Not just another typical war thread. A must read

[Jotown]

This document has been floating around for a while, as well as the Rumsfeld letter to Clinton from the same organization. The fact is this. It will change nobodys mind on this forum. Those who are conservative will see it as liberal anti-war, anti-American propaganda. Those who are more pragmatic will see more of what they already know is true. No one will be swayed, and only more debate, and the nastiness that always follows close behind. I am not sure why we keep doing this. It doesnt make me feel any better, but I guess it does something good for someone. Oh well.....I don't get too involved in these arguments as they are always eventually circular iin nature. See you at the official War thread.

[Rog]

Die thread, DIE!!!! :rolleyes:

[Charlie-brm]

[quote]Originally posted by Jotown: [b]This document has been floating around for a while, as well as the Rumsfeld letter to Clinton from the same organization. The fact is this. It will change nobodys mind on this forum. Those who are conservative will see it as liberal anti-war, anti-American propaganda. Those who are more pragmatic will see more of what they already know is true. No one will be swayed, and only more debate, and the nastiness that always follows close behind. I am not sure why we keep doing this. It doesnt make me feel any better, but I guess it does something good for someone. Oh well.....I don't get too involved in these arguments as they are always eventually circular iin nature. See you at the official War thread.[/b][/quote]You've pretty much got it right. As I've said elsewhere, I have read the entire 90 page document. This journalist's account is not overly subjective. I've read many interpretations. The course has been laid out for decades and now there is an opportunity to seize it. It is what it is. I don't agree with the recurring aggressive manipulations of other nations, but at least now I have more domestic documentation to add to the bigger picture. That's the only comfort I can get out of the document and everything else I've studied since about 1973, and it's like rolling over on a bed of nails. This is a completely different topic than Iraq/Saddam but I suppose it will be degraded to that in half a day.

[Franknputer]

The argument that this is "liberal propaganda" doesn't wash, folks - this report is by a [i]conservative[/i] think-tank, making the case for America's "global leadership". The organization was founded in 1997, and the report predates 9/11 - it was published in September of 2000.

[realtrance]

Chilling read: Published on Sunday, March 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History by Thom Hartmann The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world. It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.) But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones. Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference. "You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion. Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display. Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism. To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it. Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.) Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us. Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite. His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true. Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader. He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments. His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies. To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished. But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family. With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece. It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources. In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators." To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies. Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life. A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy. As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering. February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year." Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS. We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press. Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity. Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests. To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours. Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached. rt

[Lee Flier]

GZSound, first of all Hitler DID kill Americans before we entered WWII - we didn't get involved until Pearl Harbor was attacked, remember? There are those who say that we should have gotten involved earlier and there wouldn't have been so much loss of life. There are those who say we should have stepped in and crushed Hitler before he was powerful enough to do what he did. And perhaps they're right - I don't disrespect or even always disagree with the position that you and Phil are taking. I think that removing a brutal dictator from power [i]can be[/i] a legitimate reason to go to war. And like I've said, I agree that Saddam is a monster, and that he's got to go. I just don't like the fact that we are not told the truth. We CREATE many of these dictators (including Saddam) and make trade deals with them while looking the other way at the atrocities they commit. Then when it's convenient to have a war for whatever reason, they are suddenly given an intense amount of focus as being "the baddest dictator on the block." There are other nations with dictators just as brutal or worse. There are other nations with much stronger ties to Al Qaeda. There are nations who have ASKED for our assistance in liberating their people. There are nations who are in worse violation of disarmament treaties. But nooo, we're going after Iraq. We cite a U.N. resolution violation as the reason we're going after them, but the U.N. itself doesn't want us to use military force. Then we say "we don't need the U.N.'s approval" and go in anyway - still citing U.N. violations. :confused: Either we care what the U.N. thinks or we don't, and if we don't, then quit saying Iraq violated a U.N. mandate (especially when we haven't even found any WMD). I also think it's funny to cite our "responsibilities as a superpower" to go and save other countries from themselves. What you're saying GZ, is that if you have the ABILITY and the resources to help someone else in need, it is your responsibility to do that. Which is a hilarious thing for a conservative to say, considering that y'all complain about even the small fraction of the military budget that we spend on other types of aid for the needy, both foreign and domestic. So it's all right to "help" the needy and the oppressed but only if the "help" comes in the form of bombs? :confused: Then there's Soundscape's little "there's nothing wrong with being the policeman of the world/but only dictators and imperialists are interested in that" contradiction. It may, in fact, be a good idea to for the U.S. to be the world's policeman and rid it of evil dictators (and I'm not being sarcastic here). So let's put that agenda on the table and have a clear-eyed assessment of the risks and benefits, instead of hiding behind massive lies and contradictions as our government is doing. And if we decide that it's NOT a good idea, then we likewise need a new set of rules. Right now our leaders are talking out of both sides of their mouths. I would give anything for somebody to step up in Washington and say, "Look, we're at a crossroads here. Technology has made us truly a global community and we have to take a look at how the United States is going to position itself for the future in that community. I'll be honest with you - we've got some tough questions to face. There are other countries in the world suffering under atrocious leadership and horrific poverty. We do have some resources to help them, but how much is it our responsibility to do so? And is it our choice alone to decide our actions on the world stage? "We also have a problem of resources. In order to maintain our standard of living and help other countries to develop, we are still dependent on natural resources. And as blessed as this country is in that depeartment, we are also aware of the damage it causes to our environment to obtain and manufacture the things we want. We also don't have all of the resources we need here within our borders. Historically, the way we and every other powerful nation in history have dealt with this problem is to invade another country by force and take its resources. More recently, we've adopted more peaceful tactics such as voluntary trade agreements with other nations, but this has also been a problem in some cases, because those nations often are destabilized by rapid development, which gives rise to dictatorships run by a wealthy few while the rest of the people suffer. We didn't foresee at the time that this would happen - our past leadership thought that helping other countries to develop economically would be a win-win situation for both countries - but we now know that isn't always the case. We also moved into some countries more rapidly and aggressively than would have been ideal, because during the Cold War we were often trying to head off the Soviet Union in their own quest to commandeer these resources. "There are several ways in which we can deal with these issues, both as Americans and as part of the world community. First and foremost we must work in concert with the other major economic players - Russia, China and Europe - on the long term economic and technological fronts, so that we aren't squabbling with each other over the rest of the world's resources at their expense, but instead are working together to ensure that through trade, shared scientific achievement and cooperation we can continue to maintain a high standard of living without plundering other nations. "As for the short term problem, we may have to commit our military to ousting some of these dictatorships and combatting terrorism. If we do this, there is bound to be resentment toward us by extremist groups in these countries. They will say we are bullies and imperialists. The alternative is to pull our troops AND our money out of these countries and leave them to sort out their problems for themselves before they are ready to enter the world community - perhaps with some humanitarian or development aid from the rest of the world. Each of these options has its risks and its benefits for the United States and for the other countries involved, but we must examine each option honestly as a nation and what it would really entail for us in either case. I believe the American people are capable of making these decisions and committing to them, so I am not going to tell you as your leader that we can have our cake and eat it too." Now what would be so terrible about saying this?

[Soundscape Studios.]

Phil and GZ - Dead on, guys! How about some chem attack in your hometown, would that change your mind about being dragged into this mess? For me Sep.11 was enough. I lost my cousin in Tower 1 and personally witnessed the towers collapse across the Hudson river here in Jersey. To me, that was enough to NOT STAND FOR (*&^_%#%$# ANY LONGER! What more will it take? Do we need suicide bombers in Georgia to get you to wake up? No personal offense, Lee, but they hate us, and you must understand that. Either now or never!

[jeffbayson]

This ran a couple of years ago in The Onion: [quote] [b] U.S. TO ARAB WORLD: 'STOP HATING US OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES' [/b] WASHINGTON, D.C.--In a strongly worded ultimatum Tuesday, President Bush warned the Arab world to "stop hating the United States or suffer the consequences." "You have exactly 10 days to put aside your deep-rooted resentment and rage toward America and learn to like us," said Bush in a message broadcast live to 17 Arab nations via Al Jazeera. "If you fail to comply, prepare to have the full might of the U.S. military brought down upon you." Bush also threatened to carpet-bomb any Arab region whose populace continues to be angry about America's longtime bombing campaign against Iraq and the decade-long U.S. sanctions that have led to the malnutrition deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi children. [/quote]

[Rog]

[quote]Originally posted by Soundscape Studios: [b]Phil and GZ - Dead on, guys! How about some chem attack in your hometown, would that change your mind about being dragged into this mess? For me Sep.11 was enough. I lost my cousin in Tower 1 and personally witnessed the towers collapse across the Hudson river here in Jersey. To me, that was enough to NOT STAND FOR (*&^_%#%$# ANY LONGER! What more will it take? Do we need suicide bombers in Georgia to get you to wake up? No personal offense, Lee, but they hate us, and you must understand that. Either now or never![/b][/quote]Yeah, blow the shit out of a country that had nothing to do with 11/9 ... that'll stop them hating you :confused:

[Lee Flier]

Sigh. Yes, I understand that "they" hate us. And you didn't hear a peep of protest out of me about going into Afghanistan to try and catch bin Laden and the other Al Qaeda leadership who were responsible for 9/11. You wouldn't hear a peep outta me either if Bush wanted to go into say, Somalia - there are some rather blatant terrorist connections there. The trouble with terrorism though is that it is not necessarily sponsored by a particular nation, but rather, factions or individuals within many nations. That makes it tougher to go after them, and less "dramatic" on an everyday basis than outright war. However it does not amount to "doing nothing." I understand your frustration and that of other Americans in not being able to find a clear "bad guy" - that is, some country we can go bomb the crap out of and know there would be no repeat of 9/11. I wish there were. But there ain't. :(

[jeffbayson]

People on both sides of the argument might be interested in this. Tonight (Wednesday, March 26) at 10 PM ET/PT on the Discovery Channel:[i] Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: Searching for the Roots of 9/11 [/i] Thomas Friedman is a New York Times columnist. He supports the war in Iraq for idealistic reasons: he believes regime change and rebuilding Iraq can help build a better future for young people in the Middle East, and ultimately decrease terrorism against western countries.

[Anderton]

Before I close this thread, all I can say is that it seems a lot of people are late to the party. The reference to America as "the world's policeman" has been a part of the lexicon for some time, and accelerated after the Soviet Union fell apart. In order to justify closing the thread, I will now summarize all future messages: "That guy really nailed what's going on!" "That guy is full of it!" Time will tell. If anyone here CAN in fact predict the future, please PM me with pertinent stock tips. Read Kagan's response too before you make up your mind. As with so much else surrounding today's events, you can pretty much spin anything any way you want. Rather than spending time here spinning stuff, I suggest you spend your time working for positive change in your communities -- help Meals on Wheels, adopt a dog from the pound, provide entertainment at a children's hospital if you're a musician, that sort of thing. And if you want political change, write/phone/fax your representatives.