NewsWeek

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='Gonzoid' date='May 20 2005, 01:36 PM']Why do they give stupid people computers?

The riots were not sparked by [i]Newsweek[/i]...
And that comes from [url="http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050512-secdef2761.html"]Air Force General Richard Myers[/url].

And in regards to McClellan going on about media credibility, I have two words: Jeff Gannon.
[right][post="94636"][/post][/right][/quote]

[url="http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/18759971?source=PA&ct=5"]click here[/url]

[quote][b]Flames of hate [/b]
By Luke David, Evening Standard
20 May 2005
Muslim protesters today called for the bombing of New York in a demonstration outside the US embassy in London.

[b]There were threats of "another 9/11" from militants angry at reports of the desecration of the Koran by US troops in Iraq. [/b]

Some among the crowd burned an effigy of Tony Blair on a crucifix and then set fire to a Union flag and a Stars and Stripes.

Led by a man on a megaphone, they chanted, "USA watch your back, Osama is coming back" and "Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush". A small detail of police watched as they shouted: "Bomb, bomb New York" and "George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head."

Demonstrators in Grosvenor Square, some with their faces covered with scarves, waved placards which included the message: "Desecrate today and see another 9/11 tomorrow."

The protest was organised by groups including the Muslim Council for Britain and the Muslim Parliamentary Association of the UK. Their protest follows fury in the Islamic world over the claims in a Newsweek magazine that US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay had abused the Koran.

The magazine later withdrew the article and apologised but not before it triggered riots in Afghanistan in which 17 people died and 100 people were injured.

Former Guantanamo Bay [b]detainee[/b] Martin Mubanga told the crowd he had seen a copy of the Koran "desecrated" during his time at Camp Delta.

He said: "This was one of the methods they used, throwing the Koran, my Koran, on the floor in my cell."

One of the protesters called for the release of radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza. He shouted: "Your so-called democracy will fall under the sword of Allah. The day of judgment is coming."

The demonstration coincided with protests across the world. On the West Bank 2,500 Palestinians streamed out of mosques shouting "Death to America". In Calcutta, India, protesters burned, spat and urinated on the US flag. And in Somalia thousands chanted anti-US slogans.[/quote]

it really sounds like their pissed at karzai's policies

these crazy muthafucka's are just looking for a reason... newsweek gave them one..

[BengalsCat]

yep and now its every detenee knows how they can get suport.. well they fucked with my koran regardless if they did or not. U dont think those people would stoop to those levels and just lie to the media?

[Guest LoyalFanInGA]

[quote name='Bunghole' date='May 20 2005, 02:17 PM']We are America, and as such, we should (and mostly, DO) take the moral high ground in these situations (well, [i]publicly[/i], anyway...).

Just because our enemies engage in certain behavior with their POW's doesn't mean we should stoop to their level. Ever.

I am more in favor of a "non-capture" approach where ammunition is dispensed at alarming rates and the killing is free and easy...when dealing with terrorists, that is.

[b]Loyal...ever melt a .50 barrel?[/b]
I got into a LOT of trouble at a range in Germany for that...
Article 15 and everything...I was a dumb kid then...I could have hurt somebody else or myself...I just wanted to see it happen...stupid...
[right][post="94624"][/post][/right][/quote]

LOL...can't say that I did. I've seen some M60 and M240 barrels so hot you could see the rounds travel down the length of the barrel. And there was one time when I was a weapons squad leader we deadlined every machine gun in the battalion. End of the fiscal year, gotta shoot up all the ammo so it won't affect next year's budget. You know the deal. Stupid. We literally cut trees down with all that ammo until all the guns were broken. And then they were pissed at me because we were unable to shoot it all. It only infuriated them further when I dared to mention "lack of planning" and "mismanagement of resources." Ahh...good times, good times.

[Homer_Rice]

bengalrick;

Do me a favor, use the quote system appropriately. Not only is it a pain in the ass to parse out what you are saying from what I have said, I simply don't want your views to be mistaken for mine when you mix posts like you have the past two.

With respect to your comments:

[quote]so you think they just lied to us, so we could go get saddam?[/quote]

Read Woodward's book and you tell me. Keep in mind that Woodward presents his account with more sympathy towards the Bush admin than most. What I say is less important than what you discover on your own, even if we disagree.

[quote]the war on terror was started by bush in 2001, a little after the towers fell... if we were trying to fight terrorists on 9/10, things changed on 9/11...[/quote]

So why suggest a "war on terror" ten years previous to this date? From your previous post:

[quote]you are looking at this all the wrong way imo... how many girlfriends, boyfriends, parents would have been around today, if we had started the war on terror 10 years earlier???[/quote]

Try to get past the buzzword and work on the concepts: What is terrorism? Low Intensity operations? (see Frank Kitson's book of the same name as a place to start. I read it 20 years ago.) Irregular warfare? I'm no expert in these, but I've read quite a bit on the subject.

[quote]yeah, the UN was doing a splendid job of keeping us safe[/quote]

Did I mention the UN? I believe I said US policy towards Iraq in particular and the middle east in general, but I may not have.

On Saddam/Al Qaeda: Isn't it interesting that you refuse to accept the testimony of detainees who suggest they have been abused, but you accept the testimony of detainees who suggest a link between Saddam and AQ?

[Guest bengalrick]

[url="http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html"]click here[/url]

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.

* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

[Homer_Rice]

I'm familiar with Richard Miniter. Are you?

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://www.cagle.com/news/Newsweek/images/keefe.gif[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://www.cagle.com/news/Newsweek/images/koterba.gif[/img]

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='Homer_Rice' date='May 21 2005, 03:59 AM']I'm familiar with Richard Miniter. Are you?
[right][post="94850"][/post][/right][/quote]

yes excellent writer... sorry he isn't a left winger...

i recommend you read "shadow war" by him

[Homer_Rice]

[quote name='bengalrick' date='May 21 2005, 07:34 AM']yes excellent writer... sorry he isn't a left winger...

i recommend you read "shadow war" by him
[right][post="94859"][/post][/right][/quote]

When I read his "Losing Bin Laden" last winter, I started skeptically; I feared he might simply be Ann Coulter with a dick. Actually, he is an erudite writer and he did a decent job of laying out his case. I disagree with his bias, and dislike the crowd he hangs out with, but I agree, he is a good writer.

I doubt that I'll read Shadow War. Is this new? I have a long backlog of books to read now as it is.

You don't need to apologize for the fact that he is not a "left-winger." Neither am I.

[Jason]

[quote name='Bengal_Smoov' date='May 20 2005, 03:02 PM']So would you support America intervining in Sudan or any other country that has a ruthess dictator and needs freedom?
[right][post="94652"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

If it were up to me, we would have intervened in Sudan YEARS ago.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[color="red"]Actual Cover of Japans Newsweek for this Week [/color]

[img]http://img271.echo.cx/img271/2345/newsweekflagtrash5mr.jpg[/img]

[b]Actual translation" America is Dead after fake story [/b]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://cagle.slate.msn.com/working/050524/horsey.gif[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://cagle.slate.msn.com/working/050524/oconnor.gif[/img]

[Guest Gonzoid]

[quote name='BlackJesus' date='May 25 2005, 02:52 AM'][img]http://cagle.slate.msn.com/working/050524/oconnor.gif[/img]
[right][post="96038"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Au contraire...

[url="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20050525/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_koran_dc"]Clickety[/url],

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='Gonzoid' date='May 26 2005, 10:28 AM']Au contraire...

[url="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20050525/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_koran_dc"]Clickety[/url],
[right][post="96495"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

The Pentagon said the allegation was not credible.

"Unfortunately, one thing we've learned over the last couple of years is that detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo and other detention centers sometimes have turned out to be more credible than U.S. government statements," said ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer.

[b]these fuckers are hillarious... terrorists are more crediable than our gov't... thanks, but try again..[/b]

try reading more than what you want to hear next time:
[url="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157705,00.html"]click here[/url]

[quote]Terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay (search) prison told U.S. interrogators as early as April 2002, just three months after the first detainees arrived, that military guards abused them and desecrated the Koran (search), the declassified FBI records say.

"Their behavior is bad," one detainee is quoted as saying of his guards during an interrogation by an FBI special agent on July 22, 2002. "About five months ago the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet."

[b]Di Rita, the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (search ), said that U.S. military officials at Guantanamo Bay had recently found a separate record of the same allegation by the same detainee, and he was re-interviewed on May 14. "He did not corroborate his own allegation," Di Rita said.[/b]

Asked why he felt certain that this detainee did not affirm his allegation out of fear of retaliation, Di Rita said, "It's a judgment call, and I trust the judgment of the commanders more than I trust the judgment of Al Qaeda."[/quote]

can't you anti-war, anti-bush look past your stupid fuckin' hatred and see that we can't trust terrorists... they know that this would create an uproar, and they are doing it on purpose imo... the same terrorist (that the ACLU believes over our gov't) gave two different accounts of the same alligation...

quit trying to make OUR country look bad, to follow your political view, w/out evidence... you guys are as bad a newsweek for believing TERRORISTS!! unbelievable...

[Guest bengalrick]

[url="http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/002203.html"]click here[/url]
[quote][b]Pentagon Recalls Koran-Flushing Toilet[/b]
by Scott Ott

(2005-05-26) -- In response to appeals from consumer advocate Ralph Nader, the Pentagon today recalled thousands of military toilets because they may be powerful enough to flush a copy of the Koran.

"If that toilet generates enough force to take down a book of several hundred pages," said Mr. Nader, "then it poses a clear and present danger to prisoners at Guantanamo and to our troops worldwide."

Mr. Nader, who became famous in the late 1960s by declaring the Chevrolet Corvair 'unsafe at any speed', said, "I would rather drive a Corvair at top speed on figure-8 track than take my chances on this turbo-flush toilet. It's unsafe for any deed, and may constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions."

In fact, U.S. troops around the world have privately complained of the dangers posed by the plumbing fixture they call an 'I.I.D.' -- Improvised Implosive Device.

"It's a swirling vortex of death," said one unnamed soldier. "The other day, I lost a grenade, my helmet and hardcover copy of 'War and Peace' in one fell swoop."

The Pentagon statement praised U.S. troops for "their willingness to perform their duty in the face of such risk."[/quote]

[img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img]

[Guest Gonzoid]

[quote name='bengalrick' date='May 26 2005, 11:45 AM']quit trying to make OUR country look bad, to follow your political view,  w/out evidence...
[right][post="96533"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
Let me get this straight...

We have an administration that lied, distorted facts and cooked evidence to lead our country into a situation we have little hope of getting out of and did it against world opinion...

...and folks protesting against that war are making our country look bad?

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='Gonzoid' date='May 26 2005, 04:35 PM']Let me get this straight...

We have an administration that lied, distorted facts and cooked evidence to lead our country into a situation we have little hope of getting out of and did it against world opinion...

...and folks protesting against that war are making our country look bad?
[right][post="96626"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

and you have EVIDENCE that he purposely lied to go to war (i assume for oil, right?) no you don't... what you have is an opinion and you know the saying for those...

the world opinion? are you really that nieve? do you pay attention to the oil for food scandal? do you realize there was a good reason that the key countries weren't on our side... they were getting alot of money... world opinion? [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] we should piss all over the world (leaders) opinons.. they are money driven. period.

and we have little chance of getting out of... hmmm, did you see that the iraqis just had elections that were fair? i realize that there is a long way, but you can't acknowledge that we are winning, as of now... wake the fuck up!!!

[BengalsCat]

[quote name='Gonzoid' date='May 26 2005, 05:35 PM']Let me get this straight...

We have an administration that lied, distorted facts and cooked evidence to lead our country into a situation we have little hope of getting out of and did it against world opinion...

...and folks protesting against that war are making our country look bad?
[right][post="96626"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

SECURITY COUNCIL HOLDS IRAQ IN ‘MATERIAL BREACH’ OF DISARMAMENT OBLIGATIONS,
OFFERS FINAL CHANCE TO COMPLY, UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTING RESOLUTION 1441 (2002)

Instructs Weapons Inspections to Resume within 45 Days,

Recalls Repeated Warning of ‘Serious Consequences’ for Continued Violations

Holding Iraq in “material breach” of its obligations under previous resolutions, the Security Council this morning decided to afford it a “final opportunity to comply” with its disarmament obligations, while setting up an enhanced inspection regime for full and verified completion of the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991).

By the unanimous adoption of resolution 1441 (2002), the Council instructed the resumed inspections to begin within 45 days, and also decided it would convene immediately upon the receipt of any reports from inspection authorities that Iraq was interfering with their activities. It recalled, in that context, that the Council had repeatedly warned Iraq that it would face "serious consequences" as a result of continued violations.



If he lied the whole UN lied..... So either the whole UN was duped into believe saddam had WMD for 10 years or they smuggled them out of the country before we got there. i know which one i choose to believe

[Homer_Rice]

[quote name='bengalrick' date='May 26 2005, 04:45 PM']...we should piss all over the world (leaders) opinons.. they are money driven. period.

[right][post="96635"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Who's acting naive?

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='Homer_Rice' date='May 26 2005, 05:44 PM']Who's acting naive?
[right][post="96668"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

homer, he mentioned that we did this w/out the world opinion (like russia, france, germany, etc)... i said, are you being nieve to think that they would ever agree w/ going to iraq... to be honest, we'll never know if they would have helped out, b/c they weren in bed w/ him... i would say that they would be at least helping us if they weren't involved in the oil for food program... but we'll never know...

the oil for food program has caused me to have absolutely ZERO confidence in the UN for me... and yes, piss on the "worlds opinion" b/c when he said that, he was talking about france, germany, but ultimately, the UN... they wouldn't have been w/ us if we have a video of saddam making nukes w/ a picture of america on the side... saddam was BRIBING THEM!!! fuck the "world's opinion"...

what do you feel the reasons that france and others aren't helping us?

[Homer_Rice]

bengalrick;

After I read through all of yesterday's stuff, including the other hot thread, I realized that you were probably a little exasperated and just venting a little. I understand the feeling.

Your clarification makes sense, now. The reasons why France, Germany, and Russia did not support our preemptive act of war are complicated, though. Some of it is [i]realpolitik[/i] and some of it is on a higher plane: accepted standards of diplomacy and international relations. Hell, even Ashcroft (mildly) objected to going to war on the basis of 1441 alone, he said there ought to be a second resolution.

I think what worries many governments on the diplomatic front is this notion of preemption and the definition of imminent threat. It's a definite change from previously accepted norms of international law and other countries are justifiably worried that the US will become an imperial enforcer, rather than the exemplar of republican virtue. Which way the cookie crumbles isn't decided yet, and it's up to folks like you and me to see to it that we hold our elected officials accountable for their actions, and to insist on the latter, even in difficult circumstances.

As for the Oil-for-Food scandal: it shouldn't surprise you that venality is rife at the intersection of big business, policy-making, and governance. I haven't looked closely enough at this yet to form a firm idea of the events, yet I suspect that when I do, I'll be disappointed in a lot of the behaviors. I do know this, the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War were terrible for the children of Iraq. In the mid 80s, a friend of mine hit me up for $500 to contribute to an NGO relief fund that sent powdered milk and other essentials directly to the kids. So, while the UN is not perfect, it serves a purpose, and imo, the "Bolton" solution being offered by the current admin is scandalous and hypocritical--but that's another thread...

Now, to say, "Fuck the world's opinion," has implications. Guys like you and I can say things like that without repercussions, but do you want our ambassadors to do so?

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='Homer_Rice' date='May 27 2005, 10:51 AM']bengalrick;

After I read through all of yesterday's stuff, including the other hot thread, I realized that you were probably a little exasperated and just venting a little. I understand the feeling.

Your clarification makes sense, now. The reasons why France, Germany, and Russia did not support our preemptive act of war are complicated, though. Some of it is [i]realpolitik[/i] and some of it is on a higher plane: accepted standards of diplomacy and international relations. Hell, even Ashcroft (mildly) objected to going to war on the basis of 1441 alone, he said there ought to be a second resolution.

I think what worries many governments on the diplomatic front is this notion of preemption and the definition of imminent threat. It's a definite change from previously accepted norms of international law and other countries are justifiably worried that the US will become an imperial enforcer, rather than the exemplar of republican virtue. Which way the cookie crumbles isn't decided yet, and it's up to folks like you and me to see to it that we hold our elected officials accountable for their actions, and to insist on the latter, even in difficult circumstances.

As for the Oil-for-Food scandal: it shouldn't surprise you that venality is rife at the intersection of big business, policy-making, and governance. I haven't looked closely enough at this yet to form a firm idea of the events, yet I suspect that when I do, I'll be disappointed in a lot of the behaviors. I do know this, the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War were terrible for the children of Iraq. In the mid 80s, a friend of mine hit me up for $500 to contribute to an NGO relief fund that sent powdered milk and other essentials directly to the kids. So, while the UN is not perfect, it serves a purpose, and imo, the "Bolton" solution being offered by the current admin is scandalous and hypocritical--but that's another thread...

Now, to say, "Fuck the world's opinion," has implications. Guys like you and I can say things like that without repercussions, but do you want our ambassadors to do so?
[right][post="96904"][/post][/right][/quote]

i'll answer your last question first: NO!!! i don't want them to literally say that or even not literally... i do think that in this case, something wasn't right and we needed to "piss" on them, but i see what your saying... the last thing we want is for the other powers to think they are useless... that would just cause resentment, and we don't need that...

w/ the oil for food, i have half way followed it and have been amazed of everything coming out... kofi had to know this was going on, but as big as the UN's buerocracy (sp?) is, i guess i could buy that he just didn't know... to me, it became extremely evident after this scandal came out, why we were going against the will of the world... they were sleeping w/ him, and getting bribed...

IMO, the UN is great on paper... i love what they are supposed to do, but they need to overhaul the whole thing and try to kill some of the corruption... it has just gotten to be too big of a buerocracy... they do good things, but also screw some things up... overall, i don't want to get rid of the UN, but i do want exteme changes...

now to the most important part of your post... the overall perception of what we want in the end, and the clarification of what is an "imminent threat"... i don't think we have imperial agenda in store, but it doesn't matter what i think... the rest of the world is scared that their next, and frankly that has good and bad sides to it... the good side can be seen imo, in the dominos that seem to be falling the middle east... the bad is obvious, that some people (countries) react differently when put in a corner...

about the imminent threat, i wish i had a good line to draw... i don't... i think that the uncertainty before the war, led to the war... either way, i feel iraq will be better off, as will the middle east <fingers crossed>

[Guest bengalrick]

the pentagon is saying that there were 5 cases that showed mistreatment of the koran... nothing about flushing though, nor anything close...

[url="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157838,00.html"]click here[/url]
[quote]Of the 13 alleged incidents, five were substantiated, he said. Four were by guards and one was by an interrogator. Hood said the five cases "could be broadly defined as mishandling" of the holy book, but he refused to discuss details.[/quote]

[quote]Hood said eight of the 13 alleged incidents of Koran mishandling that he looked into were not substantiated. [b]Six of those eight involved guards who either accidentally touched a Koran[/b], "touched it within the scope of his duties" or did not touch it at all. "We consider each of these incidents resolved," Hood said.[/quote]

just an update...