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If I can't convince some of you peaceniks out there with Logic and Facts, then maybe emotion can get through.

Assyrian Christian News

By Ken Joseph, Jr.

quote:

I Was Wrong

How do you admit you were wrong? What do you do when you realizethose you were defending in fact did not want your defense and wanted something completely different from you and from the world?

This is my story. It will probably upset everybody - those with whom I have fought for peace all my life and those for whom the decision for war comes a bit too fast.

I am an Assyrian. I was born and raised in Japan where I am the second generation in ministry after my Father came to Japan in answer to General Douglas Macarthur's call for 10,000 young people to help rebuild Japan following the war.

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.

As an Assyrian I was told the story of our people from a young age. How my grandparents had escaped the great Assyrian Holocaust in 1917 settling finally in Chicago.

Currently there are approximately six million Assyrians - approximately 1.2 million in Iraq and the rest scattered in the Assyrian Diaspora across the world.

Without a country and rights even in our native land it has been the prayer of generations that the Assyrian Nation will one day be restored and the people of the once great Assyrian Empire will once again be home.

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 kindness of the border guards when they learned I was Assyrian, the taxi, the people on the street it was like being back `home` after a long absence.

Now I finally know myself! The laid back, relaxed atmosphere, the kindness to strangers, the food, the smells, the language all seemed to trigger a long lost memory somewhere in my deepest DNA.

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.

I had not realized it but began to realize that all foreigners in Iraq are subject to 24 hour surveillance by government `minders` who arrange all interviews, visits and contact with ordinary Iraqis. Through some fluke either by my invitation as a religious person and or my family connection I was not subject to any government `minders` at any time throughout my stay in Iraq.

As far as I can tell I was the only person including the media, Human Shields and others in Iraq without a Government `minder` there to guard.

What emerged was something so awful that it is difficult even now to write about it. Discussing with the head of our tribe what I should do as I wanted to stay in Baghdad with our people during their time of trial I was told that I could most help the Assyrian cause by going out and telling the story to the outside world.

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.

Having been born and raised in Japan where in spite of 50 years of democracy still retains vestiges of the 400 year old police state I quickly began to catch the subtle nuances of a full blown, modern police state.

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`

Once again going back to my Japanese roots I began to understand. The stories I had heard from older Japanese of how in a strange way they had welcomed the sight of the bombers in the skies over Japan.

Of course nobody wanted to be bombed but the first sight of the American B29 Bombers signaled to them that the war was coming to an end. An end was in sight. There would be terrible destruction. They might very well die but finally in a tragic way there was finally hope.

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.

It was clear now what I should do. I began to talk to the so called `human shields`. Have you asked the people here what they want? Have you talked to regular people, away from your `minder` and asked them what they want?

I was shocked at the response. `We don't need to do that. We know what they want.` was the usual reply before a minder stepped up to check who I was.

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!

Then I began a strange journey to do all I could while I could still remain to as asked by our tribe let the world know of the true situation in Iraq. Carefully and with great risk, not just for me but most of all for those who told their story and opened up their homes for the camera I did my best to tape their plight as honestly and simply as I could. Whether I could get that precious tape out of the country was a different story.

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.

Near the end of my time a family member brought the word that guns had just been provided to the members of the Baath Party and for the first time we saw the small but growing signs of war.

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 final call for help came at the most unexpected place - the border. Sadly, and sent off by the crying members of my family I left. Things were changing by the hour - the normally $100 ride from Baghdad to Amman was first $300 then $500 and by nightfall $1,000.

As we came to the border we began the routine paperwork and then the search of our vehicle. Everything was going well until suddenly the border guard asked if I had any money. We had been carefully instructed to make sure we only carried $300 when we returned so I began to open up the pouch that carried my passport and money stuffed in my shorts.

Suddenly the guard began to pat me down. `Oh, no`! I thought. It`s all over`. We had been told of what happened if you got caught with videotape, a cellular telephone or any kind of electronic equipment that had not been declared.

A trip back to Baghdad, a likely appearance before a judge, in some cases 24-48 hour holding and more.

He immediately found the first videotape stuffed in my pocket and took it out. I could see the expression of terror on the driver as he stifled a scream.

The guard shook his head as he reached into my pocket and took out another tape and then from pocket after pocket began to take out tape after tape, cellular telephone, computer camera - all the wrong things.

We all stood there in sheer terror - for a brief moment experiencing the feeling that beginning with my precious family members every Iraqi feels not for a moment but day and night, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That terrible feeling that your life is not yours that its fate rests in someone else's hands that simply by the whim of the moment they can determine.

For one born free a terrifying feeling if but for an instant.

As the guard slowly laid out the precious video tape on the desk we all waited in silent terror for the word to be taken back to Baghdad and the beginning of the nightmare.

Suddenly he laid the last videotape down and looked up. His face is frozen in my memory but it was to me the look of sadness, anger and then a final look of quiet satisfaction as he clinically shook his head and quietly without a word handed all the precious videotape - the cry of those without a voice - to me.

He didn't have to say a word. I had learned the language of the imprisoned Iraqi. Forbidden to speak by sheer terror they used the one language they had left - human kindness.

As his hands slowly moved to give the tape over he said in his own way what my Uncle had said, what the taxi driver had said, what the broken old man had said, what the man in the restaurant had said, what the Army man had said, what the man working for the police had said, what the old woman had said, what the young girl had said - he said it for them in the one last message a I crossed the border from tyranny to freedom . . .

Please take these tapes and show them to the world. Please help us . . . . and please hurry!

Ken Joseph Jr is a Assyrian, a Minister and was born and raised and resides in Japan where he directs Assyrianchristians.com


Yeah, sure thing, we shouldn't be in Iraq, trying to free these people from a madman.

Yep, the UN is a REAL humanitarian organization.

They wished to keep these people living this way forever.

I thank goodness this basket case of a dictator decided to finance terrorism and develop chemical and boilogical weapons, otherwise we would have allowed the UN to continue this madness.

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quote:

Emperor George

What has become of American values and idealism? All swept away in this thoroughly un-American war

Jonathan Freedland

Wednesday April 2, 2003

The Guardian

This war is un-American. That's an unlikely word to use, I know: it has an unhappy provenance, associated forever with the McCarthyite hunt for reds under the beds, purging anyone suspected of "un-American activities". Besides, for many outside the US, the problem with this war is not that it's un-American - but all too American.

But that does an injustice to the US and its history. It assumes that the Bush administration represents all America, at all times, when in fact the opposite is true. For this administration, and this war, are not typical of the US. On the contrary, on almost every measure, they are exceptions to the American rule.

The US was, after all, a country founded in a rebellion against imperialism. Born in a war against a hated colonial oppressor, in the form of George III, it still sees itself as the instinctive friend of all who struggle to kick out a foreign occupier - and the last nation on earth to play the role of outside ruler.

Not for it the Greek, Roman or British path. For most of the last century, the US steered well clear of the institutions of formal empire (the Philipines was a lamentable exception). Responsibility was thrust upon it after 1945 in Germany and Japan. But as a matter of deliberate intent, America sought neither viceroys ruling over faraway lands nor a world map coloured with the stars and stripes. Influence, yes; puppets and proxies, yes. But formal imperial rule, never.

Until now. George Bush has cast off the restraint which held back America's 42 previous presidents - including his father. Now he is seeking, as an unashamed objective, to get into the empire business, aiming to rule a post-Saddam Iraq directly through an American governor-general, the retired soldier Jay Garner. As the Guardian reported yesterday, Washington's plan for Baghdad consists of 23 ministries - each one to be headed by an American. This is a form of foreign rule so direct we have not seen its like since the last days of the British empire. It represents a break with everything America has long believed in.

This is not to pretend that there is a single American ideal, still less a single US foreign policy, maintained unbroken since 1776. There are, instead, competing traditions, each able to trace its lineage to the founding of the republic. But what's striking is that George Bush's war on Iraq is at odds with every single one of them. Perhaps best known is Thomas Jefferson's call for an America which would not only refuse to rule over other nations, it would avoid meddling in their affairs altogether. He wanted no "entangling alliances". If America wished to export its brand of liberty, it should do it not through force but by the simple power of its own example. John Quincy Adams (before Bush, the only son of a president to become president), put it best when he declared that America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy". Could there be a better description of Washington's pre-emptive pursuit of Saddam Hussein?

The Jeffersonian tradition is not the only one to be broken by Operation Iraqi Freedom. Last year the historian Walter Russell Mead identified three other schools of US foreign policy. Looking at them now, it's clear that all are equally incompatible with this war.

Those Mead calls Hamiltonians are keen on maintaining an international system and preserving a balance of power - that means acknowledging equals in the world, rather than seeking solo, hegemonic domination. So Bush, whose national security strategy last year explicitly forbade the emergence of an equal to the US, is no follower of Alexander Hamilton. Jacksonians, meanwhile, have always defined America's interests narrowly: they would see no logic in travelling halfway across the world to invade a country that poses no immediate, direct threat to the US. So Bush has defied Andrew Jackson. Woodrow Wilson liked the idea of the US spreading democracy and rights across the globe; banishing Saddam and freeing the people of Iraq might have appealed to him. But he was the father of the League of Nations and would have been distressed by Washington's disregard for the UN and its lack of international backing for this war.

Which brings us to a key un-American activity by this Bush administration. Today's Washington has not only broken from the different strands of wisdom which guided the US since its birth, but also from the model that shaped American foreign policy since 1945. It's easy to forget this now, as US politicians and commentators queue up to denounce international institutions as French-dominated, limp-wristed, euro-faggot bodies barely worth the candle, but those bodies were almost all American inventions. Whether it was Nato, the global financial architecture designed at Bretton Woods or the UN itself, multilateralism was, at least in part, America's gift to the world. Every president from Roosevelt to Bush Senior honoured those creations. Seeking to change them in order to adapt to the 21st century is wholly legitimate; but drowning them in derision is to trash an American idea.

The very notion of unprovoked, uninvited, long-term and country-wide invasion is pretty un-American, too. When it thinks of itself, the US is a firm believer in state sovereignty, refusing any innovation which might curb its jurisdiction over its own affairs. Hence its opposition to the new international criminal court or indeed any international treaties which might clip its wings. Yet the sovereignty of the state of Iraq has been cheerfully violated by the US invasion. That can be defended - the scholar and former Clinton official Philip Bobbitt says sovereignty is "forfeited" by regimes which choke their own peoples - but it is, at the very least, a contradiction. The US, which holds sovereignty sacred for itself, is engaged in a war which ignores it for others.

The result is a sight which can look bizarre for those who have spent much time in the US. Americans who, back home, resent even the most trivial state meddling in their own affairs are determined to run the lives of a people on the other side of the planet. In New Hampshire car number plates bear the legend, Live Free or Die; a state motto is Don't Tread on Me. If a "government bureaucrat" comes near, even to perform what would be considered a routine task in Britain, they are liable to get an earful about the tyranny of Washington, DC. Yet Americans - whose passion for liberty is so great they talk seriously about keeping guns in case they ever need to fight their own government - assume Iraqis will welcome military rule by a foreign power.

Talk like this is not that comfortable in America just now; you'd be denounced fairly swiftly as a Saddam apologist or a traitor. The limits of acceptable discussion have narrowed sharply, just as civil liberties have taken a hammering as part of the post-9/11 war on terror. You might fall foul of the Patriot Act, or be denounced for insufficient love of country. There is something McCarthyite about the atmosphere which has spawned this war, making Democrats too fearful to be an opposition worthy of the name and closing down national debate. And things don't get much more un-American than that.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...,927754,00.html

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A Marxist Threat To Cola Sales?

The London Guardian

Greg Palast

Sunday, November 8, 1998

E-Mail Article

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'It is the firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup... Please review all your present and possibly new activities to include propaganda, black operations, surfacing of intelligence or disinformation, personal contacts, or anything else your imagination can conjure...'

'Eyes only, restricted handling, secret' message. To US station chief, Santiago. From CIA headquarters. 16 October 1970.

You would be wrong to assume this plan for mayhem was another manifestation of the Cold War between the 'free world' and communism. Much more was at stake: Pepsi-Cola's market share and other matters closer to the heart of corporate America.

In exclusive interviews with The Observer last week, the former US Ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry, told the story in - and behind - these and other top secret CIA, State Department and White House cables recently released by the National Security Archives. Korry filled in gaps in the story by describing cables still classified, and disclosing information censored in papers now available under the US Freedom of Information Act.

Korry, who served Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, told how US companies, from cola to copper, using the CIA as an international debt collection agency and investment security force.

Indeed, the October 1970 plot against Chile's President-elect Salvador Allende, using CIA 'sub-machine guns and ammo', was the direct result of a plea for action a month earlier by Donald Kendall, chairman of PepsiCo, in two telephone calls to the company's former lawyer, President Richard Nixon.

Kendall arranged for the owner of the company's Chilean bottling operation to meet National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger on September 15. Hours later, Nixon called in his CIA chief, Richard Helms, and, according to Helms's handwritten notes, ordered the CIA to prevent Allende's inauguration.

But this is only half the story, according to Korry. He claims the US conspiracy against Allende's election did not begin with Nixon, but originated - and read no further if you cherish the myth of Camelot - with John Kennedy.

In 1963, Allende was heading towards victory in Chile's presidential election. Kennedy decided his political creation, Eduardo Frei, the late father of Chile's current President, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, could win the election by buying it. Kennedy left it to his brother, Bobby, the Attorney-General, to put the plan into action.

The Kennedys cajoled US multinationals into pouring $2 billion into Chile, a nation of only 8 million people. This was not benign investment, but what Korry calls 'a mutually corrupting' web of business deals, many questionable, for which the US government would arrange guarantees and insurance.

In return, the American-based firms kicked back millions of dollars to pay for well over half of Frei's successful election campaign. By the end of this process, Americans had gobbled up more than 85 per cent of Chile's hard-currency earning industries.

The US government, the guarantor of these investments, committed extraordinary monetary, intelligence and political resources to protect them. Several business-friendly US government front organisations and operatives were sent into Chile -including the American Institute for Free Labor Development, infamous for sabotaging militant trade unions.

Then, in 1970, US investments, both financial and political, faced unexpected jeopardy. A split between Chile's centre and right-wing parties permitted an alliance of communists, socialists and radicals - uniting behind the socialist Allende - to finish the presidential election 1 per cent ahead of his nearest rival.

That October, Korry, a hardened anti-communist, hatched an off-the-wall scheme to block Allende's inauguration and return Frei to power. To promote his own bloodless intrigues, the ambassador claims he 'back-channeled' a message to Washington warning against military actions that might lead to 'another Bay of Pigs' fiasco. (Korry retains a copy of this still-classified cable.)

But Korry's prescient message only angered Kissinger, who had already authorised the Pepsi-instigated coup, scheduled for the following week. Kissinger ordered Korry to fly in secret to Washington that weekend for a dressing-down. Still not knowing about the CIA plan, Korry told Kissinger in a White House corridor that 'only a madman' would plot with Chile's ultra-right generals.

As if on cue, Kissinger opened the door to the Oval Office to introduce Nixon. Nixon - who described his ambassador as 'soft in the head' - did agree that, tactically, a coup could not yet succeed. A last-minute cable to the CIA to delay action was too late: the conspirators kidnapped and killed Chile's pro- democracy Armed Forces Chief, Rene Schneider. Public revulsion at this crime assured Allende's confirmation by Chile's Congress.

Even if the US president's sense of realpolitik may have disposed him to a modus vivendi with Allende - Korry's alternative if his Frei gambit failed - Nixon faced intense pressure from his political donors in business who were panicked by Allende's plans to nationalise their operations.

In particular, the president was aware that the owner of Chile's phone company, ITT Corporation, was illegally channelling funds into Republican Party coffers. Nixon could not ignore ITT - and ITT wanted blood. An ITT board member, ex-CIA director John McCone, pledged Kissinger $1 million in support of CIA action to prevent Allende from taking office.

Separately, Anaconda Copper and other multinationals, under the aegis of David Rockefeller's Business Group for Latin America, offered $500,000 to buy influence with Chilean congressmen to reject confirmation of Allende's victory. But Korry wouldn't play. While he knew nothing of the ITT demands on the CIA, he got wind of, and vetoed, the cash for payoffs from Anaconda and the other firms.

Korry, speaking last week from his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, disclosed that he even turned in to the Chilean authorities an army major who planned to assassinate Allende - unaware the officer was linked to the CIA plotters.

Once Allende took office, Korry sought accommodation with the new government, conceding that expropriations of the telephone and copper concessions (actually begun under Frei) were necessary to disentangle Chile from seven decades of 'incestuous and corrupting' dependency.

US corporations didn't see it that way. While pretending to bargain in good faith, they pushed the White House to impose a clandestine embargo on Chile's economy. But in case all schemes failed, ITT, claims Korry, paid $500,000 to someone referred to in their intercepted cables as 'The Fat Man'. Korry identified him as Jacobo Schaulsohn, Allende's ally on a committee set up to compensate firms whose property had been expropriated.

It was not money well spent. In 1971, when Allende learned of the corporate machinations against his government, he refused the compensation. It was this - the Chilean leader's failure to pay, not his perceived allegiance to the hammer and sickle - that sealed his fate.

The State Department pulled Korry out of Santiago in October 1971. On his return to the US, he advised the government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation to deny Anaconda Copper and ITT compensation for their seized property. Korry argued that, like someone who burns down their own home, ITT could not claim against insurance for an expropriation the company had itself provoked by violating Chilean law.

Confidentially, he recommended criminal charges against ITT's top brass, including, implicitly, chief executive Harold Geneen, for falsifying the insurance claims and lying to Congress.

Given powerful evidence against the companies, OPIC at first refused them compensation, and the Justice Department indicted two mid-level ITT operatives for perjury. But ultimately, the companies received their money and the executives went free on the grounds that they were working with the full co-operation of the CIA - and higher.

In September 1970 in a secret cable to the US Secretary of State, ambassador Korry quotes Jean Genet: 'Even if my hands were full of truths, I wouldn't open it for others.' Why open his hand now? At 77, one supposes there is a desire to correct history. He says only that it is important to take out of the shadows what he calls - optimistically - the last case of US 'dollar diplomacy'.


http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=13&row=1

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American general says West is failing Afghans

By Phil Reeves

LAHORE: As American and British cruise missiles create havoc in Baghdad, a US general has accused the West of failing to do enough to rebuild the last country visited by President BushÔÇÖs military ÔÇô Afghanistan.

His remarks come amid widespread fury in the international community over the US-British invasion of Iraq, coupled with concern that the onslaught began before adequate preparations had been made for a possible humanitarian crisis.

The chief of the US forces in Afghanistan, Lt-Gen Dan McNeill, said he was ÔÇ£frustratedÔÇØ that the West had ÔÇ£not made a more bold stepÔÇØ to rebuild Afghanistan, adding that this could be an important lesson for Iraq. The US search for Al Qaeda and the Taliban would have been easier if the aid had flowed faster, he said.

His remarks echo the worries of many in AfghanistanÔÇÖs capital city of Kabul, ranging from international aid workers to officials in the unstable transitional government of President Hamid Karzai. Fears abound that the war in Iraq, and its aftermath, will mean that international support falls away.

Although the US has repeatedly portrayed post-war Afghanistan as a success story, frustration has been steadily growing on the ground over the slow pace of reconstruction, which in many cases has scarcely begun.

General McNeill ÔÇô who commands 10,500 troops in Afghanistan, of whom 8,500 are American ÔÇô said that foreign aid had helped avert a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, but some countries had not fulfilled subsequent aid promises.

Speaking at Bagram air base outside Kabul, he said: ÔÇ£What is needed now is an overstep by the international community towards reconstruction.

ÔÇ£Clearly there is a lesson to be learnt for those who have responsibility for other conflicts and post-conflict situations.ÔÇØ

The rebuilding of Afghanistan, after a quarter of a century of conflict, has been plagued by squabbles between the US military and international aid agencies, by continuing violence, and by the new governmentÔÇÖs lack of security control over most of the country.

In most of Afghanistan, fundamental components of the infrastructure ÔÇô health services, power supplies, communications, education, security services and a road network ÔÇô are either rudimentary or missing altogether.

Funds for reconstruction have been been a problem from the early stages. A year ago, the World Bank estimated that $10.2bn (£6.5bn) would be needed over the following five years, but international pledges were for about half that sum.

According to a recent report by Care International, the per capita spending of aid money in Afghanistan last year was well under half that of post-conflict Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and East Timor.

Despite his criticisms, Lt-Gen McNeill said that the US militaryÔÇÖs mission was ÔÇ£going very wellÔÇØ. In the run-up to the start of the Iraq invasion, there had been feverish media reports that the net was closing in on Osama bin Laden. But the general said he had ÔÇ£no compelling evidenceÔÇØ either way to suggest that Osama bin Laden was dead or alive.

He spoke as his forces were involved in their largest operation for more than a year, hunting through villages and mountains of south-eastern Afghanistan.

Their mission has grown beyond a man-hunt for Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Taliban elements to encompass other armed elements ÔÇô such as those led by the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

It has been complicated by growing opposition to the US military presence, coupled with attacks aimed at destabilising the Karzai government and spoiling efforts to build an Afghan national army.

There was more evidence of this on Saturday. Police officials said on Saturday that three Afghan soldiers were killed and four kidnapped in pre-dawn attacks on security checkpoints near Spin Boldak in eastern Afghanistan. ÔÇöIndependent


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...4-3-2003_pg4_22

Yeah you could say some people skeptical....

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I will point out a few things for each article that you posted.

1st one: Saddam is a maniac, and kills his own people, or do you deny that he does this?

Saddam has attempted and in 1 case succeeded in taking over other soveriegn countries on his borders, or do you deny this?

Saddam has his henchman and sons keep the Iraqi people in terror through torture, murder, and rape, or do you deny that he does this?

Saddam signed a cease fire with us, for a UN sanctioned war, it stated that he would disarm, quit building long range missiles, quit his campaign of aquiring WMD weapons, and that he would use the food for oil program to feed his people and the UN inspectors were allowed unfettered access to his country. He failed to do any of these things, or do you claim that he has done ANY of these things? If so, name one.

Since he VIOLATED the terms of the ceasefire, this socalled Gulfwar2 is in fact just the end of Gulf war1.

and last but not least, we want NOTHING to do with the governance or control of Iraq in the long term, we are there to overthrow a Tyrant who is a threat to the middle east and the world, and to stay long enough for the Iraqi people to build their own government where they each have a voice in the governance of the country. Once the government is in place and the Iraqi's can police themselves, we will leave. We HAVE no intention of staying there in any long term capacity. Or do you deny this?

As far as the 2nd, the cola wars and DEMOCRAT Kennedy's payoffs are well known and not at all surprising, the kennedy administration was almost as bad as the Clinton administration, both of which have been Democrat administrations.

And for #3, I agree 100%, we need to pump as much aid into that country as possible, and those countries that promised aid and have not delivered need to be called on it and not trusted again. But, we need to do our best to try and get this country back on it's feet and able to defend itself from Islamic fundamentalists before we leave.

We need to leave that country as soon as possible, and we need to leave it in a better condition then we found it, this includes A: a democratic/republican form of governement, B: a modern infrastructure in which to build upon, and C: the most modern educational tools that we can give them.

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quote:

by Guidihl

Jaguar, this is supposed to be a Quotation War! Please refrain from answering directly...

ROFLMAO!! That was great!! and of course, since you are in Germany...

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Recieved this in my work e-mail. I cannot verify the source but thought it appropiate ...

quote:

Peace Activist Etiquette

With all of this talk of impending war, many of us will encounter "Peace Activists" who will try and convince us that we must refrain from retaliating against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001, and those who support terror.

These activists may be alone or in a gathering.....most of us don't know how to react to them. When you come upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper rules of etiquette:

1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.

2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in the nose.

3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you, so be careful.

4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.

5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.

6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square in the nose.

7. Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid of an argument he/she is making!

8. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is unacceptable and must be dealt with. Perhaps at a high cost.

We owe our military a huge debt for what they are about to do for us and our children. We must support them and our leaders at times like these. We have no choice. We either strike back, VERY HARD, or we will keep getting hit in the nose.

Lesson over, class dismissed.

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quote:

1st one: Saddam is a maniac, and kills his own people, or do you deny that he does this?

No. But why is it that we do business with people like this?

If that were the only reason to go to war we have a long long long way to go.

quote:

Saddam has attempted and in 1 case succeeded in taking over other soveriegn countries on his borders, or do you deny this?


What does sovereign even mean anymore? Yes he invaded Kuwait.and after we forced him out we reestablished the dictatorship.

quote:

Saddam has his henchman and sons keep the Iraqi people in terror through torture, murder, and rape, or do you deny that he does this?


No but this is a tactic used by many regimes even ones the US does business with.

quote:

Since he VIOLATED the terms of the ceasefire, this socalled Gulfwar2 is in fact just the end of Gulf war1.


All those issues point to the fact the UN would have the responsibility to enforce these things. I know you don't believe in this organization but many do. So you believe the US can act unilaterally and I do not. I believe the UN needs an overhaul but it is a good idea at its core.

quote:

We HAVE no intention of staying there in any long term capacity. Or do you deny this?


I'm guessing that as long as American oil companies are secure and operating we would then leave sorta.....for some reason we love leaving bases all over the planet....I guessing eventually a new government will nationalize the industry probably end up starting a new war...that's if our CIA and local intelligence doesn't deal with any "trouble makers" first....but we'll see.

Anyway you are dismissing the notion that all of this could have, and was, on the way to being sorted out under UN diplomatic pressure and US threat of force. Would that have gotten rid of the regime nowill getting rid of Saddam make us or the world a safer place..nobody knows that..is OBL smoking the hash and thanking us, yesdoes America look like an empire now, yes..

I will say this.thanks to the efforts of thousands of activists around the world, when America makes war it does its best to minimize civilian casualtiesthe military leadership is doing a good job all around..well just see if this administration makes any more profoundly disturbing mistakes.

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quote:

By Gallion

IMO, none of the sources quoted in this topic thread are creditable sources.

Food for thought


The original article has been checked by at least 4 credible news organizations, Reuters, AP, ABC news and Fox News, all have found it credible enough to report on.

I also have received that in my e-mail, it is hilarious, very good Gallion.

Now, onto Lotharr.

quote:

No. But why is it that we do business with people like this?

If that were the only reason to go to war we have a long long long way to go.


Yes, we do have a long, long way to go, and that is why I love the Bush doctrine so much.

Dictators etc have used us as their scapegoat for their economies and the miseries of their people long enough, they can keep their power until they step over the line into direct confrontation with us. Direct response is what they will get, hard overwhelming response.

Bush is principled and will not put up with ANY tinpot dictator that supports terrorists in any way shape or form, Iraq is a part of the fight on terror as well as ending the Gulf war, FINALLY!!!

quote:

What does sovereign even mean anymore? Yes he invaded Kuwait.and after we forced him out we reestablished the dictatorship.


We didn't reestablish anything, the UN mandate was clear, get Saddam out of Kuwait. He signed the ceasefire, therefore we could not go in after the sneaky, criminal bastard.

quote:

No but this is a tactic used by many regimes even ones the US does business with.


And as I said, as ong as those tinpot dictators keep to themselves and do not support terrorists, they may even survive the next decade or so, but for some reason I think their time is just about at hand.

quote:

All those issues point to the fact the UN would have the responsibility to enforce these things. I know you don't believe in this organization but many do. So you believe the US can act unilaterally and I do not. I believe the UN needs an overhaul but it is a good idea at its core.


The UN DID have the responsibility to enforce those resolutions, but they chose not to. If France and Germany WOULD have stayed on board and backed us with the threat of force instead of playing their games, it probably could have been resolved peacefully, we might even have gotten Saddam and his regime out of the country and into exile. They chose to argue with us and weaken the UN in the process, we took the slack and used force to make those resolutions stick.

They UN is now a joke, it is a cold war dinosaur that should be tossed onto the ashheap of history, and a new organization that will ACTUALLY do some good should replace it.

quote:

I will say this.thanks to the efforts of thousands of activists around the world, when America makes war it does its best to minimize civilian casualtiesthe military leadership is doing a good job all around..well just see if this administration makes any more profoundly disturbing mistakes.


I answered the rest of the above in the above.

As far as this is concerned, Bush has made NO mistakes at all, he has weakened and possibly destroyed any credibility the UN had, and that is a VERY GOOD thing, we have taken Iraq with a minimum of casualties, our own and civilian alike.

You do not know much about history, we have NEVER gone after mas civilian casualties without weighing the big picture first, by killing 100,000 on Hirishima and Nagasaki, we saved probably close to a million lives on both sides and another 2 years of war.

We NEVER go after civilians and have not in the last 60 years.

Your socalled ACTIVISTS have had NOTHING to do with that policy, it has ALWAYS been there.

Don't take credit for something the American government has always done.

I love how leftists like to scream about a problem, such as targeting civilians, then when the military comes out and explains that it has NEVER been our policy to go after civilians, the activists pat themselves on the back like they made some kind of difference.

I also love how the peace activists are all freaked out and feeling threatened by the COUNTER demonstrators.

Boy, when activists go unchallenged, they talk real big about how they have popular support, but when a counter demonstration gets 3 times as many people, they scream and yell how unfair it is.

Leftists in this country are on the run, Democrats, at least the far left leaning ones are freaking out, all we on the right have to do is keep quiet and watch them shoot themselves in the foot.

It's great fun to watch, because Bush has done that as well, and the left can't do anything about it, but scream and yell about how unfair it is.

WAHH, I feel for them, NOT!!!

And the support for the war is anywhere between 70-85% all depending on who is doing the polling, so the antiwar protesters lost.

My attitude is this, the antiwar protesters have lost the argument, it is done, over, we are at war, get over it. You are not going to change anything. This is NOT vietnam, sorry charlie.

As a sign that I saw in Centralia said so succinctly, "if you're not for the team, get out of our stadium"

You don't have to be for this war, but we are at war, so it is time to sit down and shut up.

It is too late for your opinion to do anything about it anyway. It's a done deal, finished, finito, done. Give it up.

It is time for us to come together and support our troops and our president.

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quote:

It is time for us to come together and support our troops and our president

The people always reserve the right to disagree with the president....always.

Trying to mesh the issues of support for the soldiers with support for the administration is clever but wrong. The two issues are decisively separate no matter how much you wish it weren't so.

quote:

My attitude is this, the antiwar protesters have lost the argument

Really?

quote:

This is NOT vietnam

No kidding

quote:

all we on the right have to do is keep quiet and watch them shoot themselves in the foot.


The right has the ball....and el presidente is really sticking out there....I think you've got this one confused.

quote:

Your socalled ACTIVISTS have had NOTHING to do with that policy, it has ALWAYS been there

YouÔÇÖre dreaming. We were the only one to veto the land mine treaty....we still use cluster munitions that are proven to devastate local populations after hostilities have ended....this is just recent history, I could go back further and demolish this statement but I don't have the time.

quote:

Bush has made NO mistakes at all,

Of course you don't think so....your posts have been almost fanatical in their support for all his polices....really amazing seeing as even the administration has strong internal disagreements....

quote:

but they chose not to

Don't rewrite history. Read a timeline do something....

quote:

If France and Germany WOULD have stayed on board and backed us with the threat of force

We never asked for use of force....Bush demanded use of war and they rightly objected.

If you can't remember the ways this administration tried to load 1441 with tripwires and vague language on use of force (easy war) than...well....it would be consistent with most of your arguments.

quote:

as ong as those tinpot dictators keep to themselves and do not support terrorists

Oh wait I thought your article was on the evil of "dictators"....now its "terrorist dictators"....now I understand....

quote:

We didn't reestablish anything

Yes we did.

quote:

the UN mandate was clear

Im sorrywhy did UN approval matter then? Clearly democracy could have been established and freed the many people of Kuwait from an illegal regime.

quote:

Yes, we do have a long, long way to go, and that is why I love the Bush doctrine so much

Ever the "Constitutionalist"

I would just like to revisit your statements about the right keeping quiet....well too late...

Lott, slashing VA benefits, and the latest and greatest. trying to force the hero's of 9-11 to work overtime with vastly expanded responsibilities for ZERO pay.....oops..Im sure its only going to get better..

[ 04-03-2003, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Lotharr ]

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And now the Saddam Airport in Baghdad is the 3rd infantry division airport.

I didn't know that the infantry needed an airport.

As the commander said, "we took it because it was there."

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quote:

Originally posted by Jaguar:

And now the Saddam Airport in Baghdad is the 3rd infantry division airport.

I think you mean Baghdad International Airport. The place is surrounded by presidential palaces, communications systems and Republican Guard offices and barracks.

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Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 2, 2003

quote:

Come the Revolution

To read the Arab press is to think that the entire Arab world is enraged with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and to some extent that's true. But here's what you don't read: underneath the rage, there is also a grudging, skeptical curiosity ÔÇö a curiosity about whether the Americans will actually do what they claim and build a new, more liberal Iraq.

While they may not be able to describe it, many Arabs intuit that this U.S. invasion of Iraq is something they've never seen before ÔÇö the revolutionary side of U.S. power. Let me explain: For Arabs, American culture has always been revolutionary ÔÇö from blue jeans to "Baywatch" ÔÇö but American power, since the cold war, has only been used to preserve the status quo here, keeping in place friendly Arab kings and autocrats.

Even after the cold war ended and America supported, and celebrated, the flowering of democracy from Eastern Europe to Latin America, the Arab world was excluded. In this neighborhood, because of America's desire for steady oil supplies and a safe Israel, America continued to support the status quo and any Arab government that preserved it. Indeed, Gulf War I simply sought to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait to restore the Kuwaiti monarchy and the flow of oil. Once that was done, Saddam was left alone.

And that is why Gulf War II is such a shock to the Arab system, on a par with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt or the Six-Day War. But different people are shocked in different ways.

To begin with, there is the shock of Arab liberals, still a tiny minority, who can't believe that America has finally used its revolutionary power in the Arab world. They are desperate for America to succeed because they think Iraq is too big to ignore, and therefore a real election there would shake the whole Arab region.

Second is the shock of those Arabs in the silent majority. They recognize this is the revolutionary side of U.S. power, but they see it through their own narrative, which says the U.S. is upsetting the status quo not to lift the Arab world up, but rather to put it down so it will submit to whatever America and Israel demand. That's the dominant theme in the Arab media: this war is simply another version of colonialism and imperialism. Al Jazeera uses the same terms for U.S. actions in Iraq as it does for Israeli actions in the West Bank ÔÇö Iraq is under U.S. "occupation," and Iraqis killed are "martyrs."

As Raymond Stock, a longtime Cairo resident and the biographer of the novelist Naguib Mahfouz, remarked, "People here, particularly the chattering classes who watch the Arab satellite channels, are so much better misinformed than you think. The Arab media generally tells them what they want to hear and shows them what they want to see. There is a narrative that is deeply embedded, and no amount of embedded reporting from the other side will change it. Only a different Iraq can do that."

But there is a third school: Egyptian officials, who are instinctively pro-American but are shocked that the Bush team would use its revolutionary power to try to remake Iraq. Egyptian officials view this as a fool's errand because they view Iraq as a congenitally divided, tribal country that can be ruled only by an iron fist.

Whose view will be redeemed depends on how Iraq plays out, but, trust me, everyone's watching. I spent this afternoon with the American studies class at Cairo University. The professor, Mohamed Kamel, summed up the mood: "In 1975, Richard Nixon came to Egypt and the government turned out huge crowds. Some Americans made fun of Nixon for this, and Nixon defended himself by saying, `You can force people to go out and welcome a foreign leader, but you can't force them to smile.' Maybe the Iraqis will eventually stop resisting you. But that will not make this war legitimate. What the U.S. needs to do is make the Iraqis smile. If you do that, people will consider this a success."

There is a lot riding on that smile, Mr. Kamel added, because this is the first "Arab-American war." This is not about Arabs and Israelis. This is about America getting inside the Arab world ÔÇö not just with its power or culture, but with its ideals. It is a war for what America stands for. "If it backfires," Mr. Kamel concluded, "if you don't deliver, it will really have a big impact. People will not just say your policies are bad, but that your ideas are a fake, you don't really believe them or you don't know how to implement them."

In short, we need to finish the peace better than we started the war.


[ 04-05-2003, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

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There was a funny article posted by LA Weekly (?) on Yahoo. It hit both sides pretty good. Not as funny as Steve's article he linked to a while back but still good. If it cycles through again I'll try to post it.

Anyway I have also read that someone freed iraqi children from jail as marines came into baghdad.

quote:

BAGHDAD (AFP) - More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom as US marines rolled into northeast Baghdad amid chaotic scenes which saw civilians loot weapons from an army compound, a US officer said.

Around 150 children spilled out of the jail after the gates were opened as a US military Humvee vehicle approached, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla told an AFP correspondent travelling with the Marines 5th Regiment.

"Hundreds of kids were swarming us and kissing us," Padilla said.

"There were parents running up, so happy to have their kids back."

"The children had been imprisoned because they had not joined the youth branch of the Baath party," he alleged. "Some of these kids had been in there for five years."

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These A$$holes, man it's all about money and ratings, what a bunch of scum.

This just pisses me off, with or without her families permission, COMS ON!! Give me a freaking break.

These people have no morals at all.

Greedy scumbags, This is another reason that I do NOT watch television.

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