Saturday, May 31, 2008

And Now, Back to Our Useful Idiot

Sean says: "...ya, international rules and conventions be damned, there's oil in them hills...oh wait it was because of WMDs, nope that's not it, it was because Saddam was bad, nope that's not it, it was because of freedom and democracy, oh wait...no that isn't it either"

I have dealt with the smaller points in Sean's monotonous, machine generated leftie speak here. I will cover the idiocy of the "it's-all-about-oil" meme in a future posts and as I've already said, I will deal with the WMD issue in a separate post, as well, but some of it has to be discussed here, because it is relevant. What I want to deal with in this post is Sean's ridiculous assertion that Saddam Hussein's tyranny - you know, his flouting of those international rules and conventions - had nothing to do with the decision to invade. The case has been made over and over again both here on my blog (see my Epistles to Foud, starting here, for a recent example.) and on dozens of others, not to mention by legions of knowledgeable folks using the entire panoply of media available today.

What Sean is asserting is that the decision to invade was not motivated by Hussein's record as an incorrigible tyrant, he is revealing himself to be a pathetic fool. It was precisely because of Saddam Hussein's record that the showdown took place. His very long record on the issue is why he could not be trusted, no matter what he said or did with respect to UN resolution 1441 or with any other previous attempt to make him come clean on his WDM. The two were absolutely inseparable. Want proof? Read on.

I'll start with statements from the mouth of that man so hated and maligned by the left, George W. Bush:

August 10, 2002:
"I have constantly said that we owe it to our children and our children's children to free the world from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of those who hate freedom. This is a man who has poisoned his own people, I mean he's had a history of tyranny."
November 8, 2002:
"All patriotic Iraqis should embrace this resolution as an opportunity for Iraq to avoid war and end its isolation. Saddam Hussein cannot hide his weapons of mass destruction from international inspectors without the cooperation of hundreds and thousands of Iraqis -- those who work in the weapons program and those who are responsible for concealing the weapons. We call on those Iraqis to convey whatever information they have to inspectors, the United States, or other countries, in whatever manner they can. By helping the process of disarmament, they help their country.

Americans recognize what is at stake. In fighting a war on terror, we are determined to oppose every source of catastrophic harm that threatens our country, our friends, and our allies. We are actively pursuing dangerous terror networks across the world. And we oppose a uniquely dangerous regime -- a regime that has harbored terrorists and can supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction; a regime that has built such terrible weapons and has used them to kill thousands; a brutal regime with a history of both reckless ambition and reckless miscalculation.

The United States of America will not live at the mercy of any group or regime that has the motive and seeks the power to murder Americans on a massive scale. The threat to America also threatens peace and security in the Middle East and far beyond. If Iraq's dictator is permitted to acquire nuclear weapons, he could resume his pattern of intimidation and conquest and dictate the future of a vital region."

January 31, 2003: (Press conference with Tony Blair.)

Bush: "Saddam Hussein is not disarming. He is a danger to the world. He must disarm. And that's why I have constantly said and the Prime Minister has constantly said this issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months."

Blair: "The whole point about the present situation is that when President Bush made his speech to the United Nations, when we went down the United Nations route, we passed Resolution 1441. And I think it really repays reading that, because we said very clearly that Saddam had what we said was a final opportunity to disarm, and that he had to cooperate fully in every respect with the U.N. weapons inspectors. As Dr. Blix said in his report to the Security Council earlier this week, he's not doing that. And therefore, what is important is that the international community comes together again and makes it absolutely clear that this is unacceptable. And the reason why I believe that it will do that is precisely because in the original Resolution 1441, we made it clear that failure to disarm would lead to serious consequences. So this is a test for the international community. It's not just a test for the United States or for Britain. It's a test for the international community, too. [Read: for the United Nations] And the judgment has to be, at the present time, that Saddam Hussein is not cooperating with the inspectors, and therefore is in breach of the U.N. resolution. And that's why time is running out."

February 6, 2003: The World Can Rise to the Moment. The whole thing is relevant, as it further elaborates on Hussein's infamous and nefarious cat and mouse game, which he continued to play, right up until the invasion, but I will quote only two passages, again by Bush:

"This is the situation as we find it. Twelve years after Saddam Hussein agreed to disarm, and 90 days after the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 by a unanimous vote, Saddam Hussein was required to make a full declaration of his weapons programs. He has not done so. Saddam Hussein was required to fully cooperate in the disarmament of his regime; he has not done so. Saddam Hussein was given a final chance; he is throwing that chance away."

[snip]

"All the world can rise to this moment. The community of free nations can show that it is strong and confident and determined to keep the peace. The United Nations can renew its purpose and be a source of stability and security in the world. The Security Council can affirm that it is able and prepared to meet future challenges and other dangers. And we can give the Iraqi people their chance to live in freedom and choose their own government.

Saddam Hussein has made Iraq into a prison, a poison factory, and a torture chamber for patriots and dissidents. Saddam Hussein has the motive and the means and the recklessness and the hatred to threaten the American people. Saddam Hussein will be stopped."

Monday Moment of Truth for Iraq

(Press conference at The Azores with Bush, together with Blair, Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Bassaro : video available at link, top right corner)

President Bassaro: "We have joined this initiative and we organized it here in the Azores because we thought this was the last opportunity for a political solution -- and this is how we see it, this is the last possibility for a political solution to the problem. Maybe it's a small chance, a small possibility, but even if it's one in one million, it's always worthwhile fighting for a political solution. And I think this is the message that we can get from this Atlantic summit.

President Anzar: "We are committed on a day-to-day fight against new threats, such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and tyrannic regimes that do not comply with international law. They threaten all of us, and we must all act, consequently."

Listen to the video and listen especially to Tony Blair's remarks. His oratory skills are far superior to Bush's and he explains it much, much better.

So you see, Sean, it wasn't about whether he had WDM, per se. It was Saddam Hussein's continual cat and mouse game with UN resolutions pertaining to them and to various other aspects of his tyrannical rule for more than a decade. The man was dangerous and he could not be trusted.

And speaking of Tony Blair, here's the statement issued by Blair's administration. The entire thing presents Britain's humanitarian case for war: Great Britain's Dossier.

There is also the US State Department's background brief, A Decade of Deception and Defiance, published in September, 2002, which contains considerable detail under the following headings:

Saddam Hussein's Repression of the Iraqi People
Refusal to Admit Human Rights Monitors
Violence Against Women
Torture
Executions and Repression of Political Opposition
Saddam Hussein's Abuse of Children
Basic Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Information
Withholding of Food
Crimes Against Muslims
Saddam Hussein's Support for International Terrorism
Saddam Hussein's Refusal to Account for Gulf War Prisoners
Saddam Hussein's Refusal to Return Stolen Property
Saddam Hussein's Efforts to Circumvent Economic Sanctions


The details under these headings are worth reading, by the way, as they provide a lot of information that may cause you and Captain Taliban to rethink your position on a few things, the sanctity and usefulness of the United Nations, being one, but certainly the fools argument that the humanitarian angle had nothing to do with the decision to invade. Foud, you should, too, since your notions about pre-war Iraq are grotesquely off-base, to say the least.

And lets not forget who it was that signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law, way back in 1998, and what the man then sitting in the Oval Office had to say about Iraq and the justification for authorizing Saddam Hussein's removal.

There's also the passage of the Joint Resolution to Authorize the use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, passed by both houses of Congress in October, 2002, just months before the invasion. Here are some relevant passages from that resolution:
"Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region..."
[snip]
"Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;..."
It's worth reading in its entirety, Sean, sweetheart, as it blows apart every one of the naive and bankrupt assumptions from Taliban Jack's Little Red Book
that you just repeat ad nauseam.

And finally, three days before Baghdad fell, this was posted on White House's website: Life Under Saddam Hussein

None of this is to say that oil was not a large factor, but as I said,
I'll return to that argument in a later post. But for you to make the claim that the US lead coalition's motivation had nothing to do with Saddam's human rights record and his previous history as a "bad guy" is to admit to being either a cad or a blithering idiot. Take. Your. Pick.

Oh. And my father fought in Europe in World War II to protect your sorry ass, and I'm glad he did. He signed up the day war broke out in 1939. Canada had not been attacked, nor had Great Britain. Indeed, Canada was in very little danger of being attacked. He just did the right thing, because it was the right thing.

Just curious. Do you hate Jews, too, or is it just brutally oppressed Arabs that you don't give a damn about?

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Moving Right Along...

UPPERDATE: Iraq Pundit concurs.

UPDATE: While the leftosphere salivates over its latest Bushhitler victory, the Iraqi army marches into Sadr City to the cheers and jubilation of its residents.
"And at sunrise on May 20, a legion of Iraqi soldiers cautiously marched into Sadr City. Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki had ordered the thousands of soldiers into the Shiite enclave as part of "Operation Peace." They were greeted with open arms.

"Now, we feel safe and stable," said Ayad Abbas, a Sadr City resident. "All the people of Sadr City want the rule of law … so, the army can enter" said another."
At last, that hotbed of violence, Sadrists, Islamofascists and general all round criminal class has been dealt with. It has indeed been a good week for Iraq.

Eat that, McLellan. It's not about you.

ORIGINAL POST:

More good news from Iraq.

Iraq's Maliki asks for debt cancellation

Many Western nations, Canada among them, vowed to cancel the odious debt owed them by Saddam Hussein's Iraq -Iraqi People Shouldn't Pay Saddam's Bills - but were waiting to see whether Iraq would stabilize and the new form of government take root. Maliki, it seems, thinks the time has come to make good on that promise. I hope Canada will step up.

I rather like this statement, too:
"We are looking forward to the brother countries writing off its (Iraq's) debts, which are a burden on the Iraqi government," he said, a pointed reference to Gulf states Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which are Iraq's biggest Arab creditors."
Go Iraq!!!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Obama = Disaster?

Monday, May 26, 2008

Now, for Our Useful Idiot...

...Sean's statements. These are a virtual goldmine of idiocy:

"
How exactly are we supposed to pull our weight? getting involved in illegal wars? choosing sides in civil wars? propping up a military industrial complex of our own so we can increase exports of WMDs?"

[snip]

"ya, international rules and conventions be damned, there's oil in them hills...oh wait it was because of WMDs, nope that's not it, it was because Saddam was bad, nope that's not it, it was because of freedom and democracy, oh wait...no that isn't it either...."

I will take them one by one, dealing with the simplest ones first:

How exactly are we supposed to pull our weight? We need to have a force adequately equipped and strong enough in numbers to fulfill our obligations under NATO and any other mutual defense treaty to which we are a party, that's how. For years, under successive Liberal governments, Canada's armed forces were starved of funding to the point where we were using equipment and vehicles that were so out of date and crumbling is was an international embarrassment. If I had my way, we would return to the stature we held in World War II, and in my opinion, the only political party capable of getting this right is the Conservatives. We need not only modern equipment and materials, but specially trained units capable of fighting today's warfare, which involves tactics suitable for dealing with terrorism and the kinds of threats terrorist groups are presenting. The Americans are way ahead of us in this regard.

...getting involved in illegal wars? The notion of a legal versus illegal war is a bonehead's straw man. Who is it that decides whether a war is legal or illegal? The United Nations? What nation in their right mind, being responsible for the safety and security of its own citizens, would surrender the right to declare war against an enemy to an organization over which it has very little, if any, control? The United Nations, after all, is the body that put Lybia's Muammar Gaddafi in charge of the Human Rights Portfolio and followed that act by putting Sudan in charge, while it carries out genocide in Darfur - two of the most sterling defenders of the human rights of their own population. This is the organization that brought us the Oil-for-Food scandal and "peacekeepers" raping women and children. The United Nations is a sick joke, and if Sean wants Canada, or anyone else in the free and democratic world, to surrender their sovereignty to this sort of organization, is it little wonder that the Party to which he owes allegiance is always near the bottom in every federal election. Even the Liberals had more sense than that.

..choosing sides in civil wars? If it's in our interests, yes. For example, if democratic forces in Afghanistan were at war with the Taliban, you better believe we should be backing the democratic forces. We know that Taliban Jack would not want to do that, but, again, that's why Taliban Jack and his little band of useful idiots will never be in power.

...
propping up a military industrial complex of our own so we can increase exports of WMDs? I presume our young socialist trooper is referring to the oft repeated non-sense from the left which attempts to claim that the Americans sold Weapons of Mass Destruction to Saddam Hussein. This is a larger question, which I will deal with in another post, but the short answer for now is that materials that could be used to make WMD were sold to Iraq, but they could also be used for many other purposes. What Iraq did with them is another question.

...ya, international rules and conventions be damned, there's oil in them hills..
Again, the thing about international rules. I wonder what Sean would have said about Winston Churchill's decision to go to war against Germany. England hadn't been invaded, after all. And Canada, too. We weren't even any where close to being endangered by NAZI Germany. I suppose we shouldn't have gone to war in Sean's little fairy tale world.

But now we get to the meat of Sean's delusions. The "it's all about oil" meme. I'll save that, and the rest of the useful idiot's rote regurgitations, for future installments.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

More confirmation about success in Iraq.

h/t CJunk

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Iraqi Bloggers Central

Don't you just love it when your name shows up on a famous blog?

Check it out.

Fours years and counting. Been a great run, Jeffrey and gang!!

Who can ever forget the Seven Rules of the Arab Parallel Universe?
1) Arabs never make mistakes, and they rarely lose wars.
2) The Zionists and the Americans are always to blame for everything that is wrong in the APU.
3) If there is any credit at all that can be contributed to Arabs in any way, they will take it.
4) Good leadership is inversely related to how US-friendly a leader is!
5) Any media that is not the official state-owned media is filled with Zionist, Jewish, American, Christian, imperialist, anti-arab influences and they LIE ALL THE TIME!
6) There is really no need for elections in the APU, because Presidents and rulers are presidents and rulers for life.
7) The only viable alternative candidate to the current leader or president is this current leader or president’s son.
Keep up the good work.

Martyrs and Mental Illness

I've often wondered how the Islamic world handles mental illness or mental deficiency. It seems to me many of the folks promoting and arming, and actually volunteering for, the suicide bombing brigade may, in Western society, be prime candidates for the forensic unit of a mental hospital. Abominable sadism, this.

"MI5, is afraid that terrorists are recruiting mentally disturbed people as suicide bombers."
[snip]
"the more serious concern is the implication that MI5 didn’t already know that mentally disturbed people have long been recruited as suicide bombers. If you talk to Iraq war veterans, you will hear no end of such stories. If we had better reporters in the field, we’d have learned long since that American troops have refrained from shooting people who approached them, when it looked like they were seriously disabled.

The exploitation of such people by the terrorists is one of the most disgusting and cynical aspects of the war, and says a lot about the kind of evil we are combating. I hope that our own domestic security people are paying attention."

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Epistle to Foudroyaume - Installment III

"And of course, there's body count. Iraq has turned into a human disaster."

Let's take a look at body counts for this war and for past wars, shall we.

First of all, there's Iraq Body Count: Latest count of civilian deaths is 91,713, after five years of war. Iraq's pre-war population was estimated to be around 26,000,000. That's .3% of the population. World War II also lasted five years. Death rates for civilian populations in the most war-torn parts of Europe were vastly higher than that.

Austria - 1.59%
France - 1.35%
Czechoslovakia - 2.25%
Germany - 10.47%
Greece - 4.31%
Hungary - 6.35%
Italy - 1.02%
Latvia - 11.38%
Lithuania - 13.71%
Netherlands - 2.82%
Poland - 16.07%
Romania - 4.22%
Soviet Union - 13.71%
Yugoslavia - 6.67%

It's also worth pointing out that the only folks who are wearing uniforms are the American led coalition and the Iraqi Army. The folks doing most of the killing are civilians and many times they kill themselves in the process and will be included in Iraq Body Count's numbers. It's also worth acknowledging that the suicide and remotely detonated bombers are primarily killing civilians, and randomly at that, whereas a real guerrilla force targets are political and strategic.

The intention is to so horrify the American public as they watch their nightly news, that the American government will succumb to public pressure and will pull out and they don't care how many innocent women and children they kill. That's a tactic in which the Main Stream Media (MSM) willingly colludes and which peace-nics salivate over. It worked with the Vietnam War. It's not working this time, as you may have noticed, because people have access to accounts that are not filtered through the MSM, which by the way, is causing the MSM to take a big hit and groups attempting to rally a big anti-war movement to fall flat on their faces.

Of course, Iraq Body Count is not the only one out there. Estimates from the Iraqi government itself, and from other agencies doing extrapolative studies have come up with wildly varying estimates. The Lancet studies, both of which, were on the high side, have faced serious criticism.

"Some critics go so far as to suggest that the field research on which the study is based may have been performed improperly -- or not at all. The key person involved in collecting the data -- Lafta, the researcher who assembled the survey teams, deployed them throughout Iraq, and assembled the results -- has refused to answer questions about his methods." (Emphasis mine.)

"Lafta had been a child-health official in Saddam Hussein's (emphasis in the original) ministry of health when the ministry was trying to end the international sanctions against Iraq by asserting that many Iraqis were dying from hunger, disease, or cancer caused by spent U.S. depleted-uranium shells remaining from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In 2000, Lafta authored at least two brief articles contending that U.N. sanctions had caused many deaths by starvation among Iraqi children. In one article, he identified malnutrition as the main contributor to 53 percent of deaths among hospitalized children younger than 2, during a 1997 survey carried out at Saddam Central Teaching Hospital. The article cited no health data from before the sanctions, yet it asserted, "We can conclude from results that the most important and widespread underlying cause of the deterioration of child-health standards in Iraq is the long-term impact of the nonhumanized economic sanction imposed through United Nations resolutions." (Emphasis mine.)
"Lafta and his surveyors often worked under brutal political pressure. In January 2007, a Sunni suicide bomber killed more than 70 students at the university, partly because it is perceived as being under the control of Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite religious leader whose Mahdi Army militia crippled Sunni insurgent groups in Baghdad during 2006. Until this fall, Sadr's party and his Mahdi Army also controlled the health ministry, which employed some of Lafta's researchers."
"This is another case of Americans failing to grasp that they cannot beat a guerilla (sic) foe through brute force". Brute force???

"This is another case where American clumsiness and moral immaturity (which is the most neutral phrase I can find for the atrocities that are committed by many soliers (sic) on every side of every war ever fought) are creating a state of terror, rather than eliminating one."

Wow! "..clumsiness and moral immaturity.."??? ...creating a state of terror rather than eliminating one??? My darling Foud. What have you been reading?

The Americans made three mistakes only, namely: 1) they did not seal the borders immediately after the fall of Baghdad. This allowed all sorts of arms and fighters from other countries to enter Iraq;, 2) they grossly underestimated the number of troops required to do the job, and that was primarily Rumsfeld's doing. 3) Bush took far to long to can Rumsfeld. But once he did, and the "surge" in troops got into the field, under the command of General Petreaus, it has made a world of difference. The Iraqi army is up and trained and is now in charge, and doing a fantastic job, by the way. In fact, they are doing most of the combat now. Basra was liberated (General Petraeus in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee a few days ago: "The people in Basra were rejoicing from being freed from the militia. In fact, a man in Basra told me that now he had been liberated twice in recent years. Once by Coalition Forces from Saddam and now by the Iraqi Security Forces from the militia.") and they are now in the process of mopping up Sadr City. Maliki is in charge. The tide has turned, as you can see: Violence in Iraq falls to lowest level in 4 years. The US has pretty well achieved its objectives and troops are scheduled to be drawn down over the next several months. Iraq is well on its way.

Oh, and if you want to know what sources I use, just take a cruise through the back pages of my blog and follow the links. I would suggest you start in 2006.

And for the bit about the media, go here and here and follow the links. Do you think the media would report this story or this and this? I get my news from blogs and the links the owners and commentors provide. I don't have a television. The old media is history.

Canada to deport first US deserter of Iraq war

Good!!!
"Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board has said in a decision supported last year by the federal court that US asylum seekers are not conventional refugees under UN High Commissioner for Refugees rules, nor in need of protection.

Accordingly, Glass's refugee claim was denied."
I never understood why these idiots would sign up for service in the armed forces in the first place. It's not as if there was a draft. Once you've made that decision, you can't pick and choose which war you will fight.

Good riddance.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Epistle to Foudroyaume - Installment II

Following are the next five statements from Foudroyaume's comments on John Murney's blog together with my response. Again, Foud's remarks are in bold italics. The reason I have dealt with all five of them is the single unifying thread in all of them is what appears to be Foud's complete lack of awareness of what life was like for Iraqis under Saddam Hussein.

"SH had his victims, (some, like the Kurds, haven't been treated any better in supposedly free countries, like Turkey), but it's not like the country was subject to constant feuding between thugs and fanatics."

Yes, there was no feuding between thugs and fanatics. Any one in opposition to the regime was murdered.
Simple as that. Estimates vary as to the number of Iraqis killed by the regime for political activity, but I'll pick 300,000 as a reasonable middle ground. If you include the number of war dead from the Iran-Iraq war and the invasion of Kuwait that number soars to well over a million.

And about the Kurds, I presume you have heard of the Anfal Campaign
and other incidents of oppression and brutality, and yes, Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere are treated badly, but only Hussein used chemical weapons, killing tens of thousands. His Regime was responsible for arbitrary arrests and assassinations, disappearances, and for sending thousands to seek asylum in other countries and need I mention the mass graves. Only 270 of them. Perhaps that's not enough.

"Also, unlke (sic) Afghanistan, where the mass of hardship was caused by the ruling regime and their opponent factions, Iraq's biggest problems were due to American sanctions."

Here's some reading for you Foud. Here, here, here , here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. This one has a segment of the film by Iraqi Kurd, Jano Rosebiani, who is a member of a panel discussing the war. You'll notice toward the end that Rosebiani is critical about the job done by the media. No. Iraq's biggest problem was it's tyrannical government. I have lots more on that theme below and can give you even more, if you want it.

I agree that regular Iraqi people were the principal victims of the sanctions, but Saddam Hussein had the capacity to end that. He didn't, of course. Rather, he made it worse and exploited it, creating propaganda out of his distorted depiction of their effects. When the impact became known, the sanctions were modified with the introduction of the Oil-for-Food program in 1995, and I'm sure you must know how that turned out.

But why folks persist in calling them "American" sanctions needs some explaining. The fact is, they were imposed by the UN Security Council when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The Americans did impose their own sanctions, as well and while they may have been instrumental in getting the UN to impose sanctions, they were UN sanctions. Lifting the sanctions was, in fact, one of the reasons for the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. It was the United Nations that lifted them on May 23, 2003, two months after the invasion.

"I think the people of Iraq on average would have benefitted (sic) more from lifting sanctions (which would have helped foster a friendlier attitude to the west--"

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, Foud but I presume you think the attitude of Iraqis toward the West would have improved had Saddam Hussein been left in power. I'm not sure we could ever know that, since that's not how it turned out. But I would state unequivocally that Iraqis are far less likely to be unfriendly toward the West than other Arabs now, especially since they can now speak without fear and have no compelling reason to repeat the nauseous rhetoric of Arab Nationalism, which is so common in the rest of the Arab world. An illustration of that fact is documented here.

Iraqi opposition groups were consulted prior to the invasion. They all agreed that Saddam Hussein must be removed. It's hard to understand how anyone would think that leaving him there would be in Iraq's better interests.

"SH, unlike Taliban leaders, cared about public opinion and mayb (sic) have been willing to enter into mutually beneficial negotions (sic) if he sensed a pro-western attitude growing in Iraq--he was an opportunist, not an ideologue."

Saddam Hussein cared nothing about public opinion, other than that he be adored and obeyed. Opinions of the West about him were irrelevant. He was offered the option of going into exile. He accepted on condition that he be given $1 billion and all the information he needed on weapons of mass destruction. In other words, he would leave if he could take the means of building a WMD program in exile. That link, by the way, provides a nice summary of the decade long cat and mouse game that Saddam played with the West and with the UN. Here is another summary. This is not a man who would negotiate anything. A study of his rise to power easily shows the only thing he knows is brute thuggery. The notion that he would respond favourably to a "pro-western attitude growing in Iraq" is ludicrous on its face. No such "attitude" would be allowed to grow. Foud, you have no concept of the depth and breadth of his iron grip and the ruthlessness of his apparatus of terror.

"The Taliban, on the other hand, are whackos with guns who maintained a state in which constant terror was the norm for most. As a result of their religious-centerd (sic) governance, Afghanistan is decades behind in infrastructure and services (Iraq, by contrast, is quite modern)."

First of all, Foud, you describe the Taliban regime as one which maintained a state in which constant terror was the norm for most, as if the same was not true of Saddam Hussein. While you may be right about the Taliban, you couldn't be more wrong about Saddam Hussein. I would recommend you read "The Republic of Fear" by Kanan Makiya or "Saddam: King of Terror" by British journalist Con Coughlin or the copious writings and interviews given by Christopher Hitchens. Read the testimonies of legions of Iraqi exiles and families whose members have disappeared, whose testimonies have been collected here and here and here and here, to name only a few.

The last of the four links above describes a massive file of documents discovered in an underground labyrinth containing "three million files with new insights into the regime's repression and depravity". You'll note that among those files "(t)here is a blacklist of schoolchildren, a register of every schoolchild in Iraq, listing their relatives and their supposed political affiliations. If a file recorded that a brother or an uncle had been executed for political reasons, that child was blighted." I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I read that particular one, as likely you would too. But mine was a little different, because I was able to recall a conversation I was once privy to when I would have been in my late 20s or early 30s (late 1970s or early 1980s, I believe). My ex-husband's cousin visited us from Iraq and told us of what was happening. Saddam Hussein or his henchmen would visit schools and ask the children to tell him what their parents said about him. The little innocents, too young to know better, would sometimes reveal that their parents opposed his regime. Within days, the adults in the family would be arrested, murdered or disappeared. When I read about this registry, I felt certain that that story must be connected.

If that's not enough for you, read though the archives of agencies like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. Read the reports and testimony of the UN Special Rapporteur, Max Von der Stoel, on the gravity of the situation in Iraq under the Butcher of Baghdad in the 1990 and again in 1999. Von der Stoel described the atrocities committed by the Ba'athist regime as "the worst since World War II". Your perception of pre-war Iraq is tragically devoid of even the most rudimentary facts. What a shame that someone with your level of intellect would pass judgments on one of the most horrific regimes of the 20th century with such a paucity of knowledge.

Epistle to Foudroyaume - Installment I

As promised, I intend to pick apart the falsehoods and plain old ignorance of two commentors from John Murney's blog. I think that Foudroyaume's response on John Murney's blog provides the best place to start, because at least he presents a reasoned argument, even though it is based on a staggering degree of ignorance about pre-war Iraq and Saddam Hussein's regime. I feel confident he is open to enlightenment. Sean, on the other hand, is so hard-core that no amount of killing and slaughter committed will cause him to stir, unless and only unless the killing is done by Americans as they take action that puts an end to a tyrant, in other words, to end the slaughter.

So, one by one, statement by statement, here's my response to Foudroyaume. His comments, typos and all, are in bold italics:

"On Iraq: I'm inclined to disapprove of this one. That is not to approve of Hussein, but I see the American presence in Iraq as destabilising rather than stabilising."

My issue here is not with whether Foud should approve or disapprove of the war. It's that he has not kept up with what is really happening and perhaps has been duped by the media's tiresome fixation with highly exaggerated accounts of the nature of the conflict.

But first, let's deal with the destabilizing (my preferred spelling) issue. If there was ever a case where a region needs to be destabilized, it is the Middle East. The region lags way behind most other areas. Corrupt socialist dictatorships, inheriting a legacy of brutality from the school of Arab Nationalism, have been subjecting their peoples to horrific repression for at least two generations. Saddam Hussein was by far the worst, but I will deal with him later. Just remember the old adage, peace is more than the mere absence of war. Never ending low level war against citizens by state aparatchiks, stark inequalities between ethnic groups, the lack of fundamental freedoms that we in the West take for granted, you name it. There are only a handful of countries outside of the Arab world which are worse, but none were worse than Hussein. I will refer to all of this again and in more detail when I deal with your other statements in the next installment.

More importantly, from the standpoint of a global strategy, generations of the Middle Eastern regimes have devoted their entire careers promoting hatred of the West and all of this, my friend, as George Bush correctly perceived, is the root cause of 9/11. Al Qaeda and bin Laden were merely the end products. This, my dead Foud, is the stability you wish to preserve and in my view, there is nothing about it that deserves preservation. If things were to change, this had to be confronted by a "destabilizing" force.

The next five of Foud's statements are all related. I will deal with them in the next posting.

"SH had his victims, (some, like the Kurds, haven't been treated any better in supposedly free countries, like Turkey), but it's not like the country was subject to constant feuding between thugs and fanatics."

"Also, unlke (sic) Afghanistan, where the mass of hardship was caused by the ruling regime and their opponent factions, Iraq's biggest problems were due to American sanctions."

"I think the people of Iraq on average would have benefitted more from lifting sanctions (which would have helped foster a friendlier attitude to the west--"

"SH, unlike Taliban leaders, cared about public opinion and mayb (sic) have been willing to enter into mutually beneficial negotions (sic) if he sensed a pro-western attitude growing in Iraq--he was an opportunist, not an ideologue."

"The Taliban, on the other hand, are whackos with guns who maintained a state in which constant terror was the norm for most. As a result of their religious-centerd (sic) governance, Afghanistan is decades behind in infrastructure and services (Iraq, by contrast, is quite modern)."

"And of course, there's body count. Iraq has turned into a human disaster. "

"This is another case of Americans failing to grasp that they cannot beat a guerilla (sic) foe through brute force."


"This is another case where American clumsiness and moral immaturity (which is the most neutral phrase I can find for the atrocities that are committed by many soliers (sic) on every side of every war ever fought) are creating a state of terror, rather than eliminating one."

Hmmmmer

UPPERDATE: Americans are not impressed.

UPDATE
: I wonder if the Israeli bombing of Syria's "secret" nuclear plant had anything to do with the current peace talks situation? The timing is awfully suggestive.

"Shortly after the attack, the Syrians began - this is mid-September now - a massive effort to destroy the ruined reactor building and to remove all potentially incriminating nuclear-related equipment and structures. Much of the work was done at night or was hidden by tarps in an attempt to conceal it from our overhead observation."
[snip]

"The reactor was built in a remote area of eastern Syria near the Euphrates River. The nearest town is called al Kibar. Our information supports the following key points: Syria was building a gas-cooled graphite-moderated reactor that was nearing operational capability in August 2007. The reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. It was not configured to produce electricity and was ill-suited for research.

The reactor was destroyed in early September 2007 before it was loaded with nuclear fuel or operated. We are convinced, based on a variety of information, that North Korea assisted the Syrian’s covert nuclear activities both before and after the reactor was destroyed. Only North Korea has built this type of reactor in the past 35 years."

[snip]

"Features of the facility and its location indicate Syria attempted to maintain its secrecy. Syria moved quickly to cover up its covert nuclear activities by demolishing and burying the reactor building and by removing incriminating equipment. These actions probably were intended to forestall identification of reactor debris by international inspectors and are inconsistent with peaceful nuclear intentions."
Read the whole thing. There are some very interesting summarizing remarks just before the Q & A session begins.

Saskatchewan has a Useful Idiot

He opens his mouth to reveal it quite often. One such case occurred in the comments thread to this posting by John Murney. His name is Sean and he's an old style socialist trooper defending every bankrupt cause currently known to man. Here's what he had to say in a testy exchange we me about American involvement in Iraq and Harper's much welcomed decision to beef up our military:

Sean: "30 billion? on military expenditures...without the government even committing their plans to paper and solely basing them from speeches?

How exactly are we supposed to pull our weight? getting involved in illegal wars? choosing sides in civil wars? propping up a military industrial complex of our own so we can increase exports of WMDs?

There are far better uses for 30 billion a year in this country.

If someone wants to invade Canada 30 billion dollars a year is not going to defend us from a country that brazen, so put away those tinfoil hats."


Me: "Tell that to my brother-in-law who is second in command at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, Sean. Illegal war. pfttt!"

Sean: "ya, international rules and conventions be damned, there's oil in them hills...oh wait it was because of WMDs, nope that's not it, it was because Saddam was bad, nope that's not it, it was because of freedom and democracy, oh wait...no that isn't it either....

Our PM yesterday:

“If a country wants to be taken seriously in the world, it must have the capacity to act. It’s that simple. Otherwise, you forfeit your right to be a player. You’re the one chattering on the sideline that everyone smiles at, but no one listens to.”

yes, only countries with lots of big bad weapons are taken seriously, might is right!"
Not only has Sean obviously not come to a mature appreciation of the dynamics of international relations. Everything is white or black, good or bad, saintly or demonic and of course endorsement of the socialist world view is only way to achieve world peace. But he also hasn't got a clue about what is happening in Iraq now or what led up to the invasion. But then, he's and NDPer, so what can one expect.

I was also very disappointed with the comment from Foudroyaume on the same thread. From him I did expect something more than just a repetition of tired old memes from the Main Stream Media mixed with a good deal of mind numbing ignorance of what life was like under Saddam Hussein.
Foudroyaume: "On Iraq: I'm inclined to disapprove of this one. That is not to approve of Hussein, but I see the American presence in Iraq as destabilising rather than stabilising. SH had his victims, (some, like the Kurds, haven't been treated any better in supposedly free countries, like Turkey), but it's not like the country was subject to constant feuding between thugs and fanatics.

Also, unlke Afghanistan, where the mass of hardship was caused by the ruling regime and their opponent factions, Iraq's biggest problems were due to American sanctions. I think the people of Iraq on average would have benefitted more from lifting sanctions (which would have helped foster a friendlier attitude to the west--SH, unlike Taliban leaders, cared about public opinion and mayb have been willing to enter into mutually beneficial negotions if he sensed a pro-western attitude growing in Iraq--he was an opportunist, not an ideologue.

The Taliban, on the other hand, are whackos with guns who maintained a state in which constant terror was the norm for most. As a result of their religious-centerd governance, Afghanistan is decades behind in infrastructure and services (Iraq, by contrast, is quite modern).

And of course, there's body count. Iraq has turned into a human disaster. This is another case of Americans failing to grasp that they cannot beat a guerilla foe through brute force. This is another case where American clumsiness and moral immaturity (which is the most neutral phrase I can find for the atrocities that are committed by many soliers on every side of every war ever fought) are creating a state of terror, rather than eliminating one."

I'm going to take them both apart over the next few blog installments. Foud, I believe, is redeemable, but to Sean, I owe not one iota of respect. Useful fools forfeit that courtesy.

Hmmmm

John Murney links to this article by the Globe and Mail. There are also several articles appearing on Google News about it. This is really big. But will it succeed? We can be sure there will be plenty of opposition to it both in Israel and in Iran, not to mention other Islamic states.

Hat's off to Muslim Turkey, though, for acting as broker. Turkey has it's own internal problems with Islamists wishing to impose their despotic will and has a vested interest in shifting that dynamic toward a more stable democratic future, preserving its democracy. Olmert is searching for a major political coup to save his faltering prime minstership, but Israelis will naturally be very skeptical. His minority government could be booted out before an agreement is reached.

If it does succeed, let's hope it will be more durable than the Oslo Accords. The announcement in today's headlines has come as a big surprise, the same way the negotiation leading to Oslo Accords became public. A lot has changed in the Middle Eastern geopolitical landscape since then. (Thank you George Bush!) For decades, peace between Israel and the Arab world has been frustratingly elusive. Maybe its time has now come. As I said in so many words on John Murney's blog the other day, one the unspoken motives for toppling the Ba'athist regime in Iraq was to put Israel in a position where it would owe the US big time and make more serious efforts to reach a peace agreement with more of its neighbours. Perhaps Olmert is paying his dues. Can a Palestinian state be far behind? Does Hezbollah's fate hang in the balance? Could the Cedar revolution finally triumph? Who will be Iran's next proxy state? Hugo,there's a call for you. It's Tehran.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Another Round of Hurrahs for the Newest Democracy

Soldier's Dad has another great post up about Iraq.
"The jihadi's problem and the Jihadi's can see it, is that the Iraqi Army has been growing like compound interest....both qualitatively and quantitatively. Every day there are more of them that are better trained and have more experience than yesterday...maybe not at the leg breakers rate of 1% a day...but it has been more than 1,000 days since we started building the new Iraqi Army."
He links to a couple of postings by Nibras Kazimi at Talisman's Gate, of which this one is the real kicker, in which Kazimi calls a posting by a certain Jihadist sympathizer's website
"..a stunning and unprecedented admission of defeat!"
Kasimi further summarizes the state of affairs for al-Qaeda in Iraq:
"Thus, not only is America defeating Al-Qaeda militarily in Iraq but it is also squashing the grand jihadist vision for a caliphate that the Islamic State of Iraq stood for. This point is critical: in this ideological war, victory can only come about when the ideology of the opponent is negated and proven unworkable. The fight in Iraq is doing just that.

I’m not saying that the jihadists won’t keep trying to find a workable formula for the caliphate elsewhere, but for now they have been dealt a severe demoralizing blow.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it all ye calling for a hasty withdrawal."
To that, I say, Amen and God Bless George Bush!! This war is not about oil, folks. It's about defeating the vicious ideology that was exposed in all its ugliness by the piercingly brilliant and searing light on 9/11.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Stay Tuned

I'll be back tomorrow and I've got lots to write about. I know you're all salvating at the prospect.

Meanwhile, I would just like to know how this can be considered George Bush's fault.

Girl carrying explosives blown up in Baghdad 'suicide attack'
"The bomber was detonated by remote control, killing Captain Wassem al-Maamouri and injuring four soldiers," Ali added.
Let's hear the cries about the Geneva Convention and illegal war, please.

h/t Expat Texan

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Sidney Blu

Born 6:53 pm, May 3rd, 2008.

Spitting image of her momma. Dark hair and lots of it.

Seven pounds, seven ounces.

Everyone's happy but tired.

Friday, May 02, 2008

British Left in Retreat

UPDATE: What did I tell ya?

h/t SDA

Red Ken bites the dust!!! Don't know if this heralds in a new day for the right all across Europe, but it seems to be just about everyone but Spain is now in the "right" camp. I believe we are steeling for a fight against Islamofascism. Welcome back, Europe. You're a Grande Olde Dame and we love you!!Lefties, you can just hide under the bed until the fight is over.

Poor Reading Skills

hehehehe

Looks like I'm not the only one who has noticed that lefties have poor reading comprehension skills.

Lookie here!

Olivia Chow Loses a Voter

..because of her stupid husband.

It boggles the imagination how someone could be so obtuse, yet Taliban Jack just keeps rolling them out. God help this country if his party ever achieves anything close to power in Ottawa. You'll see our precious freedoms frittered away in deference to the most vile of ideologies the world has seen since Nazism in Germany.

h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Baby News

UPDATE: Baby has other plans. Mom got sent home from the hospital and was told if she doesn't go into serious labour by tomorrow, to come back in and be induced. Anyway, gives me a chance to have a good sleep and take off early in the morning.
========
Blogging will be light for the next month or so. Just got news from Alberta that my first grandchild has decided that this is the weekend to be born. I'll be on the road after work today.

Marvelous timing, wouldn't you say? No phone call in the middle of the night and a weekend just ahead.

This little girl is also the first member of the next generation of our family. WooooHoooo!!

Don't Tell Reverand Wright

Freed Sudanese slave tells his story.

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



h/t Pajamas Media

Tarek Fatah on Macleans and the Muslim "Baby" Brotherhood

Thursday, May 01, 2008

A Step to the Right

Great Britain shuffles to the right. Is the old world waking up? Hope so.

Good Loving Christ

Family upset Yellow Quill father facing charge for girls' freezing deaths
"Mother of the girls says she will support her common-law husband through trial"
"Tracey Jimmy said Thursday that Christopher Pauchay plans to plead not guilty to the charge. Pauchay is her common-law husband."


Remember Tamra Keepness? Another case of model parenting.

As Darcy at Dust My Broom says: "Everybody pointed fingers and everybody had someone to blame."

And politicians, right from the band council on up to the Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, are only too happy to use this incident to further the extortion racket that has been going on for years. Blaming "someone else" so as to extort money for the Chief and council to dip their fingers into is what keeps this problem festering.