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RedditThe news from the war capitals isn't good. In Kabul, the Taliban is carrying out attacks at the very center of Afghanistan's capital, rocketing the grounds of the presidential palace, launching suicide bombs at Kabul convoys, and last week setting off huge bombs on the heavily guarded road between the US embassy and the presidential palace.
But today I'm focusing on Iraq, where today bombers set off near-simultaneous truck bombs that devasted the Iraqi foreign ministry and finance ministry, killing 100 people and injuring at least 600, on opposite sides of the Tigris River. The entire heart of the Iraqi capital is in shock. At the foreign ministry, an official told the New York Times, "The whole ministry is destroyed."
It's probably the most significant bombings in Baghdad since the attacks on the Jordanian embassy and the United Nations offices in 2003.
Separately, at least six mortars rained down on two heavily transited locations in central Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. Three mortars targeted the Green Zone, the fortified enclave in Baghdad that contains the U.S. Embassy and many Iraqi government offices.
It's impossible to overstate the significance of these attacks. While President Obama and the Pentagon are focused on Afghanistan, the war in Iraq is showing signs of heading south, and fast. It's not unexpected. Iraq's Arabs and Kurds are nearly at war along the long front that separates the Kurdish region from the rest of Iraq, especially in and around Nineveh province, whose capital is Mosul, and over Tamim province, whose capital, Kirkuk, is coveted by the expansionist Kurds. Meanwhile, the Sunni Arab minority is increasingly alienated from the regime of Prime Minister Maliki, who's staunchly refused to compromise with the demands of the opposition to his increasingly authoritarian rule. For more than a year, I've been warning (along with others) that the Iraqi resistance movement, from its nationalist core to its more perverse, pro-Al Qaeda elements, might explode again. Maybe it's started already. In any case, the Sons of Iraq, or the Awakening movement, are getting the shaft from Maliki, and they are restless.
There's another factor, too: Iran. In the aftermath of the June 12 election, the US and Iran are perched dangerously close to confrontation again, and it's not impossible that the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran might be thinking of ratcheting up violence inside Iraq as part of its resistance to American threats of more sanctions and other pressure. This week, a rocket launcher and with dozen high-powered rockets was captured by Iraqi forces outside Basra, in southern Iraq. (Recently, several US soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on a military base in that area.)
Despite Maliki's bravado, it's unlikely that either Iraq's armed forces or its intelligence service, along with the secret Iraqi anti-terrorist unit that reports to Maliki, can handle the sort of violence that is likely to engulf Iraq as the US leaves. (That's not a suggestion that the US remain in place, of course, quite the opposite, but a simple statement of fact.) In fact, in Iraq, everything is up for grabs. It's possible that the Iraqi elections, scheduled for January, won't even take place if violence intensifies. Maliki has suggested a plan to hold a referendum in January on the US-Iraq security accord, putting the agreement up to a vote of Iraq's population; were they to reject the accord, it would force the United States to pull out all of its troops in 2010, not 2011, as planned.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that US and Syrian authorities have reached an agreement to restrict the activities of Iraqi resistance fighters and Baathists in Syria:
The Obama administration and Damascus tentatively agreed to establish a tripartite committee, with Baghdad, to better monitor the Syrian-Iraqi border as the Pentagon draws down American troops from Iraq in coming months, said senior U.S. officials.The proposed three-way border-control assessments could boost Iraqi security and patch one of the region's most volatile fault lines. The initiative was made by a team of U.S. Central Command officers and their Syrian counterparts last week in Damascus. ...
Syria says it has detained more than 1,700 militants, blocked potential combatants from passing through the country en route to Iraq and imposed stricter border policing. Syria also appears to have cracked down on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime who fled to Damascus after the Iraqi invasion.
"The Baathists have been coming under a lot of pressure in the last few months," said one senior Western diplomat. "Some have been kicked out, some have been told to shut up."
But BBC reports that the spate of violence in Iraq in the past month or so raises serious questions about Iraq's stability, and it wonders whether the attackers are merely terrorists or political players trying to send a message to Maliki:
Increased violence could in theory make it difficult for parties in the current governing coalition to claim that they have made Iraq safe again.This has led some analysts to conclude that those behind the recent attacks are not only the usual suspects - al-Qaeda or former Baathists - but also political players who want scupper Prime Minister Nuri Maliki's hopes for another electoral victory.
For too long, Obama has pretended that Iraq doesn't exist. As I've repeatedly stated, during the campaign Obama promised to enlist the United Nations and other world powers in a major international effort to reorganize Iraq's political equation. So far, he hasn't done a thing, and he's allowed Iraq to fester under US occupation and American political tutelage, with little or no involvement by the rest of the world, including Europe, Russia, and Iraq's neighbors. Inside the White House and the State Department, it's hard to identify anyone with the Iraq portfolio, which has fallen between the cracks. It's no longer an option for the United States to slow or reverse its withdrawal, but UN and international involvement in Iraq's political reconstruction is urgently needed.
Last Friday, in the Post, Al Kamen commented wryly on the the virtual absence of any top official doing Iraq:
Also on the foreign policy front, deputy national security adviser Douglas E. Lute moved off the Iraq portfolio recently to focus exclusively on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dennis Ross, who'd been handling Iraq at the State Department, moved over to the White House. But Ross is senior director for the Central Region. This has apparently caused some confusion about precisely who's the point person for Iraq. Ross? Foreign policy advisor Denis McDonough? National Security Council chief of staff Mark Lippert? Biden also has taken on a leading role in Iraq matters.Well, any of them will probably do.
Today's explosions, however, underline the point: It's not funny.
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Robert Dreyfuss
A chronicle of America's adventures in foreign policy and national security.
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As noted on the end of your other thread, Mr Dreyfuss...
the attack in Baghdad is a key reason that the Right and the GOP secretly are glad Obama won, not McCain.
This would have been the "death panels" knee-to-the-groin to McCain and the Repub's agenda this summer and his "100 years" comment resurrected.
They're glad it's on Obama's time-card and they can blame it on him and his "cutting and running".
Of course there may be a few remaining neo-cons, like "libertyfortheoppressed", will use the same lines they used under Bush, aka "This simply proves we need to stay longer and help our dear friend and ally Nouri maintain security!"
Posted by Mask at 08/19/2009 @ 12:58pm
"It's possible that the Iraqi elections, scheduled for January, won't even take place if violence intensifies. Maliki has suggested a plan to hold a referendum in January on the US-Iraq security accord, putting the agreement up to a vote of Iraq's population; were they to reject the accord, it would force the United States to pull out all of its troops in 2010, not 2011, as planned."
<tinfoil> Perhaps Maliki has performed a false-flag op of his own to encourage the popular vote on the referendum in favor of support for the US troops staying longer. </tinfoil>
Posted by snowball777 at 08/19/2009 @ 1:13pm
Perhaps Maliki has performed a false-flag op of his own to encourage the popular vote on the referendum in favor of support for the US troops staying longer. </tinfoil> Posted by snowball777 at 08/19/2009 @ 1:13pm | ignore this person | warn this person
nah, it's a civil war there. been going on for decades, was under some control under Saddam, was intensified due to the american and british invasion. will continue after the occupiers leave. I believe the Baathists will win, eventually.
Posted by emile duBois at 08/19/2009 @ 1:16pm
I will repeat:
O surge where is thy victory?
Posted by emile duBois at 08/19/2009 @ 1:17pm
UN and international involvement is a pipe dream mirage. Western Europe wants no part of the Iraqi tar baby, and the Iraq government isn't going to cede any of its sovereignty in any event. The world is a messy place and there are no neat, clean solutions. If you are not willing to exercise power, then you don't have power.
Posted by gren at 08/19/2009 @ 1:29pm
G-d.....just unbelievable.
You break it - you own it.
The US will default on its debt and devalue its currency to support its misadventures. We will have blood in our streets when this happens. Gun-toting nutbags already lining up for the shoot out.
Heaven help us.
Posted by OneVote at 08/19/2009 @ 1:43pm
Well, Robert, if you've "repeatedly stated" what President Obama should do then I guess he should get on the stick, eh?
Would that we had an expert such as yourself in a position of power and influence.
NOT!
Posted by william.harry13 at 08/19/2009 @ 2:56pm
stupid humans.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/19/2009 @ 3:19pm
The liberation never stops in Iraq. Thank goodness the US invaded, and brought freedom and democracy to those poor people, who can now be blown to pieces er live in peace I mean.
Posted by syfriendly at 08/19/2009 @ 3:43pm
Mission Accomplished!
Posted by syfriendly at 08/19/2009 @ 3:43pm
Frosty, I just saw the movie "District 9" last night, so the "stupid humans" comment rings true. My own view on this devastating Baghdad attack is that it must be an inside job, or an action carried out by a terrorist group with inside connections. Simultaneously hitting the foreign ministry, the finance ministry, and the Green Zone might be too much for a terrorists alone.
Posted by RobertDreyfuss at 08/19/2009 @ 3:47pm
This is hysterical yellow journalism.
"Maliki is a dead man walking. Weak, ineffectual and incompetent, he knows his days are numbered."
This was Dreyfuss back in 2006. He called for a unilateral withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq back then. He wrote a tedious rant about how Iraq needed a much stronger leader than Maliki.
Now that Iraq is stable, Maliki is an authoritarian dictator. The "resistance" Dreyfuss sympathizes with only wishes that were true.
Dreyfuss says Maliki is an authoritarian dictator as a matter of fact, but in 2005 and 2006 I remember Dreyfuss arguing Saddam was framed for crimes he did not commit and was a better man than George W. Bush (no, seriously, he wrote: "Bush is a bigger war criminal by far!"). Dreyfuss gave Saddam the benefit of the doubt, but not Maliki.
Dreyfuss is hysterical to declare that Iraq has now exploded. These attacks do not threaten the legitimacy of the democratically elected Iraqi government supported by the people of Iraq and their American allies. These insurgents trying to Talibanize the country really are dead-enders. As should be obvious, the attacks in Afghanistan were far more significant and threatening.
Dreyfuss has long ago lost his grasp of reality; this piece is only another example. Dreyfuss believes Saddam was dictator for 35, as opposed to, you know, 24 years. He believes that Saddam only killed 300,000 people, or at least he claims to. Actually according to the NYT he killed 1 million people, according to INDICT over 800,000, according to Iraq's interim government in 2004 over a million. Not even counting 1.1 million in the Iran-Iraq war or thousands of Kuwaitis and tens of thousands in the Gulf War or the hundreds of thousands, perhaps as many as eighty thousand every year,
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 3:58pm
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 3:58pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Well, given that Saddam was a very bad man, it is *obviously* justified that the US invaded Iraq on bald-faced lies, killing a lot of people in the process, and then ran a bungled occupation for years, killing lots of people in the process, and creating an anarchy in which lots more people got killed, and leaving behind a failed state.
Yes, I am being sarcastic. But, then, you're a crazy ...
Posted by syfriendly at 08/19/2009 @ 4:13pm
of Iraqi children Saddam starved to death through his refusual to allow the OFF program despite the UN desperately pleading with him to allow it year after year starting in 1991 and through his manipulation of the program after it was implemented (it only resulted in excess deaths were Saddam administered it, not where the UN and Kurds administered it... for them it resulted in the OPPOSITE!). Dreyfuss naturally blamed America for those deaths, and in fact Saddam sought to kill them IN ORDER TO blame the deaths on the sanctions (see the Duelfer Report as to why Saddam was so determined to get them lifted).
But it is in the wildly erratic, inconsistent, and emotion-based circular logic Dreyfuss employs, so typical of leftist thought in these times where radical feminists praise the Taliban, that Dreyfuss' delusion is most evident. I earlier wrote on one of these silly blogs: "Dreyfuss called for an immediate withdrawal of all of our troops before the success of the surge. He said any mass outbreak of violence or genocide following such a retreat could not be blamed on the retreat itself. More recently, he urged Obama to accelerate our withdrawal without listening to military commanders or advisers. He even predicted that listening to his advice might result in a rapid increase in violence: he said Obama must learn to ignore advice from the military urging a slower withdrawal in the event of such an outcome. NOW, he argues that unless Obama gives more speeches on reconciliation and asks the UN to rewrite Iraq's constitution, Iraq is doomed."
Dreyfuss is a liar, a Saddam apologist, and also he is simply a fool who gives very bad and wildly contradictory policy advice.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 4:17pm
The US just needs to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. I suggest people start checking out the film "The Battle Of Algiers," the West has no business in Muslim countries. We need to let them settle their affairs themselves.
Posted by Communard115 at 08/19/2009 @ 4:54pm
Obama has two Vietnams.
LBJ had only one. Is that why he was able to accomplish so much on the domestic front, whereas Obama can accomplish nothing?
(Or was it the fact that LBJ knew how to handle Congress?)
And hey, thanks to the earlier reader who reminded us that "The surge is working." Hadn't heard that in ages.
Posted by Citizen54 at 08/19/2009 @ 5:03pm
And hey, thanks to the earlier reader who reminded us that "The surge is working." Hadn't heard that in ages.
Posted by Citizen54 at 08/19/2009 @ 5:03pm
The Surge did work. What is happening now is a reflection of the US military commanders who warned us (and the libs and the Dems in Congress including Obama ignored them) that Iraq might not be quite ready to fully stand on it's own.
It's ironic to also notice the absolute silence from the anti-war left about the virtual absence of US military personnel deaths in Iraq. Only 8 in July, and 2 so far in August.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/19/2009 @ 6:18pm
libertyoppressed
the US is complicit in any crime Saddam committed during the many years of "friendnship" pre-Kuwait. now if you were a Ron Paul/Buchanan non-interventionist type of Repub during this period, you could talk.
Dreyfuss did give Maliki tentative benefit of doubt by his definition of "inside job."
The surge did NOT work, as conservatives Andrew Bacevich and Jeff Huber recently on amconmag.com blog have aritten.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/perpetual/
Posted by zionopp at 08/19/2009 @ 6:33pm
Posted by zionopp at 08/19/2009 @ 6:33pm
another duped anti-semitic leftist
Posted by antisocialist at 08/19/2009 @ 6:44pm
The Surge did work. What is happening now is a reflection of the US military commanders who warned us (and the libs and the Dems in Congress including Obama ignored them) that Iraq might not be quite ready to fully stand on it's own. It's ironic to also notice the absolute silence from the anti-war left about the virtual absence of US military personnel deaths in Iraq. Only 8 in July, and 2 so far in August. Posted by antisocialist at 08/19/2009 @ 6:18pm
Maybe it's because they've pulled out of fighting? The number of Iraqi deaths sure have rocketed up. So how are we making big strides if our troops pulled out and now there are less American deaths but more Iraqi deaths? The math doesn't work. The reason we are sustaining fewer deaths is because our troops are no longer engaged in the fighting. If they were we would probably be experiencing just as many deaths. This is a completely false argument. It's something being thrown out as bait that if even examined to a minor degree proves to be a worthless barometer.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/19/2009 @ 6:53pm
It's ironic to also notice the absolute silence from the anti-war left about the virtual absence of US military personnel deaths in Iraq. Only 8 in July, and 2 so far in August.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/19/2009 @ 6:18pm
Larry,
Ummmmm...that's because our troops are no longer actively patrolling in the cities. Not as easy targets.
But you take such seeming delight from the recent lower casualty counts and berate us liberals for not mentioning it, like it was some magic statistic that somehow proves us all wrong on everything; like we're somehow afraid of those numbers because they mean you're right.
I for one, am VERY happy to have fewer American deaths in Iraq. I, and most liberals (pardon me while I speak for the tribe), would even go so far as to say there should have been ZERO American deaths in Iraq, but then that would have gotten in the way of the conservative's war of choice.
However, since those American deaths you mention in July and August are "only" 8 and 2 respectively, I'll make sure to tell those soldiers' families you send your compassionate Christian condolences. I bet those lives wouldn't be "only" if it was your family, would they?
How high does the American body count need to be for you to declare victory over liberals? Neo-Conservatives like you upset me because you consistently cheapen the value of human lives: in war, in health care, poverty, immigration, the death penalty...in pretty much everything except abortion. That's the ONE issue where you guys think a life is important.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 08/19/2009 @ 6:56pm
"The Surge did work. What is happening now is a reflection of the US military commanders who warned us (and the libs and the Dems in Congress including Obama ignored them) that Iraq might not be quite ready to fully stand on it's own. "
Then the surge didn't work. If the only effect was that US forces temporarily tamped down violence, then nothing was changed. Further, the origins of the renewed violence are from Maliki continuing to act like a strong-man (and since the surge was staked on the success of Maliki's government--there was not a lot that could be done about that) and Kurdish-Arab tensions (and the surge wasn't involved in addressing those issues at all).
The surge only worked insofar as its political objective was to keep the issue off the table until after the 2008 election.
Posted by brunowe at 08/19/2009 @ 6:56pm
How complicit the US is in Saddam's crimes must be rather slight, since only about 1% of the arms sold to Saddam throughout his entire 24-year rule were sold to him by either the US, UK, or Australia.
By contrast, the "peace-loving" nations of China, Russia, and France gave him 82% of the arms he imported.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 6:59pm
"It's ironic to also notice the absolute silence from the anti-war left about the virtual absence of US military personnel deaths in Iraq. Only 8 in July, and 2 so far in August.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/19/2009 @ 6:18pm "
What kind of moron would expect ANYONE to gloat about soldiers who DIDN'T die? People ARE STILL DYING and you expect us to be HAPPY the number wasn't HIGHER? What kind of reptile are you?
Posted by DejaVu at 08/19/2009 @ 7:15pm
"Neo-Conservatives like you upset me because you consistently cheapen the value of human lives: in war, in health care, poverty, immigration, the death penalty...in pretty much everything except abortion."
Quite the contrary. The Taliban murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children and left millions at risk of death by starvation and disease. Liberating the Afghan people from this genocidal slavery and giving millions food and medicine and building water purification facilities and hospitals and schools is not a sign of a lack of concern for human life.
Saddam Hussein murdered millions of people and slaughtered or starved to death tens of thousands of innocent people every year, year after year, while desperately trying to obtain the weapons needed to embark on another campaign of genocide. He cut the ears and limbs off of children, one by one. He hammered six-inch nails into people's heads. He used crucifixion. His regime could have lasted decades more, and when it collapsed, if there was no one to succeed him, Iraq would have descended into the exact same chaos and anarchy it did after the invasion only worse because Saddam's divide-and-rule policies would have been prolonged and the illiteracy, malnutrition, starvation, desperation, fear, hatred, resentment, bitterness, and anger his policies cultivated would have further eroded Iraqi civil society. If his sons did succeed him, they would have ruled Iraq as he did for decades and would have ensured an even more massive implosion in Iraq when they died unless there was a Saddam 3 to succeed them successfully. Eliminating this horrific genocidal concentration camp of a state and installing a democracy and building schools and hospitals and water purification facilities...
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 7:17pm
...is not a sign of neocons cheapening the value of human life: quite the opposite.
With the exception of international war criminals, I oppose the death penalty. Conservatives believe their economic views help the poor and create more wealth than left-wing policies.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 7:20pm
Frosty, I just saw the movie "District 9" last night, so the "stupid humans" comment rings true. My own view on this devastating Baghdad attack is that it must be an inside job, or an action carried out by a terrorist group with inside connections. Simultaneously hitting the foreign ministry, the finance ministry, and the Green Zone might be too much for a terrorists alone.
Posted by RobertDreyfuss at 08/19/2009 @ 3:47pm
sure thing.
if it's sunni groups, they just want chaos.
however, i can also see mr. al-maliki's own people being responsible, thus making the populace more malleable to the upcoming ¡CLAMPDOWN!.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/19/2009 @ 7:42pm
We can most certainly tame these barbarians, leading them on a path to peaceful existence as new mortgage holders.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 6:59pm
that's the ticket!
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/19/2009 @ 7:51pm
Just as Cheney+MSM's Shock-n-Awe was asymmetrical so too are these "attacks" - and so too shall this always be! There's nothing proportionate about these. Their size, frequency is unrelated to metrics such as the stability of civil institutions, withdrawal of the US forces, or anything else in the ME.
And just as true, their main destructive political heft stems from the opposite supposition - that the size and destruction is proportionate to something identifiable and therefore meaningful.
Posted by winyahn at 08/19/2009 @ 7:59pm
EXPANSIONIST KURDS!!??
Kirkuk is a KURDISH CITY, just because the Arabs went in and took it doesn't mean it's now Arabic.
The Kurds have been oppressed and massacred for DECADES now, all they want is their land back and hopefully one day a country.
You comment is disgusting.
Posted by Nutcase at 08/19/2009 @ 8:35pm
Posted by Nutcase at 08/19/2009 @ 8:35pm
Liberals always think the victims of genocide and oppression and hatred are expansionist; look at their anti-semitic alliance with Hamas against Israel. It probably has something to do with their opposition to self-defense.
There are all sorts of vile suggestions in this piece as well, such as the comment about how it is "possible" that Maliki might secretly be plotting a conspiracy to take advantage of the violence as part of a secret plot to cancel Iraqi elections.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 9:51pm
That's the ONE issue where you guys think a life is important.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 08/19/2009 @ 6:56pm
And you know, I think that is only because we need our crop new soldiers every generation, and the tax slaves to support it all.
Posted by OneVote at 08/19/2009 @ 9:53pm
and building schools and hospitals and water purification facilities...
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 7:17pm | ignore this person | warn this person
like Saddam was before the Gulf War you mean?
Posted by OneVote at 08/19/2009 @ 9:59pm
"like Saddam was before the Gulf War you mean?"
Of course, because Saddam was a great Saladin whose country was once a heavenly paradise before the evil Zionist Crusaders of the "Great Satan" America brutally initiated criminal aggression and bombing of that sovereign nation despite its co-equivalent legitimacy with the rest of the world in order to steal its oil and in so doing introduced the term "civilian casualty" to the Iraqi vocabulary.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 10:13pm
Iraqis must learn that apple pie and baseball are the keys to happiness.
After all, smart people like me made their country for them. We know what's best for these tribal types.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 10:13pm
that's the ticket!
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/19/2009 @ 10:32pm
Heaven help us.
Posted by OneVote at 08/19/2009 @ 1:43pm
Good call....at least you know The Messiah ain't the one!
Posted by Happy at 08/19/2009 @ 10:44pm
Ralph Nader for president.
Posted by bleedingheart at 08/19/2009 @ 10:48pm
Without security, I doubt if you will get many NGOs or the UN to operate in Iraq. These problems are not a surprise, and the Iraqis will have to come together as a a nation or fight for dominance. We are probably looking at a bloody until one one strong man dominates the country.
Posted by pjcasey at 08/19/2009 @ 11:24pm
Latest bombings have to be inside jobs, and as such mirror the US-instigated Nam bombings after the French were kicked out (vide GGreene's The Quiet American, for a take on these). Purpose: to create "reasons" for further US military involvement + destablize Iraqi nationalists objecting to US presence.
The imperial great game is once again at work in Iraq as well as Af/Pak. The US will play itself into bankruptcy for the sake of ... what was it again? cui bono?
Posted by sloper at 08/19/2009 @ 11:55pm
Dreyfuss never disappoints, the Iranians might be involved in the Iraq bombing. This man is itching for a three-fer.Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran; all of which will dig the grave of U.S imperialism.
Posted by Anti-imperialist at 08/20/2009 @ 05:53am
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 9:51pm |
"Liberals always think the victims of genocide and oppression and hatred are expansionist; look at their anti-semitic alliance with Hamas against Israel."
Conservatives always fail to think that the victims of war are not always the enemies targeted by the operation. Look at the collateral damage in Iraq.
And I know hundreds of liberals against the Iraq war who wouldn't support Hamas for a second, despite the fact that they won an election (unlike Dubya).
"It probably has something to do with their opposition to self-defense."
Only opposition to pre-emptive war on false pretenses being conflated with self-defense. And please hold the, "but we haven't been attacked" pseudo-logic for your ignorant conservative base.
"There are all sorts of vile suggestions in this piece as well, such as the comment about how it is 'possible' that Maliki might secretly be plotting a conspiracy to take advantage of the violence as part of a secret plot to cancel Iraqi elections."
Not cancel; influence. He most definitely wants to rule from a popular mandate, but wants to set up the mandate on his terms. Maliki knows he's a puppet supported by the presence of US troops...he has a strong motive to do things that would allow his support to stay in Iraq longer.
Compare and contrast with Diem for a painful laugh.
Posted by snowball777 at 08/20/2009 @ 07:33am
"Now that Iraq is stable....."---Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 3:58pm
Pretty much ended his credibility right there, huh?
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 08:01am
You just have to admire the consistency in the determination of liberals to find America at fault for everything.
I don't admire their thinking, but they are consistent.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 09:25am
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 08:01am |
You're just not wearing your Liberator(tm) glasses (blocks 100% of UV and most of the rest of the spectrum as well).
Posted by snowball777 at 08/20/2009 @ 09:29am
You just have to admire the consistency in the determination of liberals to find America at fault for everything. I don't admire their thinking, but they are consistent. Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 09:25am |
You just have to admire the consistency in the determination of conservatives to find liberals at fault for everything.
I can't admire their thinking, but they are persistent.
Posted by snowball777 at 08/20/2009 @ 09:32am
Posted by snowball777 at 08/20/2009 @ 09:32am
See, FIRST, Larry will DENY that he believes "liberals are at fault for everything"....
then you keep pushing him to explain today's problems and eventually he WILL say that that's true and when confronted with his post from (@ 09:25am )....
he'll say "Oh, but it's TRUE when WE say it!"
(Just to save time and posts)
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 10:03am
libertyfortheoppressed,
is your general point that the United States should intervene unilaterally in any country whose government is violating human rights? Because that is mighty boggy ground for a country with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world to be standing on.
Also, if our goal is to save lives and fight for justice, should we only intervene when we have a competent and honest administration ourselves? Because a random sampling of the population of Dearborn Michigan could have done a better job of running the Iraq occupation than the Bush administration did, thereby saving hundreds of thousands of lives. ( I use Dearborn because at least some of them speak Arabic.)
Posted by cdlepthien at 08/20/2009 @ 10:07am
You just have to admire the consistency in the determination of conservatives to find liberals at fault for everything.
I can't admire their thinking, but they are persistent.
Posted by snowball777 at 08/20/2009 @ 09:32am | ignore this person | warn this person Posted by snowball777 at 08/20/2009 @ 09:32am
See, FIRST, Larry will DENY that he believes "liberals are at fault for everything"....
then you keep pushing him to explain today's problems and eventually he WILL say that that's true and when confronted with his post from (@ 09:25am )....
he'll say "Oh, but it's TRUE when WE say it!"
(Just to save time and posts)
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 10:03am
Go ahead Mask, try and find where I have placed responsibility for everything that goes wrong on liberals...I've never said that.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 1:36pm
Maybe the US did the bombing. It's a classical protection racket. It tells the Iraqis that they need us to protect them or else.
It wouldn't be that hard to do. An Iraqi nationalist sets up a jihadi group and recruits members. What the members don't know is that their leader takes his orders from the US.
Posted by pfagereng at 08/20/2009 @ 1:47pm
"Go ahead Mask, try and find where I have placed responsibility for everything that goes wrong on liberals...I've never said that."----Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 1:36pm
Okay, Larry....name 5 problems the country is facing that are NOT the fault of liberals.
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 2:13pm
antisocialist-You blame the left for everything on a daily basis.
Posted by i'm nobody at 08/20/2009 @ 2:33pm
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 7:17pm
Ah, but liberty...we didn't go into Iraq for humanitarian reasons, remember? We were concerned about the "mushroom cloud" as Secretary Rice (as she eventually became) so adroitly warned us about, among other lies they spread.
As for the Taliban, you're right. They are people who mean no good to the people of Afghanistan or the world. Going in there (which I supported at the time) to get Osama bin Laden and clean out the Taliban was a noble goal. Helping the people of Afghanistan was a noble goal.
So that begs the question: under George W. Bush, why didn't we do it?
Here's why: Afghanistan was, in the words of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "target poor." In other words, we couldn't make a big splash (remember Shock 'n Awe was his idea) in Afghanistan, so they decided to go into Iraq because it was "target rich" and W wanted to be a "war President" (codpiece and all).
Doing so, they diverted the resources, manpower, munitions and our national focus from a war against the actual people who attacked us on 9/11, to go after Saddam, all because W. and the neocons had a hardon for him left over from the previous Gulf War.
We're still in Afghanistan BECAUSE we went to Iraq. Do you honestly believe we couldn't have gotten OBL if we had thrown the entire might of America against that impoverished country, stopping at nothing to "get our man" "dead or alive" as W once said?
After Iraq started, W said (regarding Osama bin Laden), "I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned." That illustrates EXACTLY why we're still in Afghanistan.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 08/20/2009 @ 2:42pm
"Conservatives always fail to think that the victims of war are not always the enemies targeted by the operation. Look at the collateral damage in Iraq."
This is a remarkably facile point. I am well aware that some civilians will invariably be killed in any war.
Leftists constantly argue that conservatives are in denial of the obvious truth that in war, people die. They seem to think that if only conservatives REALIZED that in war, people die, they would no longer support any wars at any time. Their view is that only people who refuse to admit that in war, people die, support toppling the brutal genocidal regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.
Why do liberals believe this nonsense? For the same reason they no longer call themselves "anti-Iraq war" or "anti-Vietnam war," but rather call themselves "anti-war," as opposed to "pro-war". Who, the left-wing liberals ask us, would dare call themselves "pro-war"? That term implies a love of war. Leftists are reflexively opposed to all wars all the time no matter what because they know that WAR IS A BAD THING. They honestly believe that since in war, people die, all wars should be opposed by anyone who recognizes this fact.
They honestly think that the fact that in war, people die, is sufficient to invalidate the moral case for any war.
They embrace pacifism due to deluded emotion-based circular logic and blind secular faith. Their only argument is that "war is an icky yucky nasty thing we shouldn't have to deal with!"
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 2:42pm
"Only opposition to pre-emptive war on false pretenses being conflated with self-defense. And please hold the, "but we haven't been attacked" pseudo-logic for your ignorant conservative base."
The extreme radical George Galloway Noam Chomsky left opposed the Afghan war. Afghanistan attacked us. The radical left (see Gore Vidal, and some posters on this website) thinks that Japan was provoked into attacking us on Pearl Harbor and that further since tiny Japan did not pose a threat to the very existence of the US as a nation-state, the US attacking Japan in retaliation was unjustified (they either think diplomacy would have been better or that we should only have done the same thing to one of Japan's harbors and then gone home).
Also, the radical left favors banning all handguns and thereby preventing any law-abiding citizen from purchasing them. Surely this is a sign of a pathological hatred of self-defense.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 2:53pm
Okay, Larry....name 5 problems the country is facing that are NOT the fault of liberals.
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 2:13pm
Here's 10
1. the declining morality in the nation is the fault of most Americans, liberal, conservative and in between.
2. Republicans share the blame for the skyrocketing cost of govt by not controlling spending when they controlled the purse strings.
3. Republicans are equally to blame with liberals for not rolling back all of the unconstitutional programs like funding education, Soc Security, and Medicare.
4. Republicans are to blame for passing the Medicare prescription drug bill
5. Republicans who wanted to deport all of the illegal aliens are wrong from a moral standpoint.
6. The high rate of divorce is the fault across the political spectrum
7. The idolizing of celebrity is the fault across the political spectrum.
8. Lack of personal accountability is a problem across the political spectrum
9. Corruption is a problem across the political spectrum
10. Greed is a problem across the political spectrum
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 2:56pm
"is your general point that the United States should intervene unilaterally in any country whose government is violating human rights?"
Of course not. Do you think I favor war with China? How madly deluded and hysterically extremist would I have to be?
I favor regime change for those regimes that are guilty of genocide.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 2:56pm
"Going in there (which I supported at the time)"
I'm glad to hear it.
"to get Osama bin Laden and clean out the Taliban was a noble goal. Helping the people of Afghanistan was a noble goal.
So that begs the question: under George W. Bush, why didn't we do it?"
We did certainly help the people of Afghanistan under Bush.
"Here's why: Afghanistan was, in the words of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "target poor." In other words, we couldn't make a big splash (remember Shock 'n Awe was his idea) in Afghanistan, so they decided to go into Iraq because it was "target rich" and W wanted to be a "war President" (codpiece and all)."
Do you really believe that?
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 3:02pm
"We're still in Afghanistan BECAUSE we went to Iraq."
No, we are still there because transforming a stone-age backwards genocidal concentration camp of a nation-state ruled by fanatically deluded jihadist warlords into a stable democracy is hard to do in a short span of time. We have to build up infrastructure and civil society while training and arming our Afghan allies. This will take long. Longer, perhaps, than Vietnam. But we can't simply go in and out in Afghanistan. If we pulled out, the country would sink into civil war. The Russians had the same problem when they occupied the country; certainly Iraq wasn't what held them back.
"Do you honestly believe we couldn't have gotten OBL if we had thrown the entire might of America against that impoverished country, stopping at nothing to "get our man" "dead or alive" as W once said?"
We've shut down dozens of internationally renowned terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Bin Laden had most likely fled Afghanistan before the first US soldiers set foot in that country. Clinton had chance after chance to kill OBL and refused each time.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 3:12pm
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 2:56pm
Thanks....got it saved.....for future use....which I will have for it....which you will suddenly discover all kind of "caveats" to......when I re-post it.
heheh
(Oh, and urmy will scream "Gotcha!"...heheh)
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 4:02pm
"Thanks....got it saved.....for future use....which I will have for it...."
Mask, you are a loser and an idiot.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 4:32pm
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 2:56pm
Thanks....got it saved.....for future use....which I will have for it....which you will suddenly discover all kind of "caveats" to......when I re-post it.
heheh
(Oh, and urmy will scream "Gotcha!"...heheh)
Posted by Mask at 08/20/2009 @ 4:02pm
No problem. I don't see why you think it could provide a "gotcha". I have been consistent on these positions for decades.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 5:08pm
Read Graham Greene's great Vietnam novel THE QUIET AMERICAN -- or see the good film -- and then think about these latest Baghdad blasts, the use of cutouts & so many excellent reasons for the Pentagon & its suppliers to applaud further destabilization in Iraq.
These latest hits were too well coordinated to be anything other than inside jobs via a series of desperate cutouts.
Posted by sloper at 08/20/2009 @ 5:10pm
>>>Separately, at least six mortars rained down on two heavily transited locations in central Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. Three mortars targeted the Green Zone, the fortified enclave in Baghdad that contains the U.S. Embassy and many Iraqi government offices.<<<
This seems more of a "get out of our country" attack rather than a sign of sustainable violence once we leave.
That said, I do hope a UN presence emerges in time to squelch inter-Iraqi violence without being the cause of anti-foreigner violence itself. This appears to be necessary until Iraqi forces have the training, skill, resources, and "national" legitimacy to police their own country.
Posted by Metteyya at 08/20/2009 @ 5:59pm
"This seems more of a "get out of our country" attack rather than a sign of sustainable violence once we leave."
True, but liberals desperately wish for any sign of violence in Iraq because they are embarassed to have been proven so completely, spectacularly wrong on the surge and refuse to admit their obvious mistake.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 6:10pm
That said, I do hope a UN presence emerges in time to squelch inter-Iraqi violence without being the cause of anti-foreigner violence itself. This appears to be necessary until Iraqi forces have the training, skill, resources, and "national" legitimacy to police their own country.
Posted by Metteyya at 08/20/2009 @ 5:59pm
Have you seen ANY effort by the UN to involve itself now in Iraq?
The UN is worthless
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 6:13pm
The UN is nothing but a pack of anti-semitic America-hating dictatorships that investigate the imaginary war crimes of Israel while glossing over the human rights abuses of Syria and Saudi Arabia and allowing Sudan and Cuba to help with the investigation.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 6:32pm
Leftists constantly argue that conservatives are in denial of the obvious truth that in war, people die. They seem to think that if only conservatives REALIZED that in war, people die, they would no longer support any wars at any time. Their view is that only people who refuse to admit that in war, people die, support toppling the brutal genocidal regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 2:42pm
Actually Lib, in my opinion, you're not far wrong...just a little bit. Leftists don't believe that conservatives are in denial of the obvious truth, but that your leaders DON'T CARE about the obvious truth that people die.
Liberals DO believe that war is a bad thing. I think you shouldn't compare Iraq to Afghanistan, though. Most liberals I know were for the war in Afghanistan because the Taliban were harboring the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.
Iraq did not attack us on 9/11.
Let me say that again so that you get it: Iraq did not attack us on 9/11.
As for people dying, yeah, many of us are pacifists (not me, actually - again, I supported the war in Afghanistan along with humanitarian relief) because people die. INNOCENT people die. Innocent people who are just trying to live their lives and hated Saddam and the Taliban as much as we do. Innocent people, who neither attacked us, nor even wanted to attack us, die very violent and horrible deaths, or are maimed and injured for the rest of their lives. Your leaders don't care, but yet call themselves "compassionate conservatives." The reason they added "compassionate" is because "conservative" has become synonymous with "non-caring."
Perhaps if you warmongers put a little more value on human life that isn't white, male or Protestant, you'd understand that.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 08/20/2009 @ 6:33pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 08/20/2009 @ 6:33pm
But on the Afghanistan thread you state that the Authorization for use of force is unconstitutional and should be repealed.
Which is it?
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 7:07pm
"Perhaps if you warmongers put a little more value on human life that isn't white, male or Protestant,"
As an atheist and feminist, that doesn't apply to me.
As far as racism goes, it is a profoundly depraved and inhumane and inhuman ideology. Leftists think that it is "racist" to use military force to destroy horrific regimes guilty of repeated campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing even when those regimes leave millions of their own people at risk of death by starvation and disease without military intervention (as in Afghanistan) or slaughter and starve to death tens of thousands of their own citizens every year (as in Iraq).
Leftists think that opposing racist campaigns of genocide is itself racist. They feel that racist campaigns of genocide should be nurtured and protected and defended and appreciated as valuable societal institutions of unique cultures of equal co-equivalent legitimacy to our own. They think it is "insensitive" to other cultures to destroy foriegn regimes that embrace barbaric and genocidal policies.
Liberals also think that discriminating against white people is the only way to compensate blacks for past discrimination.
Left-wingers are very, very deluded indeed.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 7:41pm
Whoever benefited from the overthrow of Saddam, also benefits from the US staying forever thus preventing another dictator taking his place. Benefit = safer. There is one person who boasted that his country benefited from the overthrow of Saddam.
Posted by mystic at 08/20/2009 @ 9:33pm
the surge
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 6:10pm
hahahahahahaahahahahahahahhhahahhahahaha!
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/20/2009 @ 9:37pm
They embrace pacifism due to deluded emotion-based circular logic and blind secular faith. Their only argument is that "war is an icky yucky nasty thing we shouldn't have to deal with!"
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009
My "emotion-based logic" tells me wars are bad. I admit it.
Also, as far as "Emotion-based" logic....Didn't Bush and his Administration say things regarding the war that appealed to people's emotions?
Cheney said Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Bush said Saddam was seeking uranium for missiles.
Condi said that she didn't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
Posted by koroviev at 08/21/2009 @ 03:22am
"but liberals desperately wish for any sign of violence in Iraq because...."----Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 6:10pm
A series of bombs....goes off just a few blocks from the "Green Zone"....and kills 100 people, injures 600 more....
didn't have to look very hard for a "sign", did we???
Posted by Mask at 08/21/2009 @ 08:04am
BTW, interesting alliance here....
Larry/antisoc the evangelical Christian and LFTO---
"As an atheist and feminist, that doesn't apply to me."----Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 7:41pm
Posted by Mask at 08/21/2009 @ 08:07am
Like any crime, look to see who benefits.
Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and the American struggle in Iraq had been beneficial for Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975574.html
Israel also is the only country that benefits from the US not leaving Iraq, which would enable another threatening dictator to Israel like Saddam to arise almost immediately. You can extrapolate that into the presence violence.
Posted by mystic at 08/21/2009 @ 09:06am
antisocialist-It is nice to see that you finally assigned some blame to your side,but it would have been better if you did that regularly rather than blame the left for everything on a daily basis,but then backtrack when confronted about that.
Posted by i'm nobody at 08/21/2009 @ 09:56am
"Cheney said Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks."
No, he didn't. As for uranium, Saddam really was trying to acquire it. He praised the 9/11 attacks (no other government in the region joined him in openly celebrating them). The Duelfer Report concluded that Saddam had blueprints and plans in place to build a nuclear arsenal once the sanctions (which he manipulated to kill hundreds of thousands of people) were lifted. Saddam would have gotten WMD from North Korea if not for the invasion. Saddam threatened to wipe Israel off the map and funded suicide bombers in that country. He harbored one of the terrorists involved in the 1993 WTC attack. As a result of the invasion, Libya gave up its WMD and we've shut down a black market for WMD in Pakistan. Saddam would have gotten an atom bomb if not for the Persian Gulf War destroying his ability to produce one. In 1990, he was seriously plotting to start WW3 by attacking Israel with the arsenal of chemical weapons he then possessed. In 1998, he planned at least one foiled terrorist attack against an American target in revenge for the Iraq Liberation Act.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/21/2009 @ 11:10am
"look to see who benefits."
Iraq has benefited from the invasion more than Israel.
http://www.slate.com/id/2121996/
"Saddam Hussein was so deluded and deranged during the final days of his despotism that he spent time writing, or dictating, another of his pulp novels. Titled Get Out Damned One--hardly a polite way of suggesting a date for withdrawal--the adventure story invokes a mythic Arab hero who "invades the land of the enemy and topples one of their monumental towers." "
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/21/2009 @ 11:14am
"Saddam would have gotten WMD from North Korea if not for the invasion. "----Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/21/2009 @ 11:10am
So you've pretty much given up on ..."he had some"...
and are relying on "He would have gotten some".
Interesting....especially since it completely contradicts what we were told by you guys.
Posted by Mask at 08/21/2009 @ 11:30am
antisocialist-It is nice to see that you finally assigned some blame to your side,but it would have been better if you did that regularly rather than blame the left for everything on a daily basis,but then backtrack when confronted about that.
Posted by i'm nobody at 08/21/2009 @ 09:56am
I've done it here for 5 years whenever I'm asked.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/21/2009 @ 11:35am
antisocialist-Why do you have to be asked to do it?You only blame the left in the vast majority of your posts,but then state that that is okay because when asked I will,kind of,list things my side does wrong.
Posted by i'm nobody at 08/21/2009 @ 11:38am
"So you've pretty much given up on ..."he had some"... "
Of course.
If he had some, he would have used it in RETALLIATION when we attacked.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/21/2009 @ 11:41am
Posted by Mask at 08/21/2009 @ 11:30am |
What they lack in consistency they make up for in hubris.
Posted by snowball777 at 08/21/2009 @ 11:54am
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/21/2009 @ 11:41am
But what were we TOLD was one of the reasons we had to invade, LFTO?
That he "would get some"...or that he "had some"????
Or are you pretty much admitting Bush & Co. lied...but "for a good reason"?
Posted by Mask at 08/21/2009 @ 12:24pm
"Or are you pretty much admitting Bush & Co. lied...but "for a good reason"?"
I'm just amazed Americans are so stupid they thought attacking a country when it could pose a serious threat to your security if it chose to retalliate made any kind of sense, but when they found out the invasion had prevented Saddam from getting WMD from North Korea that he would have used on our troops when we invaded as retalliation if he had possessed it, they declared Bush an evil liar and war criminal.
Bush did lie for a good reason. What is incredible is that he felt he had to lie, but that, even further, Americans fell for it.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/21/2009 @ 12:36pm
Posted by antisocialist at 08/21/2009 @ 11:35am
I have to say I am surprised at your stance on the immigration issue. I would have pegged you for one who felt we needed to deport them all. You learn something new everyday. How do you feel it should be handled? Through giving them a legal method to become citizens?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/21/2009 @ 12:37pm
antisocialist-Why do you have to be asked to do it?You only blame the left in the vast majority of your posts,but then state that that is okay because when asked I will,kind of,list things my side does wrong.
Posted by i'm nobody at 08/21/2009 @ 11:38am
I have specifically criticized conservatives when the immigration bills came up without being asked.
I criticized Republicans during 2005 and 2006 without being asked on here over their lack of control on spending and the corruption.
Just two examples where I didn't wait.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/21/2009 @ 1:18pm
"Iraq benefits from Iraq more than Israel" (libertyfortheoppressed )
Really? Over one million slaughtered, double that for refugees and crippled, not to mention those who will suffer from lukemia, depleted uranium and other cancers in the future. The culture and infrastructure have been annihilated.How can you say Iraq wins? Iraqis were demonstrably better under Saddam than under the American Blackwater and other contractors' (who were and are accountable to no one) occupation.They didn't have sewage in the street, their women raped and American rifles murdering innocent men, women and children. How can say that with a straight face?
Anderson Cooper (who used to work for the CIA) reported on CNN October 18, 2006, the presence of Mossad fomenting the civil war with their readily identifiable rifles with cameras. I wouldn't be surprised if they are still there fomenting violence, determined to prevent the US from leaving.Once the US leaves completely(our taxdollars have always paid to do the dirty work for Israel), another Saddam would arise just as surely as the sun arises in the east.
Posted by mystic at 08/21/2009 @ 2:35pm
They embrace militarism due to deluded emotion-based circular logic and blind secular faith. Their only argument is that "war makes my member go stiff."
Posted by emile duBois at 08/22/2009 @ 08:21am
Ralph Nader for president.
president of what?
Posted by emile duBois at 08/22/2009 @ 08:24am
Posted by emile duBois at 08/22/2009 @ 08:24am |
The Ralph Nader Fan Club.
He's the Sec. and Treasurer too.
Posted by snowball777 at 08/23/2009 @ 11:50am
The UN is nothing but a pack of anti-semitic America-hating dictatorships that investigate the imaginary war crimes of Israel while glossing over the human rights abuses of Syria and Saudi Arabia and allowing Sudan and Cuba to help with the investigation.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 6:32pm
And yet, the UN is largely dominated by the US, meaning that the US, by association must also be ab n anti-semitic dictatorship, which glosses over the human rights abuses of Syria and Saudi Arabia and allowing Sudan and Cuba to help with the investigation.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:12am
Have you seen ANY effort by the UN to involve itself now in Iraq?
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 6:13pm
Can you blame them?
The UN, of which the US is a key member, was was bypassed by the US and only when it became a clusterfuck, did the US decide they wanted the UN to be onvolved.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:13am
True, but liberals desperately wish for any sign of violence in Iraq because they are embarassed to have been proven so completely, spectacularly wrong on the surge and refuse to admit their obvious mistake.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 6:10pm
It's not that liberals desperately wish for any sign of violence in Iraq, it's that they knew the surge was only a badaid that was unsustinable and would unravel.
Right wingers wanted the world to believe that somehow managing to get Iraq violence down to levels less than catastrophic not only meant victory, but justified the invasion.
Even Patreaus stated that victory would never been seen in Iraq, but right wingers insist otherwise and now that their balloin has been popped by rality, they do what they always do, blame the left.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:17am
The extreme radical George Galloway Noam Chomsky left opposed the Afghan war. Afghanistan attacked us.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 2:53pm
False. Not only did Afghanistan not attack us, but no one involved in the attacks was Afghani.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:18am
Liberals also think that discriminating against white people is the only way to compensate blacks for past discrimination.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 7:41pm
While right wingers are still struggling to comprehend why black peopel should have equal rights.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:19am
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/20/2009 @ 2:42pm
"They honestly think that the fact that in war, people die, is sufficient to invalidate the moral case for any war."
That's becasue wars are always sold to the public on the basis that they will save more lives than they destroy, which has never been the case. In Iraq and Afghanistan, this has been debunked.
This is why the right were so incensed about the Lancet Report.
"Their only argument is that "war is an icky yucky nasty thing we shouldn't have to deal with!""
The righ's only argument is that "shit happens" or that you need to "break a few eggs to make an omlette" or that you have to "destroy villages(cities/countries) in order to save them" and believe in Orwellian concepts like creative destruction.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:22am
Go ahead Mask, try and find where I have placed responsibility for everything that goes wrong on liberals...I've never said that.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 1:36pm
Nor has anyone ever placed responsibility for everything that goes wrong on the right.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:23am
You just have to admire the consistency in the determination of liberals to find America at fault for everything.
I don't admire their thinking, but they are consistent.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/20/2009 @ 09:25am
The admiration is mutual. The right are consistent in blaming everyone but America for everything.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:24am
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 9:51pm
"Liberals always think the victims of genocide and oppression and hatred are expansionist"
Which Liberals?
"look at their anti-semitic alliance with Hamas against Israel"
Who has an "anti-semitic alliance" with Hamas?
"It probably has something to do with their opposition to self-defense. "
A rapist who kills his victim when she tries to fight back doesn't gett o claim self defense. Attacking Iraq and Afghanistan was not self defense because neither state threatened us.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:25am
Saddam Hussein murdered millions of people and slaughtered or starved to death tens of thousands of innocent people every year,
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 7:17pm
Rubbish of course.
Saddam killed 300 thousand over 24 years, which is how many the US military killed over 6.
"He hammered six-inch nails into people's heads. He used crucifixion. "
Proof?
"His regime could have lasted decades more, and when it collapsed, if there was no one to succeed him, Iraq would have descended into the exact same chaos and anarchy it did after the invasion only worse because Saddam's divide-and-rule policies would have been prolonged and the illiteracy, malnutrition, starvation, desperation, fear, hatred, resentment, bitterness, and anger his policies cultivated would have further eroded Iraqi civil society. If his sons did succeed him, they would have ruled Iraq as he did for decades "
This is self contraditory. On one hand, LFTO argues that Iraq was about to self implode while imagining a scenario about what would have happened when his sons took over.
"Eliminating this horrific genocidal concentration camp of a state and installing a democracy and building schools and hospitals and water purification facilities..."
Those would be the building schools and hospitals and water purification facilities that we destroyed of course.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:29am
The Surge did work. What is happening now is a reflection of the US military commanders who warned us (and the libs and the Dems in Congress including Obama ignored them) that Iraq might not be quite ready to fully stand on it's own.
It's ironic to also notice the absolute silence from the anti-war left about the virtual absence of US military personnel deaths in Iraq. Only 8 in July, and 2 so far in August.
Posted by antisocialist at 08/19/2009 @ 6:18pm
The surge was a badaid that just bought time for George Bush to hand over the mess to the next administration.
The virtual absence of US military personnel deaths in Iraq is a consequence of the US militry retreating back to their military bases. Of course, notice the absolute silence from the pro-war right about the hundreds fo thousands of maimed and wounded, who are being denied medical care which has been estimated to cost us 2-3 trillion dollars.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:32am
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 4:17pm
The US has already admitted that the half a million Iraqi dead children was due to US policy. Madelaine Albright claimed responsibility when she sais the cost was worth it.
So Dreyfuss is perfectly correct when he blamed America for those deaths.
"But it is in the wildly erratic, inconsistent, and emotion-based circular logic Dreyfuss employs, so typical of leftist thought in these times where radical feminists praise the Taliban, that Dreyfuss' delusion is most evident."
You never did explain where you got the idea that radical feminists praise the Taliban. I asked you for proof weeks ago and you were unable to .
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:35am
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/19/2009 @ 3:58pm
"Now that Iraq is stable, Maliki is an authoritarian dictator. The "resistance" Dreyfuss sympathizes with only wishes that were true."
But Iraq is NOT stable at all. It has just exploded again, so Dreyfuss was right.
Based on the numbers killed, Bush is indeed a greater war criminal that Saddam. Bush is responsible for 1.2 million deaths, vs Saddam's 300,000.
"These insurgents trying to Talibanize the country really are dead-enders."
Which is what Cheney said and look at what happened.
"Actually according to the NYT he killed 1 million people"
The NYT does not do body counts.
"according to Iraq's interim government in 2004 over a million. "
Iraq's interim government was made up of Saddam's enemies, so they are not eliable.
"Not even counting 1.1 million in the Iran-Iraq war "
In which we played a major role.
"perhaps as many as eighty thousand every year"Not even counting 1.1 million in the Iran-Iraq war or thousands of Kuwaitis and tens of thousands in the Gulf War or the hundreds of thousands, perhaps as many as eighty thousand every year"
Hyperbole and imaginary numbers of the righ wing war lovers.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 02:39am
amusing.
Posted by emile duBois at 08/24/2009 @ 08:25am
"Bush is responsible for 1.2 million deaths,"
"Saddam killed 300 thousand over 24 years, which is how many the US military killed over 6."
How could this be true?
According to Human Rights Watch, the most statistically probable estimate for the number of people Saddam killed in April 1991 is 150,000. Saddam also killed over 100,000 Kurds.
This means that according to you, Saddam killed under 50,000 people over 24 years not counting his genocides.
It is well documented that as a rather conservative estimate, Saddam killed about 25,000 people every year not counting his genocides or the sanctions.
So you think INDICT, NYT, HRW, and Iraq's interim government are all lying and trying to frame Saddam?
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 7:49pm
How could this be true?
According to Human Rights Watch, the most statistically probable estimate for the number of people Saddam killed in April 1991 is 150,000. Saddam also killed over 100,000 Kurds.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 7:49pm
Rubbish. HRW never stated that Saddam killed in April 1991 is 150,000. Yes, Saddam thousands fo Kurds, though he did so while the US (who supplied him the weapons to do it) turned a blind eye.
According to the US State Department, Saddam killed 300,000 people over 24 years.
It has NOT been well documented how many peoepl Saddam killed. Estimates and documented counts are not the same thing.
The NYT has never calculated the death toll of any war, but cited other sources, so they themslves are not aa source. HRW haven't attributed the deatsh to Saddam per se, given that many died due to wars, not genocide. Iraq's interim government were made up of Iraqi exiles who were enemies of Saddam, so were probably exagerating to demonize him.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 10:13pm
"Rubbish. HRW never stated that Saddam killed in April 1991 is 150,000."
It esimated 90,000-230,000 dead. I took a middle-ground estimate.
"According to the US State Department, Saddam killed 300,000 people over 24 years."
Lie. I've asked you to show me this state department "document" every time you've mentioned it and every time you've ignored my question and failed to respond.
By your count, Saddam killed under 50,000 people over 24 years not counting his genocides. This is a crazed, hysterical lie. That would mean Saddam killed under 2,000 people a year. You vulgar liar! You are like Noam Chomsky denying the Cambodian Holocaust. You have argued TNYT, INDICT, HRW, and the Interim Iraqi Government are framing Saddam for crimes he did not commit. You have argued that mass graves in Iraq were planted there by Americans in 1991. You are simply obscene.
It is well documented that Saddam killed over 25,000 people on an average year (as a LOW estimate). This doesn't count sanctions, genocides, or wars.
Over 300,000 bodies were found in Iraq in mass graves alone.
The number of victims of executions in Iraq under Saddam alone that we've been able to verify with absolute certainty is over 600,000. Saddam killed at least 900,000 people, even if the NYT was too high when it said 1 million. The toll of his killing, genocides, wars, and sanctions is 2.5 to 3 million.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 10:34pm
Wikipedia agrees with my estimates that death toll in Saddam's Iraq runs into the millions. But, it cites the NYT and INDICT, so is lying to frame Saddam.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 10:39pm
It esimated 90,000-230,000 dead. I took a middle-ground estimate.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 10:34pm
No it estimated that 150,000 died, not that Saddam salugtered them.
I never stated that Saddam killed under 50,000 people over 24 years. I agree with the State Department estimates that state 300,000 over 24 years.
TNYT, INDICT, and the Interim Iraqi Government are all partisan hacks who had nothign to gaim by reporting facts. HRW does not support your argument.
YUou are yourself a vulgar liar. I have never argued that the mass graves in Iraq were planted there by Americans in 1991. You can;t win the argument on facts, so you are mis representing mine.
How cowarly! It has never been " documented" that Saddam killed over 25,000 people on an average year.
If indeed 300,000 bodies were found in Iraq in mass graves, that does not mean they were killed by Saddam. Half a million dies in the Iran/Iraq war which we suported.
The number of victims of executions in Iraq under Saddam have been exagreated to the pooint of ridicule. There are no realible estimates.
For the 10th the NYT has no means to calculate the numbers killed by Saddam. so citing the NYT is pointless.
The toll of his killing is officially 300,000. The US is responsible for the deaths from sacntions. Madelaine Albright climed responsibility for those deaths on the part of the US.
And of course, 1.2 million have died as a result of the US invasion.
Sorry to burt your hperbolic bubble.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 10:49pm
Wikipedia agrees with my estimates that death toll in Saddam's Iraq runs into the millions. But, it cites the NYT and INDICT, so is lying to frame Saddam.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/20
You just claimed that Wikipedia was not a realible source.
NYT is a news paper, not an organsations that know how to calctulate deaths.
INDICT is a partisan hack source.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 10:50pm
"For the 10th the NYT has no means to calculate the numbers killed by Saddam. so citing the NYT is pointless."
Denial.
"The number of victims of executions in Iraq under Saddam have been exagreated to the pooint of ridicule. There are no realible estimates."
So you admit 300,000 is unreliable?
"The toll of his killing is officially 300,000"
Shut the hell up if all you can do is repeat lies and propaganda! "Officially"?
"TNYT, INDICT, and the Interim Iraqi Government are all partisan hacks who had nothign to gaim by reporting facts."
Denial.
I've asked you to show me this state department "document" every time you've mentioned it and every time you've ignored my question and failed to respond.
Show me the document! Right here! NOW! Or SHUT UP!
http://tinyurl.com/ntb3uj
"According to this article the Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled information on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime. That's probably low as its just the executions we know about and it doesn't include those who died because Saddam diverted money from the UN's humanitarian oil-for-food program into his own coffers, but we'll use it anyway. If we consider that Saddam Hussein was in power for 24 years, those 600,000 executions puts his yearly death toll at about 25,000/year."
Executions alone is over 600,000. So obviously it is incontrovertible that the Weekly Standard was right when it estimated 25,000 a year. INDICT was certainly correct when it said over 800,000 total. The number is at least 850,000. Add the Iran-Iraq war, Gulf War, sanctions, you get 2.5 to 3 million.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 10:58pm
Shingo, the number of CONFIRMED deaths (like 600,000 CONFIRMED executions) for the Iraq war is 92,000-101,000.
You want to embrace extremist estimates, fine. I'll do the same. I estimate that Saddam was killing 35,000 people a year and starving 70,000 to death every year. All in all, he was killing 105,000 people a year. Some have made such estimates. Are they likely? Hell no!
But you have no intellectual honesty or courage. None at all! You want to embrace proven fabrications on how many died in the war and on how many Saddam killed? Fine! Then maybe I should stop being honest and decent and should embrace lies to suport my agenda like you do!
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 11:05pm
So you admit 300,000 is unreliable?
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 10:58pm
Actually, the only deatsh that Saddam was every found guilty of commiting were a few hundred. When Saddam was tried in Iraq, he was never charged with genocide or killing of thousands, but jusyt a few hundred, which proves thatthere is no evidence to link him to any of the mass murders you allude to.
In fact, the evidence was so weak that the US insisted Saddam we tried in Iraq, rather than the Hague, becasue they were worried that the evidence against him would not hold up.
Thus, in spite of the claims by IDICT, and HRW, none of it holds up in a court. If Saddam had really been responsible for millions of deaths, then he woudl have been charged with those deaths.
So as it turns out, he only officially killed a few hundred. Anythign abopve that number is heresay and speculation.
BTW. The OFF program was a fraud so the blood of the deaths that followed are also on US hands.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 11:08pm
Shingo, if your position is that Saddam only killed a couple hundred people at most and that he isn't responsible for the Iran-Iraq war or the gassing of the Kurds, and that none of the mass graves in Iraq were his doing, and that the Iraq war killed 1.2 million people, you are a liar. You must know you are a liar. I see you admit there was no such SD document.
You are delibrately lying. I reccommend going to Iraq and telling all those you meet there that Saddam only killed a couple hundred people at most and was probably framed for that as well.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 11:26pm
Shingo, the number of CONFIRMED deaths (like 600,000 CONFIRMED executions) for the Iraq war is 92,000-101,000.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 11:05pm
Wrong. Saddam was only charged with the deaths of a few hundred. If he'd killed as many as you suggest, he would have been charged with those crimes.
He wasn't.
On 5 November 2006, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging, for the killing of 148 Shiites from Dujail, in retaliation for the assassination attempt of 8 July 1982.
End of story.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 11:46pm
Shingo, if your position is that Saddam only killed a couple hundred people at most and that he isn't responsible for the Iran-Iraq war or the gassing of the Kurds, and that none of the mass graves in Iraq were his doing, and that the Iraq war killed 1.2 million people, you are a liar. You must know you are a liar. I see you admit there was no such SD document.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 11:26pm
Surely if he did all that he would have been charged for it.
You keep citing numbers that INDICT and the NYT and Iraq's interim government quote, yet you can't explain why Iraq's interim government only saw fit to charge Saddam with killing 145 people.
Why is that?
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 11:50pm
I reccommend going to Iraq and telling all those you meet there that Saddam only killed a couple hundred people at most and was probably framed for that as well.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/24/2009 @ 11:26pm
Never have I said Saddam was framed for anything. In fact, if he'd been framed for anythign other than the 145 deaths, then he woudl have been charged with those crimes.
He wasn't, hence no frame up.
Posted by Shingo at 08/24/2009 @ 11:54pm
So Saddam only killed 148 people in 1982? From 1983-2003, he killed no one? You are pathetic Shingo. You've admitted you lied about the SD. You are a pathological liar and an ignoramus and a callous, disgraceful, amoral fraud.
Saddam only killed 200 people. Same for Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Lenin. Bush is the greatest mass murderer in human history. The Darfur genocide is a lie, as is the Holocaust, the gassing of the Kurds, Armenia, Cambodia. ALL A LIE!!!!!!!
Jews and Christians are evil!!!!!
Worship ALLAH!
Praise the GREAT SALADIN LIBERATOR OF MUSLIMS MARTYR SADDAM!!!!
OSAMA in the highest!!!!
The Taliban are good!!!!
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/25/2009 @ 12:10am
I recommend going to Iraq and telling all those you meet there that Saddam only killed a couple hundred people at most and was probably framed for that as well.
I wish there was an afterlife, and I wish you had to look when you died in the faces of all the Iraqi men, women, and children he killed and tell them all save for those 145 people that they DIDN'T die by his hand, their own testimony to the contrary.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/25/2009 @ 12:14am
So Saddam only killed 148 people in 1982? From 1983-2003, he killed no one?
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/25/2009 @ 12:10am
H emight have but officially, he was only ever charged and found guilty of killing 145.
"You've admitted you lied about the SD."
I never admitted lying about anything.
"Saddam only killed 200 people."
145 actually.
"Same for Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Lenin."
Who said anything about them?
"Bush is the greatest mass murderer in human history. "
Clearly not.
"The Darfur genocide is a lie, as is the Holocaust, the gassing of the Kurds, Armenia, Cambodia. ALL A LIE!!!!!!! "
Poor LFTO. So desperate that he has to introduce all manner of straw men. We never even discussed the Holocaust.
Posted by Shingo at 08/25/2009 @ 01:37am
I wish there was an afterlife, and I wish you had to look when you died in the faces of all the Iraqi men, women, and children he killed and tell them all save for those 145 people that they DIDN'T die by his hand, their own testimony to the contrary.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/25/2009 @ 12:14am
And I wish you had to look when you died in the faces of all the Iraqi men, women, and children we killed or who died as a result of the invasion (all 1.2 million of them) and tell them that we killed them for their own good and for their freedom.
Posted by Shingo at 08/25/2009 @ 01:38am
Saddam is the only tyrant who ruled for 20 years without killing a single person during those 20 years. (1983-2003, according to you)
Saddam killed more people than Darfur, Rwanda, Armenia and Cambodia, so denying the genocide and slavery and tryanny to which he subjected Iraqis is no less offensive and revolting than denying those genocides. Besides, you've questioned if Darfur is a genocide and argued it is probably in any case exaggerated. Also, you are on the record as saying that America was wrong to fight Pol Pot and as being proud the US didn't intervene in any of these genocides.
Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 08/25/2009 @ 02:01am