The Iraq thread 3

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]I dont care what you think but at least the forum members thinks he is much friendlier than you are.

1. You do if posting about me.

2. I guess you took my sarcasm the wrong way....

3. /off-topic

[PAPABEAR_1985 0]

Sometimes I open some topic coz I know is there some helpfully information there some member post them and Balschoiw

One of the helpful member's here. I even don’t know what you

talking about in some topics but I read it for more info.

So stop this silly offensive talk against other members

[llauma 0]

Quote[/b] ]I dont care what you think but at least the forum members thinks he is much friendlier than you are.

1. You do if posting about me.

2. I guess you took my sarcasm the wrong way....

3. /off-topic

1. Don't be sarcastic about people who can't reply to you.

[EiZei 0]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....id=1480

Quote[/b] ]

Berlusconi vows to stay 'to the very end' with US in Iraq, bashes opposition

13 minutes ago  

ROME (AFP) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi strongly defended Italy's military presence in Iraq (news - web sites), slamming the opposition for demanding a withdrawal from the US-led coalition and accusing them of serving the interests of the "enemies of democracy".

Quote[/b] ]

"Italy considers that it is its duty and its honor to remain to the very end at the side of those who defend the United Nations (news - web sites) Charter in Iraq", said Berlusconi, a day after talks with US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) in Washington.

Quote[/b] ]

He dismissed the opposition's motion for troop withdrawal as "a sign of weakness and wavering".

"I wonder what the warlords in Iraq think when they hear about these motion," he said.

Quote[/b] ]

Before his US trip, Berlusconi came under pressure from his allies and the influential Catholic church to lobby Bush for a radical change in Iraq policy.

Fearless? Crazy? F.. the left? Moral man?

Berlusconi calling some people "enemies of democracy".. how ironic.

Meanwhile back in Iraq..

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....dtotalk

Quote[/b] ]

A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.

The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.

[MLF 0]

HAHAHA, Bals friendly with his war criminal crap....

I dont care what you think but at least the forum members thinks he is much friendlier than you are.

you can only represent yourself, plz lets get back to iraq.

[Bernadotte 0]

HAHAHA, Bals friendly with his war criminal crap....

I dont care what you think but at least the forum members thinks he is much friendlier than you are.

you can only represent yourself...

Really? I don't see any VIP award for friendliness under billybob2002's name.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Lets stop it here!!!!   Bunch of children! (removed all-caps)

Dont you get it, you only make the conflict harder to solve!

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Really?  I don't see any VIP award for friendliness under billybob2002's name.

jeez.....people love me that much! I was only posting about his Bush war criminal "pic" that I already posted before how I did not like it. I was not insulting the man nor calling him not friendly.

/Back on-topic.

It seems Chalabi was not popular with the State Department, CIA, senators, and etc. because they did not trust him or like him. I wonder were did that $300,000 plus per month when to... It seems his only "friends" were in the DOD and vice president office. Why they like him?

[ebud 18]

This Ebud really sick

I didn't write it, just thought it was a strange, and interesting twist on the whole thing.

[hellfish6 7]

Actually, I thought the article made a lot of sense. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think it does make sense.

[Bernadotte 0]

LETS STOP IT HERE!!!!  

Please spare us the allcaps, Albert.

[ralphwiggum 6]

last call. anymore discussion of how this forum is moderated will not be tolerated. i'm busy, so can't be here every second, but if anyone test me perm ban is the only fucking thing i'll hand out. and don't test me.

[billybob2002 0]

Look daddy, I can do it!

http://www.yahoo.com/_ylh=X3....tp

Quote[/b] ]

Bush Says Iraqis Ready to Take Power

57 minutes ago  

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Iraqis are ready to "take the training wheels off" and assume political power from the U.S.-led coalition, President Bush (news - web sites) said Thursday as his administration began to roll out a rough plan for the June 30 transition of authority.

Quote[/b] ]

In remarks released by the White House on Thursday, Bush called the handover "a complete passage of sovereignty." He did not mention in the interview with Al Zaman newspaper, conducted Tuesday, that troops from the United States and other countries will be in Iraq indefinitely.

Quote[/b] ]

Offering a rough outline Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was getting closer to designating the people who will serve in the new government. Brahimi has been working with Iraqis and with Robert Blackwill, an aide to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), to come up with acceptable names.

Quote[/b] ]

"He talked about 'time to take the training wheels off,'" said Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio. "The Iraqi people have been in training, and now it's time for them to take the bike and go forward."

Quote[/b] ]

They will be needed to provide security during the six months after June 30 in which the United Nations (news - web sites) will be involved in arranging for an Iraq election in December or January, he said.

.............

[Gollum1 0]

MSNBC link

Quote[/b] ]BAGHDAD - With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees.

The target is a top-secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF†is pictured in satellite photos.

According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists — but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards.

These sources say the prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug prisoners, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation

All of these practices would be violations of the Geneva Conventions. The conventions do not apply to stateless terrorists — the so-called non-enemy combatants like al-Qaida suspects caught by the United States in Afghanistan.

But as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has made clear, the Geneva Conventions do apply in Iraq.

I didn't know this was going on under our noses at the BI forums. I've heard of moderator brutality, but this goes too far!

No but seriously, sorry to joke about it, it's interesting information.

[miles teg 1]

That quote about "taking the training wheels off" is another example of how Bush doesn't have a clue about Iraqi or Arab culture. He's treating them like our "little brown children" which insults and shames Arab to high heaven. Shame is a HUGE HUGE thing in Islamic cultures. To be dishonored (or dis'ed as kids in America say) is really really serious and often provokes violence and blood feuds in the Middle East.

Whatever your belief about Middle Eastern cultures, it is just STUPID to insult the people you're trying to help and to treat them like children. They are human beings with self-esteem just like any of us and sadly we choose to forget that as we focus on the violent actions of militants in Iraq and the suppression of such violence through even greater violence and oppression in return....which in turn provokes more and more Iraqis into joining the resistance there.

It's a lose-lose situation unless we are prepared to ramp up the violence and build a hell of a lot more prisons using Saddam style brutality and vast networks of Iraqi spy cells (which we have failed to develop due to the problem of identifying loyal Iraqis vs. double agents).

The alternative is to follow the British approach and only respond defensively and with minimum amount of offensive violence against Iraqi insurgents until the Iraqi armed forces are strong enough to carry out their own heavy handed tactics against militants and set up their own intelligence networks... but the experts in that (ex Baath party intelligence agents) are all dead, in prison, or fighting alongside the insurgents.

There is also the novell approach of actually trying to negotiate with some of the larger militant groups in order to convince them to help out and kick out foreign militants and help provide security rather then continue to attack US forces. This theory is being tested in Fellujah, but info is sketchy about how well that arrangement is working out.

Against Al-Sadr the US Army has taken the opposite route, and refuses to negotiate with him even when he offered to negotiate.

This is a case of the Army and Marines doing their own thing and the left hand not really knowing what the right hand is doing with no clear strategy to identify which military units are having success and attempting to build upon those successes and which units are miserable failures in their AO's and replacing (probably not practical) or ordering those units to use different tactics.

So there is a lot of break-down I think in the leadership of the US military there and not much oversight. It's like every AO commander is fighting their own private war. Sometimes this is good to a certain extent (operational flexibility), but it is bad there is inadequate oversight by higher ups in the chain of command. Why this is I do not know, but there seriously needs to be some intensive internal analysis within the US military operations in Iraq by people independent of the military and not subject to a chain of command and conflicts of interests (as well as threats to their career if they issue a highly critical report).

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Schoeler 0]

From Ebud's article, which I think is total RUBBISH! Another flat-brain american publishing his little candy-worldpicture.

This ignorance and arrogance will make some people fall very deep one day. - I hope -

And another anti-American comment from you Albert, which frankly I find ironic given that you criticize us for denigrating those whose opinion differs from our own when in point of fact you have and repeatedly continue to do the very same thing.

Shall I offer other examples of yours and other's hypocrisy on these forums or would you rather avoid the public embarassment?

[PAPABEAR_1985 0]

Just wondering why most of Arab countries don’t have democratic governments.

That because they need help 2 do that .damn some countries around didn’t have election for over 30 year.

And even if there election it's all faked. And I have never seen more horrible government like sadam and his gang.

Most of the army from taqrity family its easy 2 know that they need help even if they didn’t asked for help.

They was steeling there own country people like those should removed.

Or kill there own stupid sellfs

[billybob2002 0]

Chalabi, agent of Iran?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....1191814

Quote[/b] ]

Chalabi handed US secrets over to Iran: report

53 minutes ago  

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi faced accusations that he passed classified US intelligence to Iran as the United States faced strong criticism from the Iraqi Governing Council over a raid on Chalabi's home.

Quote[/b] ]

CBS television, quoting senior US officials, said the former Pentagon (news - web sites) favourite personally handed Iranian intelligence officers sensitive information that could "get Americans killed."

It quoted the officials as saying that the evidence against Chalabi was "rock solid."

If this is true, I now know why many people in the government did not like him....

[Donnervogel 0]

Just wondering why most of Arab countries don’t have democratic governments.

That because they need help 2 do that .damn some countries around didn’t have election for over 30 year.

And even if there election it's all faked. And I have never seen more horrible government like sadam and his gang.

Most of the army from taqrity family its easy 2 know that they need help even if they didn’t asked for help.

They was steeling there own country people like those should removed.

Or kill there own stupid sellfs

The only thing on which I agree with you is that they need help.

But maybe you should think further. Does it help to create something fragile like a democracy when you destabilise a country and the whole region?

And You can't just impose democracy. A democracy can only be developed by the people living in a country. Because democracy is the rule of the people.

And then, and this is the most important point IMHO, the people in the arab world don't have the same ideals as we have. If you look at the origin of modern democracies you have to look at Europe in the 17./18. Centrury. It was the time of absolutism but also the time of enlightement. It was Rousseau's and Montesquieu's ideas that formed the modern republican democracies. And when you look where we have real democracies today it's no wonder that it's almost exclusively found in regions of the world that experienced the epoch of enlightement or that were heavily influenced by european ideals at some point of time (like the USA, Japan, Australia, ...).

And there are sevral countries that represent the basic idea of a democracy but with some flaws. Like the Russian democracy (Putin himself calls it a "managed democracy") or the Indian democracy (caste system). But all these regions did have strong roots of democratic ideals and often strong democratic movements before a democracy could be established. But in the arab world the influebnce of these ideas was always very very limited. The only arab nations that were influenced by European powers and that come to my mind now are Turkey and Persia (basicly Iraq/Iran)

And the last example is not very encouraging.

In Iraq 60% of the population are Shiites and from what I know most of them support the creation on an islamic theocracy. Then you've got two minorities (Kurds and Sunnis) which are not very keen on being ruled by the shiites. But in a republic the Shiites would naturally represent a majority in the legislature. So you've got a problem. How should the "rule of the people" work when the people are so strongly devided. And when you think back. The Baath party and Saddam Hussein came to power through the movement that was the most close thing to a democratic movement in Iraq.

In Iran you've go an islamic theocracy. And the democratic time there (if you can call it like that) was overthrown by it's own people.

Now when you look on those countries in the middle east that are on their way to a real democracy you also see that it all develps very slowly. But that's naturally. But IMHO that's the reason why it works. Turkey is a good example. It's still a very controled democracy (the military still has many important powers). But if you look at the progress they made. It's really encouraging even though it took much time.

I know some people, like Bush, are claiming the USA brought democracy to Germany after WW2. Every historian can tell you that that's rubbish. Germany was one of the countries where the Enlightement was born. Germany also experienced the democratic revolutions of 1830 and espeacially 1848. The German national state of 1871 knew some democratic elements too (free elections for the legislature, political parties). And after WW1 Germany became a democratic republic and let's not forget that Hitler and the NSDAP came to power trough this democracy. So Germany was a democracy before. It was not imposed by the USA. Germany had strong democratic movements all the time.

So what to do to help those people to develop democracies? Well I think you cann't go there and declare a country to be a democracy. But I agree they need help. They need help in development and education. They don't need our armies in their countries. I agree that Saddam was a bad guy and the destruction of his regime was a good thing. But you have to think what to do afterwards before. There was no plan that a serious thinking person could expect to work. Personally I expect Iraq to become a huge failure and to set back the democratic efforts in the region at least a decade.

[miles teg 1]

Chalabi, agent of Iran?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....1191814

Quote[/b] ]

Chalabi handed US secrets over to Iran: report

53 minutes ago  

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi faced accusations that he passed classified US intelligence to Iran as the United States faced strong criticism from the Iraqi Governing Council over a raid on Chalabi's home.

Quote[/b] ]

CBS television, quoting senior US officials, said the former Pentagon (news - web sites) favourite personally handed Iranian intelligence officers sensitive information that could "get Americans killed."

It quoted the officials as saying that the evidence against Chalabi was "rock solid."

If this is true, I now know why many people in the government did not like him....

People did not like Chalabi because they guy is and a total sleaze bag weasel.   Many people knew this guy was a power hungry bastard who'd kill his own mother for power.   Yet this is the SAME GUY who provided a HUGE chunk of the "evidence" of WMD's and Al-Qaeda links that Chalabi's so called "defectors" provided to the Bush administration.  It was clear from interviews I've seen of some of these defectors that they were lying or that their stories were very weak because different defectors talking about the SAME place were telling VERY different stories.  Anybody with slightest bit of knowledge on doing intelligence work would have known that the information was very weak.  If I remember correctly I believe also that their were some allegations that Chalabi paid these defectors large sums of money to defect and provide this information on WMD's and Al-Qaeda links...none of which ever panned out after the invasion.  

In addition Chalabi is wanted for fraud in Jordan.  

This guy is a two-faced backstabbing sleazebag and its no surprise why Iraqis don't like him.   So I'm happy to see this raid done him.  They should try him on treason or at the very least, send him to Jordan to face trial for fraud.

However looking from Chalabi's perspective I can understand why he did what he did. He knows Iraqis won't support him if he stays loyal to the US, so he simply is finding new allies who will support him in his bid for political power. It's pure political survival tactics and he probably supplied Iran with intelligence to prove his loyalty to the Iranian regime.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Bernadotte 0]

...

They should try him on treason or at the very least, send him to Jordan to face trial for fraud.

Jordan tried and convicted Chalabi in absentia, ages ago. A 22-year prison sentence with hard labour awaits him if he ever returns.

Of course TBA knew all that, but still built much of their WMD case around the testimony of witnesses supplied by Chalabi.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

From Ebud's article, which I think is total RUBBISH! Another flat-brain american publishing his little candy-worldpicture.

This ignorance and arrogance will make some people fall very deep one day. - I hope -

And another anti-American comment from you Albert, which frankly I find ironic given that you criticize us for denigrating those whose opinion differs from our own when in point of fact you have and repeatedly continue to do the very same thing.

Shall I offer other examples of yours and other's hypocrisy on these forums or would you rather avoid the public embarassment?

If you quote me, then put it into context

I refered to the following extract

Quote[/b] ]Those pictures said volumes.  They said "We're your worst fucking nightmare: We're Americans.  Our women are stronger than your men.  Our littlest women will strip naked the strongest men you can muster, and make fun of their puny cocks while enjoying a cigarette.  Our women love to get naked, love sex, and revel in the sexual prowess of their American male partners.  They'll put impotent "men" like you naked on leashes whenever they want.  America is the most powerful country in the world, and guess what? Women control 70% of its money and 100% of its pussy.  What are you going to do about it? Behead some Jewish "contractor"? Fat lot of good that's going to do.  We'll put on some hearings for show, but you know the truth: we'll do whatever we want whenever we want, and we'll have our women do it.  Just for fun. Think we're kidding? Wait 'til you see our beer ads."

please note that this guy explicitly brings into play the cultural clash between AMERICANS and MUSLIMS. No word about the fact that there might be innocent people emprisoned. No sign of cultural sensitivity, actually the opposite is the case. The author deliberately seems to search for weaknesses in the islamic culture, that he can make fun of. Forcing muslims to eat pork ... oh yes.. this is realy an indicator of people intending to bring peace and democracy to Iraq. Is he refering to defending western values or simply americans showing those b. how the cooky crumbles?

Refering to me as anti-american? Well fine, I can live with that, but you should rather be concerned about this sort of pretty POPULAR stream within your own country! Just have a look at the official US military forum and there you get similliar comments from soldiers actually IN iraq. Dont worry about me, I live far away, but people like him are valid voters in our neighbourhood.

And no. I dont criticise opinions. I just open my mouth when those opinions are put into action!

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Of course TBA knew all that, but still built much of their WMD case around the testimony of witnesses supplied by Chalabi.

Kind of funny that his "friends" in the TBA (and the government) were neo-cons....

Anyway, it was hot day in Nov.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120628,00.html

Quote[/b] ]

Most Iraqi Abuse Photos

Friday, May 21, 2004

WASHINGTON — Many of the worst abuses that have come to light from the Abu Ghraib prison happened on a single November day amid a flare of insurgent violence in Iraq, the deaths of many U.S. soldiers and a breakdown of the American guards' command structure.

Quote[/b] ]

Nov. 8 was the day U.S. guards took most of the infamous photographs: soldiers mugging in front of a pile of naked, hooded Iraqis, prisoners forced to perform or simulate sex acts, a hooded prisoner in a scarecrow-like pose with wires attached to him.

Quote[/b] ]

The International Red Cross (search) temporarily pulled out of Iraq on Nov. 8 because of the violence, which also had included a deadly car bomb outside the aid group's Baghdad headquarters on Oct. 27.

Quote[/b] ]

Two days after the Nov. 8 spasm of abuse, the general in charge of the MPs gave written reprimands to two of the unit's leaders for failing to correct security lapses at Abu Ghraib. Taguba recommended further disciplinary action against the two officers — Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum and Maj. David DiNenna. It is unclear if that has happened; they have not been criminally charged.

[billybob2002 0]

Had to post this.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120650,00.html

Quote[/b] ]

Reporter's Notebook: Tracking Chalabi

Friday, May 21, 2004

By Greg Palkot

BAGHDAD — Ahmed Chalabi had one of those bad weeks. Some might say he was asking for it.

Quote[/b] ]

But with U.S. soldiers standing guard, and even more serious charges swirling around him — like leaking potentially life-threatening information about U.S. troops to Iran — it seems that American officials, some of whom once championed Chalabi, are now more than happy to kiss this guy good-bye.

Quote[/b] ]

I first met Chalabi in August 2002. Where else? In his offices a few doors down from Harrod's department store in the swank Knightsbridge section of London. This was often the rap on him: While many other fellow Iraqi "dissidents" were sweating it out in Hussein prison hellholes, he and his crowd were seen as hanging around London watering holes, in touch equally with the struggling Iraqi masses as with the likes of (fellow London frequenter) Gwyneth Paltrow.

Quote[/b] ]

First when I went to see him, his aides at the INC office said he wasn't there. Then, they said that maybe he WAS there. They let us in for an interview. (I could never figure out whether his buddies were just angling for more Fox face time for themselves or actually shielding their boss.)

Quote[/b] ]

All I could think of was my interview with now-Afghan President Hamid Karzai the October before in Quetta, Pakistan. He spoke deeply and emotionally about a new Afghanistan. He was already getting ready to enter the southern part of the country to lead a guerilla war against Mullah Omar's boys there.

Quote[/b] ]

The last time I saw Chalabi was later that same year. A mass grave of several thousand slain Iraqi Shiites had been uncovered south of Baghdad. There were stories from years ago about Saddam's henchmen doing away with legions of his foes and hauling them by truckload to be buried, some of them alive. Now, families had come to identify their long-lost loved ones. It was, perhaps, the most emotional scene I had ever witnessed during my years in Iraq.

Quote[/b] ]

And who was there? None other than Ahmed Chalabi, working the crowd (and the press). Except it didn't exactly go to plan. When some of the mourners spotted him and got wind of his mission they started to hurl epithets — and worse — at him. He and his body guards barely avoided being hurled into the same grave the unlucky Saddam dissidents had long found themselves in.

Quote[/b] ]

The most he appears able to do is undercut efforts by the U.S. to hand over the Iraqi reins to the U.N. and other Iraqis, who have more grass-roots support.

Quote[/b] ]

Still, it's apparent Chalabi's not going down easy. "Let my people go," he declared at a press conference this week in defiance of the Coalition. My guess is that at least some Iraqis — and others — might be happy to see HIM "go"....back to Knightsbridge, London.

[Bernadotte 0]

Anyway, it was hot day in Nov.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120628,00.html

Interesting.  I had a look to see what we were discussing in the old Iraq 2 thread on 8 November, when all this abuse was happening.  I found this:

Six dead according to this...

Quote[/b] ]An American Black Hawk helicopter has been forced down near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing all six soldiers on board.

I read this Washington Post article. It was the same ole', until I saw this section:

Quote[/b] ]The U.S. military responded to Friday's attack with a show of force in Tikrit, a city about 90 miles northwest of Baghdad where Hussein's clan has its roots. Before midnight, two Air Force F-15s dropped 500-pound bombs on the spot where the attack may have been launched, and artillery fired several rounds near the site.

U.S. forces, backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, destroyed vacant houses said to have been used by attackers in the past, and the military reimposed an 11 p.m. curfew on a nearby neighborhood. Under cover of darkness, soldiers from the 4th Infantry staged raids and arrested at least eight people.

"We've lost six of our comrades today. We're going to make it unequivocally clear what power we have at our disposal," said Col. James Hickey, commander of the division's 1st Brigade.

The U.S. military said it had not determined whether the Black Hawk was brought down by mechanical failure or an attack.

Ok, so they're not sure that it was shot down and what do they do? As reventge they drop bombs blindly and start making arrests, blowing up buildings and harassing the civilian population.

Yeah as history has shown that kind of tactics worked well for the Nazis.