Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Robert Fisk: Secret slaughter by night. 1000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every week!
In the suburbs of Baghdad and the Sunni cities to the north the American military policy of 'recon-by-fire' and the breakdown of law and order is exacting a heavy toll on a war-torn people, reports Robert Fisk in his first major dispatch since returning to Iraq.
Secret slaughter by night, lies and blind eyes by day
14 September 2003
In the Pentagon, they've been re-showing Gillo Pontecorvo's terrifying 1965 film of the French war in Algeria. The Battle of Algiers, in black and white, showed what happened to both the guerrillas of the FLN and the French army when their war turned dirty. Torture, assassination, booby-trap bombs, secret executions. As the New York Times revealed, the fliers sent out to the Pentagon brass to watch this magnificent, painful film began with the words: "How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas..." But the Americans didn't need to watch The Battle of Algiers.
They've already committed many of the French mistakes in Iraq, and the guerrillas of Iraq are well into the blood tide of the old FLN. Sixteen demonstrators killed in Fallujah? Forget it. Twelve gunned down by the Americans in Mosul? Old news. Ten Iraqi policemen shot by US troops outside Fallujah? "No information," the occupation authorities told us last week. No information? The Jordanian embassy bombing? The bombing of the UN headquarters? Or Najaf with its 126 dead? Forget it. Things are improving in Iraq. There's been 24-hour electricity for three days now and - until two US soldiers were killed on Friday - there had been five days without an American death.
That's how the French used to report the news from Algeria. What you don't know doesn't worry you. Which is why, in Iraq, there are thousands of incidents of violence that never get reported; attacks on Americans that cost civilian lives are not even recorded by the occupation authority press officers unless they involve loss of life among "coalition forces". Go to the mortuaries of Iraq's cities and it's clear that a slaughter occurs each night. Occupation powers insist that journalists obtain clearance to visit hospitals - it can take a week to get the right papers, if at all, so goodbye to statistics - but the figures coming from senior doctors tell their own story.
In Baghdad, up to 70 corpses - of Iraqis killed by gunfire - are brought to the mortuaries each day. In Najaf, for example, the cemetery authorities record the arrival of the bodies of up to 20 victims of violence a day. Some of the dead were killed in family feuds, in looting, or revenge killings. Others have been gunned down by US troops at checkpoints or in the increasingly vicious "raids" carried out by American forces in the suburbs of Baghdad and the Sunni cities to the north. Only last week, reporters covering the killing of the Fallujah policemen were astonished to see badly wounded children suddenly arriving at the hospital, all shot - according to their families - by an American tank which had opened up at a palm grove outside the town. As usual, the occupation authorities had "no information" on the incident.
But if you count the Najaf dead as typical of just two or three other major cities, and if you add on the daily Baghdad death toll and multiply by seven, almost 1,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every week - and that may well be a conservative figure. Somewhere in the cavernous marble halls of proconsul Paul Bremer's palace on the Tigris, someone must be calculating these awful statistics. But of course, the Americans are not telling us. It's like listening to Iraq's American-run radio station. Death - unless it's on a spectacular scale like the Jordanian or UN or Najaf bombings - simply doesn't get on the air. Even the killing of American troops isn't reported for 24 hours. Driving the highways of Iraq, I've been reduced to listening to the only radio station with up-to-date news on the guerrilla war in Iraq: Iran's "Alam Radio", broadcasting in Arabic from Tehran.
It's as if the denizens of Mr Bremer's chandeliered chambers do not regard Iraq as a real country, a place of tragedy and despair whose "liberated" people increasingly blame their "liberators" for their misery. Even when US troops on a raid in Mansour six weeks ago ran amok and gunned down up to eight civilians - including a 14-year-old boy - the best the Americans could do was to say that they were "enquiring" into the incident. Not, as one US colonel quickly pointed out to us, that this meant a formal enquiry. Just a few questions here and there. And of course the killings were soon forgotten.
What is happening inside the US occupation army is almost as much a mystery as the nightly cull of civilians. My old friend Tom Friedman, in a break from his role as messianic commentator for the New York Times, put his finger on the problem when - arranging a meeting with an occupation official -- he reported asking an American soldier at a bridge checkpoint for his location. "The enemy side of the bridge," came the reply.
Enemy. That's how the French came to see every native Algerian. Talk to the soldiers in the streets here in Baghdad and they use obscene language - in between heartfelt demands to "go home" - about the people they were supposedly rescuing from Saddam Hussein. A Polish journalist in Karbala saw just how easily human contact can break down. "The American guards are greeting passers-by with a loud 'Salaam aleikum' [peace be with you]. Some young Iraqi boys with a donkey and cart say something in Arabic and suddenly, together, they run their fingers across their throats.
"'Motherfucker!" shout the Marines, before their translator explains to them that the boys are just expressing their happiness at the death of Saddam Hussein's sons ..." Though light years from the atrocities of Saddam's security forces, the US military here is turning out to be as badly disciplined and brutal as the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Its "recon-by-fire", its lethal raids into civilian homes, its shooting of demonstrators and children during fire-fights, its destruction of houses, its imprisonment of thousands of Iraqis without trial or contact with their families, its refusal to investigate killings, its harassment - and killing - of journalists, its constant refrain that it has "no information" about bloody incidents which it must know all too much about, are sounding like an echo-chamber of the Israeli army.
Worse still, their intelligence information is still as warped by ideology as was the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Having failed to receive the welcome deserved of "liberators", the Americans have to convince themselves that their tormentors - save for the famous Saddam "remnants" - cannot be Iraqis at all. They must be members of "al-Qa'ida", Islamists arriving from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan ... Among its 1,000 "security" prisoners at Baghdad airport - the total number of detainees held without trial in Iraq is around 5,500 - about 200 are said to be "foreigners". But in many cases, US intelligence cannot even discover their nationalities and some may well have been in Iraq since Saddam invited Arabs to defend Baghdad before the invasion.
In reality, no one has produced a shred of evidence al-Qa'ida men are streaming into the country. Not a single sighting has been reported of these mysterious men, save for the presence of armed Iranians outside the shrines of Najaf after last month's bombing. Yet President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld have talked up their supposed presence to the point where the usual right-wing columnists in the US press and then reporters in general write of them as a proven fact. With powerful irony, Osama bin Laden's ominous 11 September tape suggests that he is as anxious to get his men into Iraq as the Americans are to believe that they are already there.
In practice, fantasy takes over from reality. Thus while the Americans can claim they are being assaulted by "foreigners" - the infamous men of evil against whom Mr Bush is fighting his "war on terror" - they can equally suggest that the suicide bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad was the work of the Iraqi security guards whom the UN had kept on from the Saddam regime. Whatever the truth of this - and the suicidal expertise of the UN attack might suggest a combination of both Baathists and Islamists - the message was simple enough: Americans are attacked by "international terrorists" but the wimps of the UN are attacked by the same Iraqi killers they helped to protect through so many years of sanction-busting.
There are foreign men and women aplenty in Baghdad - Americans and Britons prominent among them - who work hard to bring about the false promises uttered by Messrs Bush and Blair to create a decent, democratic Iraqi society. One of them is Chris Woolford, whose account of life in Bremer's marble palace appeared only in the internal newsletter of the UK regulatory Office of Telecommunications, for whom he normally works. Mr Woolford insists that there are signs of hope in Iraq - the payment of emergency salaries to civil servants, for example, and the reopening of schools and administrative offices.
But it's worth recording at length his revealing description of life under Bremer. "Life in Baghdad can only be described as bizarre," he writes. "We are based within a huge compound... in Sadam (sic) Hussein's former Presidential Palace. The place is awash with vast marble ballrooms, conference rooms (now used as a dining room), a chapel (with murals of Scud missiles) and hundreds of function rooms with ornate chandeliers which were probably great for entertaining but which function less well as offices and dormitories ... I work in the 'Ministries' wing of the palace in the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Within this wing, each door along the corridor represents a separate ministry; next door to us, for example, is the Ministry of Health and directly across the corridor is the Finance Ministry. Behind each door military and civilian coalition members (mainly American with the odd Brit dotted about) are beavering away trying to sort out the economic, social and political issues currently facing Iraq. The work is undoubtedly for a good cause but it cannot but help feel strange as our contact with the outside world - the real Iraq - is so limited." Mr Woolford describes how meetings with his Iraqi counterparts are difficult to arrange and, besides, "key decisions are still very much taken behind the closed doors of the CPA (the Coalition Provisional Authority), or for the most significant decisions, back in Washington DC". So much, then, for the interim council and the appointed Iraqi "government" that supposedly represents the forthcoming "democracy" of Iraq. As for contacting his Iraqi counterparts, Mr Woolford admits that Iraqi officials are sometimes asked to "stand outside in their garden between 7pm and 8pm so that we can ring them on satellite phones" - a process that is followed by the departure of CPA staff for their meeting with "bullet-proof vests and machine-gun mounted Humvees (a sort of beefed-up American Jeep) both in front and behind our own four-wheel drive..." Thus are America and Britain attempting to "reconstruct" a broken land that is now the scene of an increasingly cruel guerrilla war. But there is a pervading feeling - among Iraqis as well as journalists covering this conflict - that something is wrong with our Western response to New Iraq. Our lives are more valuable than their lives. The "terrible toll" of the summer months - a phrase from a New York Times news report last week - referred only to the deaths of Western soldiers.
What is becoming apparent is that we don't really care about the Iraqis. We may think we want to bring them democracy but, on an individual level, we don't care very much about them or their lives. We liberated them. They should be grateful to us. If they die now, well, no one said democracy was easy.
Donald Rumsfeld - who raged away about weapons of mass destruction before the invasion - now admits he didn't even discuss WMD with David Kay, the head of the US-led team looking for these mythical weapons, on his recent visit to Baghdad. Of course not. Because they don't exist. Mr Rumsfeld is equally silent about the civilian death toll here. It's the followers of his nemesis Bin Laden that now have to be publicised.
Bin Laden must be grateful. So must the Palestinians. In the refugee camps of Lebanon last week, they were talking of the events in Iraq as a form of encouragement. "If Israel's superpower ally can be humbled by Arabs," a Palestinian official explained to me in one of the Beirut camps, "why should we give up our struggle against the Israelis who cannot be as efficient soldiers as the Americans?" That's the lesson the Algerians drew when they saw France's mighty army reduced to surrender at Dien Bien Phu. The French, like the Americans, had succeeded in murdering or "liquidating" many of the Algerians who might have negotiated a ceasefire with them. The search for an interlocuteur valable was one of de Gaulle's most difficult tasks when he decided to leave Algeria. But what will the Americans do? Their interlocuteur valable might have been the United Nations. But now the UN has been struck off as a negotiator by the suicide bombing in Baghdad. And the Bin Ladens and the adherents of the Wahabi sect are not interested in negotiations of any kind. Mr Bush declared "war without end". And it looks as though Iraqis - along with ourselves -- are going to be its principal victims.
14 September 2003
In the Pentagon, they've been re-showing Gillo Pontecorvo's terrifying 1965 film of the French war in Algeria. The Battle of Algiers, in black and white, showed what happened to both the guerrillas of the FLN and the French army when their war turned dirty. Torture, assassination, booby-trap bombs, secret executions. As the New York Times revealed, the fliers sent out to the Pentagon brass to watch this magnificent, painful film began with the words: "How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas..." But the Americans didn't need to watch The Battle of Algiers.
They've already committed many of the French mistakes in Iraq, and the guerrillas of Iraq are well into the blood tide of the old FLN. Sixteen demonstrators killed in Fallujah? Forget it. Twelve gunned down by the Americans in Mosul? Old news. Ten Iraqi policemen shot by US troops outside Fallujah? "No information," the occupation authorities told us last week. No information? The Jordanian embassy bombing? The bombing of the UN headquarters? Or Najaf with its 126 dead? Forget it. Things are improving in Iraq. There's been 24-hour electricity for three days now and - until two US soldiers were killed on Friday - there had been five days without an American death.
That's how the French used to report the news from Algeria. What you don't know doesn't worry you. Which is why, in Iraq, there are thousands of incidents of violence that never get reported; attacks on Americans that cost civilian lives are not even recorded by the occupation authority press officers unless they involve loss of life among "coalition forces". Go to the mortuaries of Iraq's cities and it's clear that a slaughter occurs each night. Occupation powers insist that journalists obtain clearance to visit hospitals - it can take a week to get the right papers, if at all, so goodbye to statistics - but the figures coming from senior doctors tell their own story.
In Baghdad, up to 70 corpses - of Iraqis killed by gunfire - are brought to the mortuaries each day. In Najaf, for example, the cemetery authorities record the arrival of the bodies of up to 20 victims of violence a day. Some of the dead were killed in family feuds, in looting, or revenge killings. Others have been gunned down by US troops at checkpoints or in the increasingly vicious "raids" carried out by American forces in the suburbs of Baghdad and the Sunni cities to the north. Only last week, reporters covering the killing of the Fallujah policemen were astonished to see badly wounded children suddenly arriving at the hospital, all shot - according to their families - by an American tank which had opened up at a palm grove outside the town. As usual, the occupation authorities had "no information" on the incident.
But if you count the Najaf dead as typical of just two or three other major cities, and if you add on the daily Baghdad death toll and multiply by seven, almost 1,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every week - and that may well be a conservative figure. Somewhere in the cavernous marble halls of proconsul Paul Bremer's palace on the Tigris, someone must be calculating these awful statistics. But of course, the Americans are not telling us. It's like listening to Iraq's American-run radio station. Death - unless it's on a spectacular scale like the Jordanian or UN or Najaf bombings - simply doesn't get on the air. Even the killing of American troops isn't reported for 24 hours. Driving the highways of Iraq, I've been reduced to listening to the only radio station with up-to-date news on the guerrilla war in Iraq: Iran's "Alam Radio", broadcasting in Arabic from Tehran.
It's as if the denizens of Mr Bremer's chandeliered chambers do not regard Iraq as a real country, a place of tragedy and despair whose "liberated" people increasingly blame their "liberators" for their misery. Even when US troops on a raid in Mansour six weeks ago ran amok and gunned down up to eight civilians - including a 14-year-old boy - the best the Americans could do was to say that they were "enquiring" into the incident. Not, as one US colonel quickly pointed out to us, that this meant a formal enquiry. Just a few questions here and there. And of course the killings were soon forgotten.
What is happening inside the US occupation army is almost as much a mystery as the nightly cull of civilians. My old friend Tom Friedman, in a break from his role as messianic commentator for the New York Times, put his finger on the problem when - arranging a meeting with an occupation official -- he reported asking an American soldier at a bridge checkpoint for his location. "The enemy side of the bridge," came the reply.
Enemy. That's how the French came to see every native Algerian. Talk to the soldiers in the streets here in Baghdad and they use obscene language - in between heartfelt demands to "go home" - about the people they were supposedly rescuing from Saddam Hussein. A Polish journalist in Karbala saw just how easily human contact can break down. "The American guards are greeting passers-by with a loud 'Salaam aleikum' [peace be with you]. Some young Iraqi boys with a donkey and cart say something in Arabic and suddenly, together, they run their fingers across their throats.
"'Motherfucker!" shout the Marines, before their translator explains to them that the boys are just expressing their happiness at the death of Saddam Hussein's sons ..." Though light years from the atrocities of Saddam's security forces, the US military here is turning out to be as badly disciplined and brutal as the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Its "recon-by-fire", its lethal raids into civilian homes, its shooting of demonstrators and children during fire-fights, its destruction of houses, its imprisonment of thousands of Iraqis without trial or contact with their families, its refusal to investigate killings, its harassment - and killing - of journalists, its constant refrain that it has "no information" about bloody incidents which it must know all too much about, are sounding like an echo-chamber of the Israeli army.
Worse still, their intelligence information is still as warped by ideology as was the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Having failed to receive the welcome deserved of "liberators", the Americans have to convince themselves that their tormentors - save for the famous Saddam "remnants" - cannot be Iraqis at all. They must be members of "al-Qa'ida", Islamists arriving from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan ... Among its 1,000 "security" prisoners at Baghdad airport - the total number of detainees held without trial in Iraq is around 5,500 - about 200 are said to be "foreigners". But in many cases, US intelligence cannot even discover their nationalities and some may well have been in Iraq since Saddam invited Arabs to defend Baghdad before the invasion.
In reality, no one has produced a shred of evidence al-Qa'ida men are streaming into the country. Not a single sighting has been reported of these mysterious men, save for the presence of armed Iranians outside the shrines of Najaf after last month's bombing. Yet President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld have talked up their supposed presence to the point where the usual right-wing columnists in the US press and then reporters in general write of them as a proven fact. With powerful irony, Osama bin Laden's ominous 11 September tape suggests that he is as anxious to get his men into Iraq as the Americans are to believe that they are already there.
In practice, fantasy takes over from reality. Thus while the Americans can claim they are being assaulted by "foreigners" - the infamous men of evil against whom Mr Bush is fighting his "war on terror" - they can equally suggest that the suicide bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad was the work of the Iraqi security guards whom the UN had kept on from the Saddam regime. Whatever the truth of this - and the suicidal expertise of the UN attack might suggest a combination of both Baathists and Islamists - the message was simple enough: Americans are attacked by "international terrorists" but the wimps of the UN are attacked by the same Iraqi killers they helped to protect through so many years of sanction-busting.
There are foreign men and women aplenty in Baghdad - Americans and Britons prominent among them - who work hard to bring about the false promises uttered by Messrs Bush and Blair to create a decent, democratic Iraqi society. One of them is Chris Woolford, whose account of life in Bremer's marble palace appeared only in the internal newsletter of the UK regulatory Office of Telecommunications, for whom he normally works. Mr Woolford insists that there are signs of hope in Iraq - the payment of emergency salaries to civil servants, for example, and the reopening of schools and administrative offices.
But it's worth recording at length his revealing description of life under Bremer. "Life in Baghdad can only be described as bizarre," he writes. "We are based within a huge compound... in Sadam (sic) Hussein's former Presidential Palace. The place is awash with vast marble ballrooms, conference rooms (now used as a dining room), a chapel (with murals of Scud missiles) and hundreds of function rooms with ornate chandeliers which were probably great for entertaining but which function less well as offices and dormitories ... I work in the 'Ministries' wing of the palace in the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Within this wing, each door along the corridor represents a separate ministry; next door to us, for example, is the Ministry of Health and directly across the corridor is the Finance Ministry. Behind each door military and civilian coalition members (mainly American with the odd Brit dotted about) are beavering away trying to sort out the economic, social and political issues currently facing Iraq. The work is undoubtedly for a good cause but it cannot but help feel strange as our contact with the outside world - the real Iraq - is so limited." Mr Woolford describes how meetings with his Iraqi counterparts are difficult to arrange and, besides, "key decisions are still very much taken behind the closed doors of the CPA (the Coalition Provisional Authority), or for the most significant decisions, back in Washington DC". So much, then, for the interim council and the appointed Iraqi "government" that supposedly represents the forthcoming "democracy" of Iraq. As for contacting his Iraqi counterparts, Mr Woolford admits that Iraqi officials are sometimes asked to "stand outside in their garden between 7pm and 8pm so that we can ring them on satellite phones" - a process that is followed by the departure of CPA staff for their meeting with "bullet-proof vests and machine-gun mounted Humvees (a sort of beefed-up American Jeep) both in front and behind our own four-wheel drive..." Thus are America and Britain attempting to "reconstruct" a broken land that is now the scene of an increasingly cruel guerrilla war. But there is a pervading feeling - among Iraqis as well as journalists covering this conflict - that something is wrong with our Western response to New Iraq. Our lives are more valuable than their lives. The "terrible toll" of the summer months - a phrase from a New York Times news report last week - referred only to the deaths of Western soldiers.
What is becoming apparent is that we don't really care about the Iraqis. We may think we want to bring them democracy but, on an individual level, we don't care very much about them or their lives. We liberated them. They should be grateful to us. If they die now, well, no one said democracy was easy.
Donald Rumsfeld - who raged away about weapons of mass destruction before the invasion - now admits he didn't even discuss WMD with David Kay, the head of the US-led team looking for these mythical weapons, on his recent visit to Baghdad. Of course not. Because they don't exist. Mr Rumsfeld is equally silent about the civilian death toll here. It's the followers of his nemesis Bin Laden that now have to be publicised.
Bin Laden must be grateful. So must the Palestinians. In the refugee camps of Lebanon last week, they were talking of the events in Iraq as a form of encouragement. "If Israel's superpower ally can be humbled by Arabs," a Palestinian official explained to me in one of the Beirut camps, "why should we give up our struggle against the Israelis who cannot be as efficient soldiers as the Americans?" That's the lesson the Algerians drew when they saw France's mighty army reduced to surrender at Dien Bien Phu. The French, like the Americans, had succeeded in murdering or "liquidating" many of the Algerians who might have negotiated a ceasefire with them. The search for an interlocuteur valable was one of de Gaulle's most difficult tasks when he decided to leave Algeria. But what will the Americans do? Their interlocuteur valable might have been the United Nations. But now the UN has been struck off as a negotiator by the suicide bombing in Baghdad. And the Bin Ladens and the adherents of the Wahabi sect are not interested in negotiations of any kind. Mr Bush declared "war without end". And it looks as though Iraqis - along with ourselves -- are going to be its principal victims.
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
up to the top
During the attack on Iraq, my only news sources were Robert Fisk's daily dispatches from Bagdad on his website , interspersed with our night time boardcast on CBC Newsworld. I watched no "briefings", no US media accounts of the events, and I am grateful that my brain wasn't clogged up with missformation.
Our media here in Canada continues to give us well balanced reports from Iraq, and with additional info from BBC News World I have a relatively decent grasp of what's going on there.
And whenever Robert Fisk produces another up to the minute dispatch, I read it eagerly.
My admiration for Robert Fisk is boundless. I can't remember a time when it wasn't so.
Thus, I wish to thank SF Indymedia once again for giving us his articles. As most of you know, the Independent is charging for them, so finding his dispatches has been difficult.
Two excellent articles by Robert Fisk within a couple of days is, indeed, fantastic!!! Thanks!
Our media here in Canada continues to give us well balanced reports from Iraq, and with additional info from BBC News World I have a relatively decent grasp of what's going on there.
And whenever Robert Fisk produces another up to the minute dispatch, I read it eagerly.
My admiration for Robert Fisk is boundless. I can't remember a time when it wasn't so.
Thus, I wish to thank SF Indymedia once again for giving us his articles. As most of you know, the Independent is charging for them, so finding his dispatches has been difficult.
Two excellent articles by Robert Fisk within a couple of days is, indeed, fantastic!!! Thanks!
I did not submit this post "Heavens Yes" above.
I did not write the comments "Heavens Yes" above.
Again, as I stated on another thread: no one knows whether the impersonator was Zionist or not; the comments that have been posted on this thread weren't related or pertaining to Israel, so WHY, FOR HEAVENS SAKE, do you have to share with us all your hatred for Zionism, Zionists and the Mossad where they are unrelated to the issues at hand and/or the comments?!?!?
Give us a damn break (a permanent one).
Give us a damn break (a permanent one).
Also from another thread...
I don't know why anyone would assume a Zionist would be impersonating Angie.
Could it be because they've been doing this to her to try to torment her for the past month or so?
She's had pro-Israelis impersonating her dozens of times on this site. Could it suddenly have been a person with another agenda doing this? What are the odds?
But of course, according to Zionist logic, even if you have video taped evidence of the zealot tapping away at his keyboard that would not be evidence enough. Zionists are the worst deniers in the world when it comes to defending their favorite state.
I don't know why anyone would assume a Zionist would be impersonating Angie.
Could it be because they've been doing this to her to try to torment her for the past month or so?
She's had pro-Israelis impersonating her dozens of times on this site. Could it suddenly have been a person with another agenda doing this? What are the odds?
But of course, according to Zionist logic, even if you have video taped evidence of the zealot tapping away at his keyboard that would not be evidence enough. Zionists are the worst deniers in the world when it comes to defending their favorite state.
As was stated in another thread:
> I don't know why anyone would assume a Zionist would be impersonating Angie.
>Could it be because they've been doing this to her to try to torment her for the past month or so?
>She's had pro-Israelis impersonating her dozens of times on this site (trying to make her look silly, stupid or hateful). Could it suddenly have been a person with some other agenda that would do this? What are the odds?
>But of course, according to Zionist logic, even if you have video taped evidence of the zealot typing away at his keyboard that would not be evidence enough. Zionists are the worst deniers in the world when it comes to defending their favorite state.
> I don't know why anyone would assume a Zionist would be impersonating Angie.
>Could it be because they've been doing this to her to try to torment her for the past month or so?
>She's had pro-Israelis impersonating her dozens of times on this site (trying to make her look silly, stupid or hateful). Could it suddenly have been a person with some other agenda that would do this? What are the odds?
>But of course, according to Zionist logic, even if you have video taped evidence of the zealot typing away at his keyboard that would not be evidence enough. Zionists are the worst deniers in the world when it comes to defending their favorite state.
"During the attack on Iraq, my only news sources were Robert Fisk's daily dispatches from Bagdad on his website , interspersed with our night time boardcast on CBC Newsworld. I watched no "briefings", no US media accounts of the events, and I am grateful that my brain wasn't clogged up with missformation. "
Well, congratulations on your sophisticated lack of anything resembling honest research on the issues or events.
Or do you consider Fisk so 'godlike' in his reporting abilities that his pronouncements are infallible and all-seeing? That he has NO axe to grind, that he WILL NOT pander to his readership?
How is your stance any different than those who believe the 'misinformation' and don't believe Fisk? THEY believe they're right - YOU believe you're right.
Well, congratulations on your sophisticated lack of anything resembling honest research on the issues or events.
Or do you consider Fisk so 'godlike' in his reporting abilities that his pronouncements are infallible and all-seeing? That he has NO axe to grind, that he WILL NOT pander to his readership?
How is your stance any different than those who believe the 'misinformation' and don't believe Fisk? THEY believe they're right - YOU believe you're right.
That our own national TV network isn't capable of producing honest and well balanced reporting? Hell, CBC was receiving emails from grateful viewers in the US.
You don't like Robert Fisk, obviously. Don't worry about it. A lot of people don't. He scares them!
Honest, decent, intelligent people usually do scare the sheep of the world.
You don't like Robert Fisk, obviously. Don't worry about it. A lot of people don't. He scares them!
Honest, decent, intelligent people usually do scare the sheep of the world.
As well, CBC brought on Gwynne Dyer, world renowned author and military historian and analyst, to explain what was happening and why. What Dr. Dyer doesn't know about this and other "conflicts" in the Middle East isn't worth commenting on.
"Honest, decent, intelligent"
I'll grant you intelligent - con men usually are pretty sharp. They find people who are gullible, and get them to BELIEVE! Can I hear an AMEN!? ("Amen!" the faithful shout.)
You gotta BELIEVE, I say! Cause I'm tellin' ya the TRUTH! And I'M the ONLY one who WILL! So RAISE YOUR HANDS, and whent he collection plate PASSES BY, you gotta GIVE! Cause I gotta LIVE! So GIVE TO THE CHURCH OF THE RIGHTEOUS FISK!
But you're not brainwashed. Oh, no.
Completely lacking in anything resembing critical thought or objectivity, perhaps, but you're not brainwashed...
I'll grant you intelligent - con men usually are pretty sharp. They find people who are gullible, and get them to BELIEVE! Can I hear an AMEN!? ("Amen!" the faithful shout.)
You gotta BELIEVE, I say! Cause I'm tellin' ya the TRUTH! And I'M the ONLY one who WILL! So RAISE YOUR HANDS, and whent he collection plate PASSES BY, you gotta GIVE! Cause I gotta LIVE! So GIVE TO THE CHURCH OF THE RIGHTEOUS FISK!
But you're not brainwashed. Oh, no.
Completely lacking in anything resembing critical thought or objectivity, perhaps, but you're not brainwashed...
Beating up on Robert Fisk is proving what? That you, perhaps, are incapable of "criical thought" unless accompanied with villification about someone else, in this case Robert Fisk?
One doesn't need to be "brainwashed" or oozing "critical thought" to know that the attack on the soverign nation of Iraq was a lie from beginning to end and continues thus today.
What did I miss? Perhaps the WMD were located without my knowledge? Or I missed seeing a cluster bomb or two annilihate a residential area, its inhabitants blown to smithereens. Or the made for TV "rescue" of Private Lynch? A Rumsfeld rant?
No, I was very wise.
Why don't you just take your made-to-irritate comments and your love for "critical thought", and chat with GWBush instead. Come back when "Iraqi freedom" is established or when the WMD are located. We'll still be around waiting!
long live Robert Fisk! Long live John Pilger! Long live Uri Avnery! Long live Israel Shamir! Long live Gwynne Dyer. Long live anyone who has an independent thought in his/her head!!
And let's be honest here, your adulation of Fisk isn't any different than a gospel shouter going "God says it, I believe it, and THAT SETTLES IT!" - you need to be REAL careful about why you worship them.
You want to claim your favorites? Go ahead - it's no skin off any part of my anatomy. You want to ignore everything else in the media in favor of what THEY tell you - then you've made it pretty clear you're not interested in the truth (whatever it may be) but just want your favorite comforting stories from your surrogate parents who are masquerading as 'objective' reporters.
You want to claim your favorites? Go ahead - it's no skin off any part of my anatomy. You want to ignore everything else in the media in favor of what THEY tell you - then you've made it pretty clear you're not interested in the truth (whatever it may be) but just want your favorite comforting stories from your surrogate parents who are masquerading as 'objective' reporters.
--- by the way, is this a trick post?? Have the above been likewise, pray? I mean, anything is possible here.
In any event, nowhere have I said I "worshipped" Fisk et al. (Or at least not today, grin)!
Nowhere have I said I never read anything else. Come see my hard copies of articles by as many different folk as one can assemble on a desk top, on the floor, in cabinets. It's embarrassing.
Good heavens, what am I saying? "Come see my hard copies of articles" -- hell, that's being a wee bit too friendly. Just take my word for it.
Of course, it would be helpful were you to present evidence showing that Fisk et al are not honest.
In any event, nowhere have I said I "worshipped" Fisk et al. (Or at least not today, grin)!
Nowhere have I said I never read anything else. Come see my hard copies of articles by as many different folk as one can assemble on a desk top, on the floor, in cabinets. It's embarrassing.
Good heavens, what am I saying? "Come see my hard copies of articles" -- hell, that's being a wee bit too friendly. Just take my word for it.
Of course, it would be helpful were you to present evidence showing that Fisk et al are not honest.
Oh, well! We do try.
...Fisk reported live from Baghdad International, saying there were no American troops there?
They were right behind him.
Fisk doesn't have much credibility.
They were right behind him.
Fisk doesn't have much credibility.
You should thank God et al that you have so much "crediblity", sir/madam.
However, in the larger scheme of things Robert Fisk wasn't blabbering about weapons of mass destruction, now was he, or was he going on about Iraqi freedom and "liberation"
That was your President. Guess here's credibility and there's credibility.
...you haven't heard me quoting Bush as gospel.
You know, like you've been doing with Fisk.
You know, like you've been doing with Fisk.
>Fisk reported live from Baghdad International, saying there were no American troops there?
He was telling the truth. At the time he made that report, the American troops hadn't reached the airport yet.
>They were right behind him.
But they weren't there yet.
He was telling the truth. At the time he made that report, the American troops hadn't reached the airport yet.
>They were right behind him.
But they weren't there yet.
Robert Fisk does not have credability in the journalist world. Fact.
. . . I never quoted Fisk at all (as gospel or otherwise).
If you can locate something here since April of 2003 where I quoted Robert Fisk, I'd love to see it too!
Robert Fisk does not have credability in *your* world. The rest of us trust him more than we trust you and the lying SOBs you get your faux "news" from.
I committed a typo! Yes, a typo. Nonanarchist.
Just thought I'd bring it to your attention, dear readers, before Mr. Gehrig did!
Oh, and, hey, Nonanarchist, having any luck with Angie quoting Fisk? Now Gwynne Dyer and Uri Avnery, yes, perhaps even Israel Shamir, but I don't remember quoting Robert. Let us know!!! Or, rather, let me know!
You see?
People like "Wrong" know what's happening! People like "Wrong" can come on here and make an emphatic statement, and by so doing, this poor Canadian lass is MUCH HAPPIER than she was a few minutes ago!
I knew damn well I wasn't the only fan the poor man's got!
So there!!!!
You sure get happy pretty easily. If something or someone agrees with your opinions, you instantly like them I guess.
Well, not at all!
This is not about me. If's about Robert Fisk.
If my enthusiasm for your response upset you, I do apologize.
Perhaps one of these days I'll learn to be blase. It won't be today, however.
This is not about me. If's about Robert Fisk.
If my enthusiasm for your response upset you, I do apologize.
Perhaps one of these days I'll learn to be blase. It won't be today, however.
Post forgers seem to have it in for Angie. She must be hitting a nerve.
Ye'ah, sometimes I feel like the only child at an orphanage Christmas party here, but what the hell! I'll get tougher, yes?
Let them have their fun. I just wish they'd leave innocent people such as yourself and others out of the mix.
robert fisks articles can be found here:
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
When a dog poops on your shoes, it hits a nerve.
Hitting a nerve is in no way indicative of actual success in anything, other than in annoying someone.
Hitting a nerve is in no way indicative of actual success in anything, other than in annoying someone.
People like and believe whatever reinforces what they already believe. Its very comfortable. Its human nature. Hence the passionate support for Fisk amoung many here.
And yes, the support for Fox by others.
Like or dislike, a dispassionate reading of Fisk quickly shows that he has an agenda and that he pushes it strongly.
Do others do the same? Some do, some don't. Most not as blatantly as Mr. Fisk.
And yes, the support for Fox by others.
Like or dislike, a dispassionate reading of Fisk quickly shows that he has an agenda and that he pushes it strongly.
Do others do the same? Some do, some don't. Most not as blatantly as Mr. Fisk.
That what passes as an "agenda" to you passes as "truth" to us.
Angie, your statement makes no sense unless you are asking us to believe you have no grasp of the English Language: Agenda is defined as:
A list or program of things to be done or considered: "They share with them an agenda beyond the immediate goal of democratization of the electoral process" (Daniel Sneider).
A plural of agendum
As you can see, it having an agenda is irrespective of truth. Mr. Fisk's reporting can be truth or falsehood or even neutral statements and still be an agenda.
The evidence of his having an agenda can be gathered through his use of subjective observations, which form the core of his writings.
Subjective writers tend to be viewed more as columnists rather than as 'newspaper reporters'.
Mr. Fisk seems to me to be more of a columnist than a newspaper report.
Now you may say that he doesn't have an agenda - a statement I would disagree with - or you may say that his agenda is passing the truth - a statement I will take a neutral stand on as I am still gathering facts and learning on the Iraqi situation.
I don't, in any case, believe that he is neutral in his observations.
A list or program of things to be done or considered: "They share with them an agenda beyond the immediate goal of democratization of the electoral process" (Daniel Sneider).
A plural of agendum
As you can see, it having an agenda is irrespective of truth. Mr. Fisk's reporting can be truth or falsehood or even neutral statements and still be an agenda.
The evidence of his having an agenda can be gathered through his use of subjective observations, which form the core of his writings.
Subjective writers tend to be viewed more as columnists rather than as 'newspaper reporters'.
Mr. Fisk seems to me to be more of a columnist than a newspaper report.
Now you may say that he doesn't have an agenda - a statement I would disagree with - or you may say that his agenda is passing the truth - a statement I will take a neutral stand on as I am still gathering facts and learning on the Iraqi situation.
I don't, in any case, believe that he is neutral in his observations.
fisk has an agenda insofar as he is a passionate about his subject matter and consistently exhibits sympathy for the oppressed and exploited.
as far as his politics--left, center, right--I would guess he is left, but only because he doesn't tow the party-line of the American right or genuflect before America's imperial power.
can JanNet name a reporter who consistently reports from the Middle East with greater depth of understanding and intelligence?
if JanNet wants to skewer journalists for having "an agenda" on the Middle East, s/he need look no further than Judith "i have confidential sources that are in the Pentagon's pocket" Miller and Thomas "the gasbag" Friedman, both of the New York Times.
as far as his politics--left, center, right--I would guess he is left, but only because he doesn't tow the party-line of the American right or genuflect before America's imperial power.
can JanNet name a reporter who consistently reports from the Middle East with greater depth of understanding and intelligence?
if JanNet wants to skewer journalists for having "an agenda" on the Middle East, s/he need look no further than Judith "i have confidential sources that are in the Pentagon's pocket" Miller and Thomas "the gasbag" Friedman, both of the New York Times.
aaron, you are spot on.
My point is that news from all sources have to be interpreted in light of their agenda. As you said they all have it.
Blindly following and believing the writings of any reporter/columnist is wrong.
Find the agenda of the writer - and yes, advocating the rights of the oppressed is an agenda - and set that as you baseline.
Why is analyzing a person's agenda considering skwering that person? Why isn't it considered analyzing?
Do you, aaron, advocate a fundalmentalist approach to the gospel of Mr. Fisk, or of anyone? I certainly don't. I would hope that IMCers aren't the same as Rush's followers.
My point is that news from all sources have to be interpreted in light of their agenda. As you said they all have it.
Blindly following and believing the writings of any reporter/columnist is wrong.
Find the agenda of the writer - and yes, advocating the rights of the oppressed is an agenda - and set that as you baseline.
Why is analyzing a person's agenda considering skwering that person? Why isn't it considered analyzing?
Do you, aaron, advocate a fundalmentalist approach to the gospel of Mr. Fisk, or of anyone? I certainly don't. I would hope that IMCers aren't the same as Rush's followers.
The above correction of Angie is, as usual, accurate.
If everything she said was corrected, however, sf.indymedia.org would probably run out of server space. So, for the good of the website, definitely keep correcting the major inaccurate stuff she types, and let the lesser stuff go by. Good job to the above corrector.
If everything she said was corrected, however, sf.indymedia.org would probably run out of server space. So, for the good of the website, definitely keep correcting the major inaccurate stuff she types, and let the lesser stuff go by. Good job to the above corrector.
I haven't the will right now to argue with anyone about the writings of Robert Fisk. I read what he has to say. I believe in what he has to say. He doesn't give much of a damn about hiding verifiable facts, and he is much loved (and much maligned) because he has never waivered from that path.
He is his own person, not bought and paid for, by the US or Israel, or anyone else. He is on the streets of the Middle East, the streets of Bagdad, and he has always talked about the people he meets and their sufferings. He doesn't dress up his dispatches. He doesn't utter such non-phrases as "caught in the crossfire", etc.
Geez, I simply said, as I have said since April here, that I read his works and admire them and him tremendously. That is not a damn reason to take me out at dawn and shoot me.
you believe uncritically what Fisk says doesn't make you worth shooting.
It's all context, after all. An epidemiologist who takes a single sample under the rim of a hosptial toilet bowl might extrapolate that the entire hospital was a disease-infected wasteland, with feces covering everything.
But that's looking at one sample, at one point. Which is about what Fisk is doing - examining one sample, at one point, and extrapolating for the whole country.
For the epidemiologist - it's his job to find shit. No shit is good news - finding shit means that the hospital needs to pay better attention to it's sanitation practices, not that the hospital needs to be burned to the ground and a new one built.
For the reporter - no shit is bad news. So they seek out news - and they find it according to their preconceptions and training. Fisk is looking for the worst - it's his bent and his agenda. Is it surprising that it's found?
Or do you think that there is simply no good news to be had in Iraq?
It's all context, after all. An epidemiologist who takes a single sample under the rim of a hosptial toilet bowl might extrapolate that the entire hospital was a disease-infected wasteland, with feces covering everything.
But that's looking at one sample, at one point. Which is about what Fisk is doing - examining one sample, at one point, and extrapolating for the whole country.
For the epidemiologist - it's his job to find shit. No shit is good news - finding shit means that the hospital needs to pay better attention to it's sanitation practices, not that the hospital needs to be burned to the ground and a new one built.
For the reporter - no shit is bad news. So they seek out news - and they find it according to their preconceptions and training. Fisk is looking for the worst - it's his bent and his agenda. Is it surprising that it's found?
Or do you think that there is simply no good news to be had in Iraq?
Not a lot, but I am sure you will enlighten us.
since you've already decided (based on your posts above) that Fisk is all you need when it comes to news from Iraq.
Remember - "Dog bites man isn't news - Man bites dog is!" Good news doesn't sell - bad news gets the readers.
Remember - "Dog bites man isn't news - Man bites dog is!" Good news doesn't sell - bad news gets the readers.
If you would keep your damn shirt on, as they say, you will go back to my original post and note that I also stated I watched our CBC national news, and listened to Gwynne Dyer, a military analyst and world renowned historian. .
You chose to ignore that bit of info because it isn't compatible to your smear attempt at both Robert Fisk and myself.
That, my friend, is not nice at all.
You chose to ignore that bit of info because it isn't compatible to your smear attempt at both Robert Fisk and myself.
That, my friend, is not nice at all.
And not anything you read here will change your mind on what you know.
You'll believe 'media sources' because they tell you what you want to hear. You'll believe Fisk because, again, the news he says is what you want to believe.
Sometimes, Angie - when someone just walks away, it's not because you've won the argument - it's because you've shown there's no way for them to change your stance. It's set in concrete, it's chiseled in stone, and you don't want to hear anything different.
So ta-ta - you've 'won' this round. Not by converting me to your point of view, but by convincing me that you're willingly ignoring anything that doesn't fit your limited agenda and that there is no way you'll even consider that YOU might be the one with the narrow viewpoint.
You'll believe 'media sources' because they tell you what you want to hear. You'll believe Fisk because, again, the news he says is what you want to believe.
Sometimes, Angie - when someone just walks away, it's not because you've won the argument - it's because you've shown there's no way for them to change your stance. It's set in concrete, it's chiseled in stone, and you don't want to hear anything different.
So ta-ta - you've 'won' this round. Not by converting me to your point of view, but by convincing me that you're willingly ignoring anything that doesn't fit your limited agenda and that there is no way you'll even consider that YOU might be the one with the narrow viewpoint.
In a short while I shall be looking at John Pilger's article that just arrived on the Board.
He is one of the "chosen few", shall we say, so the comments re Robert will fit right in here.
He is one of the "chosen few", shall we say, so the comments re Robert will fit right in here.
Fisk made up his mind long before the war started, that it was going to have a high death toll, and is merely looking for instances that back up his opinion, that is by no means "reporting", that is the art of creating propaganda.
So lets see here,
according to the BS of Fisk "UP TO" 70 Iraqis, which means the highest figure ever recorded was 70
Baghdad is almost one fifth the population of Iraq, (even though to think the so called "chaos" in baghdad, is representive of the country as a hole is just plain silly.) ie. the crime in LA is the same is in the country.
Nevertheless if we take the highest recorded figure, multiply by 5 we get 350. However, 1,000 will sell more papers so be it then. Thats why I love Iraqis they only die in groups of 5,000 of 1,000 or 500,000 much easier to count. (not that anyone actually does.
In any event, if your willing to look at the situtation threw any "indpendent media" (such as the 150+ new iraqi papers) you will see that this is completely BS. But who needs to listen to the Iraqis we know what they want more than them. We know how bad it is, they have no idea. We can't ask them, or conduct more polls because of the oppression... oh wait we can poll them, many have been done, and they blow the roof of this British liberal BS.
In a recent poll Iraqis amost 2-1 would prefer and American occupation to that of a Arab occuaption. Pan Arabism has died are the streets of Baghdad because Iraqis are sick and tired of it. Don't believe me, then ASK THEM YOURSELF, internatonal lines will be up by the end of the month.
Funny 1000 people were killed in the Congo in one day during the Iraqi war, yet it never made the news, becuase no one cares.
BTW know how they (iraqi police and citzens) captured the Najaf mosque bombing suspects?
They (the non-iraqi attackers) went into a internet cafe (set up by the US army) to email their success. Iraqis noticed what they were typing and called the police. (hardly sounds like chaos to me)
So lets see here,
according to the BS of Fisk "UP TO" 70 Iraqis, which means the highest figure ever recorded was 70
Baghdad is almost one fifth the population of Iraq, (even though to think the so called "chaos" in baghdad, is representive of the country as a hole is just plain silly.) ie. the crime in LA is the same is in the country.
Nevertheless if we take the highest recorded figure, multiply by 5 we get 350. However, 1,000 will sell more papers so be it then. Thats why I love Iraqis they only die in groups of 5,000 of 1,000 or 500,000 much easier to count. (not that anyone actually does.
In any event, if your willing to look at the situtation threw any "indpendent media" (such as the 150+ new iraqi papers) you will see that this is completely BS. But who needs to listen to the Iraqis we know what they want more than them. We know how bad it is, they have no idea. We can't ask them, or conduct more polls because of the oppression... oh wait we can poll them, many have been done, and they blow the roof of this British liberal BS.
In a recent poll Iraqis amost 2-1 would prefer and American occupation to that of a Arab occuaption. Pan Arabism has died are the streets of Baghdad because Iraqis are sick and tired of it. Don't believe me, then ASK THEM YOURSELF, internatonal lines will be up by the end of the month.
Funny 1000 people were killed in the Congo in one day during the Iraqi war, yet it never made the news, becuase no one cares.
BTW know how they (iraqi police and citzens) captured the Najaf mosque bombing suspects?
They (the non-iraqi attackers) went into a internet cafe (set up by the US army) to email their success. Iraqis noticed what they were typing and called the police. (hardly sounds like chaos to me)
the americans are the heroes.
for how many years did the US support Hussein?
how many years after the gassing of the Kurds did the US continue its support for Hussein?
how many died from the sanctions regime while the US' former asset lived in comfort?
how many thousands were killed and maimed by US bombs over the past thirteen years?
how many Iraqis died form water-born diseases after the US deliberately destroyed its water treatment facilities?
how many depleted uranium munitions were unloaded on Iraq in Persian Gulf Wars 1 and 2?
for how many years did the US support Hussein?
how many years after the gassing of the Kurds did the US continue its support for Hussein?
how many died from the sanctions regime while the US' former asset lived in comfort?
how many thousands were killed and maimed by US bombs over the past thirteen years?
how many Iraqis died form water-born diseases after the US deliberately destroyed its water treatment facilities?
how many depleted uranium munitions were unloaded on Iraq in Persian Gulf Wars 1 and 2?
Hey, Fisk is a joke, have you served over in Iraq? Have you seen that shithole with your own eyes? How do you know that Fisk is BS?
I got back last week, with radiation poisoning and a big fucking chunk out of my left leg. Both from Uncle Sam, so no PH, and fewer benefits than when I left BTW.
As for the 1000s bit, who knows. We were told not to keep track. But it doesn't sound too far off. After we got to Baghdad I saw bulldozers burying dead Iraqis in the sand because the funeral homes weren't able to keep up. And believe me, we're shooting the shit out of them still. It's not all wacko GIs though because we're getting shot at too.
Anyway I don't normally write in these things, but I did want to tell you to stop talking out of your ass. It doesn't sound like you've been there, and if you have well then you should take a double dose of shut the fuck up. Theres no reason to trash someone just because you disagree with them. I put my ass on the line for America, and that means for the freedom to speak freely, too.
I got back last week, with radiation poisoning and a big fucking chunk out of my left leg. Both from Uncle Sam, so no PH, and fewer benefits than when I left BTW.
As for the 1000s bit, who knows. We were told not to keep track. But it doesn't sound too far off. After we got to Baghdad I saw bulldozers burying dead Iraqis in the sand because the funeral homes weren't able to keep up. And believe me, we're shooting the shit out of them still. It's not all wacko GIs though because we're getting shot at too.
Anyway I don't normally write in these things, but I did want to tell you to stop talking out of your ass. It doesn't sound like you've been there, and if you have well then you should take a double dose of shut the fuck up. Theres no reason to trash someone just because you disagree with them. I put my ass on the line for America, and that means for the freedom to speak freely, too.
Another viewpoint heard from...
-----------
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/18/090013.php
My friend Stephen is on tour playing music in Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon. He had a hell of a time emailing from Syria - this report comes from Kuwait:
------------------
I'm now in Kuwait where mercifully the internet is not (as) censored!!! I can't imagine how much effort those guys go to to keep you from...Yahoo Mail! After the one trip to the US Embassy to do e-mail, we didn't go there again, and the Syrian internet "cafes" we went to would not allow you to surf outside Syrian or other approved Arab sites! Amazing what a waste of time the censors have created. Any smart kid over there can set up a proxy server anyway.
Syria was pretty strange and surprising in that we never had a SINGLE protest or harsh word or sideways glance-- very different from last year when we had protests at every show. I would watch the CNN reporters describing the Middle East and Iraq and think they must be living in an alternate universe-- which I expect is called the Al-Rashid Hotel Bar.
There simply was no hostility towards us AT ALL, compared to last year. I remember seeing Amanpour on CNN while I was in Aleppo, telling someone she was interviewing (maybe they were interviewing her, given her desire to throw in subjective statements of her own devising) that "The Iraqis just want the U.S. out of there Right Now!" This struck me as odd given that I had just spoken with a guy in the band I was travelling with's mom (an Iraqi) who had come that day from Baghdad, and had been in Erbil and Mosul, and who said that ALL the Iraqis-- while they grumble about things being better under Saddam-- have NO desire to see the US go.
She says because of the heat and the discomfort, for many Iraqis it's a bit like someone going on a camping trip and having it rain-- they'll say they "never" want to go camping ever again or some such thing, but that doesn't mean anything more than that they are just fed up. She said (and she speaks fluent Arabic and is Iraqi by birth) that there are two groups of people-- the people who are glad the US is there, and are mildly optimistic (despite what they tell the reporters who turn up for a day trip), and those who got Mercedes, and jobs, and pensions and villas from Saddam. According to her talks with Iraqis it is ONLY the latter group, and a large smattering of foreign fighters who are doing all the fighting against the US. She drove all the way from Baghdad to Damascus in a single car with just a driver and no bodyguard-- and no problem.
One of the State folks was telling me about that big story early in the war when the Iraqis claimed that the US had blown up a busload of Syrians trying to leave Iraq and get back into Syria. Turns out it was a busload of Syrian fighters trying to get INTO Iraq to fight. She said that she used to walk home at night at 10pm and see them all chanting away, lining up to get on the buses to go to Iraq (the Iraqi embassy is right next to the US one in Damascus). Assad was overjoyed to get rid of these fundamentalists, and Saddam was happy to get them, and throw them all on the front lines. Apparently they are the only ones who did any real fighting and they got totally wiped out. That explains why the Syrians never made much noise about a busload of their "civilians" being killed--
but all the Western media ran the story and never ran the retraction.
Another thing that she said is that ALL the Iraqis are done with the idea of Arab Unity. They hate all the other states except for Syria. They believe Saddam gave so much money to these other states, and none of them offered any support. They are particularly hateful now to the Palestinians; ordinary Iraqis were sometimes moved out of their own homes to house them, and they got jobs and pensions-- and she said that the new Arabic graffiti on the walls of Baghdad University is "Palestinians go home. The free ride is over."
In any case, this tour was a lovefest compared to the last one, so god only knows what the reporters are all going on about. Another thing I heard is that 90% of all the attacks have happened in the Sunni Triangle, which if you look on a map represents all of about 1/8 of Iraq maybe (Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdad-- I don't have a good map to do the math with), so you have a country 7/8 calm. This guy's Iraqi mom (from Mosul) also said that the power is now on regularly in Baghdad but no one is reporting that.
If CNN hasn't gotten it, it appears that Assad in Syria has. The cabinet change was a big thing even though many hoped/expected that Assad would choose a non-Baathist over Otri. Still, they think a few of the new guys will be non-Baathists which would have been unthinkable before.
They sure need it-- the country is a beautiful basket case full of intelligent, kind people who could do something good if given a chance. On a more superficial, but probably important level as well, the kids military uniforms we saw last year are all gone, and a lot of the militarization you used to see in posters and monuments, etc. seems to have been toned down. The Lebanese paper, The Star, attributes this directly albeit grudgingly to the US being right next door.
The music went over even better, and it now looks like we will be going back next month, and then on to Beirut. Obviously, we have to be careful. But we also have to be careful about what we are being told about this war and its aftermath. It's frightening to me how unrepresentative it is of public opinion in the most hardline of all Arab states!
---------------------------
So the war is a "failure"? A "quagmire"? "Palestinians go home. The free ride is over" - Arab unity isn't what it used to be. The media - including our own media, accused in the world of spreading U.S. propaganda - is in fact misreporting the real mood on the ground. God bless the Internet, even in Syria.
-------------------------------------------------------------
(Of course, this isn't what you want to hear - this ain't Fisk reporting, just some guy in a band telling what he's seeing and hearing.)
-----------
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/18/090013.php
My friend Stephen is on tour playing music in Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon. He had a hell of a time emailing from Syria - this report comes from Kuwait:
------------------
I'm now in Kuwait where mercifully the internet is not (as) censored!!! I can't imagine how much effort those guys go to to keep you from...Yahoo Mail! After the one trip to the US Embassy to do e-mail, we didn't go there again, and the Syrian internet "cafes" we went to would not allow you to surf outside Syrian or other approved Arab sites! Amazing what a waste of time the censors have created. Any smart kid over there can set up a proxy server anyway.
Syria was pretty strange and surprising in that we never had a SINGLE protest or harsh word or sideways glance-- very different from last year when we had protests at every show. I would watch the CNN reporters describing the Middle East and Iraq and think they must be living in an alternate universe-- which I expect is called the Al-Rashid Hotel Bar.
There simply was no hostility towards us AT ALL, compared to last year. I remember seeing Amanpour on CNN while I was in Aleppo, telling someone she was interviewing (maybe they were interviewing her, given her desire to throw in subjective statements of her own devising) that "The Iraqis just want the U.S. out of there Right Now!" This struck me as odd given that I had just spoken with a guy in the band I was travelling with's mom (an Iraqi) who had come that day from Baghdad, and had been in Erbil and Mosul, and who said that ALL the Iraqis-- while they grumble about things being better under Saddam-- have NO desire to see the US go.
She says because of the heat and the discomfort, for many Iraqis it's a bit like someone going on a camping trip and having it rain-- they'll say they "never" want to go camping ever again or some such thing, but that doesn't mean anything more than that they are just fed up. She said (and she speaks fluent Arabic and is Iraqi by birth) that there are two groups of people-- the people who are glad the US is there, and are mildly optimistic (despite what they tell the reporters who turn up for a day trip), and those who got Mercedes, and jobs, and pensions and villas from Saddam. According to her talks with Iraqis it is ONLY the latter group, and a large smattering of foreign fighters who are doing all the fighting against the US. She drove all the way from Baghdad to Damascus in a single car with just a driver and no bodyguard-- and no problem.
One of the State folks was telling me about that big story early in the war when the Iraqis claimed that the US had blown up a busload of Syrians trying to leave Iraq and get back into Syria. Turns out it was a busload of Syrian fighters trying to get INTO Iraq to fight. She said that she used to walk home at night at 10pm and see them all chanting away, lining up to get on the buses to go to Iraq (the Iraqi embassy is right next to the US one in Damascus). Assad was overjoyed to get rid of these fundamentalists, and Saddam was happy to get them, and throw them all on the front lines. Apparently they are the only ones who did any real fighting and they got totally wiped out. That explains why the Syrians never made much noise about a busload of their "civilians" being killed--
but all the Western media ran the story and never ran the retraction.
Another thing that she said is that ALL the Iraqis are done with the idea of Arab Unity. They hate all the other states except for Syria. They believe Saddam gave so much money to these other states, and none of them offered any support. They are particularly hateful now to the Palestinians; ordinary Iraqis were sometimes moved out of their own homes to house them, and they got jobs and pensions-- and she said that the new Arabic graffiti on the walls of Baghdad University is "Palestinians go home. The free ride is over."
In any case, this tour was a lovefest compared to the last one, so god only knows what the reporters are all going on about. Another thing I heard is that 90% of all the attacks have happened in the Sunni Triangle, which if you look on a map represents all of about 1/8 of Iraq maybe (Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdad-- I don't have a good map to do the math with), so you have a country 7/8 calm. This guy's Iraqi mom (from Mosul) also said that the power is now on regularly in Baghdad but no one is reporting that.
If CNN hasn't gotten it, it appears that Assad in Syria has. The cabinet change was a big thing even though many hoped/expected that Assad would choose a non-Baathist over Otri. Still, they think a few of the new guys will be non-Baathists which would have been unthinkable before.
They sure need it-- the country is a beautiful basket case full of intelligent, kind people who could do something good if given a chance. On a more superficial, but probably important level as well, the kids military uniforms we saw last year are all gone, and a lot of the militarization you used to see in posters and monuments, etc. seems to have been toned down. The Lebanese paper, The Star, attributes this directly albeit grudgingly to the US being right next door.
The music went over even better, and it now looks like we will be going back next month, and then on to Beirut. Obviously, we have to be careful. But we also have to be careful about what we are being told about this war and its aftermath. It's frightening to me how unrepresentative it is of public opinion in the most hardline of all Arab states!
---------------------------
So the war is a "failure"? A "quagmire"? "Palestinians go home. The free ride is over" - Arab unity isn't what it used to be. The media - including our own media, accused in the world of spreading U.S. propaganda - is in fact misreporting the real mood on the ground. God bless the Internet, even in Syria.
-------------------------------------------------------------
(Of course, this isn't what you want to hear - this ain't Fisk reporting, just some guy in a band telling what he's seeing and hearing.)
Those of us who watch BBC World News and/or CBC News World (Canada) saw for ourselves, and heard for ourselves, on a news clip last week about the number of dead that are brought to the morgues regularly each morning.
We were told the morgues are overflowing with the dead. We heard from doctors, and we saw the dead being brought to what presumably were morgues
Are we not to believe our own eyes? The bodies are coming from somewhere. Someone (and a lot of them) are being killed.
Or are to believe that it's all propaganda?
Robert Fisk is not the only one pointing out this terrifying aspect of "the new liberated Iraq".
Any water and sewage services yet? Any electricity? Do we know?
We were told the morgues are overflowing with the dead. We heard from doctors, and we saw the dead being brought to what presumably were morgues
Are we not to believe our own eyes? The bodies are coming from somewhere. Someone (and a lot of them) are being killed.
Or are to believe that it's all propaganda?
Robert Fisk is not the only one pointing out this terrifying aspect of "the new liberated Iraq".
Any water and sewage services yet? Any electricity? Do we know?
It is you who is talking out of their ass
I wasn't stationed in Baghdad, But I highly doubt the losses there were twenty times higher than other areas, hell from what I herd even in the raids, at least after we got smart about them, they would very rarely even put up a fight, more shit their pants than shot at US troops. (sounds macho yet factual as well)
Again my point was don't take my word for it, Talk to the people, they have email and are capable of making conversation, yet it seems none of the "champions of the Iraqi cause" ie spoiled rich white kids, could be bother to take the time and talk to them, find out what they want, before go off on the latest social action/outrage poor us, were cool fighting the establishment that doesn't shoot back, I am so brave crap.
I wasn't stationed in Baghdad, But I highly doubt the losses there were twenty times higher than other areas, hell from what I herd even in the raids, at least after we got smart about them, they would very rarely even put up a fight, more shit their pants than shot at US troops. (sounds macho yet factual as well)
Again my point was don't take my word for it, Talk to the people, they have email and are capable of making conversation, yet it seems none of the "champions of the Iraqi cause" ie spoiled rich white kids, could be bother to take the time and talk to them, find out what they want, before go off on the latest social action/outrage poor us, were cool fighting the establishment that doesn't shoot back, I am so brave crap.
It's a little late in the day, isn't it, for "spoiled rich white kids", or anyone else for that matter, to ask the people of Iraq what it is they want.
They should have been asked that question before the "shock and awe" killed thousands and destroyed their country's infrastructure, and left it open to unheard of criminal activity and guerilla warfare..
Note: I have been against this attack on a soverign nation from the beginning, and I can well assure the poster above that while I am indeed white, I am certainly not "spoiled and rich".
I've delibberately left off the last bit of this, because it seems to have been added through travels on the internet.
------------
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/rydbom.asp
------------
06-23-2003
Sitrep: Iraq
Editor's Note: This is an open letter from U.S. Army Maj. Eric Rydbom in Iraq to the First Lutheran Church of Richmond Beach in Shoreline, Wash. Rydbom is Deputy Division Engineer of the 4th Infantry Division.
It has been a while since I have written to my friends at First Lutheran Church about what's really going on here in Iraq. The news you watch on TV is exaggerated, sensationalized and selective. Good news doesn't sell.
The stuff you don't hear about on CNN?
Let's start with electrical power production in Iraq. The day after the war was declared over, there was nearly 0 power being generated in Iraq. Just 45 days later, in a partnership between the Army, the Iraqi people and some private companies, there are now 3200 megawatts (Mw) of power being produced daily, 1/3 of the total national potential of 8000 Mw. Downed power lines (big stuff, 400 Kilovolt (Kv) and 132 Kv) are being repaired and are about 70 percent complete.
Then there is water purification. In central Iraq between Baghdad and Mosul, home of the 4th Infantry Division, water treatment was spotty at best. The facilities existed, but the controls were never implemented. Simple chemicals like Chlorine for purification and Alum (Aluminum Sulfate) for sediment settling (the Tigris River is about as clear as the Mississippi River) were in very short supply or not used at all. When chlorine was used, it was metered by the scientific method of guessing.
So some people got pool water to drink and some people got water with lots of little things floating around in it. We are slowly but surely solving that. Contracts for repairs to facilities that are only 50 percent or less operational are being let, chemicals are being delivered, although we don't have the metering problem solved yet ( ... but again, it's only been 45 days).
How about oil and fuel? Well the war was all about oil wasn't it? You bet it was. It was all about oil for the Iraqi people! They have no other income, they produce nothing else. Oil is 95 percent of the Iraqi GNP. For this nation to survive, it must sell oil.
The Refinery at Bayji is [operating] at 75 percent of capacity producing gasoline. The crude pipeline between Kirkuk (Oil Central) and Bayji will be repaired by tomorrow (2 June). LPG, what all Iraqis use to cook and heat with, is at 103 percent of normal production and we, the U.S. Army, are ensuring it is being distributed fairly to all Iraqis.
You have to remember that only three months ago, all these things were used by the Saddam regime as weapons against the population to keep them in line. If your town misbehaved, gasoline shipments stopped, LPG pipelines and trucks stopped, water was turned off, power was turned off.
Now, until exports start, every drop of gasoline produced goes to the Iraqi people. Crude oil is being stored and the country is at 75 percent capacity right now. They need to export or stop pumping soon, so thank the U.N. for the delay.
All LPG goes to the Iraqi people everywhere. Water is being purified as best it can be, but at least its running all the time to everyone.
Are we still getting shot at? Yep.
Are American soldiers still dying? Yep, about one a day from my outfit, the 4th Infantry Division, most in accidents, but dead is dead.
If we are doing all this for the Iraqis, why are they shooting at us?
The general Iraqi population isn't shooting at us. There are still bad guys who won't let go of the old regime. They are Ba'ath party members (Read Nazi Party, but not as nice) who have known nothing but and supported nothing but the regime all of their lives. These are the thugs for the regime who caused many to disappear in the night. They have no other skills. At least the Nazis [in Germany] had jobs and a semblance of a national infrastructure that they could go back to after the war, as plumbers, managers, engineers, etc. These people have no skills but terror. They are simply applying their skills ... and we are applying ours.
There is no Christian way to say this, but they must be eliminated and we are doing so with all the efficiency we can muster. Our troops are shot at literally everyday by small arms and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). We respond. One hundred percent of the time, the Ba''ath party guys come out with the short end of the stick.
The most amazing thing to me is that they don't realize that if they stopped shooting at us, we would focus on fixing things more quickly and then leave back to the land of the Big PX. The more they shoot at us, the longer we will have to stay.
Lastly, all of you please realize that 90 percent of the damage you see on TV was caused by Iraqis, not by us and not by the war. Sure, we took out a few bridges from military necessity, we took out a few power and phone lines to disrupt communications, sure we drilled a few palaces and government headquarters buildings with 2000 lb. laser guided bombs (I work 100 yards from where two hit the Tikrit Palace), [but] he had plenty to spare.
But, any damage you see to schools, hospitals, power generation facilities, refineries, pipelines, was all caused either by the Iraqi Army in its death throes or from much of the Iraqi civilians looting the places.
Could we have prevented it? Nope.
We can and do now, but 45 days ago, the average soldier was fighting for his own survival and trying to get to his objectives as fast as possible. He was lucky to know what town he was in much less be informed enough to know who owned what or have the power to stop 1,000 people from looting and burning a building by himself.
The United States and our allies, especially Great Britain, are doing a very noble thing here. We stuck our necks out on the world's chopping block to free an entire people from the grip of a horrible terror that was beyond belief.
I've already talked the weapons of mass destruction thing to death - bottom line, who cares? This country was one big conventional weapons ammo dump anyway. We have probably destroyed more weapons and ammo in the last 30 days than the U.S. Army has ever fired in the last 30 years (remember, this is a country the size of Texas), so drop the WMD argument as the reason we came here. If we find it great if we don't, so what?
I'm living in a "guest palace" on a 500-acre palace compound with 20 palaces with like facilities built in half a dozen towns all over Iraq that were built for one man. Drive down the street and out into the countryside five miles away like I have and see all the families of 10 or more, all living in mud huts and herding the two dozen sheep on which their very existence depends ..then tell me why you think we are here.
-----------------------------
Yeah Angie - let's ask those guys. Let's ask the people who had electriciy or gas cut off on a whim. Lets ask the folks in mud huts outside the palaces. Lets ask the families trying to find loved ones in the mass graves Saddam left.
Hey I know! Let's ask the guys actually OVER there doing this.
http://www.lt-smash.us - go back to his feb, march, april, may weblogs.
http://chiefwiggles.blog-city.com/
"During the course of my daily activities I often take time to glance through the headlines of the so-called news being reported by our own media back in the states. The constant barrage of negative news the media chooses to report on bothers me, depicting quite a different view of what is transpiring over here.
I am forced to ponder the value of a news-media that only reports a distorted view of events based on what they determine will sell papers and magazines or news that supports their own biased political attitudes. What is the value of news that doesn't tell the true story, but only a one-sided biased interpretation predetermined before the news events even occur. Why should the political bias or personal agenda of the news agency be so intertwined with the facts of the event, so as to purposely influence the attitudes of the reader?
I personally do not want my news to be contrived or purposely limited so as to sway my own political views, in order to achieve someone else's own personal agenda. I am disturbed by this attempt by the media to deliberately direct the attitudes of the people of America and the world by preconceiving the interpretation and selection of what they determine to be news worthy.
Where is it stated that news needs to be limited to only those transpiring events that are negative in nature, using sensationalism as the criteria by which events are judged to be news worthy?
Where is the complete story of events, both sides, all aspects of what is really transpiring so as to paint the total panoramic view, allowing the reader at that point to interpret and create their own meaning of the reported events?
With that in mind, are not the positive aspects of what is transpiring just as critical and vital as the negative? Are we going to allow others to determine what we think about, as if we are sheep to be herded by the media?
I recall as a boy on a scout camping trip coming upon a herd of sheep. Thinking it would be fun, we started pushing them in one direction and then another, just by running around screaming from side to side. At one point, without knowing it, we spooked them directly into a wooded fence. One sheep after another attempted to run through the fence, hitting their head on the wooden slats, until the entire herd had banged their head into the fence.
At times reading the news I feel like one of those sheep, being forced or influenced to see the path ahead the way the media might desire me to. I for one refuse to take part in this media frenzy, based on nothing but negative perceptions, at times contrived facts, purposely selected to sway or influence my mind or view of our path. I do not need a steady diet of sensationalism, now gorged by the media's constant flow of such. Enough already.
We as the ultimate consumers of media can determine the nature of what is dished out to us, by choosing not to partake. Our choices do make a difference and can influence what is supplied to us. We do have a voice and I for one demand more accurate and unbiased coverage of what is really going on over here and else where in the world.
I will take the time and effort to find a more accurate unbiased coverage of my news, regardless of the cost.
Today, as usual, my day started with a flood of calls informing me of the arrival of one source after another at the front gate, right up until dinnertime, now 6pm. I didn't have time to eat breakfast or lunch, getting one of my interpreters to bring me a plate of food so I could eat during my debriefings.
But during the course of the day I was forced to pause for a moment, even making my sources wait, while I attended to an issue more important than anything else. While out at the front gate I noticed a young girl crying behind the barbed wire that separates us from the throngs of people waiting for their chance to speak with someone. Her mother, only having one leg, had hobbled in on her crutches a few moments earlier. The young girl separated from the only person she was familiar with, began crying, now hiding behind the rest of the crowd, I searched through the mass to see where the crying noise was coming from.
She was obviously very poor, in her tattered old dress, totally worn out plastic flip-flops, her hair matted against her head indicating she hadn't had a bath in a long time and her skin blistered from the dirt and weather.
Once I saw her I quickly told the MP's to move the barbed wire back to let her in to join her mother. Her crying stopped as she darted in to grab a hold of her mother's long black dishdasha, torn and frayed from years of use. As she stood by her mother's side, grasping her dress, I moved over slowly to brush her stringy hair away from her eyes and to pat her gently on the head, as I told the guard to make sure they don't leave before I could return.
I quickly loaded up the sources in my car and returned them to my office in the palace. I told them to wait for a moment, while I rummaged through my FedEx box full of toys sent my by my teammates back home. I grabbed a comb, a brush, a pair of new flip-flops, a whistle, a stuffed monkey whose arms hang around your neck, and a new toothbrush and tooth paste and dashed out the door, telling my interpreter to come along.
As I made my way back over to the front gate, I saw the little girl and her mother waiting patiently anticipating my return, not knowing why I had asked them to wait. Bending down I handed her the items one by one, as I explained what each item was, to insure she knew what I was giving her, especially as I gave her the toothbrush, asking her to be sure to brush everyday.
Her eyes lit up with such joy as I put the monkey arms over her head. She was so excited to receive everything, being somewhat shy though, not having dealt with an American before. She was so precious as her big brown eyes looked up at me, causing me to almost breakdown into tears as I walked away quickly so as to not bring too much attention to the little girl from the on looking crowd.
What a moment! In my own little way, I am influencing and affecting the attitudes of Iraqis one person at a time, taking baby steps, one experience at a time. My sphere of influence is small in comparison to the task at hand, but who knows what the ripple affect will be of my small effort to calm the tears of one sweet little girl. Thanks to my team mates back home who made this moment possible by sending me the toys to hand out to Iraqi children. I have only one request of them and others please send me more toys. "
Remember - BAD news sells. GOOD news doesn't.
------------
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/rydbom.asp
------------
06-23-2003
Sitrep: Iraq
Editor's Note: This is an open letter from U.S. Army Maj. Eric Rydbom in Iraq to the First Lutheran Church of Richmond Beach in Shoreline, Wash. Rydbom is Deputy Division Engineer of the 4th Infantry Division.
It has been a while since I have written to my friends at First Lutheran Church about what's really going on here in Iraq. The news you watch on TV is exaggerated, sensationalized and selective. Good news doesn't sell.
The stuff you don't hear about on CNN?
Let's start with electrical power production in Iraq. The day after the war was declared over, there was nearly 0 power being generated in Iraq. Just 45 days later, in a partnership between the Army, the Iraqi people and some private companies, there are now 3200 megawatts (Mw) of power being produced daily, 1/3 of the total national potential of 8000 Mw. Downed power lines (big stuff, 400 Kilovolt (Kv) and 132 Kv) are being repaired and are about 70 percent complete.
Then there is water purification. In central Iraq between Baghdad and Mosul, home of the 4th Infantry Division, water treatment was spotty at best. The facilities existed, but the controls were never implemented. Simple chemicals like Chlorine for purification and Alum (Aluminum Sulfate) for sediment settling (the Tigris River is about as clear as the Mississippi River) were in very short supply or not used at all. When chlorine was used, it was metered by the scientific method of guessing.
So some people got pool water to drink and some people got water with lots of little things floating around in it. We are slowly but surely solving that. Contracts for repairs to facilities that are only 50 percent or less operational are being let, chemicals are being delivered, although we don't have the metering problem solved yet ( ... but again, it's only been 45 days).
How about oil and fuel? Well the war was all about oil wasn't it? You bet it was. It was all about oil for the Iraqi people! They have no other income, they produce nothing else. Oil is 95 percent of the Iraqi GNP. For this nation to survive, it must sell oil.
The Refinery at Bayji is [operating] at 75 percent of capacity producing gasoline. The crude pipeline between Kirkuk (Oil Central) and Bayji will be repaired by tomorrow (2 June). LPG, what all Iraqis use to cook and heat with, is at 103 percent of normal production and we, the U.S. Army, are ensuring it is being distributed fairly to all Iraqis.
You have to remember that only three months ago, all these things were used by the Saddam regime as weapons against the population to keep them in line. If your town misbehaved, gasoline shipments stopped, LPG pipelines and trucks stopped, water was turned off, power was turned off.
Now, until exports start, every drop of gasoline produced goes to the Iraqi people. Crude oil is being stored and the country is at 75 percent capacity right now. They need to export or stop pumping soon, so thank the U.N. for the delay.
All LPG goes to the Iraqi people everywhere. Water is being purified as best it can be, but at least its running all the time to everyone.
Are we still getting shot at? Yep.
Are American soldiers still dying? Yep, about one a day from my outfit, the 4th Infantry Division, most in accidents, but dead is dead.
If we are doing all this for the Iraqis, why are they shooting at us?
The general Iraqi population isn't shooting at us. There are still bad guys who won't let go of the old regime. They are Ba'ath party members (Read Nazi Party, but not as nice) who have known nothing but and supported nothing but the regime all of their lives. These are the thugs for the regime who caused many to disappear in the night. They have no other skills. At least the Nazis [in Germany] had jobs and a semblance of a national infrastructure that they could go back to after the war, as plumbers, managers, engineers, etc. These people have no skills but terror. They are simply applying their skills ... and we are applying ours.
There is no Christian way to say this, but they must be eliminated and we are doing so with all the efficiency we can muster. Our troops are shot at literally everyday by small arms and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). We respond. One hundred percent of the time, the Ba''ath party guys come out with the short end of the stick.
The most amazing thing to me is that they don't realize that if they stopped shooting at us, we would focus on fixing things more quickly and then leave back to the land of the Big PX. The more they shoot at us, the longer we will have to stay.
Lastly, all of you please realize that 90 percent of the damage you see on TV was caused by Iraqis, not by us and not by the war. Sure, we took out a few bridges from military necessity, we took out a few power and phone lines to disrupt communications, sure we drilled a few palaces and government headquarters buildings with 2000 lb. laser guided bombs (I work 100 yards from where two hit the Tikrit Palace), [but] he had plenty to spare.
But, any damage you see to schools, hospitals, power generation facilities, refineries, pipelines, was all caused either by the Iraqi Army in its death throes or from much of the Iraqi civilians looting the places.
Could we have prevented it? Nope.
We can and do now, but 45 days ago, the average soldier was fighting for his own survival and trying to get to his objectives as fast as possible. He was lucky to know what town he was in much less be informed enough to know who owned what or have the power to stop 1,000 people from looting and burning a building by himself.
The United States and our allies, especially Great Britain, are doing a very noble thing here. We stuck our necks out on the world's chopping block to free an entire people from the grip of a horrible terror that was beyond belief.
I've already talked the weapons of mass destruction thing to death - bottom line, who cares? This country was one big conventional weapons ammo dump anyway. We have probably destroyed more weapons and ammo in the last 30 days than the U.S. Army has ever fired in the last 30 years (remember, this is a country the size of Texas), so drop the WMD argument as the reason we came here. If we find it great if we don't, so what?
I'm living in a "guest palace" on a 500-acre palace compound with 20 palaces with like facilities built in half a dozen towns all over Iraq that were built for one man. Drive down the street and out into the countryside five miles away like I have and see all the families of 10 or more, all living in mud huts and herding the two dozen sheep on which their very existence depends ..then tell me why you think we are here.
-----------------------------
Yeah Angie - let's ask those guys. Let's ask the people who had electriciy or gas cut off on a whim. Lets ask the folks in mud huts outside the palaces. Lets ask the families trying to find loved ones in the mass graves Saddam left.
Hey I know! Let's ask the guys actually OVER there doing this.
http://www.lt-smash.us - go back to his feb, march, april, may weblogs.
http://chiefwiggles.blog-city.com/
"During the course of my daily activities I often take time to glance through the headlines of the so-called news being reported by our own media back in the states. The constant barrage of negative news the media chooses to report on bothers me, depicting quite a different view of what is transpiring over here.
I am forced to ponder the value of a news-media that only reports a distorted view of events based on what they determine will sell papers and magazines or news that supports their own biased political attitudes. What is the value of news that doesn't tell the true story, but only a one-sided biased interpretation predetermined before the news events even occur. Why should the political bias or personal agenda of the news agency be so intertwined with the facts of the event, so as to purposely influence the attitudes of the reader?
I personally do not want my news to be contrived or purposely limited so as to sway my own political views, in order to achieve someone else's own personal agenda. I am disturbed by this attempt by the media to deliberately direct the attitudes of the people of America and the world by preconceiving the interpretation and selection of what they determine to be news worthy.
Where is it stated that news needs to be limited to only those transpiring events that are negative in nature, using sensationalism as the criteria by which events are judged to be news worthy?
Where is the complete story of events, both sides, all aspects of what is really transpiring so as to paint the total panoramic view, allowing the reader at that point to interpret and create their own meaning of the reported events?
With that in mind, are not the positive aspects of what is transpiring just as critical and vital as the negative? Are we going to allow others to determine what we think about, as if we are sheep to be herded by the media?
I recall as a boy on a scout camping trip coming upon a herd of sheep. Thinking it would be fun, we started pushing them in one direction and then another, just by running around screaming from side to side. At one point, without knowing it, we spooked them directly into a wooded fence. One sheep after another attempted to run through the fence, hitting their head on the wooden slats, until the entire herd had banged their head into the fence.
At times reading the news I feel like one of those sheep, being forced or influenced to see the path ahead the way the media might desire me to. I for one refuse to take part in this media frenzy, based on nothing but negative perceptions, at times contrived facts, purposely selected to sway or influence my mind or view of our path. I do not need a steady diet of sensationalism, now gorged by the media's constant flow of such. Enough already.
We as the ultimate consumers of media can determine the nature of what is dished out to us, by choosing not to partake. Our choices do make a difference and can influence what is supplied to us. We do have a voice and I for one demand more accurate and unbiased coverage of what is really going on over here and else where in the world.
I will take the time and effort to find a more accurate unbiased coverage of my news, regardless of the cost.
Today, as usual, my day started with a flood of calls informing me of the arrival of one source after another at the front gate, right up until dinnertime, now 6pm. I didn't have time to eat breakfast or lunch, getting one of my interpreters to bring me a plate of food so I could eat during my debriefings.
But during the course of the day I was forced to pause for a moment, even making my sources wait, while I attended to an issue more important than anything else. While out at the front gate I noticed a young girl crying behind the barbed wire that separates us from the throngs of people waiting for their chance to speak with someone. Her mother, only having one leg, had hobbled in on her crutches a few moments earlier. The young girl separated from the only person she was familiar with, began crying, now hiding behind the rest of the crowd, I searched through the mass to see where the crying noise was coming from.
She was obviously very poor, in her tattered old dress, totally worn out plastic flip-flops, her hair matted against her head indicating she hadn't had a bath in a long time and her skin blistered from the dirt and weather.
Once I saw her I quickly told the MP's to move the barbed wire back to let her in to join her mother. Her crying stopped as she darted in to grab a hold of her mother's long black dishdasha, torn and frayed from years of use. As she stood by her mother's side, grasping her dress, I moved over slowly to brush her stringy hair away from her eyes and to pat her gently on the head, as I told the guard to make sure they don't leave before I could return.
I quickly loaded up the sources in my car and returned them to my office in the palace. I told them to wait for a moment, while I rummaged through my FedEx box full of toys sent my by my teammates back home. I grabbed a comb, a brush, a pair of new flip-flops, a whistle, a stuffed monkey whose arms hang around your neck, and a new toothbrush and tooth paste and dashed out the door, telling my interpreter to come along.
As I made my way back over to the front gate, I saw the little girl and her mother waiting patiently anticipating my return, not knowing why I had asked them to wait. Bending down I handed her the items one by one, as I explained what each item was, to insure she knew what I was giving her, especially as I gave her the toothbrush, asking her to be sure to brush everyday.
Her eyes lit up with such joy as I put the monkey arms over her head. She was so excited to receive everything, being somewhat shy though, not having dealt with an American before. She was so precious as her big brown eyes looked up at me, causing me to almost breakdown into tears as I walked away quickly so as to not bring too much attention to the little girl from the on looking crowd.
What a moment! In my own little way, I am influencing and affecting the attitudes of Iraqis one person at a time, taking baby steps, one experience at a time. My sphere of influence is small in comparison to the task at hand, but who knows what the ripple affect will be of my small effort to calm the tears of one sweet little girl. Thanks to my team mates back home who made this moment possible by sending me the toys to hand out to Iraqi children. I have only one request of them and others please send me more toys. "
Remember - BAD news sells. GOOD news doesn't.
However, sir, the fact remains. You are basically telling us that we are not to believe reliable news sources. We are not to believe our own eyes and ears. Sorry, I cannot do that.
I am not sure what is being said on US stations; don't watch it. But I do watch BBC and CBC Canada, and whereas your gesture is, indeed, heartwarming, it cannot be construed as the overall scenario now, can it?
I don't know that anyone here has said the US forces were killing upwards of 70 people per night. Certainly I did not say that. Robert Fisk, above, did not say that.
What he did say was, and I quote:
"Some of the dead were killed in family fueds, in looting, or revenge killings. Others have been gunned down by US troops at checkpoints or in increasingly "vicious" raids carried out by American forces in the suburbs of Bagdad and the Sunni cities to the north".
I am equally aware of the US and UK casualities in Iraq, and I am distressed by it. You and your counterparts from the UK are doing what you've been ordered to do, and I am sure that you are doing it to the best of your ability.
Whether you should be there fighting and dying for Bush and Blair et al is a Judgment someone higher than us mere mortals will make at the appropriate time.
In the meantime I wish you nothing but sincere best wishes and a safe return to your family and home.
You, sir, have a good heart.
The BBC's getting a lot of flak these days, because one of their journalists has apparently fabricated enough stuff to cause a scientist to kill himself.
The NYTimes supported a reporter that was fabricating stories out of whole cloth, interviewing people that didn't exist. And he did it for months.
Who watches the watchers? Who decides their reliability? Who determines what they're saying is 'true' and accurate? For it's possible to be accurate about something, and yet spin it so the reader's comprehension of it is opposite of the actuality.
Consider - you've got a city of half a million people. You have five carjackings, two murders, two fatal wrecks and a restaraunt that's spreading salmonella. Total people involved with the problems, maybe three dozen.
You also have a state fair come to town, a real estate consortium's decided to donate land and materials for a dozen Habitat for Humanity houses, and a philanthropist bequeaths enough money to buy five thousand books for the city library.
What's going to be on the front page?
It won't be the good news, that's for certain.
Bad news sells. You're going to see the problems on the front page - not the good stuff. And the broadcast media - it's ALL front page. They don't have time for the human interest stuff, it's tossed in if you've got a thirty second spot that's not occupied with a commercial.
So you REALLY think you know what's going on, because you trust your media? You trust the sources you decide to believe. What if they started reporting tomorrow that things in Iraq aren't nearly as bad as they've been saying?
Would you believe them? Or would you figure it was just propaganda?
They've spent a lot of time and effort painting Iraq as a quagmire. Because it SELLS. It gets attention. Bad news hooks you through the next commercial break - good news doesn't.
Given fifty good news items from Iraq, and one bad - which do you think will get the attention and broadcast time?
As I said - you choose your sources. And THEY choose what to tell you. And there's no law at all that they've got to tell you the WHOLE story, or even hint at what they're not telling you.
The NYTimes supported a reporter that was fabricating stories out of whole cloth, interviewing people that didn't exist. And he did it for months.
Who watches the watchers? Who decides their reliability? Who determines what they're saying is 'true' and accurate? For it's possible to be accurate about something, and yet spin it so the reader's comprehension of it is opposite of the actuality.
Consider - you've got a city of half a million people. You have five carjackings, two murders, two fatal wrecks and a restaraunt that's spreading salmonella. Total people involved with the problems, maybe three dozen.
You also have a state fair come to town, a real estate consortium's decided to donate land and materials for a dozen Habitat for Humanity houses, and a philanthropist bequeaths enough money to buy five thousand books for the city library.
What's going to be on the front page?
It won't be the good news, that's for certain.
Bad news sells. You're going to see the problems on the front page - not the good stuff. And the broadcast media - it's ALL front page. They don't have time for the human interest stuff, it's tossed in if you've got a thirty second spot that's not occupied with a commercial.
So you REALLY think you know what's going on, because you trust your media? You trust the sources you decide to believe. What if they started reporting tomorrow that things in Iraq aren't nearly as bad as they've been saying?
Would you believe them? Or would you figure it was just propaganda?
They've spent a lot of time and effort painting Iraq as a quagmire. Because it SELLS. It gets attention. Bad news hooks you through the next commercial break - good news doesn't.
Given fifty good news items from Iraq, and one bad - which do you think will get the attention and broadcast time?
As I said - you choose your sources. And THEY choose what to tell you. And there's no law at all that they've got to tell you the WHOLE story, or even hint at what they're not telling you.
Who watches the watchers? Damned if I know I reply in all honesty.
It is a very interesting question, however, and the answer is? Anyone out there want to jump in?
Your comments were very interesting and well delivered for the most part.
However, your assertion that Andrew Gilligan ''has apparently fabricated enough stuff to cause a scientist to kill himself" is stretching the evidence to date in the Hutton Inquiry an awful lot, especially in view of the role played by government officials, intelligence officials, and the PM, Tony Blair, himself.
That is the purpose of the Inquiry, what Lord Hutton will decide - who may have indirectly caused Dr. Kelly to take his own life, and from where I sit Andrew Gilligan is one small part of a much bigger picture.
Did you believe, for instance, that Iraq was capable of deploying WMD within a 45 minute period? I didn't. Dr. Kelly didn't either, and "he was troubled by it". I wasn't "troubled by it". I was too busy being furious.
In fact, according to today's Independent, "there was also widespread disquiet within the intelligence community about inserting the 45 minute claim especially since it came from a single source and was unreliable".
Nonetheless, as we have seen, Bush and Blair used this infamous "dossier" in an attempt to convince the world that we were all in such grave danger from said WMDs, so much so that nothing short of a massive attack, a regime change, even, would do.
They lied.
I agree that for the most part we are given the bad news first. However, there are always exceptions. I like our local newspaper's ability to put the headlines such as which crime/disaster occurred today longside a happy story. It's a good balance. If our wee paper can do it, so can all the major ones regardless of where they are.
In the case of what news goes where one can assume, surely, that the editors decide? And we could go on up the line to the publishers? To the owners (fi they and the publishers are not one and the same)?
Perhaps I am not cynical enough, but, you know, sir/madam, I tend to believe what I see with my own eyes.
Tonight, for instance, on both our news and BBC World we saw the latest attack on a US convoy in Iraq.
According to your premise I had a few options. I could have looked at the burning vehicle, dismissed it with a shrug, declared it was a staged event, and moved on.
Or I could accept the fact that today/tonight (depending on our time and Iraqi time) a US convoy was attacked by unknown assailants, and there it is, burning away in front of my weary eyes.
And, similarly, I could have decided not to believe that three US soldiers were killed tonight, or to believe they did, in fact, die.
When we see someone being carried off in a body bag we believe him to be dead.. When we see flame and smoke emanating from an armed forces vehicle we can say, yes, it is on fire.
There comes a time when we say, okay, we can ignore everything that's happening today in the world, say it's all a bunch of crap, say everyone in the news media, print and television, is lying, has his/her own agenda, their quota of newspapers to sell, ratings to achieve, or we can say somewhere in what is being said there is the truth.
It may not be all truth, it may have its own spin, yes, but we have to believe something. We have to believe that the situation in Iraq is not a garden party even if we'd like it to be safe and happy and "liberated" and "free". People have died, many people have died, people are still dying, and unfortunately will continue to do so before this nightmare ends.
Are we not to believe that?
Are we not to believe anything?
I am afraid I can't live like that.
It is a very interesting question, however, and the answer is? Anyone out there want to jump in?
Your comments were very interesting and well delivered for the most part.
However, your assertion that Andrew Gilligan ''has apparently fabricated enough stuff to cause a scientist to kill himself" is stretching the evidence to date in the Hutton Inquiry an awful lot, especially in view of the role played by government officials, intelligence officials, and the PM, Tony Blair, himself.
That is the purpose of the Inquiry, what Lord Hutton will decide - who may have indirectly caused Dr. Kelly to take his own life, and from where I sit Andrew Gilligan is one small part of a much bigger picture.
Did you believe, for instance, that Iraq was capable of deploying WMD within a 45 minute period? I didn't. Dr. Kelly didn't either, and "he was troubled by it". I wasn't "troubled by it". I was too busy being furious.
In fact, according to today's Independent, "there was also widespread disquiet within the intelligence community about inserting the 45 minute claim especially since it came from a single source and was unreliable".
Nonetheless, as we have seen, Bush and Blair used this infamous "dossier" in an attempt to convince the world that we were all in such grave danger from said WMDs, so much so that nothing short of a massive attack, a regime change, even, would do.
They lied.
I agree that for the most part we are given the bad news first. However, there are always exceptions. I like our local newspaper's ability to put the headlines such as which crime/disaster occurred today longside a happy story. It's a good balance. If our wee paper can do it, so can all the major ones regardless of where they are.
In the case of what news goes where one can assume, surely, that the editors decide? And we could go on up the line to the publishers? To the owners (fi they and the publishers are not one and the same)?
Perhaps I am not cynical enough, but, you know, sir/madam, I tend to believe what I see with my own eyes.
Tonight, for instance, on both our news and BBC World we saw the latest attack on a US convoy in Iraq.
According to your premise I had a few options. I could have looked at the burning vehicle, dismissed it with a shrug, declared it was a staged event, and moved on.
Or I could accept the fact that today/tonight (depending on our time and Iraqi time) a US convoy was attacked by unknown assailants, and there it is, burning away in front of my weary eyes.
And, similarly, I could have decided not to believe that three US soldiers were killed tonight, or to believe they did, in fact, die.
When we see someone being carried off in a body bag we believe him to be dead.. When we see flame and smoke emanating from an armed forces vehicle we can say, yes, it is on fire.
There comes a time when we say, okay, we can ignore everything that's happening today in the world, say it's all a bunch of crap, say everyone in the news media, print and television, is lying, has his/her own agenda, their quota of newspapers to sell, ratings to achieve, or we can say somewhere in what is being said there is the truth.
It may not be all truth, it may have its own spin, yes, but we have to believe something. We have to believe that the situation in Iraq is not a garden party even if we'd like it to be safe and happy and "liberated" and "free". People have died, many people have died, people are still dying, and unfortunately will continue to do so before this nightmare ends.
Are we not to believe that?
Are we not to believe anything?
I am afraid I can't live like that.
you choose to ignore any good news out of the 'nightmare'.
The difference, however, is under Saddam the people had NO way out of the nightmare. If he died, his sons would replace him, and they were arguably worse than the father. A never-ending nightmare, a 1984-style society in real life, with the hobnailed boot on the foot of the Ba'athist party.
Now they have hope. Hope isn't news. Hope won't be reported by Fisk and the media, because it doesn't sell. You'll have to do a lot more searching for info, you'll have to look at what people who are THERE are are reporting. The info's out there - there's plenty of personal reports on what's going on. And they're reporting predominantly good, with some bad, but things are getting better and better.
So - you want to believe it's a hopeless quagmire? Go ahead. I'll prefer to believe something else.
And I believe that they have hope for the first time in decades.
That's what I choose to believe.
The difference, however, is under Saddam the people had NO way out of the nightmare. If he died, his sons would replace him, and they were arguably worse than the father. A never-ending nightmare, a 1984-style society in real life, with the hobnailed boot on the foot of the Ba'athist party.
Now they have hope. Hope isn't news. Hope won't be reported by Fisk and the media, because it doesn't sell. You'll have to do a lot more searching for info, you'll have to look at what people who are THERE are are reporting. The info's out there - there's plenty of personal reports on what's going on. And they're reporting predominantly good, with some bad, but things are getting better and better.
So - you want to believe it's a hopeless quagmire? Go ahead. I'll prefer to believe something else.
And I believe that they have hope for the first time in decades.
That's what I choose to believe.
The CBC is "watched" by the CRTC, I don't know if that makes better. Yet their latest generation ex-saddam was quite good. The BBC is open-minded, yet for some reason refuses to print anything about the Iranian student movement. Other than short "we really don't care" pieces. The British media is not typically held in high regards by me. However I would recommend reading the daily telegraph as my British paper of choice. But the point I was trying to make was not to be untrusting of every major media source, just to expect that they do have an agenda. To avoid getting sucked into one of these "causes" I recommend trying to get as many different 'biases" as possible, read from as many different sources, thus getting a more independent news source.
There is no way to determine the truth; it is merely ones perception; however every lie must have some element of truth in it.
Bush is not the sharpest tool in the shed, by any means (I would be really scared if I didn't know Rummy and others were actually running the show)
However, I think you are too willing to lump Blair in the category, just because he agrees with Bush on this particular issue.
Fisk has the same creditability as well Baghdad Bob, and I wouldn't put too much stake in anything he says. It just really ticks me off how blatantly he comes to Iraq to find a pre-determined story and doesn't report on anything else.
As for the Iraqi WMD issue, the question is not did they have such weapons; we know they did, for the simple and immoral reason, that we (US and the Germans and others sold them to Saddam). The question is what they did with them. No one has answer that question as of yet, one way or another.
There is no evidence that had the sanctions been lifted, Saddam would not have reconstituted his nuclear program, and every Iraqi scientist to date has claimed that this was already planned.
As for the Iraqi suffering, put a figure on it. The AP for all their faults did attempt to do a study to find a true death toll, and came up with the figure of 3,240. Although they have later backtracked on this, (I think because the figure was high enough for their liking) claiming that it only included "half' of Iraqis hospitals, yet most of the rural clinics, that they did not included were in the north, where there was almost no civilian loss because of the war. So I would say 3,500-4,000 would be a reasonable estimate. Don't expect the AP to invest the limited resources to "complete" the study, anytime soon, if at all as it is not in their interest.
If we could stop all lost of life we would, sadly we are limited creatures and can only minimize it.
If Americans had the chance to save all the victims of 9/11 in exchange for all of our freedoms, (there is many more that they have not yet taken away) would you think the majority of Americans would accept it. I don't and I don't know why people think Iraqis would be that different.
Bottom line, Saddam held 25 million people hostage,
We could either continue the UN sanctions that have killed 107,000-220,000 or get rid of him at a cost of around 4,000+. Neither choice is desirable, yet something had to be done. And not other viable option exists. Unless you buy the non-war solutions offer by the anti-war movement, 65 million dollars to an opposition group will get rid of Saddam. (haha that could work) Sadly, a lot of westerns like to write and assume it will make a difference, thus being able to forget the original problem.
As for the our 3 losses yesterday, this is war, and our troops have captured 40 suspects, all of the very attackers, each time they attack we strike back and they get weaker and weaker. Although are greatest success still comes from Iraqi tipsters that are feed up with the “rebels”.
War is hell, yet politics by other means, when the people own the power; they have never needed to resort to war against people control nations.
Actually 90% of all attacks have occurred in 10% of Iraq. Most has been a “garden” party, if I can call the work that other NGO groups work in helping others a “garden party” yet I don’t think that would be fair to both sides.
There is no way to determine the truth; it is merely ones perception; however every lie must have some element of truth in it.
Bush is not the sharpest tool in the shed, by any means (I would be really scared if I didn't know Rummy and others were actually running the show)
However, I think you are too willing to lump Blair in the category, just because he agrees with Bush on this particular issue.
Fisk has the same creditability as well Baghdad Bob, and I wouldn't put too much stake in anything he says. It just really ticks me off how blatantly he comes to Iraq to find a pre-determined story and doesn't report on anything else.
As for the Iraqi WMD issue, the question is not did they have such weapons; we know they did, for the simple and immoral reason, that we (US and the Germans and others sold them to Saddam). The question is what they did with them. No one has answer that question as of yet, one way or another.
There is no evidence that had the sanctions been lifted, Saddam would not have reconstituted his nuclear program, and every Iraqi scientist to date has claimed that this was already planned.
As for the Iraqi suffering, put a figure on it. The AP for all their faults did attempt to do a study to find a true death toll, and came up with the figure of 3,240. Although they have later backtracked on this, (I think because the figure was high enough for their liking) claiming that it only included "half' of Iraqis hospitals, yet most of the rural clinics, that they did not included were in the north, where there was almost no civilian loss because of the war. So I would say 3,500-4,000 would be a reasonable estimate. Don't expect the AP to invest the limited resources to "complete" the study, anytime soon, if at all as it is not in their interest.
If we could stop all lost of life we would, sadly we are limited creatures and can only minimize it.
If Americans had the chance to save all the victims of 9/11 in exchange for all of our freedoms, (there is many more that they have not yet taken away) would you think the majority of Americans would accept it. I don't and I don't know why people think Iraqis would be that different.
Bottom line, Saddam held 25 million people hostage,
We could either continue the UN sanctions that have killed 107,000-220,000 or get rid of him at a cost of around 4,000+. Neither choice is desirable, yet something had to be done. And not other viable option exists. Unless you buy the non-war solutions offer by the anti-war movement, 65 million dollars to an opposition group will get rid of Saddam. (haha that could work) Sadly, a lot of westerns like to write and assume it will make a difference, thus being able to forget the original problem.
As for the our 3 losses yesterday, this is war, and our troops have captured 40 suspects, all of the very attackers, each time they attack we strike back and they get weaker and weaker. Although are greatest success still comes from Iraqi tipsters that are feed up with the “rebels”.
War is hell, yet politics by other means, when the people own the power; they have never needed to resort to war against people control nations.
Actually 90% of all attacks have occurred in 10% of Iraq. Most has been a “garden” party, if I can call the work that other NGO groups work in helping others a “garden party” yet I don’t think that would be fair to both sides.
Iraq: A Federal Judge's Point of View
By Judge Don Walters
"Despite my initial opposition to the war, I am now convinced, whether we find any weapons of mass destruction or prove Saddam sheltered and financed terrorists, absolutely, we should have overthrown the Baathists, indeed, we should have done it sooner.
What changed my mind?
When we left mid June, 57 mass graves had been found, one with the bodies of 1200 children. There have been credible reports of murder, brutality and torture of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iraqi citizens. There is poverty on a monumental scale and fear on a larger one. That fear is still palpable.
I have seen the machines and places of torture. I will tell you one story told to me by the Chief of Pediatrics at the Medical College in Basra. It was one of the most shocking to me, but I heard worse. One of Saddam's
security agents was sent to question a Shiite in his home. The interrogation took place in the living room in the presence of the man's wife, who held their three month old child. A question was asked and the
thug did not like the answer; he asked it again, same answer. He grabbed the baby from its mother and plucked its eye out. And then repeated his question. Worse things happened with the knowledge, indeed with the participation, of Saddam, his family and the Baathist regime.
Thousands suffered while we were messing about with France and Russia and Germany and the UN. Every one of them knew what was going on there, but
France and the UN were making millions administering the food for oil program. We cannot, I know, remake the world, nor do I believe we should.
We cannot stamp out evil, I know. But this time we were morally right and our economic and strategic interests were involved. I submit that just because we can't do everything doesn't mean that we should do nothing.
We must have the moral courage to see this through, to do whatever it takes to secure responsible government for the Iraqi people. Having decided to topple Saddam, we cannot abandon those who trust us. I fear we will quit as the horrors of war come into our living rooms. Look at the stories you are getting from the media today. The steady drip, drip, drip
of bad news may destroy our will to fulfill the bligations we have assumed. WE ARE NOT GETTING THE WHOLE TRUTH FROM THE NEWS MEDIA. The news you watch, listen to and read is highly selective. Good news doesn't sell. 90% of the damage you see on tv was caused by Iraqis, not by US. All the damage you
see to schools, hospitals, power generation facilities, refineries, pipelines and water supplies, as well as shops, museums, and semi-public buildings (like hotels) was caused either by the Iraqi army in its death
throes or Iraqi civilians looting and rioting. "
http://globalspecops.com/view.html
----------
By Judge Don Walters
"Despite my initial opposition to the war, I am now convinced, whether we find any weapons of mass destruction or prove Saddam sheltered and financed terrorists, absolutely, we should have overthrown the Baathists, indeed, we should have done it sooner.
What changed my mind?
When we left mid June, 57 mass graves had been found, one with the bodies of 1200 children. There have been credible reports of murder, brutality and torture of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iraqi citizens. There is poverty on a monumental scale and fear on a larger one. That fear is still palpable.
I have seen the machines and places of torture. I will tell you one story told to me by the Chief of Pediatrics at the Medical College in Basra. It was one of the most shocking to me, but I heard worse. One of Saddam's
security agents was sent to question a Shiite in his home. The interrogation took place in the living room in the presence of the man's wife, who held their three month old child. A question was asked and the
thug did not like the answer; he asked it again, same answer. He grabbed the baby from its mother and plucked its eye out. And then repeated his question. Worse things happened with the knowledge, indeed with the participation, of Saddam, his family and the Baathist regime.
Thousands suffered while we were messing about with France and Russia and Germany and the UN. Every one of them knew what was going on there, but
France and the UN were making millions administering the food for oil program. We cannot, I know, remake the world, nor do I believe we should.
We cannot stamp out evil, I know. But this time we were morally right and our economic and strategic interests were involved. I submit that just because we can't do everything doesn't mean that we should do nothing.
We must have the moral courage to see this through, to do whatever it takes to secure responsible government for the Iraqi people. Having decided to topple Saddam, we cannot abandon those who trust us. I fear we will quit as the horrors of war come into our living rooms. Look at the stories you are getting from the media today. The steady drip, drip, drip
of bad news may destroy our will to fulfill the bligations we have assumed. WE ARE NOT GETTING THE WHOLE TRUTH FROM THE NEWS MEDIA. The news you watch, listen to and read is highly selective. Good news doesn't sell. 90% of the damage you see on tv was caused by Iraqis, not by US. All the damage you
see to schools, hospitals, power generation facilities, refineries, pipelines and water supplies, as well as shops, museums, and semi-public buildings (like hotels) was caused either by the Iraqi army in its death
throes or Iraqi civilians looting and rioting. "
http://globalspecops.com/view.html
----------
The CRTC is an independent public authority in charge of regulating and supervising Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications which reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It does, indeed, "watch" CBC and all others (Canadian) in broadcasting/telecommunications, etc.
In the UK, the BBC, much like the CBC, actually, is run in the interests of its viewers and listeners with twelve governors acting as trustees of the public interest, and they regulate the BBC. These "trustees" are appointed by the Queen on the advice of Ministers, and it is their role to safeguard its independence, set its objectives, monitor its performacnce, and they are accountable to its licensed payers and to Parliament.
I have faith in both the BBC and CBC (Canada). Both do a credible job, and at times far exceed "credible". For example, BBC's Paul Welsh's coverage of the civil war in Liberia earlier this summer was brilliant.
My UK paper of choice is the Independent, combined with my once weekly copy of Scotland on Sunday, an award winning newspaper of excellence.
With respect to "lumping Blair with Bush", I should explain this was simply on the Iraq issue.
However, I feel that Tony Blair has let everyone down. He came on the world stage in 1997, vibrant, intelligent, charismatic, and we expected great things from him both domestically and internationally. He, instead, ended up latching on to Bush re the Iraq issue and made a complete fool of himself at home and away. (Except in the US, of course, where he is treated like the proverbial celebrity!)
(NOTE: In a by-election in one of the UK's Labour strongholds (Brent East) just yesterday, the Liberal Democrat (Lib-Dem) candidate defeated the Labour candidate in the first loss by Labour in a by-election in fifteen years. It is very possible that Tony's charm is on the wane, certainly in Brent East!) The majority of folk in the UK, of course, did not want the attack on Iraq. Elections is one way to express their disapproval. More power to them says I!
An attack on a soverign nation without UN approval, when all efforts to avoid death and destruction were not availed off is, to me, a war crime especially when the world was treated to unmitigated lies and deciet on the part of the US administration and Blair et al.
If the weapons issue was as serious as Bush and Blair lied about, why weren' t the UN inspectors allowed to finish their task? Oh, but had they done so, and had they found nothing (as is still the case today), that would have put a crimp in the war plans. They'd have to search around for another reason, which, of course, they did.
So to cover all possibilities, the back-up plan, Iraqi freedom, became the battle cry.
Ye'ah, we'll kill you and destroy your country, become your occupiers, but if you survive, you will be free.
You may have lost your entire family, your home, an arm here, or a leg there, but you are free to go out and wander about the land, blowing yourself up with the remains of cluster bomblets scattered hither and yon by our efforts to free and liberate you..
You will have to drink filthy water, and go without electricity, and sewage can continue to run free on the streets. Ah, but you're free.
Tell that to the child we saw on a recent documentary who told us he had nightmares, that he did not know what his future was going to hold, or the other child who only wanted to go back to school. We should ask them about "freedom" .
And whilst armed forces and civilians continue to die, and whilst everyone and his brother are blamed for same, the fact has not escaped me that the US and UK forces are occupying someone else's land. The US and UK forces invaded, bombed, "shocked and awed" Iraq, and now you're wondering about casualties?
What would you do if, for instance, the US military was not the most impressive in the world today, and you were attacked by a foreign country? What would you do? Sit around and do nothing? No, sir. I somehow doubt that. We, regardless of where we call home, love our country and will fight to save it. Why should the people of Iraq be any different?
You have stated your view with respect to Robert Fisk. I'm curious as to why you dislike him. He has been covering the Mid east hell hole for twenty plus years. It's not as if he drops in from time to time for God's sakes. The man lives in Beirut.
He covered the days leading up to the attack, the attack, and post attack, so why are you attempting to convey that he wanders into Bagdag on a whim? He was there for the entire attack as those of us who read his dispatches damn well know. He told us the horrors of civilians, giving names, stating injuries. He brings humanity to these bloody wars of aggression which no one else seems to bother with. it is one of the reasons why those of us who care about humanity reach out instinctively to Robert Fisk.
I'm rather surprised and disbelieving at the AP figures you've given us. A few days ago, John Pilger, in his article entitled "Iraq's Epic Suffering is Made Invisible", had the number at 10,000, which certainly is a lot more credible.
The unfortunate aspect from an administration point of view with respect to this attack and the one in Afghanistan is the lack of details with respect to the innocent dead. It's almost top secret for God's sakes, or perhaps no records were ever maintained. As if, not only the suffering of the Iraqi people is invisible, but they are too.
(See:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/1645505.php
As for "Truth", it may, indeed, hobble about on one leg with the aid of a crutch, but sooner or later it walks bravely forward on both legs, and when that happens, there will be no room for speculation.
In the UK, the BBC, much like the CBC, actually, is run in the interests of its viewers and listeners with twelve governors acting as trustees of the public interest, and they regulate the BBC. These "trustees" are appointed by the Queen on the advice of Ministers, and it is their role to safeguard its independence, set its objectives, monitor its performacnce, and they are accountable to its licensed payers and to Parliament.
I have faith in both the BBC and CBC (Canada). Both do a credible job, and at times far exceed "credible". For example, BBC's Paul Welsh's coverage of the civil war in Liberia earlier this summer was brilliant.
My UK paper of choice is the Independent, combined with my once weekly copy of Scotland on Sunday, an award winning newspaper of excellence.
With respect to "lumping Blair with Bush", I should explain this was simply on the Iraq issue.
However, I feel that Tony Blair has let everyone down. He came on the world stage in 1997, vibrant, intelligent, charismatic, and we expected great things from him both domestically and internationally. He, instead, ended up latching on to Bush re the Iraq issue and made a complete fool of himself at home and away. (Except in the US, of course, where he is treated like the proverbial celebrity!)
(NOTE: In a by-election in one of the UK's Labour strongholds (Brent East) just yesterday, the Liberal Democrat (Lib-Dem) candidate defeated the Labour candidate in the first loss by Labour in a by-election in fifteen years. It is very possible that Tony's charm is on the wane, certainly in Brent East!) The majority of folk in the UK, of course, did not want the attack on Iraq. Elections is one way to express their disapproval. More power to them says I!
An attack on a soverign nation without UN approval, when all efforts to avoid death and destruction were not availed off is, to me, a war crime especially when the world was treated to unmitigated lies and deciet on the part of the US administration and Blair et al.
If the weapons issue was as serious as Bush and Blair lied about, why weren' t the UN inspectors allowed to finish their task? Oh, but had they done so, and had they found nothing (as is still the case today), that would have put a crimp in the war plans. They'd have to search around for another reason, which, of course, they did.
So to cover all possibilities, the back-up plan, Iraqi freedom, became the battle cry.
Ye'ah, we'll kill you and destroy your country, become your occupiers, but if you survive, you will be free.
You may have lost your entire family, your home, an arm here, or a leg there, but you are free to go out and wander about the land, blowing yourself up with the remains of cluster bomblets scattered hither and yon by our efforts to free and liberate you..
You will have to drink filthy water, and go without electricity, and sewage can continue to run free on the streets. Ah, but you're free.
Tell that to the child we saw on a recent documentary who told us he had nightmares, that he did not know what his future was going to hold, or the other child who only wanted to go back to school. We should ask them about "freedom" .
And whilst armed forces and civilians continue to die, and whilst everyone and his brother are blamed for same, the fact has not escaped me that the US and UK forces are occupying someone else's land. The US and UK forces invaded, bombed, "shocked and awed" Iraq, and now you're wondering about casualties?
What would you do if, for instance, the US military was not the most impressive in the world today, and you were attacked by a foreign country? What would you do? Sit around and do nothing? No, sir. I somehow doubt that. We, regardless of where we call home, love our country and will fight to save it. Why should the people of Iraq be any different?
You have stated your view with respect to Robert Fisk. I'm curious as to why you dislike him. He has been covering the Mid east hell hole for twenty plus years. It's not as if he drops in from time to time for God's sakes. The man lives in Beirut.
He covered the days leading up to the attack, the attack, and post attack, so why are you attempting to convey that he wanders into Bagdag on a whim? He was there for the entire attack as those of us who read his dispatches damn well know. He told us the horrors of civilians, giving names, stating injuries. He brings humanity to these bloody wars of aggression which no one else seems to bother with. it is one of the reasons why those of us who care about humanity reach out instinctively to Robert Fisk.
I'm rather surprised and disbelieving at the AP figures you've given us. A few days ago, John Pilger, in his article entitled "Iraq's Epic Suffering is Made Invisible", had the number at 10,000, which certainly is a lot more credible.
The unfortunate aspect from an administration point of view with respect to this attack and the one in Afghanistan is the lack of details with respect to the innocent dead. It's almost top secret for God's sakes, or perhaps no records were ever maintained. As if, not only the suffering of the Iraqi people is invisible, but they are too.
(See:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/1645505.php
As for "Truth", it may, indeed, hobble about on one leg with the aid of a crutch, but sooner or later it walks bravely forward on both legs, and when that happens, there will be no room for speculation.
"In the UK, the BBC, much like the CBC, actually, is run in the interests of its viewers and listeners with twelve governors acting as trustees of the public interest, and they regulate the BBC. These "trustees" are appointed by the Queen on the advice of Ministers, and it is their role to safeguard its independence, set its objectives, monitor its performacnce, and they are accountable to its licensed payers and to Parliament.
I have faith in both the BBC and CBC (Canada). Both do a credible job, and at times far exceed "credible". For example, BBC's Paul Welsh's coverage of the civil war in Liberia earlier this summer was brilliant. "
A mix of good and bad, I'd say.
"Small is beautiful, but big can be beastly - a new motto for the BBC after one of the lousiest weeks in its history."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1046673,00.html
"Time to watch the BBC bias that costs each of us £116 a year"
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/09/09/do0901.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/09/09/ixopinion.html
"BBC political editor Andrew Marr has admitted the corporation suffers from a liberal bias - but claimed the rest of the media is just as bad."
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1039276,00.html
But hey, it ain't bias if YOU agree with it - right?
I have faith in both the BBC and CBC (Canada). Both do a credible job, and at times far exceed "credible". For example, BBC's Paul Welsh's coverage of the civil war in Liberia earlier this summer was brilliant. "
A mix of good and bad, I'd say.
"Small is beautiful, but big can be beastly - a new motto for the BBC after one of the lousiest weeks in its history."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1046673,00.html
"Time to watch the BBC bias that costs each of us £116 a year"
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/09/09/do0901.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/09/09/ixopinion.html
"BBC political editor Andrew Marr has admitted the corporation suffers from a liberal bias - but claimed the rest of the media is just as bad."
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1039276,00.html
But hey, it ain't bias if YOU agree with it - right?
So how about giving us an alternative to BBC?
You didn't think Paul Welsh did a brilliant job in Liberia? (Appropos of nothing at all, I wonder what the hell happened to him? I went to tape the Liberia news item one evening, and there was Barnaby Phillips. Haven't seen Paul Welsh since. Must look into that!
Ever watch CBC News World (Canada)? We have some excellent documentaries on occasion.
You didn't think Paul Welsh did a brilliant job in Liberia? (Appropos of nothing at all, I wonder what the hell happened to him? I went to tape the Liberia news item one evening, and there was Barnaby Phillips. Haven't seen Paul Welsh since. Must look into that!
Ever watch CBC News World (Canada)? We have some excellent documentaries on occasion.
Robert Fisk and Uri Avnery AND Justin Raimondo? This must be my lucky night! Great stuff! I have already read Robert Fisk (naturally) and Uri Avnery (naturally), but I haven't read Justin yet!
This is all so damn scary, isn't it?
Tragic how no one says there should be an Israel Accountability Act. and a US Accountability Act?
If Syria were behaving as Israel is, the world would be in an uproar. So much for justice and fair play! There is very little of it to be seen for certain!
Two boys are playing football at a park in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when one of the boys is suddenly attacked by a crazed Rottweiler.
Thinking quickly, the other boy takes a stick and shoves it under the dog's collar, twists it, and breaks the dog's neck, thus saving his friend.
A sports reporter who was strolling by sees the incident and rushes over to interview the boy. He
tells the boy, "I'll title it 'Young Wolverine Fan Saves Friend From Vicious Animal' ".
"But I'm not a Wolverine fan." the little hero replies.
"Sorry, since we're in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I just assumed you were," says the reporter and he starts
writing again.
He asks "How does 'Spartan Fan Rescues Friend From Horrific Attack' sound?"
"I'm not a Spartan fan either, " the boy says.
"Oh, I thought everyone in Michigan was either for the
Wolverines or the Spartans. What team do you root
for?" the reporter asks.
"I'm an Ohio State Buckeyes fan," the boy replies. "They're the best."
The reporter smiles, starts a new sheet in his notebook and writes: "Little Bastard From Ohio Kills
Beloved Family Pet."
-------------
Journalists. Objective, unbiased, and reliable...
?
Thinking quickly, the other boy takes a stick and shoves it under the dog's collar, twists it, and breaks the dog's neck, thus saving his friend.
A sports reporter who was strolling by sees the incident and rushes over to interview the boy. He
tells the boy, "I'll title it 'Young Wolverine Fan Saves Friend From Vicious Animal' ".
"But I'm not a Wolverine fan." the little hero replies.
"Sorry, since we're in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I just assumed you were," says the reporter and he starts
writing again.
He asks "How does 'Spartan Fan Rescues Friend From Horrific Attack' sound?"
"I'm not a Spartan fan either, " the boy says.
"Oh, I thought everyone in Michigan was either for the
Wolverines or the Spartans. What team do you root
for?" the reporter asks.
"I'm an Ohio State Buckeyes fan," the boy replies. "They're the best."
The reporter smiles, starts a new sheet in his notebook and writes: "Little Bastard From Ohio Kills
Beloved Family Pet."
-------------
Journalists. Objective, unbiased, and reliable...
?
What we are witnessing with this article is an example of the information war occuring in our country. This is the extreme opposite of talk radio and Clear Channel, and just as tactful at issuing disinformation.
I am sure many others have noticed the assumptions made in this story that are not based on fact but I'll try to briefly point them out.
Before I begin though I'd like to encourage some young dreamer out there to actual make an "independent" news site that gave factual information rather than infactual assumptions. With all of us trapped between extreme sources of information, I think a site that was actually dedicated to real news and facts would make a bundle.
That being said let me quickly point out a couple of things:
"But if you count the Najaf dead as typical of just two or three other major cities, and if you add on the daily Baghdad death toll and multiply by seven, almost 1,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every week - and that may well be a conservative figure"
Above you see an example of assumption not based on fact. The nice large well rounded number of 1000 is calculated through so many assumed variables, none of which are even remotely verifyable.. that this number appears to be plucked from thin air.
Even if the number of dead in Najaf were accurate, calculating the number of dead in other diverse areas based on that number is irresponsible.
"Ten Iraqi policemen shot by US troops outside Fallujah? "No information," the occupation authorities told us last week. No information? The Jordanian embassy bombing? The bombing of the UN headquarters? Or Najaf with its 126 dead? Forget it. "
My assumption would be that when someone says they have no information on an alledged incident that they either have no knowledge of it, the allegation is false, or they're trying to hide something. I would not assume, like the "reporter", here has that they are trying to hide something.
The rest of the article is obviously opionated and even if you agree I beg you to verify everything you read on this site. Indy sources can be places to find news you don't get anywhere else, and yet they can also be bastions of disinformation... like the ones that plague our cable channels and AM stations.
Please, someone make a site that actually tells the facts and doesn't assume so much fiction.
Thank you for your time.
I am sure many others have noticed the assumptions made in this story that are not based on fact but I'll try to briefly point them out.
Before I begin though I'd like to encourage some young dreamer out there to actual make an "independent" news site that gave factual information rather than infactual assumptions. With all of us trapped between extreme sources of information, I think a site that was actually dedicated to real news and facts would make a bundle.
That being said let me quickly point out a couple of things:
"But if you count the Najaf dead as typical of just two or three other major cities, and if you add on the daily Baghdad death toll and multiply by seven, almost 1,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every week - and that may well be a conservative figure"
Above you see an example of assumption not based on fact. The nice large well rounded number of 1000 is calculated through so many assumed variables, none of which are even remotely verifyable.. that this number appears to be plucked from thin air.
Even if the number of dead in Najaf were accurate, calculating the number of dead in other diverse areas based on that number is irresponsible.
"Ten Iraqi policemen shot by US troops outside Fallujah? "No information," the occupation authorities told us last week. No information? The Jordanian embassy bombing? The bombing of the UN headquarters? Or Najaf with its 126 dead? Forget it. "
My assumption would be that when someone says they have no information on an alledged incident that they either have no knowledge of it, the allegation is false, or they're trying to hide something. I would not assume, like the "reporter", here has that they are trying to hide something.
The rest of the article is obviously opionated and even if you agree I beg you to verify everything you read on this site. Indy sources can be places to find news you don't get anywhere else, and yet they can also be bastions of disinformation... like the ones that plague our cable channels and AM stations.
Please, someone make a site that actually tells the facts and doesn't assume so much fiction.
Thank you for your time.
Ben Brown, Special Correspondent, BBC News, reported from Iraq yesterday (Tuesday).
His opening comment was that the busiest place in Bagdad these days is the "mortuary".
Now I wonder why that might be?
His opening comment was that the busiest place in Bagdad these days is the "mortuary".
Now I wonder why that might be?
It is clear from Robert Fisk's writing that he senses the unending disaster that has been thrust on the world by some simple minded zealots. Nearly four million Muslims have died in the past twenty years as a result of wars directly or indirectly supported by the West. More than eight million of them are living in squalid refugee camps with little hope of being able to return to their homes any time soon. There has to be something very seriously wrong if we are unable to perceive the bitterness, anger and hatred it generates.
Wittingly or unwittingly, George Bush has provided a very convenient target for venting this anger and frustration. The tragedy is that even if he realises a mistake has been made, he cannot and will not get out of Iraq. Things will get only worse, positions harden and tragedy compound with time.
My worst fear is that if they keep blowing up the pipe lines, oil prices will soar and deepen the economic recession still further. This will lead to more job cuts and instability in other parts of the world. We appear to be heading for some very troubled times. If there is a lesson in this it is that we must do every thing possible to keep zealots of all hues from gaining access to power.
Sincerely, K. Hussan Zia, Mississauga, Canada.
Wittingly or unwittingly, George Bush has provided a very convenient target for venting this anger and frustration. The tragedy is that even if he realises a mistake has been made, he cannot and will not get out of Iraq. Things will get only worse, positions harden and tragedy compound with time.
My worst fear is that if they keep blowing up the pipe lines, oil prices will soar and deepen the economic recession still further. This will lead to more job cuts and instability in other parts of the world. We appear to be heading for some very troubled times. If there is a lesson in this it is that we must do every thing possible to keep zealots of all hues from gaining access to power.
Sincerely, K. Hussan Zia, Mississauga, Canada.
"Nearly four million Muslims have died in the past twenty years as a result of wars directly or indirectly supported by the West."
This statement is too vague to be taken seriously, “supported” is a copout!
It seems way too many Muslims are content to blame all their problems on the west and then always wonder why they have so many problems. Taking responsibility is the first step.
"More than eight million of them are living in squalid refugee camps with little hope of being able to return to their homes any time soon"
Because thier arab "brothers" wont let them.
This statement is too vague to be taken seriously, “supported” is a copout!
It seems way too many Muslims are content to blame all their problems on the west and then always wonder why they have so many problems. Taking responsibility is the first step.
"More than eight million of them are living in squalid refugee camps with little hope of being able to return to their homes any time soon"
Because thier arab "brothers" wont let them.
In the case of the Palestinians, ah, someone is living in my house says poppa bear. Someone burned mine down and built his own where once mine stood says Cousin Bear. ( A Child's Bedtime Story in Palestine perhaps?)
And so it went for 750,000 plus "refugees" who had a home of his own. Not pretty, is it?
And so it went for 750,000 plus "refugees" who had a home of his own. Not pretty, is it?
"And so it went for 750,000 plus "refugees" who had a home of his own. Not pretty, is it?'
As was the case for less than 10% of the them, the rest never met one of those "evil jews". But don't let facts get in the way of your very capative story. Just like Fisk, he great stories, the only problem is they are 95% complete BS!
As was the case for less than 10% of the them, the rest never met one of those "evil jews". But don't let facts get in the way of your very capative story. Just like Fisk, he great stories, the only problem is they are 95% complete BS!
I take Robert Fisk about as seriously as I take Ann Coulter.
'nuff said
'nuff said
We take Rob F. about as seriously as we take any other Zionist troll.
I could not possibly agree with you more! Wonder how many dispatches has the above poster sent from Iraq? Or if he even knows what a 'dispatch" or 'article" is.
1000 a week is about break even I guess since sanctions were supposed to be killing 1000 a week also.
If you even believe your own BS anymore
"1000 a week is about break even I guess since sanctions were supposed to be killing 1000 a week also."
Good point scottie, I forget about all the misleading infomation the "make up" news group reported on before.
The Iraqis are the best people, expect from Centcom reports, they have never died other than in nice neat groups of thousands; makes it easier to count for people who don't want to do any hard research.
"1000 a week is about break even I guess since sanctions were supposed to be killing 1000 a week also."
Good point scottie, I forget about all the misleading infomation the "make up" news group reported on before.
The Iraqis are the best people, expect from Centcom reports, they have never died other than in nice neat groups of thousands; makes it easier to count for people who don't want to do any hard research.
One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
-President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
-President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
-Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
-Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by:
-Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
-Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D! , CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
-Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by:
-Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them."
-Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
-Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
-Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
-Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
-Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do"
-Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
"[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..."
-Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
-------------------------------------------------
Isn't it amazing how Democrats are changing their tune now? Remember - they DEPEND on you believing them - like ANY politician. But all of a sudden they're spinning how they didn't believe all this crap in the first place?
Yeah. Right. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.
-President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
-President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
-Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
-Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by:
-Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
-Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D! , CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
-Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by:
-Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them."
-Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
-Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
-Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
-Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
-Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do"
-Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
"[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..."
-Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
-------------------------------------------------
Isn't it amazing how Democrats are changing their tune now? Remember - they DEPEND on you believing them - like ANY politician. But all of a sudden they're spinning how they didn't believe all this crap in the first place?
Yeah. Right. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$260.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network