Taking out Iraq has been on the neoconservative agenda since at least the
early-to-mid-1990s. When they got into W's administration they got their chance.
But there may be consequences.…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
BURNING QUESTION: BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE NEO CON? - Comments Page 2
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Chris Arabia
Why don't you guys set up an account and then at the appropriate time you can send the bulk of the $ directly to whoever is transporting me and to whoever is responsible for the accompanying documents, the balance to the hydration fund. Otherwise, the entire exercise is pretty pointless.
And please stop adding conditions.
27 - Chris Arabia
I'll check back tomorrow to see what has (not) been done.
28 - sxs
I'll donate money to send Chris to Iraq. I am already donating money to fly a French, German and Canadian citizen to an event in the USA I am sponsoring in order to make amends for the poor behavior of our ignorant president. It only makes sense to send a chickenhawk to Iraq, too. I think Baghdad would welcome him with arms!
Now if we could only get Bushie, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the other chickenhawks over there to serve as cannon fodder instead of our soldiers. I bet the soldiers would be all for that!
Where do I send the $$?
29 - Hal Pawluk
[Chris]
> I would only add to that that neos were not
> the only ones thinking of regime change in Iraq.
Yeah, but who was listening to the Ayatollah?
30 - daniel
Chris,
The Red Cross might be pulling out a bit, so check Caritas Internationalis too.
31 - JR
Hell, I'll chip in a few simoleans, but I do have one teensy little condition:
When you get there, could you look up the 461st PSB, 81st RSC out of Decatur, GA for me? I really would like it if my friends there knew that we were still thinking about them back home.
Oh, and as a favor, would you mind not making ad hominem attacks on people for making ad hominem attacks on you, especially when they've ben speaking rather cordially for the past few posts? We should encourage such civil discourse.
32 - Hal Pawluk
As further background, some of you may be interested in this link:
http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm
This leads to a 1992 a story about a Wolfowitz/Cheney policy under the first President Bush:
"In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union."
At the time, the uproar was so huge that the policy was never officially issued.
Much of it _is_ now official US policy (and we have a Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz troika at the top again).
It's worth reading the whole story to get a perspective on where we stand today. And may even be an eye-opener for some of the younger right-wingers.
33 - Kel
--Do any of you Dems recall that Clinton was the one to change Iraq policy to one of "regime change"?
--Yes, the Administration did make the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And there is ample evidence of such a link. (Go do some research.)
--No, the Administration did not make the Iraq/September 11 connection.
--Things are going much better in Iraq than the mainstream media is reporting. Start paying attention to the blogs
34 - stat
From the Wall Street Journal:
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Iraq and al Qaeda
There's more evidence of a link than the critics admit.
Monday, September 22, 2003 12:01 a.m.
The Bush Administration was cautious, arguably too cautious, when making its case for the liberation of Iraq. Exhibit A is what it said about the links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Investigators, interrogators and even journalists are turning up evidence of a stronger relationship than the limited ties originally sketched by President Bush and Colin Powell.
That wasn't the big story last week of course. The big news was that Mr. Bush said he has "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved" in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Predictably, this is being spun as a concession from the Administration, which has been accused of exaggerating the al Qaeda link.
In truth, Mr. Bush has never gone further than what he reiterated last week: "There's no question Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties." U.S. intelligence officials, meanwhile, have confirmed that fact once again. Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was being harbored in Iraq; documents recently found in Tikrit indicate that Saddam provided Yasin with monthly payments and a home. According to federal authorities, the Ramzi Yousef-led terror cell that carried out the 1993 bombing received funding from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 2001 attack.
Far from exaggeration, what struck us about the case the President and Colin Powell took to the U.N. last fall and winter was its restraint. It focused mainly on a then-obscure terrorist named Abu Mussab al Zarqawi with no alleged 9/11 link, and a small affiliated terror group called Ansar al Islam operating in the Kurdish area of Northern Iraq. Left out entirely by Mr. Bush were the following stories:
• About a month after September 11, reports surfaced that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi embassy official and intelligence agent named Ahmed al-Ani. Al-Ani was a later expelled from the Czech Republic, in connection with a plot to bomb Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Iraq. Despite repeated attempts to discredit the report of a meeting between the two, Czech officials at the cabinet level have stuck by the story. Al-Ani has been captured in Iraq, and the public deserves to know what he's telling U.S. officials about that meeting.
• Also in October 2001, two defectors alleged that a 707 fuselage at Salman Pak, south of Baghdad, was being used to train terrorists in the art of hijacking with simple weapons such as knives. Though no link to al Qaeda was alleged, some of the trainees were said to be non-Iraqi Arabs. The fuselage was clearly visible in satellite photos, and has since been found.
• Press reports, which had begun in 1998, resurfaced that former Iraqi intelligence chief and then-ambassador to Turkey Faruk Hijazi had met with bin Laden and associates on multiple occasions. Hijazi is in U.S. custody too, and has reportedly confirmed some of the alleged contacts.
That these stories never figured in the case for war was partly a function of caution on the part of the Administration. It was also partly a result of skepticism from the CIA, which had wrongly judged Saddam and Osama incapable of cooperation on the grounds that the former was secular, the latter fundamentalist.
Some CIA officials are still flogging this theory through leaks to the media. A June 9 article by James Risen in the New York Times claimed captured al Qaeda planner Abu Zubaydah had told CIA interrogators that al Qaeda had not "worked jointly" with Saddam. But what Mr. Risen's source, according to our own, neglected to mention was that the very next sentence of the Zubaydah debrief describes bin Laden's attitude toward Saddam as considering the enemy of his enemy to be his friend.
According to Insight magazine, the CIA's Paul Pillar, National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, used a lecture at Johns Hopkins University earlier this year to criticize the President's war on terror. He said that there was no evidence of Iraqi terror sponsorship since 1993, and no evidence of its involvement in the World Trade Center bombing that year. Curiously, we hear the agency has so far declined to share the file found in Iraq on Yasin (the 1993 New York bombing suspect) with other branches of the government.
One of the more interesting pieces of postwar evidence was uncovered in Baghdad by reporters for the Toronto Star and London's Sunday Telegraph. The February 19, 1998, memo from Iraqi intelligence, in which bin Laden's name was covered over with Liquid Paper, reported planned meetings with an al Qaeda representative visiting Baghdad. Days later al Qaeda issued a fatwa alleging U.S. crimes against Iraq. At about the same time, a U.S. government source tells Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, Iraq paid bin Laden deputy Ayman Zawahiri $300,000.
As Saddam's very public financial support for Palestinian suicide bombing would suggest, the dictator had no problem working with other fundamentalist groups based on nothing more than their mutual hatred for the United States. Sources tell us the CIA has found 1993 memos from Saddam's government directing Iraqi intelligence to assist Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and to assist Afghan-based holy warriors against the U.S. peacekeeping mission in Somalia. These facts deserve more public disclosure.
Of course, none of this "proves" any Saddam-9/11 link, as Mr. Bush acknowledges. But neither can we be sure there wasn't one. Our point is that U.S. government and intelligence officials ought to be open to the evidence of any links between state sponsors and terrorists. But for many Administration critics, it seems, nothing less than smoking-gun proof that 9/11 was an Iraqi-al Qaeda joint operation will do.
This standard ignores the multiple ways in which states can aid and abet terror--harboring, training, funding, providing false travel documents. What the President's critics seem to want, instead, is to de-link Iraq from the war on terror, and to return to the pre-9/11 practice of targeting terror groups without going after their state sponsors. We think this is short-sighted and dangerous, and that Mr. Bush should begin to call them on it.
Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
35 - Steve Snyder
I'm willing to chip in for the Chris Arabia fund, too.
Chris, if I can get free time and you're not too far away, I'll come help pack your bags and drive you to the airport, too.
And, I don't see any "conditions." Some people have kindly volunteered to help you look Army-spiffy; what's wrong with that.
36 - Steve Snyder
Note to Kel --
Yes, the Administration DID make the Hussein/al-Qaeda/9-11 connection. Here's your proof:
"Acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 [congressional authorization for military force in Iraq] is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
-- President Bush, March 18 letter to Congress.
"We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th."
-- President Bush, Sept. 17.
37 - Kim
Journalist Chris Albritton is an independent journalist who received donations from sponsors via PayPal to get to Iraq for a firsthand look at what was going on. I'm thrilled to hear that another Chris -- our very own Chris Arabia -- has taken up the torch. Where can I send my donation?
38 - Eric Olsen
If this is really going to happen, make it happen and stop jabbering about it. Who is going to set up the account? A PayPal account set up by Chris for this purpose would be fine. There will have to be an accounting since if people donate and it doesn't happen, they need to know they will ge their money back. If if is set up in a legitimate manner, and Chris agrees to go if suffiecient funds are raised, then I will help publicize the campaign. I can see people on both sides of the debate wanting to contribute.
39 - daniel
Is there a way to create multiple paypal accounts and merge them later? That way if it doesn't happen, everyone gets their money back automatically.
40 - daniel
Actually, can everyone agree that we should setup a single PayPal account and if the trip doesn't happen, we send the money to the Red Cross, Caritas, or the UN? (or maybe the DNC, the EFF, or the ACLU?)
41 - Kel
Note to Steve:
That is a cute point regarding Bush's letter to Congress of March 18, 2003 -- but not a persuasive point.
Go read the Congressional authorization for war in Iraq (Public Law 107-243). It requires in Section 3(b) that, within 48 hours of going to war, the President send a "determination" (i.e., the March 18 letter) to Congress. That determination is required by the war resolution to containing the language you cite (which is found in Section 3(b)(2) of the war resolution). In other words, the President was legally required by the war resolution to send that letter to Congress with that exact language. The letter was not a subtle attempt to connection 9/11 to Iraq. In fact, the language that you focus on doesn't even refer to Iraq -- it refers to terrorists.
The operative language in the war resolution that applies to Iraq is in Section 3(b)(1) of the war resolution -- which states in effect that the President must find that further diplomacy with not adequately protect U.S. security and will not enforce the U.N. resolutions. As you will notice, that language is also in the March 18 letter, and that is the language the applies directly to Iraq.
So you ask, what does the language that you quote to mean or refer to? Well . . . notice that it only requires that war in Iraq "be consistent with the U.S. and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against terrorist and terrorist organizations," including those responsible for 9/11. How is going to war with Iraq "consistent" with "continuing" actions against terrorists if, as you will surely ask, Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11?
Read the war resolution. It explictly finds, for example, that members of Al Qaeda (i.e., those responsible for 9/11) "are known to be in Iraq" and that "Iraq continues to aid other international terrorist organizations." Given those findings in the war resolution, going to war against Iraq is "consistent" with continuing actions against terrorists.
Do your homework.
42 - Chris (not Arabia)
If Chris Arabia goes, will he take David Horowitz with him? If so, I'll charter a jet immediately.
43 - jp
Nope, it's not my real email address. Neither is this one. I hate spam.
But anyway Chris, set up a paypal account and I'll chip in.. I'll even send you my real email address privately so you can keep me updated.. I want details, photos, the works.
44 - kurt
I'll chip in a few sheckels, for this also. Volunteering for the Red Cross sounds like a viable alternative.
45 - Joe Lord
If your name is Joe Sacramento (from Seinfeld), are you an expert on California? If your name is Chris Arabia, are you an expert on the Middle East? What bet the name is a fake, just as his wild boast to "go to Iraq and lend what help I can."
Hydration a problem? When you are there, Chris, go out for a ride on the Basra-Badgad convoy route and then when the blasts occur, you'll get hydrated a plenty by the 4th armoured FD.
46 - daniel
I've set up a PayPal account for Chris's trip and put $50 in it.
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dsilva%40ccs.neu.edu&no_note=1&tax=0¤cy_code=USD&lc=US
47 - Steve Rhodes
If Chris really wants to go and help out, David Horowitz can easily put up the money.
If other people want to help, there are better groups which they can donate to.
Epsecially since Chris seems to favor the kind of treatment of prisoners that Saddam would have approved of ("Kathy Boudin deserves to lie on a wooden board and slurp Drano intravenously" - his permalinks aren't working - it on his blog under 9-17. And, Chris, all caps for titles while not as bad as drano, are hard on the eyes.).
48 - Chris Arabia
Please refer to a new post regarding a PayPal account.
Considering that this is a comments section, a mature person wouldn't use it to smear someone who isn't involved. If you have a problem with David Horowitz, have the decency to contact him directly.
Kathy Boudin is a convicted cop killer. Lethal injection would be an appropriate punishment, in my view (although I have severe reservations about the death penalty in general, there is no dispute about Boudin). The Drano part was hyperbole (I don't know the precise composition of chemical injections).
49 - Joe Lord
Chris,
If you have a problem with Kathy Boudin , have the decency to contact her directly...
50 - Chris Arabia
Hey, Lord of the Ethnic Slur, welcome back.
1. I did not introduce David Horowitz into this debate.
2. I did not introduce Kathy Boudin into this debate.
3. Both are irrelevant to this debate.
One of your fellow travelers dragged them in as part of a charateristic effort to change/obscure the subject.
One of your fellow travelers also asserted that David Horowitz should fund my trip. Another urged that I take Mr. Horowitz with me and promised to charter a jet immediately were I to arrange to do so.
Seeking Horowitz's personal involvement differs from expressing an opinion about Boudin. That is the distinction.
Don't keep us in suspense--are you shopping for a Sensitivity Training Course?
51 - Steve Rhodes
Please drop the fellow travelors bullshit. Just because Ann Coulter thinks thinks Joe is her kind of man, doesn't mean we have to start exhuming McCarthy (and no, I don't want to contact Ann directly).
Since David Horowitz had been brought up (I presume since you write for him), I was just pointing out he is well funded and could afford to send you to Iraq if you really wanted to help with hte rebuilding. You could even file reports for Frontpage.
I was just quoting what now turns out be bad writing from your blog on Boudin. When I read about injecting Drano, I think of torture, not lethal injection.
And I thought approving of torture was relevant since Saddam is rightly criticized for torture.
While, Boudin certainly deserved to spend time in jail for her crime, she didn't deserve torture or the death penalty. In fact, she is an argument against the death penalty. She has done good work in prison. Boudin won't be sipping martinis now that she is free, she'll be working with people with AIDS.
52 - Steve Rhodes
I reposted an expanded version of this in the other topic.
53 - Joe Lord
Hey Christopher-of-a-thousand-and-one-Arabian-nightmares,
Where did you get the 'Ethnic Slur' bit? Is it part of your sensitivity training from the Zionist League handbook, chapter 7:2, which states that if someone says an Israeli has killed thirty-two children, immediately accuse him of anti-semitism?
Sorry, I am not going to contribute to your hydration fund, because the Marine FD can take care of your burning rear end - as you run up the Bagdad-Basra highway at 75 mph - as part of the $87 billion expense account!
54 - Chris Arabia
No. I got the ethnic slur bit from your ethnic slur, as I explained in the "Send Chris Arabia to Iraq" post.
Go read it.
55 - JoeLord
Newsitem: CHICKENHAWK TURNS ROADRUNNER
Mousol (Reuterrs): A noted Chickenhawk, fresh from his training in Zionist 101, was last seen running at the speed of 75 mph, whizzing past the US convoy to Bagdad.
His rear end was on fire as a consequence of a firefight between the convoy and local resistance. As he ran down the highway, smoke billowing behind him, he was being 'hydrated' by the 4th Armored FD in larqe quantities.
Imran Saud, a local villager, observed that this wa a total waste of water as the US had failed provide his village with water since the ouster of Saddam 'WMD' Husain.
The whereabouts of the Chickenhawk are unknown. Some speculate that he is in the hospital occupied by war heroine Jessica Lynch, while others suspect that he has take a rear seat to the action, and will not be reporting for Frontpage in the near future.
56 - Chris Arabia
Lord of the Slurs returns with a vapid bit of satire and even recycles a humor attempt that has already failed once.
57 - Abraham Lachora
I thought the road runner piece was funny!
58 - Anne
Very picturesque. Everytime I read a piece by Chris, I will visualize him like the RR with the 'plume' of smoke!
(Yes, the email address is fake!)
59 - Chris Arabia
Ooh, another malicious bigot enabler, too cowardly to identify herself. I'm stunned. I gotta sit down.
60 - daniel
Chris, please go read up on spambots before requiring that people place their e-mail addresses in public view.
61 - JoeLord
Thanks, A & A., and Kayful-Halek, Chris.
Please cease your childish abuse of folks who disagree with you. Grow up - try to read books like The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, El Chris of Arabia.
You must admit the piece was quite funny! Could you forward it to the editor of Frontpage for publication, just to show there's no hard feelings?
BTW, how do you know you are stunned? Do you still have feeling left in your body after your wild and smoky roar down the Mousul highway?
62 - Joe
Joe Lord-
What's FD stand for?
63 - Auduborn Soc.
We, at Audubon, take great exception to the comparison of a Chickenhawk to a Road Runner. Such comparisons must be avoided at all cost.
The Chickenhawk is a predatory bird, while the Road Runner is a peaceful bird of the species Geococcyx.
Such comparisons must be avoided at all times.
Thank you.
64 - Eric Olsen
Road runner peaceful - hah! - peaceful unless he is luring poor unsupecting predators into a Kabuki dance of torture, humiliation and death.
65 - Willie E. Coyote
I agree with Eric.
Road Runners have ruined my life, while I, poor and innocent victim like Israel, have been bombed, blasted and beaten.
Willie E.
66 - Eric Olsen
Ah, but I see the Palestinians as Wile E. Coyote
67 - Phillip Winn
Daniel, as you typed in your email address, I would hope that you noticed the explanation that reads, "(The email address will be displayed using special encoding for spam-protection, and is not displayed at all if an URL is supplied.)"
For clarification, the "special encoding" turns up email address that look like this: mailto:pwinn@blogcritics.org
Of course, as mentioned, the email address is not displayed anywhere at all, in any form, if an URL is supplied, so you can safely use your real email address and a fake URL. That way, if I ever get around to enabling update notifications to each commenter on a post or something, you'll still get emails.
68 - Hal Pawluk
"For clarification, the "special encoding" turns up email address that look like this: mailto:pwinn@blogcritics.org"
In that case, I'm going to start using a fake address, too.
Some spambots can decode what you use. On my site, I use FormMail to get around the problem.
Drat.
69 - Phillip WInn
I'm really curious to know what browser you use, Hal. In both Opera and MSIE, your comment looks very strange in conjunction with mine.
Still, as is pointed out on every single page on this site and again in my comment above, your address doesn't appear if you use an URL, as you do. You'll note also that the links I've built to track all comments by a given author similarly eschews the use of email address information.
If you're browser is violating the use of & as you seem to be suggesting, I suggest you view the source for this page to see how the mail addresses are encoding by most browsers (and most spambots). ;-)
70 - Hal Pawluk
Got it on the no show. Finally :-)
I'm doing this on a Mac with Netscape 7. When I cut-and-paste like here:
mailto:pwinn@blogcritics.org
it shows up the way it did in your own post. I'll post this and see what happens to it (if anything).
71 - Hal Pawluk
Another mystery of life: submitting it turned it into text.
I have no idea why, but at least now know it happens :-)
UH-OH! WARNING WILL ROBINSON!
That means that the real address is now out there for spambots. Can you erase these two posts of mine? You have my full permission.
72 - Phillip Winn
Ah, yes. The idea is that I provide one layer of protection. When you copy and paste it, the one layer disappears. No worries, though, the address is my own, which is already well-plastered in alternate form all over the internet in sources (like Google's Usenet Archive) I cannot easily expunge.
Besides, since it isn't a link, that throws off a surprising percentage of harvester spambots. Not all, but many.
73 - JoeLord
Joe - FD stands for Fire Department - they provide hydration gratis in this saga.
Chris, on a more serious note I notice that you objected to my 'ethnic slur' (for assuming your name was a nom-de-plume), but did not object to the Zionism 101 reference.
Come out and say it, man: Are you a Zionist?
74 - Joe
Got it! Like wit, right?
75 - Eric Olsen
I am a Zionist - isn't everyone?