Re: Bush planning nuclear attacks?

Help wrote:
> Karl,
> Have you just admitted the it was the British that started all this and
> brought hardship on the many Arab peoples, and the Jews in Israel?

Two separate things - yes, the British Empire (and other European
empires) kicked off the oil lust thing. The Americans joined the game
in the 40s, and have now taken over; Americans use double the oil,
per-capita, that Europeans do, and ten times the Chinese. Hence when
America's oil supply is threatened, it acts like a junkie desperate for
its next fix. America needs a strong leader that can be honest with the
population: We need to get rid of our oil habit NOW before it kills us
in 20 years time.

> The
> Arabs are compensated more than fairly. That the rulers don't share it
> equally with their subjects is their fault.

It's less simple than that. The way empires work is to topple leaders,
replace them with their own puppets and then reward them highly. The
corruption and inquality in Saudi Arabia is largely the making of the
oil consuming countries, not of the Saudis. You should note that
Britain and America are responsible for toppling the last democratic
regimes in both Iran and Iraq. It's not a free-choice thing for the
colonised. It's a disgrace that a rich country like Saudi Arabia has
extreme poverty, but it's the West that props up the House of Saud, and
helps them suppress their own pro-democracy movements.

> Rich folks over here don't
> share their wealth either. America is not stealing anything from anyone.

America's doing just what Britain did for so long in Africa and Asia. I
call it theft.

> The leadership in those countries trade freely across the globe. They don't
> just work in our interest.

No, but those leaders owe their existence to America. If the US turned
its back on the House of Saud, the people would get the chance to
create a home-grown democracy. But doing that would increase oil prices
in the short term, so America (and Britain) will continue to tolerate
dictatorship and torture of Saudi dissidents.

> America is not the lawless country you seem to imply that it is. There are
> not automatic weapons being shot off in the local McDonalds every 35
> seconds. So stop it. We get very little crime news here from Europe, but
> I'm sure the bad guys over there have just as many guns as ours do, with
> access to more.

America's situation is somewhat worse, but point taken. My point was
that Americans are overly worried about the "scary" Islamic terrorists,
but less worried about the statistically more dangerous issues because
they are more familiar. You are more likely to die at the hands of a
drunk motorist than an Islamic terrorist.

> Please provide links to the reports of the raping of Arab women by the U.S.
> military at Abu Ghraib (sp).

Seymour Hersh claims to have seen video footage. This was publicised
some time ago but as yet no firm evidence has emerged (although we do
now that the Pentagon has unpublished evidence of abuse).

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/15/hersh_children_raped.html

'Hersh: children raped at Abu Ghraib, Pentagon has videos
>>From Daily Kos' partial transcript of a video (link to REAL stream) of
Seymour Hersh speaking at an ACLU event. He says the US government has
videotapes of children being raped at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

" Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about,
okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that
they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is
at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please
come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what
happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys,
children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with
the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack
of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total
terror. It's going to come out."'

> I have never seen anything about that. Open
> my eyes. Additionally provide links to the stories where the U.S. military
> has used chemical weapons.

There are widespread eyewitness reports from Falluja, including some
feature-length documentaries that have been widely screened in Europe
and the Middle East. Use of napalm and depleted uranium have been
admitted, but there is strong evidence of more:

"Two days after the US State Department released its annual Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices, Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli, an official
at Iraq's health ministry, told a Baghdad press conference that the
U.S. military used internationally banned weapons during its deadly
November 2004 offensive in the city of Fallujah.

Dr. ash-Shaykhli stated that his medical teams, assigned the
responsibility of investigating the health situation in Fallujah by
Iraq's health ministry, had done research that proved U.S. occupation
forces used substances, including mustard gas, nerve gas, and other
burning chemicals there.

In factone news source quoted Dr. ash-Shaykhli as stating, "I
absolutely do not exclude their use of nuclear and chemical substances,
since all forms of nature were wiped out in that city. I can even say
that we found dozens, if not hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds
that had perished as a result of those gasses.""

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/744/1/80/

> I don't believe this at all. Falluja was a
> miltary action against mainly the insurgency forces.

No, it was an all-out attack against a city. As the facts become better
known, it will go down as one of the great war crimes of this decade.

> People were bound to
> die. We took big hits on our side too. It was not a cake walk. Who is
> supplying the insurgency? What are the suppliers aims/goals?

Multiple: nationalists are fighting for end to occupation. Islamists
are fighting for an Islamic state. Arabs in general are outraged by the
occupation of an Arab country. It is in Iranian interests for the
Southern Shia to gain power - this seems to be already happening
despite the British presence there.


> The NY Times hasn't and doesn't apologize for anything. They'd rather
> demolish their newsroom than have to admit they got something wrong. You
> may think the NY Times is the voice of America, I'd beg to differ. The
> press in Anerica ( i.e., the major news organizations) haven't belonged to,
> or acted in the interests of the regular folks for a long time now. They
> are corproate shills/whores. I make no apologies for them. I am just as
> upset with their reporting as you. Thank goodness for alternative press and
> I don't mean FOX News.

I find this site useful - it is Iraqi and clearly anti-occupation, but
not pro-terrorism. It gives a different (Iraqi) perspective on what is
happening.

Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation: http://www.idao.org/

> The world has been coping with European stupidity for decades now. Through
> two world wars and other conflicts caused by European imperialism and its
> after effects.

I can't disagree. But to my eyes, America neatly picked up the thread
and used its strength after WWII to springboard its influence into
Europe's old territories. Iraq is one that had been British - Vietnam
was another that fell from French domination into American domination.

.

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