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Iraqi Freedom
- Thread starter dotslashfuture
- Start date
The dragons have taken over
"Wolfowitz of Arabia" is taking care of the democratization of Iraq - and Woolsey prepares the "Fourth World War"
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,930769,00.html
"Wolfowitz of Arabia" is taking care of the democratization of Iraq - and Woolsey prepares the "Fourth World War"
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,930769,00.html
Quote from alfonso:
Kymar, there's no point getting bogged down into a definition of occupation/presence, suffice to say that I think that quite a lot of the things you explained occur in your version of occupation are going to occur in Iraq regardless of what we call it.
Yes, that's pretty close to exactly what I said.
I totally disagree with you if you are suggesting that if American troops are asked to leave that America will kindly and promptly comply with the request.
I haven't the slightest idea where you got the idea that I was stating or implying anything of the kind.
I have long regarded American foreign policy to be devious, self-serving (not for America as a whole, but for a select few in it) and, in short, criminal.
... and for a second there I thought you might not be approaching the current controversy with an open mind.
And that point of view was formed in light of indisputable facts.
How comforting that must be for you, not just your being in possession of "indisputable facts," but your possession, apparently, of precisely those "indisputable facts" that necessarily and exclusively lead to a simple and undeniable point of view. Clearly, there's no need for you ever to question your own presumptions, or, for that matter, ever to think very hard about any of this ever again. You're set for life!
Now I'm saying this just to save you the time if you ever feel you need to denounce me for being whole-heartedly "anti-American*" because I already admit it.
I'd rather denounce you for being blinded by your ideology, but even more for letting it turn you into one of Saddam Hussein's volunteer apologists. Put the two together, and you get someone who is incapable of recognizing that getting rid of regimes such as his is a service to all humankind - not least to the Arabs and specifically to the Iraqi people.
My advice to you is to keep on trying to minimize the significance both of the 30-year reign of terror that the Iraqis have undergone, and of the act of rescuing them from it. I hope and I believe that hardly anything would be more likely to prevent people with views such as yours from ever gaining influence over the lives of Americans, Britons, and other free, thinking people.
Quote from msfe:
A morally hollow victory
No amount of PR will disguise the fact that this war is an outrage against humanity
Mary Riddell
Sunday April 6, 2003
The Observer
The showdown approaches and the propaganda war moves on.
Look, now msfe has found a site that produces even more convincing parodies, this time of leftwing cranks incapable of forming connections with reality! I mean, it's obviously a fake. No intellectual or politician in the West could really be stupid enough, at a time like this, to try to portray Saddam's sadistic thugs and defenders as morally superior to those who have been fighting them.
US begins the process of 'regime change'
Ed Vulliamy in New York and Kamal Ahmed
Sunday April 6, 2003
The Observer
The US is ready to install the first leg of an interim government for the new Iraq as early as Tuesday, even while fighting still rages in Baghdad, officials said yesterday.
America's readiness to establish the first stages of a civil administration to run post-war Iraq comes at lightning speed and constitutes a rebuff to European ambitions to stall on the process until some kind of role for the United Nations is agreed.
It was reported yesterday that the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has also ruled out any key role for the UN.
The decision to proceed with an embryonic government comes in response to memoranda written by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week, urging that the US begin to entrench its authority in areas under its control before the war is over.
Pentagon officials told The Observer that the administration is determined to impose the Rumsfeld plan and sees no use for a UN role, describing the international body as 'irrelevant'.
The proposal is due to be discussed by George Bush and his closest security officials when he returns from this week's Northern Ireland war council with Tony Blair.
But according to US offi cials in Doha, elements of an embryonic new government will be established in the southern port of Umm Qasr, taken by coalition forces during the first days of the war.
It will be installed by the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, under the former US army Lieutenant General Jay Garner, and answerable to the Pentagon.
'What we are going to start trying to do, even before the fighting is over in Iraq, is to move to the areas in Iraq that are relatively peaceful, places like Umm Qasr, and to start moving [the office of reconstruction] into Iraq,' the official said. 'It is a fair assessment to say that this is the first step to set up a civil administration in Iraq.'
The decision is a rebuff to European diplomats who pleaded with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday to allow for a UN role.
By brushing the UN aside at such an early stage, the move also places Tony Blair - whose own preference is for a UN role - in a difficult situation ahead of his meeting with Bush this week.
Rumsfeld presented two memoranda to the White House last week, urging the President to begin setting up government institutions in areas under US control. He said the new organs could install Iraqis returning from exile under the tutelage of American civilians answerable to General Garner.
But his plan has been opposed even within the administration. Colin Powell is known to favour a military government established after victory is assured, prepared to nurture an Iraqi government centred around citizens resident in Iraq, rather than exiles sponsored by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon.
General Garner is already set to make his media debut in Kuwait tomorrow as the man whom the US has named to be Iraq's temporary post-war civilian administrator.
The US viceroy of the Southern region will be retired General Buck Walters; one of three governors slated to minister the new Iraqi provinces.
The others are General Bruce Moore in the largely Kurdish north and former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine based in Baghdad, governing the central region.
Ed Vulliamy in New York and Kamal Ahmed
Sunday April 6, 2003
The Observer
The US is ready to install the first leg of an interim government for the new Iraq as early as Tuesday, even while fighting still rages in Baghdad, officials said yesterday.
America's readiness to establish the first stages of a civil administration to run post-war Iraq comes at lightning speed and constitutes a rebuff to European ambitions to stall on the process until some kind of role for the United Nations is agreed.
It was reported yesterday that the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has also ruled out any key role for the UN.
The decision to proceed with an embryonic government comes in response to memoranda written by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week, urging that the US begin to entrench its authority in areas under its control before the war is over.
Pentagon officials told The Observer that the administration is determined to impose the Rumsfeld plan and sees no use for a UN role, describing the international body as 'irrelevant'.
The proposal is due to be discussed by George Bush and his closest security officials when he returns from this week's Northern Ireland war council with Tony Blair.
But according to US offi cials in Doha, elements of an embryonic new government will be established in the southern port of Umm Qasr, taken by coalition forces during the first days of the war.
It will be installed by the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, under the former US army Lieutenant General Jay Garner, and answerable to the Pentagon.
'What we are going to start trying to do, even before the fighting is over in Iraq, is to move to the areas in Iraq that are relatively peaceful, places like Umm Qasr, and to start moving [the office of reconstruction] into Iraq,' the official said. 'It is a fair assessment to say that this is the first step to set up a civil administration in Iraq.'
The decision is a rebuff to European diplomats who pleaded with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday to allow for a UN role.
By brushing the UN aside at such an early stage, the move also places Tony Blair - whose own preference is for a UN role - in a difficult situation ahead of his meeting with Bush this week.
Rumsfeld presented two memoranda to the White House last week, urging the President to begin setting up government institutions in areas under US control. He said the new organs could install Iraqis returning from exile under the tutelage of American civilians answerable to General Garner.
But his plan has been opposed even within the administration. Colin Powell is known to favour a military government established after victory is assured, prepared to nurture an Iraqi government centred around citizens resident in Iraq, rather than exiles sponsored by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon.
General Garner is already set to make his media debut in Kuwait tomorrow as the man whom the US has named to be Iraq's temporary post-war civilian administrator.
The US viceroy of the Southern region will be retired General Buck Walters; one of three governors slated to minister the new Iraqi provinces.
The others are General Bruce Moore in the largely Kurdish north and former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine based in Baghdad, governing the central region.
BS collection of the year
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/searc...by=lastpost&sortorder=descending&pagenumber=1
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/searc...by=lastpost&sortorder=descending&pagenumber=1
Quote from msfe:
BS collection of the year
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/searc...by=lastpost&sortorder=descending&pagenumber=1
Yo Wild,
Read 'em and weep.
Sucks being on the losing side all the time, doesn't it.
Gloom and doom ahead for the axis of weasels.
Bye-Bye oil contracts. Hello economic hell.
Quote from alfonso:
dgab, don't fall for Optional's bitter aspersions; he simply can't stomach that the fact my preference is to see an Iraqi military victory and that he failed completely to make a case that it was "wrong" for me to hold such a preference. At least you, yourself, as much as I disagree with you, have been prepared, it seems, to accept that others may hold opinions different to your own without your having villify them for it.
Well I do think that Optional made a reasoned case that your position is morally weak in certain respects.
I also feel you have made a someone merited case against the current use of US power, although I disagree.
Hoping for an outcome akin to Vietnam is not a well developed view in my opinion, and avoids current realities in favor of the emotional satisfaction many would derive from seeing the US get a "bitch slapping".
A strange part of the international debate is that the internal politics of Iraq is irrelevant, that the debate is being framed as one of a question of the legitimacy of the use of US power in this situation. The French faction have dismissed US national security concerns outright. They have opted for the status quo as it benefits French power in Europe and its economic power in the Middle East. Thier apple cart is overturned, and they fear, rightly so, that when the apple cart is turned back up, it will be empty for them. The French people may see warfare as an instrument of politics as an atavism, but the French business-political establishment rightly recognize that a new Iraq marginalizes the French in many ways. The Bush administration has framed the debate as one of vital national security issues of WMD and terrorism. I beleive the Bush administration is right, but that the concerns are imprecise (but how can you get precise with terrorists when nonpredictability is the MO?) and that WMD per se was not the casus belli for Bush. Their causes are complex.
Alfonso, they are winning, and they will win. A new age is upon us. You should now argue for a US policy in Iraq that is infused with the ideals of democracy and the freedoms of a liberal republic, respect for sanctity of human rights, the practice of rule of law. It would be a shame for you to gain orgasmic glee if Iraq were to self-destruct.
P.S. For the hardline antiliberal Rush Limboneheads out there, when I say "liberal republic" I mean a constitutional democracy with protections for free speech, free press, and due process with respect to life, liberty, and property.
The fight yet to come
-
Meanwhile, the Americans lay their plans regardless, with some controversial names emerging for the postwar government. Woolsey is a controversial figure, principally for his proximity to those who harbour fervent ideological commitment to unchallenged US power in the region and the world.
Speaking to a group of college students in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Woolsey described the war in Iraq as the onset of the 'Fourth World War' (the third being the Cold War), saying: 'This Fourth World War, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us.'
He claimed the new war faces three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the 'fascists' of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists such as al-Qaeda.
'As we move toward a new Middle East,' he said, 'over the years and, I think, over the decades to come...we will make a lot of people very nervous. Our response should be, "Good! We want you nervous. We want you to realise now, for the fourth time in 100 years, this country and its allies are on the march."'
Woolsey was a member of the Project for the New American Century, a forum that laid out plans for global, unchallenged American power. He now sits on the powerful Defence Policy Board, a hawkish semi-official ideological body that advises the Pentagon.
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/stor...,930769,00.html
http://www.newamericancentury.org/s...fprinciples.htm
Swiss side with UN on Iraq reconstruction
Concerns over the United States' role in post-war Iraq were heightened this week after Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said the US would take charge of the reconstruction.
http://www.nzz.ch/2003/04/06/english/page-synd1742098.html
Quote from alfonso:
I guess there must be a LOT of pretzels in the world -- especially Arab pretzels (and, gee, you'd think their opinion -- being as into democracy as you are -- might be just a tad more important than yours huh?) -- that feel exactly the same way.
alfonso,
Arab pretzels? To take the analogy a little bit further, there are no Arab pretzels. Remember, I said "to live in a democracy and then cheer for the totalitarian regime is hypocrisy". Since the only democracy in the Middle East is Israel that means no Arab lives in a democracy and therefore there can be no 'Arab pretzels'.
For some reason you remind me of the character Phillip Rearden in Atlas Shrugged. Ever read the book?