What should we ask of Bush II.2?

When George W Bush was reelected President of the United States on 2 November 2004, much of the rest of the world let out a collective groan. What can we expect of his second administration? As important: what should we demand of it?

See TGA's Guardian columns on this subject

Debate - Page 8/12

Go to page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

I previously wrote: "No mention or investigation was made during the study of whether the participants were Shi'ites (far less likely to be participants in anti-American terrorism in Iraq)...
Mr.Michel Bastian responded: "... but no less likely to get killed; cf. the bomb attack just yesterday."
I also previously wrote: "No mention or investigation was made during the study of whether the participants were Sunnis (who form the core of the terrorism movement) or Kurds (who are total non-participants in the ongoing terrorism, since the US invasion liberated them)."
Mr. Michel Bastian also responded with: "Kurds get killed as well; cf. the bomb attacks in cities like Mosul and Kirkuk."
Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, Michel, but the Shi'ites and Kurds who were killed in suicide-bomb attacks in Mosul and Kirkuk were killed by fellow Iraqis (Sunni terrorists) -- not by America.
What a curious piece of illogic it is that you are suggesting -- Sunni Iraqis kill Shi'ite Iraqis and Kurdish Iraqis, and somehow you conclude that the blame for that murder lies not with the Sunni terrorists who did the killing, but with America?!?!? Is that your contention, Michel? Michel, sorry to seem rude, but I have to ask: did the doctors adjust your medication? It sounds very much like the peculiar illogic that was used in the 1980s to try to (as usual) pin the blame on Israel for actions that were completely out of Israel's hands -- Lebanese Christians killed Palestinians, and immediately the world blames the Jews. As if the Lebanese Christians and Palestinians hadn't been fighting and killing each other for years already, in a civil war which started years before Israel ever intervened to protect its territory and which ended years after Israel removed its forces from Lebanon. Are you seriously suggesting that the Kurds and Shi'ites who were murdered in the bombings would still somehow be alive if America hadn't intervened, in a country where Saddam and his Sunni Muslim / Tikrit tribal friends have been slaughtering Shi'ites and Kurds for DECADES? Boy, those must be some good drugs the doctors are prescribing for you.

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

Michel Bastian wrote: "The reason for not giving out the information was the fact they wanted the defendant in Guantanamo Bay, and they wanted to force the Germans to hand him over."
I want the defandant in Guantanamo Bay, too. I want to force the Germans to hand him over, too. Al-Qaeda is quite adept at using the laws of whatever "host" country they've burrowed themselves into, to force courts to either lay out the specific evidence gathered against Al-Qaeda (which of course is a wonderful opportunity for Al-Qaeda to figure out how that evidence was gathered, so they can devise countermeasures) or drop the charges entirely, which of course suits Al-Qaeda just fine, too.
Michel Bastian wrote: "Also, I suspect they wanted to discredit the german courts so they could point the finger and label them "weak", and possibly they didn´t want to suffer a dismissal of evidence because it was gathered with illegal means (i.e. those infamous "stress inducing methods")."
The German courts need to relax their rules against methods of evidence-gathering. The evidence was completely legitimate, regardless of how it was obtained.
I previously wrote: "THANKFULLY OUR INTELLIGENCE-GATHERING AGENCIES ARE SMARTER THAN YOU ARE. THAT'S WHY THEY CROSS-CHECK THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM ONE DETAINEE AGAINST THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM OTHER DETAINEES TO SEE IF THE STORIES MATCH."
To which Michel Bastian responded: "Exactly, which is why they don´t have to torture people."
How do you think we obtained the information from the detainees to cross-check against in the first place, Michel? Do you think we just said "We'd really like you to tell us everything you know about Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda's command and organizational structure and ongoing plans for terror operations" and that the detainees just simply said "Sure, okay, we'd be glad to help." ?!?!?? Are you seriously that stupid?

Michel Bastian wrote: "Like I said, it was a statistical job and they took into account anything to do with the Iraq war, i.e. not only deaths directly related to US military action or terrorist attacks, but also due to failing infrastructure etc. They said that beforehand, and they´re right to take it into account since it´s directly related to US military action.". False, again. Deterioration of infrastructure in Iraq had little to nothing whatsoever to do with US military action. Rather, it had everything to do with Saddam spending billions of dollars on palaces, French liquor and pornography instead of using the money to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. The billions of dollars were monies that he illegally skimmed from the now-infamous U.N. "Oil For Palaces" program.
Michel Bastian wrote: "However, the argument still stands: the insurgency is fuelled by the US occupation, which was caused by the US decision to invade in the first place." The argument still fails. The insurgency is fueled by the desire of the Saddamites within the Sunni Muslim community to overturn the results of elections and put their buddy Saddam back in charge so that he (and they) can resume murdering their Shi'ite majority opponents and running Iraq like it's their own, personal ATM machine.
Michel Bastian wrote: " Also, the strengthening of the de-facto alliance between Syria and Iran is directly caused by the threatening position the US is in at the moment because of the Iraq war. If there was no US presence in the middle east, neither the Syrians nor the Iranians would feel threatened enough to renew their alliance."
False, again. The strengthening of the de-facto alliance between Iran and Syria is merely a continuation of an alliance that has been nin place for decades. Syria controls Lebanon through its stationing of 15,000 troops there. And Iran controls and supports the Labanese Hezbollah terrorist movement -- the same movement, incidentally, that murdered 241 U.S. Marines and a number of French forces in Beirut in 1983. There will always be some form of a US presence in the Middle East, we will NOT leave, Period. We have legitimate security interests there, and we have not merely the Right but furthermore the Responsibility to protect and defend those interests.
Michel Bastian wrote: "Yes, and this has been exacerbated by Iraq, because now the indonesian radicals have developed a siege mentality." As opposed to what? What was their "mentality" when they bombed a tourist resort in 2002 and incinerated hundreds of Aussie tourists? That was before our Liberation of Iraq, BTW.
Michel Bastian wrote: "Since Al Quaida largely operates out of Saudi Arabia, this is not good for the Saudi government. In fact, Iraq has served Al Quaida to rally popular opinion against the Saudi government, which could well have a very adverse impact on political stability there." Actually, it has been very good for the Saudi government, since the terrorism which Al-Qaeda has unleashed in Saudi Arabia against the Saudi government and against fellow Saudi citizens (innocent civilians) has at long last knocked the crap out of the Saudis' delusion that Terrorism was something that "only" happened to Westerners or so-called 'infidels'. The scales are falling from the eyes of the Saudis, both in their government and among the population. The Saudis just recently held their first-ever municipal elections, giving their citizens at long last a taste of democracy. You don't seriously think that's an "accident"or that it's unrelated to what's going on in Iraq, where the citizenry just elected their first democratic government?
Michel Bastian wrote: "And why didn´t they dismantle Al Quaida then?" We largely did dismantle Al-Qaeda. Two-thirds of Al-Qaeda's top-tier organizational structure that was in place on 9/11 have been killed or captured. Al-Qaeda has survived by mutating from a single,fixed, overarching organization into a variety of splinter groups that act independently of each other. But they've been seriously damaged and are on the defensive, which is how it should be.
Michel Bastian wrote: "Again, where are your "values", then? Where is that vaunted christian spirit, turning the other cheek and all that?" The "Christian spirit" you refer to also says "An eye for an Eye". That's straight out of the Bible, BTW. Oh wait, that's right, you guys over in Europe don't believe in the Bible anyway and don't think it should have anything to do with how you live your lives or conduct your government. Right.
Michel Bastian wrote: "However, sleep deprivation is torture. Keeping someone naked in a cell without any light for months, having him sleep in his own feces, making him perform degrading sexual practices, that´s definitely torture. No physical damage involved, but the psychological effects are devastating."
Good. They SHOULD be devastating. So devastating, in fact, that the terrorists confined at Git'mo should be so humiliated by being dominated by a 5-foot tall, 120-pound American woman in a thong bikini, that it never even occurs to them to mess with America again.
Michel Bastian wrote: "Yes. However, many of the insurgents are insurgents only because they see the US invasion as a crusade against their own values, notably their nation and their interpretation of islam. One of the causes for that is the fact the US went in without a UN mandate and against the wishes of many arab and european states.". Their "own values" are a desire by the Sunnis to get back on top again so they can resuming torturing and murdering and dominating the Shi'ites and Kurds. It's as simple as that. They hate the fact that they've been driven from power and can't absolutely dominate everyone else in Iraq anymore. It has nothing to do with their "interpretation of Islam", the US is not stopping anyone from participating in their own version of their religion, unless you count the homicidal/suicidal foreign fighters who consider their religion to be "Jihad". Yes, we're interfering with them quite well, and we're going to continue to, too.
Michel Bastian wrote: "Without Iraq, Pakistan would have been a lot less unstable than it is now. Actually, I´m rather surprised some nutcase muslim hasn´t shot or blown up Musharaf by now." Oh, you can prove that Pakistan would have been a more stable place without the Iraq conflict? Nutcase Muslims have been trying to shoot or blow up Musharaff for years now. Ever since 2001, in fact. But it had nothing to do with Iraq. Rather (as I've already mentioned), it had to do with Musharaff abruptly switching sides and turning against Al-Qaeda.

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

Michel Bastian wrote: (a) "If you can catch them without shooting them (ideally before they commit any terrorist act; question of intelligence gathering, really, a domain that I suspect has been neglected by the US), (b) there´s no justification for killing them, even if they killed a thousand people.
Well, (a) you can't question them unless you have them in custody and can be assured that you'll still have them in custody for a while. If you catch them BEFORE they commit any terrorist act, then clearly, under YOUR "logic", we'd be forced to either charge them with a crime (which they haven't committed yet) or else let them go, because they haven't committed mass murder YET. Therefore, since they haven't committed any crime yet, and since you're opposed to putting them in places like Guantanamo Bay (where we might actually get some useful information out of them), we would have to release them and wait patiently for them to kill themselves and, oh, a hundred or so other people in a suicide bombing. Which would, incidentally, make it a little impractical to try to question them afterwards. Ever seen the aftermath of a homicide/suicide bombing, Michel? Is there any particular body part belonging to the Terrorist that you'd like to question?
And (b) if they've killed a thousand people, or if they've only killed one person, then there's justification right there for killing them. Of course I'd be happy to hand the Terrorists over to the Iraqi government, which will be only too happy to render a verdict and execute the Terrorists. Sounds good to me. If the insurgents (terrorists) murder people, then they deserve execution. Period. An Eye For An Eye, as the Bible says. Oh, that's right, you wouldn't understand about that, because you folks in Europe don't believe in the way of life of the Bible or its rules. That's why Capital Punishment is banned in Europe, but abortion on demand in Europe is a Way Of Life there. Slaughter the unborn innocents and zealously save the lives of murderers, it's the European Way, right?

Michel Bastian wrote: "However, many of the insurgents are insurgents only because they see the US invasion as a crusade against their own values, notably their nation and their interpretation of Islam. One of the causes for that is the fact the US went in without a UN mandate and against the wishes of many Arab and European states. With a UN mandate, you´d have a situation like in Afghanistan where you have a little insurgency, but not on the scale of Iraq by far. That´s what a UN mandate is for: legitimacy."
Oh, so you actually, seriously think that the insurgents (terrorists) are going to somehow be "impressed" with the "legitimacy" of our having a U.N. mandate?
Michel Bastian wrote: "So yes, those deaths have to be counted since they relate directly to the US decision to invade single-handedly. In other words: that´s what you get for playing Lone Ranger."
No, they don't have to be counted at all, because they relate to Saddam Hussein's ruining of the economy and to the terrorism being caused by Saddam's Sunni Muslim followers. And I'd be quite happy to play Lone Ranger again, too. We did the right thing. And I'd do it again.
The Iraqi people, of course, do count the deaths of their civilians. But unlike you, they're not blaming those deaths on the U.S. They're sensibly putting the blame right where it belongs: On the insurgents themselves who did the murdering. If the insurgents would have simply surrendered, if they had simply given up and realized that there simply IS TOO going to be a democratic government running Iraq, those deaths wouldn't have occurred.
Here's what the Iraqi people have to say about that, and here's what they seem to think about the "insurgency".

IRAQIS INCREASINGLY TURN ANGER ON INSURGENTS. see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7092159

Ray Vickery, Canada

I note that (some time ago) one of the entries in this list repeated the myth that Japan was prepared to fight to the last Japanese to protect the home islands, and that therefore the atomic bombings saved more lives than they ended.
In fact, of course, Japan was trying to surrender and had tried to contact the US government through the Soviet Union (which was still neutral in the Asian war, not entering until. if memory serves, after the first bomb was dropped). We now know, through the publication of the full text of the Forrestal Diaries (he was Secretary of the Navy at the time) that the US government knew that Japan was trying to surrender, and there was no need for anyone, Japanese or American, to die.
Why were the atomic bombs dropped? Who knows: revenge, a need to impress the Russians, or simply because so much effort had gone into their creation. But it had nothing to do with ending the war or saving American lives.

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

Michel Bastian wrote: "Endless repetition doesn´t make your argument any more valid, Phil."
Michel, your "opinion" about my arguments and views being supposedly "invalid", doesn't make it so. I stand by my statements. You're not required to agree.
I re-iterate: We have brought the first flickering light of democracy and freedom to a tragic country that has known only brutal dictatorship for decades. And we are Heroes for having done so. Even you tacitly recognize this, as your comments about Saddam Hussein's removal being "the only good thing to come out of this" grudgingly indicate. You grudgingly agree with Saddam Hussein's removal, yet you decry the methods and justification used to effect his removal. The preposterousness of your position seems to be escaping you, though it is quite clear to me. Your position is akin to and the equivalent of saying that you love the taste and flavor and wholesomeness of omelets, yet you decry the breaking of an egg as a "war crime", even though you fully understand and presumably acknowledge that without the breaking of eggs, there could never exist such a thing as an omelet. It's "Alice In Wonderland" illogic.

Ray Vickery, Canada

I note that Phil Karasick is now defending the American behaviour in Iraq on the rather bizarre theory that the Americans have killed fewer people there than Saddam did. This seems a rather low standard of acceptable behaviour, but even there, it isn't clear that the US comes off as the better ruler.
You'd have to compare their butchery with his behaviour in a smilar situation, in his first year or so in power, when he was establishing the modern secular education system that the US destroyed in its first year in power. Wait until you've been in power there for thirty years or so, then try a comparison.
And, of course, most of the attrocities Saddam is rightly charged with came abaout when he crushed rebellions of Kurds and others˜rebellions that the US had encouragaed, and then left to their fate.

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

I asked Michel bastian: How would you "know" whether the detainees who were released and who then returned to acts of terrorism, were ever "tortured" at all?
Michel Bastian replied: "Declarations of the released inmates....".
Oh, you mean the ones who were well-trained by Al-Qaeda to make false claims of "torture" as a means of effectively neutralizing attempts to interrogate them and putting the interrogators on the defensive?
THIS IS AL-QA'EDA RULE 18: 'YOU MUST CLAIM YOU WERE TORTURED' see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/30/do3004.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/01/30/ixop.html

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

Ray Vickery in Canada wrote: "I note that (some time ago) one of the entries in this list repeated the myth that Japan was prepared to fight to the last Japanese to protect the home islands, and that therefore the atomic bombings saved more lives than they ended.
In fact, of course, Japan was trying to surrender and had tried to contact the US government through the Soviet Union (which was still neutral in the Asian war, not entering until. if memory serves, after the first bomb was dropped). We now know, through the publication of the full text of the Forrestal Diaries (he was Secretary of the Navy at the time) that the US government knew that Japan was trying to surrender, and there was no need for anyone, Japanese or American, to die. Why were the atomic bombs dropped? Who knows: revenge, a need to impress the Russians, or simply because so much effort had gone into their creation. But it had nothing to do with ending the war or saving American lives."
Mr. Vickery's comments always fascinate, as they are illuminatingly indicative of a mindset in which the responsibility for all the woes of the world can somehow, supposedly be laid at America's doorstep. Where and when inconvenient facts get in the way of Mr. Vickery's attempts to rewrite History, Mr. Vickery simply falls back on a tried-and-true method of dealing with this: namely, the spreading of Falsehoods. Such is the case with his fictional "claim" above.
That Japan was indeed prepared to fight to the last Japanese, whether military or civilian, is a matter of historical record and has been confirmed by members of the Japanese population and government themselves. Therefore, it is no "myth", it is reality, albeit one which Mr. Vickery refuses to accept because, as usual, doing so would decisively refute his personal view of America (and one which he is loathe to have contradicted by reality). The dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan did, indeed, save the lives of far more Allied troops and, ultimately, Japanese soldiers and civilians lives whose lives would have been lost in the invasion of Japan, than were taken by the atomic bombings themselves. Contrary to Mr. Vickery's false assertions, the dropping of the bombs had everything to do with ending the war once and for all, and with saving American (and Japanese) lives.
"The invasion of Japan was to be no easy military undertaking and casualties were to be extremely heavy. Admiral William Leahy estimated that there would be over 250,000 Americans killed or wounded on Kyushu alone. General Charles Willoughby, MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence estimated that American casualties from the entire operation would be one million men by the fall of 1946. General Willoughby's own Intelligence staff considered this to be a conservative estimate."
"During the summer of 1945, America had little time to prepare for such a monumental endeavor, but our top military leaders were in almost unanimous agreement that such an invasion was necessary. While a naval blockade and strategic bombing of Japan was considered to be useful, general Douglas Mac Arthur considered a naval blockade of Japan ineffective to bring about an unconditional surrender. General George C. Marshall was of the opinion that air power over Japan as it was over Germany, would not be sufficient to bring and end to the war. While most of our top military minds believed that a continued naval blockade and strategic bombing campaign would further weaken Japan, few of them believed that the blockade or the bombing would bring about her unconditional surrender. The advocates for invasion agreed that while a naval blockade chokes, it does not kill; and though strategic bombing might destroy cities, it still leaves whole armies intact. Both general Eisenhower and General Ira C. Eaker, the Deputy Commander of the Army Air Force agreed. So on May 25, 1945, the combined Chiefs of Staff, after extensive deliberation, issued to MacArthur, to Admiral Chester Nimitz, and to Army Air Force "Hap" Arnold the Top Secret directive to proceed with the invasion of Kyushu. The target date was set, for obvious reasons after the typhoon season, for November 1, 1945."
"On July 25th, President Harry Truman approved the report of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, which called for the initiation of Operations "Olympic" and "Coronet."
"On July 26, the Potsdam Declaration was issued, stating: "We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. . . . The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction." (Thus, the Myth and Lie that the Japanese were "not warned of the consequences" before the Bomb was dropped, is exposed for the Lie that it is; the Japanese were given adequate warning. And "prompt and utter destruction" meant exactly what it said it meant).
"Three days later, on July 28th, DOMEI, the Japanese Government news agency, broadcast to the world that Japan would ignore the proclamation of Potsdam and refuse to surrender."
"During this same time period, the intelligence section of the Federal Communications Commission monitored internal Japanese radio broadcasts, which disclosed that Japan had closed all schools to mobilize its school children--it was arming its civilian population and forming it into national civilian defense units, and that it was turning Japan into a nation of fortified caves and underground defenses in preparation for the expected invasion of their homeland."
(See #1 below for source for this)
While the Japanese were attempting to use both the Soviet and Swedish governments as back-channel intermediaries to negotiate with the US, the Japanese government and leadership still refused to accept the need for complete, total, public, unconditional surrender. Had the Japanese wished to end the war, the way to do so was quite clear: Namely, to openly, publicly announce to the entire world and to their own people that they had lost the war, that they give up, that the US is the winner and that no further resistance would be offered. The Japanese had merely to announce: "WE GIVE UP. WE LOSE THIS WAR. WE GIVE UP ALL OUR ASIAN COLONIES. WE ADMIT TO THE WORLD AND TO OUR OWN PEOPLE THAT WE LOST".
Instead, what the Japanese sought was a "negotiated settlement" that would have allowed them to "save face", that would have allowed them to keep some of their colonies and territorial conquests, and which have allowed them to claim to their own people that they "didn't really lose the war". This was (and still is) completely, totally, utterly unacceptable.
Thus, the Japanese governmnent refused to unconditionally surrender before the "first" atomic bomb was dropped. Thus, the Japanese government refused to unconditionally surrender before the "second" atomic bomb was dropped. Only AFTER two atomic bombs had been dropped, only AFTER two Japanese cities lay in radioactive ruins, did the Japanese government agree, reluctantly, to surrender unconditionally and to lay down its arms and publicly admit defeat. And even while doing so, members of the Japanese military attempted a coup to overthrow Emperor Hirohito and prevent him from broadcasting to the Japanese people his speech in which he called upon the Japanese nation to accept defeat.
(See #2 below for the source for this information)
I suggest that Mr. Vickery do research on WW2 (in addition to research concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict, which he is similarly ignorant about). He may never overcome his hatred of America and his prejudiced desire to see America as the "cause" of all woes, but at least he would know a little more about what he is talking about.
Here are some places for him to start:
(1) THE STORY OF THE INVASION OF JAPAN by James Martin Davis
http://home.att.net/~sallyann4/invasion2.html
(2) TIME MACHINE: THE LAST MISSION
On the night of August 14, 1945, radio operator Jim Smith was flying on the last bombing mission of World War II. 30,000 feet below him, a desperate drama played out in Tokyo, as rebellious troops under the command of Major Kenji Hatanaka seized control of the Emperor Hirohito's Imperial Palace. Their aim was to prevent the Emperor's announcement that he would surrender to the Allied Powers.
The failure of Hatanaka's coup has long puzzled military scholars, but THE LAST MISSION answers many of the questions surrounding it. Drawing on his wartime logbooks, unit histories and interviews with fellow airmen from the "Boomerang" mission, Jim Smith, author of The Last Mission reveals the connection between the planned air strike and the collapse of the palace coup.
Recently uncovered documents from the National Archives and declassified CIA files help shed light on the military conspiracy against the Japanese emperor and the possible consequences had it been successful.
http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=43755

Charles Warren, USA

Michael wrote as to why most of Asia has rejected participation in the ICC
">Well, might there possibly be a reason for that other than "european supremacy"? Could it be that some of those countries fear their own politicians might be indicted (that´s the case of China, notably)? Japan, incidentally, is in the process of joining up, as is India. The main reasons why they haven´t joined yet is the fact that the US didn´t join up and started massive lobbying and pressure on them not to join.> And that leaves out practically the entire Muslim world.
Nope, it doesn´t. Afghanistan´s in; seems the US slipped up on that one. Of course, states like Lybia, Syria or Iran wouldn´t be interested in joining. The reason for that certainly isn´t european supremacy, but the fear of having their own politicians indicted before the court."
And why should the nations of Asia, proud and strong, subject themselves to that kind of arrogance ? What gives Europe any right to sit in judgement of the rest of the world ? What do they have to justify to you ? And if you think India and Japan are joining, you are living in a dream world. China ? Forget it.
"Multilateralism is just the expression of democratic principles on the international stage, that´s all there is to it. In essence, the american unilateralism doctrine means everybody has to dance to the Bush administration´s tune, and that, besides being incredibly conceited, is antidemocratic."
European "multilateralism" is when five parasites go to dinner with a rich man and insist that the menu and who picks up the check be decided by democratic vote. Of course the parasites will democratically order the most expensive items on the menu and vote that the rich man foot the bill.
In any alliance I ever heard of the strongest power(s) decided the strategy. I am not aware of Mexico and Portugal having an equal say with FDR and Churchill over the timing of a Second Front, although that is the way European "multilateralism" would work in practice. In fact it was FDR who flatly told Churchill that they were landing in France in 1944, no more Aegean sideshows. It's not democratic, but without the leadership of the strongest power nothing gets done. We saw how European "multilateralism" worked in practice when the Bosnia war dragged on for eight years because no European nation would take the responsibility and exercise the leadership to form and execute a policy to impose order on the warring parties. The major powers of Europe were content to drift along with a "peacekeeper" policy that kept no peace.
"Multilaterlism" killed the people of Sbrenica. The Bosnian Serbs correctly deduced the spinelessness of Europe and called it's "safe area" bluff.
When the Twin Towers fell, we knew that we would never allow Europe to tie our hands with any "multilateralism" nonsense. In an alliance your say in the determination of strategy is proportional to your strength. And that is as it should be, for there can be no power without a willingness to shoulder the responsibilities. Since Western Europe aside from Britain is militarily thoroughly irresponsible, what entitles you to any say in our decisions ? Why should Europe have any say whatsoever about the circumstances under which American troops will fight and die ? Europe has allowed the strength disparity between it and America to become so yawning that all most European soldiers are fit for is to guard our airbases. America has not taken power from Europe. Europe freely surrendered it because you wanted 35 hour work weeks, eight weeks of vacation, and cradle to grave social welfare. Parasites cannot choose the menu and there is no moral imperative whatsoever to allow America to be leeched off of by Europe.
"They won´t be playing by "american rules" either. That´s the reason why the US and the EU have to work together, not against each other."
And how is that possible when France has decided out of balance of power considerations to arm China ? How is that possible when France has decided that anti-americanism will be the unifying ideology (since the fall of communism there needs to be a new ideology of envy) to turn the EU into the Third French Empire ? In the Security Council vote two years ago, France did not just disagree with us. It campaigned to rally the world against us, precisely as the Soviet Union would have. With the Soviet Union it was never personal. It was just power rivalry. Business. But with France it clearly is personal because it is born of malice and entitlement-based envy, like an impoverished aristocratic family hatefully eyeing the nouveau riche throwing around money. France saw an opportunity to attack America and simply couldn't help itself. Chirac was so caught up in the joy of the moment that he did not realize the permanent damage he was doing to America's attitude towards France.
And since when did DeGaulle ever ask for UN permission before toppling African government insufficiently deferrential to France ?

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

Ray Vickery (Anti-American Socialist in Soviet Canuckistan) wrote: "I note that Phil Karasick is now defending the American behaviour in Iraq on the rather bizarre theory that the Americans have killed fewer people there than Saddam did. This seems a rather low standard of acceptable behaviour, but even there, it isn't clear that the US comes off as the better ruler. You'd have to compare their butchery with his behaviour in a smilar situation, in his first year or so in power, when he was establishing the modern secular education system that the US destroyed in its first year in power."
I note that Ray Vickery is having difficulty distinguishing between the accidental and unfortunate killings of people in cross-fire (collateral damage), and the deliberate and systematic mass killings of people by Saddam Hussein's regime. The former is an Accident. (That's why it's called an "Accident", and not an "On Purpose"). The latter is a Crime. When the Former occurs (accidental death, that is), we duly express our regrets, and then everyone duly forgets about it and goes on with their lives. When the Latter occurs (Murder, that is), we arrest the guilty party, put them on trial, present evidence, find them guilty if the evidence proves such, and imprison or execute the guilty party. Perhaps Mr. Vickery needs to take a first-year law course so that he can be educated to understand the difference between Accidental Death, and Murder. Death by accident, while regrettable, does not equate to and is not at all the same as Conscious and Deliberate Murder.
If it is not yet sufficiently clear that the US comes off as the better ruler, perhaps Mr. Vickery would like to explain why roughly 8 million Iraqis stepped forward and defied insurgent threats to vote in the first democratic elections (elections held, incidentally, under the auspices of American forces providing security) that Iraq has had in decades.
I also note that Mr. Vickery is (as can be expected) lauding the rule of The Butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein and claiming that "in his first year or so in power,... he (Saddam) was establishing the modern secular education system that the US destroyed in its first year in power". Ah yes, there's that famous Canuckistan sympathy for dictatorships that supposedly "do good works". Perhaps Mr. Vickery will one day "ask" an Iraqi whether the supposedly "modern secular education system" (with every fourth or fifth lesson presumably being about "the Glories of Saddam") which Saddam put in place, was "justified by" or a "fair trade" for the hundreds of thousands of deaths that occurred under the Saddamite regime, deaths which only Saddam Hussein -- not America, not the U.N. -- are responsible for.
I rather doubt personally that Mr. Vickery will ever do so, though, since he might not much care for the answer that he gets.

Phil Karasick, Seattle, Washington, USA

Mr. Ray Vickery wrote: "Wait until you've been in power there for thirty years or so, then try a comparison."
I would be happy to do so. However, we will no doubt be out of Iraq in less than thirty years, because Iraq now has a democratically elected and internationally (and domestically) accepted government of its own. Once it is able to stand on its own two feet, there will no longer be any need for U.S. troops to be present to guard and guarantee Iraqis' right to exercise their new democratic freedoms, and U.S. troops will come home following a job well done.
Mr. Vickery also wrote:"And, of course, most of the attrocities Saddam is rightly charged with came abaout when he crushed rebellions of Kurds and other rebellions that the US had encouraged, and then left to their fate."
It would seem that Mr. Vickery's memory (of which he seems to frequently state, "if memory serves me correct...") is not serving him correctly. Perhaps Mr. Vickery has forgotten the tens of thousands of Kurds and Shi'ites whom Saddam Hussein's forces slaughtered with poison gas. This happened during the mid-1980s and had nothing whatsoever to do with any US-encouraged or US-supported rebellions.
Of course the US should not have encouraged rebellions against Saddam Hussein in 1991 unless the US government intended to back such rebellions up with the full force of the US military, which was already in the neighborhood after forcibly expelling Saddam Hussein's murdering-and-raping troops from Kuwait. And had it been up to me, US forces would have driven Saddam from power in 1990-1991. However, for Mr. Vickery to claim that "most of the attrocities Saddam is rightly charged with came about when he crushed the rebellions of Kurds and other rebellions that the US had encouraged" strikes me as quite a reachand one fed by his own latent anti-Americanism and inner desire to "find America guilty" for anything and everything, particularly when he provides no evidence or numbers of casualties.

Michel Bastian, France

To Phil Karasick:
Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, Michel, but the Shi'ites and Kurds who were killed in suicide-bomb attacks in Mosul and Kirkuk were killed by fellow Iraqis (Sunni terrorists) -- not by America.
What a curious piece of illogic it is that you are suggesting -- Sunni Iraqis kill Shi'ite Iraqis and Kurdish Iraqis, and somehow you conclude that the blame for that murder lies not with the Sunni terrorists who did the killing, but with America?!?!? Is that your contention, Michel? Michel, sorry to seem rude, but I have to ask: did the doctors adjust your medication?
Yup, you´re rude. Usually you become rude when you´re running out of arguments, like right now. Please put your memory in "unselective" mode for once and remember we were talking about the Lancet study, not about the US being directly responsible for terrorist attacks. Like I said time and again: the point is it´s a statistic taking into account all the effects of the war. Insurgency is one of these effects, and consequently, victims of terrorist attacks have been taken into account.
> It sounds very much like the peculiar illogic that was used in the 1980s to try to (as usual) pin the blame on Israel for actions that were completely out of Israel's hands -- Lebanese Christians killed Palestinians, and immediately the world blames the Jews. As if the Lebanese Christians and Palestinians hadn't been fighting and killing each other for years already, in a civil war which started years before Israel ever intervened to protect its territory and which ended years after Israel removed its forces from Lebanon.
Eh, what? Does this bear any relevance to our current argument? I should think not.
> Are you seriously suggesting that the Kurds and Shi'ites who were murdered in the bombings would still somehow be alive if America hadn't intervened, in a country where Saddam and his Sunni Muslim / Tikrit tribal friends have been slaughtering Shi'ites and Kurds for DECADES?
Errm, lemme think.... YES! Indeed you got the point, Phil, congratulations. The Kurds, Shi´ites and other iraqi victims of terrorist acts would still be alive because the insurgency was directly caused by the war.
Well, to cut a long story short, it doesn´t really matter if 100.000 or 18.000 Iraqis were killed in the war. The point is they wouldn´t have been killed without the US military intervention (which was, do I have to say it again, illegal, unnecessary and generally wrong).

> I want the defendant in Guantanamo Bay, too. I want to force the Germans to hand him over, too. Al-Qaeda is quite adept at using the laws of whatever "host" country they've burrowed themselves into, to force courts to either lay out the specific evidence gathered against Al-Qaeda (which of course is a wonderful opportunity for Al-Qaeda to figure out how that evidence was gathered, so they can devise countermeasures) or drop the charges entirely, which of course suits Al-Qaeda just fine, too.
You don´t really trust ANY courts to do their job, do you? Gut reaction again, Phil. Courts are made up of lawyers, therefore they´re not to be trusted. Much better to just put the terrorist bastards in prison or shoot them right away, eh Phil? Welcome back to the middle ages. 1500 year´s worth of blood and suffering down the drain.

> Michel Bastian wrote: "Also, I suspect they wanted to discredit the german courts so they could point the finger and label them "weak", and possibly they didn´t want to suffer a dismissal of evidence because it was gathered with illegal means (i.e. those infamous "stress inducing methods")."
The German courts need to relax their rules against methods of evidence-gathering. The evidence was completely legitimate, regardless of how it was obtained.
Two problems here, Phil: a. the german courts can´t relax any rules because they don´t make the rules, they just apply them. It´s called separation of powers, Phil. Ever heard about that one? b. Interesting you mention relaxing rules of evidence. Weren´t you the one saying that the ICC couldn´t be trusted because the rules of evidence weren´t up to american standards? So you´re proposing to relax the rules if the defendant is supposed to be guilty by your book (because hey, he´s a terrorist, everybody can see that: he looks like a muslim and he wears a beard), and tightening them if the defendant is american (and thus can´t be guilty of anything anyway), aren´t you, Phil? Interesting judicial procedure you´re proposing there. Reminds me of soviet show trials.

> To which Michel Bastian responded: "Exactly, which is why they don´t have to torture people."
How do you think we obtained the information from the detainees to cross-check against in the first place, Michel? Do you think we just said "We'd really like you to tell us everything you know about Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda's command and organizational structure and ongoing plans for terror operations" and that the detainees just simply said "Sure, okay, we'd be glad to help." ?!?!?? Are you seriously that stupid?
You don´t seem know a lot about legal interrogation techniques, do you? But again, we´re digressing. The point, as you might recall, was that torture isn´t ok, for ethical and for practical reasons. It´s not ethical to torture people and it doesn´t produce results (which is why al Quaida hasn´t been dismantled yet). Incidentally, my esteem for the CIA in the war on terror is sinking again. It seems there might have been infiltrations by al Quaida into the agencies (cf. an article in the LA Times today: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel8mar08,0,431533.story?coll=la-home-headlines ).
> False, again. Deterioration of infrastructure in Iraq had little to nothing whatsoever to do with US military action. Rather, it had everything to do with Saddam spending billions of dollars on palaces, French liquor and pornography instead of using the money to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. The billions of dollars were monies that he illegally skimmed from the now-infamous U.N. "Oil For Palaces" program.
Wrong Phil. Deterioration of infrastructure means bombing of power plants, of water purification plants, of hospitals, of schools, driving over roads with military equipment, thereby ruining them, destruction of bridges etc. etc. Saddam didn´t do that, the US military did that during the war.
> The argument still fails. The insurgency is fueled by the desire of the Saddamites within the Sunni Muslim community to overturn the results of elections and put their buddy Saddam back in charge so that he (and they) can resume murdering their Shi'ite majority opponents and running Iraq like it's their own, personal ATM machine.
No, the insurgents aren´t just Saddamites, they´re mostly radical muslims, many of them foreigners from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and quite a few Al Quaida members.
> False, again. The strengthening of the de-facto alliance between Iran and Syria is merely a continuation of an alliance that has been in place for decades.
Nope, Phil. Syria is a mostly a secular regime, while Iran, as we all know, is run by a religious regime. Before the war, Syria and Iran didn´t have a lot in common. Now they have.
> Syria controls Lebanon through its stationing of 15,000 troops there. And Iran controls and supports the Labanese Hezbollah terrorist movement -- the same movement, incidentally, that murdered 241 U.S. Marines and a number of French forces in Beirut in 1983.
"A number of french forces" means 58 dead paratroopers. We counted them this time.
> There will always be some form of a US presence in the Middle East, we will NOT leave, Period. We have legitimate security interests there, and we have not merely the Right but furthermore the Responsibility to protect and defend those interests.
Good. Stay there. Have fun.
> Actually, it has been very good for the Saudi government, since the terrorism which Al-Qaeda has unleashed in Saudi Arabia against the Saudi government and against fellow Saudi citizens (innocent civilians) has at long last knocked the crap out of the Saudis' delusion that Terrorism was something that "only" happened to Westerners or so-called 'infidels'. The scales are falling from the eyes of the Saudis, both in their government and among the population. The Saudis just recently held their first-ever municipal elections, giving their citizens at long last a taste of democracy. You don't seriously think that's an "accident"or that it's unrelated to what's going on in Iraq, where the citizenry just elected their first democratic government?
Eh? And what would the relationship between elections in Saudi Arabia and Iraq be? The problem is that a lot of the saudi population is still traditionalist muslim, so they tend to sympathize with Al Quaida rather than with their own government which they see as "pro western". After all Bin Laden himself is a Saudi. That should tell you something about Saudi Arabia.
And as for the "democratic government" the Iraqis elected, I´m pretty sure there will be more trouble because of that. Many groups (not just the sunni muslims) will not accept the elections. Actually, they won´t accept democracy as a whole (which is what the US have failed to understand since before the war). It´ll take a lot of time for democratic principles to catch on in Iraq.

> We largely did dismantle Al-Qaeda. Two-thirds of Al-Qaeda's top-tier organizational structure that was in place on 9/11 have been killed or captured. Al-Qaeda has survived by mutating from a single,fixed, overarching organization into a variety of splinter groups that act independently of each other. But they've been seriously damaged and are on the defensive, which is how it should be.
Dangerous dreams, Phil. Dream on like that and you´re just begging for another 9/11 to happen.

> The "Christian spirit" you refer to also says "An eye for an Eye". That's straight out of the Bible, BTW.
Old testament, actually. And there I go thinking that christianism is mostly based on tenets of the new testament. Foolish old european ignorant liberal me.
> Oh wait, that's right, you guys over in Europe don't believe in the Bible anyway and don't think it should have anything to do with how you live your lives or conduct your government. Right.
Hey, Phil, you actually got it. Good going.

> Good. They SHOULD be devastating. So devastating, in fact, that the terrorists confined at Git'mo should be so humiliated by being dominated by a 5-foot tall, 120-pound American woman in a thong bikini, that it never even occurs to them to mess with America again.
Some humanist you are, Phil. Incidentally, torture will only make the rest of the muslim world more inclined to blow up your american woman in a thong bikini.
> Their "own values" are a desire by the Sunnis to get back on top again so they can resuming torturing and murdering and dominating the Shi'ites and Kurds. It's as simple as that. They hate the fact that they've been driven from power and can't absolutely dominate everyone else in Iraq anymore. It has nothing to do with their "interpretation of Islam", the US is not stopping anyone from participating in their own version of their religion, unless you count the homicidal/suicidal foreign fighters who consider their religion to be "Jihad". Yes, we're interfering with them quite well, and we're going to continue to, too.
Sure, the whole thing has nothing to do with religion. And Iraq´s a democracy now. And Elvis lives.
> Oh, you can prove that Pakistan would have been a more stable place without the Iraq conflict? Nutcase Muslims have been trying to shoot or blow up Musharaff for years now. Ever since 2001, in fact. But it had nothing to do with Iraq. Rather (as I've already mentioned), it had to do with Musharaff abruptly switching sides and turning against Al-Qaeda.
.... and Iraq hasn´t increased Musharaf´s problems. Right.

Michel Bastian, France

To Phil Karasick:
> Well, (a) you can't question them unless you have them in custody and can be assured that you'll still have them in custody for a while. If you catch them BEFORE they commit any terrorist act, then clearly, under YOUR "logic", we'd be forced to either charge them with a crime (which they haven't committed yet) or else let them go, because they haven't committed mass murder YET.
My logic says it´s better to prevent crime by gathering information and knowing who is planning what than picking up body pieces all over the place and levelling a civilian building in retaliation. It´s better to have undercover informants on the ground who know about what´s happening instead of going on wild goose chases with a marine platoon in civilian appartments at night, scaring the beejesus out of the tenants, not finding anything and afterwards telling them "Have a nice day ma´m" (in english, which the tenants don´t understand) in a rather comical and futile effort to win the hearts and minds of the population. It´s better to know who is sympathizing with terrorists, where the funding and the weapons come from and how to stop the terrorists from even getting weapons and funding. It´s better to catch a terrorist building the IED instead of waiting for him to blow up a military convoy or a police station with it. You can always indict him for building a bomb and preparing a terrorist attack, which I´m sure isn´t legal even in Iraq. Or else you can tell the convoy to take another route or the policemen to evacuate the building.
> And (b) if they've killed a thousand people, or if they've only killed one person, then there's justification right there for killing them. Of course I'd be happy to hand the Terrorists over to the Iraqi government, which will be only too happy to render a verdict and execute the Terrorists. Sounds good to me. If the insurgents (terrorists) murder people, then they deserve execution. Period. An Eye For An Eye, as the Bible says. Oh, that's right, you wouldn't understand about that, because you folks in Europe don't believe in the way of life of the Bible or its rules. That's why Capital Punishment is banned in Europe, but abortion on demand in Europe is a Way Of Life there. Slaughter the unborn innocents and zealously save the lives of murderers, it's the European Way, right?
Running out of arguments again, Phil?
> Oh, so you actually, seriously think that the insurgents (terrorists) are going to somehow be "impressed" with the "legitimacy" of our having a U.N. mandate?
Cf. Afghanistan. Lots less trouble there because the population doesn´t see the ISAF forces as invaders or crusaders. They do see the americans in Iraq as crusaders.
> No, they don't have to be counted at all, because they relate to Saddam Hussein's ruining of the economy and to the terrorism being caused by Saddam's Sunni Muslim followers.
Cf. above.
> And I'd be quite happy to play Lone Ranger again, too. We did the right thing. And I'd do it again.
Well then, "Hi ho Silver" is all I can say.
> The Iraqi people, of course, do count the deaths of their civilians. But unlike you, they're not blaming those deaths on the U.S.
I´m not blaming the US for terrorist attacks. I´m just saying the insurgency is a direct effect of the war.
> They're sensibly putting the blame right where it belongs: On the insurgents themselves who did the murdering. If the insurgents would have simply surrendered, if they had simply given up and realized that there simply IS TOO going to be a democratic government running Iraq, those deaths wouldn't have occurred.
Here's what the Iraqi people have to say about that, and here's what they seem to think about the "insurgency".
> IRAQIS INCREASINGLY TURN ANGER ON INSURGENTS. see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7092159
Again, I hope you´re right, but I doubt it very much.

> Michel, your "opinion" about my arguments and views being supposedly "invalid", doesn't make it so. I stand by my statements. You're not required to agree.
Thanks kindly. I don´t.
> I re-iterate: We have brought the first flickering light of democracy and freedom to a tragic country that has known only brutal dictatorship for decades.
Sound the "Star Spangled Banner", raise the flag and salute.
> And we are Heroes for having done so.
See above. Add a tear drop in every american eye and sing along in a voice quivering with emotion.
> Even you tacitly recognize this, as your comments about Saddam Hussein's removal being "the only good thing to come out of this" grudgingly indicate. You grudgingly agree with Saddam Hussein's removal, yet you decry the methods and justification used to effect his removal.
Indeed. Took you some time to get that, Phil.
> The preposterousness of your position seems to be escaping you, though it is quite clear to me.
Well, at least one person in the world understands you, Phil. Congratulations.
> Your position is akin to and the equivalent of saying that you love the taste and flavor and wholesomeness of omelets, yet you decry the breaking of an egg as a "war crime", even though you fully understand and presumably acknowledge that without the breaking of eggs, there could never exist such a thing as an omelet. It's "Alice In Wonderland" illogic.
Actually, when you´re quoting omelets and breaking eggs, it´s Napoleon logic. Darn, a frenchman again.

Phil Karasick:
> Oh, you mean the ones who were well-trained by Al-Qaeda to make false claims of "torture" as a means of effectively neutralizing attempts to interrogate them and putting the interrogators on the defensive?
THIS IS AL-QA'EDA RULE 18: 'YOU MUST CLAIM YOU WERE TORTURED' see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/30/do3004.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/01/30/ixop.html
So there is no torture in Guantanamo? It´s all just a scam by Al Quaida? Rummy´s directives for Abu Ghuraib were actually fakes by Bin Laden? A few thousand journalists, human rights activists, politicians, and what have you were all bought by islamist terrorists? You should be the one to talk about medication, Phil.

Go to page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Page 8/12