I found this very interesting, and thought I’d pass it on since only Agence France-Presse has reported it, and from the searches I’ve done of major media databases, nobody picked it up. It’s about Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor leading the United Nation’s investigation of Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri’s murder:
A 25-year veteran at the
Berlin public prosecutor’s office, Mehlis launched an apparently
hopeless manhunt against now convicted terrorist mastermind Ilich
Ramírez Sánchez, known as Carlos the Jackal, two decades ago.
After
receiving a tip that the wanted fugitive was living in a villa in
Damascus, Mehlis launched a relentless campaign it see him extradited,
eventually wearing down the Syrian leadership to abandon their guest.
Carlos was forced to leave the country and was finally captured by French agents in Sudan in 1994.
That’s quite an item to have on one’s resume, and it helps to explain why this guy has managed the 
stunning feat of taking this assassination right to Bashar Assad’s doorstep. He’s solved international puzzles before. In fact, the AFP piece quotes a colleague who told Die Welt that the investigator, shown at left with Kofi Annan, is "like a terrier that does not let go once he has sunk his teeth into something."
And apparently he’s gotten tough with Syria before. No wonder Herr Mehlis walks around with a football team-sized security detail.
It does strike me as odd (if AFP is right) that no one else has seized on this detail, given the world’s longtime fascination with Carlos (an obsession of which I’m acutely aware at the moment because I’ve been reading The Bourne Identity, which unlike the movie features
Ramírez Sánchez as a crucial character). The closest thing I’ve found to it anywhere else was this passage from The New York Times:
… recently he prosecuted the case of Johannes Weinrich, the top aide to the imprisoned terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal. Mr. Weinrich was acquitted in August 2004 for lack of evidence.
OK, so he doesn’t bat 1.000. But he apparently has run around the bases a few times. He really seems to know what he’s doing. The question now is, what are the UN, France and the United States going to do about it?
Related Posts
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the UN to punish anyone, so many to officials from Kofi Anan on down involved in stealing oil-for-food money from the Iraqis.
The Belgians have again sent a batch of UN officials to prison for trafficking in child slavery. The press here ignores it.
I read a frightening account today of what might be on the administration’s agenda for Syria to distract the U.S public from the “perfect storm” enveloping the Bush/Cheney White House. Interesting that you brought it up Brad with the Iraq war getting more and more unpopular at home and abroad. A conservative U.K newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph supported the Iraq war. It recently reported that 82% of the people in Iraq wanted the U.S. and U.K. troops to leave Iraq in a poll they commissioned.
The essay on the newest distraction from Bush’s troubles was written by Russ Baker:
“Imagine you’re Karl Rove. You’ve got a possible indictment hanging over your head, and the head of the Veep’s main guy, Scooter Libby, in the CIA agent name leak case. Your Capitol Hill roach-stomper, Tom DeLay, just had his mugshot taken following an indictment for laundering of campaign contributions from corporations. Your White House head of procurement, David Safavian, was recently taken away in handcuffs, accused of lying about government dealings with his old friend the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, another insider being investigated for, well, just about everything.
Oh—and you’ve got a boss with plummeting popularity ratings, and troublesome prospects in next year’s midterm congressional elections.
Whew! So being as you’re Karl Rove, you do what Karl is always inclined to do in these situations: create a distraction. A big one. Big enough to suck the metaphorical wind out of the press room.
What’s big enough to compete with such odoriferously spectacular sleaze news? Not much. Except maybe another war. In other words, Wag the Dog.Last Friday, I got a CNN “Breaking News” e-mail: President Bush calls for United Nations to convene after “deeply disturbing” report implicates Syrian officials in assassination.
Of course it’s deeply disturbing that Syria’s leadership should be behind the bomb that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. But it’s hardly surprising, since Syria has for decades meddled in Lebanese politics, occupied the country, probably had a hand in past assassinations in a country where such things are all too common. It was more or less a given that Syria was behind the assassination, with help from Lebanese insiders. The report simply confirmed those suspicions.
But Bush’s UN call is not without specific purpose. In fact, it’s likely part of a two-pronged argument that we’re about to hear: Syria is destabilizing the region at a crucial time, and providing safe haven to terrorists on their way into Iraq. Them’s fighting words, and before long, the media will be convulsed with a debate over yet another possible invasion. (And if you prefer threesomes, to Iraq and Syria, add Iran, about which we’re hearing more tough talk.)
It is highly doubtful that such an invasion will take place, especially given how stretched US military resources are, but it’s a sure bet that this represents the launching of a major political offensive.
That is, get everyone whipped up about the pros and cons of another invasion, including, especially, the costs, in dollars and lives. And, about the goals and appropriateness of the action. Almost by definition, news organizations must always place military issues and possible hostilities ahead of other matters. And the reality is that wars play better: it’s just too darned hard to explain to the public the intricacies of corruption cases – unless the corruption involves something we all get, like a blue dress that needs dry cleaning. Plus, resources, space and time are limited. So all of these creeping –gates, PlameGate, LobbyistGate, DonorGate, etc, can momentarily be shunted away to the inside pages where only the most hardy pay attention to them.
To be sure, an actual arrest and prosecution of someone of Rove’s ‘stature’ would lead the news. But don’t bet on it remaining the topic of conversation once a clarion call is sounded for America to again do its thing for global security. You and I may love to speculate about Scooter, and Karl, and their comrades, but the reality in middle America is far different. Last year, on a flight to Texas, I chatted with my seatmate, a seemingly well-informed software salesman, reasonably affluent, college-educated, moderate, who volunteered that he increasingly didn’t trust Bush. He saw me clutching a copy of the book, “Bush’s Brain,” about Rove. “Who,” he asked, “is that?”
If he and most Americans barely knew who Rove was then, imagine their interest in his fate, and those of even lesser visibility, as the drums of war sound again.”
Very, very interesting.
Tom T.
Three quick points, Tom:
— An invasion of Syria IS unlikely. What is more likely is that diplomatic pressure will be applied by both the U.S. AND France, and to good effect, as when the Syrians pulled their troops out of Lebanon a few months ago. Of course, I think it’s a bad thing that we can’t mount a credible threat of invasion, because I think it would really focus the Syrian’s minds and help accelerate the diplomatic process. Not to mention maybe getting them to stop helping terrorists slip into Iraq.
— Excuse my sense of perspective, but focusing the attention of the American people on something of actual importance in the world instead of another Iran/Contra, Whitewater or “Rovegate” would actually be a healthy thing. And what happens in Syria and Lebanon is much more important to the world than who gets to send whom to jail in Washington. And Americans don’t devote nearly enough attention to it. To suggest that these Beltway scandalfests that we have every few years are more important to this nation than what’s happening in the Mideast (or in North Korea, or Darfur, or any one of a hundred other places) is outrageous.
— If Rove went to jail, or was removed from the White House by other means, that would be great. And can he take Grover Norquist and James Carville with him? That would mean we wouldn’t have to hear any more about any of them, and could pay attention to important matters.
One of the reasons for the endless bogs in which our troops find themselves in Iraq is that the administration decided to bring about “regime change” when “behavior change” was what was needed. The same is true of Syria. Had the administration decided to work on Iraq from the outside in by tackling Syria first, Saudi Arabia or Iran next (by peaceful means), Saddam would have found himself surrounded by hostile states intent on enforcing change. Just another in the many missed opportunities in the Middle East. We’d better hope other states can put enough pressure on Syria, because we don’t have the wherewithal.
From 1998 to 2001, Bill Clinton made over 30 speeches warning about WMD in Iraq, saying that was the justification for his dropping 80,000 tons of bombs on Iraq in 2 years.
During that same period, the Washington Post, New York Times, and every other major newspaper ran dozens of editorials and columns, backed by detailed news stories, about the WMD in Iraq.
Democratic Party Senators sponsored a resolution calling for “regime change by any means necessary” in Iraq. John Kerry and others served for years on the Intelligence and Armed Services committees, and fed information about WMD to their pals in the news media.
The 9/11 Commission itemized all the chemical labs, nuclear facilities, and biological weapons efforts in Iraq, as well as the hijacker training camps, the meetings with Al Qaeda leaders and the hijackers, and Saddam’s account books of money paid to terrorists, their families, and bribes to Europeans.
Anyone who today says that President Bush and the U.S. military invaded Iraq without cause is either an ignoramous or just dishonest, with some sort of very base and unAmerican motives.
It looks like the UN Security Council will issue a demand! Gasp!
As for the report to the UN by prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, you can see the whole report here. By whole report, I mean the one that Mehlis submitted to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, not the one that Annan forwarded to the Security Council. It seems that Annan’s office made some changes and deletions that are clearly shown in red and highlighted in yellow. This is clearly a case of malfeasance that should be rewarded by booting Annan.
You can download the report’s MS Word file yourself to see the changes as God and Gates intended.
Tom –
Karl Rove threatened to kill a puppy if I didn’t post this.
Brad,
In all due respect.
Your first point about being sad that we do not have a credible invasion threat is interesting. You and your blogging sycophants seem eager to invade any country that fails to concede to your neo-conservative, imperial demands on exactly how you would like them to kow-tow to your demands as global cops.
Secondly, it is a bit difficult to excuse the perspective of a person who maintains that making up lies in the White House about WMD in Iraq and Iraqi involvement in 9/11 to launch a disastrous and costly no-win war is not important to the American people. The most recent and credible indication of Iraqi resentment of our invasion was found in the results of a poll by a conservative U.K. paper that favored the war as you did. They found that 82% of the Iraqi people want the U.S. and U.K. troops to get out of their country. Why don’t you publish the poll’s results in The State?
Fabricating nuclear threats to U.S. citizens is not important? How could a erudite person like you who runs the editorial pages of the largest paper in the state maintain that a White House conspiracy to destroy critics of their lies and deceit by outing a CIA undercover agent who happened to be married to the critic is not as important to U.S. citizens as what goes on in Lebanon?
So I guess it is all right with you if Rove goes to jail or is removed from the White House? As you say, “that would be great” and, “we wouldn’t have to hear any more about any of them, and could pay attention to important matters.”
Before the neo-cons invade Syria, maybe they should get right with the Lord, as St. Paul did on the road to Damascus. It is a very important matter.
Tom T.
Tom, in Brad’s defense, I think he was specifically referring to the “threat” of invasion as being a tool to “accelerate the diplomatic process.” He didn’t say “it’s too bad we can’t invade.”
However, Brad, your lumping together of Iran-Contra and Whitewater as being equally unimportant scandals surprised me. And Karl Rove is in a different category entirely from Norquist and Carville. As irritating as Carville’s personality might be, he never had as vital a role in the Clinton presidency as Rove does with Bush. Like no president since Warren Harding, the current occupant of the White House is a carefully selected and groomed proxy for a group of power brokers, in this case, an alliance of big business (especially oil) and neo-cons from academia. If Rove leaves, it will have a profound effect on the conduct of this president. Many have commented that the sense of disarray in the Bush White House seems to have coincided with this period of time when Rove has been so distracted with a possible indictment.
Personally, I’m going to wait to see what if any indictments are handed down before judging for myself their relative importance in the scheme of things. But, you have to admit, taken together with the indictment of DeLay, the investigation of Frist, the whole Abramoff affair, there is a significance to this pattern that cannot be dismissed so casually. After all, if we as a nation are to pursue vital foreign policy and military goals, confidence in the integrity of our leaders is essential.
Boy,when Republ..,excuse me,Bi-Partisans(yeah,and Liberace was bisexual)go into denial,they really go into denial.
What kind of idiocy is it to take polls of conquered enemies to ask when they want us to leave the gangs alone so they can resume their power struggles? We own Iraq and are there, as stated on the first day of the invasion by General Myers, for 8 to 10 years.
More WMD are discovered every month in Iraq. Some mustard gas was captured, along with a top Al Qaeda bomb maker, just 3 months ago. Yet the lie about “no WMD” continues to be chanted by our enemies.
I didn’t really like him before the war began but Scott Ritter has actually turned out to be more correct than anyone else that was talking in the lead up to the war (That includes Repubs and Dems).
check out his new book at the local library (that way you don’t have to buy it). Good detail. At the very least it raises tons of questions.
“Iraq Confidential : The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein”
BTW- The Ritter book is very indepth with a lot of info on dates, reports, etc and the entire WMD inspection process from when he was doing it in the 1990’s. It isn’t Sunday afternoon reading type stuff.
Tom, "making up lies in the White House about WMD in Iraq and Iraqi involvement in 9/11 to launch a disastrous and costly no-win war" would be an awful thing. And when I find someone who did that, I’ll be pretty upset.
Who, by the way, are my sycophants? Certainly not Lee, who argues with practically everything I say (read this comment stream, for but one example). But I will say that this time, he made some relevant points. Of course, he couches it in partisan terms, by citing all the Democrats who raised the alarm about WMD. (And who can legitimately blame them OR Republicans, or us independents, for believing the weapons programs existed? Saddam had used WMD against his own people; he had been trying since the early 80s to develop nukes, and he did everything he could to act guilty on the subject so that his neighbors would continue to fear him. That they were gone when we got there is still rather amazing.)
But I’ll take it a step further. What all the antiwar folks who go on about nonexistent "lies" (there’s an ironic symmetry in this, in that the "lies" are as nonexistent as the WMD proved to be) choose to ignore in their partisan fervor is that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been the policy of the United States since 1998. This wasn’t some radical new policy that some wicked band of liars whipped up when they came to power in 2001. The only difference is that after 9/11, the political conditions in this country made it possible to do what President Clinton could not have gotten away with PRE-9/11.
Another point: If someone in the White House deliberated outed a NOC to achieve a political goal (rather than a strategic one, which might — note I say might — have justified it), that is reprehensible. But don’t say it was "to destroy critics of their lies and deceit." Valerie Plame’s husband has no room to cast stones there — which of course hasn’t stopped him. The truth — as asserted in the bipartisan report of the Senate Intelligence Committee — was that if his report from Niger did anything, it actually reinforced the intel from the Brits about yellowcake. Check out pages 36-47 in the report. You’ll find pages 44 and 45, which documents the "former ambassador’s" habit of contradicting himself, interesting. But most interesting will be the conclusion on page 73 that "For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq." (The "report" being Joseph Wilson’s.) In other words, the INR may have been right, but most experts disagreed with them. The report goes on to condemn CIA and others for not raising doubts that should have been raised to senior decision makers. The CIA was "inconsistent," it says — just like former ambassador Wilson.
And Phillip, forgive me for seeming to equate Iran/Contra and Whitewater, Carville and Rove. Yes, there are important differences. I was just being bipartisan in my dismissals and criticisms, and those were the first examples that came to mind.
Speaking of bipartisan: Bill, how do you know Liberace didn’t swing both ways?
Tom,
You are either clueless or dishonest, and I’m not sure which is worse. While you are working on touching up the conspiracy theories about Iraq and Bush, can you also try to solve other mysteries such as what is really in Area 54 and who was on the grassy knoll? Rove and Libby will not be indicted for outing a CIA agent because everyone (honest people, at least) can now tell that they did not knowingly do so. Further, it is clear that Plame wasn’t a covert agent at the time she was “outed”. Delay was indicted by a prosecutor who spent time grand jury-shopping after he told a group of Democratic activists that he was going to get Delay.
I know that you and your liberal friends would like the American people to think that Bush has blamed Iraq for 9/11, and that he lied about WMDs, and that he tricked the Senate into voting to authorize the war. The truth is that Bush laid out many reasons for war, the primary was WMD that everyone thought was there. Everyone thought that because Sadaam violated UN demands that he allow weapons inspectors to search unfettered.
You can’t call Bush a liar and give everyone else a pass. There was no lie. Bush, and the entire world, was mistaken.
As for your poll of Iraqis, I have some more polling data for you. 100 percent of the people on this blog think that you are a dishonest, ideological, left-wing nutcase.
Brad,
You are a neo-conservative. There is nothing wrong with having an ideology, but you should inform people as to your true ideological bent. Your neo-conservative leanings are obvious, so why not tell people the truth.
Bush and company planned to go to war before they took office. Most people understood Bush’s war (based on the comments from all individuals within the administration) as a response to 9/11 and a supposed terrorist threat from Iraq. The Bush administration was well aware that most people believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11 (again, based on the Bush administration’s own rhetoric, and suspect evidence-polls from the time show this to be true). On the other hand, today most people understand that they were misled, and probably lied to, by the Bush administration. You can make arguments ad-infinitum that Bush did not technically lie, but the people certainly understand that misleading is tantamount to lying.
Tom my friend, history will treat you kindly. You have done much in your life to promote justice and equality for all people. One laments the verbal abuse you have endured over the years. You were right about civil rights, and history will show that you are right about this war. Despite claims to the contrary, all of us have not been fooled. You are not alone, and no one is intimidated by the comments of a reactionary. Undoubtedly Tom, you are not the “nutcase” here.
I Brad is a neo-con, I am a flaming liberal. Mark, I have a couple of comments about the supposed Iraq-9/11 connection. You say that polls show that people thought that they were related, that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Where are these polls? Have you really seen them or is this some left wing spin you took off of someone’s website? The truth is that Bush said that Iraq was an extension of the war on terror, he never said that Iraq was part of the 9/11 plot. Bush mislead nobody. If people did think that Iraq was part of the 9/11 plot, it is because they were too busy voting for American Idol to actually watch the news. People in this country are so disconnected from world events that many have no clue what is going on.
Tom, perhaps I was a little too hard on you last night. I don’t want to stoop down to the type of rhetoric that you and your liberal friends spout about Bush. I do think, though, that you should try presenting some actually facts to back up your premise that Bush lied.
Oh, and one last thing, has anyone ever considered that maybe Bush was looking at Iraq when he took office because they were shooting down our planes in the no-fly zone? Wouldn’t it be negligent not to consider all options for an agressive dictator that the prior President said has nuclear weapons?
Tom makes good points at times. He just uses inflamatory language so much that it makes most people write off what he has to say.
Now, now Nathan and David. Nathan, I appreciate your apology and realize you feel very strongly about your political convictions. And, David, I know it is hard to deal with my hard hitting descriptions about war-mongering neo-cons.
Calling me a “nutcase” and “inflammatory” is an honored tradition of attacking the messenger in your Atwater/Rove political parlance. Atwater said I was “hooked up to jumper cables” in reference to my electro-convulsive shock therapy as a teenager for bi-polar disorder when I was a candidate for Congress in 1980. Since I’m seriously considering a run for Congress in 2006, I reckon you fellows are at it again. Take a look at the essay from the Washington Post below.
The Atwater/Rove theory is that it is easier to attack me than to deal with the truth of the issues.
Interestingly, I get many e-mails from all over the world from folks who read my essays on Common Dreams and they mostly commend me for the excellence and eloquence of my writing.
Please read this piece and consider it in the spirit of love and reconciliation.
WHAT LEE ATWATER LEARNED AND THE LESSON FOR HIS PROTÉGÉS
By Tom Turnipseed
The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 16, 1991; Page A19
“Thanks to the late Lee Atwater, my electroshock treatments for adolescent depression 35 years ago have probably been the most publicized political incident of its kind since Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri was replaced as vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket in 1972, because he had a “nervous breakdown” in his past.
Atwater, as you probably read in his recent obituaries, made me one of his targets on his way to establishing himself as a gunslinging political operative who exploited any perceived vulnerability in his opponent.
The incident occurred in 1980, when I was a Democratic nominee for Congress in South Carolina and Atwater was a consultant for my opponent, the Republican incumbent. Atwater’s antics included phony polls by “independent pollsters” to “inform” white suburbanites that I was a member of the NAACP, because my congressman opponent was afraid to publicly say so, and last-minute letters from Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) warning voters that I would disarm America and turn it over to the liberals and Communists. I ran a respectable campaign but lost.
Since then, Atwater had cultivated his macho image with the national media by telling about how he had planted a story with reporters covering the 1980 congressional race that I had been “hooked up to jumper cables” when I was “mentally ill” as a student. I saw the story in Esquire, The New York Times, the Atlanta Constitution, on NBC-TV and PBS. Lee seemed to delight in making fun of a suicidal 16-year-old who was treated for depression with electroshock treatments.
In fact, my struggle with depression as a student was no secret. I had talked about it in a widely covered news conference as early as 1977, when I was in the South Carolina State Senate. Since then I have often shared with appropriate groups the full story of my recovery to responsible adulthood as a professional, political and civic leader, husband and father. Teenage depression and suicide are major problems in America, and I believe my life offers hope to young people who are suffering with a constant fear of the future.
In the last few months of his life, Lee Atwater apologized to me. In a letter dated June 28, 1990, Lee wrote, “It is very important to me that I let you know that out of everything that has happened in my career, one of the low points remains the so called ‘jumper cable’ episode.” Faced with the ultimate question of life, Lee also publicly proclaimed his Christianity and sought reconciliation with his enemies.
He said in his letter to me that “my illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything.”
Touched by the sincerity of his letter of apology and subsequent phone conversations, I attended Lee Atwater’s funeral in Columbia, S.C. Sitting across the church from me was a young Republican political consultant whom I recognized. I had recently seen him on CNN boasting about how Republicans were going to drive up the negatives on all the Democrats who voted “against America” in opposing Bush’s force resolution and beat them in 1992. How sad.
I hope those young political consultants who would emulate Atwater’s tactics of driving up the negatives of their opponents with the politics of fear will realize that Lee Atwater, confronting death, became, through the grace of God, an advocate of the politics of love and reconciliation. Rather than remembering him as one who polarized politics and exploited insecurity and prejudices to win elections, it would be good if we could remember him as a positive role model. When faced with his own mortality, he saw the truth of love and reconciliation.”
All for the sake of peace justice.
Tom Turnipseed
I just said your language was inflammatory at times. I also stated you often made good points.
The Valerie Plame scandal looks to be cooked up by disgruntled CIA and State Department bureaucrats in revenge for, in Joseph Wilson’s words, “..the White House hijacking foreign policy..”
* Joseph Wilson identified his wife in his web site over a month before Robert Novak’s article.
* The Nation magazine identified Valerie Plame as a CIA analyst over a month before Novak’s article.
* Wilson exposed his wife when he gave an illegal campaign contribution to Al Gore, then tried to cure it by splitting it into two contributions, one from his wife.
* His wife worked for front company in Maryland, where she was an analyst, not an undercover agent.
* Wilson sat in a hotel room in Niger and pretended to investigate Iraq’s attempts to purchase uranium. He then wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times, and lied about having read intelligence reports which the sign out sheets show he never saw.
And Tom loses points when he uses myth, slogans and fabrications about the terrorists and the war in Iraq.
Tom,
I find it laughable that a man who spews false claims of lies and conspiracy theories with no evidence that it actually happened would be so offended by right wing personal attacks. I think that it is detestable that people would make the kinds of claims that you reference in your 1991 essay. What I find worse is that a man who has suffered those attacks would then go on the offensive about other people. I’m still waiting to hear why it was okay for everyone in the world to think that Sadaam had WMD’s except the Bush White House. I can only assume that the reason you don’t answer that question is because you have no coherent answer.
I’m not a pro-war guy. I don’t think we should just bomb people for the sake of bombing people. I am a pro-protect-this-nation guy. If everyone in the world believes that a dictator with connections to terrorists including Al-Qaida has nuclear weapons, I will support the President in attacking that country.
We are there now, and perhaps you would like for us to pull out so that the country can be turned over to the terrorists. That is what would happen and you know it. Your blind hatred for Bush keeps you from seeing that finishing our mission is the only option. Sure, we need to do a better job than we are doing now. War is not easy. There is no perfect plan. I’m not convinced that your guy, John Kerry, would have done a better job with this war, since he had no plan other than get the French involved. Perhaps they could help us raise our white flags.
Again, we have to win this war. And until you can come up with a good reason why we should leave now and allow that country to become a safe haven for terrorists who want to kill us, stop beating your Cindy Sheehan peace drum.
Have a nice day!
Now, now Nathan.
You evidently haven’t been reading my posts my friend. This a no-win-war. Those evil Arab Muslims who have been hanging out in Iraq and the other Middle Eastern countries have been there for 5 or 6 thousand years and they do not want us control Iraq’s oil and political system and seem to be dedicated to kicking our ass till we leave Iraq. Have you read my recent essay–“Total Victory”–that Brad’s newspaper somehow felt was not appropriate for publication? I deeply appreciate Brad’s Blog allowing me to publish it here courtesy of Common Dreams, a website I commend to you.
Published on Saturday, October 15, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Total Victory
by Tom Turnipseed
”We’re never going to back down, we’re never going to give in, we’ll never accept anything less than total victory,” was President Bush’s message to U.S. troops in Iraq from the White House in a video conference produced this week for the media. Before Bush made his appearance for the cameras, the troops were rehearsed by Allison Barber, a Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary. Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and director of an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, said the event was a “carefully scripted publicity stunt. If he wants the real opinions of the troops,…he needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that’s not a bunch of captains.”
What could be a total victory in a war staged and waged on lies and deceit?
In the run-up to the war, Mr. Bush and his administration told us repeatedly that we must invade Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction, including an imminent nuclear capability that would be used against us because Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks and would attack us again. The unspoken objectives were control of Iraq’s vast oil reserves, permanent U.S. military bases, oil and war profits, and a distraction from corporate scandals like Enron. Bush’s fear-fraught excuses to attack Iraq have proven to be as bogus as Adolph Hitler’s charade when he declared that Poland had invaded Germany to justify launching the horror and holocaust of World War II.
The cost of Bush’s Iraq war is outrageous and unsustainable!
The Institute for Policy Studies researched the price of Bush’s folly in Iraq, and the comparison to Vietnam is revealing. The cost of the Iraq War could exceed $700 billion according to current estimates and the Vietnam War cost about $600 billion in current dollars. Operations costs in Iraq are estimated at $5.6 billion per month in 2005. By comparison, the average cost of U.S. operations in Vietnam over the eight-year war was $5.1 billion per month, adjusting for inflation.
Staying in Iraq and Afghanistan at current levels would nearly double the projected federal budget deficit over the next decade. Since 2001, the U.S. has deployed more than 1 million troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost is $727 per person in the United States and is the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years. 66 journalists have been killed reporting the Iraq War. 63 were killed covering the Vietnam War.
More than 210,000 of the National Guard’s 330,000 soldiers have served in Iraq and Afghanistan for an average of 460 days. 341,000 men and women have served two or more overseas tours.
The Veterans Affairs Department projected that 23,553 veterans would return from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005 and seek medical care, but the estimate has been revised to 103,000. The miscalculation has led to a shortfall of $273 million in the VA budget for 2005.
The State Department reported that the number of “significant” terrorist attacks reached a record 655 in 2004, up from 175 in 2003. Terrorist incidents in Iraq also increased by a factor of nine — from 22 attacks in 2003 to 198 in 2004, and 2005 is now being called a civil war.
The latest CBS News poll found that 64% of U.S. adults disapprove of Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq and only 32% approve. Only 32% thought the result of the war with Iraq was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq. After such delusional declarations as mission accomplished and total victory, Bush’s neo-con handlers will soon have him demanding unconditional surrender to remind us of Roosevelt’s WWII imagery.
A recent AP-Ipsos poll found sentiment about the nation’s direction has plummeted at a time people are anxious about Iraq, the economy, gas prices and the management of billions of dollars being spent for recovery from hurricane Katrina. 66% said the country is on the wrong track, while only 28 % said the country is headed in the right direction.
The Wall Street Journal-NBC News Poll found that the biggest problem for Bush is the Iraq War with 58% saying that U.S. troop levels should be reduced in Iraq. With 65% feeling that GOP House Leader Tom DeLay’s indictment indicates “potential illegal activity” and 57% believing the same about Senate Republican leader Bill Frist’s questionable stock sales, the poll also found that by a 48% to 39% margin the people prefer a Democratic Congress to replace Republican control in the 2006 elections. The poll also revealed that people felt Mr. Bush emphasized personal friendships and party loyalty over competence and qualifications in making appointments by a 54% to 37%. Only 29% of those surveyed felt that Harriet Miers was qualified to be a Supreme Court justice.
Total victory has a hollow ring as casualties mount. Karl Rove appeared before the grand jury again and possible criminal conspiracy indictments threaten White House figures over the destructive Wilson/Plame smear campaign in retaliation for Wilson’s exposure of the Niger/Iraq/uranium lie in the run-up to war. With public opinion favoring a new Congress that could bring impeachment charges against Bush and Cheney, Bush might sense a foreboding legal necessity for a loyal friend like Ms. Miers on the Supreme Court.
Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer and political activist in Columbia, South Carolina. http://www.turnipseed.net.
The Paranoia of the Dispossed
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not find evidence to prove that there was a “broad conspiracy to out a covert agent for political gain. He did not find evidence of wide-ranging criminal behavior. He did not even indict the media’s ordained villain, Karl Rove,” writes David Brooks in Sunday’s NY TIMES.
“Leading Democratic politicians filled the air with grand conspiracy theories that would be at home in the John Birch Society.”
“Why are these people so compulsively overheated?.. Why do they have to slather on wild, unsupported charges that do little more than make them look unhinged?
Brooks quotes from an essay written 40 years ago by Richard Hofstadter called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”
Hofstadter argued that sometimes people who are dispossessed, who feel their country has been taken away from them and their kind, develop an angry, suspicious and conspiratorial frame of mind. It is never enough to believe their opponents have committed honest mistakes or have legitimate purposes; they insist on believing in malicious conspiracies.
“The paranoid spokesman,” Hofstadter wrote, “sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization.” Because his opponents are so evil, the conspiracy monger is never content with anything but their total destruction.”
Brooks summarizes: “So some Democrats were not content with Libby’s indictment, but had to stretch, distort and exaggerate. The tragic thing is that at the exact moment when the Republican Party is staggering under the weight of its own mistakes, the Democratic Party’s loudest voices are in the grip of passions that render them untrustworthy.”
Tom –
Please just link to your entries on other sites, don’t reproduce them. By sticking them here, Brad’s blog will start climbing the charts of the moonbat Google queries; he gets enough grief from the VRWC without that.
Firs, you’ve obviously been limiting your reading to the New York Times when it comes to describing Bush’s reasons for going to war in Iraq. Bringing democracy to Iraq was also stated as one of the reasons for going to war in the congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force against Iraq.
Bringing democracy to Iraq has been this nation’s policy since 1998, signed into law by Bill Clinton. And here’s what President Clinton said in a speech way back then:
Heck, Bush even asserted that a democratic Iraq could transform the entire region in a similar way on PBS! Before the war!
Second, you assert that the war is too expensive. Was WWII too expensive? The Cold War? How about we do what we did then and try to win?
Third, what the heck is wrong with you folks, the ones that used to be worried about world peace and love and all that? Why did you get off the peace bandwagon? Doncha know that folks are looking for your help? But all you guys can do is take cheap shots while they — the world’s subjugated — look on. Consider these words of a Syrian writer/blogger:
(Hat tip: Belmont Club.)
Think about this: If you and yours could get with the program, we could save innocents in Dafur and other USA-forsaken places. If you’d quit complaining, consider ways to get other good guys — ain’t it a shame that the US, Britain, and Australia have to lead the way? — to jump in too, things might go a little faster. Would that not be wonderful?
When will you guys stop saying “No” to peace and start acting like you really do want to end the murder of innocents?
Most of the terrorists (called “insurgents” by the anti-American media) are coming now from Iran, another Islamic sanctuary for world jihad, who has been at war with Iraq for years.
American forces have control of 14 of the 18 provinces in Iraq. The other 4 will come under our domination very soon. Syria and Iraq do not seem to recognize the reality that Pakistan and Libya did.
Democrats need to recognize that same reality, that they cannot win control of America, pull up the covers, and hope the terrorists go away while they go on a welfare spending spree.
The Iranian president recently stated, more than once, that Iran would exterminate the Jews and wipe Israel off the map. These are the kinds of people that Tom T. says we need to love and respect. When will the left ever realize that Iran is beginning to make verbal waves now because they see America as weakening as the Iraq mission proceeds. Why do they see us as weakening? Easy answers to that: NY Times, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Charlie Rangel, and a cast of many others. What do they all have in common? Democrats and left leaners all. So, back to Tom T., how much will you love the Iranian president after the first nuke explodes in Tel Aviv?
The reason Iran is in the grip of Islamic revolutionaries is because they judged quite corrrectly that President Jimmy Carter was a weakling.
Saddam judged, quite correctly, that Presdent Clinton was a weakling who was totally inept at all foreign policy, which was used only as a smokescreen for his domestic agenda.