Freedom's Truth

Ali, your wisdom is amazing. And it is somewhat hopeful for the future .... One question: "It would be an unforgivable blunder to ally with the 'infidels' against a Shea’at Muslim whoever he was. " Do modern (nonextremist) Muslims understand how dangerous and harmful to their culture and politics this attitude is? This is the error of cultural 'bigotry'. If we cannot change this idea that no muslim can pick us (the US, west, Christians, etc.) over a muslim as a friend when it is right for them - no matter how wrong that other Muslim is - then our efforts in Iraq are hopeless, because we are naturally creating enemies among those Muslim extremists who hate democracy and freedom. So it seems our excercise of power in Iraq accumulates more enemies, which incites others to side with fellow Muslims. While our 'allies' abandon us. (Doubt me? Look at this news ... "The paper said Allawi had submitted a letter to the current Governing Council president, Massud Barzani, in which he expressed "reservations on the measures adopted by the top civil administrator (Paul Bremer) and his armed troops."") So IGC quivers and refuses to back strong measures when violence challenges the coalition and the security. Is this not the same IGC complaining at how coalition needs to do security better? Now they cant stand the medicine that is needed to cure the disease? Part of our hope for Iraq is to change the mentality of cultural bigotry, rejecting democracy because it is considered "western" and extremism cloaks itself in "Islam". And yet alot of the clerics (like the one who brought food from baghdad to fallujah) preach anti-american/anti-coalition in Iraq now (using the freedoms granted with our operations). It seems the "mob" as you might call them, are under the sway of these beliefs. So, my question is this: Is this (shall I call it "religious chauvinism") a fundamental problem of the religion of Islam and culture that will be hard to change? Or is this a solvable/changeable attitude that can be cured with trust-building?

Aug. Memo Focused On Attacks in U.S. Lack of Fresh Information Frustrated Bush (2002/PDB) Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas, sources said. But one source said the White House was disappointed because the analysis lacked focus and did not present fresh intelligence.

I find this very interesting. Pre 9/11, Bush was looking out for the USA, asking about the dangers. What he got was a mishmash of old information that was not 'actionable'.

And who wrote this memo? Clarke? Rice? If Clarke wrote it, his whole set of complaints is total CYA finger pointing because he had the chance to 'warn' the president but produced weak data. This document proves Rice correct. The problem was structural, an inability to share intelligence data so the decision-makers could get the whole picture. The data contained therein was not strong enough to do anything.

and not dropping bombs on the place ... Debated the point on an FR thread with the "MOAB" crowd

First I had to explain that it's okay to let food in: "We allow the bad guys friends to do the conga-line into this war zone to feed, medicate, and aid the enemy that are killing our people, and you don't see a problem here?"

Unless they are killing US soldiers by throwing oranges at them, I dont see a problem here. Why dont you quote my reasoning, you left it out: This was a made-for-aljazeera PR stunt, of ZERO military significance. Let it happen so you dont have an 'outrage of fallujah' on your hands. Next thing you know, al jazeera would be interviewing kids dying of starvation after missing a full breakfast. You know they are capable of it!

I even quoted a Marine in Fallujah: "We have to be very precise in our application of combat power. We cannot kill a lot of innocent folks (though they are few and far between in Fallujah). There will be no shock and awe. There will be plenty of bloodshed at the lowest levels. This battle is the Marine Corps' Belleau Wood for this war. 2/1 and 1/5 will be leading the way. We have to find a way to kill the bad guys only. The Fallujahans are fired up and ready for a fight (or so they think). A lot of terrorists and foreign fighters are holed up in Fallujah. It has been a sanctuary for them. If they have not left town they are going to die. I'm hoping they stay and fight."

My basic point: being humane to civilians in the long run SAVES AMERICAN LIVES.

He retorted: "You mean like Hiroshima?"

That was 1945, 55 years ago, against a foe that had an empire and an army of a million. If you want to argue that it was unnecessary rather than necessary to win that war, go ahead. Your point is such a totally different situation, it is irrelevent. Since we dont NEED to use Hiroshima-style tactics to overthrow 2 regimes since 2001, and since we have achieved remarkable success in using precision techniques, a heavy dose of civil affairs stance in-country, etc., our only point in wantonly killing civilians in such zones would be to energize anti-Americanism among the muslim hate-America crowd and to destabilize the very countries we want to democratize and normalize.

Every Army officer understands why "rules of engagement" exist. War is subservient to the political and national security ends for which it is used. If it ceases to serves those ends, it is harmful and wrong. It puts American lives at risk and harms our nation.

We've dug enough of Saddam's killing fields to prove his kind of regime. We've documented his genocide in Hallabjah of kurds. He killed 500,000 civilians. Creating more of the same makes us the same as him in the eyes of the world. We have enough liars accusing us wrongly of atrocities to have to deal with it if we are careless or sloppy with the lives of civilians and peoples we claim to be liberating from tyranny.

Message to a friend:

It was a glorious day in Austin today. 80s and sunny. A Good Friday.

On the cross on this day 2000 years ago, Jesus said his last words "It is finished". And yet Christianity had at that moment begun.

In all things, trials and challenges and even agony presage future greatness. The America of your sons will be a great land, and it will be a better land for our present difficulties. Embrace that which is difficult, because it is what makes a better tomorrow.

And enjoy the fullness of what is good today, for you may miss it tomorrow when it passes.

Dr Dittohead story

Wow. What a self-absorbed twit. actually cant understand the concept of being a thinking person *and* listening to Rush ..... I can see why she is in therapy, it like a religion for the narcissistic. I bet she's spent a FORTUNE on it.

So now we find out Moqtada Sadr is an Iranian agent who is answering to the head of Iranian intelligence:

Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, who is directing a widespread armed uprising against the coalition forces in Baghdad and southern Iraq, receives his orders directly from the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Italian foreign intelligence organization, Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare (SISMI), a unit of the Italian defense ministry, said today in a report to the Italian parliament. The report, which prompted a call to foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi by Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini, said without political, financial and military support from the Supreme Leader, Moqtada Sadr and his al-Mahdi brigade could not have mounted their multiple, simultaneous attacks. Italian foreign minister asked Kharrazi to do what he can to put an end to the deadly clashes in Iraq. Agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp and the Quds special forces have infiltrated Iraq in the past months and have organized and armed Moqta Sadr's al-Mahdi brigade, SISMI said in its report. The Iranian agents work under the cover of several religious charity organizations in Sadr city in Baghdad and in the Shiite cities of Karbala, Najaf and Kufa, SISMI said. Iran is spending $ 70million per month to support these front organizations, it added. The Supreme Leader has sent cleric Mohammad-Hossein Haeri to coordinate the efforts that are aimed at pushing the coalition forces out of Iraq, according to Italian daily La Stampa, which adds that, with that goal in mind, Sadr's al-Mahdi brigade has been attacking the Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Polish and Portuguese forces in Iraq. In his mission in Iraq, Haeri represents Qum-based senior Iraqi Shiite religious leader Ayatollah Kazem Haeri. Two Iranian intelligence officers who have recently defected to Britain have given the British intelligence agents documents showing the role being played by the Islamic Republic government in the recent unrest in Iraq, Italy's daily La Reformista reports, quoting British sources. (Ahmad Ra'fat, Rome)

Meanwhile the US media plays the "Iraq is in chaos" meme, assured that we are in Vietnam. Geez, I know exactly how the Vietcong military disaster of Tet became a PR victory. And the sheeple will be told this 'uprising' is from the frustrated people and not a power play by the pro-dictator wing of the Islamic world.

Past, present and future are always 3 different windows on each single event we experience. A prediction is different from a diary is different from a memoire. I am reminded of that on this the one year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. The moment on April 9th was one of exhileration, at least for me. A long anticipated battle and the nervous reporting from the media did much to excite but little to inform. It was eerie how we went from fierce fighting to one sunday morning watching Greg Kelley march into Baghdad on an A-1 tank. The 24 hour cable news is always in the now, chewing through events until all details are exhausted. Always in the tree-level but never seeing the forest. The glimpse of liberation - the scenes of Iraqis beating saddam's head with a shoe - got quickly overtaken by looting, then this issue, then that, the political process. Events have rushed forward headlong in the past 12 months - history on steroids for Iraq. So the fall of Saddam statues becomes a bit forgotten in the rush of the "now".

From today's vantage, though, it is a different sense I look at last April, although we may discount the events of April 9 2003 a bit too much. For right now we are still in the tornado of events in the evolution of Iraq. We are still in the labor pains of a new Iraq, anticipating the outcome and hoping for success. Some who didnt want America to invade Iraq are wishing the project would fail, or expressing pessimism that shakes faith in the effort. Too many troops, too few; too soon with handover, too slow. Any decision made is second guessed to the n-th degree. Clearly, the Bush administration will not lose resolve or withdraw, but the nitpicking adds to confusion to the people watching events, so one loses perpective on what has been accomplished.

And with fighters willing to battle hardened US soldiers, one has to wonder what will happen next. As I learned from my stock trading days, the common error of most humans is straight line extrapolation. So it is bad now, they imagine it will stay bad. Wrong thinking. There are forces at play, like billiard balls on a table, and they are colliding and mixing in with other forces to shape events. I've explained the resistence in the previous post: It is real, it is a danger, but is wholly expected in the current environment. The only question is guaging its strength and how much it can derail the overall project, and based on that, how events will play out.

I was quite optimistic until recently that Iraq was going well and that there was no significant danger to the democratization of Iraq. But now, the dangers flushed out in the open, I have a different take. The long-term prospects are better for Iraq with the challenges being faced now, but the short-term dangers have heightened. The enemy has decided to take a stand now, and make a dice wrong. They have "called for division" - saying in effect "on our side or your side". The miscalculation is when you think you have everyone on your side but you really dont. It is almost certain that the miscalculation is on the part of Sadr and those wanting to oppose the coalition and occupation.

The majority of Iraqis are NOT on the side of the enemy, that is for sure. But if they are passive enough or intimidated enough, it can shake us off the path of political development, if events "spiral out of control". The good news - the best news - from this week has been those cases of Iraqis helping coalition. Civilians lending their cars to drive coalition soldiers to safety or carry injured to hospitals; Peshmerga helping fight some battles, Iraqi police helping in others. The worst news of course are the mob actions in Fallujah, a sign of the bad elements in control of the streets. The Marines promise that will soon change.

But of the current danger? This too shall pass, certainly. The smarter military analysts are talking about a 2-4 week period of clamping down on this. After that, further political evolution and jockeying. The bottom line is that the current threats of Sadr and Fallujah are not fundamental roadblocks, they are merely security issues (as long as they dont metasticize into something larger). The fundamental test and question is whether "the center will hold". That enough Iraqis will want a real western-style democracy enough to fend off a breaking up of the political stabilization. This current test may shock the political democrats in Iraq into stronger action to save their country from falling into the abyss. So the current danger of attacks is like a fever. Once it breaks the healing may be faster.

I dont believe the cries from idiots like Kennedy that this is Vietnam. He and his ilk are locked in the past and ignorant, willfully so, of the current situation. They want to believe the worst about America and build up tiny enemies like Sadr to be bigger than he is. Kennedy only emboldens the forces of violence in the mideast with his overheated and wholly inappropriate rhetoric. Kennedy promised thousands of body bags in the gulf war I, saying saddam's army was formidable, etc. He is wrong about almost everything.

So past, present and future collide in this anniversary. To look back and contemplate what was really gained last April, we have to look forward to the completion of this project of democracy in Iraq. Yes, Iraq was liberated from Saddam last April, and that alone is a great change. But the full libeation of Iraq will require the building of a new civil society, a free and democratic Iraq to replace the tyranny of Saddam. It hasnt happened yet; and it wont have any definite start date as it is an evolution. In the end, the makers of the legacy of Saddam's overthrow and the ones who will truly judge and live under the judgement will be the Iraqis themselves.

Here is my hope and my prediction: We will look back on the fall of Saddam on April 9 2003 as a very significant event. The beginning of the end of dictatorships in the Muslim world, and the beginning of a true democratic state of Iraq. A legacy and a gift from our fallen coalition soldiers. I am looking forward to future anniversaries.

I made some comments in the Iraq the Model comments section

"What are they resisting, by the way? The rebuilding of Iraq? America had hoped to be finished with any fighting by now and could concentrate on the reconstruction effort."

The resistance is really those elements of Arab and Islamic world that want to face the western world with violence and hostility, and want to rule the Arab world with violence. Defeating this resistence is necessary to changing the political culture in the region. This is the "draining the swamp" aspect of the war on terror that is one reason for the US to undertake this project after 9/11.

Take the Shia - some are more moderate (Sistani) and dont want theocracy imposed; others like Sadr are more adament for Iranian style theocracy. In Iraq, the more moderate wing is the greater and more influential. Sadr is allied with Hezbollah and Iran. This is part of the "swamp" that created terrorist threat to us. Not only has Hezbollah attacked Israel, but they were attacking the US in the 1980s. Since Saddam repressed Shia, the only leadership in the Arab world for them came from Tehran, which since 1980 has been pro-terrorist and anti-American. A new more moderate set of Shia leaders in the Arab could change the culture dramatically for the better.

And of course the baathists are of a different party but the same mindset as the theocrats (how else could Iran and Iraq have a pointless 8 year war and kill a million people over nothing!): Use violence to gain power and threaten others. They are fascists/Saddam-supporters basically, who would follow a dictatorship model and kill opponents to their strong-man regime.

If Iraq democracy is to win, it cant win having one election that imposes either style of dictatorship (baathist or Iranian theocracy) on Iraq. The people of Iraq who dont already desire freedom and democracy will need to be educated and learn that peaceful political evolution and human rights is the right way to go. This process will work, so long as the people of Iraq support it (most do, check the polls), and the institutions put in place are strong enough to withstand challenges (of the kind you see Sadr trying to mount).

The resistance is the resistance of the enemies of this process and this new Iraq. They must be very desperate to openly fight now. Maybe they realize that once June 30 handover happens, it will be too late and the path towards Iraqi democracy will be secure. So they make their move now, hoping to derail the political process.

I said in my comments yesterday that the Left hates Bush more than they love Iraqi democracy or its liberation from Saddam. Such comments like 'support the resistance' from an obvious westerner IMHO prove me right.

Thus says the Washington Times: Al Qaeda absent from final Clinton reporth The final policy paper on national security that President Clinton submitted to Congress — 45,000 words long — makes no mention of al Qaeda and refers to Osama bin Laden by name just four times. The scarce references to bin Laden and his terror network undercut claims by former White House terrorism analyst Richard A. Clarke that the Clinton administration considered al Qaeda an "urgent" threat, while President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, "ignored" it.

It is utterly shocking that the media through the whole Clarke 15 minutes of fame routine didnt pick up on this obvious point. Another source

Kerry Will Abandon War on Terrorism

I came across this article and other info doing a google to verify that Kerry was going to coddle the Iranians. It turns out he wants to have a 'non-confrontational' policy and a 'dialog' with the Iranian dictatorship. I found this in a Washington Times editorial:

"It is incomprehensible and unacceptable that this administration refuses to broker an arrangement with Iran," Mr. Kerry declared. "The Bush administration stubbornly refuses to conduct a realistic, non-confrontational policy with Iran."

What a shocking statement. What agreement can we broker? Hasnt our success with Libya made clear what Iran needs to do? Stop building nuclear weapons, stop helping terrorists, and open your own society to freedom. But does Kerry criticize Iran for their failures? NO! He critiques the US for failing to grovel to an oppressive regime.

Here's an excerpt from the Kenneth Timmerman article.

"In an interview with Insight, Beers went even further. "We are prepared to talk to the Iranian government" of hard-line, anti-American clerics, he insisted. "While we realize we have major differences, there are areas that could form the basis for cooperation, such as working together to stop drug production in Afghanistan."

... Talking to Insight, Beers compares Kerry's proposal to begin talks with Iran to the senator's earlier advocacy of renewing relations with Vietnam after the Vietnam War: "No expectations, eyes wide open."

With Iran, which is known to be harboring top al-Qaida operatives, Beers says "there is no way to have a deal without having the hard-liners as part of the dialogue. We are prepared to talk to the hard-line element" as part of an overall political dialogue with the Iranian regime.

The Kerry policy of seeking an accommodation with the regime is not new, says Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has been tracking Iran policy for two decades.

"Kerry's approach is that of many in Europe who think you must entice rogue regimes. Enticement only works if it is followed up with the notion that there would be a penalty if they didn't behave. I see nothing of that in Sen. Kerry's statements."

For Aryo Pirouznia, who chairs the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, Kerry's offer to negotiate with hard-liners in the regime smacks of lunacy.

Clarke, Iraq, etc. Another Clinton-era official, CIA Director George Tenet believes there existed a significant link between al Qaida and Iraq. In defense of US strikes against Saddam’s Iraq, Tenet has written, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."

Clarke’s 15 Minutes are Just About Up

This website correctly calls Clarke a fraud who is spinning to deflect blame away from the Clinton administration for failing to lead against terrorism. The question is: Why is the media AWOL on making this obvious point? Clarke is shilling for the Clinton legacy ... Instead we get nonsense like this (from MSNBC): "A White House damage-control effort has been busily under way, and Rice has dropped her opposition to publicly testifying under oath before the 9-11 Commission. Yet it will take much work to undue the collateral damage from Clarke's attack ..."

This whole media SPIN bothers me immensely. They take a totally unservious charge from Clarke far more seriously than it deserves. Then, rather than dissect its truth or falsity, they let the Bush administration twist in the wind a while.

Clarke lied, or at least said stuff that was demonstrably false. The White House shouldnt have been the ones to correct this, the MEDIA should have. This description is devoid of the underlying TRUTH at stake: Clarke is simply false when he says that the Clinton administration was serious about terrorism for 8 years but Bush administration didnt do enough in 8 months - facts are stubborn things and they disprove him 100%.

Here we have the usual media stalking-horse technique for dragging the administration down:
1. Find a vehicle for lobbing an unfair attack. (Clarke)
2. Report on it without ANY COMMENT on its veracity, give it as much authority as possible (ie point out how Clarke has served in X many administrations, but fail to point out how he voted for Gore, supports Kerry, and has a book to sell and is possibly exaggerating to garner attention for himself).
3. When nobody in the press critiques it fairly wait for Bush administration to respond. Then label any such comments as a "furious" response and make it sound as political as possible.

The end result: You have succeeded in planting this as a plausible story which only 'Bush supporters' deny, even though the original charge is totally baseless. The media falls down on the job. Even when on media source doe sits job (FoxNews showing the contradictory statements of Clarke that praised the Bush administration in 2002), the rest of the biased media doesnt follow.

Isnt media bias charming?

Critics of the Bush pre 9/11 terrorism policy seem to ask the impossible. They ask that something pre-emptive should have been done to stop 9/11.

Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terrorism, and he was pursuing weapons of mass destruction, all the while brutalizing and continuing genocidal policies against his own people. And yet when President Bush and our military removed this threat to us and the world, he was roundly condemned by the same people who now say he should have done more preemptively in the 8 months between becoming President and 9/11 itself.

Terrorism didnt start with 9/11, we were warned in 1993 with the WTC, in 1996, in 1998, and in 2000 and did not decisively and. Terrorism didnt end with 9/11, as Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, Bombay, Baghdad, Tunis, etc. prove. State sponsors of terrorism like saddam hussein are a part of the problem and need to be dealt with. To fail to see this is to leave us open to further attacks in the future.

The point of the 9/11 commission should not be to point fingers at what went wrong, but to give us the understanding to prevent the next one. Alas, it seems to have gone far astray from that task.

An Arab Newspaper condemns the barbaric Fallujah attack

"all honest Arabs, owe it to themselves to say loudly that Wednesday’s carnage was wrong."

And I respond:

Editor,

As an American, I very much appreciate your condemnation of the brutal killing and barbaric treatment of 4 civilian Americans in Fallujah Iraq.

I can report that this is absolutely untrue: "Their [US] government has told them too often that Iraq equals terrorism, that Muslims are terrorists. "

Actually, the opposite is true. President Bush has on many occasions stated that Islam is a religion of peace. The US Government has gone out of its way to distinguish between the true Islam and violent extremists.

One week after9 / 11attacks in2001 , President Bush said "Islam is Peace" in a meeting with Islamic Americans. Whitehouse press release sept 17,2001.

And last October, President Bush said: "Americans hold a deep respect for the Islamic faith ... We know that Islam is fully compatible with liberty and tolerance and progress."

And yet Jihadist extremists keep trying to prove this wrong by claiming that their barbaric killings are "in the name of Islam". One of the mob in Fallujah said this. Who is an American to believe? A Christian American leader who says Islam is peaceful, or an Arab in a mob who says killing Americans is the glory of Islam?

"all honest Arabs, owe it to themselves to say loudly that Wednesday’s carnage was wrong."

Indeed.

home

First, the other comments from Americans that this doesnt scare us (USA) at all are right. It angers us, immensely.

"My initial reaction was to wish that everyone in that crowd of zombies be strung up on that very same bridge."

My reaction too. I still feel that way.

Some Americans on the net have talked crudely of 'levelling Fallujah' or of making some big response. we wont seriously do it if it would hurt bystanders of course, it stoops to their level. But we hope that our (or Iraqi) military will at least go out there and bring the killers to justice.

We know this is barbarism, and some dont understand that only some Iraqis share these vile attitudes and question "we went to save Iraqis so they can do this? what kind of people are these?" This of course is what the terrorists hope for, and the terrorist-enablers in the media only make it worse.

Alaa and other Iraqi bloggers - thanks for being voices of reason. Your comments (and now it seems at least some Iraqi leaders) is a reminder that most Iraqis are not barbaric like these vile killers.

America liberated Iraq for those like yourself who could make something positive of the chance for freedom and a new Iraq. We dont want to see Saddam gone only to see another like him win power there over time. I hope that people like yourself win the power in the new Iraq so the barbaric ones are consigned to the ash-heap of history.

At the end of this we all want to see the Score:

Civilization 1 Barbarism 0