General admits to secret air war

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Note: All of this happened before the pinhead even sought approval from Congress or the U.N. to attack Iraq.

Can you say "impeachable offense?"

_________________________________________


THE American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.

Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 “carefully selected targets” before the war officially started.

The nine months of allied raids “laid the foundations” for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted bombardment of Iraqi positions.

If those raids exceeded the need to maintain security in the no-fly zones of southern and northern Iraq, they would leave President George W Bush and Tony Blair vulnerable to allegations that they had acted illegally.

Moseley’s remarks have emerged after reports in The Sunday Times that showed an increase in allied bombing in southern Iraq was described in leaked minutes of a meeting of the war cabinet as “spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime”.

Moseley told the briefing at Nellis airbase in Nebraska on July 17, 2003, that the raids took place under cover of patrols of the southern no-fly zone; their purpose was ostensibly to protect the ethnic minorities.

A leaked memo previously disclosed by The Sunday Times, detailing a meeting chaired by the prime minister and attended by Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, Geoff Hoon, the then defence secretary, and Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of defence staff, indicated that the US was carrying out the bombing.

But Moseley’s remarks, and figures for the amount of bombs dropped in southern Iraq during 2002, indicate that the RAF was taking as large a part in the bombing as American aircraft.

Details of the Moseley briefing come amid rising concern in the US at the war. A new poll shows 60% of Americans now believe it was a mistake.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1669640,00.html

[Garcia Bronco]

Lol...

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/gop-koolaid.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Which World War is it, Anyway?

"And do not forget the petty scoundrels in this regime; note their names, so that none will go free! They should not find it possible, having had their part in these abominable crimes, at the last minute to rally to another flag and then act as if nothing had happened!" - from the fourth leaflet of the anti-Nazi resistance, The White Rose, 1942.

Among those wise enough to know America is in one and has been for some time, there's disagreement over which World War George Bush is actually waging. Should we call it number III? Or was that the Cold War, and now we're at number IV and counting? ("This is World War IV" is the favoured construct of the neoconservatives. See, for instance, such bloody-minded idealogues as John Woolsey and Norman Podhoretz. I imagine at some point they determined that decades of association with nuclear apocalypse had voided the potential positive spin for "World War III.")
So which World War is it? It's neither the Third nor the Fourth; it's still the Second. Even though the apologists of the Pirate Class in their red, white and blue shirts will never own the name "fascist." As Orwell wrote in Politics and the English Language, "the word fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable.'" But that's no reason for us to shy from using it. Just because goosestepping has gone out of style doesn't mean they've kicked off their jackboots.
When we talk about Nazis in America, we're talking about more than the more than passing resemblance to the Bush Cartel. That Prescott's family business profited handsomely by the Nazis is well known, at least by those who think it important to note such things. But the story is larger and uglier than more dirty dealings by a Bonseman.
It also goes deeper than the Republican Party's active recruitment of fascists and racists since the mid-50s through the aegis of its Heritage Groups Council, but since that's seldom recalled, let's pause for a moment to recollect.

When a number of senior members of George HW Bush's 1988 campaign team were revealed to be old school Nazi sympathizers it generated something of a media flap - Pete Hamill titled a New York Post column "George Bush and his fascist fan club" - but the scandal is little remembered today.

Some of Bush's team:

Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.

Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.

Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.

Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.
Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.

Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukrainians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.

Nazis staffing the VP's campaign? Oops! Tut tut tut. We need to run better background checks, wink wink.

The Nazi infection goes back much further. All the way back to the 1930s, when industrialists with fascist sympathies and names like DuPont and Morgan sponsored a coup against Roosevelt to dismantle the New Deal. And then the '40s, when men with names like Bush, Dulles, Favish and Rockefeller traded strategic goods with the enemy, prolonging the war and costing Allied lives.

Worst of all, Project Paperclip saw Nazis virtually co-found the "National Security State," bringing their advanced technology and criminal medical research to America. And something else as well, as Nick Cook is told by the pseudonymous "Dr Dan Markus" in The Hunt for Zero Point:

When the Americans tripped over this mutant strain of nonlinear physics and took it back home with them, they were astute enough to realize that their home-grown scientific talent couldn't handle it. That it was beyond their cultural term of reference. That's why they recruited so many Germans. The Nazis developed a unique approach to science and engineering quite separate from the rest of the world, because their ideology, unrestrained as it was, supported a wholly different way of doing things. Von Braun's V-2s are a case in point, but so was their understanding of physics. The trouble was, when the Americans took it all home with them they found out, too late, that it came infected with a virus. You take the science on, you take on aspects of the ideology, as well.

The Nazi virus entered America's system long ago. It's been Americanized. But what else would one expect, given the CIA was essentially a co-creation of Nazis like General Reinhard Gehlen and his Abwehr anti-Soviet intelligence apparatus and Nazi money launderers like Allen Dulles and the corporatist/intelligence old boy network of Sullivan and Cromwell. No. Such men got exactly what they expected.
"Once the neo-fascists became bold enough to slay the President on the street, they showed their hand," Mort Sahl said early in 1968. So early Dr King and Robert Kennedy were yet to join the body count. "They showed how arrogant they had become. Now it's a question of symptom. That crime was a national symptom. If we can turn our back on that, we will pay a terrible price. That will be the end of this democracy."
They showed their hand, and they've had forty years of getting away with it. And not for lack of evidence. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't read Fonzi's The Last Investigation, Russell's The Man Who Knew Too Much or Newman's Oswald and the CIA, to cite just three works. Rather, they got away with it because the truth is too terrible, and many who did not conspire in the killing conspired in the cover-up because they were led to believe that a finding of official complicity in Kennedy's death would shatter the system, when in fact it might have killed the virus.
And undoubtedly the same justification has been used over and over again, to shield Americans from the awful truth of state-sanctioned assassinations, the October Surprise, medical experiments worthy of Mengele, the introduction of crack to the LA underclass, BCCI, 9/11 and on and on. High treason, many times over. But so what? You know what they say about none daring to call it such should it prosper. And brother, has it prospered.
Here's the thing: we're not talking about discrete, singular, sui generis conspiracies here. Indeed, these are not even conspiracies, in the sense of representing aberrant breaks with the system. These are, rather, examples that the system works. It's just not the system Americans were taught in civics class. The examples evidence the criminalization of the state by the deep political nexus of underworld, intelligence, industrial and military interests. "America," to these players, serves as the legit front for their lawless enterprise. The Nazi virus has consumed the host. If it were eradicated and the host miraculously recovered, the poor thing would swear up and down it was still late Autumn, 1963.

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/which-world-war-is-it-anyway.html

[Spider]

THE American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.
That does need to be investigated . and if found to be true , more then impeachment would be in order ..........

[Traveler]

June 26, 2005

How the leaked documents questioning war emerged from 'Britain's Deep Throat'
It started with a phone call and has now swept across America: Michael Smith tells the tale of his ‘Downing Street memo’ scoop.



It began with a phone call from a friend nearly 10 months ago — somebody well-placed who had given me a few stories before. But he wasn’t really a journalistic source, though he has now been dubbed “the British Deep Throat” by some of the US press.
He was just a friend. So I had no great expectations of the meeting we arranged in a quiet West End bar. I was just expecting a convivial drink, with the usual exchange of gossip, the catching-up on how our lives were going.



Almost immediately it was clear that this time it would be something more. The place was empty, but my friend chose the most secluded spot he could find. He was clearly nervous.

He wasn’t sure if I’d be interested in what he had, he said. It was about the run-up to the war. “All the Butler stuff,” he said, referring to Lord Butler, who had reported on the failures of intelligence over Iraq.

He thrust two sheets of paper into my hand. It was a “Secret — Strictly Personal” letter from Jack Straw to the prime minister written in March 2002, a year before the invasion.

In the letter the foreign secretary said there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any weapons of mass destruction worth talking about and that, in part as a result of a lack of US preparation, post-war Iraq was likely to become a very nasty place.

It was, in short, remarkably prescient and would make a pretty good story, I said, with some understatement. Well, I’ve got five others just like it from the same period, said my source. “Most say stuff just like that, or worse.”

The documents covered the period running up to a summit between George W Bush and Tony Blair at the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, in early April 2002. At that time the swift victory against the Taliban in Afghanistan had left hawks in the US administration openly briefing that Iraq was next.

Most of the leaked documents were designed to brief ministers or Blair on whether backing the US plans to get rid of Saddam would be sensible and legal. They set out the merits and dangers of taking part. Their gist was that there weren’t many merits. The documents made it pretty clear that it wasn’t sensible, it wasn’t legal and it was very risky.

The document that seemed to encapsulate the problems was another “Secret — Strictly Personal” letter to Blair. It was written by his foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning.

“I think there is a real risk that the (US) administration underestimates the difficulties,” Manning wrote. “They may agree that failure isn’t an option, but this does not mean that they will avoid it.”

When I reported these documents I was surprised to find that there was no real interest in them in America. The story swiftly died away.

Then eight months later, in the run-up to Britain’s general election, with the focus on the attorney-general’s advice to Blair on the legality of war, somebody else gave me further, even more startling documents. They concerned a meeting in Downing Street on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion, when Blair was insisting to the public that all options on Iraq were still open.

One leaked document was a Cabinet Office briefing paper for a crucial Downing Street meeting held on the day in question. It said the prime minister had promised Bush at the Crawford summit that he would “back military action to bring about regime change”. It added that ministers had no choice but to “create the conditions” that would make military action legal.

The other document was the minutes of the actual meeting, chaired by Blair and attended by Straw; Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary; Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general; Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6; John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee; and Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of defence staff.

Dearlove, who had just returned from Washington, said “military action was now seen as inevitable . . . the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action”.
Straw agreed with Dearlove. He said Bush had “made up his mind to take military action. But the case was thin”.



After reporting these secret memos, which revealed the dubious manoeuvrings of government, I expected the US press to react. Surely there would be a storm of anger over the way in which the American public had been deceived into going to war? But still there was no interest. Then slowly something astonishing happened. People power took over.

The Sunday Times website was inundated with ordinary US citizens wanting to read the minutes of the July meeting. Bloggers set to work passing the word.

Six ordinary, patriotic citizens with no political axe to grind were so outraged to discover the truth about the path to war that they set up their own website, naming it after the minutes, which had become known as the Downing Street memo.

Another website called AfterDowningStreet followed. People got together to lobby their local newspapers and radio and television stations to demand to know why they weren’t being told about the memo. There were even T-shirts made with the slogan: “Have you read the memo?” With anger over the war growing, Washington politicians finally acted. More than 120 congressmen wrote to Bush, demanding to know whether the memo was true. They held their own hearings to try to draw attention to it. The issue was forced into the mainstream media.

The focus turned to what may ultimately be the most important part of the memo: the point where Hoon said that the US had already begun “spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime”.

Ministry of Defence figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that virtually none were used in March and April; but between May and August an average of 10 tons were dropped each month, with the RAF taking just as big a role in the “spikes of activity” as their US colleagues. Then in September the figure shot up again, with allied aircraft dropping 54.6 tons.

If this was a covert air war, both Bush and Blair may face searching questions. In America only Congress can declare war, and it did not give the US president permission to take military action against Iraq until October 11, 2002. Blair’s legal justification is said to come from UN Resolution 1441, which was not passed until November 8, 2002.

Last week one US blogger, Larisa Alexandrovna of RawStory.com, unearthed more unsettling evidence. It was an overlooked interview with Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley, the allied air commander in Iraq, in which he appears to admit that the “spikes of activity” were part of a covert air war.

From June 2002 until March 20, when the ground war began, the allies flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq, attacking 349 carefully selected targets. The attacks, Moseley said, “laid the foundations” for the invasion, allowing allied commanders to begin the ground war.

The bloggers may have found their own smoking gun.

[Hotrod]

They were enforcing the "no-fly" zone. The Iraq air defenses and planes were "Illegaly" locking onto coalition planes and invading said "no-fly" zones. Yet another breach of the UN resolution by Hussain.

[Spider]

They were enforcing the "no-fly" zone. The Iraq air defenses and planes were "Illegaly" locking onto coalition planes and invading said "no-fly" zones. Yet another breach of the UN resolution by Hussain.
huh ..... i didnt hear anything about that , last I knew the No fly zone was disolved in 2003

[Hotrod]

huh ..... i didnt hear anything about that , last I knew the No fly zone was disolved in 2003

Not sure about the disoving in 2003 but the articule talks about 2002. Now if they were hitting targets to soften up Iraq for the future war then we might have a problem.

[Traveler]

Not sure about the disoving in 2003 but the articule talks about 2002. Now if they were hitting targets to soften up Iraq for the future war then we might have a problem.


Which is exactly what the memo was saying. Also why the sorties increased. Softed the Iraqis before U.S. ground forces were to be deployed. That is once Bush and company could justify the war through manufactured intelligence.

[Spider]

Not sure about the disoving in 2003 but the articule talks about 2002. Now if they were hitting targets to soften up Iraq for the future war then we might have a problem.
Yeah it was , I saw somthing on it in a Air Force Mag .......
Iraq air force wasnt capable of Violating Baghdad air space .......
Saddam didnt even have a Helicopter to Engage us ........
Now Saddam may have put anti Aircrat guns in the No fly zone , that I dont know about , but I could build 12 paper air planes and have a more lethal air force then Saddam ;D

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

They were enforcing the "no-fly" zone.

Um, no, dude.

Look again:

Moseley told the briefing at Nellis airbase in Nebraska on July 17, 2003, that the raids took place under cover of patrols of the southern no-fly zone; their purpose was ostensibly to protect the ethnic minorities.

Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 “carefully selected targets” before the war officially started.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Quote of the Day

"Before we commit troops, there has to be a clear strategy." Contrary to recent developments, U.S. military forces should never be sent on "vague, aimless and endless deployments."

- The court-appointed pinhead, campaign 2000

[Rigs11]

Not to mention the 700 million that was approved by congress for Afghanistan which Dubya used to build up the forces to invade Iraq.This is not legal.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Not to mention the 700 million that was approved by congress for Afghanistan which Dubya used to build up the forces to invade Iraq.This is not legal.

You are correct, sir.

Were it not for the fact that they ever so conveniently and coincidentally hit the 9/11 trifecta, this entire gang of thugs would be sporting orange jumpsuits about now.

http://www.bartcop.com/evolutionfinal.jpg

[clarker]

Note: All of this happened before the pinhead even sought approval from Congress or the U.N. to attack Iraq.-L.A.

I don't remember Bill Clinton asking for apporval from the Congresso or U.N. before he bombed Iraq in 1998. I could be wrong, prehaps there is a private meeting in Congress that he approached Congress to keep the attack secret, but he sure as hell didn't ask for a approval from the U.N. before he bombed the hell out of them in 98. Nor should he. A U.S. President should never ask for aproval from the U.N. if it is okay to take a any action he feels he needs to do to keep the U.S. safe.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I don't remember Bill Clinton asking for apporval from the Congresso or U.N. before he bombed Iraq in 1998.

Because Clinton wasn't asking to go to war with Iraq or to invade and occupy the country.

Anyway, the point here is that the article I posted is just one more piece of evidence that the pinhead lied through his teeth when he said he didn't want to have to attack/invade Iraq, and that he would do so only as a last resort and after all other options had been exhausted.

A U.S. President should never ask for aproval from the U.N. if it is okay to take a any action he feels he needs to do to keep the U.S. safe.

But Dim Son's decision to attack Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with "keeping the U.S. safe."

Iraq hadn't attacked us and wasn't a threat to us. Bush knew this, but he used trumped up 'intelligence' to create just the opposite impression and to con the American people into supporting the invasion.

And if the U.N. is irrelevant in the scheme of things, then why do BushCo and its supporters constantly use Saddam's alleged violation of a U.N. resolution as a justification for invading and occupying Iraq? And why send Colin Powell to do his little dog and pony show for the U.N. if "a U.S. President should never ask for aproval from the U.N.?"

[clarker]

Because Clinton wasn't asking to go to war with Iraq or to invade and occupy the country.--L.A.

So if you don't think bombing the hell out of a country is not an act of war?

Iraq hadn't attacked us and wasn't a threat to us.-L.A.

Tell me when did Kosovo(SP?) attack us or a threat to us? Oh, that is right as long as you just bomb some country that doesn't attack you, that is fine. It is only when ground troops are used do you have to ask the U.N. if it is ok. BTW, I supported Clinton's action in Kosovo, because it was the right thing to do.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Tell me when did Kosovo(SP?) attack us or a threat to us?

Bad analogy. Unlike Bush and Iraq, Clinton didn't make false claims that we were taking military action in Kosovo because Kosovo was a threat to us or because we were "defending the U.S."


BTW, I supported Clinton's action in Kosovo, because it was the right thing to do.

You're not the only one - the people there still greet Clinton as a liberator (you know - the sort of thing Team Smirk & Sneer said would happen in Iraq?)

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Blair's advisors knew the war was illegal...

From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War

British Advisers Foresaw Variety of Risks, Problems

By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Page A01

LONDON -- In the spring of 2002, two weeks before British Prime Minister Tony Blair journeyed to Crawford, Tex., to meet with President Bush at his ranch about the escalating confrontation with Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sounded a prescient warning.

"The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few," Straw wrote in a March 25 memo to Blair stamped "Secret and Personal." "The risks are high, both for you and for the Government."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush at a news conference in Crawford, Tex., in April 2002, after talks involving a possible war in Iraq. Two weeks earlier, Blair's foreign secretary had cautioned him in a secret memo, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush at a news conference in Crawford, Tex., in April 2002, after talks involving a possible war in Iraq. Two weeks earlier, Blair's foreign secretary had cautioned him in a secret memo, "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few."

In public, British officials were declaring their solidarity with the Bush administration's calls for elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Straw's memo and seven other secret documents disclosed in recent months by British journalist Michael Smith together reveal a much different picture. Behind the scenes, British officials believed the U.S. administration was already committed to a war that they feared was ill-conceived and illegal and could lead to disaster.

The documents indicate that the officials foresaw a host of problems that later would haunt both governments -- including thin intelligence about the nature of the Iraqi threat, weak public support for war and a lack of planning for the aftermath of military action. British cabinet ministers, Foreign Office diplomats, senior generals and intelligence service officials all weighed in with concerns and reservations. Yet they could not dissuade their counterparts in the Bush administration -- nor, indeed, their own leader -- from going forward.

Full story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062701584.html

[clarker]

Bad analogy. Unlike Bush and Iraq, Clinton didn't make false claims that we were taking military action in Kosovo because Kosovo was a threat to us or because we were "defending the U.S."



You're not the only one - the people there still greet Clinton as a liberator (you know - the sort of thing Team Smirk & Sneer said would happen in Iraq?)
See this is where you and I would disagree. I think the people who are attacking our troops are not the average Iraq. I think they are Saddam's troops that dropped back into hiding instead of fighting a direct battle and Zarquai(sp?) and his group. I think the average Iraq person is glad we came and kicked Saddam out and would like us to leave now, but are not going to commit any attacks on us.

My Uncles and bestfriend both said they found alot of people were very supportive. I would think it is fair to say that the 8 milllion Iraqies who voted in January are glad we did what we did.

My point about Clinton and Kosovo is that people like you(I don't mean that in a bad way, just that you support Clinton, so that is what I mean) never asked Clinton if Kosovo was a threat. Where were the move on.org loonies? Where was all the actors in Hollywood bitching that there was no threat to the U.S. The only reason to do it was stopping a madman from killing millions. Which to me was reason enough.

[Spider]

See this is where you and I would disagree. I think the people who are attacking our troops are not the average Iraq. I think they are Saddam's troops that dropped back into hiding instead of fighting a direct battle and Zarquai(sp?) and his group. I think the average Iraq person is glad we came and kicked Saddam out and would like us to leave now, but are not going to commit any attacks on us.
Old Bathist and Sunnis is what we are dealing with Zarqawi and his ilk are only about 2,000 strong ..........

My Uncles and bestfriend both said they found alot of people were very supportive. I would think it is fair to say that the 8 milllion Iraqies who voted in January are glad we did what we did.
Supportive ? if they was supportive , they would be fighting ........

[clarker]

Old Bathist and Sunnis is what we are dealing with Zarqawi and his ilk are only about 2,000 strong ..........

Are they both not two groups who had it pretty good under Saddam. They pissed that he got booted.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

See this is where you and I would disagree. I think the people who are attacking our troops are not the average Iraq. I think they are Saddam's troops that dropped back into hiding instead of fighting a direct battle and Zarquai(sp?) and his group. I think the average Iraq person is glad we came and kicked Saddam out and would like us to leave now, but are not going to commit any attacks on us.

The known facts don't really support this supposition.

Yes, some of the fighters are former Baathists and Republican Guard troops, but most are simply Iraqi citizens who are lured into joining the insurgency because Bush's invasion and occupation of their country (and the resulting chaos and civilian body count) provides ample motivation. These people are simply fighting to drive the invaders out of their homeland - just like you and I would if some other country invaded our country.

My point about Clinton and Kosovo is that people like you(I don't mean that in a bad way, just that you support Clinton, so that is what I mean) never asked Clinton if Kosovo was a threat. Where were the move on.org loonies? Where was all the actors in Hollywood b****ing that there was no threat to the U.S. The only reason to do it was stopping a madman from killing millions. Which to me was reason enough.

The proof is in the pudding.

The people of Kosovo still regard Clinton as a hero and a liberator.

The people of Iraq regard Dim Son as a liar, an invader, a murderer, and a war criminal - and rightfully so.

Further, Clinton didn't manufacture some bogus justification for military action in Kosovo, and he didn't keep changing the justification every time the last one turned out to be a sham.

[Spider]

Are they both not two groups who had it pretty good under Saddam. They pissed that he got booted.
to a point .Some Sunnis didnt have it good , though they had it better then the Shiate ........But lets not forget , Saddam didnt spread the wealth , so under that pretense , none of them did well

[clarker]

The known facts don't really support this supposition.

Yes, some of the fighters are former Baathists and Republican Guard troops, but most are simply Iraqi citizens who are lured into joining the insurgency because Bush's invasion and occupation of their country (and the resulting chaos and civilian body count) provides ample motivation. These people are simply fighting to drive the invaders out of their homeland - just like you and I would if some other country invaded our country.



The proof is in the pudding.

The people of Kosovo still regard Clinton as a hero and a liberator.

The people of Iraq regard Dim Son as a liar, an invader, a murderer, and a war criminal - and rightfully so.

Further, Clinton didn't manufacture some bogus justification for military action in Kosovo, and he didn't keep changing the justification every time the last one turned out to be a sham.If Bush is a war criminal that Clinton is for Kosovo. They both did the same thing. I would bet those 8 million who voted in January do think Bush as an invader, a murderer or a war criminal.

Saddam and Slob-o-f.ck face were all of those things and got what was comming to them. Although I don't think Slob-o-f.ck face was a invader, like Saddam was of Kuait(sp?). I think he kept his murdering of millions more in house.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

US admits the war for ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq is now lost

Pentagon report reveals catalogue of failure

By Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor

THE Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy” of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East.

The mea culpa is contained in a shockingly frank “strategic communications” report, written this autumn by the Defence Science Board for Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld.

On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds”, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended”.

“American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.”

Referring to the repeated mantra from the White House that those who oppose the US in the Middle East “hate our freedoms”, the report says: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states.

“Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypo crisy. Moreover, saying that ‘freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronising … in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination.”

The way America has handled itself since September 11 has played straight into the hands of al-Qaeda, the report adds. “American actions have elevated the authority of the jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims.” The result is that al-Qaeda has gone from being a marginal movement to having support across the entire Muslim world.

“Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic,” the report goes on, adding that to the Arab world the war is “no more than an extension of American domestic politics”. The US has zero credibility among Muslims which means that “whatever Americans do and say only serves … the enemy”.

The report says that the US is now engaged in a “global and generational struggle of ideas” which it is rapidly losing. In order to reverse the trend, the US must make “strategic communication” – which includes the dissemination of propaganda and the running of military psychological operations – an integral part of national security. The document says that “Presidential leadership” is needed in this “ideas war” and warns against “arrogance, opportunism and double standards”.

“We face a war on terrorism,” the report says, “intensified conflict with Islam, and insurgency in Iraq. Worldwide anger and discontent are directed at America’s tarnished credibility and ways the US pursues its goals. There is a consensus that America’s power to persuade is in a state of crisis.” More than 90% of the populations of some Muslims countries, such as Saudi Arabia, are opposed to US policies.

“The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe,” the report adds, “weakened support for the war on terrorism and undermined US credibility worldwide.” This, in turn, poses an increased threat to US national security.

America’s “image problem”, the report authors suggest, is “linked to perceptions of the US as arrogant, hypocritical and self-indulgent”. The White House “has paid little attention” to the problems.

The report calls for a huge boost in spending on propaganda efforts as war policies “will not succeed unless they are communicated to global domestic audiences in ways that are credible”.

American rhetoric which equates the war on terror as a cold-war-style battle against “totalitarian evil” is also slapped down by the report. Muslims see what is happening as a “history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration … a renewal of the Muslim world …(which) has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents – of which radical fighters are only a small part”.

Rather than supporting tyranny, most Muslim want to overthrow tyrannical regimes like Saudi Arabia. “The US finds itself in the strategically awkward – and potentially dangerous – situation of being the long-standing prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the US, these regimes could not survive,” the report says.

“Thus the US has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle … US policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself … Americans have inserted themselves into this intra-Islamic struggle in ways that have made us an enemy to most Muslims.

“There is no yearning-to- be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell among Muslim societies … The perception of intimate US support of tyr-annies in the Muslim world is perhaps the critical vulnerability in American strategy. It strongly undercuts our message, while strongly promoting that of the enemy.”

The report says that, in terms of the “information war”, “at this moment it is the enemy that has the advantage”. The US propaganda drive has to focus on “separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical- militant Islamist-Jihadist”.

According to the report, “the official take on the target audience [the Muslim world] has been gloriously simple” and divided the Middle East into “good” and “bad Muslims”.

“Americans are convinced that the US is a benevolent ‘superpower’ that elevates values emphasising freedom … deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies. Yet the world of Islam – by overwhelming majorities at this time – sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical and American actions as deeply threatening.

“In two years the jihadi message – that strongly attacks American values – is being accepted by more moderate and non-violent Muslims. This in turn implies that negative opinion of the US has not yet bottomed out

Equally important, the report says, is “to renew European attitudes towards America” which have also been severely damaged since September 11, 2001. As “al-Qaeda constantly outflanks the US in the war of information”, American has to adopt more sophisticated propaganda techniques, such as targeting secularists in the Muslim world – including writers, artists and singers – and getting US private sector media and marketing professionals involved in disseminating messages to Muslims with a pro-US “brand”.

The Pentagon report also calls for the establishment of a national security adviser for strategic communications, and a massive boost in funding for the “information war” to boost US government TV and radio stations broadcasting in the Middle East.

The importance of the need to quickly establish a propaganda advantage is underscored by a document attached to the Pentagon report from Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, dated May.

It says: “Our military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to be the last such excursion in the global war on terrorism.”

http://www.sundayherald.com/46389

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

If Bush is a war criminal that Clinton is for Kosovo. They both did the same thing.

:bs:

Clinton didn't lie to the American people about the reasons for military action in Kosovo.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

But let's get back to the central point of the article I posted:

Bush was preparing for an invasion of Iraq (an invasion whose justifications were all lies) before he went to congress or to the U.N.

He later claimed, in the run-up to the war, that he didn't want to use military force, and that he would only do so when all other options had been exhausted.

[clarker]

But let's get back to the central point of the article I posted:

Bush was preparing for an invasion of Iraq (an invasion whose justifications were all lies) before he went to congress or to the U.N.

He later claimed, in the run-up to the war, that he didn't want to use military force, and that he would only do so when all other options had been exhausted.I could care less if he went to the U.N. or not. The first time under Bush I or Clinton that Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors like he did in 1998 when Clinton had to bomb him, I would have done went there then. By doing that in 1998, Saddam already went against the conditions that the U.N. gave him for staying in power after he invaded Kuait(sp?) in 1990.

As far as the congress, who have to plan ahead. I would think you would have to have a plan of attack that congress could look at before going to war. In other words if comes to war, this is how we are going to go about it. I would bet Clinton, who I honestly think was trying to avoid doing Kosovo, still planned ahead in case he would have to order the attack. I think that is just common sense.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I could care less if he went to the U.N. or not. The first time under Bush I or Clinton that Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors like he did in 1998 when Clinton had to bomb him, I would have done went there then. By doing that in 1998, Saddam already went against the conditions that the U.N. gave him for staying in power after he invaded Kuait(sp?) in 1990.

Funny - Bush 41 was against invading Iraq. It turns out that he was a prophet in that every single one of his misgivings about an invasion have become realities under Dim Son.

Also, Saddam had already allowed the weapons inspectors back into the country before Dim Son declared that he was in violation of the U.N. resolution. The weapons inspectors told us that they had total access and complete cooperation from Hussein. They said they only needed a couple of weeks to finish their inspections, but Dim Son couldn't wait. We know why he couldn't wait now, don't we?

As far as the congress, who have to plan ahead. I would think you would have to have a plan of attack that congress could look at before going to war. In other words if comes to war, this is how we are going to go about it. I would bet Clinton, who I honestly think was trying to avoid doing Kosovo, still planned ahead in case he would have to order the attack. I think that is just common sense.

I guess my comments weren't specific enough. Bush wasn't simply planning an invasion in '02 - he was softening up targets on the ground in preparation for the war (before going to congress and to the U.N.) How does this jibe with his subsequent claim that he didn't want to use military force until all other options had been pursued and exhausted?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Bush 41 and Dick Cheney: Prophets?

Former President George Bush predicted in 1996 that if the United States were to engage in another war with Iraq, one aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the “entire Arab world would turn against us” and the U.S. would alienate its allies in the international community.

“To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero," Bush said in an interview with the BBC marking the five-year anniversary of the Gulf War.

Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said at an energy conference six years ago that hundreds of thousands of United States soldiers and Iraqi civilians would die if a war in Iraq were ever fought on the streets of Baghdad.

“To have brought the (Gulf) war into the populous Iraqi capital of Baghdad where Hussein is based would have involved a different type of military operation than in the desert, and would have put large numbers of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of thousands of our troops at risk of being killed,” he said.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0303/S00029.htm

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"I firmly believed that we should not march into Baghdad....To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter day Arab hero...assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war."

- George Herbert Walker Bush, from his book "A World Transformed"