Hello Brian >Hmmm.. > >One poorly substantiated Sarin shell is proof of a major WMD program >in Iraq? That's what I hear you saying. > >Please understand that I in no way have any intention to do so, but >I am sure that I could produce and detonate a single Sarin shell >here in Indiana. Would that be proof to you that Saddam had gotten >his WMDs into the US and was planning a major assault in the >Midwest? That seems to be where your logic leads. > >And, if the US was in the business of deposing all sociopaths in >power, we would be awfully busy. Why specifically pick on Saddam. >If we thought he was that bad, why did we support him on his way up? > >I don't know who Christopher Hutchins is, but I am thinking that he >would be close a frontrunner for the post of complete idiot in my >book.
That's Hitchens (not Hitchins). He's not a complete idiot, he goes about it quite intelligently. He likes espousing maverick views, which is okay in itself, but his views have become more and more warped. He has a long history of saying and writing very strange things about Native Americans, for instance. In the 90s the Lewinsky affair seems to have finally tipped him over to the far-right, and these days he's widely known as a "charlatan" and a "sycophant". Just a mouthpiece, too often, very much a pro-war mouthpiece and apologist. For instance, his latest piece is about his pal Ahmad. http://slate.msn.com/id/2101345/ Ahmad and Me - Defending Chalabi. By Christopher Hitchens May 27, 2004 He does rather like defending the indefensible, but in the end it's Hitchens himself who's indefensible. He's painted himself into too many corners. His credibility has dwindled to a partisan few. Chris's quote is fairly typical. No need to take any notice of Hitchens. MM said: > > > Actually, around the time of the start of the invasion of Iraq, > > > Israeli Intelligence, I saw in one news report, stated that WMD >or > > > other weapons (I don't recall how it was put) were being moved to > > > Syria. I've never seen this mentioned before or since. Syria and/or Iran. All jolly good pals of course, Saddam and Syria and Iran. This gets trotted out quite often, even at quite a high level, but nobody's ever offered any substantiation for it. It's as insubstantial as the other, opposite, story, published twice now by the Iran news agency, that the US has been secretly moving WMD of the right vintage (they supplied them in the first place after all) into hiding places inside Iraq, no doubt to be unearthed just in time for the election. Who knows? There's no way of telling - as Gustl says, sorting the wheat from the chaff is a very tough job, and you don't get a lot of help, quite the opposite. The people whose job it is also don't get a lot of help, quite the opposite - investigative journalism takes time and money, which is not forthcoming, and it's actively discouraged by the half-dozen-odd mega-corps which now own the US media. Not exactly a surprise, considering at whose door more than a few such investigations would likely end up. Anyway, the administration itself no longer claims that WMDs real or mythical had much to do with anything. Wolfowitz actually denied it. No accountability of course - that only applies to those who fail to toe the line, and then it's not so much accountability as sheer vindictiveness. So all the liars are still in their jobs, wrists unslapped - yesterday's news, not the current movie anymore, duly erased from the hard-disks of all true-believers. You want WMDs? Plenty of WMDs, bombs, deadly chemical weapons, everything a terrorist fanatic could want. Trouble is they were in Texas. "Since his appointment as attorney general, John Ashcroft's Washington office has issued 2,295 news releases. Not one of them has mentioned the name William Joseph Krar. Krar's ... arrest by federal law enforcement in the small town of Noonday, Texas, last April may have stopped the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11... Is there a double standard at Justice between the public pronouncements over arrests that fit our current stereotype of terrorists and those that don't?" http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040311-030156-8181r United Press International: Outside View: Who is William Krar? "Americans have been trained to disassociate such attacks from the war on terrorism... And because our domestic haters tend to be Christian rather than Muslim, they don't fit the "terrorist" mold... in the wake of 9/11, we have tended to discount the danger of domestic terror. That may be a deadly mistake." http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=617_0_3_0_C Homegrown Terrorists 2.17.04 As for the so-called "war on terrorism"... As a French diplomat observed, "Monsieur bin Laden must be tres content." I'll bet - tres relaxed too I should think, not much call on him to do much these days, Washington does it all for him. Best Keith >Brian > >--- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, "the_maniacal_engineer" ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > there were no WMD's. there was no sarin shell used against US >troops, > > these aren't the droids you're looking for... you can go about your > > business... move along..... Pay no attention to the man behind the > > curtain. > > > > Iraq still retains control of its own oil, we have not seized it, > > although we could have, and there were WMD's (duh - where did the > > ssarin shell come from?) > > Christopher hitchins says there are 4 ways you can tell a complete > > idiot. These are the things a complete idiot says: > > 1) "sure Saddam was a bad guy but.... > > Saddam was a sociopath and so were his putative heirs. > > 2) We are just going to war to take the Iraqi oil > > We buy the oil from iraq at market prices, and unlike the oil >for > > food program administered by the corrupt french and russian >interests > > at the UN, the money does not go to build opulent palaces or for > > weapons programs. > > 3) "there is no connection between Saddam and terror" or "Saddam is > > just a secular tyrant and has no truck with those religious >zealots" > > he paid $25000 for each suicide bomber. the WTC bombing > > mastermind went to Iraq shortly after 9/11 and was given haven in > > Iraq, and is still there today. One of the planners of 9/11 was a > > colonel is Saddam's fedayin. > > 4) "there were no WMD's" > > DUH, they existed at the end of the first gulf war. to destroy > > them without supervision was a violation of international law. The > > Sarin and mustard attacks recently against US troops prove the > > contention that they didn't exist is totally false. > > > > didn't the ambassador recall that we just LEFT Saudi Arabia? > > > > > > --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >Prince Turki al-Faisal, ambassador to Britain and Ireland, told >the > > > >Irish Independent newspaper Washington's stated aims in going >to war > > > >in Iraq masked a more cynical reality. > > > > > > > >"No matter how exalted the aims of the U.S. in that war, in the >final > > > >analysis it was a colonial war very similar to the wars >conducted by > > > >the ex-colonial powers when they went out to conquer the rest >of the > > > >world ...," Prince Turki said. > > > > > > > >John Kerry, ever Mr. Cautious ("if only I can stay two points >to the > > > >left of Bush I can win"), suggested that oil might have had >something > > > >do with the invasion, too. Kerry, who's constantly bashing the > > > >Saudis, didn't exactly line up with Prince Turki. And he didn't > > > >exactly sound like an anti-imperialist, either. But he did >suggest > > > >that oil was a factor. In a Washington Times piece >entitled "Kerry > > > >hints at link between oil, Iraq war," the Times reports: > > > >http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040524-103200-9250r.htm > > > > > > >Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry yesterday >suggested > > > >that America's dependence on foreign oil is the major reason >the > > > >United States went to war with Iraq. > > > > > > > >"A strong America begins at home-with energy independence from >the > > > >Middle East. Let's ensure that no young American soldier has to >fight > > > >and die because of our dependence on foreign oil," the >Massachusetts > > > >senator said. > > > > > > I'd like to point out that there are some substantial >differences in > > > trying to make the case that America's oil dependencies >have 'led' > > > inexorably to certain events, and to claiming that, specifically >and > > > simplistically, America was simply trying to take oil. They are >not > > > necessarily the same claim. > > > > > > I would be very much in favor of examining the first point and >trying > > > to figure it out and examine the issue of causality. > > > > > > As to the second, I question it, though I guess it's possible. > > > > > > The author of this article, though, leaves little or no room for >the > > > idea that there could be a difference, so the conversation and >the > > > article to me becomes far less worth my while. > > > > > > > > > >Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction. Israel's > > > >intelligence, Mossad, knows what's going on in Iraq. They are >the > > > >best. They have to know. > > > > > > Actually, around the time of the start of the invasion of Iraq, > > > Israeli Intelligence, I saw in one news report, stated that WMD >or > > > other weapons (I don't recall how it was put) were being moved to > > > Syria. I've never seen this mentioned before or since. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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