On Wed, 02 Apr 2003, Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Pete,
This was police station operated by the Saddamites. Not really very portable, but obviously if you are a true believer, a case of anthrax isn't as portable as a police station made of stone.
If I had a mind to, I could conduct torture just as effectively in your living room. Any basement in Baghdad might be the same. You're Hans Blix, where would you like to start looking? But as I said, looking for torture chambers wasn't his job. The title was "Weapons Inspector". The guys who collect the data on torture chambers are Amnesty International. They used to be the darlings of the american war machine until they acquired the irritating habit of not limiting their investigations to the states on the "enemy list". Some times I wonder where you've been for the last forty years.
Of course, without the CIA, the Saddamites would all be 3rd grade teachers, but what can you expect from the US?
Inane comments like yours? No, what I'd like to expect from the US is a mature and farsighted foreign policy based on thoughtful analysis, not cowboy tactics accompanied by rash and insensitive remarks by high ranking officials who should be old enough to know better.
The Daily Mirror has consistently been against the war. Here are some more excerpts from its reporter's story.
Interesting. You read my comment without apparently hearing or
understanding any of it. The point was contained in the last sentence.
[...]
I suppose, Pete, Saddam's secret police - the Mukhabarat - are really CIA, or perhaps trained by the CIA.
I doubt it. Scum rises to the occasion wherever fertile ground is provided. Of course, if it's taking too long, there's always the School of the Americas.
This guy is thoroughly bad,
Oooh, such a surprise. I had no idea.
Quit trying to make black and white out of the greys. Over in column
A you have a weasel who owes his political career to american
foreign policy machinations and financial support. In column
B you have an undeclared war conducted outside the rules
hammered out by the global community which have been in sway
for sixty years, which is guaranteed to spawn hatred and acts
of violence against the perpetrating nation for the next two generations at least, as well as a pervading distrust of their
actions by the world community at large for possibly as long,
while likely bringing about a better life for some millions of
people, at the most likely cost of thousands of lives, and assuming
that the wheels don't come off completely as the competing
local players each put their oar in and start fighting amongst
themselves. A situation which a more than grade-school grasp of
diplomacy, cultural differences, negotiation and patience could
have easily completely avoided. Now here's your buckets of paint,
get to work, and don't mix the shades.
so don't allow your objections to the war to spill over into other areas. Objections are valid - making up things as you go along perhaps not so.
Neither the motives nor the behaviour of the CIA have been anything
for america to be proud of, Harry. Perhaps there have been some good guys there, certainly they started out well, but by the time of
Ollie North, it was not as you would like to imagine it. When they
first bought in to the idea that the end always justifies the means, they lost their souls, and from then on, it was one long
spiral into outer darkness.
I have heard speculations that the reason behind the appalling bungling which currently passes for US foreign policy is a result of still-classified intelligence which, when filtered through
a thoroughly unprepared administration, led to ineptitude
born of urgency combined with fear of disclosure. It remains to
be seen whether any such scenario could account for how badly
this whole affair has been handled. It is, however, the only
suggestion I have yet heard which still remains within the realm
of plausibility, other than simply "these guys are complete idiots".
To my thinking, I agree with the view that the moment the troops crossed the border, Bush had lost, it is just a matter now of waiting now to see how much and how badly, and how much can be salvaged by postwar bridge-mending and statesmanship (a concept so far apparently
utterly foreign to the current administration).
-Pete Vincent
Harry
------------------------------------------------------------------- Pete wrote:
On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Gee. However did Inspector Clouseau, Hans Blix, ever miss this as he >and his hapless helpers trundled around Iraq?
First, they spent most of their time in Baghdad. Second, they were looking for weapons, not torture chambers, which are pretty portable things anyway. And is anyone in the world actually surprised by this in the least, other than the hypothetical imaginary Baathist sympathizers caricatured by the opponents of cautious and lawful means of extraction of US-installed puppet-dictatorships-gone-bad. I bet there have been thousands of those rooms all over the globe over the last half century with CIA operatives sitting quietly outside the door, awaiting the results. Perhaps twenty years ago, in that building itself.
I bet the young arabs across the world now aspiring to grow up and murder american religious imperialists won't be swayed by this revelation in the least.
-Pete Vincent
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