http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005 by the authors Tue, 20 May 2003 17:11:16 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/16/094636.php#comment-9731 It's too bad attacking Iraq has made us more, not less, susceptible to terrorism. Osama wanted us to wipe out one of the last secular dictatorships in the Arab world so he could concentrate on Saudi Arabia, Morrocco, and the other monarchies. We obliged. Meanwhile, the focus on Iraq has allowed the Islamists to regroup while generating new recruits for jihad. Told you so. The Saudi and Morrocco bombings prove that the war on Iraq was a mistake that is generating new terrorism. The CIA said this would happen. James Baker said this would happen. Brent Snowcroft said this would happen. George Bush the First said this would happen. All of these folks were against the war (yes, including Bush 41 in private; you can discern his opposition in his Tufts speech just before the war). Numerous establishment think tanks not on the War Party's payroll also said this would happen. And, of course, the antiwar movement said this would happen. So I think it's time for all pro-wars to admit they were wrong, call for an immediate end to the U.S. Occupation For Oil and its replacement with a UN force that will restore order. Also it's time to start thinking about reparations for the thousands of innocent Iraqis we slaughtered to make the world safe for oil, Likkud, and Bush's re-election. By the way, pace Thatcher, we no longer live in a market capitalist society. Because of the demands of the new imperialism, we now live in a state capitalist society, as Republican ecomomist Jude Wanniski has ruefully noted. All hail the Neoconservative State and its Liberal Lackeys! 9731@blogcritics.org Tue, 20 May 2003 17:11:16 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/16/094636.php#comment-9729 it is ironic that she neglects to mention the booming international arms trade, in which the US and the UK are highly active. We sell to almost all countries of the world - there being something like 3 or 4 countries we won't sell any kind of military hardware to (one being Iran). Well, not legitimately and openly anyway. It may not be as bad as WMD when you compare one for one, but many machineguns/RPGs/tanks/attack helicopters can still cause much death and destruction. The sooner we larger countries are prepared to make an example the better. An maybe if more of us respected that some Islamists see all other cultures as a threat to their own (whereas we in the West at least appear to be of the opniion that the more the merrier) the world would be a better place. Knowledge is the solution to ignorance, and ignorance is the cause of fear and hate. 9729@blogcritics.org Tue, 20 May 2003 16:59:52 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/16/094636.php#comment-9712 Monasette, thanks for the information, I didn't know any of that. But remember, we are all hypoctires on some level. 9712@blogcritics.org Tue, 20 May 2003 14:35:46 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/16/094636.php#comment-9707 Hmmm...was this the same Margaret Thatcher whose government were prepared to allow British businessmen go to jail for violating an embargo to sell weapons to Iraq (in a judicial investigation, a junior minister, Alan Clark, eventually blabbed that the government had secretly OKed the deal, and the businessmen were acquitted). Indeed it was. As for Maggie's mistrust of the French, she might recall that when she sent a Task Force around the ocean to reclaim the Falklands, her request for US intelligence assistance was met with adistinctly cool reception (Argentina was also a US ally). On the other hand, Mittterand, the French president immediately ordered his military to assist the British in countering the threat of French-built Exocet missiles of the Argentine navy; assistance that was later acknowledged to be vital, and which probably saved quite a number of UK lives. I guess when the chips are down, you know who your friends are. 9707@blogcritics.org Tue, 20 May 2003 14:01:22 EDT