REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

War is peace

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 15:37
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Thursday, October 7, 2004 7:24 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Ignorance is strength.
Up is down.
I love Big Brother.

-----------------------------------
Quote:

Cheney: Weapons Report Justifies Iraq War

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

MIAMI - Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush's decision to go to war.

The report shows that "delay, defer, wait wasn't an option," Cheney told a town hall-style meeting.


HUH???

Quote:

"The headlines all say no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad. We already knew that," Cheney said.

US Vice President Dick Cheney once said: "There's no doubt Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." President George W. Bush once said there is: "no doubt the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said: "We know where they are."

Quote:

He said other parts of the report were "more intriguing." Cheney's comments reflect a GOP strategy to use portions of the report, including abuses of Iraq's "fuel for food" program, to try to move discussion away from the central conclusions on the absence of weapons of mass destruction.

OH, I GET IT! We REALLY went to war because of corruption in the Food for Oil program! Well, sh*t, why didn't they just say so in the beginning??

Quote:

Although the report says Saddam's weapons program had deteriorated since the 1991 Gulf War and did not pose a threat to the world in 2003, it also says Saddam's main goal was the removal of international sanctions.
"As soon as the sanctions were lifted he had every intention of going back" to his weapons program, Cheney said.



See, there you have it!! Proof that Saddam was on a 15-year plan to obtain WMD!!

Quote:

"The suggestion is clearly there by Mr. Duelfer that Saddam had used the program in such a way that he had bought off foreign governments and was building support among them to take the sanctions down," Cheney said.
Thus there was no reason to wait to invade Iraq to give inspectors more time to do their work, Cheney said.
"The sanctions regime was coming apart at the seams," Cheney told a later forum in Fort Myers. "Saddam perverted that whole thing and generated billions of dollars. ... He used the funds to corrupt others."

On Wednesday, the former head of the U.N. weapons inspection team, Hans Blix, said: "Had we had a few months more (of inspections before the war), we would have been able to tell both the CIA and others that there were no weapons of mass destruction (at) all the sites that they had given to us."
Duelfer's report said what ambitions Saddam harbored for such weapons were secondary to his goal of evading the sanctions, and he wanted weapons primarily not to attack the United States or to provide them to terrorists but to oppose his older enemies, Iran and Israel.



So very clearly we see the need to intercept these nefarious plans in the bud!

SHEESH!!



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Thursday, October 7, 2004 8:35 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Quote:

... it also says Saddam's main goal was the removal of international sanctions.
"As soon as the sanctions were lifted he had every intention of going back" to his weapons program, Cheney said.

Then the 'irrelevant' UN worked, I take it.

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:01 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Of course.

The funny thing is, this time Cheney is almost telling the truth. Iraq was about to sign big oil contracts with Russia and France. The only thing holding up the deal were those sanctions. If the UN had a couple more months the contracts would have been signed and US oil firms would have been big losers. That's why Cheney "couldn't wait" for the UN to finsh the job!

When I listen to the Administration *SSHOLES lie bald-faced, it makes me want to get up and do what any intelligent, sane, thoughtful person would do....












Stand up and say....





LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!!!


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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:09 AM

MOHRSTOUTBEARD


"Liar, Liar" by the Castaways came up on my Winamp playlist when I got done reading Cheney's quotes.

Coincedence, or divine intervention. . .?

PS: That gives me an idea for a video!

"You've just gotta go ahead and change the captain of your brainship, because he's drunk at the wheel."

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:11 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by rue:
Then the 'irrelevant' UN worked, I take it.



Until the bribes got big enough.

Hussein Used Oil to Dilute Sanctions
Report Says He Gave Valuable Vouchers to Those Who Helped Iraq

By Robin Wright and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 7, 2004; Page A01

Saddam Hussein made $11 billion in illegal income and eroded the world's toughest economic embargo during his final years as Iraq's leader through shrewd schemes to secretly buy off dozens of countries, top foreign officials and major international figures, according to a new report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector released yesterday.

Oil "vouchers" that could be resold for large profits were given to officials including Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and former Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky as well as governments, companies and influential individuals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the report said.

Another recipient was Benon Sevan, the former top U.N. official in charge of humanitarian relief. Sevan ran the former oil-for-food program designed to benefit the Iraqi people in the face of economic sanctions intended to cripple Saddam's regime, the report says.

Russia, France and China -- all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- were the top three countries in which individuals, companies or entities received the lucrative vouchers. Hussein's goal, the report said, was to provide financial incentives so that these nations would use their influence to help undermine what Duelfer called an "economic stranglehold" imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"At a minimum, Saddam wanted to divide the five permanent members and foment international public support of Iraq at the U.N. and throughout the world by a savvy public relations campaign and an extensive diplomatic effort," the report said.

Hussein's effort to thwart the embargo and divide the nations that supported it has long been known, but the Duelfer report reveals the lengths to which he went in attempting to defy the United Nations. The details could buttress Washington's contention that important players were preventing the U.N. program from squeezing Saddam, forcing the United States to launch a war to topple him.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13313-2004Oct6.html


And meanwhile, the gallant UN can't find any members (except those in the US-led coalition) willing to provide security for UN workers in Iraq, causing the workers' organizations to request that they all (all 35) be pulled out.

In June, the Security Council authorized a separate force to protect U.N. staff, but so far not a single country has offered troops. This means that the main job of protecting the new U.N. envoy in Iraq, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, and his team has fallen to the U.S.-led coalition force.

The staff associations said the lack of a separate U.N. protection force makes it "even more difficult to comprehend why U.N. staff members would be sent to Iraq when troops are not being deployed in the country."


But Fiji may be answering the call, to the shame of some larger nations.

Elsewhere, Fiji's U.N. Ambassador, Isikia Savua, told the council Wednesday that Fiji is preparing soldiers for deployment as security personnel for the U.N. in Iraq. He gave no details.

http://wtop.com/index.php?nid=105&sid=119692





"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:25 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

The details could buttress Washington's contention that important players were preventing the U.N. program from squeezing Saddam, forcing the United States to launch a war to topple him.


To toppple Saddam because.... uh, why? If WMD were shown not to exist, why would the USA want to "topple" Saddam? The sanctions worked. They were designed to keep WMD out of Saddam's hands, not to topple Saddam's regime for no particular reason. And Blix was a couple of months from proving that there were no WMD despite lack of cooperation from some parts of the UN.

And by suggesting that the USA would invade Iraq ANYWAY, even if the sanctions worked (i.e. no WMD were found) you are basically concluding that the reason for the invasion was never about WMD at all.

In other words, as I've been saying since before we invaded... "It's all about the oil" It's ALWAYS been about the oil"

Right?

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:34 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Geezer, BTW- you should get a CD or tape of some of Scott Ritter's talks. He was one of OUR weapons inspectors on the UN team. He was quite frank about the fact that Hussein was draggin his feet and not really cooperating, and also about the fact thet teh UN was not really forcing Saddam to cooperate.

NONETHELESS, he detailed quite nicely all of the steps they took to find targets, to prevent the Iraqis from finding out what the inpsection target was going to be, the compostion of the teams, even the understanding of team members that they had 5 minutes to insepct a facility before important parts were "sanitized". After listening to Scott, I came away with an appreciation of how dedicated, forceful, thorough, and downright sneaky the inspections were. I did not think- and neither did Blix or other memebers of the inspection teams- that they missed anything significant, despite the corruption that was probably occuring in the Security Council and Humanitarian aid areas.

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:41 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:

To toppple Saddam because.... uh, why? If WMD were shown not to exist, why would the USA want to "topple" Saddam? The sanctions worked. They were designed to keep WMD out of Saddam's hands, not to topple Saddam's regime for no particular reason. And Blix was a couple of months from proving that there were no WMD despite lack of cooperation from some parts of the UN.

And by suggesting that the USA would invade Iraq ANYWAY, even if the sanctions worked (i.e. no WMD were found) you are basically concluding that the reason for the invasion was never about WMD at all.

In other words, as I've been saying since before we invaded... "It's all about the oil" It's ALWAYS been about the oil"

Right?



One theory you'll probably see from the administration (just guessing here) is that if Blix had found no WMD, the Oil-for-food bribees (Russia, France, China, etc.) would have pressed for removing sanctions. Once gone, they'd be almost impossible to re-enstate with three Security Council members in Saddam's pocket. Then someone, say Russia, since they're already doing the same with Iran, http://wtop.com/index.php?nid=105&sid=31818 would help Iraq with nuclear development. Hence Iraq with WMD.

Not actually too implausable, and that's all they need.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:54 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Yes, but do we invade nations because they have "plans" to have sanctions removed and then "potentially" further those plans to develop nuclear technology and then "maybe" WMD? Which BTW they would still need an intecontinental ballistic delivery system to be a threat to us.

That's a LOT of supposition on which to base an invasion! Pre-emption is supposed to be for "imminent" threats, not "potential" threats that may take years to develop, if at all. If that's going to be the Republican stance (We're gonna invade if we think you're even thinking about doing something) then the whole world is right to be afraid of us, because then WE are the madmen with WMD.

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 10:27 AM

GHOULMAN


... uh. Just sayin', the USA created the UN Sanctions "against" Iraq... if there is any problem with this program the USA has only itself to blame.

And of course, since certain Americans (like the ones in the White House) feel they should not just disagree with the UN but actively attack it, one has to wonder why the USA is against world peace, human rights, starvation relief, and peace keeping.

Remember... the UN is only as good as it's members let it be. Blaming the UN for something the USA, France, Russia, etc. did or did not do is like blaming the cat for what the dog did.

But on American TVs this week an attack upon the UN, with this uniquely American ignorant line of illogical reasoning, has begun. It seems plain that the Corporatism and Right Wing religious fundamentalism that runs the USA has declared war on anyone it doesn't like.

And that's pretty much the rest of the world considering this UN logic reversal.

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 3:51 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


I'm kind of waiting for Geezer to respond.

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Thursday, October 7, 2004 9:06 PM

SOUPCATCHER


I haven't read the new report so I'm basically just pulling together other bits of information from earlier in the summer right off the top of my head. At one point in time, the only evidence we had for the food for oil corruption came from Chalabi. There were two investigations. The one headed by Chalabi's people came up with the evidence but wouldn't share with the one headed by Bremer's people. Then their hard drive and all of their computer back-ups went down at the same time so they weren't able to verify the evidence. It just sounded hinky and, in hindsight, Chalabi probably wasn't the most reliable source. So I'm wondering if the new report made use of evidence that was in addition to that claimed by the Chalabi group.

On the other hand (and this may be the ugly American showing through in me ) it's not too surprising that there would be corruption.

I'm shocked, shocked, that there would be corruption in a third world country. (said in my best Claude Rains impersonation).

The new administration rationale for invading Iraq (and, by extension, the new rationale being passed around the internet) - they didn't have WMD, they didn't have the infrastructure in place to create WMD, but they were going to get rid of the sanctions and then start working on creating the programs to build WMD - makes the threat from Iraq seem very distant indeed. Not imminent. Not immediate. Not impending. Not 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin and material for 500 tons of sarin. Not a mushroom cloud over one of our cities.


There are three kinds of people: fighters, lovers, and screamers.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 1:08 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
Yes, but do we invade nations because they have "plans" to have sanctions removed and then "potentially" further those plans to develop nuclear technology and then "maybe" WMD? Which BTW they would still need an intecontinental ballistic delivery system to be a threat to us.




Apparently we do. Not saying this is my rationale, but having just finished reading Churchill's history of WWII, I can understand how some could see Iraq as analogous to Germany in, say, 1937; starting to chafe at sanctions from the previous war, and getting ready to cause trouble. I can even imagine that if France and Britain had deposed Hitler then, that some of the same comments about "premature pre-emption" we see about Iraq would have been made.

BTW, an intercontinental delivery system could be as simple as a tramp freighter, or a conex.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, October 8, 2004 1:44 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
I haven't read the new report so I'm basically just pulling together other bits of information from earlier in the summer right off the top of my head. At one point in time, the only evidence we had for the food for oil corruption came from Chalabi. There were two investigations. The one headed by Chalabi's people came up with the evidence but wouldn't share with the one headed by Bremer's people. Then their hard drive and all of their computer back-ups went down at the same time so they weren't able to verify the evidence. It just sounded hinky and, in hindsight, Chalabi probably wasn't the most reliable source. So I'm wondering if the new report made use of evidence that was in addition to that claimed by the Chalabi group.

On the other hand (and this may be the ugly American showing through in me ) it's not too surprising that there would be corruption.

I'm shocked, shocked, that there would be corruption in a third world country. (said in my best Claude Rains impersonation).

The new administration rationale for invading Iraq (and, by extension, the new rationale being passed around the internet) - they didn't have WMD, they didn't have the infrastructure in place to create WMD, but they were going to get rid of the sanctions and then start working on creating the programs to build WMD - makes the threat from Iraq seem very distant indeed. Not imminent. Not immediate. Not impending. Not 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin and material for 500 tons of sarin. Not a mushroom cloud over one of our cities.


There are three kinds of people: fighters, lovers, and screamers.



There are several investigations going on, including the U.N.'s own one, headed by Paul Volker, former Fed chairman. Nothing is supposed to come from this one until mid-2005, and they are being very close-mouthed.

The Post has been busy since yesterday, though.

1,300 Oil Vouchers Begin to Tell Story
Hussein Courted A World of Nations, Firms, Individuals

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A30

The immense scope of an Iraqi effort in the late 1990s to curry political support for ending an international trade embargo is reflected in a list of more than 1,300 oil "vouchers" that then-President Saddam Hussein gave to more than a hundred corporations, foreign officials and political parties stretching from North America to Asia, according to a report issued on Wednesday by the CIA's Iraq Survey Group.

The vouchers, which provided selective rights to buy Iraqi oil at a discount and to resell it for a huge profit, were provided to both mainstream and opposition political parties in countries such as Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia; to oil companies in Turkey, Japan, Belgium, Italy, Canada and France; to an arms conglomerate in China; and to individuals in Switzerland, Jordan, the Netherlands, Russia, Malaysia and Burma, among others...

..."In the late '90s, we understood that lots of shenanigans were going on . . . under-the-table payments and so on, to curry favor and win support for eroding sanctions," said Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state. "We made various efforts to limit the scope of this," he added. But the report said that U.S. officials were blocked by Russia, China and France in 2000 and 2001 when they tried to clamp down on oil sales outside the oil-for-food program...

... Overall, 30 percent of the oil vouchers were issued to beneficiaries in Russia, including individual officials in the president's office, the Russian foreign ministry, the Russian Communist Party, members of the Russian parliament, and the oil firms Lukoil, Gazprom, Zarubezhneft, Sibneft, Rosneft and Tatneft.

Fifteen percent of the beneficiaries were French, including a former interior minister, the Iraqi French Friendship Society and the oil company Total. Entities in China received 10 percent of the vouchers, and entities in Switzerland received 6 percent, as did entities in Malaysia and in Syria.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16282-2004Oct7.html

...and

Many Helped Iraq Evade U.N. Sanctions On Weapons

By Craig Whitlock and Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A01

BERLIN, Oct. 7 -- As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training.

Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company that sold tank carriers to Iraq, according to documents recovered by the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. The mysterious Frenchman may have also helped the Iraqis attempt to acquire military-related radar and microwave technology, despite a U.N. ban on such trade with Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Other French military contractors came to Baghdad with offers to supply the Iraqi government with helicopters, spare parts for fighter aircraft and air defense systems after 1998, when U.N. weapons inspectors withdrew under pressure, according to a report issued this week by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector. The report cites evidence that contacts between the French suppliers and Hussein's government continued until last year, less than one month before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq...

...The French were hardly alone in helping Hussein to reinvigorate his military forces during the 12 years that Iraq was under strict U.N. sanctions. Arm dealers and military suppliers from the former Eastern Bloc -- Russia, Poland, Romania, Belarus and Ukraine -- provided critical assistance to Iraq as it tried to build a long-range missile program and other systems that weapons inspectors feared could have been used someday to launch chemical, biological or even nuclear attacks.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16142-2004Oct7.html

Amazing how many times France and Russia come up in these articles. As Capt. Renault would say, "Round up the usual suspects."





"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, October 8, 2004 2:13 AM

GHOULMAN


^^^ yea, because Saddam was so popular?

Oh, let's go help Saddam. Yea. Right.

The propoganda out of the USA, in the Washington Post no less (the paper that brought you Robert Novak - known CIA revealer and traitor) is really horrific.

The USA had set up Saddam and supported him for decades... now this? Pot, kettle... got some black for you.

Seems the Washington Post is now a fantasy magazine. Next it'll be elves and dragons helped Saddam.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 5:28 AM

HKCAVALIER


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
I can even imagine that if France and Britain had deposed Hitler then, that some of the same comments about "premature pre-emption" we see about Iraq would have been made.



Isn't this a hindsight/20-20 kind of a thing? I think if they had deposed Hitler it would have been seen as premature. And why not? History is not a mechanical progression. You can't know what is going to happen in a year or two, or even a few months. Remember "The invasion of Iraq is gonna be a cakewalk?"

This argument verges on the whole free will/determinism debate. Don't you think that a democratic nation should base its policy desisions on the premise of free will?

In other news, a butterfly could have flapped its wings in China and Hitler might have failed at any number of points and never invaded Poland. Of course there were some pretty hateful forces in Germany at the time that embrased Hitler, so if Hitler hadn't rissen to power it's not totally unreasonable to imagine that some other loser-cum-politician could have lead the German people to do some very bad things. But damn, it seems the soul of arrogance to think you can predict these things and condemn thousands of people to die on probability.

I know it wasn't the greatest movie in the world but "Minority Report" was all about this kind of crazy. I keep wondering how that movie would be understood if it had come out this year. Seems to me the movie itself was in some ways premature.

And since we're on the subject, what about the dangerous forces alive in the U.S. today? Our Masters have made it quite clear that if anyone fails to oppose terrorism the way we want them to oppose terrorism we very likely might bomb the hell out of them and invade. When does the United State's beligerance become a big enough threat for the world to seek to depose our leaders?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 5:49 AM

GHOULMAN


Winston Churchill had called up Roosevelt one day, early during what would later be called WWII. Roosevelt had asked Winny; "what should we call this war"?

He answered: "The Unnecessary War".

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Friday, October 8, 2004 6:02 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:

Isn't this a hindsight/20-20 kind of a thing? I think if they had deposed Hitler it would have been seen as premature. And why not? History is not a mechanical progression. You can't know what is going to happen in a year or two, or even a few months.



I see it more in terms of the old Santayana quote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Historically, tyrants and dictators left alone to build their forces generally end up causing no end of trouble. Some might think it better to stop them before they get too big.

Quote:

Remember "The invasion of Iraq is gonna be a cakewalk?"


Well, the invasion part was a cakewalk. It's just the occupation that's been a problem.


Quote:

And since we're on the subject, what about the dangerous forces alive in the U.S. today? Our Masters have made it quite clear that if anyone fails to oppose terrorism the way we want them to oppose terrorism we very likely might bomb the hell out of them and invade. When does the United State's beligerance become a big enough threat for the world to seek to depose our leaders?


I have to say that I find this a pretty unlikely scenario for the future(the bombing the hell out of and invading part). We're about as extended militarily as we can get, and even if we had the forces, I don't think that the electorate would go for another round. We'd just take care of deposing our own leaders at the ballot box, as we've been doing for the last couple hundred years.



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, October 8, 2004 6:38 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Historically, tyrants and dictators left alone to build their forces generally end up causing no end of trouble. Some might think it better to stop them before they get too big.

SO let me get this straight... if we had invaded Germany, deposed Hirohito, invaded China and killed Mao and his cadre, invaded Italy and killed Moussilini, and bumped off Stalin then things would have been much different. And you're right! All we had to do was invade six or seven nations and we'd all have been OK. (But then, what about Hungarian Nazi collaborator Ferenc Szalasi and French Henri-Philippe Petain, and all of the other native right-wing/ Nazi party leaders?)

The point is that at any moment, there are literally DOZENS of "potential" enemies. So while we were invading Iraq, N Korea and Iran were busy forwarding their nuclear plans, and Pakistan and India have certainly not held still with theirs. And what about Brazil? It refuses to let in the IAEA. What about Israel? It's an open secret that they have nuclear and CWA capability. What about S Korea? THEY were conducting forbidden enrichment experiments just recently. And Russia?? Just think of the tons of nuclear material floating around, and all those underemployed physicists and biologists...

How many nations should we invade because we "think" they "might" become a major problem "some time" in the future?

But speaking of learning lessons from history, our current mess in the Middle East would be much less messy if we had killed off the Taliban and Saddam, weakened the flow of Saudi oil(y) money to the terrorists and... oh wait, we supported those guys didn't we?

The point of THAT is we let our policy be swayed by corporations, and we seem almost invariably to promote despotic structures that promise cheap resources and/or cheap labor. We never seem to learn the lesson that if we had encouraged structures that did not actively exploit their own people and create extreme differences in wealth, the world would be a MUCH more stable place today.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 8:23 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
SO let me get this straight... if we had invaded Germany, deposed Hirohito, invaded China and killed Mao and his cadre, invaded Italy and killed Moussilini, and bumped off Stalin then things would have been much different. And you're right! All we had to do was invade six or seven nations and we'd all have been OK.



Actually, we (the WWII Allies) did have to invade, liberate, or bomb into rubble six or seven countries just to deal with Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini. Some of those countries belonged to our allies, and got pretty messed up before we chased the Axis out. Churchill seemed to think that a couple of shows of strength, nothing close to a full-on invasion, could have checked Germany and Italy in the '30s. Might have been worth a try.


Quote:

The point is that at any moment, there are literally DOZENS of "potential" enemies. So while we were invading Iraq, N Korea and Iran were busy forwarding their nuclear plans, and Pakistan and India have certainly not held still with theirs. And what about Brazil? It refuses to let in the IAEA. What about Israel? It's an open secret that they have nuclear and CWA capability. What about S Korea? THEY were conducting forbidden enrichment experiments just recently. And Russia??


Just have to prioritize. Or maybe we should do what you'd have preferred with Iraq and continued to let the UN handle it. The UN is handling it, Right?


Quote:

The point of THAT is we let our policy be swayed by corporations, and we seem almost invariably to promote despotic structures that promise cheap resources and/or cheap labor. We never seem to learn the lesson that if we had encouraged structures that did not actively exploit their own people and create extreme differences in wealth, the world would be a MUCH more stable place today.


I doubt that you and I will ever agree on the neo-colonialist thing. I'm sure we're less that lily-white, but I'd say less grey that most developed countries. My time machine needs a new widget, but without being able to go and check, I'd bet we aren't going to get any real commercial benefit out of Iraq. If we're lucky we'll leave them with a more-or-less democratic government and an army well-trained enough to keep the insurgency down to a dull roar.



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, October 8, 2004 8:42 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


If pre-emtive strike upon speculation is justified... perhaps the world should consider pre-emtively attacking the US ?


There seems to be alot more evidence that the United States is a threat to the interests of Europe, Canada, Russia, China, South America... the world in general...

Best we start shooting now I guess



" If I going to get killed for a word....
Then my word is Poon-Tang "

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Friday, October 8, 2004 8:49 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


You keep talking about "handling" Iraq as if there was something to "handle"! WHAT WAS THERE TO HANDLE? NOTHING WAS THERE. (How complicated is that to wrap your brain around???) Even if I thought invading potential threats was the right thing to do, then Bush did a h*lluva bad job prioritizing, wouldn't you say?

So, since your hindsight is working 20/20 maybe your crystal ball is too. Who would you have George invade? Russia? Brazil? N Korea? Saudi Arabia? China? How would you prioritize? Which nations would you start invading, in what order, and why? Or would you just use nukes? And what do you suppose the world reaction would be???

And since you can tell who's going to be a major pain in the butt ahead of time, why did we fund the Taliban and Saddam and continue our cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia? Who would you STOP supporting in view of them being dictators, potential threats and/or destabilizing forces? Karimov? Sharon? Hugo Chavez? Musharef?

As I said before, at any one time there are DOZENS of potential threats in the world. Most of them take decades to develop, any of them could become a MAJOR pain in the *ss. We don't have the weapons to invade them all, unless you count nukes, and if we tried the rest of the world would unite against us.

Your notion is like jailing someone ahead of time because they fit a profile. We don't have enough jails to even think of it, and if we tried all that we would do is create a lot of very disaffected criminals.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 8:49 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
SO let me get this straight... if we had invaded Germany, deposed Hirohito, invaded China and killed Mao and his cadre, invaded Italy and killed Moussilini, and bumped off Stalin then things would have been much different. And you're right! All we had to do was invade six or seven nations and we'd all have been OK.



Only in the mid 1930's if Churchill had of acted as you suggested, the odds were even that the USA would have entered the war on the side of the Nazis

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm



" If I going to get killed for a word....
Then my word is Poon-Tang "

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Friday, October 8, 2004 8:52 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Gino... If the USA continues its rampage through history you may very well be right.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 9:18 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

I doubt that you and I will ever agree on the neo-colonialist thing. I'm sure we're less that lily-white, but I'd say less grey that most developed countries.


We're the only developed nation with over 800 military installations around the world. That says a lot about our level of gray. Germany and France may cut deals and so forth, but they haven't militarily taken over a whole lot of countries in the last 50 years or so, have they?

Quote:

My time machine needs a new widget, but without being able to go and check, I'd bet we aren't going to get any real commercial benefit out of Iraq. If we're lucky we'll leave them with a more-or-less democratic government and an army well-trained enough to keep the insurgency down to a dull roar.

Not for lack of trying. It was sheer miscalculation on Wolfowitz' part. Have you read Paul Bremer's CPA orders? They practically give away Iraq assests EXCEPT the oilfields. Those they left alone simply because they didn't want to look "as if" they had designs on Iraq's oil.

Geezer, your arguments are falling apart for lack of reality, and your bias is showing through the seams. If you're SERIOUSLY contemplating the "preventive" invasion scenario, then you need to go stand in the corner with Cheney and "Let's contract it out" Rumsfeld.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 9:23 AM

SOUPCATCHER


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:

Amazing how many times France and Russia come up in these articles. As Capt. Renault would say, "Round up the usual suspects."

"Keep the Shiny side up"



You forgot Poland.

Quote:

Excerpted from USAToday article, "Cheney uses WMD report to defend Bush" datelined 7 October found at http://tinyurl.com/6omdr
"The sanctions regime was coming apart at the seams," Cheney told a later forum in Fort Myers. "Saddam perverted that whole thing and generated billions of dollars. ... He used the funds to corrupt others."

The new GOP strategy contained some risks to Bush: Some of the countries possibly implicated in wrongdoing in the program include U.S. allies in Iraq, particularly Poland, as well as Russia — countries the administration does not want to alienate.



Sorry . I just couldn't resist.

But it does look like there is more evidence than just the stuff Chalabi was hyping back around July. So that's a very good thing. I would be disappointed if we were still making pronouncements based on anything Chalabi told us.

And the Casablance reference warms my heart .

* thanks to at eschaton for the USAToday link

There are three kinds of people: fighters, lovers, and screamers.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 9:40 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
So... we should go bomb or invade any nation that we "think" is going to be a threat. Even if I thought that was the right thing to do, then Bush did a heckuva bad job prioritizing, wouldn't you say?

So, since our hindsight is working 20/20 maybe your crystal ball is too. Who would you have George invade? Russia? Brazil? N Korea? Saudi Arabia? China? How would you prioritize? Which nations would you start invading, in what order, and why? Or would you just use nukes? And what do you suppose the world reaction would be???



Ok, you're right. We should let the UN deal with it. Right after they do something about the Sudan. Or maybe they should get the final report from the Volker Oil-for-food first, so they'll know who's in whose pocket. I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting for the UN to resolve anything.

Quote:

And since you can tell who's going to be a major pain in the butt ahead of time, why did we fund the Taliban and Saddam and continue our cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia? Who would you STOP supporting in view of them being dictators, potential threats and/or destabilizing forces? Karimov? Sharon? Hugo Chavez? Musharef?


I'd just as soon kick them all to the curb, if I wasn't more concerned about what would follow their ouster.

Quote:


Your notion is like jailing someone ahead of time because they fit a profile. We don't have enough jails to even think of it, and if we tried all that we would do is create a lot of very disaffected criminals.



We often jail people ahead of time for conspiracy, e.g. conspiracy to commit murder, before they do the crime. All we need is evidence they were seriously planning to do it. See the Post article above about illegal arms purchases.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, October 8, 2004 9:49 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


NO, we need evidence that they DID something about it... paid someone, for example, or bought guns, or made pipe bombs. We don't jail people for their intentions, we jail them for their deeds.

Any crime needs means, opportuntity, and motive. You might have the motive, but if you don't have the means it doesn't count.

Quote:

I'd just as soon kick them all to the curb, if I wasn't more concerned about what would follow their ouster.


And you weren't worried about what would follow Saddam's ouster??? I wish there was a emoticon!

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Friday, October 8, 2004 9:55 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:

We're the only developed nation with over 800 military installations around the world. That says a lot about our level of gray. Germany and France may cut deals and so forth, but they haven't militarily taken over a whole lot of countries in the last 50 years or so, have they?



Got a list of bases? Hard to find on the internet since 9/11. I'd guess most are leftovers from the Cold War in countries like Germany, England, Italy, Japan, Korea, Turkey, etc. Somehow I don't think we're seen as having "militarily taken over" there.

Quote:

Geezer, your arguments are falling apart for lack of reality, and your bias is showing through the seams. If you're SERIOUSLY contemplating the "preventive" invasion scenario, then you need to go stand in the corner with Cheney and "Let's contract it out" Rumsfeld.


As I noted above, I'm not sure I buy into it, but it's the defensible position that the administration is going to use. I think that it will keep their core constituency satisfied. Just as your "neo-colonialist after the oil" position will continue to keep your fellow anti-Bushies satisfied.

I personally am voting for "None of the Above".

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, October 8, 2004 10:06 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


It's not defensible. We went into Iraq on the basis that their WMD formed an "imminent" threat. Iraq bought aluminum tubes and attempted to buy yellowcake uranium. They had "tons" of chemical weapons. Rummy knew they were positioned near Baghdad. Tony Blair said that Iraq's WMD could be deployed in 45 minutes, and this Aministration had no problems repeating it. Colin Powell went before the UN and debased himself for an hour repeating the message. The entire Administration sang the same tune endlessly, remember??

To justify the invasion afterwards on the basis that Iraq "might become a threat someday" is a lie, and it's just plain looney. You can add that to the long list of OTHER justifications and lies that can go onto the garbage-heap of history.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Bush and his Administration doesn't lie.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....(gasp!)..... HAHAHAHAHAHA

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Friday, October 8, 2004 10:36 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


BTW, I will provide a reference to the list of installations (not necessarily "bases"). I can't possibly transcribe them all in, and it's a hardcopy reference (book). Best I can do.


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Friday, October 8, 2004 5:08 PM

NEUTRINOLAD


Until the bribes got big enough.

Geezer, Ghoulman, et. al., as you are educated about this, you wouldn't happen to have the list of American companies and agencies that were also cited as bribe recipients but is being kept secret as a matter of "national security", would you?


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Friday, October 8, 2004 5:10 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Geezer, sometimes I wonder how you manage to actually string words together. The sentences are grammatical, but the content indicates a severe reality deficiency.
edited
PS You know, I'm far too busy and life's way too short to debate an essentially meaningless question, like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I have said that there are four reasons to support the Iraq war, and consequently Bush. They are: fear, greed, hate, and for lack of a better term, American jihad. Including his many other arguments, Geezer seems to fall in the last category. American never did anything wrong. Or, if wrong was done, it was by accident. Or, if not by accident, it was just a byproduct of the best decisions being made in an imperfect world under imperfect knowledge. And if the facts don't suit, argue that 'it' wasn't really that bad, because, it's not about facts, it's just a matter of perspective. Or some other incorporal nicety like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
He still hasn't answered my question from another thread, which was, give ONE reason you will not back away from to justify attacking Iraq. One sentence or a short paragraph please.
Which makes me think that HE thinks America doesn't need to have credible reasons. It's always right, no matter what. I place that in the category of American jihad.

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Friday, October 8, 2004 5:55 PM

SOUPCATCHER


Quote:

Originally posted by NeutrinoLad
Geezer, Ghoulman, et. al., as you are educated about this, you wouldn't happen to have the list of American companies and agencies that were also cited as bribe recipients but is being kept secret as a matter of "national security", would you?


The usual suspects, among them Halliburton. Done through foreign subsidiaries. During the time while Cheney was CEO. The following excerpt is from a Financial Times article written in November 2000.
Quote:

excerpted from "A discreet way of doing business with Iraq" http://tinyurl.com/3udtn
*editted to add: the article is subscription only, not sure how I got past that, but the link might not work. Here is a reprint of the article: http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/02.23D.Cheney.Circumvented.htm

Millions of dollars of US oil business with Iraq are being channelled discreetly through European and other companies, in a practice that has highlighted the double standards now dominating relations between Baghdad and Washington after a decade of crippling sanctions.

Though legal, leading US oil service companies such as Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Flowserve, Fisher-Rosemount and others, have used subsidiaries and joint venture companies for this lucrative business, so as to avoid straining relations with Washington and jeopardising their ties with President Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad.

By submitting their contracts to the UN via mainly French subsidiaries, many of which do little more than lend their name to the transaction, the companies are treated as European, rather than US or Japanese, applicants.



* thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for the link


-----------------------------------

Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was posted, said “Private Property”
But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing --
This land was made for you and me.

- Woody Guthrie

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Friday, October 8, 2004 7:36 PM

NEUTRINOLAD


Thanks Soupcatcher, but I didn't mean the sales of equipment, etc., which were organized to be a perfectly legal, if amorally corrupt and ethically bankrupt, practice.
I was referring more to this scandal, http://cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/10/07/france.iraq.un.ap/index.html

If you read to the last third of the article it says, "The names of American companies and individuals who may have been involved in oil deals weren't released because of U.S. privacy laws, the report said."

So I was wondering about this. What's the deal?

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Friday, October 8, 2004 7:44 PM

SOUPCATCHER


Ah. My bad. Sorry. Haven't seen anything about those companies.


There are three kinds of people: fighters, lovers, and screamers.

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 12:48 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Funny, you're the third person I've heard refer to those "Privacy laws". The first time my reaction was "Yeah, yeah, another conspiracy theory" but by the third time it starts to feel like "everyone" knows something I don't know!

So I'm going to look into those privacy laws and find out!



Geezer- The book I was thinking of is "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson but it might actually be in "Sorrows of Empire" (same author). Anyway, here's a quote from "Sorrows" for your perusal while I go rummage for those books.

Quote:

Official records on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department's annual "Base Structure Report" for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and HAS another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories... These numbers, although staggeringly large, do not begin to cover all the actual bases we occupy globally. The 2003 Base Status Report fails to mention, for instance, any garrisons in Kosovo -- even though it is the site of the huge Camp Bondsteel, built in 1999 and maintained ever since by Kellogg, Brown & Root. The Report similarly omits bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan, although the U.S. military has established colossal base structures throughout the so-called arc of instability in the two-and-a-half years since 9/11....

The report deceptively lists only one Marine base, Camp Butler, when in fact Okinawa "hosts" ten Marine Corps bases, including Marine Corps Air Station Futenma occupying 1,186 acres in the center of that modest-sized island's second largest city. (Manhattan's Central Park, by contrast, is only 843 acres.) The Pentagon similarly fails to note all of the $5-billion-worth of military and espionage installations in Britain, which have long been conveniently disguised as Royal Air Force bases. If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases in other people's countries, but no one -- possibly not even the Pentagon -- knows the exact number for sure, although it has been distinctly on the rise in recent years.


www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-08.htm

Now, these are just BASES. It does not include "installations" (such as radar installations) or "facilities" like offices or golf courses. Chalmers Johnson, BTW, used to be a CIA analyst for the Far East.

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 1:32 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I found this in the Houston Chronicle:

Quote:

Major U.S. oil companies and a Houston oil investor were among those who received lucrative vouchers that enabled them to buy Iraqi oil under the U.N. oil-for-food program, according to a report prepared by the CIA's chief arms inspector.
ADVERTISEMENT

The 918-page report says that four American oil companies — Chevron, Mobil, Texaco and Houston-based Bay Oil — and three individuals, including Oscar Wyatt, were given vouchers and got 111 million barrels of oil between them from 1996 to 2003. The vouchers allowed them to profit by selling the oil or the right to trade it.

The other individuals, whose names appeared on a secret list kept by the former Iraqi government, were Samir Vincent of Annandale, Va., and Shakir Al-Khafaji of West Bloomfield, Mich., according to the report by the inspector, Charles Duelfer.

The fact that these companies and individuals received oil from Iraq does not mean that they did anything illegal, experts on the program said. Such allocations may have been proper if the individuals and companies received appropriate U.N. approval.

In interviews on Friday, spokesmen for the oil companies and for Houston-based El Paso Corp., which assumed control of the assets of the company once run by Wyatt, said the transactions had been legal. But each confirmed that they had received subpoenas from a federal grand jury in New York, which is investigating "transactions in oil of Iraqi origin" as part of the oil-for-food program, according to a federal financial filing by El Paso Corp.

Wyatt got lion's share
The largest of the allocations went to Wyatt, who the list said had received allocations totaling 74 million barrels. At the profit rates of 15 cents to 85 cents per barrel that were reported in the arms inspector's study, he could have earned $23 million.

The names of the American companies and citizens who benefited from the voucher scheme were not included in the published report prepared by the Iraqi Survey Group that was released Wednesday by the CIA, because the names of American individuals cannot be publicly disclosed under privacy laws. But the names were contained in unedited copies given to the White House and to several congressional committees.



/ www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/energy/2838780

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 7:29 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


PS- I'm doing my best to imitate Soupcatcher.

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 9:01 AM

SOUPCATCHER


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
PS- I'm doing my best to imitate Soupcatcher.


I'm not sure that's such a good idea, SignyM. (Although I appreciate the sentiment)

In the past few hours, I've posted two corrections to earlier posts (the first one where I didn't read carefully enough and charged off to answer the wrong question, the second one where I withdrew a statement based on new evidence). And then there's a third post that I need to correct in regards to a statement I made about Bush's position on abortion (I have read a lot more since I posted and learned that my original position was naive and imposed a very simplistic framing on the issue). So I guess that makes me a flip-flopper . And we, in the US, all know that changing our minds and admitting to mistakes is tantamount to weakness, at least in the mind of our President.

Great article from the Houston Chronicle, btw.

------------------------------------------------
Nature? Infinite variety. Straight lines? Not so much.

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 10:17 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


SignyM and Soupcatcher

I admire your patience, honesty and open-mindedness in this discussion with Geezer. And I appreciate the information I'm learning from your contributions.

I don't think it'll work with Geezer, however. In many other threads and topics in the past, when presented/confronted with data that clearly refutes his position, he - goes away, never to come back to that thread. But then he resurfaces a week or so later on a new thread, saying the same things all over again.

There is no credible reason left to think a war of aggression against Iraq was a justified, or even legal. There were no 'tons' of WMD, zero production capability, no programs. No link to 9/11 or al Qaeda. No imminent threat. It was not in support of UN resolutions. Even as Iraq complied with the UN, Bush had to manufacture a final and illegal demand as a condition to avert war (Hussein had to leave or else). But Hussein is gone, and the US is still there.

People who STILL support the attack are basing it on emotions so intrinsic to their notions of who they are in the world that they CAN'T change their positions. Fear, hate, greed and American jihad. No facts can counter them.

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 11:03 AM

NEUTRINOLAD


Well Rue, I'm not so sure this is all to change Geezer's mind. Seems to me this is more about sharing what we know to educate ourselves on the topic. If Geezer has a different point of view, well that's fine, we're all browncoats in here.
And who knows when that final piece of data clicks into place and makes Geezer start to question some of his own positions and start rethinking things generally.
Hope springs eternal.

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 11:19 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


OK.
It is a worthwhile thing to do.
I let my aggravation at Geezer's dogmatic rhetoric get the better of me.

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 1:04 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by NeutrinoLad:
Until the bribes got big enough.

Geezer, Ghoulman, et. al., as you are educated about this, you wouldn't happen to have the list of American companies and agencies that were also cited as bribe recipients but is being kept secret as a matter of "national security", would you?




Here's three from a Post article:

The names of U.S. companies and individuals who participated in the program were omitted from the report, because of what officials described as U.S. privacy law restrictions. But in June, three U.S. oil companies disclosed that they had received subpoenas in connection with a federal investigation into the program: Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp. and Valero Energy Corp.

Valero has said that it is cooperating fully, that the company had no direct contact with Iraq and that the subpoena does not imply any wrongdoing. Prem Nair, a spokeswoman for Exxon Mobil, said yesterday that the company did not violate any laws. "All purchases were documented as being in full compliance with all laws," Nair said. ChevronTexaco did not return a phone call.




"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 1:12 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:



Geezer- The book I was thinking of is "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson but it might actually be in "Sorrows of Empire" (same author). Anyway, here's a quote from "Sorrows" for your perusal while I go rummage for those books.




I found this in our county library catalog, but not in my local library, and as a Reference, so it can't be checked out.

Directory of U.S. military bases worldwide / edited by William R. Evinger

I'll drop by a library where it's available maybe tomorrow or next week.

Edit: Duh. Mr. Johnson's quote mentions the "Base Structure Report". A quick google turned this report up. It lists DoD's real property inventory. This is buildings and areas the military owns or leases, not just forts, arsenals, or armed compounds by any means.

Here's a link to the 2004 version.

www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20040910_2004BaseStructureReport.pdf

Here's the first seven Air Force "Bases" in Japan:

Camp Courtney Family Hsg Annex Gushikawa
Camp Kuwae Family Hsg Annex Jagaru
Camp McTureous Family Hsg Annex Gushikawa
Camp Shields Family Hsg Annex Okinawa City
Camp Zama Communications Station Zama
Camp Zukeran Family Hsg Annex Okinawa City
Chitose Administration Annex

As expected, most are in the countries of NATO allies, along with Japan and South Korea.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 1:48 PM

SOUPCATCHER


I'll second what NeutrinoLad wrote. I use the Real World Events Discussion section of this site to help me refine my own views (and sometimes change those views completely). It's a safe environment for me because of the commonality we all share as fireflyfans and an educational environment because of the diversity of viewpoints. I tend to think of it in terms of manufacturing, something along the lines of casting a piece in bronze, and all the finishing work that is required after the bronze is poured before the piece is ready to be sold. There are many topics that have been discussed in these threads that I now have a solid opinion on - solid in that I feel confident discussing these topics and can outline the basic control volume, the assumptions that go into the framing, alternative ways of looking at the topic, reliable evidence to support my position, etc. So my goal in posting is not to convince anyone. It's to find out where my opinions are weak or where I've left something out of my analysis or sources of information that I am not aware of. At the end of the day I just want to sound coherent .

----------------------------------

Nature has infinite variety. Straight lines? Not so much

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Saturday, October 9, 2004 1:50 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


I would just like to throw in an aricle which relates this this... well a little bit.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/09
/26/643823.html


I have heard of many an effort by locals to get the US bases out of Okinawa, and efforts by South Koreans to get some of those bases closed.

Funny how the only coceerns Germany had over being threatened with base closures were ones of local economic inpact. Pay us enough and we'll put up with you sort of thing I guess.



" If I going to get killed for a word....
Then my word is Poon-Tang "

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Sunday, October 10, 2004 4:18 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

As expected, most are in the countries of NATO allies, along with Japan and South Korea.

Just to demonstrate how you cherry-pick your information, when you listed the "top ten" Air Force Bases in Japan as family housing, you just "happened" to use the list that was sorted by function which listing FAMILY HOUSING AND ADMIN FIRST. I guess you didn't "happen" to notice that??? Even though you had to go past the first 170 pages or so to find it??

The top Japanese installations each over 1 million square feet of building space are (top down):

Kadena AFB 5,7 Msqft
USMC Camp, Zukaren OK 3,8
USMC Camp, Makimota OK 3,5
Sagami gnl depot 3,1
Zukeran fmly hsg 2,9
Kakiminato sv annex 2,3
Misawa AFB 1,1
USMC camp, Futemma OK 1,1
Navy base, Atsugi 1,0
Makiminato svc annex 1,0

In total, 96% of installations are devoted to air strips and hangars, USMC camps, docks, ammo dumps, etc. LESS THAN 5% are devoted to family housing, admin, recreation etc. So our military presence in Japan, and by extension to rest of the list, is not such a benign collection of famliy housing, is it?

Geezer, have you abandoned even a PRETENSE of objectivity? The point of having installations (I DID say installations, not bases) all over the world is not to place them in hostile areas but to be able to project military power anywhere we want. If any other nation were to have HALF the installations that we do, we would be rightly and deeply concerned about their military ambitions!

Our BASES in "British Indian Ocean" sound pretty benign (It's part of the Commonwealth after all) until you realize that Diego Garcia is how we projected power into Iraq. From a military viewpoint, the US has its footprint over pretty much the whole world except China and Russia.

I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Ghoulman isn't right about you.

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Sunday, October 10, 2004 8:54 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:

As expected, most are in the countries of NATO allies, along with Japan and South Korea.

Just to demonstrate how you cherry-pick your information, when you listed the "top ten" Air Force Bases in Japan as family housing, you just "happened" to use the list that was sorted by function which listing FAMILY HOUSING AND ADMIN FIRST. I guess you didn't "happen" to notice that??? Even though you had to go past the first 170 pages or so to find it??

The top Japanese installations each over 1 million square feet of building space are (top down):

Kadena AFB 5,7 Msqft
USMC Camp, Zukaren OK 3,8
USMC Camp, Makimota OK 3,5
Sagami gnl depot 3,1
Zukeran fmly hsg 2,9
Kakiminato sv annex 2,3
Misawa AFB 1,1
USMC camp, Futemma OK 1,1
Navy base, Atsugi 1,0
Makiminato svc annex 1,0

In total, 96% of installations are devoted to air strips and hangars, USMC camps, docks, ammo dumps, etc. LESS THAN 5% are devoted to family housing, admin, recreation etc. So our military presence in Japan, and by extension to rest of the list, is not such a benign collection of famliy housing, is it?

Geezer, have you abandoned even a PRETENSE of objectivity? The point of having installations (I DID say installations, not bases) all over the world is not to place them in hostile areas but to be able to project military power anywhere we want. If any other nation were to have HALF the installations that we do, we would be rightly and deeply concerned about their military ambitions!

Our BASES in "British Indian Ocean" sound pretty benign (It's part of the Commonwealth after all) until you realize that Diego Garcia is how we projected power into Iraq. From a military viewpoint, the US has its footprint over pretty much the whole world except China and Russia.

I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Ghoulman isn't right about you.



Installations in the report are listed in alphabetical order throughout, not by type or use. The ones I listed came from page 156. I guess that the grouping of Family Housing Annexes did seem kind of ironic to me. Perhaps that could be called "cherry-picking", sort of like the cherry-picked quotes (with commentary, yet) you used to open this thread. Just seemed sort of striking at the time.

I admit I shouldn't have gotten distracted by such asides. The real purpose of finding the report (Which you ignored in your response but quoted in it. (Hmm. Could that be considered "cherry-picking?)) was to identify where our "installations" are located. As I noted (and you quoted) "As expected, most are in the countries of NATO allies, along with Japan and South Korea."

Now, since we do agree that military installations are placed to project power, who do you think that these installations, most of which have been there for 30 years or more, were trying to project power against? Who's been the West's major boogieman from the '50s to the 90's? The Commies! Most installations were built when communist aggression was considered a real threat, in the places most likely to be attacked, or in the best places to launch retaliatory strikes. The US was the only other "super-power" besides the Soviet Union, and we naturally took on a major part of the defensive role. Is this such a surprise?

Even though the cold war is over, simple inertia and the fact that there are still threats in the world keep us from completely pulling back to our shores and pre-WWI and WWII isolationism. I'll have to check, but I do believe that US troop strength had been going down overseas prior to 9/11.

Oh, and:

"Geezer, have you abandoned even a PRETENSE of objectivity?"

When have I ever claimed 100% objectivity? Everyone, myself included, is subject to bias, interprets events differently, and has their own opinions. I question my beliefs frequently. Often the fact is I don't find them 100% valid, but just a little more than other points of view. I am always afraid of people who believe that they can never be wrong. And yes, that includes most politicians.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, October 10, 2004 12:10 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Just thought I'd quickly point out two items:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/okinawa.htm
Quote:

The US military presence in Japan and on Okinawa began at the end of World War II. Although the US occupation in Japan ended in 1952, US administration continued on Okinawa until 1972. In 1951, when the San Francisco Peace Treaty was officially recognized, Okinawa legally became a possession of the United States. In 1972, control of Okinawa was reverted to Japan.
http://www.carnelian-international.com/Philippines/Post_Independence.h
tm
Quote:

The Philippines became an integral part of emerging United States security arrangements in the western Pacific upon approval of the Military Bases Agreement in March 1947. The United States retained control of twenty-three military installations, including Clark Air Base and the extensive naval facilities at Subic Bay, for a lease period of ninety-nine years. United States rather than Philippine authorities retained full jurisdiction over the territories covered by the military installations, including over collecting taxes and trying offenders, including Filipinos, in cases involving United States service personnel.

Neither country had military bases ESTABLISHED due to the Cold War.

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