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El Barto
= Song DB Master =
USA
4020 Posts |
 Posted - 01/12/2005 : 22:20:37
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Because you probably won't read it in the paper or hear it on the news
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050113/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq_weapons
Duh. And the right wing called us crazy when we said they weren't there. Luckily Bush had at least seven other reasons in his pocket, just in case most of them fell through.
My favorite part is when Scott McClellan says it's about "protecting the American people." Yes, protecting us by getting well over a thousand of us (and counting) killed. Protecting us from WHAT? Remember, you're announcing the LACK of WMD.
It's this constant circus of "oh my god, I can't believe it." It's a brilliant tactic, because it just numbs the senses to a point where more and more shit like this happens and we'll stop caring. They'll just keep pushing the envelope and getting away with more and more insane bullshit.
I don't know which is scarier: that he stole the first election without consequence, or that he was reelected.
God bless America: proving once again that you can succeed with faulty intelligence.
I guess I just wasn't made for these times. |
Edited by - El Barto on 01/13/2005 06:58:27 |
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Broken Face
-= Forum Pistolero =-
USA
5155 Posts |
Posted - 01/12/2005 : 22:23:10
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my girlfriend pointed this out to me earlier - not shocking, but definetely worth pointing out. thank you george w. bush for pointlessly killing thousands of innocents on both sides.
-Brian
If you move I shoots!
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Homers_pet_monkey
= Official forum monkey =
United Kingdom
17125 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 03:36:51
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"Meanwhile, other countries — notably Iran and North Korea (news - web sites) — are suspected of developing covert nuclear weapons programs"
Oh boy! Here we go again. Then again, what is in it for the US this time?
""We are acting to make sure we have the best possible intelligence," McClellan said"
What like making sure Bush gets a second term?
Well I dont think anyone here will be surprised by any of this
I spent a lifespan with no cellmate |
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 04:00:44
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I remember hearing a quote from George Bush Sr to the effect of "i've got another son who i think would make an excellent president" and getting a feeling of dread that we might only be at the start of a diabolical dynasty.
Sorry...that end bit sounds like it's been taken from the '60s series of Batman 
_________________________________________________
"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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Edited by - Scarla O on 01/13/2005 04:15:02 |
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KimStanleyRobinson
* Dog in the Sand *
1972 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 07:08:42
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Not far off scarla.
I had a thought this morning whil hearing this on the news.
It rather feels like we're moving into aperiod that is similar to the last few pages of Animal Farm - where the pigs come out of hiding and reveal themselves to be what they really are with the "four legs good, two legs better!" slogan and all.
If you think about it too much it can really become quite depressing and frightening.
They (not the bush family particularly, but republicans and right wingers in general) are in such a position of power that they can admit to just about anything without fear of any real damage to the status quo.
"No, there were no WMDS. Yes, we're going for the oil. Yes, GWB has an IQ of 70 and Cheney and Rummy are running the country. Yes, liberalism is going to be banned. Yes, we are going to force all people to become members of a christian church or face imprisonment AND THERE ISAN'T A DAMN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT." |
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 07:40:24
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Very funny KSR and sadly very true.
_________________________________________________
"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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KimStanleyRobinson
* Dog in the Sand *
1972 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 07:49:30
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I really think that we are going to see some serious failures on the right over the next couple years.
They are going to get comfortable and lazy and we are going to be watching like rabid, starved wolverines for any chance to pounce on the fat bastards. |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:11:54
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Show me on person, from the left, that said before the war that there were NO WMD's in Iraq. Duh.
Who is this 'we' you are talking about. Just spewing garbage doesnt make it true. Duh.
Yes, yes, nobody will read this. It takes a super-sleuth to pull a link from a WIRE REPORT. Which gets printed in damn-near every newspaper in the WORLD. Thanks for the spreading this underground information!
God bless this thread, proving without a doubt that one can post revisionist drivel with faulty intelligence. |
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Cult_Of_Frank
= Black Noise Maker =
Canada
11687 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:16:06
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Wouldn't you say that Hans Blix said there were no WMD (or at least no proof of them)? And most of the rest of the world didn't really buy that as an excuse for war either. Maybe it was more clear from outside the US, but there were tonnes of people who didn't buy this whole WMD thing from day one.
 "Join the Cult of Frank 2.0 / And you'll be enlightened (free for 1.x members)" |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:23:50
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Just to help el barto fight the power that is suppressing vital information about the WMD search.
Front Page of the Dallas Morning News (WMD story is above the fold Front page)
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/news/dmn/vitindex.html
Seems to have hit Chicago
http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-weap13.html
Just because it seems to be showing up in major cities I dont think we should relax. The media has been reluctant to show any negative stories about Iraq for so long, word wont get out on this if not for progressive 'thinkers' like us!! |
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:33:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
Show me on person, from the left, that said before the war that there were NO WMD's in Iraq. Duh.
Well you see if you follwed the likes of John Pilger you would know that in 2001 Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell anounced that Iraq possessed no WMD.
Just for example...
Rice: "But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Or in Ritter's words:"'It was possible as early as 1997 to determine that, from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq had been disarmed. Iraq no longer possessed any meaningful quantities of chemical or biological agent, if it possessed any at all, and the industrial means to produce these agents had either been eliminated or were subject to stringent monitoring. The same was true of Iraq's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. As long as monitoring inspections remained in place, Iraq presented a WMD-based threat to no one.'"
_________________________________________________
"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:42:26
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Hans Blix said the exact opposite, but, dont bother checking out your assumptions.
His stated opinion on the day of the invasion was that there were WMD's and that the US would find them. He did not support the invasion and stated that he WOULD have found them had he been given more time. But again, dont let that interfere with your biases.
This is from his statement to the UN about 40 days or so before the invasion. It seems to me, that he is far from saying Iraq is clean and not a threat. You tell me...
Blix at the UN 1/27/03
I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered, and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.
The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tons, and that the quality was poor and the product unstable.
Consequently, it was said that the agent was never weaponized.
Iraq said that the small quantity of [the] agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.
UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.
There are also indications that the agent was weaponized. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.
I would now like to turn to the so-called air force document that I have discussed with the council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi air force headquarters in 1998, and taken from her by Iraq minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I'm encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.
The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi air force between 1983 and 1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.
The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at the storage depot, 170 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved here in the past few years at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding.
Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve, but rather points to the issue of several thousand of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for. The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate.
During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and has set up a committee of investigation. Since then, it has reported that it has found four chemical rockets at a storage depot in al-Haji. I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of ... a mustard [gas] precursor.
While addressing chemical issues, I should mention a matter which I reported on 19th of December last year concerning equipment at a civilian chemical plant at al-Fallujah. Iraq has declared that it had repaired chemical processing equipment previously destroyed under UNSCOM supervision and had installed it at Fallujah for the production of chlorine and phenols. We have inspected this equipment and are conducting a detailed technical evaluation of it. On completion, we will decide whether this and other equipment that has been recovered by Iraq should be destroyed.
I turn to biological weapons. I mention the issue of anthrax to the council on previous occasions, and I come back to it as it is an important one. Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.
Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.
There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared and that at least some of this was retained over the declared destruction date. It might still exist.
Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was indeed destroyed in 1991.
As I reported to the council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7 December 2002 declaration Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.
In the letter of 24th of January this year to the president of the Security Council, Iraq's foreign minister stated that, I quote, "All imported quantities of growth media were declared." This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 liters of concentrated anthrax.
I turn, Mr. President, now to the missile sector. There remain significant questions as to whether Iraq retained Scud-type missiles after the Gulf War. Iraq declared the consumption of a number of Scud missiles as targets in the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense system during the 1980s, yet no technical information has been produced about that program or data on the consumption of the missiles.
There has been a range of developments in the missile field during the past four years, presented by Iraq in the declaration as non-proscribed activities. We are trying to gather a clear understanding of them through inspections and on-site discussions.
Two projects in particular stand out. They are the development of a liquid-fueled missile named Al-Samud II and a solid propellant missile called Al-Fatah. Both missiles have been tested to arrange in excess of the permitted range of 150 kilometers, with the Al-Samud II being tested to a maximum of 183 kilometers and the Al-Fatah to 161 kilometers. Some of both types of missiles have already been provided to the Iraqi armed forces, even though it is stated that they're still undergoing development.
The Al-Samud's diameter was increased from an earlier version to the president 760 mm. This modification was made despite a 1994 letter from the executive chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600 mm. Furthermore, a November 1997 letter from the executive chairman of UNSCOM to Iraq prohibited the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles for the use in ballistic missiles.
During my recent meeting in Baghdad, we were briefed on these two programs. We were told that the final range for both systems would be less than the permitted maximum of 150 kilometers.
These missiles might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems. The test ranges in excess of 150 kilometers are significant, but some further technical considerations need to be made before we reach a conclusion on this issue. In the meantime, we have asked Iraq to cease flight tests of both missiles.
In addition, Iraq has refurbished its missile production infrastructure. In particular, Iraq reconstituted a number of casting chambers which had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM's supervision. They had been used in the production of solid fuel missiles.
Whatever missile system these chambers are intended for, they could produce motors for missiles capable of ranges significantly greater than 150 kilometers.
Also associated with these missiles and related developments is the import which has been taking place during the last two years of a number of items despite the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost among these is import of 300 rockets engines which may be used for the Al-Samud II.
Iraq has also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and guidance and control system. These items may well be for proscribed purposes; that is yet to be determined.
What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq; that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.
Mr. President, I have touched upon some of the disarmament issues that remain open and that need to be answered if dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise.
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:48:00
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Scarla-O you aren't normally that underhanded. You post the names Rice and Powell and then quote thoroughly discredited Scott Ritter?
Not many people admit taking money from pre-invasion Saddam to do PR work, but Scott Ritter does. The guy is a bonafide paid Saddam shill.
But if Ritter is to believed, add Hans Blix the list of conspirators on the great false-accusation cabal against Saddam. So we now have Bush, Blair, Chirac, Annan, Putin, Howard, and everybody else conspiring to tell one great big lie about Saddam and his WMD's. Doesn't anybody think this stuff through before letting it seep into their brain? |
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:52:30
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Scott Ritter who i quoted in my last post was a weapons inspector who comes to a totally different conclusion to the one outlined above.
However:
"Hans Blix, the former executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), said on 3 October that the report delivered to the US government by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) contained “no surprises”. “The most important point is that they confirm that they have not found any stocks of weapons of mass destruction,” he told the BBC."
Or
"Hans Blix had his first public I-told-you-so moment today when he told reporters, "It is sort of puzzling I think that you can have 100 per cent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction's existence, and zero certainty about where they are. We were more prudent in our assessment and I think that was shown to be pretty wise."
Whilst you're at it Dallas why don't you comment on the quote from Rice?
_________________________________________________
"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 08:58:04
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The point your making is redundant anyway since there were plenty of people from all sides of the political spectrum who felt that the presence/development of WMD was no reason to invade a country. You need to open your eyes - this is not about left or right, your caricatured images of these positions hinder your ability to discuss matters cogently. The protest against the Iraq war stemmed from a refusal to accept the lies and hypocrisy that we were being fed.
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"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:01:55
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
Scarla-O you aren't normally that underhanded. You post the names Rice and Powell and then quote thoroughly discredited Scott Ritter?
Not many people admit taking money from pre-invasion Saddam to do PR work, but Scott Ritter does. The guy is a bonafide paid Saddam shill.
Find me impartial information that states this and I will re-consider whether quoting ritter again.
"But if Ritter is to believed, add Hans Blix the list of conspirators on the great false-accusation cabal against Saddam. So we now have Bush, Blair, Chirac, Annan, Putin, Howard, and everybody else conspiring to tell one great big lie about Saddam and his WMD's."
Well setting aside blix for one moment i can't say that the prospect of being lied to by Bush, Blair, Chirac, Annan, Putin, Howard surprises me even slightly.
"Doesn't anybody think this stuff through before letting it seep into their brain?"
Very good you little jester you.
_________________________________________________
"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:02:58
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I've got to go now but I'll respond to your replies tomorrow Dallas - be there or be []
_________________________________________________
"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:13:15
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Open YOUR eyes, I was responding to a post in an internet forum.
That post began with the laughable notion that the WMD news would not get reported. It is literally front page above the fold in the Dallas Morning News I am looking at right now.
That post also put forth the notion that the left had known all along that there were no WMD's. One has to work hard to AVOID known facts to believe such a thing.
Both of those notions are baseless and run counter to all known facts. Period.
Scott Ritter has no credibility. He admittedly was paid over $400,000us by Saddam to produce movies and other media portraying Saddam and life in Iraq as benign and fruitful. Why not quote the Iraqi Minister of Information?? "We have control of Baghdad Airport"???
If someone had made an intelligent post about the fairly debated point of whether or not the threat of WMD's in Saddams hands alone was worthy of invasion I would not have replied as I did or maybe even at all.
But thats not what was posted. What was posted was uninformed drivel.
Rice was correct in her quote, although I have no idea what context you pulled it from. The reason I quoted so liberally from Blix. Nobody thought that Saddams army had been reconstituted to pre-GulfWar levels. The threat was not his army, although, one could argue that any army in the hands of someone who already had close to 500,000 murders under his belt is a weapon of mass destruction, it was the threat of nuclear, biological or chemical weopons.
Here is a tidbit regarding found nuclear agents in Iraq for those who believe nothing nefarious has come out of there...
Here's how the Associated Press covered news last June:
"In a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb, the Energy Department disclosed Tuesday.
"The nuclear material was secured from Iraq's former nuclear research facility and airlifted out of the country to an undisclosed Energy Department laboratory for further analysis," the AP said.
"Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham described the previously undisclosed operation, which was concluded June 23, as 'a major achievement' in an attempt to 'keep potentially dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists.'"
or how about this find?
Here's how the Associated Press covered that development in Aug. 2003:
"American teams hunting for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction found dozens of fighter jets from Iraq's air force buried beneath the sands, U.S. officials say.
"At least one Cold War-era MiG-25 interceptor was found when searchers saw the tops of its twin tail fins poking up from the sands, said one Pentagon official familiar with the hunt. He said search teams have found several MiG-25s and Su-25 ground attack jets buried at al-Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad. . . ."
None of it is WMD's (nor are the 10-12 missiles found with rounds of Sarin and Mustard gas), but, this notion put forth that Saddam was some benign figure is an attempt to rewrite history. |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:23:39
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Fighter jets in the sand? Wonder where they hid the tanks. I wouldn´t claim Saddam is benign by any means, just that the intelligence agencies who installed him, supported him, fed him weaponry, and allowed him use his gunships to quell a Kurdish uprising against him after the first Gulf "theatre war" (to quote the Project for A New American Century) are not a bunch of people whose words are going to be taken at face value by me.
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Democracy is the unwiped ass of a devilish con game. |
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Broken Face
-= Forum Pistolero =-
USA
5155 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:29:09
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
Show me on person, from the left, that said before the war that there were NO WMD's in Iraq. Duh.
http://www.progressive.org/nov02/kuc1102.html
from the November 2002 issue of the Progressive:
November 2002 issue
The Bloodstained Path
by Dennis Kucinich
Unilateral military action by the United States against Iraq is unjustified, unwarranted, and illegal. The Administration has failed to make the case that Iraq poses an imminent threat to the United States. There is no credible evidence linking Iraq to 9/11. There is no credible evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda. Nor is there any credible evidence that Iraq possesses deliverable weapons of mass destruction, or that it intends to deliver them against the United States.
When Iraq possessed and used weapons of mass destruction, quite sad to say, it did so with the knowledge of, and sometimes with materials from, the United States.
During the Administration of Ronald Reagan, sixty helicopters were sold to Iraq. Later reports said Iraq used U.S.-made helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons. According to The Washington Post, Iraq used mustard gas against Iran with the help of intelligence from the CIA.
Iraq's punishment? The United States reestablished full diplomatic ties around Thanksgiving of 1984.
Throughout 1989 and 1990, U.S. companies, with the permission of the first Bush Administration, sent to the government of Saddam Hussein mustard gas precursors and live cultures for bacteriological research. U.S. companies also helped to build a chemical weapons factory and supplied the West Nile virus, fuel air explosive technology, computers for weapons technology, hydrogen cyanide precursors, computers for weapons research and development, and vacuum pumps and bellows for nuclear weapons plants. "We have met the enemy," said Walt Kelly's Pogo, "And he is us."
Unilateral action on the part of the United States, or in partnership with Great Britain, would for the first time set our nation on the bloodstained path of aggressive war, a sacrilege upon the memory of those who fought to defend this country. America's moral authority would be undermined throughout the world. It would destabilize the entire Persian Gulf and Middle East region. And it would signal for Russia to invade Georgia; China, Taiwan; North Korea, the South; India, Pakistan.
The United States must recommit itself to the U.N. Charter, which is the framework for international order. We have a right and a duty to defend ourselves. We also have an obligation to defend international law. We can accomplish both without going to war with Iraq.
There is a way out.
It must involve the United Nations. Inspections for weapons of mass destruction should begin immediately. Inspectors must have free and unfettered access to all sites.
The time has come for us to end the sanctions against Iraq, because those sanctions punish the people of Iraq for having Saddam Hussein as their leader. These sanctions have been instrumental in causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. Emergency relief should be expedited. Free trade, except in arms, must be permitted.
Foreign investments must be allowed. The assets of Iraq abroad must be restored.
And a regional zone free of weapons of mass destruction should be established.
The only weapon that can save the world is nonviolence, said Gandhi. We can begin this practice today by calling upon the Administration in Washington to stop the talk of war, and stop the planning for war.
In their heart of hearts, the American people do not want war on Iraq. The American people want peace.
There is no reason for war against Iraq. Stop the drumbeat. Stop sending troops and supplies to Kuwait and Qatar. Pull back from the abyss of unilateral action and preemptive strikes.
We know that each day the Administration receives a daily threat assessment. But Iraq is not an imminent threat to this nation. Forty million Americans suffering from inadequate health care is an imminent threat. The high cost of prescription drugs is an imminent threat. The ravages of unemployment is an imminent threat. The slowdown of the economy is an imminent threat, and so, too, the devastating effects of corporate fraud.
We must drop the self-defeating policy of regime change. Policies of aggression and assassination are not worthy of any nation with a democratic tradition, let alone a nation of people who love liberty and whose sons and daughters sacrifice to maintain that democracy.
The question is not whether or not America has the military power to destroy Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The question is whether we destroy something essential in this nation by asserting that America has the right to do so anytime it pleases.
America cannot and should not be the world's policeman. America cannot and should not try to pick the leaders of other nations. Nor should America and the American people be pressed into the service of international oil interests and arms dealers.
We must work to bring Iraq back into the community of nations, not through destruction, but through constructive action worldwide. We can help negotiate a resolution with Iraq that encompasses unfettered inspections, the end of sanctions, and the cessation of the regime-change policy.
We have the power to do this. We must have the will to do this. It must be the will of the American people expressed through the direct action of peaceful insistence.
If the United States proceeds with a first strike policy, then we will have taken upon our nation a historic burden of committing a violation of international law, and we would then forfeit any moral high ground we could hope to hold.
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Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, is head of the Progressive Caucus in Congress.
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i hope you enjoy the taste of your foot
-Brian
If you move I shoots!
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Edited by - Broken Face on 01/13/2005 09:30:31 |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:35:07
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Agh what´s a smart feller like you doing pandering to this whole left/right dinosaur-brain schtick? Barbed wire for the mind. There are as many sides to a debate as there are people in the universe. Or multiverse.
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Democracy is the unwiped ass of a devilish con game. |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:37:49
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Here is Ritter in 1998 before being paid by Saddam:
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/12/21/981221-scott.htm
Here is a story from a conservative outlet on the Ritters relationship with Iraq and how an Iraqi official living in the US paid him and got him welcomed back to Iraq by Saddam.
Saddam Hussein's American Apologist: The strange career of former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter
Weekly Standard ^ | 11/19/2001 Issue | Stephen F. Hayes
Posted on 03/13/2002 7:39:10 AM PST by veronica
"IRAQ TODAY represents a threat to no one."
It's hard to imagine that argument coming these days from anyone other than Tariq Aziz, or another of Saddam Hussein's propagandists. But those are in fact the words of Scott Ritter, former chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq. This represents an astonishing conversion. Ritter, after all, abruptly quit that job in frustration three years ago, complaining of Iraqi obstructionism and U.S. acquiescence. At the time, he had quite a different view of Baghdad: "Iraq presents a clear and present danger to international peace and security."
But Ritter has lately been hawking his Iraq-as-a-lamb theory to everyone who will listen--from his perch as a Fox News analyst, in regular appearances on NPR, to reporters at newspapers across the country. When his former U.N. supervisor, Ambassador Richard Butler, suggested that Iraq might be responsible for the spate of anthrax attacks in the United States, Ritter told a Boston Globe reporter that such speculation is "irresponsible." Asked on Chris Matthews's Hardball whether Saddam Hussein has anthrax, he equivocated: "Well, there's--you know, we, as weapons inspectors for United Nations, destroyed Iraq's biological weapons program. There's a lot of things that are unaccounted for such as growth media, which allows them to--to grow these germs. But the basic factories, the fermentation units, etc., had been destroyed. So, you know, the--the chance of Iraq having something like this is--is slim to none. We won't ever know until we get weapons inspectors back in. But Iraq's not on the top of my list in terms of, you know, places we should be worried about."
Obviously, Ritter's views on Iraq have changed over the past three years. Indeed, they've basically flipped. Then, Iraqi leaders were inveterate liars; today, they are victims of American "propaganda mills." Then, Saddam Hussein was hell-bent on building his deadly arsenal; today, he wants to feed Iraqi children. Then, the key to Iraq's future was overthrowing Saddam Hussein; today, Hussein is a "viable dictator."
The Scott Ritter of 1998 would have some fierce debates with the Scott Ritter of 2001. But the Scott Ritter of 2001 doesn't even admit to having changed his mind. "That's a common criticism," he says, but "I just ask people to take the time to review the record. When I first resigned, which was in August of 1998, I spoke out--and I said this to the Senate--that I'm speaking out as an inspector, even though I'm not an inspector. And what that means is, I'm speaking out in defense of the resolution, 687, that the Security Council passed that the United States endorsed. And this called for 100 percent disarmament, and we have less than that."
So does Ritter believe, as he wrote October 12 in the Los Angeles Times, that Iraq really "represents a threat to no one"?
"From a conventional standpoint, I'd say that Iraq represents virtually a zero-sum threat," he insists. On weapons of mass destruction, Ritter hedges a bit. "I'll always maintain that we never got 100 percent of the weapons, but I will maintain--and the facts speak for themselves--that we got 90-95 percent of it," he says. "In the past three years, we just don't know what's been going on. And that should be put on the table right off the bat. But what we do know is that using 1998 as a benchmark, Iraq, frankly speaking, hasn't had the time or the resources to effectively reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction program."
Among the former arms inspectors, Ritter is unique in his benign views of the Iraqi threat. Butler has referred to this as "Ritter's crap." Iraqi leaders, needless to say, are thrilled with what the Washington Post's Colum Lynch called Ritter's "bizarre turnaround." They now "seem to view their erstwhile enemy as an asset in the propaganda war against the United States." But don't take the Post's word for it. On Iraq's official website--www.uruklink.net--after a few words of token criticism of the former weapons inspector, there is a tribute to Ritter, in a rather fractured translation from the original Arabic.
"The admittance of Scott Ritter and his enthusiastic in calling for the lifting of the unfair embargo and to halt the continuous bleeding of Iraqi people is a conscience scream." Then there is an appeal to other former U.N. inspectors to follow in his footsteps. "The truth veiled by the American poisoned propaganda . . . sooner or later the truth will shine. . . . He who will not participate in revealing the truth and support Iraq will regret in the future. He who says the truth, as Scott Ritter did, will be happy, conscientious, and proud to be one of the honest people who participated in revealing the truth. Those who will be so, we will admire and greet."
The part about admiring and greeting is literal. Ritter was welcomed back to Baghdad in July 2000, with the blessing of Saddam Hussein. The reason for his trip? To produce a documentary film, "In Shifting Sands," that would chronicle the weapons-inspection process and, he says, "de-demonize" Iraq. The 90-minute film, which he says he is close to selling to a broadcast outlet, was produced with the approval of the Iraqi government and features interviews with numerous high-level Iraqi officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
U.S. intelligence officials and arms control advocates say Ritter has been played--perhaps unwittingly--by Saddam Hussein. "If you're Scott Ritter," says one arms expert, "the former 'cowboy' weapons inspector, kicked out by Saddam Hussein, you're not going to get back into Iraq unless Saddam Hussein invites you and wants you there."
Ritter doesn't entirely disagree. Though he claims the film is an attempt to be "objective" about the situation in Iraq, he predicted before its completion, "the U.S. will definitely not like this film."
He acknowledges, as well, that the U.S. government doesn't like how the film was financed. Shakir al-Khafaji, an Iraqi-American real estate developer living in Michigan, kicked in $400,000. By Ritter's own admission, al-Khafaji is "openly sympathetic with the regime in Baghdad." Al-Khafaji, who accompanied Ritter as he filmed the documentary and facilitated many of the meetings, travels to and from Iraq regularly in his capacity as chairman of "Iraqi expatriate conferences." Those conferences, held in Baghdad every two years, are sponsored and subsidized by Saddam Hussein.
The conferences are little more than propaganda shows, designed to bash the United States and demonstrate to the world that Hussein has support even among Iraq's expatriate community. The official conference website posts several articles condemning U.S. "terrorism and genocide" against Iraq.
Ritter says al-Khafaji had no editorial input on the film project but that without his help, the movie would not have been made. "I tried to get independent sources to fund the movie," he says. "People can talk about the funding all they want. If I'd been able to be bought--from '95 to '98 the CIA paid me. Did I do their bidding?"
Ritter says the FBI investigated the relationship between him and al-Khafaji and found nothing. "They surrounded my house, they stopped me on the street," he says. "Nothing."
HOW DID THE MAN who was arguably Public Enemy No. 1 of Saddam Hussein's Iraq end up three years later as perhaps the leading American apologist for Iraq? Ask the average American about Scott Ritter, and those who don't confuse him with the clumsy guy on "Three's Company" will probably still tell you he's an American hero.
Ritter was the ex-Marine tough guy who very publicly resigned his position as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq in late August 1998. Since the end of the Gulf War, he had been part of the team enforcing the cease-fire agreement that prohibited Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction, the equipment to make such weapons, and the vehicles (missiles) to deliver them. By the mid '90s, the inspection process had deteriorated into a potentially lethal game of hide-and-seek. Ritter, as he put it, was "the alpha dog," a badass inspector there to show the deceitful Iraqis who was in charge.
Except for the occasional armed confrontation, the routine was predictable. Iraqi leaders would insist that they were fully disarmed, and shortly thereafter U.N. inspectors would happen upon, say, a stash of VX nerve agent or perhaps some shells containing mustard gas, 97 percent pure. When the inspectors showed up at potential weapons sites, the Iraqis often simply refused to give them access.
"The fact of the matter is that since April 1991, under the direct orders and direction of the president of Iraq, the government of Iraq has lied to the Special Commission about the totality of its holdings," Ritter later testified.
Ritter became frustrated and demanded a more aggressive inspection process. "He used to write me the most strident memos about their refusal to let us do our jobs," says Richard Butler, former head of the U.N. inspection team and Ritter's boss. "I remember him banging his fist on the table--telling me to let him go in."
But as Ritter grew more determined to force inspections, the Clinton administration grew wobbly. "We have been directly told, 'Do not do these inspections,'" Ritter recalled shortly after resigning. "And since April [1998] we have not been allowed to do these tasks, largely because of pressure placed upon the Special Commission by administration officials."
A week after his resignation, following a whirlwind of debriefings and interviews, Ritter was invited to testify at a joint hearing of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees on September 3, 1998. Strom Thurmond, the South Carolina Republican, introduced Ritter as "a tough and demanding inspector" and a "dedicated American."
Ritter wasted no time in offering his assessment of the continuing threat: "Iraq has not been disarmed." The United States, he claimed, had deliberately thwarted the U.N. inspections for fear of a confrontation with Iraq. He ripped the administration for its refusal to back up the inspections process with a legitimate use of force, including, but not limited to, removing Saddam Hussein's regime.
Ritter was such a hawk and so critical of the Clinton administration's non-confrontational approach that he drew the ire of Senator Joe Biden. "They have responsibilities above your pay grade--slightly above your pay grade--to decide whether or not to take the nation to war alone or to take the nation to war part-way, or to take the nation to war half-way," the Delaware Democrat scolded. "That's a real tough decision. That's why they get paid the big bucks. That's why they get the limos and you don't."
But the hearing's most sober moment came just minutes later, when Sam Brownback, Republican from Kansas, asked Ritter for his opinion about the continuation of the Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction program. "Once effective inspection regimes have been terminated," said Ritter, "Iraq will be able to reconstitute the entirety of its former nuclear, chemical, and ballistic missile delivery system capabilities within a period of six months."
All inspections stopped in December 1998. That same month, in an article written for the New Republic, Ritter again warned of the continuing Iraqi threat, this time in much greater detail. "Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed," he maintained. "Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production."
Saddam Hussein had successfully faced down the United Nations and the United States, and if Scott Ritter was right, that was big trouble.
SO IT WAS, and is. But Ritter now utterly contradicts his testimony of 1998, according to which Saddam Hussein could have reconstituted a fearsome arsenal of weapons of mass destruction by the middle of 1999. By that time, in a June 1999 interview with leaders of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a peace organization based in Nyack, New York, he had changed his tune. "When you ask the question [does] Iraq possess militarily viable biological or chemical weapons? The answer is 'no.' It is a resounding NO! Can Iraq produce today chemical weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Can Iraq produce biological weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Ballistic missiles? No. It is 'no' across the board. So from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has been disarmed. Iraq today possesses no meaningful weapons of mass destruction capability."
Virtually every expert on Iraq and arms control disagrees. Ambassador Butler, Ritter's former boss with the U.N., says that Iraq never disarmed during the 1990s and almost certainly has weapons of mass destruction today. Charles Duelfer, Butler's number two, believes Iraq currently has biological and chemical weapons, and the means to deliver them. Arms control experts Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz, with the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, detailed in the July issue of Commentary the steady and stealthy weapons trade with Iraq.
Butler, for one, is nonplussed when asked about Ritter's change. "In a day filled with lots of phone calls, interviews, etcetera it's almost a waste of time to comment on that," he says. "I don't want to sound arrogant, it's simply ridiculous." Pushed, though, he offers this assessment: "I'll say this about Scott, either he's misleading the public now, or he misled me then."
Duelfer, too, rejects Ritter's all-clear declarations on Iraq. "Why would [Saddam] have given up his intent to develop these weapons? He's made credible arguments that these weapons have saved them in the past, in the war against Iran, in the Gulf War," says Duelfer. "Why would Saddam say, 'This saved my ass one time,' and then say, 'Oh yeah, you're right. This isn't moral. I'll stop.'"
"Maybe Scott's got some very narrow definition of 'threat.' I just don't see it."
Ritter is dismissive of his former supervisors. "Those critics?" he says. "Screw 'em."
In his less guarded moments, though, Ritter appears to acknowledge that Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction. Just minutes after he told the Fellowship of Reconciliation that Iraq has "no meaningful weapons of mass destruction capability," he qualified that assertion. More than that, he offered a justification for Saddam Hussein to repudiate the agreement that ended the Gulf War and rearm Iraq.
Iraqi leaders, he said, "see their neighbors' weapons of mass destruction, they see the inevitability of conflict with the United States, and they're not going to give up their weapons. When Madeleine Albright made that awful statement in March of 1997, that economic sanctions would continue while Saddam was in power regardless of weapons disarmament, she basically closed the door on any hope that the Iraqis would get rid of their weapons."
Ritter says he doesn't want to whitewash Saddam, but that Iraq's "mistakes" are no different from those of the United States. "We are the United States, and I'm not trying to give Saddam Hussein the moral equivalency that the United States has, but I believe that it's disingenuous to acknowledge that we are capable of making mistakes, and on the other hand interpreting everything the Iraqis do as having nefarious intent. This is a nation that has been devastated by a war, bombed to hell and back, and then it has these brutal economic sanctions which leave the country in disarray. There will be mistakes."
Earlier this year, Ritter worried in the Harvard International Review about pre-Gulf War "propaganda mills in America" that "demonized Saddam in the most extreme fashion in preparation for war." Saddam Hussein, he argued in a recent interview, is simply misunderstood. "We try to apply our own perceptions of morality and ideology to an environment that we just do not understand." He pushed the same line at an appearance last month at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.
"When I say Saddam Hussein, you say 'evil,'" Ritter rebuked his audience. "I say 50,000 liter fermentation unit, and everybody goes, 'biological weapons.'" (Actually, everybody probably goes, "Huh?") "Well, that's not necessarily the answer. The answer might be that Iraq wants to make single-cell protein so that it can feed its cows, so the cows can produce milk, so the children can have something to drink."
Yes, Scott Ritter is right. There may well be propaganda mills in America. It certainly looks like he is running one of them.
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:40:25
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Thank you newo, thats why I dont trust the Russians (those were MIGs buried there) or French (french missiles) when it comes to Iraq.
Dennis Kucinech? Ummmm, right. He even equivocated and used weak language. "deliverable" is the key word. In that essay, if they had 1 ton of anthrax, but, not a missile capable of delivering it to the US there is no threat. That was never the issue. They only have to be deliveable to our base in Saudi Arabia or into Isreal or Turkey or any other ally. He set preconditions that allowed him to make a non-declaration. He said no one could prove. He didnt even say that there were no WMD's. Not at all. He was in full defense lawyer mode for Saddam. |
Edited by - Dallas on 01/13/2005 09:47:07 |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:40:39
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Wow that´s almost as good as a photo of him shaking hands with the ol monster.
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Democracy is the unwiped ass of a devilish con game. |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 09:46:34
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Happy to oblige you Dallas, I will say that seeing as out of the world´s 100 richest entities a smaller percentage of them are nations as opposed to companies (49%, I read it in that No Logo book a few years ago, perhaps it´s more now), I can´t help but feel we´re allowing ourselves to be duped when we play the national-boundaries game.
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Democracy is the unwiped ass of a devilish con game. |
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El Barto
= Song DB Master =
USA
4020 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 10:21:14
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quote:
That post began with the laughable notion that the WMD news would not get reported. It is literally front page above the fold in the Dallas Morning News I am looking at right now.
The media in the past 4 years has had a wonderful track record of not reporting important news. I cannot, for the life of me, find the website I was reading where somebody was talking about New York Post (or one of those major NY papers) mentioning it in a blurb on A24 or something ridiculous like that. Ask around and find out how many people heard about the Duelfer Report...how many heard a few months ago when Bush and Cheney admitted they went to war based on intelligence they weren't very sure about...how many heard when Rice admitted that Saddam had no connection to Al-Qaida. This isn't big news, is it? It's not flashy enough, it's not exciting enough for the average Joe Fucktard to care about. Clinton lies about a blowjob and it's frontpage news for a year. Bush lies about a war and it gets a blurb on the back page of a major news paper. Who's controlling the media?
The thing I love about right wingers in general is that they live their life in complete denial. This became clear after reading sites like freerepublic. Bush could come out tommorow and say "I stole the first election, I wanted to go to war for oil, Iraq never had WMD and we knew it," and still they would say "Nah, that's not true."
I guess I just wasn't made for these times. |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 11:05:11
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The Duelfer report was front page news on all majors. It led EVERY network and cable news show. So much so that Dulfer himself complained about the media frenzy. You have done it again, posting something that is the complete opposite of the known facts.
If people avoid news, that is there problem. Your whole point is unmitigated bullshit if you think that the major media is supporting Bush by not reporting bad news. The exact opposite is demonstrably true, but, people like to make up bogeyman when they cant handle the intricacies of reality.
El Barto, I dont accuse you of denial, instead, you demonstrate that you are in the black hole of ignorance. Again, the point of your post was that this 'news' was going to be suppressed and you linked to an Associated Press wire report. That story was literally zoomed to hundreds, perhaps thousands of news agencies around the world. You quoted Scott McClellan, at a NEWS conference. Those press conferences are great tools for suppressing news doncha know. Still, you pretend that this is being ignored.
Then you created the complete bullshit assertion that the left knew there were no WMD's but that nobody listened. If only the world would have listened to what YOU knew. Funny.
For the trifecta you threw in the old stolen election canard. Now that one might be denial, the rest is simply ignorance. |
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Broken Face
-= Forum Pistolero =-
USA
5155 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 12:11:23
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you asked for one person from the left, which i gave you without even trying. just concede the fact that there were people who believed there were no WMDs - if you don't admit that then you just look like someone who can't admit when they're wrong
-Brian
If you move I shoots!
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 12:39:43
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Here is my quote: "Show me on person, from the left, that said before the war that there were NO WMD's in Iraq. Duh."
Here is Kucinich:
" Nor is there any credible evidence that Iraq possesses deliverable weapons of mass destruction, or that it intends to deliver them against the United States."
He doesnt say there are no WMD's in Iraq. He parses his words. Do you think the word 'deliverable' is there by accident? No, it is the description of the WMD's he is concerned about.
2 points that go against your assertion. 1, If he thought that there were no WMD's he would have said so in the article. He did not. #2, he actually confirms the existence of WMD's with the line "or that it intends to deliver them against the United States". Obviously, if Kucinich was claiming that there were ZERO WMD's that last line is nonsensical.
Kucinich is a politician and as such chooses his words carefully. There is a reason he doesnt simply say "Saddam (or Iraq) does not possess WMD's". Close, but no cigar B-Face. |
Edited by - Dallas on 01/13/2005 12:53:37 |
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The King Of Karaoke
> Teenager of the Year <
USA
3759 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 12:50:58
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quote:
Originally posted by Dallas
Show me on person, from the left, that said before the war that there were NO WMD's in Iraq. Duh.
Who is this 'we' you are talking about. Just spewing garbage doesnt make it true. Duh.
Yes, yes, nobody will read this. It takes a super-sleuth to pull a link from a WIRE REPORT. Which gets printed in damn-near every newspaper in the WORLD. Thanks for the spreading this underground information!
God bless this thread, proving without a doubt that one can post revisionist drivel with faulty intelligence.
How about me? Oh yeah, I'm from the middle.
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 "I am not a plonker". |
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 12:52:42
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| You will suffice KOK, can you link to a pre-invasion post? |
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The King Of Karaoke
> Teenager of the Year <
USA
3759 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 13:34:39
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No, but I can lnk something you should maybe read closely with one eye, while looking in a mirror with the other.
Worker Bees and Soldier Ants: America’s Army of Fascism
Marching Boots of Mass Psychosis
01/13/05 "ICH" -- It is in times of fascism rising that armies of ignorance are once more resuscitated from the bowels of a society bordering on the edge of mass psychosis. The America at the dawn of the twenty-first century is no exception, for an army of fascism is being born inside its womb, its growing power in numbers and ideology granting freedom of action to immoral despots and juntas of warmongering greed addicts. Contrived through the mass manipulation of fear and hatred, xenophobia and ignorance, searing nationalism and blind theological faith, this army represents the greatest threat to the nation, and the world.
From all walks of life diluted brains and weak-minded individuals are answering the call of the beacon of fascism shining bright, from Atlantic to Pacific, from north to south, embracing its dastardly tentacles with the warm acceptance of comfort and submission. Millions of Americans are presently falling prey to a virulent haze gripping the United States, furthered and pursued by a small cabal of corporatist evildoers perched at the upper echelons of governance and power that seek to transform the nation into a black widow’s nest of fascism spiked with the venom of a militarized citizenry acquiescent to imperial hegemony.
Growing daily like a malignant tumor, still entranced by the devastating images of the new Pearl Harbor, which the corporatists in power did nothing to help stop and everything possible for it to succeed, this multitude cannot see in shades of gray nor in the prism of color. Instead, like living inside the television sets of the past, only black and white can they perceive, their antenna only receptive to the microwaves of good and bad, evil and good, friend or foe. Different shades of reality escape them just as much as the reality of what transpires around the world.
This army of fascism is the product of years of methodical ingraining of ignorance and indifference into society by those holding the reigns of power. It is the end result of the re-wired human brain preyed upon and feasted on by television and the corporations that control thought through it. Obedient to the monitor, blind to reality, the army now gathering life takes direct commands from the images, sounds and war cries emanated by television. Acting on instinct, and on the televised propaganda they are conditioned to obey and follow, the army now walking among us neither questions nor searches for answers, preferring to exult the fantasies of fiction over the embarrassments of truth, preferring to dwell in ignorance rather than being liberated by knowledge.
Like the drones they have been bred to be the army of fascism lines up one behind another, marching to the drums of warmongers and trumpets of false prophets exalting hatreds and fears and cries for death and destruction. This monolith lacking the precepts of analytical and logical thinking minds follows the lies and deceptions of governance and the propaganda of corporations, believing every word uttered or image manipulated, absorbing as truth blatant lies and incorporating into their own thought processes the vitriol-filled, hate-induced, xenophobic-spewing, gay-bashing, women-hating, Arab-scapegoating, jingoistic-packed diatribe that litters the airwaves and acts as a conduit for the further recruitment of grunts comprising the army of fascism.
Disguised as national dialogue, this propaganda, disseminated by the minions and lackeys of government and the corporate world, serves the purpose of unleashing inside the ignorant legions of sheep boiling magma of animalistic passion and emotion which, with further manipulation of psychology, erupts like a smoldering volcano, releasing throughout the nation toxic gases of hatred and fiery lava of violent thought.
Thus, the harvesting of ignorance, hate and fear – all molded by the same clay, none mutually exclusive of the others – by those in power produces an army of fascism whose blind thirst for Arab blood and rabid addiction for Muslim destruction fuse to engender in the Establishment the tools necessary to mutate the United States in the direction of fascism and despotic rule, while at the same time increasing their power and control over the same army which blindly follows without knowing and is easily herded to slaughter.
Conditioned War Culture, Dumbed-Down Education
Millions who today march proudly in the army of hate, fear and ignorance have, since birth, been conditioned to violence and indifference through the incessant bombardment by television of those images necessary to transform a once benign citizenry into a violent and militarized war culture, in the process succeeding in shaping apathetic creatures devoid of concern for their fellow man, now desensitized to death, destruction, suffering and ceaseless violence.
From cartoons laced with aggression and conflict to movies saturated with pyrotechnics and bullets to video games blurring the line between reality and fantasy to television shows romanticizing violence the human brain, from cradle to grave, and in a society as addicted to television watching as is America, loses all sense of shock and awe at the very real spectacle of human violence. Glamorized and white-washed, fantasy-riddled violence on television, movies and video games desensitizes the now conditioned human brain to the very real and horrific parameters of our species’ self-destructive ways, making violence accepted and indeed sought, for violent overtures to conflict resolution are all we have been trained to see, hear and believe in.
In the realm of fiction bombs explode yet the shrieks and the misery are never seen. Bullets whiz by yet their effects on human flesh are whitewashed. Missiles rain down from above yet severed limbs and decapitated heads do not exist. The destruction of cities, houses and lives is too inconvenient to cover in the plot. The suffering and the wretchedness of human violence upon its own kind never sees the light of day. Special effects form a cornucopia of digital mastery, glossing over death and maiming, blood and guts, becoming the fiction we see and the reality we fail to understand.
Audiences at home or in the theater fail to ever experience the reality of human violence, unable to feel the pain of injury, the concussions reverberating in air, rubble falling everywhere, explosions creating deafness, bullets penetrating flesh, the last moments of life, the entrails exposed or the limbs blown to bits. We never are confronted with the sounds of war, the smells of death, the taste of violence and the very real destruction wrought by America’s many instruments of human violence. Comfortably we sit in our couches or stadium seating, under cover of roof and air-conditioning, munching on popcorn and soda, all the while becoming ever more desensitized to death, destruction, violence and the horrors of war.
This makes a culture such as that found in America a purveyor of violent solutions to conflict, a populace indifferent to the violence, destruction and death created by its government and unleashed on the savages and inhuman peoples of lands not known or understood, alien to our reality but familiar to our fictions. With a citizenry completely conditioned to accept violence as a solution for conflict, with a people desensitized to the horrors of human violence inflicted on its fellow beings, with tens of millions brainwashed into seeing violence as rose-petalled fiction and not as a malicious reality, the government, military-industrial complex and the cabal of corruption in control of our lives are free to unearth the most wicked forms of human violence upon innocent human life, killing with abandon in a wanton slaughter applauded by a complicit army of fascism whose minds are completely under the control of warmongers and fascists in power.
When you add in the bogey man of the moment, the chosen Muslim Arab enemy for years implanted into our minds by government and corporate propaganda, seen in television, movies and the realm of fictionalized violence, replacing the Indian and the Soviet and the black and the Vietnamese as the enemy required to hijack the thoughts of the average American, needed to induce fear and enslave fogged minds, the brain begins associating negative feelings of hatred onto this scapegoated ethnic and religious group. Fear commences its powers of erosion, stripping rational and analytical thought from the human brain, replacing hatred and thirst for violence against the latest enemy to grace the collective imagination of Americans. Ignorance, fear of the unknown and conditioned fear of dark-skinned enemies combine to form a deadly cocktail of hatred, manipulated into the American mind by government and those whose interests lie in marginalizing Arabs, that furthers the recruitment of the army of fascism as well as the fictional “war on terror.”
Combined with the creation of a completely dumbed down, ignorant, believe-anything, nationalistic-driven, violence-conditioned, fiction-living, theology-brainwashed, fear-induced, schizophrenically-manipulated, paranoid-delusional segment of the American population, the recipe is ripe for those in power to sound the drums of perpetual war for perpetual profit, using their new and ever-growing army of fascism, blind to the tunes of reality, to unveil the erosion of civil rights, freedoms and democracy at home and the mass murder of untold thousands abroad in an immoral attempt at achieving imperial hegemony.
Using the ignorance of the army of fascism to its advantage, this cabal of corruption is giving birth to corporatism, transforming the nation into a conduit for despotic rule in a police-state environment, where the army of fascism is used against itself, for the attainment of a continued form of corporate feudalism, and as a tool in fighting the other half of the population that refuses to accept the master plans of those in control or to bow down to the dictates of tyranny.
An army dumbed down by an anemic educational system whose only purpose is the systematic transformation of little primates into obedient, non-thinking drones loyal to the government that exploits and the corporations that enslave them has become a reality which today we can see in the tens of millions, perhaps half the population of the United States, that gives a thumbs up to mass murder, torture, gulags and the destruction of an entire society by their vote for warmongers, greed addicts and power hungry corrupters of civilization.
Brainwashed from birth to adore the red, white and blue, trained to never question the authority of government or the decisions of politicians, conditioned in the fine arts of nationalistic propaganda, manipulated into loyalty to the state and deceived to the altruistic fictions of American history, children are subjected to an education designed to eradicate free-thinking minds, transforming questioning entities into subservient soldiers devoid of rebellion or resistance to bad governance. Educated to avoid seeking truth, taught to inhale as fact whatever the government states, children are methodically robbed of their natural desire to question the world around them, failing to seek accountability of authority and their innate desire for truth searching.
After years of dumbed down education, in schools that serve to hinder knowledge and evolving intelligence thanks to rotten curriculums and decrepit resources, children become the molded adult drones of the state, unthinking, unknowing and unquestioning. The mockery that is American education, purposefully instituted by those in power, spits out a populace that fails to grasp the world around them, lacking curiosity, creativity and an ounce of knowledge of history, current events, politics, foreign nations, the arts, science, culture, geography and common sense.
An assembly line of ignorance and indifference is created through years of abandon, both educational and parental, that is transforming American society into a culture lacking the precepts of human understanding. The wisdom of older societies is recklessly disregarded, the sophistication of cultures is frowned upon, the lessons of history are arrogantly trampled on, the convergence of diversity spawns fear and the advice of old friends is discarded. To the army of fascism, America does not need advice or assistance or friends or historical lessons. We are the greatest nation that ever lived, unable to do wrong, unable to condemn billions to misery and virtual enslavement, the chalice of altruism, the seeker of good, the defender of freedom, the protector of democracy and the Almighty’s chosen nation. America is an unbeatable superpower, emanating arrogance and cockiness, the most triumphant society that ever existed, free to do with the world and its peoples whatever suits its needs. Unfortunately, after years of brainwashing, the army of fascism believes just about anything, unwilling to even contemplate the minimal idea that all they have ever learned is false, based on propaganda and conditioning of minds, blitzkrieged into their brains for the benefit of the state and the corporate world that owns it.
The army of fascism chooses to live in fantasy, unwilling to discard their tiny bubble protecting them from confronting reality. To them truth is stressful, reality is frightful, ignorance is bliss, and escaping the illusion they watch on Fox News or any other corporate propaganda channel is an exercise they would rather not confront. Their bubble is their paradise, no matter how pathetically delusional it may seem, no matter how obviously false it appears and no matter how much it is eroded by the plethora of truth attacking the fables and fictions sustaining their delicate web of concocted bull manure.
To the tens of millions living inside the rabbit hole, Earth, its lands, nations, cultures and peoples are as alien as the vast expanse of universe, science and nature as hazy as history and knowledge. The reality of what the United States has been since its inception, an Evil Empire laying waste to billions of world citizens and their lives, is never taught to the very citizens now affected by the blowback inherent in perpetuating human malice throughout the globe. Instead, we are told the world hates us for our freedoms and rights, that billions are angered at us because we are such a great nation. The truth, it seems, is always discarded for fiction, and the army of fascism gobbles it up like Thanksgiving turkey, forever wanting to escape knowing painful truths by smearing themselves in euphoric falsity.
Hijacked Fiction, Hypnotized Minds
As if hypnotized by the thunderous sound of its marching boots, the army of fascism, millions of worker bees and soldier ants laboriously furthering the interests of state fascism, surrenders itself to its masters sounding the trumpets of fear and hatred. Ever since 9/11, millions of Americans have experienced a profound shift in their psyche, becoming, over time and thanks to ceaseless corporatist manipulation and propaganda, the mirror image of what they perceive their enemy to be.
They have become, in a sense, what they most fear, the nighttime bogeyman lurking in dark corners and black shadows, emulating the behaviors and psychology of how they are told the enemy behaves, casting a long dry spell of hatred and racism over the lands of America, awakening from horrible nightmares to find themselves afflicted by paranoia and schizophrenia, possessed by hatred and seething anger, unable to listen or see, made deaf and blind to reality and unable to exorcise from their minds the horrible disfigurement to the national character spawned by the ghosts of 9/11. They have, for all intents and purposes, become the enemy they fear most.
It is exactly the manipulation of fear and hatred by those who control, spawned by 9/11 and its post traumatic stresses that has elevated the numbers joining the army of fascism. A plague presently afflicts the United States, born in sin and broken psychology, rendering once capable minds as weak as rotting wood, impregnating in the ignorant among us deep hatreds and angers giving rise to increased levels of xenophobia and a growing search for scapegoats.
The fear prevalent in the army of fascism, tirelessly manipulated and exploited by the Bush administration, birthed by the horrors of 9/11 and the correspondent images no human society has ever had to experience, played live and replayed countless times via multiple camera angels and narrated through various media outlets and personalities, immediately bombarded by anti-Arab propaganda by the corporate media, has given rise to a racist hatred seldom seen in the United States in the latter decades of the twentieth century.
It was 9/11, that sparkplug from which all hatred now derives, that spawned the beginning stages of the army of fascism. It was in the aftermath of the collapse of the twin towers in New York City that the early manifestations of mass change in the minds of vast portions of the populations could be seen. Suddenly, as if hit by a powerful surge of psychosis, millions of Americans became conduits of seething anger, no doubt affected by high doses of post traumatic stress disorder and of feelings of catastrophe, uncertainty and bewilderment.
The world Americans had once known changed in the rapid transgressions of a few horrific hours, popping long-lasting bubbles of invincibility and security that had for years insulated the populace from the carnage, fear and human wickedness that befell the rest of humanity, most of it at the hands of America and its vast legions of mercenaries of imperial control and domination. The new Pearl Harbor had been allowed to come into fruition, for it was the tool needed to mobilize a pacifist populace into war, introducing the fog of mass psychosis onto a suddenly fearful nation, in the greatest psychological warfare operation ever conducted, on the way to neocon and military-industrial complex pre-planned mastery of world hegemony. Along with falling towers, the fall of American rationality and analytical thought was not far behind.
Implanted into the minds of now fragile human brains, the violence witnessed and conditioned into our psyches by endless videotaped repetition and immediate talking head jingoistic tirades was no longer relegated to the giant screens or the television monitors or the video games. It no longer lived in third world countries or was monopolized exclusively by dark-skinned peoples. Violence was suddenly scary real, a shocking energy of carnage, death and destruction imported to once safe shores, crumbling the fabric of a society’s entire psychology. This was not a movie, nor the work of special effects capturing the latest digital technology for our viewing pleasure. This was no longer the fiction we had for too long enjoyed along with popcorn and soda and stadium seating.
Soon, through vast media/government propaganda, manipulation and conditioning, the collective wrath of an entire nation was thrust upon the people’s and lands of the Middle East, for a convenient enemy allowing for pre-planned wars of pillage and conquest had already been chosen. Muslims, long marginalized in movies and the media, became the newest bogey man to grace the long line of chosen American enemies. It was their lands and valuably needed resources, the geo-strategic location of their homes, their global position on the way to imperial hegemony, their threat to Israel that condemned millions of Afghans and Iraqis, and perhaps soon Iranians and Syrians, to the full might of American military evil.
Through careful propaganda, then, the American people were blitzkrieged with the seeds of hatred and ignorance, fed a vast assortment of misrepresentations and lies that linger to this day. Weapons of mass deception were introduced via the airwaves and into televisions and radios, designed to plant the foundations and pretexts for embarking on wars of aggression. With the public in the collective grip of those in power, fragile, fearful, ignorant, insecure, paranoid and schizophrenic, bowing down to the power of our animal instincts, desperately needing feelings of protection and security, ready to accept whatever lie was placed at our knees, enraged at an enemy we were told hated us for our freedoms, suffering from the effects of massive post traumatic stress disorder and willing to place our trust and futures on those we have since birth been brainwashed to obey and follow, the project for a new American century could commence.
A nebula of fear gripped the nation, thoroughly exploited by the right wing, government, media and the military-industrial complex, suddenly transforming a man of questionable courage and apparent mediocrity, with no discernable leadership skills, possessing not an ounce of morals, into a Dear Leader of unquestioned character, strength and leadership. The puppet of the corporatist world had, in the time it takes to read ‘My Pet Goat,’ become an appointed conduit of the Almighty, an heir to greatness, on the way to perpetual war, and perpetual profit and wealth, lest we forget. The questioning of the President and of government was discouraged and threatened. After all, we were either with the President or with the ‘terrorists.’ Dissent was quashed, protest was made extinct, discourse was nonexistent and debate was nowhere to be found. The myth of the Dear Leader firmly entrenched thanks to massive Rovian propaganda campaigns, his re-selection by both the vote of the army of fascism and the corruption of elections was a foregone conclusion.
In time the healing began, and with it returned the rational and analytical thinking minds of hundreds of millions of Americans. As time passed most of the nation began to escape the clouds of 9/11, awakening to the lies and the deceits and the many manipulations that pushed a nation to war, in a sense returning to normalcy and exorcising the demons of lingering stresses and fears. The realization emerged in the minds of millions that pre-emptive wars had been based on nothing but lies, all now proven to be false, all destroyed by reality and rational thought.
Slowly, the fictional war on terror is being discovered for what it is, a charade, a fear-engendering escapade, created to control and command, to breed power and profit, a mirage whose tentacles are used as tools in the pursuit of conquest of land, people and resources. Used like the Cold War, birthing fear into the populace through the use of fantasy bogey men lurking in the shadows, said ready to kill for our freedoms and ready to attack for our way of life, the war on terror is a control mechanism, a way to lead a nation in a certain and most ignoble direction, based on lies and manipulations, needing a concocted enemy to thrive, misdirecting the attention and energy of the people away from real internal problems, away from what is being done to them at home and in their name abroad.
The creation of a few charlatans and messianic Machiavellis in power, the ‘war on terror’ was concocted to consolidate power at home through the erosion of civil liberties, freedoms and democracy and to expand the empire’s hegemony abroad through ruthless devastation and destruction of both land and man, exploiting and oppressing peoples whose homes the Empire needs to continue the global chess match called geopolitical maneuvering. The ‘war on terror’ is a useless game that selected as enemy a most ambiguous entity, unlike the Soviet threat, without borders or faces or uniforms, allowing for its fictions to continue lingering into perpetuity, making the American people acquiescent slaves firmly controlled by fear and insecurity, their rights and freedoms evaporating more each day. It has selected over a billion people as enemies when only a few thousand exist, allowing the military-energy-industrial complex unfettered profit and wealth through war, conquest, ceaseless production, pillage and the robbery of American treasure.
The ‘war on terror’ is one more fiction created by those at the top to retain power, distracting and dividing the nation away from the rape of their ways of life, allowing a warmongering corporatist government the means to expand its power, making 300 million people fight themselves instead of the real enemy at the top, even as their lives are placed in ever more danger thanks to a self-defeating, unwinnable and perpetual conflict. Thankfully, more and more citizens of America are waking up to the façade that is the ‘war on terror,’ joining the rest of humanity in seeing that a corrupt few have exploited the honorable many.
Dangers Real and Perceived
Yet, for about forty percent of the population, the ‘war on terror’ is as real as night and day, a most important war against the hated Arab heathens who share neither religion nor culture nor skin color with noble America. To the army of fascism, Arabs are evildoers extraordinaire, savages and primitives intent on killing all of what America stands for. They are barbarians, a people worshipping false gods and idols, mere subhuman animals willing to kill themselves, the army of Satan and reincarnations of demons past. They are an enemy that must be defeated and exterminated, whatever the cost, whatever the consequences. This belief by the army of fascism, however, is one based on ignorance, the belief of fantasy and a sheer weak-minded capacity to distinguish fact from fiction. When bombarded by a Zionist-first media and scapegoat-needing government, using a massive and methodical propaganda campaign, though, the Fox News and talk radio addicted army of fascism easily succumbs to such manipulations and lies.
While most Americans have recovered their senses in the years after 9/11, the army of fascism still remains trapped inside the clouds of asbestos and debris and smoke and dust, refusing to take the hand of truth and reality, firmly digging themselves inside the trenches of a horror-filled fantasy. Because they wish for its truth, they make it so, retaining the lies and deceits and manipulations they hear, never questioning for an instant the validity of such claim and never seeking their own education of such matters. Trained to always believe what they hear, they incorporate deceptive propaganda as their own, every day hating and fearing more and more, scapegoating an entire culture, religion and race, justifying their hatred and growing racism through the bull manure they hear and see on a daily basis.
The army of fascism remains deeply distraught by the horrors of 9/11, still possessed by its demons and its stresses, unable to exorcise the memories or ghosts of an operation allowed to succeed by the same heroes the army now religiously follows. Their outward bravado hides a deep inner fear, acting as their protective surrogate, for traumatized they remain and brainwashed they have been made to be. Psychologically fragile and mentally intimidated, they cling to the Dear Leader their monitors and radios command them to adore as a father figure in whom they seek protection and security. These millions are not able discern the falsity of the war on terror, nor the reality of what their ‘leader’ truly is, nor the true nature of the wars of conquest against Afghanistan and Iraq.
To the army of fascism, lies become truth just as much as reality becomes falsity. In their inescapable bubble, they see not how the world is but how they want the world to be, refusing to accept truth even as it showers them with unending facts and even as it utterly destroys the fictions they cannot let go of. These Americans remain traumatized and haunted by 9/11, clouding the rational and analytical thought processes they might have once possessed. Every hate and racist filled tirade by their favorite talking head vermin only validates in their minds the necessity to wage ceaseless war upon innocent Arabs and Muslims. Every diatribe they hear confirms their belief in the elimination and mass murder of hundreds of thousands of humans, replacing the goodness they once had with the thirst for malice that now runs through their veins.
They have become cold-blooded manifestations of their Dear Leader, the embodiment of all the psychopathic traits he possesses. They are the exact image of the President of the United States, indifferent, uncultured, unwise, callous, complicit, without love for their fellow human beings. Warm hearts have given way to frozen arteries, their desire to do harm to chosen scapegoats running rampant inside their bodies. They hate because they are told to hate, they wish death and destruction because they follow propaganda, never questioning anything but dissent. They fear because they are ignorant, they do not understand alien ways of life because they know nothing beyond their tiny bubbles, wishing instead to remain captives to the producer and consumer lifestyle they have been conditioned to follow.
They desperately cling to the beliefs that Arabs and Muslims are sub-human creatures and evildoers needing the salvation only America can provide. To them, America is bringing democracy and freedom to those it now occupies, and the noble intentions of the Bush administration are all that matters. The army of fascism refuses to see that tyranny was replaced by tyranny, that corruption has now been increased, that democracy is but a sham excuse to enslave and pillage, that an entire civilization lays in ruins and that 25 million people have had their lives shattered, that their tax dollars are being pilfered by corporate greed, that their sons and daughters are dying for nothing but the profit, wealth and power of the elite, that their rights and freedoms are being eliminated not by Arabs but by the leaders they shower with praise and adulation.
Millions of Americans are being transformed into conduits of hate and racism, citizens thirsting for Arab and Muslim blood and for the destruction of millions of lives. More and more we hear them talk about using nuclear bombs and WMDs to destroy Arabs. We hear them talk about curtailing Arab and Muslim civil rights and liberties in America, with cries of sending an entire race of people to internment and detention camps. We hear them validate war crimes and the death of over 100,000 innocent civilians, extolling the virtues of shooting and bombing Iraqis and Afghans to pieces. To these warmongers and violence seekers, the more Arab blood spilled the better.
To them torture under Saddam is horrific but under the red, white and blue, not to mention under the Star of David, it is encouraged and acceptable, no matter how sadistic and malevolent it becomes, no matter how much it contradicts basic foundations of humanity. Two dozen beheadings are condemned as barbaric yet the use of cluster bombs, missiles, napalm, bunker busters and 2,000 pound bombs that kill thousands and maim and decapitate countless more is seen as a civilized and necessary way to bring freedom and democracy to those we invade and occupy. To the army of fascism, an amalgam of Bush gulags is welcomed, and if death, torture and dehumanization results, so much the better. From Guantanamo, Cuba to Abu Ghraib, to prisons in Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Afghanistan, the army of fascism revels in the imprisonment of innocents and the torture of humans, wishing the keys to cages be thrown away for all eternity. The prisoners are Arab and Muslim, after all.
They approve destroying cities such as Fallujah, Najaf, Mosul and Sadr City in order to save them. Under no circumstances can they ever see the quagmire that is Iraq for what it is, nor the mistakes that have led to disaster and inevitable defeat. The army of fascism sees no problem appointing as Attorney General the man responsible for legalizing torture and endangering American soldiers. They feel comfortable keeping as Secretaries CEOs and executives of the corporate world that fleeces their lives. They look forward to a State Department run by a liar, conniver and unscrupulous cobra responsible for the death of over 100,000 innocent civilians. Ignorantly they allow the dangerous Likud-first neocons to remain pestering like flies in the halls of the White House and War and States Departments, hijacking foreign policy to the tunes of Israel’s delight. They rush to the polls to cast votes for the worst president in the history of the nation, having accomplished nothing but problems for the electorate since stealing the election of 2000, yet providing a treasure trove of favors to the corporate world.
Our Own Worst Enemies
The parameters of life in America were altered in one giant implosion of two towering monoliths, and the resulting psychosis which has ensued has only progressed further down the slope of the surreal. To America’s worker bees and soldier ants, hatred of Muslims and blatant racism of Arabs, combined with searing nationalism and growing ignorance of reality and the world, are fusing together to form a malicious combination of behaviors and psychology that is following a clear pattern of growth that, ever since 9/11, has multiplied in aggression.
Today, America is fast approaching a slippery slope of hatred, with xenophobia and homophobia at the frontlines, threatening to divide the nation and explode the fiery cauldron of diversity, creating a nation on the verge of implosion. Hate now fills the air, racism lingers in the environment, and, with ignorance the sparkplug of this most frightful engine, a new dawn fast approaches, pitting those blinded by hate, fear, ignorance and the clouds of 9/11 against those now free of demons, ghosts and inner turmoil.
Lines are being drawn in the sand, and slowly, yet surely, America is being divided based on the wars of George W. Bush. Hatred, fear, racism, fantasy, blind patriotism and corrosive ignorance stand on one side with the army of fascism. On the other side stands reality, courage, peace, love, diversity, world citizenship and education. The real danger is being played out today, with the army of fascism reporting dissent to the Department of Fatherland Insecurity, thereby placing anti-war voices on “terrorist watch lists,” with protest being confined to “free-speech zones,” with Republican politicians seeking to curtail still more rights, with right-wing Congressmen seeking to define dissent a psychological disease, with the army of fascism acting as national spies, keeping tabs on those not in tune with pro-war, pro-America, pro-Bush dictates.
This army is growing as the mass lunacy that has taken over America continues its reign of terror, invading minds and possessing spirits, catapulting inner turmoil and invasive demons onto the national stage. The army of fascism comprises your neighbors, friends and relatives, your co-workers, elected representatives and teachers. Hijacked by the psychosis of post-9/11, this army knows not what it does, doing the dirty work of the elite and warmongers who are unleashing devastation upon the green lands of Earth. They are captured by the fear exploited every day by those in power, exchanging once held sanity for evolving hatred and brewing racism.
The danger lies in another violent attack upon the nation, whether real or concocted, for the army of fascism will undoubtedly wage war against Arab and Muslim Americans, against those seeking peace, tolerance and justice, and against those not espousing the beliefs of the fascists in government. Another bombing or unconventional attack will result in the complete assault of civil rights, freedoms and habeas corpus, resulting in the complete fascist overhaul of American society, the introduction of a police state and the implementation of repression and subjugation of large segments of the population, no doubt abetted by the growing legions of the army of fascism.
Resurrected from the catacombs of lunacy and human wickedness past, mutating to the dictates of malice and corruption present, becoming the oxygen by which tyrants thrive, the voices by which hate prospers and the muscle by which the worst in the human condition grows, the army of fascism, birthed by brainwashed conditioning and bred in ignorance, unwillingly serves the masters who have created it, becoming its own worst enemy, the force that will self implode upon the evisceration of the freedoms, rights and democracy it took for granted.
Soon, when the forces of corporatism no longer need the army that so blindly follows, the awakening of millions will arrive too late, and from the long slumber of post 9/11 hysteria millions of minds will realize the self-implosion they wrought onto themselves, wishing they had only known, wishing they had been wiser to the propaganda, wishing to wake from the horrible nightmare now confronting their lives. Until then, however, they are helping lead us all directly into the wretched path of despotism of old and fascism of new, pulverizing our relations with the outside world and making extinct the life we once knew to exist.
Worker bees and soldier ants are condemning us all, for their numbers are many, possibly reaching half the citizenry, helping to keep in power the most unscrupulous cabal of human refuse to ever stand perched atop the halls of power. The world entire will have to suffer for the post 9/11 traumatic stress disorder affecting tens of millions of Americans who cannot escape the demons of crashing planes and falling towers, played and replayed countless times on video, in dreams and in the mind, that can now be seen as the sparkplug that launched America into a realm of lunacy, paranoia and incalculable human wickedness.
As the evolution and continued growth of the army of fascism persists, the decline of what America once espoused continues. We are becoming, in the end, our own worst enemies.
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"I am not a plonker". |
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Cult_Of_Frank
= Black Noise Maker =
Canada
11687 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 13:52:47
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Unless you can spell it out in references and facts, or pictures, this article is just opinion and worse still left-of-Dallas opinion and not something that will cause him to do any more thinking nor introflection than simply dismissing it.
Dallas, does it REALLY matter to you even if there's not a single person in the world who could prove that there were NO WMD? Does someone saying that going to war on something that hasn't been satisfactorily proven and is all hearsay and rhetoric and fabricated not make the same point? Or is it now OK to invade a sovereign nation against international law on the basis of this same garbage that was being held up as fact by the Bush regime and its followers?
The point to you shouldn't be that it was never proven conclusively that they don't exist, just that there was significant doubt that they did and thus it is, was, and has been a poor excuse to go to war when most of the world is wise to the real motivations even as you follow with blind faith.
Sometimes it is not possible to prove something (such as existence of WMD in ANY nation, Elvis, or a solution to anti-gravity) and the only thing a person can do is cast doubt or attempt to prove the corollary.
"Join the Cult of Frank 2.0 / And you'll be enlightened (free for 1.x members)" |
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Broken Face
-= Forum Pistolero =-
USA
5155 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2005 : 14:15:27
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of COURSE the gov't only cared about deliverable WMD - since when do americans give a damn about anyone that doesn't have oil or pose an immediate threat? if it was really that important for the american government to stop the death of anyone besides americans, wouldn't we have gone to MANY other places first? like the sudan. or any other nation that is killing its people. the republican gov't is concerned with our own safety and that is IT. 35 million to aid the tsunami victims? it wasn't until a public outcry that Bush upped that to where it should be.
-Brian
If you move I shoots!
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Scarla O
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2005 : 01:54:18
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What Cult Of Frank says.
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"What's your medicine today...what's your poison anyway?"
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Dallas
= Cult of Ray =
USA
725 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2005 : 07:07:15
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COF you have missed the point entirely. I am not holding out hope or suspicion that WMD's are there. Your not paying attention at all.
I always supported the war from the humanitarian/state sponsor of terror view. If its still in the archives of htis forum that can be proven easily.
This quote from you is nonsense:
"Dallas, does it REALLY matter to you even if there's not a single person in the world who could prove that there were NO WMD? Does someone saying that going to war on something that hasn't been satisfactorily proven and is all hearsay and rhetoric and fabricated not make the same point? Or is it now OK to invade a sovereign nation against international law on the basis of this same garbage that was being held up as fact by the Bush regime and its followers?"
Saddam was a legitimate leader of a legitimate government? And the US is the outlaw. Do you see the corner you have painted yourself into? How many hundreds of thousands of people need to be found in mass graves in Iraq before you stop defending Saddam and his henchman? Saddam's government was an oppressive despot who supported terrorism. Proven that he was supporting Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal (they were caught in Baghdad). Proven that he was making cash payments (with Francs no doubt) to the families of suicide bombers. Proven to be the biggest mass murderer of our generation. Yet, this is YOUR guy. Your leader of a sovereign nation that must be protected.
What are the Kurds in Iraq? What are the shiites in Iraq? Why should these peoples oppression be ignored? Because Saddam is the leader of a Sovereign nation? So he can kill, rape and mame whatever ethnicities he wishes? This is who you defend regardless of whatever mind games you play with yourself. You prefer Saddams death squads and oppression to a liberating force of Westerners.
You would likely condemn a man making $1/hr more than a women in the West but if Saddam wants to rape the daughters of his enemies or if his sons go to market and select a girl to rape, that is to be protected under your guise of sovereignty?
Nice ethos man.
You and your ilk are myopic on WMD's because it fuels your hate. You are willing to accept ethnic genocide, rape, oppression, fraud, burning oil fields, etc. as long as you can concoct a false indictment of the US. Again, nice ethos. You are all true humanitarians.
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Hunt for WMD comes up empty handed
