the time of the kidnap.

"The senior intelligence source said: 'Many people don't want a high level of corruption to be revealed. Remember this is the information technology centre [at the ministry of finance], this is the place where all the money to do with Iraq and all Iraq's financial matters are housed.'"

The Times story, which notes that the terrorist group also killed five US soldiers, says that the five British contractors were seized in retaliation for the detention of some of the group's leaders, after the killing of the Americans. But that makes no sense. Why would they organize and carry out a 19-SUV, 80-person raid on the finance ministry just as retaliation? And could this group have done so? As the Guardian points out, only a government agency could have pulled off the attack.

You can watch a 12-minute video on the case at the Guardian site.

Curiously, the Times report adds: "American military officials say the group is supported by Iran."

I tried getting some background on the League of the Righteous, and I found a posting on the Long War Journal about them, including alleged ties to Iran's Qods Force, the arm of the Revolutionary Guards.

There's more background here, too, at the Long War Journal.

Comments (316)

1. And Gee....all it cost us was 4100+ American soldiers and a Trillion-plus dollars.

   What a bargain!

   Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 10:54am

2. What ever happened to all of that oil produced off the meter? What is happening with all of the money we are preseently pumping into Iraq? Finally, why the hell are we still in Iraq? We've replaced one corrupt leader with another corrupt leader (big surprise there).

   The only reason for keeping any military presence in Iraq now would be to protect oil drilling operations which has been the scenario all along. Our government could give a rats ass about who runs Iraq, just as long as they play ball with the international oil companies. Saddam was a bad boy and didn't. Maliki is just as corrupt, but does play so he can stay in power.

   Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 11:02am

3. A multi billion dollar mystery within a multi trillion dollar mystery. Let freedom ring......................

   Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 11:09am

4. Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 11:02am

   All we need now is a future-Republican Secretary of Defense shaking hands with al-Maliki, smiling....

   and then the same guy telling us 20 years later how vital it is to overthrow him!

   (Oh, and naturally, blaming al-Maliki's corruption on Barack Obama!...heheh)

   Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 11:13am

5. (Oh, and naturally, blaming al-Maliki's corruption on Barack Obama!...heheh)

   Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 11:13am

   Yes indeed. What a tangled web we weave.

   Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 11:24am

6. All we need now is a future-Republican Secretary of Defense shaking hands with al-Maliki, smiling....

   and then the same guy telling us 20 years later how vital it is to overthrow him!

   (Oh, and naturally, blaming al-Maliki's corruption on Barack Obama!...heheh)

   Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 11:13am |

   Perhaps you and your fellow leftists ought to take a break from the Nation and read some world history before making foolish posts.

   History is replete with the record of nations going from friendly to enemy to friendly and repeating that cycle. why should 21st century history be so different?

   Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 11:31am

7. All we need now is a future-Republican Secretary of Defense shaking hands with al-Maliki, smiling....

   and then the same guy telling us 20 years later how vital it is to overthrow him!

   (Oh, and naturally, blaming al-Maliki's corruption on Barack Obama!...heheh)

   Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 11:13am | ignore this person | warn this person

   --i won't mention donald rumsfeld's name b/c it would make my post seem more obvious and thus less interesting.

   oh--and GOTCHA!

   Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 11:37am

8. Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 11:31am

   So, you could see a future scenario whereby the guy you proclaim as the "democratically-elected leader of Iraq"....needs to be overthrown...so we have to go back in AGAIN....lose another 4100+ lives...spend another Trillion+ dollars....and start all over again?

   Please do not answer "yes" or "no" (with explanation)...just bob and weave around the logical extrapolation of your statement again.

   Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 12:03pm

9. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 11:37am

   urmy....seriously....why don't you put me on Ignore?

   Just like carping about me, more than actually meaning what you say about me?

   Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 12:04pm

10. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 11:37am

    urmy....seriously....why don't you put me on Ignore?

    Just like carping about me, more than actually meaning what you say about me?

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 12:04pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    --mask....seriously....why don't you put me on Ignore?

    and no, I mean it--you're a "gotcha" poster whose basic criticism of dems/libs is that they are too pie-in-the-sky and who basic criticism of repubs/conservatives is that they are liars.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 12:06pm

11. History is replete with the record of nations going from friendly to enemy to friendly and repeating that cycle. why should 21st century history be so different?

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 11:31am

    So pray tell Anti - where in neocon dogma does it say that our nation building is soon to be undone by the inevitable cycle of history, and that the friends we create today will be our enemies tomorrow? I think they left that part out didn't they?

    Given US history, I think Mask's estimate of 20 years is quite generous. How long was Taliban our friend? How long was Saddam our friend? How long was Iran our friend? And, what will be the benefit of our short term friendship, which will inevitably fail? Remember to balance this benefit against the cost of American lives and treasure (easily will surpass $3 trillion after all is said and done, and all direct and indirect costs are measured).

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:06pm

12. Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 11:31am

    So, you could see a future scenario whereby the guy you proclaim as the "democratically-elected leader of Iraq"....needs to be overthrown...so we have to go back in AGAIN....lose another 4100+ lives...spend another Trillion+ dollars....and start all over again?

    Please do not answer "yes" or "no" (with explanation)...just bob and weave around the logical extrapolation of your statement again.

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 12:03pm

    Of course. Welcome to the history of mankind. Unlike you, I don't ignore history. Just take the example of the US and England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan as just a few examples of how that has gone in cycles of friend vs foe. And they could do so again.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 12:07pm

13. So, you could see a future scenario whereby the guy you proclaim as the "democratically-elected leader of Iraq"....needs to be overthrown...so we have to go back in AGAIN....lose another 4100+ lives...spend another Trillion+ dollars....and start all over again?

    Please do not answer "yes" or "no" (with explanation)...just bob and weave around the logical extrapolation of your statement again.

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 12:03pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    --antisocialist, you have to explain yourself to mask. he doesn't have to tell you the proper way to deal with the situation in Iraq, or the politics behind getting it done. it's just on you to prove yourself to him (oh, and he's clearly open to being convinced to; he's very open-minded like that; he's not here to trap you in 'gotcha' moments at all, that's not his m.o.)

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 12:09pm

14. Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:06pm

    Same message to you as to Mask in my 12:07pm post. You seem to ignore history

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 12:09pm

15. and no, I mean it--you're a "gotcha" poster whose basic criticism of dems/libs is that they are too pie-in-the-sky and who basic criticism of repubs/conservatives is that they are liars.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 12:06pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Still waiting for your discussion of the legislative history of the 14th Amendment?....hehehe.............

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:16pm

16. and no, I mean it--you're a "gotcha" poster whose basic criticism of dems/libs is that they are too pie-in-the-sky and who basic criticism of repubs/conservatives is that they are liars.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 12:06pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Still waiting for your discussion of the legislative history of the 14th Amendment?....hehehe.............

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:16pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    still waiting for your discussion of why "person" is used in the last two clauses of the 1st secion of the 14th amendment instead of "citizen" which was defined in the first clause and used in the second clause....heheheh..........

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 12:22pm

17. Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 11:31am

    So PNAC for instance just assumed the obvious?

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:22pm

18. History is replete with the record of nations going from friendly to enemy to friendly and repeating that cycle. why should 21st century history be so different?

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 11:31am

    Two things on this Liv.

    1) You don't deny, then, that Rumsfeld and Cheney are hypocrits in their various dealings with Saddam and or Iran ?

    2) That perhaps it's time that the U.S. get the burden of Israel of it's back and let Israel do all of it's own bidding with no backing from us and that includes weapons and or money.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 12:26pm

19. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 12:22pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    If you will read the legislative history, you will find additional support for my answer. I am trying to help you not look like an idiot. Kind of like creating the illusion that a child has discovered something or had an insight on their own.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:28pm

20. History is replete with the record of nations going from friendly to enemy to friendly and repeating that cycle. why should 21st century history be so different?

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 11:31am

    Two things on this Liv.

    1) You don't deny, then, that Rumsfeld and Cheney are hypocrits in their various dealings with Saddam and or Iran ?

    2) That perhaps it's time that the U.S. get the burden of Israel of it's back and let Israel do all of it's own bidding with no backing from us and that includes weapons and or money.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 12:26pm

    1. Of course I do. Rumsfeld and Cheney were never president of the US. And there is no hypocrisy in dealing within the ebb and flow of international relationships in history. It's a stupid question.

    2. Israel is actually prepared to do so. However, are you advocating that the US abandon a treaty accord? The aid to Israel is part of the Camp David Accords under Carter which guarantees this aid to both Israel and Egypt.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 12:30pm

21. ...get the burden of Israel of it's back...

    Correction, should be off.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 12:30pm

22. 1. Of course I do. Rumsfeld and Cheney were never president of the US.

    That's a cop out of I've ever heard one Liv.

    It's a stupid question. No it's not, Cheney was wheeling and dealing in the international market place with these people and then as vice president (keep in mind he was the most powerful vice president in the history of this country) used his high office to further his business interests once out of office.

    2. Israel is actually prepared to do so. However, are you advocating that the US abandon a treaty accord? The aid to Israel is part of the Camp David Accords under Carter which guarantees this aid to both Israel and Egypt.

    I would answer this that aid to either country doesn't include military aid. Quite frankly, I could give a shit less about either country. Egypt is a corrupt nightmare and Israel is nothing but trouble in with everyone one of it's neighbors. Israel wouldn't last without our backing and you know it.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 12:35pm

23. Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

    • we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

    • we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

    • we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

    • we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

    Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

    PNAC policy statement.............

    so Liv, where is the statement about learning the lessons from our past failures? Or, in your world, there are no US failures, only the natural ebb and flow of history (no matter how short-lived...lol...)?????????????????

    You have got to wonder about a group who only wants to draw its "lessons" from past successes (they don't elaborate), and no lesson from our past failures. Curious indeed.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:46pm

24. "1) You don't deny, then, that Rumsfeld and Cheney are hypocrits in their various dealings with Saddam and or Iran ?"---Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 12:26pm

    "1. Of course I do. Rumsfeld and Cheney were never president of the US. And there is no hypocrisy in dealing within the ebb and flow of international relationships in history. It's a stupid question."---Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 12:30pm

    So if Dubya had died....Cheney, "greatest Vice-President in our history" (your words) would have immediately become a hypocrite...

    if you sole excuse is he was "never president of the US".....right???

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 12:50pm

25. 'We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.

    We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities'

    PNAC

    Now the above statement doesn't seem to lend credence to the inevitable flow of history Anti. What it is saying is that past administrations are to be blamed - not the inevitable march of history. And implicit in their statement is that if we follow Reagan's philosophy, we will be absolved from the mistakes of past administrations, and following your logic, be spared the inevitable march of history.

    So Neo-Con vision chooses to ignore your inevitablity theory does it not?

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:54pm

26. So if Dubya had died....Cheney, "greatest Vice-President in our history" (your words) would have immediately become a hypocrite...

    if you sole excuse is he was "never president of the US".....right???

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 12:50pm

    Your question is meaningless. Cheney had no dealings with either Iran or Iraq as VP.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 1:25pm

27. Now the above statement doesn't seem to lend credence to the inevitable flow of history Anti. What it is saying is that past administrations are to be blamed - not the inevitable march of history. And implicit in their statement is that if we follow Reagan's philosophy, we will be absolved from the mistakes of past administrations, and following your logic, be spared the inevitable march of history.

    So Neo-Con vision chooses to ignore your inevitablity theory does it not?

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:54pm

    I'm neither a neocon nor a member of the PNAC.

    Furthermore, it isn't addressing the cycles of historic relationships between govts. It's addressing other issues.

    To somehow cite this as encompassing all of conservative thought on the issue of war and peace is ludicrous.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 1:40pm

28. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 12:22pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    If you will read the legislative history, you will find additional support for my answer. I am trying to help you not look like an idiot. Kind of like creating the illusion that a child has discovered something or had an insight on their own.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 12:28pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    --what did you and the good senators discuss putting in the amendment back in teh late 1800s? oh, that's right, you weren't there. and is 'legislative history' law? or would that be idiotic?

    Keep ignorning the plain language in the text of the amendment: when it comes to child-like discovery, you'll be amazed when you open your eyes to the simple truth right in front of you.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 2:04pm

29. To somehow cite this as encompassing all of conservative thought on the issue of war and peace is ludicrous.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 1:40pm

    Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, etc.,... were they PNAC?

    They were carrying the ball on this one weren't they? The topic is Iraq. You supported invasion of Iraq as I recall? Are you telling us that you don't agree with PNAC global vision or parts thereof? Please elaborate.

    A country that is occupied by an invading army.....do you classify that country as a "willing friend and ally."?

    The abbreviated cycle of friend/foe history and US relationships in the Middle East and beyond - would you agree that our friendships may have lasted longer or have been renewed more easily, but for the fact that we do Israel's bidding?

    So - if Iraq 20 years from now is our enemy - are you going to just blame this on the inevitability of history, or are you going to admit that you were wrong! It seems very much like you are starting to build the case for your own defense Anti.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 2:11pm

30. So - if Iraq 20 years from now is our enemy - are you going to just blame this on the inevitability of history, or are you going to admit that you were wrong! It seems very much like you are starting to build the case for your own defense Anti.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 2:11pm

    You are going round and round trying to find a way to ignore history with all of your strawman arguments. But history is history.

    Have we had cycles of war and friendship with England, Germany, Japan?

    To suggest as you and others on the left would like that countries do not and will not change their attitude towards another in the future is to be either naive or ignorant. You may choose which you prefer for yourself.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 2:19pm

31. Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 1:25pm

    My question DOES have meaning...if we can keep it to what YOU SAID and not something else you now embarassed want to switch it to. Which was-

    "1) You don't deny, then, that Rumsfeld and Cheney are hypocrits in their various dealings with Saddam and or Iran ?"---Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 12:26pm

    "1. Of course I do. Rumsfeld and Cheney were never president of the US. And there is no hypocrisy in dealing within the ebb and flow of international relationships in history. It's a stupid question."---Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 12:30pm

    So what happens to the "never president" innoculation against hypocrisy, Larry...if Dubya had died and his Veep assumed office?

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 2:21pm

32. Mask: "My question DOES have meaning...if we can keep it to what YOU SAID and not something else you now embarassed want to switch it to."

    --in other words--let me have my GOTCHA moment lar. c'mon, give me my GOTCHA moment lar. hey lar, I need my GOTCHA moment.

    p.s.--GOTCHA, GOTCHA, GOTCHA!!!

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 2:24pm

33. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 2:24pm

    Again, urmy....be easy to show contradictions in your posts....

    if they had enough substance in them to begin with. But since most are critiques of other posters' posts....and almost half of MY posts....

    you win. I am at a loss for material when it comes to you.

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 2:31pm

34. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 2:24pm

    Again, urmy....be easy to show contradictions in your posts....

    if they had enough substance in them to begin with. But since most are critiques of other posters' posts....and almost half of MY posts....

    you win. I am at a loss for material when it comes to you.

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 2:31pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    --on this particular thread I haven't posted "substance" (although neither have you)...but go to other current threads on The Nation, you'll find plenty of "substance" with which to comment on (and I already covered this--you far more often than not agree with my point of view, so of course you don't have a stockpile of "gotcha" material on me)

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 2:36pm

35. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 2:04pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    You are avoiding giving an answer - why?

    So illegal aliens were given CITIZEN rights of equal protection under US law at time of passage of the 14th Amendment post Civil War, along with blacks who were brought to this country against their will and enslaved? Wow! I didn't know that. Man, those dudes were really thinking ahead huh?

    Got any case law from the 19th century supportive of extension of equal protection to illegal aliens? Be glad to consider it.

    Due Process yes, Equal Protection No. Illegal aliens are not similarly situated to those who are here in the United States LEGALLY, either by citizenship, or CONGRESSIONAL extension of limited rights of citizenship under our immigration laws.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 2:48pm

36. Mask, you're an idiot. antisocialist is not saying that the president is automatically and by definition a hypocrite or not a hypocrite simply due to his office. He's saying that the president makes policy. Reagan made the policy that we were bff with Saddam. He sent Rumsfeld to meet Saddam. If Rumsfeld had said no, Reagan would have sent someone else. If Rumsfeld was president instead of Reagan, he could very well have pursued regime change in Iraq.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 2:52pm

37. My question DOES have meaning...if we can keep it to what YOU SAID and not something else you now embarassed want to switch it to. Which was-

    "1) You don't deny, then, that Rumsfeld and Cheney are hypocrits in their various dealings with Saddam and or Iran ?"---Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/04/2009 @ 12:26pm

    "1. Of course I do. Rumsfeld and Cheney were never president of the US. And there is no hypocrisy in dealing within the ebb and flow of international relationships in history. It's a stupid question."---Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 12:30pm

    So what happens to the "never president" innoculation against hypocrisy, Larry...if Dubya had died and his Veep assumed office?

    Posted by Mask at 08/04/2009 @ 2:21pm

    Mask, you can repeat this 500 different ways, but my answer remains the same. It has no relevance and no meaning. Cheney NEVER HAD ANY DEALINGS WITH IRAN OR IRAQ WHILE HE WAS VP.

    Let's look at his prior time and just dismiss your idiocy once and for all.

    Halliburton was fined for sales to Iraq that took place several years before Cheney joined the company.

    Iraq, no hypocrisy

    in 2001, a foreign subsidiary of Halliburton opened an office in Tehran. It was not under direct control of Halliburton, no Americans were involved in that business operation and the Justice Department has found no violation of US law.

    Iran, no hypocrisy.

    Go peddle this kind of nonsense on Daily Kos or Huffington Post.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 3:09pm

38. OV: "You are avoiding giving an answer - why?"

    --i've answered all of your questions.

    OV: "So illegal aliens were given CITIZEN rights of equal protection under US law at time of passage of the 14th Amendment post Civil War, along with blacks who were brought to this country against their will and enslaved? Wow! I didn't know that. Man, those dudes were really thinking ahead huh?"

    --an ardent hater of the judicial philosophy of "living constitution" shining through! here's something: I want you to post a link for me to the legislative history of the 14th amendment. i will look at the sources you're using and find evidence that the use of "person" instead of "citizen" was deliberate in the last two clauses of section 1; and that if the word "person" (which is used twice in section 1) was meant to be synonymous with "citizen" the word "citizen" would have simply been used (as it had already been in the same section, twice).

    OV: "Got any case law from the 19th century supportive of extension of equal protection to illegal aliens? Be glad to consider it."

    --you got any against it? i'd be glad to consider it.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 3:10pm

39. OV wrote re: "illegal aliens": "Due Process yes, Equal Protection No."

    Here's the text of section 1 of the 14th Amendment (there are four clauses; the first ends at the first period; the second ends at the first semicolon, the third ends at the second semicolon, the fourth ends at the second period):

    "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

    --clause 1: defines what it means for a person to be a citizen of the united states.

    --clause 2: priviliges and immunities: "citizens"

    --clause 3: due process: "person"

    --clause 4: equal protection: "person"

    OneVote admits that due process applies to illegal aliens b/c the clause says "person" but he's unwilling to say illegal aliens have equal protection of the law even though that clause also says "person" and not "citrizen"

    The plain text of the amendment flies right in the face of OneVote's argument, but he's willing to ignore it and point to "legislative history" (which he has not linked to; and which is never part of any enacted law) to 'prove' his tortured point.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 3:23pm

40. "Go peddle this kind of nonsense on Daily Kos or Huffington post"

    Well, he is on The Nation, after all.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 4:36pm

41. The Borgen Project has some good information on the cost of addressing global poverty (www.borgenproject.org). It only takes $30 billion annually to end world hunger! Yet... we are spending $550 billion annually on the defense budget.

    Posted by hawaiianchica423 at 08/04/2009 @ 4:45pm

42. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 3:23pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Due Process refers to laws of the United States. Illegal aliens to be deported pursuant to due process of the laws of United States.....

    FYI

    'The ensuing Reconstruction Acts placed the former CSA states under military rule, and prohibited their congressmen's readmittance to Congress until after several steps had been taken, including the approval of the 14th Amendment. The 14th was designed to ensure that all former slaves were granted automatic United States citizenship, and that they would have all the rights and privileges as any other citizen. The amendment passed Congress on June 13, 1866, and was ratified on July 9, 1868 (757 days).'

    Analysis of the constitution as to subject matter clearly identifies the 14th Amendment as CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 4:54pm

43. Same message to you as to Mask in my 12:07pm post. You seem to ignore history

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 12:09pm

    Translation: I supported the war on the grounds that it would make us safer, even though I am now admitting that it was all BS.

    Posted by Shingo at 08/04/2009 @ 5:22pm

44. It has no relevance and no meaning. Cheney NEVER HAD ANY DEALINGS WITH IRAN OR IRAQ WHILE HE WAS VP.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 3:09pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    While hed of Halliburton. Cheney was lobbying the Clinton administration and complaining about US policies towards Iran, becasue Halliburton were doing business with Iran.

    As VP, he then turned around claimed that Iran was the biggest threat to international peace.

    But according to Larry, no hypocrisy there.

    Larry thinks that a Halliburton office in Tehran is not under direct control of Halliburton.

    Since when has Halliburton been part owned by Tehran?

    Rumsfled, as head of the Swiss Company ABB, sold nuclear reactors to North Korea, then as Secreatry of Defense, compained about the threat North Korea prosed to the US.

    I'm sure according to Larry, there's no hypocrisy there either.

    Posted by Shingo at 08/04/2009 @ 5:30pm

45. But, all antisocialist said is that Iraq COULD threaten us again, in decades or hundreds of years. He emphasised that the same could be true of any country. I wouldn't have made that point if I were him, but certainly no one could argue it is impossible that Japan would ever turn on us. That doesn't mean we were wrong to occupy Japan, does it? That said, I think democracies are almost never going to threaten one another, and I don't think Iraq would turn on us unless its democracy was sabotaged. I think antisocialist does come across as a little too willing to accept war as inevitable and perpetual here.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 5:37pm

46. He sent Rumsfeld to meet Saddam. If Rumsfeld had said no, Reagan would have sent someone else. If Rumsfeld was president instead of Reagan, he could very well have pursued regime change in Iraq.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 2:52pm |

    Not really. Rumsfeld was sellign nuclear technology to North Korea while hed of ABB, then as Secretary of Defense, labelled Noth Korea as part of the axis of evil.

    Posted by Shingo at 08/04/2009 @ 5:37pm

47. Look, I really don't believe in the integrity of Rumsfeld's moral character, I was just making antisocialist's point for him, because Mask couldn't understand.

    He shook Saddam's hand. He'll never be able to wash away all the blood it left behind on him.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 5:44pm

48. OV wrote: "Due Process refers to laws of the United States. Illegal aliens to be deported pursuant to due process of the laws of United States....."

    --that's a very specific definition you got going on. "due process refers to laws of the u.s." wow-no kidding!

    OV wrote: 'The ensuing Reconstruction Acts placed the former CSA states under military rule, and prohibited their congressmen's readmittance to Congress until after several steps had been taken, including the approval of the 14th Amendment. The 14th was designed to ensure that all former slaves were granted automatic United States citizenship, and that they would have all the rights and privileges as any other citizen. The amendment passed Congress on June 13, 1866, and was ratified on July 9, 1868 (757 days).' Analysis of the constitution as to subject matter clearly identifies the 14th Amendment as CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS."

    --where's the link to this? those are not your own words.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 5:46pm

49. The Borgen Project has some good information on the cost of addressing global poverty (borgenproject dot org). It only takes $30 billion annually to end world hunger! Yet... we are spending $550 billion annually on the defense budget.

    Posted by hawaiianchica423 at 08/04/2009 @ 6:07pm

50. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 5:46pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    USConstitution.net

    Now you ask whether I believe in a "Living Constitution."

    Let me put this way. I do not believe in judicial activism that supports contravention of the laws of United States of America. If any judicial decision was designed to support Reagan's illegal open border policy which was designed to eviscerate labor unions and the middle class, it was Plyler v. Doe. This decision opened the door to a huge welfare system for illegal aliens that has attracted them like flies on sh_t. Legal US citizens living in California get an average tax bill of approximately $1200 to support illegal aliens. California is of course bankrupt. Illegal alien welfare is a huge part of California's budget deficit.

    I believe that we should protect the constitutional rights of American citizens first and foremost. You got a problem with that Senor?

    Tell us your story and how you are benefitting from illegal illegal alien welfare system here in the US.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 6:20pm

51. But, all antisocialist said is that Iraq COULD threaten us again, in decades or hundreds of years. He emphasised that the same could be true of any country. I wouldn't have made that point if I were him, but certainly no one could argue it is impossible that Japan would ever turn on us. That doesn't mean we were wrong to occupy Japan, does it? That said, I think democracies are almost never going to threaten one another, and I don't think Iraq would turn on us unless its democracy was sabotaged. I think antisocialist does come across as a little too willing to accept war as inevitable and perpetual here.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 5:37pm

    Thanks for your input. I don't think that war is inevitable and perpetual between former adversaries. What I'm saying is that to ridicule the notion that countries move in and out of the status of friend or foe is to ignore history. I don't advocate for it, but as a historian, I certainly recognize the facts of history rather than some emotional conclusion.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 6:27pm

52. OV wrote: "USConstitution.net"

    who is Steve Mount? (the website designer and maintainer). is he also responsible for the content on the website?

    also, you cited the main page which has a table of contents. i want you to cite the actual urls where you're getting the legislative history for the 14th amendment.

    also--still don't want to address the citizen/person dichotomy do you? nah, that'd be too straight forward.

    OV wrote: "Now you ask whether I believe in a "Living Constitution.""

    --of course you don't. I already stated as such. you think it's a b.s. judicial philosophy. your opinion is fair. doesn't make it constitutionally correct.

    OV wrote: "Let me put this way. I do not believe in judicial activism that supports contravention of the laws of United States of America."

    --"contravention" is a big word to use for someone who won't explain the citizen/person dichotomy use of words in the 14th amendment.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 6:38pm

53. OV wrote: "If any judicial decision was designed to support Reagan's illegal open border policy which was designed to eviscerate labor unions and the middle class, it was Plyler v. Doe. This decision opened the door to a huge welfare system for illegal aliens that has attracted them like flies on sh_t. Legal US citizens living in California get an average tax bill of approximately $1200 to support illegal aliens. California is of course bankrupt. Illegal alien welfare is a huge part of California's budget deficit. I believe that we should protect the constitutional rights of American citizens first and foremost. You got a problem with that Senor?"

    --I believe the judiciary should uphold the constitution. the 14th amendment is part of the constitution. the 14th amendment says all "persons" have the right to equal protection. it doesn't say only "citizens" have the right to equal protection; it says all "persons." you want plyler overturned, clearly. perhaps the amendment process should be utilized. it's there for the using; if this is a serious constitutional crisis, then make your voice be heard with people who can help you (I'm an anonymous commenter posting on the interweb; so complaining to me ain't gonna help you get what you want). who knows, maybe the supreme court will oveturn plyler someday.

    OV wrote: "Tell us your story and how you are benefitting from illegal illegal alien welfare system here in the US."

    --I make less than $35,000 a year living in a high cost of living state in New England. If I'm benefitting from what you call an "illegal illegal alien welfare system" I'd love to know how.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 6:44pm

54. I don't advocate for it, but as a historian, I certainly recognize the facts of history rather than some emotional conclusion.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 6:27pm

    If you are a historian, then you wouldn't be so quick to reflexively advocate policies which are destined to repeat those mistakes.

    How about starting with lesson number 1 - intervention only begets more intervention?

    Posted by Shingo at 08/04/2009 @ 6:48pm

55. Shingo, are you a pacifist, or would you admit that military intervention is sometimes justifiable (in Darfur, Rwanda, Cambodia, WW2)?

    Here's a history lesson for you: appeasement means a costlier intervention later on down the road.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 7:19pm

56. Cheney had no dealings with either Iran or Iraq as VP.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 1:25pm

    hahahaha, you sound like a drunken historian.

    let's see:

    Cheney makes surprise visit to Iraq - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com 17 Mar 2008 ... Vice President Dick Cheney opened a new US push for political unity in Iraq on an unannounced visit Monday, just ahead of the fifth ... www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23667595/ - Cached - Similar FOXNews.com - Cheney Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq - Politics ... 19 Dec 2005 ... Cheney Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to Iraq Sun under heavy security, ... www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179046,00.html - Cached - Similar Cheney Visits Iraq as U.S. Prepares Progress Report (Update5 ... 17 Mar 2008 ... Vice President [bn:PRSN=1] Dick Cheney [] underlined the US's ``unwavering commitment'' to building democracy in Iraq during a visit to ... www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid...refer... - Similar Cheney Visits Iraq : NPR 9 May 2007 ... Vice President Dick Cheney's lightning visit to Baghdad on Wednesday allowed him to spend some time with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri ... www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10092607 - Similar Cheney visits Iraq to press for progress - The New York Times 9 May 2007 ... After talks with Iraqi military and political officials, Cheney said Iraq's leaders seemed to have a better sense now that they need to do ...

    hmmmmmmmmm...........

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:03pm

57. let's check iran:

    FOXNews.com - Cheney Pushed for More Trade With Iran - You Decide 2004 9 Oct 2004 ... Cheney countered that he now supports sanctions against Iran but sidestepped the issue of Halliburton's involvement, saying it was being ... www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134836,00.html - Cached - Similar Iran - Halliburton Watch As CEO of Halliburton, Mr. Cheney lobbied the Clinton administration to ease sanctions on Libya and Iran, according to various news reports. ... www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/iran.html - Cached - Similar Halliburton, Dick Cheney, and Wartime Spoils 3 Apr 2003 ... Yet, Halliburton has conducted Business in Iran through subsidiaries. When Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he inquired about an ILSA waiver ... www.commondreams.org/views03/0403-10.htm - Cached - Similar [PDF] DICK CHENEY, IRAN AND HALLIBURTON: File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML A REPORT BY THE OFFICE OF. SENATOR FRANK R. LAUTENBERG. DICK CHENEY, IRAN AND HALLIBURTON: A GRAND JURY INVESTIGATES SANCTIONS VIOLATIONS ... lautenberg.senate.gov/documents/.../REPORT_Halliburton_Iran.pdf - Similar Halliburton Doing Business With the 'Axis of Evil' (washingtonpost ... Many online pundits interpreted his remarks as a threat of military action against Iran. Cheney was not asked about Halliburton's venture. ... www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58298-2005Feb2.html - Similar 2. Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran ... However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company ... www.projectcensored.org/.../2-halliburton-charged-with-selling-nuclear- technologies-to-iran/

    ••••••••••••

    you should stick to being a prophet, larry.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:04pm

58. Shingo, are you a pacifist, or would you admit that military intervention is sometimes justifiable (in Darfur, Rwanda, Cambodia, WW2)?

    Here's a history lesson for you: appeasement means a costlier intervention later on down the road.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 7:19pm

    I'm not a pacifist. When it comes to legitimate defense, I will support it.

    You might recall that WW2 was made necessary by WW1.

    Cambodia? Let me think? Would that have had anything to do with the secret carpet bombing by the Nixon administration?

    Rwanda and Darfur are complicated yes, but as we saw with our adventures in Somalia, doing something just because something must be done, does not guarantee things will improve.

    Posted by Shingo at 08/04/2009 @ 8:08pm

59. Have we had cycles of war and friendship with England, Germany, Japan?

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 2:19pm

    ah, the nation-state.

    stupid humans.

    here's to the 23rd century!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:09pm

60. That said, I think democracies are almost never going to threaten one another, and I don't think Iraq would turn on us unless its democracy was sabotaged.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 5:37pm

    perhaps the sabotaging of democracy is happening a little closer to home.

    SAVE FLINT!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:11pm

61. I think antisocialist does come across as a little too willing to accept war as inevitable and perpetual here.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 5:37pm

    well, he doesn't want those cluster bombs to go to waste.

    he is a proud papi after all.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:15pm

62. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed

    look,

    you seem to want good things for people.

    but your choice of partners in this endeavour leaves much to be desired.

    do you really trust any u.s. government, regardless of which "party" of the 1.2 is in power, to act in selfless, humane interest?

    i mean, really....

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:18pm

63. --I make less than $35,000 a year living in a high cost of living state in New England. If I'm benefitting from what you call an "illegal illegal alien welfare system" I'd love to know how.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 6:44pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Well - don't forget that illegal immigration has played a part in keeping wages low for American workers. Careful what you wish for.

    And yes, Plyler may be overturned, someday. But who is going to be the heartless SOB that brings the action? Its constitutional underpinnings will not support it, and it is incongruous to believe such. Imagine...you the US taxpayer must support children of illegal aliens through K12. Just unbelievable. The court should have immediately issued a writ of mandamus to the Federal Government mandating deportation of illegal aliens. How an illegal alien can originally bring suit in Texas, have standing to do so, and not suffer immediate deportation boggles the imagination. Apparently the school district never counter claimed, which they clearly could have done.

    There is an easier remedy. Enforce our immigration laws to begin with, and create a path to citizenship for illegals already present.

    Activist judges will use all forms of verbal and semantic legerdermain to try to fit a ruling in under the umbrella of constitutional law. Case law in the late 19th century regarding abuses of Chinese immigrant labor brought here as "coolies" by treaty with China used equal protection arguments from judges sympathetic to abuse of Chinese laborers. Deportation cases have unsuccessfully argued equal protection circa late 19th century for illegal reentry. Note legal status of plaintiff. Chinese treaty confering legal alien status. Not same as illegal status.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 8:19pm

64. SAVE FLINT!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:20pm

65. libertyfor:

    Crime Statistics > Gun violence > Homicides > Overall homicide rate > per 100,000 pop. (most recent) by country VIEW DATA: Totals Definition Source Printable version Bar Graph Map

    Showing latest available data. Rank Countries Amount # 1 South Africa: 125.965 # 2 Colombia: 114.5083 # 3 Guatemala: 43.9737 # 4 Thailand: 41.4695 # 5 Paraguay: 19.3959 # 6 Mexico: 17.7735 # 7 Belarus: 13.44 # 8 Lithuania: 12.2598 # 9 Zimbabwe: 11.9841 # 10 Estonia: 11.9795 # 11 Latvia: 11.2985 # 12 Barbados: 10.4869 # 13 Ukraine: 9.2747 # 14 UNITED STATES: 9.1 # 15 Moldova: 8.5941 # 16 Uruguay: 7.1321 # 17 Côte d'Ivoire: 6.1367 # 18 Poland: 6.0362 # 19 Bulgaria: 4.8366 # 20 Slovakia: 4.8132

    nice company.

    SAVE FLINT!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 8:25pm

66. OneVote--you're constitutional understanding and application is extremely weak; which has been made abundantly clear by your unwillingness to discuss the difference between citizen/person in the 14th amendment, section 1; and your lack of posting the exact urls you have used to look up the "legislative history" of the 14th amendment.

    but clearly you're passionate about the issue. take it to your gov't representatives. maybe you'll get what you want.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 8:28pm

67. Fuck all republicans!!!!

    Posted by Tiger2Lover at 08/04/2009 @ 8:52pm

68. uh, and how are those democrats working out for you?

    out of iraq?

    out of afpak?

    how about the whore on drugs?

    you've had the tarp pulled over your eyes.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 9:17pm

69. Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 8:28pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Well anytime you want bolster your argument with something more authoritative than Websters Dicitonary I will be happy to critique.

    What I am passionate about is social activists claiming equal protection rights for illegal aliens.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 9:33pm

70. "You might recall that WW2 was made necessary by WW1."

    That's true.

    "Cambodia? Let me think? Would that have had anything to do with the secret carpet bombing by the Nixon administration?"

    No, sorry. That is a myth.

    http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/4may70/scales.html

    "The President flew out to Hawaii to be present when the astronauts "splashed down" after their cosmic brush with death. During the attendant patriotic celebration, choreographed with all Haldeman's twenty years of expertise as an advertising executive, no one noticed Nixon slip away for a daybreak briefing with Admiral John McCain, Sr., commander of all US forces in the half of the planet drained by the Pacific. McCain, known to a skeptical press as "the Big Red Arrow Man" for his scarifying map briefings depicting imminent communist conquest, told the President that the Cambodian capital of Phnom Pehn was about to fall to the "Reds". Thus abruptly did the President's festive mood end. He took McCain with him when he flew back to the Western White House so that the admiral could repeat his briefing for national security advisor Henry Kissinger. That evening Nixon went ahead with his scheduled national television address on troop withdrawals from Vietnam. It was by all accounts a flat and perfunctory performance by a man who seemed preoccupied."

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:12pm

71. From wiki:

    "Between 1969 and 1973, U.S. forces bombed and briefly invaded Cambodia in an effort to disrupt the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge.[20] Some two million Cambodians were made refugees by the war and fled to Phnom Penh. Estimates of the number of Cambodians killed during the bombing campaigns vary widely, as do views of the effects of the bombing. The US Seventh Air Force ruthlessly argued that the bombing prevented the fall of Phnom Penh in 1973 by killing 16,000 of 25,500 Khmer Rouge fighters besieging the city.[21]"

    http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/0823iraq_rodman.aspx

    "When Congress, in the summer of 1973, legislated an end to U.S. military action in, over, or off the shores of Indochina, the only U.S. military activity then going on was air support of a friendly Cambodian government and army desperately defending their country against a North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge onslaught. "Cambodia is not worth the life of one American flier," Tip O'Neill declared. By 1975, administration pleas to help Cambodia were answered by New York Times articles suggesting the Khmer Rouge would probably be moderate once they came into power and the Cambodian people had a better life to look forward to once we left.

    Trying to debunk the president's VFW speech, the Times has lately resuscitated the hoary claim that it was U.S. military activity that destabilized Cambodia in the first place. This claim, alas, is not supportable. What destabilized Cambodia was North Vietnam's occupation of chunks of Cambodian territory from 1965 onwards for use as military bases from which to launch attacks on U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. ..."

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:19pm

72. "...Cambodia's ruler Prince Sihanouk complained bitterly to us about these North Vietnamese bases in his country and invited us to attack them (which we did from the air in 1969-70). Next came a North Vietnamese attempt to overrun the entire country in March-April 1970, to which U.S. and South Vietnamese forces responded by a limited ground incursion at the end of April."

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:20pm

73. Well anytime you want bolster your argument with something more authoritative than Websters Dicitonary I will be happy to critique.

    What I am passionate about is social activists claiming equal protection rights for illegal aliens.

    Posted by OneVote at 08/04/2009 @ 9:33pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    --really, the plain text of the words in the amendment can just be brushed aside by you, huh? a constitutional scholar you'll never be accused of being, for sure.

    --any time you want to provide those "authoritative" urls to the legislative history of the 14th amendment feel free to provide them. i won't hold my breath.

    --your "passion" is well spent as an anonymous commenter on a political blog. clearly you're making progress in your quest. continue on your big success journey.

    Posted by urmygyro at 08/04/2009 @ 10:22pm

74. So you see, if Nixon was briefed that Cambodia was about to fall to the Khmer Rouge due to a NV and KR attempt to overrun the entire country, and if in response he bombed and invaded Cambodia (whose government gave us approval to do so), and if these actions killed almost 20,000 Khmer Rouge around the capital alone (out of almost 30,000 who had marched onto the capital) not counting all the KR throughout the rest of the country and all their NV allies, and if after this Cambodia lasted two years before falling to the KR (during which time its government begged us to resume military combat against the KR), it is probably safe to say that Nixon, for all his crimes, cannot be blamed for the Cambodian genocide.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:28pm

75. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:20pm

    blah, blah.

    shouldn't you save flint first?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 10:29pm

76. Pittsburgh shooting kills at least 4: reports

    Tuesday, August 4, 2009 | 10:52 PM ET

    At least four people are dead after a gunman opened fire at a health club near Pittsburgh, Pa., according to media reports.

    Pittsburgh television station KDKA quoted local police as saying the gunman was among the four dead. But CNN quoted Gary Vituccio, manager of Collier Township, as saying five people were killed, including the shooter.

    The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, citing witness accounts, reported that eight to 10 people were wounded.

    Ashley Ogordowski told the Post-Gazette newspaper she was in an exercise class at the L.A. Fitness Center in Collier, Pa., southeast of Pittsburgh.

    She says a man came in a back door and started shooting, and added a friend of hers was among the wounded.

    Witnesses told ABC affiliate WTAE that the gunman opened fire on a Latin dance class in the aerobics centre. About 30 women were in the class when "a middle-aged white male walked into the class," a witness, who identified herself as Amy, told WTAE. "He had a big gym bag."

    She said he put down the bag and turned the lights off before opening fire.

    •••••••

    the enemy comes from within.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 10:30pm

77. "Rwanda and Darfur are complicated yes"

    That's a cop-out. Should we have intervened in those situations or not?

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:33pm

78. "Showing latest available data. Rank Countries Amount # 1 South Africa: 125.965 # 2 Colombia: 114.5083 # 3 Guatemala: 43.9737 # 4 Thailand: 41.4695 # 5 Paraguay: 19.3959 # 6 Mexico: 17.7735 # 7 Belarus: 13.44 # 8 Lithuania: 12.2598 # 9 Zimbabwe: 11.9841 # 10 Estonia: 11.9795 # 11 Latvia: 11.2985 # 12 Barbados: 10.4869 # 13 Ukraine: 9.2747 # 14 UNITED STATES: 9.1 # 15 Moldova: 8.5941 # 16 Uruguay: 7.1321 # 17 Côte d'Ivoire: 6.1367 # 18 Poland: 6.0362 # 19 Bulgaria: 4.8366 # 20 Slovakia: 4.8132"

    That is bad. But if we ended the war on drugs a lot of our problems would be solved because: a)It is estimated that nearly one half of all police resources are devoted to stopping drug trafficking, instead of preventing violent crime. We could double our law enforcement resources WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME if drugs were taxed and legalized, and b) It has been estimated that every drug offender imprisoned results in the release of one violent criminal, who then commits an average of 40 robberies, 7 assaults, 110 burglaries and 25 auto thefts.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:39pm

79. the murder stats for mexico are skewed because of the whore on drugs.

    but the u.s. is for other reasons.

    SAVE FLINT!

    oppression must end fractally.

    lead by example, not by cluster bomb.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2009 @ 10:47pm

80. By the way: the bombing of Cambodia DID increase recruitment for the KR, but American ground troops during the invasion showed clearly that they could have defeated the Communists.

    The Khmer Rouge killed 2 million Cambodians.

    The war it provoked with Vietnam cost 600,000 to 700,000 lives and lead to a war between China and Vietnam that killed 60,000 to 70,000 lives.

    http://www.vietka.com/DeathCasualty.htm

    Vietnam, post-war Communist regime (1975 et seq.): 430 000

    Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl Jackson ("Vietnam 1975-1982: The Cruel Peace", in The Washington Quarterly, Fall 1985) estimated that there had been around 65,000 executions. This number is repeated in the Sept. 1985 Dept. of State Bulletin article on Vietnam. Orange County Register (29 April 2001): 1 million sent to camps and 165,000 died. Northwest Asian Weekly (5 July 1996): 150,000-175,000 camp prisoners unaccounted for. Estimates for the number of Boat People who died: Elizabeth Becker (When the War Was Over, 1986) cites the UN High Commissioner on Refugees: 250,000 boat people died at sea; 929,600 reached asylum The 20 July 1986 San Diego Union-Tribune cites the UN Refugee Commission: 200,000 to 250,000 boat people had died at sea since 1975. The 3 Aug. 1979 Washington Post cites the Australian immigration minister's estimate that 200,000 refugees had died at sea since 1975. Also: "Some estimates have said that around half of those who set out do not survive." The 1991 Information Please Almanac cites unspecified "US Officials" that 100,000 boat people died fleeing Vietnam." 65,000 executed, 165,000 killed in camps, 200,000 dead boat people equals 430,000. If you assume the 175,000 camp prisoners "unaccounted for" died, you get around 600,000 killed by the communists.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 12:00am

81. Scooterliberty just wants the oppressed of those oil rich countries to be afforded the chance to sink or swim according to their talent, drive & initiative. That's why he's not interested in starting at home in his quest to save the world. With just tons of opportunity, only noncompetitive losers are left out here in the USA.

    Probably wants the national bird changed to the vulture (hemp braids in one claw, neutron bombs in the other). Let's give this renaissance man a second look. Are we viewing a new paradigm here?

    Posted by Sorelish at 08/05/2009 @ 12:09am

82. Many southerners felt betrayed by the British because they were largely excluded from the new government. The language of the new government was Arabic, but the bureaucrats and politicians from southern Sudan had, for the most part, been trained in English. Of the eight hundred new governmental positions vacated by the British in 1953, only four were given to southerners. Also, the political structure in the south was not as organized in the north, so political groupings and parties from the south were not represented at the various conferences and talks that established the modern state of Sudan. As a result, many southerners do not consider Sudan to be a legitimate state.

    ••

    From 1935 on, "Tutsi", "Hutu" and "Twa" were indicated on identity cards. However, because of the existence of many wealthy Hutu who shared the financial (if not physical) stature of the Tutsi, the Belgians used an expedient method of classification based on the number of cattle a person owned. Anyone with ten or more cattle was considered a member of the aristocratic Tutsi class. The Roman Catholic Church, the primary educators in the country, subscribed to and reinforced the differences between Hutu and Tutsi. They developed separate educational systems for each, although throughout the 1940s and 1950s the vast majority of students were Tutsi.

    ••

    lead by example.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:15am

83. This means that about 3.3 million people were killed by the Communists in Vietnam and Cambodia (not counting Laos). This is more than the number of Vietnamese killed throughout the entire war, ignoring the fact that responsibility for those deaths must be split between the Communists and freedom fighters. We can debate if America was correct to go in to Vietnam, but surely no serious person could argue that our withdrawal in 1973 saved more lives than it cost.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 12:15am

84. ding.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:16am

85. shine, liberty.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:17am

86. The concept, that is.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:17am

87. During World War II, the Japanese allowed the French government (based at Vichy) that collaborated with the republican opponents and attempted to negotiate acceptable terms for independence from the French. Cambodia's situation at the end of the war was chaotic. The Free French, under General Charles de Gaulle, were determined to recover Indochina, though they offered Cambodia and the other Inchochinese protectorates a carefully circumscribed measure of self-government. Convinced that they had a "civilizing mission," they envisioned Indochina's participation in a French Union of former colonies that shared the common experience of French culture.

    ••

    Under the orders of Napoleon III of France, French gunships under Rigault de Genouilly attacked the port of Đà Nẵng in 1858, causing significant damages, yet failed to gain any foothold. De Genouilly decided to sail south and captured the poorly defended city of Gia Định (present-day Saigon). From 1859 to 1867, French troops expanded their control over all 6 provinces on the Mekong delta and formed a French Colony known as Cochin China. A few years later, French troops landed in northern Vietnam (which they called Tonkin) and captured Hà Nội twice in 1873 and 1882. The French managed to keep their grip on Tonkin although, twice, their top commanders, Francis Garnier and Henri Riviere were ambushed and killed. France assumed control over the whole of Vietnam after the Franco-Chinese War (1884-1885).

    ••

    history is to be made, not repeated.

    lead by example.

    <i>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.</i>

    ••

    Type your message here (Characters left: 46)

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:23am

88. emptiness does have benefits:

    "During the 1980s and 1990s, Flint gained a reputation as a crime ridden example of deindustrialization. Trends over the last few years have been changing that negative outlook. In 2007, homicide in Flint went down 52% and rape is down 36%. Auto theft, assault, and larceny are also down.[16] The total number of homicides in Flint in 2007 are some of the lowest in decades. In the 2008 State of the State address, Governor Jennifer Granholm commended Flint on its 46% drop in crime in 2007. In May 2008, new crime statistics for the city were released, showing some of the most dramatic decreases in crime in decades. Murder had dropped 71%, Assault had dropped 48%. Arson and auto theft also saw drops in the 20% range.[17] In the 2008 most dangerous cities listing, Flint saw itself drop three places for the new rankings."

    ••

    FLINT, Mich. -- Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city's endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.

    Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.

    The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.

    ••

    FLINT AC GMC SPARK PLUG 1300 N DORT HWY MID005356647

    FLINT ACTION AUTO #2 1275 S CENTER RD MID000674879

    FLINT AL'S JUNK GOREY ROAD MID981088230

    FLINT CONTAINER SPECIALTIES INC 3261 FLU

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:32am

89. ONTAINER SPECIALTIES INC 3261 FLUSHING RD MID005361597

    FLINT DYE RD DUMP 1205 DYE RD MID981089568

    FLINT ESTECH OIL CO 4701 THETFORD MID098675937

    FLINT FLINT IND PLATING 1109 E STEWART ST MID981958978

    FLINT GENERAL MOTORS CORP FLINT AUTO ENG & 4300 SOUTH SAGINAW STREET MID005356738 DEV FLINT GMC - CHEVROLET - FLINT MFG. 300 NORTH CHEVROLET AVENUE MID005356654

    FLINT GMC AC ROCHESTER/DELCO ELECTRONICS 4143 DAVISION ROAD MID980568745

    FLINT GMC FISHER BODY COLDWATER ROAD 1245 E COLDWATER RD MID005356860

    FLINT GOODIE BARN WEST 12TH ST MID017037813

    FLINT GRAND BLANC LDFL 2277 W GRAND BLANC RD MID980506265

    FLINT THRALL OIL & CHEM CO 603 PINGREE AVE MID980608574

    FLINT TWP LINDEN ROAD LDFL LINDEN RD

    •••••••

    sure, people suffer in many, many places.

    i've eaten dinner with them.

    •••

    lead by example.

    it's cheaper.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:35am

90. http://www.cqs.com/super_mi.htm

    http://www.forgottendetroit.com/index.html

    Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2009 @ 12:36am

91. That's a cop-out. Should we have intervened in those situations or not?

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:33pm

    Given our track record of destroying countries in order to save them, no.

    Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 01:33am

92. No, sorry. That is a myth.

    http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/4may70/scales.html

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 10:12pm

    The relation between the massive carpet bombing of Cambodia by the United States and the growth of the Khmer Rouge, in terms of recruitment and popular support, has been a matter of interest to historians. In 1984 Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia argued that it is "untenable" to assert that the Khmer Rouge would not have won but for U.S. intervention and that while the bombing did help Khmer Rouge recruitment, they "would have won anyway." [7]

    Conversely, some historians have cited the U.S. intervention and bombing campaign (spanning 1965-1973) as a significant factor leading to increased support of the Khmer Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry. Historian Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen have used a combination of sophisticated satellite mapping, recently unclassified data about the extent of bombing activities, and peasant testimony, to argue that there was a correlation between villages targeted by U.S. bombing and recruitment of peasants by the Khmer Rouge. [8]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

    Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 01:39am

93. 4100 Americans dead

    30,000 wounded

    Tens of thousands scarred mentally for life

    Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead.

    Millions thrown from their homes.

    no wmd's found

    Corrupt leaders installed, propped up by an odd mix of US military power and Iranian religious/political power.

    And the cons offer excuses like "Hey, it's just history repeating itself".

    Sick, sad, twisted neo-cons.

    I would like to see a comparison of Iraq 5 years after liberation and Japans corruption 5 years down the road from their surrender. I remember Rummy comparing the "last throes" in Iraq (in 2003!) to Germany in 1943. Now Larry is trying the same Shiite?

    The Iraqi govt implicated in the deaths of coalition contractors....and the neo-cons make excuses. Whereas when Blackwater contractors were hung from a bridge...well...I do seem to recall outrage and blame falling on "the left". Now it is a hum and a ho and a yawn, nothing to see here folks. Just corruption, wasted US taxpayer money and death. Move on.

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/05/2009 @ 05:31am

94. Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 1:25pm Commerce Dept docs: Cheney and oil execs decided to take Iraq's oil in spring 2001 Posted by Cory Doctorow, February 21, 2008 8:06 AM | permalink The Commerce Department has been forced by Judicial Watch to turn over records of spring, 2001 meetings held between Dick Cheney and execs from global oil giants, records that suggest that the group decided months before September 11th that the US energy policy would center on taking control of Iraq's oil: In the late spring of 2001, Vice President Cheney held a series of top secret meetings with the representatives of Exxon-Mobil, Conoco, Shell and BP America for what was later called the Energy Task-force. Their job, ostensibly, was to map out America's Energy future. Since late 2001 several public interest groups, including the very conservative Judicial Watch, sued to have the proceedings of those meetings opened to public scrutiny. In March 2002, the Commerce Department turned over a few documents from the Task-force meetings to Judicial Watch, among which was the map of Iraq's Oil Fields, dated March 2001 (above) and a list of the existing "Foreign Suitors" for Iraq Oil. Since that time, Cheney's office has fought fiercely (and so far, successfully), right up to the Supreme Court, to keep the proceeding secret and to keep any of the private industry officials from disclosing any information about the meetings. Since we all now know the Bush administration's energy policy, there can be only one explanation for the extraordinary efforts Cheney has taken to keep this secret–he was discussing the potential for a takeover of Iraq's oil with the companies that might manage the resource, even before 9/11 gave him the excuse to do it.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 06:17am

95. I cut and pasted the whole article just to make sure Liv read the damn thing. What a deluded hard headed idiot this guy is.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 06:19am

96. Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder By Jeremy Scahill

    August 4, 2009

    So neocon religious fruitcakes, what's your take on this? Is outright murder of company personnel ok in your books too? I guess killing innocent muslims doesn't matter to you, but how about killing and threatening to kill employees of Blackwater to shut them up? Where do you Aholes draw the line or do you just continue to shift the line to fit into your continually changing position of why we went to war in Iraq?

    So, if killing all them Muslims was Blackwater and Bush's goal on some weird ass crusade, then liberating Iraq was never in the cards was it. And, since we've managed to install a Shiite government that is as crooked as Saddam's was, exactly what did we accomplish in Iraq (besides conquests for the oil companies)?

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 06:24am

97. o suggest as you and others on the left would like that countries do not and will not change their attitude towards another in the future is to be either naive or ignorant. You may choose which you prefer for yourself.

    Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 2:19pm

    Liv, You are blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. The U.S. being friends with G.B. and then not? Keep in mind that even after the colonists separated from the British that the British business interests in this country still flourished. The only difference was that the British government couldn't tax those businesses, but the private British businessmen still made their money here in colonial America.

    You don't seem to be able to target who your real enemy is. The real enemy is big business hiding behind nationalism and phony platitudes of patriotism and such. Take a good look at the Iraq war. American soldiers died and a lot of innocent Iraqi people were killed by the thousands. Why? Is the Maliki government better than Saddam? They evidently have their death squads in working order.

    The only thing that took place in Iraq was removing Saddam who wouldn't do business the way the oil folks wanted him to do it, so they killed him off and put another stooge in to replace him. Maliki will play ball (for now) and the oil companies get their cut in the deal. There's the real enemy to the people of this country and pretty much any country.....corporate greed and the need for the ultra wealthy to keep everyone else down for the count.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 07:34am

98. He shook Saddam's hand. He'll never be able to wash away all the blood it left behind on him.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/04/2009 @ 5:44pm The entire Bush administration has so much blood on their hands that they leave a trail of blood every where the go.

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 07:42am

99. "I don't think that war is inevitable and perpetual between former adversaries. "----Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 6:27pm

    So is war inevitable with Iran?

    Posted by Mask at 08/05/2009 @ 08:02am

100. "I don't think that war is inevitable and perpetual between former adversaries. "----Posted by antisocialist at 08/04/2009 @ 6:27pm

     So is war inevitable with Iran?

     Posted by Mask at 08/05/2009 @ 08:02am | ignore this person | warn this person

     --is it inevitable that tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, etc. you'll attempt to catch larry in a GOTCHA moment?

     Posted by urmygyro at 08/05/2009 @ 08:12am

101. He shook Saddam's hand. He'll never be able to wash away all the blood it left behind on him.

     Gosh, I love that kind of talk.

     Posted by emile duBois at 08/05/2009 @ 09:29am

102. Posted by urmygyro at 08/05/2009 @ 08:12am

     Urmy, why are you so terrified of the possibility of "someone" being caught in a contradiction???

     Posted by Mask at 08/05/2009 @ 09:54am

103. Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 01:39am

     That hardly is a good argument against my assertion.

     "Urmy, why are you so terrified of the possibility of "someone" being caught in a contradiction???"

     I don't think that "terrified" is the right word. He is "annoyed" that you have nothing to contribute to the conversation except cut-and-paste quotes saved up for years from other posters (usually antisocialist, who you are apparently creepily obssessed with) that you juxtapose against one another (after taking them out of context) in order to demonstate a percieved contradiction in that poster's words.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 2:35pm

104. Since we all now know the Bush administration's energy policy, there can be only one explanation for the extraordinary efforts Cheney has taken to keep this secret–he was discussing the potential for a takeover of Iraq's oil with the companies that might manage the resource, even before 9/11 gave him the excuse to do it.

     Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 06:17am | ignore this person | warn this person

     I cut and pasted the whole article just to make sure Liv read the damn thing. What a deluded hard headed idiot this guy is.

     Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 06:19am

     And history has proven you wrong. We have not taken over Iraq's oil.

     End of idiot conspiracy theory.

     Posted by antisocialist at 08/05/2009 @ 3:10pm

105. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 2:35pm

     What is your defining characteristic of a "real contradiction" as compared to a "perceived contradiction"?

     Say for instance, somebody says that "Leftists denigrate everyone who holds an opposing viewpoint"....right after saying that "Liberalism is a disease."

     Real or perceived?

     Posted by Mask at 08/05/2009 @ 3:14pm

106. "Urmy, why are you so terrified of the possibility of "someone" being caught in a contradiction???"

     I don't think that "terrified" is the right word. He is "annoyed" that you have nothing to contribute to the conversation except cut-and-paste quotes saved up for years from other posters (usually antisocialist, who you are apparently creepily obssessed with) that you juxtapose against one another (after taking them out of context) in order to demonstate a percieved contradiction in that poster's words.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 2:35pm

     It's good to see that others have noticed this strange obsession.

     There are almost no postings over the past few years from Mask where he attempts to provide any real input. His only exceptions to that being his summary of the "pragmatic" outcome he believes will result from a debate of right and left.

     It would be difficult to conclude from his postings that he has any real passions in life.

     Posted by antisocialist at 08/05/2009 @ 3:21pm

107. "Say for instance, somebody says that "Leftists denigrate everyone who holds an opposing viewpoint"....right after saying that "Liberalism is a disease."

     Real or perceived?"

     Percieved. After all, by the logic that the second quote denigrates leftists, one could just as easily say the first quote does as well: it stereotypes ALL leftists as being dismissive towards their opponents and thus close-minded.

     Their is no contradiction in condemning leftists for their dismissiveness and then just broadly condemning them (by saying liberalism is "a disease").

     What you should argue is that antisocialist is a hypocrite for arguing leftists are close-minded, by arguing that antisocialist can be demonstrated to be close-minded himself.

     Instead, you try to find contradictions in his words where none exist.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 3:43pm

108. "His only exceptions to that being his summary of the "pragmatic" outcome he believes will result from a debate of right and left."

     Sad but true.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 3:44pm

109. And history has proven you wrong. We have not taken over Iraq's oil.

     End of idiot conspiracy theory.

     Posted by antisocialist at 08/05/2009 @ 3:10pm

     BS on your end of story crap. 1) What happened to all of the oil being pumped out of Iraq all of those years W was president? 2) Who is drilling in Iraq right now? The Iraqi government may be making money off the oil itself, but who's doing the drilling and further more, who is exporting and refining the oil? Hardly the end of the story.

     You can continue to pull the wool over your eyes and pretend that W and Cheney went into Iraq to set things to right like in some stupid ass John Wayne movie, but not everyone is that naive. It's not a conspiracy tin foil hat thing when it's reality.

     Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 4:05pm

110. Urmy, why are you so terrified of the possibility of "someone" being caught in a contradiction???

     Posted by Mask at 08/05/2009 @ 09:54am | ignore this person | warn this person

     --terrified? yeah, I'm shaking in my boots. why are you so hung up on catching "someone" in a contradiction???

     Posted by urmygyro at 08/05/2009 @ 4:06pm

111. What is your defining characteristic of a "real contradiction" as compared to a "perceived contradiction"?

     Say for instance, somebody says that "Leftists denigrate everyone who holds an opposing viewpoint"....right after saying that "Liberalism is a disease."

     Real or perceived?

     Posted by Mask at 08/05/2009 @ 3:14pm | ignore this person | warn this person

     --there's NO contradiction in the two statements larry made. i don't agree that liberalism is a disease, or that all leftists denigrate everyone who holds an opposing view; however, if larry believes all leftists denigrate people with opposing views, then it's not a contradiction to say liberalism is a disease.

     you'll catch on sooner or later.

     Posted by urmygyro at 08/05/2009 @ 4:12pm

112. Liv, Check out the link below. Hardly the end of the story about Iraq being completely in charge oil profits. They may be getting a fairly large cut of the pie, but Exxon, Shell and the others are whetting their greedy money grubbing beaks at the expense of American soldiers and innocent Iraqi citizens all over that black gold.

     http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html

     Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2009 @ 4:12pm

113. I don't think that "terrified" is the right word. He is "annoyed" that you have nothing to contribute to the conversation except cut-and-paste quotes saved up for years from other posters (usually antisocialist, who you are apparently creepily obssessed with) that you juxtapose against one another (after taking them out of context) in order to demonstate a percieved contradiction in that poster's words.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 2:35pm | ignore this person | warn this person

     --and bingo was his name-o!

     Posted by urmygyro at 08/05/2009 @ 4:14pm

114. And history has proven you wrong. We have not taken over Iraq's oil.

     End of idiot conspiracy theory.

     Posted by antisocialist at 08/05/2009 @ 3:10pm | ignore this person | warn this person

     --fair enough larry, but that same logic destroys the WMDs argument George Bush put forth as the reason to invade Iraq in the first place. Since no WMDs were ever found in Iraq, George Bush simply bought into an "idiot conspiracy theory"

     Posted by urmygyro at 08/05/2009 @ 4:25pm

115. Since Saudi Arabia and Iran have more oil than Iraq, it seems unlikely we went to war with Iraq for oil. Saudi Arabia is smaller and could have been defeated easier and it has closer connections to AQ than Saddam did.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 4:34pm

116. Prior to the American invasion, Iraq was pumping 2.6 million barrels of oil per day, already significantly below its pre-invasion peak of 3.5 million barrels per day. In the first year of the US occupation, production quickly plunged to a paltry 1.3 million barrels per day. Only in 2007 did it finally top the 2 million mark and, with improved security, 2.4 million in 2008.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 4:36pm

117. Hey, Nation: how about answering my damn customer service request? I can't access any subscriber-only content and have sent numerous requests for relief through your joke of a customer-service system. So desperate for money that you're ripping off subscribers now, are you?

     Posted by jasontoon at 08/05/2009 @ 5:12pm

118. And history has proven you wrong. We have not taken over Iraq's oil.

     End of idiot conspiracy theory.

     Posted by antisocialist at 08/05/2009 @ 3:10pm

     It wasn't through lack of trying.

     The Bush Administration tried to ram Ira's oil laws through, which were written in Washington and Huston.

     In 2006, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister made repeated pledges made by Oil Minister al-Shahristani that Iraq would have a new national petroleum law by the end of 2006. The law would have opened Iraq's nationalized oil industry to private foreign oil companies on terms unprecedented in the Middle East or in any oil-rich nation.

     According to Iraqi Vice President at the time , Mahdi, the law would have been "very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies." The law mirrored proposals originally set out by the Bush administration prior to the March 2003 invasion.

     Meeting four times between December 2002 and April 2003, members of the U.S. State Department's Oil and Energy Working Group agreed that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war" and that the best method for doing so was through Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs). Allawi's proposal was the basis of the proposed oil law and could have potentially given foreign companies control over approximately 87 percent of Iraq's oil.

     The passing of this oil agreement was promising while the U.S.-appointed interim Prime Minster of Iraq, Ayad Allawi (a former CIA operative) was at the helm. The Bush administration and U.S. oil companies have maintained constant pressure on Iraq to pass the new law. Alas, Malaki came to power and scrapped the deal.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 6:24pm

119. Since Saudi Arabia and Iran have more oil than Iraq, it seems unlikely we went to war with Iraq for oil.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 4:34pm

     In the words of Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the war, the only reason we went after Saddam and not North Korea is because Iraq swims on a sea of oil.

     "The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil."

     Leave it to the wingnuts on this forum to ignore the elephant in the room.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 6:32pm

120. "the only reason we went after Saddam and not North Korea is because Iraq swims on a sea of oil."

     Or maybe it is because Iraq could have developed WMD if we lifted the sanctions and was about to get WMD from North Korea anyway, whereas North Korea ALREADY had WMD it could have used on us IN RETALIATION if we attacked.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 6:41pm

121. Or maybe it is because Iraq could have developed WMD if we lifted the sanctions and was about to get WMD from North Korea anyway, whereas North Korea ALREADY had WMD it could have used on us IN RETALIATION if we attacked.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 6:41pm

     Talk about Orwellian reasoning. Let's not go after North Korea, who according to you, could supply the WMD, let's go after the guy that might have bought them.

     You're logic is what formed the basis for the hugely successful war on drugs.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 6:53pm

122. "Talk about Orwellian reasoning. Let's not go after North Korea, who according to you, could supply the WMD, let's go after the guy that might have bought them."

     Martin Amis summed it up best:

     "It was explained that the North Korean matter was a diplomatic inconvenience, while Iraq's non-disarmament remained a "crisis". The reason was strategic: even without WMDs, North Korea could inflict a million casualties on its southern neighbour and raze Seoul. Iraq couldn't manage anything on this scale, so you could attack it. North Korea could, so you couldn't. The imponderables of the proliferation age were becoming ponderable. Once a nation has done the risky and nauseous work of acquisition, it becomes unattackable. A single untested nuclear weapon may be a liability. But five or six constitute a deterrent."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 6:58pm

123. "Talk about Orwellian reasoning."

     No kidding. So you think we should only attack potential threats when they have transformed into viable threats? We should not attack those who are about to acquire WMD in order to prevent them from obtaining it, only those who could use it to kill millions if they were attacked?

     So, if Iraq had gotten WMD, THEN you would have advocated we provide it with an incentive to use it against us?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:11pm

124. By the way, have you given up on trying to blame America for Pol Pot's killing fields?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:12pm

125. So in other words, North Korea stands as an example of why countries not friendly to the US should invest heavily in WMD. It's the best way to guarantee not being invaded, or occupied.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 7:15pm

126. By the way, have you given up on trying to blame America for Pol Pot's killing fields?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:12pm

     Yes, I's feeling all warm and fuzzy inside about the Us killing half a million people in Cambodia with their secret bombing.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 7:19pm

127. Prior to the American invasion, Iraq was pumping 2.6 million barrels of oil per day, already significantly below its pre-invasion peak of 3.5 million barrels per day. ...Only in 2007 did it finally top the 2 million mark and, with improved security, 2.4 million in 2008.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 4:36pm

     So after spending 3 trillion dollars, wasting 4000 Americans and 2 million Iraqis, we still haven't managed to get Iraq's oil production up to the levels it was achieving under the blockade, with aerial bombing and a ban on parts for their drilling apparatus.

     I guess those who say the government can't run anything efficiently have a point, though those same people are more than happy having the government conducting our wars.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 7:25pm

128. So you think we should only attack potential threats when they have transformed into viable threats?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:11pm

     Yeah, we should definitely stick to attacking those we know can't fight back.

     Let's just pretend that defenseless states pose a threat becasue they could potentially acquire WMD, whether there is any basis for this assumption or otherwise.

     That's why we spend more than half a trillion dollars a year on defense - so we can defeat armies that are no threat to us.

     That's the kind of limp wristed pussies we've become. Even with the best weapons money can buy, we're still scared to death of states that might be able to defend themselves if we attack them.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 7:36pm

129. "wasting 4000 Americans and 2 million Iraqis"

     1 million is a ludicrous enough figue. 2 million? Where do you come up with this stuff?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:37pm

130. By the way, the total cost of both the Iraq and Afghan wars is only about 1 trillion dollars at this point.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:40pm

131. 1 million is a ludicrous enough figue. 2 million? Where do you come up with this stuff?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:37pm

     Sorry must have been a typo. 1 million is the accepted and sensible figure.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 7:45pm

132. http://www.pbs.org/pov/stories/vietnam/discuss/7/post.107

     The total cost of the Cambodian civil war is around 600,000. Do you think that almost all of those deaths were the result of bombing?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:45pm

133. By the way, the total cost of both the Iraq and Afghan wars is only about 1 trillion dollars at this point.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:40pm

     The direct costs yes, but as Nobel Prize wining economist, Joseph Stiglitz estimated in January of 2008, the war woudl have cost us 3 trillion (conservatively speaking) if we had pupped out there an then.

     The costs of medial aid and welfare to the vets alone is going to cost half a trillion.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 7:48pm

134. http://www.pbs.org/pov/stories/vietnam/discuss/7/post.107

     The total cost of the Cambodian civil war is around 600,000. Do you think that almost all of those deaths were the result of bombing?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:45pm

     The State department itself claimed that 250,000 - 300,000 were the result of the bombing.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 7:52pm

135. "The State department itself claimed that 250,000 - 300,000 were the result of the bombing."

     No it didn't. It estimated NO HIGHER than 50,000.

     http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm

     Actually, my earlier estimate was from a 1985 report. More recent estimates give a most likely estimate of civil war deaths of 250,000 and a maximum of 300,000.

     This article is quite persausive and comprehensive on that point. I reccommend reading it, though it is very long and its main focus is calculating deaths under the KR (the most likely estimate is around 2.18 million)

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 9:49pm

136. Anyway, if 2.2 million died under the KR, and 600,000 died under the Vietnamese Communists (possibly 700,000) by 1985, and if the conservative estimate is correct on the number that died in the war between these two forces (600,000), then even if you didn't count the war between China and Vietnam that erupted due to Vietnam attacking the KR (it killed 60,000-70,000 people) or those killed by Communists in Laos, you would still see more deaths resulting from American withdrawal in Vietnam in 1973 than the total number of Vietnamese that died during the entire war (which is probably around 3 million, estimates vary from 1.5 million to 3.3 million). This would be true even if you took the highest possible estimate of the latter.

     So, Shingo, even you must admit that America, even if it shouldn't have gone into Vietnam, would have saved lives if it had kept fighting after 1973.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 10:00pm

137. By the way, the total cost of both the Iraq and Afghan wars is only about 1 trillion dollars at this point.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:40pm

     Oh man.. Thats it ..?? What a deal !!

     Ol' GWB sold it to us for how much ..?? Couple hundred Billion or was it Million..?? Wasn't that what his genius admin told us....??

     Imagine 2 candidates Mr. X and Mr. Y debating for thier parties.. Candidate X tells the American people he wants to SPEND 1,000,000,000,000 dollars on Americans IN America... Candidate Y counters, he will spend 1 Trillion outside our borders, nation building... Who wins this election..?? Isn't Anti-Nation building what GWB ran on..?? Chastising Bill C. for such "foolhearty endevours"..??

     Lib for the Opp.... Do you read any of your own posts..?? Debating 600,000 vs. 1.5 vs. 3.3 mil human beings....?? Are these numbers you can quantify in your mind..?? All for what ..??

     Vietnam taught the USA nothing. Hopefully Iraq will. Hopefully. What a waste of everything. Waste. What a mess.

     I have to get to wal-mart... Big sale on .40 cal ammo...

     Posted by Vvf1969 at 08/05/2009 @ 11:36pm

138. So, Shingo, even you must admit that America, even if it shouldn't have gone into Vietnam, would have saved lives if it had kept fighting after 1973.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 10:00pm

     Saved lives how exactly? If we hasn't gone in, 2 million Vietnamese would still be alive, not to mention 57,000 Americans. That doesn't include the many thousands who suffered afterwards from birth defects due to angent orange and a whole generation of destroyed Vietnam Vets.

     The way you wingnuts think is astounding.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 12:52am

139. But we are not even arguing if America should have gone into Vietnam, just if it should have pulled out in 1973, given that American defeat lead to almost 3,500,000 excess deaths.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 02:10am

140. But we are not even arguing if America should have gone into Vietnam, just if it should have pulled out in 1973, given that American defeat lead to almost 3,500,000 excess deaths.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 02:10am

     That depends on whether you believe our continued presence there would have saved those 3,500,000 victims, or merely prolonged it.

     We had no knowledge or expertise of counter insurgency, guerrilla warfare at the time.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 02:46am

141. Leave it to the wingnuts on this forum to ignore the elephant in the room.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/05/2009 @ 6:32pm

     Yep, as I've stated before, either they are just plain stupid and refuse to look at the evidence or they know the truth and are just lying assholes. Either way, they are a sorry lot.

     Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2009 @ 06:06am

142. So, if Iraq had gotten WMD, THEN you would have advocated we provide it with an incentive to use it against us?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 7:11pm

     So, Mr threat analysis, do you really think Iraq was or is a threat to the U.S.? For that matter, do you really think the terrorists are a threat to the U.S. as a nation?

     The best those assholes could do was knock down a couple of buildings and kill 3000 plus civilians. That is hardly a major threat to the United States.

     Iraq, under Saddam, had no way of delivering any payload of WMD, or anything else to the U.S. They don't have the technology nor the air superiority to accomplish it. North Korea doesn't have it either. These countries couldn't wage war against the U.S. for two days. You think we've had problems in Iraq, can you imagine first of all Iraq, North Korea or Iran first of all taking on the Navy on the high seas, then overcoming the Air Force protecting the coasts and then sending in troops? Give me a break.

     There are only a handful of countries capable of making war against the U.S. and it sure as hell isn't and wasn't Iraq North Korea nor Iran. Hell, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are more of a threat to the U.S. than Iraq was.

     By the way, the Saudi's may have had a big hand in wanting the U.S. to invade Iraq. Iraq was a threat to them. Kind of like Iran is no threat to is, but it is to Israel....which is responsible for it's own defense, not us.

     Oil was the reason for going into Iraq plain and simple. You should read up on the Carslyle Group and Bush senior's involvement along with some of juniors administration. The clients of that group include the Saudi royal families interests. A serious conflict of interest to be sure.

     Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2009 @ 06:21am

143. Posted by urmygyro at 08/05/2009 @ 4:12pm

     If I say "Conservatism is evil and is about wanting to kill people"...

     and then say "Only conservatives call their opponents evil and say they want to kill people"...

     is that a hypocritical contradiction?

     you'll catch on sooner or later.

     Posted by Mask at 08/06/2009 @ 08:27am

144. If I say "Conservatism is evil and is about wanting to kill people"...

     and then say "Only conservatives call their opponents evil and say they want to kill people"...

     is that a hypocritical contradiction?

     you'll catch on sooner or later.

     Posted by Mask at 08/06/2009 @ 08:27am | ignore this person | warn this person

     --yes, statement #2 in the hypothetical example you provided above contradicts statement #1 in the hypothetical example you provided. your problem is you're creating a false analogy.

     larry said: Liberalism is a disease.

     then larrys said: leftists denigrate everyone who holds an opposing opinion.

     those are not contradictory by basic logic. statement #1 is the theory or general statement. statement #2 is a supporting or specific statement of #1. .

     those are not hypocritical if larry believes them.

     you'll catch on sooner or later.

     by the way--where'd you state your opinion on what the healthcare policiy should be? or you still avoidiung that question b/c quite possibly you're a hypocrite (and don't want to ever risk getting caught in a contradiction)?

     heheh

     Posted by urmygyro at 08/06/2009 @ 08:46am

145. Saudi Arabia is smaller and could have been defeated easier and it has closer connections to AQ than Saddam did.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 4:34pm

     You must really hate America to say something so heinous about Saudi Arabia, an ally in many ways and forms. Especially well connected with the Bush Family.

     -----SAVE FLINT!----

     I just traveled to and through Battle Creek. It looks like a Ghost Town in the making. Downtown has as many closed storefronts as they have open businesses. Even the tittie bars are closed up. Eerily, so are the factories that used to make products and pay wages. Those products are still available on store shelves, but the jobs are gone. Those darn employees just wanted way too much! How dare they have a desire to have a middle class lifestyle!!

     How about spending more time paying attention to the root causes of unemployment and economic collapse, and less time making war in places that are no threat?

     Opps, that would be leftist ideology! That leads to socialism, which might lead to being like Cuba! Gasp.

     RAPTOR!!!!

     Posted by crabwalk at 08/06/2009 @ 09:31am

146. Since Saudi Arabia and Iran have more oil than Iraq, it seems unlikely we went to war with Iraq for oil. Saudi Arabia is smaller and could have been defeated easier and it has closer connections to AQ than Saddam did.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 4:34pm |

     the euro.

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 1:27pm

147. But we are not even arguing if America should have gone into Vietnam, just if it should have pulled out in 1973, given that American defeat lead to almost 3,500,000 excess deaths.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 02:10am

     <i>and the band played on....</i>

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 1:28pm

148. SAVE FLINT!

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 1:29pm

149. would have saved lives if it had kept fighting

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/05/2009 @ 10:00pm

     such rancid calculus.

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 1:35pm

150. "So, Mr threat analysis, do you really think Iraq was or is a threat to the U.S.?"

     No. Not to us. To Kuwait, yes. To Israel, it was in 1990 (when it began planning to attack Israel with chemical weapons). It wasn't a direct threat to Israel in 2003 and there were more important sponsors of Palestinian suicide bombers than Saddam. It probably would not have attacked Kuwait even if it got WMD because of all the American troops there. So it was mainly a threat against its own people.

     "do you really think the terrorists are a threat to the U.S. as a nation?"

     The are not a threat to the survival of America "as a nation," but they do pose a threat to thousands of Americans' lives.

     "The best those assholes could do was knock down a couple of buildings and kill 3000 plus civilians. That is hardly a major threat to the United States."

     The 9/11 attacks could have killed far more, perhaps 10,000, under different circumstances.

     By your logic, Pearl Harbor was not a significant threat to America's survival, so we could have left Japan alone, or perhaps just done the same thing to one of their harbors.

     By the way: the shock to the world economy caused by 9/11 resulted in 40,000 excess deaths in third-world countries.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 2:25pm

151. "That depends on whether you believe our continued presence there would have saved those 3,500,000 victims, or merely prolonged it."

     Oh, yes, a fifth-rate power like North Vietnam combined with the fanatical Khmer Rouge insurgency could have militarily defeated and forced out the strongest, most prosperous, and freest country in the world no matter how long its military pledged to fight even though that country NEVER LOST ANY OTHER WAR it fought in.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 2:37pm

152. No. Not to us. To Kuwait, yes. To Israel, it was in 1990 (when it began planning to attack Israel with chemical weapons). It wasn't a direct threat to Israel in 2003 and there were more important sponsors of Palestinian suicide bombers than Saddam. It probably would not have attacked Kuwait even if it got WMD because of all the American troops there. So it was mainly a threat against its own people.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 2:25pm

     Every one of these points is pure BS.

     Iraq never PLANNED to attack Israel with chemical weapons in 1990. it fired a few misguided SCUDS which were lucky to land within Israeli borders.

     Kuwait were stealing Iraq's oil and carrying out extortion against them. they had a chance to negotiate a deal with Iraq, but the sleazy dictator of Kuwait decided to have a junket to London with his 300 concubines rather than sit down with Saddam.

     Iraq NEVER sponsored terrorist attacks against Israel. No terrorist is going to kill himself just so his family can get $20,000. He gave financial aid to the surviving families of suicide attackers, so win some brownie points in the Arab world.

     "The are not a threat to the survival of America "as a nation," but they do pose a threat to thousands of Americans' lives."

     So does drink driving and cigarettes, both of which kill more Americans every year.

     Pearl Harbor was NEVER a threat to America's survival. It was an attack on Americans, but then again, our president at the time was itching to get involved in the war.

     " the shock to the world economy caused by 9/11 resulted in 40,000 excess deaths in third-world countries."

     In which case, the global financial crisis will probably kill a lot more. Should we go to war on capitalism too?

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 7:06pm

153. "Iraq never PLANNED to attack Israel with chemical weapons in 1990. it fired a few misguided SCUDS which were lucky to land within Israeli borders."

     Wrong. It was planning to go to war with Israel with chemical weapons according to Georges Sada.

     I love how you find Saddam, a genocidal terrorist sponsoring dictator who slaughtered millions and ran concentration camps, more sympathetic than the Emir of Kuwait, who has NO political prisoners or prisoners of conscience, is a constitutional monarch held in check by a freely elected parliament, and allows women to wear whatever they want. You probably feel this way because you hate freedom, which is why you like Saudi Arabia but despise Israel.

     "Pearl Harbor was NEVER a threat to America's survival. It was an attack on Americans, but then again, our president at the time was itching to get involved in the war."

     Right, whereas our actions probably provoked the Japanese and ultimately caused the collapse of the "soveriegn" Japanese government, the actions of that government did not cause the collapse, nor could they have, of our own. Hence, our government overreacted out of racism against the Japanese and killed more Japanese through war than the number of Americans killed on Pearl Harbor. We thus BECAME worse than the enemy we sought to oppose. At most, we should have bombed one of Japan's harbors and then left it alone. If only we had had the UN back then to urge "restraint on BOTH SIDES" of the conflict.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:21pm

154. "So does drink driving and cigarettes, both of which kill more Americans every year."

     Ah, so why should we worry about terrorism then?

     "In which case, the global financial crisis will probably kill a lot more. Should we go to war on capitalism too?"

     Sure Shingo. Capitalism is just as bad as terrorism; the war on terror is about nothing unless we be consistent and wage a war on capitalism as well.

     After all, look at how prosperous anticapitalistic nations like Zimbabwe, North Korea, Somalia, Bangladesh, and Cuba are. Only 2 million people have starved to death in North Korea due to bad economic policies, and South Korea is about as unjust because everyone in the North is equally poor, whereas the rich in the South are extraordinarily rich when compared to the poor of the south (who enjoy a standard of living beyond the wildest dreams of the best-off North Koreans). Think of how unjust it is that individual corporations in America each make more money than the GNP of respectable nations. All individuals are equal in every way as well as essentially interchangable, so naturally if someone earns more money than someone else, it can't possibly be because they deserve it.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:32pm

155. Oh, yes, a fifth-rate power like North Vietnam ....

     even though that country NEVER LOST ANY OTHER WAR it fought in.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 2:37pm

     1812.

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 7:35pm

156. "Prior to the advent of industrial capitalism (in roughly the 1760s) the lot of the English working class was generally miserable. Utter destitution was rampant, literal starvation not uncommon and the country was overrun with paupers. "There was, in point of fact, widespread poverty of the most abject kind in England and other countries of 18th century Europe." It is difficult for men in the industrial West today to conceive of the kind of poverty that was widespread in pre-capitalist Europe. By a test employed in Lyons, France, in the 17th century, poverty was reached when daily income was less than the daily cost of minimum bread requirement – in other words, when a person could not make enough money to buy a crust of bread. A quarter to half the population of 17th century England subsisted near or below this line of destitution. If the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics were to today employ a similar standard of poverty, Americans below the poverty line would be those making $18 a month, or $216 a year. England had such a problem with penniless vagrants that in 1547 Parliament passed a law that "they should simply be sent into slavery;" revoking it two years later only because the legislature was unable to decide whom such forced labor should serve. It is staggering to Westerners today, but this was the condition of a large portion of the pre-capitalist European population." From the Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein

     http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4543

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:36pm

157. the Emir of Kuwait, who has NO political prisoners or prisoners of conscience, is a constitutional monarch held in check by a freely elected parliament, and allows women to wear whatever they want.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:21pm

     hahahahaha

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 7:39pm

158. "1812."

     That was really a stalemate and the US did gain territory from it.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:41pm

159. From wiki:

     "Out of the six GCC states, human rights record in Kuwait is, arguably, the best. The country has no political prisoners; as for prisoners of conscience, Prof Ahmed Al-Bagdadee is believed to have been the last one following his conviction in 1999 for blaspheming Islam (the professor chaired the political science department at Kuwait University, and was sentenced on October 4, 1999 under Kuwait's Press and Publications Law to one month in prison. The conviction was based on an article he had written in 1996 for the university's student magazine, Al-Shoula. He was eventually pardoned by the Emir of Kuwait and released from prison). Among organisations, which are primarily concerned with human rights, Kuwait Society for Human Rights can be named as one of them; also, there is a permanent Human Rights' Committee in the Kuwaiti parliament itself.

     Kuwait has a GDP (PPP) of US$138.6 billion[41] and a per capita income of US$60,800,[41] making it the fourth richest country in the world.[8] Kuwait's human development index (HDI) stands at 0.912, the second highest in Middle East, after Israel and the highest in the Arab world. With a GDP growth rate of 5.7%, Kuwait has one of the fastest growing economies in the region.[41] According to the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom, Kuwait has the second-most free economy in the Middle East.[42] In March 2007, Kuwait's foreign exchange reserves stood at US$213 billion.[43] The Kuwait Stock Exchange, which has about 200 firms listed, is the second-largest stock exchange in the Arab world with a total market capitalization of US$235 billion.[44] In 2007, the Kuwaiti government posted a budget surplus of US$43 billion.[45]"

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:44pm

160. so naturally if someone earns more money than someone else, it can't possibly be because they deserve it.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:32pm

     george bush earned more than a greeter a wal-mart.

     please explain the justice in that.

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 7:44pm

161. The government is keen on decreasing Kuwait's dependence on oil to fuel its economy by transforming it into a regional trading and tourism hub. The planned US$77 billion City of Silk is the largest real estate development project in the Middle East.[43] The Central Bank issues Kuwait's currency, the Kuwaiti dinar. In December 2007, the dinar was the highest valued currency unit in the world.[53]

     Being a highly cosmopolitan society, Kuwait has a diverse and vibrant culture. The influence of Islamic and Arab culture on its architecture, music, attire, cuisine and lifestyle is prominent as well.[66] The most distinctive characteristic of local Kuwaiti culture are the diwaniyas, a large reception room used for social gatherings attended mostly by close family members. While the Islamic dress code is not compulsory, unlike neighboring Saudi Arabia, many of the older Kuwaiti men prefer wearing thawb, an ankle-length white shirt woven from wool or cotton while the minority of women wear abaya, black over-garment covering most parts of the body. This attire is particularly well-suited for Kuwait's hot and dry climate.[67] Western-style clothing is also fairly popular, especially among Kuwait's youth.

     Kuwait has an extensive, modern and well-maintained network of highways. Roadways extended 5,749 km, of which 4,887 km is paved.[9] In 2000, there were some 552,400 passenger cars, and 167,800 commercial taxis, trucks, and buses in use. Since there is no railway system in the country, most of the people travel by automobiles.[72] The government plans to construct US$11 billion rail network which will include a city metro for its capital.[73] Bus services are provided by City Bus and state-owned Kuwait Public Transportation Corporation.[74]

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:47pm

162. Kuwait has one of the most vocal and transparent media in the Arab World.[80] In 2007, Kuwait was ranked second in the Middle East after Israel in the freedom of press index.[81] Though the government funds several leading newspapers and satellite channels,[82] Kuwaiti journalists enjoy greater freedom than their regional counterparts.[80] State-owned Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) is the largest media house in the country. The Ministry of Information regulates all media and communication industry in Kuwait.[83]

     In 1998, there were 6 AM and 11 FM radio stations and 13 television stations. In 2000, there were 624 radios and 486 television sets for every 1,000 people. In 2001, there were 165,000 Internet subscribers served by three service providers.[84] Kuwait has ten satellite television channels of which four are controlled by the Ministry of Information. State-owned Kuwait Television (KTV) offered first colored broadcast in 1974 and operates three television channels.[84] Government-funded Radio Kuwait also offers daily informative programming in four foreign languages including Persian, Urdu, Tagalog and English on the AM and SW.

     In 1998, Kuwait had eight major daily newspapers in circulation of which two were in English and six were in Arabic. In 2002, the Arab Times was the most popular English daily, followed by the Kuwait Times. Al-Anabaa, with a circulation of 106,800 copies, was the most widely read Arabic daily.[84] Currently, there are around 15 Arabic daily newspapers besides the English newspapers. A press law forbids insulting references to God and Islamic prophet Muhammad. Another law which made leading newspaper publishers eligible for hefty fines for criticizing the ruling family was lifted in 1992....

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:48pm

163. ....Leading newspapers continue to impose self-restraint while being critical of the emir.[85] However, no such restraint is observed while criticizing the government.[84]

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:48pm

164. http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5374

     "Under communism, the government forces individuals and businesses to act against their judgment for the sake of the "workers" or the "community"; hence the term "communism" (e.g., the USSR). Under socialism, the government forces individuals and businesses to act against their judgment for the sake of the "collective" or "society"; hence the term "socialism" (e.g., present-day Sweden). Under theocracy, the government forces individuals and businesses to act against their judgment in obedience to "God's will"--or whatever His earthly "representatives" deem His will to be; hence the term "theocracy," which means literally "rule by God" (e.g., present-day Iran). Under fascism, the government forces individuals and businesses to act against their judgment for the sake of the "nation," the "race," the "people," the "elderly," the "poor," or some other "group"; hence the term "fascism," which means literally "group-ism" (e.g., Mussolini's Italy).

     Under capitalism (which has yet to exist),10 the government is forbidden from forcing individuals or businesses to act against their judgment. In a capitalist society, everyone is legally free to act on his own judgment for his own sake. The government serves only to protect individuals and businesses from physical force by banning it from social relationships and by using retaliatory force as necessary against those who initiate its use."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 8:01pm

165. Well, Shingo, why SHOULD we allow businesses and individuals to make their own choices based on what they believe will benefit them the most with regard to profit, leaving those whose irrational choices bankrupt their companies to sell them to the competent or undergo massive reform? Because it forces out the incompetant for the competant. It provides an incentive to lower the price of goods to make them more attractive to consumers. It prevents idiotic practices from dominating a market because they become unsustainible. As long as neither corporate nor governmental monopolies exist, incentive for innovation will exist because people will not have to accept whatever products and services are shoved down their throat for whatever price their provider sets for them.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 8:09pm

166. everything's relative, liberforthop.

     kuwait is hardly a shining beacon of liberty.

     SAVE FLINT!

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 9:31pm

167. because humans are so damn greedy,

     capitalism devolves into communism (in its worst possible mode)

     and

     communism devolves into capitalism (in its worst possible mode).

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 9:34pm

168. Wrong. It was planning to go to war with Israel with chemical weapons according to Georges Sada.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:21pm

     George Sada wrote a book that has not been corroborated by any subsequent investigations, so he is probably lying. The facts actually prove otherwise. While Saddam was a tyrant, he was a surviver and such an attack on Israel would be suicidal, and Saddam was no jihadist nutter.

     It's not me who finds Saddam more sympathetic than the Emir of Kuwait. It's no secret that the Emir was despised even more than Saddam at the time.

     I have no time for Saudi Arabia, nor do I despise Israel. I do despise Israel's treatment fo Palestinians and it's foreign policy.

     In spite of all your hyperbole, you can't prove that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was a threat to our existence.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 9:41pm

169. "Ah, so why should we worry about terrorism then?"

     It's like sticking your arm into a meat grinder. Stop doing it and you won't lose limbs. Same goes for our foreign policy. At least Reagan realized that the way NOT to get attacked by jihadists is to not occupy their countries.

     "Sure Shingo. Capitalism is just as bad as terrorism; the war on terror is about nothing unless we be consistent and wage a war on capitalism as well."

     Don't blame me for using your idiotic logic against you.

     Capitalism is fine but it's flawed, just like socialism, but they both serve their purpose. In spite of our claims to having he world's most superior society, we are 50th in the world behind many socialist countries in terms of health. Cuba has better infant mortality rates than Washington.

     That's not saying that the Cuban system in the answer. Rather it highlights how flawed our society is.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 7:32pm

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 9:47pm

170. Well, Shingo, why SHOULD we allow businesses and individuals to make their own choices based on what they believe will benefit them the most with regard to profit,

     •• well, i think we should ask the planet, first.

     leaving those whose irrational choices bankrupt their companies to sell them to the competent or undergo massive reform?

     •• lollying! you sound like greenspan.

     Because it forces out the incompetant for the competant.

     •• orthographic karma never rests! lollying even more!

     It provides an incentive to lower the price of goods to make them more attractive to consumers.

     •• you mean like health insurance?

     It prevents idiotic practices from dominating a market because they become unsustainible.

     •• pssst, wanna buy some mbs's?

     As long as neither corporate nor governmental monopolies exist, incentive for innovation will exist because people will not have to accept whatever products and services are shoved down their throat for whatever price their provider sets for them.

     •• ever buy gasoline?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 8:09pm

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 9:51pm

171. Well, Shingo, why SHOULD we allow businesses and individuals to make their own choices based on what they believe will benefit them the most with regard to profit, leaving those whose irrational choices bankrupt their companies to sell them to the competent or undergo massive reform?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 8:09pm

     Are things that dour for you that you have to resort to straw men?

     I never made this argument and you know it. I do love your battle with foot in mouth disease though.

     "Because it forces out the incompetant for the competant. "

     Really? Liek say Maddoff and Enron?

     "It provides an incentive to lower the price of goods to make them more attractive to consumers."

     Like say $500 toilet seats the government pays to military contractors?

     "It prevents idiotic practices from dominating a market because they become unsustainible."

     Like it prevented AIG, Lehman Brothers, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mack from doing?

     "As long as neither corporate nor governmental monopolies exist, incentive for innovation will exist because people will not have to accept whatever products and services are shoved down their throat for whatever price their provider sets for them."

     But corporate monopolies do exist. In fact, contrary to common perception, the fundamental principal of capitalism is to destroy or assimilate the competition. Look at oil companies, media ownership.

     You don't even realise your falling for the charade.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 9:55pm

172. "It's not me who finds Saddam more sympathetic than the Emir of Kuwait."

     Ah, so now you'll deny Saddam is more sympathetic?

     "It's no secret that the Emir was despised even more than Saddam at the time."

     By who? So actually you ARE arguing Saddam is more sympathetic than the Emir!

     "While Saddam was a tyrant, he was a surviver and such an attack on Israel would be suicidal, and Saddam was no jihadist nutter."

     http://www.slate.com/id/2211267/

     "it remains the case that a thermonuclear weapon detonated on the Zionist foe would also annihilate the Palestinians and destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. (Even Saddam Hussein at his craziest recognized this fact, promising with uncharacteristic modesty only to "burn up half of Israel" with the weapons of mass destruction that he then boasted of possessing.)"

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 9:58pm

173. "In spite of all your hyperbole, you can't prove that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was a threat to our existence."

     It wasn't. Japan could have attacked us again and again without threatening to turn America into a failed state. If we had just appeased the Japanese after a few attacks, they might have stopped.

     That doesn't mean our retaliation was unjustified, and your argument that Pearl Harbor was an event that we should have turned the other cheek towards is pathetic.

     It is the Japanese who benefited the most from our decision to occupy their country.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:02pm

174. "Cuba has better infant mortality rates than Washington."

     http://tinyurl.com/3dnu3z

     "The problem is that international statistics on infant mortality are helpful in revealing large differences, but when it comes to small differences such as that between Cuba and the United States, often other factors are really behind the numbers.

     The primary reason Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States is that the United States is a world leader in an odd category -- the percentage of infants who die on their birthday. In any given year in the United States anywhere from 30-40 percent of infants die before they are even a day old.

     Why? Because the United States also easily has the most intensive system of emergency intervention to keep low birth weight and premature infants alive in the world. The United States is, for example, one of only a handful countries that keeps detailed statistics on early fetal mortality -- the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation.

     How does this skew the statistics? Because in the United States if an infant is born weighing only 400 grams and not breathing, a doctor will likely spend lot of time and money trying to revive that infant. If the infant does not survive -- and the mortality rate for such infants is in excess of 50 percent -- that sequence of events will be recorded as a live birth and then a death.

     In many countries, however, (including many European countries) such severe medical intervention would not be attempted and, moreover, regardless of whether or not it was, this would be recorded as a fetal death rather than a live birth. That unfortunate infant would never show up in infant mortality statistics..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:09pm

175. "This is clearly what is happening in Cuba. In the United States about 1.3 percent of all live births are very low birth weight -- less than 1,500 grams. In Cuba, on the other hand, only about 0.4 percent of all births are less than 1,500 grams. This is despite the fact that the United States and Cuba have very similar low birth rates (births where the infant weighs less than 2500g). The United States actually has a much better low birth rate than Cuba if you control for multiple births -- i.e. the growing number of multiple births in the United States due to technological interventions has resulted in a marked increase in the number of births under 2,500 g.

     It is odd if both Cuba and the U.S. have similar birth weight distributions that the U.S. has more than 3 times the number of births under 1,500g, unless there is a marked discrepancy in the way that very low birth weight births are recorded. Cuba probably does much the same thing that many other countries do and does not register births under 1000g. In fact, this is precisely what the World Health Organization itself recommends that for official record keeping purposes, only live births of greater than 1,000g should be included.

     The result is that the statistics make it appear as if Cuba's infant mortality rate is significantly better than the United States', but in fact what is really being measured in this difference is that the United States takes far more serious (and expensive) interventions among extremely low birth weight and extremely premature infants than Cuba (or much of the rest of the world for that matter) does."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:09pm

176. "•• you mean like health insurance?"

     Yes. The main problem is lack of competition between insurers. If people could purchase insurance at much lower prices from a different company NO ONE WOULD SETTLE for unreasonable rates, and those that were most reasonable would make the most money. A governmental monopoly with no competition where people are forced to pay for things they don't need in order to finance health care for others is not the answer.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:16pm

177. "It provides an incentive to lower the price of goods to make them more attractive to consumers."

     Like say $500 toilet seats the government pays to military contractors?"

     It just goes to show you why the government shouldn't run health care.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:18pm

178. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 9:58pm

     "Ah, so now you'll deny Saddam is more sympathetic?"

     No sympathy for him no. I just don't buy into the hysteria about who the Hitler du jour is.

     "By who? So actually you ARE arguing Saddam is more sympathetic than the Emir!"

     No, as I said, the Emir was more poorly regarded in the region than Saddam.

     "http://www.slate.com/id/2211267/"

     Why do you continue to link to op-eds by propagandists? In this case, an alcoholic propagandist who is more than willing to stretch the truth, if not lie completely.

     Hitchens never produces sources to back up his claims, and there's good reason for it.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:22pm

179. It just goes to show you why the government shouldn't run health care.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:18pm

     It's private capitalist interests that set the prices, not the government.

     And if private health cover is so superior, why do vets get governmental care and not private?

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:24pm

180. Yes. The main problem is lack of competition between insurers.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:16pm

     How ironic that the main complaint from the insurers about a government health plan is that they wouldn't be able to compete with it?

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:27pm

181. "Ah, so why should we worry about terrorism then?"

     It's like sticking your arm into a meat grinder. Stop doing it and you won't lose limbs. Same goes for our foreign policy."

     So basically, the US should never ever go to war and was wrong to do so even in WW2 because in war, people die.

     "At least Reagan realized that the way NOT to get attacked by jihadists is to not occupy their countries."

     No country belongs to any jihadist.

     We WERE attacked by jihadists under Reagan. Remember in Lebanon?

     Reagan funded jihadists and gave Osama billions.

     We weren't occupying "their" countries before 9/11. Since then we've occupied two former state sponsors of terror and have yet to see another attack.

     This implies that we only brought 9/11 on ourselves and that, rather than looking for the enemy "out there," we should try to acknowledge OUR role in the cycle of violence.

     This means that we should turn the other cheek to jihadists.

     This means fighting terrorists will only create more. That's not what happened when we militarily defeated and discredited AQ in Iraq.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:30pm

182. The result is that the statistics make it appear as if Cuba's infant mortality rate is significantly better than the United States', but in fact what is really being measured in this difference is that the United States takes far more serious (and expensive) interventions among extremely low birth weight and extremely premature infants than Cuba (or much of the rest of the world for that matter) does."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:09pm

     Listen to you struggling to rationalize why the so called, best health system in the world can't even measure up to a 3rd world country.

     The US lies 50th in the world in terms of health care. Hardly a remarkable achievement for the greatest country in the world.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:31pm

183. Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:31pm

     Fine, I'll summarize the article for you. If Cuba measured infant mortality the same way America did, America would have a much lower infant mortality rate.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:35pm

184. "So basically, the US should never ever go to war and was wrong to do so even in WW2 because in war, people die."

     Not wars of choice no.

     "No country belongs to any jihadist."

     And the world does not belong to us.

     "We WERE attacked by jihadists under Reagan. Remember in Lebanon?"

     We were attacked by Lebanese nationals who didn't want us there. We woudl have done same had a foreign power built a military base in our country.

     "Reagan funded jihadists and gave Osama billions."

     We have funded jihadists since before Carter.Even Bush junior.

     We are funding the Jundullah, Kaledi Shick Mohammed's old gang.

     We are funding the MEK,listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization.

     " We weren't occupying "their" countries before 9/11."

     No, we just happen to have about 700 military bases around the world.

     "This implies that we only brought 9/11 on ourselves and that, rather than looking for the enemy "out there," we should try to acknowledge OUR role in the cycle of violence."

     Absolutely. As someone familiar with Michael Sheur, none of this should eb news to you.

     "This means that we should turn the other cheek to jihadists."

     Refraining from picking a fight is not turning the other cheek.

     "This means fighting terrorists will only create more."

     Exactly right.

     "That's not what happened when we militarily defeated and discredited AQ in Iraq."

     AQ in Iraq were created by our occupation. There was no such thing until after we invaded.

     You prove my pint perfectly.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:39pm

185. Fine, I'll summarize the article for you. If Cuba measured infant mortality the same way America did, America would have a much lower infant mortality rate.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:35pm

     Rubbish.

     From your source:

     "Cuba probably does much the same thing that many other countries do and does not register births under 1000g. "

     So your source doesn't know whether this is common practice on not in Cuba, but assuming that if it were so, the US infant mortality rate might not look as bad.

     As one of the commenters observed,

     "when international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) compare countries, they don't accept each country's definitions and statistics at face value and compare apples with oranges. "

     There goes another one of your theories up in smoke.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:45pm

186. "So basically, the US should never ever go to war and was wrong to do so even in WW2 because in war, people die."

     Not wars of choice no."

     WW2 was a war of choice for America?

     "This implies that we only brought 9/11 on ourselves and that, rather than looking for the enemy "out there," we should try to acknowledge OUR role in the cycle of violence."

     Absolutely. As someone familiar with Michael Sheur, none of this should eb news to you."

     I don't agree with him and I think this argument is ridiculous.

     "This means fighting terrorists will only create more."

     Exactly right."

     Well, if that is your position, you are a fool.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:47pm

187. WW2 was a war of choice for America?

     Yes it was.

     Don't bore me with the nostalgic revisionism that it would have been lost without us. It was the Russians who defeated Germany.

     "I don't agree with him and I think this argument is ridiculous."

     Yeah, why woudl you take the word of the former head of the Bin Laden unit at the CIA for 8 years? What woudl he know?

     "Well, if that is your position, you are a fool."

     Was there any such thing as AQI before we invaded? If I'm a fool, I also happen to be right.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/06/2009 @ 10:55pm

188. "Was there any such thing as AQI before we invaded? If I'm a fool, I also happen to be right."

     Sure. The founders who got permission to use the name from Osama were in Iraq before we were and were already planning to plunge Iraq into civil war before we invaded. Meanwhile, Saddam was running a state-sponsored jihadist group called the Fedayeen Saddam and meeting with AQ while getting involved in the 1993 attack on the WTC and threatening to wipe Israel off the map.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 11:00pm

189. "Yes it was.

     Don't bore me with the nostalgic revisionism that it would have been lost without us. It was the Russians who defeated Germany."

     Yes, Shingo, and it would have been better if Stalin got control of Western Europe and some of Japan. Then he could have set up genocidal Communist regimes in all of those countries like the one he set up in North Korea.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 11:03pm

190. "Yeah, why woudl you take the word of the former head of the Bin Laden unit at the CIA for 8 years? What woudl he know?"

     Most government officials, CIA agents, foreign policy experts, ect., would tell you that the Afghan war was needed to prevent another 9/11, but you're not convinced.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 11:05pm

191. Yes. The main problem is lack of competition between insurers.

     •• capitalism becomes communism. the gobble-up proceeds until there is but one fat cat left, becoming the de facto "staterun" business. except the proceeds stay with the very few.

     If people could purchase insurance at much lower prices from a different company NO ONE WOULD SETTLE for unreasonable rates, and those that were most reasonable would make the most money.

     •• if........

     A governmental monopoly with no competition where people are forced to pay for things they don't need in order to finance health care for others is not the answer.

     •• it's workin' o.k. here. not great; after communism becomes capitalism.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:16pm

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2009 @ 11:10pm

192. Sure. The founders who got permission to use the name from Osama were in Iraq before we were and were already planning to plunge Iraq into civil war before we invaded.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 11:00pm

     Rubbish. AQ were enemies of Saddam.

     AQI weer almost entirely made up of foreign fighters.

     Saddam had no connection to jihadists, socould not have been running a state-sponsored jihadist group. Fedayeen Saddam were a militia who had no deadling's AQ, other than giving them the bird.

     as the September 2007 Senate Report concluded, Saddam had no connections whtsoever with AQ.

     Saddam never threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Neither did Iran for that matter.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 12:30am

193. Yes, Shingo, and it would have been better if Stalin got control of Western Europe and some of Japan. Then he could have set up genocidal Communist regimes in all of those countries like the one he set up in North Korea.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 11:03pm

     Too funny.

     We even protected Nazi's becasue we were so scared of the Soviets and Stalin.

     In fact, we did a little genocide of Japan just to send a message to Stalin.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 12:32am

194. Most government officials, CIA agents, foreign policy experts, ect., would tell you that the Afghan war was needed to prevent another 9/11, but you're not convinced.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 11:05pm

     How woudl you know? Michael Sheur has been one of a handful of CIA operatives that has spoken out about this subject.

     Name one true CIA agents or foreign policy experts that says our actions in Afghanistan are preventing another 9/11.

     Government officials can';t be trusted becasue they are married to policy first and reality second.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 12:36am

195. "•• capitalism becomes communism. the gobble-up proceeds until there is but one fat cat left, becoming the de facto "staterun" business. except the proceeds stay with the very few."

     Exactly.

     "A governmental monopoly with no competition where people are forced to pay for things they don't need in order to finance health care for others is not the answer."

     Fortunately that is not what is being proposed.

     "•• it's workin' o.k. here. not great; after communism becomes capitalism."

     It's crap and everybody knows it. Amercia's health system is laughing stock of the world.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 12:39am

196. libertyfortheoppressed:

     Just so you don't bore us with your fake Saddam/Al Qaeda claims, here are refutations that should debunk your argument from now on.

     Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida

     "An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network"

     http://tinyurl.com/ypqd2k

     Saddam 'had no link to al-Qaeda' "There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says.

     The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate's Intelligence Committee on Friday. " http://tinyurl.com/ohzam

     Senate Intelligence report finds no Saddam-al-Qaeda link "Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaeda and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.

     The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel." http://tinyurl.com/ztuf3

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 12:46am

197. That's not what happened when we militarily defeated and discredited AQ in Iraq.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/06/2009 @ 10:30pm

     Correction: AQI were already defeated by the Sunni awakening. All we did bribe and arm the Sunni's so that they woudl stop killing our troops.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 12:53am

198. "•• it's workin' o.k. here. not great; after communism becomes capitalism."

     It's crap and everybody knows it. Amercia's health system is laughing stock of the world.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 12:39am

     that should read,

     "after all, communism becomes capitalism".

     here refers to canada.

     ••

     american health care is far superior to most countries. but like clean air, it is becoming far less accessible to the average joan the hostess.

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/07/2009 @ 01:00am

199. "Saddam never threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Neither did Iran for that matter."

     Hmmm? Iranian Mullahs pledge "death to Israel!!!!" over and over again to crowds of deluded fanatics EVERY FRIDAY.

     "Saddam had no connection to jihadists, socould not have been running a state-sponsored jihadist group."

     That's a great example of circular reasoning if ever there was one.

     "In fact, we did a little genocide of Japan just to send a message to Stalin."

     You can debate if our only choice was to invade Japan or nuke it, but the latter was clearly the superior of those two options. If you think Japan would be better off today if not for the American occupation of that country, you are sadly mistaken.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 01:01am

200. Hmmm? Iranian Mullahs pledge "death to Israel!!!!" over and over again to crowds of deluded fanatics EVERY FRIDAY.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 01:01am

     Neither Amahdinejad nor the Iranian Mullahs have ever threatened to wipe Israel off the map.

     "That's a great example of circular reasoning if ever there was one"

     Translation: I just read your links and my argument imploded.

     "You can debate if our only choice was to invade Japan or nuke it, but the latter was clearly the superior of those two options."

     Neither war necessary by any means. If a country has already been defetaed and surrendered, why woudl either be necessary?

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 01:08am

201. american health care is far superior to most countries. but like clean air, it is becoming far less accessible to the average joan the hostess.

     Posted by frosty zoom at 08/07/2009 @ 01:00am

     While the treatments available in the US is superior to most countries, it comes at a huge price becasue profits come before people.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 01:11am

202. "Name one true CIA agents or foreign policy experts that says our actions in Afghanistan are preventing another 9/11."

     What do you mean "true" CIA agent (as opposed to a "false" CIA agent?)? How could I name ONE agentS? An agent "says", but agents and experts "say".

     CIA agent: George Tenet Foreign policy expert: Henry Kissinger

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 01:31am

203. "Neither Amahdinejad nor the Iranian Mullahs have ever threatened to wipe Israel off the map."

     Again, they do so EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 01:34am

204. "That's a great example of circular reasoning if ever there was one"

     Translation: I just read your links and my argument imploded."

     No. It is a FACT that Saddam had a state-sponsored jihadist group called the Fedayeen Saddam (as Christopher Hitchens had told us time and again). You're right: That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that Saddam harbored one of the terrorists who mixed the chemicals for the bomb in the 1993 WTC attack. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that Saddam funded Palestinian terrorists and threatened to destroy Israel. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that Saddam met with AQ. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that Saddam's jihadist media openly celebrated the 9/11 attacks (http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/). That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that AQI explicitly merged with the Baathist insurgents after the invasion. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that Bill Clinton claimed Saddam was working with Sudan to produce chemical weapons to smuggle to bin Laden. This was never proven. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that Saddam harbored Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted terrorist in the world. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     It is a fact that AQI founders moved to Iraq and began plotting to plunge that country into civil war in 2001, after 9/11. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 01:49am

205. Again, they do so EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 01:34am

     Right wing propaganda.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 02:03am

206. "It is a FACT that Saddam had a state-sponsored jihadist group the Fedayeen Saddam."

     No it's not a fact at all. Fedayeen Saddam were not a jihaidst group, because the Baathists are not jihadists. They are secular.

     "It is a fact that Saddam harbored one of the terrorists who mixed the chemicals for the bomb in the 1993 WTC attack."

     Not a fact. He was an Iraqi who went back to Iraq, which proves nothing. The 911 hijackers were in the US for a year before the attacks. Did Bush harbor them?

     "It is a fact that Saddam funded Palestinian terrorists and threatened to destroy Israel."

     He didn't fund Palestinian terrorists. He financially supported some of the surviving families after they had commited suicide. Big difference.

     "It is a fact that Saddam met with AQ. That doesn't prove he was allies with AQ."

     Id you say he met with AQ, but had nothing to do with them, then why are you making the argument at all?

     "It is a fact that Saddam's jihadist media openly celebrated the 9/11 attacks"

     Not a fact but a claim made by Hitchens without any sources to prove his claim. Knowing Hitchens, probably false.

     "It is a fact that AQI explicitly merged with the Baathist insurgents after the invasion."

     Not a fact. AQI had nothing to do with the Baathists or visa versa. AQ are religious extremists. The Baathista re secular.

     "It is a fact that Bill Clinton claimed Saddam was working with Sudan to produce chemical weapons to smuggle to bin Laden. "

     Clinton lied. "It is a fact that Saddam harbored Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted terrorist in the world."

     Rubbish. Abu Nidal was in Iraq, and spent most of his time in an Iraqi jail while he was there.

     The AQI founders had no links whatsoever to the the AQ that perpetrated 911.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 02:19am

207. CIA agent: George Tenet Foreign policy expert: Henry Kissinger

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 01:31am

     George "slam dunk" Tenet is a proven liar Henry "bombed Cambodia" Kissinger is a liar and not a policy expert, but a politician.

     Thanks for proving my point again.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 02:22am

208. Seeing as you go on about Abu Nidal so much, you must think that harboring means killing someone.

     "Abu Nidal died of between one and four gunshot wounds in Baghdad in August 2002. Palestinian sources believe he was killed on the orders of Saddam Hussein, but the Iraqi government insisted he had committed suicide."

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nidal

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 02:34am

209. "Seeing as you go on about Abu Nidal so much, you must think that harboring means killing someone."

     Shingo, Saddam harbored and supported Nidal during the eighties. But, I did research to try and get to the bottom of what you pointed out, and I found an explosive story.

     http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=9717

     "In a recent Frontpage Interview with Edwin Black, author of several books, interviewer Jamie Glazov correctly pointed out that "there is substantial evidence of [Saddam] Hussein's associations with world terrorism before we invaded Iraq. The Iraqi dictator aided, abetted, and provided sanctuary to Abu Nidal's terrorists, Abu Abbas, and all kinds of radical Islamic terrorist groups – Hizbollah and Hamas among them."

     Saddam's relationship with Abu Nidal (the nom de guerre of Palestinian terrorist Sabri al-Bana) deserves special scrutiny since, as many intelligence analysts and commentators have noted, he was "the bin Laden of the 1970s and 1980s." That is, at that time he was the most lethal and feared terrorist in the world.

     In response, Mr. Black first commented, "Let's get the facts in focus. I followed the career of Abu Nidal …," and then briefly recounted Abu Nidal's career. In his brief synopsis of Nidal's terrorist resume, which spanned several decades, Mr. Black downplayed the relationship between Abu Nidal's terrorist organization (ANO) and Saddam's regime in recent years. His retelling skipped over at least several pertinent facts.

     Mr. Black's version of events leaves the audience with the impression that between the time of the first Gulf War in 1991, when the Kuwaitis apparently purchased Nidal's services, and 2002, when Nidal died of unnatural causes in Iraq, there was no relationship between Nidal and Saddam..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:19am

210. "Mr. Black summarized Nidal's involvement with the Kuwaitis during the Gulf War when he said, "[T]he money-hungry Abu Nidal conspired with the Kuwaiti authorities against his former host in Kuwait's conflict with Saddam. He provided intelligence against Iraq to the Kuwaitis to be transmitted to the Americans during the first Gulf War." The next stage in the relationship between Saddam's regime and Nidal after their Gulf War schism, according to Mr. Black's interview, comes in 2002, when "Abu Nidal was admitted into Iraq and either immediately murdered by Saddam's intelligence operatives, or somehow convinced to commit suicide by shooting his brains out."

     There are several problems with this brief review.

     Notably absent from Mr. Black's telling is any memory of the events of late 1998. With both parties under extreme duress – Nidal had lost his refuge in Egypt and Saddam faced mounting international pressure from the U.N. as well as a bombing campaign by the U.S. and U.K. in December – the two apparently reconciled. The State Department's 1998 Patterns of Global Terrorism report described the renewed relationship: "[I]n December [1998] press reports indicated that Abu Nidal had relocated to Iraq and may be receiving medical treatment. Abu Nidal's move to Baghdad – if true – would increase the prospect that Saddam may call on the ANO to conduct anti-US attacks." Thus, in response to renewed military intervention and diplomatic pressure from the West, Saddam sought to rekindle his relationship with an old terrorist ally. The State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism reports in the following years similarly cited Saddam's cooperation with the ANO and his willingness to provide refuge for its members."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:22am

211. "The press reports mentioned in the State Department's 1998 Patterns of Global Terrorism actually continued into the New Year. For example, The New York Times reported on the renewed relationship on January 27, 1999. In a story aptly titled "A Much-Shunned Terrorist Is Said to Find Haven in Iraq," The Times reported that Nidal had made his way to Baghdad about ten days prior to the U.S.-led bombing campaign on December 16, 1998. The Times further warned:

     "Abu Nidal, one of the world's most infamous terrorists, moved to Baghdad late last year and obtained the protection of President Saddam Hussein, according to intelligence reports received by United States and Middle Eastern government officials. The reports have raised questions about whether Iraq is pushing to establish a terrorism network, American and Middle Eastern officials say. … Abu Nidal's move to Iraq, which he was forced to leave 15 years ago because of his ties to Syria, suggests that he may have renewed a relationship with President Hussein. ‘He could become a more significant threat again if he finds more effective state sponsorship,' an American intelligence official said."

     The timing of Saddam's renewed relationship with Nidal was conspicuous for at least several reasons. First, as mentioned above, Nidal relocated to Baghdad at the height of tensions between the U.S. and Saddam's regime. Between the first and second Gulf Wars there was, arguably, no more stressful time in the ongoing feud between Iraq and the West than in December 1998. Did Saddam plan to enlist Nidal's support in a new round of terrorist strikes against the West? Did Saddam plan to use terrorism in retaliation for the Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign and continued sanctions?"

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:29am

212. Here's the really explosive part, Shingo:

     "Second, we know that at the time of Nidal's relocation to Baghdad Saddam's regime was planning at least one terrorist strike against an American target. In December 1998 the Iraqi consul in Prague, Jabir Salim, defected and revealed to British intelligence that he had been charged with hiring terrorists to blow up America's Radio Free Europe building in Prague. The bombing was most likely intended as retaliation for President Clinton's signing of the Iraqi Liberation Act, which authorized the creation of Radio Free Iraq. Radio Free Iraq began broadcasting anti-regime messages from the Radio Free Europe building in Prague into Iraq late in 1998. (Edward Jay Epstein has reported on this bomb plot. See, for example, http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/ClarkesIraq.htm)

     Third, and most importantly, in December 1998 countless media outlets around the world began to report Saddam's outreach to another arch-terrorist, Osama bin Laden. Saddam sent one of his top intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, to visit bin Laden and his cohorts in Afghanistan on December 21 (just two days after Operation Desert Fox ended). Reports of this meeting set off a flurry of media reports throughout the world. The first account in Milan's Corriere Della Sera (December 28) was followed by reports in the Paris-based Al-Watan Al-Arabi, Newsweek, ABC News, the New York Post, the London Guardian, several Arab newspapers and even Radio Free Iraq. (Side note: The 9/11 Commission was either unaware or ignored all of these reports, as they are not even mentioned in the Commission's much-heralded report.)"

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:35am

213. "There remains a distinct possiblity that Saddam's contacts with Nidal and bin Laden were part of his grand strategy to launch a series of terrorist strikes against the U.S. For instance, the New York Post's account at the time (Niles Lathem, "Saddam's New Weapon: Terror; Courting Bin Laden & Nidal: U.S.," February 1, 1999) explicity warned:

     "Saddam Hussein – battered, humiliated and increasingly isolated – plans to resort to terrorism in revenge for U.S. airstrikes against his country, the Clinton administration believes. … U.S. officials say the CIA has received ‘credible and reliable' intelligence reports that Saddam is forging alliances with some of the Middle East's most bloodthirsty terrorists – including Osama Bin Laden and Abu Nidal – as part of an apparently new campaign to strike American targets and possibly destabilize Saudi Arabia and Kuwait."

     Was Saddam planning a new terrorist offensive againt the U.S.? Much of the evidence indicates that he was. However, much of the story – including the details of Nidal's renewed relationship with Saddam – remains a mystery. For example, did Nidal stay in Iraq from December 1998 till his death in 2002? If so, what did Saddam expect him to do? (Nidal certainly was not invited to stay in Iraq without a quid pro quo.)

     Perhaps the most interesting mystery surrounds Nidal's death. In his interview with FrontPageMag.com, Mr. Black said of Nidal's death, "In August 2002, Abu Nidal was admitted into Iraq and either immediately murdered by Saddam's intelligence operatives, or somehow convinced to commit suicide by shooting his brains out."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:39am

214. "But, as discussed above, Nidal was readmitted into Iraq in December 1998 and some reports say he was shot in the head several times, which would make the possibility of suicide highly unlikely.

     The real question surrounding Nidal's death is why he was killed. The reasons offered by Palestinian and other sources vary. Some say he committed suicide to escape his suffering from leukemia (unlikely, for the reason given above) while others say that he was assassinated by Saddam's regime for attempting to plan a coup at the behest of one of the Gulf states (which is possible but, again, unlikely). A more probable reason for Nidal's assassination is that he knew too much about Saddam's terrorist ties and, with the possibility of an approaching war, that was a liability Saddam could not afford.

     While many uncertainties surrounding Saddam's terrorist aspirations remain, it is clear that Saddam was a vital sponsor of various terrorist groups and had ties to some of the most lethal terrorists in history. It is also clear that the justifications for the war go far beyond Mr. Black's assertion that "Iraq came to the top of the list because of our strategic interest. That strategic interest is oil."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:41am

215. Well, I'm up way too late, but I just keep findinding more and more on Nidal and Saddam.

     http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002160

     "Numerous groups had reason to wish the death of the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, reported to have committed "suicide" in his Baghdad home--albeit with multiple gunshot wounds. The likely conspirators include the Israelis, the PLO leadership, Gulf states he successfully blackmailed, or former friends--like Moammar Gadhafi and Syria--that he might have crossed in one deal or another.

     But just as plausible is the scenario that Abu Nidal was finished off by his on-again-off-again host, Saddam Hussein, in an effort to thwart U.S. military action.

     Once a legend, Nidal--sick and operationally crippled--had long since become a liability for Baghdad. A Reuters report yesterday cited a high-level Palestinian source claiming Nidal was killed after a visit by Iraqi government agents. Perhaps he knew too much. After all, his group had served the interests of the Iraqi regime by terrorizing Saddam's foes through much of the 1970s. Or perhaps more importantly, Nidal was a hazard because his presence suggested a link between Saddam and Sept. 11. The story starts with Ziad Jarrah, comrade of Mohamed Atta and pilot of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11. In the heady news cycle following the attacks, details of family ties of the hijackers received little attention in the U.S. The son of a prominent Lebanese family, Jarrah--secular and fun-loving--came to Germany for college in 1996 and ended up in the terrorist cell run by Atta.

     A constant figure in Jarrah's life in Germany was his great-uncle, Assem Omar Jarrah. According to the German magazine, Der Spiegel, Assem Jarrah worked for a..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:54am

216. "...long time as an informer for the Stasi, the East German secret service, while maintaining connections to Nidal's terror group.

     According to Stasi files described by Der Spiegel last November, a note on the back of Assem Jarrah's file specified he had contacts with people in "Operation Trader"--Stasi code for the Abu Nidal group, which staged several operations in Germany and recruited agents among Arab students. The elder Jarrah, who allegedly also worked for Libya as a double agent, was among the students Nidal's men approached.

     Following German reunification, Assem Jarrah established two firms, selling chemicals and medical equipment to Middle Eastern clients like Libya. Based on the accounts of former employees, Der Spiegel describes visits to suspicious facilities in the middle of a Libyan desert. After living in Germany for 18 years, Ziad's uncle disappeared two months before the attacks of Sept. 11, saying he was heading back to his native Lebanon.

     In his 1999 book, "Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police," former AP reporter and White House communications director John O. Koehler describes the inroads Nidal's organization made among students like Assem Jarrah. In one particular chapter, the author discussed a luncheon between Stasi's Col. Rainer Wiegand and two of his informers, both Lebanese science students, during which the informers reveal they are targeted for recruitment by Nidal. After confirming their story, he advises them to play along."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:56am

217. "Brutal and vengeful, Nidal spent much of his terrorism career as a hired hand, often finding himself in the service of the Iraqi or the Syrian regime. During the same period, Iraqi security was highly active in East Germany, purchasing material for Iraq's massive weapons stockpile, hunting down dissidents, and spying on Arab diplomats. In his first debriefing after defecting to West Germany, Wiegand warned of the amazing Iraqi spying and terrorism apparatus in Germany. "It could, of course, be pure coincidence that the uncle of one of the hijackers had worked for two intelligence agencies and had relations with another group and ran a pharmaceutical company doing business related to chemicals in the Middle East," cautions Gunther Latsch, an investigative journalist at Der Spiegel and an expert on the Stasi.

     Mr. Latsch notes, however, that, despite the initial denials from the Jarrah family, Ziad was very close to his great uncle: "He was the one who picked him up at the airport when he first came to Germany. The uncle paid for his apartment. He really took care of him." Extended family connections in the Middle East, and their social import, are often overlooked by Western audiences. But the case of Ziad Jarrah and his uncle is worth careful scrutiny.

     The details of the Jarrah family saga do not conclusively point to the Abu Nidal group--or for that matter to Baghdad--in regard to Sept. 11. But, if true, the story of Ziad Jarrah and his uncle contains information that adds heft to similar tales that have surfaced on the fringes of the Sept. 11 investigation. In a well-reported meeting in 1998, Saddam's envoy Faruq Hijazi visited Osama bin Laden in Kandahar. Investigators have long suspected that the visit by the top-level Iraqi diplomat was a Baghdad..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:59am

218. "...invitation for the al Qaeda chief. Then there were the visits to Prague by Atta. On two separate occasions, Atta--not a man given to the earthly pleasures of sightseeing--traveled to Prague to meet Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi agent later expelled from the Czech Republic as a spy. Since the information surfaced last fall, there have been numerous efforts to bury the story--the most tangible evidence linking Sept. 11 to Baghdad. The Czech government, however, had little reason to question its own intelligence on the Atta trips and stood by the story. Last month, a high-ranking White House official confirmed the meeting.

     Details such as these do not sufficiently describe the broader relations that lie behind Sept. 11. But they do hint that behind the façade of religious fanaticism sits the old network of "terrorism international"--that same web of underground groups and the rogue states which support them. One day, when investigators get to the bottom of Sept. 11, there might after all be more familiar names than the faceless al Qaeda operatives we have seen on grainy video clips."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:02am

219. http://www.cfr.org/publication/9153/#6

     "Has the Abu Nidal Organization received state support?

     Yes. Iraq, Syria, and Libya have all harbored the group and given it training, logistical support, and funding, often using the ANO as guns for hire. Abu Nidal began working with Iraqi intelligence while representing Fatah in Baghdad, experts say. He formed his organization with Iraq's help and began by attacking Syria and the PLO. In 1983, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein expelled Abu Nidal and his group in an attempt to win U.S. military support for Iraq's 1980s war with neighboring Iran. Once the war ended, Iraq resumed its support of Abu Nidal.

     After being expelled from Iraq, the organization moved to Syria, where it worked to undermine peace plans involving Jordan, Israel, and the PLO. In turn, Syria expelled the Abu Nidal Organization in 1987, probably under U.S. pressure to distance itself from terrorists, at which point Libya took it in. In 1999, in an attempt to rid itself of international sanctions, Libya kicked out the Abu Nidal Organization. The group's current access to resources are unclear; however, the decline of state support is thought to have severely curtailed operations and capabilities.

     Where does the group now operate? The organization is largely considered inactive. In 1999, Egypt and Libya closed down ANO offices in their countries. Current and former leaders and associates are now thought to be in Iraq, with cells in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:07am

220. http://neveryetmelted.com/categories/abu-nidal/

     "A recent commenter from the UK took issue with postings here arguing that George W. Bush ought to have done more to mobilize and involve the American public in the Iraq War. Insisting that the Invasion of Iraq should not be viewed as an appropriate action in the War on Terror begun in response to 9/11, she wrote, referrring to the text of the author I quoted and linked: "are you suggesting Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the Twin Towers thingie?"

     Of course, the specific causus belli of the US Invasion of Iraq was Saddam Hussein's persistent violation of the Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement and his continuing breach of UN Resolutions, requiring him to submit to weapons inspections and surrender materials known to be in his possession. But grounds for suspicion of possible Iraqi involvement in 9/11 certainly do exist.

     Czech Intelligence has never backed away from its report that Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi Intelligence officer Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani in Prague 08 April 2001.

     There is also the Telegraph news story, published back on 14 Dec 2003, that 9/11 hijack leader Mohammed Atta underwent some form of training for the 9/11 attacks at the hands of the infamous Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal in Baghdad during the summer of 2001.

     Abu Nidal had been a guest of Saddam Hussein since 1999, occupying a villa supplied by the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret service, in the wealthy al-Masbah neighborhood of al-Jadriyah, Baghdad. Abu Nidal was killed 14 August 2002 by an Iraqi Mukhabarat assassination unit...."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:10am

221. "...Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.

     Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

     The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.

     In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy".

     The second part of the memo, which is headed "Niger Shipment", contains a report about an unspecified shipment – believed to be uranium – that it says has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria.

     Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.

     "We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he said. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:13am

222. Only right wing cooks like David Horowitz made the argument that Saddam harbored and supported Nidal during the eighties. In fact, Saddam offered to chase him out of Iraq to appease the US.

     And while Nidal was in a prison in Iraq, the Us befriended him.

     Frontpage is a far right wing propaganda sight that makes the weekly Standard look mainstream. Patrick Seale, who authored the autobiography of Nidal, alsorevealed that Abu Nidal was Israeli double agent controlled by Menachim Begin

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:15am

223. Third, and most importantly, in December 1998 countless media outlets around the world began to report Saddam's outreach to another arch-terrorist, Osama bin Laden. S

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:35am

     That's how the echo chamber works. False propaganda is fed to news outlets by government sources, who then cite the ne3ws reports are evidence of their claims.

     As the 2006 Senate report revealed, all of this was all false.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:19am

224. http://tinyurl.com/mzvnzt

     "According to Tenet, al Qaeda's presence was not limited to northern Iraq:

     What was even more worrisome was that by the spring and summer of 2002, more than a dozen al-Qa'ida-affiliated extremists converged on Baghdad, with apparently no harassment on the part of the Iraqi government. They had found a comfortable and secure environment in which they moved people and supplies to support Zarqawi's operations in northeastern Iraq. Other high-level al Qaeda terrorists set up shop in Baghdad as well. From Saddam's neo-Stalinist capital they planned attacks around the globe:

     More al-Qa'ida operatives would follow, including Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, two Egyptians assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's best operational planners, who arrived by mid-May of 2002. At times we lost track of them, though their associates continued to operate in Baghdad as of October 2002. Their activity in sending recruits to train in Zarqawi's camps was compelling enough. There was also concern that these two might be planning operations outside Iraq. Credible information told us that Shihata was willing to strike U.S., Israeli, and Egyptian targets sometime in the future. Shihata had been linked to terrorist operations in North Africa, and while in Afghanistan he had trained North Africans in the use of truck bombs. Smoke indeed. But how much fire, if any?"

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:19am

225. Well, I'm up way too late, but I just keep findinding more and more on Nidal and Saddam. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002160

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 03:54am

     You needn't have bothered. All your links predate the 2006 Senate Report that debunks all these reports. Can I ask you why you feel the need to cut and paste entire reports rather than just link? You could just as easily make your point by proving links and a short summary.

     Do you feel as though your arguments are so weak, that by posting copious text, you will prove a point?

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:23am

226. "There was more. Tenet says that his analysts found evidence of a relationship spanning more than a decade. He explains:

     In the laborious exercise undertaken by analysts to understand the history of a potential Iraq-al Qa'ida relationship, they went back and documented the basis of a variety of sources--some good, some secondhand, some hearsay, many from other intelligence services. There were, over a decade, a number of possible high-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida, through high-level and third-party intermediaries. Our data told us that at various points there were discussions of cooperation, safe haven, training, and reciprocal nonaggression. As has been discussed in THE WEEKLY STANDARD on a number of occasions, the CIA also uncovered evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating on chemical weapons projects in the Sudan. The Clinton administration cited the CIA's intelligence to justify the August 20, 1998, strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory. That strike was launched in retaliation for al Qaeda's August 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The al-Shifa plant operated under an Iraqi oil-for-food contract and Tenet's CIA suspected it of being one of several front companies at which Iraq was transferring chemical weapons technology (including VX nerve gas) to al Qaeda.

     Tenet explains the long history of collaboration between Iraq, Sudan, and al Qaeda:

     During the mid-1990s, Sudanese Islamic Front Leader Hasan al-Turabi reportedly served as a conduit for Bin Ladin between Iraq and Iran. Turabi in this period was trying to become the centerpiece of the Sunni extremist world. He was hosting conferences and facilitating the travel of North Africans to Hezbollah training camps in the Bekaa Valley, in Lebanon."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:23am

227. http://tinyurl.com/mzvnzt

     "According to Tenet, al Qaeda's presence was not limited to northern Iraq:

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:19am

     Tenet was exposed as a liar.

     Next...

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:24am

228. "There was concern that common interests may have existed in this period between Iraq, Bin Ladin, and the Sudanese, particularly with regard to the production of chemical weapons. The reports we evaluated told us of high-level Iraqi intelligence service contacts with Bin Ladin himself, though we never knew the outcome of these contacts. [Emphasis added] Tenet also offers his thoughts on the detention of Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, "a senior military trainer for al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan." When al-Libi was first detained he "offered up information that a militant known as Abu Abudullah had told him that at least three times between 1997 and 2000, the now-deceased al-Qa'ida leader Mohammed Atef had sent Abu Abdullah to Iraq to seek training in poisons and mustard gas." Later, al-Libi recanted his testimony. Controversy then ensued. Critics of the Iraq war have seized on al-Libi's reversal and claim that his admissions were made under duress, and are therefore dubious.

     But Tenet says "there was sharp division on his recantation" inside the CIA. Al-Libi "clearly lied," Tenet says, but we don't know when. Either his initial confession or his later denial could be accurate. Tenet concludes: "The fact is, we don't know which story is true, and since we don't know, we can assume nothing."

     But Tenet adds an additional detail that he says lent credence to al-Libi's initial confession: "Another senior al-Qa'ida detainee told us that Mohammed Atef was interested in expanding al-Qa'ida's ties to Iraq, which, in our eyes, added credibility to [al-Libi's initial] reporting."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:25am

229. "There was more. Tenet says that his analysts found evidence of a relationship spanning more than a decade. He explains:

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:23am

     All of which was debunked by the 2006 Senate Report .

     Next...

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:25am

230. But Tenet adds an additional detail that he says lent credence to al-Libi's initial confession: "Another senior al-Qa'ida detainee told us that Mohammed Atef was interested in expanding al-Qa'ida's ties to Iraq, which, in our eyes, added credibility to [al-Libi's initial] reporting."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:25am

     Stories which were tutored out of Abu Zaabaida and debunked by the 2006 Senate Report .

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:28am

231. http://www.regimeofterror.com/

     Much more here.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:29am

232. Tenet explains the long history of collaboration between Iraq, Sudan, and al Qaeda:

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:23am

     All of which was debunked by the 2006 Senate Report .

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:30am

233. So, Shingo, you don't think any of this proves anything?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:31am

234. The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:13am

     As was later revealed, Atta never went to Iraq.

     The letter was a forgery.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:32am

235. "Do you feel as though your arguments are so weak, that by posting copious text, you will prove a point?"

     Actually, yes, because otherwise you'd never read the articles, while the facts on my side are overwhelming.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:33am

236. So, Shingo, you don't think any of this proves anything?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:31am

     Obviously not.

     All our sources predated the war and was debunked by the 2006 Senate Report.

     You needn't have bothered with your copious cut and paste effort. I suspect you know your arguments have no basis in reality and are trying to compensate.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:34am

237. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1020826/asp/foreign/story_1137139.asp

     "Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist, was murdered on the orders of Saddam Hussein after refusing to train al Qaida fighters based in Iraq, The Daily Telegraph can reveal....

     While in Baghdad, Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, came under pressure from Saddam to help train groups of al Qaida fighters who moved to northern Iraq after fleeing Afghanistan. Saddam also wanted Abu Nidal to carry out attacks against the US and its allies.

     When Abu Nidal refused, Saddam ordered his intelligence chiefs to assassinate him. He was shot dead last weekend when Iraqi security forces burst into his apartment in central Baghdad. The body was taken to the hospital where he had had cancer treatment.

     The Iraqi authorities later claimed that Abu Nidal had killed himself when confronted with evidence that he was involved in a plot to overthrow Saddam. "There is no doubt that Abu Nidal was murdered on Saddam's orders," said a US official who has studied the reports. "He paid the price for not co-operating with Saddam's wishes."

     Last week, American intelligence officials revealed that several high-ranking al Qaida members had moved to northern Iraq where they had linked up with Iraqi intelligence officials. It now transpires that Saddam was hoping to take advantage of Abu Nidal's presence in Baghdad to persuade him to use his considerable expertise in terrorist techniques to train al Qaida fighters.

     Abu Nidal worked closely with Saddam during the late 1970s and early 1980s to carry out a number of terrorist outrages in West Asia and Europe, including the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to London in 1982."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:38am

238. Actually, yes, because otherwise you'd never read the articles, while the facts on my side are overwhelming.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:33am

     The only thing overwhelming is the effort you put in to create your smoke screen.

     I don't need to read them. Of course, you weren't expecting me to read all your BS. I suspect you were just hoping that I wouldn't bother responding.

     All of the sources you cited predate the 2006 Senate report that debunks every assertion you have linked to.

     The Senate Report, and given the fact that it was produced years after your most recent article, is tall the facts I need.

     I don't suppose you have a recent Senate or Intelligence report that supports any of your arguments?

     Didn't think so.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:39am

239. "Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist, was murdered on the orders of Saddam Hussein after refusing to train al Qaida fighters based in Iraq, The Daily Telegraph can reveal....

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:38am

     A link from Monday, August 26, 2002, long before the invasion, and yet ANOTHER link that has been subsequently debunked by the 006 Senate report that debunks every assertion you have linked to.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:41am

240. While in Baghdad, Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, came under pressure from Saddam to help train groups of al Qaida fighters who moved to northern Iraq after fleeing Afghanistan.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:38am

     So easy to debunk.

     "An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network." http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/29959.html

     Now if Saddam had indeed tried to pressure Nidal to help train groups of al Qaida fighters, then it surely would have been documented in one of the 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S.

     The second part of the story is also false. As the 2006 Senate Report explained, Saddam had no control over northern Iraq. In fact, that is one of the reasons Zarqawi chose Northern Iraq for his base, because it was outside the reach of Saddam, who the 2006 Report explains, had tried to kill many times.

     This is too easy libertyfortheoppressed.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 04:47am

241. The Easter Bunny helped hide Nidal for years, in N. Korea.

     It is not so well known that EB has a summer cottage in N. Korea where he hosts multiple known terrorists and their entourages.

     EB was also cited by NEWSMAX as being a go-between for Niger and Sadam Hussein in 2001 when Saddam was purchasing uranium.

     "We know where the Easter bunny is hiding, in and around PyongNang, north and east of Tikrit"- Sec Def Rumsfeld circa April 2003.

     Posted by crabwalk at 08/07/2009 @ 06:27am

242. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 04:25am

     A question for you libertyfortheoppressed. Are you for liberty for the oppressed in this nation, or only other nations that you think we should set to right? From your statements, you certainly don't stand for liberty for the oppressed in the United States, only liberty for the well off, better off and the ones getting off on all of us.

     Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/07/2009 @ 4:08pm

243. "All [y]our sources predated the war"

     The Front Page Magazine article is from 2005.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 5:33pm

244. "Now if Saddam had indeed tried to pressure Nidal to help train groups of al Qaida fighters, then it surely would have been documented in one of the 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S."

     Not for sure. Saddam killed Nidal in an effort to destroy evidence of his terrorist links to avoid war.

     In any case, we know for a FACT that Saddam sent a diplomat to meet with bin Laden while welcoming back Nidal in 1998, and we further know for a FACT that he was planning at least one terrorist attack against a US target at the same time.

     We also know that Saddam supported Hezbollah and Hamas, threatened to destroy Israel, planned to attack Israel, praised the 9/11 attacks, and performed state-sponsored jihad.

     The Senate report doesn't deny a word of this. It simply said that there is no proof of a direct operational connection between Saddam and AQ. And there isn't.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 5:42pm

245. "Are you for liberty for the oppressed in this nation,"

     Sure.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 5:43pm

246. Just speak the truth: the bankers and the health insurers and the corporations have been taking your money and buying your government. --

     When Walter Cronkite took over the CBS Evening News in 1961 there were over 600 individual media companies in the US. Now there are 6. That was on purpose.

     Posted by non at 08/07/2009 @ 7:17pm

247. The Front Page Magazine article is from 2005.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 5:33pm

     It uses receycled garbage from pre war and stil lpredates the 2006 Senate Report that debuks it too.

     You lose either way.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 9:03pm

248. Not for sure. Saddam killed Nidal in an effort to destroy evidence of his terrorist links to avoid war.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 5:42pm

     Far from it. Nidal was no threat to the US and had no Al Qaeda connection, so he was of no consequence. He only became an issue for supporters of the war who were scrambling for post invasios justifications.

     When we gave support to Saddam's regmise in the 80's, Nidal was of no colnsequence then either. He might have killed an American diplomat, but the one terrorist group that Saddam did supoprt MEK, killed a number of Americans and we have been supporting them.

     It is NOT a FACT that Saddam sent a diplomat to meet with bin Laden, nor did he welcome Nidal in 1998. A former Iraqi diplomate met with bin Laden, though there is no evidence he was acting on Saddam's behalf. In fact, the US has had more contact with Bin Laden than Saddam alledgedly did. No, Saddam did not welcome Nidal in to Iraq in 1998. Nidal was imprisoned by Saddam, which is hardly a welcome.

     Nor is it a FACT that he was planning any terrorist attacks against a US. That too was debunked by the 2006 Senate Report.

     Saddam did not support Hezbollah or Hamas. That was debunked by the 2006 Senate Report.

     Saddam never threatened to destroy Israel. That's usupported hyperbole by Hitchens.

     Saddam never planned to attack Israel. That's usupported hyperbole by Hitchens.

     Saddam never praised the 9/11 attacks.That's usupported hyperbole by Hitchens.

     Saddam never and performed state-sponsored jihad. He was at war with jihadists.

     The Pentagfon investigation of 600,000 Iraqi documents found no evidence to support any of these allegations. They are all right wing propagnada.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/07/2009 @ 9:27pm

249. "A former Iraqi diplomate met with bin Laden, though there is no evidence he was acting on Saddam's behalf."

     Perhaps, like Richard Nixon's subordinates, a few of the rougher types Saddam employed "imagined" what would please their boss and met bin Laden without his approval. After all, why would a meeting with OSAMA BIN LADEN need any direct authorization by Saddam?

     "Nidal... was of no consequence." Wiki:

     In June 1982, Abu Nidal succeeded in sparking the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the PLO's expulsion from its base there. On June 3, three ANO operatives--Hussein Ghassan Said, Nawaf al-Rosan, and Marwan al-Banna, Abu Nidal's cousin--approached Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to Britain, as he left the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane, London. Said shot him in the head, but Argov survived, spending the next three months in a coma, and the rest of his life disabled, until his death in February 2003.[45]

     It was with the help of Libyan intelligence, while still living in Syria, that Abu Nidal carried out his most infamous operation, allegedly without the knowledge of the Syrian government. At 08:15 GMT on December 27, 1985, four gunmen approached Israel's El Al ticket counter at the Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport in Rome, and opened fire, killing 16 people and wounding 99 others. A few minutes later, in Vienna International Airport, three men threw hand grenades at passengers waiting to check in to a flight to Tel Aviv, killing two and wounding 39. Austria and Italy were the two European countries with the closest ties to the PLO, and both governments were actively involved at the time of the attacks in trying to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together for peace talks.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:23pm

250. According to Atef Abu Bakr, a former senior member of the ANO, Gaddafi responded to the American raids by asking Abu Nidal to organize a series of revenge attacks against the U.S. and Britain, in cooperation with the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi. Abu Nidal first arranged for two British school teachers, Leigh Douglas and Philip Padfield, and an American, Peter Kilburn, to be kidnapped in Lebanon. Their bodies were found in a village east of Beirut on April 17, 1986, wrapped in white cloth and with gunshot wounds to the head. A note left nearby said: "The Arab Commando Cells are carrying out the death sentences on a CIA official and two British intelligence officers." British hostage John McCarthy was kidnapped the same day.[54]

     On the same day the bodies were found and McCarthy disappeared, Ann Marie Murphy, a pregnant Irish chambermaid, was stopped in Heathrow airport by an El Al security guard, who found she was about to carry a Semtex bomb in the false bottom of one of her bags on board an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv. The bag had been packed by her Jordanian fiancé Nizar Hindawi, who was supposedly going to join her in Israel where they were to be married. The British government later determined that the Syrian government had been behind the attack.[55]

     Hindawi had worked as a freelance for a number of Palestinian groups, including the Abu Nidal Organization, and it was Abu Nidal, according to Melman, who had recommended Hindawi to the Syrians.[56]

     On September 5, 1986, an ANO team hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 at Karachi Airport on its way from Bombay to New York. The gunmen held the hostages, 389 passengers and crew, for 16 hours in the plane on the tarmac before detonating grenades inside the cabin.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:27pm

251. "Nor is it a FACT that he was planning any terrorist attacks against a US. That too was debunked by the 2006 Senate Report."

     No it wasn't.

     In December 1998 the Iraqi consul in Prague, Jabir Salim, defected and revealed to British intelligence that he had been charged with hiring terrorists to blow up America's Radio Free Europe building in Prague. The bombing was most likely intended as retaliation for President Clinton's signing of the Iraqi Liberation Act, which authorized the creation of Radio Free Iraq.

     The Senate Report does not deny this.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:30pm

252. "Saddam never threatened to destroy Israel. That's usupported hyperbole by Hitchens.

     Saddam never planned to attack Israel. That's usupported hyperbole by Hitchens."

     Ask Georges Sada.

     "Saddam never praised the 9/11 attacks.That's usupported hyperbole by Hitchens."

     Notice even Shingo isn't willing to say, as he does with other claims, that any of this has been debunked by the 2006 Senate report.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:33pm

253. "Saddam never and performed state-sponsored jihad. He was at war with jihadists."

     Then why was he friends with so many of them?

     And why was a state-sponsored jihadist group headed by his sons performing state-sponsored jihad if he didn't approve?

     Is this another case of "Like some of Richard Nixon's subordinates..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:36pm

254. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:23pm

     "After all, why would a meeting with OSAMA BIN LADEN need any direct authorization by Saddam?"

     Because Saddam didn't trust OBL or his johdist followers. A meeting by one of his lieutenants would have been a threat to someone so paranoid.

     "In June 1982, Abu Nidal succeeded in sparking the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the PLO's expulsion from its base there."

     Rubbish. Israel invaded Lebanon as soon s the PLO voiced support for the 2 state solution. It had nothig to do with Nidal.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 01:54am

255. Then why was he friends with so many of them?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:36pm

     He wasn't friend with any. That's the whole point.

     Contrary to your debunked claim, he did not sponsor any jihadist group.

     You can keep lying and I'll keep calling you on it.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 01:56am

256. Ask Georges Sada.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:33pm

     Which has not been corroborated by any subsequent evidence or investigation. None of the 600,000 pages found by the Pentagon revealed any evidence to support Sada's claims.

     Ergo, Sada was lying.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 01:58am

257. In December 1998 the Iraqi consul in Prague, Jabir Salim, defected and revealed to British intelligence that he had been charged with hiring terrorists to blow up America's Radio Free Europe building in Prague.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:30pm

     Rubbish. The entire Prague connection was exposed as a fraud.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 01:59am

258. On September 5, 1986, an ANO team hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 at Karachi Airport on its way from Bombay to New York. The gunmen held the hostages, 389 passengers and crew, for 16 hours in the plane on the tarmac before detonating grenades inside the cabin.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:27pm

     Nothing to do with Saddam Hussein.

     Incidentally, Saddam was a US ally at the time and didn't seem it importnat at th time.

     Anbother debunked an irrelvant argument.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 02:01am

259. "Saddam never praised the 9/11 attacks.That's usupported hyperbole by Hitchens."

     Notice even Shingo isn't willing to say, as he does with other claims, that any of this has been debunked by the 2006 Senate report.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:33pm

     The onbly source of the claim that Saddam never praised the 9/11 attacks, is Chistophers Hitchens, who has never provided a source for his claims.

     Note that among other lies Hichens refuses to aknowledge is the belief that Saddam really was trying to get Urnum from Niger (a claim which originated from forged documents), that Saddam had a nuclear program (debunked by the Duelfer Report) , and that Zarqawi was in Iraq at Saddam's behest (debunked by the 2006 Senate Report).

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 02:14am

260. In December 1998 the Iraqi consul in Prague, Jabir Salim, defected and revealed to British intelligence that he had been charged with hiring terrorists to blow up America's Radio Free Europe building in Prague.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:30pm

     Note that Jabir Salim was the source of the phony story abotu Atta meeting with Iraqi officials in Prague.

     Like Chalabi, this defector is a proven liar.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 02:18am

261. "Note that among other lies Hichens refuses to aknowledge is the belief that Saddam really was trying to get Urnum from Niger"

     Well, he was.

     "that Saddam had a nuclear program"

     No, Hitchens maintained that Saddam intended to resume the program when the sanctions ended. The Duelfer Report proved him right.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:21pm

262. "On September 5, 1986, an ANO team hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 at Karachi Airport on its way from Bombay to New York. The gunmen held the hostages, 389 passengers and crew, for 16 hours in the plane on the tarmac before detonating grenades inside the cabin.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/07/2009 @ 10:27pm

     Nothing to do with Saddam Hussein."

     I was responding to your assertion that Nidal "was of no consequence".

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:23pm

263. Isn't it funny how there are so many people willing to lie about a poor saintly secular Saladin like Saddam given that he is totally innocent of all charges?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:24pm

264. "You can keep lying and I'll keep calling you on it."

     Ditto. You can keep lying that 1 million Iraqis have died in the war, but they haven't.

     http://tinyurl.com/na5vae

     "Remember that highly controversial study published in the journal Lancet in 2006 claiming that 650,000 Iraqi citizens have died since the start of the war in March 2003?

     Well, according to an article published in England's Sunday Times, antiwar activist and MoveOn.org founder George Soros was partially responsible for the funding.

     I'm sure this will be front-page, headline news for all of America's press outlets in the coming days, aren't you?

     While you ponder, here are the facts according to the Times (emphasis added):

     Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead. The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

     New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

     "The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research," said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

     Darned straight!

     Of course, I'm sure this will be the position taken by pressrooms across the country as this matter is given great focus in the next 24 hours.

     On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't hold my breath, huh?"

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:29pm

265. "In December 2005, Bush had used a figure of 30,000 civilian deaths in Iraq. Iraq's health ministry calculated that, based on death certificates, 50,000 Iraqis had died in the war through June 2006. A cautiously compiled database of media reports by a London-based anti-war group called Iraq Body Count confirmed at least 45,000 war dead during the same time period. These were all horrific numbers -- but the death count in The Lancet's study differed by an order of magnitude.

     Queried in the Rose Garden on October 11, the day the Lancet article came out, Bush dismissed it. "I don't consider it a credible report," he replied. The Pentagon and top British government officials also rejected the study's findings.

     Such skepticism would not prove to be the rule.

     CBS News called the report a "new and stunning measure of the havoc the American invasion unleashed in Iraq." CNN began its report this way: "War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis, or more than 500 people a day, since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports." Within a week, the study had been featured in 25 news shows and 188 articles in U.S. newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

     Editorials in many major newspapers cited the Lancet article as further evidence that the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea, and the liberal blogosphere ridiculed Bush for his response. Prominent mainstream media outlets quoted various academics who vouched for the study's methodology, including some who said they had reviewed the data before publication.

     Within a few weeks a backlash rose, although the contrarian view of the study generated far less press attention than the Lancet article. In the ensuing year, numerous skeptics have identified various..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:35pm

266. ..."weaknesses with the study's methodology and conclusions. Political blogs and academic journals have registered and responded to the objections in a debate that has been simultaneously arcane and predictable. The arguments are arcane because that is the nature of statistical analysis. They are predictable because that is the nature of today's polarized political discourse, with liberals defending the Lancet study and conservatives contesting it.

     How to explain the enormous discrepancy between The Lancet's estimation of Iraqi war deaths and those from studies that used other methodologies? For starters, the authors of the Lancet study followed a model that ensured that even minor components of the data, when extrapolated over the whole population, would yield huge differences in the death toll. Skeptical commentators have highlighted questionable assumptions, implausible data, and ideological leanings among the authors, Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, and Les Roberts.

     Some critics go so far as to suggest that the field research on which the study is based may have been performed improperly -- or not at all. The key person involved in collecting the data -- Lafta, the researcher who assembled the survey teams, deployed them throughout Iraq, and assembled the results -- has refused to answer questions about his methods.

     Some of these questions could be resolved if other researchers had access to the surveyors' original field reports and response forms. The authors have released files of collated survey results but not the original survey reports, citing security concerns and the fact that some information was not recorded or preserved in the first place. This was a legitimate problem, and it underscored the difficulty of conducting research in a war zone."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:37pm

267. "Over the past several months, National Journal has examined the 2006 Lancet article, and another [PDF] that some of the same authors published in 2004; probed the problems of estimating wartime mortality rates; and interviewed the authors and their critics. NJ has identified potential problems with the research that fall under three broad headings: 1) possible flaws in the design and execution of the study; 2) a lack of transparency in the data, which has raised suspicions of fraud; and 3) political preferences held by the authors and the funders, which include George Soros's Open Society Institute.

     Since the beginning of the war, the media have meticulously tracked and documented the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq -- which reached 3,904 on January 1 -- particularly as the total approached and then surpassed (in December 2006) the 2,973 people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But determining the number of Iraqis who have died is much more difficult, as is determining how many of the dead were insurgents and how many were innocent civilians. With Iraq's central government barely functioning, health services overwhelmed, and political agendas coloring all agencies, no reliable statistics exist so far.

     The Lancet study was based on techniques developed by public health experts to determine rates of illness and death from epidemics and famines in large populations. This "cluster" sampling is a relatively new methodology that attempts to replicate the logic of public opinion polling in Third World locales that lack a telecommunications infrastructure."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:40pm

268. "Following this method, questioners undertake a house-to-house survey in certain areas and then extrapolate the results from that statistical sample to the entire national population. According to this study's design, teams of Iraqi questioners would visit approximately 47 randomly chosen clusters of homes throughout the country and ask a series of census-style questions at 40 contiguous households in each cluster: How many people live in your household? How many lived here on January 1, 2002? In that time, how many were born -- and how many died?

     In 2004, several of the same authors had done a preliminary Iraq study using this method. Also published in The Lancet (and also deliberately timed, by the authors' admission, to appear just before a U.S. election), that article reported at least 98,000 "excess" Iraqi deaths. Perhaps because that estimate contrasted sharply with the observations of embedded reporters, human-rights activists, and others on the ground in Iraq, the media gave it limited coverage.

     In his first study of Iraqi war deaths, in September 2004, Lafta sent six Iraqi questioners to 33 clusters of homes throughout the country to ask how many people in each household had died since January 1, 2002. The researchers reported that 808 of the 998 identified households participated in the survey, and then extrapolated the number of deaths reported to the entire population of 24.4 million Iraqis. "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq," concluded the authors -- Roberts, Lafta, Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, and Burnham. That was when the war was just 19 months old.

     "Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:47pm

269. "...accounted for most violent deaths," the report said. According to subsequent explanations by the authors, the total included 57,600 dead from violence, 24,000 dead from wartime accidents, and 13,600 dead from disease. The accidental deaths included 15,000 Iraqis killed by U.S. vehicles in road incidents -- extrapolated from five death reports.

     Little is known about Lafta's decision-making in amassing the data for the Lancet surveys. Roberts provided some information, however, about Lafta's 2004 survey of casualties in Falluja. At the time, al-Sadr was publicly supporting the anti-American Sunni radicals who controlled the city. In September, Roberts said, he pleaded with "his Muslim friend Lafta not to go" into Falluja, according to an interview with a magazine published by Johns Hopkins. Roberts told the interviewer that Lafta replied, "God has picked these clusters. If God wants me, he will take me. I must go." Roberts also said of Lafta, "I know no one [who] perceives themselves so humbly to be a tool of God's destiny.... He sees his science as synonymous with service to God."

     In Falluja, Lafta recorded 52 deaths in 29 households, which amounted to 71 percent of the violent deaths recorded by the first Lancet survey. If representative, Lafta's sample translated into 50,000 to 70,000 dead in Falluja by September 2004 -- two months before the start of the second major American military operation to restore order. Falluja's prewar population was estimated to be 250,000, although U.S. officials said that the vast majority of residents had fled before the battles began. Lafta's Falluja death estimate was so far off the chart that his colleagues dropped it from the study, the authors said."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:49pm

270. So, according to Lafta, the US army killed 70,000 people in Falluja BEFORE the second major US military operation there, even though only about 90,000 people where there when the US attacked.

     "The 2006 study, known as Lancet II, was somewhat larger, involving 47 clusters and using similar survey techniques. In all, 302 violent deaths reported in those 1,849 households became the basis for estimating that 601,000 Iraqis had died violently from the start of the war through June 2006.

     Even though the second study was even further out of line with other sources' estimates than the first, it got tremendous attention -- probably because its findings fit an emerging narrative: Iraq was a horrific mess. The February 2006 bombing of Samarra's Golden Mosque, in particular, had sent the country spiraling toward sectarian warfare.

     Democrats who had opposed Bush's Iraq campaign embraced the report. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for example, issued a statement saying that the "new study is a chilling and somber reminder of the unacceptably high human cost of this war.... We must not stay on the same failed course any longer."

     Such remarks, amplified by myriad articles, broadcasts, and blogs, helped to cement Americans' increasingly negative perceptions of the war. "For those who wanted to believe it, it gave them a new number to circulate, [and] it was a defining moment" in attitudes toward the war, said pollster John Zogby, who commended the report in a CNN interview. "

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:55pm

271. "Both Lancet studies of Iraqi war deaths rest on the data provided by Lafta, who operated with little American supervision and has rarely appeared in public or been interviewed about his role. In May, Lafta and Roberts presented their study to an off-the-record meeting of experts in Geneva, but other attendees declined to describe Lafta's remarks. Despite multiple requests sent via e-mails and through Burnham and Roberts, Lafta declined to communicate with National Journal or to send copies of his articles about Iraqi deaths during Saddam's regime.

     When asked questions about the reliability of their Iraqi partner, the studies' American authors defend Lafta as a nice guy and a good researcher.

     Lancet Editor Richard Horton shares this fundamental faith in scientists. He told NJ that scientists, including Lafta, can be trusted because "science is a global culture that operates by a set of norms and standards that are truly international, that do not vary by culture or religion. That's one of the beautiful aspects of science -- it unifies cultures, not divides them."

     Still, the authors have declined to provide the surveyors' reports and forms that might bolster confidence in their findings. Customary scientific practice holds that an experiment must be transparent -- and repeatable -- to win credence. Submitting to that scientific method, the authors would make the unvarnished data available for inspection by other researchers. Because they did not do this, citing concerns about the security of the questioners and respondents, critics have raised the most basic question about this research: Was it verifiably undertaken as described in the two Lancet articles?"

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:00pm

272. "The authors refuse to provide anyone with the underlying data," said David Kane, a statistician and a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Statistics at Harvard University. Some critics have wondered whether the Iraqi researchers engaged in a practice known as "curb-stoning," sitting on a curb and filling out the forms to reach a desired result. Another possibility is that the teams went primarily into neighborhoods controlled by anti-American militias and were steered to homes that would provide information about the "crimes" committed by the Americans.

     Fritz Scheuren, vice president for statistics at the National Opinion Research Center and a past president of the American Statistical Association, said, "They failed to do any of the [routine] things to prevent fabrication." The weakest part of the Lancet surveys is their reliance on an unsupervised Iraqi survey team, contended Scheuren, who has recently trained survey workers in Iraq.

     Critics say that the surveys used too few clusters, and too few people, to do the job properly.

     Sample size. The design for Lancet II committed eight surveyors to visit 50 regional clusters (the number ended up being 47) with each cluster consisting of 40 households. By contrast, in a 2004 survey, the United Nations Development Program used many more questioners to visit 2,200 clusters of 10 houses each. This gave the U.N. investigators greater geographical variety and 10 times as many interviews, and produced a figure of about 24,000 excess deaths -- one-quarter the number in the first Lancet study. The Lancet II sample is so small that each violent death recorded translated to 2,000 dead Iraqis overall."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:03pm

273. "The question arises whether the chosen clusters were enough to be truly representative of the entire Iraqi population and therefore a valid data set for extrapolating to nationwide totals.

     "Main street" bias? According to the Lancet II article, surveyors randomly selected a main street within a randomly picked district; "a residential street was then randomly selected from a list of residential streets crossing the main street." This method pulled the survey teams away from side streets and toward main streets, where car bombs can kill the most people, thus boosting the apparent death rate, according to a critique of the study by Michael Spagat, an economics professor at the Royal Holloway, University of London, and Sean Gourley and Neil Johnson of the physics department at Oxford University. Burnham responds that The Lancet's description of how the researchers picked sites was an editing error, and that the method used eliminated main-street bias.

     Oversight. To undertake the first Lancet study, Roberts went into Iraq concealed on the floor of an SUV with $20,000 in cash stuffed into his money belt and shoes. Daring stuff, to be sure, but just eight days after arriving, Roberts witnessed the police detaining two surveyors who had questioned the governor's household in a Sadr-dominated town. Roberts subsequently remained in a hotel until the survey was completed. Thus, most of the oversight for Lancet I -- and all of it for Lancet II -- was done long-distance. For this reason, although he defends the methodology, Garfield took his name off Lancet II. "The study in 2006 suffered because Les was running for Congress and wasn't directly supervising the work as he had done in 2004," Garfield told NJ."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:06pm

274. "With the original data unavailable, other scholars cannot verify the findings, a key test of scientific rigor.

     Response rate. The surveyors said that 1.7 percent of households -- fewer than one in 50 -- were unoccupied or uncooperative, even though questioners visited each house only once on one day; that answers were taken only from the household's husband or wife, not from in-laws or adult children; and that householders had reason to fear that their participation would expose them to threats from armed groups. To Kane, the study's reported response rate of more than 98 percent "makes no sense," if only because many male heads of households would be at work or elsewhere during the day and Iraqi women would likely refuse to participate.

     Lack of supporting data. The survey teams failed to collect the fraud-preventing demographic data that pollsters routinely gather. For example, D3 Systems, a polling firm based in Vienna, Va., that has begun working in Iraq, tries to prevent chicanery among its 100-plus Iraqi surveyors by requiring them to ask respondents for such basic demographic data as ages and birthdates. This anti-fraud measure works because particular numbers tend to appear more often in surveys based on fake interviews and data -- or "curb-stoning -- than they would in truly random surveys, said Matthew Warshaw, the Iraq director for D3. Curb-stoning surveyors might report the ages of many people to be 30 or 40, for example, rather than 32 or 38. This type of fabrication is called "data-heaping," Warshaw said, because once the data are transferred to spreadsheets, managers can easily see the heaps of faked numbers.

     Death certificates. The survey teams said they confirmed most deaths by examining government-issued death certificates,..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:12pm

275. "...but they took no photographs of those certificates. "Confirmation of deaths through death certificates is a linchpin for their story," Spagat told NJ. "But they didn't record (or won't provide) information about these death certificates that would make them traceable." Under pressure from critics, the authors did release a disk of the surveyors' collated data, including tables showing how often the survey teams said they requested to see, and saw, the death certificates. But those tables are suspicious, in part, because they show data-heaping, critics said. For example, the database reveals that 22 death certificates for victims of violence and 23 certificates for other deaths were declared by surveyors and households to be missing or lost. That similarity looks reasonable, but Spagat noticed that the 23 missing certificates for nonviolent deaths were distributed throughout eight of the 16 surveyed provinces, while all 22 missing certificates for violent deaths were inexplicably heaped in the single province of Nineveh. That means the surveyors reported zero missing or lost certificates for 180 violent deaths in 15 provinces outside Nineveh. The odds against such perfection are at least 10,000 to 1, Spagat told NJ. Also, surveyors recorded another 70 violent deaths and 13 nonviolent deaths without explaining the presence or absence of certificates in the database. In a subsequent MIT lecture, Burnham said that the surveyors sometimes forgot to ask for the certificates. "

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:16pm

276. "Suspicious cluster. Lafta's team reported 24 car bomb deaths in early July, as well as one nonviolent death, in "Cluster 33" in Baghdad. The authors do not say where the cluster was, but the only major car bomb in the city during that period, according to Iraq Body Count's database, was in Sadr City. It was detonated in a marketplace on July 1, likely by Al Qaeda, and killed at least 60 people, according to press reports. The authors should not have included the July data in their report because the survey was scheduled to end on June 30, according to Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Louvain in Belgium. Because of the study's methodology, those 24 deaths ultimately added 48,000 to the national death toll and tripled the authors' estimate for total car bomb deaths to 76,000. That figure is 15 times the 5,046 car bomb killings that Iraq Body Count recorded up to August 2006.

     According to a data table reviewed by Spagat and Kane, the team recorded the violent deaths as taking place in early July and did not explain why they failed to see death certificates for any of the 24 victims. The surveyors did remember, however, to ask for the death certificate of the one person who had died peacefully in that cluster.

     The Cluster 33 data is curious for other reasons as well. The 24 Iraqis who died violently were neatly divided among 18 houses -- 12 houses reported one death, and six houses reported two deaths, according to the authors' data. This means, Spagat said, that the survey team found a line of 40 households that neatly shared almost half of the deaths suffered when a marketplace bomb exploded among a crowd of people drawn from throughout..."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:18pm

277. "....the broader neighborhood.

     The data also bolster Spagat's criticism that the surveyors selected too many clusters in places where bomb explosions and gunfights were most common.

     Virtually everyone connected with the study has been an outspoken opponent of U.S. actions in Iraq. (So are several of the study's biggest critics, such as Iraq Body Count.) Whether this affected the authors' scientific judgments and led them to turn a blind eye to flaws is up for debate.

     Follow the money. Lancet II was commissioned and financed by Tirman, the executive director of the Center for International Studies at MIT. (His most recent book is 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World.) After Lancet I was published, Tirman commissioned Burnham to do the second study, and sent him $50,000. When asked where Tirman got the money, Burnham told NJ: "I have no idea." In fact, the funding came from the Open Society Institute created by Soros, a top Democratic donor, and from three other foundations, according to Tirman. The money was channeled through Tirman's Persian Gulf Initiative. Soros's group gave $46,000, and the Samuel Rubin Foundation gave $5,000. An anonymous donor, and another donor whose identity he does not know, provided the balance, Tirman said. The Lancet II study cost about $100,000, according to Tirman, including about $45,000 for publicity and travel. That means that nearly half of the study's funding came from an outspoken billionaire who has repeatedly criticized the Iraq campaign and who spent $30 million trying to defeat Bush in 2004. "

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:21pm

278. "Partisan considerations. Soros is not the only person associated with the Lancet studies who had one eye on the data and the other on the U.S. political calendar. In 2004, Roberts conceded that he opposed the Iraq invasion from the outset, and -- in a much more troubling admission -- said that he had e-mailed the first study to The Lancet on September 30, 2004, "under the condition that it come out before the election." Burnham admitted that he set the same condition for Lancet II. "We wanted to get the survey out before the election, if at all possible," he said. "Les and Gil put themselves in position to be criticized on the basis of their views," Garfield concedes, before adding, "But you can have an opinion and still do good science." Perhaps, but the Lancet editor who agreed to rush their study into print, with an expedited peer-review process and without seeing the surveyors' original data, also makes no secret of his leftist politics. At a September 2006 rally in Manchester, England, Horton declared, "This axis of Anglo-American imperialism extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes, so millions of people are left to die in poverty and disease." His speech can be viewed on YouTube.

     Mr. Roberts tries to go to Washington. Roberts, who opposed removing Saddam from power, is the most politically outspoken of the authors. He initiated the first Lancet study and repeatedly used its conclusions to criticize Bush. "I consider myself an advocate," Roberts told an interviewer in early 2007. "When you start working documenting events in war, the public health response -- the most important public health response -- is ending the war." "

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:23pm

279. "In 2006, he acted on this belief, seeking the Democratic nomination for New York's 24th Congressional District before dropping out in favor of the eventual winner, Democrat Michael Arcuri. Asked why he ran for office, Roberts told NJ: "It was a combination of Iraq and [Hurricane] Katrina that just put me over the top. I thought the country was going in the desperately wrong direction, particularly with regard to public health and science.

     "Just stating, 'We have no biases of that type' isn't very convincing," says Oxford University's Johnson. "Using 'I am an expert' arguments sounds to me like 'Trust me, I am a doctor.' " Johnson and two of his colleagues have called on the scientific community to conduct an in-depth re-evaluation of both Lancet studies. "It's almost a crime to let it go unchallenged," Johnson said.

     Even Garfield, a co-author of the first Lancet article, is backing away from his previous defense of his fellow authors. In December, Garfield told National Journal that he guesses that 250,000 Iraqis had died by late 2007. That total requires an underlying casualty rate only one-quarter of that offered by Lancet II.

     Burnham also paused when asked whether Iraqi factions manipulated him and his colleagues and then replied, "We're reasonably confident that we were not manipulated."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:29pm

280. "Officials at Iraq Body Count strongly opposed the Iraq war yet issued a detailed critique of the Lancet II study. Researchers wading into a field that is this fraught with danger have a responsibility not to be reckless with statistics, the group said. The numbers claimed by the Lancet study would, under the normal ratios of warfare, result in more than a million Iraqis wounded seriously enough to require medical treatment, according to this critique. Yet official sources in Iraq have not reported any such phenomenon. An Iraq Body Count analysis showed that the Lancet II numbers would have meant that 1,000 Iraqis were dying every day during the first half of 2006, "with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms." The February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque is widely credited with plunging Iraq into civil war, yet the Lancet II report posits the equivalent of five to 10 bombings of this magnitude in Iraq every day for three years.

     "In the light of such extreme and improbable implications," the Iraq Body Count report stated, "a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data."

     Against these criticisms, the authors maintain that they were using methods of study unfamiliar to human-rights groups and that the scientific community widely accepted the Lancet studies. "There have been 56 studies using this retrospective household survey method," Garfield said. "The estimation of crude mortality in a population does work.... It doesn't mean you can't do it wrong. It is the best method we have. The question is, 'Did they do it right?' "

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:30pm

281. "When it comes to the question of peer review, the study's defenders sometimes seem to want it both ways. On the one hand, Roberts talks about the need "to step beyond peer review." Yet the authors insist that their study was peer-reviewed extensively (if rapidly, in order to be published before the election). The authors also maintain that one of the reasons they went to The Lancet with these studies is its quick turnaround time.

     Surprisingly, not one of the peer reviewers seems to have thought to ask a basic question: Are the data in the two studies even true? The possibility of fakery, editor Horton told NJ, "did not come up in peer review." Medical journals can't afford to repeat every scientific study, he said, because "if for every paper we published we had to think, 'Is this fraud?' ... honestly, we would fold tomorrow."

     In Belgium, Guha-Sapir's team is completing a paper outlining numerous mathematical and procedural errors in the Lancet II article, and its corrections will likely lower the estimate of dead Iraqis to 450,000, even without consideration of possible fraud during the surveying, a source said."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:32pm

282. Perhaps medical journals, like respected news organizations, will learn that they have to factor the possibility of wartime fraud into their fact-checking. Horton knows the peacetime risks only too well: In a Lancet article in October 2005, exactly halfway between the two Iraq mortality studies, a Norwegian physician named Jon Sudbo wrote that a review of 454 patients showed that such common painkillers as ibuprofen and naproxen reduced smokers' risk of contracting oral cancer while increasing their risk for heart disease; it later turned out that Sudbo had faked his research.

     Today, the journal's editor tacitly concedes discomfort with the Iraqi death estimates. "Anything [the authors] can do to strengthen the credibility of the Lancet paper," Horton told NJ, "would be very welcome." If clear evidence of misconduct is presented to The Lancet, "we would be happy to go ask the authors and the institution for an official inquiry, and we would then abide by the conclusion of that inquiry."

     From: http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/databomb/index.htm

     Even 655,000 dead Iraqis has been exposed as a complete fabrication.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:34pm

283. No, Hitchens maintained that Saddam intended to resume the program when the sanctions ended. The Duelfer Report proved him right.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:21pm | i

     No, Hitchens claism that Saddam had a nuclear wepaons program in place and cites the boob by Madi Obedi, called the Bomb in My Garden. Hitchesn omits that Obedis' references date back to 1991, not 2002.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 6:37pm

284. I was responding to your assertion that Nidal "was of no consequence".

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:23pm

     He wasn't to the US.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 6:38pm

285. Isn't it funny how there are so many people willing to lie about a poor saintly secular Saladin like Saddam given that he is totally innocent of all charges?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:24pm

     Why is is funny? There were many people willing to lie about hsi WMD's after all.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 6:40pm

286. From wiki:

     The October 2006 Lancet estimate also drew criticism from the Iraqi government. Government spokesman Ali Debbagh said, "This figure, which in reality has no basis, is exaggerated".[40] Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari gave a similar view in November 2006: "Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I think 150 is OK."[41]

     Mark van der Lann, professor of biostatistics and statistics at UC Berkeley, disputes the estimates of both Lancet studies on several grounds in a paper co-authored with writer Leon de Winter.[34] The authors argue that the confidence intervals in the Lancet study are too narrow, saying, "our statistical analysis could at most conclude that the total number of violent deaths is more than 100.000 with a 0.95 confidence - but this takes not into account various other potential biases in the original data." Among the main conclusions of their evaluation are that "the estimates based upon these data are extremely unreliable and cannot stand a decent scientific evaluation. It may be that the number of violent deaths is much higher than previously reported, but this specific report, just like the October 2004 report, cannot support the estimates that have been flying around the world on October 29, 2006. It is not science. It is propaganda."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:42pm

287. Ditto. You can keep lying that 1 million Iraqis have died in the war, but they haven't.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 5:29pm

     Of coure they have.

     Whether Soros is invomved or not in the Lancey is irrelevant and a red herring. It's a pathetic argument.

     The fact tis that the Lancet is not the only study the proved 1 million Iraqis have died in the war.

     Not only have other studies confirmed this figure, but Birtain's top governmental scientists have stated that the fig are credible.

     http://tinyurl.com/22lr4c

     So you see, I wasn't lying at all.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 6:50pm

288. http://www.slate.com/id/2151926/

     By the way, Iraq's preinvasion mortality rate, according to the UN, was twice the size of what the Lancet guessed when making its calculations. The Lancet number of 655,000 not only could be reduced to 450,000 when you get rid of the mathematical errors (without even considering the possibility of fraud), but then you would have to cut it in half, which would give you 225,000.

     The Lancet guessed that the rate was 5.5 per 1,000. The UN says that it was 10. This isn't quite double.

     Thus, even Garfield, a co-author of the first Lancet article, is backing away from his previous defense of his fellow authors. In December, Garfield told National Journal that he guesses that 250,000 Iraqis had died by late 2007.

     And now the Lancet's editor is trying to distance the magazine from the study.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:52pm

289. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:42pm

     Like I said countless times, it's always obvious that you are losing the debate when you start cutting and pasting whole articles into this blog, rather than just providing a link. It's astrong indicration that you know your argument is weak and are hoping that you can bluff others into believing you.

     It's boring and you lose either way.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 6:54pm

290. On Friday, 14 September 2007, ORB (Opinion Research Business), an independent polling agency located in London, published estimates of the total war casualties in Iraq since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.[1] At over 1.2 million deaths (1,220,580), this estimate is the highest number published so far.

     From the poll margin of error of +/-2.5% ORB calculated a range of 733,158 to 1,446,063 deaths. The ORB estimate was performed by a random survey of 1,720 adults aged 18+, out of which 1,499 responded, in fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq, between August 12 and August 19, 2007.[2][3] In comparison, the 2006 Lancet survey suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths) through the end of June 2006. The Lancet authors calculated a range of 392,979 to 942,636 deaths.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 6:58pm

291. "It's boring"

     Exactly, Shingo. I post the articles because you don't have the attention span to read them, but you might skim them when I post them.

     Any response to any of the arguments against the Lancet?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:00pm

292. And now the Lancet's editor is trying to distance the magazine from the study.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 6:52pm

     Top British scientists have vouced for the validity of the study. If the Lancet's editor is trying to distance the magazine from the study, it's becasue of political pressure, not scientific data.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 7:06pm

293. Respond to these assertions, Shingo. You ignored them.

     "Iraq's preinvasion mortality rate, according to the UN, was twice the size of what the Lancet guessed when making its calculations. The Lancet number of 655,000 not only could be reduced to 450,000 when you get rid of the mathematical errors (without even considering the possibility of fraud), but then you would have to cut it in half, which would give you 225,000."

     "even Garfield, a co-author of the first Lancet article, is backing away from his previous defense of his fellow authors. In December, Garfield told National Journal that he guesses that 250,000 Iraqis had died by late 2007."

     "The October 2006 Lancet estimate also drew criticism from the Iraqi government. Government spokesman Ali Debbagh said, "This figure, which in reality has no basis, is exaggerated".[40] Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari gave a similar view in November 2006: "Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I think 150 is OK."[41]"

     "When it comes to the question of peer review, the study's defenders sometimes seem to want it both ways. On the one hand, Roberts talks about the need "to step beyond peer review." Yet the authors insist that their study was peer-reviewed extensively (if rapidly, in order to be published before the election). The authors also maintain that one of the reasons they went to The Lancet with these studies is its quick turnaround time."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:25pm

294. "Officials at Iraq Body Count strongly opposed the Iraq war yet issued a detailed critique of the Lancet II study. Researchers wading into a field that is this fraught with danger have a responsibility not to be reckless with statistics, the group said. The numbers claimed by the Lancet study would, under the normal ratios of warfare, result in more than a million Iraqis wounded seriously enough to require medical treatment, according to this critique. Yet official sources in Iraq have not reported any such phenomenon. An Iraq Body Count analysis showed that the Lancet II numbers would have meant that 1,000 Iraqis were dying every day during the first half of 2006, "with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms." The February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque is widely credited with plunging Iraq into civil war, yet the Lancet II report posits the equivalent of five to 10 bombings of this magnitude in Iraq every day for three years."

     "Burnham also paused when asked whether Iraqi factions manipulated him and his colleagues and then replied, "We're reasonably confident that we were not manipulated.""

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:27pm

295. "The Lancet editor who agreed to rush their study into print, with an expedited peer-review process and without seeing the surveyors' original data, also makes no secret of his leftist politics. At a September 2006 rally in Manchester, England, Horton declared, "This axis of Anglo-American imperialism extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes, so millions of people are left to die in poverty and disease." His speech can be viewed on YouTube."

     "In 2004, Roberts conceded that he opposed the Iraq invasion from the outset, and -- in a much more troubling admission -- said that he had e-mailed the first study to The Lancet on September 30, 2004, "under the condition that it come out before the election." Burnham admitted that he set the same condition for Lancet II."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:30pm

296. "Lafta's team reported 24 car bomb deaths in early July, as well as one nonviolent death, in "Cluster 33" in Baghdad. The authors do not say where the cluster was, but the only major car bomb in the city during that period, according to Iraq Body Count's database, was in Sadr City. It was detonated in a marketplace on July 1, likely by Al Qaeda, and killed at least 60 people, according to press reports. The authors should not have included the July data in their report because the survey was scheduled to end on June 30, according to Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Louvain in Belgium. Because of the study's methodology, those 24 deaths ultimately added 48,000 to the national death toll and tripled the authors' estimate for total car bomb deaths to 76,000. That figure is 15 times the 5,046 car bomb killings that Iraq Body Count recorded up to August 2006.

     According to a data table reviewed by Spagat and Kane, the team recorded the violent deaths as taking place in early July and did not explain why they failed to see death certificates for any of the 24 victims. The surveyors did remember, however, to ask for the death certificate of the one person who had died peacefully in that cluster."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:32pm

297. "The Cluster 33 data is curious for other reasons as well. The 24 Iraqis who died violently were neatly divided among 18 houses -- 12 houses reported one death, and six houses reported two deaths, according to the authors' data. This means, Spagat said, that the survey team found a line of 40 households that neatly shared almost half of the deaths suffered when a marketplace bomb exploded among a crowd of people drawn from throughout the broader neighborhood."

     "nearly half of the study's funding came from an outspoken billionaire who has repeatedly criticized the Iraq campaign and who spent $30 million trying to defeat Bush in 2004. "

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:36pm

298. The survey teams said they confirmed most deaths by examining government-issued death certificates, but they took no photographs of those certificates. "Confirmation of deaths through death certificates is a linchpin for their story," Spagat told NJ. "But they didn't record (or won't provide) information about these death certificates that would make them traceable." Under pressure from critics, the authors did release a disk of the surveyors' collated data, including tables showing how often the survey teams said they requested to see, and saw, the death certificates. But those tables are suspicious, in part, because they show data-heaping, critics said. For example, the database reveals that 22 death certificates for victims of violence and 23 certificates for other deaths were declared by surveyors and households to be missing or lost. That similarity looks reasonable, but Spagat noticed that the 23 missing certificates for nonviolent deaths were distributed throughout eight of the 16 surveyed provinces, while all 22 missing certificates for violent deaths were inexplicably heaped in the single province of Nineveh. That means the surveyors reported zero missing or lost certificates for 180 violent deaths in 15 provinces outside Nineveh. The odds against such perfection are at least 10,000 to 1, Spagat told NJ. Also, surveyors recorded another 70 violent deaths and 13 nonviolent deaths without explaining the presence or absence of certificates in the database."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:38pm

299. "Response rate. The surveyors said that 1.7 percent of households -- fewer than one in 50 -- were unoccupied or uncooperative, even though questioners visited each house only once on one day; that answers were taken only from the household's husband or wife, not from in-laws or adult children; and that householders had reason to fear that their participation would expose them to threats from armed groups. To Kane, the study's reported response rate of more than 98 percent "makes no sense," if only because many male heads of households would be at work or elsewhere during the day and Iraqi women would likely refuse to participate."

     "With the original data unavailable, other scholars cannot verify the findings, a key test of scientific rigor."

     "Lack of supporting data. The survey teams failed to collect the fraud-preventing demographic data that pollsters routinely gather. For example, D3 Systems, a polling firm based in Vienna, Va., that has begun working in Iraq, tries to prevent chicanery among its 100-plus Iraqi surveyors by requiring them to ask respondents for such basic demographic data as ages and birthdates. This anti-fraud measure works because particular numbers tend to appear more often in surveys based on fake interviews and data -- or "curb-stoning -- than they would in truly random surveys, said Matthew Warshaw, the Iraq director for D3. Curb-stoning surveyors might report the ages of many people to be 30 or 40, for example, rather than 32 or 38. This type of fabrication is called "data-heaping," Warshaw said, because once the data are transferred to spreadsheets, managers can easily see the heaps of faked numbers."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:44pm

300. "Main street" bias? According to the Lancet II article, surveyors randomly selected a main street within a randomly picked district; "a residential street was then randomly selected from a list of residential streets crossing the main street." This method pulled the survey teams away from side streets and toward main streets, where car bombs can kill the most people, thus boosting the apparent death rate, according to a critique of the study by Michael Spagat, an economics professor at the Royal Holloway, University of London, and Sean Gourley and Neil Johnson of the physics department at Oxford University. Burnham responds that The Lancet's description of how the researchers picked sites was an editing error, and that the method used eliminated main-street bias."

     "Sample size. The design for Lancet II committed eight surveyors to visit 50 regional clusters (the number ended up being 47) with each cluster consisting of 40 households. By contrast, in a 2004 survey, the United Nations Development Program used many more questioners to visit 2,200 clusters of 10 houses each. This gave the U.N. investigators greater geographical variety and 10 times as many interviews, and produced a figure of about 24,000 excess deaths -- one-quarter the number in the first Lancet study. The Lancet II sample is so small that each violent death recorded translated to 2,000 dead Iraqis overall."

     "The authors refuse to provide anyone with the underlying data," said David Kane, a statistician and a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Statistics at Harvard University."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:47pm

301. "Still, the authors have declined to provide the surveyors' reports and forms that might bolster confidence in their findings. Customary scientific practice holds that an experiment must be transparent -- and repeatable -- to win credence. Submitting to that scientific method, the authors would make the unvarnished data available for inspection by other researchers. Because they did not do this, citing concerns about the security of the questioners and respondents, critics have raised the most basic question about this research: Was it verifiably undertaken as described in the two Lancet articles?"

     "In Falluja, Lafta recorded 52 deaths in 29 households, which amounted to 71 percent of the violent deaths recorded by the first Lancet survey. If representative, Lafta's sample translated into 50,000 to 70,000 dead in Falluja by September 2004 -- two months before the start of the second major American military operation to restore order. Falluja's prewar population was estimated to be 250,000, although U.S. officials said that the vast majority of residents had fled before the battles began. Lafta's Falluja death estimate was so far off the chart that his colleagues dropped it from the study, the authors said."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:50pm

302. Take your time, Shingo. Respond to each of these assertions, one by one. Or give up.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:51pm

303. Respond to these assertions, Shingo. You ignored them.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:25pm

     Yes it's likely that I will ignore much of what you cut and paset becsue I don't have the time to sift through all half a dozen lopng winded posts.

     TheUN figures are clearly flawed as is the analysis. To those who understand statistics, the mean error of the Lancet concludes that the number is actually likely to be much higher than 650,000.

     The fact is thatthe leading British government scieitist state that the numbers and alanysis were sound. Les Roberts has not backed away from the original estimate, which hasbeen further supported by the ORB.

     Robert Fisk exposed how the Iraqi govermment was comnplicit in witholding the true death toll under orders from the opccupation forces.

     Led Robert is right. No statistician has refuted the numbers.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 8:51pm

304. Take your time, Shingo. Respond to each of these assertions, one by one. Or give up.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:51pm

     I am and already have. You are just repeating your old debunked garbage.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 8:52pm

305. According to a data table reviewed by Spagat and Kane, the team recorded the violent deaths as taking place in early July and did not explain why they failed to see death certificates for any of the 24 victims.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:32pm

     Easily explained, The Iraqi govenment was unable to keep pace with the deaths and thus did not issue death certificates, especially to the unidentified bodies, which was the majority of the deaths.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 8:54pm

306. September 2007 – More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered

     In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge' is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

     Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths). These findings come from a poll released today by ORB, the British polling agency that has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,499 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

     QHow many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

     None 78% One 16% Two 5% Three 1% Four or more 0.002%

     Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003. Calculating the affect from the margin of error we believe that the range is a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 8:56pm

307. Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003. Calculating the affect from the margin of error we believe that the range is a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063

     Please click on this link if you want a local perspective on these figures - a short interview with our pollster Dr Munqeth Daghir - http://195.158.192.26/munqeth/

     Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next.

     The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines.

     As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighbourhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the bulk of refugees.

     And for those left in Iraq, although 81% may describe the availability of basic groceries such as bread and fresh vegetables as "very/fairly good", more than one in two (54%) consider them to be "expensive". Note: The opinion poll was conducted by ORB and the survey details are as follows:

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 8:57pm

308. •Results are based on face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths) •The standard margin of error on the sample who answered (1,499) is +2.5% •The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit. •Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007. •Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx •ORB is a full member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 8:57pm

309. Iraqi deaths survey 'was robust'

     The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.

     Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet.

     But the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".

     Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".

     Mortality rates

     The Iraq government asks the country's hospitals to report the number of victims of terrorism or military action.

     Critics say the system was not started until well after the invasion and requires over-pressed hospital staff not only to report daily, but also to distinguish between victims of terrorism and of crime.

     The Lancet medical journal published its peer-reviewed survey last October.

     It was conducted by the John Hopkins School of Public Health and compared mortality rates before and after the invasion by surveying 47 randomly chosen areas across 16 provinces in Iraq.

     The researchers spoke to nearly 1,850 families, comprising more than 12,800 people.

     In nearly 92% of cases family members produced death certificates to support their answers. The survey estimated that 601,000 deaths were the result of violence, mostly gunfire.

     Shortly after the publication of the survey in October last year Tony Blair's official spokesperson said the Lancet's figure was not anywhere near accurate.

     He said the survey had used an extrapolation technique, from a relatively small sample from an area of Iraq that was not representative of the country as a whole.

     President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report."

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 8:59pm

310. But a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."

     'Cannot be rubbished'

     One of the documents just released by the Foreign Office is an e-mail in which an official asks about the Lancet report: "Are we really sure the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies."

     The reply from another official is: "We do not accept the figures quoted in the Lancet survey as accurate. "

     In the same e-mail the official later writes: "However, the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones."

     Asked how the government can accept the Lancet's methodology but reject its findings, the government has issued a written statement in which it said: "The methodology has been used in other conflict situations, notably the Democratic republic of Congo.

     "However, the Lancet figures are much higher than statistics from other sources, which only goes to show how estimates can vary enormously according to the method of collection.

     "There is considerable debate amongst the scientific community over the accuracy of the figures."

     'Mainstreet bias'

     In fact some of the British government criticism of the Lancet report post-dated Sir Roy's comments.

     Speaking six days after Sir Roy praised the study's methods, British foreign office minister Lord Triesman said: "The way in which data are extrapolated from samples to a general outcome is a matter of deep concern...."

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 9:00pm

311. Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option

     Not wanting to think about civilian deaths in Iraq has become almost universal. The average American believed approximately 9,900 Iraqis had died as a result of the war according to a February 2007 AP poll. Unfortunately, recent evidence suggests that things in Iraq may be one-hundred times worse than Americans realize.

     News report tallies suggest some 75,000 Iraqis have died since the US-led invasion. A study of 13 war affected countries presented at a recent Harvard conference found over 80% of violent deaths in conflicts go unreported by the press and governments. City officials in the Iraqi city of Najaf were recently quoted on Middle East Online stating that 40,000 unidentified bodies have been buried in that city since the start of the conflict. When speaking to the Rotarians in a speech covered on C-SPAN on September 5th, H.E. Samir Sumaida'ie, the Iraqi Ambassador to the US , stated that there were 500,000 new widows in Iraq . The Baker-Hamilton Commission similarly found that the Pentagon under-counted violent incidents by a factor of 10. Finally, a week ago the respected British polling firm ORB released the results of a poll estimating that 22% of households had lost a member to violence during the occupation of Iraq, equating to 1.2 million deaths. This finding roughly verifies a less precisely worded BBC poll last February that reported 17% of Iraqis had a household member who was a victim of violence.

     There are now two polls and three scientific surveys all suggesting the official figures and media-based estimates in Iraq have missed 70-95% of all deaths. The evidence suggests that the extent of under-reporting by the media is only increasing with time.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 9:02pm

312. "Respond to these assertions, Shingo. You ignored them.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:25pm

     Yes it's likely that I will ignore much of what you cut and paset becsue I don't have the time to sift through all half a dozen lopng winded posts."

     Ah, so you outright refuse to argue against any of these facts?

     "Take your time, Shingo. Respond to each of these assertions, one by one. Or give up.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:51pm

     I am and already have. You are just repeating your old debunked garbage."

     You haven't directly addressed any of my points and you just refused to. In fact, you openly vowed to ignore and refuse to read anything I cut-and-pasted for fear that you might be proven wrong. All you've done is cut and pasted debunked garbage.

     That article clearly explained that, ignoring the possibility of fraud (and keep in mind that some of their results have a less than 1 in 10,000 chance of happening as they were recorded to have happened), the studies result would only be 450,000 as opposed to 655,000 when you eliminated the mathematical errors. Then, according to the UN's pre-invasion mortality rate, you would have to cut that number in half to get all the excess deaths caused by the war (225,000). Further, even these stats are unlikely for 2006 and one of the authors of the first Lancet study on Iraq war deaths has admitted that the real numbers are only about 250,000 for the whole war.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 9:24pm

313. "Take your time, Shingo. Respond to each of these assertions, one by one. Or give up.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 9:24pm

     I have responded to each.

     What you don't understand is that mathematical errors are not the same a statistical errors, which are not errors per se, but degrees of undertainty. Perhap you never studies statistics.

     I did not gnore the possibility of fraud, in fact, I pointed to how Robert Fisk has ucovered how the Iraqi Minstry of health was suppressing death tolls.

     The leading scientists from the British government have stated catergorically, that the Lancet methods and conclusions were sound.

     No one from the Lancet has "admitted that the real numbers are only about 250,000 for the whole war".

     Having already debunked your theories about terrorist and jihadit connections to Saddam, I have now refuted your denials that 1 million polus Iraqis have died as a result fo the invasion.

     You are a glutton for punishment.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 9:44pm

314. Any response to any of the arguments against the Lancet?

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 7:00pm

     Yes.

     The Leading Britidsh Scientists stated that the methods wee sound and solid. Hence, the arugments against the Lancet are interesting, but false.

     Posted by Shingo at 08/08/2009 @ 10:00pm

315. "No one from the Lancet has "admitted that the real numbers are only about 250,000 for the whole war"."

     Again, Shingo, your blatant refusual to even read any argument that contradicts your pre-determined viewpoint has rendered you ignorant.

     From the article I gave you to read, which you vowed not to read: "even Garfield, a co-author of the first Lancet article, is backing away from his previous defense of his fellow authors. In December, Garfield told National Journal that he guesses that 250,000 Iraqis had died by late 2007."

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 11:00pm

316. "Having already debunked your theories about terrorist and jihadit connections to Saddam"

     It's not "my" theory. No intelligence agency of any government anywhere in the world denies that Saddam was a state-sponsor of terror. They just say he has not been proven to have had a direct operational connection with AQ.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/08/2009 @ 11:02pm