Iraq (1 Viewer)

[Latex lizzie]

Well I think Blair didn't have a choice in the matter really, no matter who was PM they would have supported the war in Iraq given Britain has such a historical debt to America and the Brits have been involved with Iraq since it was created. Had Britain not got involved the situation in Iraq and the middle east would be a lot worse. Could you imagine what would have happened if Al-Jazeera was bombed in Qatar? There would have been total mayhem.

And at least Blair was democratically elected, in comparison to Saddam who rather enjoyed gassing Kurds for the laugh.

so you reckon the war in Iraq was a good idea then?Because the reasons we were sold the war in the first place were a load of old cobblers and it is a proven fact american and brit governments lied to their voters.Look at the countless thousands dead (a top figure now of 30,000 0dd civilians dead) and a country in ruins. THe moral high ground does not belong to the west, using Sadam gassing the curds is not a reason to wreak the havoc that now englufs the world post Iraq,If we use that as an argument all they iraqi populace have to say is look at how many innocents they have killed and the country is in worse shape than ever, and a breeding ground for terrorists.

everyone has a choice, particularly the prime minister of england. The talking was not done when they started dropping bombs, this war was only ever about neocon power/ideals and the quest for oil.


I refer you to here if you are in any doubt
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

 

[Latex lizzie]

who'da thunk it!

I'll go to jail to print the truth about Bush and al-Jazeera
By Boris Johnson
(Filed: 24/11/2005)
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/...xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/11/24/ixopinion.html

It must be said that subsequent events have not made life easy for those of us who were so optimistic as to support the war in Iraq. There were those who believed the Government's rubbish about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Then the WMD made their historic no-show.

Some of us were so innocent as to suppose that the Pentagon had a well-thought-out plan for the removal of the dictator and the introduction of peace. Then we had the insurgency, in which tens of thousands have died.

Some of us thought it was about ensuring that chemical weapons could never again be used on Iraqi soil. Then we heard about the white phosphorus deployed by the Pentagon. Some people believed that the American liberation would mean the end of torture in Iraqi jails. Then we had Abu Ghraib.

Some of us thought it was all about the dissemination of the institutions of a civil society - above all a free press, in which journalists could work without fear of being murdered. Then we heard about the Bush plan to blow up al-Jazeera.

Some of us feel that we have an abusive relationship with this war. Every time we get our hopes up, we get punched by some piece of bad news. We yearn to be told that we're wrong, that things are going to get better, that the glass is half full. That's why I would love to think that Dubya was just having one of his little frat-house wisecracks, when he talked of destroying the Qatar-based satellite TV station. Maybe he was only horsing around. Maybe it was a flippant one-liner, of the kind that he delivers before making one of his dramatic exits into the broom-closet. Perhaps it was a kind of Henry II moment: you know, who will rid me of this turbulent TV station? Maybe he had a burst of spacy Reagan-esque surrealism, like the time the old boy forgot that the mikes were switched on, and startled a press conference with the announcement that he was going to start bombing Russia in five minutes. Maybe Bush thought he was Kenny Everett. Perhaps he was playing Basil Brush. Boom boom.

Who knows? But if his remarks were just an innocent piece of cretinism, then why in the name of holy thunder has the British state decreed that anyone printing those remarks will be sent to prison?

We all hope and pray that the American President was engaging in nothing more than neo-con Tourette-style babble about blowing things up. We are quite prepared to believe that the Daily Mirror is wrong. We are ready to accept that the two British civil servants who have leaked the account are either malicious or mistaken. But if there is one thing that would seem to confirm the essential accuracy of the story, it is that the Attorney General has announced that he will prosecute anyone printing the exact facts.

What are we supposed to think? The meeting between Bush and Blair took place on April 16, 2004, at the height of the US assault on Fallujah, and there is circumstantial evidence for believing that Bush may indeed have said what he is alleged to have said.

We know that the administration was infuriated with the al-Jazeera coverage of the battle, and the way the station focused on the deaths of hundreds of people, including civilians, rather than the necessity of ridding the town of dangerous terrorists. We remember how Cheney and Rumsfeld both launched vehement attacks on the station, and accused it of aiding the rebels. We are told by the New York Times that there were shouty-crackers arguments within the administration, with some officials yelling that the channel should be shut down, and others saying that it would be better to work with the journalists in the hope of producing better coverage.

We also recall that the Americans have form when it comes to the mass media outlets of regimes they dislike. They blew up the Kabul bureau of al-Jazeera in 2002, and they pulverised the Baghdad bureau in April 2003, killing one of the reporters. In 1999 they managed to blow up the Serb TV station, killing two make-up girls, in circumstances that were never satisfactorily explained.

To be fair to the Americans, we must also accept that they had good grounds for resenting al-Jazeera. The station is hugely respected in the Arab world, has about 35 million viewers, and yet it gives what can only be described as a thoroughly Arab perspective of current affairs. It assists in the glorification of suicide bombers; it publishes the rambling tapes of Bin Laden and others among the world's leading creeps and whackos; it is overwhelmingly hostile to America and sceptical about the neo-con project of imposing western values and political systems in the Middle East.

And yet however wrong you may think al-Jazeera is in its slant and its views, you must accept that what it is providing is recognisably journalism. It is not always helpful to the American cause in Iraq, but then nor is the BBC; and would anybody in London or Washington suggest sending a Tomahawk into White City? Well, they might, but only as a joke. Exhausted Western leaders, living in the nightmare of a media-dominated democracy, are allowed to make jokes about blowing up journalists. I seem to remember that when I was sent to Belgrade to cover the Nato attacks, Tony Blair told the then proprietor of The Daily Telegraph that he would "tell Nato to step up the bombing!" Ho ho ho.

But if there is an ounce of truth in the notion that George Bush seriously proposed the destruction of al-Jazeera, and was only dissuaded by the Prime Minister, then we need to know, and we need to know urgently. We need to know what we have been fighting for, and there is only one way to find out.

The Attorney General's ban is ridiculous, untenable, and redolent of guilt. I do not like people to break the Official Secrets Act, and, as it happens, I would not object to the continued prosecution of those who are alleged to have broken it. But we now have allegations of such severity, against the US President and his motives, that we need to clear them up.

If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. The public need to judge for themselves. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for, and in an important respect we become as sick and as bad as our enemies.

Boris Johnson is MP for Henley and editor of 'The Spectator'

 

[spiritualtramp]

so you reckon the war in Iraq was a good idea then?

No, I didn't think it was a good idea. However, I do think had Britain not got involved the situation would be a lot worse. And I do think it is good that the population of Iraq can vote for a leader themselves after living under a dicatator for decades.

Because the reasons we were sold the war in the first place were a load of old cobblers and it is a proven fact american and brit governments lied to their voters.

They didn't lie about Saddam being a right murdering bastard though, did they?

Look at the countless thousands dead (a top figure now of 30,000 0dd civilians dead) and a country in ruins.

In fairness, the country was in ruins anyway.

THe moral high ground does not belong to the west,

Sure. But it never belonged to Saddam.

using Sadam gassing the curds is not a reason to wreak the havoc that now englufs the world post Iraq,
If we use that as an argument all they iraqi populace have to say is look at how many innocents they have killed and the country is in worse shape than ever, and a breeding ground for terrorists.

Lemon curds?
It is unacceptable for a leader to be gassing his own people.

There is havoc in Iraq at the moment because it was destabilised. Stability in Iraq was people getting murdered by the government, nobody having freedom of speech, people getting chopped up etc etc How sad that it has gone.

Why is it that NOBODY gives a flying fuck about the majority of Iraqis who are killed - killed by insurgents. Not the fault of the invasion, this is because of the Shia Sunni thing. I suppose it is easier to give out about Western leaders than it is to condemn nutters blowing themselves up in markets.

everyone has a choice, particularly the prime minister of england. The talking was not done when they started dropping bombs, this war was only ever about neocon power/ideals and the quest for oil.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. You cannot deny that had Blair not got involved the situation would be worse. I didn't agree with the war but I do think Blair had to get involved, at least British troops are better trained and he could tell Bush where to stick it over bombing Al-Jazeera.

 

[Latex lizzie]

KURDS.

childish sometimes.

 

[Latex lizzie]

In fairness the country was in ruins after 10 years of sanctions.

 

[Latex lizzie]

and so the farce begins.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1652490,00.html

 

[aoboa]

Cheney accused of war crimes by his best mate:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4480638.stm

I f**king love this bit:
"Certainly it is a domestic crime to advocate terror," he added.
"And I would suspect, for whatever it's worth, it's an international crime as well."

 

[spiritualtramp]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/1201/iraq.html

 

[broken arm]

http://www.wakahiru-me.com/media/vid/indy/uk_chan4_bush_bombs_al-jazeera_051124a.mov

 

[Lord Damian]

so canada is heading into an election, and coincidentally 2 canucks have been kidnapped in Iraq. my guess is that if the conservative party wins the election, and if those 2 canucks are killed by their kidnappers, we'll be in iraq by March. you heard it here first.

 

[Janer]

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/13359610.htm
http://icasualties.org/oif/

 

[Latex lizzie]

on a related note that retard bush has exclaimed the following

George Bush, the US president, has said that 30,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and acknowledged setbacks in efforts to create a democracy in the country.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/177D5D93-0F83-4A3B-912B-53FD520F93FA.htm

so not far off this tally then
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

It's a far cry from medical journal "the lancet" figure of 100,000

The Lancet is one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals, published weekly by the Lancet Publishing Group, part of Reed Elsevier. It was founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley, who named it after the surgical instrument called a lancet, as well as an arched window ("to let in light").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet

and who could forget tommy franks and his "we don't do body counts" gaff. seems like they do when bush is on the ropes.

anyway didnt the whitehouse come out just after bush said this and deny the figure? prats.

 

[spiritualtramp]

Didn't the Lancet take into account people that would have died anyway, like the elderly and sick kids and stuff?

Salam Pax on elections
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1666665,00.html

 

[Latex lizzie]

Didn't the Lancet take into account people that would have died anyway, like the elderly and sick kids and stuff?

]

yup thats the way it should be.difficult to care for your society when people are fucking up you infrastructure deyning medical aid,putting "rings of steel" around towns etc.

 

[spiritualtramp]

yup thats the way it should be.difficult to care for your society when people are fucking up you infrastructure deyning medical aid,putting "rings of steel" around towns etc.

Well now in fairness, a lot of that figure died from a lack of long term health care services. Saddam did wreck the countrys once fantastic healthcare beforehand and he had a nasty military who'd wouldn't bother with rings of steel - they'd just wipe out an entire town instead.

What do people think of the elections then?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4530226.stm

 

[Latex lizzie]

delighted in one way, record ten million came out to vote. But I question what they are actually voting for? Bush and all his cronies are crying "democracy". I just don't buy into it at all. I think this could be the cataylist for a real humdinger of a civil war where the americans can walk away a la vietnam and leave them to it. Am I being to cycnical here.O.K. so it's lovely to see people risking their lives to vote. but for what form of democracy are they voting?I'm so confused these days as there seems to be so many models of it these days... is it the one where the gov doesn't listen to it's people once they are elected or the one where the second they get elected they start a war with another nation or is it the one where all the politicians are good for nothing bastards with nothing but their own ambitions and wallets on their mind.Maybe a mix of all of these.ho hum.

 

[spiritualtramp]

I have this theory that anti-war people refuse to accept that the elections in Iraq were a good thing because this would be sort of admitting they were wrong about the war.
Rather than be happy about people democratically electing their leaders after years of dictatorship people clutch at any straws they can find.

If there is a civil war in Iraq (I doubt it, the country will eventually break up into self-governed regions in my opinion) it won't be the fault of the americans, it is due to religious/ethnic differences. The americans didn't put Shia, Sunni and Kurds all in the one place to begin with.

 

[Latex lizzie]

why would I admit the war in Iraq wasnt wrong? It was/is wrong? there is always time for talking. And that time was not up by the time the yanks started dropping bombs. If anything I would be pisssed off because this had a happy ending mainly because it would mean the current US admin could walk over the world(even more justified) imposing their "democratic" ideals on other nation staes that do not fit the mould.the people in the US are less free now then the were ten years ago. Go figure?

As I said I hope this does work out for them, but I believe that democracy in its purest form can be found through non violent means. Those who live by the sword etc....

 

[steve albino]

If there is a civil war in Iraq (I doubt it, the country will eventually break up into self-governed regions in my opinion) it won't be the fault of the americans, it is due to religious/ethnic differences.

...or it could be due to a desire to control the resources of the country, for example:

Kurds in Iraq Breaking Away: Sign Deals with Norway, Israel


December 4, 2005
Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times & Israelis Training Kurds in Northern Iraq / Reuters
Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq are taking steps to break-away from the government in Baghdad. A Norwegian oil company has been invited to begin drilling in the north without approval from Baghdad. Meanwhile, Kurdish officials have reportedly signed contracts with a private Israeli security firms to provide “covert security training” to Kurdish police and military at a secret base in the north. Kurdish officials deny the reports.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-oildeal1dec01,0,4057840.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Kurdish Oil Deal Shocks Iraq's Political Leaders
Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD (December 1, 2005) — A controversial oil exploration deal between Iraq's autonomy-minded Kurds and a Norwegian company got underway this week without the approval of the central government here, raising a potentially explosive issue at a time of heightened ethnic and sectarian tensions.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls a portion of the semiautonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, last year quietly signed a deal with Norway's DNO to drill for oil near the border city of Zakho. Iraqi and company officials describe the agreement as the first involving new exploration in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Drilling began after a ceremony Tuesday, during which Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish northern region, vowed "there is no way Kurdistan would accept that the central government will control our resources," according to news agency reports.

In Baghdad, political leaders on Wednesday reacted to the deal with astonishment. "We need to figure out if this is allowed in the constitution," said Adnan Ali Kadhimi, an advisor to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. "Nobody has mentioned it. It has not come up among the government ministers' council. It has not been on their agenda."

The start of drilling, called "spudding" in the oil business, is sure to be worrisome to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority. They fear a disintegration of Iraq into separate ethnic and religious cantons if regions begin to cut energy deals with foreign companies and governments. Sunnis are concentrated in Iraq's most oil-poor region.

Iraq's neighbors also fear the possibility of Iraqi Kurds using revenue generated by oil wells to fund an independent state that might lead the roughly 20 million Kurds living in Turkey, Iran and Syria to revolt.
Iraqi legal experts and international oil industry analysts have questioned the deal. Oil industry trade journals had expressed doubts that it would come to fruition.

Iraq's draft constitution, approved in an Oct. 15 national referendum, stipulates that "the federal government with the producing regional and governorate governments shall together formulate" energy policy. However, it also makes ambiguous reference to providing compensation for "damaged regions that were unjustly deprived by the former regime."

Iraq's Kurds have argued that the country's existing oil fields and infrastructure, such as those in the largely Kurdish cities of Kirkuk and Khanaqin, should be divvied up by the central government but that future oil discoveries should be controlled by each oil-producing region.

In his speech Tuesday, Barzani, the nephew of Kurdish politician and former guerrilla leader Massoud Barzani, eschewed the language of the law and couched the deal in political terms. He invoked the Kurds' years of deprivation at the hands of the Sunni Arab-dominated government of Saddam Hussein.

"The time has come that instead of suffering, the people of Kurdistan will benefit from the fortunes and resources of their country," he said during the ceremony in the western portion of Kurdish-controlled territory.

The Kurds, who during the last several years of Hussein's rule maintained sovereignty in northern Iraq under the protection of US warplanes, made millions in transit and customs fees as the Baghdad government smuggled oil to Turkey in violation of United Nations sanctions. Since the end of the sanctions, the Kurds have sought ways to make up for that lost income.

Other Foreign Energy Deals in the Works
The eastern administrative half of the Kurdish region also is rushing to sign energy deals with foreign companies without Baghdad's approval. The government of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, based in the city of Sulaymaniya, has signed an electricity agreement with a Turkish company and explored a possible oil deal with a foreign partnership near the city of Chamchamal, the site of several dormant oil wells.

During months of painstaking constitutional negotiations, Kurds insisted on the authority to cut energy deals without Baghdad's approval. Under the draft charter, the task of determining how oil resources will be allocated is left to the National Assembly that will be elected Dec. 15.

The language in the constitution regarding the power of regions to pen such contracts was a major reason that the vast majority of Sunnis voted against the charter in October.

The announcement of the DNO drilling took many Iraqis by surprise Wednesday."This is unprecedented," said Alaa Makki, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab group. "It's like they are an independent country. This is Iraqi oil and should be shared with all the Iraqi partners."

http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=3497

 

[aoboa]

I have this theory that anti-war people refuse to accept that the elections in Iraq were a good thing because this would be sort of admitting they were wrong about the war.
Rather than be happy about people democratically electing their leaders after years of dictatorship people clutch at any straws they can find.

They are a good thing but 'bringing decocracy to Iraq' was not the reason the US/UK invaded and killed 100,000+ people, poluted the country with depleted uranium, razed Fallujah, committed all manner of atrocities themselves etc etc etc etc etc etc etc . That's something that the pro-war people seem to forget.