Has the ‘New Left’ realigned the progressive worldview with the far right-wing?

[Dewey]

Who here has noticed how much the anti-war movement displayed the same paranoid, anti-government hysteria and how much of the mainstream-left were persuaded to embrace the most easily debunked conclusions—and delusions—as the ‘most likely’ explanations and self-evident ‘truths’ for why Bush decided to invade Iraq and explain what was taking place there?

Does any of that sound sort of familiar?: (As in: “Bush lied!....Obama lies!” “Bush is an imperialist...Obama is a socialist” or “Obama is another communist dictator—just like Stalin!...Cheney is a fascist war criminal—Bush is the next Hitler!” . . . )


Most people of the progressive persuasion don't have to strain to see the delusional and racist views — both thinly veiled and overt — in the caricatures and hyperbole that pretty much defines what the Tea-party represents: the hysterics of the right-wing.

But have those who represent the “side of reason”—those of the opposite political persuasion shown that they're any more capable of honest debate or resisting their own propaganda? Or have the pundits and propagandists and the trusted intellectuals in our academic institutions refused to reevaluate their views of America strategic interests since the Cold War ended — and went on repeating the same theme — ignoring and forgetting everything since then that didn't fit with their thesis. Does not the left still perceive America's foreign policy as though it were still crafted by Henry Kissinger to ruthlessly contain another superpower that is deceased and has not existed for the past twenty years? Why has the left been so reluctant to retire or reevaluate whether American foreign policy is still the same aggressive hegemon that's driven by the Cold War power struggle and paranoia that required America to prop up right-wing dictators and overthrow democratic regimes and contain national liberation movements that were armed by the Soviets or drew some inspiration from Marx's ideas. But still these notions still predominate and frame the debate—and drown out facts and reason: why else would the left have been so quick to dismiss Iraq's first-ever democratic elections—as though they were not historic or really worthy of consideration? The liberals in Western democracies did not stand in solidarity or show them much support. But a few too many of them had quite a lot to say about Iraq's new constitution — which was framed by representatives that Iraqis elected and appointed; openly discussed and debated by Iraqis and ratified by a referendum and overwhelmingly approved — but much maligned and criticized in the West who made quite a lot of the fact that it mentioned the word “Islam” — once; and had not much to say about it requiring women to be represented by one quarter of the seats in parliament (more than were represented in all but one or two European nations in 2005 when it was drafted and went into effect.)


So despite the nearly ubiquitous assumptions on the left about American imperial designs and “Western aggressions” against a “sovereign state” the left's prevailing views about America continue unchallenged and unquestioned — the predetermined conclusions, having already solidified in a predictable partisan way, the current consensus among “progressives” continues to hold sway and polarize perceptions in predictably unprincipled ways. Or have “progressives” in Europe and America began pressuring their governments to keep troops in Afghanistan to ensure that the 2.5 million women enrolled in schools there aren't reenslaved by the Taliban?


Does that seem like a ‘fair and balanced’ depiction? Does it exaggerate the general sentiment among progressives? I live in New England — the heartland of the ‘intellectual elite’ where Chomsky can still command standing-room-only at his lectures — so basically my view of the “liberal establishment” is up close and personal from front row seats. That may make my perceptions of ‘the left’ a bit myopic, I dunno, maybe, but from I sit, at least, this caricature of the views that pervade the left correctly reflects something disturbing and significant. What I sense today is that this sentiment has dissipated and remains dormant in the background — but essentially unchanged because the reasons for left's overwhelming opposition to Iraq — all the facile assumptions and unconscionable demands that America pull out and abandon an entire country to be consumed by civil war and become a failed state; demands that a few years ago were regarded as a moral imperative and the only acceptable “solution” — have not been revisited or critically examined. Neither do people question how principled it was for liberals to demagogically and relentlessly demonize the “neocons” for “unilaterally” deposing a totalitarian ethnic cleansing regime and bringing an end to the twelve years of ‘genocidal sanctions (http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/99/9.30.99/Halliday_talk.html)’ .

Where were all these people who protested the “imperialist” Iraq war during the decade preceding it — the decade in which the vast majority of them remained passive and unmotivated by the criminally unjust and nakedly imperialist and UN approved policy—that enforced an embargo on an entire country, the longest embargo against another nation in history. The world watched with remarkable indifference as a country of 20 million people was cut off from the global economy and denied them their Int'l right of free-trade: because their unelected-dictator refused to cooperate; and the left in America seemed not to care or be aware that they consumed many times more of Iraq's oil per capita than any nation since Americans consume the most oil of anyone on earth—and also because american oil companies had secured a 2/3rd monopoly on the oil exported through UN Oil-for-Food scheme and imported it for domestic consumption. Shouldn't they have considered that and clarified what they meant when they adopted the slogan “no blood for oil” when they, and every other american, were already complicit in the crime of stealing a blood-resource and consuming that wealth freely—free, of course, but only in the figurative sense: since we paid out of pocket at the pump for the privilege of furnishing more palaces for their president and paying for a police-state powerful enough to ‘contain’ them even while they were “contained” from without with crippling UN sanctions; sanctions that were enforced and defended—candidly, on prime-time tv—by the Clinton administration when 60 minutes reported that they had contributed to the deaths of half-a-million children (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4)—a claim which Madeleine Albright did not bother to dispute or deny—because, really...who was going to hold that against them when the alternative was regime change by other, more aggressive measures that the anti-war—anti-fascist-and-imperialist—left were certain to protest (since the left always takes the side of justice and democracy and stands up for the oppressed.)

But for some reason, the most ultra-conservative and inhumane option of continued ‘containment’ became the preference of the left; as was their willingness to excuse and justify the fanatics and the fascists who fought for the reactionary “resistance” — that savagely ‘resisted’ the radical revolution that transformed Iraq from a traumatized, sectarian society under a totalitarian dictatorship to an open one with an elected constitutional government — despite the protests and opposition in Iraq and Europe and even here in the America. Can any one be so ignorant to what would have happened there had America done what they demanded and withdrawn in 2005, '06 or '07 ? How can ‘the left’ look themselves in the mirror and refuse to reevaluate the progressive merits of their positions? How can they point to Bush's rhetoric that rejected ‘nation-building (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9SOVzMV2bc)’ and his support for the orthodoxy of the right-wing — that strongly favors the realist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_in_international_relations_theory) position — that he defended in the 2000 debates, and think that the irony is on him; not them? How can so many on the left be so clueless and unprincipled?

None of this matters or receives attention from mainstream “progressives” in America. The left remains oblivious that they have become wingnuts with right-wing views who are just as comically self-righteous and at least as easily manipulated as their opposition who represent the ‘other’ right-wing who call themselves ‘conservatives’. They remain ignorant of the fact that their rhetoric is, remarkably: exactly the same. The same arguments and reasons that resonate with the left regarding the threat to the world that the “neo-con agenda” represents is repeated word for word by the majority who identify with the extreme right; the arguments of views of the anti-war Left are identical and indistinguishable in every way from the isolationist rhetoric spewed from the far right — whether from the B.N.P. or Ron Paul the Tea party, or the John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/1666-mccain-and-obama-are-no-different-on-iraq) and the KKK (http://sweetness-light.com/archive/kkk-to-protest-iraq-war-in-gettysburg) — which, by some strange coincidence, also share their paranoia of cabals: like the “neocon” cabal — who, of course, are completely controlled by corporations that conspire with “zionazis” to control most of the world — which they intend to dominate with their nation-state the size of maine...or so much of the left continues to suspect is the case.






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left :confused:

[Dewey]

And speaking of “the Joos”....no, but seriously: how can people like Noam Chomsky still be taken seriously by anyone on the left — or be allowed to step foot in any liberal institution of higher learning and the humanities — and be received with admiration instead of revulsion and contempt when this man has not retracted—but continues—to repeat discredited (http://www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Chomsky-denial.htm) and disproven (http://www.thecommentfactory.com/criticising-chomsky-on-the-balkans-three-activists-speak-out-3043/) claims made by Milosevic apologists and Serbian propaganda (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhgwdJldeU); and continues to conscientiously omit facts in a way that conveys victims of Serbian ethnic cleansing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosova as the aggressors who ‘provoked it’ and portray the ones who perpetrated the genocide as the victims of NATO and the KLA; and continues to misquote authors—while mentioning them by name—to support his claims of Western ‘neoliberal conspiracies’ theories to explain why NATO and America finally took action to stop the Serbs from creating their “Greater Serbia” by cleansing all of Yugoslavia of its muslim population.

And by the way, why is it that Chomsky's condemnation and distorted claims regarding the American-NATO intervention in the Balkans—that successfully stopped campaigns of genocide—are also the views of Howard Zinn and Robert Fisk and a great many others who are that far to the left? One would think that the farther left one's views, the more militantly one might be in favor of fighting against fascists and the less likely they'd be minimize or overlook their crimes of genocide and imperialist ambitions? How much more stereotypically ‘Nazi’ can one get than Milosevic's version of Liebestraum — of conquering and “cleansing” his way to a “greater Serbia” ?How much more can “intellectuals” like Noam Chomsky of the left and right-wing apologists for fascists like Pat Buchanan agree and sound the same in both their criticisms of Nato's intervention and their excuses or Serb atrocities and their ignorant denials of genocide?









Thanks for letting me unload this diatribe on your forum btw. I proof read it but I am both dyslexic and verbose — not the best combination — so I apologize in advance for any streams of conscience that may lack concise sentence structure or any words that have got left out or might be misplaced.... (and so forth.)

[Mike]

I would like to understand your viewpoint. I see that you oppose the "progressives" and the "far-left", and you seem to oppose the "far-right", as well, if I'm reading correctly. I'm interested in your remarks about the original reasons for the invasion of Iraq under the last administration--so, I would like you to briefly elaborate so that I can comprehend the lens, so to speak, through which you interpret the U.S. role. I think we could have an interesting comparison of viewpoints.

[Dewey]

The reasons? Until someone can show me any ‘reason’ to doubt the reason that the Bush administration gave prior to March 2003 — that 9/11 drove home the fact that chemical and biological weapons in the hands of terrorists were perceived to pose the greatest threat to our national security, and Saddam Hussein's regime was believed to have these things as of 1998 when the UNISCOM inspectors discovered he was still weaponizing VX nerve gas: and they were prevented from verifying or destroying it or pursuing any further inspections inside Iraq.

And second, because Iraq is the strategic center — the ‘keystone state’ — of the Gulf and the surrounding middle east. For one, a democratic Iraq is situated in the perfect place to transform the middle east — especially Iran. And also Saddam Hussein's regime was not perceived at the time to have any long-term future prospects considering its unrivaled corruption and brutality, and its history of reckless aggressions and ethnic cleansings — which made it a huge strategic liability since not only did Iraq contained 10-15 percent of the world's known reserves but it also bordered three other countries that each contained similar quantities of oil and similar ethnic and religious makeups — minority groups like the shi'ites that are neglected and oppressed in the oil producing regions of Saudi and would most likely have destabilized Iraq's neighbors and also sucked them into the power vacuum after a collapse of his regime to restrain their favored sect from the sectarian reprisals and forced them to fight a civil war/proxy conflict with Iran.....and then the Kurds would have declared themselves a state and Turkey would have invaded Kurdistan.... and then things probably would have gotten worse or better who knows. Luckily: we don't.


But my reasons for supporting the war are my own, not George Bush's. I think it was really a no brainer for any responsible and aware American who is a liberal like me — since my country was also the one that bombed much of Iraq's vital infrastructure in 1991 and left their dictator in power and allowed him to crush his people when they rose up against him and threatened his regime; and, also, because I knew Americans had been consuming — or rather: stealing — 2/3rds of the Iraqi people's oil that was being exported through the UN oil for food program during the embargo that was enforced on an entire nation because their psychopath president would much rather have had them be deprived and starved and use their dead children for propaganda then cooperate with the US or the West. And finally, like I said: because I am a humanist and a liberal — so naturally I am against fascist, ethnic cleansing regimes and obviously take the side of the people who are forced to live under illegitimate dictatorships and who wish to see them toppled and replaced with popularly approved constitutions and a democratically elected government to represent and serve their interests.

[Mike]

The reasons? Until someone can show me any ‘reason’ to doubt the reason that the Bush administration gave prior to March 2003 — that 9/11 drove home the fact the fact chemical and biological weapons in the hands of terrorists were perceived to pose the greatest threat to our national security, and Saddam Hussein's regime was believed to have these things as of 1998 when the UNISCOM inspectors discovered he was still weaponizing VX nerve gas: and they were prevented from verifying or destroying it or pursuing any further inspections inside Iraq.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkOCIfNQXP0
I was watching this segment of President Bush' announcement of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. I noted that at .08 seconds into this video President Bush stated that the mission was to "disarm Iraq, free its people, and defend the world from grave danger." At about 2.55 through 3.30 he said, "The people of the United States will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens our peace with weapons of mass murder." Do you feel that these quotes articulate what you said?

[Dewey]

Yes. I agree completely with every word of that speech.

[Mike]

Yes. I agree completely with every word of that speech.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkOCIfNQXP0
I was watching this segment of President Bush' announcement of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. I noted that at .08 seconds into this video President Bush stated that the mission was to "disarm Iraq, free its people, and defend the world from grave danger." At about 2.55 through 3.30 he said, "The people of the United States will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens our peace with weapons of mass murder." Do you feel that these quotes articulate what you said?

"Disarm(ing) Iraq" connoted that it constituted a clear and present danger to the United States. It did not. We learned that the weapons of mass murder did not exist on a scale that could threaten our country or the rest of the region, let alone the world. Therefore, in my opinion, items one and three in President Bush's statement of military mission were bogus. Item number two, freeing the Iraqi people, begs the question: free them from what? The obvious answer would be to free them from Saddam Hussein, which no one can dispute did occur. But two contentions glare back at us. The first is that we don't belong in the business of removing other countries' dictators. The second is that we didn't free the Iraqi people, we only substituted one set of misery for another.

[Dewey]

"Disarm(ing) Iraq" connoted that it constituted a clear and present danger to the United States. It did not. We learned that the weapons of mass murder did not exist on a scale that could threaten our country or the rest of the region, let alone the world.





Yes, but really, we learned much more than that. Have we not? We only ‘learned’ that Saddam Hussein no longer possessed the 500 to 600 metric tons of mustard gas or the 200 tons of VX or 100 - 200 tons of Sarin; or several thousand gallons of Anthrax and Botulinum toxin; or the arsenal of 40,000 to 60,000 weaponized shells, rockets, bombs and warheads containing chemical and biological WMD — that UNISCOM was unable to account for 1998 and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission could not verify and confirm what had been claimed by Iraq's regime — that all of Iraq's unaccounted for WMD had been used up or previously disposed of — when inspections resumed in late 2002 and 2003.

But thanks to president Bush's decision to “disarm Iraq” we now know that Saddam Hussein did not have any WMDs and we know that he could not have afforded to reacquire the necessary infrastructure and expertise to mass produce them because he was a nothing but a broke-ass broken man — a washed-up, homeless and humiliated homeless has-been who went from owning: an entire country containing: 10 to 20 percent of the world's oil—to pay for his sixty or seventy palaces costing hundreds of millions a piece; and a nation of 20 million people—and a militarized police-state to make sure they worshipped him and weed out the ones who didn't—to owning absolutely nothing and living, literally, like a rodent: hiding in a hole; eating rancid hotdogs that no human ought to eat.

But that same helpless looking rodent man who was cowering in a hole somewhere had been a very irresponsible and reckless dictator who once ordered 8 divisions — including two divisions of his elite Republican Guard and what was left of his armor: about 1,000 tanks — and began positioning them along the border with Kuwait to prepare for another invasion in 1994: only three years after a superpower sent half-a-million troops — and a coalition of armies comprising the countries from half the world — had turned his military from the sixth most powerful in the world to banana republic strength almost overnight. And the year before that he sent commandos into Quwait to assassinate an American former head-of-state.


When the fog and spin of revisionist claims that have accumulated over the last part of the decade fades and the facts are revisited, then I think it becomes plain once again that, after 9/11, had any president allowed a regime like that to remain in power — one with a history of acting suicidally and a history of concealing WMDs stockpiles from inspectors and the ability to reconstitute an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons or sell the technological and expertise and the assist with the means to make them, and, after failing to come clean and cooperate completely: by making every conceivable effort to demonstrate that the regime had no more stockpiles and no aspirations attain them and had cancelled the programs and dismantled the infrastructure to manufacture them — would have been plainly unfit for office. Given what was known about the history of the regime and, especially, its reluctance to provide any convincing evidence that the missing stockpiles were disposed of and no longer in its possession — it would have been an impeachable act of negligence for any president to have chosen to allow the status quo of ‘containment’ rather than regime change: that would have been the most irresponsible and reckless option that ignored the first and most important duty of any commander-in-chief.


But the reaction from the anti-war factions and the white noise from numerous other opportunistic partisans and Bush haters — and, of course, the gross incompetence of Rumsfeld who nearly succeeded in securing defeat from the jaws of victory — made people forget about all of that....and it didn't help that Bush could never quite articulate even the most obvious arguments that would have easily made the case without him saying anything.

But: he said this much, at least:




“Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”







Therefore, in my opinion, items one and three in President Bush's statement of military mission were bogus. Item number two, freeing the Iraqi people, begs the question: free them from what? The obvious answer would be to free them from Saddam Hussein, which no one can dispute did occur. But two contentions glare back at us. The first is that we don't belong in the business of removing other countries' dictators. The second is that we didn't free the Iraqi people, we only substituted one set of misery for another.




okay, but do you know why you have arrived at this conclusion? Can you recite the reasons?


Over twelve million Iraqis — 79.6 percent of the electorate — participated in their first parliamentary elections and nearly that many turned out to vote in their first ever free and open elections ten months before that to elect a transition government — that appointed delegates from each of Iraq's constituencies to debate and frame their country's federal constitution: which the Iraq's overwhelming approved by national referendum (all except for the sunni provinces of Iraq which overwhelming voted against it.)

Iraq went from three decades of totalitarian rule to a democracy; from a three decades of a completely closed society governed by an ethnic cleansing fascist sectarian dictatorship to a open society that can reintegrate with the world; from a closed economy under an embargo that took the lives an estimated half-a-million children to a very prosperous petrol producing country that, thanks to America and Bush, has some prospects for a future. No country ever undoes progress and rapid change without confronting major challenges and growing pains.

What Bush unleashed was nothing other than a revolution. A transition from totalitarian-sectarian state to a representative democracy is a radical reformation: and unlike most others transformative revolutions in history — like the one that established the first republic of France, for example — the one in Iraq just might succeed and last longer than the cynics have predicted. Democratic institutions and traditions take some time to establish themselves — but they become stronger and more entrenched with each election where a plurality of the electorate participates and a majority accepts the results as legitimate or fair.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxbdXVqWGk

[Mike]

"Disarm(ing) Iraq" connoted that it constituted a clear and present danger to the United States. It did not. We learned that the weapons of mass murder did not exist on a scale that could threaten our country or the rest of the region, let alone the world. Therefore, in my opinion, items one and three in President Bush's statement of military mission were bogus. Item number two, freeing the Iraqi people, begs the question: free them from what? The obvious answer would be to free them from Saddam Hussein, which no one can dispute did occur. But two contentions glare back at us. The first is that we don't belong in the business of removing other countries' dictators. The second is that we didn't free the Iraqi people, we only substituted one set of misery for another.Yes, but really, we learned ... that all of Iraq's unaccounted for WMD had been used up or previously disposed of — when inspections resumed in late 2002 and 2003.

But thanks to president Bush's decision to “disarm Iraq” we now know that Saddam Hussein did not have any WMDs and we know that he could not have afforded to reacquire the necessary infrastructure and expertise to mass produce them... Yes, precisely: Iraq's unaccounted for WMD had been used up or previously disposed of No, we didn’t learn it thanks to Bush’s decision. We learned it because the WMDs weren’t there. Bush’s decision did not eliminate the weapons—the weapons didn’t exist.

You asked, "okay, but do you know why you have arrived at this conclusion? Can you recite the reasons?" And you added, "Over twelve million Iraqis ... participated in their first parliamentary elections and nearly that many turned out to vote in their first ever free and open elections ten months before that to elect a transition government..."

Perhaps you misconstrue by remark that we didn't free the Iraqi people. I mean that it’s all good and well to vote with a super power standing nearby to protect the appearance of freedom. But citing elections strikes me as a red herring—Bush didn’t send the army to Iraq for the sake of Iraqi suffrage. He was referring to Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. If numbers of the people suffered (and I believe they did) under Hussein’s rule, then other numbers of the people have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the chaos our invasion created and failed to stop. As Bush stated, Iraq is a country about the geographic size of California. Is it accurate to say that in an area that size beset continually with bombings and violence (which didn’t occur before our arrival) there is freedom just because of some elections? I opine that it is NOT. If that were the kind of freedom Bush wanted us to believe our invasion would bring I can’t imagine a single Iraqi agreeing with him to “bring it on.” And if that were the kind of freedom we lived with in the United States, then merely being able to vote wouldn’t keep very many Americans in the U.S. (Perhaps voting is to Freedom as sneezing is to the Common Cold: Many people who have a Cold, sneeze. But not everyone we observe sneezing has a Cold.) :)

[jazzmo413]

We went into the Iraq war on the lies of Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld. Bush went along with whatever these two said. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. He hated the ones that took down our towers. Sadaam would never have let anyone from Iran, or Afganistan into his country, He hated them. We had Iraq stimied, Sadaam couldn't even fly in his own airspace. We had him controlled, but when we did invade, it opened the borders of Iraq to all the terroists, and it became a breeding ground for them. The Bush administration is partly to blame for the influx of so many more terrosists around the world today. If we would have gone to the country that did attack us, the afganistan war might have been over long ago.

[dave fagan]

So here sat that tinhorn dictator upon 12% of the world's OIL, now closer to 20%. And here is the World's largest OIL companies. Saddam is selling his OIL in Euros and that was very profitable. That threatened to Federal Reserve Currency. Energy companies distribute, so if you can get any country into your system your profit. After inspection the UN says Iraq has no WMD. Saddam stated publicly that access to any spot in Iraq was on the table. George W. Bush, who incidentally holds the US record for executions, suggests Iraq is in bed with OBL and has WMD. These were famous lies when they were stated, not as a result of factual confirmation after the fact. You're definitely a believer Dewey. Never work with facts if belief will suffice. If you cannot realize that this country is run by Corporations, banking and energy, and these do not live and breathe or have the same moral code as humans, then your are ignoring reality. I guess it's OK, lots of people do it. They don't like to have their bubble popped. catharctic.

[Mike]

We went into the Iraq war on the lies of Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld. Bush went along with whatever these two said. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. He hated the ones that took down our towers. Sadaam would never have let anyone from Iran, or Afganistan into his country, He hated them. We had Iraq stimied, Sadaam couldn't even fly in his own airspace. We had him controlled, but when we did invade, it opened the borders of Iraq to all the terroists, and it became a breeding ground for them. The Bush administration is partly to blame for the influx of so many more terrosists around the world today. If we would have gone to the country that did attack us, the afganistan war might have been over long ago.I agree that S.H. had nothing to do with the 911 attack, and I agree regarding his political and ideological attitudes. I agree with your assessment of the impacts of our invasion and the resulting effects on increased terrorism in Iraq, itself. At the risk of seeming to split hairs, the only thing that I would react to is the choice of the word "country" in the same sentence with reference to those who attacked us. It may seem like a detail, but I think it's important to be clear that Afghanistan was a sort of safe harbor for Bin Ladin, and not an adversary in the sense that one usually considers countries at war--perhaps that's another topic, though.

[Mike]

So here sat that tinhorn dictator upon 12% of the world's OIL, now closer to 20%. And here is the World's largest OIL companies. Saddam is selling his OIL in Euros and that was very profitable. That threatened to Federal Reserve Currency. Energy companies distribute, so if you can get any country into your system your profit. After inspection the UN says Iraq has no WMD. Saddam stated publicly that access to any spot in Iraq was on the table. George W. Bush, who incidentally holds the US record for executions, suggests Iraq is in bed with OBL and has WMD.Your point is that U.S. energy needs generally and Oil Companies interests specifically play(ed) an integral role in U.S. foreign policy and actions; and you're saying that is true regarding Iraq, as well. I believe that, too. I think history over the last 100 years substantiates it.

[Mike]

When the fog and spin of revisionist claims that have accumulated over the last part of the decade is fades away and facts are revisited, then I think it becomes plain enough once again that, after 9/11, if any president had allowed a regime like that to remain in power — one with a history of acting suicidally and a history of concealing WMDs stockpiles from inspectors and the ability to reconstitute an arsenal of biological and chemical or sell the technological and expertise means; and after failing to come clean and cooperate completely: by making every conceivable effort to demonstrate that he had no more stockpiles and had cancelled the programs and dismantled the infrastructure to make more — would have been plainly unfit for office. It would have been an impeachable act negligence for any president to have chosen to allow the status quo of ‘containment’ rather than regime change: that would have been an irresponsible an in dereliction of the first and most important duty of any commander-in-chief.With your permission, I think I would like to utilize this quote as food for thought on another (new) thread. I'm thinking (of the new thread being) more along the lines of principle and with regard to other countries (not Iraq and Afghanistan per se.) Are you good with that? :)

[Dewey]

Yes, precisely: Iraq's unaccounted for WMD had been used up or previously disposed of No, we didn’t learn it thanks to Bush’s decision. We learned it because the WMDs weren’t there. Bush’s decision did not eliminate the weapons—the weapons didn’t exist.



Well, no. I don't see how it could be ‘red herring’ when you consider what other options were available for verifying that Iraq was disarmed after the regime had failed to verifiably document that it had destroyed them; or remained reluctant to disclose the evidence that it had done so, or simply transported what remained to the Ba'athist regime in Syria as some believe; or destroyed them prior to inspection along with any documents and evidence that it had them. The only way to verify Saddam's regime was disarmed — and would not reconstitute its former weapons capability and rededicate its resources to acquiring a nuclear arsenal: other than the option of liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein's regime.






You asked, "okay, but do you know why you have arrived at this conclusion? Can you recite the reasons?" And you added, "Over twelve million Iraqis ... participated in their first parliamentary elections and nearly that many turned out to vote in their first ever free and open elections ten months before that to elect a transition government..."


Perhaps you misconstrue by remark that we didn't free the Iraqi people. I mean that it’s all good and well to vote with a super power standing nearby to protect the appearance of freedom. But citing elections strikes me as a red herring—Bush didn’t send the army to Iraq for the sake of Iraqi suffrage. He was referring to Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. If numbers of the people suffered (and I believe they did) under Hussein’s rule, then other numbers of the people have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the chaos our invasion created and failed to stop. As Bush stated, Iraq is a country about the geographic size of California. Is it accurate to say that in an area that size beset continually with bombings and violence (which didn’t occur before our arrival) there is freedom just because of some elections? I opine that it is NOT. If that were the kind of freedom Bush wanted us to believe our invasion would bring I can’t imagine a single Iraqi agreeing with him to “bring it on.” And if that were the kind of freedom we lived with in the United States, then merely being able to vote wouldn’t keep very many Americans in the U.S. (Perhaps voting is to Freedom as sneezing is to the Common Cold: Many people who have a Cold, sneeze. But not everyone we observe sneezing has a Cold.) :)


ok. two things:


1. Your claim that “Bush didn’t send the army to Iraq for the sake of Iraqi suffrage” is ignoring the fact that the so-called “neo-cons”—including the Iraqis who belonged to the Iraqi Nat'l Congress who, understandably, had long been the most forceful advocates for regime change—had been lobbying for regime change by arguing that establishing an elected government in Iraq was the best way to ‘spread democracy in the region’. It was an argument that Bush himself embraced and made repeatedly once it had decided that Saddam Hussein's regime was not cooperating and would have to go. How quickly and conveniently facts like these that were considered common knowledge at the time of the “invasion” have been forgotten ?


2. I think we should avoid any comparisons between those of us who live in the oldest, freest and most prosperous liberal democracy in the world and those who have lived inside the youngest democracy that previously had been ruled continuously by its smallest sect since 1920 and ruled by a ruthless dictator for a quarter century during which fought two successive wars with its neighbors that cost Iraq more than a half-a-million lives — followed by a mass-uprising spanning more than half of the country that claimed the lives of another 30,000 to 100,000 shi'ites and “marsh arabs” and forced over one and a half million more to flee to Iran — and had been subjected to 12 years under an oil embargo that strangled their economy and took the lives of tens-of-thousands of Iraq's children each year.

Sandra Mackey published a book the year before Iraq was freed that describes what happened when an Iraqi tank returning from Quwait blew up a portrait of Saddam Hussein in the shi'ite city of Basra and began the rebellion that conquered every city in the southern half of the country. At the time most people assumed that it was inevitable that the uprising would quickly make its way to Baghdad and topple the regime since the Kurds in the northern Iraq rebelled simultaneously and took control of the northern cities. But then the sunnis in central Iraq reacted out of fear and came together to support Saddam Hussein's regime which is what allowed him to send his two remaining Republican Guard divisions that were securing Baghdad to the south to contain the uprising and box them in as helicopter gunships forced them to retreat to Iran or escape to the marshlands between the Tigris and Euphrates — which they drained and bombed with chemical weapons in ‘clean up operations’.



If America held elections after being ruled by a ruthless dictatorship for thirty years that was marginally supported by a ruling class comprising 1/5 of the population and had used chemical weapons against the remaining groups representing the other 80 percent to stay in power how do you think that 20 percent who were relatively well connected and unmolested would react to the prospect of returning to a system of self-rule that empowered the majority?

But there are, of course, these same sorts of transitions in America's past that illustrate what we would expect to happen in situations like these (events that regardless of the outcomes do provide insights and share obvious similarities.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_era_of_the_United_States

[Dewey]

...........

[Dewey]

With your permission, I think I would like to utilize this quote as food for thought on another (new) thread. I'm thinking (of the new thread being) more along the lines of principle and with regard to other countries (not Iraq and Afghanistan per se.) Are you good with that? :)



ok. sure. No problem man. :o

Here, I edited it and cleaned it up a bit. Hopefully the wording is a little more intelligible:





When the fog and spin of revisionist claims that have accumulated over the last part of the decade fades and the facts are revisited, then I think it becomes plain once again that, after 9/11, had any president allowed a regime like that to remain in power — one with a history of acting suicidally and a history of concealing WMDs stockpiles from inspectors and the ability to reconstitute an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons or sell the technological and expertise and the assist with the means to make them, and, after failing to come clean and cooperate completely: by making every conceivable effort to demonstrate that the regime had no more stockpiles and no aspirations attain them and had cancelled the programs and dismantled the infrastructure to manufacture them — would have been plainly unfit for office. Given what was known about the history of the regime and, especially, its reluctance to provide any convincing evidence that the missing stockpiles were disposed of and no longer in its possession — it would have been an impeachable act of negligence for any president to have chosen to allow the status quo of ‘containment’ rather than regime change: that would have been the most irresponsible and reckless option that ignored the first and most important duty of any commander-in-chief.

[Mike]

ok. two things:

1. Your claim that “Bush didn’t send the army to Iraq for the sake of Iraqi suffrage” is ignoring the fact that the so-called “neo-cons”—including the Iraqis who belonged to the Iraqi Nat'l Congress who, understandably, had long been the most forceful advocates for regime change—had been lobbying for regime change by arguing that an establishing an elected government in Iraq was the best way to ‘spread democracy in the region’. It was an argument that Bush himself embraced and made repeatedly once it had decided that Saddam Hussein's regime was not cooperating and would have to go.

2. I think we should avoid any comparisons between those of us who live in the oldest, freest and most prosperous liberal democracy in the world and those who have lived inside the youngest democracy... The neo-cons and INC, huh? THAT's the fact that I'm ignoring? And that's supposed to give validity to the invasion or to prove that it was done to bring freedom to the people?


The Iraqi National Congress (INC) is an umbrella Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi. It was formed with the aid and direction of the United States government following the Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
INC was set up following the Persian Gulf War to coordinate the activities of various anti-Saddam groups. Then President George Bush signed a presidential finding directing the Central Intelligence Agency to create conditions for Hussein's removal in May 1991. Coordinating anti-Saddam groups was an important element of this strategy. The name INC was reportedly coined by public relations expert John Rendon (of the Rendon Group agency) and the group was funded by the United States. The group received millions in covert funding in the 1990s, and then about $8 million a year in overt funding after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. The deep involvement of the American CIA in the creation and early funding of the INC in its early years led many to consider the group a "creation of the CIA" rather than an organ of genuine Iraqi opposition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_National_Congress
The INC was a contrivance made (by the Americans who wanted to invade) expressly for the purpose of giving the appearance of ligitimacy to their actions. So, that pretty much puts that argument to rest.

Regarding your second objection, I'm fine if you want to avoid making comparisons to the United States. But keep in mind that I understood you (and President Bush) to have brought them up. I understood you to say that freeing the Iraqi People is measured by elections (under the model and under the military protection of the United States.) On the other hand I argued that freeing the people is measured by what they are free "from" when I pointed out that the invasion merely substituted one kind of misery for another. That's not freedom by any stretch. The whole invasion was an excercise in modeling Iraq after the United States. So, avoiding comparisons pretty much negates the whole basis for the invasion in one fell swoop according to what I understand to be your citation of the goals.

[jazzmo413]

Here's the basis for the invasion. Mr. Cheney was ready to put it on the table even before Bush was elected-excuse me-before he was appointed by the Supreme Court. It was the first business Mr. Cheney proposed, and led Bush there. Now i remember the first comment Mr. Bush said when contemplating the invasion, and he said this with conviction and anger. Quote: This is the man who tried to kill my dad. That was Bush's reason for going. Sadaam had nothing to do with 9/11. The United States had him so cornered in his own country he couldn't even fly in his own airspace. He was a despicable man, don't get me wrong about that, but i feel if we would have gone after the ones responsible, the Afganastan war may have been over by now, and just maybe we would have gotten the bastard that attacked us, that being Bin Laden. Iraq didn't ask us to come and fee them. Kosovo a little different. They wanted us and our allies to help

[Dewey]

Here's the basis for the invasion. Mr. Cheney was ready to put it on the table even before Bush was elected-excuse me-before he was appointed by the Supreme Court. It was the first business Mr. Cheney proposed, and led Bush there. Now i remember the first comment Mr. Bush said when contemplating the invasion, and he said this with conviction and anger. Quote: This is the man who tried to kill my dad. That was Bush's reason for going. Sadaam had nothing to do with 9/11. The United States had him so cornered in his own country he couldn't even fly in his own airspace. He was a despicable man, don't get me wrong about that, but i feel if we would have gone after the ones responsible, the Afganastan war may have been over by now, and just maybe we would have gotten the bastard that attacked us, that being Bin Laden. Iraq didn't ask us to come and fee them. Kosovo a little different. They wanted us and our allies to help


No. no. no....Here's how it really went down: Dick Cheney is Saddam Hussein's half-brother from another mother who inherited a huge share of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company—later BP—from Saddam's father: a self-made Armenian oil barren named Gulbenkian Khan. Saddam grew up thinking the was an illegitimate illiterate trying to hustle a living on streets of Tikrit until one day this mercedes pulls up next to him... And yunno, you can probably guess what happened next — and why Cheney fell in love with Saddam and had to have his half-brother amore silenced forever. It was NOT because jealousy or greed (that's just gossip, rumors and hearsay.)

The end.

[Dewey]

The neo-cons and INC, huh? THAT's the fact that I'm ignoring? And that's supposed to give validity to the invasion or to prove that it was done to bring freedom to the people?

The INC was a contrivance made (by the Americans who wanted to invade) expressly for the purpose of giving the appearance of ligitimacy to their actions. So, that pretty much puts that argument to rest.

Regarding your second objection, I'm fine if you want to avoid making comparisons to the United States. But keep in mind that I understood you (and President Bush) to have brought them up. I understood you to say that freeing the Iraqi People is measured by elections (under the model and under the military protection of the United States.) On the other hand I argued that freeing the people is measured by what they are free "from" when I pointed out that the invasion merely substituted one kind of misery for another. That's not freedom by any stretch. The whole invasion was an excercise in modeling Iraq after the United States. So, avoiding comparisons pretty much negates the whole basis for the invasion in one fell swoop according to what I understand to be your citation of the goals.


No. I'm fine with comparisons: like the one I made between Iraq and Afghanistan and the Reconstruction Era here in the United States following the liberation of the South and the toppling of the Confederate regime there. They had so-called “liberals” back then too — they were all abolitionists who became peaceniks a few years after the war ended and decided to appease the terrorist white-league and KKK Talibans and accommodate the demands of the former confederates and allow them to take back control of their states and allow an end of the federal military occupation — which was all that was keeping about 5,000 brand new federally funded public schools built by the Freedman bureau from being burnt to the ground; and it was all that was securing the suffrage and civil rights for four million black citizens, and of course, it was the only thing keeping the people they elected in office.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Republican_Party_(United_States)



Then again.....there were also ‘radicals’ back then — i.e. ‘militant liberals’ — men like Thaddeas Stevens, Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, etc: liberals who had principles and weren't afraid to defy the partisans and be unpopular and defend policies on the principle that they upheld human rights and were the right thing to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Republicans

[jazzmo413]

Oh my, that response made me chuckle out loud. Some humor among all the chaos.

[Mike]

The neo-cons and INC, huh? THAT's the fact that I'm ignoring? And that's supposed to give validity to the invasion or to prove that it was done to bring freedom to the people? The INC was a contrivance made (by the Americans who wanted to invade) expressly for the purpose of giving the appearance of ligitimacy to their actions. So, that pretty much puts that argument to rest.

Regarding your second objection, I'm fine if you want to avoid making comparisons to the United States. But keep in mind that I understood you (and President Bush) to have brought them up. I understood you to say that freeing the Iraqi People is measured by elections (under the model and under the military protection of the United States.) On the other hand I argued that freeing the people is measured by what they are free "from" when I pointed out that the invasion merely substituted one kind of misery for another. That's not freedom by any stretch. The whole invasion was an excercise in modeling Iraq after the United States. So, avoiding comparisons pretty much negates the whole basis for the invasion in one fell swoop according to what I understand to be your citation of the goals.No. I'm fine with comparisons: like the one I made between Iraq and Afghanistan and the Reconstruction Era here in the United States following the liberation of the South and the toppling of the Confederate regime there. ...and it was all that was securing the suffrage and civil rights for four million black citizens... Sorry, I don't think that addresses my comments. I don't think the comparison of the U.S. Civil War is even remotely similar to the U.S. Invasions of Irag and Afghanistan. (And the Civil War had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with suffrage.) Are we talking past one another, Dewey? :)

[Dewey]

Sorry, I don't think that addresses my comments. I don't think the comparison of the U.S. Civil War is even remotely similar to the U.S. Invasions of Irag and Afghanistan. (And the Civil War had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with suffrage.) Are we talking past one another, Dewey? :)


The Radical Reconstruction and the military occupation that sustained it absolutely had everything to do with suffrage. And the parallels seem to me eery and self-evident between the noticeable reluctance of today's “progressives” to continue their support for the occupation in Afghanistan and the so-called “liberals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Republican_Party_(United_States))” of 134 years — former abolitionists turned peaceniks — who capitulated to the confederates they defeated after 12 years of the South protesting Negro suffrage while the former confederate “redeemers” waged a bloody, unrelenting terrorist campaign against “carpet-baggers” four million freed African-Americans who voted to violently deny them their rights under the 14th and 15th Amendments and the radical 1875 Civil Rights Act (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_uncivil.html) — Sec. 2 of which, btw, included a Public Accommodations provision outlawing segregation that is eerily similar in what it contains to the most controversial part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: the Title 2 Public Accommodations provision — that newly freed African Americans would never live to see enforced because the liberals of their day and the other “end the illegal occupation” types sold them out and denounced the military occupation and allowed the insurgents in the South to violently ‘redeem’ their states again: by burning down their schools — the thousands of public schools that Congress had established and funded through the Freedmen's bureau and all the others built and run by philanthropists and charity organizations and churches in the North.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_53375.html :rolleyes:

[Mike]

Sorry, I don't think that addresses my comments. I don't think the comparison of the U.S. Civil War is even remotely similar to the U.S. Invasions of Irag and Afghanistan. (And the Civil War had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with suffrage.) Are we talking past one another, Dewey? :)The Radical Reconstruction and the military occupation that sustained it absolutely had everything to do with suffrage.But, you see, we haven't been talking about The Radical Reconstruction. So, once again a red herring diverts us from our path. We have to go back and start over. President Bush' stated goal of freeing the Iraqi people didn't succeed, and holding an election doesn't prove otherwise when the Iraqi's are suffering miseries as a result of the U.S. invasion.

[dave fagan]

Reply to Dewey

"Originally Posted by Mike
Sorry, I don't think that addresses my comments. I don't think the comparison of the U.S. Civil War is even remotely similar to the U.S. Invasions of Irag and Afghanistan. (And the Civil War had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with suffrage.) Are we talking past one another, Dewey?"

Sort of autosuggestion to associate the Iraq War with the Civil War, as if the conflicts had even an iota in common. The relevant facts would be that the USA led a consortium to kill over 100,000 Iraqis and force 4 million more into refugee status by a concentrated bombing of the infrastructure of Iraq. That would be at least 100,000 dead and you approve. The OIL is in the distribution system. The OIL companies will profit handsomely and our Congressmen shall also be the recipients of Corporate Energy businesses largesse, not to be labelled booty, tribute or bribe.

[Dewey]

Reply to Dewey

"Originally Posted by Mike
Sorry, I don't think that addresses my comments. I don't think the comparison of the U.S. Civil War is even remotely similar to the U.S. Invasions of Irag and Afghanistan. (And the Civil War had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with suffrage.) Are we talking past one another, Dewey?"

Sort of autosuggestion to associate the Iraq War with the Civil War, as if the conflicts had even an iota in common.



Is that the best strawman you can make? By “conflicts” do you mean the conflict that caused of the American Civil War? Because I did not compare the two ‘conflicts’ in that way — nor did I even mention the Civil War: I referred to specifically to violent armed conflicts of the Reconstruction Era (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_era_of_the_United_States) to point that ‘we’ — i.e. the United States — won the war but the “peace” was achieved by abandoning four million freed slaves — who had achieved political power and equal representation while the 14th amendment and 15th amendments when black citizens had the right to vote for about five or six years or so while the federal government kept the military occupation in place to protect their rights according to the federal Constitution.

But the ‘liberals’ whom I mentioned, eventually decided to capitulate to the violence and constant complaints from the Southrons who were against it: so the ‘liberals’ who allegedly believed in universal suffrage and minority rights and protections — the ideals of liberal democracies — but instead turned against the ‘radicals’ in congress who supported Reconstruction and appeased the traitors and insurgents instead of stand up to them on liberal principles (their position, of course, was based on the principles of ‘peace and reconciliation’ rather than anything that ought to be called liberal. )






The relevant facts would be that the USA led a consortium to kill over 100,000 Iraqis and force 4 million more into refugee status by a concentrated bombing of the infrastructure of Iraq.

The Civil War was not about freeing the slaves btw: it was about restoring the republic and defeating the belligerent slave-power that threatened it (nor was it about ‘tariffs’ btw, that Ron Paul apologist lie from the ‘Lost Cause (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy)’ deserves to be repudiated once and for all with the truth.)

And yet, Karl Marx — who was pro-freedom and anti-imperialist — passionately defended the United States in the war: he was pro-war two years before the Emancipation Proclamation — he was even pro-war several months before the first shots were even fired at Fort Sumter. Why do suppose that was btw? And would you have supported or opposed Lincoln imperialist war against the Confederacy on the basis that it was not about ‘freeing the slaves’... even tho it would have had to: in order to defeat the South and secure the peace?





That would be at least 100,000 dead and you approve. The OIL is in the distribution system. The OIL companies will profit handsomely and our Congressmen shall also be the recipients of Corporate Energy businesses largesse, not to be labelled booty, tribute or bribe.


Yes, I know that's your religious convictions. This is America, you are entitled to believe in anything on faith and disregard of the facts if you choose to — like the fact that the two largest American oil conglomerates: Exxon-Mobil and Chevron/Texaco (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002058484_vouchers09.html) had secured a 2/3rds monopoly of Iraq's oil exported under UN oil-for-food scam: which they lost the moment George Bush unilaterally invaded and ended the sanctions regime. Chevron and Exxon got screwed....but CNPC — the Chinese state-owned oil company made out okay. :o

Maybe the Chinese government collaborated with Bush to undermine the interests of the American oil companies to pay them back for all the US debt that they own? Or maybe things like ‘facts’ and reality don't really share much overlap with your own faith based views...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/5701252/BP-wins-biggest-Iraq-oil-contract.html

[dave fagan]

Hi Dewey-I wouldn't suggest my views are faith based. Iraq, no threat to the USA, but got lots of OIL. OIL being sold for EUROS and threatens Federal Reserve (private central bank) dollar. Saddam Hussein helped into power by the CIA. Saddam, despot like Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, al Sabahs, Sauds, Marcos, and other CIA pets. Iraq 1/3 of 1% of the world's population but with over 15% of the world's easily recoverable OIL. No USA oil corporations in Iraq. Boom, big war. Haliburton and KBR, native sons of Texas, profit handsomely with "no-bid" contracts. Independent contractors aka "mercenaries" profit handsomely. Enough independent contractors that a large corporation can buy its' own army. American, USA, Corporations that is. Let's give JPMorgan Chase and Exxon/Mobil their army. Ge, Westinghouse, Bechtel Corp., Goldman Sachs, could use a few troops as well. Corporatism, our current state. Check and see who owns the pipelines and storage facilities that the Iraqi OIL will be transited through. See if our bases are situated to protect a pipeline that delivers to whom.
What I say often repeats itself like the truth keeps popping up in circular, verbose arguments that are designed to avoid it. The nice thing about the truth, when you get there, is that it doesn't require as many words. CNPC would not have had a sniff if they had not allied with BP.
On the other hand, I think al Maliki outmaneuvered his USA handlers. He's is going to be another Saddam, but that is what Iraq needs, like Iran needed the Shah. Phillipines needed Marcos. etc. just a little sarcasm.