Posted on 06/01/2003 9:01:13 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
CounterPunch is the bi-weekly muckraking newsletter edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. Twice a month we bring our readers the stories that the corporate press never prints. We aren't side-line journalists here at CounterPunch. Ours is muckraking with a radical attitude and nothing makes us happier than when CounterPunch readers write in to say how useful they've found our newsletter in their battles against the war machine, big business and the rapers of nature.
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I'd source this, but y'all can get to it by clicking on the link that Buckeroo provided. [derisive laughter]
Doesn't matter!
The Media is trying to frame this debate to be about massive quantities of WMD!
Saddam and his ilk are a Clear and Present Danger!
What's the problem with that? The media simply took the cue from the commander-in-chief and his zombie squad.
"The Media is trying to frame this debate to be about massive quantities of WMD!" -- Ernest_at_the_Beach
Great Expectations | Iraqis embrace freedom--even though it starts off messy.
We have :
BAGHDAD--"This is my brother," cries a man. "This is not my husband," wails his sister-in-law. They are arguing over a bag of bones, and it is hard to tell whether he is over-eager for closure or she in denial. The man says he recognizes his brother's dishdasha, or robe, but admits that he could be more certain if there were a skull and dental work to look at. Hundreds of identical plastic bags, likewise filled with the remains of Shiites who rose up against Saddam in 1991, litter the ground nearby.
Among the thousands of friends and relatives who have come to this mass grave near Hilla to find their loved ones, there is surprisingly little bitterness against the U.S. for encouraging and then abandoning that rebellion. Some even express hope that Iraq could become an American state. "Saddam, Saddam," one man mutters in disbelief, staring at the bodies. "Television only show Iraq Ali Baba [Iraqis as thieves]," complains another of the foreign media's fixation with looting, "not show this."
Not surprisingly, none of these people thinks that finding weapons of mass destruction is critical to the case for war. The old regime did most of its dirty work the old-fashioned way, with a pistol to the head. Nor are they alarmed, like so many distant pundits, that Iraq has traded tyranny for anarchy. Even a messy freedom is something to savor.
Before: ". . . the good ol' USA gave Saddam WMD back in the 1980's . . . ," and
After: ". . . America provided the means for WMD proliferation not just in Iraq . . . ."
Thus, the term "evolve." You are parsing words with the wrong guy. And you want "debate" concerning everything you cut & paste from a wack-job Lefty website? Try formulating your argument first, or have your cabana-boy Cockburn come on-line and defend you.
and you know this how? Facts please. Probvable facts. Not idle speculation and innuendo, or repeating statements of someone you heard somewhere on teh media as though it were a fact. I would point out that we seem to be kissing palestinian and Saudi A** lately, not bombing them. Saudi's attacked us at the WTC, tehy financed it, they used their own banks to transfer the funds. Palistinians have killed us in suicide attacks in Israel. I can see them as being a clear and present danger, but what, exactly, made Iraq such? The WMD's they had in HUGE QUANTITIES and were willing, even planning, to use against us? Well, where the H*ll are they?
I'm getting tired of being fed a bunch of BS, which is what the WMD claims are beginning to look like. You can eat all the stuff you want if you like it that much, but I don't like the taste of it and aint willingly gonna eat anymore of it.
Just show me the WMD's. That's all I ask. I think that's a reasonable request.
Well, I agree here. I'm still waiting.
But I'm going to have to form some conclusions in the somewhat near future and I'll form them on the evidence presented to me. So far, no evidence has been presented. And I don't see how a dead or missing and deposed dictator could still keep an iron fist on all the people ,Scientific, manufacturing, military, and general civilian population, that would have to have information on them. It just isn't making sense. Someone would have come forward with information about where this HUGE QUANTITY of WMD's are (just to get in our good graces in nothing else). I'm beginning to think I've been lied to, and I absolutely hate being lied to. More than anything else on the earth, I hate being lied to.
In God I trust, from all others I want to see some proof.
Me too. What an interesting thread. I posted acouple comments this AM, go to church and get involved in my son's graduation activities and lo and behold we have 200 plus posts with Freepers taking the RAT position over and over. Some even quoting that old friend of the USSR, Alexander Cockburn. Unbelievable. Bookmarking for future comments to the naysayers
Very nice word smithing but irrelevant. The facts are that this war appears to have been without justification. Each day that goes by without finding any substantiation of the WMDs just makes it more likely that there never were any. It is soon time for Congress to launch an investigation to determine who screwed up or who lied. The people need to know and they need to know well before the next election. And everyone please remember that 9/11 is not a justification for this war since the perpetrators are not the people we attacked, despite all the confounding propaganda that has been strewn about.
No one screwed up; this war and all that lead up to it is more complex, a labyrinthine of enormous proportions that travel back to years of ebbing and flowing politics where not all solutions are useful – this one was.
So they can elect who....a libertarian? Fat Freakin' Chance.
Many Freepers have seen the evidence that convinces them Wolfowitz is correct and we're glad someone from the administration is finally saying it publicly. Members of Congress have also stated in years past they believe Saddam was behind OKC and the first WTC attack.
Well now that you mention it, if it appears that the Republicans are liars who committed mass murder for financial advantage then they should be out of the running. At least if they nominate Bush again.
Then all you conservatives will have a choice between a leftist Democrat who you wouldn't trust to bathe your dog and a Libertarian who will really defend the constitution. Who will you be voting for? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
That is why we have so many people starting to campaign for the Libertarian nomination-more than ever before and more than a year ahead of the convention.
BTW the convention will be in Atlanta during the July 4th weekend of 2004. You have plenty of time to get involved with your local or state party and work toward being a delegate to that convention. Just remember that we get no money from the government for the convention or the election. Each delegate pays his own way all the way.
Is that strong or weak? The question is meaningless. The more important question is strong or weak for what purpose?
Clinton gave North Korea nuclear technology with no oversight. Given that technology by Clinton, they now have the ability to take out a few west coast cities.
Al Quada attacked us how many times during Clinton's tenure? Clinton did nothing.
The Black Hawk down incident, where Clinton refused the give our troops the tanks they requested as back-up, has been mentioned by OBL and Saddam Hussein. Both thought it showed how weak America's military was.
I've read a few dozen articles that tell the story of how Clinton was offered OBL's head on a platter, but he refused saying he didn't think he could indict him on any charges!
Then of course we have the Cox Report and Bill Gertz's excellent book about China and how CLinton sold China nuclear technology in exchange for $$.
I thought these things were so well known to Freepers that I wouldn't need to elaborate when I mentioned I thought Clinton was weak on foreign policy. I wasn't trying to parse words like "weak" and you may call it anything you want, but I call it being a lousy president and derelict in his duty to protect the nation.
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