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Post Saddam Iraq.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
It's exciting that the war has already started with special ops people infiltrating Iraq's military ranks. Muslim Americans have made a lot of this possible as well as Iraqi exiles. Like seeing the girls go to school in Afghanistan, it's going to be exciting to see people freed. This was on Yahoo News today.
Rumsfield
"It would be our goal to quickly transition from military leadership -- we don't want an American general running a Muslim country for any length of time -- to civilian leadership, either an American civilian initially or an international figure," Powell said.
Administration officials say Baghdad already has a substantial governing structure in place. Unlike Kabul, Afghanistan, where the United States had to assist the Afghans after the Taliban's ouster, Iraq has infrastructure, institutions and a developed middle class, according to Powell.
The people of the UK and US should be proud that they actually stand up for people - as opposed to France and Germany who only stand for making a buck...even if it's blood money - taking medicine from Iraqi children.
Rumsfield
"It would be our goal to quickly transition from military leadership -- we don't want an American general running a Muslim country for any length of time -- to civilian leadership, either an American civilian initially or an international figure," Powell said.
Administration officials say Baghdad already has a substantial governing structure in place. Unlike Kabul, Afghanistan, where the United States had to assist the Afghans after the Taliban's ouster, Iraq has infrastructure, institutions and a developed middle class, according to Powell.
The people of the UK and US should be proud that they actually stand up for people - as opposed to France and Germany who only stand for making a buck...even if it's blood money - taking medicine from Iraqi children.
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Comments
If by people you mean the general population I might agree with you. If you meant the governments... well don't even start me on that.
Was there a little B&W movie clip with that report, an American soldier holding up Saddams severed head whilst other soldiers fed small children from their canteens?
But mostly, I can't wait for a democratic Muslim country to be created so that people can see there's an alternative to Al Qaeda's hatred.
I can't wait to know we are striking a blow against Al Qaeda by disrupting the flow of chemicals, knowledge and bioterrorism expertise to them from Saddam.
And once again people in the UK and America will know, their character freed people...again.
Could you please explain exactly what it is they did?
I seem to have missed something somewhere.....
From the NY POST
Powell told Congress that he plans to ask the French and German representatives whether they are "just delaying for the sake of delaying, in order to get Saddam Hussein off the hook."
Indeed, why are Germany and France so anxious to preserve Saddam's rule that they are willing to alienate the United States, deprive a NATO ally (Turkey) of the protection it needs in the event of war and split the European Union?
Could it be that a successful overthrow of Saddam might put Western troops in possession of information that would be extremely embarrassing to both countries, and especially Germany?
Everyone knows that France has massive investments in Iraq (and has made a fortune out of the U.N. oil-for-food program). Everyone knows that it is worried that a successor regime might not honor contracts made by Saddam.
But according to a dossier obtained by a German newspaper, German companies have been Iraq's biggest supplier of modern weapons and dual-use technology and have been flouting U.N. sanctions for years - all while Berlin has turned a blind eye.
Given the pacifist claims of German premier Gerhard Schroeder, and given Germany's own history of using poison gas against civilians, the confirmation of these reports would be devastating, to put it mildly.
Powell should hold their feet to the fire.
One hopes that, when the reason for Germany's persistent, perverse efforts to block the liberation of Iraq finally become clear, it will turn out to have more to do with deluded folly than with mercenary criminal activity.
Unfortunately, one cannot be too optimistic about that.
__________________
My prayers are with our troops and for Tony Blair.
As for Al Qaeda, well since they have no relevance whatsoever to the Iraqi situation, this new show of the Military Industrial Complex wont demonstrate anything to the Arab world except further US aggression against an already beleaguered and destitute nation.
You keep waiting for the truth to come though pnj, perhaps by then youll be old enough and world wise enough to understand that that truth will not make the Bush era look as heroic as you currently have been brainwashed to believe.
But Al Qaeda is out to get America. And I don't care who helps us get him. Personally the way Saddam feels about the militants in Iran, I wish we'd have used him to go to war against Iran again. So to me, they must have proof that he's destablizing the region and getting in the way of creating a free, unarmed Palestine. And as you know, Palestine is used by Al Qaeda to recruit.
Did you read and absorb anything from the Pentagon Papers links that i put up earlier? If so, you should have a small idea of how capable Washington is of deceiving the public.
Newsweek Special Edition - Issues 2003, December 2002-February 2003
Page 28; Memo: How to Rebuild Iraq by Kenneth Pollack & Joe Siegle
Page 50; The Dawn after Saddam by Bernard Lewis
Seems there are some who disagree with you, Clandestine.
Of course, the examples of Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Philippines should also be ignored, right?
You truly are gullible if you think they are welcoming our invasion, however much they might detest Saddam.
I suggest you do a bit of research on both the history of Germany and the history of the Philippines. Neither is exactly homogenous or hasn't had a fractious history. And of course, the US itself isn't exactly a homogenous nation, either, is it?
Our electoral systems are homogenous when it comes to consistent transfer from one admin to the next.
I suggest you go back to school and study political science before wading too deeply into that pool ol boy.
They offered another way to deal with the problem they have not 'let Saddam off the hook'
Protect Turkey
As concerns the trade with Iraq, that was carried out by private companies, when has any govt made a massive effort to stop any of its unethical companies?
Free market profiteering is the American dream! :rolleyes:
The least our govts can do is be honest and admit this war is about self-interest, thus what moral grounds do we have for critiscing the Frenach and Germans if they behave in a self-interested manner?
And I suggest you go back to school and study history, anthropology and linguistics before trying to argue where you obviously are without knowledge. Homogeneity is an anthropological and cultural term, not a "political" term. Germany is so "homogenous" that the German tribes took thousands of years to form a single nation.
And even if we ignore Germany, we still have the Philippines...a nation with far more tribal groups, far more languages and a far stronger history of conflict, as well as natural borders, yet has managed to make a representative democracy work for the bulk of its constituents.
Wouldnt do to admit the truth Toad, that would blow the cover on the US coporations waiting hungrily to grab up even more world resources. But that's okay see, because its American profiteering. What? culpability in human rights abuses ourselves?? shhhhhhhh! youre not allowed to say that!
The American Empire is on the march!
You mean like:
Standard Oil
AT&T
IBM
Microsoft
???
Read something scary today. Do you know why the UK and US are in such a heightened state of alert. No, do you really know?
First there was a rise in chatter and fragments of plans for Al Qaeda to attack. Money transfers to Al Qaeda operatives were tracked. Emails thought to come from one of the main people to plan 911. The chatter got very loud and then on Wednesday night went dead silent...as if the Al Qaeda operators are now in place.
Spin spin spin, but don't get dizzy my boy!
Fair enough Greeny but I am sure there are examples of the French and German governments occasionally censuring their home businesses but when has it been a matter of govt priority to monitor and censor all business activity and why should govts be blamed for the activity of their businesses.
I would never think to lay the brunt of the blame for Nestle's behaviour on the Swiss govt and I also think it is foolish to lay the blame for German compnaies activities in Iraq on the German govt unless they were directly involved......
When it comes to Arms sales, governments are almost always involved.
So, when did the US make Arms sales to a country under international arms embargo?
One cannot simply say, if we are to ascertain the contextual integrity of our own government's arguments, that momentary legality alone is sufficient to exhonerate our own weapons proliferations. If we have learned nothing else its that a nation must be responsible in its arms sales as well.
Moreover, in at least one example I know of, that of the Iran Contra scandal, whilst the reciepient country was not under embargo, the sale nonetheless was in itself conducted illicitly, and behold, to one of the countries so prominently featured in Bush's "axis of evil".
In terms of the position of the hawks as to the legitimacy of Washington's present condemnation of certain brutal regimes, one cannot divorce our own complicity in financing and arming such regimes without facing the consequence that we face today, namely, the erosion of Washington's own credibility in the international community.
From Noriega, to Pinochet, to Suharto, to Saddam himself during the Reagan era, even yes to Billy boy's own ill considered sale to the Chinese, as well as numerous others if the records are searched thoroughly, the proliferation of our weapons systems to untrustworthy governments or insurgency movements must be taken into account if you like Bush are so ready to condemn other nations for their arms proliferations.
Those who live in glass houses should not be throwing stones, let alone propagating war. In the end it will just come back around to bite us once again as it already has.
(an interesting article if anyone bothers to read it through) :
http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo0919.html
If not, this exerpt is particularly poignant:
Corporations that have sold dual-use chemicals and biological samples to Iraq for its weapons program include: Phillips Petroleum, Unilever, Alcolac, Allied Signal, the American Type Culture Collection, and Teledyne. Teledyne pled guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy, false statements, and violations of the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act for indirectly exporting 130 tons of zirconium to Iraq through Chilean arms manufacturer Carlos Cardoen. The zirconium was intended for use in cluster bombs. In defense, Teledyne argued during the trial that the CIA had authorized the shipments. The Baltimore company Alcolac was convicted of illegally selling thiodiglycol--a chemical precursor used in the production of mustard gas--for use in Iraq's chemical warfare program.
When Murray Waas and Craig Unger published an article in The New Yorker about the Reagan administration and Bush's involvement with Saddam Hussein--a full three years before Howard Teicher's revelatory affidavit--they were roundly condemned and mocked by the corporate media. Steven Emerson of the Wall Street Journal called the article a "Byzantine conspiracy theory," while Michael Fumento, a syndicated columnist, said the story was "a big fat nothing," baseless innuendo that "spread like a flesh-eating bacteria into newspapers, newsmagazines, and television news throughout the country." Others accused a liberal media of attempting to derail Bush's re-election bid.
Funny how it takes a Washinton whistle blower to show America just how inundated it is with lies, spin and cover-ups by the Washington spin factory and its corporate media lapdogs. When the truth of this admin's lies emerge, it will extremely amusing to see the hawks retreat back into their caves of silence hoping for the day when America will fall back into compliant slumber so they can reemerge to do it all over again.
Kind of contradicts the position that governments aren't involved and don't police the activity, doesn't it?
Or do you think the "whistle blowers" took those companies to court? :rolleyes:
In Arms Sales?
His Foreign Policy fortune teller mustve warned him the jig was up in advance so he could shred any record of his involvement and leave Ollie holding the bag.
Maybe you haven't noticed, but I am not exactly a fan of Oliver North. Then again, Ollie did get punished for that, I believe...
although I'm not sure exactly what the crime is when you sell weapons that don't work to someone... fraud?