648163 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.kabobfest.com%2F2009%2F12%2Fwhat-a-joke.htmlWhat+a+Joke2009-12-10+21%3A08%3A07Willhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.kabobfest.com%2F%3Fp%3D6481 to “What a Joke”
You don't appreciate his unprecedented efforts to stop Israeli expansionism and help bring peace to Palestine?
Are any Arabs here angry about Sunni Arab terrorists who continue to mass murder Iraqis? Or do you get angry only when Palestinians are killed in Iraq, like As3ad Abu Khalil does?
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and a few other western aligned Arab dictatorships in the Middle East feared and still fear the emergence of a Shia dominated government in Iraq, due to the cold war between the so called "Western Backed Moderates" and those states that have aligned themselves fully or partially with Iran.
This naturally led to the so called "moderates" allowing scores of fighters to cross into Iraq to stem the spread of the "Shia crescent" as King Abdellah of Jordan called it.
Ironically, it was these retarded zealouts that ended up destroying the Iraqi resistance.
In other words, Arab extremists mass murdered Iraqis. They also came from anti-western Arab nations like Syria. They continue to mass murder Iraqis and Arab Americans don't seem very concerned about it. It seems the Arabs here don't want to hear it. They would rather have a KABOBfest than be Angry (or even pretend to be angry) with the Arabs who murder innocent Iraqis. When Arabs discuss Iraq, they blame the murders on America. Wake up ya 3arab and condemn the Arab "resistance" that continues to kill and maim innocent Arabs! At least pretend to be angry! Don't be so lame.
Strange how at least two of those "Arab extremists" turned out to be British SAS agents caught red-handed dressed as Arabs with a carload of explosives at the time when all those car bombs were going off in Sunni and Shia mosques. They opened fire on Iraqi police who approached them, but were captured. The British immediatley launched a full scale attack on the Iraqi police station where they were held to break them out. What better way to ignite a civil war than to bomb mosques, behead some people and then blame it on one side or the other as the situation required. Classic divide and rule.
As mentioned in the article, the British used this tactic of false flag attacks in Malaya and to surpress the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya. They also used agents provateurs carrying out assasinations and terrorist bombings in their campaign against the IRA in Northern Ireland:
Closer to home, the Littlejohn brothers were recruited in 1972 by John Wyman of MI6, who handled a number of agents in Northern Ireland and paid them substantial sums of taxpayers' money to infiltrate the IRA and to act as agent provocateurs, organizing and conducting bank robberies and bomb attacks in the Republic of Ireland. Wyman told them that there was "going to be a policy of political assassination" for which they were to make themselves available. "If I was told about any illegal act before it happened, I would always discuss it with London. I was always told to go ahead," said Kenneth Littlejohn, who went on to claim that the MI6 officer told him, "If there is any shooting, do what you've got to do."
The US Army's Counterinsurgency Manual also advocates the use of false flag terrorist attacks as a means of discrediting any enemy resitance movement:
The manual directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control and restrictions on labor unions & political parties. It directly advocates warrantless searches, detainment without charge and (under varying circumstances) the suspension of habeas corpus. It directly advocates employing terrorists or prosecuting individuals for terrorism who are not terrorists, running false flag operations and concealing human rights abuses from journalists. And it repeatedly advocates the use of subterfuge and “psychological operations” (propaganda) to make these and other “population & resource control” measures more palatable.
Are you even Arab, Sean? Do you have any reason to be concerned about the bombs killing and wounding hundreds of Iraqis?
Do any of you understand that Arabs who call themselves "mujahideen" are taking credit for these bombings, calling their targets the "dens of apostates" and shit like that? Do you care?
Does Will care about Iraqi kids being bombed repeatedly? Or does he care only when America does it? Is Will an Arab? Or does he use the name "Will" like Tiger Woods did at that hospital?
Are you an Arab, Mojo, or just a concern troll pretending to be one? I am a human being concerned with an injustice being done to my fellow human beings. I don't need to be an Arab. I am also an American who believes my country should stand for something besides oppressing and killing people, or supporting countries that do so. It's as simple as that.
As for who allegedly claims credit for an attack, the government and the media can pin blame on any group they like, and they can just as easily employ their own terrorists to plant bombs and alienate the populace from the resistance. It's been done before.
Right, the old argument that implies the UK & US caused all those bombings, cuz they want to divide and conquer, I suppose. It's a stupid argument. It is not in the interest of the US to cause mass casualty bombings. It is in the interest of the 3arab jarab, who never cared about Iraqis in the first place. America wanted to stabilize Iraq so the oil would flow and American companies would make money.
The half-brained 3arab jarab and their non-Arab allies make me sick sometimes. None of them can admit that Arabs have been killing innocent Iraqis for decades. They can't even condemn the mass murder of Iraqis. Yuck.
British and American troops do not blow themselves up in Iraqi markets. The quarter-brained Wahhabi-influenced scum of the earth have and they won't stop, and it makes me very angry.
At least PRETEND to be concerned about innocent Iraqis ya "ikhwan".
Get off your high horse Iraqi Mojo. I was active on Iraq before I was active on Palestine and I am Palestinian. My first major political protest was to stop the first American invasion. I spent the 1990's raising awareness about the sanctions. I worked to prevent the 2003 invasion. You know how many Iraqi deaths happened in that time – from bombs, depleted uranium, sanctions, Saddam, and more bombs? These days are the tip of the iceberg. And the fuckers killing innocent Iraqis – most of whom Shia – have blood on their hands, but a faint amount compared to the US government.
And if you don't think the United States is the cause for the violence there, you do not understand the concept of causality. If the US did not invade, this shit would not be happening plain and simple. This is the result of the "US taking the war to the enemy" — the idea that putting US forces to fight would draw the jihadis to Iraq and Afghanistan rather than the U.S. The consequences were foreseeable and deliberate; American lives are simply more valuable to them than Iraqi lives.
Of course we are anti-Wahhabi, but condemning them gets us nowhere.
"the fuckers killing innocent Iraqis – most of whom Shia – have blood on their hands, but a faint amount compared to the US government."
The US handed over security responsibilities to Iraqis and withdrew to their bases many months ago. During that time, the "resistance" has incinerated hundreds of people in government offices, daycare centers, and markets. The "resistance" kills people by the hundreds, sometimes per bomb.
Reading Will's statement makes me believe that there really is a universe parallel to our own, because only there could such a ridiculous belief come true.
So being angry at the Arab terrorists who mass murder Iraqis and being angry about Arab apathy about Arab terrorism is riding a "high horse"?? OMG Arabs are stupid, even after they move to America, the country they hate so much! It's so embarrassing. But hey, I should thank you for being anti-Wahhabi, even though you are unwilling to condemn them. LOL!
Explain to me what interest could possibly be served by the Sunni resistance triggering a civil war with the Shia, who outnumber them 2 to 1, when they are already outnumbered and outgunned by the most powerful military in the world. How can that possibly make sense? The US has every interest in dividing the two groups against each other, as that not only weakens them, but prevents them from uniting to fight the US. It's a perfectly logical if immoral tactic. There was no Sunni/Shia civil war before the US got there. Sunni and Shia freely intermarried and lived in the same neighborhoods. All of a sudden mosques start blowing up all over the place, bodies are being found beheaded and dismembered, and extremists start reacting with reprisal attacks at what they falsely perceive to be their enemies. All it takes is a few targeted killings and bombings to create tensions and ignite them into a full blown civil war. Is all that just a coincidence, or is it part of the same imperialist pattern of division and conquest witnessed throughout history?
Is it a coincidence that Zionist traitor Jane Harmon publicly advocated a similar strategy of fomenting ethnic strife to destabilize Iran?
Let's dispense with the fiction the US is in Iraq for oil. It is in Iraq because Israel put pressure on our government to invade and take out one of Israel's biggest enemies. Israel is also leading the chorus of shrill cries for a war on Iran. The military industrial complex never met a war it didn't like, so they're on board by default. As for the energy thieves, they learned a long time ago the best way to profit from oil is to sell less of it. When you induce even a small artificial shortage beneath demand, you will see astronomical increases in oil prices, enabling you to sell less oil for triple or quadruple the price you would get if you produced enough to meet demand. That's exactly what happened and what Enron and others companies also did in California. Iraq's oil is worth more off the market than on it.
"Explain to me what interest could possibly be served by the Sunni resistance triggering a civil war with the Shia"
I guess I should not be angry with people who don't realize that the Baathists would do anything, including killing innocent Iraqis, to gain power. It's how they gained power in the first place and it's how they retained power for so long. And the 3arab jarab wanted Iraqis to be subjects of that murderous piece of shit and his rapist-murderer son. The Arabs make me sick, and the American jarab can be quite stupid too. Your a good example, Sean.
I doubt you will understand, but I will try to explain: it is in the interest of the Baathists to see attacks on the Iraqi govt, to see mayhem that makes Iraqis want to spit on the Iraqi govt that is unable to protect them. If you cannot understand this, then you are lost. I can understand why your theories are so popular here, where clueless Arabs want so badly to believe in "resistance" and cannot admit that Arabs would kill innocent Iraqis.
Educate yourselves ya American jarab:
'But back to the businessman's point of view. He said Iraq will become the third largest oil producer in the world, and nobody wants that to happen. He said, "Our neighbours are the worst." He pointed to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the other Gulf countries. "They don't want Iraq's oil to compete with theirs. It is in none of their interest to have a successful Iraq. "
The man said a successful Iraq' democracy would frighten those same countries. He said a stable Iraqi economy would threaten the neighbours. That's why the countries that back al-Qaeda, of which he said Saudi Arabia was one, send bombers to make a statement here. The man said Syria let the killers go through their border to enter Iraq. "But the deals were signed, the bombs didn't stop anybody from signing," he said.'
I think the above quote fits into your theory: "As for the energy thieves, they learned a long time ago the best way to profit from oil is to sell less of it."
I doubt you will understand, but I will try to explain: it is in the interest of the Baathists to see attacks on the Iraqi govt, to see mayhem that makes Iraqis want to spit on the Iraqi govt that is unable to protect them. If you cannot understand this, then you are lost. I can understand why your theories are so popular here, where clueless Arabs want so badly to believe in "resistance" and cannot admit that Arabs would kill innocent Iraqis.
This is standard neocon boilerplate. You sound a lot like neocon Tom Friedman of the NY Times. The resistance doesn't need to discredit the government. The government has discredited itself by collaborating with the occupation. No resistance can survive without the support of the people, and the people will not support a resistance movement that kills thousands of innocent Iraqis. Whatever minor benefit they gain by demonstrating the government's inability to protect people will be vastly offset by the loss of support from the people. If someone comes into your house and kills a member of your family, your family may be mad at you for failing to protect them, but no where near as mad as they would be at the killer. This is common sense.
The majority of killings in Iraq are done by death squads and militias that are widely believed to be supported by the US and the puppet Iraqi government. They often work within the police and the military and enjoy their support. The US benefits from chaos and violence as it drives Sunnis and Shias apart, justifies the US occupation to Americans and even has Sunni militia that used to fight the Americans turning to them for protection. It is hardly a boon for the resistance.
There is nothing more ludicrous than the claims after every bombing that the bombers came from Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or wherever. How do they know this so quickly without an extensive investigation? How do they know it was a "suicide" bombing and not just someone parking a car bomb and leaving, which makes a lot more sense than throwing your bombers away with every mission. Even if they found dead people with Saudi passports, it proves nothing. Yet sometimes literally within minutes of a bombing they are pointing the finger at whoever the boogeyman of the day is. It's a farce, Wake up.
When the Iraqis first fought the British Empire in the 1920's, there was no "suicide bombings" by insurgents against Iraqis. On the contrary and according to good strategy, they united despite minor cultural and religious differences to confront the common British enemy.
Likewise in Afghanistan during the 10 year war with the Soviet union there were no instances of suicide bombings targeting Afghan civilians. Here too, the Afghan tribes united despite previous disagreements against the common aggressor.
Does no one find all of this even mildly odd? After 9-11, suddenly this bizarre phenomenon of an insurgency using suicide bombings against their own people rather than the invaders appears, as if to provide supporting evidence for the reality of the crazed "suicide bombing" hijackers that attacked America – or so the official story goes.
Could the answer be as simple as that what is being touted as suicide bombings are in fact the work of US/British/Israeli counterinsurgency teams? In Iraq, are we in fact dealing with the what are better know as "false flag operations"?
…The sheer carnage shown on TV back in the West only supports the idea that the Iraqis/Afghans can't take care of their own country without help from the occupation forces or that they are uncivilised savages. This propaganda reinforces the US government's persistent claim that it would be dangerous to pull US troops out of Iraq and for the American military grunts on the streets of Iraq it helps them to rationalise their continued presence. Either they are trying to show a lesser class of human how to become civilised, or they are doing god's work in wiping them out.
"The majority of killings in Iraq are done by death squads and militias that are widely believed to be supported by the US and the puppet Iraqi government"
Sean, were you posting back and 2006? If so, this statement could easily have been copied and pasted here from a thread that took place back in that time frame.
It has been 3 YEARS since Shiite militias have attacked Sunni neighborhoods and mass murdered civilians! President Bush is long gone…down on his ranch in Texas where the biggest decision he has to make is what kind of steaks he'd like to cook on the grill. US soldiers left Iraqi cities months ago…inquiries continue to show that the US wanted nothing more than to get out of Iraq after Saddam was captured. The bombing campaign against Iraqi civilians is what *destroyed* Bush's presidency. Do you live in America, Sean? Only a complete idiot could look at the carnage on TV about how terrible the mission in Iraq is going and come to the conclusion that its actually benefiting Bush and the neocons you are so afraid of.
On the other hand, every time a Baathist/Al-Qaeda scumbag blows himself up in a market, the hate-America crowd yells "you call THIS democracy!" and they talk about how wonderful things were under Saddam. It throws a wrench into US hopes of having a stable, successful ally to work with in the face of terrorism. The Bush admin became demoralized after watching Iraqis blown to bits by the hundreds. The Democratic Party won elections in 06 because Americans couldn't handle the daily massacres by one of the cruelest, most sadistic enemies the world has ever had to bear witness too.
The "resistance" hates the Iraqi people, and they don't need them because their support is so widespread among people like you–as well as Arab supremacists, Muslim extremists, American leftists and sleazy Latin American dictators. The "resistance" lost the support of the Iraqi people in Sunni areas a long, long time ago. The sons of Anbar made that clear when they booted them back to the sands of Syria, KSA, and anywhere else they might have come from. Yet the "resistance" will not back down…they will continue to ravage Iraq until its people bow down and beg for the days of "Papa Saddam" to return. But it will NEVER happen.
Are you seriously trying to claim that violence has ceased in Iraq? That is absurd. Equally absurd is your contention that the Iraqi resistance doesn't need the support of the people, because they have American leftists to back them. That is pathological idiocy and scarcely worthy of a response. How do you plant an IED without the support of the people? All it takes is one guy with a cellphone and and attitude and 10 minutes later, you are being fired up by an Apache gunship. As someone once observed, "it takes a village to plant an IED."
The carnage in Iraq benefits the neocons because their goal is to eliminate any powerful Muslim or Arab country that could serve as a counterweight to US/Israeli hegemony in the region. The US has no interest in seeing Iraq become a strong, stable democracy because a strong, stable democracy can still threaten Israel. The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
Cutting Iraq into pieces, separating a Sunni from a Shiite region and creating an independent Israel-friendly Kurdistan has been on Israel´s policy agenda for at least since the 1980´s, wrote the late Israeli human-rights activist Israel Shahak in his translation of the Oded Yinon policy paper: “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”.
In 1996 some of the authors of the American Iraq-war strategy within the Bush administration reiterated Yinon´s plan about bombing and cutting Iraq to pieces in their own policy paper : A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
"This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions."
The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
Are you seriously trying to claim that violence has ceased in Iraq? That is absurd. Equally absurd is your contention that the Iraqi resistance doesn't need the support of the people, because they have American leftists to back them. That is pathological idiocy and scarcely worthy of a response. How do you plant an IED without the support of the people? All it takes is one guy with a cellphone and and attitude and 10 minutes later, you are being fired up by an Apache gunship. As someone once observed, "it takes a village to plant an IED."
The carnage in Iraq benefits the neocons because their goal is to eliminate any powerful Muslim or Arab country that could serve as a counterweight to US/Israeli hegemony in the region. The US has no interest in seeing Iraq become a strong, stable democracy because a strong, stable democracy can still threaten Israel. The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
Cutting Iraq into pieces, separating a Sunni from a Shiite region and creating an independent Israel-friendly Kurdistan has been on Israel´s policy agenda for at least since the 1980´s, wrote the late Israeli human-rights activist Israel Shahak in his translation of the Oded Yinon policy paper: “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”.
In 1996 some of the authors of the American Iraq-war strategy within the Bush administration reiterated Yinon´s plan about bombing and cutting Iraq to pieces in their own policy paper : A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
"This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions."
The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
"You sound a lot like neocon Tom Friedman of the NY Times."
And you sound a lot like the resistance-minded 3arab jarab who never gave a shit about Iraqis for decades.
The resistance is retarded.
The Arabs want Saddam back; their "resistance" mass murdered Iraqis in order to prove to the world that life for Iraqis was better for them. But Iraqis aren't buying your bullshit ya jarab. Your slimy "resistance" will never gain power by blowing up innocent Iraqis. Join the political process or move to Damascus, Amman, Cairo, or one of many jarab-infested cities. Move to LA or the San Francisco bay area.
The US military will leave when there is peace in Iraq, so promote peace ya "ikhwan". The Shia militias stopped killing innocent Sunni Arabs many months ago. But your "brave" resistance continues to kill Iraqis at markets and universities.
Please stop killing Iraqi kids ya sharameeeeeee6 ya khawat el ga7ba.
Saddam is dead. How are they going to get him back, necromancy? Your characterization of the Iraqi resistance as "Ba'athist" is false, The Sunni resistance is overwhelmingly secular, and nationalistic. The Sunni or Shia resistance is supported by the majority of the people in Iraq, and there is overwhelming opposition to the occupation among all Iraqis, even among members of Maliki's government.
The US can leave Iraq any time it wants. I realize logic and reason contradict your hasbara, but if all it takes to drive out the Americans is peace it would be in the resistance's best interest to not fight them, now wouldn't it? Indeed, the leadership of the Sunni Association of Muslims Scholar in Iraq has clearly stated they would issue a fatwa against further insurgency if the Americans give a firm timetable for their withdrawal.
Thank God for that. But 3izet al doori is still alive and so are many "secular nationalist" Iraqis who want to gain power the way they did in the 1960s. If you have proof that the majority of Iraqis support those murderers, please present it.
"So there is nothing stopping the US from leaving."
And the US will leave ya 3arab jarab. Please stop killing Iraqi women and children ya "muqawama".
'Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed that on Tuesday, saying the co-ordinated violence would not derail plans to begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq in large numbers by August next year.
"Certainly we're always looking at plans that take into consideration other outcomes, but right now we just don't see anything at this point in time that would require us to execute those," the senior US military officer said.' http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009…
Stop making up stupid excuses to mass murder Iraqis ya 3arab jarab.
What the "secular and nationalistic" Iraqis were doing in 2000: 'A woman known as "Um Haydar" was beheaded reportedly without charge or trial at the end of December 2000. She was 25 years' old and married with three children. Her husband was sought by the security authorities reportedly because of his involvement in Islamist armed activities against the state. He managed to flee the country. Men belonging to Feda'iyye Saddam came to the house in al-Karrada district and found his wife, children and his mother. Um Haydar was taken to the street and two men held her by the arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of the residents. The beheading was also witnessed by members of the Ba'ath Party in the area. The security men took the body and the head in a plastic bag, and took away the children and the mother-in-law. The body of Um Haydar was later buried in al-Najaf. The fate of the children and the mother-in-law remains unknown.' http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2006/11/torture-rap…
There was no civil war in Iraq before 2003 because the Shia & Kurds, despite being persecuted, ethnically cleansed, and mass murdered by Saddam for decades, did not bomb markets and police stations.
"There is nothing more ludicrous than the claims after every bombing that the bombers came from Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or wherever. How do they know this so quickly without an extensive investigation?"
This has been known, even among Arabs, for at least two years now. Educate yourself, Sean:
October 7, 2007
Suicide bombers head to Iraq from Damascus
by Hala Jaber and Ali Rifat
'….Our encounter was arranged as part of a four-week Sunday Times investigation into the world’s biggest suicide bombing campaign. More than 1,300 bombers are said to have struck on foot or in vehicles since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 – more than all the other suicide bombings of the past 20 years put together.
The number this year promises to be higher than ever. The bombers are estimated to have killed and injured more than 4,000 people in the first nine months. Their targets have ranged from lines of police recruits in and around Baghdad to an entire village near the Syrian border where up to 500 died….' http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middl…
and from a 2005 article:
'Many of the Arabs, according to the postings, were drawn to fight in Iraq under the banner of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group run by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi that has taken credit for a gruesome series of beheadings, kidnappings and suicide attacks — many of them filmed and then disseminated on the Internet in a convergence between the electronic jihad and the real-life war.' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti…
That's not to say that every mass casualty bombing is carried out by non-Iraqi 3arab jarab. But I believe that the majority of suicide bombers have been non-Iraqi.
I think it would be best if you could shed some light into the wisdom of those two SAS commandos who dressed up as Arabs and were shooting at the police ("trying to undermine security" in your own words)?
I have no idea what those SAS schmucks were doing shooting at Iraqi police. I too want to know the truth about that, but that happened a long time ago and British troops are no longer in the country. Since then there have been thousands of bombings, more than 1,700 of them suicide bombings, and I'm quite sure that British do not carry out suicide bombings. Only the Wahhabi 3arab jarab have carried out suicide bombings in Iraq, with a few Pakis, Sudanis, and Afghans. It's kinda difficult to blame a suicide bombing on the SAS or CIA, donchya think?
It's clear to me that Arab extremists have been killing innocent Iraqis for many years now, and it's annoying to see our Arab "brothers" questioning whether that's true. Eventually the Arabs will accept the truth about the criminal nature of the 'resistance' in Iraq. Judging by their continued defense of Saddam, it might take a while, but eventually I think it will happen. This behavior is not unique to Arabs. It took Americans a long time to accept the truth about what their forefathers did to the native Americans. Maybe the Arabs will admit to the truth about the stupid Arab "resistance" when the SAS tells us why they dressed up as Arabs and shot at Iraqi police in Basra in 2004. I hope I will be alive when that happens.
I wonder if Raed Al-Banna was an agent of the US and British forces. If so, why did so many Arabs take to the streets in Jordan to praise his name?
"The lethality of the jihadists was highlighted on Feb. 28 when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside a health clinic in the city of Hilla, killing at least 125 people, the worst single massacre since the U.S. invasion. On March 11 the Amman daily newspaper Al-Ghad identified Ra'ed al-Banna as the attacker, in an article purporting to describe the family's wedding-like celebration of his martyrdom. The story was picked up by Arab satellite channels, provoking outrage among Iraqi Shi'ites, who have held demonstrations ever since outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad."
Read the first paragraph of the VERY next page of the article you pulled the reference from.
Here, you've read what you liked to read, and disregarded the rest.
"So many Arabs" So a lot of Arabs? I don't know any Arabs who took to the streets, maybe I just don't live in the right neighbourhood.
You do understand that when you say things like that you're implying that the majority of Arabs glorify and praise these actions?
============================
A number of commentators keep referring to "Arab Extremists" and their suicidal attacks, who are these people specifically? Are they just very-Arab, Arab looking proficient speakers of Arabic who blow themselves up with no particular agenda?
Or is any nutter who vaguely resembles an Arab suddenly classified as an "Arab Extremist"?
True, Banna's immediate family has insisted he died fighting Americans Mosul. Apparently it looks like that's the story the Jordanian government would prefer. I think this is how so many supporters of the "resistance" have managed to spin human bombs, head choppers, and mass murderers into heroes.
The interviews with Mr. Al-Banna and his son Ahmed were conducted in Arabic with our producer, Moufaq, translating. The father was clearly still devastated by the death of his son. But Al Banna now insisted that his son did not die in a suicide attack in Hilla, but rather fighting American forces in Mosul, which happened to be the same storyline put out by the Jordanian government. Al Banna said he would have told his son not to go to Iraq. I kept pressing him on whether he nevertheless considered his son a "hero" and a "martyr." He avoided answering the question but finally said "yes, I am proud of him and even when he's dead I'm still proud of him." He also said a voice told him in a dream his son was a "martyr."
We later found out, through source in Jordan, that Jordanian intelligence agents had visited Mr. Al-Banna and told him to deny that his son was a suicide bomber and say he died fighting in Mosul. We also found out when we reviewed the tape that Mr. Al-Banna has whispered, "God curse this woman" during one of the pauses in the interview. Not a first.
Immediately after the interview Moufaq received a text message that the London bombings had occurred. We then turned on the television and, sitting alongside the father of a suicide bomber, proceeded to watch coverage of the London suicide bombings. He had no discernable reaction to what was unfolding on the screen.
"Are they just very-Arab, Arab looking proficient speakers of Arabic who blow themselves up with no particular agenda?"
Monica, stop trying to make this into a political-correctness campaign. Anyone who has seen the carnage left by suicidal maniacs in Iraq knows that Arabs from across the ME, Pakistanis, Caucasians, Africans, and other ethnicities/nationalities have all volunteered for these missions.
An "Arab extremist" would better describe a Baathist/ Saddamist fighting in the insurgency because ethnic minorities…like the Kurds, and Shiite Muslims (because of perceived ties to Iran) have no place in his/her version of Iraq and the Pan-Arab nation.
All of them have an agenda though: they all hate the Iraqi people and want to make their lives as miserable as possible.
Its not just Arabs…there are plenty of Americans who buy into these conspiracy theories, both on the far left and right. If you google "is Zarqawi real" it will take you to a couple of white supremacist, neo-nazi sites. These freaks might have their differences with Baathists, Wahhabi suicidals, and American leftists, but they all seem eager to point the finger at the USA (more specifically its "ZOG").
Nothing like seeing the scum of the earth come together for such a hateful cause.
He showed non of the supposed tell-tale signs of a suicide bomber, and then suddenly hes in Iraq.
Two possible scenarios ensued:
1) He died in a "suicide attack".
2) He died fighting US Forces.
Regardless of which of the above is true, and I'm not going to debate that, the "official word" from his father, is that he died fighting for US Forces.
Now, lets move on.
No matter how many statistics you pull, and no matter how many things you say about this or that, there are both people who have prospered (legitimately or not) and there those who have had their lives ruined by the war in Iraq.
Neither you, nor I can affirmatively say who falls in ANY of these categories, whats there to say that he wasn't fighting for a legitimate cause for people who have been wronged throughout the war?
Regardless of which version of his demise you'd like to entertain, the people who are proud of him, publicly do so under the pretext that he died fighting US Forces.
In doing so, they clearly do not "promote" suicide bombing.
More: Where is the transcript? and What do the final two paragraphs of the article serve?
You put resistance in quotation marks, are you implying that all the resistance in Iraq is nothing but people pursing senseless violence?
You have no idea what those SAS schmucks were doing shooting at the police.??
You have shown yourself to have a very creative disposition. Please help us theorize all the possible reasons the British could have, by involving themselves in this heinous propaganda mission (dressing up as foreign arabs to undermine security..).
I have no idea. Let's say you and Sean are correct and the British wanted a reason to stay in Iraq. So why didn't the British stay in Iraq? How do these tactics help the UK?? That's the part I don't understand.
And if it's true that SAS agents were shooting at Iraqi police, for whatever reason, I want to see justice. This is a crime that the British government would be directly responsible for. But the bombings of Iraqi markets, carried out by Wahhabi terrorists, cannot be blamed on the UK & US, no matter what the tactical implications of the SAS mission.
Don't get us wrong. All of us abhor and condemn the wanton destruction of valuable life.
However what we all want (i'm sure including you) is to understand who are the men behind the curtains pulling all the strings.
And because, as you stated, the SAS operation was perpetrated so long ago; it is precisely the reason we must solve this mystery first to understand the domino effect it had on Iraqi society. I remember, when these SAS members were captured and then broken free from the jails by the British, that was the start of all the Shiah mosque bombings and Sunni beheadings.
I understand that many Shiah and Sunni-Kurds are very supportive of the Americans because they ousted one of their own American puppet called Saddam. But we must not forget, it was also the American who supplied all the chemical and biological weapons to Saddam to cleanse the Shiah and Kurd populations. America doesn't hold anyone or anything sacred, unless it is profitable. Sustaining a war is profitable.
It wasn't just American companies that suppled Saddam with the ingredients used to make chemical and biological weapons. The Germans were the biggest supplier of such ingredients.
"You simply can not rule something out because you can't come to terms with the reality it might present."
But you can rule something out when it makes absolutely no sense. You are basically saying that the entire western world and its media are in on this crazy, delusional lunacy that the US and the UK are responsible for suicide bombings in Iraq. To believe so requires paranoia of almost everyone around you and a complete mistrust of society–in other words, you might want to put on a tinfoil helmet and hunker down.
There are people out there who believe the earth is flat. They can propagate their claim by saying that the media, the government, every astronaut who has gone into space, the laws of physics, etc. etc. are lying to you. Do their claims deserve to be examined? After all, they claim to have evidence.
The Arab and leftist schmucks want SO badly to believe that Americans and Brits killed all those Iraqis. They really are living in a parallel universe, huh?
While it's hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.
But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions — not just treaties and declarations — that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another — that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier's courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.
Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." A gradual evolution of human institutions.
During the 60 years of Israeli expansionism, the Arabs, mostly Palestinian, committed about 100 suicide bombings inside Israel and the occupied territories. Hundreds of innocent Israelis were killed. When Israel kills innocent Palestinians, the Arabs become very angry, understandably.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam's murderous regime, the Arabs have sent more than 1,700 suicide bombers to Iraq. The vast majority of victims have been Iraqi civilians, mostly Arabs and Muslims. But the Arabs don't seem to be as angry about this, except to blame America. The Arabs are stupid.
I have my disagreements about whether or not Obama deserved the Peace Prize–I think it was given to the "idea" of him rather than him as an individual–but the President is doing the right thing by trying to stabilize Afghanistan. Allowing the Taliban, Haqqani, and the ISI to re-conquer Afghanistan is not "peace", no matter how many ignorant people want it to be.
It's not "peace," you are right, but it is inevitable. No amount of American will can stop it. And the implementation of American will is not "peace" either, and much more destructive.
Everyone just keeps talking about whether he deserved the prize. That's just old news man. Do I agree with the fact that he deserves it? No!
Am I glad though he went and accepted it? Yes, I actually am.
When the Europeans stop reducing themselves and stop giving out prizes as "statements" then maybe people will actually take them (the prize and the Europeans) seriously. I mean, Obama? He didn't do anything really to deserve a peace prize, but they gave it to him so as to say to good ol' George Dubyah and his friends: "That's right Sucka! In yo' Face!" The Europeans did the same thing when they gave the prize to the IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei back in 2005.
It's not the first time, but it should be one of last that the Europeans give in order to make a point.
"McCain loves the speech. Sarah Palin loves the speech. But that doesn’t mean Obama’s Oslo address was a Republican speech. When it comes to invoking “just wars” Republican presidents can go through the motions, but they haven’t got their hearts in it. Who needs to talk about justice as you drop high explosive and scrawl Death to Ragheads on the side of the bombs? When you want a just war, whistle up a Democrat who can talk with a straight face about installing democracy in the Balkans. After eight years of Bushian crudities the Empire needed an upgrade in its salespitch, which is why we have Obama. Back at the time of the medieval crusades, the Western kings used to take Holy Communion from their Archbishops before heading east to battle Islam and scour the land for booty. I thought the ceremony in that austere hall in Oslo was a straight lineal descent – as Obama accepted his wafer, in the form of the prize — in this modern age a substantial check – and then pledged his holy war."
"McCain loves the speech. Sarah Palin loves the speech. But that doesn’t mean Obama’s Oslo address was a Republican speech. When it comes to invoking “just wars” Republican presidents can go through the motions, but they haven’t got their hearts in it. Who needs to talk about justice as you drop high explosive and scrawl Death to Ragheads on the side of the bombs? When you want a just war, whistle up a Democrat who can talk with a straight face about installing democracy in the Balkans. After eight years of Bushian crudities the Empire needed an upgrade in its salespitch, which is why we have Obama. Back at the time of the medieval crusades, the Western kings used to take Holy Communion from their Archbishops before heading east to battle Islam and scour the land for booty. I thought the ceremony in that austere hall in Oslo was a straight lineal descent – as Obama accepted his wafer, in the form of the prize — in this modern age a substantial check – and then pledged his holy war."
"The U.S. military had warned of an imminent attack hours before last week's deadly bombings in Baghdad, but the tip came too late to act on, Iraqi security officials said Sunday as outraged lawmakers pressed for answers about Iraq's ability to protect the capital."
You don't appreciate his unprecedented efforts to stop Israeli expansionism and help bring peace to Palestine?
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 10, 2009, 9:12 pmAre any Arabs here angry about Sunni Arab terrorists who continue to mass murder Iraqis? Or do you get angry only when Palestinians are killed in Iraq, like As3ad Abu Khalil does?
http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2009/12/shia-dont-b…
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 11, 2009, 12:06 amUnfortunately most Arabs here are more focused on hating Jews.
Posted by Achmed | December 11, 2009, 7:14 pmThey hate Jews or Israelis?
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 12, 2009, 5:56 pmSaudi Arabia, Jordan, and a few other western aligned Arab dictatorships in the Middle East feared and still fear the emergence of a Shia dominated government in Iraq, due to the cold war between the so called "Western Backed Moderates" and those states that have aligned themselves fully or partially with Iran.
This naturally led to the so called "moderates" allowing scores of fighters to cross into Iraq to stem the spread of the "Shia crescent" as King Abdellah of Jordan called it.
Ironically, it was these retarded zealouts that ended up destroying the Iraqi resistance.
Posted by Arayus | December 12, 2009, 8:24 amIn other words, Arab extremists mass murdered Iraqis. They also came from anti-western Arab nations like Syria. They continue to mass murder Iraqis and Arab Americans don't seem very concerned about it. It seems the Arabs here don't want to hear it. They would rather have a KABOBfest than be Angry (or even pretend to be angry) with the Arabs who murder innocent Iraqis. When Arabs discuss Iraq, they blame the murders on America. Wake up ya 3arab and condemn the Arab "resistance" that continues to kill and maim innocent Arabs! At least pretend to be angry! Don't be so lame.
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 12, 2009, 5:51 pmStrange how at least two of those "Arab extremists" turned out to be British SAS agents caught red-handed dressed as Arabs with a carload of explosives at the time when all those car bombs were going off in Sunni and Shia mosques. They opened fire on Iraqi police who approached them, but were captured. The British immediatley launched a full scale attack on the Iraqi police station where they were held to break them out. What better way to ignite a civil war than to bomb mosques, behead some people and then blame it on one side or the other as the situation required. Classic divide and rule.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=vi…
As mentioned in the article, the British used this tactic of false flag attacks in Malaya and to surpress the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya. They also used agents provateurs carrying out assasinations and terrorist bombings in their campaign against the IRA in Northern Ireland:
Closer to home, the Littlejohn brothers were recruited in 1972 by John Wyman of MI6, who handled a number of agents in Northern Ireland and paid them substantial sums of taxpayers' money to infiltrate the IRA and to act as agent provocateurs, organizing and conducting bank robberies and bomb attacks in the Republic of Ireland. Wyman told them that there was "going to be a policy of political assassination" for which they were to make themselves available. "If I was told about any illegal act before it happened, I would always discuss it with London. I was always told to go ahead," said Kenneth Littlejohn, who went on to claim that the MI6 officer told him, "If there is any shooting, do what you've got to do."
The US Army's Counterinsurgency Manual also advocates the use of false flag terrorist attacks as a means of discrediting any enemy resitance movement:
http://statismwatch.ca/2008/06/18/us-counterinsur…
The manual directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control and restrictions on labor unions & political parties. It directly advocates warrantless searches, detainment without charge and (under varying circumstances) the suspension of habeas corpus. It directly advocates employing terrorists or prosecuting individuals for terrorism who are not terrorists, running false flag operations and concealing human rights abuses from journalists. And it repeatedly advocates the use of subterfuge and “psychological operations” (propaganda) to make these and other “population & resource control” measures more palatable.
Sound familiar?
Posted by Sean2009 | December 13, 2009, 1:27 amsorry, forgot a link for the above
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203…
Posted by Sean2009 | December 13, 2009, 1:29 amAre you even Arab, Sean? Do you have any reason to be concerned about the bombs killing and wounding hundreds of Iraqis?
Do any of you understand that Arabs who call themselves "mujahideen" are taking credit for these bombings, calling their targets the "dens of apostates" and shit like that? Do you care?
Does Will care about Iraqi kids being bombed repeatedly? Or does he care only when America does it? Is Will an Arab? Or does he use the name "Will" like Tiger Woods did at that hospital?
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 13, 2009, 2:55 amYou don't need to be Arab to be angry and sickened by what Al-Qaeda does to the people of Iraq.
Posted by C.H. | December 13, 2009, 3:19 amAre you an Arab, Mojo, or just a concern troll pretending to be one? I am a human being concerned with an injustice being done to my fellow human beings. I don't need to be an Arab. I am also an American who believes my country should stand for something besides oppressing and killing people, or supporting countries that do so. It's as simple as that.
As for who allegedly claims credit for an attack, the government and the media can pin blame on any group they like, and they can just as easily employ their own terrorists to plant bombs and alienate the populace from the resistance. It's been done before.
Posted by Sean2009 | December 13, 2009, 2:23 pmOMG Americans can be stupid too. But that's not surprising.
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 13, 2009, 5:57 pmRight, the old argument that implies the UK & US caused all those bombings, cuz they want to divide and conquer, I suppose. It's a stupid argument. It is not in the interest of the US to cause mass casualty bombings. It is in the interest of the 3arab jarab, who never cared about Iraqis in the first place. America wanted to stabilize Iraq so the oil would flow and American companies would make money.
The half-brained 3arab jarab and their non-Arab allies make me sick sometimes. None of them can admit that Arabs have been killing innocent Iraqis for decades. They can't even condemn the mass murder of Iraqis. Yuck.
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 13, 2009, 2:03 amEducate yourselves ya 3arab: http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2009/12/shia-dont-b…
British and American troops do not blow themselves up in Iraqi markets. The quarter-brained Wahhabi-influenced scum of the earth have and they won't stop, and it makes me very angry.
At least PRETEND to be concerned about innocent Iraqis ya "ikhwan".
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 13, 2009, 2:07 amGet off your high horse Iraqi Mojo. I was active on Iraq before I was active on Palestine and I am Palestinian. My first major political protest was to stop the first American invasion. I spent the 1990's raising awareness about the sanctions. I worked to prevent the 2003 invasion. You know how many Iraqi deaths happened in that time – from bombs, depleted uranium, sanctions, Saddam, and more bombs? These days are the tip of the iceberg. And the fuckers killing innocent Iraqis – most of whom Shia – have blood on their hands, but a faint amount compared to the US government.
And if you don't think the United States is the cause for the violence there, you do not understand the concept of causality. If the US did not invade, this shit would not be happening plain and simple. This is the result of the "US taking the war to the enemy" — the idea that putting US forces to fight would draw the jihadis to Iraq and Afghanistan rather than the U.S. The consequences were foreseeable and deliberate; American lives are simply more valuable to them than Iraqi lives.
Of course we are anti-Wahhabi, but condemning them gets us nowhere.
Posted by Will | December 13, 2009, 3:34 am"the fuckers killing innocent Iraqis – most of whom Shia – have blood on their hands, but a faint amount compared to the US government."
The US handed over security responsibilities to Iraqis and withdrew to their bases many months ago. During that time, the "resistance" has incinerated hundreds of people in government offices, daycare centers, and markets. The "resistance" kills people by the hundreds, sometimes per bomb.
Reading Will's statement makes me believe that there really is a universe parallel to our own, because only there could such a ridiculous belief come true.
Posted by C.H. | December 13, 2009, 4:48 amSo being angry at the Arab terrorists who mass murder Iraqis and being angry about Arab apathy about Arab terrorism is riding a "high horse"?? OMG Arabs are stupid, even after they move to America, the country they hate so much! It's so embarrassing. But hey, I should thank you for being anti-Wahhabi, even though you are unwilling to condemn them. LOL!
USA negligent in Iraqi deaths since 1980s: http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2009/12/usa-neglige…
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 13, 2009, 6:18 pmExplain to me what interest could possibly be served by the Sunni resistance triggering a civil war with the Shia, who outnumber them 2 to 1, when they are already outnumbered and outgunned by the most powerful military in the world. How can that possibly make sense? The US has every interest in dividing the two groups against each other, as that not only weakens them, but prevents them from uniting to fight the US. It's a perfectly logical if immoral tactic. There was no Sunni/Shia civil war before the US got there. Sunni and Shia freely intermarried and lived in the same neighborhoods. All of a sudden mosques start blowing up all over the place, bodies are being found beheaded and dismembered, and extremists start reacting with reprisal attacks at what they falsely perceive to be their enemies. All it takes is a few targeted killings and bombings to create tensions and ignite them into a full blown civil war. Is all that just a coincidence, or is it part of the same imperialist pattern of division and conquest witnessed throughout history?
Is it a coincidence that Zionist traitor Jane Harmon publicly advocated a similar strategy of fomenting ethnic strife to destabilize Iran?
http://arabist.net/archives/2009/05/22/jane-harma…
I don't believe in coincidences.
Let's dispense with the fiction the US is in Iraq for oil. It is in Iraq because Israel put pressure on our government to invade and take out one of Israel's biggest enemies. Israel is also leading the chorus of shrill cries for a war on Iran. The military industrial complex never met a war it didn't like, so they're on board by default. As for the energy thieves, they learned a long time ago the best way to profit from oil is to sell less of it. When you induce even a small artificial shortage beneath demand, you will see astronomical increases in oil prices, enabling you to sell less oil for triple or quadruple the price you would get if you produced enough to meet demand. That's exactly what happened and what Enron and others companies also did in California. Iraq's oil is worth more off the market than on it.
Posted by Sean2009 | December 13, 2009, 2:43 pm"Explain to me what interest could possibly be served by the Sunni resistance triggering a civil war with the Shia"
I guess I should not be angry with people who don't realize that the Baathists would do anything, including killing innocent Iraqis, to gain power. It's how they gained power in the first place and it's how they retained power for so long. And the 3arab jarab wanted Iraqis to be subjects of that murderous piece of shit and his rapist-murderer son. The Arabs make me sick, and the American jarab can be quite stupid too. Your a good example, Sean.
I doubt you will understand, but I will try to explain: it is in the interest of the Baathists to see attacks on the Iraqi govt, to see mayhem that makes Iraqis want to spit on the Iraqi govt that is unable to protect them. If you cannot understand this, then you are lost. I can understand why your theories are so popular here, where clueless Arabs want so badly to believe in "resistance" and cannot admit that Arabs would kill innocent Iraqis.
Educate yourselves ya American jarab:
'But back to the businessman's point of view. He said Iraq will become the third largest oil producer in the world, and nobody wants that to happen. He said, "Our neighbours are the worst." He pointed to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the other Gulf countries. "They don't want Iraq's oil to compete with theirs. It is in none of their interest to have a successful Iraq. "
The man said a successful Iraq' democracy would frighten those same countries. He said a stable Iraqi economy would threaten the neighbours. That's why the countries that back al-Qaeda, of which he said Saudi Arabia was one, send bombers to make a statement here. The man said Syria let the killers go through their border to enter Iraq. "But the deals were signed, the bombs didn't stop anybody from signing," he said.'
http://iraqpundit.blogspot.com/2009/12/businessma…
I think the above quote fits into your theory: "As for the energy thieves, they learned a long time ago the best way to profit from oil is to sell less of it."
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 13, 2009, 6:08 pmI doubt you will understand, but I will try to explain: it is in the interest of the Baathists to see attacks on the Iraqi govt, to see mayhem that makes Iraqis want to spit on the Iraqi govt that is unable to protect them. If you cannot understand this, then you are lost. I can understand why your theories are so popular here, where clueless Arabs want so badly to believe in "resistance" and cannot admit that Arabs would kill innocent Iraqis.
This is standard neocon boilerplate. You sound a lot like neocon Tom Friedman of the NY Times. The resistance doesn't need to discredit the government. The government has discredited itself by collaborating with the occupation. No resistance can survive without the support of the people, and the people will not support a resistance movement that kills thousands of innocent Iraqis. Whatever minor benefit they gain by demonstrating the government's inability to protect people will be vastly offset by the loss of support from the people. If someone comes into your house and kills a member of your family, your family may be mad at you for failing to protect them, but no where near as mad as they would be at the killer. This is common sense.
The majority of killings in Iraq are done by death squads and militias that are widely believed to be supported by the US and the puppet Iraqi government. They often work within the police and the military and enjoy their support. The US benefits from chaos and violence as it drives Sunnis and Shias apart, justifies the US occupation to Americans and even has Sunni militia that used to fight the Americans turning to them for protection. It is hardly a boon for the resistance.
There is nothing more ludicrous than the claims after every bombing that the bombers came from Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or wherever. How do they know this so quickly without an extensive investigation? How do they know it was a "suicide" bombing and not just someone parking a car bomb and leaving, which makes a lot more sense than throwing your bombers away with every mission. Even if they found dead people with Saudi passports, it proves nothing. Yet sometimes literally within minutes of a bombing they are pointing the finger at whoever the boogeyman of the day is. It's a farce, Wake up.
When the Iraqis first fought the British Empire in the 1920's, there was no "suicide bombings" by insurgents against Iraqis. On the contrary and according to good strategy, they united despite minor cultural and religious differences to confront the common British enemy.
Likewise in Afghanistan during the 10 year war with the Soviet union there were no instances of suicide bombings targeting Afghan civilians. Here too, the Afghan tribes united despite previous disagreements against the common aggressor.
Does no one find all of this even mildly odd? After 9-11, suddenly this bizarre phenomenon of an insurgency using suicide bombings against their own people rather than the invaders appears, as if to provide supporting evidence for the reality of the crazed "suicide bombing" hijackers that attacked America – or so the official story goes.
Could the answer be as simple as that what is being touted as suicide bombings are in fact the work of US/British/Israeli counterinsurgency teams? In Iraq, are we in fact dealing with the what are better know as "false flag operations"?
…The sheer carnage shown on TV back in the West only supports the idea that the Iraqis/Afghans can't take care of their own country without help from the occupation forces or that they are uncivilised savages. This propaganda reinforces the US government's persistent claim that it would be dangerous to pull US troops out of Iraq and for the American military grunts on the streets of Iraq it helps them to rationalise their continued presence. Either they are trying to show a lesser class of human how to become civilised, or they are doing god's work in wiping them out.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/138504-Suicide-…
Posted by Sean2009 | December 14, 2009, 1:15 am"The majority of killings in Iraq are done by death squads and militias that are widely believed to be supported by the US and the puppet Iraqi government"
Sean, were you posting back and 2006? If so, this statement could easily have been copied and pasted here from a thread that took place back in that time frame.
It has been 3 YEARS since Shiite militias have attacked Sunni neighborhoods and mass murdered civilians! President Bush is long gone…down on his ranch in Texas where the biggest decision he has to make is what kind of steaks he'd like to cook on the grill. US soldiers left Iraqi cities months ago…inquiries continue to show that the US wanted nothing more than to get out of Iraq after Saddam was captured. The bombing campaign against Iraqi civilians is what *destroyed* Bush's presidency. Do you live in America, Sean? Only a complete idiot could look at the carnage on TV about how terrible the mission in Iraq is going and come to the conclusion that its actually benefiting Bush and the neocons you are so afraid of.
On the other hand, every time a Baathist/Al-Qaeda scumbag blows himself up in a market, the hate-America crowd yells "you call THIS democracy!" and they talk about how wonderful things were under Saddam. It throws a wrench into US hopes of having a stable, successful ally to work with in the face of terrorism. The Bush admin became demoralized after watching Iraqis blown to bits by the hundreds. The Democratic Party won elections in 06 because Americans couldn't handle the daily massacres by one of the cruelest, most sadistic enemies the world has ever had to bear witness too.
The "resistance" hates the Iraqi people, and they don't need them because their support is so widespread among people like you–as well as Arab supremacists, Muslim extremists, American leftists and sleazy Latin American dictators. The "resistance" lost the support of the Iraqi people in Sunni areas a long, long time ago. The sons of Anbar made that clear when they booted them back to the sands of Syria, KSA, and anywhere else they might have come from. Yet the "resistance" will not back down…they will continue to ravage Iraq until its people bow down and beg for the days of "Papa Saddam" to return. But it will NEVER happen.
Posted by C.H. | December 14, 2009, 1:36 amAre you seriously trying to claim that violence has ceased in Iraq? That is absurd. Equally absurd is your contention that the Iraqi resistance doesn't need the support of the people, because they have American leftists to back them. That is pathological idiocy and scarcely worthy of a response. How do you plant an IED without the support of the people? All it takes is one guy with a cellphone and and attitude and 10 minutes later, you are being fired up by an Apache gunship. As someone once observed, "it takes a village to plant an IED."
The carnage in Iraq benefits the neocons because their goal is to eliminate any powerful Muslim or Arab country that could serve as a counterweight to US/Israeli hegemony in the region. The US has no interest in seeing Iraq become a strong, stable democracy because a strong, stable democracy can still threaten Israel. The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
Cutting Iraq into pieces, separating a Sunni from a Shiite region and creating an independent Israel-friendly Kurdistan has been on Israel´s policy agenda for at least since the 1980´s, wrote the late Israeli human-rights activist Israel Shahak in his translation of the Oded Yinon policy paper: “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”.
In 1996 some of the authors of the American Iraq-war strategy within the Bush administration reiterated Yinon´s plan about bombing and cutting Iraq to pieces in their own policy paper : A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
http://notsylvia.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/the-des…
"This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions."
The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
Posted by Sean2009 | December 14, 2009, 2:59 amAre you seriously trying to claim that violence has ceased in Iraq? That is absurd. Equally absurd is your contention that the Iraqi resistance doesn't need the support of the people, because they have American leftists to back them. That is pathological idiocy and scarcely worthy of a response. How do you plant an IED without the support of the people? All it takes is one guy with a cellphone and and attitude and 10 minutes later, you are being fired up by an Apache gunship. As someone once observed, "it takes a village to plant an IED."
The carnage in Iraq benefits the neocons because their goal is to eliminate any powerful Muslim or Arab country that could serve as a counterweight to US/Israeli hegemony in the region. The US has no interest in seeing Iraq become a strong, stable democracy because a strong, stable democracy can still threaten Israel. The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
Cutting Iraq into pieces, separating a Sunni from a Shiite region and creating an independent Israel-friendly Kurdistan has been on Israel´s policy agenda for at least since the 1980´s, wrote the late Israeli human-rights activist Israel Shahak in his translation of the Oded Yinon policy paper: “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”.
In 1996 some of the authors of the American Iraq-war strategy within the Bush administration reiterated Yinon´s plan about bombing and cutting Iraq to pieces in their own policy paper : A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
http://notsylvia.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/the-des…
"This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions."
The neocons even proposed replacing Saddam with the Hashemites, hardly a democratic rulership.
Posted by Sean2009 | December 14, 2009, 2:59 am"You sound a lot like neocon Tom Friedman of the NY Times."
And you sound a lot like the resistance-minded 3arab jarab who never gave a shit about Iraqis for decades.
The resistance is retarded.
The Arabs want Saddam back; their "resistance" mass murdered Iraqis in order to prove to the world that life for Iraqis was better for them. But Iraqis aren't buying your bullshit ya jarab. Your slimy "resistance" will never gain power by blowing up innocent Iraqis. Join the political process or move to Damascus, Amman, Cairo, or one of many jarab-infested cities. Move to LA or the San Francisco bay area.
The US military will leave when there is peace in Iraq, so promote peace ya "ikhwan". The Shia militias stopped killing innocent Sunni Arabs many months ago. But your "brave" resistance continues to kill Iraqis at markets and universities.
Please stop killing Iraqi kids ya sharameeeeeee6 ya khawat el ga7ba.
http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2006/11/torture-rap…
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 14, 2009, 1:43 amSaddam is dead. How are they going to get him back, necromancy? Your characterization of the Iraqi resistance as "Ba'athist" is false, The Sunni resistance is overwhelmingly secular, and nationalistic. The Sunni or Shia resistance is supported by the majority of the people in Iraq, and there is overwhelming opposition to the occupation among all Iraqis, even among members of Maliki's government.
The US can leave Iraq any time it wants. I realize logic and reason contradict your hasbara, but if all it takes to drive out the Americans is peace it would be in the resistance's best interest to not fight them, now wouldn't it? Indeed, the leadership of the Sunni Association of Muslims Scholar in Iraq has clearly stated they would issue a fatwa against further insurgency if the Americans give a firm timetable for their withdrawal.
So there is nothing stopping the US from leaving.
Posted by Sean2009 | December 14, 2009, 3:09 am"Saddam is dead."
Thank God for that. But 3izet al doori is still alive and so are many "secular nationalist" Iraqis who want to gain power the way they did in the 1960s. If you have proof that the majority of Iraqis support those murderers, please present it.
"So there is nothing stopping the US from leaving."
And the US will leave ya 3arab jarab. Please stop killing Iraqi women and children ya "muqawama".
The elected Iraqi government demanded a withdrawal timeline from the US in 2008: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti…
'Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed that on Tuesday, saying the co-ordinated violence would not derail plans to begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq in large numbers by August next year.
"Certainly we're always looking at plans that take into consideration other outcomes, but right now we just don't see anything at this point in time that would require us to execute those," the senior US military officer said.'
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009…
Stop making up stupid excuses to mass murder Iraqis ya 3arab jarab.
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 14, 2009, 3:22 amWhat the "secular and nationalistic" Iraqis were doing in 2000: 'A woman known as "Um Haydar" was beheaded reportedly without charge or trial at the end of December 2000. She was 25 years' old and married with three children. Her husband was sought by the security authorities reportedly because of his involvement in Islamist armed activities against the state. He managed to flee the country. Men belonging to Feda'iyye Saddam came to the house in al-Karrada district and found his wife, children and his mother. Um Haydar was taken to the street and two men held her by the arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of the residents. The beheading was also witnessed by members of the Ba'ath Party in the area. The security men took the body and the head in a plastic bag, and took away the children and the mother-in-law. The body of Um Haydar was later buried in al-Najaf. The fate of the children and the mother-in-law remains unknown.'
http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2006/11/torture-rap…
What Sddamists were doing in the 90s, while Saddam built palaces: http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2009/05/saddams-kil…
and what they were doing in the 80s: http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2008/08/shia-women-…
There was no civil war in Iraq before 2003 because the Shia & Kurds, despite being persecuted, ethnically cleansed, and mass murdered by Saddam for decades, did not bomb markets and police stations.
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 14, 2009, 5:09 am"There is nothing more ludicrous than the claims after every bombing that the bombers came from Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or wherever. How do they know this so quickly without an extensive investigation?"
This has been known, even among Arabs, for at least two years now. Educate yourself, Sean:
October 7, 2007
Suicide bombers head to Iraq from Damascus
by Hala Jaber and Ali Rifat
'….Our encounter was arranged as part of a four-week Sunday Times investigation into the world’s biggest suicide bombing campaign. More than 1,300 bombers are said to have struck on foot or in vehicles since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 – more than all the other suicide bombings of the past 20 years put together.
The number this year promises to be higher than ever. The bombers are estimated to have killed and injured more than 4,000 people in the first nine months. Their targets have ranged from lines of police recruits in and around Baghdad to an entire village near the Syrian border where up to 500 died….'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middl…
and from a 2005 article:
'Many of the Arabs, according to the postings, were drawn to fight in Iraq under the banner of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group run by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi that has taken credit for a gruesome series of beheadings, kidnappings and suicide attacks — many of them filmed and then disseminated on the Internet in a convergence between the electronic jihad and the real-life war.'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti…
But more recently: Al Qaeda in Iraq becoming less foreign
http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2009/11/al-qaeda-in…
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 14, 2009, 1:55 amThat's not to say that every mass casualty bombing is carried out by non-Iraqi 3arab jarab. But I believe that the majority of suicide bombers have been non-Iraqi.
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 14, 2009, 2:09 amI think it would be best if you could shed some light into the wisdom of those two SAS commandos who dressed up as Arabs and were shooting at the police ("trying to undermine security" in your own words)?
Posted by OooKhalid | December 14, 2009, 11:13 amI have no idea what those SAS schmucks were doing shooting at Iraqi police. I too want to know the truth about that, but that happened a long time ago and British troops are no longer in the country. Since then there have been thousands of bombings, more than 1,700 of them suicide bombings, and I'm quite sure that British do not carry out suicide bombings. Only the Wahhabi 3arab jarab have carried out suicide bombings in Iraq, with a few Pakis, Sudanis, and Afghans. It's kinda difficult to blame a suicide bombing on the SAS or CIA, donchya think?
It's clear to me that Arab extremists have been killing innocent Iraqis for many years now, and it's annoying to see our Arab "brothers" questioning whether that's true. Eventually the Arabs will accept the truth about the criminal nature of the 'resistance' in Iraq. Judging by their continued defense of Saddam, it might take a while, but eventually I think it will happen. This behavior is not unique to Arabs. It took Americans a long time to accept the truth about what their forefathers did to the native Americans. Maybe the Arabs will admit to the truth about the stupid Arab "resistance" when the SAS tells us why they dressed up as Arabs and shot at Iraqi police in Basra in 2004. I hope I will be alive when that happens.
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 14, 2009, 3:59 pmI wonder if Raed Al-Banna was an agent of the US and British forces. If so, why did so many Arabs take to the streets in Jordan to praise his name?
"The lethality of the jihadists was highlighted on Feb. 28 when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside a health clinic in the city of Hilla, killing at least 125 people, the worst single massacre since the U.S. invasion. On March 11 the Amman daily newspaper Al-Ghad identified Ra'ed al-Banna as the attacker, in an article purporting to describe the family's wedding-like celebration of his martyrdom. The story was picked up by Arab satellite channels, provoking outrage among Iraqi Shi'ites, who have held demonstrations ever since outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,…
Posted by C.H. | December 14, 2009, 9:47 pm@ C.H.
Read the first paragraph of the VERY next page of the article you pulled the reference from.
Here, you've read what you liked to read, and disregarded the rest.
"So many Arabs" So a lot of Arabs? I don't know any Arabs who took to the streets, maybe I just don't live in the right neighbourhood.
You do understand that when you say things like that you're implying that the majority of Arabs glorify and praise these actions?
============================
A number of commentators keep referring to "Arab Extremists" and their suicidal attacks, who are these people specifically? Are they just very-Arab, Arab looking proficient speakers of Arabic who blow themselves up with no particular agenda?
Or is any nutter who vaguely resembles an Arab suddenly classified as an "Arab Extremist"?
Posted by MonicaB_ | December 15, 2009, 3:32 amTrue, Banna's immediate family has insisted he died fighting Americans Mosul. Apparently it looks like that's the story the Jordanian government would prefer. I think this is how so many supporters of the "resistance" have managed to spin human bombs, head choppers, and mass murderers into heroes.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10430674/ns/msnbc_tv/
The interviews with Mr. Al-Banna and his son Ahmed were conducted in Arabic with our producer, Moufaq, translating. The father was clearly still devastated by the death of his son. But Al Banna now insisted that his son did not die in a suicide attack in Hilla, but rather fighting American forces in Mosul, which happened to be the same storyline put out by the Jordanian government. Al Banna said he would have told his son not to go to Iraq. I kept pressing him on whether he nevertheless considered his son a "hero" and a "martyr." He avoided answering the question but finally said "yes, I am proud of him and even when he's dead I'm still proud of him." He also said a voice told him in a dream his son was a "martyr."
We later found out, through source in Jordan, that Jordanian intelligence agents had visited Mr. Al-Banna and told him to deny that his son was a suicide bomber and say he died fighting in Mosul. We also found out when we reviewed the tape that Mr. Al-Banna has whispered, "God curse this woman" during one of the pauses in the interview. Not a first.
Immediately after the interview Moufaq received a text message that the London bombings had occurred. We then turned on the television and, sitting alongside the father of a suicide bomber, proceeded to watch coverage of the London suicide bombings. He had no discernable reaction to what was unfolding on the screen.
Posted by C.H. | December 15, 2009, 3:59 am"Are they just very-Arab, Arab looking proficient speakers of Arabic who blow themselves up with no particular agenda?"
Monica, stop trying to make this into a political-correctness campaign. Anyone who has seen the carnage left by suicidal maniacs in Iraq knows that Arabs from across the ME, Pakistanis, Caucasians, Africans, and other ethnicities/nationalities have all volunteered for these missions.
An "Arab extremist" would better describe a Baathist/ Saddamist fighting in the insurgency because ethnic minorities…like the Kurds, and Shiite Muslims (because of perceived ties to Iran) have no place in his/her version of Iraq and the Pan-Arab nation.
All of them have an agenda though: they all hate the Iraqi people and want to make their lives as miserable as possible.
Posted by C.H. | December 15, 2009, 4:23 amThe Arabs will believe whatever they want to believe! Their incredible stupidity used to enrage me, but I've learned to laugh at the schmucks. LOL!
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 15, 2009, 4:34 amIts not just Arabs…there are plenty of Americans who buy into these conspiracy theories, both on the far left and right. If you google "is Zarqawi real" it will take you to a couple of white supremacist, neo-nazi sites. These freaks might have their differences with Baathists, Wahhabi suicidals, and American leftists, but they all seem eager to point the finger at the USA (more specifically its "ZOG").
Nothing like seeing the scum of the earth come together for such a hateful cause.
Posted by C.H. | December 15, 2009, 4:47 amOkay, so you have these facts.
He showed non of the supposed tell-tale signs of a suicide bomber, and then suddenly hes in Iraq.
Two possible scenarios ensued:
1) He died in a "suicide attack".
2) He died fighting US Forces.
Regardless of which of the above is true, and I'm not going to debate that, the "official word" from his father, is that he died fighting for US Forces.
Now, lets move on.
No matter how many statistics you pull, and no matter how many things you say about this or that, there are both people who have prospered (legitimately or not) and there those who have had their lives ruined by the war in Iraq.
Neither you, nor I can affirmatively say who falls in ANY of these categories, whats there to say that he wasn't fighting for a legitimate cause for people who have been wronged throughout the war?
Regardless of which version of his demise you'd like to entertain, the people who are proud of him, publicly do so under the pretext that he died fighting US Forces.
In doing so, they clearly do not "promote" suicide bombing.
More: Where is the transcript? and What do the final two paragraphs of the article serve?
You put resistance in quotation marks, are you implying that all the resistance in Iraq is nothing but people pursing senseless violence?
Posted by MonicaB_ | December 15, 2009, 4:57 amYou have no idea what those SAS schmucks were doing shooting at the police.??
You have shown yourself to have a very creative disposition. Please help us theorize all the possible reasons the British could have, by involving themselves in this heinous propaganda mission (dressing up as foreign arabs to undermine security..).
Posted by OooKhalid | December 15, 2009, 4:20 amI'm the one with the creative disposition! LOL!
Do you live in America too, Khalid?
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 15, 2009, 4:32 amplease do not be offended!
help me understand the tactical implications of the SAS mission!
Posted by OooKhalid | December 15, 2009, 4:44 amI have no idea. Let's say you and Sean are correct and the British wanted a reason to stay in Iraq. So why didn't the British stay in Iraq? How do these tactics help the UK?? That's the part I don't understand.
And if it's true that SAS agents were shooting at Iraqi police, for whatever reason, I want to see justice. This is a crime that the British government would be directly responsible for. But the bombings of Iraqi markets, carried out by Wahhabi terrorists, cannot be blamed on the UK & US, no matter what the tactical implications of the SAS mission.
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 15, 2009, 4:54 amDon't get us wrong. All of us abhor and condemn the wanton destruction of valuable life.
However what we all want (i'm sure including you) is to understand who are the men behind the curtains pulling all the strings.
And because, as you stated, the SAS operation was perpetrated so long ago; it is precisely the reason we must solve this mystery first to understand the domino effect it had on Iraqi society. I remember, when these SAS members were captured and then broken free from the jails by the British, that was the start of all the Shiah mosque bombings and Sunni beheadings.
I understand that many Shiah and Sunni-Kurds are very supportive of the Americans because they ousted one of their own American puppet called Saddam. But we must not forget, it was also the American who supplied all the chemical and biological weapons to Saddam to cleanse the Shiah and Kurd populations. America doesn't hold anyone or anything sacred, unless it is profitable. Sustaining a war is profitable.
Posted by OooKhalid | December 15, 2009, 5:21 amThanks for condemning the terrorists, Khalid.
There were actually 140 suicide bombings in 2004, and hundreds more in 2005, by the time the SAS agents were caught: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_yQ3RrVdIOKc/SyXrNt5HkOI…
It wasn't just American companies that suppled Saddam with the ingredients used to make chemical and biological weapons. The Germans were the biggest supplier of such ingredients.
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 15, 2009, 5:34 amthat could equally be 140 cases where the SAS and similar units engaged in these counter insurgency tactics where they were not caught.
you simply can not rule something out because you can't come to terms with the reality it might present.
Posted by MonicaB_ | December 15, 2009, 6:24 amLOL!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&…
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 15, 2009, 6:36 am"You simply can not rule something out because you can't come to terms with the reality it might present."
But you can rule something out when it makes absolutely no sense. You are basically saying that the entire western world and its media are in on this crazy, delusional lunacy that the US and the UK are responsible for suicide bombings in Iraq. To believe so requires paranoia of almost everyone around you and a complete mistrust of society–in other words, you might want to put on a tinfoil helmet and hunker down.
There are people out there who believe the earth is flat. They can propagate their claim by saying that the media, the government, every astronaut who has gone into space, the laws of physics, etc. etc. are lying to you. Do their claims deserve to be examined? After all, they claim to have evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society#P…
Posted by C.H. | December 15, 2009, 6:48 amThe Arab and leftist schmucks want SO badly to believe that Americans and Brits killed all those Iraqis. They really are living in a parallel universe, huh?
Posted by Iraqi_Mojo | December 15, 2009, 7:17 amThey're definitely not living in the universe of reality, that's for sure.
Posted by C.H. | December 15, 2009, 7:27 amThe whole capitalist world is on for a part of the pie. And Iraq is a very tasty pie!
Posted by OooKhalid | December 15, 2009, 7:24 amReturn to Nablus
Posted by Nablus | December 11, 2009, 5:14 amWhile it's hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.
But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions — not just treaties and declarations — that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another — that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier's courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.
Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." A gradual evolution of human institutions.
Posted by B Hussein O | December 11, 2009, 7:30 pmDuring the 60 years of Israeli expansionism, the Arabs, mostly Palestinian, committed about 100 suicide bombings inside Israel and the occupied territories. Hundreds of innocent Israelis were killed. When Israel kills innocent Palestinians, the Arabs become very angry, understandably.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam's murderous regime, the Arabs have sent more than 1,700 suicide bombers to Iraq. The vast majority of victims have been Iraqi civilians, mostly Arabs and Muslims. But the Arabs don't seem to be as angry about this, except to blame America. The Arabs are stupid.
Arab hypocrisy: http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2006/11/great-hypoc…
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 11, 2009, 7:42 pmI should have added: the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq have been non-Iraqi Arabs.
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 11, 2009, 8:06 pmI have my disagreements about whether or not Obama deserved the Peace Prize–I think it was given to the "idea" of him rather than him as an individual–but the President is doing the right thing by trying to stabilize Afghanistan. Allowing the Taliban, Haqqani, and the ISI to re-conquer Afghanistan is not "peace", no matter how many ignorant people want it to be.
Posted by C.H. | December 11, 2009, 7:54 pmIt's not "peace," you are right, but it is inevitable. No amount of American will can stop it. And the implementation of American will is not "peace" either, and much more destructive.
Posted by Will | December 13, 2009, 3:35 ama joke indeed..
Posted by tas | December 11, 2009, 8:10 pmEveryone just keeps talking about whether he deserved the prize. That's just old news man. Do I agree with the fact that he deserves it? No!
Am I glad though he went and accepted it? Yes, I actually am.
When the Europeans stop reducing themselves and stop giving out prizes as "statements" then maybe people will actually take them (the prize and the Europeans) seriously. I mean, Obama? He didn't do anything really to deserve a peace prize, but they gave it to him so as to say to good ol' George Dubyah and his friends: "That's right Sucka! In yo' Face!" The Europeans did the same thing when they gave the prize to the IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei back in 2005.
It's not the first time, but it should be one of last that the Europeans give in order to make a point.
Posted by Los | December 12, 2009, 11:25 pmAlexander Cockburn at Counterpunch nails it:
"McCain loves the speech. Sarah Palin loves the speech. But that doesn’t mean Obama’s Oslo address was a Republican speech. When it comes to invoking “just wars” Republican presidents can go through the motions, but they haven’t got their hearts in it. Who needs to talk about justice as you drop high explosive and scrawl Death to Ragheads on the side of the bombs? When you want a just war, whistle up a Democrat who can talk with a straight face about installing democracy in the Balkans. After eight years of Bushian crudities the Empire needed an upgrade in its salespitch, which is why we have Obama. Back at the time of the medieval crusades, the Western kings used to take Holy Communion from their Archbishops before heading east to battle Islam and scour the land for booty. I thought the ceremony in that austere hall in Oslo was a straight lineal descent – as Obama accepted his wafer, in the form of the prize — in this modern age a substantial check – and then pledged his holy war."
http://counterpunch.org/cockburn12112009.html
Posted by Sean2009 | December 12, 2009, 11:47 pmAlexander Cockburn at Counterpunch nails it:
"McCain loves the speech. Sarah Palin loves the speech. But that doesn’t mean Obama’s Oslo address was a Republican speech. When it comes to invoking “just wars” Republican presidents can go through the motions, but they haven’t got their hearts in it. Who needs to talk about justice as you drop high explosive and scrawl Death to Ragheads on the side of the bombs? When you want a just war, whistle up a Democrat who can talk with a straight face about installing democracy in the Balkans. After eight years of Bushian crudities the Empire needed an upgrade in its salespitch, which is why we have Obama. Back at the time of the medieval crusades, the Western kings used to take Holy Communion from their Archbishops before heading east to battle Islam and scour the land for booty. I thought the ceremony in that austere hall in Oslo was a straight lineal descent – as Obama accepted his wafer, in the form of the prize — in this modern age a substantial check – and then pledged his holy war."
http://counterpunch.org/cockburn12112009.html
Posted by Sean2009 | December 12, 2009, 11:47 pm"These days are the tip of the iceberg."
Just how many Iraqis does the "resistance" plan to kill?
Posted by C.H. | December 13, 2009, 4:34 amI wonder how 62p Sean will spin this one:
"The U.S. military had warned of an imminent attack hours before last week's deadly bombings in Baghdad, but the tip came too late to act on, Iraqi security officials said Sunday as outraged lawmakers pressed for answers about Iraq's ability to protect the capital."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM…
Posted by Iraqi Mojo | December 13, 2009, 9:18 pmRead all about it!
America – Nazi in New Colors.
Depleted uranium in Iraq.
Atom bomb in Japan.
Agent Orange in Vietnam.
America is the Heavy Weight Mass-Murderer of the World. Congrats Obama……
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/US-abandonm…
Posted by OooKhalid | December 15, 2009, 5:20 pm