During WWII, as most people know, Germany invaded and occupied France.

Many citizens formed militias or worked alone in fighting this occupation.

They were all considered heroes by the world including the USA.

Question: What is the difference between Iraqi terrorists and French Freedom Fighters?

Anyone have an opinion?

A.B.

Partisan resistance is the term used to describe quasi-military individual and small-group covert activities. The practice is common in countries occupied by a victorious military force. Unable to retaliate with equal force, patriotic citizens often band together secretly to fight their oppressor. On the other hand, collaborators (quislings¹), were citizens of an occupied country who, out of fear or resentment of their own government, cooperate with the enemy. Partisan resistance movements have existed long before recorded history. In the Western tradition, Greek historian Herodotus referred to partisans in his histories.


Partisan resistance arose in all theaters of World War II. The German Blitzkrieg, (Lightning war), overran much of Europe from 1939 through 1942. As a result, small pockets of resistance fighters formed in towns and cities across the continent. Other notable partisan groups arose in Italy, Greece, the Balkans, China, and the Philippines. Numerous freedom fighters died in obscurity, but some became famous and influential. Some even rose to lofty governmental positions in postwar years.

One of the more famous groups in World War II was the French Resistance. The Free French Forces (Forces Françaises Libres) were fighters who decided to go on fighting against Germany after the Fall of France and German occupation, and to fight against Vichy France². The French resistance fighters ambushed German units, abducted and killed German army officers, obliterated bridges, wrecked trains and gave British bombers directions to such German targets as troop trains.

The difference is George W. Bush, Mr. A.B. ...

And racial discrimination ....

There's where I'll start ....

And well done in starting this thread, Mr. A.B. ....

It's past time for it, in my opinion as a Viet Nam combat veteran from out near the Cambodian border in Hau Nghia province in Viet Nam in 1969 ...

Hau Nghia province was in the top ten for Americans killed in the Viet Nam war, according to statistics that I have seen, and it was a hotbed of insurgent activity, as was Long An, out of which Hau Nghia was formed ......

The only other thing that I will say right now, because I am short on time, is that the original "INSURGENTS" in modern western history are the Americans ....

And it is interesting to read what was said about the American insurgents in the British press both during and after the American war to kick out another TYRANT named George ...

And the BRITISH INVADERS, as monuments at Saratoga battlefield near me proudly proclaim ...

The derogatory language about the American insurgents in both the English press and British Parliament at that time is essentially the same language as is used by the BUSHITES and their toadies and PROPAGANDISTS today to describe the insurgents in IRAQINAM ...

Go figure, eh ...

And so ...

We can only judge people as individuals, Mr. A.B. ...

"Sadr changes his tune, calls Iraqi forces 'brothers'"

By Raviya H. Ismail, McClatchy Newspapers

Fri Apr 25, 4:36 PM ET

BAGHDAD — Shiite Muslim leader Muqtada al Sadr , who a week ago threatened "open-ended war" against Iraq's U.S.-backed government, on Friday called on his followers to halt their attacks on Iraqi security forces and to concentrate instead on ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

An imam read the militant cleric's announcement during Friday prayers at a mosque in Baghdad's Sadr City, a Sadr stronghold where his Mahdi Army militia has been battling U.S. and Iraqi government forces for several weeks.

"So brothers in the (Iraqi) army, the police and brothers from the Mahdi Army, stop the bloodshed and let's be one hand to achieve justice, security and prosperity," the statement read.

Sadr issued a "final warning" to the Iraqi government on April 19 and called for an "open-ended war until liberation" if U.S. and Iraqi forces didn't stop attacking his followers.

His latest announcement repositions him in support of Iraq's mostly Shiite security forces, which his followers have battled since late last month, when U.S.-backed Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched a nearly weeklong assault on Sadr's forces in the southern port city of Basra.

The commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force helped broker a cease-fire in Basra at the end of March, but the fighting has continued.

Sheik Salah al Obaidi, Sadr's top spokesman in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that Sadr's April 19 statement was being manipulated to turn Iraqis against one another.

Sadr especially doesn't want his forces to fight in residential areas such as Sadr City, Obaidi said.

"You are putting the lives of normal Iraqis, of civilians, under the occupation forces' hands," Obaidi said.

Although Sadr wishes to fight the U.S. and foreign occupation, "he does not have the desire to use civilian places to start raids."

In Sadr's latest message, he emphasized that there was to be "no war among Iraqi brothers in one homeland, whatever sect or race they belong to."

He called the killing of an Iraqi by his forces "haram," or forbidden.

He asked his followers to calm down and to solve critical problems peacefully.

He emphasized a goal of a sovereign Iraq free of occupiers and foreign involvement.

Sadr's opposition to the U.S., however, remains evident in continued mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, the fortified compound in Baghdad that houses U.S. and Iraq government and military offices, from his Sadr City stronghold.

This week, mortars were fired into that area, and insurgents have clashed with Iraqi forces all over Baghdad , targeting U.S. patrols and Iraqi police using roadside bombs and other weapons.

A bomb killed at least 11 people and injured about 30 others in Sadr City on Thursday evening.

Sadrists blamed the Americans for that attack, while the U.S. military said it was Iraqi forces.

Mahdi Hakim of Sadr City said residents have no faith in the Iraqi government.

Iraqi political officials "have no real power while they support the Americans," he said.

"They have to do the opposite; support the resistance against the Americans."

Hakim said he'll follow whatever Sadr says.

"We know that there were some mistakes here and there," Hakim said.

"But Muqtada knows who is good and who is bad."

(Ismail reports for the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader . Shashank Bengali and McClatchy special correspondent Hussein Kadhim contributed to this report.)

I think there's a difference between "freedom fighters" of WW II and "terrorists" we see today. Terrorists target civilians to instill fear to advance a political agenda...freedom fighters used violent acts to disrupt enemy military operations. I think that's an essential and important difference.

amy, I saw your post in here yesterday afternoon, and as that combat veteran mentioned above, I certainly appreciate the fact that you came in here and expressed your opinion in the manner that you did ...

And as that combat veteran from Hau Nghia Province in Viet Nam, I did not answer your post yesterday when I saw it ....

Rather, as is my habit, I have been cogitating on what you have said, and several thoughts immediately came to mind, all of which I have been trying to sort out and categorize before I said another word in here, lest I in some way offend you ....

And the first thought that comes to mind is WHO IN AMERICA TODAY CAN SAY THAT THEY HAVE EVEN SEEN A "TERRORIST" IN IRAQINAM?

And more important, WHO IN AMERICA TODAY CAN SAY THAT THEY KNOW WHAT IS IN THE MIND OF A PERSON LABELED AS A "TERRORIST" IN IRAQINAM, since that is the theater of operations that Mr. A.B. is addressing ....

Here in America, which likes to prattle on to the world about being a place where RULE OF LAW is supreme, it is axiomatic in a court of law that NO ONE CAN TESTIFY AS TO WHAT IS IN THE MIND OF ANOTHER ...

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE ....

Those are things we can testify to in a court of law over here ....

And in the course of doing so, we can testify as to things that we have seen and heard, to establish an "INTENT" on the part of someone to commit a crime, or to take part in a crime ...

BUT WE CANNOT TESTIFY AS TO WHAT A PERSON'S THOUGHTS WERE ...

And so ...

That has me curious about your statement about "THE TERRORISTS THAT WE SEE TODAY" ...

For I have never seen one, myself ....

Which probably makes me the odd man out here ....

But it wouldn't be the first time for that ....

Being a combat veteran from the SURREAL Viet Nam COCK-UP or BOONDOGGLE, I am possessed of a rogue consciousness ...

And I accept that ....

And so ...

A question for you, amy, and it is in the nature of a SURVEY, it is not meant to confront you personally in any way:

WHEN GEORGE W. BUSH ORDERED THE BLITZKRIEG INVASION OF IRAQINAM TO COMMENCE, DID HE ORDER AMERICAN TROOPS TO INVADE IRAQINAM WITH AMERICAN FLAGS FLYING?

OR DID HE ORDER THE INVASION TO COMMENCE WITH NO AMERICAN FLAGS SHOWING?

Or don't you honestly know?

Which is certainly an acceptable answer ...

Since it is a survey being conducted in here out of curiosity ...

And so ...

Well, I certainly don't know what's in the minds of people who target innocent civilians, whether those civilians be in Iraq or in NYC or DC or PA or Oklahoma City. Have I ever seen a person who has committed a terrorist act? Yes, McVeigh who blew up a federal building. But I suppose that's not really important. I would imagine that people who commit acts of terrorism think they are on the side of "right", "righteous" acts committed to advance a "righteous cause". The U.S. invaded Iraq to supposedly advance the "righteous cause" of "freeing" the Iraqis from a dictatorship so they could pursue democratic ideals. The deaths of innocent civilians resulting from our efforts to "liberate" the Iraqis are labeled "collateral damage" because innocents were not the intended "targets". The various groups in Iraq who target innocent civilians in the name of their various "causes" apparently feel they have no other means for fighting for whatever it is they're fighting for.

It's all "bad"...none of it is "good". Innocent people are dead or maimed and those responsible for those atrocities continue to justify their actions through the carefully crafted use of labels and slogans ("fighting against occupiers, infidels"....."we will never surrender to the terrorists") ad nauseum.

All bad, IMO.

How right this difference is!! Using this description, Israel is a terrorist organization and should be sanctioned in total by the whole world. I won't say the same about the US because I'd likely be accused of treason by the definition in the Patriot Act.

Pinochet and his cohorts were terrorists, the Indonesian govt that tried to wipe out East Timorese were terrorists. Anyone who fought against them should be called heroes.

Hi Amy -----

Like Livyjr, I saw your post on the subject of " terrorists " vs. " freedom fighters " yesterday and appreciate your input, which I value very much. I, too, as Livyjr did, decided to put the matter into my subconcious overnight because I truly believe this is an extremely important subject and one in which propaganda is being fed to the American public constantly. It is always being painted as , on one side, ' US,- the loving caring United States Government ' which only wants to liberate the heathen, the downtrodden, the victims of vicious leaders. We want to bring them democracy in all its glory and THEM, -meaning those who do not understand us or our motives. They think we want their oil.* How ridiculous is that?*

What is not apparent to many, many people is that there are two powerful dynamics in play simultaneously, unlike the case of the " freedom fighters ' in France who had one common enemy, the German army, on which to concentrate.

In Iraq, there are two main enemies. One, of course is the occupying country. ( Let me say at this point, this has NOTHING to do with our troops, As a former WWII veteran who spent almost three years in the South Pacific, most of it in a combat zone, I am always on the side of the troops. Military people go where they are sent. ) The other enemy is those on the other side of the religious divide. To Shiites, the enemy is Sunnis. To Sunnis, it is the Shiites. Not all of either but there enough fanatics on both sides who fail to see what they are doing to their country.

When I posted the original premise, comparing the terrorists to those civilians who fought the occupiers, I thought it would be obvious who I was referring to. Those who sacrifice innocent people in the name of " My Allah " vs. " Your Allah " have nothing to do with those who are fighting to liberate their country from the occupier.

Actually, although our imbecilic president refuses to see the struggle between Shiites and Sunnis as a civil war, that's exactly what it is, Just like the American Civil War which took place between 1861-1865, although for a different reason.

Incidentally, Wikipedia states there were over 800,000 killed in the U.S. Civil war, of which about 213,000 were killed in combat and the balance were to quote our leader's phrase, " peripheral damage ".

My personal opinion is that we ( America ) is not at war with Iraq even though our C.I.C. loves to see himself as as the Chief Soldier. Why does not the media call it as it is .

We are an occupying country.

And as you have noted, Amy, when a country is occupying another country --- bad things happen.

A.B.

* Just to be sure there is no misunderstanding by anyone. this is said tongue in cheek. Of course that is the reason we are there.

Hi AB,
You've more than adequately laid out what's going on in Iraq! Of course there are Iraqis who are targeting the U.S. military and any Iraqi forces who align themselves with the U.S.military (the occupiers as they see the U.S). And then, as you have stated, the religious fanatics who kill civilians in the name of their cause.

So, yes, some Iraqis could be considered "freedom fighters" as they view the U.S. as the occupying force.

Wasn't this to be expected when Bush invaded Iraq? The rivalries between the religious factions would be unleashed and of course some Iraqis would resent our presence there and respond accordingly. No surprises here, for me at least.

Sad state of affairs.

There is a saying, I can't quote it exactly word for word, but basically it says " if you don't learn from history, you are doomed to repeat your mistakes. "

And as you have pointed out many times, Livyjr, the mistakes in Vietnam from beginning to end are being made over and over again. It's as though robots were programmed to handle the Viet Nam ghastly experience, then these robots were put away for a few years, finally they were found and with no adjustments were recharged and sent to run the Iraq tragedy. I do not use the word " tragedy lightly ".

Actually, what has happened and continues to occur day after day is more than tragic.

IMO, it is criminal on the part of the puppeteers.

A.B.

amy, if you were president, probably none of us would be in here BLOGGING, because there would be no need to ...

But alas, you are simply you ...

And as mind-boggling as it might seem, this stupid witless Texas peckerwood that we are stuck with in the White House as Commander-In-Chief of our military was totally CLUELESS as to all of this ...

AS WAS HILLARY

AS TO McCAIN, I DON'T THINK HE REALLY GAVE A DAMN ...

KILL THEM ALL, LET GOD SORT THEM OUT IS McCAIN'S MANTRA IN THIS FIASCO ....

IF SMALL BOMBS WON'T WORK TO ERADICATE AND EXTERMINATE THEM, THEN, BY GOD, USE BIGGER BOMBS ...

I have been actively following this "war" now since its inception, and before that, I was actively following its "run-up", and while I cannot claim to have a complete collection of every word that has ever been said on the subject, in my Livyjr files and in my veteran's thread, I have quite a comprehensive collection of MSM news articles on the subject of IRAQINAM, and who has said what, and when ...

Plus I quote from such works as FIASCO by Thomas Ricks and COBRA II by Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor and IN THE COMPANY OF SOLDIERS by Rick Atkinson, which I think is especially relevant to today, because Atkinson was embedded with the headquarters of General David Petraeus, who is now in command in IRAQINAM, when the BLITZKRIEG INVASION began ...

And when I read your well-considered and thoughtful post above about what George W. Bush did or did not foreseee with respect to the religious factions over there fighting with each other, I simply went to my files and pulled up this news article from AFP dated Mon., March 27, 2006 2:13 AM ET, and entitled "Bush told Blair determined to invade Iraq without UN resolution or WMD", wherein was stated:

NEW YORK (AFP) - US President George W. Bush made clear to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in January 2003 that he was determined to invade Iraq without a UN resolution and even if UN arms inspectors failed to find weapons of mass destruction in the country, The New York Times reported.

Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups."

Blair agreed with that assessment.

end quotes

Sooooo .....

There's an answer to that question, alright ....

A total idiot and a complete fool in charge of the military forces of two nations got together and the sum of idiocy became much more than either of the parts ...

And here we are today ...

Which takes me back to my unanswered question above about flying American flags or not when the invasion began ...

And to what had preceded that invasion in the prior 48 hours ...

And so ...

Talk about SURREAL, alright, Mr. A.B., your robot analogy is dead on the money ....

To me, it is as if the MAW of HELL has opened up and is taking in the whole of IRAQINAM in one gulp ....

It is beyond comprehension to me how such STUPID people as George W. Bush and "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice can get so much power to do nothing but destroy and pervert everything that they touch in what is supposed to be an educated, civilized, modern world ....

There is nothing that I can at all call "civilized" about what we are doing in IRAQINAM ...

To the contrary, it is totally barbaric, as I measure such things ...

BUT ..

It is also not without precedent ....

Julius Caesar did much the same thing when he went over the mountains from Rome into Gaul, where part of my family has its roots ...

And such conduct was already old when Caesar was doing all of his killing over there ...

Like you, Mr. A.B., I am a reader of the Bible, although I might look upon it more as a history than you ....

And the Bible is full of this same conduct, page after page after page, plus there are a lot of stupid rulers in there as well who end up destroying their own people and nations in return for having tried to destroy the lives of others ....

And so ...

As I said over in Mr. A.B.'s Place a bit ago - what a long strange trip this has been ...

And so ...

Funny!

That's the page I was turning, as well ...

Although I was also thinking of us in Viet Nam to add to that list ....

And so ...

Israel purposely targets innocent civilians? They use suicide bombers or plant bombs in marketplaces, schools, neighborhoods? I don't approve of all that Israel does, but I don't believe their military or non military Israelis target innocents.

And talking about repeating history ...

And being real stupid at the same time ....

We have ...

"Torture Didn't Work for the French in Algeria Either"

By Shawn McHale

Shawn McHale is an associate professor of history and international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, and a writer for the History News Service.

"We all had the same reaction."

"We tried not to see it."

"We were shocked, but powerless."

"At first, revolted; by the end, indifferent."

"It has to be said, it's shameful."

These are the words of a French soldier, Raymond Dumas, who witnessed torture during France's war in Algeria in the 1950s.

They could, however, be the words of torturers everywhere and in every era.

The French case provides eerie parallels to today, when we are faced every day with new allegations about the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.

A democracy like the United States, France has long affirmed support for human rights.

Like the United States, it resorted to extreme forms of coercion as part of a war against what it called "terrorists."

France won key battles by torturing suspects for intelligence.

But the bigger lesson is that it lost the war.

The fact that French military leaders resorted to the extensive use of torture shows that they had lost the support of the populace at large.

It is a lesson that seems to have been ignored by American leaders as they prosecute a war in Iraq.

The French use of torture in Algeria didn't happen overnight.

It was a reaction to a deepening crisis in which the French military, originally looking for suspect Algerians, came to see all Algerians as suspects.

A signatory to the Geneva Conventions on war, the French government nonetheless insisted that these conventions weren't applicable to the Algerian situation.

Its rejection of Geneva protections, and the consequent acceptance of harsher methods of interrogation of prisoners, proved to be fertile breeding ground for torturers.

Since late 2001, because the attacks against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has, like the French in Algeria, displayed a clear ambivalence toward the Geneva Conventions.

At times it has professed adherence; at others, it has scoffed.

Even the reasoning for rejecting these conventions is identical to earlier French arguments: like the United States today, the French military argued that countering terror required harsh methods.

In Algeria, concerned about countering a "revolutionary war," French generals increasingly seized authority from civilian leaders.

They ran roughshod over legal protections for the population.

The main opposition to French rule, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), seized the initiative.

But the FLN was not simply the virtuous revolutionary force beloved of the left; like many weak revolutionary forces (for example, the Vietnamese Viet Minh at the beginning of its war against the French), it too resorted to terror to achieve its aims.

In Iraq, frustrated with the rising use of terror attacks, the U.S. military has, understandably, pushed aggressively for more and better intelligence.

In the process, it has ignored its own regulations against extreme forms of coercion.

The French experience in Algeria should have driven home, however, the danger in linking intelligence and torture.

In Algeria, faced with the threat of the FLN, French officers pushed for better intelligence.

At the end of 1956, they set up the Detachments Operationnels de Protection, autonomous military intelligence units whose primary function was to dismantle the FLN networks.

These French units exploited the unclear lines of their own command authority to act somewhat independently of the rest of the military.

This ambiguous command authority also allowed them to set up a vast network of detention camps in which torture was widely practiced.

When we look at Iraq today, many parallels to Algeria jump out at us: the ambivalence toward the Geneva conventions on war, the diminished civilian judicial authority over the conduct of war, the problem of ambiguously defined command authority and the creation of "extra legal" spaces in which clandestine use of coercion can thrive.

The French failure in Algeria also suggests some questions that must be asked about Iraq.

The vast majority of American attention has been focused on one place: Abu Ghraib prison.

But other detention centers exist.

In Algeria, much of the torture took place in "temporary" or transitional detention camps, some of them clandestine.

For suspects, the time between being rounded up as a suspect and officially documented as a prisoner was particularly dangerous.

Suspects were often tortured; if they tried to escape, French soldiers were allowed to shoot to kill.

It is imperative that U.S. military clarify whether or not it engages in similar practices toward "suspects."

In the short term, intelligence operatives can use torture to extract information that will save lives.

But in the long term, the widespread use of torture destroys a population's acceptance of occupation.

As Gen. Jacques Massu, commander of the army corps in Algiers, who played a leading role in the Algerian war, admitted in 2001, "Torture is not indispensable in time of war, we could have gotten along without it very well."

Torture helped the French army win the Battle of Algiers; it also helped the country lose the Algerian War.

That defeat, and the role that torture played in it, is one that the United States should heed today as it confronts the crisis in Iraq.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This piece was distributed for non-exclusive use by the History News Service, an informal syndicate of professional historians who seek to improve the public's understanding of current events by setting these events in their historical contexts. The article may be republished as long as both the author and the History News Service are clearly credited.

http://hnn.us/articles/5458.html

Of course not, amy ...

There aren't any non-Isrealis who are innocent of anything!

All non-Isrealis are guilty ....

Like the Algerians were ...

Like the Vietnamese were ....

Like the people of IRAQINAM now are ....

They are all criminals ....

Especially the women and children ...

And hey, everybody knows that criminals deserve to be killed on sight ...

Saves the "STATE" the cost of a trial ...

Especially since they are already guilty because they were born there ....

And so ...

That was simple ....

And so ...

Liv,
I never said that non Israelis are guilty and Israelis are guilt free. I said they don't intentionally target innocents although of course innocents are killed when there is military action, intentional killing or not.

Anyway, that's just my opinion and at this point in time my attention is firmly placed on the election and the news on that front.

THIS IS WHEN I FIRST STARTED HEARING ABOUT "TAY-RIZM", WHEN I WAS ABOUT 10 YEARS OLD, IN 1956 ...

I'VE BEEN LIVING WITH THIS SAME **** ALL MY LIFE ...

AND IT SEEMS TO ME THAT IRAQINAM IS A CARBON-COPY, WITH US NOW STARRING AS THE FRENCH, OF COURSE ...

AND THE DUMB PECKERWOOD BUSH AND HIS TOADY, "CON-JOB CONNIE" RICE SHOULD KNOW ALL OF THIS HISTORY COLD ...

AND THEY OR ANY AMERICAN LEADER SHOULD BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN TO US IN PLAIN LANGUAGE HOW IT IS THAT THEY ARE NOT REPEATING THIS SAME HISTORY ALL OVER AGAIN ...

BUT, OF COURSE, THEY CAN'T ....

BECAUSE THE BUSHITES ARE THE ONES WHO WRITE THE HISTORY THAT EVERYBODY ELSE WILL GET TO READ ABOUT ...

THE SUPPOSED "BUSH LEGACY" ...

WHICH IS NOTHING MORE THAN A TALE ABOUT A TOTAL FOOL ...

And so ...

http://www.atimes.com

Middle East

"Occupation case studies: Algeria and Turkey"

By K Gajendra Singh

Jan 7, 2004

"We studied history at school that taught us to say freedom or death."

"I think you know well that we as a people have our experience with the colonialists."

- US ambassador April Glaspie to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on July 25, 1990.

While formulating foreign policy options, political leaders also look to history for guidance.

Unfortunately, the United State's history is only two centuries old, and to meet the challenge of terrorism, Frankenstein monsters partly of its own creation, the mujahideen, jihadis, the Taliban and al-Qaeda , the US can only recall a long genocidal war against its native Americans.

Those who resisted were called "terrorists" for defending their native land and way of life against foreign invaders.

There are Hollywood films galore that depict the "American Indians" as savages to be hunted down by the US cavalry.

The same cavalry units now force Iraqis daily to lie face down in the land of their ancestors and describe those fighting to free their country from the occupying forces as "terrorists".

The Iraqis, other Arabs and Iranians are the new "American Indians", and those who collaborate with the Bush administration are like the good Indians who helped the Americans fight and defeat bad Indians.

So the display of a seemingly drugged and unwashed Saddam Hussein was to assert white Christian supremacy over the natives.

US policy in Iraq and the region is pure and simple, blatant neo-colonization.

After Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Middle East is the new American West.

The US administration, scared of Islamic fundamentalism and religious fanatics, has yet to evolve a coherent policy to counter it.

But it is turning occupied Iraq into an oligarchy of crony capitalism, after an ill-advised and illegal war on Iraq, set off and egged on by Christian fundamentalists at the core of the administration.

The idea of nationalism - developed by the West - socialism, rule of law, fraternity and equality, have been abolished in the discourse since September 11.

But the sturdy plant of nationalism in Iraq cannot be eliminated by going into denial mode.

According to Iraqi opposition and other sources, there are perhaps more than 50 different resistance organizations, including Ba'athists, communists, nationalists, cashiered soldiers discarded by the occupation, and Sunni and Shi'ite religious groups, as well as foreign elements.

In reality, almost everyone is opposed to foreign occupation.

In an era of nation states based on patriotism and shared history, people just hate occupying powers.

While Vietnam's example and its people's fight for freedom and making it a quagmire for US forces has been talked about, Iraq's comparison with post World War 2 Germany and Japan shows little historic understanding.

The ground situation and the evolution of the war for independence in Muslim, Arab, and till now secular Iraq, is closer to the wars of independence in Algeria and Turkey.

In a November 2003 report by MEDACT, the London-based affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Physicians for Social Responsibility, it was estimated that the number of Iraqis killed since the invasion in March was between 20,000 and 55,000, including at least 8,000 civilians, with upwards of 20,000 civilian casualties.

The Algerian war of independence lasted from 1954 to 1962, in which almost every family lost a member, a son, a cousin, a nephew, willingly or unwillingly sacrificed at the alter of freedom, self respect and dignity.

After its defeat in World War 1, when the Ottoman empire lay supine under the heels of Allied power in its capital Istanbul with the Sultan Caliph a captive, the national leadership, led by Mustapha Kemal and his comrades, mostly former Ottoman soldiers, aroused the masses of Anatolia to make yet another supreme effort to expel the Greeks and other occupying powers.

Algerian case study

When I arrived in Algeria in 1964 from Egypt as a young diplomat, one saw very few young men between the ages of 14 and 40 years in the streets of Algiers, its capital.

One million Algerians out of a population of 11 million had been killed in the war for independence against France.

When president Ahmed Ben Bella was ousted by his defense minister Colonel Houari Boumedienne in June 1965, there was almost no violence.

Algerians had had enough bloodletting.

Ben Bella was quietly taken away from the president's palace, just across from my 4th floor apartment.

The Battle of Algiers, now being screened for the benefit of US decision makers, was filmed in 1965.

Like Operation Iraqi Freedom and other US claims to usher democracy into Iraq and the Middle East now, during World War 2, Allied and Axis powers in their Arabic radio broadcasts promised freedom and a new world for the natives.

Ferhat Abbas drafted an Algerian manifesto in December 1942 for presentation to Allied and French authorities for political autonomy for Algeria.

Following General Charles de Gaulle's promise in 1943 for their loyalty, some categories of Muslims in North Africa were granted French citizenship, but this did not go far enough to satisfy Algerian aspirations.

When Algerian nationalist flags were displayed at Sitif in May 1945, French authorities fired on demonstrators.

In a spontaneous uprising, 84 European settlers were massacred.

The violence and suppression that followed resulted in the death of about 8,000 Muslims (according to French sources) or as many as 45,000 (according to Algerian sources).

That laid the foundations for the Algerian War of Independence, which began in earnest 10 years later.

A number of nationalist groups and parties were organized in Algeria even before World War 2, which became increasingly radicalized when peaceful means failed to obtain freedom.

A radical paramilitary group, the Special Organization (Organization Spiciale; OS) formed in the mid 1940s was discovered in 1950 and many of its leaders imprisoned.

In 1954, a group of former OS members formed the Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action (Comiti Rivolutionaire d'Uniti et d'Action; CRUA).

This organization, later to become the FLN, made preparations for military action.

The leading members of the CRUA became the so-called chefs historiques (historical leaders) of the Algerian War of Independence: Hocine Aot-Ahmed, Larbi Ben M'Hidi, Moustapha Ben Boulaid, Mohamed Boudiaf, Mourad Didouche, Belkacem Krim, Mohamed Khider, Rabah Bitat, and Ahmed Ben Bella.

They organized and led several hundred men in the first armed confrontations.

The Algerian war of Independence was ignited in 1954 in the Aures mountains.

It was at first dismissed as just colonial trouble.

The armed uprising soon intensified and spread, gradually affecting larger parts of the country, and some regions - notably the northeastern parts of Little Kabylia and parts of the Aurhs Mountains - became guerrilla strongholds that were beyond French control.

France became more involved in the conflict, drafting some 2 million conscripts over the course of the war.

To counter the spread of the uprising, the French National Assembly declared a state of emergency.

Jacques Soustelle arrived in Algiers as the new governor-general in February 1955, but his new plan was ineffective.

Soon the situation developed into a full-scale war with French military rule, censorship and terrorism and torture.

White French and European settlers known as pied noires (black feet) thrice challenged the central government in Paris.

The white European settler population was part of Algeria for generations, perhaps much longer than any other settler community in Africa, with the mother country just across the Mediterranean.

The French were almost as numerous as the Muslim Algerians in the main cities and had rendered conspicuous services to Algeria.

A decisive turn in the war for independence took place in August 1955, when a widespread armed outbreak in Skikda, north of the Constantine region, led to the killings of nearly 100 Europeans and Muslim officials.

Countermeasures by both the French army and settlers claimed the lives of somewhere between 1,200 (according to French sources) and 12,000 (according to Algerian sources) Algerians.

A French army of 500,000 troops was sent to Algeria to counter the rebel strongholds in the more distant portions of the country, while the rebels collected money for their cause and took reprisals against fellow Muslims who would not cooperate with them.

By the spring of 1956 a majority of previously non-committed political leaders, such as Ferhat Abbas and Tawfiq al-Madani, joined FLN leaders in Cairo, where the group established its headquarters.

The first FLN congress took place in August-September 1956 in the Soummam Valley between Great and Little Kabylia and brought together the FLN leadership in an appraisal of the war and its objectives.

Algeria was divided into six autonomous zones (wilayat ), each led by guerrilla commanders who later played key political roles in the country.

The congress also produced a written program on the aims and objectives of the war and set up the National Council for the Algerian Revolution (Conseil National de la Rivolution Algirienne) and the Committee of Coordination and Enforcement (Comiti de Coordination et d'Exicution), the latter acting as the executive branch of the FLN.

Externally, the major event of 1956 was the French decision to grant full independence to Morocco and Tunisia and to concentrate on retaining "French Algeria".

The Moroccan sultan and premier Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, hoping to find an acceptable solution to the Algerian problem, called for a meeting in Tunis with important Algerian leaders (including Ben Bella, Boudiaf, Khider and Aot-Ahmed) who were the guests of the sultan in Rabat.

French intelligence officers, however, hijacked the plane chartered by the Moroccan government to Oran instead of Tunis.

The Algerian leaders were arrested and imprisoned in France for the rest of the war.

This act hardened the resolve of the Algerian leadership and provoked an attack on Meknhs, Morocco, that cost the lives of 40 French settlers before the Moroccan government could restore order.

After the meeting with the Moroccan sultan at Rabat at the end of 1957, Bourguiba again offered to mediate, but the French, deceived into optimism by some recent successes in the field, declined.

Bourguiba wanted a peaceful solution, because of growing links between the FLN and Egypt.

A Maghrib federation to include an independent Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia was also discussed.

From the beginning of 1956 and lasting until the summer of the following year, the FLN tried to paralyze the administration of Algiers through what has come to be known as the Battle of Algiers.

Attacks by the FLN against both military and civilian European targets were countered by paratroopers led by General Jacques Massu.

To stem the tide of FLN attacks, the French military resorted to the torture and summary execution of hundreds of suspects.

The entire leadership of the FLN was eventually eliminated or forced to flee.

The French also cut Algeria off from independent Tunisia and Morocco by erecting barbed wire fences that were illuminated at night by searchlights.

This separated the Algerian resistance bands within the country from some 30,000 armed Algerians on the frontiers of Tunisia and Morocco.

Constitutionally declared a part of metropolitan France, the Frenchmen maintained a stubborn belief that Algeria was French, while others wondered why the French were unable to see that their days as rulers in Algeria were numbered.

Like other colonists, the sudden descent from the first rank world colonial power was too much.

The British in the Middle East after the retreat from India also made the mistake by hanging on to Egypt and even invaded it along with France and Israel in 1956.

It ended in disaster.

After their retreat from Indo-China, senior French officers in Algeria took their role with a sense of mission which distorted their sense of proportion and led them in the end to jettison their oaths of allegiance and violation of human rights.

The settler French community arrogated to itself an authority which belonged rightly to Paris.

The weaknesses and divisions of the governments of the Fourth Republic in Paris allowed this authority to be enhanced and exercised in Algiers recklessly until the return of General de Gaulle in 1958.

Some French governor-generals in Algeria did try to alleviate their repression of nationalism with some economic developments and reforms, but the nationalists' aim was full independence.

In the first phase of the revolt after the defeat of the Faure government in November 1955, a fresh general election installed a minority government led by Guy Mollet.

Mollet went to Algiers where he was pelted with garbage by pied noirs, while talks with the FLN leaders remained totally unproductive.

A widely respected and liberal General Catroux appointed governor general by Mollet resigned his office without even leaving France.

By May 1956, Mollet felt that he had taken enough risks and in a trial of strength between Paris and the Europeans in Algeria, and Paris might not win.

During the next 18 months political attitudes remained rigid, the French army and the FLN established positions in which neither could defeat the other.

Terrorism mounted on both sides and even spread to Paris and other cities in France.

Torture became a regular instrument of government, with retaliation by the FLN.

The impasse seemed to be complete, politically and militarily.

The European community's preoccupation with repression left little room for anything else.

On May 28, 1958, Pierre Pflimlin, the last prime minister of the Fourth French Republic, resigned, becoming the sixth victim of the Algerian war.

On May 13, Algiers had rebelled against Paris planning to seize power in Paris by a coup on May 30.

Most of Corsica had accepted the rebel regime and half the commanders of the military regions in France were believed to be disloyal.

Then on June 1 emerged General de Gaulle, World War 2 hero of the French resistance who was invested with full powers.

He flew to Algiers on June 4, but kept his cards close to his chest, but he probably saw the inevitable.

By a mixture of authority and ambiguity, he imposed his will and gradually acquired the power to impose a solution.

It was a masterly performance, but it took him nearly four years.

He did enough to retain the initiative, but would not reveal his plans, thus preventing potentially hostile groups from acting against him until it was too late.

He normalized relations with Tunisia and Morocco, agreeing to withdraw French forces from both countries (except from the Tunisian naval base at Bizerta).

He transferred from Algeria many senior officers who could not disobey the general.

General Salan, a prime rallying point for rebels and leader of the May putsch, temporarily retained his command, but was relieved of his civilian duties.

After preliminary moves and with cautious deliberation, de Gaulle delivered his first major statement on the future status of Algeria in September 1959.

He offered a choice (similar to France's colonies in western and central Africa in 1958) between independence, integration with France and association with France.

The choice was to be made within four years from the end of hostilities, defined as any year in which fewer than 200 people were killed in fighting or by terrorism.

It was followed by another pied noires revolt on January 24, 1960 when the European community opposed even de Gaulle.

The revolt was a failure because the French government acted quickly in Algeria and at home.

But to Algerians, de Gaulle's offer was no more than a half-way house.

The FLN wanted full independence.

Support for de Gaulle in France was more widespread in 1960 than in 1958.

People felt that the war had gone on for too long and they were opposed to the violent means used.

Henri Alleg's book La Question focused on the use of torture by units of the French army.

The trial of Alleg in 1960, followed by the disappearance and murder of the French communist and university lecturer Maurice Audin, the trial in 1961 of the Algerian girl Djamila Boupacha, protests by Roman Catholic cardinals occupying French sees and a manifesto signed by 121 leading intellectuals all contributed to turn French opinion against the settler French community and the French army in Algeria.

Toward the end of 1960 the leaders of the January revolt were themselves put on trial.

But still one more settler rebellion occurred, in April 1961, led by four generals, which lasted for four days.

Two of the four generals, Salan and Jouhaud, were subsequently sentenced to death in absentia and the other two, Challe and Zeller, who surrendered, were given 15 years imprisonment - all sentences were eventually reduced.

Out of the failed rebellion rose the Organization de l'Armee Secrete (OAS) which resorted to terrorism and by creating among the European population fears of reprisals by an independent Algerian government, provoked (as independence became inevitable ) an exodus which deprived the country of much-needed skills in administration, education and other public services.

The lesson was well learnt by leaders in South Africa when it became independent at the end of an apartheid regime.

De Gaulle's efforts in Algeria did not improve relations with the nationalist forces.

In September 1959, the FLN proclaimed a provisional Algerian government with Ferhat Abbas as prime minister and the imprisoned Ben Bella as his deputy.

It then turned for help to Moscow and Beijing.

During 1960 it became apparent that the non-combatant Algerians favored the FLN and its unequivocal demand for independence, which made de Gaulle turn to negotiations with the FLN.

In July de Gaulle, in a televised speech, unequivocally accepted Algerian independence, but the FLN adopted a more assertive line when Yusuf Ben Khedda succeeded a moderate Ferhat Abbas as the head of the provisional Algerian government.

In the same month the OAS made an unsuccessful attempt on de Gaulle's life as its activities increased throughout France and Algeria, with rumors of the proclamation of a dissident French republic under General Salan in northern Algeria.

The first secret negotiations held at Melun in June were a failure, but after discussions between de Gaulle and Bourguiba, between FLN leaders and Georges Pompidou (then a private banker) and between the FLN and Moroccans, Tunisians and Egyptians, a conference was called at Evian in Switzerland.

The problems were the FLN's claim to be recognized as a government, the right of the imprisoned Ben Bella to attend the conference, guarantees for the French who might wish to remain in Algeria, continuing French rights in the naval base at Mers-el-Kebir, Saharan oil, and the conditions under which the proposed referendum on the status of Algeria would be held.

Negotiations were opened in France with representatives of the Algerian provisional government ( GPRA) in May 1961.

GPRA had long been recognized by the Arab and communist states, from which it received aid, though it (communism) was never been able to establish itself on Algerian soil.

Negotiations were broken off in July, after which Abbas was replaced as premier by the much younger Ben Youssef Ben Khedda.

Settler opposition around the OAS began to employ random acts of terror to disrupt peace negotiations.

The second Evian conference took place in March 1962.

On March 18, a ceasefire agreement was signed.

The conference also agreed on the terms for the referendum and presuming that the result would favor independence, further agreed (among other things), that French troops would be withdrawn progressively over three years, except from Mers-el-Kebir.

France might continue its nuclear tests in the Sahara and retain its airfields there for five years and would continue its economic activities in the Saharan oilfields.

France also agreed to continue technical and financial aid to Algeria for at least three years.

This announcement produced a violent outburst of OAS terrorism, but in May it subsided as it became obvious that such actions were futile.

A referendum held in Algeria in July 1962 recorded some 6 million votes in favor of independence and only 16,000 against it.

After three days of continuous Algerian rejoicing, the GPRA entered Algiers in triumph, as settler Europeans began to depart.

Algeria becomes Independent

On July 3, 1962 Algeria became an independent sovereign state.

But its leaders could not remain together.

Ben Bella returned to Algiers after six years' absence in prison and joined hands with army chief Colonel Houari Boumedienne to become the first president.

But perhaps he alienated colleagues and followers by trying to reorganize the FLN on communist lines and playing a leading role in African and Afro-Asian affairs to the neglect of urgent domestic problems.

In June 1965 Ben Bella tried to sideline conservative Boumedienne, now defense minister, but was himself overthrown, with the latter becoming the president.

Ben Bella was imprisoned until 1978 and remained under house arrest until 1990.

But Algeria remains a violent place and in the bloody confrontation between FLN/army and radical Islamic groups 100,000 Algerians were killed during the 1990s.

Civil wars and Turkey's war of Independence

After the Allied powers' victory in World War 1, the Ottoman government in Istanbul under the 36th and last Ottoman Sultan Caliph Mehmed VI Vahideddin (1918-22) decided that resistance to Allied demands was futile, but there remained many pockets of resistance in Anatolia.

These consisted of bands of irregulars and deserters, a number of intact Ottoman units and various societies for the "defense of rights".

At this time, Mustafa Kemal (he became Ataturk "Father of Turks" later ), a hero of the Gallipoli front in the war was sent as Inspector of the army to eastern Turkey.

Landing at Samsun on May 19, 1919, he immediately began to organize resistance and was soon joined by other military leaders like Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Kasim Karabekir, Ruaf Orbay, Refet Bele and others with their troops.

The Association for the Defense of the Rights of Eastern Anatolia was founded and a congress at Erzurum (July-August) summoned.

It was followed by a second congress at Sivas with delegates representing the whole country.

A new Association for the Defense of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia elected Mustafa Kemal as the chairman of its executive committee to organize national resistance.

But the fire of resistance really flared up when the hated Greeks, with British encouragement, occupied Izmir (May 15, 1919).

The Allied plans imposed in the Treaty of Sevres, which the Ottoman representative signed, would have created an independent Armenia, an autonomous Kurdish region, demilitarization and international control over the Straits and Istanbul, with the rest of the country parceled to the Greeks, the French and the Italians.

Only a barren northeast rump of Anatolia would have remained with the Turks.

Negotiations were arranged between the Istanbul government and the Kemalists.

A new parliament was elected, which met in Istanbul in January 1920.

Kemal was against the meeting in Istanbul and stayed back in Ankara.

The new parliament passed the National Pact, formulated at Erzurum and Sivas, which called for independence roughly within the October 1918 armistice lines.

In response the Allies enlarged the area of occupation in Istanbul (March 16, 1920), arrested and deported many deputies and set out to crush the Kemalists.

Most deputies escaped to Ankara and the die was cast.

To establish a legitimate basis of action the Grand National Assembly (parliament) met at Ankara on April 23 and asserted that the Sultan's government was under infidel control.

It was the duty of Muslims to resist foreign encroachment.

In the Fundamental Law of January 20, 1921, the assembly declared that sovereignty belonged to the nation and that the assembly was the "true and only representative of the nation".

The name of the state was declared to be Turkey, and executive power was entrusted to an executive council, headed by Mustafa Kemal, who could now concentrate on the war of independence.

Soon the Kemalists were faced with local uprisings, official Ottoman forces and Greek hostility supported by the Allies.

In response to the declarations of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara, the Istanbul government appointed its own extraordinary Anatolian general inspector and a new Security Army, later called the Caliphal Army, in 1920 to enforce its rule and fight the nationalists with British support.

The Istanbul and Ankara governments issued fatwas against each other, specially against Kemal.

Thus the stage was set for a full civil war.

The situation was similar to the chaos in Anatolia in the early 15th century after Bayezit's defeat by Tamerlane, when rival Ottoman governments in Europe and Ankara contested control over Anatolia.

The empire was threatened by foreign invasion and the land was infested by local rebellions and roaming bands.

And in both cases it was the heartland of Turkish life and tradition, Anatolia, that produced the victor.

In this chaotic and lawless situation, many bands rose to seek wealth and power for themselves, in alliance with one or the other of the governments, sometimes at the instigation of the Greeks, the British, or even the communists.

Sometimes the bands represented large landowners who were seeking to regain their power.

Most degenerated into little more than bandit forces, manned by a motley assortment of dispossessed peasants, Tatars from the Crimea and Central Asia and Turkish and Kurdish nomads, always ready for a good fight against whoever was in power.

These armies became so powerful that on April 29, 1920, the Grand National Assembly passed a law that prohibited "crimes against the nation" and set up independence courts (Istiklal Mahkemeleri) to try and execute on the spot.

These courts became a major instrument of the Ankara government to suppress opposition long after independence was achieved.

Most famous of the private armies operating in Anatolia during the civil war was the Green Army (Yesil Ordu), which posed a major threat to all sides.

It was organized during the winter of 1920 "to evict from Asia the penetration and occupation of European imperialism".

Its members were former unionists, known to and respected by Mustafa Kemal, including its secretary general, Hakki Behic, Bey and Yunus Nadi, an influential Istanbul journalist, whose journal Yeni Gun (New Day) had just been closed by the British.

Nadi in 1924 founded the leading newspaper of republican Turkey, Cumhuriyet (The Republic).

Its objective was to counter the reactionary propaganda spread in Anatolia by agents of the Istanbul government and the Allies and to popularize the national movement and mobilize the Turkish peasants' support.

So the Green Army was supported and encouraged by Kemal.

But many of its members wished to combine unionism, Pan-Islam and socialism and "establish a socialist union in the world of Islam by modifying the Russian Revolution".

Soon it attracted a number of groups opposed to the Ankara government, including not only supporters of the Istanbul government but also anti-Kemalist unionists and communists connected with the Third International.

This led Kemal to get Hakki Behic to disband the organization late in 1920, though its various anti-Kemalist elements continued to act on their own during the next two years.

There were two other independent armies, both led by Circassians, which were very active.

They were mostly formed of Tatar and Circassian refugees driven into Anatolia by the Russians.

A left-leaning guerrilla movement led by Cerkes Ethem was at first quite successful against the Greeks near Izmir in 1919.

It supported the national movement for some time against the reactionary Caliphal army and the anti-Ankara movements that were active in the eastern Marmara region in 1920.

The other Circassian, Ahmet Anzavur, led a more conservative movement and force with money and arms provided by the Istanbul government and the British.

He led two major revolts against the nationalists in the areas of Baliksir and Gonen in October-December 1919 and again from February to June 1920.

For a time he even led the Caliphal army and his bands began to ravage the countryside.

Kemal chose Cerkes Ethem, who was still with him to defeat and send Anzavur on the run in April 1920.

Anzavur soon raised a new army, but was defeated and killed and his army dispersed by the nationalists in May, 1920.

Ultimately, Cerkes Ethem became too big for his boots and increasingly rapacious towards the civilian population, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

He had allied with the Green Army, sometimes he supported various communist manifestos being circulated.

And he was not inclined to follow Ankara's plans so essential for the success of the new nationalist army being raised.

Finally, Kemal sent a major force to destroy Cerkes Ethem's army in January 1921, forcing him to flee to the Greeks and eventually to Italy into exile.

There were also strong local rebellions around Bolu, Yozgat, and Duzce, (halfway between Ankara and Istanbul).

The last was led by the Capanoglu Derebey family, which tried to restore its old power.

He and his followers were hunted down and dispersed by the nationalists.

Its leading members were hanged in Amasya in August 1920.

Such movements and revolts did not subside, even after the establishment of the republic.

It took time to reduce the old family and tribal forces that were revived by the civil wars.

And finally there were the communists, with Russia sending propaganda literature into Anatolia.

Kemal was opposed in principle but took little action initially as he needed the Bolsheviks' help.

He even tolerated a number of communist activities during 1920, including a new joint communist-unionist organization in Ankara called the People's Communist Party (Tiirkiye Halk Istirakiyun Firkasi), which enabled the communists to come out publicly in Turkey for the first time.

It had some connection with the Green Army.

On October 18, 1920, to please the Russians, Ataturk even allowed the formation of a separate Turkish Communist Party (Tiirkiye Komiinist Firkasi).

But it was manned mainly by some of his close associates from the assembly.

It was less radical than the first group and was used by the government as a tool to divide and confuse the communist movement and its supporters.

But when the former became too active it was suppressed.

It had issued a joint declaration with the Green Army and Cerkes Ethem that they had "approved the Bolshevik party program passed by the Third International ... and joined to unite all the social revolutionary movements in the country", and adopted the name Turkish People's Collectivist Bolshevik Party.

Communist agents became active around Ankara and Eskisehir and cooperated with unionist groups in Erzurum and Trabzon, which were centers of Enver Pasha's supporters throughout the war for independence.

This forced Ataturk to criticize the communists for working outside the organ of the people, the Grand National Assembly.

After crushing the Green Army and chasing out Cerkes Ethem, he now turned on the communists.

Their leaders were tried, but the final sentences were suspended until after a treaty was signed with Moscow in March 1921.

As Russian support was important, the sentences were relatively light.

The only violent action against the Turkish communists came when communist Mustafa Suphi and others entered Anatolia via Kars in December 1920.

Though they met with top nationalist leaders like Ali Fuat and Kazim Karabekir at Kars in January 1921, they were arrested soon and sent by boat to Erzurum for trial.

On the way they were assassinated by a group of pro-Enver supporters from Trabzon, apparently because of the fear that Suphi might expose Enver's plans.

As for the dashing Enver Pasha and his colleagues Cemal and Talat, who had led the Ottoman empire into World War 1, they fled from Istanbul on November 2, 1918, on a German freighter going to Odessa.

Then they went over to Berlin, but lived under assumed names, since the victors had demanded their extradition for the "crimes" of their regime.

Soon they were invited by Karl Radek to continue their work in Moscow, with full Bolshevik support for the "Turkish national struggle".

Talat, who remained in Germany, was killed by an Armenian assassin on March 15, 1921.

Cemal and Enver went to Moscow and later to Central Asia, where they undertook a series of political activities with the ultimate intention of using the Bolsheviks to regain power in Turkey once the nationalists were defeated.

With Bolshevik encouragement, Enver proclaimed the organization of the Union of Islamic Revolutionary Societies (Islam Ihtilal Cemiyetleri Ittihadi) and an affiliated Party of People's Councils (Halk 'uralar Firkasi), the former as the international Muslim revolutionary organization, the latter as its Turkish branch.

In early September 1920, he attended the Congress of the Peoples of the East at Baku.

But while Ataturk generally encouraged Enver, hoping to use him to get Bolshevik aid, he never trusted him.

Enver had some groups of supporters in Anatolia, including about 40 secret unionists in the assembly, working to install Enver in Ataturk's place at an opportune moment.

Enver moved from Moscow to Batum in the summer of 1921 when the Greek offensive began, hoping to enter Anatolia if Ataturk nationalist forces were defeated.

But following Kemal's victory over the Greeks at Sakarya (September 1921), Enver abandoned Turkey and went into Central Asia to lead its Muslims against both the British and the Russians.

He was killed in a battle with Russian forces near Ceken while pursuing his pan-Turanian mission.

What was the role of the Sultan in the conflict?

According to Sir Horace Rumbold, British ambassador in Istanbul, the Sultan did not understand the nationalists or their movement.

He thought a handful of brigands had established complete ascendancy and stranglehold on the people as a whole.

The Ankara leaders were men without any real stake in the country, with which they had no connection of blood or anything else.

Kemal was a Macedonian revolutionary of unknown origins.

Bekir Sami was a Circassian.

They were all the same, Albanians, Circassians, anything but Turks.

There was not a real Turk among them.

The real Turks were loyal to the Sultan, who had been hoodwinked by fantastic misrepresentations, like his own captivity.

They looked for external support and found it in the Bolsheviks.

The Angora leaders might discover and regret too late that they would bring on Turkey the fate of Azerbaijan.(which was taken over by the Bolsheviks).

In the meantime, Kemal organized his national army to fight for Anatolia's independence, trained, disciplined and armed at a new officers' school established in Ankara.

Russian arms and ammunition began to flow across the Black Sea in increasing amounts.

In Istanbul after the Allied occupation a new and well-spread group was organized among the remaining civil servants and officers and called the National Defense Organization (Mudafaa-i Milliye Tefkildtt) to send information, arms and equipment to the nationalists.

During 1920-1921, the Greeks had made major advances, almost to Ankara, but were defeated at the Battle of the Sakarya River (August 24, 1921) and began a long and hasty retreat that ended in the Turks regaining Izmir (September 9, 1922) and the expulsion of Greek forces from Anatolia.

The total dead in the war was; for Turks, 10,000 dead in fighting and 22,000 from disease.

Greek dead and wounded were estimated at 100,000.

During World War 1, with the front with Russian forces shifting in northeast Anatolia where Armenians were encouraged and hopeful of an independent state, terrible killings took place involving all sides.

It continued even after wars.

In the World War 580,000 Ottoman soldiers died, half from disease.

Turkish official history calculates that 300,000 Armenians were killed.

An Ottoman war crimes tribunal set up by the victors gives a figure of 800,000.

But Armenian historians allege that 1.5 million died, practically the entire Armenian population in Anatolia.

The Kemalists had already begun to gain European recognition.

On March 16, 1921, the Soviet-Turkish Treaty gave Turkey a favorable settlement of its eastern frontier by restoring Kars and Ardahan.

Problems at home induced Italy to withdraw from the territory it occupied; and by the Treaty of Ankara (Franklin-Bouillon Agreement, October 20, 1921), France agreed to evacuate Cilicia (Adana region).

Finally, by the Armistice of Mudanya, the Allies agreed to Turkish reoccupation of Istanbul and eastern Thrace.

A comprehensive settlement was eventually achieved at the Lausanne Conference (November 1922 - July 1923) which negated the Treaty of Sevres.

The Turkish frontier in Thrace was established on the Maritsa River and Greece returned the islands of Gokge and Bozca.

A compulsory exchange of populations was arranged, as a result of which an estimated 1,300,000 Greeks left Turkey in return for 400,000 Turks.

The question of oil rich Mosul was left to the League of Nations, which in 1925 recommended its retention by Iraq.

But Turks have never been reconciled to the loss of Mosul.

The Lausanne Treaty also provided for the apportionment of the Ottoman public debt, for the gradual abolition of the Capitulations (Turkey regained tariff autonomy in 1929), and for an international regime for the Straits.

Turkey recovered complete control of the Straits by the 1936 Montreux Convention.

On October 29, 1923, Turkey was declared to be a republic and elected Mustafa Kemal as its first president.

The Caliphate was finally abolished on March 3, 1924, and all members of the Ottoman dynasty were expelled from Turkey.

A full republican constitution was adopted on April 20, 1924; it retained Islam as the state religion, but in April 1928 this clause was removed and Turkey became a laic (secular) republic.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Email Gajendrak@hotmail.com

And I was not accusing you of anything, amy ...

Nor was I attacking you in anyway, because I value your friendship in here, and your intelligence ...

Rather, I was expressing my views on that sensitive subject as I see them ....

And with respect to the elections, it must be stated that the counter-insurgency plans that Petraeus is using in IRAQINAM are, I believe, based on the Isreal model that it uses in Gaza and elsewhere ...

Which model is based upon the French model of the use of terror against indigenous rebellious populations that was championed by a Frenchman named Roger Trinquier FOR USE IN ALGERIA ......

And so ...

Personally, amy, I am damn sick and tired of hearing how the Isrealis and Americans can just go anywhere they please and kill whoever they please, WITH NO DUE PROCESS OF LAW WHATSOEVER, simply by calling these other human being "criminals" and "terrorists" ...

Just like everyone that we killed in Viet Nam was a VC ...

And all you had to do to be a VC in Viet Nam was to get yourself killed by an American who wanted to kill you, just because ...

And calling them a VC afterwards was just a handy excuse for murder ....

And so ...

Please accept my apologies if I might have caused you offense with my caustic response to a situation, not yourself ...

And so ...

Again LIv, you owe me no apology. I was just clarifying what I said. I always enjoy reading what you have to say and I respect your opinions, your intelligence and your knowledge. Ditto for A.B., I will add! Iraq, the Israel/Palestinian conflict....what a mess under Bush. No effective leadership that's why I'm cheering on and supporting the one candidate left standing (Obama) who I think will intelligently and capably confront these foreign policy issues. Do you ever fell completely exhausted when thinking about all the problems us Americans are facing? I do.

In spades, amy ...

Although the overriding emotion is one of absolute disgust as to where we have gotten to, how low we have sunk as a nation, in so short a period of time ....

And the problems that we are facing as a nation are all self-created ...

We as a nation have abandoned what used to be called THE AMERICAN WAY - TRUTH AND JUSTICE FOR ALL ....

And now, on the world stage, we are paying that price, as our currency becomes worthless paper, our economy is tanking, our reputation as a NATION OF LAWS is shredded ...

And we have the BIGGEST FOOL in the world as our leader ....

In a world in the Middle East where their histories go back to before Christ was born ....

And those people have knowledge of that history ...

And the other fools that it has produced ...

To which pantheon George W.(orthless) Bush has now been added ...

Likely at the top of the list ...

And so ...

We have forgotten our roots, amy ...

As is said out here in the countryside, we have gotten above our raising ....

And the only place to go now is down ...

And so ...

It is the callous disregard for human life that I find so offensive about George W. Bush and his crowd ...

It is as if they are HELL SPAWN to me, anyway ....

People who are nothing but husks lacking in any humanity, whatsoever ....

BAD KARMA ...

Obama has not yet lost his soul ...

Nor his humanity ....

Perhaps he can get elected and pull us back from the brink ...

But it is going to be some heavy lifting, is my thought ...

And perhaps GOD already has it in his mind to simply squash America like a bug ....

End the pestilence by squashing the bug that causes it ....

The Bible and history are full of empires and kingdoms that have disappeared from the face of the earth for what appear to be similar reasons ...

GET OUT OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH ...

DON'T LOOK BACK ...

Those words coould be said to people down in Washington, D.C. today, and they would be relevant ....

And so ...

Hypocrite he what Bush is......a born again Christian......really?? I don't even think of Bush anymore.....I just try to imagine the possibilities under an Obama presidency. And no, it won't be easy if he's president...he's only human and will only be able to do so much...BUT, it would a very big step in the right direction. And you are so right.....he hasn't lost his soul or his humanity.

REPRISE - THE PECKERWOOD'S WAR AGAINST HUMANITY IN IRAQINAM IS ABOUT TO BEGIN ...

ALONG WITH THE STEADY, UNBROKEN STREAM OF LIES AND INCOMPETENCE AND DECEPTION FROM THIS PECKERWOOD THAT HAS BROUGHT US HERE IN AMERICA RIGHT UP TO THIS VERY MOMENT IN TIME ...

A STEADY STREAM OF LIES AND INCOMPETENCE AND CORRUPTION THAT HAS LEFT US WEAKER THAN WE HAVE EVER BEEN AS A NATION IN MY LIFETIME ...

And so ..

THE WHITE HOUSE

"President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours - Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation"

8:01 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision.

For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war.

That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy.

We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council.

We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq.

Our good faith has not been returned.

The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage.

It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament.

Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived.

Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East.

It has a deep hatred of America and our friends.

And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat.

But we will do everything to defeat it.

Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety.

Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.

The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security.

That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.

Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq.

America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully.

We believe in the mission of the United Nations.

One reason the U.N. was founded after the second world war was to confront aggressive dictators, actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.

In the case of Iraq, the Security Council did act, in the early 1990s.

Under Resolutions 678 and 687 -- both still in effect -- the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will.

Last September, I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger.

On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm.

Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed.

And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power.

For the last four-and-a-half months, the United States and our allies have worked within the Security Council to enforce that Council's long-standing demands.

Yet, some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq.

These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it.

Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world.

The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.

In recent days, some governments in the Middle East have been doing their part.

They have delivered public and private messages urging the dictator to leave Iraq, so that disarmament can proceed peacefully.

He has thus far refused.

All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end.

Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours.

Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.

For their own safety, all foreign nationals -- including journalists and inspectors -- should leave Iraq immediately.

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them.

If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you.

As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need.

We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.

In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms.

The tyrant will soon be gone.

The day of your liberation is near.

It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power.

It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed.

I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.

And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning.

In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action.

Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people.

Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people.

War crimes will be prosecuted.

War criminals will be punished.

And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."

Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it.

Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past.

War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice.

Yet, the only way to reduce the harm and duration of war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we are prepared to do so.

If Saddam Hussein attempts to cling to power, he will remain a deadly foe until the end.

In desperation, he and terrorists groups might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends.

These attacks are not inevitable.

They are, however, possible.

And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail.

The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.

Our government is on heightened watch against these dangers.

Just as we are preparing to ensure victory in Iraq, we are taking further actions to protect our homeland.

In recent days, American authorities have expelled from the country certain individuals with ties to Iraqi intelligence services.

Among other measures, I have directed additional security of our airports, and increased Coast Guard patrols of major seaports.

The Department of Homeland Security is working closely with the nation's governors to increase armed security at critical facilities across America.

Should enemies strike our country, they would be attempting to shift our attention with panic and weaken our morale with fear.

In this, they would fail.

No act of theirs can alter the course or shake the resolve of this country.

We are a peaceful people -- yet we're not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers.

If our enemies dare to strike us, they and all who have aided them, will face fearful consequences.

We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater.

In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over.

With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest.

We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.

The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities.

In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators, whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war.

In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.

Terrorists and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in formal declarations -- and responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide.

The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.

As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country.

Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty.

And when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.

The United States, with other countries, will work to advance liberty and peace in that region.

Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time.

The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land.

And the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace.

That is the future we choose.

Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent.

And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.

Good night, and may God continue to bless America.

END 8:15 P.M. EST

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20030317-7.html

AND HERE IS A SIMILAR PROCLAMATION WHICH WAS DELIVERED TO THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK IN 1777 BY BRITISH GENERAL JOHN BURGOYNE JUST BEFORE HIS INVASION OF NEW YORK ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH TYRANT GEORGE III ....

AN INVASION THAT WAS TO RESULT IN THE DESTRUCTION OF BURGOYNE'S ARMY AT STILLWATER IN NEW YORK IN OCTOBER OF 1777 BY AMERICAN "TAY-RISTS" AND CRIMINAL GANGS ...

"General John Burgoyne's Proclamation Issued at the Camp at Bouquet Ferry June 20th, 1777"

Ed. note: The following proclamation was issued by Burgoyne as his forces were encamped at the Bouquet enroute up Lake Champlain towards the Fort Ticonderoga/Mt. Independence complex and eventually, Saratoga.

It is typical Burgoyne style, full of bluster and grandiose speech.

It was received with much derision by the Americans, who especially criticized Burgoyne's threatening of them with "the Indian forces under my direction..."

William Digby records a mocking, sardonic reply from the Americans in his journal, dated July 10, and delivered to Burgoyne a few days later.

By John Burgoyne Esq'r; Lieut Gen'l of His Majesties Armies in America, Col. of the Queens Reg't of Lt. Dragoons, Governor of Fort William in North Britain, one of the Representatives of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament, and Commanding an Army and Fleet employed on an expedition from Canada &c &c &c.

The forces entrusted to my command are designed to act in concert, and upon a common principle, with the numerous Armies and Fleets which already display in every quarter of America, the power, the justice, and when properly sought the mercy of the King.

The cause in which the British Arms are thus exerted applies to the most affecting interests of the human heart; and the military Servants of the Crown, at first called forth for the sole purpose of restoring the rights of constitution, now combine with love of their Country, and duty to their Sovereign, the other extensive incitements which spring from a due sense of the general privileges of Mankind.

To the Eyes and Ears of the temperate part of the Public, and to the breasts of suffering Thousands in the Provinces, be the melancholy appeal whether the present unnatural Rebellion has not been made for a foundation for the completest system of Tyranny that ever God in his displeasure suffer'd for a time to be exercised over a froward and stubborn Generation.

Arbitrary imprisonment, confiscation of property, persecution and torture, unprecedented in the inquisitions of the Romish Church are among the palpable enormities that verify the affirmative.

These are inflicted, (by the Assemblies & Committees who dare to profess themselves friends to Liberty,) upon the most quiet Subjects, without distinction of age or Sex, for the sole crime, often for the sole suspicion, of having adhered in principle to the Government under which they were born, and to which by every tye divine and human they owe allegiance.

To consummate these shocking proceedings the profanation of Religion is added to the most profligate prostitution of common reason, the consciences of Men are set at naught and multitudes are compelled not only to Arms, but also to swear subjection to an usurpation they abhor.

Animated by these considerations; at the head of Troops in full powers of health, discipline, and Valour; determined to strike where necessary, and anxious to spare where possible, I by these presents invite and exhort all persons, in all places where the progress of this Army may point - and by the blessing of God I will extend it far - to maintain such a conduct as may justify me in protecting their Lands, habitations, and Families.

The intention of this address is to hold forth security not depredation to the Country.

To those whom spirrit and principle may induce to partake the glorious task of redeeming their Countrymen from Dungeons, and reistablishing the blessings of legal Government I offer encouragement and employment; and upon the first intelligence of their associations I will find means to assist their undertakings.

The domestick, the industrious, the infirm, and even the timid inhabitants I am desirous to protect provided they remain quietly in their houses, that they do not suffer their Cattle to be removed, nor their Corn or forage to be secreted or destroyed, that they do not break up their Bridges or Roads; nor by any other acts directly or indirectly endeavour to obstruct the operations of the Kings Troops, or supply or assist those of the Enemy.

Every species of Provision brought to my Camp will be paid for at an equitable rate and in solid Coin.

In consciousness of Christianity, my Royal Masters clemency, and the honor of Soldiership, I have dwelt upon this invitation, and wished for more persuasive terms to give it impression; and let not people be led to disregard it by considering their distance from the immediate situation of my Camp.

I have but to give stretch to the Indian Forces under my direction, and they amount to Thousands, to overtake the harden'd Enemies of Great Britain and America, (I consider them the same) wherever they may lurk.

If notwithstanding these endeavours, and sincere inclinations to effect them, the phrenzy of hostility shou'd remain, I trust I shall stand acquitted in the Eyes of God & Men in denouncing and executing the vengeance of the state against the wilful outcasts.

The messengers of justice & of wrath await them in the Field, and devastation, famine, and every concomitant horror that a reluctant by indispensible prosecution of Military duty must occasion, will bar the way to their return.

By order of his (Signed) John Burgoyne.
Excellency the Lt. Gen'l
(Signed) Rob't Kingston.
Secretary.
Camp at Bouquet Ferry June 20th, 1777

http://www.historiclakes.org/explore/proclamation.htm

AND HERE IS THE RESPONSE TO BURGOYNE FROM THE "TAY-RISTS" AND CRIMINAL GANGS AND WILFUL OUTCASTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, JUST BEFORE THEY MET AND DESTROYED THE INVADING ARMY OF BURGOYNE AT STILLWATER IN NEW YORK IN OCTOBER OF 1777 ....

BRING IT ON, JACKIE BOY ...

BRING IT ******* ON!

An American reply to General John Burgoyne's Proclamation Issued at the Camp at Bouquet Ferry June 20th, 1777

transcribed by James P. Millard from The Journal of Lieut. William Digby. Campaign of 1777.

Ed. note: The quotes below are of a mocking, sardonic reply delivered to Burgoyne in reply to his lofty proclamation issued at the Bouquet.

Digby does not tell us who penned this missive, it was probably anonymous, closed only with "Saratoga, July 10-- 1777 A B. C D E &c."

This writer believes it makes for marvelous reading, as Burgoyne's Proclamation was intended to strike fear and submission into the hearts of the Americans, this derisive reply shows just the opposite.

To John Burgoyne Esq Lieut General of his majesty's armies in America, Colonel of the Queen's Regiment of Light Dragoons, governor of Fort William in North Britain, one of the Representatives of the Commons of Great Britain and commanding an army and fleet on an expedition from Canada &c &c &c.

Most high, most mighty, most puissant, and sublime general!

When the forces under your command arrived at Quebec, in order to act in concert and upon a common principle with the numerous fleets & armies, which already display in every quarter of America the justice and mercy of your King; we, the reptils of America, were struck with unusual trepidation and astonishment.

But what words can express the plentitude of our horror, when the Colonel of the Queen's Regiment of Light Dragoons advanced towards Ticonderoga?

The mountains shook before thee, and the trees of the forest bowed their leafy heads.

The vast lakes of the north were chilled at thy presence, and the mighty cataracts stopped their tremendous career and were suspended in awe at thy approach.

Judge then, oh! ineffable Governor of Fort William in North Britain, what must have been the terror, dismay, and despair that overspread this paltry continent of America, and us, its wretched inhabitants!

Dark and dreary indeed was the prospect before us, till like the sun in the Horizon, your most gracious and irresistible proclamation opened the doors of mercy and snatched us, as it were, from the jaws of annihilation.

We foolishly thought, blind as we were, that your gracious master's fleets and armies were come to destroy us and our liberties; but we are happy in hearing from you, and who can doubt what you assert, that they were called forth for the sole purpose of restoring the rights of the Constitution to a froward, stubborn generation?

And it is for this, oh! sublime, Lieut Genl! that you have given yourself the trouble to cross the wide Atlantic, and with incredible fatigue traversed uncultivated wilds; and we ungratefully refused the profered blessing?

To restore the rights of the Constitution, you have called together an amiable host of savages, and turned them loose to scalp our women and children and lay our country waste.

This they have performed with their usual skill and clemency, and we remain insensible for the benefit, and unthankful for so much goodness.

Our Congress have declared Independence, and our assemblies, as your highness justly observes, have most wickedly imprisoned the avowed friends of that power with which they are at war, and most profanely compelled those whose conscience will not permit them to fight, to pay some small part towards the expenses their country is at in supporting what is called a necessary and defensive war.

If we go on thus in our obstinacy and ingratitude, what can we expect, but that you should in your anger give a stretch to the Indian forces under your direction, amounting to thousands, to overtake and destroy us, or what is ten times worse, that you should withdraw your fleets and armies and leave us to our own misery, without completing the benevolent task you have begun in restoring to us the rights of the Constitution.

We submit, we submit most puissant Coll of the Queen's regiment of Light Dragoons & Governor of Fort William in North Britain, we offer our heads to the scalping knife, and our bellies to the bayonet.

Who can resist the terror of your arms?

Who can resist the force of your eloquence?

The invitation you have made in the consciousness of christianity, your royal master's clemency, and the honour of soldiership we thankfully accept; The blood of the slain, the cries of the injured virgins and innocent children, and the never ceasing sighs and groans of starving wretches, now languishing in the gaols and prison ships of New York, call on us in vain, while your sublime proclamation is sounding in our ears!

Forgive us, oh! our country! forgive us dear posterity! forgive us all ye foreign powers! who are anxiously watching our conduct in this important struggle, if we yield implicitly to the persuasive tongue of the most elegant Coll of the Queen's Regiment of Light Dragoons.

Forbear then, thou magnanimous Lieut general, forbear to denounce vengeance against us!

Forbear to give a stretch to those restorers of the Constitution's rights, the Indians under your direction!

Let not the messengers of wrath & justice await us in the field, and devastation, famine and every concomitant horror, bar our return to the allegiance of a prince, who by his royal will, would deprive us of every blessing of life with all possible clemency.

We are domestic; we are industrious; we are infirm and timid; we shall remain quietly at home and not remove our cattle, our corn, or forage, in hopes that you will come at the head of troops, in the full powers of health, discipline, and valour, and take charge of them for yourselves.

Behold our wives and daughters; our flocks and herds; our goods and chattels, are they not at the mercy of our lord and king, and of his lieutenant general, Member of the house of Commons and Governor of Fort William in North Britain?

SARATOGA, July 10-- 1777 A B. C D E &c.

http://www.historiclakes.org/explore/proclamation2.htm

In 2003, the British were just as STUPID about human nature as they were back in 1777 ...

By 2003, America, once the Land of the FREE and HOME OF THE BRAVE, had produced a man just as STUPID as the British about human nature to lead the nation to war in IRAQINAM ...

A TYRANT named George who is totally unfit to be the leader of a free people ...

An IDIOT, really ....

And here we now are ....

And so ...

Doesn't the fact that we have the same president now that we elected in 2000 say as much or more about us, the people who elected him and allowed him to remain in office for over 7 years as it does about him?

And just as much a sad commentary about our Congress of corrupt sheep who would not even consider impeachnent proceedings.

The mechanism to get rid of a bad leader is in place.

Something is sure rotten.

Perhaps Pastor Jeremiah Wright is not as cuckoo as his erstwhile pal and present contender for the presidency is trying to make him out to be.

A.B.

In spades, Mr. A.B ...

IT IS ABOUT US AS A PEOPLE THAT THE STATEMENT IS MADE ....

Not George W. Bush ....

He is just as he has always been ...

A major ****-UP ...

And we elected him in 2004 because he was ....

"AH, GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO CLEAN UP THE MESS HE HAS MADE!"

"HE DESERVES A CHANCE ..."

You and I were BLOGGING back then, Mr. A.B., if I recall correctly, on the John Kerry site before the election, and we heard all of these arguments get made back then ...

I find it to be an incredible historical statement that America has kept George W. Bush in charge of this IRAQINAM war as it has done, because it was afraid to change course by putting a DEMOCRAT named John Kerry in the White House in place of George W. Bush ...

So yes, Mr. A.B., you are dead on the money ...

Having George W. Bush still serving as our president is a very powerful statement to the candid world about us as a people ....

We all get tarred by that brush, even if we did not vote for this fool to be in there ....

And it likewise was a very powerful statement to the world about who we were or failed to be when GUTLESS NAncy Pelosi publcly announced that inpeachment was off the table ....

GUTLESS NANCY became WORTHLESS NANCY out here in the countryside where people were expecting the Democrats to follow through on their campaign victory and impeach George W. Bush's @$$ right out of office ....

And so ...

And I cannot totally disagree with you on your comment about the Rev. Wright ....

Facts speak for themselves whether or not they are inconvenient .....

But since Rev. Wright is not one of the subjects that I am covering in here, I will say no more about him as it would be a distraction for more important issues to be discussed ...

And so ...

Kris Kristofferson, who was a helicopter pilot in the Army in Germany, did a song about some Iraqis civilians who were killed by American cruise missles in Baghdad when in Bill Clinton was president ....

And a point that he made is that when we kill people like that in other countries, we should at least try to find out what their name was ....

And I've listened to that song quite a bit ...

And it certainly has caused me to think ....

And I have to say that I agree with him on that score ...

We should know their names ...

And we should know their faces as well ...

Which brings me to this following link ...

In that link, the third photo down, there is a very good photograph of THE FACE OF AMERICA'S ENEMY in IRAQINAM ...

The face of a terrorist ...

Normally, we don't get to look at the faces of our enemies in IRAQINAM ...

Those faces are normally hidden ....

But in this case, as you will see if you follow that link, here the face of our enemy in IRAQINAM is very visible ...

And it is surprising just how young these terrorists really are ....

If I was more technically proficient, I would try to bring that photo into some thread in here, because I think everyone in America should be able to see the faces of our enemies ....

But alas, I am not ....

And I don't know how long that link will last, so maybe someone can capture that face, and label it "WHAT STAYING THE COURSE IN IRAQINAM LOOKS LIKE" ...

And so ...

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp...sdate=4/30/2008

OR PERHAPS IT IS THE FACE OF A CRIMINAL ....

BUT WHATEVER, IT IS THE FACE OF WHAT GEORGE W. BUSH IS AFRAID OF IN IRAQINAM AND WANTS KILLED ...

And so ...

"American and Iraqi troops kill 38 militants in fierce fighting in Baghdad"

By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:42 a.m., Monday, April 28, 2008

BAGHDAD -- American and Iraqi troops killed 38 militants in the fiercest clashes with militants in weeks in Baghdad, including 22 who attacked a military checkpoint in a Shiite militia stronghold, the U.S. military said Monday.

Suspected Shiite extremists, apparently taking advantage of a sandstorm that blanketed the capital, attacked several checkpoints and hammered the U.S.-protected Green Zone in the fiercest salvo in weeks on Sunday.

The American and Iraqi soldiers came under attack "by a large group of criminals," the U.S. military said in a statement.

Fifty-eight people, including five children and eight women, were also injured in clashes in Sadr City since Sunday, local health officials said Monday.

On the radio news this morning, they announced that people in the cities in Afghanistan are now facing food shortages and starvation ....

And of course, the puppet Hamid Karzai cannot leave his own security bunker in what is supposed to be his capital city out of fear of being gunned down ...

All of this after George W. Bush has squandered BILLIONS of dollars in Afghanistan ....

Although on exactly what, nobody knows ....

Protecting the poppy crops, perhaps ...

Hey, cash flow is important .....

And keeping fellow BID-NESS MEN in profits is way more important than worrying about whether some urchins in the cities of Afghanistan have some food in their bellies ...

And besides, they are probably TALIBAN TAY-RISTS and outlaws and criminals, anyway ...

Or they will be when they grow up ...

So it's better to starve them out now ....

While they are still small ....

Everybody knows that nits breed lice ....

And so ...

"US Marines deploying in Afghanistan for 1st time in years - US Marines deploying in southern Afghanistan province to help tame violence"

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:02 p.m., Saturday, April 26, 2008

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- U.S. Marines are crossing the sands of southern Afghanistan for the first time in years, providing a boost to a NATO coalition that is growing but still short on manpower.

They hope to retake the 10 percent of Afghanistan the Taliban holds.

Some of the Marines that make up the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit helped to tame a thriving insurgency in western Iraq.

The newly arrived forces hope to move into regions of Afghanistan now controlled by the Taliban.

The Marines' presence in southern Afghanistan is a clear sign that neither Britain nor Canada -- which operates in nearby Kandahar province -- have enough troops to control the region.

They have also been given directions to steer clear of the region's poppy fields so they don't risk alienating local farmers who rely on the cash crop for their income.

Typical of the mind set of the Bush government >>>


" When force doesn't work --- send more force ".

That'll show 'em!!

A.B

George W. Bush also makes quite a statement about both Yale and Harvard, where this donkey/jack-ass George W. Bush was allegedly educated ....

What kind of an education is it when you get out of Yale and Harvard and you don't know a thing about anything at all, starting with human nature?

I think that they simply passed him through ...

"HERE, HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE, GEORGE ...."

"YOUR FATHER IS AN IMPORTANT MAN, AFTER ALL, AND HE WOULDN'T TAKE IT KINDLY IF YOU GOT LEFT BEHIND ..."

And so ...

The history of the Middle East goes back now to a time some 2000 or more years before Christ was born, or even farther back than that ....

As kids out in the countryside, we were expected to know that history ...

Because it is the history of people, human nature, and nations ...

WHY ISN'T JERICO THERE ANY LONGER?

WHERE WAS JERICO?

HOW DID IT FALL?

WHAT LESSONS CAN BE TAKEN FROM THAT?

And it's all in the Old Testament of the Bible, if you can't afford a history book ...

You would think some highly-praised BORN AGIN CHRISTIAN like George W. Bush would have cracked the cover of a Bible once or twice, anyway, before becoming so highly praised as being BORN AGIN ...

So what is the excuse of this donkey, and the equal fool "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice that they are so totally clueless about the Middle East and its people and politics?

ARROGANCE?

Because they have all of this supposed power, they don't need to know?

Wave a sword that you don't know how to use in the face of a man who was born with a sword in his hand, and could use it as a child, and he just might not be impressed ....

And he is likely to take it right away from you to boot, and to use it to carve you up as food for his dogs to eat ...

Or maybe his hawk or falcon ...

OH!

But that is politically uncorrect to think that way, isn't it?

Oh, shame on me ...

YEAH, RIGHT ..

And so ...

BAD KARMA, Mr. A.B ...

REAL BAD KARMA IS BUILDING UP FOR AMERICA IN IRAQINAM ......

And so ...

"Militiamen ambush drives back US patrol in Sadr City - US push into Shiite stronghold faces militia ambush and rise in 'brazen' backlash"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:22 p.m., Tuesday, April 29, 2008

BAGHDAD -- Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad's main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat.

U.S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia.

The U.S. military said 28 militiamen were killed as the U.S. patrol pulled back.

Local hospital officials said dozens of civilians were killed or wounded.

Such street battles -- in tight confines and amid frightened civilians -- are increasingly becoming a hallmark of the drive into Sadr City and recall the type of head-on clashes last seen in large numbers during last year's U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

U.S. troops often have fought intense gunbattles as they cleared neighborhoods in Baghdad and former Sunni insurgent havens such as Anbar and Diyala provinces.

But roadside bombings and rocket or mortar volleys against bases have been the more frequent mode of attack in recent years.

Clashes have intensified in Sadr City since the Mahdi Army leader -- the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- reiterated his threat of an all-out war against U.S.-led forces last week.

U.S. troops, meanwhile, find themselves increasingly drawn into the fight opened by the Iraqi government to cripple the power of Shiite militias.

"We are seeing larger groups of militants actually aggressively attacking Iraqi and U.S. security forces," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman for American troops in Baghdad.

"We've seen more of the brazen attacks in the daytime recently."

The ambush Tuesday came as a U.S. patrol of heavily armored Stryker vehicles and tanks moved along a road where the U.S. military is putting up a concrete barrier -- which seeks to cut off the militants' movements and hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the U.S.-protected Green Zone.

The militia fighters struck with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns barrages fired from alleys and rooftops, the military said.

As the troops pulled back, one vehicle was hit with two roadside bombs, Stover said.

Six American soldiers were wounded.

Stover said 28 militiamen were killed when U.S. forces hit back with rockets.

Officials at two local hospitals said about 25 people had died and several dozen were wounded -- most civilians.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Associated Press photos showed men pulling the dust-covered body of a 2-year-old boy, Ali Hussein, from the rubble of one building.

U.S. officials said all precautions are taken to prevent civilian casualties, but blamed the militiamen for taking cover among their neighbors and families.

"The enemy continues to show little regard for innocent civilians, as they fire their weapons from within houses, alleyways and rooftops upon our soldiers," said Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad.

AP Television News footage showed children running for cover behind blast walls amid gunshots.

Men helped carry several blood-soaked injured people onto stretchers to a local emergency hospital.

Outside the hospital, the dead were placed inside plain wooden coffins.

------

Associated Press writers Hamid Ahmed and Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

TOLEDO FREE PRESS

"A hero in Harlan"

By Michael S. Miller, Editor in Chief

mmiller@toledofreepress.com

9/7/2007

As the war in Iraq trudges toward its fifth year, its human numbers are growing too large to retain clear meaning.

Focusing just on American losses, can you picture and empathize with 27,000 wounded U.S. troops?

Do you understand the impact of 3,800 lost U.S. lives?

If we can't fully grasp that enormity, how can we understand the loss of Iraqi and coalition life?

And if we can't do that, how can we put the war and its cost in context?

My window to the war came from Army Sgt. 1st Class Brad Fox, 34, of Adrian, Mich., whose vehicle hit an explosive device on March 14, 2004.

For five weeks, Fox clung to life, and the newspaper I served at the time, The Daily Telegram, reported his progress.

We did not need to go far for information; Fox's mother, Pat, worked for the newspaper.

When he died on April 20, Fox left behind a young wife, Sabine, and three children under the age of 10.

Brad Fox was Pat's only child.

I remember her devastation as she spoke about Brad; her son was gone, and her grandchildren were to stay in Germany with their mother.

Pat planned on living near or with Brad and his family after she retired; Brad had promised to take care of her.

With his loss, her entire life was thrown into chaos.

That was the first time I understood the collateral damage of war.

It was Brad Fox I thought of when I heard a new song by country music master Tom T. Hall, “A Hero in Harlan.”

Many songs inspired by opposition to the war in Iraq specifically take on President G.W. Bush. From Neil Young (“Let's Impeach the President”) to Pet Shop Boys (“I'm With Stupid”), Green Day, Merle Haggard and Flaming Lips, Bush gets smacked, but the impact of the war on individuals is overlooked.

Even the brilliant Randy Newman song, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,” skewers Bush to great intellectual impact but no real emotional thrust.

Hall's song, a highlight on his new CD, “Tom T. Hall Sings Miss Dixie and Tom T.,” was described as “unsentimental” in a Billboard review, but that misses the point; Hall's political work has always been unflinching, but to confuse that with a lack of sentiment is a mistake.

Such Hall songs as “Turn It On, Turn It On, Turn It On,” which chronicles a serial killing and capital punishment; the self-explanatory “Watergate Blues” and “The Monkey That Became President” invest great emotion and sardonic humor in situations with drop-dead serious consequences.

Hall understands that the specific politics of this war mean less than nothing during the “hard exchange” of a son for an American flag.

As he has in previous songs about war and its impact on individuals, “Mama Bake a Pie” and “Da Nang Village,” Hall's focus on the broken hearts that follow broken bodies is simultaneously laser-narrow and universally encompassing.

Hall, 71, takes his time with the vocal for “A Hero in Harlan,” letting phrasing and inflection add dimension to the lyrics.

The slightest measurable pause between “He'll be a hero in Harlan ... this week,” signifies the soldier's fate as effectively as the hyphen between dates on a tombstone symbolizes a man's entire life.

His voice makes up in gravity what it has lost in elasticity and range; he invests the song with a naked humanity foreign to most modern artists.

Not since Bruce Springsteen's “Shut Out the Light” have American music and anti-war sentiment been paired with such force and effect.

If nothing else, this beautiful addition to Hall's work will remind a lot of people of a lot of Brad Foxes and their mothers.

No political comment or military statement will ever have as much artistry and impact.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

http://www.toledofreepress.com/?id=6309

Numbers - 27000 wounded U.S. Troops - 3800 lost U.S. lives ( it's over 4000 now )

Just numbers, unless there is a personal connection to the people connected to those numbers, that's all they are, just numbers. l Who cares? There's money to be made on this war and the bleeping bleeding hearts want to take that away from us! Gotta keep telling them how noble this cause is - how democray is just around the corner. Not to forget to keep reminding all those stupid pacifists how history will vindicate the actions being taken today. Let's not forget to point out how 0ur grandchildren will thank us. We should remind everybody to hang the American flag out in front of our houses all the time, not just on holidays. It's like in my neighborhood. Some of my neighbors displaythe flag on certain holidays like Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Veteran's Dayl, etc. Some have the flag out 7 days a week all year long. Others never have it out. Many people think that makes it easy to tell who the real patriots are. Just like 2 out of the three predidential contenders always wear the the flag lapel pin. Nothing wrong with that. The third contender does not wear the flag lapel pin. Boy, I guess that tells us who not to vote for.

To switch the subject for a moment, I was having a telephone conversation with my stepson earlier this week. He is 51 years old now and has been in my life since he was 16. The conversation turned to some problems he is having in his work and I offered him a couple of bits of advice. He evidently thought the advice was pretty good because he said he thought I was a wise old codger.

I told him as far as I was concerned, wisdom is just the application of common sense most of the time.

Most of us have a certain amount of common sense but don't always use if for various reason like ego, hesitation or refusal to change our minds, unwillingness to admit we made a mistake, protecting our image and so on. That's where the APPLICATION of common sense comes in. As has been noted over and over again, one definition of idiocy is doing things the same way over and over again and expecting different results.
One example of that might be the refusal of our government to speak to other governments with whom we have significant differences, like Syria, Iran, North Korea. To quote the popular TV personality " Dr. Phil, " How's that working for us? "

Well, enough of this rambling.

Just wanted to mention that Livyjr's account of the Puerto Rican young man who died in Vietnam just three weeks before he was to be sent home is either a microcosm of another senseless death in another senseless war - or -just a number.

A.B.

When that happened, Mr. A.B., I had only been there for maybe six weeks or so ....

It was in March of 1969 ...

And you know ....

I don't know what that Puerto Rican guy's name was ....

One time, when I had a chance locally to go and see the moving Viet Nam wall near me, I looked in a book they had which had deaths by date, which is how the names are arranged on the Viet Nam wall ...

And I couldn't pick out his name ...

Unless you really knew somebody over there, you didn't have a name, especially if you were "new" over there as I was that day ...

I was even a part of that conversation, or rather, close enough to hear what the Puerto Rican guy was saying, because we had been mortared earlier, and I had seen the mortar crew come out of a hedge row with the tube, so I had an idea of where they were, although outside of rifle range, and they were behind a rice paddy dike, anyway ....

He was a machine gunner, and I directed his fire for him, since he could cut through the rice paddy dike with the M-60 rounds, where the M-16 was worthless ......

So he wanted me around him afterward because I had "good eyes" ...

That night, when the **** hit the fan, his machine gun jammed and he lost his temper and went to throw it, and that is when he got shot in the head ...

That's what the ones around him told me afterwards, anyway ...

And after he got shot, they used him for a sandbag to hide behind, because there was really no other cover ...

I always thought about that ....

Whether or not he had any parents, and whether or not they had a clue as to where all the extra holes in him had come from, and why .......

And I doubt it ...

That's the way it goes, isn't it, Mr. A.B.?

Seems like it, anyway ...

American soldiers die in IRAQINAM, and most of the time, they have no name ....

Like a dog got hit by a car, and not much more ....

Oh, well ...

As they said in Viet Nam, XIN LOI ....

And so ...

Government is essential to our lives, and it is a very difficult art.

One sees how difficult it is when one considers the appalling mistakes that rulers have made throughout the ages, and continue to make today.

The inevitable conclusion is that they ought to know more about what they are trying to do, and about the successes and errors that have marked the careers of other governments in the past.

In this respect, ancient Rome is singularly relevant.

It is relevant for several reasons.

First, because it is, politically, culturally and socially, our direct ancestor.

Secondly, because it underwent vicissitudes of the most striking and, sometimes, horrifying character.

Thirdly, because it ruled a large part of the known world, so that its experiences had enormous repercussions.

And, fourthly, because it produced extremely articulate writings, which tell us what was happening.

Cicero's works, in particular, are immensely informative.

He played an extremely active part in the government of the Roman Republic at the most critical period of its fortunes, when despite, or because of, the immense empire that it controlled, it was collapsing into convulsions and autocracy.

So he had lived the issues he discussed.

******

So here we have a man actively participating in the government of one of the greatest states of all time, to which we owe so much, and at the same time, writing about its numerous aspects with incomparable literary skill.

He is the only Roman statesman to have left us a comprehensive account of his political beliefs, and the first to have concerned himself systematically with the mechanics, tactics and strategies of government.

His immersion in this theme is of particular, painful interest because he lived in the last century B.C., when the government of the Roman Republic was manifestly breaking down.

- Introduction to CICERO- On Government translated by Michael Grant

2,000 years later, and we are in the American Republic, and the government of the American Republic is manifestly breaking down ....

And so ....

The wheel turns ...

Those who haven't learned the lessons of history are run over by the wheel ...

And that is the way it goes ...

HISTORY DOES NOT CARE ...

It marches on inexorably, regardless ...

And it leaves the losers in the dust ....

If you don't believe me, go ask the Romans where their empire went ....

And so ...

by Andrew Austin

March 18, 2003

"We are not this story’s author, who fills time and eternity with His purpose."

"Yet His purpose is achieved in our duty...."

"This work continues."

"This story goes on."

"And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm."

- George W. Bush, January 20, 2001

Rutgers University history professor Jackson Lears, in a recent letter to The New York Times, [i]“How a War became a Crusade” (3-11-03), suggests a reason why Bush is so cavalier about the possibility that war in Iraq will have unintended consequences.

Bush, according to Lears, “denies the very existence of chance.”

“Events aren’t moved by blind change and chance,” Lears quotes Bush as saying; rather, events are determined by “the hand of a just and faithful God.”

Bush uttered these words at the fifty-first National Prayer Breakfast, held February 2003 in Washington DC.

In his remarks, Bush assured Americans that they can “be confident in the ways of Providence, even when they are far from our understanding.”

History, according to Bush, is the unfolding of God’s will.

“Behind all of life and all of history, there’s a dedication and purpose.”

In the unfolding of history, God calls on special persons to make history in His righteous name.

In a worldview that rests upon providence, the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are interpreted by many, including members of the Bush administration, as signs from God that Bush is ordained to lead a crusade against evil.

“It is a theme which is beginning to emerge from the Bush administration,” writes Julian Borger in The Guardian (1-28-03).

“While most people saw the extraordinary circumstances of the 2000 election as a fluke, Bush and his closest supporters saw it as yet another sign he was chosen to lead."

"Later, September 11 ‘revealed’ what he was there for.”

The President said in the State of the Union address, “this call of history has come to the right country.”

And, obviously to the right president.

Members of Bush’s staff believe that God chose their boss to lead the nation through these times.

In an editorial published in The Times Union (Albany, NY), on 2-16-03, Deborah Caldwell notes that, after his speech to Congress on September 20, 2001, Bush received a phone call from speechwriter Mike Gerson, who said, “Mr. President, when I saw you on television, I thought—God wanted you there.”

Joel Rosenberg, writing for World magazine (10-6-01), quotes Tim Goeglein (deputy director of the White House public liaison) saying, “I think President Bush is God’s man at this hour.”

Bush agrees, seeing his presidency as willed by God.

Lears reports that as governor of Texas (just after his second inauguration), he told a friend, “I believe God wants me to run for president.”

Caldwell cites a Time magazine article that reported that “Privately, Bush even talked of being chosen by the grace of God.”

According to Bush, this calling occurred during a 1999 sermon by Mark Craig, the preacher at Bush’s church in Dallas.

Craig spoke of Moses’ reluctance to heed the calling of the Lord.

In that sermon, Bush heard God calling him to become the President of the United States.

Other presidents have spiked their speeches with religious references.

However, Bush’s religious rhetoric goes beyond using a common language to help citizens identify with executive policy.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Bush forms his policies around extremist interpretations of Christian doctrine.

A particular understanding of Christian eschatology directs his political decisions.

Such beliefs coupled with the conviction that God chose him to fulfill a part of God’s plan represent a frightening political-ideological combination.

One might think that the vast majority of Americans would find Bush’s extremist worldview disturbing.

So far, no such majority has spoken up.

Part of this has to do with overwhelming media support of this president, which has led the media to gloss over the President’s religious fundamentalism.

Moreover, the warmongering of major media outlets aligns them with the Bush Administration.

Fearing that diplomacy and global resistance may cheat them out of the thrill and ratings of war, they have been uncritical of President Bush’s fanaticism.

However, the media should not absorb all the blame.

Bush’s major speeches have been nationally televised, unmediated by pundits, and still there is minimal concern over his apocalyptic rhetoric.

In a New York Times editorial, “God, Satan and the Media” (3-4-03) Nicholas Kristof thinks he knows why Bush’s religious messages have mesmerized so many people and failed to disturb others.

According to Kristof, 46 percent of Americans are evangelical or born-again Christians.

(According to recent polls, 45 percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was “personally involved” in 9-11. One wonders how many of these are the same people.)

Kristof’s figures may seem high, but they are typical of public opinion surveys.

The most recent Gallup poll puts the number of born-again Christians at 41%.

Eighteen percent of Americans describe themselves as religious right.

Among born-again Christians, Bush’s popularity stands at 74%.

For all others, it is 50%.

(Still, few are prepared to protest his policies.)

Gallup’s analysis (from their web site):

“The fact that this conservative and deeply religious president is a Republican, is directly in line with the overall pattern of religious beliefs in American politics."

"Most scholars agree that there is a substantial relationship between strong religious faith, particularly within conservative, evangelical Protestant denominations, and identification with the Republican Party.”

It is important to note that not all Protestants, let alone all Christians, consider themselves born-again, identify with the born-again worldview, or locate themselves on the political right.

Tens of millions of Christians are moderate, millions more are liberal and even socialist.

In addition, not all born-again Christians are right-wingers.

Black Americans who identify themselves as born-again are in overwhelming numbers registered Democrats.

Nevertheless, while many observers have long recognized that there is a right wing fundamentalist mood sweeping the nation, it is still surprising that so many Americans identify with such extreme religious beliefs.

Any explanation for public support for a war in Iraq must account for the degree and character of religiosity in the United States.

This includes Bush’s religious views.

“It’s impossible to understand President Bush without acknowledging the centrality of his faith,” writes Kristof.

Bush’s war efforts reflect a “messianic vision” in which his administration will “‘remake’ the Middle East.”

This vision resonates with so many of Bush’s followers, because the faithful likely agree with the President that he has been chosen by history—that is, by God—to democratize—Christianize?—the Islamic world.

An intense focus on the Middle East is natural for an evangelical Christian.

If the Middle East has tremendous significance for all Christians (this is where Jesus was born and crucified), it has extra-special significance for those calling themselves born-again.

Jerusalem is the alpha and omega of history—the center of the Christian universe.

Reagan tapped into these sentiments when he spoke about Armageddon and the existence of a godless Evil Empire.

Now Bush is tapping into these same sentiments.

There is no need to speculate about the degree to which religious sentiment guides US foreign policy.

Insiders have revealed that state and war planners, focused on the Middle East, bring their strategies and tactics to the President, and he and members of his administration pray over their vision and translate the text into articles of faith.

(I suspect that administration officials have been focusing on Revelations big-time in their daily Bible studies.)

The depth of fundamentalism in the Bush administration is the subject of a book by one of Bush’s key speechwriters, David Frum, the man who coined the phrase “axis of evil.”

According to his book, The Right Man, Frum, Bush, and others who worked on the notorious Axis of Evil speech, desired very much to create an enemy the equivalent of Reagan’s Evil Empire.

Julian Borger, a journalist for The Guardian, discussed these matters with Frum in an article published January 28, 2003.

In the interview, Frum “talks about the disconcerting grip evangelical Christianity has on the White House.”

How did the “axis of evil” line come about?

According to Frum (through Borger), during the weeks leading up to Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address, Gerson came to Frum with this challenge:

“Can you sum up in a sentence or two our best case for going after Iraq?”

This was in late December 2001.

Frum came up with “axis of hatred.”

He felt, according to Borger, that the phrase “described the ominous but ill-defined links between Iraq and terrorism.”

Gerson replaced the word “hatred” with “evil” because the latter sounded more “theological.”

Frum really liked the phrase.

He says, “It was the sort of language President Bush used.”

On Frum’s first day in the White House, one of Bush’s aides chastised his mentor Gerson for missing Bible study.

“Attendance at such sessions was ‘if not compulsory, not quite uncompulsory either,’” Frum is quoted as saying.

That Frum is Jewish, but was nevertheless expected to wade through the New Testament with the President and his advisors, speaks volumes about the extent and degree to which the Bible organizes Bush’s foreign and domestic policies.

Frum, who worked with the President for 13 months, says that Bush “believes that the future is in ‘stronger hands than his own.’”

The parallels with conservative politics of the 1980s are quite striking.

Grace Halsell, in his Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War (published in 1986), quotes TV evangelist James Robison:

“There’ll be no peace until Jesus comes."

"Any preaching of peace prior to this return is heresy; it’s against the word of God; it’s Anti-Christ.”

Ronald Reagan invited Robison to deliver the opening prayer at the 1984 Republican National Convention.

Reagan believed, as early as 1971, that “everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.”

Under Reagan, Jerry Falwell was permitted to attend National Security Council briefings.

Armageddonist Hal Lindsey met with Pentagon strategists to discuss nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

That the White House believed that they were on a mission from God helps explain why selling weapons to an enemy nation and working with cocaine traffickers to fund dirty wars in Central America never seemed to trouble Reagan’s conscience.

(Why has it not troubled more Americans?)

Holly Sklar, in Reagan, Trilateralism, and the Neoliberals (1986) writes, “For many rollbackers, Armageddon is the pre-ordained preface to the Second Coming and its theocracy of Christian believers."

"Ronald Reagan is the Believer-in-Chief.”

Sklar quotes Governor Reagan’s remarks in 1971:

In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, it says that the land of Israel will come under attack by the armies of the ungodly nations and it says that Libya will be among them.

Do you understand the significance of that?

Libya has now gone communist, and that’s a sign that the day of Armageddon isn’t that far off...

Everything is falling into place...

Ezekiel tells us that Gog, the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north...now that Russia has become communist and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God.

Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly.

Reagan continued to believe these prophecies into his presidency.

In 1983, President Reagan told People magazine, “theologians...have said that never...has there ever been a time in which so many of the prophecies are coming together."

"There have been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was coming and so forth, but never anything like this” (quoted in Sklar, 1986).

(Reagan’s Nostradamus-like predictions did not raise much public concern back then. Neither did Nancy’s consultations of astrology charts to determine the direction of Reagan’s foreign policy trouble many people.)

Reagan foreshadowed thing to come.

The belief in rapture—the certainty that the end-time is near—has become widespread in the United States.

Consider the current rage on the Christian right, the “Left Behind” series.

The upcoming book in the series is titled Armageddon.

The publisher’s blurb reads, “No one will escape Armageddon and few will live through the battle to see the Glorious Appearing.”

These publications are targeting children.

The Left Behind industry has a “Kids Series.”

A blurb from the publisher: “With over ten million copies sold, Left Behind: The Kids Series is a favorite for all ages."

"Following a group of teens that were ‘left behind,’ and are determined to stand up for God no matter what the costs, they are tested at every turn.”

At the Left Behind web site (http://www.leftbehind.com/), they have a video promotion for Armageddon replete with footage of American troops in Kuwait.

Linking war with Iraq to an eschatological view of history intersects with the problem of ignorance of just war principles among evangelicals.

Neither the President nor his supporters concern themselves with the justness of war, nor do they worry much about the consequences of war.

Providence, according to Lears, “sanitizes the messy actualities of war and its aftermath."

"Like the strategists’ faith in smart bombs, faith in Providence frees one from having to consider the role of chance in armed conflict, the least predictable of human affairs."

"Between divine will and American know-how, we have everything under control.”

Providence greatly simplifies things.

God has given Winthrop’s “city upon the hill” this war, and Americans should put their trust in the Lord (and Bush).

The intensity of religiosity among Bush supporters also explains the source of the extraordinary passion of contemporary warmongering and the intense antipathy towards those who oppose war.

Not only are those who oppose Bush “unpatriotic” and “unAmerican,” but they are also heretical for refusing to accept the mission that God has made for all Americans.

Peace activists are thwarting the crusade.

They are godless liberals bent on tearing down the nation and this president whom God has chosen for greatness.

How dense is reactionary religious fervor?

The country is moving into an era, Lears warns, where the “more humane interpretations of” Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, “are increasingly ignored.”

The major faiths are bending towards fundamentalism, where “the ideologues take command, convinced that they are doing God’s will.”

Might this nation, by allowing our public officials to articulate this worldview, lose our moral authority to condemn the religious extremism of those parts of the world Bush says are currently in shadow?

The erosion of American prestige around the planet is palpable.

According to Caldwell, Bush’s rhetoric troubles European leaders “and it possibly does contribute to a sense in Islamic countries that Bush is on an anti-Islamic ‘crusade.’”

Executive director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (based in Washington), Radwan Masmoudi, has stated that “Muslims, all over the world, are very concerned that the war on terrorism is being hijacked by right-wing fundamentalists, and transformed into a war, or at least a conflict, with Islam.”

Many since 9-11 have found more than curious the tone of the President and how much his rhetoric sounds like the rhetoric of those with whom the US is at war.

Americans are told that fundamentalist Islam hates them because Americans leave too little room for God.

Muslims resent America’s liberal freedoms—freedom of speech, faith, conscience, and, especially, the separation of Church and State.

They have attacked America because the United States shows the rest of the world how officially separating religion from politics and letting reason guide decisions makes a better society.

Americans are more tolerant, humane, and rational because of these values.

Yet, the President of the United States is stating publicly that God, who is behind all of history, is not neutral in human affairs, that God take sides, and that, in fact, God has taken our side, and, furthermore, that the President is carrying out God’s will.

No reason is needed—only faith matters.

Andrew Austin is Assistant Professor of Social Change and Development at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay where he directs the Law and Justice Studies program.

http://www.publiceye.org/apocalyptic/bush-...providence.html

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

October 6, 2005

"President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy"

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C.

10:07 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all.

(Applause.)

Thank you all.

Please be seated.

(Applause.)

Thank you for the warm welcome.

I'm honored once again to be with the supporters of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Since the day President Ronald Reagan set out the vision for this Endowment, the world has seen the swiftest advance of democratic institutions in history.

And Americans are proud to have played our role in this great story.

Our nation stood guard on tense borders; we spoke for the rights of dissidents and the hopes of exile; we aided the rise of new democracies on the ruins of tyranny.

And all the cost and sacrifice of that struggle has been worth it, because, from Latin America to Europe to Asia, we've gained the peace that freedom brings.

In this new century, freedom is once again assaulted by enemies determined to roll back generations of democratic progress.

Once again, we're responding to a global campaign of fear with a global campaign of freedom.

And once again, we will see freedom's victory.

(Applause.)

Vin, I want to thank you for inviting me back.

And thank you for the short introduction.

(Laughter.)

I appreciate Carl Gershman.

I want to welcome former Congressman Dick Gephardt, who is a board member of the National Endowment for Democracy.

It's good to see you, Dick.

And I appreciate Chris Cox, who is the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and a board member for the National Endowment of Democracy, for being here, as well.

I want to thank all the other board members.

I appreciate the Secretary of State, Condi Rice, who has joined us -- alongside her, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld.

Thank you all for being here.

I'm proud, as well, that the newly sworn-in Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the first Marine ever to hold that position, is with us today -- General Peter Pace.

(Applause.)

I thank the members of the Diplomatic Corps who are here, as well.

Recently our country observed the fourth anniversary of a great evil, and looked back on a great turning point in our history.

We still remember a proud city covered in smoke and ashes, a fire across the Potomac, and passengers who spent their final moments on Earth fighting the enemy.

We still remember the men who rejoiced in every death, and Americans in uniform rising to duty.

And we remember the calling that came to us on that day, and continues to this hour: We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity.

We will not tire, or rest, until the war on terror is won.

(Applause.)

The images and experience of September the 11th are unique for Americans.

Yet the evil of that morning has reappeared on other days, in other places -- in Mombasa, and Casablanca, and Riyadh, and Jakarta, and Istanbul, and Madrid, and Beslan, and Taba, and Netanya, and Baghdad, and elsewhere.

In the past few months, we've seen a new terror offensive with attacks on London, and Sharm el-Sheikh, and a deadly bombing in Bali once again.

All these separate images of destruction and suffering that we see on the news can seem like random and isolated acts of madness; innocent men and women and children have died simply because they boarded the wrong train, or worked in the wrong building, or checked into the wrong hotel.

Yet while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane.

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism.

Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam.

This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.

These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus -- and also against Muslims from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.

Many militants are part of global, borderless terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, which spreads propaganda, and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like September the 11th.

Other militants are found in regional groups, often associated with al Qaeda -- paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia, and the Philippines, and Pakistan, and Chechnya, and Kashmir, and Algeria.

Still others spring up in local cells, inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally directed.

Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command.

Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for our world.

We know the vision of the radicals because they've openly stated it -- in videos, and audiotapes, and letters, and declarations, and websites.

First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions.

Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, quote, their "resources, sons and money to driving the infidels out of their lands."

Their tactic to meet this goal has been consistent for a quarter-century: They hit us, and expect us to run.

They want us to repeat the sad history of Beirut in 1983, and Mogadishu in 1993 -- only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences.

Second, the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments.

Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and Jordan for potential takeover.

They achieved their goal, for a time, in Afghanistan.

Now they've set their sights on Iraq.

Bin Laden has stated: "The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries."

"It's either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation."

The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity.

And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.

Third, the militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.

With greater economic and military and political power, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation.

Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme.

Well, they are fanatical and extreme -- and they should not be dismissed.

Our enemy is utterly committed.

As Zarqawi has vowed, "We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life."

And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history.

Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously -- and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.

Defeating the militant network is difficult, because it thrives, like a parasite, on the suffering and frustration of others.

The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization, in which someone else is always to blame and violence is always the solution.

They exploit resentful and disillusioned young men and women, recruiting them through radical mosques as the pawns of terror.

And they exploit modern technology to multiply their destructive power.

Instead of attending faraway training camps, recruits can now access online training libraries to learn how to build a roadside bomb, or fire a rocket-propelled grenade -- and this further spreads the threat of violence, even within peaceful democratic societies.

The influence of Islamic radicalism is also magnified by helpers and enablers.

They have been sheltered by authoritarian regimes, allies of convenience like Syria and Iran, that share the goal of hurting America and moderate Muslim governments, and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West and America, and on the Jews.

These radicals depend on front operations, such as corrupted charities, which direct money to terrorist activity.

They're strengthened by those who aggressively fund the spread of radical, intolerant versions of Islam in unstable parts of the world.

The militants are aided, as well, by elements of the Arab news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism, that feed conspiracy theories and speak of a so-called American "war on Islam" -- with seldom a word about American action to protect Muslims in Afghanistan, and Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Iraq.

Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals.

I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001 -- and al Qaeda attacked us anyway.

The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse.

The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan.

Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence -- the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago.

In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed.

We're facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.

No act of ours invited the rage of the killers -- and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder.

On the contrary: They target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence.

Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, never give in, and never accept anything less than complete victory.

(Applause.)

The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century.

Yet, in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century.

Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses.

Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, quote, "what is good for them and what is not."

And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers.

He assures them that his -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride.

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision.

And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life.

We've seen it in the murders of Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, and Margaret Hassan, and many others.

In a courtroom in the Netherlands, the killer of Theo Van Gogh turned to the victim's grieving mother and said, "I do not feel your pain -- because I believe you are an infidel."

And in spite of this veneer of religious rhetoric, most of the victims claimed by the militants are fellow Muslims.

When 25 Iraqi children are killed in a bombing, or Iraqi teachers are executed at their school, or hospital workers are killed caring for the wounded, this is murder, pure and simple -- the total rejection of justice and honor and morality and religion.

These militants are not just the enemies of America, or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and the enemies of humanity.

(Applause.)

We have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before, in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, and the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields.

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims.

Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies.

In truth they have endless ambitions of imperial domination, and they wish to make everyone powerless except themselves.

Under their rule, they have banned books, and desecrated historical monuments, and brutalized women.

They seek to end dissent in every form, and to control every aspect of life, and to rule the soul, itself.

While promising a future of justice and holiness, the terrorists are preparing for a future of oppression and misery.

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent.

Zarqawi has said that Americans are, quote, "the most cowardly of God's creatures."

But let's be clear: It is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs, and cuts the throat of a bound captive, and targets worshipers leaving a mosque.

It is courage that liberated more than 50 million people.

It is courage that keeps an untiring vigil against the enemies of a rising democracy.

And it is courage in the cause of freedom that once again will destroy the enemies of freedom.

(Applause.)

And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure.

By fearing freedom -- by distrusting human creativity, and punishing change, and limiting the contributions of half the population -- this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible, and human societies successful.

The only thing modern about the militants' vision is the weapons they want to use against us.

The rest of their grim vision is defined by a warped image of the past -- a declaration of war on the idea of progress, itself.

And whatever lies ahead in the war against this ideology, the outcome is not in doubt: Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse.

Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future.

(Applause.)

We didn't ask for this global struggle, but we're answering history's call with confidence, and a comprehensive strategy.

Defeating a broad and adaptive network requires patience, constant pressure, and strong partners in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and beyond.

Working with these partners, we're disrupting militant conspiracies, destroying their ability to make war, and working to give millions in a troubled region of the world a hopeful alternative to resentment and violence.

First, we're determined to prevent the attacks of terrorist networks before they occur.

We're reorganizing our government to give this nation a broad and coordinated homeland defense.

We're reforming our intelligence agencies for the incredibly difficult task of tracking enemy activity, based on information that often comes in small fragments from widely scattered sources, here and abroad.

We're acting, along with the governments from many countries, to destroy the terrorist networks and incapacitate their leaders.

Together, we've killed or captured nearly all of those directly responsible for the September the 11th attacks; as well as some of bin Laden's most senior deputies; al Qaeda managers and operatives in more than 24 countries; the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, who was chief of al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf; the mastermind of the Jakarta and the first Bali bombings; a senior Zarqawi terrorist planner, who was planning attacks in Turkey; and many of al Qaeda's senior leaders in Saudi Arabia.

Overall, the United States and our partners have disrupted at least ten serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since September the 11th, including three al Qaeda plots to attack inside the United States.

We've stopped at least five more al Qaeda efforts to case targets in the United States, or infiltrate operatives into our country.

Because of this steady progress, the enemy is wounded -- but the enemy is still capable of global operations.

Our commitment is clear: We will not relent until the organized international terror networks are exposed and broken, and their leaders held to account for their acts of murder.

Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes, and to their terrorist allies who would use them without hesitation.

The United States, working with Great Britain, Pakistan, and other nations, has exposed and disrupted a major black-market operation in nuclear technology led by A.Q. Khan.

Libya has abandoned its chemical and nuclear weapons programs, as well as long-range ballistic missiles.

And in the last year, America and our partners in the Proliferation Security Initiative have stopped more than a dozen shipments of suspected weapons technology, including equipment for Iran's ballistic missile program.

This progress has reduced the danger to free nations, but has not removed it.

Evil men who want to use horrendous weapons against us are working in deadly earnest to gain them.

And we're working urgently to keep weapons of mass destruction out of their hands.

Third, we're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes.

State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror.

The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally as guilty of murder.

(Applause.)

Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization.

And the civilized world must hold those regimes to account.

Fourth, we're determined to deny the militants control of any nation, which they would use as a home base and a launching pad for terror.

For this reason, we're fighting beside our Afghan partners against remnants of the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies.

For this reason, we're working with President Musharraf to oppose and isolate the militants in Pakistan.

And for this reason, we're fighting the regime remnants and terrorists in Iraq.

The terrorist goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East, and strike America and other free nations with ever-increasing violence.

Our goal is to defeat the terrorists and their allies at the heart of their power -- and so we will defeat the enemy in Iraq.

Our coalition, along with our Iraqi allies, is moving forward with a comprehensive, specific military plan.

Area by area, city by city, we're conducting offensive operations to clear out enemy forces, and leaving behind Iraqi units to prevent the enemy from returning.

Within these areas, we're working for tangible improvements in the lives of Iraqi citizens.

And we're aiding the rise of an elected government that unites the Iraqi people against extremism and violence.

This work involves great risk for Iraqis, and for Americans and coalition forces.

Wars are not won without sacrifice -- and this war will require more sacrifice, more time, and more resolve.

The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we've ever faced.

They're unconstrained by any notion of our common humanity, or by the rules of warfare.

No one should underestimate the difficulties ahead, nor should they overlook the advantages we bring to this fight.

Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism.

It is not justified.

With every random bombing and with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots, or resistance fighters -- they are murderers at war with the Iraqi people, themselves.

In contrast, the elected leaders of Iraq are proving to be strong and steadfast.

By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress -- from tyranny, to liberation, to national elections, to the writing of a constitution, in the space of two-and-a-half years.

With our help, the Iraqi military is gaining new capabilities and new confidence with every passing month.

At the time of our Fallujah operations 11 months ago, there were only a few Iraqi army battalions in combat.

Today there are more than 80 Iraqi army battalions fighting the insurgency alongside our forces.

Progress isn't easy, but it is steady.

And no fair-minded person should ignore, deny, or dismiss the achievements of the Iraqi people.

Some observers question the durability of democracy in Iraq.

They underestimate the power and appeal of freedom.

We've heard it suggested that Iraq's democracy must be on shaky ground because Iraqis are arguing with each other.

But that's the essence of democracy: making your case, debating with those who you disagree -- who disagree, building consensus by persuasion, and answering to the will of the people.

We've heard it said that the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds of Iraq are too divided to form a lasting democracy.

In fact, democratic federalism is the best hope for unifying a diverse population, because a federal constitutional system respects the rights and religious traditions of all citizens, while giving all minorities, including the Sunnis, a stake and a voice in the future of their country.

It is true that the seeds of freedom have only recently been planted in Iraq -- but democracy, when it grows, is not a fragile flower; it is a healthy, sturdy tree.

(Applause.)

As Americans, we believe that people everywhere -- everywhere -- prefer freedom to slavery, and that liberty, once chosen, improves the lives of all.

And so we're confident, as our coalition and the Iraqi people each do their part, Iraqi democracy will succeed.

Some observers also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and leaving Iraq now.

This is a dangerous illusion, refuted with a simple question: Would the United States and other free nations be more safe, or less safe, with Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq, its people, and its resources?

Having removed a dictator who hated free peoples, we will not stand by as a new set of killers, dedicated to the destruction of our own country, seizes control of Iraq by violence.

There's always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world, and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder.

This would be a pleasant world, but it's not the world we live in.

The enemy is never tired, never sated, never content with yesterday's brutality.

This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence.

In Iraq, there is no peace without victory.

We will keep our nerve and we will win that victory.

(Applause.)

The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East.

This is a difficult and long-term project, yet there's no alternative to it.

Our future and the future of that region are linked.

If the broader Middle East is left to grow in bitterness, if countries remain in misery, while radicals stir the resentments of millions, then that part of the world will be a source of endless conflict and mounting danger, and for our generation and the next.

If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny, and advance by their own energy and by their participation as free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized, and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow, and eventually end.

By standing for the hope and freedom of others, we make our own freedom more secure.

America is making this stand in practical ways.

We're encouraging our friends in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to take the path of reform, to strengthen their own societies in the fight against terror by respecting the rights and choices of their own people.

We're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow.

We're making our case through public diplomacy, stating clearly and confidently our belief in self-determination, and the rule of law, and religious freedom, and equal rights for women, beliefs that are right and true in every land, and in every culture.

(Applause.)

As we do our part to confront radicalism, we know that the most vital work will be done within the Islamic world, itself.

And this work has begun.

Many Muslim scholars have already publicly condemned terrorism, often citing Chapter 5, Verse 32 of the Koran, which states that killing an innocent human being is like killing all humanity, and saving the life of one person is like saving all of humanity.

After the attacks in London on July the 7th, an imam in the United Arab Emirates declared, "Whoever does such a thing is not a Muslim, nor a religious person."

The time has come for all responsible Islamic leaders to join in denouncing an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends, and defiles a noble faith.

Many people of the Muslim faith are proving their commitment at great personal risk.

Everywhere we have engaged the fight against extremism, Muslim allies have stood up and joined the fight, becoming partners in a vital cause.

Afghan troops are in combat against Taliban remnants.

Iraqi soldiers are sacrificing to defeat al Qaeda in their own country.

These brave citizens know the stakes -- the survival of their own liberty, the future of their own region, the justice and humanity of their own tradition -- and that United States of America is proud to stand beside them.

(Applause.)

With the rise of a deadly enemy and the unfolding of a global ideological struggle, our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented dangers.

And yet the fight we have joined is also the current expression of an ancient struggle, between those who put their faith in dictators, and those who put their faith in the people.

Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision -- and they end up alienating decent people across the globe.

Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure -- until those societies collapse in corruption and decay.

Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent -- until the day that free men and women defeat them.

We don't know the course of our own struggle -- the course our own struggle will take -- or the sacrifices that might lie ahead.

We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice.

We do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history.

And we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail.

May God bless you.

(Applause.)

END 10:47 A.M. EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20051006-3.html

From The Sunday Times

February 25, 2007

"US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack"

Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office.

The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said.

“There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike.

“All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion."

"Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them."

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented.

“American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source.

Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table.

He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”.

Iran ignored a United Nations deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment programme last week.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that his country “will not withdraw from its nuclear stances even one single step”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its programme is purely for civilian energy purposes.

Nicholas Burns, the top US negotiator, is to meet British, French, German, Chinese and Russian officials in London tomorrow to discuss additional penalties against Iran.

But UN diplomats cautioned that further measures would take weeks to agree and would be mild at best.

A second US navy aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS John C Stennis arrived in the Gulf last week, doubling the US presence there.

Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet, warned:

“The US will take military action if ships are attacked or if countries in the region are targeted or US troops come under direct attack.”

But General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran.

He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.

Pace’s view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of the Iranian government’s involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small number of Revolutionary Guards was “far from clear”.

Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top.

“He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier,” she said.

“It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon.”

Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction that could be used as an excuse for an attack.

A British official said the US navy was well aware of the risks of confrontation and was being “seriously careful” in the Gulf.

The US air force is regarded as being more willing to attack Iran.

General Michael Moseley, the head of the air force, cited Iran as the main likely target for American aircraft at a military conference earlier this month.

According to a report in The New Yorker magazine, the Pentagon has already set up a working group to plan airstrikes on Iran.

The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been instructed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.

However, army chiefs fear an attack on Iran would backfire on American troops in Iraq and lead to more terrorist attacks, a rise in oil prices and the threat of a regional war.

Britain is concerned that its own troops in Iraq might be drawn into any American conflict with Iran, regardless of whether the government takes part in the attack.

One retired general who participated in the “generals’ revolt” against Donald Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war said he hoped his former colleagues would resign in the event of an order to attack.

“We don’t want to take another initiative unless we’ve really thought through the consequences of our strategy,” he warned.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle1434540.ece

About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787 ...

Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh ....

Had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

The Persians

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Persians (Πέρσαι) is a tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus.

It is the oldest surviving play in the history of theater.

It is also notable for being the only extant Greek tragedy based on contemporary events.

The Persians was part of a trilogy produced in 472 BC that won the first prize at the dramatic competition in Athens’ City Dionysia festival.

According to a hypothesis appended to a manuscript of the play, the first play in the trilogy was called Phineus, and it presumably dealt with Jason and the Argonauts’ rescue of King Phineus from the torture of the monstrous Harpies.

The subject of the third play, Glaucus, was either a mythical Corinthian king who was eaten by his own horses, or else a Boeotian farmer who ate a magical herb that transformed him into a sea deity with the gift of prophecy.

Given Aeschylus’ propensity for writing connected trilogies, it has been argued by some that these two plays would have indirectly forecast events of the Persian invasion.

Based on their presumed content, Xerxes’ march through Thrace and his defeat at the Battle of Plataea in 479, respectively, seem likely candidates.

Also, if Glaucus was based around the myth of the Corinthian king, who was devoured by his horses because he angered the goddess Aphrodite, and along with Phineus, who was subjected to torture because he angered Zeus.

Because the point of The Persians is that Xerxes was defeated because he angered the gods in building a bridge across the Hellespont, the trilogy could be connected based on the theme of divine retribution.

Summary

The Persians takes place in Susa, one of the capitals of Persia, and opens with the chorus of Persian nobles and Queen Mother Atossa awaiting news of King Xerxes' expedition against the Greeks.

This is an unusual beginning for a tragedy by Aeschylus; normally the chorus would not appear until slightly later, after a speech by a minor character.

A messenger then arrives, delivering news of the defeat, the names of the Persian leaders who have been killed, and the relieving news that King Xerxes had escaped and is returning.

Then he leaps into a graphic description of the Battle of Salamis and its gory outcome.

The climax of the messenger's soliloquy is his rendition of the battle cry of the Greeks as they charged:

"Forward, sons of the Greeks, liberate the fatherland, liberate your children, your women, the temples of your ancestral gods, the graves of your forebears: this is the battle for everything."

Atossa then goes to the tomb of her dead husband Darius, and summons his ghost.

Upon learning of the Persian defeat, Darius condemns the hubris behind his son’s decision to invade Greece.

He particularly rebukes as impious Xerxes’ decision to build a bridge over the Hellespont to expedite the Persian army’s advance.

Before departing, the ghost of Darius prophesies another Persian defeat at Plataea.

Xerxes finally appears, reeling from his crushing defeat.

The rest of the drama consists of the king and chorus lamenting the enormity of Persia’s defeat.

Discussion

Aeschylus was not the first to write a play about the Persians.

His older contemporary Phrynichus wrote two plays (neither extant) about the Persians.

The first, The Sack of Miletus (493 BC), treated the failed revolt of a Greek city against Persia in Asia Minor; for his portrayal of this brutal defeat, Phrynichus was fined and his play was forbidden from ever being performed again.

The second, Phoenician Women (476 BC), actually treated the same historical event as Aeschylus’ Persians.

Critics of the Persians generally fall into one of two schools: one should either read the play through the lens of Aristotle’s Poetics and interpret the play as sympathetic toward the defeated Persians; or else read the drama through a historical lens and interpret it as celebrating Greek victory within the context of an ongoing war with Persia.

The sympathetic school has the considerable weight of Aristotelian criticism behind it; indeed, every other extant Greek tragedy arguably invites an audience's sympathy for one or more characters on stage.

The celebratory school, however, recognizes the difficulties of a xenophobic culture's sympathizing with its hated barbarian enemy in a time of war.

In the Persians itself, Xerxes seems to endorse the celebratory school, as he calls his pains, "a joy to my enemies."

Almost seventy years later, the comic playwright Aristophanes appears to agree with this assessment.

In his Frogs, he portrays Dionysus (at 1026-27) as having watched a production of the Persians and revelling in Xerxes' misfortunes.

Reception & legacy

As noted above, the Persians won the first prize in 472.

It would be reproduced in Sicily in 467 BC (one of the few times a play was reproduced during the lifetime of the author).

As was also noted above, even some seventy years later the play would be praised by the comic playwright Aristophanes.

The version produced in 467 probably forms the basis of the surviving version, and may have been slightly different from the original.

It was also later a popular play in the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, who also fought wars with the Persians.

The Persians' popularity has endured in modern Greece.

According to Anthony Podlecki, during a production at Athens in 1965 the audience "rose to its feet en masse and interrupted the actors' dialogue with cheers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persians

Susa

Susa (Šušim): capital of Elam, favorite residence of the Persian king Darius I the Great.

Susa is one of the oldest cities in the world.

Excavations have established that people were living at the acropolis in 5000 BCE and have shown the existence of urban structures about 4000, and it is reasonable that the town, situated on a strip of land between the rivers Karkheh (Choaspes) and Dez (Eulaeus), was already the political center of Elam in the fourth millennium.

It has partly been overbuilt with a modern castle that was used by the French archaeologists.

A second part of the city is now called the royal hill.

From written sources, we know that there must have been ziggurat, which must have stood somewhere over here.

A third part is the artisan's quarter, which was to the east of the buildings on this map.

The ruins of a donjon on a steep hilltop in the southeast date back to the earliest period.

Achaemenid palace

The Assyrian king Aššurbanipal destroyed the Elamite capital between 645-640 BCE.

It is unclear what happened in the next century, but after this, Susa was one of the capitals of the Achaemenid empire.

The city was rebuilt by the Persian king Darius the Great (522-486).

The Apadana palace was clearly his favorite residence.

The Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who wrote a lot about the Achaemenid empire, did not know of another capital.

The scene of the Biblical book of Esther is laid in Susa, where king Ahasverus (Xerxes) resides.

Archaeologists have been able to identify several rooms in the palace with rooms mentioned by the author of Esther.

On the picture, the Apadana palace is visible at top left.

There were three courtyards, two entrance gates and an apadana (audience hall), the roof of which was supported by 36 columns inside abnd 36 columns outside.

Unfortunately, a big fire during the reign of king Artaxerxes I Makrocheir (465-424) destroyed much of the buildings from this age.

The city was rebuilt, however, and continued to be in use for centuries, although at some stage, the people settled closer to the river.

The ancient city could be excavated in the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, even the ruins were not left alone: they were partly destroyed during the First Gulf War.

King Artaxerxes II Mnemon (404-358) built a second audience hall on the opposite bank of the river, which is visible at bottom left of the picture.

The conical structure in front is more recent.

Here, muslims venerate the tomb of the prophet Daniel, another figure related to the Persian court at Susa.

In fact, there were other capitals (Pasargadae, Persepolis, and Ecbatana), but is evident that Susa was more impressive.

An inscription in the palace, known as DSf, describes how Darius built his residence.

A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king, one king of many, one lord of many.

Darius the King says: By the favor of Ahuramazda I built this palace.

Darius the King says: Ahuramazda, the greatest of the gods created me, made me king, bestowed upon me this kingdom, great, possessed of good horses, possessed of good men.

By the favor of Ahuramazda, my father Hystaspes and Arsames my grandfather - these both were living when Ahuramazda made me king in this earth.

To Ahuramazda thus was the desire: he chose me as his man in all the earth; he made me king in all the earth.

I worshipped Ahuramazda.

Ahuramazda bore me aid.

What was by me commanded to do, that he made successful for me.

What I did, all by the favor of Ahuramazda I did.

This palace which I built at Susa, from afar its ornamentation was brought.

Downward the earth was dug, until I reached rock in the earth.

When the excavation had been made, then rubble was packed down, some 40 cubits in depth, another part 20 cubits in depth.

On that rubble the palace was constructed.

And that the earth was dug downward, and that the rubble was packed down, and that the sun-dried brick was molded, the Babylonian people performed these tasks.

The cedar timber, this was brought from a mountain named Lebanon.

The Assyrian people brought it to Babylon; from Babylon the Carians and the Yaunâ [=Greeks] brought it to Susa.

The yakâ-timber was brought from Gandara and from Carmania.

The gold was brought from Lydia and from Bactria, which here was wrought.

The precious stone lapis lazuli and carnelian which was wrought here, this was brought from Sogdia.

The precious stone turquoise, this was brought from Chorasmia, which was wrought here.

The silver and the ebony were brought from Egypt.

The ornamentation with which the wall was adorned, that from Yaunâ was brought.

The ivory which was wrought here, was brought from Kush and from India and from Arachosia.

The stone columns which were here wrought, a village named Abiradu, in Elam - from there were brought.

The stone-cutters who wrought the stone, those were Yaunâ and Lydians.

The goldsmiths who wrought the gold, those were Medes and Egyptians.

The men who wrought the wood, those were Lydians and Egyptians.

The men who wrought the baked brick, those were Babylonians.

The men who adorned the wall, those were Medes and Egyptians.

Darius the King says: At Susa a very excellent work was ordered, a very excellent work was brought to completion.

Me may Ahuramazda protect, and Hystaspes my father, and my country.

This text interesting because it mentions many nations.

The palace was clearly meant as propaganda, where every visitor would be impressed by the size of the empire.

An inscription, D2Sa, records reconstruction works from the age of Artaxerxes I Makrocheir and Darius II Nothus.

After the fall of the Achaemenid empire and the reign of Alexander the Great, who married in Susa, the city became part of the Seleucid empire.

It was now called Seleucia on the Eulaeus.

A palace in Greek style was erected, next to Darius' palace.

The administrative center, however, was in the southern part of the city, where nearly all Greek and Parthian inscriptions were discovered.

In the Parthian age, the city minted coins.

The city remained important until the thirteenth century CE.

Excavation started in 1897.

Literature

R. Boucharlat, "Susa under Achaemenid Rule" in: John Curtis (ed.) Mesopotamia and Iran in the Persian Period: Conquest and Imperialism 559-331 BC (1997 London) 54-67

http://www.livius.org/su-sz/susa/susa.htm

WHOSE PUPPET IS PECKERWOOD GEORGE W. BUSH?

WHAT'S UP WITH THE PECKERWOOD CALLING THIS IRAQINAMI POLITICIAN WHILE THE PECKERWOOD HAS OUR AMERICAN MILITARY EXTERMINATING HIS POLITICAL FOES AHEAD OF REGIONAL ELECTIONS UPCOMING IN IRAQINAM?

WAS ABDUL-AZIZ al-HAKIM, HEAD OF THE SUPREME ISLAMIC IRAQ COUNCIL IN IRAQINAM CALLING THE PECKERWOOD ON THE CARPET FOR BEING INCOMPETENT WITH THE PACE OF THE EXTERMINATION?

And so ...

"US troop deaths hit 7-month high in Iraq as Baghdad fighting flares"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:22 p.m., Wednesday, April 30, 2008

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military death toll hit a seven-month high of 49 on Wednesday -- with more than half the losses in Baghdad as American forces wage growing street battles against Shiite fighters.

Iraqi civilian deaths also remained high following the Iraqi government crackdown on Shiite militia factions -- accused by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of using residents as human shields during close combat in the teeming Sadr City slum.

The clashes in Sadr City -- a base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia -- show little sign of easing as Iraqi and U.S. troops try to exert control over an area containing nearly half of the Baghdad's population.

In the deadliest skirmish Wednesday, suspected Shiite extremists first attacked with mortars and machine guns, then drove up to a U.S. checkpoint and opened fire.

The U.S. military said seven militants were killed.

At least 10 other militiamen died in other clashes, the military said.

But the growing violence in Baghdad also has taken a toll on U.S. forces.

At least five soldiers have been killed in the city since Tuesday, bringing the monthly count to at least 49 -- 27 in Baghdad -- in the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, at least 4,061 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq, according to an Associated Press count.

Around Iraq, at least 1,080 Iraqi civilians and security forces were killed nationwide this month, or an average of 36 a day, according to an AP tally.

That's down from March's total of 1,269, or an average of 41 per day.

But nearly 40 percent of the April deaths -- 413 -- occurred in Baghdad as violence returned to the capital, according to the AP figures compiled from reports from Iraqi police, hospital officials and government offices.

Civilian deaths have steadily risen this year, and spiked sharply after al-Maliki launched the offensive on Shiite militias on March 25 in the southern city of Basra.

Fighting soon flared in Sadr City, which has become the epicenter of the battles.

It's difficult to determine the civilian toll from the ongoing clashes in Sadr City.

An Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said a total of 479 people have been killed in Sadr City since the clashes began in late March.

But the official could not break down the number of militants, Iraqi security forces and civilians.

Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the spokesman for the civilian side of Baghdad security operations, said 925 people had died and 2,605 were wounded in Sadr City.

But he gave no timeframe or details about how the figure was reached.

The U.S. military blamed the increase in deaths to an effort by both Shiite and Sunni militants to reverse recent security gains.

The fighting intensified after al-Sadr last week threatened to unleash an "open war" against U.S.-led forces.

"We have said all along that this will be a tough fight and there will be periods where we see these extremists, these criminal groups and al-Qaida terrorists seek to reassert themselves," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner told reporters in Baghdad.

"So, the sacrifice of our troopers, the sacrifice of Iraqi forces and Iraqi citizens reflects this challenge," Bergner added.

The Iraqi prime minister also showed no indications of backing down.

Al-Maliki vowed that "no one can stop" the drive to disarm Shiite and Sunni extremists, including the Mahdi Army -- which he accused of using civilians as human shields and hiding in residential areas.

"We can't build a state along with militias," he said during a news conference.

"We want to build a single national army."

Al-Maliki said gunmen had killed the nephew of police Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman who has overseen operations in Basra, by hanging him from an electricity pole in Sadr City.

Local officials also claimed a school in Sadr City was hit by a U.S. airstrike.

AP Television News footage showed a collapsed girls' school, with desks hanging from the slanting floors.

The U.S. military did not specifically comment about the school.

In Washington, the White House confirmed that President Bush on Tuesday called Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the most powerful Shiite party backing the Iraqi government and a chief rival of al-Sadr's movement.

------

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and the AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.

"White House admits fault on 'Mission Accomplished' banner - White House says it has paid a price for Iraq 'Mission Accomplished' banner 5 years ago"

By TERENCE HUNT, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:12 p.m., Wednesday, April 30, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has paid a price for the "Mission Accomplished" banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.

Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush's dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war.

The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Bush said at the time.

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on."

The "Mission Accomplished" banner was prominently displayed above him -- a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.

After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the "Mission Accomplished" phrase referred to the carrier's crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq.

Bush, in October 2003, disavowed any connection with the "Mission Accomplished" message.

He said the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a spokesman later said the ship's crew asked for the sign and the White House staff had it made by a private vendor.

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday.

"And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner."

"And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

She said what is important now is "how the president would describe the fight today."

"It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy."

At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.

Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least 4,061 members of the U.S. military.

Only the Vietnam War (August 1964 to January 1973), the war in Afghanistan (October 2001 to present) and the Revolutionary War (July 1776 to April 1783) have engaged America longer.

Bush, in a speech earlier this month, said that "while this war is difficult, it is not endless."

------

On the Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

YES ...

I REMEMBER WHEN TARIQ AZIZ AND BUSHITE DONALD RUMSFELD WERE QUITE THE ITEM OVER THERE IN BAGHDAD ...

BACK IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN SADDAM WAS USING POISON GAS ON THE IRANIANS ...

AND RONALD RAYGUN HAD SENT DONALD RUMSFELD OVER THERE AS HIS SPECIAL ENVOY TO KISS SADDAM'S *** AND TO TELL SADDAM HOW MUCH RONALD RAYGUN AND AMERICA LOVED HIM ...

And so ...

"Trial begins for Iraq ex-deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz - Former Iraqi deputy PM Tariq Aziz goes on trial over execution of traders in 1992"

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press

Last updated: 11:52 a.m., Tuesday, April 29, 2008

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi court on Tuesday began hearing the case against Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's best-known lieutenants, who is accused of ordering the execution of dozens of merchants for profiteering.

Aziz, 72, a former deputy prime minister under Hussein, is one of eight defendants in the case.

If convicted, they could be sentenced to death.

Other defendants include Saddam's half brother Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan and the dictator's cousin known as "Chemical Ali," who faces a pending death sentence in another case.

Aziz walked into the court room on Tuesday leaning on a walking stick.

But Ali, whose full name is Ali Hassan al-Majid, did not attend the opening proceedings due to health reasons, Judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman said.

The judge then adjourned the trial until May 20, citing al-Majid's absence.

He said doctors had signed a medical report saying that al-Majid was sick and needed some three weeks to recover.

The U.S. military said Monday that al-Majid is under medical care at an American detention facility after suffering a heart attack earlier this month.

The trial had been scheduled to open at 10:15 a.m., but was pushed back to 5 p.m.

The judge, Abdul-Rahman, said this was due to "organizational and procedural measures," because the defendants had not been brought to the courthouse on time.

A judge with the Iraqi High Tribunal, which is prosecuting offenses of the former regime, said charges against the defendants include war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The charges stem from the execution of 42 merchants accused by Saddam's government of being behind a sharp increase in food prices when the country was under strict U.N. sanctions.

The merchants were rounded up over two days in July 1992 from Baghdad's wholesale markets and charged with manipulating food supplies to drive up prices at a time when many Iraqis were suffering economically.

All 42 were executed hours later following a quick trial.

The tribunal judge -- who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the information -- said Aziz was being prosecuted because he signed the execution orders against the merchants as a member of Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council, a rubber stamp group that approved the dictator's decisions.

Aziz has denied the accusations through his Italian lawyer.

"Mr. Aziz is not guilty of any offense whatsoever," Giovanni Di Stefano, the lawyer, said in a statement.

Another defense attorney, Badee Izzat Aref, has said Aziz is ailing and still suffers from the effects of a stroke he had prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Aziz was the only Christian among Saddam's mostly Sunni Muslim inner coterie.

He was No. 25 on the U.S. most-wanted list after the invasion.

He surrendered to American forces on April 25, 2003, and has been in custody ever since.

Saddam was sentenced to death for the killing of 148 Shiites and hanged in 2006.

AND WHILE WE ARE ON THE SUBJECT OF WHETHER OR NOT THE PENTAGON WOULD STILL BE LYING TO US ....

LIKE IT WAS LYING TO US BACK IN THE VIET NAM TIMES ...

LET'S DROP BACK IN TIME JUST A BIT ....

TO 2002 ...

AND THE VERY PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM BUSHITE DONALD RUMSFELD AND THE PENTAGON THAT THEY INTENDED TO LIE TO US ....

And so ...

ASIA TIMES

February 26, 2002

atimes.com

WAR ON TERROR

"Pentagon ponders disinformation campaign"

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - When the Pentagon insists that one of its missiles hit senior al-Qaeda leaders meeting near Khost, Afghanistan, but local residents swear that the victims were peasants salvaging scrap metal, who is more credible?

When US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declares that Iran is actively helping al-Qaeda leaders to escape from Afghanistan but the Iranian government insists it is not, who is more credible?

The burden of proof will almost surely shift against the Pentagon if it goes through with plans for a new propaganda campaign that, according to Tuesday's New York Times, might include "disinformation" to persuade public opinion overseas to back Washington's war against terrorism.

The plans, which have provoked objections from the uniformed military as well as within the administration, appear to mark a new phase in a broader campaign to influence opinion particularly in the Islamic world and Europe, where opposition to any expansion of the war beyond Afghanistan is especially strong.

Top civilian officials in the Pentagon, together with Vice President Dick Cheney and his senior advisers, are eager to take the war to Iraq in hopes of ousting President Saddam Hussein but are opposed by the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which historically have run US propaganda campaigns.

"The fact that the Pentagon is doing it has got to be an issue," said former State Department spokesman Alan Romberg.

"If it's a covert action, using disinformation, it's the CIA which has the mandate."

Assembling the plans is the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), created several weeks after last September's terrorist attacks in the United States.

Headed by Brigadier-General Simon Worden, it consists of some 15 people and reports to the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

The head of that office in turn reports to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, one of the administration's best-known and fiercest anti-Saddam hawks.

The OSI also coordinates closely with the White House's new counterterrorism office, run by retired General Wayne Downing, who in the late 1990s helped devise and sell a war plan against Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a coalition of Iraqi exile and Kurdish groups whose cause right-wing Republicans long have championed.

It was no surprise, therefore, when the OSI contracted with the Rendon Group, a Washington-based lobbying and consulting firm retained by the Kuwaiti royal family to represent it during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis and later by the INC for its efforts to lobby the White House and Congress for millions of dollars in political and other support.

"I think it's safe to say that this is an initiative of the Iraq hawks, who have had Saddam in their sights virtually from September 12," said one official, who asked not to be identified.

The OSI "rolls up all the instruments within DOD [Department of Defence] to influence foreign audiences", its assistant for operations, Thomas Timmes, a former colonel in the army's psychological operations unit, told a recent conference.

"DOD has not traditionally done these things," the Times quoted him as saying.

According to Pentagon officials who spoke with the Times on condition of anonymity, the plans call for planting news items with foreign media organizations through sources that may not have obvious ties to the Pentagon and sending journalists and foreign leaders e-mail messages that promote US views or US targets without identifying the source as the military.

Under US law, neither the CIA nor the Pentagon may engage in propaganda activities in the United States or direct them at a domestic audience.

The law was tightened in the mid-1970s after investigations revealed that the CIA planted stories abroad that were, in some cases, reprinted in the United States - a process referred to as "blowback".

According to the Times account, which was clearly leaked by Pentagon officials who oppose the plan, Worden has very much the same kind of legally questionable operations in mind.

"Information is much more global now and moves much more swiftly than it did 25 years ago," said Thomas Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism here, who cited the Internet as one reason separating foreign from domestic media audiences no longer makes sense.

"It would mean blowback, and that makes [these plans] much more complicated and either somewhat naive or disingenuous on the Pentagon's part," said Rosenstiel.

More than that, added Romberg, the Pentagon, if it goes through with the plans to use disinformation, risks losing its credibility.

"People anticipate that the intelligence agencies do that; that's part of the game."

"But it would be a very dangerous mistake for the Pentagon to do it."

From virtually the outset of the counterterrorism campaign, the administration has been concerned with influencing foreign opinion.

Secretary of State Colin Powell recruited Charlotte Beers, a retired top advertising executive, to become his undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.

Best known for developing the images of major products and US corporations, her primary focus has been to refurbish Washington's image, particularly in the Arab world.

During the 1980s, the State Department housed a public diplomacy office on Central America that reported to the National Security Council and was later found by a Congressional investigative body to have engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda" operations when it, among other things, authored articles purportedly written by leaders of the Nicaraguan contras for publication in US newspapers.

Several high-ranking members of the Bush administration contributed to that effort, including Otto Reich, who headed the office and is now assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Elliott Abrams, who was assistant secretary then and is now a top National Security Council aide to Bush.

A third, Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, was to be named as Downey's deputy at the White House anti-terrorist office but apparently fell victim to strenuous protests from Congressional Democrats who recalled that he and Abrams had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in the Iran-contra affair, only to be pardoned by then-president George Bush Sr.

The Rendon Group had a CIA contract to do media work on behalf of the INC in the mid-1990s, for which it was reportedly paid US$23 million, an amount that prompted a brief but inconclusive congressional investigation.

It worked for the government in Panama during and after the 1989 US invasion "Operation Just Cause", and performed similar services when US troops intervened in Haiti to restore exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Its most recent Pentagon contract, for just under $400,000, was to last four months, subject to renewal.

A spokesperson at Rendon told IPS on Tuesday she could confirm only that the group had a contract with the Pentagon and could provide no other information.

Public affairs officials at the Pentagon held a closed-door meeting about the Times article on Tuesday but did not return phone calls seeking comment.

(Inter Press Service)

http://www.atimes.com/terror/DB22Dk02.html