| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Kneecapping Barack Obama at every opportunity. | ||
Our Despairing Media: Our media is so pessimistic about this war that it's almost funny. Do you know what the title of the latest editorial by Eleanor Clift is? It's called, "A Bad Remake of Vietnam?" Here's Eleanor's take on the fighting...
"TO HEAR THE generals, the war is on schedule. There are no surprises. A film clip shows coalition forces handing candy to Iraqi children. Change the channel to get the perspective of reporters on the ground and the images are quite different. Fighting vehicles stuck in the mud; angry Iraqis thrusting their fists at the invaders; humanitarian aid stalled because of guerilla fighting.
Nearly every prediction about this war has proved wrong. Americans were led to believe it would be over in a weekend, that U.S. air power would "shock and awe" the enemy, that Iraqi troops would lay down their arms and civilians would welcome us as conquering heroes. Instead we're embroiled in a conflict that looks like a bad remake of Vietnam with an enemy that fights in civilian dress. The bravado of a week ago is gone. "It's out of our hands," sighs a White House aide. In an echo of Vietnam, military leaders say they are hamstrung by the rules of engagement. It's a tough sell to a 21-year-old and even his commander that the political cost of shooting people who may or may not turn out to be civilians is too high. "It's the price you pay when you're a superpower going up against a fourth-rate military power," says a Senate Democrat. "You have a higher standard to uphold."
This is the battle plan that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered. He overruled the Joint Chiefs who wanted a ground force twice the size of what Rumsfeld thought was necessary."
Oh no..."Fighting vehicles (are) stuck in the mud" -- it's a quagmire, literally! Oh good grief, the humanitarian aid is stalled! That means it's another Vietnam! By the way, who were these mysterious individuals who led the American people to believe that the war would "be over in a weekend?" And this atrocious battle plan -- who showed it to Eleanor Clift? Is this the same plan that Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers called "brilliant"? That's an odd choice of words for a man who was "overruled" according to Eleanor Clift.
Do you know what people like Eleanor Clift aren't seeing? The Iraqi soldiers and equipment on the other end of those missile strikes, artillery, and firefights. We're hearing about battles where hundreds of Iraqis are being killed without inflicting a single casualty on our troops.
We've flown thousands and thousands of sorties and we haven't lost a single plane. Meanwhile, there are Iraqis on the other end of those strikes. How long do you think they can take that kind of punishment? Remember, this isn't "Vietnam" where "dumb" bombs were being dropped through a jungle canopy inflicting a minimal amount of casualties. We're hitting what we're aiming for almost every time.
Furthermore, if you think we're having "supply problems", what about the Iraqis? They don't have an infinite amount of weaponry and unlike us, they don't have massive amounts of new supplies being shipped in hour after hour, day after day.
How long can any nation hold out when they're dying at a ratio of 200 - 300 - 400 to one? Especially when the majority of Iraq wants nothing more than to see the regime overthrown?
Let me give the Eleanor Clift and the rest of the press a little advice -- give it a few more weeks -- at the very least -- before you get so hysterical. After all, if this really is "A Bad Remake of Vietnam" we'll be in Iraq for years right? So if Eleanor Clift and her ilk are right, they'll have plenty of time to tell us, "I told you so" when we're talking about the "new Vietnam" as our men are duking it out with the Republican Guard in 2004, 2005, & beyond. Until then, can Eleanor Clift & company spare us these totally irrational comparisons to Vietnam?
Getting Your Money's Worth At Columbia: If the anti-war crowd somehow got their wish and Saddam Hussein were to survive and remain in control of Iraq, then I think a certain assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University has a tenured professorship waiting for him at Baghdad University...
"A Columbia University professor told an anti-war gathering that he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" - referring to the 1993 ambush in Somalia that killed 18 American servicemen.
At Wednesday night's "teach-in" on the Columbia campus, (assistant professor of anthropology) Nicholas De Genova also called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq and said, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military." And he asserted that Americans who call themselves "patriots" are white supremacists.
De Genova's comments about defeating the United States in Iraq were cheered by the crowd of 3,000, Newsday reported. But his mention of the Somali ambush - "I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus" - was largely met with silence."
Wouldn't you love to be paying $58,405 so your kid could go to Columbia and have people like this filling his head up with anti-American propaganda?
Cable News Coverage Of The War: Flip on the cable coverage of the war on any channel and this about what you'll see...
Anchor: This just in -- for the 10th consecutive day there have been explosions heard in Baghdad. However, we don't have any actual footage or even information about what they hit. Wait -- wait...we've got a report from one of our embedded reporters...
Embedded Reporter: As you can see, we're in the desert. There has been furious fighting all around us...
Anchor: Do you have any footage of the fighting?
Embedded Reporter: Yes and it's spectacular! However, because of the agreements we signed with military you won't be able to see it until 2057. However, we do have lots of grainy footage of me standing in the desert in front of a tank.
Anchor: Fascinating -- so we've learned that there is furious fighting going on in the desert. Well, let's check with our panel of military analysts. So we're ten days in. Coalition forces have suffered less than fifty casualties while inflicting unbelievable carnage on the enemy. We have thousands of Iraqi prisoners, thousands more of Saddam's men have deserted, and we've undoubtedly killed many thousands of Iraqi troops while destroying much of Saddam's command and control structure. How would you say it's going?
Ex-General: Oh, it's going terribly. It's the worst military disaster ever. I blame the battle plan for this debacle...
Anchor: So do you know what the entire battle plan is?
Ex-General: Ehr no...I don't.
Anchor: OK...how do you think things are going Colonel?
Ex-Colonel: Vietnam, quagmire, Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam, quagmire & finally Vietnam.
Anchor: Thank you Colonel. How about you Expert X, what do you think?
Expert X: I believe our troops were shocked to see actual resistance and I'm not sure it's possible for us to win at this point. After all, what can a division of marines with support from helicopters and B52s do against a bunch of Iraqis firing at them from the backs of pick-up trucks? If we had no resistance I think this would have been a winnable war. But now that we've established that there are some Iraqis willing to fight when Saddam's men have guns to their children's heads, I think we might be in real trouble..
Anchor: Wow, it looks like we're doomed. We've got to take a commercial break. We'll be right back.
Producer: Ok, you're doing great with what you have. Now, here's the latest information -- we have explosions in Baghdad & more from our embedded journalists who are standing in front of tanks. Now I'm going to need you to fill two hours with that....
Anchor: Please, I can't take this anymore. It's so monotonous. This is a war, there has to be more news than that. At least let me go to the bathroom before we go back on the air! For the love of God...
Producer: We're live in 3 - 2 - 1...
Anchor: Welcome back. We have breaking news. It seems that there have been explosions in Baghdad. Let's go to our panel of experts who can speculate wildly about the cause and effect of the explosions without having enough information to really make an informed judgement...
Etc, etc, etc, until the end of the war....
Ted Rall Lets Us Know What He Thinks Of America's Soldiers: Ted Rall certainly qualifies as mainstream left-winger. After all, if he was on the fringes of the left, Yahoo certainly wouldn't publish his columns and the New York Times wouldn't run his cartoons right?
Well the man who is perhaps the left's favorite cartoonist, today did a cartoon about the men and women who are fighting and dying in Iraq to protect our country and liberate the Iraqi people. In that cartoon, Rall referred to them as "contract killer(s)."
I guess that's not surprising coming from a guy who said we shouldn't support our troops in his March 11th column...
"(S)upporting our troops while they're fighting an immoral and illegal war is misguided and wrong.
...The thing is, we don't really have to win. Losing the Vietnam War sucked, but not fighting it in the first place would have been smarter. Losing to Third Worlders in PJs led Americans to decades of relative humility, self-examination and taking the moral high ground in conflicts such as Haiti and Kosovo. Our withdrawal from Nam was mainly the result of antiwar protests and public disapproval that swayed our elected representatives. It also saved a lot of money that would otherwise gone to save more "domino" dictatorships from godless communism.
Most Americans who didn't actively protest the war at least sat on their hands during Vietnam. We should do the same during Bush's coming unjust war of aggression. Members of our armed forces don't deserve insults, but their role in this war doesn't merit support. Cheering them as they leave and holding parades when they return would certainly be misinterpreted by citizens of other countries as popular support for an inglorious enterprise--and it would make it easier for Bush to send them off again, to Iran or Libya or wherever. Let's keep our flags under wraps.
I want our troops to return home safely. I want them to live. Like a good German watching my countrymen march into Poland and Belgium and Luxembourg and France, I don't want them to win and I don't want them to lose."
Yeah, we should keep our flag "under wraps" and root for another Vietnam since America is apparently the new Nazi Germany & we're being "good German(s)" if we support our troops. And if you're saying that you don't support the troops and you're talking about the merits of losing in Vietnam, you don't get to credibly claim that you want our "contract killers" to live. If you're rooting for another Vietnam, you're rooting for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of American bodybags, because at the very least, that's what it would take to bring our troops home.
Ted Rall is a despicable human being and it's really sad that there is such a large audience for Rall's bile on the left.
Stop On A Dime And Head In The Other Direction: I want you to try to guess which American politician is being talked about and quoted in this article. Ready?
"(Politician X) who voiced his support for the troops fighting in Iraq, said it made sense after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to become more concerned about Saddam Hussein's potential for producing and distributing weapons of mass destruction.
"It is ... illogical to believe that (Iraq's weapons) stocks would not get into the wrong hands," (Politicians X) said.
"It's easier to deal with the production and spread of this stuff than to deal with the aftermath."
Is this politician not making almost the same case for preemption in Iraq that Conservatives have been making for more than a year? That we need to intervene in Iraq rather than risk having Saddam Hussein give the weapons to terrorists who might use them in American cities? Ok -- let's see who it is....
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Answer: Bill Clinton. The same Bill Clinton who in October of 2002 in Britain said,
"If the inspections go forward I believe we should still work for a regime change in Iraq in non-military ways, through support of the Iraqi opposition and in trying to strengthen it. Iraq has not always been a tyrannical dictatorship. Saddam Hussein was once a part of a government which came to power through more legitimate means.
...This is a difficult issue. Military action should always be a last resort, for three reasons; because today Saddam Hussein has all the incentive in the world not to use or give these weapons away but with certain defeat he would have all the incentive to do just that. Because a pre-emptive action today, however well justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future."
So which is it? Is it, "illogical to believe that (Iraq's weapons) stocks would not get into the wrong hands" or does Saddam have, "all the incentive in the world not to use or give these weapons away"?
So are we better off dealing with the "production and spread of this stuff (WMD)" via a preemptive attack or should we avoid a preemptive attack because it, "may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future"?
Come on, show a little backbone, stop flip-flopping, and take a stand that is based on something other than pure politics.
An Anti-War Minister Who Went To Iraq And Changed His Mind: This editorial written by minister Ken Joseph Jr of Tokyo was so powerful that I just had to post excerpts from it. If you have any friends who claim to care about the Iraqi people and yet don't want us to liberate them, show them this and it just may change their mind...
...I am an Assyrian...As a minister and due to my personal convictions I have always been against war for any and all reasons. It was precisely this moral conviction that led me to do all I could to stop the current war in Iraq.
From participating in demonstrations against the war in Japan to strongly opposing it on my radio program, on television and in regular columns I did my best to stand against what I thought to be an unjust war against an innocent people - in fact my people.
...It was with that feeling, together with supplies for our Church and family that I went to Iraq to do all I could to help make a difference.
The feeling as I crossed the border was exhilarating - `home at last` thought as I would for the first time visit the land of my forefathers.
...The first order of business was to attend Church. It was here where my morals were raked over the coals and I was first forced to examine them in the harsh light of reality.
Following a beautiful `Peace` to welcome the Peace Activists in which even the children participated we moved to the next room to have a simple meal.
Sitting next to me was an older man who carefully began to sound me out. Apparently feeling the freedom to talk in the midst of the mingling crowd he suddenly turned to me and said `There is something you should know.` `What` I asked surprised at the sudden comment.
`We didn't want to be here tonight`. he continued. `When the Priest asked us to gather for a Peace Service we said we didn't want to come`. He said.
`What do you mean` I inquired, confused. `We didn't want to come because we don't want peace` he replied.
`What in the world do you mean?` I asked. `How could you not want peace?` `We don't want peace. We want the war to come` he continued.
What in the world are you talking about? I blurted back.
That was the beginning of a strange odyssey that deeply shattered my convictions and moral base but at the same time gave me hope for my people and, in fact, hope for the world.
Beginning that night and continuing on in the private homes of relatives with whom I stayed little by little the scales began to come off my eyes.
...Simply put, those living in Iraq, the common, regular people are in a living nightmare. From the terror that would come across the faces of my family at a unknown visitor, telephone call, knock at the door I began to realize the horror they lived with every day.
Over and over I questioned them `Why could you want war? Why could any human being desire war?` They're answer was quiet and measured. `Look at our lives!`We are living like animals. No food, no car, no telephone, no job and most of all no hope.`
I would marvel as my family went around their daily routine as normal as could be. Baghdad was completely serene without even a hint of war. Father would get up, have his breakfast and go off to work. The children to school, the old people - ten in the household to their daily chores.
`You can not imagine what it is to live with war for 20, 30 years. We have to keep up our routine or we would lose our minds`
Then I began to see around me those seemingly in every household who had lost their minds. It seemed in every household there was one or more people who in any other society would be in a Mental Hospital and the ever present picture of a family member killed in one of the many wars.
...I wept with family members as I shared their pain and with great difficulty and deep soul searching began little by little to understand their desire for war to finally rid them of the nightmare they were living in.
The terrible price paid in simple, down to earth ways - the family member with a son who just screams all the time, the family member who lost his wife who left unable to cope anymore, the family member going to a daily job with nothing to do, the family member with a son lost to the war, a husband lost to alcoholism the daily, difficult to perceive slow death of people for whom all hope is lost.
The pictures of Sadaam Hussein whom people hailed in the beginning with great hope everywhere. Sadaam Hussein with his hand outstretched. Sadaam Hussein firing his rifle. Sadaam Hussein in his Arab Headdress. Sadaam Hussein in his classic 30 year old picture - one or more of these four pictures seemed to be everywhere on walls, in the middle of the road, in homes, as statues - he was everywhere!
All seeing, all knowing, all encompassing.
`Life is hell. We have no hope. But everything will be ok once the war is over.` The bizarre desire for a war that would rid them of the hopelessness was at best hard to understand.
`Look at it this way. No matter how bad it is we will not all die. We have hoped for some other way but nothing has worked. 12 years ago it went almost all the way but failed. We cannot wait anymore. We want the war and we want it now`
Coming back to family members and telling them of progress in the talks at the United Nations on working some sort of compromise with Iraq I was welcomed not with joy but anger. `No, there is no other way! We want the war! It is the only way he will get out of our lives`
...Then I began to feel so terrible. Here I had been demonstrating against the war thinking I had been doing it for the very people I was here now with and yet I had not ever bothered to ask them what they wanted. What they wanted me to do.
...With tears streaming down my face in my bed in a tiny house in Baghdad crowded in with 10 other of my own flesh and blood, all exhausted after another day of not living but existing without hope, exhausted in daily struggle simply to not die I had to say to myself `I was wrong`.
How dare I claim to speak for those for whom I had never asked what they wanted!
...Wanting to make sure I was not simply getting the feelings of a long oppressed minority - the Assyrians - I spoke to dozens of people. What I was not prepared for was the sheer terror they felt at speaking out. Over and over again I would be told `We would be killed for speaking like this` and finding out that they would only speak in a private home or where they were absolutely sure through the introduction of another Iraqi that I was not being attended by a minder.
From a former member of the Army to a person working with the police to taxi drivers to store owners to mothers to government officials without exception when allowed to speak freely the message was the same - `Please bring on the war. We are ready. We have suffered long enough. We may lose our lives but some of us will survive and for our children's sake please,, please end our misery.
On the final day for the first time I saw the signs of war. For the first time sandbags began appearing at various government buildings but the solders putting them up and then later standing within the small circle they created gave a clear message they could not dare speak.
They hated it. They despised it. It was their job and they made clear in the way they worked to the common people watching that they were on their side and would not fight.
...But what of their feelings towards the United States and Britain? Those feelings are clearly mixed. They have no love for the British or the Americans but they trust them.
`We are not afraid of the American bombing. They will bomb carefully and not purposely target the people. What we are afraid of is Saddam Hussein and what he and the Baath Party will do when the war begins. But even then we want the war. It is the only way to escape our hell. Please tell them to hurry. We have been through war so many times, but this time it will give us hope`.
The Length Of The War, Civilian Casualties, & How The Useful Idiots Unwittingly Help Saddam: I wish I could say I was surprised by the gloomy & pessimistic coverage of the war by much of the mainstream media, but it's nothing new. We're 8 days into the war and we're already hearing a lot about "significant setbacks", "Vietnam", an Iraqi "quagmire", and the supposedly horrible battleplan our military is using. On the other hand, the massive amounts of ground we've gained & the tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties, desertions, & surrenders that have undoubtedly occurred within the first week of the war are being treated as losses of minimal significance for Saddam and company.
Just to give you a sense of perspective that the mainstream media isn't providing right now, I thought it would be worthwhile to post some info about other recent conflicts from an editorial by Johnathan Last,
"Remember the Grenada cakewalk? The United States invaded on October 25, 1983 and hostilities ended on November 3. If conquering Grenada (133 square miles) took 10 days, shouldn't commentators take a wait-and-see attitude towards Iraq (169,000 square miles)? The same was true for the invasion of Panama. Begun on December 20, 1989, Manuel Noriega didn't surrender until January 3, 1990. That's 15 days.
The first Gulf War was no easier. The allies began the air campaign on January 17, 1991 and didn't reach a cease-fire until February 28--43 days. And if you back up a few months, Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. In an invasion that spent no time on the niceties of war which the United States insists upon, Saddam's forces didn't secure their small, militarily inferior neighbor until August 8. It took Saddam 7 days--and loads of civilian casualties--to conquer a neighbor with only 2.1 million people.
You say that's ancient history, that we're in a new era? Okay. How about this: In Afghanistan the United States started bombing on October 7, 2001. The last Taliban forces didn't leave Kandahar until December 7--a 63 day campaign.
Today, each of these military actions is considered a rout and, with the exception of Iraq's annexation of Kuwait, each took longer than the 8 days which now seem to have been allotted to the allied commanders in charge of Operation Iraqi Freedom."
Before this war started, the most optimistic estimates I heard suggested that it would take about three weeks for us to win the war. But, most "experts" were saying that it should be over in "weeks" as opposed to months. That means even if everything goes as expected (which is never a given), we may very well have another six weeks to go.
Last but not least, do keep in mind that this probably could be a "one week war" -- if we were unconcerned about slaughtering Iraqi civilians near military targets of value. But, Saddam and his men understand certain things about the West better than many Westerners do, particularly the left-wingers who march in the streets thinking that Bush is another Hitler while ignoring the atrocities that Saddam's men commit. While Coalition forces are taking great care to spare civilians, Saddam's forces are not only using the Iraqi population as "human shields", they're deliberately trying to increase civilian casualties in the hopes that the anti-war crowd will become so incensed that they'll force an early end to the war.
So ironically, Saddam's regime will probably kill far more Iraqi civilians deliberately than Coalition forces will by accident, all in an effort to motivate the"peace protestors" to force us to pull out of Iraq, thereby leaving the people of Iraq in the hands of the man who intentionally had them slaughtered. That would almost be funny if it weren't so tragic for the people of Iraq...
Close Ties With France? No Thanks: French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin spoke at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and said that, "he was confident that France and the United States would re-establish the close ties they enjoyed before the Iraqi crisis unfolded."
Why would the United States want to maintain "close ties" with any nation that has a Foreign Minister that can't answer the following question?
"At the end of de Villepin's talk, he held a question and answer session in which he refused to answer the question: "Who do you want to win this war?"
If the French believe that their treachery and betrayal is going to be forgotten or forgiven when this war is over, they're in for a rude awakening.
You Can't Make Us Accept That Iraq Has WMD!: The lengths to which some people are going to deny that Iraq has WMD simply boggles the mind.
To begin with, I cannot imagine how anyone who has spent more than five minutes studying the situation in Iraq could possible believe Saddam doesn't have WMD. Come on, does anyone think that after the inspectors left in 1998, Saddam secretly destroyed his WMD and then deliberately lost tens of billions of dollars worth of oil revenue rather than admit it? Why would Iraq still be holding on to rockets with chemical warheads unless they had chemicals to put in them? Furthermore, why would Iraq refuse let their scientists and their families leave the country for interviews if they don't have any WMD? Even Hans "global warming scares me, but war doesn't" Blix said the Iraqis didn't fully cooperate with inspections.Then since the war started, we've had report after report of chemical suits & shots being found, threats to use chemical weapons against the Kurds, orders supposedly given by the regime to use the weapons, etc.
Yet & still, there are people who just refuse to buy into the idea. In fact, some of them are going so far as to claim that the US is going to fake finding WMD because of course, there are none to find. Here are few comments from The Guardian's Forums along those lines...
Sydneysider: Let's face it, if the world subsequently discovers that Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction, Bush's war will be exposed as a gigantic, murderous hoax. What are the odds, then, that the US will plant evidence to "prove" that Saddam had WMD? Does it have an alternative.
Pistonbroke: "(T)he sanctions and inspections were a softening up process before the invasion which was probably planned 5-6 years ago.
There will be no chemical factories found,even if Hussein had them they would have been destroyed weeks ago.
If things go true to form the Americans will ask the British to "discover" one,knowing full well nobody will believe the yanks."
Popular, left-wing, ultra-kook, Bartcop had this to say about the chemical plant at Najaf...
U.S. Finds Nothing at Iraqi Chemical Plant -- So why didn't the CIA phoney it up? Were reporters watching?"
Of course, The Democratic Underground has people who buy into this...
thermodynamic: Then the rest of the world will turn on us. If they do find WMDs (or successfully plant them), we will then be looked at favorably. Don't the ends justify the means
Veritaph: If he doesn't have them now...he will when we are finished planting them.
BiggJawn: They will be found, Dave. The Bush Empire has too damn much invested in this for WMD not to be found. At this very moment, the much awaited WMD are on their way to Iraq, being lovingly tended by CIA operatives...
And on and on it goes. Heck, even the Russian gov't is getting in on the action...
"Russia on Wednesday expressed concern that Washington could fabricate evidence of Iraq allegedly hiding its weapons of mass destruction in an effort to justify the US-led attack on Baghdad.
Speaking before the Federation Council (Russian Upper House) on Wednesday Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov cautioned Washington and London that Moscow is not going to trust their claims of finding evidence of WMD in Iraq.
...Iraqi Ambassador to Russia in an interview to the same channel, did not rule out the use of chemical or other weapons of mass destruction by the US-led coalition forces to later pin the blame on Baghdad."
I can understand why the Russian gov't is tossing out this line of BS -- they probably sold Saddam some of his WMD or the equipment he used to produce them even after UN sanctions were in place. If that came out, it would be humiliating for the Russians (& the UN) given that they're a permanent member of the UN Security Council. On a side note, I wouldn't be surprised to find that France and Germany are up to their eyeballs in this same sort of thing as Rush Limbaugh and Steven Den Beste have been speculating for months.
Now we've talked about the Russians, but what about these other people? Are they simply so eaten up with hate for George Bush that they wouldn't be able to accept that he was right and they were wrong? I mean when (not if) we find large caches of WMD, that's going to be very embarrassing for a lot of people who have spent the last year saying there was "no proof" that Saddam had them. And what about all the people who said "inspections can work"? They're going to look foolish as well when we find WMD all over Iraq while the inspectors found nothing.
But, rather than admit that they're wrong, these people are already serving notice that they'd rather retreat into a decisional fantasy world where George Bush is another Hitler who is going to plant evidence just so he'll have an excuse to get his hands on that Iraqi oil (that we are already buy from them) & so we can blow away the Iraqi people (who really don't want to be free of Saddam Hussein no matter what those Conservatives say).
I know these crazy lefties won't listen to people like me because they think I'm a CIA operative, a fascist, &/or a lizard/human hybrid, but they'll listen to you other lefties out there. Try to bring them back to reality before they get too far gone -- it's the humane thing to do.
Advertising: We still have advertising spots left. If you're interested in getting one you'll probably want to get in touch with me by Friday.
-- The advertising offered is a button in the Support Section of RWN.
-- The button appears on almost every page of RWN, stays up for the entire month of April starting on April 2nd, and costs $15. That's not bad considering that I'm averaging better than 4000 daily uniques and 8000 page views per day.
-- I would like for the button to be 88x31 and 3kb or less although we can negotiate a fee for larger buttons.
-- If you'd like to get a button, send $15 to my Paypal account which is also located in the support section and then send me an email with your button included. I can try to help you a basic button if you don't know how to make one, but do remember that I'm not a graphic designer =)
-- I reserve the right to decline anybody I so choose if your content objectionable to do keep in mind that I only intend to sell five slots first come, first served.
-- -- Speaking of our advertisers, thanks to Those Shirts, Conservative Commentary, Between The Coasts, Belly Flop, Timeshel Arts, & Number 2 Pencil for advertising on RWN. You might want to give them look, especially if you haven't seen their pages before, to show them that they were smart to buy an ad on RWN.
-- Last but not least, RWN always welcomes contributions & people who buy me things off of my wish list. f you'd like to do so, just head over to the Support Section.
No, He Wasn't "Driven" To It: I understand that parents hate to believe the worst about their kids. Because of that, I normally don't tear into the parents for sticking up for their kids after they've committed some sort of atrocity. But the comments from Asan Akbar's stepfather are over the line....
"(Asan Akbar's) stepfather, William Bilal, who was once married to Akbar's mother, Quran Bilal, said that his stepson was resentful toward the military and had complained several years ago that it was difficult for a black man "to make rank" in the military.
"Asan was pushed to this. We've got that clear," William Bilal told WBRZ, ABCNEWS' affiliate in Baton Rouge, La. "Everybody's got a breaking point, to put it that way. Everybody's got a breaking point. If he did this, he was driven."
First off, I guess I could point out the fact that people who are "resentful toward the military," are "reprimanded for insubordination," & who are so out of it that they're afraid the military will imprison them because they're Muslims, are not very likely "to make rank". To ignore all of that and cry "racism" is pathetic in and of itself.
But, what really offended me was this comment,
"Everybody's got a breaking point, to put it that way. Everybody's got a breaking point. If he did this, he was driven."
He was "driven" to do this? To try to murder 16 of his officers? So what did the do to this guy that drove him to scream "You guys are coming into our countries, and you're going to rape our women and kill our children" and started tossing grenades around?
To try to portray scum like Akbar as some sort of victim of the people he tried to murder is beyond the pale, even coming from his own step-father and I'm glad to see that there are other people besides me saying that.
War, Peace & Cable TV By Ron Marr: If you seek evidence of the degradation of common sense in America, you need look no further than the reactions currently pouring forth from certain segments of the general public and virtually all of the talking heads on TV. At the time of this writing, though we have barely been at war for a week, a hue and cry can be heard from those whose perception of time has somehow been warped by an all-pervasive media.
"When will this war be over," they moan. "Why haven't we won yet?"
The answer is simple. It will be over when it's over. The reason we haven't yet won is because we've been in it for less than a week. However, listen to the press darlings and you would think we were in year 57 of the 100 years war. Our troops achieved an amazing success in the speed with which they moved toward Baghdad - probably unprecedented in military history - and yet our TV nation is wringing it's hands over the prospect of a "long" war. (Cont)
Misleading Polling Data: The significance and results of a recent Pew Poll are being widely misreported. Here's a sample of what you're seeing in stories all over the news....
"Public's Confidence in War Success Drops
Images of battered American POWs, a downed Apache helicopter and U.S. fatalities in Iraq have had a dramatic impact on the public's perception of the war. Just 38 percent said the conflict was going well on Monday, down from 71 percent last Friday, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center."
The impression given is that suddenly the American public thinks the war is going poorly. However, when you read a little deeper into what the Pew Research Center is saying you get a very different picture...
"The percentage of the public thinking the war was going very well was as high as 71% on Friday and Saturday, only to fall to 52% on Sunday and 38% Monday as the public learned of American casualties and POW's. Overall, the interviews by Sunday and Monday found about as many people thinking the war effort was going just fairly well (41%) as opposed to very well (45%). Only 8% went as far as to say the war effort was not going well."
So 86% of the American public thinks the war is going very well/well and only 8% think things are not going well. Yet the spin we're getting, even from the Pew Research center itself, is deliberately designed to mislead the public into thinking that suddenly everyone has lost confidence in how the war is going. The public deserves better from the media...
Do You Hear Us France?: Protest Warrior has created a nifty variation of one of my favorite photoshopped pics and has put it on a protest poster....
That's a great poster, a great looking woman, and just about anything that slams those treacherous cheese eating surrender monkeys is OK with me.
Thanks to the Blogs of War for pointing this one out.
Saddam Vs. The Animal Kingdom: Look out Saddam! Even the animal kingdom is against you...
"With a camera strapped to his fin, the bottle-nose dolphin is one of about 100 dolphins and sea lions helping to clear shipping lanes in the Gulf to ensure a safe passage for vessels, including those which will provide humanitarian relief."
But it's not just dolphins and sea lions helping to clear mines, Morocco is sending monkeys to clear land mines...
"A Moroccan publication accused the government Monday of providing unusual assistance to U.S. troops fighting in Iraq by offering them 2,000 monkeys trained in detonating land mines.
The weekly al-Usbu' al-Siyassi reported that Morocco offered the U.S. forces a large number of monkeys, some from Morocco's Atlas Mountains and others imported, to use them for detonating land mines planted by the Iraqis.
The publication quoted a highly-informed source as saying, "that is not a scientific illusion but a well-known military tactic."
I have never heard of using monkeys to clear land mines. Do they train these monkeys to actually disarm the mines or do they just chase them into a mine field with a stick and wait for the "boom"?
Then of course, there is the most terrible weapon of all...The Puppy-Oil Cannon. Even if the Iraqis survive the monkeys and dolphins, not even Saddam's most hardened troops can hold out against this terrible weapon (wink, wink ;)
It's All About The Weapons Testing: We've heard lots of crackpot theories about what the "real" motivations of the war are including...
It's all about...
...the oil
...revenge for the assassination attempt on "Bush's daddy"
...colonialism
...protecting Israel
...a crusade against Islam
...the Stargate
Now Pravda has a new theory. It's all about the weapons testing...
"Reserve Major-General, Professor Vladimir Slipchenko, military analyst, doctor of military science is Russia's first-rate specialist on wars of tomorrow.
...Main objective of the Iraqi war is still offscreen, nobody ever mentions it. My opinion is that main objective of the war is a large-scale testing of new high precision weapons held by the USA in Iraq. This is the top-priority objective for America, all the rest are minor objectives or undisguised misinformation in fact.
For over ten years already the USA has been waging no-contact wars. In May 2001, George W. Bush delivered his first presidential speech to students of the US Navy Academy in Annapolis and declared that drastic measures must be taken to start preparation of the US armed forces for wars of tomorrow. He emphasized at that, these should be high-tech armed forces to perform no-contact operations all over the world. Now the objective is persistently carried out.
It makes sense to mention that the Pentagon purchases from the defense establishment only weapons tested in real wars and holding quality certificates taken on battle fields. After several real experiments, the wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, many of the US defense corporations have been given the right to sell their high-precision weapons to the Pentagon. These are Martin Lockheed, General Electric and Loral. Other large companies haven't yet got orders from the military department. The price of the issue is 50-60 billion dollars per year, everybody wants to get such sums. But today's weapons suppliers of the Pentagon constantly develop more new weapons that must be tested. The US defense establishment demands the political leadership to provide testing grounds, wars where the new weapons can be tested. And they do get such grounds. This is the main reason why the war has been started in Iraq, not because of US's desire to get control over Iraqi oil."
Yes, it's all just American boys and their toys blowing up everything that moves in Iraq so we can see how our new weapons work under combat conditions. If only they'd gotten this one out there a little earlier we might have actually seen some peace protestors carrying, "No war for weapons testing!" signs. Hey, it makes as much sense as "No war for oil!" right?
***Update***: I ran across another today. This nutjob thinks it's all about the dollar vs. the euro...
"Where does this desperation for war come from?
There are many things driving President Bush and his administration to invade Iraq, unseat Saddam Hussein and take over the country. But the biggest one is hidden and very, very simple. It is about the currency used to trade oil and consequently, who will dominate the world economically, in the foreseeable future -- the USA or the European Union.
Iraq is a European Union beachhead in that confrontation. America had a monopoly on the oil trade, with the US dollar being the fiat currency, but Iraq broke ranks in 1999, started to trade oil in the EU's euros, and profited. If America invades Iraq and takes over, it will hurl the EU and its euro back into the sea and make America's position as the dominant economic power in the world all but impregnable.
It is the biggest grab for world power in modern times."
Look for someone to suggest that we're going to war for sand, camels, or long flowing robes sometime in the near future...
Things Aren't Going As Badly As The Mainstream Media Would Have You Believe: For some reason, the mainstream media has a tendency to give a very negative spin to war news. Maybe it's because they tend to lean to the left or because of the media's tendency to accentuate the negative aspects of stories, but it's something we saw a lot of in Afghanistan and something we're seeing in this war.
We're already hearing about "Black Sunday", "Vietnam", "major setbacks", etc, etc. Of course, things have gone far from perfectly -- that is always the case in a war -- but on the whole we're doing really well. Let me tell you why I say that...
-- All available evidence seems to indicate that our strike on the opening night of the war either killed or incapacitated Saddam Hussein and other top Iraqi leaders. That's good news that may help us end the war faster.
-- There were early indications that as much as 20% of the Republican Guard was involved in surrender talks. If that came to pass, it would severely weaken Iraqi defenses and moral.
-- Best estimates appear to put us at less than 35 casualties so far. When you look at the size and scope of what we're doing, that's not bad.
-- We've seen less than a dozen oil wells set on fire. Since that number could have easily gone up into the hundreds if things had gone poorly, seeing that small a number is a big plus.
-- Although we're still crushing pockets of resistance in Umm Qasr, we can prevent Saddam from dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf again and we should be able to get humanitarian supplies into Iraq relatively soon.
-- Keep in mind how far our troops have moved in a short time. "Shock and Awe" started on Friday and we already have troops within 50 miles of Baghdad.
-- Civilian casualties appear to have been kept at minimum up to this point. To the best of my knowledge, the Iraqis are claiming less than a 100 civilian casualties and whatever number they come up with we can probably slash by 2/3rds at least. So far so good on that front.
-- For the most part, we have gotten a good reception from the Iraqi civilians.
-- Iraq has yet to kill anyone with a SCUD missile or even get off any shots at Israel. That's a testament to the excellent job our men are doing and the improved effectiveness of the Patriot missile.
-- So far, we don't have any evidence that the Iraqis have used any chemical weapons on our troops. Reportedly they have loaded them up only to have us blast them into oblivion before they could use them. There's also the possibility that some of the SCUDS were loaded up with WMD but either missed or were shot down. Either way, they didn't hit our troops.
-- While Saddam has successfully mounted some guerilla operations against our Coalition forces, they haven't significantly slowed our forward progress towards Baghdad.
-- Although Turkey has proven to be a throbbing pain in our rear ends, our worst fears have not come to pass. There has been no Turkish land grab and the Turks haven't gotten into it with the Kurds. Again, so far so good.
-- Also, our allies have really been punching above their weight class in Iraq. The Brits have been doing great work all across Iraq, the Aussie SAS has been tearing into Iraqi soldiers in Western Iraq, and the Polish GROM commandos have been involved in the fighting in Umm Qasr.
-- So far, we haven't been hit with any terrorist attacks on the homefront. That was and remains a real threat, but it's encouraging that Al Qaeda and Iraqi forces have been unsuccessful so far.
Now, all of that being said, keep in mind that I'm not trying to paint an overly optimistic picture for you. The hardest fighting is expected to be around Baghdad and it has yet to occur. Furthermore, the chances of WMD being used around are going to go up a lot as we get closer to Baghdad. We're also going to see more Coalition Forces killed and captured, more "friendly fire incidents," and more collateral damage. Furthermore, we may very well be surrounding Baghdad for weeks rather than risk street to street fighting that would cause extensive Coalition & civilian casualties.
I thought it was worth bring all of this up because of all the emotional peaks and valleys that go along with war. On Friday things were going so well that I actually heard someone speculate that the war might be almost over by Monday. On Sunday we had reporters asking if it was a new Vietnam.
All I can say is, "don't get too high, too low, or overly emotional". I know that's hard to do -- especially given the way that the Iraqis have treated our prisoners -- but this war is just getting started and we need to be patient and give our military time to work.
The Michael Fumento Interview: I was pleased to get an opportunity to interview Michael Fumento by email. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, here's a little information about Mr. Fumento from his bio...
"Mr. Fumento has lectured on science and health issues throughout the nation and the world, including Great Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Greece, Austria, China, and South America.
His articles have appeared in publications around the world, including Readers' Digest, The Atlantic Monthly, Forbes, The New Republic, USA Weekend, The Washington Monthly, Reason, The Weekly Standard, National Review, Policy Review, and The American Spectator. He's published in such newspapers as Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, The Sunday Times of London, The Sunday Telegraph of London, the Los Angeles Times, Investor's Business Daily, Washington Times, and the Chicago Tribune.
He has (also) authored four books including "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS", "Science Under Siege", "Polluted Science", & "The Fat of the Land".
I have been aware of Michael Fumento's work for a decade now and it was great to finally get an opportunity to ask him some questions. Better yet, he gave VERY thorough answers. I think you'll really enjoy the interview.
DU Post Of The Day: Here's the crazed wacko post of the day from the DU. When you read stuff like this at the Democratic Underground you just have to wonder how in touch with reality some of these people are...
HappyLibLady (1155 posts): "It was interesting to see the interviews being held with a few of the POWs captured by the Iraqis.
I noticed that the interviewers spoke in calm, comforting voices, and I saw how one of them put a gentle hand on the shoulder of the young African-American female. Her eyes seemed to express a terrible fear, and that is likely because she was trained/brainwashed by the US miltary to believe all Iraqis are blood-thirsty murderers.
I have faith that the experience of these POWs will leave them non-plussed and very confused. I expect that they will be given good treatment, decent food and clean quarters during their confinement, and that they will be released, unharmed when the time comes.
Maybe I'm just dreaming, but it is my hope that the POWs will discover that they were treated better by the Iraqis than they have ever been treated by the very people who are supposed to be protecting them on the battlefield. And, in the case of the African-American woman, she may find that people in the Middle East, unlike too many of the folks back home, do not consider her a second-class human being because of her dark brown skin!"
That reminds me of the human shield I mentioned earlier who was shocked that the Iraqi people didn't like Saddam. It's hard to believe there are people in the world who are actually this naive...
What's The Point Of The Geneva Convention?: Even I find all these claims that the Iraqis are violating the Geneva Convention in the way that they're treating our prisoners to be ludicrous. That's not because I don't believe the Iraqis are violating the Geneva Convention, but because no one could possibly expect that the Iraqis were going to follow it in the first place. As a matter of fact, to the best of my knowledge, the United States has never fought a war where our opponents actually adhered to the Geneva Convention.
To me, this begs an obvious question; Why do WE still cling to the Geneva Convention? I know some of you don't think that we did in Afghanistan, although I'm of the opinion that the Taliban/Al Qaeda forces were not entitled to protection under the Geneva Convention because they wore no uniforms.
In fact, Euroweenie nations like the Netherlands and Norway are probably the only countries that would even bother to stick to the Geneva Convention and how likely is it that we'll have to go to war with them in the near future? So why not create our own set of rules and conduct and follow it to the letter instead of bothering with an archaic code of conduct that will likely never come into play for anyone but us?
Don't Claim To Be Against The War Because Of The Iraqi People: As we all know, the anti-Bush anti-war crowd wants to leave Saddam in place get rid of Saddam just as much as the pro-war crowd. But, they don't think we should go to war and remove Saddam because it's in America's interests and Bush is in charge because they are using the Iraqi people as an excuse care about the Iraqi people.
Well, if you're one of these useful idiots brave dissenters, let me put your mind at ease. While not every Iraqi is doing backflips in the street because we're invading, we're seeing a lot of positive signs. Like this...
"Marines driving deep into southern Iraq were greeted by Iraqi civilians yesterday who waved and gave the advancing force a "thumbs-up."
"That was awesome," Gunnery Sgt. Gregory Keeler said. "They were waving at us, honking their horns . . . I really felt like a liberator."
...Also along the road were hundreds of Iraqi civilians, many apparently walking from one village to another.
Others left their bleached-brick huts and irrigated fields to get a close-up look at the Americans entering their country.
"They seemed happy we're here, or they were just hungry," said Cpl. Adam Brown, a light armored vehicle driver with the recon battalion. "I think I saw definite joy in their faces."
..."If the roles were reversed, I would be keeping my distance," Brown said. "But that shows that they think we're friendly and not here to wipe them off the face of the Earth."
Then there's this...
"They came staggering and stumbling across the desert - a bedraggled band of shoeless soldiers from Saddam Hussein's 51st Mechanical Infantry Division, waving any piece of white clothing they could find.
"We never wanted to fight - only the diehards did," said one Iraqi, as they grabbed at water bottles and clasped their palms as if in prayer, begging for food. Battle had raged the previous day as the marines struggled to hold and secure the town. Even now, Apache helicopters circled overhead, firing missiles into the hills above, where bands of Iraqi soldiers were holed up.
..."We hate Saddam, but we are scared," said one. They begged not to be photographed: "We will be seen giving in."
One man pulled up his shirt sleeve and held up his right hand. Two fingers had been hacked off and his upper arm was criss-crossed with scars.
"This is the price of defiance - of trying to run away," he said, his eyes beseeching. He held up a torn gas mask that had no air canister. "We have one. We draw straws for it. We know if the British and American soldiers leave as they did before, and Saddam survives, he will gas the town." To make sure we understood, he drew his finger swiftly across his throat."
Here's another one...
"...Lewis was one of hundreds of Marines in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment who poked their heads out of their armored vehicles, offering smiles, peace signs and thumbs up to Iraqi villagers. A few Marines tossed down ready-to-eat military meal packets, cigarettes and cash. Other Marines pulled out cameras to record the moment.
Elderly Iraqi men and women dressed in long white and black robes countered by blowing kisses to the Marines. Young men put their fingers to their lips as if they were smoking, asking for cigarettes. Children ran alongside the dusty convoy stretching out their hands, begging the visitors for more of anything they could offer.
Many Marines have expressed concerns in recent weeks that the Iraqi people may view them as an enemy to be feared, not welcomed. Those concerns were put to rest yesterday for members of this battalion, at least along this stretch of road.
"When you come into a place like Iraq you don't expect people to be giving you the peace sign. It was a nice surprise. Things like that make your day," said Lance Cpl. Cody Maynard, 19, of Carlton, Ore. "When we saw the Bedouins, we thought they were going to split and take off running."
Instead the people living on this vast plain sprung to their feet and ran toward the military vehicles."
From the ultra-liberal Guardian...
"Ajami Saadoun Khlis, whose son and brother were executed under the Saddam regime, sobbed like a child on the shoulder of the Guardian's Egyptian translator. He mopped the tears but they kept coming.
You just arrived," he said. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave."
"For a long time we've been saying: 'Let them come'," his wife, Zahara, said. "Last night we were afraid, but we said: 'Never mind, as long as they get rid of him, as long as they overthrow him, no problem'." Their 29-year-old son was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran."
Heck, don't take my word for it -- just listen to this human shield who realized he was a brainless idiot with a head like a cement block wrong...
"The human shields appealed to my anti-war stance, but by the time I had left Baghdad five weeks later my views had changed drastically. I wouldn't say that I was exactly pro-war - no, I am ambivalent - but I have a strong desire to see Saddam removed.
...I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad - a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, "Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good". He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.
As he realised I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the President spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.
..."Don't you listen to Powell on Voice of America radio?" he said. "Of course the Americans don't want to bomb civilians. They want to bomb government and Saddam's palaces. We want America to bomb Saddam."
We just sat, listening, our mouths open wide. Jake, one of the others, just kept saying, "Oh my God" as the driver described the horrors of the regime. Jake was so shocked at how naive he had been. We all were. It hadn't occurred to anyone that the Iraqis might actually be pro-war.
The driver's most emphatic statement was: "All Iraqi people want this war." He seemed convinced that civilian casualties would be small; he had such enormous faith in the American war machine to follow through on its promises. Certainly more faith than any of us had.
Perhaps the most crushing thing we learned was that most ordinary Iraqis thought Saddam Hussein had paid us to come to protest in Iraq. Although we explained that this was categorically not the case, I don't think he believed us. Later he asked me: "Really, how much did Saddam pay you to come?"
So if you're protesting against Operation Iraqi Freedom on behalf of the Iraqi people, you can go ahead and give it up. It's too late to say you were on the right side of history the whole way though, but you can still say you jumped on the bandwagon early on...
Let The Vietnam Comparisons Begin: I think we have a new record.
In Afghanistan, 24 days after we started the bombing and roughly five weeks before we had almost the whole country in hand, RW. Apple from the New York Times was asking,
"Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam? Is the United States facing another stalemate on the other side of the world? Premature the questions may be, three weeks after the fighting began. Unreasonable they are not, given the scars scoured into the national psyche by defeat in Southeast Asia. For all the differences between the two conflicts, and there are many, echoes of Vietnam are unavoidable?"
Well, we have a new champion at playing the "Vietnam card" although I'm not sure who holds it. When I was driving back from the beach yesterday afternoon, I heard someone at a Dept. of Defense press conference referring to Umm Qasr and asking John Abizaid if this was turning into another Vietnam. I tried to do a search to find out who that was, but wouldn't you know that I couldn't find a transcript. If you know who asked that question and what network they were from, make sure to post it in the comments.
While we're waiting to find out who our new record holder is, can I just suggest a little self-imposed rule for the left-wing media out there? Could you wait, oh let's say at least six months before you start shouting, "Vietnam! It's another Vietnam! Quagmire! Did you hear what I said? It's a Quuuaaaaggmmiiirreee!!"
The San Francisco Anti-War Protestors Got What They Asked For: When I heard about this...
"A U.S. soldier (Sgt. Asan Akbar) was detained Sunday on suspicion of throwing grenades into three tents at a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait, killing one fellow serviceman and wounding 15, at least three of them seriously."
...the first thing I thought about was this banner...
That's from an anti-war protest that occurred in San Francisco the week-end before the war started. San Francisco's Indy Media Site was so proud of that banner that they put it on their front page. Martin Sheen, Danny Glover & an estimated 80,000 San Francisco peaceniks were marching while that banner was displayed. Then less than a week afterwards, the people holding that banner got their wish. Can the "Free Asan Akbar" signs be far behind?
***Update***: Here's an article from the fine folks at Indy Media -- which is by the way a WILDLY POPULAR left-wing website by the way --
KILL YOUR OFFICER. US Army Sgt. Asan Akbar is an example !
Incidentally, 5 mods ranked this post on a 10 scale. Two of them gave it a 1. The others gave it a 7, 8, & 10. Here's what the Indy Media mod who gave it an 8 had to say...
"SuZQ (#428: SuZQ) 8 I'm glad to finally see some dialogue!"
Advocating murder ='s dialogue huh?
|
|||||
|
|
| |||
