Sorry Mr Crabb that you trod in the doo doo. >Nice verbage, but it really says nothing other than >'I'm right.. you're not'.. and takes a long time to do it.
Okay, if that's the way you want it. Sigh... I knew you'd be wasting my time, and others' here. Why do you say "takes a long time to do it"? Your message was 40% longer than my reply, this message of yours in response is just twice as long. Which more or less sets the tone for your idea of "facts": if you say it, it's a fact. I said quite a few things other than 'I'm right.. you're not' (which I didn't say). One was that if you wanted reasoned responses there are plenty of them in the archives, but that you wouldn't bother to look, preferring to bluster. A 100% accurate prediction, as it turns out. This is a bit longer, I hope it doesn't test your attention span too much. >So tell me, whom are we bombing to rape their resources? >Afghanistan? I suppose that is a flimsy excuse we facricated the WTC >attacks so that >we can waste our time and spend money there for nothing. :-) I can see who you've been arguing with, LOL! And who you apparently haven't yet encountered, in all your "openness". You suppose, do you... dangerous business. Who said you'd fabricated the WCC attacks? I didn't say it, I didn't imply it, I didn't even think it. Rather try to establish a link - ANY link - between Afghanistan and the WTC attacks. Tell you a secret: there isn't one. The Taliban? No link. Al Qaida? No proven link: one alleged "claim" by Bin Laden, long after the war on Afghanistan started, that was anything but a direct claim, more like an approval. The Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden before the war started, the US rejected the offer. Why? It wouldn't perhaps have something to do with a certain pipeline, now would it, and a company called Socal? Some other points: the US killed more innocent civilians in its war on Afghanistan than the number who died in the WTC attacks, and the US tried to cover that up, along with much else: http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan http://www.cursor.org/stories/noncounters.htm Dead Afghan Civilians: Disrobing the Non-Counters http://www.cursor.org/stories/archivistan.htm Archivistan Afghanistan was in better shape under the Taliban than it is now with all the warlordism, gangsterism and sheer civil violence that's rife under the US-installed regime with its US-guaranteed securities. US undertakings to rebuild Afghanistan after the war, and promises that it would not simply walk away after achieving its goals as it did the previous time, which is what caused the whole problem in the first place (well actually it was US backing for the mujahideen and Bin Laden etc that did that), have, as predicted, been neglected - the US walked away again. >If we were fabricating it.. it would have made more sense to fabricate it so >that "Saddam did it". Saddam wasn't an issue than - try to remember, through all the spin you've sucked up in the meantime: it wasn't Saddam who was the big bugbear then, it was Bin Laden. Nobody was talking about Saddam much, other than the usual stuff that he "gassed his own people" (he didn't), which has since been abandoned in favour of the WMD excuse (he hasn't got them). http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/11-18-98.html Did Saddam Hussein Gas His Own People? On the other hand, the US has killed more Iraqis than Saddam has, nearly a million innocent civilians now, including many children, victims of the US-enforced santions, a major atrocity. WMDs? The International Atomic Energy Agency says he doesn't have any, the UN Weapons Inspection team has been to say the least extremely aggressive in trying to find evidence, even offering key scientists asylum and so on (as directed by the US), but they've found no evidence of WOMDs. They've failed to find any evidence or indication of WOMDs and say there isn't any such evidence. Saddam Hussein is certainly a brutal dictator, though that didn't stop the US backing him in the past, and it never has done with any of a very wide range of brutal dictators the US has backed. This current US crap is based on the idea that Saddam is both mad and stupid, and he's neither of those, not by a very long way. And who's talking about Bin Laden now? It seems he's been forgotten - he turned up on Al-Jazeera not long ago, for the first time after the war on Afghanistan, and it drew hardly a comment from the US, they weren't interested anymore. And in all the hoo-hah over Saddam, who ever talks about the WTC attack now? There's not even any attempt to link Saddam with the WTC attack. Anyway Saddam and Al Qaida hate each other, there's no evidence that Saddam has ever assisted Al Qaida in any way, let alone with the WTC attack, and certainly not with WMDs. Who's even talking about the War on Terror anymore? But it doesn't matter, does it? Who needs consistency, who needs evidence? Guys like you will suck up any crap that gets fed to you and it's deemed there are enough of you in the US to rig up some semblance of support (especially if you bend the polls a bit, or more than a bit). >If we were going to rip off all their oil.. why didnt >we do it 12 years ago? Yes, Daddy Bush was a little short-sighted, wasn't he? But that wasn't the goal then. The main goal, among others, was the long-sought Holy Grail of stationing large numbers of US troops in Saudi Arabia, which the US had been desperate to do ever since the fall of the Shah, leaving the West's "jugular vein" (the gulf oil) unguarded (except by Israel and its 200-odd nukes). And that's what's causing all the trouble - the stated main #1 anti-US gripe of Al Qaida and the other jihadists, the presence of the infidel in Saudi Arabia. #2 gripe - US support for Israel. But, yes, it was shortsighted. Never mind, Baby Bush can correct Daddy's little oversights. And hence the inevitable and long-predicted backlash - the WTC attacks, by terrorists who were mostly Saudis (NOT Afghans). Now if the US hadn't been fiddling about in Saudi Arabia all these years, and especially backing and underwriting the Saudi regime (yet another brutal dictatorship), actively helping them suppress any move towards more democracy, there's every reason to suppose that history would have taken its normal course long ago, with an end to the Saudi rulers and the development of a much more equitable and democratic rule there. What would Iran be like now, and through the last 25 years or so, but for the CIA-backed coup against Mossadeq in 1953 that put the Shah back in power (along with Big Oil)? Would there then have been any Khomeini, the mullahs, the extreme anti-US stance? Probably not, and a fair deal on the oil too. What would the whole region be like now had the US not poured billions upon billions of military and other aid into Israel? (And how much does that have to do with geopolitics, and how much with oil?) - If throughout this period, up to now and beyond, it hadn't been virtually impossible to distinguish US policy from Big Oil interests? There's no turning the clock back, but it's no use pretending these things haven't happened, and grossly skewed everything that's happened there, and everything that's yet to happen. Now it's all backfiring on you, this over-dependence that your own corporations have engineered for their own ill-gotten gain, aided and abetted by your own government, at the expense of screwing up an entire region and millions of people's lives. And your solution is either to bomb the place flat or just to turn your back on it all and walk away, if you can - ending US dependence on Middle Eastern Oil, or "freedom from these cursed Arabs", as one US renewable energy website puts it. And to blame OPEC, yeah, sure. And you wonder why people don't like you. >I'm pretty open.. You're about as open as that well-known public drive-thru take-away called Fort Knox. >but you can't just spout out assertions and then say that >any defense >is bipolar and wrong just because you don't like it. No, that's what YOU did. I didn't spout out assertions, I said I could back them up and had done so previously, and told you where to find them. You'll find they're reasoned and well-referenced. Yours, though, are spouted assertions, their only backing something like "Everybody knows that" - or they must be the enemy. Bipolar, absolutely. I'd been listening to Saddam, you said, "my compatriates", you said, etc etc - you fell straight into the assumption that if I'm not pro-US then I'm pro-Saddam. I'm not at all pro-Saddam, not in any way, and gave no indication that I was. I'm not anti-US either. But I'm certainly against a great deal of current US policy. "If you're not for us you're against us" - bipolar thinking. It's written all over you, in everything you've said so far. Along with all the other signs - the instant abusive language, for instance. Stuff like this: "Perhaps your compatriates will get more sympathy when instead of bombing discos, cafes etc, they tried bombing military targets etc. People seem to care less if you attack military targets instead of people picking their nose and reading a book." Rather incoherent, but the last bit probably refers to me. In fact I've been a Middle East correspondent. And you? You reckon the Israeli military assault on the Jenin refugee camp, for but one instance of many, was a valid attack on a military target? Terrorist action, pure and simple, and far worse than bombing a cafe - which is not to defend the bombing of cafes, though you'll assume it is. >Was the Gulf war about oil? Absolutely. There are plenty of other >instances where another country was getting attacked and nothing was done. >But we cant go around fixing everyone elses problems. People dont want >to be told that junior is dead because of some reason that doesnt >even affect our country. <Not that they *want* to be told that junior is >dead >, 'but it sure was patriotic'> So Jimmy Boy Saddam gets through >buttscrewing a country.. and >has his tanks lined up against another.. hmmmm It's not possible to unscramble this gobbledygook. But it's me who spouts, eh? You're a joke, pal. By the way, clean up your language if you want to post messages here, there are people here from many different countries and cultures, many of whom will find your language offensive. Please learn how to conduct yourself in an international forum. This isn't your local bar. Anyway I suppose it's safe to assume the last bit refers to, first, Kuwait, and then Saudi Arabia? Re Kuwait, April Glaspie, US ambassador in Baghdad, told Saddam Hussein one week before he grabbed Kuwait that the U.S. had "no opinion" on "your border disagreement". Go ahead and invade, Saddam old pal, we'll turn a blind eye. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html April Glaspie Transcript In the months immediately preceding this "green light" given by your own ambassador, a number of US Senators including Bob Dole travelled to Baghdad, met Saddam, and found him to be a head of state worthy of support. Even Sen. Howard Metzenbaum [D-OH], a Jewish liberal and staunch supporter of Israel, gave him a seal of approval. Baby Bush fudges it now, but both the Reagan and the Bush administrations had long funded and armed Saddam. Re Saudi Arabia, where is the evidence that Iraq threatened Saudi Arabia? In summer 1990, that claim was crucial to the war: 200,000 Iraqi troops were allegedly massed along the southern border of Kuwait, prepared to snatch the Saudi oil fields (that same old story!). US Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia with satellite photos to prove it (and in flooded the US troops, onward Christian soldier). At the same time a Russian firm released another set of photos showing NO troops on the border. The US photos are still classified. Why? The Abu Ghreib powdered milk factory outside Baghdad that US forces bombed in January 1991, claiming it was a bioweapons plant, and continuing to claim it throughout - wrong, it was a milk factory. See "A Lesson In U.S. Propaganda": http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14877 The baby incubator story: "312 babies ripped from their life support systems by marauding Iraqi troops" - wrong, a total lie: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0246/urbina.php Broadcast Ruse - A Grad Student Mimicked Saddam Over the Airwaves http://www.io.com/~patrik/gulfwar1.htm The Selling of the Gulf War--Part One http://www.io.com/~patrik/gulfwar2.htm The Selling of the Gulf War--Part Two And you guys are still sucking up this same tired old stuff and more, still managing not to notice the multiple disconnects. http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2002Q4/war.html War Is Sell http://www.fpif.org/papers/oil.html Post-Saddam Iraq: Linchpin of a New Oil Order http://www.antiwar.com/rep/utley9.html Eight Washington Lies About Iraq There are multiple references for all this, not just one, there's tons of this stuff, all well-researched, well-referenced, and i's all American, by Americans. You're in America, I'm 10,000 miles away, but I know about it and you don't. Funny, that. >So I guess if you just HATE OIL.. then you might say.. let him have it.. >But if you dont need some guy controlling half of the worlds oil.. then i >guess something >must be done. Why? It's not your oil. This graphic mockup occupied the entire front-page of a British national daily recently, along with a picture of George W. Bush and a lot of Big Oil corporate logos inserted into the text: "'I SHELL not EXXONerate Saddam Hussein from blame. I will MOBILise our troops and JETs to Q8 and the Persian GULF. I will BPrepared for TOTAL war. The message is AMOCOming to kick your ass, Saddam.' (Now can you guess why George W. Bush is hellbent on a war against Iraq?)" These are your allies. Well, their Prime Minister is, and a few generals maybe. A few more such in Australia maybe, and the rest of the world's dead set against you. Including me. And, like me with you, what they get in response to reasoned arguments is bluster and blather. >That said.. im hoping that all the troops are there and at the last minute, >Saddam says, >"for the good of the people of the country.. I'm out".. I have heard reports >tonight that alot >of military brass has made plans to go to toher countries.. > >I would also hope that if that happened.. they could get rebiult and vote >for whomever they >want..etc. and that the reason we would have to have troops in Saudi would >go away.. What is the reason you have to have troops in Saudi? To protect the Saudis from Saddam? That was the reason for it at the time. >then the fanatics could just have to think up something else to be mad >about. :-) No, not one of America's foremost historians. That's what you call a "world view" I suppose? Re your previous nonsense about this: >You may not like the 'aid'.. but given that they are the only democracy in >the region, and people around them >outnumber them 70-1..and continually pose threats.. they probably need some >help. You seriously think they get the aid because they "need some help", because they're a democracy? Tanya Reinhart is a much-published Israeli professor (the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and MIT) who's just written a book called "Israel/Palestine: How To End The War Of 1948". There's an interview with her here, which I found reasonable and interesting, well-founded, useful. I wonder how you would view it. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=50&ItemID=2595 Interview With Tanya Reinhart She wrote this too: http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=1805 Jenin- The Propaganda War Maybe she's Saddam Hussein in disguise? Mr Crabb, you're welcome to respond, but I'll insist that you abide by the normal rules of debate and discussion. Your instincts will be the usual ones, to dismiss out of hand, to put me in the enemy camp, to belittle and diminish by whatever means, including abuse, to bluster and blather, and do everything short of dealing with the arguments presented. Please don't try it. Counter these arguments with well-reasoned, well-referenced points of your own, or get lost. And remember what I said about your offensive language. Keith Addison > >Crabb, David wrote: > > >Well, on the other hand, who the hell cares what he wrote - some of > >the world's foremost historians are Americans, but Mr Crabb sure > >isn't among them. Just another one, overdefensive as ever, the same > >old usual boring dysfunctional bipolar "thinking", devoid of > > >understanding how life and the world work, simplistic in the extreme, > >and based on demonising the opposition - I guess it all helps if > >you're trying to fabricate flimsy excuses for bombing people so you > >can rip off their resources, but don't expect anyone else in the > >world to swallow it because they don't, and neither do a very large > >and rapidly growing number of Americans. Bluster on, Mr Crabb, as you > >no doubt will. I'm rather tired of offering reasoned responses on > >these issues to people whose only idea of reason is what agrees with > >them. Go trawl about in the archives if you want to find previous > >such, but of course you won't, because you don't. > > >>Perhaps your compatriates will get more sympathy when instead of bombing > > >My what? Ah, never mind... > > >Keith Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
