POLL: The repercussions of a US attack on Iraq

[skeptic123]

Quote from msfe:


It was a summit of the two great strategic partners, America and Bulgaria.

Bulgaria?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/26/opinion/26DOWD.html

"Is this a good trade, the French for the Bulgarians?" the article wonders.

Bulgaria is of course a very small country, very little known about it. Here is just one fact which unfortunately not widely known about Bulgaria but I think it may help answer the question the article poses.

Bulgaria was one of only two countries in the world which during holocaust saved all of its jewish community (48,000 people) from Nazi concentration camps and death. Incidentally the second country was Denmark - one of very few European countries were public opinion is in favor of USA policy regarding Iraq.

'President Stoyanov expressed gratitude for the honor, but referring to his country’s courage stated, "What happened then should not be seen as a miracle. My nation did what any decent nation, human being, man or woman, would have done in those circumstances." He talked of Bulgaria’s major contribution to World War II – that Bulgaria saved its Jews ...'
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/3099-52.asp

Compare it with the french record. I am sure you remember your own quote in another thread:

Quote from msfe:


In all, 75,000 Jews were deported from France during the war, most of them seized by French policemen. Only a couple thousand returned.

http://www.amgot.org/weisbern.htm

"My nation did what any decent nation...." said Bulgarian president. Or course nobody would use the word "decent" in the sentence where France is mentioned.

So, "Is this a good trade, the French for the Bulgarians?". Small country with huge spirit vs big country with huge ego and no spirit? Tough choice huh?

 

[msfe]

03] THE HOLOCAUST OF THE JEWS IN EASTERN MACEDONIA AND THRACE

Thessaloniki, 26 January 2000 (18:36 UTC+2)

Thessaloniki's Jewish Community is opposed to the demand expressed by Bulgaria requesting to be rewarded because it saved the Jews during WWII.

Bulgaria, said the Jewish Community president Andreas Sefiha, maintains that it saved the Jews living on its territory but it conceals the fact that it handed over to the Germans 96-99% of the Jews living in the regions of eastern Macedonia and Thrace which were held by the Bulgarians who were collaborators of the nazis.

According to figures provided by the Jewish community, the Bulgarians handed over 5.151 Jews to the Germans. Specifically, the Jewish population before WWII was 2.100 in Kavala, 1.200 in Drama, 600 in Serres, 819 in Komotini and 550 in Xanthi. After the war the Jews left were 42 in Kavala with a decline of 98%, 39 in Drama (-97%), 3 in Serres (-99%), 28 in Komotini (-96%) and 6 in Xanthi (-99%).

The Greek delegation that will attend the international conference on the Holocaust which opens in Stockholm today will also express its opposition to Bulgaria's demand.

Mr. Sefiha stated that Bulgaria can not be compared for example to Denmark that saved the Jews and its King was the first to wear the Star of David. He said that Thessaloniki's Jewish community shares the same position with the Greek foreign ministry and is opposed to the rewarding of Bulgaria.



Deportation of Macedonian Jews to death camps in Poland

In WWII, Bulgaria annexed the territory of Greek Macedonia. During 1943, following an official and sovereign agreement signed with the Nazis, the Bulgarians deported all Macedonian Jews to extermination camps in occupied Poland. Most Jews were gassed as soon as they arrived at the camps and of those "selected" for forced labor, very few survived.

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg17/pg0/pg17056.html

 

[max401]

Quote from msfe:

03] THE HOLOCAUST OF THE JEWS IN EASTERN MACEDONIA AND THRACE

Thessaloniki, 26 January 2000 (18:36 UTC+2)

Thessaloniki's Jewish Community is opposed to the demand expressed by Bulgaria requesting to be rewarded because it saved the Jews during WWII.

Bulgaria, said the Jewish Community president Andreas Sefiha, maintains that it saved the Jews living on its territory but it conceals the fact that it handed over to the Germans 96-99% of the Jews living in the regions of eastern Macedonia and Thrace which were held by the Bulgarians who were collaborators of the nazis.

According to figures provided by the Jewish community, the Bulgarians handed over 5.151 Jews to the Germans. Specifically, the Jewish population before WWII was 2.100 in Kavala, 1.200 in Drama, 600 in Serres, 819 in Komotini and 550 in Xanthi. After the war the Jews left were 42 in Kavala with a decline of 98%, 39 in Drama (-97%), 3 in Serres (-99%), 28 in Komotini (-96%) and 6 in Xanthi (-99%).

The Greek delegation that will attend the international conference on the Holocaust which opens in Stockholm today will also express its opposition to Bulgaria's demand.

Mr. Sefiha stated that Bulgaria can not be compared for example to Denmark that saved the Jews and its King was the first to wear the Star of David. He said that Thessaloniki's Jewish community shares the same position with the Greek foreign ministry and is opposed to the rewarding of Bulgaria.



Deportation of Macedonian Jews to death camps in Poland

In WWII, Bulgaria annexed the territory of Greek Macedonia. During 1943, following an official and sovereign agreement signed with the Nazis, the Bulgarians deported all Macedonian Jews to extermination camps in occupied Poland. Most Jews were gassed as soon as they arrived at the camps and of those "selected" for forced labor, very few survived.

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg17/pg0/pg17056.html

Fact is 1. Your history lesson means nothing and 2. In your lame attempt to denigrate Bulgaria, you miss the boat with your namby pamby cut & paste. The truth of the matter is worse; Bulgaria, except for refusal to send troops to the Eastern front, was a full fledged member of the Axis. You can find this info on the link you posted.

 

[hapaboy]

Interesting commentary from an Iraqi-American born and raised in Iraq:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0226/p11s02-coop.html

Excerpt:

Will you question why Hussein builds lavish palaces while his people are suffering? Or will you simply blame it all on UN sanctions and US "hegemony?"

Will you decry the hypocritical oil and arms commerce of France, Germany, Russia, and China with the butcher of Baghdad? Or are you only against US interests in Iraqi oil?

Will you expose ethnic cleansing of native Iraqi non-Arabs (Kurds, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Turkomens), non-Sunni-Muslims (Shiite), and non-Muslims (Christians, Mandaens, Yezidis)? Or are these not equivalent to the cleansing of Bosnians and Kosovars?

Will you show concern about the brutal silencing of the "Iraqi street"? Or are you only worried about the orchestrated noises of "Arab and Islamist streets" outside Iraq?

Will you hear the cries of Iraqis executed in acid tanks in Baghdad? the Iraqi women raped in front of their husbands and fathers to extract confessions? Or of children tortured in front of their parents? Or of families billed for the bullets used to execute military "deserters" in front of their own homes?

You all should be proud. Your protests are so ..... noble.

 

[msfe]

max401:`In your lame attempt to denigrate Bulgaria, you miss the boat with your namby pamby cut & paste.´

to make myself clear: i am neither Maureen Dowd, the author of the NYT article that so lamely attempts to denigrate Bulgaria nor am i in any way personally connected to the Simon Wiesenthal Center

http://www.wiesenthal.com/

 

[max401]

Quote from msfe:

max401:`In your lame attempt to denigrate Bulgaria, you miss the boat with your namby pamby cut & paste.´

to make myself clear: i am neither Maureen Dowd, the author of the NYT article that so lamely attempts to denigrate Bulgaria nor am i in any way personally connected to the Simon Wiesenthal Center

http://www.wiesenthal.com/

So, it was a phantom cut & paster that hijacked your alias?

Suggest you read "The Immutable Laws of Maureen Dowd"
A guide to reading the New York Times columnist.
by Josh Chafetz

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/741snfel.asp

It's a blueprint on how the liberal left operates.

Excerpt:

Or consider her August 21 column about a meeting of top officials at Bush's ranch. Her analysis here consists of breaking the world into two opposing camps: the "Whack-Iraq tribe" and the "Pesky Questions tribe." The former includes "Rummy, . . . W., Cheney, Condi, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle." The latter includes "Mr. Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Wesley Clark." How subtle--only the ones she doesn't like get nicknames. The reason that the "Whack-Iraq'ers" are so "gung-ho" is that "the Cheney-Rummy-Condi Axis of Anti-Evil believes in unilateralism so fervently." It's just a character trait, see? They must have a multilateral fiber deficiency.

In any case, it can't be because they think that Iraq poses a serious and immediate threat. We know that, because in her column on the opposing camps in the Iraq debate, Dowd doesn't see fit actually to discuss Iraq at all. What bearing could that have on the debate? Likewise, in the "alpha girls" column, Dowd never considers that there could be sound reasons of state for snubbing Germany--for instance, a "forgive and forget" policy might encourage politicians in other countries to pander to crude anti-Americanism, a pandering that would have the effect of reinforcing and strengthening the sentiment among the general population. But let no such considerations emerge from Dowd's pen: The First Law forbids them.

THE SECOND IMMUTABLE LAW OF DOWD: It's easier to whine than to take a stand or offer solutions. Consider this: In her many columns to date lobbing stinkbombs at the "Whack-Iraq'ers," she has yet to come out and say that she opposes war in Iraq. The reason, presumably, is that she would then have to actually confront and argue against the administration's reasons for attacking Iraq. Instead, she offers this commentary on Bush's U.N. address (from her September 15 column): "But there was no compelling new evidence. Mr. Bush offered only an unusually comprehensive version of the usual laundry list. Saddam is violating the sanctions, he tried to assassinate Poppy, he's late on his mortgage payments, he tips 10 percent, he has an unjustifiable fondness for 'My Way,' he gassed his own people, he doesn't turn down the front brim of his hat."

When confronted with a passage like that, it's hard to know where to begin, but we must be brave. First, notice how she trivializes not only Saddam's violation of U.N. sanctions but even the massacre at Halabja, by including them on "the usual laundry list" along with a joke about being a stingy tipper. Second, notice how she leaves out a few of the more important "laundry list" items--like the fact that Saddam continues to stockpile and build weapons of mass destruction and the fact that he funds terrorism. Finally, observe that she tells us there is "no compelling new evidence" without telling us why the old evidence--"the usual laundry list"--is insufficient. To do that would require considering policy arguments and offering alternative ways to combat Saddam's litany of abuses. Into such territory, Dowd is loath to stray.

 

[max401]

Where are they now:

Notable Quotes from the Left:

What were these Liberal Dems thinking when they made these blasphemous quotes?

Tom Daschle was ablaze with war fever. Daschle said: "This is a time to send Saddam Hussein as clear a message as we know how to send that we will not tolerate the broken promises and the tremendous acceleration of development of weapons that we've seen time and time again in Iraq."

Madeleine Albright said: "Month after month, we have given Iraq chance after chance to move from confrontation to cooperation, and we have explored and exhausted every diplomatic action. We will see now whether force can persuade Iraq's misguided leaders to reverse course and to accept at long last the need to abide by the rule of law and the will of the world.

 

[msfe]

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation

he following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.
-
The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?
-


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/international/27WEB-TNAT.html

 

[OPTIONAL777]

Quote from msfe:

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation

he following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.
-
The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?
-


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/international/27WEB-TNAT.html

So we have a "Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy Athens" resign. Big whoops.

What rank is "political counselor" anyway? How did a private letter of resignation end up at the New York Times? So the guy has his own political agenda, who cares? It doesn't mean he is right, just that he lives in a country where he is free to do what he wants.

That is one resignation out of how many "Political Counselors" in our foreign service corps? I imagine if the adminsitration wanted to they could publish hundreds of letters written by higher ranking senior diplomats indicative of their approval of the adminstration's policies. Would that mean that the administration is right, because more people support the policy than those who don't support it?

Do you think we would ever see a similar letter of resignation from a diplomat serving under Saddam's regime?

No, he would be executed.

 

[max401]

Quote from msfe:

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation

he following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.
-
The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?
-


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/international/27WEB-TNAT.html

Good riddance. I wonder of ol' Khalid Sheik Mohammed will throw some light on the Iraqi-bin Laden connection. Mr. Kiesling may see his face covered with egg.