The principle is that if somebody carries out terror against us or against our allies, it's terror, but if we carry out terror or our allies do, maybe much worse terror, against someone else, it's not terror, it's counterterror or it's a just war.
– Noam Chomsky, "Power and Terror"

 
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."

- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister

 
"As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government. Perhaps nothing today distinguishes democratic government in England so greatly from the totalitarianism of Germany as the freedom of criticism which has existed continuously in the House of Commons and elsewhere in England. Of course that criticism should not give any information to the enemy. But too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good that it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur."
Robert Taft, Conservative Republican Senator (Ohio)
This statement made shortly after the Pearl Harbor Attack, 1941

 
These are the times that try men's souls.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot, will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country. But he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of men and women.
Thomas Paine, The Crisis (1776)

 
Its history of "post-colonisation administration" is poor even in America itself especially in addressing needs of the American Indians and the African-Americans.

America's brilliance is the cowboy spirit driven by self-interested free enterprise but which does not necessarily understand political governance in a multicultural developmental environment.

Americans still believe that "might is right" and would probably argue that their might is also for right.

Source: http://www.mmail.com.my/Current_News/NST/Saturday/Columns/20030426092151/Article/

 
"All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be extended in this direction."

Mein Kampf

 
US anger at Annan remarks
The United States has reacted angrily to comments made by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in which he reminded US forces in Iraq of their duties as an "occupying power" in the country.

 
Children detainees in Guantanamo
The U.S. military has admitted to detaining children aged 16 years and younger at Guantanamo. A spokesman described the children, some of whom have been held for over a year, as "enemy combatants." Amnesty International's Alistair Hodgett said, "That the US sees nothing wrong with holding children at Guantanamo and interrogating them is a shocking indicator of how cavalier the Bush administration has become about respecting human rights."
April 24, 2003 @ 5:28PM

 
A prominent Iraqi Shiite cleric, saying he was detained and beaten by US forces, charged that American methods were "worse" than those employed by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Our arrest by the Americans was worse than the arrests that Saddam ordered against our students," Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartusi told Abu Dhabi television.

 
Looting journalists
Why leave pillaging to Iraqi gangs or souvenir-hunting soldiers? American journalists like Boston Herald's Jules Crittenden were only too happy to join in the action. U.S. custom officials confiscated a large painting that Crittenden took from one of Saddam's presidential palaces. An officer told the Boston Globe, ''He didn't think it was a big deal. He said all the embedded reporters were doing it.''
April 24, 2003 @ 9:12AM

 
A nice piece about Pat Robertson's latest crusade from John Grebe, posted at Counterpunch.

Robertson's CBN television network has roots in the "Holy Land." Feeding war stories to his Jewish audience, Robertson pulled off a stunt that only a calculating pol could nail. First in Israel in '67, he called the Six Days War "so brilliant." But it was '82 when he wanted to broadcast. He recounted his adventures in southern Lebanon, in the service of profit and prophet. Robertson saw a grand design in broadcasting Christian television to the Lebanese. He claims the Lebanese shot rockets to knock out his TV transmitter repeater link to Beirut.
Robertson says his competitor's TV station was showing worldwide wrestling competition to 1.1 million viewers in Lebanon. Then, "somebody sent us a tape of female mud wrestling" and "somehow" his Christian station broadcast it to the Lebanese. "They" loved it, the Reverend said, before more rockets knocked out the mud wrestling. Religious extremism aside, Robertson fancies himself a statesman. He left out 1982 in Lebanon, when Christian Phalangist militia massacred 700-3,500 civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps while Ariel "The Bulldozer" Sharon's Israeli troops surrounded and condoned it. Robertson wanted his Middle East TV in Arabic to "send a message of love and hope to that region."
"Why not begin educating [the Arabs]? Take their TV, and cut down their propaganda," suggests Robertson.
# -- Posted 4/24/03; 3:22:36 PM

 
Guantanamo: A Great Place for Kids, Too

From this morning's Guardian:

Children younger than 16 are being held as "enemy combatants" in the American detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, the US military admitted yesterday, a practice human rights groups condemned as repugnant and illegal.

Three boys aged between 13 and 15 are among about 660 inmates at the controversial camp, a US military official told the Guardian, on condition of anonymity. The official would not disclose their nationalities but said they had been brought from Afghanistan this year on suspicion of terrorism.


# -- Posted 4/24/03; 8:56:24 AM

 
Cruise ship will not be allowed to touch US soil until fully searched. What incredible timing! Hawaii's Governor Lingle had just publicly stated her opinion that Hawaii was far safer than the US mainland, and for that reason had refused to go along with the up-and-down alert status, primarily because of the impact the un-reimbursed expenses were having on Hawaii's already over-stressed budget. And sure enough, we get a "booga booga" not only here in Hawaii, but right in the heart of the tourism industry as well. This sends a clear warning to the other state governors that they had better toe the line in the charade to keep the American people too scared to ask embarrassing questions, like where ARE those WMDs we invaded Iraq over!
Source: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

 
Things That Are
Difficult to Say When You're Drunk:

Indubitably; Innovative; Preliminary; Proliferation; Cinnamon.

Things That Are VERY Difficult to Say When You're Drunk:

Specificity; Cogito ergo sum; British; Constitution;
Passive-aggressive disorder; Loquacious; Transubstantiate.

Things That Are Downright IMPOSSIBLE to Say When You're Drunk:

Thanks, but I don't want to have sex; Nope, no more booze for me; Sorry,
but you're not really my type; Good evening, officer, isn't it lovely
out tonight? Oh, I just couldn't - no one wants to hear me sing...

Until 10:30.

Jeremy Paxman

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight

 
Dean: 'We Don't Know' If Iraqi People Are Better Off Without Saddam
Thu Apr 24 2003 10:09:22 ET

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean was asked on CNN Wednesday if he feels differently about the war now that it has ended.

Dean said, "Not really. I don't think anybody could reasonably suspect we weren't going to win. The problem now is how to govern, and that's where the real rubber is underneath the road.

"The hardest part is still ahead of us, and I think the events that we were watching on CNN showed that. The Shi'a in the south would like in some cases fundamentalist religious state or province, that would be much worse than Saddam Hussein in terms of a threat to the United States it would allow al Qaeda to move in.

"We seen chaos in Baghdad with the proclamation of somebody claims he's the mayor. And this is going to go on and on. So we've really got to now build a Democratic society."

Asked if the Iraqi people are better off now than they were under Saddam, Dean said, "We don't know that yet. We don't know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance."

 
From Baghdad: "We can't go where we want, move freely where we want," said Omar Faisal, a medical student. "I have been searched and questioned as if I were the foreigner here. They are not educated people, they are stupid people. They are treating us badly."

 
War by the Numbers
63 Number of U.S. guided missiles and bombs launched per hour at Baghdad during the war's first 48 hours

9,700 Number of U.S. satellite- and laser-guided bombs stockpiled in the Gulf region

100,000 Number of Iraqis killed during the first Gulf War

up to 500,000 Number of Iraqis and Americans who might die in the current war on Iraq

3.9 million Number of total deaths if nuclear weapons are used

$1.08 billion U.S. military spending, in dollars per day, NOT including the Iraq war

 
"The Shias have been very busy administrating humanitartian aid and
establishing friendly local governments all over the south of Iraq," a U.S.
intelligence official said. "They are very hostile to any continuing U.S.
presence."

A former senior DIA intelligence official, Pat Lang, said: "If we
thought there would be a nice leisurely transition, we were wrong. It
looks like the Shia have beaten us to the punch in the south - they're
taking over the country, and they'll make it clear they don't want us
there."

He added: "In any case, our ability to obtain military base rights In
Iraq is dependent on the emergence of the right kind of (friendly)
government."

 
"Every Iraqi I'd estimate now has two or three guns. And we will use these guns against Britons and Americans, if they do not go out of Iraq," car mechanic Dhiab Hamad Khaleifa said Wednesday.

 
Saeed Al Sahaf:
"We have placed them in a quagmire from which they can never emerge except dead"

 

[Mosul]
--- The war here is winding down, and the long, laborious process of rebuilding has started. Much of the activity in Baghdad involves the U.S. command looking for qualified people to help get the city back on its feet. Water and power still have to be restored. A state economy now lacks the state, so people have no jobs; no one is there to pay them. Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen in Kirkuk are a hair’s breadth away from Yugoslavia-style ethnic clashes. Mosul is still savage, with little order. One reporter who returned from there yesterday described it to me as “like Mogadishu” with the city divvied up into territories for armed gangs and almost no civil authority. There are fewer than 300 American troops for a city of two million peoplel. This has gone almost completely unreported from what the journos in Arbil are hearing from editors back home. No one seems to care about Mosul, they say.

“They [the Americans] have given up on Mosul,” said one reporter, who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s terrifying.” He could have been talking about his editors, too.---

Posted by Christopher at 03:59 PM | http://www.back-to-iraq.com

 
CIA analyst Stephen Pelletiere (ret. prof at the Army War College) says that after Desert Storm, when Iraq refused to bow to US. pressure, holding out against American dominance, George W. Bush fabricated the present crisis so as to, once and for all, beat the Iraqis into submission - 'to control oil...'