freedome 4 all
oh Alex, you do suck some dogs balls....Alex "I'm the greatest foreign minister in the greatest government ever, of all time, ever" downer, celebrates the 5th anniversary by changing history, yet again....
once again in the face of overwhelming evidence Alex whimpers:
It was, nevertheless, the right decision.
First, had Saddam's regime succeeded in keeping UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq and defying the will of the international community — including the US — he would have been greatly empowered.
Yes, but Alex, your decision to invade drove the weapons inspectors out, you drove the inspectors out, they all begged for more time to do their job, they went to all the places pointed out to them by Doug Fieths creepy henchman, and in 100% of the cases, found nothing. Add to that the admission that the US had infiltrated the UN Inspectors and were using the inspections to gather intelligence on Iraq.
If the weapons inspectors had been given the time to do their jobs, and they revealed the truth, that Saddam was talking through his arse about his capabilities, how does that "embolden" him. It may win me admiring glances at the pub when I'm pissed and I brag about the 26 inches of man meat in my pants, its a different story when I have to drop em in full view of the pub and the evidence is less than overwhelming.
We went to war because a tyrant had an inflated ego? Gee Mr Greatness, you are definitely in line for a bit of an invasion.
1991...Saddam had survived the mightiest military coalition in history and by surviving he had "won". This perception emboldened him.
Oh Alex, even Dik Cheney said at the time that invading Iraq would have been a catastrophe, you don't like this little game you now have to play of "Justify Your War" five years on, but your happy to re-write the one from 1991. One again, invading a country coz a dictator has a big ego, don't cut much mustard gas.
If, in 2003, he had survived yet again...
Survived what? Your invasion? So he would have had his ego stroked if his extremely depleted ramshackle army had beaten yours, or if he had of been forced, like the previous ten years to allow the weapons inspectors to do their job.
Based on what the UN inspectors had reported, and the analysis of several intelligence agencies, most of the world would have believed that he had survived with weapons of mass destruction. On the basis of what we do know now, he would enthusiastically be rebuilding his WMD capabilities today.
Oh Alex, the weapons inspectors found that he didn't have the capabilities and Hans Blix said so, Hans also apologised for not saying so more forcefully in the run up to the war, saying that he didn't realise that his more diplomatic language would be taken by people like Alex and used out of context, just like Alex is doing now.
So Alex, with that sparkling hindsight of yours, don't you remember that Saddam was boxed in on all sides, had US jets constantly bombing him whenever a President felt a dip in his polls, a sanctions regime that classified infants humidifiers as WMD components, weapons inspectors up the ying yang and the only people breaking the sanctions were our very own representatives of the Australian Government DFAT through the guise of AWB.
"the analysis of several intelligence agencies", you don't mean "stupidest man on the face of the earth" Doug Feiths little crew and the British dossier based on an undergrads term paper, you don't mean the same dossier that warned that Saddam could launch a WMD attack on Europe in as little as 45 minutes that really meant to say "could fire a conventional weapon somewhere in the vicinty" but the words WMD accidentally were typed in front of, you don't mean the people who got everything wrong and hyped what little they did find till the blue sky turned a bloody shade of red, you don't mean the Germans who held your main source of intelligence, the Iraqi defector "Curveball" whom they described as a "a pathological liar" and "mentally ill". Just what agencies are you talking about, its not ASIO or any of ours, you've already stated that we relied entirely on US and British intelligence.
Second, a still-more powerful Saddam would have been a major threat to his own people and the Middle East.
That's assuming that Saddam had somehow had his ego inflated by fulfilling an entirely hypothetical scenario which was never going to be played out in the first place, so not a good start to point two Alex. Did you spend all day during your tenure as FM worrying about who could use a hug, were you worried about other dictators egos and their fragility, did you have at the ready the card of a good psychologist or life counsellor for those that you thought could do with a bit of a boost? Any wonder AWB fell into the "I cant recall" when you had such pressing worries on your mind.
There was no more brutal dictator on Earth in 2003 than Saddam Hussein.
Would you really like to go through a list of Dictators at the time, Charles Taylor was eating the flesh of his opponents and slaughtering them by the thousands and we accepted him as a good buddy. In the Congo three million were being slaughtered, in Burma, in Chechnya and other former Soviet republics masses were being put to death and disappeared. By 2003, Saddam was brutal, no question, but THE most brutal, cmon, and with such a fragile ego.
To act in a way that made a hero out of a man who had murdered about half-a-million of his own people, declared war on two of his neighbours and supported terrorists from Abu Nidal (the Osama bin Laden of the '70s and '80s) to Palestinian suicide bombers would have been sheer folly.
Sorry, just who was it that you speak of that considered him a "hero"? Can you name a few, outside of a few hardline Palesinians who the world ignores anyway? I also love the fact that the same people who put together the stats on the 1/2 a million figure are the same people Alex said were completely wrong and maybe just a bit batshit crazy, when it came to the 300,000 to 600, 000 figure of Iraqi dead in post invasion Iraq.
His two wars, we, the US and Britain all supported Saddam in his invasion of Iran, provided material support and cheered from the sides at the insanity. His second war, against Kuwait, despite the recent re-writing of history by the then US Ambassador, could at the very least be seen as having been tolerated at the start by our allies the US, "we have no position on your dispute with Kuwait" was the US answer when Saddam asked if he could invade.
Alex, why mention Osama, Abu Nidal was not the Osama of the 1970's, any more than Yasser Arafat was. When Nidal was in Iraq, he was an old worn out ex-fighter, hooked to a dialysis machine, under the watchful eye of Saddams secret police under house quarantine. Yes, Saddam did support the Palestinian cause, occasionally providing $20,000 to the families of suicide bombers, but not always, despite boasting a lot about it. If supporting the Palestinians is so wrong, I would suggest that we should have invaded the entire Arab world to follow your logic.
At a time when moderate Muslims have needed all the help they could get from the West in the struggle against Islamic extremism, there is no doubt an empowered Saddam would have been a major obstacle to successful Arab-Western co-operation.
And invading a sovereign Arab country against the advice of nearly every Arab regime and over their strenuous objections and with nearly 90% of Arabic people against the idea, aided that cause how? If you were worried about helping Muslim moderates, wouldn't encouraging and insisting upon free elections in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Egypt, or even just a modicum of freedom of the press, have done a thousand times better.
It is often claimed that Saddam had no links with al-Qaeda:
No Alex, its just a fact, not a claim. Al Queda wanted Saddam gone as much as GW Bush did, and said so on many occasions.
not because he himself was committed to the ideology of extremist Islamists, but on the time-worn principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend.
Just like the US is now doing with Sunnis insurgents in Iraq, a process you applaud wholeheartedly, despite the fact that it will come back to bite them very hard on the arse. Then again, its the reason why we supported Saddam in the 1980's against Iran.
Third, there is no doubt the Americans made some mistakes.
Funny, I don't seem to remember you pointing this out to the US at the time, you said the US were 100% right in the way they were going about it, maybe you should have said something when there was time to fix things. Oh well, you were clearly fretting about Saddams id and super-ego balance, now just how many personal issues you subscribe to the old tyrant.
The most common criticism is that they pursued the de-Baathification policy too zealously. Initially, the Americans wanted a modest de-Baathification process, knowing that many of the people who made Iraq work at all were Baath Party members because it was impossible to hold any position of authority without being in the party. The Americans only planned to remove from office the top two levels of the bureaucracy — that is, ministers and deputy ministers or their equivalents. Once the Iraqi Interim Government took over,......
The newest reason why the Iraq adventure failed, we did great, it was the Iraqis who really failed, we were brilliant, the Iraqis were shit.
Bremer and the US were in complete control, they issued the orders for the complete de-bathification of Iraq, not as Alex tells it, the Iraqis. Oh Alex, what a big fat whopper you just laid. If you cant say "I don't remember", don't lie, just say "it slipped my memory" or "I cant recall, sir". Next you will tell us that Bremer only meant to get rid of those parts of the Iraqi Army that wore red boots, not the whole army, it was the Iraqis who insisted that we allow 500,000 men with guns to flood the unemployment offices of Iraqs Centrelink. Those Iraqis must have been just complete fuckwads to have a genius like Bremer giving such nuanced, precise orders and then completely ballsing them up. As Alex says "Arguably, the Americans should have done more to restrain them, assuming they could."
The more serious criticism of the Americans is that they should have sent more troops to Iraq in the first place. This is the view held by, among others, then US secretary of state Colin Powell and Senator John McCain.
Alex, Alex, Alex, this is the 21st Century, I don't need to consult the only person in my village who can read to run down to the Archbishop who then runs to the King to find out the real facts, I gots google, here is what your John McCain said in the run up to war
"But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.
"It's clear that the end is very much in sight...It won't be long. It, it'll be a fairly short period of time."John McCain, April 9, 2003.
"I'm confident we're on the right course."John McCain, March 7, 2004.
"I think he strengthened our national defenses. I think he has a good team around him."John McCain, on President Bush, September 3, 2004.
"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence."John McCain, on whether he had confidence in Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, December 15, 2004.
Alex if you are going to give a man as a reference, a/ make sure you know what he is talking about and b/make sure that he knows what he is talking about, in this case, you got two for two wrong. Never mind, maybe it was the Iraqis who you got to help with the wordprocessor thingy who completely fucked up, again.
The fact is ol Mr Straight Talk express can express all opinions at all times and still be seen as right at least some of the time, remarkable.
Also Colin Powell when asked if he would do it all over again, knowing what he knows now, his answer was an unequivocal "No".
The consequence of withdrawing before securing a stable Iraq would be genocide. The country would almost certainly descend into a free for all that would make last year's violence look tame. Added to that would be the intrusion of neighbouring powers unable to stand aside as their brothers and sisters were slaughtered. That would threaten a full-scale regional conflict.
Alex, your not trying to tell us that Turkey may invade Iraq, heaven forbid. Your not saying that the Shiite led government in Iraq would lay on red carpet for the Iranian President, while all US/British/Australian dignitres have to sneak in under the cover of darkness unanouced and still require a massive body guard even in the green zone? My god, never. Why do nearly 75% of Iraqis want the US led forces out immediately and say that they are causing more problems than they are solving?
Some say because the bloodshed in Iraq is a function not just of al-Qaeda terrorism but also of Sunni-on-Shiite civil conflict we should leave the Iraqis to fight it out.
Some say that fox news is fair and balanced, some say that enemas with ground glass are dangerous, some (including me) say that you are both a present and retrospective liar of little talent and a distorted, convient memory. Even the most optomistic, stretched assesment of Al Queda in Iraq (as very distinct from Al Queda) from the Pentagon says that they contribute no more than 3% of the violence. That means that 97% of the fighting currently going on IS "Sunni-on-Shiite civil conflict".
but to abandon 27 million Iraqis altogether now would be a terrible act of folly.
Oh Alex, you speak of the Iraqis as though you actually care what happens to them, even though you blame them for the present troubles. You have abandoned the over 20% of Iraqis who have fled the country, leaving only some 22 million plus to fight for survival. You have through your actions, lies and incompetence abandoned them, but thats ok, Im sure no one will notice if you just tell enough people your newest version of the facts.
It wasn't right to turn our backs on civil war in Rwanda in 1994 when 800,000 people were slaughtered; it wouldn't have been right to turn our backs on civil conflict in the Balkans; the world has done too little to stop civil conflict in Darfur. How, then, is it right to turn our backs on the conflict in Iraq? Clearly it is not.
Lets see how many troops do we have in the above countries? How brave you are Little Alex now that you can re-write it all, I for one cannot wait to wipe my very ample arse on you up coming biography, the fact is my shit does stink, and that will be so much more truthful than anything contained in those pages.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/toppling-saddam-was-right-for-iraq-and-the-world/2008/03/18/1205602383436.html
...................................
Will the first Oz victim of the credit meltdown in the US be Gunns new, and as yet unfinanced, pulp mill?
Members of the Australian Olympic team will be forced to sign an agreement that means they will have to ask permission to comment on human rights during the Beijing Games.
Australian Olympic officials say athletes will not be gagged from making political comments, but they may be sent home if they do not ask permission first.
One part of a 53-page agreement that all athletes going to Beijing will have to sign says: "Unless and until otherwise directed by the Chef de Mission, athletes may comment or communicate with the media only in relation to their events, prospects and performances at the games."
...................................................
Meet Mr 10%'s shadow parliamentary secretary for families and community services, Senator Bernardi
THE Opposition's parliamentary secretary for families has been linked to a scheme that sold financial advice on how divorcees could hide money from their former spouses.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23399707-2702,00.html
......................................................................
John McCain = 4 more years of the Bush Whitehouse
In 1999/2000 rode around in his bus with the words "Straight Talk Express" prominently scrawled across its glistening surface. Those long ago days he refused to pander to those far right religious bigots so beloved of the Bush Team, utter scumbags like Jerry Falwell, held moderate views on gun control, lobbyists and abortion, and was not afraid to speak just a little of his mind on these topics. Unlike all the other republican candidates, he seemed to be genuinly unafraid of aleinating the base of the Republican party, speaking his mind and damn the fund raising.
We all know what happened to him, on the verge of winning the slot, his campaign was undone by rumours of him spawning black babies, the mysterious rumours of his unpatriotic behavior during the vietnam war (the tapes of his rants against the US produced after 2 years of torture at the hands of his Nth Vietnamese captors, resurfaced) and his war record was slyly questioned. All these things seemed to point to the Bush team, McCain even demanded Bush call off his attack dog Rove and repudiate the slurs (Bush just shrugged his shoulders and continued as though it had nothing to do with him).
Of all the Republican candidates running in 2000, McCain stood head and shoulders above them all, yet lost.
Cross to today, the bus is still with us, the slogan is still with us, but the candidate is the palest shadow of his former self, having learnt the valuable lesson that principles are worthless in the face of losing power. The Obama or Clinton camps are going to have a field day with their ability to juxtatpose the "straight talk" brand name against the reality of the Flip Flop Express, going to whoop with delight at all the wonderful remarks the man has made over the past few years which have turned out to be so ver, very, very wrong. While some conservative commentators have pointed out that McCain has consistently stood up to the Bush Whitehouse, and god knows everyone else is fleeing in terror at being branded as even having been in the same state as Bush at the same time, the reality for McCain is that on every issue, McCain is either in lockstep or caved into the Bushies on each and every issue. McCain called for the surge, the President rejected it, when Bush caved in and commited the extra troops, it was labeled the McCain surge, then when it appeared to be failing/making no difference, McCain renounced it, then when it appeared to be having some effect, re re-embrcaed it.
for just a few of McCains flip flops on the war, please read with annoyance the below:
http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000979.htm
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2008/03/mccains_iraq_dilemma.html?nav=rss_blog
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/18/notebook/main3948777.shtml
once again in the face of overwhelming evidence Alex whimpers:
It was, nevertheless, the right decision.
First, had Saddam's regime succeeded in keeping UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq and defying the will of the international community — including the US — he would have been greatly empowered.
Yes, but Alex, your decision to invade drove the weapons inspectors out, you drove the inspectors out, they all begged for more time to do their job, they went to all the places pointed out to them by Doug Fieths creepy henchman, and in 100% of the cases, found nothing. Add to that the admission that the US had infiltrated the UN Inspectors and were using the inspections to gather intelligence on Iraq.
If the weapons inspectors had been given the time to do their jobs, and they revealed the truth, that Saddam was talking through his arse about his capabilities, how does that "embolden" him. It may win me admiring glances at the pub when I'm pissed and I brag about the 26 inches of man meat in my pants, its a different story when I have to drop em in full view of the pub and the evidence is less than overwhelming.
We went to war because a tyrant had an inflated ego? Gee Mr Greatness, you are definitely in line for a bit of an invasion.
1991...Saddam had survived the mightiest military coalition in history and by surviving he had "won". This perception emboldened him.
Oh Alex, even Dik Cheney said at the time that invading Iraq would have been a catastrophe, you don't like this little game you now have to play of "Justify Your War" five years on, but your happy to re-write the one from 1991. One again, invading a country coz a dictator has a big ego, don't cut much mustard gas.
If, in 2003, he had survived yet again...
Survived what? Your invasion? So he would have had his ego stroked if his extremely depleted ramshackle army had beaten yours, or if he had of been forced, like the previous ten years to allow the weapons inspectors to do their job.
Based on what the UN inspectors had reported, and the analysis of several intelligence agencies, most of the world would have believed that he had survived with weapons of mass destruction. On the basis of what we do know now, he would enthusiastically be rebuilding his WMD capabilities today.
Oh Alex, the weapons inspectors found that he didn't have the capabilities and Hans Blix said so, Hans also apologised for not saying so more forcefully in the run up to the war, saying that he didn't realise that his more diplomatic language would be taken by people like Alex and used out of context, just like Alex is doing now.
So Alex, with that sparkling hindsight of yours, don't you remember that Saddam was boxed in on all sides, had US jets constantly bombing him whenever a President felt a dip in his polls, a sanctions regime that classified infants humidifiers as WMD components, weapons inspectors up the ying yang and the only people breaking the sanctions were our very own representatives of the Australian Government DFAT through the guise of AWB.
"the analysis of several intelligence agencies", you don't mean "stupidest man on the face of the earth" Doug Feiths little crew and the British dossier based on an undergrads term paper, you don't mean the same dossier that warned that Saddam could launch a WMD attack on Europe in as little as 45 minutes that really meant to say "could fire a conventional weapon somewhere in the vicinty" but the words WMD accidentally were typed in front of, you don't mean the people who got everything wrong and hyped what little they did find till the blue sky turned a bloody shade of red, you don't mean the Germans who held your main source of intelligence, the Iraqi defector "Curveball" whom they described as a "a pathological liar" and "mentally ill". Just what agencies are you talking about, its not ASIO or any of ours, you've already stated that we relied entirely on US and British intelligence.
Second, a still-more powerful Saddam would have been a major threat to his own people and the Middle East.
That's assuming that Saddam had somehow had his ego inflated by fulfilling an entirely hypothetical scenario which was never going to be played out in the first place, so not a good start to point two Alex. Did you spend all day during your tenure as FM worrying about who could use a hug, were you worried about other dictators egos and their fragility, did you have at the ready the card of a good psychologist or life counsellor for those that you thought could do with a bit of a boost? Any wonder AWB fell into the "I cant recall" when you had such pressing worries on your mind.
There was no more brutal dictator on Earth in 2003 than Saddam Hussein.
Would you really like to go through a list of Dictators at the time, Charles Taylor was eating the flesh of his opponents and slaughtering them by the thousands and we accepted him as a good buddy. In the Congo three million were being slaughtered, in Burma, in Chechnya and other former Soviet republics masses were being put to death and disappeared. By 2003, Saddam was brutal, no question, but THE most brutal, cmon, and with such a fragile ego.
To act in a way that made a hero out of a man who had murdered about half-a-million of his own people, declared war on two of his neighbours and supported terrorists from Abu Nidal (the Osama bin Laden of the '70s and '80s) to Palestinian suicide bombers would have been sheer folly.
Sorry, just who was it that you speak of that considered him a "hero"? Can you name a few, outside of a few hardline Palesinians who the world ignores anyway? I also love the fact that the same people who put together the stats on the 1/2 a million figure are the same people Alex said were completely wrong and maybe just a bit batshit crazy, when it came to the 300,000 to 600, 000 figure of Iraqi dead in post invasion Iraq.
His two wars, we, the US and Britain all supported Saddam in his invasion of Iran, provided material support and cheered from the sides at the insanity. His second war, against Kuwait, despite the recent re-writing of history by the then US Ambassador, could at the very least be seen as having been tolerated at the start by our allies the US, "we have no position on your dispute with Kuwait" was the US answer when Saddam asked if he could invade.
Alex, why mention Osama, Abu Nidal was not the Osama of the 1970's, any more than Yasser Arafat was. When Nidal was in Iraq, he was an old worn out ex-fighter, hooked to a dialysis machine, under the watchful eye of Saddams secret police under house quarantine. Yes, Saddam did support the Palestinian cause, occasionally providing $20,000 to the families of suicide bombers, but not always, despite boasting a lot about it. If supporting the Palestinians is so wrong, I would suggest that we should have invaded the entire Arab world to follow your logic.
At a time when moderate Muslims have needed all the help they could get from the West in the struggle against Islamic extremism, there is no doubt an empowered Saddam would have been a major obstacle to successful Arab-Western co-operation.
And invading a sovereign Arab country against the advice of nearly every Arab regime and over their strenuous objections and with nearly 90% of Arabic people against the idea, aided that cause how? If you were worried about helping Muslim moderates, wouldn't encouraging and insisting upon free elections in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Egypt, or even just a modicum of freedom of the press, have done a thousand times better.
It is often claimed that Saddam had no links with al-Qaeda:
No Alex, its just a fact, not a claim. Al Queda wanted Saddam gone as much as GW Bush did, and said so on many occasions.
not because he himself was committed to the ideology of extremist Islamists, but on the time-worn principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend.
Just like the US is now doing with Sunnis insurgents in Iraq, a process you applaud wholeheartedly, despite the fact that it will come back to bite them very hard on the arse. Then again, its the reason why we supported Saddam in the 1980's against Iran.
Third, there is no doubt the Americans made some mistakes.
Funny, I don't seem to remember you pointing this out to the US at the time, you said the US were 100% right in the way they were going about it, maybe you should have said something when there was time to fix things. Oh well, you were clearly fretting about Saddams id and super-ego balance, now just how many personal issues you subscribe to the old tyrant.
The most common criticism is that they pursued the de-Baathification policy too zealously. Initially, the Americans wanted a modest de-Baathification process, knowing that many of the people who made Iraq work at all were Baath Party members because it was impossible to hold any position of authority without being in the party. The Americans only planned to remove from office the top two levels of the bureaucracy — that is, ministers and deputy ministers or their equivalents. Once the Iraqi Interim Government took over,......
The newest reason why the Iraq adventure failed, we did great, it was the Iraqis who really failed, we were brilliant, the Iraqis were shit.
Bremer and the US were in complete control, they issued the orders for the complete de-bathification of Iraq, not as Alex tells it, the Iraqis. Oh Alex, what a big fat whopper you just laid. If you cant say "I don't remember", don't lie, just say "it slipped my memory" or "I cant recall, sir". Next you will tell us that Bremer only meant to get rid of those parts of the Iraqi Army that wore red boots, not the whole army, it was the Iraqis who insisted that we allow 500,000 men with guns to flood the unemployment offices of Iraqs Centrelink. Those Iraqis must have been just complete fuckwads to have a genius like Bremer giving such nuanced, precise orders and then completely ballsing them up. As Alex says "Arguably, the Americans should have done more to restrain them, assuming they could."
The more serious criticism of the Americans is that they should have sent more troops to Iraq in the first place. This is the view held by, among others, then US secretary of state Colin Powell and Senator John McCain.
Alex, Alex, Alex, this is the 21st Century, I don't need to consult the only person in my village who can read to run down to the Archbishop who then runs to the King to find out the real facts, I gots google, here is what your John McCain said in the run up to war
"But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.
"It's clear that the end is very much in sight...It won't be long. It, it'll be a fairly short period of time."John McCain, April 9, 2003.
"I'm confident we're on the right course."John McCain, March 7, 2004.
"I think he strengthened our national defenses. I think he has a good team around him."John McCain, on President Bush, September 3, 2004.
"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence."John McCain, on whether he had confidence in Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, December 15, 2004.
Alex if you are going to give a man as a reference, a/ make sure you know what he is talking about and b/make sure that he knows what he is talking about, in this case, you got two for two wrong. Never mind, maybe it was the Iraqis who you got to help with the wordprocessor thingy who completely fucked up, again.
The fact is ol Mr Straight Talk express can express all opinions at all times and still be seen as right at least some of the time, remarkable.
Also Colin Powell when asked if he would do it all over again, knowing what he knows now, his answer was an unequivocal "No".
The consequence of withdrawing before securing a stable Iraq would be genocide. The country would almost certainly descend into a free for all that would make last year's violence look tame. Added to that would be the intrusion of neighbouring powers unable to stand aside as their brothers and sisters were slaughtered. That would threaten a full-scale regional conflict.
Alex, your not trying to tell us that Turkey may invade Iraq, heaven forbid. Your not saying that the Shiite led government in Iraq would lay on red carpet for the Iranian President, while all US/British/Australian dignitres have to sneak in under the cover of darkness unanouced and still require a massive body guard even in the green zone? My god, never. Why do nearly 75% of Iraqis want the US led forces out immediately and say that they are causing more problems than they are solving?
Some say because the bloodshed in Iraq is a function not just of al-Qaeda terrorism but also of Sunni-on-Shiite civil conflict we should leave the Iraqis to fight it out.
Some say that fox news is fair and balanced, some say that enemas with ground glass are dangerous, some (including me) say that you are both a present and retrospective liar of little talent and a distorted, convient memory. Even the most optomistic, stretched assesment of Al Queda in Iraq (as very distinct from Al Queda) from the Pentagon says that they contribute no more than 3% of the violence. That means that 97% of the fighting currently going on IS "Sunni-on-Shiite civil conflict".
but to abandon 27 million Iraqis altogether now would be a terrible act of folly.
Oh Alex, you speak of the Iraqis as though you actually care what happens to them, even though you blame them for the present troubles. You have abandoned the over 20% of Iraqis who have fled the country, leaving only some 22 million plus to fight for survival. You have through your actions, lies and incompetence abandoned them, but thats ok, Im sure no one will notice if you just tell enough people your newest version of the facts.
It wasn't right to turn our backs on civil war in Rwanda in 1994 when 800,000 people were slaughtered; it wouldn't have been right to turn our backs on civil conflict in the Balkans; the world has done too little to stop civil conflict in Darfur. How, then, is it right to turn our backs on the conflict in Iraq? Clearly it is not.
Lets see how many troops do we have in the above countries? How brave you are Little Alex now that you can re-write it all, I for one cannot wait to wipe my very ample arse on you up coming biography, the fact is my shit does stink, and that will be so much more truthful than anything contained in those pages.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/toppling-saddam-was-right-for-iraq-and-the-world/2008/03/18/1205602383436.html
...................................
Will the first Oz victim of the credit meltdown in the US be Gunns new, and as yet unfinanced, pulp mill?
Members of the Australian Olympic team will be forced to sign an agreement that means they will have to ask permission to comment on human rights during the Beijing Games.
Australian Olympic officials say athletes will not be gagged from making political comments, but they may be sent home if they do not ask permission first.
One part of a 53-page agreement that all athletes going to Beijing will have to sign says: "Unless and until otherwise directed by the Chef de Mission, athletes may comment or communicate with the media only in relation to their events, prospects and performances at the games."
...................................................
Meet Mr 10%'s shadow parliamentary secretary for families and community services, Senator Bernardi
THE Opposition's parliamentary secretary for families has been linked to a scheme that sold financial advice on how divorcees could hide money from their former spouses.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23399707-2702,00.html
......................................................................
John McCain = 4 more years of the Bush Whitehouse
In 1999/2000 rode around in his bus with the words "Straight Talk Express" prominently scrawled across its glistening surface. Those long ago days he refused to pander to those far right religious bigots so beloved of the Bush Team, utter scumbags like Jerry Falwell, held moderate views on gun control, lobbyists and abortion, and was not afraid to speak just a little of his mind on these topics. Unlike all the other republican candidates, he seemed to be genuinly unafraid of aleinating the base of the Republican party, speaking his mind and damn the fund raising.
We all know what happened to him, on the verge of winning the slot, his campaign was undone by rumours of him spawning black babies, the mysterious rumours of his unpatriotic behavior during the vietnam war (the tapes of his rants against the US produced after 2 years of torture at the hands of his Nth Vietnamese captors, resurfaced) and his war record was slyly questioned. All these things seemed to point to the Bush team, McCain even demanded Bush call off his attack dog Rove and repudiate the slurs (Bush just shrugged his shoulders and continued as though it had nothing to do with him).
Of all the Republican candidates running in 2000, McCain stood head and shoulders above them all, yet lost.
Cross to today, the bus is still with us, the slogan is still with us, but the candidate is the palest shadow of his former self, having learnt the valuable lesson that principles are worthless in the face of losing power. The Obama or Clinton camps are going to have a field day with their ability to juxtatpose the "straight talk" brand name against the reality of the Flip Flop Express, going to whoop with delight at all the wonderful remarks the man has made over the past few years which have turned out to be so ver, very, very wrong. While some conservative commentators have pointed out that McCain has consistently stood up to the Bush Whitehouse, and god knows everyone else is fleeing in terror at being branded as even having been in the same state as Bush at the same time, the reality for McCain is that on every issue, McCain is either in lockstep or caved into the Bushies on each and every issue. McCain called for the surge, the President rejected it, when Bush caved in and commited the extra troops, it was labeled the McCain surge, then when it appeared to be failing/making no difference, McCain renounced it, then when it appeared to be having some effect, re re-embrcaed it.
for just a few of McCains flip flops on the war, please read with annoyance the below:
http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000979.htm
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2008/03/mccains_iraq_dilemma.html?nav=rss_blog
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/18/notebook/main3948777.shtml
posted by the bluhamster at 12:14 PM
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