Iraq: The Vanishing Coalition
President Bush Invokes Vietnam As Splits Emerge With Iraq Allies
President George Bush invoked the specter of Vietnam for the first time yesterday as 15 more American soldiers died and increasing evidence emerged that the coalition of the willing that invaded Iraq four years ago has begun to fracture irreparably.
As the US death toll moved to 3,722, Iraq’s Prime Minister engaged in an angry war of words with his critics in Washington. Meanwhile, a senior US general issued a dark warning that American troops may have to be sent to the south of the country to fill the vacuum left by a projected British withdrawal.
Amid the chaos, an isolated Mr Bush vowed he would “fight to win”, that the so-called troop “surge” was working and that the lesson from Vietnam was that withdrawal had cost millions of lives.
Speaking to US Army veterans in Kansas, Mr Bush sought to soothe relations with the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who had earlier threatened to “find friends elsewhere”, after US officials suggested he be pushed aside.
However, in stark language that clearly riled British military leaders, the US general Jack Keane, who has just returned from Iraq, claimed that the security situation in the British-controlled zone had been allowed to deteriorate to “gangland warfare” with civilians at the mercy of rival Shia gunmen.
The general’s comments highlighted the growing rift between the US and UK over Iraq with complaints among American officials over the “inaction” of British forces against militias in Basra. At the same time the UK is resisting American pressure to delay pulling troops out of Basra, the sole remaining area it controls in the country.
A senior Ministry of Defense official in London said “we are not going to get involved in ‘tit-for-tat’ with the Americans” but British commanders insist that the security situation in Basra is being misrepresented by some in the US forces. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup said: “Our mission there was to get the place and the people to a state where the Iraqis could run the country if they chose to and we are very nearly there.
“Our mission was not to make the place look somewhere green and peaceful because that was never going to be achievable in that timescale and, in any case, only the Iraqis can fulfill that aspiration.”
The American exasperation, however, is compounded by the perception that British troops are “disengaging” while the US is losing lives daily in the “surge”. The crash of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in northern Iraq is thought to have been due to mechanical failure rather than hostile fire. Meanwhile, east of Baghdad another American soldier was killed in a roadside attack.
General Keane, who is recently retired but is considered to be influential within the Pentagon, said there was “frustration” among US commanders that they may have to send troops to the south while continuing to fight the insurgency in central and northern Iraq. He said: “That situation could arise if the situation gets worse in Basra if and when the British leave. Now the situation has changed in the south, it is considerably worse, certainly with the kind of gangland warfare that is preying on the people in the south.”
General Keane accused the British of being guilty of “general disengagement from the key issues around Basra”. He continued: “The Brits have never had enough troops to truly protect the population.” UK troop numbers are, in fact, due to be further reduced, by 500, to fewer than 5,000 at the end of the year.
Basra Palace, the last British base inside Basra City, was due to be handed over to Iraqi forces at the beginning of August. This has been delayed at the Americans’ request, but UK officials insist this will take place, along with the passing of control of the city to the Iraqi government, by the end of the year. British troops will then withdraw to the air bridgehead at Basra airport, where a reserve force of about 3,000 will remain when the official withdrawal from Iraq takes place next year.
The dangers in southern Iraq were also illustrated by the assassinations of the governors of two provinces, and the police chief of one.
Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, the governor of Muthanna, was killed along with his driver and bodyguard by a roadside bomb as he left his home for his office in the provincial capital Samawah. It followed the killing of Khalil Jalil Hanza, the governor of Qadisiyah province, along with the police chief, Major General Khalid Hassan, in another roadside attack.
With no end in sight to the bloodletting, Mr Maliki reacted angrily yesterday to what he called the “discourteous” remarks from his US allies. “Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria,” said Mr Maliki. “We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere.”
The message was driven home to President Bush overnight. If he had been reticent in his support for Mr Maliki on Tuesday, he was positively effusive yesterday. “It’s not up to the politicians in Washington DC to say whether he will remain in his position,” he said. “It is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship.”
On Tuesday President Bush said there was “a certain level of frustration” with the Iraqi government’s failure to unify Sunni, Shia and Kurd factions a few hours after Ryan Crocker, America’s ambassador to Baghdad, described political progress in the country as “extremely disappointing” and said US support for the Maliki government would run out and did not come with a “blank check”.
But it was Mr Bush’s comparison of the war in Iraq with Vietnam that raised most eyebrows yesterday. He specifically linked the US defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam to the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
“Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people’, ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields’.” Commentators were quick to point out that the bloodletting of the Khmer Rouge was a consequence of the US secret war again Cambodia.
“And it was President Bush who got us into the [Iraq] quagmire in the first place,” said David Gergen, a commentator and veteran of several administrations.
© 2007 The Independent
The wars in Vietnam & Iraq were designed to help the vulgar rich aquire more material wealth and to perpetuate the illusion that we need to spend hundreds of billions per year for what the liars call “defense”. Spiritually, they’re bankrupt. The US political & economic system is rotten to the core.
What incredible aggroance of this little “whatever . . . You fill in the word of your choice” . . . . to compare Vietnam to his personal mess in Iraq. Rove is gone less than a week and he already is running off at the mouth with his head so far up his . . .
AG-R-r-r-r-g-g-h-h-h . . . I’m sorry but as a vet these words made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
This man, I use that word with reservation, is morally corrupt.
Speaking of being “spiritually bankrupt”, try to tune in to CNN this evening at 9pm for Christine Amanpour’s special, “God’s Christian Warriors”.
If tonights program is as well documented as last nights on the Muslim faith and Tuesday nights on the Jewish faith, this should be one hell of a show.
Don’t you just love the way “Bu$h the Inferior” is mendaciously rewriting history as it suites his shonky excuses for this sickening imbroglio….
The same little mongrel who failed history at Yale…
“The same little mongrel who failed history at Yale…”
Did he in fact? I have as little regard for Bush’s knowledge, morality or decency as anyone whose views I’ve seen, but I understand that Bush graduated from Yale with an higher grade average than did Kerry.
Is this the case?
GPA of 2.3
“the lesson from Vietnam was that withdrawal had cost millions of lives.”
No you unbelievably stupid little man, INVADING COST MILLIONS OF LIVES!
GPA of 2.3 or 4.0, he’s still a f*#king pea-brain.
“On Tuesday President Bush said there was “a certain level of frustration” with the Iraqi government’s failure to unify Sunni, Shia and Kurd factions a few hours after Ryan Crocker, America’s ambassador to Baghdad, described political progress in the country as “extremely disappointing” and said US support for the Maliki government would run out and did not come with a “blank cheque”. ”
Some people are able to do many things in there life with nothing, like the iraqi/americans along with other minorities who come to the US with nothing. Its just more proof that this leader of ours cant do squat right, even with trillions of dollars. I see by this comment that a “blank cheque” is now again, a joke being laid down all over the place. Didn’t this guy fail all his businesses? The US had better watch out to not piss off the British, they fulfilled their contract to the letter. Its no wonder they are leaving, late at that, after the US is now burning its own bridges. (Now I really wonder what the figures are for US deaths due to friendly fire or equipment failure.) Maliki should go and talk to Chavez and Morales, He might be able to get some support in his own country again. He also needs to be able to side with all the religious groups together, so as not to leave any group out. That is his big downfall, and why the US picked him. I really can’t see it all working until all groups band together to stop the killing of their indigenous cultures. They are “Iraq” together but nothing apart.
“General Keane accused the British of being guilty of “general disengagement from the key issues around Basra”. He continued: “The Brits have never had enough troops to truly protect the population.” UK troop numbers are, in fact, due to be further reduced, by 500, to fewer than 5,000 at the end of the year. ”
I thought the British were there to defend infrastructure, not the people from themselves. In order to that, if you have noticed in the US, you would have to have all amenities, hospitals, police and businesses in full working order. And then people had better have some faith in it. Bush has certainly not had practice working ‘with’ anyone. I wonder why we are trying to push blame on someone else?
Its amusing that a history major like Bush can’t get his own history right! I know, cocaine destroys brain cells. From Clinton who said “I didn’t inhale” to bush who “I only inhaled” What have we gotten ourselves into?
“But it was Mr Bush’s comparison of the war in Iraq with Vietnam that raised most eyebrows yesterday. He specifically linked the US defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam to the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.”
At least he can still ‘try’ to compare things. Now to find him a mirror and a monkey.
This report from Journal du Dimanche au Quotidien, France suggests the right wing government of France might just be stupid enough to wade into Iraq.
“There’s a poignant contrast between the Green Zone and the rest of the city … No, things are not going well … we must be here, there is a need for us to be here. One can’t grasp how badly things are going without being here.”
– Bernard Kouchner, French Foreign Minister
the original:
http://www.lejdd.fr/cmc/politique/200734/kouchner-french-doctrine_47969.html
in translation
http://watchingamerica.com/journaldudimancheauquotidien000003.shtml
well well, AmeriKKKa is losing it’s “coalition of the willing” you mean everybody is starting to distance themselves from the country that is the biggest threat to world peace, every…
No surprise there then….
I rather doubt Bush read or wrote anything at Yale; likely others were paid to do what work was done and profs bribed to give passing grades. His MBA was likely given similarly. His whole life history proves he learned nothing at Yale; rather, it points to the conenctions made, for it is they, not any knowledge gained, that kept him from the poor house and prison–he never got caught robbing people like other junkies because of the “welfare” provided by his family and connections.
How maleable can a junkie be?
Yes, it was the U.S. secret wars in Cambodia and Laos ((Operations “Menu” and “Lam Son 719″, respectively)that set n place the circumstances that allowed for the Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao to overthrow the royal families, and to then install brutal dictatorships in those countries. The U.S. bears full responsibility for the massacres, and for what followed, particularly in Cambodia; ironically, it was the Vietnamese (not the U.S.) who overthrew the Khmer Rouge, and stopped the massacres. Yes, boat people died in their attempts to flee communist Vietnam, but those tallies are in the thousands, not the millions, and pale in comparison to what we allowed to happen in Cambodia. In my book Bush is officially an idiot; a lying. dissembling, prevaricating son of a bitch, and no less an idiot because even an eigth grader (save someone who grew up in that era) would know the truth about what happened in Cambodia and Laos after we f**ked those places up. American foreign policy is a cancer, and Bush and his ilk are the mutations that allow the cancer to spread. Fortunately, it will take a better liar than Bush to even begin to conceal the truth.
The war in Vietnam and the invasion and occupation of Iraq are alike only in that they represent national political stupidity, a trait much in evidence since the assassination of President Kennedy. Empires are like junkies - they always need the big jolt to make them feel good. In the USA, war is that jolt. Everyone thinks they’ll get well. All we do is ravage ourselves and others, accomplish nothing and hasten our own demise. No nation can commit crimes on the scale of Vietnam and Iraq and then expect to walk away with no consequences. That is one of the many fundamental lessons of history. The chickens will come home to roost and they will have a taste for red meat.
This is starting to look even uglier. How long will it be before the U.S. has no allies at all?
I can’t believe people actually think we will ever leave Iraq. The debate amongst Pres. candidates is all political talk, we will be there until the last drop of oil is sucked out, that is why we really went there in the first place, everyone knows. Looks like more and more slaughter is going to go on. And through all of Bush’s and the Pentagon’s blaming Iraq and it’s leadership remember we invaded and started all the chaos, unprovoked. The sad thing is Americans have been brainwashed so much by now they forget that and they actually still support it all as a “war on terror” or against extremists. I hear it all the time on other websites. This situation has been totally twisted and obfuscated by Dick ‘n Bush and the rest of our political leaders Republican and Democrat for the sake of the economy, which seems doomed anyway, and oil.
And millions more now hate us more than ever. Thanx G.W. ‘n Dick. I don’t own a car so i don’t care about their oil wars, these wars only benefit the super wealthy.
Seems like most of our own foreign policy experts said this was a bad idea from the beginning, so why is such a radical minority allowed to risk so much of our lives and money?
Four years ago the American people were quite prepared to go it alone, believing that they didn’t need help from anyone. How times change.
“Amid the chaos, an isolated Mr Bush vowed he would “fight to win”, that the so-called troop “surge” was working and that the lesson from Vietnam was that withdrawal had cost millions of lives.”
We are seeing the end of double-speak and are now into idiot-speak.
GPA of 2.3 — Thank you, simonhhh.
Does anyone know what in fact Kerry’s was?
rebelnow — I agree that whatever Bush’s GPA was as a Yale undergraduate, he is a disaster as a US President. The issue for me is not to judge the success of his presidency or the morality of his actions by his Yale GPA, but rather to try to get some understanding of just exactly WHAT failing it is of his that has permitted him to wreak such havoc on the United States and even more so on the rest of the world — and especially on Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Iran.
How many Iraqi civilians will Bush have to murder before they will give their oil to the giant oil corporations? When will the world and U.S. citizens have seen enough murder to turn their stomachs? Where is the media? Oh, I forgot the M$M is in on it and will keep their coverage below the level that would make us all vomit. If we had had a real media, the murdering would be over by now.
The British are against us too?
I’ll fix ‘em. . . .
Bring ‘em on!!
(History shows it works every time!!!!!!!)
The lives of the fourteen troops lost in Iraq yesterday were not “due to mechanical failure,” but due to political failure, and in turn due to the bovine-minded American electorate that allows this historical disgrace and is incapable of comprehending where its own best interests lie.
Death, destruction, increasing poverty, more dictatorship. Apparently organizations are now being fined by the government for posting anti-was posters. Soon, the one on your lawn will cost you $500 or more per day for each day you have had it up. Or, perhaps people will find you home boarded up and nobody home, or anywhere else, should they inquire.
Franklin said as they signed the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together or we shall most assuredly hang separately.” We the People had better wake up and start hanging together or the Bushits will pick us all off, one by one.
It was the Vietnamese who removed Pol Pot from power (and the US supported Pol Pot to “get revenge” on Vietnam). Funny how that little fact is always ignored by US propaganda when they talk about Cambodia. In addition, Vietnam had a higher percentage of economic growth last year than the US did. Things are undeniably much better there due to Vietnam having defeated the US.
‘boat people’, ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields’
hmmm - and whose legacy are these?
’swift-boating’, ‘detention centers’, and ‘protest areas’
Just anxiously waiting for his vacuous brain to publicly
implode, since we can’t get the Democrats in Congress to
do anything useful which would be far better for our
country. Though a lightning strike after some inane
comment saying “let heaven strike me down if…” might
put some fear into the so-called believers.
“Apparently organizations are now being fined by the government for posting anti-was(r) posters”
link please.
The most corrupt aberration of democracy the world has ever known; the bush administration is once again grasping at straws very thin straws but straws none the less. The bush administration is trying to use the Vietnam War analogy simply to give some creditably to this war which every thinking American knows is totally a phony war.
Why his is still trying to tie the poor innocent Iraqis to 9/11 and the MSM lets him get away with it is beyond comprehension. Let’s all pray to whatever god we believe in and ask him to bless the poor innocent Iraqis people that the bush administration is murdering by millions of and destroying millions of their lives. While wasting trillions of taxpayers dollars and the most asinine defense (war) budget in the history of the world.
Bush is trying to fool the public again.
Comparing our leaving Vietnam to leaving Iraq …
This is another straw man argument, suggesting a consequence to leaving Iraq that is filled with upsetting memories, images and pathos. His speechwriter is good. Very good. He is bad. Very bad. I hope people see through it.
Bu$h the inferior’s grades as a legacy student in higher education is extremely suspect.
The Bu$h family has the biggest affirmative action force going for them. Power and connections made the lowest possible grade a C or 2.0 average. If Bu$h the inferior with his connections got a 2.3 he was a very poor student.
A friend of mine, Bill, was in the navy on a ship when Bu$h the elder was vice-president. Bill hung around on ship with a fellow (call him Fred) that was married to a distant cousin of Bush the elder. The captain of the ship was informed that Fred would receive a secure message from the vice president. The officers of the ship carefully tried to get Fred to explain about the message without actually asking. Fred got his secret happy birthday message, but never explained to anyone except Bill who kept the secret. For the rest of the time on the ship Fred and Bill had the best duty and never got any trouble from the officers.
Isnt this what the mafia does?
Take over your business, charge you protection, and threaten that if you kick them out and stop paying, your business will burn down…
Do you want to do something about this? This will be an eye-catcher. Go out and rent the movie, “Full metal jacket”. Do your computer magic and make a clip show for YOUTUBE. Make a montage with the indifferent, hateful, attitudes of the soldiers, toward the “gooks”; blend that with a few clips of idiot king Bush. But now here’s the kicker. In order for it to get seen by the millions of mind-numb zombies of americans, you need to title it in the bases of all terms. And that movie has it. Remember that classic scene, “Me so horny, me love you long time”. Who knows? You’re internet addicted teenager, might even ask you about the Vietnam war.
“that the lesson from Vietnam was that withdrawal had cost millions of lives.”
While the war against the Vietnamese had . . . cost millions of lives, and would have cost millions more.
“hmmm - and whose legacy are these?”
American re-education camps were called “Freedom Hamlets” — one of the many little details of the US war against the Vietnamese.
“The U.S. bears full responsibility for the massacres, and for what followed, particularly in Cambodia; ironically, it was the Vietnamese (not the U.S.) who overthrew the Khmer Rouge, and stopped the massacres”
I’m glad others remember history, I was sure I hadn’t actually dreamt the nightmare . . . I haven’t bothered to watch the MurderStream Media, but I wonder if any of them actually mentioned this fact to viewers . . . rhetorically wondering, I suppose one would have to call it.
The chips are down now. Finally it is the cowboys versus the Muslims, as it should be.
As to the Vietnam reference, it is typical of all US administration to blame the victims for the atrocities just like they are doing in Iraq.
#
tellurider August 23rd, 2007 10:59 pm
yawn.
Look, if the trooops were really still in Iraq wouldn’t the Merican people be, well, pissed? The troops took a vacation with everyone else for August right?
I mean you do support the troops don’t you?
Or did you mean I support the troops as long as I don’t have to get off my fat ass. As long as I don’t have to stop watching the game! (Honey, bring me another ham samwich and a beer wouldya!)
Hey ladies, did you read about the Iraqi moms that are whoring themselves to feed the kids? Oh, excuse me you were trying to decide whether to go with the Prada or the Gucci, excuse me.
Hey why not speak out? Yeah thats it, you can go to starbucks and preach to the choir and when anyone asks what you did to help the troops you can say ‘I speak out’.
Or how ’bout getting in your closet with a bag over your head for 5 minutes per week and then you can tell anyone that listens to your sorry ass that you’re a fuckin pacifist.
But do not let actually doing something get in the way of your lazy fuckin ideology. As in: ‘I’m against violence so if there needs to be a revolution to help the troops you can count me out’. How convenient, that you should so totally be committed to your passivism that everyone fuckin dies while you pat yourself on the back and recycle one fuckin aluminum can.
Stop writing your fuckin blather and bitch slap some politician or hey, have you ever heard of Ghandi? Do you think he’d be acting like each of you lazy shits? NO Goddamn it, he’d be causing some real problems. Not you, you’re as big a pussy as W.
******************************************
Very well said,I think the American people needed to read this again, maybe it will finally sink in. P.S. Actions speak a lot louder than words.
RE: TRANSLATION
“Bush said there was ‘a certain level of frustration’ with the Iraqi government’s failure to unify…factions a few hours after…America’s ambassador…described political progress in the country as ‘extremely disappointing’ and said US support for the Maliki government would run out and did not come with a ‘blank check.’”
TRANSLATION: Now that we’ve done you the favor of blowing your country sky high, our patience is running out with your failure to put it back together.
crush your car,ride your bike to the lawn and stay until the boat with a long rope leaves for the hague…
Where are the good Christians? Why is everybody quiet about this occupation and killing.
What a shame. The war has cost us at least a trillion dollars plus millions killed and maimed. Can you imagine what we all could have done with that much money? We could have literally removed poverty from the whole world. Lord Jesus would have come back to the earth to congratulate Bush. But all in vain.
Did God send us to this world to kill, maim people and occupy other countries?
Hey tellurider, Damn you are a foulmouthed M—–F—–. and I agree with you 100%. As a VN Vet I know the history and I say those scum in the VFW should have their asses whipped for even inviting the Punk to their whatever. Anyone who went AWOL and now wants to critique us on what we did wrong has to be doing more than inhaling. Bush and gang need to be evicted since the dems won’t throw them out constitutionally. I will go if the call goes up, my 67 years are enough and I have kids and grandkids who deserve more than and better than these scum. GENERAL STRIKE 11 Sep–sit in the streets, no work, no buying anything!
Senators Liberman and Levin along with the Brookings Institute’s Saban Center are backing a plan to fracture Iraq into 3 states—a frightening idea. See the link here:
http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/analysis/june2007iraq_partition.pdf
Surely to God you must change that much heralded constitution that allows such power in the office called the Presidency. Ralph Nadar was correct about the way your elections are run. Run Ralph for heavens sake run old guy! This couldn’t be the way democracy works unless there are really more bad guys there than good guys. The madness of this agression which I remind you is The Supreme Crime and the arrogance of your elites in that two Party system. Anyone with a conscience couldn’t vote for either of them and your Congress is bought and sold in cahoots with big business and the Israeli lobby.
How could anyone support the State of Israel and its Zionist agenda? Your media is a disgrace and you pay for it all (your airwaves) willingly with a military and armaments surge, mercenaries and an air force that consistently murder innocent cililians in so many lands (never deliberate; it is the difference between us and the terrorists, insurgents, Taliban (who don’t really exist but everyone is Taliban in Afghanistan), Hamas,Maoists,Hizbollah, PKK, Jihadists, Mujahadeen, and so on. Your government insists its Veto on all security council resolutions in Support of Israel and against the rest of the entire world’s attempts to hold it to account, and to restrain it, for high criminal behaviour and many war crimes, torture, kidnapping, imprisonment, theft, stealing resources like water, and collective punishments, exiile, destruction of property, infrastructure and power-plants, assassinations abroad, spying,bombings, illegal weapons (being tested there)with horrendous injuries, breaking all and every UN resolution with US veto to protect its crimes, bombing UN compound, American Warship, murdering protesters and American citizens, exporting Drugs, using slave labour, deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing through intimidation, murder, bribery, demolition, blockading, breaking bones and mass arrests imprisonment without trial of thousands of civilians, it’s despicable treatment of its native Bedouins and its disgraceful use of the work democracy when it treats over a million of its citizen’s as second class in many and various ways, it’s constant flow of lies and its belligerance towards its neighbours in the reigon. It does a lot of work like mercenary stuff abroad for the US and has sown the seeds of its own destruction long ago as a Theocracy. It is entirely lawless in the eyes of an astonished world and though Jews should have their homeland there they cannot do so through injustices against the Palestinians who must also be allowed to live there too. The refugees must be allowed to return. That has always been the Law and this Lawlessness must be stopped. She must return to her 1967 borders, pay reparations and allow those who want to return or have legal documentation to their land to do so. She must then negotiate in good faith with the true representatives of the Palestinians to come up with an agreement on all substantial issues, make peace with all her neighbours who must be included in any settlement for a fair and equitable share of scarce resources and hopefully something like a fully democratic secular state can evolve, shared, with each religion given its special status to be instigated in a shared Jerusalem among all the major faiths of its citizens. World Jewry would surely support this as would everybody else once Israel had withdrawn from The Occupied Territories, The Golan Heights and The Sheba Farms in Lebanon. All this compliments of Good Old Uncle Sam over such a long time in the inevitable process well underway of a slow genocide of a semetic people with a long rich heritage. And why do they hate us? How would you feel humiliated by such behaviour when your Government and Israel are such great pals with Mubarak King Hussein and King Abdullah among others there who are brutal Dictators, bribed or coveted for their wealth their peoples resources and their Iron Fist Rulde over their citizens. Then Israel can spout on about it’s democratic credentials and that is fine for Jews with passports but refugees ……? These are a people women and children educated against all the odds a beautiful long suffering people exiled for over 60 years in a desperate wuilderness. Where is your Governments humanity and where is its idea of basic Justice and International Law? It’s built a monster because it’s your US government’s child. May God forgive you and what your government’s actions will bring upon your descendants.
It is that off-shore military base, the fourth biggest military and armaments producer in the world that has brought us all on the eve of destruction. Coupled with your economic might it is unfortunate that other western leaders are tagging along in tow against their own populations growing fear and rage at what is being done in our name. In the same way as Jews worldwide are so angry that these Israeli-Christian fundamentalist neocons support that filthy little so called ‘democracy’ doing its racist stuff in their name. That this corruption of the very essence of democratic norms continues to thrive with your President and the Democrats cut off the same cloth as The Likud and its opposition Parties, insisting every other country butts out is unsustainable.
It cannot be allowed to stand. We must all, including the USA abide by international laws, reform the UN, make immediate internationally sponsored binding agreements to get rid of all nuclear weapons (including testing and the use of Depleted Uranium) and to make real laws to curb the Armaments Industries worldwide.
Then human rights, health care, education, clean water and sanitation, access to energy needs, indigenous food production and access to required technology, environmentally enforced legislation to clean up our spoilt nests and a fair and equitable share of resources should be attempted and implemented for all on this earth. We have the money, the technology, the agriculture, the know how, but have we the will? And consider how you pay taxes to subsidise the few private unelected corporate bodies and bought off corrupt politicians to build these Armaments, support this military-industrial complex and to rob, bully, bribe, murder, massacre, torture and spread nuclear waste and isotopes all around the planet with a few billion year life span that will kill your ancestors too and could well end up killing you.
Your military is not the answer keeping you safe. It has evolved into a the monster that will destroy you in the end. Even though your taxes pay outrageously for it and subsidise the very wealthy few in the process, as your constitution and succeeding legislation was designed for it to do, you will weep with the mothers and daughters, fathers and sons of those they’ve destroyed as surely as the rain will fall. A super-power indeed! Very like Imperial Rome just with more advanced means of destruction.
Empire under in effect an Emperor is ’staying the course’ in Iraq and in Afghanistan, in Haiti and in Sudan, in Somalia and in Lebanon, in Israel and in Columbia in Pakistan and in Kuwait, in Turkey and in The Gulf States and so on and on.
Think clearly, and for goodness sake rightly, before you pledge your alliegance to a mirage of freedom and rather become a force within, to resist and reform that totally corrupt system. Your people-power and change of course is possibly the only hope the rest of us have to pray for avoidance of terrible wars. In the name of God rise up! Waken up and don’t allow those criminals to continue war crimes by attacking Iran with their new toys and depleted uranium. You must resist or stand aside and await the inevitable blowback. To come to understand what ‘the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the vale of tears’ really means? How good of Bush to remind my Vietnamese friends of those re-education camps. The US set them up,I’m reliably informed. That’s what they were called by its client.
I’ve for years said that the American people, who I have had faith in, will change all this. Time is running out fast and I am so sad and disappointed that my greatest hope for this to happen has appeared to have been but a dream. God help you all and terrified children too!
I weep now for those in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the fear and pain that comes from the sky made in the USA. That’s real terrorism with a capital T. Glad to see people are proud of the tremendous job your boys are doing especially now with the air force ‘kicking ass’. Pity we don’t really get all the friendly fire deaths. Bad publicity. Its always Taliban. Just a word now and don’t really exist anymore according to Karzi. NATO planes (US) are killing more civilians in Afghanistan and now in Iraq than ever before. Dozens at a time each week. But didn’t really mean it; it wasn’t deliberate; its war (against no air force) and so on…. What war? Bush’s “War on Terror” for freedom and Democracy like in Israel? Does anybody (in their right minds) really believe this and if they do how come? I realise the Media are the force but these corporations who own them also infiltrate schools universities there too. And of course the military School of America type training for every dictator and tough guys you can fine to go with those private contractor mercenaries. Wow but the money! The money honey! And you pay for it all, every penny. Plus side well paid jobs in these corporations a pretence of a thriving middle class and top technological engineering jobs to boot. That is why it is allowed to go unchecked. And again it is subsidised largely with your taxes which end up in th epockets of the already fabulously wealthy. Money before ethics and morals Money for God and before God. That’s how it is allowed. Now all these skilled jobs could with restructuring be profitably producing products and innovative designs for the benefit of your people and indeed for all mankind but it is not even considered where profitable weapons are concerned. It is the single most obvious sign of insane priorities and ambitions . Just use th ecorporate term and restructure these talents. It has been suggested and also well done in many other countries (recollect restructuring in some Russian plants and at the end of the second world war in the US and Europe, Japan and Germany? Short term pain, long term big gain. But too many well paid good jobs and not up for consideration. We are at war. The Decider says so. He says this sort of stuff and goes to war on citizens of other countries abroad that makes so many of us sick to the teeth of your country’s pontificating about freedom democracy values and wars on terrorism, drugs and want. Words rendered meaningless and your government’s disgusting bullying, bribing, enforcement, contamination with some close allies especially in the middle east, hypocrisy, cruelty, abuse of power, interference in other countries internal democratic politics, arrogance and brutality, greed and robbery abroad, causing so much unnecessary suffering on innocents and spinning it all to tell us you love democracy, freedom, and are the good fighting evil. That is an outright lie. Nothing less. Though people might want that you allow and have been happy to allow your governments to create mayhem with an enormous military you love and support. You pay for this gladly call yourselves free and appear to expect nothing negative to come in response to this unbridaled use of force. You’ve caused such enormous suffering in Central America your ‘back yard’ using communism as a flimsy ridiculous excuse to terrorise Nicaragua, just as your forces now do with tens of thousands of well fed well paid mercenaries in the middle east.
But most of all for all the really good guys in the US of A. you have really done nothing to stop it. You have not risen in mass as you would imagine any free people would and your imaginary people power is just that. It never existed and doesn’t exist. You have been rendered meaningless and your protests so pathetic are so because people are coming to terms that the whole shebang is one almighty fraud. Your simple educated masses were conned into this imaginary world with nice words like ‘the pursuit of hapiness’ bringing tears to your eyes. You were brought up to adore it all; it was indoctrination. You dreamed on and now you should be able to reflect. These blogs and letters to politicians won’t change a thing. Your leaders intend to stay in Iraq. And this will surely bring further wars. Your children will never again live in safety should the middle east explode to all out war and the crazies will destroy any dreams you ever had. That is certain. Rest assured of that.
There was one good war in Europe when your troops helped and your ecomomic aid became the springboard for our recovery and our peaceful co-existence. You were loved for it and when you came back from invasion of Vietnam we all had high hopes that war would never be allowed by the United Nations. The Arabs attacked Israel to try and regain their occupied land in 1973. It was the first and last time israel was attacked by its neighbours and Camp David securing Peace with Sadat kept the lid on the simmering rage against this expansionist state. But it continued to expand breaking all agreements using an idea like terrorism to unleash real terror on the indigenous population occupying their lands and annexing parts of Syria and Lebanon invading that country occupying the south of it for twenty years, ethnicly cleansed refugees languished in millions in refugee camps for 60 years and then 40 years. The United States subsidised, armed and trained this illegaly behaviour to establish a military powerhouse complete with nuclear weapons (it was still illegal for the US to sell arms to Israel so it never stated it had nuclear weapons) It grew into a monstrosity expanding on Arab lands and waging wars of aggression, once more as it had done before on its neighbours. It is now an enormous arms producer in its own right with th eworld’s fourth most powerful military. It exports its own citizens to the US and seeks Jews from around the world like the 1m from Russia and countless numbers from the US who are th ecvanguard of the setler movement on other peoples land. These poor unfortunate refugees were terrorised throughout their lives living in absolute misery and under internationalk law and UN resolutions have every right to return to their homes. The terrorism by the Israelis was as bad as can be imagined and is to-day the most obvious in-your-face injustice on th eface of the earth. The United States of America shows it’s true colours by it’s uniquely incredible backing of this Zionist entity and using its super-power status uses it to continue it’s building of Empire and total control of resources through it’s military might and it’s economic power. It is really quite astonishing to most of the world how this has been allowed to stand and Bush has taken it to a newer higher level now. He has the full support of the entire Congress and the Democrats. It is sheer ignorance to imagine that what is being planned and implemented will not bring a terrible price for America in particular and of course the middle-east. The rest of the world will be greatly affected too as a consequence, and it looks like these facist racists are going to bring us all into these wars they feel confident about with their big bombs and their incredible swagger. We ain’t seen nothing yet!
But European’s remember well what war is. Were America to experience such a war it would never again so easily sleep in peace when the Emperor called for your military to attack another land. Checks and balances would be demanded and that most prized office would never again be allowed such power. How in the whole of that country of Whitman did you a population of over 300m end up for two terms with such an idiot and such a vicious, mean, spoilt brat of a person in charge of all and everything. Backed by both sets of elites in your political system who want that office too. You American citizens in the greatest superpower that every existed were brought up on a lie and you don’t see it yet? Think rightly! “People power” nice words like ‘Gov.of the people for the people’ with ’separation of powers’ and ‘checks and balances’ from our so very wise and adored ‘Founding Fathers’ Constitutional Amendments the greatest document and democracy in the world, you the epeople are totally helpless or else you are the most cruel, ignorant and greedy people on the face of the earth who support this behaviour. Yes you were attacked on September 11th. How and Why? Do you know? Are you aware? Do you care? Don’t you want a better answer that ‘they are evil. They hate our values and freedoms’ ‘You’re either with us or against us’ ‘the axis of evil’ ‘Its a crusade’ ‘Shock and awe!’ ‘Bring em on!’ ‘Mission accomplished!’ ‘We don’t do body counts’ ask the commander in chief’s dad….. ‘I’ll never apologise for America’
Terrible yes but…………..Iraq? Your beloved country has become a lawless monster under criminals who make the mafia look like boy-scouts and girl-guides. Take special care not to allow your children to become part of this war machine and not even those innocent like, scout institutions would be safe from military input, I’d suggest. Nor your schools and their textbooks; no not even your Universities now. Compromised like that other wonderful ‘Freedom of speech and Religion’ section of that Constitution. Nothing to do with Jesus’ teachings, those religious are vocally in support of the middle eastern wars to hasten the ‘Rapture’ and Bush is their man. They fight Islamic-facism
and together with the Israeli Zionists are Bush through and through. He’s only spending that ‘policical capital’ they gave him. And there is plenty more spending to be done now that Congress (a most undemocratic institution) is bought and paid for in support of ‘the course that must be finished to make the Homeland safe and secure’. And boys, oh boys! do these Religious groups rake in the dollars singing to Jesus their saviour. It’s all lies, lies. And in a free society with freedoms unparalelled in th eworld these lies are working so well. That is amazing Stalin and Mao would have approved. What a feat!
So boys and girls put on Fox CNN BBC read the NYT or the WP wil the media back Hillary or Obama? because these corporate will elect the next President with all those Powers not ‘you the people’ at all, the same way the State’s Legislatures voted for that Constitution, albeit with those amendments, like keeping slavery and the right to bear arms. One would be forgiven for wondering why some of these gun folk don’t come out shooting with the behavior of the Federal Government as I’ve oftentimes been told that this is one main reasons why they feel free? To overthrow a criminal Government with force of arms? It’s a Constitutional right they told me? Horseshit to them too…….
Its words rendered meaningless by a totally defunct, corrupt system. Checks and balances my royal ass! Your President the decider can do anything he wants with anyone he wants and your system was made for exactly that in it’s origin. It was a constitution for the rich made by wealthy landowners and indusrtrialists for themselves and works exactly as intended. You are nothing to these guys called the elite; you mean nothing to them you are only there to cheer support, sing the anthem, support the troops, be number one, the biggest, the best, the richest, the most religious ,the most generous, the envy of world, the land of the free, and so on ad infinitum…. But so many of you just like so many other poor dupes in your army have been fodder for th ewealthy corporate boys who don’t give one flying f**k about your, my, the gook’s the raghead’s the Afghani’s or the Jewish people the born again Christain’s, Muslims or anybody else’s fredom democracy values, and so on. What values have you got that I for example aspire to? Britan last year just finished paying back that loan after the second world war. You have used God for war. Jesus Christ has nothing to do with this behaviour. Cannot people see that so evidently?
It is the Dollar that became your country’s God. That’s why people wanted to get there. And then to defend that ‘way of life’ those rich elites wage war and make more and more while those who pay for it, and die for it (you guys) sing the National Anthem and pay the bills by working your asses off for them and living the dream. Well if you are not by now fast asleep let me tell you, it is time to awaken.
There are dark clouds forming on the horizon and I for one, along with so many others in Europe are aghast at your complacency. We need you to lead. People here will certainly rise if you show us you are serious. You’ll have overwhelming support and this will scare our elites most of all. That would initiate rapid change because it is too dangerous for those elites and they would stand to lose a lot of those dollars they so love. That’s what they hate most of all because if they begin to lose dollars they run for cover and it’s this that had such an influence in Vietnam’s occupation ending. They pulled the plug and stopped funding the war.
Bush continues….(to save face as ‘Decider and War President’ in a long lost war there and in Afghanistan while Israel stands out for injustice like Apartheid only it has become even worse)…’We will win and the war is against Terror. Its Global. For all time till terror is eradicated. We had 9/11 and if we withdraw from Iraq those crazies are going to just go bananas killing each other with their newly acquired AK47’s that were mislaid. Now its a democracy and the Iraq people decide who leads them. Its not a dictatorship like The Gulf States its a democracy like Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan, Algeria and Columbia, Panama and South Korea. American politicians don’t decide who leads. The Iraqi peple do and I support their democratically elected leader like I do in Venezuela and Palestine, in Haiti and in Nicaragua and in Indonesia. Its always been American policy to support the peoples freedoms didn’t you know? In Vietnam, Chile, Iran, and in Venezuela. In El-Salvador and Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, South Korea and Turkey, South-Africa and Angola our allies. When the people spoke we had respect for their choice. They decide as in Algeria, in Nigeria and of course in the land of our dear eternal friend Israel and her lovable neighbour Lebanon. We don’t interfere. Let the people be free to decide for themselves. It’s just these Blacks, Muslims, Oriental communists and Indian terrorists that keep their people in chains with their religious fanaticism and their hatred of our freedoms. God is on our side and we’ve been instructed to root out terrorism and evil so we can be safe in the Homeland.’
Bush tell us that staying the course with the moderates in Saudi-Arabia and Israel, Kuwait and Lebanon and our friend for The Peace, Mister Abbas the only true Palestinian leader who Hamas tried a coup against, in Algeria, Columbia and Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti, South Korea and Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan, India and (what’s that place in Africa with the oil the Israelis were on about last year? Was it Somalia wher Black Hawk went down? No? What?) oh yeah! Sudan.
He says that we the international community (minus the Chinese) are going to help Sudan who don’t really want or need The Chinese butting in for oil. We’re on another humanitarian mission with a coalition of the willing to save the people of Darfur from genocide. They’re having it tough and we are going to move in to help out there too.
But Iran. It wants to wipe our friend little Israel off the map. It’s leader said so. That’s what he said. And they are killing Americans exporting terrorism in Iraq. They are supporting terrorist groups in Lebanon and Gaza, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, destabilising the entire region and they are producing nuclear weapons in contravention of International Law. The world community must act soon to stop them before mushroom clouds appear over our cities. Inteligence says we must act soon or terrorists will have nukes in their hands to deliver on our cities. It will not happen. I can promise you that. Not on my watch…….(Shiite bastards)!
As our war President and Decider says we are going to make this world a safer place and I repeat his words to the terrorists ‘Bring em on’! Come on out into the open and fight you cowards.
And we are supposed to listen to this as something serious incucing fear and jingoism to unleash mayhem and murderous weaponry and military on another country with a proud and ancient heritage? Remember the Romans there?
This would demonstrate to the populations of the world (not of course their elites, your elite’s allies, at least for now) pure and unadulterated, criminal insanity and those who propose such action should be given objective psychiatric examinations in a hospital environment, while any who perpetrate it are criminals and should be so tried in an Independent International Criminal Court for War Crimes. We have Laws and they mean nothing for the USA or her allies in practice. Just like your Constitution means nothing for the overwhelming majority in the USA to-day. The President rules like an Emperor. So will the next one. Impeachment is your only address and even that is not going to stop this insane regeme now. Your alternative Party is just as bad. Make no mistake about that. You are pawns not free like you imagined at all.
The same standards should apply as we engineered and applied at Nuremburg and though I wouldn’t subscribe to the death penalty under any circumstances perhaps it should be considered for The Supreme Crime and executed to remind all those World Leaders and their elite accomplices of the most severe consequence for the top and very severe sentences with appeals for mercy from those attacked. Sanctioned reparations must be imposed on the aggressor so its citizens particularly in so called ‘demorcacies’ become well aware of the consequences of unleashing it’s military force in an act of aggression. The UN or a reformed body must be truely independent to decide any case and its verdict respected and complied with. The rest should be tried and imprisoned in mass letting Barabas’s free if necessary, and aggressive war made The Supreme Crime with international consensus. Then your taxes or at least a large % of them can be rightly directed to your country’s needs in so many useful ways for your welfare and consequently for the welfare of all mankind. Would that this could be rapidly achieved. Then. with pride I could say in the morning ‘God Bless America’ and mean it.
The ‘war on terrorism’ is an oxymoron. War is by far the greatest terrorism in mankinds history. War waged on helpless weakened devastated nations seems to be par for the course like ’support the troops’. I don’t support your troops at all. I feel profoundly sorry for some. May they never come to my land and try to occupy it. Good Luck! …..To all those who commented on such a relevent topic and So long !
RE: ‘BRINGING DEMOCRACY’ - THE OTHER FRAUDULENT, IMPLAUSIBLE JUSTIFICATION FOR INVASION
“Bush said there was ‘a certain level of frustration’ with the Iraqi government’s failure to unify…factions…America’s ambassador…described political progress in the country as ‘extremely disappointing’
COMMENT: Obviously, wmd’s/al-q were the big lies justifying the invasion; but the ‘democracy’ card was NEVER PLAUSIBLE either - not plausible as a purpose; not plausible as an outcome.
Blaming Iraqis now for their failure to reach a political settlement of their civil war is not just about blaming Iraqis for problems the U.S. created; it is about avoiding admitting that the declared purpose and supposed goal of the invasion was never plausible to begin with - just another lying excuse to invade.
alban
a wonderfull soul letting