Scottish Islamic State Plotted

[Muhsin]

Dan Borno, what are you pitying me for? Did I ask for your pity? I asked if there was any credibility to this story. Rather than focus on the issue and respond to my question, you come back with this pity me nonsense. Not too long ago on this forum, there was another unflattering story on a different thread regarding some Muslims. Rather than discuss the report, many of you began by attacking both the story and its source. I recall how both Muhsin and Dan Borno dismissed the entire report as false reporting only to be informed later by Husnna that the story was in fact credible. I also recall telling you guys not to stick your feet in your mouths. I would have hoped that that embarrassment taught you both a lesson.....apparently not.

After a spending a quite long time reading and rereading that your post above, without comprehending it properly, I decided to ask you, as its writer King, to clarify to us where Husnaa says that that story is credible and not fiction. And where she embarrass anyone of us!

[HUSNAA]

 Just as your referring to my president as an "eejit."  He graduated from Yale with a degree in Law. 

You know what they say Jack, a rose by any other name still smells sweet. Same goes for Yale graduate Bush - still an "eejit" 

[Jack Fulcher]

Gee, Dave, you sure respond quickly to these posts.  I have a hard time fitting them in, but they're a highlight of my day.  I'm listening to Christopher Hitchens on YouTube as I write this, so be patient if I sound somewhat confused.

So you think that our invasion of Iraq was illegal?  Under what circumstances would such a war be legal?  Was the invasion by the first Bush when Saddam invaded Kuwait legal?  What made it so?  Here's why I think the invasion in 2003 was legal:

First of all, I don't think the imprimatur of the UN means much, and neither does any statement by its Secretary General.  For my money, the UN is an undemocratic gang of corrupt officials who set up programs in order to line their own pockets.  Kofi Anan's use of his son in the Oil for Food program is a good example.  How many millions of dollars does his family have now, compared with when he became SG?  But their resolutions in 2002 said that Saddam wasn't complying with previous resolutions and the conditions of the Food for Peace program, and gave us unspecified powers to enforce these conditions. 

Second, the president presented his evidence to the country and the world, saying that Saddam was a crazy guy with dangerous weapons, and he wasn't shy about using them.  Just look at Iran or Kuwait.  Bush didn't lie.  There's a recent opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, one of the country's liberal newspapers, that argues that presenting intelligence that's found to be incorrect is not lying:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kirchick16-2008jun16,0,1817942.story

He also presented this evidence to the US Congress, and they gave him authorization to use force to get these WMDs.  This was entirely legal under our system.

Third, the most important issue for me is that Saddam tried to kill my president right after the Kuwait invasion.  Clinton used this fact to bomb Saddam's intelligence building.  As far as I'm concerned, trying to kill the president is an act of war, so the invasion in 2003 was entirely justified.

I should tell you that I did not, in fact, support the invasion of Iraq when it happened.  I thought this was sort of silly, given that Saddam had little or nothing to do with 9/11, was somewhat secular and had no sympathy with the Wahabbis, and that there were other countries with deeper fundamentalist problems, like Sudan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.  However, it was clear to me that the policies we had pursued in the middle east up to that point had been fruitless, and that we were going to have to do something beyond just kicking the Taliban out of Afghanistan.  The fundamentalists ("Islamofacists"?) had been attacking my country for years without much response from us (e.g., The Cole, Khobar Towers, invasion of the embassy in Teheran, the East Africa embassies), so I knew that this would never stop without military action.  Clinton had done nothing, just as Carter had done nothing in 1980.  Even Reagan had run from Beirut.  If you read bin-Laden's fatwas and interviews of the late 1980s, it's clear that he thought our inaction in these events meant we're weak and we're ready to be overthrown.  If we're to prevent this behavior in the future, we need to establish bases in the Middle East in some country, and it's clear that Saudi Arabia was having a hard time justifying our presence at their bases.  So I guess Bush and his staff chose Iraq, and they were right that it was the easiest country to defeat militarily. 

Let's look at one of your sentences:  "All clear minded people across the world recognise that the Intelligence was distorted and invented."  Gee, Dave, do you define "clear minded" as "agreeing with Dave"?  Is this the same as defining "wrongheaded" as "disagreeing with Dave" as you did in an earlier post?  The UN inspectors in Iraq didn't find the WMDs, but complained repeatedly that Saddam wouldn't let them have access to all the sites and warehouses.  If you read the newspaper accounts at the time, it should have made you very suspicious of Saddam - he was acting like someone with something to hide.  Maybe he thought that the CIA knew he had no WMDs and that he then could say anything he wanted to save face with the Iraqis and Arabs (in his effort to be the new Salidan).  Whatever the underlying reasons, he certainly spoke and acted like he had things to hide there.  The inspectors weren't asking for more people, as you suggest, but were asking for full access to sites and palaces that Saddam kept locked up.

Dave, you refer to some quote you provided somewhere.  Was that the "aarayb" reference?  Quoting some semi-literate 20 year old soldier somewhere makes no sense - the population as a whole is just not what your prejudice dictates, Dave.

I agree that Abu Ghraib will be bad for our image, but I will respond that butt pyramids just aren't torture.  This is something that white, upper middle class kids might call torture, but they should know better.  Waterboarding is much closer to torture, but even it is marginal.  McCain calls it torture, so it probably is.  But making some guy wear women's panties on his head is clearly not torture.  Humiliation is not torture.  I also concede that Guantanamo will give us a bad name, and we need to review our policies there as well.  I hope the next president just bulldozes the building into the ground and gives the whole place back to Cuba.

This whole issue of whether Bush is a moron or eejit or visionary or buffoon or whatever is certainly fun to discuss.  Americans make a game of calling their politicians names, as I'm sure they do in all countries that guarantee free speech.  But what people think of Bush today is irrelevant.  What will they think of him in the future?  If this is the beginning of a process that defuses the whole middle east conflict, he may just be considered a visionary president.  He's already being compared to Harry Truman, the president who followed Franklin Roosevelt in 1944.  At the time he was considered a weak and ineffectual president.  However, today he's considered the one who defeated Japan through use of the atomic bomb, and someone who helped to save Europe from the Soviets after the war.  He wasn't a great speaker (as Roosevelt was), but he had a lot of practical wisdom.  Bush's problem is that he sounds stupid when he speaks to a group.  He's quite frankly embarassing.  But let's face it - he at last is showing the fundamentalists and Wahabbis that we're going to respond when they blow up our buildings and ships.  Clinton's legacy will be Monica and her black dress - he had a chance to respond to the attack on the Cole, but he failed to do so.

You say that even if Iraq had WMDs, that doesn't justify an invasion.  But I say it does, because Saddam was someone who wanted to use these weapons on just about anyone.  Remember that he killed more Muslims than anyone else before him, including thousands of his own people, especially the Kurds.  The fact that the US or UK or France also have WMDs is not very interesting, because they're not run by madmen who are dictators (no matter what you think of Bush).  This is not one law for the US and something else for others.  The same law is that if you have WMDs and have a habit of using them indiscriminately, you can't have the WMDs.

Your irrational hate for America and Bush seems to have affected your ability to do simple math.  Where do you get the 500,000 dead figure?  I know of no one, even crazy America and democracy haters, who makes such a silly claim.  And as for the 51 killed by a car bomb.  Who put the bomb in the car, Dave?  When the Methodists have a disagreement with the Presbyterians, do they blow each other up?  This is not America's fault.  This is very disfunctional behavior, it's been happening for decades, long before either of us were born, and maybe our actions out there will snap people out of it.  Certainly our policy of diplomacy and discussion has failed.

Back to work for me....Jack

[HUSNAA]

Jack u sound as if u've never moved from yr bigoted midwestern american  backyard to any spot on the surface of the earth. Anyway Planet America is not really part of the real world that is why u get the most distorted view of the rest of the world.  I totally disagree with u on everything u said. I have no time for further comments however.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

There's an old Scottish saying " There's none sae blind as those that will not see". This is very apt for the American apologists who refuse to see the consequence of America's illegal invasion of Iraq. The rest of the world can see. Only the sorry UK Government pretends not to see but everybdy else in Britain can see.
As a matter of morals America's invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, dressed up in lies about WMDs, cannot justify  the death of even one innocent child.
Jack, why don't you find out what America did at Fallujah - old men and women shot in their homes, children shot as they crossed the roads students masscred in the University campus, women and children shot as they tried to swim to escape across the Euphrates. Were the cluster bombs fired into Baghdad markets really smart enough to kill only "insurgents" and leave everybody else working at their little stalls unharmed?
I had Iraqi Christian friends. God knows where they are now. An acquaintance worked in Iraq for almost 20 years. Sespite the savage Saddam Hussein being in power, despite his brutality to the Kurds and the marsh Arabs Iraq functioned as the most efficient and well organised state in the Middle East. Their schools and universities worked; their hospitals and health service was the envy of the rest of the region; their basic infrastucture and services - power,transport, policing - worked. These are now all a shambles.
America,of course, surrounds all of Iraq's oil installations.
America doesn't even care about the thousands of young Americans that have died in this continuing conflict.
America gets away with this because at home most Americans have swallowed the guff that Jack churns out in defence of the indefensible.
Like Husnaa I will not respond anymore to Jack's nonsense.
Below is a reliable report passed to the UN over two years ago.

Report in 2006

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.
Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said.
"Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq's population have died above what would have occurred without conflict," according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq."  )
The survey, being published online by British medical journal The Lancet, gives a far higher number of deaths in Iraq than other organizations.)
The report's release came as nearly four dozen Baghdad civilians became casualties in another day of bombs and gunfire.
On Wednesday, Burnham defended his team's methodology, saying it was the standard used in developing countries to survey for HIV and other major health issues he said. In 87% of the interviews conducted, the researchers asked for death certificates, and people supplied these.
The report said that Iraqis "bear the consequence of warfare" and compared the situation with other wars: "In the Vietnam War, 3 million civilians died; in the Congo, armed conflict has been responsible for 3.8 million deaths; in East Timor, an estimated 200,000 out of a population of 800,000 died in conflict.
"Recent estimates are that 200,000 have died in Darfur [Sudan] over the past 31 months. Our data, which estimate that 654,965 or 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population has died in this, the largest major international conflict of the 21st century, should be of grave concern to everyone."
The researchers estimated that an additional 654,965 people have died in Iraq since the invasion above what would have been expected from the pre-war mortality rate. They did not ask families whether their dead were civilians or fighters.)
Violence claimed about 601,000 people, the survey estimated -- the majority killed by gunfire, "though deaths from car bombing have increased from 2005," the study says.
The additional 53,000 people who are believed to have been killed by the effects of the war mostly died in recent months, "suggesting a worsening of health status and access to health care," the study said. It noted, however, that the number of nonviolent deaths "is too small to reach definitive conclusions."
Other key points in the survey:
·  The number of people dying in Iraq has risen each year since March 2003.
·  Those killed are predominantly males aged 15-44.
·  Deaths attributed to coalition forces accounted for 31 percent of the dead.
·  Although the "proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006 ... the actual numbers have increased each year."
Burnham said the confidence interval of the data put the range of the number of deaths between 400,000 and 900,000. He suggested the media should not get too focused on the 655,000 number.
Professionals familiar with such research told CNN that the survey's methodology is sound.

[Jack Fulcher]

HUSNAA, I'm in a rush myself, however you should know that I'm NOT from the midwest, but from San Francisco in California.  Actually, I'm from Los Angeles (California), but I've lived in San Francisco for 20 years.  This is a very multicultural place, probably more so than any city in Africa, I think.  My neighbors include Christians of all stripes, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and atheists (these are the different religions I know about in my neighborhood).  I've visited all over the world (not Africa, however, and not Australia) and have lived in Mexico for awhile.  Let me know about the countries you've visited and lived in, Husnaa.  

Nevertheless, having lived someplace doesn't make you an expert on the area.  I suppose I'm an expert on California and its people, but I don't know a lot about the east coast of the US (like New York or Florida).  I can read and I can analyze, and there are some facts out there that speak for themselves.  I don't have to live there to understand crazy behavior.

And you and Dave seem to have this pathological reaction to President Bush, saying that he's the Devil or something like that.  Why is he worse than someone like, say, Robert Mugabe?  Is Mugabe a better president than Bush?  Isn't he having his opponents killed and locked up?  How about Vladimr Putin?  Doesn't he have the oil assets of his opponents confiscated?  How about the regimes running Myanmar or Sudan?  Aren't these worse for their people than Bush?  I think that you're just blinded by American support for Israel, which, by the way, won't change when Bush goes.  If Obama wins, who are you going to complain about then?

Gotta rush out to another (shudder) meeting.  Jack  

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Just noticed Jack's latest post which must havebeen posted about the same time as mine.
Suffice to say he has given the game away in his most recent efforts. He believes the US can and should do exactly as it likes so there is no point in trying to have a sensible debate - though I have to say the naive, childish and condescending nature of his latest posts were making this impossible anyway.
If the US is dong all this for democracy why is it that it hasn't removed Mugabe anyway? Oh. I forgot. There is no oil in Zimbabwe.

[HUSNAA]

And you and Dave seem to have this pathological reaction to President Bush, saying that he's the Devil or something like that.  Why is he worse than someone like, say, Robert Mugabe?  Is Mugabe a better president than Bush?  Isn't he having his opponents killed and locked up?  How about Vladimr Putin?  Doesn't he have the oil assets of his opponents confiscated?  How about the regimes running Myanmar or Sudan?  Aren't these worse for their people than Bush?  I think that you're just blinded by American support for Israel, which, by the way, won't change when Bush goes.  If Obama wins, who are you going to complain about then?

Gotta rush out to another (shudder) meeting.  Jack 

Jack, that is the worst analogy you can ever make. George Bush has no equal when it comes to devilry. He is worse than Robert Mugabe, Vladmir Putin, whats his name in Burma, Kim jong ill in N Korea and any other dictator u care to name at the moment. Oh yes GB is a dictator, cos he dictates to the world.. not America. That is why he is worse than any you can name. All the other ppl's actions impact on a localized area of the world only. GB's actions impact on the whole world in general. Robert Mugabe's actions are only felt by the Zimbaweans most of the time. Vladmir Putin is trying to hold on to power over his immediate neighbors. He doesnt send out war ships planes and submarines half way across the world for global military exercises.   He doesnt bomb somalian civilians at will, he hasnt sent troops into iraq, or Afghanistan. He has not offered to lend his troops to fight the Hisbollah in Lebanon; He hasnt threatened Iran with an invasion, he hasnt aided Israel to plan an offensive against Tehran; He doesnt have military bases strewn all over the mid and far east; he is not trying to establish a military base in Africa. When in the 90s Afghanistan proved too much for the Russians, they withdrew albeit disgracefully; Afghanistan is still too much for NATO and her allies despite the puppet regime in place, yet America and NATO are mulishly refusing to concede defeat and leave Afghanistan alone. No George Bush has no equal. And when Obama is president,  there is no gainsaying that he will act like Bush. In any case why arent we railing against past American Presidents? So yr implying that we will complain about Obama holds no basis. His actions will determine how he is reacted to.
BTW, U may come from California, yet you still sound like a die hard middle belter where much of bush's supporters come from. As for multiculturalism, I lived in England when I was much younger and now I am in the fareast. I started living in a multi cultural society at age 11, where I had Indian, Thai, Nepalese Arab and English and German neighbors and all were practitioners of different religions, so I think I had a better chance at tolerance than you who probably started living with other races in adulthood.

[gogannaka]

Third, the most important issue for me is that Saddam tried to kill my president right after the Kuwait invasion.  Clinton used this fact to bomb Saddam's intelligence building.  As far as I'm concerned, trying to kill the president is an act of war, so the invasion in 2003 was entirely justified.

This is by far the weakest excuse i've heard justifying the invasion.
How many presidents have the US killed not to talk of attempts.

Weak point Mr Jack.

[King]

Jack, Scott McClellan, former White house Press Chief, recently published a tell all book that has drawn strong criticism from allies of the administration as well as from those neo-conservatives. McClellan in his book argues that the Bush Administration used propaganda to sell an invasion of Iraq to the American people, but he stops short of saying President Bush lied. McClellan basically said in his book that the administration cleverly ignored intelligence report that seemed to contradict the assertion that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. Here are some quotes from McClellan's book

"We're not talking mistakes here; we're talking about a deliberate shading of the truth to hide the real motivation for risking the lives of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians".

"Rather than open this Pandora's Box, the administration chose a different path — not employing out-and-out deception, but shading the truth," he wrote of the effort to convince the world that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, an effort he said used "innuendo and implication" and "intentional ignoring of intelligence to the contrary."

Of course, McClellan has made instant lifelong enemies from the vast right wing camp who have dismissed his book as nothing but an attempt to make a few bucks. Senator Trent Lott accused him of selling out the President for a few pieces of silver. (I guess Trent Lott has recently familiarized himself with the Judas story), but this is a growing list of people here in the US that question the motivations for war in the first place. The 9/11 commission also failed to make a connection between Saddam and Al Quaeda, hence the  case for the war in Iraq came under new scrutiny.

Truth is Jack, this is an unnecessary war. Pat Buccanan in his new book, Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War", should probably have included the Iraq war on that list of unnecessary wars. It is costing American tax payers billions, department of Veteran affairs is strained to the limit in caring for returning wounded service men/women, the economy is awful, unemployment is at an all time high, foreclosure on homes is on the rise each month, 40 million Americans cannot afford health care, funding for education in public school system across the nation has been cut, and the list goes on. In spite of these domestic problems, we are tied down in quagmire in Iraq where military spending keeps rising, and much resource is committed to that effort because the useless neo conservatives believe we "must emerge winners" in Iraq. They are so adapt to dragging democrats into approving further funding even though the democrats are opposed to the war effort. The conservatives in their evil schemings employ all kinds of scare tactics on the gullible American public. Whenever some democrat attempts to challenge the war effort, the conservatives quickly turn on their propaganda machine and accuse the challenger of "not supporting the troops", something they know will not resonate well with majority of the American public because somehow somewhere, somebody has a relative or knows someone on active duty. To therefore cut funding in anyway will be seen as denying the men and women in Uniform of the necessary tools to to stay alive while 'liberating' Iraq. So the democrats are afraid of taking a tough stance against this war because they are too afraid to been seen as the villans that 'betrayed' our armed forces, and by extension lose future elections. So they tread carefully, and by doing so, the warmongering conservative and George Bush has them exactly where they want them. This is the Washington game that is played  over and over. I have worked in this system Jack, so I know the game.

When you talk about Mugabe, Mugabe is much a victim here as he is a villan. The current negative publicity 'enjoyed' by Mugabe is orchestrated by controllers of White media. It all began with Mugabe's land reform act where farmlands belonging to White farmers were repossessed and redistributed to blacks. This angered Britain and America and led to subsequent sanctions...and more sanctioned in an effort to punish and isolate Robert Mugabe. When that didn't work, very positive and international publicity were given to a rival Presidential candidate (Morgan Chagarai) as a candidate of change and hope for a new Zimbabwe. So far, that has failed to have its desired effect, and now, Washington and London have been  subtly using the phrase regime change. This was the same phrase they used when all else failed to remove Saddam from power. So Mugabe had better watch out for his very dear life could be in jeopardy.

This isn't about corruption. This isn't about election malpractice or harassment of opposition party affiliates. This is about standing up against Western imperialism. The same goes for the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and the groups fighting US forces in Iraq. These are conflicts to break free from western control so that in future any dialogue or negotiations can be conducted on an equal playing field. The West understands what's at stake here. They too are hell bent on maintaining their position of influence because they know that once it is lost, it will be almost impossible to regain.   

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Good post, King and full of essential fact. It is worth noting however that "the West" is not in favour of the illegal actions of the so-called "coalition" in Iraq. Only the US and the UK were enthusiastic invaders and in the UK the vast majority of people strongly opposed the invasion. Over 1 million demonstated in London and even in Glasgow over 100,000 citizens marched against it in the biggest demonstation that has ever happened in Scotland. The march took over two hours to pass any one point it was so long.
This is why terrorist attacks and suicide bombers in UK is a very bad and a very stupid idea. The people of UK do not agree with the way the government behaved so to indiscriminately kill innocent people on London buses turns people who support you into your enemies and allows the UK government to make excuses for its illegal invasion.
Anyway the Labour Government in UK that sanctioned the invasion is destroyed by the Iraq invasion and will be thrown out by a huge majority a the next UK election.

[Jack Fulcher]

Hi.  I just got back from vacation and I see I have a lot to catch up on in this board.  Very interesting arguments.  Once again it seems that David is not interested in responding to specific points, but prefers to make ad hominem attacks, like the one about how I believe    “the US can and should do exactly as it likes so there is no point in trying to have a sensible debate – although I have to say the naïve, childish and condescending nature of his latest posts were making this impossible anyway.”  Please, Dave, if you’re going to make such serious accusations at least give us specific quotes where I’m being “childish, condescending,” and saying I think the US can do whatever it wants.  I even went over my own posts, just in case I got carried away and said such things.  No luck there.  Also, you ask why, if we’re doing all this (the war, I guess) for democracy, why haven’t we removed Mugabe?  In fact a lot of Americans, including myself, want to see our government do something about Mugabe, but the State Department thinks this is a problem to be handled by the neighbors of Zimbabwe, not us.  It’s like South Africa – many of us were calling for the overthrow of the white apartheid government, but the best we could get from our government was a boycott of their trade.  In the long run, this may have been cleaner than the use of force – certainly fewer people were killed.  Also, South Africa didn’t have a habit of invading its neighbors as Saddam had done.

Now Husnaa comes along and tells us that Bush is the baddest of the bad because he has more power than most leaders.  This is true, but you can’t say that this power is being used indiscriminately.  Otherwise Mugabe, the despots running Myanmar, and the rulers of Sudan would all be under attack by the US.  When it all boils down to the underlying factors, Bush has been doing all of these things to advance America’s interests.  There’s no doubting this, and he wouldn’t deny it if you put this to him.  We invent, develop, and export machinery, which needs oil to run.  We also use oil to produce a GDP of over $13 trillion, over  ¼  of the world’s total production.  It should be clear that any serious disruption of the oil supply to this country would result in economic problems similar to what we saw in the 1930s.

Now I hear you all say, in unison, “ah ha!  Jack has finally admitted that this is a war for oil!”  Maybe.  Just as with all wars, this is a war with many supporters and opponents.  Bush’s reasons for pursuing the war may very well be to ensure the flow of oil.  After all, we’re not actually stealing the oil (as Saddam and Kofi Anan’s son did) – we willing to pay for it.  And it’s not as though the Iraqis (or the Saudis, for that matter) did a lot of work to put that oil in the ground.  Guess what – they just found it there!  To be precise, the British found it there.  But regardless, we’re more than willing to pay for it (gasoline prices have more than tripled over the past couple of years, but we’re still filling up our cars and driving to work as before)(“grumble, grumble……”).  Americans wouldn’t let it be stolen, if that were the issue here.

But I have a more radical reason to support this war.  As you may know from reading my posts from 2003, I opposed the war in Iraq.  I thought it was the wrong country to attack, given that it wasn’t run by religious zealots and that Saddam had a reasonably secular system running the country.  At least women could work and drive and go to the store without a male family member escorting her.  I know that some of you think that women’s rights are overstressed in the west, and I get grief from some when I write about it; however, I think that this is a small example of what I think is the fundamental issue at stake in the war:  The Enlightenment.

When I taught economics, I liked to tell my students the story of how Karl Marx was a big fan of capitalism.  Apparently, old Karl thought that capitalism would be a great thing to overthrow feudalism.  The efficiencies of decentralized decision making would show that feudalism, with all its central control of who produced what, and how much would be produced, was not up to the task of producing enough output to satisfy people in the modern world (1860 or so).  This attitude about how the world could be changed derived largely from the principles advanced in the Enlightenment, with all that stuff written by Rousseau, Locke, Hume, and those guys.  They said that the days of being told by the Church or the local Baron what to do, where to live, whom to marry, and basically how to live were over.  A crucial part of these ideas is not only personal freedom, but the separation of church and state.  These thoughts influenced the people who founded America, and you can see them in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and others who had a part in writing the Constitution.  The separation of church and state is even written into that Constitution.  This really wasn’t so long ago – the late 18th century (1776).  What’s interesting to me is that Adam Smith’s book, The Wealth of Nations, was published in 1776 as well.  This was the first systematic look at how a decentralized economy would work, and how it would be more efficient (i.e., use the fewest resources per unit of production) than a system where the church or local Baron made all the decisions.  Marx liked this book, believe it or not, and referred to it in Capital. 

What I see in the middle east today is a strong reaction to the changes brought on by the Enlightenment.  The way production and distribution is arranged in Saudi Arabia, for example, is nothing less than feudalism.  A similar system is used in Iran, with most of the agricultural decisions being made by “boards” which are overseen by local mullahs or imams.  This is what I see at stake in this war – now that we’re there, we need to leave a large imprint and keep some air force bases in the country in a similar way we’ve done in Japan and Germany after WWII. 

Of course you might call this imperialism, and you may be right.  However, it seems to me that the alternative is to let the reactionaries bring the fight to us, as they did in 9/11.  (A side thought:  why did India benefit from the imperialism of the British while the Pakistanis didn’t seem to get it?  India is one of the great economic powers in the world today, but Pakistan is just another big country.)

When I began this educational journey in 2002 I had several illusions about how people in other parts of the world think and what motivates them – I have fewer such illusions today.  I don’t think it’s possible to just go out and talk with people about individual freedoms, women’s rights, or the separation of church and state.  Given how the government runs the media in most of these countries, I doubt that any of these ideas would get through to people, anyway.  But even if they did, there’s no guarantee that such arguments could penetrate centuries of religious and cultural dogma.  Look at how long it took for the west to embrace these ideas since they were first promulgated (I love that word) in the 16th and 17th centuries.

If you read the fatwas of bin-Laden or several of the mullahs in Iran, it’s clear that they want us dead, not just because we support Israel, and not just because we have our military in the area; they want us dead because we give freedom to our people, and this violates their particular vision of Islam.  We all know that this vision and interpretation is not shared by all imams.  If Islam had some sort of Caliphate, like the Catholics have the Vatican, maybe some of this disagreement could be eliminated.  Until then, however, it’s like there are several fiefdoms ruling the Islamic world with their own little power centers. 

I sure am blathering on, aren’t I?  I’ll respond to more of what you’ve written:  Husnaa, how can I not be charmed by someone who uses the words “mulishly” and “gainsaying” with such facility?  It’s clear that you’ve had a good education.  But remember that your precious Taliban reacted violently to the Russian insistence that girls be allowed into school.  Do you support this restriction on your sisters?  You want us to “leave Afghanistan alone” so that they can continue hanging girls for “immodest dress” in the stadium in Kabul?  And maybe Mugabe’s actions are limited to Zimbabwe right now, but the enormous inflation rate experienced by his people will make its way into the price structure of all countries who trade with Zimbabwe, especially its neighbors.  This inflation is not caused by “those evil white guys” out there running the World Bank, and it’s not caused by evil American corporations; it’s caused by the evil policies of Mugabe, which sees the government stealing farms to give out to Mugabe’s friends, and which prints money by the bushelful in order to hand out to friends and party members, thus exacerbating whatever inflation rate exists at the time.

And I’m glad you have me categorized as “a die hard middle belter,” but I’m a lifelong Democrat from Los Angeles, and I grew up with many cultures, perhaps not as many as you had for neighbors as a kid.  But there are many Californians (not many in San Francisco, apparently) who want Bush to be successful in Iraq and don’t want the troops withdrawn prematurely. 

As for gogannaka’s comment, that it’s lame for me to say that Saddam tried to have Bush Sr. killed and that this constituted a declaration of war, I need you to be specific.  Just what heads of state have we had killed?  I don’t recall more than Allende in Chile or Patrice Lumumba from the Congo (Zaire), and the culprit for this latter assassination is still not known with certainty.  But if we’ve killed a president, I claim that this is a declaration of war on that country.  I don’t think this is a weak point at all.

And King, I saw Scott McClellan in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club a couple of weeks ago.  Did you know that he’s changing to the Democratic Party?  I suspect that he wrote that book mainly because he wanted to find a job with the Democrats, as he’s mainly a political functionary.  This is his chosen profession, and he wants to make a flashy entrance.  But note that even he does not claim that Bush lied about the war, but only that he “shaded the truth.”  I think this is what you’re taught in law school – win your case by shading the truth.  And as someone who has worked for the government, believe me that there’s a lot of information collected by agencies, and it’s possible to choose your information in such a way that makes your case.  I would have preferred that Bush level with people – here’s the speech I want to hear:
“There are people in the middle east who want to kill us all, and the longer we let that situation stew and boil over out there, the more likely it is that we’ll have to fight them over here.  The conflict between the Arabs and Iranians and Israel hasn’t changed in my lifetime.  I see an opportunity to introduce democratic principles and the lessons of the Enlightenment into an area that is being pulled back to the ninth century as we speak.  I may fail, but I need to try something because diplomacy just hasn’t worked these past 50 years.  It’s not true that all we need to do is talk to them about how wonderful the west and modernity is – many don’t want our way of life.  Just look at Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Wahabbi Muslims who flew a plane into the World Trade Center.  He lived in Germany for years but still would not shake the hand of a woman.  This is a sickness and we need to find the cure.  This is what I’m trying.”  I’d like Bush to give this speech, but alas he really sucks at public speaking.  He certainly sounds stupid whenever he tries to speak to a group of people.

But King, you make a couple of errors when you recite the effects of this war.  Unemployment is NOT at an all time high.  In fact, it is much lower than the early 1980s and early 1970s.  The economy is doing fine when measured by output per person or other productivity measures.  And it’s not true that 40 million Americans cannot afford health care.  What they can’t afford is the premiums on health insurance; however, all Americans are given health care if they need it at the hospital.  That’s the law, and you can’t refuse someone because they don’t have enough money.  That’s one of the reasons health care costs have been rising – everyone without health insurance just go to the emergency room when they’re sick.  Very expensive. 

Funding for education has not been cut – it goes up every year.  What has been cut were the planned increases in programs, not the programs themselves.

I do agree with you, King, that the government uses scare tactics to discourage dissent about the war.  They did the same thing when we were in Viet Nam – I opposed that war and still do.  But they didn’t want to impose their way of life on us – they just wanted us to go.  I can’t say the same about fundamentalist Muslims.

But to claim that Mugabe is a “victim???”  This is playing the victim card too often.  The media is to blame?  Do the media take farms from owners and redistribute to their friends, family and party members?  Do the media have Mugabe’s opponents beaten?  Get real, King!  Do you support a system that takes farms from producers and gives them to people who can’t do the job?  Haven’t you seen the drop in productivity under Mugabe’s redistribution plan?  When productivity drops, of course, inflation rises.  This isn’t caused by “white media.”  It’s caused by very real economics.

Your last paragraph is the craziest, King.  You think that it’s “standing up against Western imperialism” to hang girls for “immodest dress” as the Taliban “fighters” did in Afghanistan?  Just look at the silliness of your sentence:  “These are conflicts to break free from western control so that in future any dialogue or negotiations can be conducted on an equal playing field.”  So they need to break free from Western control so that they can continue repressing their people, destroying ancient art because they were made by people before Muslims took over the area, and wrapping their kids in dynamite and putting them on the bus?  That’s your freedom, King?  That isn’t a level playing field – it’s a muddy mess.

And Dave, I need to talk about the Lancet study where you got that amazingly inflated 655,000 Iraqis killed in the war.  There has been much written about this study, and how poorly it was designed and executed, but I really must get out of the office before they throw me out. 

Sorry to write so much, folks.  Glad to be back.  Jack

[King]

Well Jack, your response is way too lengthy and digressed in all directions. So I'll just limit my comments to the issues you took up with me. First off in reference to Scott McClellan, what has change in party affiliation got to do with anything? People swap parties all the time when they feel that the party they've been affiliated with for years no longer represent the values they believe in. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia used to be a Republican.

You will find many republicans jumping ship in the general election, and that shouldn't come to you as a surprise because many conservatives are fed up with the Republican party. I haven't read anywhere that Scott has switched parties, and I am sure that is a right wing propaganda. What I have heard Scott McClellan say on MSNBC is that he is undecided as to who he would vote for in November. He did also add that he has been impressed with Senator Obama's change message as well as with the Senator's very positive campaign. Your notion that McClellan was seeking a job with the democrats by writing a tell all book about the President's handling of pre-Iraq war intelligence is simply ridiculous. If McClellan wanted a job, he could easily have gotten a lush one with FOX or any of the other propaganda outfits of the Republican party. That would have been way too easy given his solid resume as former White house Press Secretary who voluntarily resigned from the administration in good relationship with the President.

And no Jack, they do not teach you in law school to shade the truth. Where the hell did you get your legal training from? Are you familiar with the American Bar Association's model rule governing professional legal conduct of its members and officers? Well, let's take a look. 
Rule 3.3 contains requirements of truthfulness.

Rule 3.3(a)(2) states that a lawyer shall not knowingly fail to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary.
Rule 3.4(b) states that a lawyer shall not falsify evidence, or counsel or assist a witness to testify falsely.
Rule 3.3(d) prohibits the omission of material information in ex parte proceedings.
Rule 8.4(c) generally prohibits dishonesty, misrepresentations, and deceitful conduct in all aspects of an attorney’s life.

You took issue with Husnna about a comment she made about America doing whatever she likes around the globe. Then you went on to make the following comments...

"What I see in the middle east today is a strong reaction to the changes brought on by the Enlightenment.  The way production and distribution is arranged in Saudi Arabia, for example, is nothing less than feudalism.  A similar system is used in Iran, with most of the agricultural decisions being made by “boards” which are overseen by local mullahs or imams.  This is what I see at stake in this war – now that we’re there, we need to leave a large imprint and keep some air force bases in the country in a similar way we’ve done in Japan and Germany after WWII."

Well, isn't this the very attitude the earns America the dubious label of World Policeman? Call US military presence in different corners of the World 'interests' all you want, but to the opponents of such territorial encroachment, it is unacceptable. I am a very outspoken critic of the radical Mullahs you mentioned, and my views regarding the radical elements in the Muslim world is not flattering by a long shot. However, I call a spade for what it is. I do not absolve the US of its own wrong doing in the region and in other parts of the World. You talk about women's rights and freedom. True, the Taliban may have been overly extreme, but the same exact conditions does not apply in the Muslim World, does it? Were Iraqi women enduring such repressive conditions? Life in the middle east has deep cultural and religious roots that you and I do not understand or fully appreciate. You think it is a noble and wonderful thing to go impose our messed up western values in on others. This nonsense women's freedom you keep flaunting was never in demand in the first place. In all that, the middle easterners have a stronger value system than we do despite its very strict application.

We have a system here in America where marriage means nothing anymore. Divorce rate alone in this country is at 60%. Studies indicate that one in every two marriage will fail. Each year, 1 million children suffer the devastating effects of one parent leaving the marriage and the home. Our government does nothing to honestly and seriously reverse this trend. The courts and the crooked legal system have created a billion dollar enterprise from divorce. We have laws created to ensure that lawyers have a big pay day each time couples divorce. As a matter of fact, the lawyers spice up the enmity between warring couples and drag the litigation in court for a while to ensure their retainer. And then when it is all over with, the man usually gets the short end of the stick. Because the way our divorce laws are written, most women entering into a marriage relationship do so with the assurance that if things go wrong, they'll emerge the winners regardless. So while people are marrying, they are also preparing for divorce. Isn't this what we have in America? Is this the 'enlightenment' we are exporting to others?

Listen Jack, we shouldn't be lecturing anybody about morality, conduct, freedom, and all that crap. I am an American like you Jack, but we shouldn't go around lecturing everyone especially given our history. And enough already about Mugabe. We were killing African Americans and denying blacks equal rights just recently. There is still endemic racism in America where great inequality still looms large. Let us fix our internal problems first before worrying about the rest of the World.

Let me say this also, I will address with more focus the other issues you raised regarding my post tomorrow.

[Dave_McEwan_Hill]

Looking forward to tomorrow.

[King]

So Jack, to continue from where I left off, I recall in your response to my post that you insist education in America has not suffered at all in funding or in quality. What part of America do you live? I submit to you that this pointless war in Iraq is sapping so much vital resource that could be channeled into solving the immediate domestic problems in the US but you disagree. Ok, if education was all fine and dandy, why is it such a real campaign issue for both Obama and Mccain? By the way, McCain's Arizona ranks 48 in the nation in education. In my state of Florida, the public school system has announced significant cuts in instructional positions and even very essential programs to for kids that need these programs so they can be part of the Bush 'no child left behind' policy. Governor Charlie Crist (McCain hench supporter) proposed a $350 million cut in education funding for the coming school year. This means the state of Florida cannot hire more teachers, most first and third year teachers will likely lose their jobs due to cuts, and class sizes will increase. But guess what Republican Governor Crist does. He turned around and asked the state legislature for a $370 million dollars to build more prisons and for corrections. See the mindset. Take away money for education, but build more prisons.

On Mugabe, you asked whether the media took farms from farmers and gave them to non productive folks. How clever!!! You should qualify that question in its proper context so everyone sees the true driving force behind Western bashing of Mugabe. Truth is, Mugabe the land reform act repossessed farmlands from WHITE farmers who themselves had acquired these land during the many years of colonization. Are you not aware that Zimbabwe was colonized Jack? And what do you think happened during those donkey years of colonization? Let me make it easier, what always happens when whites colonize Africa? Don't they just take and take with impunity caring nothing about the indigenous people? Wasn't this the same treatment that was meted out African slaves shipped to America to work their fingers to the bones for nothing in slave master's plantations while WHITES people profited? Despite the neck and back breaking work blacks did to enrich the White plantation owners, were they even considered humans? The minute some blacks began asking for a little compassion in treatment, what followed? Intimidation, lynchings, killings, rape, genocide if you will. This has always been a white problem. The minute someone stands up against the status quo, they employ all kinds of strong arm tactics to silence of whoop that individual back in line.

So I ask you, if the farmer in question were black Zimbabweans, would America and the loud talking Europeans give a crap? Hell no! But how dare Mugabe dispossess White farmers of "their lands" and by extension trump his nose at the powers that be? Yes, Mugabe supporters will continue to harass 'opponents' that are in fact pawns being used by the imperialist forces responsible for creating the chaos. This is the game America and some of its European allies play all the time. The only people that have become expert responders to this game are the middle east Muslims. If America was so concerned about human rights and freedom, why has our government not turned the heat on Darfur? Isn't the situation in Darfur where over 2 million people remain displaced more critical than the situation in Zimbabwe? Yet, we don't hear a word from our government concerning Darfur.

Jack, I'll tell you again, you are not in a position to lecture a black person about the 'evils' of another black person. How can you criticize Mugabe when in America your so called conservative right wing Christians and their illiterate followers are busy negating black interest. They focus all their energy trying to discredit African American. When an injustice occurs where White police officers murder an innocent black person, they all defend the indefensible. This is a patter of behavior for them. In all of it, when a very vocal black person speaks out in truth to the injustice in America, he/she becomes a 'hateful' person, or a person 'inciting' hate against the 'innocent' white folks. So how do you think I view you with your anti Mugabe campaign?  Those conservative southern christians that always portray themselves as righteous people are not in fact devils. Jesus spoke hypocrites like them. They erect stumbling blocks on people's path and them lie in watch for the person to stumble. When he/she does, they then jump out of the shadows in their sanctimonious cloak and point fingers. These shaddy self righteous folks that drive the republican party and the Bush white house have stirred this country towards a very destructive path. So don't talk to me about Mugabe. He hasn't killed white people, and neither did he colonize nor sow a seed of confusion and apathy in any European country, America, or Africa for that matter. 

If you are looking for the real world criminals and thugs, do not look any further than where you live.
I am tired and sleepy. If I think of anything else, I'll post it in the morning.