[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
As for needing to take out Saddam to stop oppression of the civilian population:
“Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution 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”
You’re blathering about some threshold needing to be crossed, but it was taken care of in H.J. Res. 114, 107th Congress - and concerns over the treatment of Iraqis were part of the reason.
[/quote]
Abuse worse than under Saddam, says Iraqi leader
November 27, 2005
The Observer
Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country’s first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam’s regime.
‘People are doing the same as [in] Saddam’s time and worse,’ Ayad Allawi told The Observer. ‘It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.’
In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq’s escalating human rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam’s secret police, he said.
All for the bargain basement price of half a trillion dollars, 2200+ dead American soldiers and 30,000 Iraqi civilians.
Actually I’m surprised more Americans aren’t looking to invest in some real estate in Iraq as well as it’s going. What better way to show your faith and at the same time get stinkin’ rich as the land in liberated Iraq skyrockets.
Hell you could even move or vacation there - since your an American, you’ll be treated like royalty. If there’s a downside, I sure don’t see it.
Jonathan Gurwitz: Iraqis recognize what war has sown
San Antonio Express-News
The prisoners, last week, again pushed their faces up against the bars on their windows, straining to get a glimpse of what was happening beyond the confines of their prison. And once again the citizens of Iran, Syria and the other countries of the Middle East peered out to neighboring Iraq for a vision of freedom.
“The display of determination by all Iraqis to participate in the democratic process,” an editorial in Saudi Arabia’s Arab News observed, “must have made a deep impression on all but the most hardened terrorists.”
As many as 11 million of Iraq’s 15 million registered voters ? out of a population of 27 million ? went to the polls to elect a 275-member parliament. They chose from among 6,655 contenders representing 307 political parties.
No restricted slate of candidates to squelch political dissent. No government goons at polling sites to intimidate voters or beat them away. No handpicked, patsy opposition over which ruling interests could easily roll. The only election-day surprise was the unexpectedly high turnout among the Sunni Muslim minority.
What happened in Iraq, for the third time this year, is a victory of ballots over bullets. In last January’s interim elections, voter turnout was 59 percent. In October’s constitutional referendum it was 64 percent. Last week it was 70 percent.
At what level of participation, Brent Scowcroft, can the objective of democratizing a hellhole of Middle Eastern totalitarianism be deemed a partial success? After how many inspiring elections, Howard Dean, can the trope about exporting freedom at the end of a gun be buried?
At any point over the past 33 months, Iraq could have collapsed into the abyss of civil war. It is to the great credit of a restrained Shiite religious establishment, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the forbearance of Kurdish leaders that they have not taken the bait of Sunni rejectionists, Baathist dead-enders and foreign mercenaries.
There is less reason to expect their tactics to be successful today than ever before.
Last week as Iraqis went to the polls, New York Times reporter John Burns traversed the Sunni strongholds that serve as the foundation for the insurgency. The opinions he encountered weren’t the extremist sentiments of the past.
“This time, we have a real election, not just the sham elections we had under Saddam,” Emad Abdul Jabbar, a teacher acting as supervisor at a polling site, told Burns, “and we Sunnis want to participate in the political process.”
Some Sunnis even hinted at eventual reconciliation with the United States. “Let’s have stability,” a storeowner said, unintentionally echoing George W. Bush, “and then the Americans can go home.”
This parliamentary election is no panacea. We have not turned a corner, reached a tipping point or achieved any of the other metaphorical signs of ultimate success in Iraq. The Iraqi people have, instead, demonstrated their continued resolve to rebuild their nation as a democracy in spite of decades of Baathist brutality, the meddling of Iranian mullahs and Syrian thugs, jihadist bombs and American missteps.
Once the votes are counted, the business of building a ruling coalition begins, with all the horse-trading, haggling and occasional hucksterism that goes with it. But religious and secular Iraqis, Shiites, Kurds and now Sunnis are participating in that process.
“Things are not perfect,” the Iraqi blogger who goes by the pseudonym “The Mesopotamian” writes. "There are countless problems; the insurgency is not going to disappear; the reconstruction effort is in shambles; there is corruption and thieving everywhere; errors and mistakes in everything.
“Yet despite all that, the political process is proceeding like a dream and the tree of freedom is taking roots, and that tree will continue to grow and grow and grow.”
The paleoconservative right and the delusional left in the United States, blinded by ideology, may not be able to see this growth of freedom. The long-oppressed people of the Middle East certainly do.
Big Flamer: although i have a hard time beleiving that it will all work out i hope that you are right because both we and the iraqis are stuck in this mess until something changes.
[quote]thabigdon24 wrote:
Big Flamer: although i have a hard time beleiving that it will all work out i hope that you are right because both we and the iraqis are stuck in this mess until something changes.[/quote]
That’s exactly why I put my faith in optimism. I recognize that things haven’t gone perfectly, but what war has gone perfectly? The history channel wouldn’t be able to have a show called “military blunders” if this were the case.
So yes I agree. For better or worse, were there. Why not focus on what’s working while recognizing and improving what isn’t?
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
So yes I agree. For better or worse, were there. Why not focus on what’s working while recognizing and improving what isn’t?
[/quote]
Because then donny and JTF and the other liberal bitch and moaners would have to actually say something nice. It is not in their nature not to be oartisan hacks.
I think they might have a stroke if they were to try and be optimistic about the good things happening in Iraq. They are too used to believing and spreadiong pro-terrorist propaganda.
You sound incredibly racist when you say things like this.
The Iraqi people (and all other people) deserve liberty.
It is a sad state of affairs when people are forced to live under dictatorships because it is politically expedient.
Now that we are the lone superpower and no longer have to support tin horn dictators in order to block the USSR more people can live free then ever before.
We are even pushing democracy in places like Saudi Arabia.
Historians will look back on these times and be thankful that our leaders had the foresight to stand up to tyranny, just as we are thankful that our founding fathers and subsequen leaders stood up to tyranny and oppression.
First of all, more often than not, when a conservative yells racism its merely a rhetorical device. Are you really offended by this comment? I find that hard to beleive. You even spent only one line - count it- calling me a racist which is pretty unexpected considering that its very offensive to be speaking racist claptrap. Not that conservatives dont/shouldnt care about racism but it probably is at their attention less IMO.
This post has nothing to do with race, the Iraqi’s aren’t a race they are a nationality so quit the racist junk.
And yes i agree with you that " the iraqi people deserve liberty " however, you have to realize that despots tend to exist more often in undeveloped countries.
The typical dictatorial country’s over-emphasis on police and security gives their people safety in a region where you can buy rocket launchers , Ak’s w/ no criminal history check and shoulder fired missles or tripod machine guns ( and satelitte images to plot a hit on their target) at their equivalent of a local walmart.
And you have a good point zap don’t get me wrong. I agree that democracy is a good thing.
But just as you may argue with your friend , to prove a point may hurt your friendship, at least thats why im not arguementative offline, just as us going into someone else’s country to set up our idea of what politics should look like may just not work. But i don’t necessarily disagree with you.[/quote]
I appreciate you were not trying to be racist, but the statement still is.
Iraq has lived under oppression for years and years. It is time the people of Iraq have self determination.
They need help developing a government and fighting off those that wish to return to Saddam style oppression or institute an oppresive Islamic regime.
It is unfortunate that all people in the world do not have the same opportunity. That should not take away from the historic good things that are happening here.
[quote]thabigdon24 wrote:
Sure , Iraq has made great progress. Consider the amount of $$$ we have poured into it , and scrimped on our own people ( new orleans ) …[/quote]
This drives me nuts. New Orleans would have gotten swamped even if we were not at war.
We may have had some National Guardsmen respond a little faster if the were home, but that is all.
Money for rebuilding N’Awlins is not being diverted to Iraq.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
thabigdon24 wrote:
Sure , Iraq has made great progress. Consider the amount of $$$ we have poured into it , and scrimped on our own people ( new orleans ) …
This drives me nuts. New Orleans would have gotten swamped even if we were not at war.
We may have had some National Guardsmen respond a little faster if the were home, but that is all.
Money for rebuilding N’Awlins is not being diverted to Iraq.
[/quote]
Oh really? We have spent several times the amount it would take to rebuild new orleans on iraq. Get with the picture zappy, congress is cutting all kinds of social programs to give this effort its funding.
They could have upgraded the levees to category 5 status. The government could even buy up some farmland or a huge block of land and divert the water into it. You could put barriers ect in front of the levees. Aren’t you an environmental engineer? When you tell me that New Orleans is beyond solvable - at least before this happened - your full of it.
I appreciate you were not trying to be racist, but the statement still is.
[/quote]
When i said that the iraqis cant handle democracy it wasnt because they are somehow less civilized than anybody else around the world. Its because they don’t want democracy, our western principles and ideals forced on them.
I even later explained that in the same paragraph as a possible reason why they might naturally be putting up resistance. You are really failing to see the forest for the trees. Look at my paragraphs at the entire thoughts and then decide if a sentance is " racist " , but conservatives like you and bush give the GOP a bad name zippy
You are being an abrasive jerk. Nobody else said that i was racist, but somebody else did attempt to cast doubt on your racist hoolah.
Would you like to ask vroom if i was being racist? Wouldnt a guy that is supposedly liberal be theoretically better to pick up on racism? And when i say that you are a jerk i am not talking about white people in general just yourself so have a good one zappy.
Hey vroom me and the dildo would appreciate it you could give us your $0.02 on this racist stuff.
We’re reducing our combat forces by 7000 in a couple of months. If all hell was breaking loose like the tinfoil hat brigade would have us believe, wouldn’t we be sending more of them over, instead of bringing them back?
Freedom is indeed on the march with (much to the chagrin of the leftists and US haters) the United States firmly at the front.
Freedom had a good year
By Joshua Muravchik, JOSHUA MURAVCHIK, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is working on a book about democrats in the Middle East.
ALTHOUGH LAST week’s Iraqi elections boost the prospects for democracy in that long-suffering land, a new report on the state of freedom globally gives hope that we are at the start of a tectonic shift toward liberty across the Muslim world.
The report comes from Freedom House, a nonpartisan organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Wilkie. Every year its specialists rate every country in the world on an exhaustive checklist of civil and political rights.
These painstaking assessments offer scholars ? and the interested public ? a reliable body of data for comparing countries to each other or to their own past performances. When it has tied certain U.S. aid to human rights performance, Congress has used the Freedom House ratings as a benchmark.
Nothing in social or political science is exactly “scientific.” But for measuring freedom, these surveys are as good as it gets.
This week, Freedom House released its survey for 2005. The survey grades each country (from a best of 1 to a worst of 7) and then simplifies these scores into a broader categorization of “free,” “partly free” or “not free.” (For example, the U.S. and Australia are “free”; Burma and Cuba are “not free”; Turkey and Nigeria are “partly free.”) Because countries usually evolve gradually, not many of the numeric scores change in any one year, and even a rise or fall in a country’s score is usually insufficient to move it from one of the three broad categories to another.
This year, however, more countries than usual changed category. Eight countries plus the Palestinian Authority, not yet officially a country, moved up ? either from “not free” to “partly free” or from “partly free” to “free.” Four countries moved down. In all, this made it a good year for freedom.
But here’s the really interesting part. Of the nine countries that improved their ratings, no fewer than six are Muslim countries. Indonesia moved from “partly free” to “free,” while Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mauritania and the Palestinian Authority moved from “not free” to “partly free.” Of the four countries that became less free in 2005, none was a Muslim country.
To anyone who has followed the Freedom House data year to year, these changes are remarkable. Since the fall of Portugal’s military dictatorship in 1974, a tide of freedom and democracy has washed over the globe. Every region has recorded strong gains, including even such a poor and troubled area as sub-Saharan Africa and the socially mutilated lands of the former Soviet empire. But until this year, the Muslim world had remained a stubborn exception.
In 2001, Freedom House first highlighted this remarkable disparity. Of the 47 countries that had Muslim majorities, only one was “free,” 18 were “partly free” and 28 were “not free.” Among the non-Muslim countries, the proportions were nearly the opposite: 85 were “free,” 40 “partly free” and only 20 “not free.” Worse, the Muslim world was growing more repressive, not more free.
Some of the credit for reversing this belongs to President Bush’s strategy of promoting freedom and democracy, including by means of war in Iraq. Saad Edin Ibrahim, the dean of Egyptian dissidents and an opponent of the war in Iraq, said recently that it had “unfrozen the Middle East just as Napoleon’s 1798 expedition did.”
There is still plenty to debate about the war. And success in Iraq remains far from assured. Despite progress, Freedom House still counts Iraq as “not free” as of the end of November.
On the other hand, we must not allow our divisions over Iraq to blind us to the trend toward freedom. We ought to notice it, applaud it and do everything we can to encourage it further.
I think you could have worded it better, but at the same time, with the explanation of what you meant, and the fact that “Iraqi” isn’t a race, it probably wasn’t something to get uptight about.
Most populations that have never had democracy simply don’t realize how it works. They are used to having people make decisions for them and will possibly be confused or dismayed at the lack of apparent action or use of power at times.
In particular, people used to having non-democratic sources of authority, like religious rank, weapons or a private militia, will be loathe to give them up. They probably also don’t understand the interplay of checks and balances and the importance of respect for rights.
This doesn’t mean they can’t learn how to participate and then adjust expectations concerning actions from a democratic government. It just means that the transition will take more than the removal of the previous system of government for democracy to magically spring up and be healthy.
I guess I’m saying that the Iraqi’s may not yet know how to handle democracy, though they have certainly started to climb the learning curve.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Hey vroom me and the dildo would appreciate it you could give us your $0.02 on this racist stuff.
LMAO!
I think you could have worded it better, but at the same time, with the explanation of what you meant, and the fact that “Iraqi” isn’t a race, it probably wasn’t something to get uptight about.
I guess I’m saying that the Iraqi’s may not yet know how to handle democracy, though they have certainly started to climb the learning curve.[/quote]
Well i’ll take what i can get. Thanks , and i definitely have learned a CYA type of lesson, even though i understand that zap or most other good people on this forum don’t appreciate racist behaivor.
[quote]thabigdon24 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
thabigdon24 wrote:
Sure , Iraq has made great progress. Consider the amount of $$$ we have poured into it , and scrimped on our own people ( new orleans ) …
This drives me nuts. New Orleans would have gotten swamped even if we were not at war.
We may have had some National Guardsmen respond a little faster if the were home, but that is all.
Money for rebuilding N’Awlins is not being diverted to Iraq.
Oh really? We have spent several times the amount it would take to rebuild new orleans on iraq. Get with the picture zappy, congress is cutting all kinds of social programs to give this effort its funding.
They could have upgraded the levees to category 5 status. The government could even buy up some farmland or a huge block of land and divert the water into it. You could put barriers ect in front of the levees. Aren’t you an environmental engineer? When you tell me that New Orleans is beyond solvable - at least before this happened - your full of it.[/quote]
I think you are sadly confused. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with upgrading the levees.
Why weren’t the levees upgraded in 2001 before we went to war?
Why not in 1995 or even 1985?
New Orleans is one of the oldest cities in the country. We have been in Iraq for almost 2 years. I think we had plenty of time to get it done.
[quote]thabigdon24 wrote:
vroom wrote:
Hey vroom me and the dildo would appreciate it you could give us your $0.02 on this racist stuff.
LMAO!
I think you could have worded it better, but at the same time, with the explanation of what you meant, and the fact that “Iraqi” isn’t a race, it probably wasn’t something to get uptight about.
I guess I’m saying that the Iraqi’s may not yet know how to handle democracy, though they have certainly started to climb the learning curve.
Well i’ll take what i can get. Thanks , and i definitely have learned a CYA type of lesson, even though i understand that zap or most other good people on this forum don’t appreciate racist behaivor.[/quote]
Racism is a touchy subject and perhaps I came on a bit strong.
I do not like the implication that someone cannot handle democracy. That is the same type of thinking that denied women, blacks and poor people the right to vote in the past.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
thabigdon24 wrote:
Oh really? We have spent several times the amount it would take to rebuild new orleans on iraq. Get with the picture zappy, congress is cutting all kinds of social programs to give this effort its funding.
They could have upgraded the levees to category 5 status. The government could even buy up some farmland or a huge block of land and divert the water into it. You could put barriers ect in front of the levees. Aren’t you an environmental engineer? When you tell me that New Orleans is beyond solvable - at least before this happened - your full of it.
I think you are sadly confused. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with upgrading the levees.
Why weren’t the levees upgraded in 2001 before we went to war?
Why not in 1995 or even 1985?
New Orleans is one of the oldest cities in the country. We have been in Iraq for almost 2 years. I think we had plenty of time to get it done.
[/quote]
No Iraq has nothing directly to do w/ the recovery effort in NO, however given a limited budget the linkage becomes clearer. In fact they probably were upgraded but katrina was paticularly powerful, a category 5 hurricane.
The levees in place were able to withstand a category 4, so not enough was to be done and granted nothing would have been done pre-emptively to fix the problem b/c of lack of a perceived need to do anything about it. No problems there in a while , why start the pork rolling now?
But it has to do with the recovery efforts. After 9/11 immense amounts of recovery money went inot NYC. A similar disaster, at NO, where we had offers of help from foreign nations , is not as well taken care of its obvious. Anyway if the upgraded the levees to category 5, put in protective barriers to keep ships and the like away, and implemented coastal protection projects i think that would do the trick
I would think that NO and the coastal cities around it would be a big shipping center because they are built right on the missisippi. If we let it go to pot then we get what we deserve but wasting precious capital on stupid projects ( like iraq ) isnt going to help things in the long run on economic basis surely you can agree with that zippy
Racism is a touchy subject and perhaps I came on a bit strong.
I do not like the implication that someone cannot handle democracy. That is the same type of thinking that denied women, blacks and poor people the right to vote in the past.[/quote]
NO it isn’t. The discrimination against these groups was done in order to keep white males in the sole positions of power , not because these groups were frequently violent to agitate against the very notion of us "giving " them ( even though it looks more like forcing it on them from a lot of the iraqi’s viewpoints) the powers of democracy.
Some people just dont get it just like some countries dont get it. If the iraqis , or some of their arab brethren want a rich powerful leader who has the power to make legislative , executive and judicial powers at his choosing then who am i to argue about this? Even the elections in iran show this where they elected a dictator basically from what has been more moderate counterparts in the past.
I have mentioned this in several posts before now, i think most of the T-Nationers reading this forum would see that it has nothing to do with "race " or "color " or anything that we want to think about the iraqis but everything to do with their culture.
Historians will look back and shake their heads at the brazeness of the administration and it’s use of totalitarian or authoritarian policies within a democracy in this day and age.[/quote]
Its all about who writes the history, Vroom.
“Who controls the past now, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
Freedom is indeed on the march with (much to the chagrin of the leftists and US haters) the United States firmly at the front.
Freedom had a good year
By Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is working on a book about democrats in the Middle East.
Some of the credit for reversing this belongs to President Bush’s strategy of promoting freedom and democracy, including by means of war in Iraq. Saad Edin Ibrahim, the dean of Egyptian dissidents and an opponent of the war in Iraq, said recently that it had “unfrozen the Middle East just as Napoleon’s 1798 expedition did.”
On the other hand, we must not allow our divisions over Iraq to blind us to the trend toward freedom. We ought to notice it, applaud it and do everything we can to encourage it further.
[/quote]
OMG dude – It’s called NEO CON propaganda.
Joshua Muravchik
American Enterprise Institute: Scholar
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs: Adviser
Project for the New American Century: Signatory
Coalition for a Democratic Majority: Former director
Institutional Affiliations
American Enterprise Institute: Resident Scholar (1987-current) (1, 4)
[b]
The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs: Member of Board of Advisors (3)
Committee for the Liberation of Iraq: Advisory Board Member (3)
Project for the New American Century Statement on Post-War Iraq: Signatory (2003) (5)
Project for the New American Century Second Statement on Post-War Iraq: Signatory (2003) (5)
Project for the New American Century Letter on New Defense Strategy: Signatory (2003) (5)
Project for the New American Century Letter on Israel, Arafat, and War on Terrorism: Signatory (2002) (5)[/b]
Institute of World Politics: Adjunct Professor (1992-current) (1)
Washington Institute on Near East Policy: Adjunct Scholar (1986-current) (1)
Coalition for a Democratic Majority: Executive Director (1977-1979) (1)
World Affairs Journal: Editorial Board Member (1)
Journal of Democracy: Editorial Board Member (1)
Orbis: Editorial Board Member (2)
The criticism has nothing to do with wanting to see Iraq fail, it has to do with wanting to know the truth. Once again, a story like this helps strengthen the position that this war is more about Israel than the US. Are you willing to die or send our troops to die to protect Israel?
This isn’t the last war you know - we still have the entire Middle East to go.
Cheney warns of ‘decades of war’
US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said that the US must be prepared to fight the war on terror for decades.
Iraq was invaded ‘to protect Israel’ - US official
WASHINGTON - Iraq under Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat to the United States, but it did to Israel, which is one reason why Washington invaded the Arab country, according to a speech made by a member of a top-level White House intelligence group.
Inter Press Service uncovered the remarks by Philip Zelikow, who is now the executive director of the body set up to investigate the terrorist attacks on the US in September 2001 - the 9/11 commission - in which he suggests a prime motive for the invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel, a staunch US ally in the Middle East. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC31Aa01.html
Sharon says U.S. should also disarm Iran, Libya and Syria
18/02/2003
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. “These are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve,” Sharon said to a visiting delegation of American congressmen.
Sharon told the congressmen that Israel was not involved in the war with Iraq “but the American action is of vital importance.”
Agents of Influence
It’s not a routine spy case. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the FBI is looking at a group of neoconservatives who have occupied senior posts at the White House, the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney’s office.
The point of the probe, sources believe, is not to examine the push to war but rather to ascertain whether Sharon recruited or helped place in office people who knowingly, and secretly, worked with him to affect the direction of US policy in the Middle East. The most likely targets of the inquiry are Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Harold Rhode of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041004/dreyfuss
Feith Resigns Under Pressure of Investigations
Douglas Feith, the number three man at the Pentagon who went there from the pro-Likud Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century, will leave the Pentagon as of this summer.
Feith’s office is the subject of an FBI investigation as well as two Congressional investigations, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Feith helped set up an Office of Special Plans in the Near East and South Asia desk of the Pentagon to cherry-pick Iraq intelligence and create a case for Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and having operational links with al-Qaeda.
The Men From JINSA and CSP
On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war–not just with Iraq, but “total war,” as Michael Ledeen, one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year. For this crew, “regime change” by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest
Paul Wolfowitz: Jerusalem Post’s Man of the Year
NO question: This was Paul Wolfowitz’s year. On September 15, 2001, at a meeting in Camp David, he advised President George W. Bush to skip Kabul and train American guns on Baghdad.
What’s not in dispute is that Wolfowitz is the principal author of the doctrine of preemption, which framed the war in Iraq and which, when it comes to it, will underpin US action against other rogue states. http://info.jpost.com/C003/Supplements/MOTY/art.01.html
Bush Says Iraq War Is Good for Israel
View Clashes With Opinion Of Israeli Aides
December 16, 2005
In sharp contrast to the growing consensus of Jerusalem’s security and political establishment, President Bush argued this week that Israel’s safety depends on democratization of the Arab world.
Russia to take Syria’s side if conflict with U.S. arises - Russian MPs
Many of the religious far-right “wackos” in the US just LOVE this war in Iraq and the others sure to follow because it validates their religion. They pretend to want peace and democracy in the Middle East but in reality they’re giddy with excitement at the prospects of a destabilized Middle East and global war. The more rational Christians seem to recognize that it’s being FORCED into happening and that maybe Armageddon isn’t inevitable.
This “Decades of War” has nothing to do with “Freedom and Democracy” – we all know how it’s supposed to end…