Project for a New Amerikan Century

zub · Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:07 am

we needed a dictator ruthless enough to stand up to iran.
iran used to be the great satan. even american pro-wrestling had the iron sheik; mega bad person, yet no iraqi's.

we like to switch our enemies frequently, so people don't get bored with our wars.
americans love a damn war, and the weapons to fight them. we're always in a war.
we're like that kung fu t.v. guy that never wants to fight, but somehow always has to, every show...which is why anyone ever watched that show.

its quite amazing how the american people, for the most part, have absolutely no knowledge of their country's history. schools avoid history like the plague; the press is censored; and we're pretty much brain dead, as a people.

but what the hell.
we've got some terrific rock bands and some wonderful scenery.

slacker · Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:34 am

slacker · Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:43 am

zub · Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:21 am

hoo boy.

yes, i've been shot at.
got drafted in '68
for 'the conflict overseas'

not feeling like arguing w/ slacker.

i was just venting, though i stand by what i said.

i'm optomistic about the weather getting so shitty that war won't really matter anymore, and humans will feel more unified.

slacker · Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:29 am

ok zub. got mad respect for you. i just dont like people talking the talk when theyve never fired a rifle in their lives. at least u know what its all about.

and i wasnt arguing, i just like discussing things like this with anybody whos game. i respect your opinions and if it seems like i was trying to argue or insult you i apologize. i didnt mean to come off that way although i see how i might have.

i was just venting as well, and i stand by what i said as well

and as for human unity i have to agree 100 percent, and hopefully shitty as in cloudy and rainy. 120 degrees sucks.

zub · Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:13 pm

i never shot at anyone. in fact, i went awol and did big-house time. i hate a damn gun.

so i didn't really earn the respect you may have bestowed on me.
my military trip taught me about drugs, negroes, peasants, and u.s. foreign policy.

oh, yeah...and assholes. part of my sentence for refusing to kill was 3 years of hospital work. i gave literally 1000's of enemas.

to this day, i'm still amazed at how common hemrhoids are in the u.s.
our culture is constipated.
i remain on its fringe, and hemrhoid free.

don't let anyone tell you to kill someone, if its not in your nature. you'd be amazed how depressed some people get from having done that.
the suicide numbers from vietnam vets exceeds the battlefield casualties.

the farce in iraq is following suit; right on schedule.

perhaps someone can link to the stats on this matter. the press keeps it fairly hushed. the movies also tend to avoid it.
yet, killing someone is more frightening than death itself.

in ww1 and ww2, a big problem "we" had was getting "our boys" to fire their weapons.
strange, huh?

slacker · Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:38 pm

Lief · Sun Jun 12, 2005 5:47 am

Why do the America bashers always spread their diahrea on drug message boards?

Saddam's Chemical Weapons Supplier Faces Genocide Charges
CNSNews.com Correspondent
Monday, March 28, 2005
Paris -- A businessman who has been dubbed the "Dutch Chemical Ali" is being held in jail in the Netherlands, accused of selling ingredients for lethal non-conventional weapons to ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.Frans van Anraat faces the charge of genocide in a Dutch court for supplying chemical weapons to Saddam, who then used them in his war against Iran during the 1980s and in poison gas attacks on Iraqi Kurds.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Rotterdam said this was the first time a Dutch citizen was being prosecuted for genocide. "If he is convicted, the maximum sentence could be life imprisonment," said Wim de Bruin.
The 62-year-old businessman appeared in court earlier this month to hear charges against him, and his request to be released from prison was denied.

Van Anraat is accused of selling thousands of tons of chemicals that were then used by the Iraqi military to make mustard gas and nerve gas.

Some 5,000 Iraqi Kurds were killed in an attack on the town of Halabja during 1988. Van Anraat has been accused of continuing to deliver the chemicals even after he saw horrific pictures of what Iraq was doing with the items he supplied.

Defense lawyers say van Anraat did not know that his chemicals were being used to make poison gas with which Saddam attacked civilians.

De Bruin said his office first learned about van Anraat from the U.S. Customs Service, which was investigating him for allegedly violating United Nations sanctions against Iraq.

In the early 1990s, van Anraat was arrested in Italy at the request of American authorities, but then he fled to Iraq, where he stayed until 2003. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, he returned to the Netherlands where, after an investigation, he was arrested by Dutch authorities.

He is believed to be one of the most important suppliers of chemical agents to Iraq.

"It is too early to tell what the outcome will be," said de Bruin. "Even while he is in jail, we are still continuing the investigation."

Media in the Netherlands dubbed van Anraat the Dutch Chemical Ali after an earlier nickname given to Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, who was in charge of Iraq's chemical weapons program. Al-Majid was captured in Aug. 2003 and faces charges before the same Iraqi special tribunal that will try Saddam.

The Dutchman's next court appearance will be in June.

Meanwhile, the same Rotterdam court is also prosecuting a Dutchman who is accused of war crimes in Liberia's civil war.

Lumber merchant Guus van Kouwenhoven, who is in custody, allegedly helped set up militias in the West African nations and supplied them with weapons through timber companies he operated in those countries.

Liberian militias took part in widespread massacres of civilians during the 1990s.

Van Kouwenhoven is alleged to have been an advisor to Liberia's deposed dictator, Charles Taylor, now living in exile in Nigeria.

De Bruin said van Kouwenhoven was arrested last week and would be charged with war crimes.

Global Witness, a human rights organization investigating rights violations related to the exploitation of natural resources, helped to document evidence of van Kouwenhoven's activities for U.N. reports.

Patrick Alley, a spokesman for the group, said the arrest sends a strong message to other individuals involved in supplying weapons to rebel organizations.

"I think any business that is engaging in one of these conflict zones, that knows that its money is being used to purchase arms or to fund rebel groups -- or maybe even worse, they don't know what their money is being used for and they don't even try too hard to find out -- they're really going to worry about what's going to happen now," Alley said.

"It shows people that they can be arrested and maybe have to answer for what they are doing."

Alley said his group was documenting other cases of businesses involved in natural resource-related human rights violations in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, South-East Asia and in some of the former Soviet states.

De Bruin said this was the first time a Dutch national was being prosecuted for war crimes since World War II.

Copyright: CNSNews.com.

© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/3/28/113447.shtml

Lief · Sun Jun 12, 2005 5:53 am

Did the U.S. "Create" Osama bin Laden?

Allegations that the U.S. provided funding for bin Laden proved inaccurate

The United States did not "create" Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda. The United States supported the Afghans fighting for their country's freedom -- as did other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Egypt, and the UK -- but the United States did not support the "Afghan Arabs," the Arabs and other Muslims who came to fight in Afghanistan for broader goals. CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen notes that the "Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding." He notes:

"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

Former CIA official Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency's Afghan operation in the late 1980s, says, "The CIA did not recruit Arabs," as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight, and the Arabs who did come for jihad were "very disruptive . . . the Afghans thought they were a pain in the ass." Similar sentiments from Afghans who appreciated the money that flowed from the Gulf but did not appreciate the Arabs' holier-than-thou attempts to convert them to their ultra-purist version of Islam. Freelance cameraman Peter Jouvenal recalls: "There was no love lost between the Afghans and the Arabs. One Afghan told me, ‘Whenever we had a problem with one of them we just shot them. They thought they were kings.'"

... There was simply no point in the CIA and the Afghan Arabs being in contact with each other. ... the Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding. The CIA did not need the Afghan Arabs, and the Afghan Arabs did not need the CIA. So the notion that the Agency funded and trained the Afghan Arabs is, at best, misleading. The 'let's blame everything bad that happens on the CIA' school of thought vastly overestimates the Agency's powers, both for good and ill." [Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 64-66.]

Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, confirmed that the "Afghan Arabs" did not receive any U.S. funding during the war in Afghanistan. In the book that was described as his last will, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, which was serialized in December 2001 in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Zawahiri says the Afghan Arabs were funded with money from Arab sources, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars:

"While the United States backed Pakistan and the mujahidin factions with money and equipment, the young Arab mujahidin's relationship with the United States was totally different."

"... The financing of the activities of the Arab mujahidin in Afghanistan came from aid sent to Afghanistan by popular organizations. It was substantial aid."

"The Arab mujahidin did not confine themselves to financing their own jihad but also carried Muslim donations to the Afghan mujahidin themselves. Usama Bin Ladin has apprised me of the size of the popular Arab support for the Afghan mujahidin that amounted, according to his sources, to $200 million in the form of military aid alone in 10 years. Imagine how much aid was sent by popular Arab organizations in the non-military fields such as medicine and health, education and vocational training, food, and social assistance ...."

"Through the unofficial popular support, the Arab mujahidin established training centers and centers for the call to the faith. They formed fronts that trained and equipped thousands of Arab mujahidin and provided them with living expenses, housing, travel and organization." (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 3, 2001, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), GMP20011202000401)

Abdullah Anas, an Algerian who was one of the foremost Afghan Arab organizers and the son-in-law of Abdullah Azzam, has also confirmed that the CIA had no relationship with the Afghan Arabs. Speaking on the French television program Zone Interdit on September 12, 2004, Anas stated:

"If you say there was a relationship in the sense that the CIA used to meet with Arabs, discuss with them, prepare plans with them, and to fight with them -- it never happened."

Milt Bearden served as the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, where he was in charge of running the covert action program for Afghanistan. In his memoirs titled "The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB," Bearden says the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Egypt, and the UK were "major players" in the effort to aid the Afghans. Bearden writes:

"[President Jimmy] Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had in 1980 secured an agreement from the Saudi king to match American contributions to the Afghan effort dollar for dollar, and [Reagan administration CIA director] Bill Casey kept that agreement going over the years." (The Main Enemy, p. 219)

From 1983 to 1987, Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf was in charge of the Afghan Bureau of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which ran Pakistan's covert program to aid the Afghan mujahidin. In his book The Bear Trap: Afghanistan's Untold Story, Brigadier Yousaf confirms the matching U.S.-Saudi arrangement, stating:

"For every dollar supplied by the US, another was added by the Saudi Arabian government. The combined funds, running into several hundred million dollars a year, were transferred by the CIA to special accounts in Pakistan under the control of the ISI." (The Bear Trap, p. 81)

Bearden makes it clear that the CIA covert action program did not fund any Arabs or other Muslims to come to the jihad:

"Contrary to what people have come to imagine, the CIA never recruited, trained, or otherwise used Arab volunteers. The Afghans were more than happy to do their own fighting -- we saw no reason not to satisfy them on this point." (The Main Enemy, p. 243)

Marc Sageman worked closely with the Afghan mujahideen as one of Milt Bearden's case officers, from 1987 to 1989. In his book, Understanding Terror Networks, he writes:

"No U.S. official ever came in contact with the foreign volunteers. They simply traveled in different circles and never crossed U.S. radar screens. They had their own sources of money and their own contacts with the Pakistanis, official Saudis, and other Muslim supporters, and they made their own deals with the various Afghan resistance leaders. Their presence in Afghanistan was very small and they did not participate in any significant fighting." (Understanding Terror Networks, pp. 57-58.)

The Central Intelligence Agency has issued a statement categorically denying that it ever had any relationship with Osama bin Laden. It stated, in response to the hypothetical question "Has the CIA ever provided funding, training, or other support to Usama Bin Laden?":

"No. Numerous comments in the media recently have reiterated a widely circulated but incorrect notion that the CIA once had a relationship with Usama Bin Laden. For the record, you should know that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with Bin Laden (emphasis in original)."

In summary:

• U.S. covert aid went to the Afghans, not to the "Afghan Arabs."

• The "Afghan Arabs" were funded by Arab sources, not by the United States.

• United States never had "any relationship whatsoever" with Osama bin Laden.

• The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Arab backing for the "Afghan Arabs," and bin Laden's own decisions "created" Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, not the United States.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html

zub · Sun Jun 12, 2005 7:50 am

well,
i'm glad we got that straightened out.

no more america bashing for me.

anime · Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:01 am