How the hell did Bush get back in??

Re: ?

I don't think I can answer your question Marie because I'm not in possesion of all the facts...any more than you or the rest of the world are.

By that I mean - we don't know what kind of negotiating went on behind the scenes. There are rumours that Saddam was communicating directly with the White House through intermediaries in the Middle East.

We also know that Bush offerred Saddam and his family the option to leave the country.

I'm pretty sure that if he'd taken that option he could have found sanctuary somewhere, given the ammounts of money he had embezzled from his people, which was safely salted away abroad no doubt.
Even Idi Amin managed to find someone to take him in (the Saudis...wonderful people).

But that wasn't in Saddams nature.
Maybe he actually thought the Americans would back down, or he could drag things out longer, or even that he could actually WIN a war against them.
Wrong on all counts.

Ultimately I guess the time for talking to Saddam was over. The decision had been made (right or wrong) that he was going down.

He had proved himself to be an able procrastinator up to then and I think the US had had enough of his faffing around.

The UN resolutions were toothless without US backing.

I'm sure Bush's personal animosity came into this too...I've already said so. Saddam laughed at Bush Snr from the safety of Baghdad when the Americans stopped at the Iraqi border in GW1. He even tried to have Bush Snr assasinated.
I guess it was partly personal too!

Thats where I part company from the decision to invade.

The US has been able in the past to 'influence' regime change in other countries. I'm thinking particularily of the way they encouraged a coup in the Chilean army, ousting (and killing) Salvador Allende and replacing him with Pinochet (the coup leader).
Whatever your opinion of that episode I think it would have been a better way to deal with Saddam.

I'm sure they tried. But it seems Saddam had a tighter grip on his army and his people than Allende had. Thats no surprise.

The world of international politics is a dirty one. The actions of the US in many cases (as with Chile) has been completely self centred and often hypocritical. But that is the natural state of nations. All nations act in their own national self interest - ALWAYS.

Anyone who thinks Britain, France, Germany or indeed Ireland always act 'fairly' or 'reasonably' on the international stage is just being sadly naiive. In the case of this country (a nominally neutral state) look at the governments decision to grant US warplanes landing rights at Shannon, against the will of a large part of the population, and arguably in contravention of our so called 'neutral' status.

The future round table talks that will finally smooth the road to democracy in Iraq would never have been possible with Saddam in power. He was a dictator, and had to go before any such outcome could be possible.

My method would have been different, thats all.
 
legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

Ultimately I guess the time for talking to Saddam was over. The decision had been made (right or wrong) that he was going down.

He had proved himself to be an able procrastinator up to then and I think the US had had enough of his faffing around.

The UN resolutions were toothless without US backing.

I'm sure Bush's personal animosity came into this too...I've already said so. Saddam laughed at Bush Snr from the safety of Baghdad when the Americans stopped at the Iraqi border in GW1. He even tried to have Bush Snr assasinated.
I guess it was partly personal too!

Asimov - now we're cooking! The above is far closer to the mark than anything posted on this thread so far and gets away from the myth being manufactured by the right wing in the USA that America is engaged in the moral crusade of "ridding the world of evil".

Iraq is just a convenient theatre of war - distant and "other" (not like US) in which personal and corporate dysfunction are played out.

The craziness is that actions based on the phantasies of Bush and Hussein (Bush as deluded, hubristic and ruthless as Hussein, Hussein as vulnerable to seeing things that are not there as Bush) are being carried out in theirs, yours and my name by people who are not deluded and not genocidal and the world has never been such a dangerous place.

Anyone who is not very afraid at this moment is either dead or hasn't understood the facts, because we are just at the beginning of this horror. Bush's public statement after the death of Arafat was that if he is offering Palestine his "help" to become "democratic" and if they don't accept this "help" he does not think they will get anywhere.

Is it paranoid to hear this as a threat? Or do I hear this as a threat because of what the USA is now about as it transforms into a totalitarian military state led by God's emissary on earth, George Bush? "God bless America" indeed! and god help the rest of the world!
 
Re: ?

Hmmm...thats a pretty apocalyptic vision of the future Marie. I hope you're wrong, for all our sakes.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

This is what happens when there is an imbalance of power. Maybe China might be a suitable replacement for the old USSR?

Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining. I won't have to worry about paying off the mortgage
 
An Alternative Scenario

An Alternative Scenario...The Palestinians elect a new president who is free of the Paisleyite stubborness of Arafat.

Peace talks are called by Bush and the suicide bombings and Intifada are halted.

Sharon continues his disengagement from Gaza. All land seized by Israel since 2000 (the Oslo Accord) is returned to the Palestinians.

The original peace deal is resurrected and the stumbling block of Jerusalem is dealt with by making it an Open City.

The Palestinians are given full autonomy again and they exercise this responsibly, clamping down on extremist elements.

In Iraq I don't see things going so well. I believe the current chaos is masking a virtual civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. I would lay money on the chance that it will split into three states, Kurdistan, Sunnistan, and Shiastan...or somesuch. I think it would be an excellent outcome too.
Divide and conquer!

After that, peace breaks out across the muslim world, all is happiness and light, Osama blows his brains out in frustration and Zarkawi gets beheaded by his landlord when he misses his third months rent.

Allahu Akhbar.
 
legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

Asimov - I love it! :lol
 
Re: An Alternative Scenario

As for John Simpson praising Al Jazeera, I've Googled for 10 minutes but can't find any such quotes from him. I'm sure you can provide a link?
Click to expand...
Asimov, can you please find my apparent quote where I said John Simpson praised Al Jazeera. I never said that!
No can do with the link. It is in one of his books.

So, anyone who has had been wronged in any way by America can not be unbiased?
Maybe you should read what he says before you push aside his comments.

Yes, Al Jazeera show the terrorist videos it receieves. I don't think it is right, but Arab television in general does show this stuff. Remember, without them, we would never see the pictures of the children in the hospitals or hear about the two markets being bombed by the Americans during the war and trying to blame the Iraqis.

What else in interesting is that when they showed the POWs, and interviewed them, the Americans claimed it was against the Geneva convention (it wasn't). When the American stationed showed the Iraqi soldiers being searched and handcuffed, or even humiliated in Alu Grabi prison, nothing is mentioned of that.
Now, I am not a fan of Al Jazeera, but I do think when you have one biased side of the equation, you need to have someone on the other to even it up. This station does that.
 
I just had a look at all those links you provided.
Did you actually read the texts you propose to defend your points with? They seem to run counter to your own argument!
Let me demonstrate:

Link - aka PiggyLink!
[broken link removed]

" News media reports last week that 50 percent of the weapons fired at Iraqi military installations missed their so-called aimpoints obscures a more disturbing facet of the Feb. 16 attack: The U.S. jets used cluster bombs that have no real aimpoint and that kill and wound innocent civilians for years to come....

... The 1,000 pound, 14-foot-long weapon carries 145 anti-armor and anti-personnel incendiary bomblets which disperse over an area that is approximately 100 feet long and 200 feet wide. In short, this weapon, which Quigley describes as a "long-range, precision-guided, stand-off weapon," rains down deadly bomblets on an area the size of a football field with six bombs falling in every 1,000 square feet. So much for precision....

... Already this month, there has been one Iraqi civilian death and nine injuries from unexploded cluster bomblets, presumably all left over from the 1991 Gulf War. On Feb. 20, Agence France Press (AFP) reported that a shepherd was wounded near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq when an unexploded bomblet detonated. On Feb. 15, Reuters said two Iraqi boys in western Iraq, also tending sheep, were injured by a cluster bomblet. On Feb. 9, AFP reported a child was killed and six others were wounded by sub-munitions near Basra....

... February, it seems, is a fairly typical month for cluster bombs inflicting damage on innocent civilians....

Link - aka PiggyLink
www.globalsecurity.org/or...iraq01.htm

""Most of the world understands that napalm and incendiaries are a horrible, horrible weapon," said Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility. "It takes up an awful lot of medical resources. It creates horrible wounds." Mr Musil said denial of its use "fits a pattern of deception [by the US administration]"

Depleted Uranium kills civilians.
[broken link removed]

"In this year's war on Iraq, the Pentagon used its radioactive arsenal mainly in the urban centers, rather than in desert battlefields as in 1991. Many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people and U.S. soldiers, along with British, Polish, Japanese and Dutch soldiers sent to join the occupation, will suffer the consequences. The real extent of injuries, chronic illness, long-term disabilities and genetic birth defects won't be apparent for five to 10 years...

...A LONG-TERM PROBLEM

The impact of tons of radioactive waste polluting major urban centers may seem a distant problem to Iraqis now trying to survive in the chaos of military occupation. They must cope with power outages during the intense heat of summer, door-to-door searches, arbitrary arrests, civilians routinely shot at roadblocks, outbreaks of cholera and dysentery from untreated water, untreated sewage and uncollected garbage, more than half the work force unemployed, and a lack of food-- which before the war was distributed by the Baathist regime.

But along with these current threats are long-range problems. Around the world a growing number of scientific organizations and studies have linked Gulf War Syndrome and the high rate of assorted and mysterious sicknesses to radiation poisoning from weapons made with depleted uranium....

...At a roadside vegetable stand selling fresh bunches of parsley, mint and onions outside Baghdad, children played on a burnt-out Iraqi tank. The reporter's Geiger counter registered nearly 1,000 times normal background radiation. The U.S. uses armor-piercing shells coated with DU to destroy tanks....

...U.S. POSITION: NO CLEAN-UP

While the U.K. has admitted that British Challenger tanks expended some 1.9 tons of DU ammunition during major combat operations in Iraq this year, the U.S. has refused to disclose specific information about whether and where it used DU during this yearcampaign. It also is refusing to let a team from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) study the environmental impact of DU contamination in Iraq.

If you want to understand DU more read this...
[broken link removed]
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

So, anyone who has had been wronged in any way by America can not be unbiased?
Click to expand...

No, I didn't say that. I wasn't in fact making a moral judgement of Simpsons motivations, just an observation of what they probably are. Your comment seems to infer you have no problem with him (or anyone) having such a bias...but the thing is, he's a journalist and you are getting your 'truths' from him.

As for Al Jazeera. You are right. The Western media rarely show footage of mutilated children. Its a matter of personal judgement whether you think that is
1) An intentional cover up, or
2) The Western medias usual reluctance to show the true horrors of war.

I would guess that most people on this site haven't seen one of those beheading videos either. Perhaps the Western media should show those too...as well as images of mutilated children.
Perhaps, in fact, it should be MANDATORY viewing for all.

I'm interested to hear your views on this.

I personally think that most people couldn't cope with either, because most people can't handle death in its most gruesome and pornographic form. There'd be uproar.
I also think that sawing some innocents head off with a blunt knife while they scream and drown on their own blood - is hardly a glorious revenge for the accidental deaths of civilian Iraqis. For me, its actually kind of counter-productive. It makes me want to see Fallujah (where these atrocities were carried out) bombed into brick dust.

Panorama showed a brilliant documentary last night on the genocide in Darfur.
Titled The New Killing Fields it showed first hand evidence of massacres of children, rapes and murder, forced eviction from the land and the starvation of the Darfur people by Arab militias supported directly by the Sudanese government and its army and airforce.

When the reporter went to the British government to ask why it hasn't intervened, a british politician stated that they couldn't - because the Sudanese government had called on the Jihadists of the muslim world to come and fight for Islam if the Brits or Yanks got involved.

We've heard it before, and nobody doubts its happening, right?

Wrong!

I had the opportunity to watch a lot of Al Jazeerra TV a few weeks back on a trip to SE Asia.
I was amazed at their take on the same story...they blamed the village farmers of Darfur for starting a rebellion against the Sudanese government, showed no evidence of atrocities against civilians, but spent lots of time focussing on the Sudanese governments attendance at 'peace talks' in Nigeria at which the 'rebels' were 'obstructive'.

So, thanks to Al Jazeera, the Non Western world sees Darfur as an uprising against the legitimate Sudanese government, and a cunning plot by The West to invade muslim lands!

They are every bit as biased as any western media when it comes to defending their own Muslim version of the facts.

Postscript:
U.S. Marines found the mutilated body of what appeared to be a Western woman Sunday in Falluja, according to The Associated Press. The woman could not be immediately identified, but British aid worker Margaret Hassan and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a Polish-born longtime resident of Iraq, are the only Western women known to have been taken hostage in Iraq.
The female body is reported to have been mutliated, arms legs and head cut off.
I hope the b***ards filmed THAT and handed it in to Al Jazeera.
They should show that on RTE at tea time.
Then we'd all know what we're dealing with.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

I would guess that most people on this site haven't seen one of those beheading videos either. Perhaps the Western media should show those too...as well as images of mutilated children.
Perhaps, in fact, it should be MANDATORY viewing for all.

I'm interested to hear your views on this.

I personally think that most people couldn't cope with either, because most people can't handle death in its most gruesome and pornographic form. There'd be uproar.

What flawed logic.
Didn't we witness the brutal truth of 911 - people jumping out of windows from hundreds of feet up.
If you were living in the Middle East and your neighbours were being blown to pieces you'd want to see that too - gruesome though it is.
What about the reporting of Vietnam? Was that not gruesome enough for us in the West?

Slapping the word pornographic in there doesn't alter the fact that there are good reasons why we don't show the real effects of this war. And they have little to do with taste. If they were happening on our doorstep we'd be shown the truth.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

Didn't we witness the brutal truth of 911 - people jumping out of windows from hundreds of feet up.

Oh sure! But did we see them hit the ground? Even the famous 9-11 documentary, done by a pair of French filmakers who were with the NYFD on the day, turned the camera away from the people burned by Jet fuel.

If you were living in the Middle East and your neighbours were being blown to pieces you'd want to see that too - gruesome though it is.

Yeah, and western hostages being decapitated...its great entertainment.

What about the reporting of Vietnam? Was that not gruesome enough for us in the West?

I'm not old enough to remember much of it, but what was shown on TV then is different to what we see in documentaries now...and even at that you still see only a sanitised version.

Slapping the word pornographic in there doesn't alter the fact that there are good reasons why we don't show the real effects of this war.

You are confused. On one hand you argue we're seeing it all (9-11, vietnam) and now you say we don't. Which is it. Pick an opinion and stick to it.

And they have little to do with taste. If they were happening on our doorstep we'd be shown the truth.

Really?? Do you think we were shown the truth of what was happening on our doorstep in NI?
On MY doorstep actually, because I saw it first hand, and I can tell you mate...you didn't see This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language.

Exactly what point are you trying to make in this sideshow?
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

Yeah...its great entertainment.

It has little to do with entertainment.

Slapping the word pornographic in there doesn't alter the fact that there are good reasons why we don't show the real effects of this war.

You are confused. On one hand you argue we're seeing it all (9-11, vietnam) and now you say we don't. Which is it. Pick an opinion and stick to it.

You misunderstood the point I was making.
The good reasons we aren't shown the real effects of this war is that people would have no stomach for this war if they saw the real effects of it. My point is very clear and it hasn't changed. Living in the West we get shock and awe - entire news programmes dedicated to the high tech weaponary used in the gulf. Virtually all of the news pre war and during the short lived war itself was focused on the soldiers and little to the civilians being blown to pieces.
But if the same war was happening here we'd have shown the (pornographic) reality of it.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"


And on Al Jazeera they get entire news programs dedicated to the inevitable civilian casualties of street to street fighting, but no focus at all on the atrocities being perpetrated on civilians in Darfur - because THAT is being done by Arabs.

This is all just pissing in the wind Piggy because, whether you like it or not, the Americans are not going to disengage from Iraq. They simply CANNOT, even if they secretly wanted to.

So, given the FACT that they are in it - like it or not - then they have to be in it to win.
Defeat is not an option this time.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

This is all just pissing in the wind Piggy because, whether you like it or not, the Americans are not going to disengage from Iraq. They simply CANNOT, even if they secretly wanted to.

So, given the FACT that they are in it - like it or not - then they have to be in it to win.
Defeat is not an option this time.

I fail to see what the above has to do with showing us the realities of the war but if you wish to end the discussion, so be it.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

The discussion was not about showing the horrors of war, it was about truth in the media. You always let the petty details distract you from the big picture Piggy. Thats why its useless arguing with you.
 
Whew! , you can really whip the crowd into a frenzy!<!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END-->Let's get one thing sorted. All that believe that the USA went after Iraq for control of it's oil, to the left. Those that differ, to the right.<!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END-->The scenario is now thus: someone (person, group, nation, trading block), is after something of yours, say oil, then the means to gain control of it are (in descending order of palatability)<!--EZCODE LIST START--><ul><li>purchase on the open market</li><li>establish a exclusive agreement</li><li>bribe some in high places in order to establish exclusive rights</li><li>extortion</li><li>threaten with financial sanctions</li><li>threaten with physical violence</li><li>resorting to violence</li></ul><!--EZCODE LIST END-->Our little competition here is to align your Socialist / Capitalist leanings with The List. Next, select your nation's action alongside The List. If your nation's point differs from yours, in the box provided, please reconcile -<!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END-->
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<!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END-->
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<!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END-->Question. What is the difference between America wanting to ensure a stable supply of oil to it's trading partners (using any method in The List) and Bertie Ahern "getting on his bike" to Washington in the event of John Kerry's election to preserve jobs in Ireland? Its all self-serving. Which conflicts deeply with the laissez faire view held by the majority of posters.<!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END--><!--EZCODE BR START--><!--EZCODE BR END-->Somewhere in the thread a salient point was expressed about a virtual civil war. IMNSHO this conjecture rings true. And like the Israel / Palestine conundrum, will continue indefinitely. Saddam, through brutality and fear, succeeded in repressing his tribe's eternal enemies. No number of elections, free or faux, will replace the peace of tyranny.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

The discussion was not about showing the horrors of war, it was about truth in the media. You always let the petty details distract you from the big picture Piggy. Thats why its useless arguing with you.

Actually, showing the true horror of this war and truth in the media are very closely tied together I would have thought.

As for it being useless arguing with me, I sense that this is your opinion Asimov because you don't agree with me on many points and obviously (given your recent childish outbursts) harbour some deep resentment towards me.
 
Re: legitimate leadership, war "terrorism"

Actually, showing the true horror of this war and truth in the media are very closely tied together I would have thought.
Click to expand...

No doubt Piggy, but when you reduce it to a debate about how much guts gets shown on TV it begins to get ridiculous.

Talk to me about the Big Picture.
Talk to me about Darfur.
 

If anyone does want to see such videos, they can see them here:
www.ogrish.com/index.php?include=special_members.php

WARNING: THEY ARE HORRENDOUS.
You have to pay to see most of them.

Doesn't make what America is doing in Iraq any more palatable.
 
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