What a surprise - - It really WAS official policy. Gee, who woulda thunk?

[BSB]

Let me see. Because Bush et al invaded Iraq, and used different forms of torture on many innocent people, you think that in turn totaly innocent Americans, like kids, pregnent mothers, the elderly, etc., should get the same in return. If that isn't stupid I don't know what is?

[Michael Tee]

I see, so at this point it appears that no kids, pregnant mothers or elderly were harmed in Bush's war on Iraq?

We have a certain problem that arises in unprovoked wars of aggression.  A lot of innocent people get killed. Hundreds of thousands, as it happens.  In an ideal world, payback would consist of the aggressors being individually singled out and punished appropriately for their crimes.  Which, in the case of the U.S.A., both you and I know is NOT gonna happen.  Ever.

So.  What happens?  The innocent victims go wholly unavenged?   The criminals get away with their crimes and live happily ever after?  Payback can't be focused appropriately, it can't separate out the more guilty from the less guilty, but regardless, payback will arrive.  This is karmic law as you well know.

What do you think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were really all about?  The USAAF found a smart bomb that would only hurt war criminals?

[BSB]

Yeah, well, cheer up Michael, maybe during the end times God will appoint you his avenging angel.

[Plane]

I see, so at this point it appears that no kids, pregnant mothers or elderly were harmed in Bush's war on Iraq?

We have a certain problem that arises in unprovoked wars of aggression.  A lot of innocent people get killed. Hundreds of thousands, as it happens.  In an ideal world, payback would consist of the aggressors being individually singled out and punished appropriately for their crimes.  Which, in the case of the U.S.A., both you and I know is NOT gonna happen.  Ever.

So.  What happens?  The innocent victims go wholly unavenged?   The criminals get away with their crimes and live happily ever after?  Payback can't be focused appropriately, it can't separate out the more guilty from the less guilty, but regardless, payback will arrive.  This is karmic law as you well know.

What do you think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were really all about?  The USAAF found a smart bomb that would only hurt war criminals?

This seems like a good excuse for any side to use.

Our return stroke no less than theirs.

So why did President Bush even attempt to prevent colateral damage ? Why use ground troops ?
Why not use some WMD ourselves ?
There is no question at all that we know how to make WMD , we developed half of them.

[Plane]

<<So our better choice would be to tighten the security we live with . . . >>

Yes.

<< . . .  so tight that terrorism is impossible to perform?>>

Did I say that?  I don't think so.  Considering that your security prior to the September 11 attacks was criminally lax, I think all you had to do was ratchet up security to a state of reasonable adequacy more or less to where it is now. 

<<That [security so tight that terrorism is impossible to perform] is pretty tight security , I don't think we could do it very long.>>

Apparently, you must enjoy debating with yourself.  I never suggested that you adopt security that tight, so I don't know whether it's possible or not to do it for "very long."  Why don't you wrestle with the problem a little longer and let me know who wins the debate, you or you?

Crimimnally lax security is no excuse for the crimes that are done by  those who defeat the security.

And the tightest security we are capable of would not stop every attack.

Consider the attacks before 9-11 that were stopped at the border , or those who were trapped after the crimes and put on trial, there was very little terrorism with impunity because our security was already adequite to any ordinary threat.

But there was no potential for tighter security to have prevented the attacks of 9-11 unless the security was so tight as to be rediculous. It is not security being tighter that has prevented a repeat of 9-11 because we cannot make security that tight and bear it, rather we have made Al Quieda too busy elesewhere and we have killed a lot of them.

[sirs]

It is not security being tighter that has prevented a repeat of 9-11 because we cannot make security that tight and bear it, rather we have made Al Quieda too busy elesewhere and we have killed a lot of them.

Well summized, Plane

[Michael Tee]

<<Yeah, well, cheer up Michael, maybe during the end times God will appoint you his avenging angel.>>

Except there won't be any avenging angel because there isn't any God.  Shitty world, BSB.  Everyone's on his own.

[Michael Tee]

<<This seems like a good excuse for any side to use.

<<Our return stroke no less than theirs.>>

If the rulers of Amerika were really interested in revenging 9-11 using collective punishment as the principle, they would have bombed Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.

<<So why did President Bush even attempt to prevent colateral damage ? >>

Obviously, he didn't.  Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have already died.  Over and above the millions killed by the embargo, including half a million children.  Who ever gave a shit about Arab lives anyway?  Bush only barely kept up the pretence of caring.

<<Why use ground troops ?>>

Obviously to protect the "democratic" government they installed, who without U.S. ground troops to shield them from "their own" people, would be torn to pieces by the local population for their collaboration with the invaders.

<<Why not use some WMD ourselves ?>>

Why bother when WP does the trick for half the price?

<<There is no question at all that we know how to make WMD , we developed half of them.>>

No argument there, plane.

[Michael Tee]

<<Crimimnally lax security is no excuse for the crimes that are done by  those who defeat the security.>>

And nobody ever claimed that it was.  Even al Qaeda never claimed that.  What is your point?

<<And the tightest security we are capable of would not stop every attack.>>

Stopping "every attack" is not the yardstick.  Admittedly that's impossible.  Reasonably adequate security, way over and above the criminal laxity of Sept. 10, 2001, would prevent a great many attacks, which is all you can reasonably expect, and certainly would have blocked the sucker punch that was the Sept. 11 attack.

<<Consider the attacks before 9-11 that were stopped at the border , or those who were trapped after the crimes and put on trial, there was very little terrorism with impunity because our security was already adequite to any ordinary threat.>>

That is obviously ridiculous and absurd.  Twenty guys armed with box-cutters is one of the most ordinary and puny threats imaginable, easily foiled by metal detectors, weapon searches, on-board incognito security agents and/or secure cockpit doors.

<<But there was no potential for tighter security to have prevented the attacks of 9-11 unless the security was so tight as to be rediculous. >>

Nonsense.  See my last comment.

<<It is not security being tighter that has prevented a repeat of 9-11 because we cannot make security that tight and bear it. . . >>

Bullshit.  (see above)

<< rather we have made Al Quieda too busy elesewhere . . .>>

That's what YOU think.  al Qaeda isn't the problem any more, they've inspired millions of new al Qaeda, and that's where the next attack is coming from.

<< . . . and we have killed a lot of them.>>

You're delusional.  Plenty more where those came from, more than you'll EVER be able to kill.  You probably recruited a hundred new guys for every one that you killed.

[richpo64]

>>If the rulers of Amerika (sic) were really interested in revenging 9-11 using collective punishment as the principle, they would have bombed Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.<<

A common misconception of the wackier elements of the left.

The Saudi government did not support or sanction any of the 9-11 terrorists actions. Iraq was an active supporter of terrorism. Iraq supported terrorists monetarily and allowed them into their country for training and sanctuary.

[Michael Tee]

<<Iraq was an active supporter of terrorism. Iraq supported terrorists monetarily . . . >>

That's bullshit.  Apart from providing the families of Palestinian suicide bombers with $25,000 in death benefits (which wouldn't even cover the costs of a bulldozed family home for the unfortunate family) Saddam is not known to have financed any "terrorists" monetarily.  Their alleged connection to 9-11 is jut one more Bush lie that has been exploded many times in print.

<< . . . and allowed them into their country for training and sanctuary.>>

More bullshit.  Never happened.

It's particularly absurd to suppose that Saddam, a militant secularist, anti-religious and socialistic dictator would give the time of day to a bunch of ignorant religious fanatics like bin Laden and/or al Qaeda.  There is no lie too absurd for the criminal Bush administration to cling to, but this one makes no sense at all and is actually embarrassing (or should be) even to the liars who dreamed it up.

[BT]

Saddam link to Bin Laden
Terror chief 'offered asylum' in Iraq? US says dealings step up danger of chemical weapons attacks

    * By Julian Borger in Washington
    * guardian.co.uk, Saturday 6 February 1999 03.34 GMT
    * larger | smaller
    * Article history

Saddam Hussein's regime has opened talks with Osama bin Laden, bringing closer the threat of a terrorist attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to US intelligence sources and Iraqi opposition officials.

The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad's ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam's most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq.

The Saudi-born fundamentalist's response is unknown. He is thought to have rejected earlier Iraqi advances, disapproving of the Saddam Hussein's secular Baathist regime. But analysts believe that Bin Laden's bolthole in Afghanistan, where he has lived for the past three years, is now in doubt as a result of increasing US and Saudi government pressure.

News of the negotiations emerged in a week when the US attorney general, Janet Reno, warned the Senate that a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction was a growing concern. "There's a threat, and it's real," Ms Reno said, adding that such weapons "are being considered for use."

US embassies around the world are on heightened alert as a result of threats believed to emanate from followers of Bin Laden, who has been indicted by a US court for orchestrating the bombing last August of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which 259 people died. US delegations in Africa and the Gulf have been shut down in recent weeks after credible threats were received.

In this year's budget, President Clinton called for an additional $2 billion to spend on counter-terrorist measures, including extra guards for US embassies around the world and funds for executive jets to fly rapid response investigative teams to terrorist incidents around the world.

Since RAF bombers took part in air raids on Iraq in December, Bin Laden declared that he considered British citizens to be justifiable targets. Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of CIA counter-terrorist operations, said: "Hijazi went to Afghanistan in December and met with Osama, with the knowledge of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. We are sure about that. What is the source of some speculation is what transpired."

An acting US counter-intelligence official confirmed the report. "Our understanding over what happened matches your account, but there's no one here who is going to comment on it."

Ahmed Allawi, a senior member of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), based in London, said he had heard reports of the December meeting which he believed to be accurate. "There is a long history of contacts between Mukhabarat [Iraqi secret service] and Osama bin Laden," he said. Mr Hijazi, formerly director of external operations for Iraqi intelligence, was "the perfect man to send to Afghanistan".

Analysts believe that Mr Hijazi offered Mr bin Laden asylum in Iraq, most likely in return for co-operation in launching attacks on US and Saudi targets. Iraqi agents are believed to have made a similar offer to the Saudi maverick leader in the early 1990s when he was based in Sudan.

Although he rejected the offer then, Mamoun Fandy, a professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, said Bin Laden's position in Afghanistan is no longer secure after the Saudi monarchy cut off diplomatic relations with, and funding for, the Taleban militia movement, which controls most of the country.

Mr Fandy said senior members of the Saudi royal family told him in recent weeks that they had received assurances from the Taleban leader, Mullah Mohamed Omar, that once the radical Islamist movement secured control over Afghan territory, Bin Laden would be forced to leave. "It's a matter of time now for Osama." He said Bin Laden would have a strong ideological aversion to accepting Iraqi hospitality, but might have little choice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/feb/06/julianborger/print

[Michael Tee]

<<Ahmed Allawi, a senior member of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), based in London, said he had heard reports of the December meeting which he believed to be accurate. "There is a long history of contacts between Mukhabarat [Iraqi secret service] and Osama bin Laden," he said. Mr Hijazi, formerly director of external operations for Iraqi intelligence, was "the perfect man to send to Afghanistan".>>

Sez it all.  The Iraqi National Congress was the primary, if not the only, source of the misinformation that was allegedly cherry-picked by the Bush administration to the exclusion of all other evidence, as "proof" that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling WMD.  Ahmed Chalabi, the "moderate Shi'ite" leader of the INC, was hand-picked by Washington to succeed Saddam, giving the INC every possible reason to fabricate every possible excuse for America to invade Iraq, but even the collaborators of the puppet government couldn't sell that one to the Iraqi people and retain even a shred of the credibility that they required.

[BT]

Sez it all.  The Iraqi National Congress was the primary, if not the only, source of the misinformation that was allegedly cherry-picked by the Bush administration to the exclusion of all other evidence, as "proof" that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling WMD.  Ahmed Chalabi, the "moderate Shi'ite" leader of the INC, was hand-picked by Washington to succeed Saddam, giving the INC every possible reason to fabricate every possible excuse for America to invade Iraq, but even the collaborators of the puppet government couldn't sell that one to the Iraqi people and retain even a shred of the credibility that they required.

This story was printed in 1999. During the Clinton Years. Thus the quopte from Janet Reno.

[Michael Tee]

<<This story was printed in 1999. During the Clinton Years. Thus the quopte from Janet Reno.>>

So what?  The source was Chalabi and the INC.  They were working on an invasion long before Bush took over and as you know, the PNAC, many of whose members served in both Bush administrations, were pushing Clinton even then to invade.