Washington, DC May 14th — At 9:30 AM, at the National Press Club, Former United States Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel introduced the United States Armed Forces Withdrawal From Iraq Act, a tough law with sobering consequences to finally get the Bush Administration’s full attention. Gravel will also outlined in detail a very tough legislative strategy to close out the war by Labor Day and have American troops home by Christmas. The only requirement is congressional leadership.
The Senator said, “The Congress must stop acting alone on the war issue and bring the American People into the fray to adjudicate the constitutional confrontation between the Congress and the President, if we are to end the mess Bush created before January 2009.”
“Constitutionally the Congress is the superior power. The President can only enforce the law and obey it like any other citizen. Congressional timidity over the years encouraged by political partisanship has unleashed an imperial presidency. When the presidency falls into the hands of a messianic true-believer like Bush the result is a morally questionable foreign policy and a domestic disaster threatening the nation’s safety.” The Senator pointed out.
The essence of the Gravel Plan: the congressional leadership must draw-out over days and weeks, if necessary, repeated daily cloture votes in the Senate and repeated daily veto override votes in both chambers to give American voters time to weigh-in and force two-thirds of their Senators and Representatives to vote to override the President’s veto of the American will.
Gravel added: “In the face of a President oblivious to human suffering and death, the voting public is the only power that can stop the war. The Congress can and must energize this citizen’s power. Timidity, compromise, comity and politics as usual are not viable alternatives to LEADERSHIP when Americans and Iraqis are dying every day.”
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34 responses so far ↓
anticant // May 14, 2007 at 2:23 am |
This man has the makings of a statesman. He obviously means business. Most heartening!
Kent // May 14, 2007 at 2:25 am |
If we bring everyone home now, then who will be “oblivious to human suffering and death”?
Will pulling out of Iraq right now bring peace and prosperity to those people? Certainly nobody wants to be there, but I find it amazing that so many Democrats think that pulling out now will stop the violence and blood shed. What would be worse, the fact that we got into this war without knowing its consequences, or prematurely leaving before we knew the consequences.
Once again, all Senator Gravel has done is provide us very typical rhetoric and name calling that is great for news cycles and bloggers, but will do very little to help our people, our situation in Iraq, or our government.
Kent
Please feel free to comment more on US and Canadian foreign policy!
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Winter Patriot // May 14, 2007 at 2:43 am |
Kent?? Kent!! It’s time to wake up!!
Will pulling out of Iraq right now bring peace and prosperity to those people?
Maybe not, but it will give them the chance to build peace and prosperity for themselves. The only thing that’s absolutely certain right now is that they will never have peace and prosperity while their country is occupied by foreigners — especially foreigners who get their kicks torturing and killing them.
What would be worse, the fact that we got into this war without knowing its consequences, or prematurely leaving before we knew the consequences.
Nobody ever goes to war knowing the consequences. We got into this war based on a pack of lies, carefully constructed and expensively marketed lies … It’s time to WAKE UP and recognize this very important fact.
As for leaving “prematurely”, there can be no such thing as “premature” withdrawal. Even if every American soldier left Iraq tomorrow and even if they took all the mercenaries with them, it would still be more than four years too late.
all Senator Gravel has done is provide us very typical rhetoric
More BS, Kent. There is nothing at all typical about Senator Gravel’s plan to make the prosecution of the war illegal.
Jose // May 14, 2007 at 4:45 am |
Winter Patriot, thumbs up to that. I fully agree with you.
boldscot // May 14, 2007 at 12:02 pm |
‘..the fact that we got into this war without knowing its consequences, …..’
Anyone with access to a terminal knew two things :
1) There was no WMD and the invasion had been planned years in advance.
2) The aim was the partition of Iraq into ‘easily manageable’ regions.
Kent // May 14, 2007 at 5:19 pm |
I understand all of your points; but the fact is we sit here and continue to debate like this war is still in its pre-stages. It’s been going on for five years folks and whether it is legal or illegal is not important now!! What is important now is how we can help this country get its feet on the ground and protect itself. What do Iraqi’s care now if the war was legal? To them it was illegal, yet they continue to kill eachother despite the fact that they can ALL AGREE it was illegal!
I understand you care for our troops; I do, too, as I have family over there. Is pulling out now going to stop the blood shed? NO. Will it create a power vaccum. YES. Why are we sitting here debating whether we should have gone in or not when we should be debating how to help Iraq steady itself.
Winter Patriot, you must wake up my friend! Look and the news and you might see who is killing and torturing…they are doing it to eachother! When a bomb rips through a crowded market, who set it off…foreigners? U.S. troops? NO! The fact that it religious sects doing it to one another is awful and this soap box debate of WMD’s and legality contributes nothing to the real problem.
If Senator Gavel wants to make this war illegal, give it your best shot Senator. But what kind of Foreign Policy is that? How many Iraqi and American lives have you saved by this technicallity? Come up with a plan FOR Iraq, not AGAINST the Bush administration.
anticant // May 14, 2007 at 8:33 pm |
Kent, it is the US of A who need to steady themselves, even more than Iraq. It is the US of A who are primarily responsible for the instability in the Middle East, because of their unswerving support for Israel, however unreasonable its behaviour, and their failure to understand the history and culture of the region.
The dismay of many of America’s best friends in Britain and Europe at the invasion of Iraq was not primarily because it was illegal and immoral – although it was both – but because it was glaringly STUPID. The outcome of this adventure was entirely foreseeable by anyone who’s knowledge of the place was more than skin deep. Gertrude Bell – a contemporary and colleague of Lawrence of Arabia, who was literally a kingmaker in Iraq and Jordan after World War One – said in the 1920s that you can conquer Iraq, but you cannot occupy it. She was totally right.
It is indeed appalling that religious fanatics are killing each other, but that is the nature of religious fanatics. Can you or anyone else suggest how you get them to cease being religious fanatics? The notion that you can export “democracy”, American or any other style, through the barrel of a gun is an utterly naïve piece of American apple pie-in-the-sky. If Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, or anyone else sincerely believed that, they would believe anything.
If the Iraqis, or anyone else, do not WANT democracy, the only sensible thing to do is to leave them alone unless they are threatening our security. In cases such as the Darfur and Bosnian genocides, intervention should be carried out internationally, under the auspices of the United Nations – not unilaterally by the USA and Britain in defiance of the United Nations.
If you think that I, as an Englishman, have no business intervening in an internal American political dispute, please remember that America’s self-chosen leading role in the world makes what her Presidents and politicians do of immediate concern to every individual on this planet, and they should be prepared to be held accountable by the global population. To very many of us in Europe, the invasion of Iraq was a reckless combination of wickedness and folly. I am charitable enough to believe that the folly exceeded the wickedness, though not by very much.
Kent // May 14, 2007 at 11:13 pm |
Anticant – this is the garbage I’m talking about. Take your damn blinders off and realize that I am in no way supporting this war or the criterea for it. In my oppinion, the real fight is in Afghanistan…but that was not my choice. The fact is BOTH of our countries are in Iraq and the people there are in dire need of safety and security. You think I want my country occupying Iraq or any country in the Middle East?
You have just wasted five paragraphs telling me something I already know and feel. I’m a political realist; you think I’m happy my country got bogged down in this mess? You think I like the fact that our true interest at chasing the Taliban in Afghanistan is being under cut because of our decision to split hairs in Iraq? It’s too bad for you.
This is what I’m talking about. You waste your damn time soap boxing people instead of debating the problem. We all know it was glaringly STUPID, and YOUR country followed suit! What I’m saying is instead of complaining about what has already happened (which is a waste of time) why not try to come up with a way to fix it?? Sure, religious fanatics do act like that; so, pulling out all of our troops is the best was to fix that situation? That’s an interesting perspective…but I’ll look into it.
Apple-pie-in-the-sky Americanism? Did you come up with that, or is it borrowed? You continue to come up with witty, ignorant put downs; meanwhile, i’ll be working my ass off trying to figure out a solution to this problem of OURS, since your Englishmen are very much a part of it.
anticant // May 15, 2007 at 1:57 am |
Well, well, Kent! You are strong on the sneering put-downs, aren’t you? Political realist, forsooth! It’s you who has the blinders on and is wilfully ignonrant of the glaring fact that though you and the majority of Americans don’t want to be in Iraq, the ruling clique of PNAC hawks around Bush do and were planning to go there since the early 1990s.
A couple of links:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/BloodMoney_PNAC_WRPitt.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17689.htm
Of course Afghanistan and bin Laden were the crux, and you’ve flunked that one too. And Pakistan is going to blow up in our faces very soon.
As for Blair’s lapdogism, he ignored over a million people marching against the Iraq war, and is now one of the most unpopular prime ministers in British history.
When criminal, and criminally stupid, acts have been committed, it is NOT enough to say “forget how we got into this mess”. You won’t get out of it until you rid yourselves of the arrogant lunatics who got us all into it.
Jose // May 15, 2007 at 4:43 am |
Well said, Anticant. The mess those lunatics you speak of got us into is so huge that scores of years will be necessary to calm the waters down, because apart from the lunatics we also will have to face those who support them and are not conscious of the dangers the whole world is going through.
Afghanistan, Iraq, the Koreas, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, the whole of Latin America, the former dismembered USSRS, India, Africa you name it. Let alone the planet warming.
How that mess is going to be tidied up I am at a loss to understand and with me, I am sure, hundreds of millions more.
Globalisation, isn’t it?
anticant // May 15, 2007 at 5:49 am |
Another text for you to chew over, Kent:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17694.htm
boldscot // May 15, 2007 at 11:10 am |
Kent said : ‘When a bomb rips through a crowded market, who set it off…foreigners? U.S. troops? NO!’
What do you mean ‘NO!’ ?
As I said in my previous post the fomenting of Civil War was the tactical means by which the long term strategic aim of the partition of Iraq into ‘easily manageable’ regions.
Sure, there is an amount of ’score settling’ going on but by far the majority of the death squads have been armed and trained by the US.
Negroponte was brought to I raq to carry out the same job he did in Central America ie set up such a system.
A couple of years ago British SAS agents in Arab clothes were arrested while on a mission – together with a vehicle loaded with material for carrying out terrorist attacks.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/270905plantingbombs.htm
‘”The word on the street in Baghdad is that the cessation of suicide car bombings is proof that the CIA was behind them. Why? Because as one man states, ‘[CIA agents are] too busy fighting now, and the unrest they wanted to cause by the bombings is now upon them.’ True or not, it doesn’t bode well for the occupiers’ image in Iraq.” (http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-jamail200404.htm)‘
Blinkers, you said? Just curious, ever run in the Kentucky Derby?
1loneranger // May 15, 2007 at 1:30 pm |
“The notion that you can export “democracy”, American or any other style, through the barrel of a gun is an utterly naïve piece of American apple pie-in-the-sky. ”
Absolutely Anti!
Enough said.
Kent-
Whether this war is “legal or illegal” is of paramount importance and should never be forgotten or set aside to focus more acutely on the war itself.
You are an unwitting promoter of the false ideology that violence curbs violence. You and people like you are America’s problem. You would justify murder and military imperialism in the name of ‘freedom and liberty’ while all you really do is help push those sacred rights further and further away from our everyday lives.
1loneranger // May 15, 2007 at 2:08 pm |
Merkmeister-
Your welcome contributions to this thread went the way of so many copies of Fahrenheit 451 in so many backward school districts down south… caught by the old filter they were.
Sorry for that, not sure how I can remedy this situation. I think it must be the copious links.
Kent // May 15, 2007 at 2:25 pm |
I’m sorry. Perhaps, I didn’t do a sufficient job of explaining my position, because you folks seem to think I am at odds with you over the fact that this situation in Iraq in a mess. Maybe you are also so caught up on your own take of the situation that you are failing to see my point here. Perhaps you can answer a few questions for me.
When in my writing did I support the Bush administration’s choice for going to war? When did I “justify merder and military imperialism in the name of ‘freedom and liberty’? What are these articles Anti posted telling me that I didn’t already know? When did a quest of analysis become ‘false ideology’? Is your opinion ‘true ideology’? When did someone like me, looking for a real debate on an issue, become America’s problem? Is your blame game America’s solution? Is it Britain’s solution?
Jose said it best. “How is this mess going to be tidied up?” That is what I am after here. I understand you are angry and you immediately want to tag me as a rednecked neocon who is blindly in support of the American president and who won’t listen to anybody else unless he has Dick Cheney’s blessing. But where in my writing did you pull this from??
When I say the legality of this is not important at the moment, I do not say this because I want to save somebody’s ass by sweeping this issue under the table. What I am interested in are real solutions and real debate on how to clean up this mess the right way. Again, none of you has dared to answer the question ‘will the violence stop if Bush is impeached or his choice for war is deemed illegal by a court?’ You know your answer. Unfortunatly, no.
If you carefully read what I have written you will deduce that I am not in support of staying in Iraq to further advance the causes of ‘American freedom and liberty’ (When did I even write those words?) I am in favor of our troops staying there a little longer because I am aware of the unimaginable violence and bloodshed that will ensue in the vaccum of a post-occupation Iraq if the proper security and economic infrastructure is not functioning first. What I don’t get is, if you all found it ‘entirely forseeable’ (Anti, 1st post) the quagmire that would follow the invastion, how can you not ‘forsee’ the catastrophe that would follow our immediate departure at this very moment?
You seem to think that I feel it is in America and Britain’s self-interest to stay there. It is not. But nor is it in our best interest to leave a country ruined. You honestly think I am ‘justifying murder’? How will you jusify the genocide that will follow our immediate departure? Certainly you would use the ‘freedom and liberty’ clause. Democrats are already doing it. ‘The American people voted for us to get out of Iraq.’ I think maybe they did, however, without knowing the full consequences. But when did an American life become worth more than an Iraqi life? When did a British life become worth more?
I know you want make this into a war of words over “pro-Iraq v. anti-Iraq”; it makes for more interesting reading, and better blogstats. What you don’t want to see is that we all want to get out of Iraq. That is not the debate. The debate is how can we get out of Iraq without leaving a bigger mess than we find there now. You think leaving now will. That is your position. Prove it to me. You don’t need to continue with the ‘it’s people like you’ rant, or the ‘look at these links to prove what a lunatic you are’ defense. We are on the same team when it comes to our desire to get out of there. But what is the best way to do it? At the current rate, will both of our countries not find ourselves back there in a few years trying to clean up a genocide?
boldscot // May 15, 2007 at 3:21 pm |
‘..it makes for more interesting reading, and better blogstats’.
Now, now, I don’t think any of the bloggers here are particularly interested in NetStats.
Can you see adverts anywhere on any of the Awkward Squad sites.?. No.
In analysing from a business perspective, you betray why we are unable to understand the Iraq situation from the standpoint of the M/I complex.
I also note that you haven’t commented on the role of Negroponte in all of this.
Merkin // May 15, 2007 at 3:27 pm |
Pats head and rubs stomach.
Quite correct, it is the links.
I forgot.
Had the same thing a few months ago on Jose’s site.
The limit is 1 link.
I was just overcome with enthusiasm because there were dozens of links to show the role of Brit and American special forces in Iraq – none of it benefitting the people of Iraq.
1loneranger // May 15, 2007 at 3:51 pm |
Kent-
First off let me just say I respect you for continuing to come back to this thread time and time again and I’m glad we’re keeping this conversation going. I hope you will keep the conversation going. Trust me, this topic and post has nothing to do with building blogstats or the like. It has everything to do with conversing with one another and finding remedies for injustice, exposing war criminals and war crimes carried out in our names and discussing possible solutions to this terrible situation in Iraq as well as preventing any more violence in Iraq or Iran.
You said:
“How will you jusify the genocide that will follow our immediate departure?”
I say:
How do you or we or BushCo. justify the genocide that has been going on there for the last four years and continues to go on there today openly and covertly, and will be going on in Iran shortly? Because lets just call it what it is, it’s a systematic genocide of Muslim people living in the Middle East carried out by occupying forces enabling militias, insurgencies and puppet Iraqi military forces. The PNAC architects created this mess and their plan is to keep going full tilt until the entire region is laid to waste by violence and infighting. We can not allow them to continue screwing the pooch, and they have proved over and over again that that is ALL they are capable of doing. I might, MIGHT!, support troops acting as traditional pale-blue headed peace keepers in certain Iraqi cities to quell violence, restore law and bolster democratically elected officials, but I will not support a BushCo led occupying force of blood thirsty killers and mercenary armies pretending to restore democracy. The U.S. military will never do this. It is time for them to leave and time for a U.N. led multi-lateral peace keeping contingent to go in.
We’re all trying to sift through the shit. And you seem to be knee deep in it.
There is no assurance that things will be better if we leave Iraq, but I don’t think they could be any worse. Western occupiers don’t belong on Iraqi soil. They don’t have the right to build military bases to control regional power there. And they don’t have the right to kill innocent civilians in the name of democracy. Do you honestly believe we are making it better by being there? It is shit because we went there and it continues to be shit because we stay there.
If the Sunnis and Shi’its want to fight it out when we leave, let them. That is their right, it is their country and it is in their and our best interests to let them have control of their interests. It is in the best interest of the western world and it is the U.S.’s responsibility as a powerful democracy to help promote a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi quagmire through legislation and negotiation as soon as possible.
There were never any Al Qaeda factions in Iraq before the U.S. lead the invasion into Baghdad, what makes you think they’ll stay or survive for that matter if we leave?
Yes, I agree, we are all seeing what a mess it is, and everyone agrees that something must be done to stop the bloodshed and indiscriminate taking of innocent civilian life.
Kent, you may not have said flat out that you support the Bush Administration’s agenda for War in the Middle East or flat out justify murder and military imperialism in the name of ‘freedom and liberty,….. BUT you’re acquiescence of the continuing Bush led military occupation of Iraq gives /me/ that sense.
Violence begets more violence. War solves nothing and all aggressive military presence in Iraq does is exacerbate an already catastrophic problem.
These people in the Middle East are our brothers and sisters, not our enemies.
Peace
anticant // May 15, 2007 at 4:58 pm |
KENT
Please don’t take our almost despairing criticisms of American policy so personally. I fully understand that you want out of Iraq, and think the invasion was a mistake. The trouble is that you are wrong when you say that “we ALL want to get out of Iraq. ” Sadly, that isn’t true. There are still far too many Americans – notably the present Administration – who want to stay in Iraq, either because they wrongly believe that it is not right to leave until an elusive ‘victory’ or ‘pacification’ is achieved, or – more sinisterly – because they never had any intention of leaving in the first place.
I fully understand that many – indeed most – Americans are idealistic folk with the best of intentions towards the rest of the world. But alas, such people all too often fail to notice [maybe they find it too incredible] the immoral manipulative Macchiavellian underbelly of much American overt and covert foreign policy as it has operated since WW2.
Yes, we are angry and we are even more frightened than angry. Without much better and more principled leadership from the USA, this new century is rapidly going to become an even more dangerous and nasty place than it already is. You ask “will the violence stop if Bush is impeached?”. No – but his impeachment will send out a signal that America is coming to its senses, and that the PNAC/neoCon project has been binned.
Yes, there will be further mayhem in Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East, if we leave. But that is no argument for staying. As for “leaving the country ruined”, who has ruined it?
What will be the likely consequences if we don’t leave – and even more if Bush is mad enough to attack Iran? Further overstretch and imminent collapse of American military and industrial power which – it may surprise you to know – I do NOT wish to see.
I grew up during WW2, and remember Churchill and Roosevelt as benign, if not always wise, leaders. Alas, it’s impossible to say the same of Bush and Blair. They are toxic. The most charitable thing one can say of the latter – though not the former – is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Winter Patriot // May 15, 2007 at 5:29 pm |
When we get out, if we ever get out, stuff like this will stop.
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/05/former-iraqi-collaborator-talks-about.html
Winter Patriot // May 15, 2007 at 5:48 pm |
If the USA really wanted to do anything for the people of Iraq … if the USA really wanted to stabilize the country … if the USA really wanted anything other than the oil and the “footprint in the middle east”, we might be able to talk about staying until we stabilize the place. But the fact is that our government is not interested in stability or peace or anything but the oil and the footprint. And that’s why we have to leave — now!
The allegedly sectarian strife that plagues Iraq is America’s doing — the death squads were set up, funded, trained and motivated by Americans…
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2005/12/amazing-progress-death-squads.html
The majority of Iraqis want us out now. The majority of Americans want us out now. And to say that we cannot leave until the country becomes stable is a vicious lie, because it can will never be stable while we are there, because our presence there is the chief cause of the instability.
But all this is moot, because the plan is to stay there forever, no matter what it may cost in dollars and lives, no matter how much damage it does to Iraq.
1loneranger // May 15, 2007 at 5:56 pm |
+Gravel+
The man himself speaketh.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2007/05/14/VI2007051401194.html
There has been much talk of why Gravel’s comments to the National Press Club the other day have not been covered more extensively in the media. Well, we all know why. I’m searching for more links to his speech as we speak.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/14/AR2007051401311.html?nav=rss_politics
Jose // May 17, 2007 at 11:11 am |
When an enterprise does not have solid, well founded principles that enterprise is bound to collapse and that’s what has happened in Iraq. The American-led invasion in Iraq had not the principles the leaders of all the countries intervening based their decision to go to war on, not at all.
For a country to be fully democratic it is necessary that its own people so wish and work steadily for the consecution of that democracy, without any external influences, just by themselves and in a peaceful way.
The Saddam’s dictatorship was cruel but its suppression and later consequences have been even more cruel.
In my opinion there is but one solution to the problem and that is that all foreign forces operating in Iraq abandon the country and let its authorities conduct independently the process with just the overseeing of that process by the UN.
Any oil contracts must be granted by Iraq of its free will, without interferences by whoever.
Agreements must be reached among all Iraqi factions to create a defence corps under the supervision of the UN, and that only can be attained if done by the Iraqis alone.
By the way no troops from the countries that participated in the invasion must remain with the UN.
anticant // May 17, 2007 at 4:43 pm |
Fine ideas, Jose, but alas, WE don’t have the say-so.
If you read the article I’ve posted in my arena, “Iraq – is this the truth?” , you’ll see that your scenario is extremely unlikely to happen. We look set for a long, rough ride.
In fact, I’m starting to wonder if the Iraq invasion WAS a stupid error from the PNAC/neoCon point of view, or if they anticipated the chaos that would ensue and it is all grist to their mill.
I expect you will have noticed that Richard Perle – “the prince of darkness” – is now attacking Bush for having ‘gone soft’ on the project’s strategic objectives.
Winter Patriot // May 18, 2007 at 3:19 pm |
Anticant, you are exactly right IMO.
Josh Marshall spelled all this out a long time ago in an article nobody wanted to read — or having read it, nobody wanted to believe it.
Here’s the link
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html
anticant // May 18, 2007 at 8:56 pm |
Many thanks, WP. That is the most insightful article I’ve read in a long time. I’ll post the link in my arena.
It makes lots of sense, and explains the good intentions – giving them the benefit of the huge doubts – and naivety behind the PNAC policies.
But it’s all so unrealistic, and [if you'll forgive a friendly voice from across the pond] so typically American, to believe that nobody anywhere could be so stupid or ill-willed as not to welcome ‘democracy’ [USstyle] with open arms when it’s thrust upon them.
Is there no-one over there who has an inkling of how the Middle Eastern/Arab/Muslim mind actually works?
My own deep fear is that it’s all got beyond armchair analysing of mistakes; what has already gone wrong may have tipped the scales irrevocably against successful outcomes, and things are only going to get worse – much worse – in the years immediately ahead.
And what is really frightening is that generations of youngsters are growing up in the US, Europe, and the Middle East who have known nothing else than what’s happening now and won’t have the background knowledge or the initiative to change it for the better.
Merkin // May 18, 2007 at 9:27 pm |
Well said, guys.
It is only now in Ireland that we are seen kids leaving school who have known some sort of peace, whereas in many parts of the world we are seeing people whose only frame of reference is conflict.
WP, many of us foresaw the possibility of partition in Iraq, well before the invasion, as one reason to stay out (apart from the obvious ones).
For me, even, it is only the Net which has given me the info that leads me to believe now that partition was a strategic aim.
I am certainly more than convinced.
Incidentally, a snippet came to me a few years ago from a member of the Brit special forces.
Media wisdom is that, in the first Gulf War, General Szwartkopf stopped at the Kuwait border by prior agreement.
Not so, according to my source.
In the belief that the Iraquis would fight hard on home territory with the resulting casualties, a special mission was set up.
The idea being for a ’small’ force to head straight for Baghdad.
However, reminiscent of the failed Carter attempt to free the hostages in Tehran, the operation was a failure.
The special force got lost in the desert and missed Baghdad by 60 miles.
Don’t know if it is true but would give it some credence as my aquaintance is a warmonger of the old school and very pro military.
Not prone to see failure in these matters.
Jose // May 19, 2007 at 7:04 am |
Indeed, WE don’t have “the say”, Anticant. Nor do WE have “the say” in anything that goes about in the world. OTHERS do have “the say”. But you won’t deny me my right to say what I think, as I don’t deny you your right to say what you think.
I knew from the very beginning what the Iraq war was meant for and I in its due time said so in other forums. And I know what the Iraq war has brought about, its consequences worldwide.
It isn’t Bush and Co., it is the system, but I understand what we are discussing here is how to end that infamous occupation although we, of course, don’t have “the say”.
anticant // May 19, 2007 at 12:36 pm |
Jose, you know very well that I would not dream of denying you the right to say what you think. You are the gentle, and often wise, voice of principled conscience on our blogs.
But what concerns me even more is the realpolitik of our current situation. There has never been a time in my recollection when the ‘masses’ in all countries were more powerless, or their voices more ignored. What matters most, surely, is how ‘we’ are to get ANYTHING done to our liking. We must keep on seeking answers to that puzzle.
Jose // May 19, 2007 at 7:39 pm |
If masses are ignored today – and as you know they also were yesterday although of this no many people were conscious – it is because the masses have so decided. When people get used to “comfort” they only worry about how to pay their invoices, never giving a thought to “why” they got indebted.
Divide and conquer is the way our “realpolitik” is being carried out, and for that the word “democracy” has been fundamental. The word “Democracy” has served to cause deep divergences between people instead of helping them to progress in the real social meaning of the word.
I often think that perhaps people would be very much better if they lived under a dictatorship, not the one we live under now which is a deceitful democracy, but an authentic dictatorship where everybody would be obliged to toe the line.
But that dictatorship, not having to choose political parties to govern us, might be the difference between unity and confrontation among the people. And that unity provoked by the dictatorship would oblige the said dictatorship to rule in a way that contemplates the real welfare of the citizens.
In sum I am inclined to think that ideologies are contrary to the spirit of union that should prevail among us.
You are always very kind to me, thank you.
anticant // May 19, 2007 at 9:31 pm |
Jose for World Dictator! Mr Universe?
1loneranger // May 19, 2007 at 10:09 pm |
I’d vote for h…. oh wait, sure I’d bow low to Jose the enlightened despot!, with Anti as his number 1 of course.
Pacified and lazy most of the western world has become. Of our own making for sure. But what will it take to /really/ wake us?
Is Democracy the worst enemy of unity? « Political, Human, Environmental Respect // May 20, 2007 at 7:28 am |
[...] http://1loneranger.wordpress.com/2007/05/14/senator-gravel-offers-a-plan-guaranteed-to-end-the-war-i... [...]
Jose // May 20, 2007 at 7:41 am |
My God! Overwhelming reaction! I have named the dictatorial demon here and we must all be exorcised. But that demon is lurking and we all know that it is doing its best and that we are letting it do.
I wasn’t born a dictator, Anticant and 1loneranger, and I will never be. Even home, with my children, I always used a democratic system since they were grown enough, that is almost 40 years ago.
I have written a new post – thanks Anticant for making me think- in my blog dealing with this real problem we have.
Actions will at all times meet with reactions, but we must be opportunistic enough – in the honest sense of the word- to use those reactions in a way that suits our democratic principles.