[quote]vroom wrote:
Consider the history of America if it was written by the Native Indians. I suspect it would consist of very different language than you are used to.
[quote]
well because most have no written language, it probably wouldnt be written and it would sounds something like the Tomahawk chop!!
Hiyaa Hiya Hiya Hiyaa
sorry…i couldnt resist. This place is getting too serious, we need some humor…someone break out John Kerry’s voting record. 
John is right about the popularity of Bush and the war amongst the people of England.
Everytime I phone home(England), read a newspaper from my home country or watch the BBC news there are always stories about Blairs declining popularity mainly in part to his support of the war and Bush.
I and all my family are die hard labour supporters and always will be but I find myself questioning why the leader of the labour party(a pary more comparable to Dems than Reps) sides with Bush over the conflict in Iraq.
As it has been stated before the people of England cannot vote directly on specific matters BUT if that were the case I am pretty sure that they would vote against what is happening now.
The Mirror, a staunch labour supporting newspaper, runs photos of Bush holding small dogs that have Tony Blairs face super imposed on them. The general tide in England is against the war.
Just giving you the point of view of another English man to show that this isnt just John spouting off.
Sifu,
Excuse me for being nitpickish - but by Europe, you do not mean the EU? Because in your list there are certain problems (and for continuities sake, I will stick with your list - as my head is already spinning after looking up all the numbers):
Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, El Salvador, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Norway, Romania, South Korea, Ukraine are not EU countries. It can be even argued that most of them are not even on the European continent. 
The Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and Slovakia joined on 01.05.2004, more than a year after the invasion. So technically they would not even count either.
Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom are EU countries. But Spain is on its way out of Iraq.
Facts? Check the EU website: http://europa.eu.int/abc/governments/index_en.htm#members
A good breakdown of deployment you will find here (got that from a pro-war website, so I guess there should be no leftist distortion here): Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos
So, one year after the war has been declared over (but military operations continue), you have a possible majority.
My point: The majority of EU countries as stated by you was not supporting the war. With a of 5 to 10 minority at the given time, they where , well … a minority.
If you go for Europe as a continent, in March 2003 you would have 45 countries, out of which 22 where in the CoW (I like the sound of that ), 23 were not. Still no majority.
In March 2004 you would have 23 CoW countries (the already excludes Spain), against 22. Here, after all the wait you have a slight minority - now that the main show is over, and the war on terror is going so well.
Makkun (nerd mode off now)
Disclaimer: I worked with Sifu’s list and the one from the PWHCE website. If they’re wrong, it’s not my fault. The other numbers are from EU websites, if they are wrong - heaven help us.
I’d hate to confuse things more, but you could also analyze things based on population sizes…
Since we are at root discussing the opinions of the people it could be illustrative.
You are right a few of those countries are not on the European continent. I cut and pasted that list and didn’t bother to edit because I’m just not that anal and I figured most of you would know where most of these countries are.
Even if some of thosse countries are not in the EU they are still part of Europe and some are large countries by European standards. Off the top of my head I would have to say that Ukraine has about 50 million people and Poland has around 30 million compared to Germany which has 80 million or the UK with 60 million or France with 55 million.
I think the reason why Blair sided with Bush, is because there were almost 180 British dead on 9/11. It is impossible to launch an attack on America and kill a large number of Americans without killing a significant number of British as well. This is something that goes beyond partisan politics.
I think Tony Blair is an anti-libertarian liberal twit. So I was quite shocked to see him get on the right side of things on Iraq.
Saddam was a dangerous mother fucker who had a bloody history. Anyone who says he wasn’t dangerous is completely in denial. I lost almost all respect for the Tories after they started backing off their support for the Iraq invasion becuse no WMD’s have been found yet. National security should go beyond partisan politics.
If you guys in England are really worried about the government not obeying the peoples will, you should study the American solution to that problem. The second amendment to the US constitution guarantees governmental obedience of the people.
JeffR: THe Iran-Contra scandal began before Reagan-Bush took office. However, if you’ve only read/listened to the corporate u.s. news media you’d never know it. You have to circumvent this propaganda by going to non-corporate or foreign sources. Anyway, I’m sure you realize Iran held American hosatges for 444 days. The Reagan-Bush team promised to deliver the weapons that Iran already paid for(Carter didn’t and this is one reason why hostages were taken) and a promise of future sales with some cash thrown in the mix. So for all the talk coming from the Reagan-Bush administration about NEVER capitulating to terrorists those phonies were doing it right under the noses of the public. But these type of things are par for the course in American politics.
So if I understand you correctly, Iraq was a much bigger threat than the Soviet Union?
In terms of my arrogance I’m just giving you a little taste of how you respond to people on this forum.
By the way, I’ve read plenty of books from both sides of the political spectrum and some that are out of the mainstream(which get closest to the truth).
I can give a list of reading material I have in my apartment if that is what you want.
I have an idea for you. Why don’t you turn off the TV, stop listening to Rush for a month and pick up a book on media propaganda so as to begin to understand how things actually work in the world. If you need some suggestions I’m here for you.
[quote]makkun wrote:
BostonBarrister,
It has been argued that the last German general election in September 1992 was influenced strongly by the anti-war (anti-American?) stance of the incumbent Schroeder gouvernment - in favour of Schroeder. Surely, we all do not live in direct democracies anymore - representation is a feature of modern (and huge) states. And, to be honest, I never was a friend of plebiscits - they are too volatile and might only reflect a momentary mood. But I would argue that massive demonstrations and polls are an indicator how the population feels. And there have been indicators that many Europeans were simply not convinced by the Coalition’s arguments for the Iraq war.
Makkun[/quote]
Makkun - and John:
I realize that there was a large body of public opinion in European countries - including GB - that was against the War in Iraq. You guys are right in that it’s not way off base to say that a large body of the population was opposed judging from demonstrations and polling data.
However, pursuant to my original point, when you don’t have a direct democracy, it stands to reason that the elected representatives won’t go with the majority on each and every issue – although they would be stupid (politically anyway) to go against the majority a lot of the time. On a given issue, the leadership may decide that the majority is wrong, and risk electoral consequences. That’s part of the system.
I will also postulate that only very rarely will an elected representative go against a huge, overwhelming majority of popular opinion. When you agree with something, most people don’t motivate to organize parades to show support – as is evidenced by the well-documented opinion polls here in the U.S. vs. the also well documented large-scale demonstrations. Therefore, I have to think that while there was a lot of opposition to countries joining in with the U.S. in Iraq, many of those countries also had substantial minorities who agreed. While I noted above that the Spanish president lost his election, I didn’t note that it was by a razor-thin margin.
So, in general, I don’t think it’s a horrible crime, nor some example of base hypocrisy, for an elected official to go against even a majority on a given issue – it’s a feature of the type of government – and, I will add, one that I’m sure you would support in certain circumstances (example, if Kerry were elected and decided to support a law to outlaw the death penalty in the U.S., which consistently draws majority support).
In the end, the voters will make the choice on the candidate, and if they disagree with him on enough issues, or if the one issue on which he crossed a majority was important enough to the majority, the people can vote their preference.
Zeppelin,
You wrote: “I’m sure you realize Iran held American hosatges for 444 days.”
Better than you. A close relative of mine was involved in the “rescue” operation.
Please educate me about the weapons thing. Give me some links and some reading material. If there is anything to this, I will gladly eat crow. If this is just the usual sour-grapes Democratic crap, spare me, please.
“So if I understand you correctly, Iraq was a much bigger threat than the Soviet Union?”
You know full well I didn’t say or imply that. The situations were completely different. Different threat profile entirely. It isn’t likely the Iraqi’s were going to crash into Western Europe using greater than 100 divisions. However, a few vials of ricin/vx could have been nearly as catastrophic. It’s one thing to have a dialogue with another world government with assured mutual destruction deterring action. It’s another, to humble a brutal tyrant in his backyard. Eventually, he would have tried something large and catastrophic.
Oh, Zeppelin, don’t say how intelligent you are (aka…RSU with his degrees), show it.
Thanks,
JeffR
JeffR:
Does RSU have a degree? I did not know that!
Iran contra was a scandal from the reagan presidency that came well after the hostages had been relased. It was run by Oliver North. It had nothing to do with the release of the hostages. They were freed after America agreed to unfreeze Iranian bank accounts that were frozen in response to the hostage taking. Iran Contra involved selling the Iranians supplys for their american made weapons for use against Iraq, then taking the money made and using it to fund the contra’s in Nicuragua against the will of the congress.
The fact that there were some large demonstrations in Europe against the Iraq war does not mean that entire nations were against it. Europe has large welfare populations who have nothing better to do with their time than go to demonstrations.
Some of the demonstrators were well meaning, but they all were very short sighted. Given Saddams track record it is not an exageration to say he was dangerous.
Taking Saddam out made sense and was a reasonable precaution. Noone has been able to reasonably explain why we should have continued to fuck around with him and let him have the opportunity to kill millions of people and only respond after he has struck first.
None of the critics of the Iraq invasion has been able to explain why they think it was okay for him to torture and kill people.
None of the critics will be man enough to admit that Saddam brought his fate upon himself by his own actions.
The way some of you cry about the fate of Saddam one would think he was Ghandi.
JeffR: First I’d like to address the Iraqi threat compared to the Soviet one. The Soviets had a modern air force, navy and infantry. They also had plenty of nuclear weapons along with chem/bio weapons(as do we). But we never invaded them and you cite the “mutual destruction” arguement as one reason. I agree.
However, Iraq hardly had any - if any - of those things but for some reason we HAD to invade.
You’ve alluded that a few viles of chem/bio weapons could almost be as catostrophic as a nuclear weapon (I’m not sure of this but I have my doubts).
So why does the “mutually assured destruction” tactic work with the Soviets(a far greater adversary) but not on tiny weak Iraq?
Before I get into the hostages for arms scandal I’d like to say this is not about “eating crow” as you say but about getting as close to the truth as possible. But before we can get into that I think that some discussion of “news sources” needs to be addressed.
Trusting the corporate mass media will not get anyone close to what is really going on. You have to circumvent this by going to non-corporate sources or the foreign press.
You may read the same story in the NY Times and the Wall Stret Journal and both can have a different spin. So while it appears that their is a vigorous debate and all sides are being heard it still falls within the same framework of assumptions set up by the elites who own the media. It is thes assumptions that are the propaganda line. It is important that certain questions be asked and others not. It is those questions that aren’t asked that are the ones that lead us closer to the reality of the situation. Occasionally there will be blurbs of this within the mass media but it is extremely rare.
Now during the 1980 election it was closer than one might think. The Reagan-Bush team were afraid that if Carter got the hostages released (The October Surprise) then he would win the election. The R-B team decided to cut a deal with the Iranians in order to help them get elected. This included $40 million and a promise with an unlimited amount of arms sales as long as the Iranians held the Americans until after the election to make Carter look completely inept and inefective. During this time the Iranians completley broke off talks with the Cater Administration. This was the genesis of Iran-Contra scandal. The arms sales began in 1981 not in 1985 as the Congress and the press would have you beleive. The whole Iran-Contra ordeal was discovered after a C-123 from Southern Air Transport(A CIA proprietory) was shot down. One man survived by parachuting but was captured. His name was Eugene Hasenfus. He admitted on Nicuraguan TV to be working for the CIA. What was found in the remmnats of the plane was military arms.
The press quickly covered this up but other things began to surface about the operation over in Europe. Eventually there had to be an “investigation”. Like most “investigations” on Capital Hill it had more to do with damage control than finding out the truth of the matter.
The whole scandal had obiously been known to the people who were being butchered on a daily basis in Latin America. Russia knew. It was broadcast over General Noriega’s radio Havana. The people who ought to have known what was going on(most of Congress and the public) were kept in the dark. So our enemies knew but we didn’t. This was admitted to by that traitor Ollie North.
Here is a list of some people who had first hand knowledge of the operations or found out by investigating.
Barbara Honegger(former Wht. house policy analyst with R-Bush). She wrote a book titles October Surprise.
Sorry I hit the submit button.
Gary Sick(principal Wht. house aide under Carter) Also wrote a book titled October Surprise.
Manur Farhang(Iranian ambasador to the UN during the hostage crisis) He came forth and said the operation indeed did happen.
Hassen Bani-Sadr(Prez of Iran at the time). He was later exiled to France after a coup of his administration. He admitted that the October Surprise did in fact happen. He said that Iranian intell reports show that Bush met with Iranian officals the weekend of Oct. 18th and 19th 1980 in Paris. He also wrote a book on the subject tilted My Turn To Speak.
Richard Brenneke and Heinrich Rupp (former CIA arms dealers and contract men). They made testimony in a Denver court in 1988 saying that the operation did happen.
Ari Ben-Menashe (former high-ranking officer in the Mossad). His book is titled Profits of War.
Alfonso Chardry (CIA operative) made statements to the Miami Herald about the operation.
In 1988 there was an in-depth look into the October Surprise scandall in Playboy. 60’s radical Abbie Hoffman deleivered the manuscript to Playboy and died shortly therafter.
On April 15th 1991 Frontline aired a TV show addressing the October Surprise scandal. The next day an Op-Ed piece apperaed in the NY Times written by Gary Sick detailing his knowledge of the scandal.
Pierre Salinger (former press secratary to JFK and ABC news Paris bureua chief)
He wrote about his knowledge of the operation in a book titled PS. This infromation was editted out in the English version. Not so in the French.
Gunther Russbacher(deep-cover CIA operative) Says he actually flew Bush back that weekend on an SR-71.
There are more but since I can’t type worth a crap my fingers are tired.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
JeffR:
Does RSU have a degree? I did not know that! [/quote]
Now you know…you forgot to answer my question toward you in another thread:
Hey John, very good post. I happen to be curious what you and the rest of your fellow Europeans feel about Israel’s influence on all government policy lately. It would seem you guys are much more aware of it than the average American. I think if more Americans actually knew the level of direct influence, they might be a little more outspoken and concerned, ESPECIALLY at this point in time…Thanks
This just happens to be some of the stuff that’s out there that never makes the mainstream media, and you can clearly see why. I really hope people start to wake up and demand accountability.
[Executive Intelligence Review - [March 29,2002]
"At the same time that Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered the surpression of news coverage of massive Israeli espionage operations inside the United States, the Bush Administration has taken several significant initiatives, aimed at closing some of the most egregious loopholes, that have facilitated Israeli penetration of American national security institutions at the highest levels.
In the beginning of March 2002, both the Defense Department and the Justice Department issued new regulations, prohibiting foreign nationals from involvement in the development and maintenance of information technology systems at the two giant federal bureaucracies. While internal memos and public statements by the Pentagon and the Justice Department did not mention Israeli telecommunications firms as the targets of the new orders, the timing of the actions just days after major international media exposes of the Israeli spy operations in America, left little doubt about the motive for the crackdown.
…a string of Israeli companies, all founded by veterans of the Israeli Defense Force signal intelligence division, have won sensitive U.S. national security contracts, giving them extraordinary access to Justice Department and White House secured communications systems. Comverse Infosys, Inc., a company founded in Israel in 1984, is the leading provider and operator of wiretap systems, used by the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Telrad Telecommunications and Electronics Industries Ltd. and is Israel’s largest telecommunications conglomerate.
A third Israeli telecommunications giant, Amdocs International Ltd., has the exclusive customer-billing and call-tracking contracts with the 25 largest phone companies in the United States, giving Amdocs access to the routing information on practically every telephone call placed in America.
What’s more, both Comverse and Amdocs personnel have been linked to the scores of Israeli spy teams, that have been operating in every part of the United States, since no later than January 2000 (see “EIR Blows Israeli Spies’ Cover in Sept. 11 Case,” EIR Dec. 28, 2001, and “Israeli Spies Scandal Is Too Big To Bury,” EIR Jan. 11, 2002). These 6- to 8-person espionage squads, posing as “Israeli art students,” have been infiltrating and surveilling government officies, military bases, safe-houses and private homes of government executives. Some of the teams have been linked to “Islamic” radical circles, with possible ties to terrorist groups.
According to government sources, and a 60-page Drug Enforcement Administration working document, now widely circulating among reporters in the U.S. and Europe, 125 Israeli “art students” were detained and deported between January 2000 and July 2001; another 80-100 Israelis have been similarly detained, interrogated, and deported, since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
In one case, set forth in the DEA document, an Israeli “art student” was bailed out of jail by another Israeli, named Ophir Baer, who was an employee of Amdocs.
The proximity of the Israeli “art student” spy teams to some of the suspected al-Qaeda “sleeper” networks in the United States has prompted some American national security officials to suspect that Israel had infiltrated the Sept. 11 terror plot, at some level, and failed to pass on the information to U.S. authorities.
On the evening of Sept. 11, local police in Bergen County, New Jersey, arrested five Israeli nationals as they were driving a van, owned by their employer, a Weehawken, N.J. moving company called Urban Moving Systems.
The five Israelis, Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Moer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel, had been spotted on the roof of the moving company warehouse, shortly after planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, taking photos of one another and obviously clowning around, while pointing at the burning towers in the background.
Perleman reported, “In addition to their strange behavior and their Middle Eastern looks, the suspicions were compounded when a box cutter and $4,000 in cash were found in the van. Moreover, one man carried two passports, and another had fresh pictures of the men standing with the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background.”
The five men were turned over to the FBI by the Bergen County police, and, after two of the men’s names appeared on an FBI-CIA list of known Mossad operatives, the U.S. opened a foreign counterintelligence investigation of the incident. The Israelis were held for several months, interrogated and put through lie detector tests, and were eventually deported back to Israel.
After one brief interview with the FBI, the owner of the moving company, Dominik Otto Suter, fled to Israel. Authorities confirmed that the company was a Mossad front, whose “main office” was a letter drop address in midtown Manhattan.
Zepplin, are you serious asking about why MAD was used against the soviets but not the Iraiqi’s? If not, here is why. The soviet’s had a huge army that we did not want to take on at the end of ww2, so we had a stalemate. Then nukes came into the picture. If we could have taken the soviets out with just a few hundred casualties at the end of ww2 it would have been a good move, but there was just no way that was going to happen, they were too powerful. We had no choice with the soviets because we never had an overwelming advantage on them. That’s why mad came about, not because it was a brilliant strategy.
Iraq was a little runt of a country that never should have threatened us. To sit back and let them develop a massive nuclear arsenal that could wipe out all life on earth like the soviets had, when we could have easily put an end to it before they had a nuclear arsenal and missiles that can reach us would have been retarded.
Also you need to stay off of the conspiracy theory’s. That whole tale about Bush just hopping into an sr71 and flying around was discredited long ago. The whole premise that it was a fast way for him to get around and not be missed fell apart when people who were familiar with the aircraft pointed out what goes into one of those flights.
Sifu: I read your reply to the MAD question. So let me ask you, What if Iraq had everything the Soviets did, would MAD work on them as well? I would say yes, as we have no reason to believe it wouldn’t. So why go to war? You are basically saying we need to take out every nation that doesn’t agree with our foreign policy before they get nukes in order to avoid MAD. So using your reasoning we would need to go to war with Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc…etc. Am I correct? Is this what you recommend?
A word on the term “conspiracy theories”. A conspiracy is simply carrying out a harmful or illegal act(especially a political plot). This isn’t so wild or esoteric, as it happens all the time and is practically the essence of politics. When people use the term “conspiracy theory” it’s effect - in a psychological sense - is to quell discussion and disent. It’s used to try and make someone look irrational and crazy.
When you mention that the flight was debunked I ask by who? Was it Time, Newsweek, The New Republic or maybe The Village Voice. All sources of the mass media who can be counted on to keep the lid on major scandals.
Have you read any of the sources I listed above?
There has been plenty of evidence that the operation occured. However, if you only listen to corporate media then you’ll never know.
There are enormous implications for people who were involved in the operation if it was admitted to or found out through serious investigation. There would be impeachment and crimminal prosecutions of many federal officals including the Presidental and V.P. nomination of the Republican party, federal judges who helped cover up for the activities, Congressman of both political stripes, powerful law firms and lobbyists and many other private interests with fortunes tied to those in power. It would also expose the role played by the CIA and possibly expose the other criminal activities of this agency. The political fall out would be absolutely gargantuan! It makes Watergate look like child’s play.
Another CIA operative who used to be a mole inside NATO, Oswald LeWinter gave his testimony to Der Spiegel(a German newspare) of his knowledge of the operation. His job was to do clean-up after the operation took place. His specialty in the agency was disinformation. I believe he wrote a book about his time with the CIA titled For The Honor Of Lying. How fitting!