"When you look at American media this war is being shown from the perspective of the firing hand, and in the Arab world, this war is being viewed on receiving end, with an emphasis on those being killed.”

“In America it looks heroic, but in the Arab world it looks like slaughter,” he said. “The American public does not understand the level of hatred growing in the Muslim world as a result of this war.” --- Al Jazeera

 
From Mark Twain's 'War Prayer'

"O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead: help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of
their wounded writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it---For our sakes who adore Thee,
Lord, blast their hopes, blight theit lives, protract their pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it in the spirit of love, of him who is the Source of Love, and who is the ever- faithful refuge and
friend of all who are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

 
The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain [from Ch.9]

There has never been a just one [war] , never an honorable one -- on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war. The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously -- object -- at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers -- as earlier -- but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation -- pulpit and all -- will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

 
Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the US "shock and awe" policy of physically and psychologically crushing any enemy of US, stated to the April 3 New York Post: "To appreciate why we're making such progress, you have to understand the extraordinary advantages our forces have over the Iraqis. It's a matter of overwhelming might. Our air power is unstoppable. And our ground power has massive capability to destroy the enemy with minimum losses to us."

 
You mustn't think that all the moolah-mongering means Iraq's spiritual needs are being ignored. As always with your classic Anglo-American imperial conquest, sword, flame, bullet and bomb will be accompanied by the maniacal whacking of Biblical leather. Just this week, Bush of Arabia's favorite preacher announced he was mustering an evangelical army to Christianize the defeated heathen hordes, Newhouse News Service reports.

 
Rumsfeld: For some reason people think I know more than I know. And I know what I know and I know what I don't know."

The trouble is, no one is quite sure what Donald Rumsfeld really knows about what lies ahead.

 



"A lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is putting on it's shoes."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

 
On Sunday, Bush called Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss the war's progress.

'I didn't complain about how slow it's going, because I know he's working hard and wants to conquer Iraq as much as I do,' Bush said. 'But I did sort of hint that the faster we win, the more impressive our military will look to the world. So hopefully that'll light a fire under him.'

Bush asked Myers for a 'guesstimate' regarding the length of the war, but the general said he couldn't give one. Myers also denied the president's subsequent request for 'even a rough guesstimate.'

Bush said 'it was fun to be in charge of a war and stay up all night,'but the fatigue is starting to set in.

'I haven't gotten more than seven hours of sleep a night since I gave Saddam the 48 hours,' Bush said. 'I thought I'd get to play a few games of golf when we went to Camp David two weekends ago, but we worked the entire time."






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'I know George thinks it should be over, but he's got to realize that this is a complicated thing,' National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said. 'He doesn't have to keep snapping at us.'

According to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Bush continually finds excuses to slip away from briefings, even resorting to ringing his own secure phone for a fake 'emergency.'

'We've been going easier on him the last few days,' Wolfowitz said. 'At first, we informed him of every new development, because that's what he wanted. Now, we pretty much limit it to the essentials.'

 
Why?
by Peter F. Spalding, retired member of the United States Diplomatic Service
Washington, DC....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The grinning Cheshire cat
At the Five sided house
So eager to pounce on that evil mouse,
Like a school boy with a new toy
Exclaims with glee:

"WOW!! WHAT ABOUT THIS WAR!!"

The rest of us
Lie awake in the dead of night,
Stirred from our sleep by a gnawing fright.
We replace the confident exclamation
With fears for the coming conflagration,
And whisper:

"what about this war?"

The rest of us
We toss and turn
Whisper and pray,
Waiting for the day
To wipe away
Our doubt.
Please, someone tell us:

What is this war about?

For the man who would be king
It's a Daddy thing.
Clothed in Christian righteousness
The shadows disappear.
Good triumphant!
It's all quite clear.

While the rest of us
Wonder why
So many must die.

And lie awake,
And lie awake,
And wish we could negotiate
A lasting peace,
A better sleep
For all of us.

 
In his famed book "The Art of War," Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago: "War is all deceit.

 
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
-- President G. W. Bush

 
On March 21, the day after American and British troops began their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, an ‘embedded’ CNN correspondent interviewed an American soldier. ‘I wanna get in there and get my nose dirty,’ Private AJ said. ‘I wanna take revenge for 9/11.’

To be fair to the correspondent, even though he was ‘embedded’ he did sort of weakly suggest that so far there was no real evidence that linked the Iraqi government to the September 11 attacks. Private AJ stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down to the end of his chin. ‘Yeah, well that stuff's way over my head,’ he said.

It is unlikely that British and American troops fighting in Iraq are aware that their governments supported Saddam Hussein both politically and financially through his worst excesses.

But why should poor AJ and his fellow soldiers be burdened with these details? It does not matter any more, does it? Hundreds of thousands of men, tanks, ships, choppers, bombs, ammunition, gas masks, high-protein food, whole aircraft ferrying toilet paper, insect repellent, vitamins and bottled mineral water, are on the move. The phenomenal logistics of Operation Iraqi Freedom make it a universe unto itself. It doesn't need to justify its existence any more. It exists. It is.

 
Months before his death, during a break from the Nuremberg trials, Hermann Goering, Adolph Hitler's second-in-command in World War II Germany and founder of the Gestapo, said something to a German-speaking psychologist that rings true today:

Of course the people don't want war ... But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country.

See: Margot's News & Media

 
Since World War Two the USA has bombed: China (1945-46), Korea and China (1950-53), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-1961), Guatemala (1960), Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1961-1973), Vietnam (1961-1973), Cambodia (1969-1970), Guatemala (1967-1973), Grenada (1983), Lebanon (1983-1984), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980), Nicaragua (1980), Iran (1987), Panama (1989), Iraq (1990-2001), Kuwait (1991), Somalia (1993), Bosnia (1994-95), Sudan
(1998), Afghanistan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999);

Source: http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/04/02/45426.html

 
U.S. Marines killed 12 civilians trying to flee the city on a bridge at Nasiriyah -- an incident that marks the beginning of a new attitude among the troops. Times (U.K.) reporter Mark Franchetti's eyewitness account traces the transformation of young jittery soldiers into angry killers: "The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."

 
Moscow has sounded a clear warning that North Korea and Iran could - given the events unfolding in their fellow "axis of evil" member Iraq - be pushed further down the path towards using weapons of mass destruction. And if anyone should know, it's Russia. - Sergei Blagov

For more info see:

Margot's News Media

 
Bush on Start of War: "Feels Good"
"On my order, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war," Bush said during his four-minute address to the nation. "These are the opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign."

"We will accept no outcome but victory," the President said.

Minutes before the speech, an internal television monitor at the White House showed the President pumping his fist.

"Feels good," he said.

 
Monday, March 31, 2003


We all find war more interesting than peace. Any time death is imminent, life is exciting and we're watching this war as though it was a video game.


On television, it's hard to know where to look to find what you want to know. There are pictures on top of pictures, moving print on top of those. There's more than the eye can see or the brain comprehend.


The generals are giving us the play-by-play action from their Hollywood studio in Qatar. They're telling us everything, but we don't feel we know anything.


Some reporters are attached to military units and we're getting stunning coverage from them. We're seeing war first hand.


We're all asking each other what we think, too. Strangers ask me what I think as if I was smart because I'm on television. I have opinions - no information.


Experts talk about precision bombing but on the ground, where bombs hit, it is not precise. People are killed, history destroyed. We didn't shock them and we didn't awe them in Baghdad. The phrase makes us look like foolish braggarts. The president ought to fire whoever wrote that for him. Just an opinion.


We haven't caught bin Laden so we're transferring the blame for 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. There are soldiers who think that's why they're fighting. Hussein is a bad man who didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Just an opinion.


When I see President Bush with soldiers, I wish he had been one at war himself. He'd know more about where he was sending those soldiers. Just an opinion.


It bothers me that America is hated. I don't like to be hated personally - which happens - and I don't like my country to be hated - which has happened.


I have one opinion I don't like having. We have stores of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in this country. If we were losing this war, would we, as a last resort, use them? I'm afraid we might.


Hussein has chemical and biological weapons. If he is about to lose this war, will he use them? I'm afraid he might.


I wish my America had never gotten into this war, but now that we're in it, I want us to win it.


Written By Andy Rooney © MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.


For more information log in at http://www26.brinkster.com/margotb

posted by Margot at 2:24 PM

One surgeon said the air attack on the market that killed 50, injured another 50 could not have come at a worse time -- in the early evening when people gather outside at the end of the day.

"I don't believe America is doing it by accident," said Dr. Abbas Ali Abbas, 36. "Every day, they kill civilian people. Every day, injured civilians are brought to our hospital. It is not a war. It is slaughter."


for more information see:
http://www26.brinkster.com/margotb

posted by Margot at 11:48 AM


Sunday, March 30, 2003

Diwaniya, Iraq

"We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people."


posted by Margot at 5:12 PM


Saturday, March 29, 2003

Voices From Iraq

A Humanitarian and Environmental Disaster


IslamOnline’s correspondent met Sheikh Kazem Aboud al-Qatrani who said that every single house in Al-Basra wants to take revenge from the United States for killing and injuring hundreds of Iraqi people by its round-the-clock incursions.


“Many people, particularly children, were also affected by cancer due to the deadly depleted uranium used by the Americans during the second Gulf War.


“If it had not been for Allah and the scorching heat of the sun, a humanitarian and environmental disaster would have taken place,” said Qatrani.


“We have a burning desire to fight the Americans. When they come, we will teach them a lesson that they will never forget. We are going to take them by surprise in the days to come,” he vowed.


posted by Margot at 3:49 PM

Aeoronautics Map of Iraq
posted by Margot at 2:58 PM


Friday, March 28, 2003

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia)

"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.”

posted by Margot at 2:09 PM

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms .. is squandering the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." - pre Enron States of America, Eisenhower, April, 1953
posted by Margot at 10:48 AM


Thursday, March 27, 2003

by: Wire Services

3/27/2003

Iraq's Health Minister Umid Medhat Mubarak said that more than 350 people have been killed and about 3,600 injured since the start of US-led military strikes on March 20.
The minister, at a press conference in the Iraqi capital, said the casualty toll was "approximate" and included mostly children, women and the elderly.

He accused coalition forces in southern Iraq of targeting a hospital and two ambulances in Al-Nasiriyah, injuring a driver, and of destroying a medical centre in Najaf and killing an ambulance driver there.


The coalition was using "cluster bombs" against civilians in Basra and Baghdad, Mubarak charged.




For more information visit:
http://www26.brinkster.com/margotb

posted by Margot at 11:33 AM

Martin Edwards, Iraq Peace Team (26 March 2003) We may have differences with the Iraqi leadership, but the Iraqi people seem to me way ahead in the civilization department, a ratio of 7,000:350 in years. And, currently, it seems almost as great a ratio in terms of graciousness, hospitality, pride, sense of identity, spirituality, and heartfelt humanity. Martin Edwards writes from Baghdad.

For more news from Iraq visit:
http://www26.brinkster.com/margotb

posted by Margot at 10:50 AM

 
We all find war more interesting than peace. Any time death is imminent, life is exciting and we're watching this war as though it was a video game.

On television, it's hard to know where to look to find what you want to know. There are pictures on top of pictures, moving print on top of those. There's more than the eye can see or the brain comprehend.

The generals are giving us the play-by-play action from their Hollywood studio in Qatar. They're telling us everything, but we don't feel we know anything.

Some reporters are attached to military units and we're getting stunning coverage from them. We're seeing war first hand.

We're all asking each other what we think, too. Strangers ask me what I think as if I was smart because I'm on television. I have opinions - no information.

Experts talk about precision bombing but on the ground, where bombs hit, it is not precise. People are killed, history destroyed. We didn't shock them and we didn't awe them in Baghdad. The phrase makes us look like foolish braggarts. The president ought to fire whoever wrote that for him. Just an opinion.

We haven't caught bin Laden so we're transferring the blame for 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. There are soldiers who think that's why they're fighting. Hussein is a bad man who didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Just an opinion.

When I see President Bush with soldiers, I wish he had been one at war himself. He'd know more about where he was sending those soldiers. Just an opinion.

It bothers me that America is hated. I don't like to be hated personally - which happens - and I don't like my country to be hated - which has happened.

I have one opinion I don't like having. We have stores of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in this country. If we were losing this war, would we, as a last resort, use them? I'm afraid we might.

Hussein has chemical and biological weapons. If he is about to lose this war, will he use them? I'm afraid he might.

I wish my America had never gotten into this war, but now that we're in it, I want us to win it.

Written By Andy Rooney © MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

For more information log in at http://www26.brinkster.com/margotb

 
One surgeon said the air attack on the market that killed 50, injured another 50 could not have come at a worse time -- in the early evening when people gather outside at the end of the day.

"I don't believe America is doing it by accident," said Dr. Abbas Ali Abbas, 36. "Every day, they kill civilian people. Every day, injured civilians are brought to our hospital. It is not a war. It is slaughter."

for more information see:
http://www26.brinkster.com/margotb

 
Diwaniya, Iraq

"We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people."