Iraq War Dead for February and March, 2007
Here are the updated graphs for February and March. As always, I’m comparing the US military casualties in Iraq to those from the Vietnam war at a similar point in each war’s political lifetime (which some have charged is misleading; see disclaimer below). The data come from the advanced search tool at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund site, and from Lunaville’s page on Iraq coalition casualties. The figures are for the number of US dead per month, without regard to whether the deaths were combat-related.
The first graph shows the first 50 months of the comparison. (Click on any image for a larger version.)
Next, the chart that gives the US death toll for the entire Vietnam war:
Disclaimer: I’ve been accused of comparing apples to oranges in these graphs. For the record, here’s what I am not arguing:
- I’m not saying that Iraq is somehow deadlier per soldier-on-the-ground than Vietnam. For both wars, the number of fatalities in any given month tracks pretty closely with the number of troops deployed (along with the intensity of the combat operations being conducted). There were more troops in Iraq in the early going than were in Vietnam during the “corresponding” parts of the graphs. Similarly, for later years in Vietnam, when the monthly death toll exceeds the current Iraq numbers, there were many more troops in place.
- I am not saying that Iraq is somehow “worse” than Vietnam. I include the first graph mainly because I wanted a zoomed-in view of the Iraq data. And I include the second graph, which shows the entire span of the Vietnam war, because I want to be clear about what the data show about overall death tolls — where any rational assessment would have to conclude that, at least so far, Iraq has been far less significant (at least in terms of US combat fatalities) than Vietnam.
I was just curious how the “death profile” of the two wars compared, and how those deaths played out in terms of their political impact inside the US. For that reason, I chose as the starting point for each graph the first fatality that a US president acknowledged (belatedly, in the case of the Vietnam graph, since US involvement in the war “began” under Kennedy, but the acknowledgement was made only later by Johnson) as having resulted from the war in question.
As ever, you are free to draw your own conclusions. And for that matter, you’re free to draw your own graphs, if you have a way of presenting the information that you believe would be better. In that case, feel free to post a comment with a URL to your own version. Thanks.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:09 am
Hi JDC - “Tank you” for continuing these stats! Hopefully soon the troops will be out and the Iraq line will be at zero again.
The following posts present some related snippets:
April 12th, 2007 at 3:09 am
THE THREE US ARMIES IN IRAQ
American forces in Iraq are still far short of the military deployment the United States had in Vietnam. U.S. troop numbers in Vietnam increased from less than 20,000 in early 1964 to more than half a million by 1969. But THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO FORCE LEVELS - AND THE TWO SITUATIONS — IS A LOT LESS THAN PEOPLE THINK. THERE IS, AFTER ALL, NOT JUST ONE U.S. ARMY IN IRAQ…
(January 2007 Source: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3931 )
April 12th, 2007 at 3:10 am
HOW MANY HAVE GONE TO WAR (since 9/11) ?
Well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in the wars since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Pentagon data released to Salon. As of Jan. 31, 2005, the exact figure was 1,048,884, approximately one-third the number of troops ever stationed in or around Vietnam during 15 years of that conflict.
More surprising is the number of troops who have gone to war since 9/11, come back home, and then were redeployed to the battle…
The data sheds new light on how all-consuming the post-9/11 wars have been for the U.S. military, and suggests a particular strain on U.S. ground forces…
“Unless things start to improve, we will start to see a serious problem in six to nine months,” said Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine Corps three-star general and a former Marine Corps deputy chief of staff under Ronald Reagan. “I think they [the Pentagon] are betting that things are going to get better. But that could be a miscalculation,” said Trainor. “This crowd has been pretty good at miscalculating.”
(April 2005 Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050412-gone-to-war.htm )
(Ignoring for a moment the other two US Armies in Iraq)
…As a percentage of the total number of troops deployed, the numbers of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Vietnam are comparable. A deployment of 8.7 million U.S. troops in Vietnam, relative to 58,000 fatalities, yields a ratio of seven-tenths of 1 percent. In comparison, the Iraq figures to date are approximately 500,000 deployments and 2,500 fatalities, a ratio of five-tenths of 1 percent…
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/bg1954.cfm
April 12th, 2007 at 3:11 am
Deployments: The Real Numbers
Baghdad, March 22, 2007: There will soon be more American soldiers in Iraq than at any point in the war so far. The incoming surge of 21,500 troops is only part of that picture; in addition, the U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has asked for an additional Army aviation brigade, as well as a couple thousand military police. Other support troops will be coming in to Iraq as well, and they weren’t all included in the original 21,500 estimate announced by President Bush last month. When all this is complete, sometime in July, the grand total of U.S. troops in Iraq will be 173,000, U.S. military officials here confirmed on background…That’s only part of the picture, however; the total number of U.S. troops deployed into the war theater, that is, Iraq and neighboring countries, may be as much as 100,000 more than that. Last August, for instance, the Congressional Research Service, quoting the Department of Defense’s Contingency Tracking System, put the total deployment at 260,000, while the number actually in Iraq was at 140,000 to 160,000. (Other estimates by government-oversight bodies have put the total deployed in the theater at 202,000 to 207,000.)…
THE TOTAL BILL FOR THE IRAQ WAR WILL SOON RIVAL THE ESTIMATED $600 BILLION COST OF THE VIETNAM WAR [inflation adjusted!]. So far, $351 billion has been spent or appropriated between 2003 and 2007, and the president’s additional budget request … the total direct cost of the war will [by 2008] top half a trillion dollars, $532 billion in all. That naturally does not even begin to take into account indirect costs, from veterans’ care to oil-price rises. (see also: http://majorityleader.house.gov/docUploads/BushBudgetIraq0708.pdf )
April 12th, 2007 at 3:15 am
… the surge in military spending in recent years is leading to the demise of State supported social programs in America.
More than a quarter of what you pay in taxes goes to finance Washington’s military adventure in the Middle East and the deployment, around the World, of an extensive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
These figures do not include the various black budgets allocated to the mliary and intelligence apparatus, which do not appear in US public accounts.
The surge in defense hits Education. For every dollar spent on education, more than five dollars are spent on what is euphemistically referred to “defense”…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070409&articleId=5307
April 12th, 2007 at 3:16 am
THE IRAQ WAR IMPACTS AFGHANISTAN NOW… According to the Baltimore Sun, “a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.” Apparently this battalion is about to become a key part of President Bush’s surge strategy. However, the results in Afghanistan could be dire:
According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.
….”It is bleak,” said Col. Chris Haas, commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan.
“The gains we have made over the past few years are mostly gone,” said a bearded Special Operations officer, fresh in from advising Afghan army units in battle with 600 to 700 well-equipped Taliban fighters.
More troops in Iraq will almost certainly not make any noticable difference there. More troops in Afghanistan might, but they aren’t available because of Iraq. It’s worth keeping in mind that Bush’s resistance to withdrawal in Iraq is likely to lead to the United States losing not just one war, but two. I’m not sure if any American president has done that before.
(January 2007 Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010530.php )
Another detail from the Pentagon report: electricity generation has been averaging 10 hours a day nationwide, and only 6.6 hours a day in Baghdad, in the last quarter of 2006. Overall production of electricity was about where it was in 2004, although demand had greatly increased.
One slightly reassuring statistic: since the surge began, and the Baghdad Security Plan started pouring much larger numbers of troops onto the streets, the death toll among American soldiers has not risen significantly, averaging 2.8 deaths a day from Feb. 15 to March 21, about the same as the daily rate in January and February. On the other hand, it hasn’t gone down, either.
(March 2007 Source: http://checkpointbaghdad.talk.newsweek.com/default.asp?item=536357 )
April 12th, 2007 at 3:17 am
About 4 times as many Afghans and 252 times as many Iraqis have been killed in these wars and occupations than the 2,973 people who were killed in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001.
More than SIXTEEN times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations, than the 46,986 people killed in all terrorist attacks worldwide SINCE 1968. SINCE 1968. Since 1968.
(Feb 2007 Source: http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html )
April 12th, 2007 at 3:39 am
and now it gets interesting:
…Just remember, that without the attacks of 9/11, there would have been NO WARS in Iraq or Afghanistan, no PATRIOT ACT, no NSA spying, no huge corruption by HALLIBURTON and other contractors, no ABU GHRAIB, no GITMO, no WAR POWERS for the DICTATOR, and most probably no PNAC people in high places by now.’
http://tvnewslies.org/blog/?p=597
After reading the challenge at that post, you won’t want to miss the first comment by “rabbit” in response to “abyss” (SHCB in disguise?)
(Footnote: This week Visibility 9-11 welcomes retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Guy Razer. Col. Razer has publicly stated:
“After 4+ years of research since retirement in 2002, I am 100% convinced that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were planned, organized, and committed by treasonous perpetrators that have infiltrated the highest levels of our government. It is now time to take our country back..”)
April 12th, 2007 at 5:22 am
Knarley,
From your 3:15 post
“… the surge in military spending in recent years is leading to the demise of State supported social programs in America.”
The primary mission of the US government is to protect this nation, social programs are what you do with the money left over
“More than a quarter of what you pay in taxes goes to finance Washington’s military adventure in the Middle East and the deployment, around the World, of an extensive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.”
This number is slightly high, but not grossly. It only includes federal taxes, not state, local, or “sin” taxes
“The surge in defense hits Education. For every dollar spent on education, more than five dollars are spent on what is euphemistically referred to “defense”…
Education in America is only partially funded by the federal government, about 6% of money in k-12 education comes from the feds. The rest is funded by state and local funds, in most states almost all property taxes go to k-12 education. In Colorado about half of the 94% of education is funded by property taxes and half from the state general fund with about 85% of that money going to salaries, since construction of new schools is funded by bond issues. So k-12 education is not impacted by defense spending. Higher education is a more complex issue. Remember this war has only caused about a 1% change in defense spending as a percentage of GDP.
Again, your stats are not wrong, so no lie was told, they are just oversimplified and biased.
April 12th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Hi SHCB,
Thanks for the clarification.
Yes some of those stats were oversimplified and biased, and I suspected there was a problem with the ones relating to fiscal matters but I posted them anyway. That meets most definitions of lying. I suspected what I was presenting might not be the full truth (yet I did so anyway knowing it had the potential to deceive.)
My rationale was that I highly suspected that you would set the matter straight, which you did, and I calculated the impact of repeating potentially false information as being nil or miniscule. That might make it a small lie, but a lie nonetheless. Any government official who breaks the public trust with even this small type of lie should be held to a far higher standard.
What is fascinating is that by giving you the opportunity to legitimately rebut less than a tenth of the content I presented, more than 9 tenths of legitimate concerns become tarnished and fade away as also being unreliable. Perhaps that is the way it should be, and I recognize my credibility has been compromised (I’ll earn it back.)
My point about losing credibility is that GWB & Co. have seriously misled Americans on so many issues since voted into power in 2001 but when they are confronted with facts they (a) ignore it, (b) attack the messenger, or (c) change their story, Americans have sometimes recognized and quickly forgotten that they were misled and kept trusting everything else this gang of thugs presented to them. Honestly, the rest of the world is absolutely amazed at the naivety of Americans, but I do recognize a growing portion of Americans seem to be awakening.
To summarize, I copied misleading information on the fiscal points shcb, you showed your intelligence and alertness by noticing that and calling me on it, so why don’t you celebrate by grabbing yourself a cup of coffee and awaken the rest of the way?
http://tvnewslies.org/blog/?p=597
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-649993991751648213&hl=en
April 12th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Knarely - We lost 8 of our finest in Afghanistan in the last 4 days… not going good there eh? I’m curious, what do you think about this mission we’re leading over there?
April 12th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Knarley,
Thanks for the clarification, in a lot of these cases, I’m not trying to be overly critical of you or your information. I just want to tell the other side of the story, especially since so many here are from Canada, and we do things differently here than up there. It doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong, just different. Both countries make sure all their children get a good basic education, and probably spend close to the same amount of money, it just comes from different sources. I also like to clarify where stats come from when I can, then let people make up their own mind about what is the proper level of funding (in this case), especially where the information is so biased.
Sorry I didn’t address the other 9/10s of your comments, I scanned them and they seemed to be mostly about the 911 conspiracy theories, and I just don’t have the time right now to readdress them every time you bring them up. I am designing a new house for my sister so we can start building in a couple weeks so I have to limit my blog and research time. If some new information comes up I would be happy to look at it, but if it is just the same old arguments, I will probably just ignore it.
A quick hit and run comment, I think this administration has actually been quite honest with the American people in comparison to other administrations. Much of what has been said has been distorted and misreported by the mainstream press so it seems like they are dishonest, but if you look at what they have said without the emotional rhetoric, you will see a different picture. A quick barometer of this is that none of many “scandals” involving GWB & Co (like that, has a nice ring) have amounted to anything, they for the most part have been fishing expeditions.
I know there are some time differences involved, but I want what you are drinking if you can be up at 3:15 am writing on a silly blog.
Have a good day my friend
April 12th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Sorry Knarley,
I guess you didn’t make that many references to 911 conspiracies, I must have gotten mixed up with another thread. I will read closer.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Don’t worry about reading the other ones any closer on my account, I’d prefer if you jsut focussed on understanding where the truth on BOTH sides of the 911 debate exists.
The tv news lies rant and “rabbits” comments that follow may not be 100% accurate, but even if only half of it had substance well, then, Dorothy, I do not think we are in Kansas anymore.
As for what I’m doing up at 3 am, sometimes I fall asleep when I put my daughter to bed at 8 or 9 pm, so then I’m up for a couple hours in the middle of the night and reading stuff online is one way to stay quiet. Sorry to disappoint you I know you would have preferred me to lie and say I was up late making tinfoil hats or I ‘d just got back from a sorority party…
April 12th, 2007 at 11:48 am
NL - what do I think about Canada taking a fighting role in Afghanistan?
Initially I was utterly dumbfounded that we could be making a similar mistake as the Soviets and all the other countries that have tried to exert influence there through force.
Then my feeling changed to a seething anger at Harper that in the blink of an eye he could change the unwritten compact between Canadians and our government to use the armed forces for PEACE keeping activities only. I have never felt so betrayed by a federal government. I want the sponsorship scandals back instead of this gigantic debacle. My greatest fear is that we will become more and more militarized as a society until we start to resemble the USA on the world stage.
All in all though, I recognize that my disgust at Harper’s foreign policies is so overwhelming to me personally, that it is best, for me, to remain quiet on those issues for now. Simply put, I am way too emotionally distraught over this change in direction to get involved, for if I do I fear it would become all consuming to me. For that reason I even avoid newspaper accounts except to glance at the headlines and what I see from that on a day to day basis is that the Murdochs and the Blacks are trying to drum up support for neverending wars.
When they were in a peacekeeping role, I supported our troops fully. Now I pity those who had signed up before the change in focus and have little sympathy for anyone who signs up or otherwise contributes to their offensives.
April 12th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Hi shcb,
Sorry, but the jury of world public opinion has reached a nearly unanimous verdict that your current administration is dishonest. I won’t waste my time arguing with you other than to do a quick cut/paste of the following as this is something that might be of benefit to you. Apparently it is a good compilation of the more heinous lies and it is scheduled to be released to the American people in an upcoming PBS special. Here’s a sneak peak:
Record of Iraq War Lies to Air April 25 on PBS
By David Swanson
t r u t h o u t | Guest Columnist
Thursday 12 April 2007
Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq war to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. I’ve watched an advance copy and read a transcript, and the most important thing I can say about it is: Watch PBS from 9:00 to 10:30 PM on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes will actually save you time because you’ll never watch television news again - not even on PBS, which comes in for its own share of criticism.
…
Landay at Knight Ridder did report the facts when it counted, but not enough people paid attention. He tells Moyers that all he had to do was read the UN weapons inspectors’ reports online to know that the White House was lying to us. When Cheney said that Hussein was close to acquiring nuclear weapons, Landay knew he was lying: “You need tens of thousands of machines called ‘centrifuges’ to produce highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. You’ve got to house those in a fairly big place, and you’ve got to provide a huge amount of power to this facility.”
…
Colin Powell’s UN presentation comes in for similar quick debunking. We watch a video clip of Powell complaining that Iraq has covered a test-stand with a roof. But AP reporter Charles Hanley comments, “What he neglected to mention was that the inspectors were underneath watching what was going on.”
…
Powell cited a UK paper, but it very quickly came out that the paper had been plagiarized from a college student’s work found online. The British press pointed that out. The US let it slide. But anyone looking for the facts found it quickly.
…
the rest of this article is at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041207D.shtml
April 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I don’t agree, KK, I think the mission in Afghanistan is just; it was mandated by the UN after their government (the Taliban) provided OBL and AQ a place to flourish and attack our friends. Don’t get me wrong, I am a little worried about the miltary / development spending ratio, but overall I think they want us there and things are improving little by little. I mean, it’s nothing like Iraq.
April 14th, 2007 at 3:24 am
Hi NL -
Fair enough. I know a guy who spent about 18 months in Kabul (2004 ish?) establishing government administrations - his opinion is much like yours. Further, I loathed the Taliban.
I’m not sure though whether we can achieve anything in that country that will justify the costs and lives lost and to be lost (if history is any guide, and it seems to repeat itself consistently in Afghanistan, then this is just the beginning.)
Also, consider this:
Why do the Afghans not recognize much difference between American forces and those under NATO? (yet.)
Too bad that the Americans and NATO didn’t have the weapons technology nor satellite systems necessary to take out OBL and the AQ training camps in more surgical strikes and instead had to launch an all out war that destoyed so much infrastructure that the civilians need(ed). I’d be freakin mad if my pathetic mud hut got destroyed and I were living with thousands of other displaced people in tent cities on barren plains in that inhospital climate.
Hypothetically of course, if OBL and AQ were not the key players responsible for the attack on our friends, would there be any reason for America and NATO to be on this mission instead of greater humanitarian crises elsewhere?
How’s the trans afghan pipeline progressing, who’s building it and who benefits?
April 16th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Actually, KK, I just watched a documentary on the recent history of Afghanistan last night (last 50 years?), and I must say it, and along with the story I just read on Lies.com, has destroyed some of my confidence in this mission.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:41 am
sorry to hear that, I really would like to beleive that I am wrong on this one.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:13 am
NL - Afghanistan -
Ugh. Your question has got me reading more about Afghanistan and it is not uplifting:
“The invasion of Afghanistan was marketed to Americans as an “anti-terrorist” mission and an effort to implant democracy. It was sold to Canadians as a noble campaign of “nation-building, reconstruction, and defending women’s rights.” All nice-sounding, but mostly untrue.
“…The U.S. and NATO are not fighting “terrorists” in Afghanistan and they are certainly not winning hearts and minds. They are fighting the world’s largest tribal people. The longer the Westerners stay and bomb villages, the more resistance will grow. Such is the inevitable pattern of every guerrilla war I have ever covered.
Western troops stuck in this nasty, $2-billion daily guerrilla conflict will become increasingly brutalized, demoralized and violent. This is precisely what happened to Afghanistan’s second to latest invader, the Soviet Union. …”
“…If 160,000 Soviet troops and 240,000 Afghan Communist soldiers could not defeat the Pashtuns in ten years, how can 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops do better?
Those generals and politicians who claim this war will be won in a few short years ought to study Maiwand.”
(Maiwand was the site of the epic 1880 Afghan victory against British colonialism by the Pashtun tribes - what we call the “Taliban” is actually a loose alliance of Pashtun tribes and clans, joined by nationalist forces and former mujahedin from the 1980s anti-Soviet struggle … Now, a century and a quarter after Maiwand, Pashtun warriors of southern Afghanistan continue to resist another mighty world power and its allies, who have been faithfully following the imperial strategy of the old British Empire.)
“What we …see is a war by Western powers seeking to dominate the strategic oil corridor of Afghanistan, directed against the Pashtun people who comprise half that nation’s population. Another 15 million live just across the border in Pakistan. What we call the “Taliban” is actually a loose alliance of Pashtun tribes and clans, joined by nationalist forces and former mujahedin from the 1980s anti-Soviet struggle. …”
Full article here:
http://www.wpgsun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2007/04/15/4023666-sun.html
April 17th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Iraq - History - a few highlights from a recent article:
“A bit of modern - by Iraq standards - history destroyed this week is the Al Sarafiya Bridge, built by the British in another Mesopotamian adventure, in the early 1900’s. Unlike many of Iraq’s wondrous bridges spanning the Tigris and the Euphrates, it survived the 1991 carpet bombing, but not now the invasion. Whilst accounts differ, from a truck bomb (and there are plenty of reports of trucks, vans, cars being stopped the allied troops and their owners LATER finding bombs in them)…”
…”Today it is Kerbala, site of one of the two most revered Shia shrines, resting place of Imam Hussein Bin Ali and his brother Abbas who left their mark on Islamic history at the Battle of Tuff (622), Imam Hussein mercilessly slaughtered, who is believed to have died with a Koran in one hand and a sword in the other. His words: ‘Death with dignity is better than a life of humiliation’, have not only a deep resonance with his Shia followers, but throughout Iraq. Or indeed, would strike resonance with any invaded nation. As I write they will be gathering the body parts…”
“…Before the invasion, suicide bombings were unheard of in Iraq. The 1990’s had some car bombs in Baghdad, which bewildered Iraqis and it would seem were generated by former US darling Iyad Allawi’s Iraq National Accord. American spokespersons have a mantra: ‘Al Qaeda’. But there was no Al Qaeda (anyway a CIA creation) in Iraq before the invasion. Has the most powerful army on earth no ability to control Iraq’s borders? Saddam Hussein never had a problem [keeping Al Qaeda out of the country]. Anyway, the US military itself has stated that only a minimal percentage of attacks are by foreign fighters and Iraqis have lived together for centuries. When a friend - and many others - said, just prior to the invasion: ‘Let them come, we have been fighting invaders for centuries’, she was talking about just that.”
‘Even in the Iran-Iraq war, our archeological sites, our history and theirs were respected’, said a near tearful archeologist in 1991, referring to the indiscrimate destruction from the air, of humanity’s history and utter disregard for civilian life,.. but ’stuff happens’, throughout the region - to quote Rumsfeld after the invasion’s looting and decimation - that was not happening before 9th April 2003. British Forces (some of whom were caught in Arab dress with a carload of explosives last year, who were arrested and for whom the British demolished a police station to rescue) are due to hand over Kerbala to Iraqis later this month. They had to hand it back after invading it in 1915 too…”
full report by Felicity Arbuthnot here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070414&articleId=5384
April 17th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
KK,
One counterpoint to your 11:13 post, the coalition forces are to one degree or another capitalistic. The Soviet Union was communistic, note I didn’t say socialistic. Communist states by their very nature are imperialistic. Because of their repressive nature, communist countries must always expand. Capitalistic nations do not have to expand their landmass to succeed, they do however rely on the free flow of commerce.
You may be right, we may loose this war like the Soviets, I don’t know if enough of them know we don’t want to conquer them, but hopefully enough do understand our intentions and will convince the others.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:02 am
shcb, I understand where you are coming from, meaning that I understand your language be it as it is a construct of your America-centrist education (yes?) and particular modern dialect of Newspeak (or is it Foxnewspeak now?) (Don’t be offended, I myself am a product of Cdn-centrist education and liberal newspeak, which might be worse eh?)
As such I agree with you, although I also cringe at its gross simplification, which does more to obstruct enlightened thought than it does to explain. I apologize if that is derogatory, but the Newspeak that I am hearing most everywhere hinges on gross oversimplification of terms such as capitalism and communism. Such simplifications dumb down debate and result in simplistic, error ridden conclusions. For example, “Iraqis will welcome American soldiers in the streets as liberators, like the Europeans in WWII!”
Let me explain how I agree with your statement.
But first, please take some time to understand a better, um, dialect than yours or mine. Then we can better understand what we are both talking about. For example, and this may seem radical at first, it is not a slam-dunk fact that capitalism is the opposite of communism. This should provide a good understanding of what this means: http://www.answers.com/topic/anti-communism (By the way, I find the context of the introduction of the term “Liberalism” in that link interesting and their definition of it enlightening.)
Now if you have a grasp of that, then you will not misunderstand my response.
I agree that a fair capitalist system - with enough government oversight to restrain excessive concentrations of corporate power - does not need to expand landmass to succeed, and the [completely] free flow of commerce, while not necessary, is in the long run the theoretical (and thus likely also the practical) optimal economic solution (but not necessarily the optimal overall situation). Ethical capitalism good; dictatorial communism or nazism is bad, & long sentences are worse.
The Afghans will not recognize (or care) about the difference between being conquered militarily and being economically “revitalized” (to borrow from Newspeak) with American capitalism. Especially when the economic “revitalization” comes via bombs and uranium tipped munitions pointed at them by foreign (very foreign) troops.
I’m not saying that military and economic conquest are the same thing, even though both are being attempted simultaneously in Afghanistan now. Being a Canadian I fully understand how being conquered economically does not necessarily mean full, immediate surrender to America.
What I am saying is that the unfettered introduction of the western world’s “trans-national” corporations into their economy profoundly impacts their culture.
Yes, it would probably increase their standard of living and you might think that a higher standard of living, or democracy, would or should be their paramount goal. But just because you may think they should think that does not mean that they do (or ever will) think that.
Different cultures and peoples, once basic needs are met, have different priorities. That is part of what makes life on our one and only shared planet so fascinating. It may be a radical idea to many Americans (like Bush), but different cultures and peoples, once basic needs are met, have different priorities than America’s priorities.
A MacDonald’s in every marketplace in every country of the world might be comforting to a midwesterner, but it does little to enrich the beauty and vitality of the cultural heritage and traditions in other countries.
Many (most?) peoples on earth believe the stereotypical view of America as it is described in a plethora of commentaries lamenting how consumerism has corroded the fabric of American society. Peoples of the world wonder if the corporate greed that ran amuck at Enron is indicative of most of America or if it is just indicative of Wall Street and Washington values?; or more to the point: what is Christmas in America now?
For many (most?) peoples on earth, “things” beyond necessities are not all that important. What is important is relationships and how honorably a person lives their life. They just do not understand the honor in being a loyal K-Mart shopper.
That may seem a trivial cultural distinction to us, but it is profound to other peoples. If we do not understand that, then we do not understand what the fighting is about. From the messaging of the conflict to the Canadian / US public by our news organizations (mostly a parroting of military news releases), the news media does not understand what the fighting is about either. Either that, or they do not want the public to think about what the fighting is really about.
That’s all I have to say on that. Which brings me to this:
“An unbiased observer doesn’t need to look beyond what’s happening on the ground today in Iraq and Afghanistan to conclude the War on Terror has been a brutal, manipulative means to a transparently self-serving end.” Read the rest of this fascinating article from a newspaper published in the most right-wing conservative city in all of Canada: http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/04/18/4055871-sun.html
April 18th, 2007 at 4:52 am
KK,
Your last post is quite possibly the most profound I have seen you write so far, I think I agree with you on almost every point to a point. I want to give you my perspective, America’s perspective, and the distorted liberal media’s perspective as best I can, but I don’t have time this morning, so if you can, don’t muddy this great piece by tying it to conspiracy theories until I can respond this evening, (shy little grin).
Thanks
April 18th, 2007 at 9:06 am
shcb, it’s not so profound. It’s simply allowing cultural awareness into the forefront of decision making. There is a similar concept in biology known as bio-diversity, which is explained to elementary school children in grossly over-simplified terms as “the web of life.” Basically, for the kids it is a nice concept, for the adults who have studied bio-diversity in detail (I’m talking at least second year biology at University) it is the difference between a healthy abundance of everything humans need to survive and death (or at least a rather barren existence.) Just like cultural awareness helps us live rich lives in peace, the lack of it results in war (“blowing things up and killing people”) and a more barren existence than if war did not occur.
For more perspective on the mounting death tolls, consider 33 people killed at V-Tech yesterday (unrelated), and this from todays news:
“ — Bombings in Baghdad kill 127 people, including 82 in an attack at a market, the Iraqi Interior Ministry says. Watch the latest video now on CNN.com.” (if you are bloodthirsty)
127 people bombed in Baghdad today, 33 shot at V-tech yesterday, around 3000 innocents were killed on 911 in what could have been, but may now never be, the best country ever.
shcb, Don’t tell me that trying to get at the truth about that day is “muddying the waters.” IT IS THE WATER. And don’t ask me to believe silly conspiracy theories promoted by your government either. I don’t want anything to do with their silly conspiracy theories except to see them exposed for what they are in the trials of its perpetrators for their crime(s) against humanity. Thankfully, the truth is starting to come out. Again, don’t miss this:
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/04/18/4055871-sun.html
April 20th, 2007 at 4:35 am
well, I guess we’re heading down that raod again.
April 20th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
No point, we’ve been there and back too many times.
This is new though, it is a good explanation of why it has been so hard for the facts to cut through the mud:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/10/hit-them-with-truth.html
April 21st, 2007 at 7:47 am
KK,
I actually read a large portion of the link you provided. It has been said “conspiracy theories give easy answers to complicated problems, but they are the wrong answers”. Could the reason people who think 911 was an elaborate plot are branded anti patriotic and kooks is because they are unpatriotic and kooky? This is one of the beauties of a conspiracy, you have already crossed the line that most rational people think you are goofy, so it is easy to simply move any one who doesn’t believe you into the conspiracy.
I find it interesting that there is this great group of editors and press outlet owners that are out to get the 2 or 3 percent of reporters that think the towers were brought down by GWB & Co to get approval by the American people so they can do something they don’t need the approval of the American people to do. Could it be that the 98% are right and don’t want their reputations soiled by a few kooks.
And then there is the great government cover up, didn’t Michael Moore get an award for criticizing this administration, didn’t we start this conversation a month or so ago because of a movie that was produced and distributed and seen by like a hundred million. Aren’t there a zillion blogs and websites devoted to this silly conspiracy. Can you give me the name of one person that has been arrested for spouting this nonsense?
The one I really liked though was the “people have been arrested for criticizing the government” and then gave a lesson of how a president that owned slaves repealed those laws, no deception there.
I don’t think people like you mean to be crazy, you just hate the reality on the situation and the solution to the problem so much you will grasp at anything to avoid what you hate. Like a cancer patient that doesn’t want to endure the pain of chemotherapy, so they try a cocktail of vitamins, meditation, exercise, and pilgrimages to holy places to avoid the pain. I worked with a fellow once that hated manual labor, he would expend more energy trying to figure anyway he could to not work, ending up making more work that the original job. You hate war and will grasp at any straw to make the side you have some control over stop, you then hope the other side will stop too, but they won’t. You will have your hands pressed against your ears screaming “mommy make then stop” as the sword slices through your forearms and neck.
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 am
Shcb,
Have you ever heard of “projecting” your fears? That’s what you just did in your last sentence. Seriously, if you thought that was a powerful way to end your post, then you really need to learn about the psychology of projecting and examine why that scenario appeals or is otherwise ipmortant to you. Because it is just silly.
So you think that people hate war so much they`ll do anything to make it stop, hoping naively that the other side will stop too. Sounds like a deep fear: did George tell you that them Arabs are going to follow your troops home if you do not let the troops kill em all first? Number one: after Vietnam, the commies did not continue their guerilla warfare in Colorado, they did their brutal business at home to finish up on the war chaos and America tried to forget about it.
Second: it doesn`t matter how long you stay in Iraq killing the people - who are now fighting just to get you out (and they were not linked to terrorism and the CIA`s al Qaeda before, but 5% or so might be loosely linked now) - terrorism will always exist as long as peoples FEEL they are so subjugated that they have no legitimate means to resolve what they see as injustices. That speaks to terrorist groups but the exact same could be said for the motives of Cho Seung-Hui, America’s most recent terrorist.
Third: I don`t really care if the other side stops or not - (do you mean Iraqi`s, Afghans, terrorists, people who want to buy oil with Euro`s, or foreign competitors to Starbucks?) - America can handle anything that the downtrodden terrorists or others think they can throw at her and America’s retaliation again would be brutal (no more free passes for guys like OBL, yup, if he attacks America one more time then by golly America will hunt him down and will not stop until he is dead or brought to justice!) Terrorists do not threaten America to any significant extent except in America`s paranoid psyche. ASIDE: Rather than being paranoid about what FOX tells you to be paranoid about, maybe you should consider that there might be a problem now that George has done such a heckuva job protecting America, so now you`ve got a lot of people getting complacent, asking questions wondering if Terrorists are really the bogey men they`ve been made out to be, and to stop that, some former cheerleader might agree that another home-grown Anthrax attack or other false flag is in order, just to put the public back on edge. There`s no telling what a former Ivy League cheerleader and Vietnam War Avoider is capable of, he might even be carrying a boxcutter (with safety guard, TM.)
So you read the article? You missed this part:
“As Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski has written:
“I have been told by reporters that they will not report their own insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story, because to question the government story about 9/11 is to question the very foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our government, our country, and our way of life. To be charged with questioning these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a disgruntled conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being sidelined or marginalized within an academic, government service, or literary career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American.”“
And you missed this: “don’t forget it was outsider family members who forced the insiders in a reluctant government to even mount the 911 investigation. Their tone is far angrier than most of the coverage, even as many of these researchers disagree with each other as much as they do the Bush Administration.”
You asked if I could give you the name of one person that has been arrested for spouting “this nonsense.” Well, maybe I could if you would tell me what the charge would be? Understand? Unfortunately, before you stopped reading the article before you understood: people don`t get arrested, they get ridiculed or fired or banished or any combination of the three or maybe other things. Here are two who lost their jobs for criticizing the president about his actions on 911: journalists Dan Guthrie and Tom Gutting, see http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morrison19apr19,0,3983124.column?coll=la-util-opinion-commentary Aside: some people go so far as to point to the Patriot Act provisions that give the president the discretion to detain indefinitely any person deemed by the president to be a threat to national security, and makes it a crime for people to even report that the detention has taken place (I don`t know about that.)
Your first point was pure propaganda. Like all good propaganda you take something that has been said and twist its meaning for your purpose. Yes, “conspiracy theories”, like the one promoted by your government, are far, far more “easy” to accept and believe than the unknown. The difficult part for people is the shock they go through when they start to realize that the evidence presented to support the government’s version of events does not stack up, that the pursuit of real investigations have been stymied, and that massive amounts of evidence were quickly destroyed. At that point there is a fear of the unknown. It is actually easier for many people at this point to say, “hey this is crazy to make myself so uncomfortable with these ideas, but when I listen to George Bush he makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and by golly it sounds like he’s got a “good” war going now so we better get on board with that.”
But for others, when there is a demonstrably failed case to support the Arab fanatics acted alone conspiracy theory, they want to start presenting alternative hypothesis, that is human curiosity. I.e. We saw this, George said it happened because of this, but that seems flaky, so what else might it be?
Some explanations (theories or hypothesis) fit better than others, I wouldn`t subscribe fully to any particular one with regards to who did it or even exactly how it was done. What I`ve been impressed with is the number of EXCELLENT QUESTIONS the Victims` Families and the rest of the Truth movement have asked, and it’s been alarming that the government refuses to answer or that Popular Mechanics and others publish such ridiculous hit pieces quoting NIST when even the underfunded NIST report relied on a paper published by the Journal of Engineering Mechanics by Bazant and Zhou which itself is full of fatal flaws: e.g. “In stage 1 (Fig. 1), the conflagration caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures apparently exceeding 800°C.” This assumption is crucial to the entire analysis, and there is no basis for it. Actual tests of uninsulated steel structures exposed to gas and diesel fuel for sustained periods never exceeded 360°C [partly due to steel heat conductivity[, the smoke color indicated cooler fires, etc. The full critique of Bazant and Zhou is available at the 911Research site.)
Those were my words, Barry Zwicker is more concise: “despite the drumbeat of the official story, and despite the nearly utter failure of the mainstream media to raise questions about the absurdities and impossibilities of the official story, ordinary, decent people, using their own senses and adding two and two, smell something fishy. Especially because the people promoting the official story, namely the White House and the big media, also promoted the lie of WMDs in Iraq, and have lied and covered up on other large issues. What I call the apologist community has more and more to answer for. ”
Hypothetically, WHAT IF YOU DEBUNKER ARE RIGHT!!! Why have you all muffed around saying “oh, gee whiz, sure was a lot of big stupid mistakes defending America, huh?” yup sure was. yup. Well them arabs sure are sneaky. Yup. Yup. Yup.” Well, here is what a more intelligent person (Lee Iacocca) thinks:
“On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It’s all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn’t safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day — and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.
That was George Bush’s moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he’d regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq — a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn’t listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you, I don’t know what will.”
So SHCB , take note because AMERICANS ARE STARTING TO SAY THIS ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE YOU:
“Debunkers claim massive incompetence caused 911. They claim a former disgruntled CIA [operative - OBL] and his 19 underlings [sneaked up on America] and hijacked four Boeings and blew up eight buildings (Seven WTC buildings and the Pentagon).
However, these debunkers spend far more time lambasting critics of the 911 Big Lie than they do goading the incompetent and criminally negligent administration to pursue and capture Osama Bin Laden. If OBL really masterminded 911, why haven’t these so-called “debunkers” petitioned their incompetent government to get Osama, whatever the cost? Why aren’t these debunkers at the gates of the White House with their signs and megaphones?
Because debunkers are phonies and frauds, cowards and fakes. Debunkers are enablers, not critics, of this…government. …”
“If debunkers, and the government of incompetents, cannot even capture the mastermind of 911, but allow him to escape and have forgotten him since, how much more criminal and inept can you debunkers and your government appear?”
“Debunkers accepted the fraud of Condolezza Rice and her statements that nobody imagined terrorists would hijack planes and smash them into tall buildings. Even when that statement was proven a lie. Indeed debunkers were so Uncritical of Rice, they allowed her to be promoted from National Security advisor to Secretary of State. Indeed, all the incompetents of 911 were promoted, praised or profited by the 911 attack.”
“In the debunkers’ world view, the government was negligent on 911 but benign, a victim of unfortunate circumstances. Never mind that not ONE single government official ever suffered for their negligence. ”
“Debunkers fail to comprehend the seriousness of their crimes. And it is a felony to be an accessory to a high crime, such as 911. By defending the official government version of 911 events, they have allowed all the culprits to escape punishment for their crimes. ”
“… But it is 911 debunkers who provide a justification for the war criminals to conduct their illegal wars. By compounding the lies, by compounding the deception, by preventing a complete investigation of the 911 massacre, debunkers contribute to the ongoing war crimes.”
And on the “lighter” side, here’s where your military farces in Iraq have taken you:
http://www.exile.ru/2007-April-20/war_nerd.html
Or go find this, he offers lots of great advice:
Had enough?
By Lee Iacocca
Scribner
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Knarly,
When you have listened to talk radio as long as I have, one thing you learn to expect out of liberals is their reluctance to concede a point. I haven’t had a debate class since the Nixon administration, but you dodged my point using a couple techniques I can’t remember the names of. You first try and minimize my point by attributing my making it to a serious psychological ailment, you then just dismiss it as silly since a silly man made the statement. It was a rather clumsy attempt. Later you do something similar with Bush, bringing up his war record and his college life as proof of ??? America has had presidents that have been great generals and presidents that had no military experience, some have been great at both others not so good at either, and everything in between.
The rest of this is going to be a little disjointed since you have peppered me with so much, as usual. You may need a program to keep up.
The commies were never coming after us in America, the Arabs already have, or were you absent on 911, it was in all the papers. Yes GWB & Co told me they were coming, so did Bill and Hillary, Nancy Peloci, Harry Reid, John Edwards, John Kerry and a bunch more Democrats have said the same at one time or another. Not to mention the presidents of Iraq (may he rest in peace) and Iran (may he soon do the same). In the third paragraph “Terrorism will always exist as long as peoples FEEL they are so subjugated that they have no legitimate means to resolve what they see as injustices.” I think that is why we got rid of Sadam, so the Iraqi folks can resolve issues themselves.
Fourth paragraph; I know America can handle anything the terrorists through at us, that is what we are doing now, I am more fearful of you liberals, if we wait and ignore the problem we may get hit really hard and have to hit back even harder, killing millions, I would like to avoid that. Paragraph five, I read it, Karen is just wrong, and the families got the 911 commission, and they said Arabs did it.
Sixth, losing a job is private matter, not a first amendment issue. I suppose the charges would be something like treason. Were Dan or Tom charged with anything? Presidents have always had similar powers, Lincoln and Roosevelt among others used that power. I think the Federalist Papers even addressed that issue, I will see if I can find out which paper. In the seventh paragraph you are setting up a false dilemma (or premise) using your conspiracy to justify your conspiracy.
Eighth through eleventh; it is ok to question, but at some point things may just be as they seem.
On Iacocca, I have all the respect in the world for his business savvy and management skills, but it doesn’t surprise me he would sign on to this absurdity. I would imagine he sees himself standing in front of those children saying the exact right thing, then move forward saving the world just as the Hollywood writers would cast him. But this is the real world, I guess Roosevelt took 45 minutes to react to the news of Pearl Harbor. The fact is that at times like 911, procedures take over for a while, get the president and vice president to safety, same with congress, planes are scrambled, information is gathered. The leader whether he is a corporate CEO, a general, or a head of state is giving orders, getting information and advise while on the move, as he is being secured, it is all very hectic, taking time to tell America what they already know would not be a good use of time and could be a security breach. I also lost a lot of respect for Lee when I read his book. He went on for page after page about his involvement with the Mustang and gave his involvement with the exploding gas tank in the Pinto a couple paragraphs. In this case I think Lee’s rants are a little self serving. What I think we saw from Bush is how real people react to these situations, and sometimes it isn’t flattering.
Paragraphs 13 on are just crap.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 am
shcb-
I guess my last post was too complicated. For your own good, please set aside tendentiousness and attempt to understand that the ideas of others might have merit.
For example, I suggested that you look into “projecting”, but you are still clueless, as evidenced by your thinking that it is a “serious psychological ailment” rather than a common thing that all people do (less so if they are more aware of it.)
On all those points where you simply state that this is wrong or that is just crap, well, to use your rule (or was it Teachervet`s?) from previous posts, I win those points.
Your belittling of Lee Iacocca was worthy of your talk radio hero. Glad you think it is fine that Bush went into shock (actually he looked like the only one not in shock that day!) then he and or his secret service bodyguards failed to follow standard and critical procedures to secure his safety and avoid collateral deaths if he was to have been a target on 911 while he was reading my pet goat.
But he was not considered to be in danger then even though authorities knew that America was under attack and that 4 and possibly as many as 11 airliners were currently hijacked.) I can logically deduce that because he had watched the FIRST plane crash into the North tower (or so he said and repeated saying even though the first video was first released by the shooter by giving it to the media a full 13 hours later) as evidenced by his own repeated statements joking about the lousy pilot (suggesting a psychopathic quality, his first reaction was a joke, not “OMG how many people have just died?”) so that would mean that he had access to private filming of the first plane hitting the tower. Who shot that film? That may be one of the zillions of unanswered questions. Questions that freedom loving free thinkers want to have answered.
Remember, many of the most loyal, most respected `good` Germans thought they were honorable Christian Nationalist Socialists in 1939 of the most powerful Nation on earth, and they were hanged in 1947 as complicit co-conspirators to ghastly crimes against humanity. People wondered why they did not question more about what was really going on, and the answer to that is that well, they would have been fired, beaten up, or shot. At least they could be forgiven to an extent because they themselves were victims of propaganda, people now have near full access to information via internet so they ought to know better. I don’t think willful ignorance through voluntary exposure to right wing talk radio will be much of a defense.
By the way, here is another guy that was fired: Kevin Ryan. He was fired more or less for doing his job by simply QUESTIONING an incongruence between what Underwriters Laboratory certified the melting point for the WTC steel and what the NIST report stated, and then refusing to remain quiet when faced with refusals to answer his questions.
(Kevin Ryan is a former employee of Underwriters Laboratory which certified the steel components used in the construction of the World Trade Center. Ryan wrote a letter to Frank Gayle of NIST, questioning the incongruence between laboratory testing, and conclusions drawn in the official government NIST report. After Ryan’s questions became public, he was terminated.)
A recent open letter from Mr. Ryan about FIGHTING LIES will be my next post.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:11 am
“In fact, Underwriter Laboratories does not certify structural steel.”
David Dunbar, executive editor of Popular Mechanics [1]
We now know that US Government scientists were not able to produce evidence for “widely dislodged” fireproofing within the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Because of this, the distinction between the fire-based hypothesis of collapse and the demolition hypothesis centers on one question. Were the steel assemblies used to construct those buildings tested for fire resistance as required by the New York City code? [note: actually, many other questions too including that the nature of the collapses violate laws of physics under any official explanation, etc.]
As I have stated many times in public, UL made it clear to me and others that they performed this testing. Of course I have their statements on the subject in writing, and I would have been a fool to have made such claims publicly without possessing such documentation. In contrast, Mr. Dunbar of Popular Mechanics does not seem to mind acting like an irresponsible fool in public, as his statement above indicates. His statement is foolish because it is widely known that UL does test and certify structural components for buildings such as the World Trade Center towers.
Even beginning students know that UL is one of the few important organizations supporting codes and specifications because they “produce a Fire Resistance Index with hourly ratings for beams, columns, floors, roofs, walls and partitions tested in accordance with ASTM Standard E119.” [2] The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) itself made this point clear in their WTC report by saying “the UL Fire Resistance Directory …is the major reference used by architects and engineers to select designs that meet the building code requirements for fire resistance ratings.” [3]
Additionally UL’s own Tom Chapin, the Chemist and manager of their Fire Protection division, with whom I was in contact, admitted to UL’s involvment in testing steel for the WTC in a letter to the New York Times editor published April 15, 2002. In this letter, Chapin said “The World Trade Center stood for almost an hour after withstanding conditions well beyond those experienced in any typical fire. In that time, thousands of people escaped with their lives. ASTM E-119 and UL’s testing procedures helped make that possible.” [4]
Popular Mechanics’ poor editorial practices and weak understanding of conformance testing are not the only reasons behind the false “UL does not certify structural steel” statement, however. UL made a similar statement themselves, shortly after firing me for speaking out and asking for clarification. They denied their own responsibility even after admitting publicly that their testing was related to the WTC tower’s performance. To make matters worse, UL exacerbated this denial with the additional claim that there was “no evidence” that any firm tested the steel.
Why would UL need to make this secondary claim of “no evidence” if they were never involved? Better yet, why would UL lie to the public at all, and how could they get away with it?
The “why” is easy enough to understand. UL is a tax-exempt organization (we pay their taxes for them), and requires good government relations to maintain this status. Additionally, given the fire-based explanation for collapse, whatever firm tested the WTC tower’s assemblies for fire resistance was at risk for a huge liability.
The question of how they could get away with such obvious lies is a matter of semantic deception. It is simply a cowardly distinction between “structural steel” and “steel assemblies used within a structure” that is behind these false remarks by UL and Popular Mechanics (PM). But these liars know that willing listeners, looking for easy answers that divert attention away from the painful evidence for the demolition hypothesis, will buy just about anything to avoid the truth.
I often wonder what UL might have said if 3,000 people had died from water contamination on 9/11/01. If it had been clear that the water testing division I managed was responsible for the compliance testing required to avoid such a catastrophe, it’s likely that UL and PM would have said something like ”UL does not test water”. Of course that misleading statement could be used only if one resorted to deceptive semantics again. That is, UL tests for contaminants in the water, they don’t test the water itself.
Those lying to us about 9/11 may feel that they have no reason to fear retribution. For example, we can choose to buy Popular Mechanics’ lies or not buy them, depending on whether we are looking for easy answers or truthful ones. In choosing, we can guess at UL’s motivations for lying, and we know the Hearst Corporation (Popular Mechanics’ parent company) has a long history in the business of propaganda.
But we can’t choose whether or not we care to pay UL’s taxes for them. As long as UL remains in good standing with the government, the American public must dole out the corporate welfare that supports them.
My ongoing lawsuit against UL will not only hold them accountable for their responsibility to public safety, it will help determine the future of our country.[5] Can someone openly speak obvious truths, no matter how sensitive, in America today? We may soon find out. At the direction of the US Federal Court in Indianapolis, lawyers representing myself and UL have begun mapping out a case management plan. It is already clear that UL made a significant mistake in firing me, as indicated by the fact that they have hired several very large law firms to support them instead of handling this simple “water-tester” with the team of attorneys already on their payroll.
How about Democracy Now and Popular Mechanics? Will they allow me to defend myself against their libelous claims in a public forum? It is doubtful, but I will offer an open invitation to David Dunbar to publicly debate me on the merits of the official conspiracy theory, and the evidence for the demolition hypothesis, whenever he feels that he finally has his facts straight.. I’m sure that Democracy Now would be glad to put us on the air.
In the meantime, we should all remember that over two thousand Americans, and countless thousands of others, have died in the 9/11 Wars since I was fired for speaking out. And only the lies of cowards like UL and Popular Mechanics stand between an escalation of those wars and the chance to pursue a lasting peace.
For the victims of 9/11, the victims of the 9/11 Wars, and for future generations, I will continue fighting those lies. You can count on it.
1. Debate between editors of Popular Mechanics and the makers of the film Loose Change, Democracy Now, September 11, 2006 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/11/1345203
2. Samuel H. Marcus, Basics of Structural Steel (Reston, Va.: Reston Publishing 1977), 20
3. Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” May 2005, Appendix A
4. J. Thomas Chapin, General Mgr., Fire Protection Div.
Underwriters Laboratories, Letter to the editor entitled Fire Test is Sound, New York Times, April 15, 2002.
5. Legal Defense Fund for Kevin Ryan, http://www.ultruth.com/
April 24th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I just heard that they were making up phony war stories about that Tillman guy and that the “heroic” rescue of Jessica Lynch was a bunch of bullshit (that came from Lynch herself). Straight out of a god damn Hollywood movie!!
Seriously, has this administration ever told the truth about anything?
April 24th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
During Katrina, Bush said that Brownie was doing a heckuva job. If you take that literally, i.e. he was doing a hellish job, that is sort of like truth.
Seriously NorthernLite, maybe we are too kind to call them liars. Maybe it would be more accurate to call them lying thieves. Here are a few paragraphs from this article ( http://www.just-international.org/article.cfm?newsid=20002132 ) which I think illustrates the point beautifully:
“The [Iraq War] bill is rising so fast because the level of war profiteering is unprecedented. …
Cheney himself is also taking in war profits, contrary to what he told Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” in 2003, when he denied making any money off his former employer. “Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president,” he said, “I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest.”
“I have no financial interest in Halliburton,” Cheney told Tim, “of any kind and haven’t had, now, for over three years.”
Those statements were proven false when financial disclosure forms showed that Cheney had received a deferred salary from Halliburton of $205,298 in 2001, $262,392 in 2002, $278,437 in 2003, and $294,852 in 2004.
In 2005, an analysis released by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), reported that Cheney continued to hold over 300,000 Halliburton stock options and said their value had risen 3,281% over the previous year, from $241,498 to more than $8 million.
Cheney may be the most visible profiteer to those who find it difficult to follow the war on terror money trail, but many other members of the administration with insider knowledge set themselves up to profit early on as well.
For instance…”
On a side note (actually the central theme of this thread) there is also this gem in that same article:
“After Bush’s speech on January 10, 2007, about the plan to send more troops, retired Army Col Doug McGreggor, a former advisor to Don Rumsfeld in 2003, said in a broadcast interview, “There seems to be a complete failure to understand that we have been trying to suppress a rebellion against our occupation.”
“As long as we are there,” he warned, “we are the number one public enemy for the Muslim-Arab world.”
“We were after all,” he points out, “a Christian army occupying a Muslim Arab country, something which in the Middle East, is essentially a disaster.”
This decorated combat veteran says Bush’s strategy will never work. “We did not go to Iraq originally,” he explains, “to dismantle the state, dismantle the army, the police, and the government, to occupy the place with the object of changing the people that lived there into something they did not want to become.” ”
As for what started it all, here is a new article that pokes some holes in the Big Lie:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/09/jones.html
April 25th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Hi Guys,
Knarly, you are absolutely right, I should not have called your stuff crap, you get the points. It is really frustrating to make a good point like refuting this is an illegal war and have you guys just keep on using that phraseology. And then I get accused of engaging in propaganda. Your post wasn’t too complicated, as you condescendingly pointed out, I was just making the point that you were ducking my assertion that liberals hate war so much they will believe anything they think will stop the conflict. By the way, you’re still ducking, I wouldn’t expect anything more from a liberal, I just like pointing it out.
You are giving me examples of people who have been fired, not arrested, not censored by the government, remember the bill of rights restricts the powers of government not private enterprise. That pretty much takes care of your next post. Not that it has anything to do with this subject, but I always find it interesting how economically illiterate people are, he mentions UL’s tax exempt status several times. Fact is, no corporation pays taxes, the cost of taxes are simply passed on to the consumer as a cost of doing business. He also makes mention of UL being somehow liable for the collapse of the buildings. Unless the tests of the steel were forged why would they be liable for anything. UL just certifies that tests are performed to lawful specifications. If the structure were not designed to withstand the damage it incurred from an event out of the ordinary, no one but the Arabs flying those planes were at fault.
The Tillman and Lynch situation, as far as I can tell there isn’t anything new here, all this has been known for years. To drag it up again is just the Democrats doing what they do best, assassinating characters. Not a fresh, helpful idea among the bunch. I was surfing past c-span the other day and there was old Harry Reid, somber face, looking at his papers, frowning, sighing, pregnant pausing, slowly raising his head, big frown, Clint Eastwood eyes glairing at Alberto, stopping after every few words for effect. Telling the Attorney General he had never in all his years on both sides of the isle witnessed such a travesty of justice, one so great he didn’t know if the Republic would survive. Guess he must have been absent when Clinton fired all 93 in one day, giving them 10 days to clear their desks. Yup, 8 vs 93. Poor ole Alberto could barely control himself, he very respectfully shook his head in the affirmative, giving the impression he gave a shit what this blow hard had to say. Every now and then a smile would start to form in the corner of his mouth. What a bunch of crap.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Arrests:
I’ll give an example, but my point was that arrests are unnecessary. Destruction of a persons reputation, wiping out their economic means of support and subjecting them to onerous investigations (e.g. tax audits), and/or slapping a gag order on their public statements or reporting of these statements are usually more than sufficient to stifle dissent. Example of arrests (you have to go outside the mainstream media to find the arrests, they do not get reported there): http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/150906whistleblowerraided.htm
Also, if you understand the Sibbel Edmunds story, that helps explain the point. She was not arrested, but her testimony on key FBI officials who actively suppressed reports was silenced:
http://www.breakfornews.com/Sibel-Edmonds.htm
“Edmonds was hired shortly after Sept. 11 to translate intelligence gathered over the previous year related to the 9/11 attacks. She says the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before Sept. 11 and calls Condoleezza Rice’s claim the White House had no specific information on a domestic threat or one involving planes “an outrageous lie.”
“Although Edmonds is officially barred from revealing the specifics of what she found out, she has revealed that she was hired to find and cover up the prior knowledge intercepts. She refused to go along with the cover up. Of course only small criminal elements of the government were involved on 9/11, the majority of those working for the FBI, the CIA and the NSA are good people who would have picked up on the pre-intelligence.
“Firstly Edmonds was keen to stress that information relating to pre 9/11 terrorist activity was intentionally blocked by elements of the intelligence agencies.
“I started reporting these cases together with documents and other witnesses in the department, within two months after I started working for the bureau, around November/December 2001. I went to my superiors, to their superiors and even all the way to the top of the chin, to Director Mueller himself within the FBI headquarters. Initially they were asking me not to push through this and in return they offered to give me a raise… When I did not continue reporting these issues, in about February 2002, they accused me of reporting these issues to the Congress via email.”
“At this time Sibel was not attempting to do this, she was attempting to raise the issues internally. The FBI then sent several agents to her house and confiscated her home computer and took it apart to check exactly who Edmonds had been contacting.
“They then forced her to take a polygraph test to determine whether she had been speaking to anybody outside the agency. This was the last straw for Edmonds who decide it was time to blow the case wide open and go to Congress with her vital information.
“So I went to these people within the Senate Judiciary Committee, I briefed their staff who had clearance, I went inside the secured facility and gave them documents, and about two weeks after that I was terminated without any reason being cited, in fact the letter I received from the Department of Justice said that ‘your contract is being terminated as of this date purely for the convenience of the Government.”
“Ms Edmonds went on to talk about the specifics of what elements of the Government are now doing and covering up.
“Starting with the revelation that forces inside the Congress and the FBI confirmed that House Speaker Dennis Hastert was illegally receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes from foreign lobbying organizations in exchange for political favors.
“Other Senators and Congressmen have also been exposed in the activity of taking illegal cash.
“She then went on to talk about former Attorney General John Ashcroft who in an unprecedented move officially gagged the Congress over her case in order to “protect certain diplomatic relations of the United States and to protect sensitive US-foreign business relations. In the most bizarre and Orwellian twist, Ashcroft “retroactively classified” many of the statements Edmonds had already made. This included information published in the press prior to the gag order.”
“Ashcroft did not elaborate at all and many have come forward to suggest that the gagging order was wholly illegal.
“Edmonds then made an analogy, as she often does when she cannot reveal specific facts. She suggested that there could be a so called “war on drugs” but it is an unwritten rule that you only go after the lower end drug dealers and leave alone the middle men and those at the top because the government can directly profit from their activity. This is how things were handled with terrorism in the lead up to 9/11. “
“The Justice Department’s inspector general ultimately determined that Edmonds’ firing was due “in part” to her whistleblowing activities. But there have been no consequences for those responsible, and her efforts to get the gag order lifted have been frustrated in court. “
And this, from: http://www.disastercenter.com/911_11.htm excerpt below:
“On September 13, 2004 a group of 25 former Federal employees directed a letter to the Congress of the United States of America. The purpose of the letter was to address serious shortcomings in the 911 Report. These former Executive branch employees, whom are not permitted to speak publicly about the specific wrongs that they reported to the 911 Commission, write of the existence of serious problems and shortcomings within the bureaucracy.
Part of their concern is that, in the Commission’s 911 Report, no one within government was held accountable. They maintain that in order to understand the underlying problem the Commission needed to take account of systemic errors in the operation of the Executive branch, which are dictated by motives other than the security of the people of the United States. “The errors were not due to a “lack of imagination” or “human error”, but due to clear negligence and/or a dereliction in the performance of their duties to the nation.” The Commission’s failure to assign blame, “is to play the political game.” They warn us that, “If these individuals are protected rather than held accountable, the mindset that enabled 9/11 will persist, no matter how many layers of bureaucracy are added.”
It must be understood that many of these former employees came forward with warnings related to the United State’s terrorism policy and other serious problems prior to 9-11-01. Much about what we know is because after 9-11-01 these individuals came forward and provided information to the Commission. They are whistleblowers, who “put the safety of the American people above their own careers and jobs even though they had reason to suspect that the deck was stacked against them,” and it was. The Commission neither acknowledged their contributions, nor faced up the urgent need to protect such patriots against retaliation. All were ostracized, others were put under gag orders, and some were fired.
…
“There is no experience in life like that of being a whistleblower. The individual puts the object of coming forward to prevent or stop a wrong from taking place and every aspect of their life is affected by that choice. It is a choice that frequently results in the loss of income and causes irreparable damage to one’s relationships both at work and at home. The individual is often stigmatized for life, their future prospects limited. In not addressing the issue that they raise here the Commissioners failed in their duty to them and to the people of the United States. An individual should not have to feel ashamed for harm that they caused those they love for having coming forward to save us from ourselves.”
April 26th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Here’s a more global view of the problem, many whistleblowers mentioned are here
http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/09/11/911-whistleblowers-ignored-retaliated-against/
Then you get censorship over these kinds of questions: http://digg.com/world_news/9_11_Whistleblower_Poisoned_Dies
Not to mention the censorship of the first responders who are at odds with the official story:
NYC Firefighters, trained and experienced in critical observations during cataclysmic events report hearing multiple massive explosions, going off in a sequence that they actually attribute to what a controlled demolition sounds like. Since that time, all Firefighters and Police actually witnessing these events have been slapped
with a government-mandated gag order. http://www.tyrannyalert.com/nyfd.htm
April 26th, 2007 at 4:08 am
For pure entertainment, don’t miss this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzIzoD-MhIE
April 26th, 2007 at 4:08 am
Arrests:
I’ll give an example, but my point was that arrests are unnecessary. Destruction of a persons reputation, wiping out their economic means of support and subjecting them to onerous investigations (e.g. tax audits), and/or slapping a gag order on their public statements or reporting of these statements are usually more than sufficient to stifle dissent. Example of arrests (you have to go outside the mainstream media to find the arrests, they do not get reported there): http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/150906whistleblowerraided.htm
April 26th, 2007 at 4:09 am
Also, if you understand the Sibbel Edmunds story, that helps explain the point. She was not arrested, but her testimony on key FBI officials who actively suppressed reports was silenced:
http://www.breakfornews.com/Sibel-Edmonds.htm
Edmonds was hired shortly after Sept. 11 to translate intelligence gathered over the previous year related to the 9/11 attacks. She says the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before Sept. 11 and calls Condoleezza Rice’s claim the White House had no specific information on a domestic threat or one involving planes “an outrageous lie.”
Although Edmonds is officially barred from revealing the specifics of what she found out, she has revealed that she was hired to find and cover up the prior knowledge intercepts. She refused to go along with the cover up. Of course only small criminal elements of the government were involved on 9/11, the majority of those working for the FBI, the CIA and the NSA are good people who would have picked up on the pre-intelligence.
Firstly Edmonds was keen to stress that information relating to pre 9/11 terrorist activity was intentionally blocked by elements of the intelligence agencies.
“I started reporting these cases together with documents and other witnesses in the department, within two months after I started working for the bureau, around November/December 2001. I went to my superiors, to their superiors and even all the way to the top of the chin, to Director Mueller himself within the FBI headquarters. Initially they were asking me not to push through this and in return they offered to give me a raise… When I did not continue reporting these issues, in about February 2002, they accused me of reporting these issues to the Congress via email.”
At this time Sibel was not attempting to do this, she was attempting to raise the issues internally. The FBI then sent several agents to her house and confiscated her home computer and took it apart to check exactly who Edmonds had been contacting.
They then forced her to take a polygraph test to determine whether she had been speaking to anybody outside the agency. This was the last straw for Edmonds who decide it was time to blow the case wide open and go to Congress with her vital information.
“So I went to these people within the Senate Judiciary Committee, I briefed their staff who had clearance, I went inside the secured facility and gave them documents, and about two weeks after that I was terminated without any reason being cited, in fact the letter I received from the Department of Justice said that ‘your contract is being terminated as of this date purely for the convenience of the Government.”
Ms Edmonds went on to talk about the specifics of what elements of the Government are now doing and covering up.
Starting with the revelation that forces inside the Congress and the FBI confirmed that House Speaker Dennis Hastert was illegally receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes from foreign lobbying organizations in exchange for political favors.
Other Senators and Congressmen have also been exposed in the activity of taking illegal cash.
She then went on to talk about former Attorney General John Ashcroft who in an unprecedented move officially gagged the Congress over her case in order to “protect certain diplomatic relations of the United States and to protect sensitive US-foreign business relations. In the most bizarre and Orwellian twist, Ashcroft “retroactively classified” many of the statements Edmonds had already made. This included information published in the press prior to the gag order.”
Ashcroft did not elaborate at all and many have come forward to suggest that the gagging order was wholly illegal.
Edmonds then made an analogy, as she often does when she cannot reveal specific facts. She suggested that there could be a so called “war on drugs” but it is an unwritten rule that you only go after the lower end drug dealers and leave alone the middle men and those at the top because the government can directly profit from their activity. This is how things were handled with terrorism in the lead up to 9/11. “
“The Justice Department’s inspector general ultimately determined that Edmonds’ firing was due “in part” to her whistleblowing activities. But there have been no consequences for those responsible, and her efforts to get the gag order lifted have been frustrated in court. “
And this, from: http://www.disastercenter.com/911_11.htm
On September 13, 2004 a group of 25 former Federal employees directed a letter to the Congress of the United States of America. The purpose of the letter was to address serious shortcomings in the 911 Report. These former Executive branch employees, whom are not permitted to speak publicly about the specific wrongs that they reported to the 911 Commission, write of the existence of serious problems and shortcomings within the bureaucracy.
Part of their concern is that, in the Commission’s 911 Report, no one within government was held accountable. They maintain that in order to understand the underlying problem the Commission needed to take account of systemic errors in the operation of the Executive branch, which are dictated by motives other than the security of the people of the United States. “The errors were not due to a “lack of imagination” or “human error”, but due to clear negligence and/or a dereliction in the performance of their duties to the nation.” The Commission’s failure to assign blame, “is to play the political game.” They warn us that, “If these individuals are protected rather than held accountable, the mindset that enabled 9/11 will persist, no matter how many layers of bureaucracy are added.”
It must be understood that many of these former employees came forward with warnings related to the United State’s terrorism policy and other serious problems prior to 9-11-01. Much about what we know is because after 9-11-01 these individuals came forward and provided information to the Commission. They are whistleblowers, who “put the safety of the American people above their own careers and jobs even though they had reason to suspect that the deck was stacked against them,” and it was. The Commission neither acknowledged their contributions, nor faced up the urgent need to protect such patriots against retaliation. All were ostracized, others were put under gag orders, and some were fired.
…
There is no experience in life like that of being a whistleblower. The individual puts the object of coming forward to prevent or stop a wrong from taking place and every aspect of their life is affected by that choice. It is a choice that frequently results in the loss of income and causes irreparable damage to one’s relationships both at work and at home. The individual is often stigmatized for life, their future prospects limited. In not addressing the issue that they raise here the Commissioners failed in their duty to them and to the people of the United States. An individual should not have to feel ashamed for harm that they caused those they love for having coming forward to save us from ourselves.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:10 am
http://www.tyrannyalert.com/9-11%20fairy%20tale.pdf
For pure entertainment, don’t miss this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzIzoD-MhIE
April 26th, 2007 at 6:09 am
This was the first time I heard Jessica Lynch saying her “rescue” was fabricated to raise support for the mission. Was this already known (officially) to the American people? Is the US military engaged in the same type of propaganda campaigns as people like, the Taliban, Al Qaeda?
If that’s so, good luck winning the hearts and minds of muslims, let alone your own people.
April 26th, 2007 at 9:56 am
shcb/tv
I would like to point out that Clinton fired those attorneys at the start of his term, just as dumbya fired the Clinton attorneys at the start of his term. The 8 we are talking about are decent folk like Carol Lam, who was pursuing the Duke Cunningham case (she was fired before they could raid Dusty Foggo’s house - bet those papers have been burnt, the emails erased from the servers and tons of unicorns have just shown up in Iraq). Not much news about further investigations into the Dukster’s connections since she was canned… mission accomplished! They wouldn’t play partisan ball to the level of corruption that KKKarl and Ko. wanted, so they were canned for no damn good reason.
Abu Gonzales and the entire dumbya crew have so politicized every aspect of our government it will be decades before we learn just how bad the damage really is.
But just keep swallowing rush’s load of partisan crap day in and day out. Keep the rage fresh. Thinking would hurt too much now.
It is people like Sibel Edmonds and Katherine Gunn, Scott Ritter and Cindy Shehan who are the heroes. rush windbag is a waste of air. I can’t wait to see Cheney in leg irons. And dumbya pee his pants on national tv.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Hi NL,
Yes it was out in the news- I don’t think mainstream carried it or if they did it was buried deeply under more important matters (whatever the hot topic was before Anna Nicole, Britney Spears etc.)
Some of the sources I read had me filled in on that ages ago. Rense is great for uncensored news, I read about 10% of what he posts, and discard about half of that as being too unreliable, but that 5% that make sense / is reliable is well worth the minor effort to scan throug h the crap. Much rather do that for myself than let some guy taking orders from Bill Orally decide what I should be reading.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Updates on the surge:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6575717.stm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/042507.html
April 26th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
SHCB,
You never convinced anyone that this was not an illegal war. All you did was convinced us that you agreed with the war criminals.
You assert that “Liberals hate war so much they will believe anything they think will stop the conflict.” That’s like saying Republicans love war so much they will believe anything they think will continue the conflict. Neither statement is worthy of a response.
You belittle other’s economic literacy, and then make a grossly erroneous statement that corporate taxes are irrelevant because they are just passed on to the consumer. Corporate taxes matter because they REDISTRIBUTE wealth (from the consumers who are willing to pay for the particular corporate goods or services in question) to Government revenue accounts (supposedly for a societal benefit or a higher moral purpose.) We haven’t even considered how corporate taxes on an entity like Underwriters Laboratories (with few consumers, themselves insurance companies?) might be markedly different in impact than corporate taxes on a particular retail industry; and, you have made no distinction between the effects of corporate taxes on books or children’s toy manufacturers/retailers compared to say, handgun or gasoline manufacturers/retailers. I guess for you it doesn’t matter.
As for the liability issue with UL, like usual you missed the point. So no need to argue that one. More observant readers will get it.
To say the Tillman and Lynch stories are being dragged up again is not accurate either. It was reported earlier, but in such a manner that probably 90% of Americans did not even hear about it or when they did they wouldn’t realize that it was a really bad thing - and that it wasn’t about the Military lying to the dead families so much (reprehensible as that is) as it was about the ADMINISTRATION’S role in creating and using the stories for their own political purposes to glorify the war. People are trying to bring LIES to the surface. You live in an Orwellian society shcb and you don’t even realize it.
Maybe this will start to awaken you: “Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.”
“They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.”
“As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.”
“Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we …“
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=WOL20070425&articleId=5487
April 26th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
And that, the better article, serves as an introduction to this: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=THO20070421&articleId=5454
April 27th, 2007 at 5:30 am
It’s funny how these conspiracy theories take on the same look after a while. They usually are more complicated than the “official story” involving a sinister plot with someone at the top directing the minions at the bottom.. Then there are the whistle blowers, people who can’t tell specifics, but can tell only vague references of what has happened, fore if they tell everything, the powerful will ruin their lives, even though in a lot of cases part of the vague references is how the powerful have already ruined their lives. The 911 conspiracy is classic in that it takes a simply explainable event, a well planned, well executed, military operation that was only partially successful but do to redundancies built in to the plan fulfilled the objective, in this case exceeded it.
One of the reasons, these theories get so complicated, is as questions are asked that can’t be answered by common sense, the story by necessity gets more and more complicated, soon unraveling into an overcomplicated maze of bits and pieces that taken as small snippets may make sense, but put together could (probably) never happen. You are taking an event that would be extremely hard to pull off due to it’s complexity and then propping it up with people who won’t tell the whole story. One last time, the administration didn’t need 911 to attack Iraq, they had all the reasons they needed prior. If they wanted to take down the buildings with explosives, why not just do it? Wouldn’t a half dozen car bombs in the parking garage be a simpler and more believable method of diverting attention from the shaped charges on the sixth floor?
Other items, small point but I don’t believe the rescue of Lynch is where the exaggeration was, it was how the platoon handled itself during the initial battle. Those details as I recall were quickly corrected as more information was acquired. As I recall Lynch didn’t even get out of her truck with a weapon and the rescue, while heroic was fairly uneventful in that the hospital was lightly guarded, and those guards were pulled away by a diversionary action a short distance away.
The unpresidented aspect of Clinton firing the prosecutors is he fired them all at once, usually they are allowed to finish cases and be replace in a more organized manner over a period of a few months or longer. Duke has plead guilty so it seems this case won’t be affected. Correct me if I am wrong, but it would seem there would be a transition phase that Dusty, whoever that is (sorry, haven’t kept up with this case), could be raided. If you knew about the impending raid don’t you think Dusty did?
Ah, Washington by it’s very nature is politicized, that is what they do. The Cindy Shehan’s of the world may be heroes to you, but their ideals would be suicidal if adopted as public policy. What would Cheney’s crimes be?
April 27th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Being a grumpy ole bastard that helped draw up the war plan for Iraq, you know, the war that “would last days, weeks, I doubt six months.”?
April 27th, 2007 at 11:53 am
shcb, I think NL reasons are about enough to hang the bastard. But don’t take my word for it,
why don’t you ask all the municipal and state and private citizens who have or are now drawing up the impeachment proceedings? The map on this website might be a place to start your education: http://www.a28.org/
or you can look at what George Tenant says now:
“In book, ex-CIA chief assails Cheney on Iraq invasion Tenet contends he was scapegoat.
George J. Tenet says Bush administration officials pushed the country to war.
Ex-CIA Chief, in New Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq War
By Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times News Service | April 27, 2007
New York Times: WASHINGTON, April 26 - George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.
The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.
“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.
Mr. Tenet admits that he made his famous “slam dunk” remark about the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But he argues that the quote was taken out of context and that it had little impact on President Bush’s decision to go to war. He also makes clear his bitter view that the administration made him a scapegoat for the Iraq war. ”
Http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/04/27/in_book_ex_cia_chief_assails_cheney_on_iraq_invasion/
April 28th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I doubt I will ever convince you of anything but I’ll try anyway. Here is my assertion in regards to the phrase “illegal war”; on an international level, there is no international government to create a law so there can be no illegal war, perhaps an immoral war but not illegal. On a national level, congress can declare war (article 1, section 8) which they did in essence a few days after 911 and then again a couple months before the invasion of Iraq the constitution doesn’t specify the wording of that declaration. The president is the commander in chief (article 2 section 2) this was expounded on in Federalist 69 by Hamilton. So tell me please what is illegal about this war?
I didn’t say all liberals hate war… I said you do, and a certain percentage on the far left. NL