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3/24/2008, 8:19 a.m.

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Urban_Spaceman - She is allowed her perspective. Obviously. It is not fact - it is opinion. I saw not one single fact presented above. I do not claim to be an expert on the armed forces, but just as I know bad people who do not follow the rules exist in civilian society, the murderer or child molester is not indicative of the rest of society. I'm sorry that you seem to have a nastier view on our honorable service-members. I know any number of soldiers - they are all honorable. To suggest otherwise on the statements, with no corresponding PROOF, of a small portion of possible soldiers (IVAW has had at least ONE liar that was trusted by the group. No, that one out of 800ish is a liar is not indicative that the entire group is liars...you see my point?).

I will NOT believe that the majority of our armed forces commit atrocities or break the rules that they are bound by until someone provides me with something other than emotionally charged rhetoric with an agenda. My agenda is solely to stand up and SUPPORT THE TROOPS. It is not supportive to call them names and accuse them of atrocities with no proof no matter how many times I someone says it is.

Not one word of what Anna Godduhn had to say had proof. I read not one atrocity in her emotional appeal above. An atrocity is a rape room. An atrocity is a blood-filled torture room. An atrocity is in the mass-filled graves. These are atrocities. I see skewed perspective in the "community" perspective above, and I do not thank Anna for it. But, many a SERVICEMAN has died for her right to do it, so I would not in good conscience remove it - but I can certainly call it what it is.

3/24/2008, 8:56 a.m.

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Thanks for your writing, Anna.

In every war there is the official (often cleansed) version of events. And then there's the version from the grunts and pilots.

Even in the comparison of the pilots' and grunts' accounts, it's quick to reveal that different groups/individuals have differing experiences.

To assume that no attrocities are committed in war time is to assume that the Easter Bunny and Santa really brought all of those eggs and presents.

The military should only be used when our national security is at risk. Most folks who really know much about the various forces and capacities in the Middle East as of 2003, know whether that threshhold was met sufficiently or not. The rest is fluff.

The boys watching NVA and VC POWs in Saigon weren't necessarily writing the same story as Tiger Force was in the highlands. More often than not, two different histories.

Take care, and peace to you..

Reader1: 3/24/2008, 9:44 a.m.; Suggest removal; Anna, you should hang around more infantry types. Many people do join to pillage, plunder, and yes, kill people and break their things. After the fight, maybe different feelings on the matter.
"We sleep peacefully in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to violence on our bahalf."

The_Urban_Spaceman

3/24/2008, 11:52 a.m.

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Dana VanDam:

What nasty view? I didn't even talk about our serviceman... Did you even watch the Winter Soldier videos? Most of the speakers said they cannot fault their fellow serviceman and "best friends" for actions they took in Iraq but instead fault being in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Some did fault themselves and felt it necessary to apologize, which in my eyes is very "honorable" and oftentimes difficult).

So what I am trying to explain to you is that neither Anna nor the Winter Soldiers are arguing that themselves nor their fellow servicemen are unpatriotic or bad people. But that because they are in a the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons (our current administrations fault), they are forced to make terrible decisions and sometimes mistakes to save their lives and their friends lives. Is this so hard to understand? They are speaking out because they want to see their friends and fellow servicemen come home.

Watch the videos, these are sad and sometimes angry veterans who have every right to be.

AKNATUFF:

I don't even understand how you are arguing. I was attacking your Obama/Osama comparison because I am not racist, pointing out that it is unjust to compare them as they have basically no similarities. How is that racist? I voted for Obama in the primaries.. Don't twist my words. If you want to argue that Obama and Osama are similar at least provide some facts.

Also sorry for calling you a bigot if you are in fact not one, that was presumptuous on my part.

3/24/2008, 2:33 p.m.

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Spaceman - I disagree with the entire premise that the war is "in the wrong place at the wrong time". I understand completely Anna's and the "Winter Soldier's" argument, I have listened to the soldiers and my earlier assessment stands, no matter how much you attempt to "explain" it to me. If you, or Anna, or the Winter Soldiers can present me with a factual basis for their claims of atrocities (pictures, videotape, soundtrack?), then I will be more than willing to consider them and perhaps generalize their view of atrocities to the entire armed forces. At this point, that has not happened. The piece that Anna wrote suggested a number of "atrocities" and not a one of them can be considered such.

Tell me please. You sound like a reasonable, and well-spoken individual. What above is an atrocity? Why, when the few may consider their actions to be atrocious, does that then become indicative of our armed forces? That is what I would like to know. IVAW has over 800 members. There are roughly 140,000 in Iraq - by my math (math is not my strong suit, feel free to correct), this is less than 1% (@1000, it is .007% of the total deployed to begin with. Why should I take their word as gospel, applying atrocities to their brother and sister soldiers when there are many others with a different view (I think Dirk summed it up rather well above)?

3/24/2008, 3:35 p.m.

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Here's a thought. How do you think it feels for the soldier from Fairbanks who is in Iraq, the soldier that has done nothing wrong, the soldier that believes in the job that s/he is doing, to log in to their home newspaper to find something like this to read, directing them to go to the ivaw website that encourages them to disobey orders. A piece that says "[t]hese heroic patriots, these Winter Soldiers who are 'fighting for the soul of our country,' gave testimony that would stop the war — if Americans heard it." Do you think that this type of perspective gives that soldier the desire to fight harder for the cause s/he believes in? Or do you think perhaps, his or her hopes fall a little bit, his or her spirits sink, and his or her guard falls a little bit, as s/he recognizes that the job that is being done isn't good enough, isn't right enough - indeed - they are fighting for the "wrong war at the wrong time"...?

Then, the enemy sees and hears these same types of pieces. Does that make that enemy LESS likely to hunt down a soldier and commit REAL atrocities? Or does it embolden him or her? After all, the American people support his or her quest, not the troop sent to destroy him.

And maybe that little bit of spirit loss in the soldier and that little bit of spirit gained by the enemy is enough to ensure that THAT soldier doesn't come home again. Now. Does that sound patriotic to you? Does that sound supportive of the troops to you? It sure doesn't to me. I care more about our troops than that.

3/24/2008, 4:52 p.m.

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DVD,

My comment comparing the Saigon-based guards' experiences and deeds to the Highland-based Tiger Force was that while there were U.S. Forces in both places, the litany of misdeeds committed by Tiger Force (out of sight of the folks back home, and including the allegations of crimes by CO's), were a much different picture than what some other units experienced, witnessed, or perpetrated.

There were crimes committed against POWs as well, but there was better over-sight in the urban setting.

From another incident of criminality in that war, Colonel Thompson, whom I believe died in recent years, was a hero of mine. A man whose words have had a significant affect on me and some of my thoughts. It was his gun ship that set down between the ditch and the troops at My Lai, and it was Thompson who ordered his door gunner to shoot the next soldier who raised a rifle to the women, elderly, and children in the ditch.

To have a personal understanding of what it means to choose a higher road, even when it means taking a position against those who are supposed to be your brothers, or your family, and acccepting that there will be turmoil as a result, is something that I can relate to from my own life experiences.

Col. Thompson is one of the few Colonels I've ever felt compelled to salute, and stand rigid... and I was a civilian and youngster when he did what he did, though I'm Chapter 35, and have worked for the DoD as a civilian contractor as well.

The rockets that hit Bagdad during 'Shock and Awe' came from troops ships with no specific hatred for some of their unintended victims. But the pictures of the 5-year-old Iraqi boy with the top of his head cleanly removed by a rocket, revealing the brain tissue, and his grand father carrying him down the street, screaming to Heaven asking, "Why?" and other pleadings, is and was one of my definitions of 'attrocity' in the single snap of a camera. It scars persons who fired rockets, as well as the persons who received them.

I won't share a whole lot of my beliefs about GW. I have some strong opinions.

Suffice to say that I believe that nationalism is a poison, that we are all born where we are born simply as a result of where our parents happened to be when they gave birth to us, and not by any feat of our own. My earliest relative in America, on my mother's side, carried George Washington's flag into battle in the Revolutionary War, and came from an Irish commoner's background to become a farmer in the mid-west.. Patrick O'Shaughnessy, who later changed his name to Shockney, for a variety of reasons.

I hope that these unfortunate times and the grief associated with them provides some of us with the humility necessary to know what it is that 'we' do, beyond the rhetoric, why 'we' do it (what ever 'it' is), and, if it is morally wrong, to do it no more.

Take care.

3/24/2008, 6:20 p.m.

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Well, creating dialog is always my primary goal, so thank you all for replying. I must say first that I never meant to imply that every soldier has committed atrocities, but that atrocities are an inevitable and highly counterproductive part of war, especially occupations battling insurgencies. I don't have a problem with it just because it hurts, which it does, but because it doesn't work...

I see it as an atrocity that two men were killed in a field for working on their pumps after curfew because they have no choice about when electricity is available. I cannot see the justification, but let's just assume we can call it collateral damage... Those two men had families, probably including young men. Do you think those family members will just write off the deaths, or do you think they see them as criminal? And do you think they will volunteer to help the Americans, or take up arms against them? Just one example of cruel and counterproductive situations.

Indeed, IVAW is a tiny fraction of the armed forces - but they will tell you themselves, it took a long, long time and a lot of support for them to come forward and be called traitors, pussies, commies, whatever. I admire their courage tremendously. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the courage it took just to sign up and go over there. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate being American and all the rights that affords me. I just don't think those rights should be exclusively American, and those two men in that field certainly had their rights violated.

I do have an agenda - I want the crazy, criminal, and profit driven occupation of Iraq to end. I have lost hope in our federal government and the election gives me little. I am no democrat either. Over a million Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion and occupation. And as long as Americans are there, Americans will die.

I am in the majority with this agenda - most Americans want a withdrawal. Public opinion is a big joke in our “democracy” these days... The GIs can make the war stop. I will do whatever I can to encourage them.

We have to let go of "The Prize," the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world. If you don't think that's our main reason for being there, you really need to do some more reading… Even Alan Greenspan says so.

IVAW also calls for full health care for all returning troops and I share their fury that thousands of troops with PTSD are being discharged with out benefits because they had "preexisting" mental conditions - which, if it were true, would mean that they should never have been deployed!

Trust the troops to make the best of a deplorable situation - but don't expect them to be super human. War is a cruel and inhumane racket, and it always has been. That's not any soldier's fault, but rather their commanders'.

I don't know why I am coming up as anonymous... Anna Godduhn here, can be reached at anna.godduhn@gmail.com

candikane: 3/24/2008, 7:20 p.m.; Suggest removal; I'm curious to know when it is that those opposed to this war feel war is warranted. What's your philosophy on war and why?

3/24/2008, 8:47 p.m.

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I respectfully disagree with your position on nationalism, Dirk, and while I may not think that GWB is the best President ever, I think he is the only one we have right now. But I appreciate the dialog and your opinion.

Over a million Iraqi's have died since we have been there, you say. How many died before our arrival?

Ms. Godduhn. There is a curfew. The Iraqi's are well-aware of the curfew. According to those that I have spoken with, there is a reason behind the curfew - during the night hours is when those that are hostile to our forces choose to create/plant IEDs. Those that are hostile can operate easily under cover of darkness. If the claims of the soldier are true (a big if, in my book), then "shooting to kill" was not his first option, but only his last, and then only if a device were there. The justification that you are searching for is three-fold: (1) there is a known curfew (2) there are safety reasons behind that curfew and (3) choosing to violate it more often than not means that the person violating that curfew is up to something.

As for you being in the majority, I respectfully disagree. If it does tilt that way it is because of detractors hollering about the atrocities that are being committed with no proof, comparing our troops and President to past evil regimes and attributing this to "lies" - which again, has not been proven - just spoken very loudly over and over in the hopes that people will believe it.

I read on this war daily, ma'am with all due respect. Just because I disagree with you does not mean that I "need to do more reading". I have listened to the Winter Soldiers. Have you taken the time to listen to the soldiers that believe in what we are doing? Or do you dismiss them as bloodthirsty nationalists with no morals? Should they "read more"?

War is hell, Ms. Godduhn. While I agree with you that the world would be a better place with no war, that world exists over the rainbow, across the sky - just ask evil men like Saddam Hussein. It is a wonderful goal, but it is NOT reality. These men and women signed up to be part of the armed forces. Do you really think that they were ignorant of what that meant? If there were no war, then there would be no army for these young men and women to sign up for.

If you want to sway me, and people like me, then you must come up with something other than "you really need to read more". What I read shows me a different side than what you, and the .007% of people that say they committed atrocities.

3/24/2008, 9:47 p.m.

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>>>I'm curious to know when it is that those opposed to this war feel war is warranted. What's your philosophy on war and why?<<<

When we are attacked on our soil by a nation state, then that is justification for war.

The Saudis who attacked the various buildings on 9/11/01 were not a nation state, or representing a nation state. They were rogue criminals. Criminals who belonged to what was, at that time, a much smaller radical group. A group that has flourished in membership since the scattered approach that GW has taken.

If you look at the German approach after the Munich attacks on the Olympics, it was patient, calculated, very little bravado, etc. But they tracked down the INDIVIDUALS responsible, and brought them to swift and certain justice. Almost ZERO 'collateral damage.' And that path maintained the respect of the rest of the 'free world,' as well as staying focused on the culprits. And they didn't butcher what they regarded as recognized privacy rights or other civil liberties in their country to do it.

The United States supposedly has the most advanced international intelligence network in the world, and a military budget that puts all others to shame. Yet instead of using that, and pacing the process, staying focused on those who actually planned or committed the acts, GW chose to stride into 'Dodge City' like a cowboy, shooting from the hip. And into a country that was at odds with the very people we were supposedly tracking.

His posturing about making every attempt to avoid war was a lie. There is proof from more than one source that he and his administration were committed to invading Iraq while they were still speaking publicly about alternatives.

No entity currently in the Middle East posed a serious threat to our national security as a whole. Could they inflict damages? Rogue INDIVIDUALS proved that. Could they topple this country or its supposed way of life? No. They lacked the personnel, the tactics, and the hardware.

Lt Col. Karen Kwiatkowski resigned her position at the Pentagon's intel. branch as a result of the cherry-picking of information that an outside team of GW's folks were engaged in. It was obvious to more than a few people there as to what was being committed. But the country's People wanted pay-back. Many had delusions that Iraq was a push-over situation, and they forgot the nature of guerilla warfare, if they ever knew it at all. And contrary to the photo ops on the carrier, the mission was most certainly not accomplished.

GHW Bush knew exactly why not to take out Saddam. And even Cheney was quoted as identifying the reality of this mess before it took place, over ten years prior.

More....

3/24/2008, 10:03 p.m.

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Rumsfeld took the reins on the invasion, disregarding the experienced advice of a number of respected officers at the Pentagon. The head out-ran the tail. Men and women from the most advanced military in the world were running out of WATER and small arms ammunition, due to Rummy's sand-box theories and ideas. Troops were forbade to receive decent body armor from loved ones at home, yet the fellow who was contracting to the military was selling a sub-standard set that was proven fatal and unreliable.

It took the chain of command a while to get that fiasco straight. Meanwhile the fellow selling the vests hosted a $10,000.00 birthday party for his daughter, complete with rock stars as invited guests, whom he paid for their appearances. His stuff was getting OUR folks killed, and he was already partying on the money he soaked up. SCUM-BAG!!!

Domestically, more than a handful of FBI agents went public with issues at the agency including malfeasance and incompetence, specifically at the FBI; those who dared to air Agency laundry were informally ostricized, and those who clumsily stood in the way of stopping what was one of the worst attacks on this country were rewarded. Agent Rowley was left to testify to the Congressional Committee, without a car or driver assigned to her, and no one to buffer her from the press waiting outside, despite not even being assigned to D.C. Agent Bowman, who had stopped her from opening Moussaui's lap top, got a commendation, and a $25,000.00 bonus, along with a signed certificate from GW.

Agents Wright and Vinson spoke of being threatened with disciplinary action if they had turned a surveillance gig into a criminal gig, in the Chicago office of the FBI, despite having more than enough info at that time to take down the folks they were watching; and the head of that group was not only a Saudi national, financing the folks they were surveilling, but was contracting software to...... The feds!!!!

I'll quit here, due to getting stuff ready for an annual lake trout fishing trip with dear friends in Canada. But none or few of our thrashings of the constitutions were necessary, and it's debatable whether the wars we're now into were required, had folks in charge used a more thoughtful approach, and been more honest about what are clearly additional motives..

The current administration, in my opinion, valued its contractors over the lives of the troops from the very beginning. though this is far from a new phenomenon in times of military action.

What do I have against GW? The war? There's more, but I'll leave it at that for now.. Isn't that enough??

3/24/2008, 10:23 p.m.

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PS: The estimates that I find for Iraqi deaths are at the lowest 80,000 and at the highest, 1.2 million http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9... - I'm sure that al jazeera is most reputable...). Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle. No source is clear as to how many deaths were collateral damage, how many were caused by Coalition forces vs. Iraqi killing Iraqi either.

Let me tell you a story. I have a friend. That friend has a father. This man became student body president of his university. Would you like to know how? By placing his name on the backs of bathroom stall doors. Nothing else - no platform, no stances, no speeches, no rallies - nothing other than simple name recognition. That was what the student body had been exposed to most, and that is how they voted. If you tell people over and over that this war is illegal and unjust, even without corresponding proof, they will eventually believe you - which is, unfortunately, the ultimate goal here. Not truth - facts be damned and let's all live by our feelings.

There is a recent study out that offers a strong correlation between the things that war detractors say and increased insurgency (http://people.rwj.harvard.edu/~riyengar/...). While the study appears unpublished as of yet, it is logical to see that if you are agreeing philosophically with the enemy, then the enemy becomes bolder. The additional loss in American lives is what I mean when I say that this type of rhetoric does not "support the troops".

You are obviously a very intelligent, educated and well-spoken individual. How well do you think your perspective, and subsequent posting, would be received if they were part or a paper being turned in for a grade? Do you think that further sourcing would be necessary? Or would a professor accept it as is? That's what I am asking for here. Please do not try to sway with emotion - it is dishonest. And for a group of people claiming that this war is unacceptable because of the "dishonesty" involved should probably try to be as honest as possible or be as guilty as those they are accusing.

I do not feel my way through my life and I am certainly not going to feel my way through this.

3/25/2008, 7:57 a.m.

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There is Never Victory in War..
..Vigilance begins at Home.

I support Anna and Dirk on this issue.
Gen. Smedley Butler was telling the truth.

Read Gold Warriors [Seagraves, 2003]
http://www.bowstring.net/
..the timeline of this story begins over 5000 years ago.

All wars are interconnected on many different levels.
The predominant characteristic of warfare is best described as "an epidemic mental health disaster"... militarism is a sickness.

The USA has been meddling in Mesopotamia and Persia since the beginning of the US-Navy, their first opportunity to project power there.

The USA originally installed Saddam Hussein as Iraqi dictator in 1963, when the CIA tried TWICE to depose Qasim. The CIA deposed Mossadeq from Iran a decade earlier.

Those of you who engage in "cherry picking" from History are deceiving yourselves and others.

I'm an old guy who's been around a bit and seen a few things..
I've probably spent more time in veterans hospitals than many war-amputees.

Anybody who has ever killed another human has also learned to believe their own lies they tell to themselves.. this how you cope with living with yourself. Lies are the foundation of the Culture of Violence..
..some call it propaganda.
Many Big-Biz buzzards have killed more with a pen than "heroes" have dispatched with their weapons.

In my wide circle of family and friends there are many who are career-military [including active duty generals]...
...many big-brass seek the comfort of my presence when they have tough-times.

...flash/rumble

Reader1: 3/25/2008, 8:14 a.m.; Suggest removal; Did you know that 47 countries' have reestablished their embassies in Iraq ? Did you know that the Iraqi government currently employs 1.2 million Iraqi people? Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 new schools are now under construction; and 38 new schools have been completed in Iraq ? Did you know that Iraq 's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers, all currently operating? Did you know that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in January 2005 for the re-established Fulbright program? Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operational?They have 5 - 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a naval infantry regiment. Did you know that Iraq ' s Air Force consists of three operational squadrons, Which includes 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft (under Iraqi operational control) which operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 Bell Jet Rangers? Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion? Did you know that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers? Did you know that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq that produce over 3500 new officers every 8 weeks? Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq ? They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities. Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations? Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October? Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%? Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consists of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations? Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004? Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a televised debate recently? COURSE WE DIDN'T KNOW! WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW? BECAUSE OUR MEDIA WON'T TELL US! Instead of reflecting our love for our country, we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib and people throwing snowballs at the presidential motorcades. Tragically, the lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves two purposes: It is intended to undermine the world's perception of the United States thus minimizing consequent support; and it is intended to discourage American citizens.
Above facts are verifiable on the Department of Defense web site.

<http://www.defenselink.mil/>
Can I go home yet?

3/25/2008, 1:48 p.m.

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First, I want to apologize for my comment about reading more. I should have said, ‘I beg you to consider the possibility that the war is mostly about oil…’ and made my case. I wish I had said something like that, and do greatly appreciate this dialog. I don’t however, have time to write a real research paper. I will provide several citations though.

Please understand that I come at this with the premise that many of the orders our troops are getting are illegal – beginning with their deployment to a war theater that never should have opened, that was driven by greed and justified by lies. (Please, there were no weapons, there were no connections to terrorists do I really need to cite that?) I am angry that our troops were lied to and exploited as they were. I am sorry they have an out of control warmongering commander who deceived them and continues to abuse their good name and loyal service.

Are we there because we care about the Iraqi people? This war has been tragedy after tragedy for Iraqis. 70% unemployment, sewage in the streets, cholera and dysentery ubiquitous, a few hours of electricity, rampant violence, police checkpoints prone to massive explosions, and random searches. Obviously, Reader1 and I have different sources; I don’t trust DoD for accurate statistics. If we had toppled Saddam and left, they might have forgiven us the broken infrastructure and deadly destruction of shock and awe.

But we stayed too long and multinational corporations have profiteered from all sectors of the economy, at great cost to US tax payers, and even greater cost to Iraqis. Worst of all, we continue to insist Iraq base their oil law on plans that the people in the US (probably Cheney’s energy task force) drew up, among other impositions. The permanent bases being built there don’t happen to follow pipelines and protect oilfields by accident.

Really, once you get past the miserable part of suspecting people you want to believe in (the Bush Administration), ‘it’s mostly about oil’ explains a lot of belligerent and aggressive behavior on the part of our very own government. It goes all the way back to Jimmy Carter, of all the pansy presidents, the policy that anyone attempting to exert control over middle east oil will have the US to answer to. This is not some paranoid conspiracy theory, it’s the well known Carter Doctrine. You can look it up in any thorough history of US foreign policy.

I do not encourage our troops to break any law, but rather to uphold it. They are not duty bound to follow orders blindly… They are duty bound to refuse illegal orders, once recognized as such. They are duty bound to defend the constitution and America, not the president’s reputation. I do encourage them to resist illegal orders, if they have any such capacity – which is rare because of the overwhelming disproportionate power the military holds over dissenters (and their families).

citations in next post

3/25/2008, 1:52 p.m.

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Here are links to two shorter pieces about the motives of the invasion of Iraq, the first from Anne Wright (retired Army colonel who resigned from the US Department of State in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq) and the second from Antonia Juhasz, an economic analyst (and anti-globalization activist). They each have a book listed below.

What Congress Really Approved: Benchmark No. 1: Privatizing Iraq's Oil for US Companies
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052607...

Who’s Oil is it Anyway?
http://www.bushagenda.net/article.php?id...

And the million-plus lives lost estimate http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/co...

I cite and strongly recommend the following books:

“Dissent: Voices of Conscience Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq” by Col. (ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon

“A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq” by Paul William Roberts

“The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by Naomi Klein

“The Bush Agenda: Invading the World One Economy at a Time” by Antonia Juhasz

“Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq” by Dahr Jamail

3/25/2008, 2:14 p.m.

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I will do my best to read at least some of what you have here Ms. Goddhun. Hopefully they too are well-cited and not full of non-information. However, we are coming at this from a very different beginning point. I don't believe this is an illegal war - I've researched war powers, Congresses role, the lack of any UN activity toward us. It appears pretty darn legal to me.

I have been told by men that I know who were over there that electricity is fine, that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi's are happy that we are there, and that much of what Reader1 had to say was indeed true ("majority" is of course, anecdotal). I have been told that orders are not illegal, and that those that violate the rules that they are bound by(e.g. atrocities) are arrested and punished

How do you explain the fact that Saddam used WMDs on his own people - it's in the soil? That doesn't sound like he did NOT have WMDs - sounds like they were moved. How do you explain how Clinton, Pelosi and others thought that he had them at least as far back as 1998? That doesn't sound like Bush lied or like this is about oil. How do you explain up to $25,000 paid to terrorists - that seems like a pretty big connection to terrorism...?

I will look at your sources. Thank you for taking the time. But, I encourage you to read some of the information from the other side. Talk with soldiers that believe in what they are doing. Get a different perspective. It is possible that your entire premise is wrong.

Reader1: 3/25/2008, 3:31 p.m.; Suggest removal; I am in Iraq right now. How we got here is a moot point, we are here. I want all of us out, but I understand that up and running would lead to a worse situation that we would have to come back and fix later. So we are here for oil/money, how is this any different than any other war? All wars are fought for more wealth, and when a capitalist nation goes to war, its companies benefit. Its rich get richer. The lower classes bleed red and the middle classes bleed green. That being said, I am all for capitalism but also isolationism and a limited federal Gov. Trade with all, ally with none.

Dana VanDam: 3/25/2008, 3:46 p.m.; Suggest removal; Ms. Godduhn - One more question if I may. Is there a time where you find war to be justified and necessary? As candikane questioned above, what is your philosophy on war and why?

3/25/2008, 3:54 p.m.

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Reader1 - I'm taking you at your word that you are serving in Iraq, and I appreciate a more vocal input from someone who is actually experiencing the war, although I have found that many service-members choose to just to not waste their time on debates such as these, preferring instead to just go about their business. How does it make you (and your fellow service members) feel to read things like what the Winter Soldiers, Ms. Godduhn and others have to say? How about all the negatives - are they really worse off now that we're there and hate our presence? The report I cited above certainly gave me pause, even though the effect on increased insurgent violence was intuitive.

Apparently the internet is better than when my husband was serving out his tour, so that's a plus. Maybe he and I will have better luck next time. Godspeed and thank you for your service.

Reader1: 3/25/2008, 4:33 p.m.; Suggest removal; I have no idea how the war is going on outside the wire. I am a REMF, or Pouge or whatever label you want to put on someone who doesnt leave the base. For every one outside the wire, there are at least 10 inside to support them. Nowadays, probly more than that with civilians. I cant speak for anyone else, and certainly cant speak for any of the Soldiers or Marines who are actually fighting this war, but as for me, this place is a dump and I think we should start getting out. Mind you, the US military will have a presence here for years. I think that was part of why we came in here. The Saudis were growing weary of us and we needed a new platform from which to protect our interests. (oil)

Dana VanDam: 3/25/2008, 4:42 p.m.; Suggest removal; Thank you for the frank assessment and honesty. I appreciate it. I, too, would like to see an end to the war (does anyone really think that - from a purely selfish standpoint - I want my husband, my children's father - over there any longer than necessary?). I just don't want to see it all end prematurely, causing yet even more harm. If we pull out, we may very well end up going right back when/if the area implodes completely. I agree with your earlier commentary about how we got there being almost moot - how we leave is at least as important in my view.

funford: 3/25/2008, 4:56 p.m.; Suggest removal; I have read all of your comments,and we can debate this issue until the cows come home! but no one has spoken about what got us into this quagmire.If i remember it was 9/11.Looking for terrorists.Weapons of mass destruction.Looking for Ben-Laden.Angry at Saddem-Husien for no longer being on the CIA payroll.So we invaded Iraq..But the majority of the 9/11 terriorists were SAUDI NATIONALS!!
Something just doesn't smell right!Maybe you folks can figure it out and get back to me.But as long as we fuss among ourselves about the bones they toss in front of us we will never see the real issues.

3/25/2008, 6:38 p.m.

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Ah, but we can learn from the bones they throw us, and we need to interpret them together, so I'm all for debating. I tend to agree with you that it DOES matter what got us into it, and still dream of an impeachment that would really clear all this up, but the point I want to make right now is that most Iraqis want us to leave.

Parliment calls unanimously for a complete withdrawal. That means the elected (Iraqi) officials want us to leave - only appointed officials continue to parrot the White House line about endless bloodshed if we leave. It's only endless if we stay. They expect a surge in violence as we go, but then a dramatic and welcome decline. I'd say they have the right to make the call... Indeed, I'm afraid that reader1 is correct that we will be there for a long long time. It would be much safer and more ethical to cease the construction of permanent bases, declare that we will not insist on the privitization of Iraq's (nationalized) oil, and announce a full and immediate withdrawal (and I mean after planning it so it could really be implemented immediately). The funding would have to redirected to make it happen and I'm sure I'm oversimplifying... Nor is this to say we forget the disaster we are leaving behind... we owe Iraq in a big big way. I will continue to push for those things, although it makes me feel like a kid waiting for santa clause sometimes.

That book "Beyond the Green Zone" is a very powerful account of reality outside the wire for the first few years of the war, and Jamail's continuing works finds that things have only gotten worse. He was living in Anchorage when the war began, and he wanted to know what things were like for average Iraqis, so he went. It's pretty incredible, the difference between embedded reporting and unembedded. http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/
He has been to FAirbanks to give presentations 5 times now. He went to Fallujah within days after each seige on that city, and if anyone really wants graphics, I have a whole slide show that demonstrates the use of white phosphorous and cluster bombs there. Their use in civilian areas is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the pictures are really, really awful.

I don't doubt your good intentions and desires for your loved ones. I don't mean them any harm. Indeed, I am doing my best to protect them from their crazy civilian bosses.

Thanks again for all the thought provoking comments.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/arch...

3/25/2008, 6:40 p.m.

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link to Jamail's story on the Iraqi Parliment's resolution

argodduhn: 3/25/2008, 6:41 p.m.; Suggest removal; not sure where I heard unanimous, but clearly a majority... sorry 'bout that.

Reader1: 3/25/2008, 6:54 p.m.; Suggest removal; I have a quick comment about the use of white phosphorous and cluster bombs. If using them saves our soldiers and Marines lives, drop um. I also know that the US never signed the treaty banning the use of napalm in built up areas.

3/25/2008, 8:40 p.m.

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Ms. Godduhn - I will look at the things you have left for me, and others, here. I'm not ready to jump off that cliff that says we were lied to - I have seen evidence to the contrary - but I will look even deeper. I still feel that the things you are advocating make my country weaker by helping to erode our armed forces, which puts my loved ones and my fellow citizens in more danger than what is already expected during wartime. I am willing to explore - I may come up with a different answer than you would like.

I'm still curious about your stance on war in general. Is there a time and a place for it? Or is it always the wrong thing in your view?

3/25/2008, 9:24 p.m.

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I wish all of the US-Troops in Iraq good luck for their safety and good health.
Likewise I wish all the peoples of Iraq and Iran, and the rest of the region a rapid recovery from these troubled times.

History is nearly-infinitely complex...
just one person telling a whopper can set whole nations of lemmings running off the edge of sanity headlong into WAR.

For my own personal safety I can't disclose too many facts about some of my personal experiences being near to the center of some pivotal historic events of the 20thCentury..
..but a lesson I have learned from these harrowing experiences is to keep a very very open mind to the "conspiracy theories" you often see on the internet. Many "unthinkable theories" are much closer to the truth than you think.

Here's an interesting account of an event that you don't see on TV..
http://www.gtr5.com/summary_of_events.ht...

Many educated west europeans have a totally different perspective of "Pax Americana"
http://uruknet.de/?p=-5&l=e

I suspect if the troops kicked the contractors out Iraq they would be getting rid of %50 of the "terrorists".
Subterfuge by "friendlies" was commonplace in VietNam too.
In warzones, not everybody shooting at you is "the enemy"...
...maybe it's just some guy with a gun and bullets shooting at you because you pissed him off so badly that he's just totally beyond trying to talk some good common sense into your thick skull.

Americans suffer from longterm memory loss..
profound amnesia makes history into a quagmire of self-doubt and misery. 90% of americans seem to forget who were the culprits of one of the biggest bank robberies in history..
Do you remember what happened to FSLIC???
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&...
Much of the historical records in the net seem to be getting swept down the memory-hole, a goog-search like this 3years ago would have made many more matches.

Dana VanDam: 3/25/2008, 10:39 p.m.; Suggest removal; Distantthunder - Thanks for sending me to a Israel bashing, fanatical website. I don't accept bigotry from any source and will choose not to read anything you post from here on out as your judgment is obviously compromised in some way. Enjoy your conspiracy theories.

mike: 3/26/2008, 12:09 a.m.; Suggest removal; Reader1, I want you to know that I am strongly against the situation but I want you and the rest of my countrymen to come home safe, intact, and soon. Personally I don't give a damn about that place. It is not worth the price of a single American.

3/26/2008, 7:16 a.m.

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Thanks, Anna, for writing about the Winter Soldier event. There's plenty of evidence to show what we’re doing in Iraq is not the pretty picture the DoD and Bush administration would have us believe.

This was an immoral, corporate invasion of a nation that our own 9-11 Commission said had nothing to do with the attack on our nation, and attacking a nation that’s not a threat is against International Law, even if you lie 965 times to try and convince people the threat is real.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and not one of them was from Iraq, and Saddam did not harbor nor collude with Al-Qaeda. He was a secular leader, not an Islamic dictator, like the King of Hijacker Land our president hangs with.

Check out the Project for a New American Century to see who’s running American foreign policy with no consent or vote from the American people or Congress. The Iraq invasion was planned a long time before 9-11. http://www.newamericancentury.org/statem...

The 100 Orders Paul Bremer left that rule Iraq are not a secret either. Reading them shows the invasion for corporate control of resources, oil and others. It has nothing to do with liberating oppressed people from a horrible dictator. Example - Order 81 opens the way for American agribusiness to have a huge hand in controlling Iraqi agriculture with privatization, patents, and GMOs.
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Iraq-US...

Iraqi people do not wish to be ruled by corporate invader/occupiers and will fight to the death, as the Vietnamese people did, to protect their homeland. In America, they’re patriots, in Iraq, they’re insurgents.

If you want to look directly into the face of the Iraq war the soldiers speak of and the atrocities this invasion inflicted, visit Robert Fisk's web site. http://www.robert-fisk.com/
It has twenty pages of graphic photos of just what we're doing to a nation's children, who were not a threat to us. This is part of what the Winter Soldiers are talking about. To ignore these atrocities is a crime in itself. Warning: It's really ugly seeing babies and children ripped apart by the bombs and bullets of our trillion-dollar military. If anybody thinks this occupation is making America safer, think again. This kind of carnage causes immense, justified anger, just as 9-11 caused us to be angry enough to allow our government to attack the wrong perpetrators.

The bottom line of Anna’s message though, is that we need to listen to what the Winter Soldiers say about their personal experiences regarding the war. They literally fought for the right to speak out, and deserve to be heard, as do the ones who tell more positive stories. Both have valid points. I don't doubt for a second that our soldiers are doing good things there, but I do doubt for a million years the motivation of the criminal government who sent them there.

3/26/2008, 8:55 a.m.

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.007% is not an impressive number.

I'm still waiting on Anna's take on war.

The_Urban_Spaceman

3/26/2008, 10:57 a.m.

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Don't have time to debate still, but just to attack your math a bit; your denominator makes no sense. Finding the correct inputs and assumptions is the hardest part about math really.

I think a more appropriate number rather than the 140,000 deployed troops would be the amount of troops who have been deployed but who are now home and out of the military. These people are really the only ones not at risk of losing benefits and in a position to protest. This also isn't taking into account the amount of soldiers that actually find it important to be political on the subject or even have the time and motivation be active (IE: Veteran: I think the war was wrong/worthless/take your pick, but I have to go work my two jobs).

Just some food for thought on your .007%

3/26/2008, 11 a.m.

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So much to say, so little time. I have been thinking a lot about the question of 'just war...'

I am not a pacifist. I would defend myself or others (as I deemed appropriate) with all the physical force I could muster if attacked. I know we need trained people at he ready to defend our borders if attacked. I am also convinced that we can do much better with diplomacy than weapons.

Indeed, I support the Veterans for Peace mission of abolishing war as a option in foreign policy. I do not believe in "preemptive" strikes. They are first strikes, and cannot be justified unless the threat is well proven, eminent, and can be targeted. The shocking and awful detestation of Baghdad did not come close to qualifying. And now we support attacks on Sadr's followers, while insisting they maintain their cease fire. Who are we kidding?

There are many similarities to Israel's occupation of Palestine and acknowledging that should no longer be seen as anti-semitic or even Israel bashing. If we continue to refuse to include our behaviors in the equation, we will never find the roots of terrorism, and it will destroy us in our blissful, willful ignorance.

3/26/2008, 11:29 a.m.

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Spaceman - I would say that considering some of the Winter Soldiers are still active duty, your distinction is inaccurate. I would even go so far as to say the number (.007) may be lower if we take into account ALL troops that have served in Iraq as a whole.

Anna - I understand time issues - my next quarter starts here pretty quick, so I appreciate your continued dialog - although I am letting some of my frustration through. Has there been a war that the US was involved in that was justified for you?

I've done some research and seen your support/involvement for groups like nonukesnorth (doesn't sound very defensive minded there), but I'll take you at your word that your not a pacifist, that you would defend yourself "as [you] deemed fit". Is it possible that you just don't have the information that is/was available to our highest offices, and that that is exactly what the President did - defended us as he saw fit?

You and I are just going to have to disagree on what constitutes Antisemitism.

As for diplomacy, I would like to see talks with megalomaniacs (like Saddam) or people that are so invested in their religion or whatever cause that they can't let it go (as we have seen in the middle east peace talks for...how long now?) actually accomplish something.

We need weapons, Anna, just like we need good talkers. The best advice I ever got was "Hope for the best while planning for the worst". Anyone who has tried to talk a rapist down can recognize that sometimes talkin' just don't work. To believe otherwise is idealistic. We need idealists and beauty, but we also need realists for when that idealism is just proven unattainable.

I have opened my mind here. I am willing to look at the sources you have provided for me. I will also take into account the source that gave me the sources. I'm not seeing a willingness on your part to explore the other side, however, so you and I may just have to agree to disagree here on what you (referring more to war critics in general) think you are accomplishing and what I see you as causing.

3/26/2008, 12:32 p.m.

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Spaceman - It seems to me that the best number to use would be the number of men and women that have served in total. Those that get out probably have an issue with the war to begin with and wouldn't be the best number to use. Beyond that, some members of the Winter Soldiers are still active duty, so obviously this isn't an issue either.

Beyond that, my math was wrong (I am so embarrassed, but hey, I own it, math is NOT my strong suit) - the .007 should have become .7% (I believe!) From what I've managed to find, it looks like over 1 million have served in Iraq (but other sources say that there are just over 1 million active duty, and just over 1 million reserves - I didn't know there were that many in the military - shows you how numbers can fool I guess, so unless they have all done a tour, that number wouldn't be best either). For argument's sake, take 2 million (active/reserve), cut it in half, cut in in half again, and once again, we are left with 250,000. Heck, let's cut that again for safeties sake - 125000. We can half that one more time to 62,500. Can we agree that 62,500 have served over there? If yes, let's continue: Now. Let's up Winter Soldiers to 2000, just to give them the benefit of the doubt, too. So at 2000/62500 (some number manipulation here), it becomes .032 - 3.2%. I'm still unimpressed. Sorry.

dumpbush: 3/26/2008, 5:44 p.m.; Suggest removal; our nation is on the verge of economic chaos, we are bogged down in two wars that seem never-ending, the dollar is becomming a second tier currency as far as value,we have no decent health care system, etc.
if Obama or Clinton win the White House the war will be over next year, if McClain wins he swears he will find Bin Laden and the war will continue on as it has.
I was against the war from the beginning realizing that the American people can never maintain such commitment, and now as the yellow ribbons that remain stuck stubbornly to the bumpers of gas guzzling cars are becomming faded the Generals continue to say "we need more troops".
i continue to ask the question that is so often left hanging in mid-air, what is our strategy? what do we hope to achieve?who is going to pay the bill? what does Iraq have to do with the US? they did not attack us on 9-11 but those that did are still free and probably plotting this very moment.
Meanwhile, "W" sits in the Oval Office with his ostrich skin boots on the desk, oblivious to what is happening in middle America but always in the moment when it comes to watching the oil revenues (his money) soar dreaming of the invasion of Iran that is sure to occur.
Suddenly with the price of gasoline climbing, the war in Iraq is not the leading concern to most Americans as they prepare to visit the polls in November.
But there one good thing is that we only have to put up with that idiot for 9 more months.

Reader1: 3/26/2008, 6:31 p.m.; Suggest removal; Not a huge fan of Bush, but do you really think Wonder boy Obama or Clinton is going to pull us out of Iraq? Obama is closer to being one of those "rich white men" that run this country than I am, and I am white. And dont forget congress voted us in there as well. As for the economy, maybe people should buy homes within their means and read the fine print on the paperwork. It is not uncle sams place to bail the individual OR the corporations out when they make poor decisions. What should any President do about the economy? And why again?

3/26/2008, 6:41 p.m.

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Article 2 - The Executive Branch
Section 2 - Civilian Power Over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This silly document seems to say that the President can send us to war. Says nothing about having some magical control over the economy.

Dana VanDam: 3/26/2008, 6:53 p.m.; Suggest removal; I agree with you about 100% Reader1. You summed it up nicely - thanks.

Reader1: 3/26/2008, 7:06 p.m.; Suggest removal; I apologize, the President is the Commander and Chief, Congress has the war powers.

YouMustBConfused: 3/26/2008, 7:32 p.m.; Suggest removal; Yes Reader-1 and DVD, he has just been trying to be our Commander and Chief. Congress has all the power. Obama is a rich white guy. The President last week was just surprised that a reporter was asking him about $4.00 gas, it was the first time he had heard of it? He was also confused when he said in the State of the Union speech that more people today own homes than ever before, he's not an Economist. He didn’t know that what he meant to say was more people have mortgages than ever before? Yes, Dems just want defeat, they want more of your money and they are weak on Defense. You are right, the people should have read the fine print those homes you speak of have now taken down BEAR STRENS...who bailed them out???? The Feds!! You are right Bush isn’t giving us a tax on the future after he leaves office, right. You are going to take that stimulus check and send it right back to him and say, NO; I know this is just a tax on my kids!! Right?

Reader1: 3/26/2008, 7:45 p.m.; Suggest removal; Maybe go back and read where I wrote that they shouldnt bail out corporations either? Didnt congress approve the Bush tax cuts? I think income taxes should be as close to zero as possible, for everyone. That the federal Gov. should do less, not more. They screw up everything they get involved with.
The president not knowing about the $4.00 gas, everyone in Washington is THAT out of touch with things. When was the last time you think Hillary or Barrack sauntered into a 7-11 for gallon of milk?
My question to you is, what is the role of the Federal Government in regards to the capitalist economy we have?

dumpbush: 3/26/2008, 7:50 p.m.; Suggest removal; read 1
1 Euro = 1.5 dollars US.
and you are saying that the pres. is not the one that deregulated the price of oil?
what does some idiot with a sliding mortgage have to do with any of the above? that has nothing to do with the escalation of prices and the massive unemployment that is sweeping the nation. bailing out with quick fixes is exactly what bush hopes to do by sending money that we do not really have to people in hopes they will spend with reckless abandon thinking that this action will somehow jumpstart a faltering economy.
bushs stupid assed war is costing us billions of dollars, someone is going to have to pay that tab down the road. clinton handed bush a balanced budget, a booming economy, affordable interest rates, low unemployment.
Get used to it, Obama will be the next president. he will pull us out of Iraq, he will restore respect toward our country from other nations, he will establish a health system that will offer affordable health care to those that need it, as a Senator, he has worked hard for veterans affairs, and you know what read 1, even if he doesn't do a damn thing, or even if he screws the whole job up he will still be better than what we have had to endure from bush for the last 7 years.
does a president influence our economy,? what do you think happens when he vetos or approves the crap that congress tosses his way?
yes, you are damned right, i am a liberal and an Obama supporter.

3/26/2008, 7:59 p.m.

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YMBC - That stimulus check is an advance on MY next tax return. I'll take it; it's just coming early this year, just like I take the PFD - I don't like it though. Bear Sterns should not have been bailed out. That was BS - no argument there. People who took out mortgages they couldn't afford should not be bailed out (it's called an ARM for a reason, folks). The lending institutions that loaned the money shouldn't be bailed out. The President is not in control of gas prices (nor should he be); you need to learn your economics a little better.

No one is claiming that Bush is the smartest guy in the world, although I lean more toward "not well-spoken" than plain out dumb (believe it or not, some people can speak publicly rather well, while others aren't that hot at it. Incidentally, have you heard Obama speak without a teleprompter? He ain't a genius either. But, some people are AMAZING public speakers - I hear Hitler could mesmerize his audiences - but I don't want HITLER in office either). Some of us are more interested in substance than style - being able to give a speech is style, my friend, not much more.

Congress does have the war powers (look up your Constitution if you don't believe me - if Bush were doing things that he's not allowed by this document, they'd be screaming for impeachment and THEY'D GET IT).

I have been disappointed in the (liberal) parts of the Bush administration from the get-go - Bush is disappointing, but to think that Hillary or Obama (or McCain for that matter) is going to save you is delusional. Democrats have HISTORICALLY raised taxes and been weak on defense. Take some PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for your own money and get over your irrational hatred of allthingsrepublican. It's tiresome. Republican = Democrat right now, it's just a matter of degree anymore. However, all things being equal, I'd rather have someone strong on national defense than strong on social issues.

3/26/2008, 8:27 p.m.

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dumpbush - Interesting take you have there. Unemployment as of February 2008 is 4.8% (http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm). Sounds massive to me...Under Clinton unemployment was 4.2%. Big difference?

Quick lesson on gas: http://money.howstuffworks.com/gas-price...

Quick lesson on supply and demand: http://www.investopedia.com/university/e...

Has the President tried to control/help gas prices: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/j...

There is much more going on here than this, but to place the blame solely at Bush's door is a copout.

I have serious doubts about Mr. Obama. He has no substance. I hope you are wrong.

YouMustBConfused

3/26/2008, 8:50 p.m.

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DVD - Did you know that during Bushes campaign he said that if Oil prices rise that he would as President get on that red phone and call up OPEC. He said it not me? "you need to learn your economics a little better."...

I said ...The President last week was just surprised that a reporter was asking him about $4.00 gas, it was the first time he had heard of it?

Did I say that he should fix the gas prices??? No, he should be aware through Economic advisors that the price is going up because of the weak dollar.

Man you are funny DVD, stop insulting one side of the argument, I always can tell when you are starting to get all worked up...you get all personal??? I have to keep telling you that this is not about you, it is about ideas and yours and mine can be different. But, until you start calling people like Aknostuff on their silliness you just look silly and your arguments will be...well just funny.

Keep smiling. YouMustBConfused

3/26/2008, 10:32 p.m.

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When we were building the haulroad past Livengood toward the YukonRiver before construction started on TAPS, I picked up a wildman hitchiker who had been deep in the bush for several years...
he thought Johnson was still president.

Fairbanks has always been somewhat of a political backwater overpopulated with dogmatic hillbillies and cultural Rip Van Winkles.

It's pretty easy to let your contemporary world views slip backwards a few decades living here.

I remember listening to KFAR on my old vacuum-tube shortwave receiver because a regular AM-radio was too fuzzy.

Nowdays we have the streaming audio from the internet to expand our listening pleasure..

If you're tired of listening to Limbaugh....
http://www.airamerica.com/aarplayer/skip...
http://www.airamerica.com

...flash/rumble

candikane: 3/26/2008, 11:06 p.m.; Suggest removal; Reader1: Thank you for your service. I appreciate your voice and wish the best for you, including your safe and expedient return.

3/26/2008, 11:07 p.m.

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YouMustBConfused: Wow, you took a very interesting debate and cheapened it with witless sarcasms. Did you have an “idea” in there somewhere, I couldn’t find it (that would be witty sarcasm, see the difference?)? Although, I suppose sophomoric humor and belligerence is all we can expect of the individual who chose YouMustBConfused as a profile name.

As for the rest of you, with specific attention to DVD, Reader1, and Dirk, I am reading and processing everything you are writing.

YouMustBConfused: 3/27/2008, 6:29 a.m.; Suggest removal; Thanks for the Thought Police comments candikane, remeber comments are just that, they are words. In the future, when weilding this powerful tool please direct your rulings on both sides of the debate and not just the one that you dont agree with. Humor and silliness are always a matter of interpritation. Sometimes "witty sarcasm" is the only way to get across very serious ideas. Please, I hope you understand that the subject here is very serious and personally I take it that way. Hopefully you will look into all avenues of interpritation and learn from it. Yours (ideas) are your own, is'nt this country great!? YouMustBConfused

Reader1: 3/27/2008, 8:35 a.m.; Suggest removal; DumpBush, I am not supporting the current administration. I am saying the Government needs to keep their big, clumsy paws out of the economy and for that matter, out of our lives. I think the entire system of "representitives," from city halls to Capital Hill needs an overhaul. The US was founded on the PRINCIPLE of a limited Federal Government and somewhere along the way we traded away more and more of our liberties to get what we have now. A big, intrusive, all powerful federal Gov. that is completely out of touch, and weak state and local governments that are held under the heal of the Fed. by money.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/03/...
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/inde...

3/27/2008, 10:24 a.m.

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Well, ladies and gentlemen. It appears to me, through my research (I am not done, and will continue to look for unbiased information), that there was enough information suggesting WMDs in Iraq at some point, and there were tenuous ties to Al Quada, and although no direct link existed, there was most likely enough reason for the Bush administration to go where they went. Not to discount the possibilities of additional motives on Bush's part; that is absolutely possible, and dare I say, likely - that doesn't erase the other information.

The Iraqi papers that certain people tell me to look at show this exact thing – according to one source linking to the report: “’The five-volume report affirmed that there was “no ’smoking gun’ (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda.’ But it also said there was ‘strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.’”

Did the President lie? It doesn’t look like it; rather it looks like there was a massive intelligence failure: “22. The President’s Daily Brief (PDB) likely conveyed a greater sense of certainty about analytic judgments than warranted.” (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/wmd_appb....)

UN’s stance on whether WMDs were possible?: “Four years without inspection is a significant period. Given the history of Iraq’s proscribed weapons programmes (see Appendix), Iraq potentially could have made considerable advancements in that time, particularly in the biological and chemical fields.” (http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/document...)

3/27/2008, 10:25 a.m.

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As I have said, there is more going on here than any of us will ever know. Conspiracy theories and Bush-hatred aside (although I realize some cannot do this for reasons of their own), the intelligence communities believed that WMDs were in Saddam’s hands (http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-...), and that there were terrorist connections. To continue with the mantra of “Bush lied” is counterproductive and inaccurate “Bush was misinformed” or “Bush jumped the gun” is far more apropos. The focus needs to be on when and if we can extricate ourselves from Iraq, causing as few troop deaths as possible and as little harm as possible. Not to excuse Bush as a good guy, or a smart guy – I do think that there may be additional reasons he chose Iraq, but that doesn’t change the reality of the information he had to work with. It seems that some people want Bush to be omniscient, with knowing everything from mortgages and gas prices while running a war, but he’s only one flawed man, getting information from sources that he probably should have chosen better – I wish he’d admit this, but that’s another problem altogether isn’t it?

While I personally am very interested in discovering as much of the truth in this sad reality as possible, I think many of us have little interest in sources that are unwilling to explore outside of their bubble, sources who insist on viewing only one side of the argument because their minds have been made up and that’s that - 20/20 hindsight and know-it-all-ism won’t solve anything; especially since us plebes don’t have all the information. The truth lies somewhere between or outside the left and the right – somewhere between “BUSH LIED” and “HAIL BUSH”. I think accepting this might be the key.

candikane: 3/27/2008, 10:41 a.m.; Suggest removal; Actually, Confused, Dana has been my closest friend for over ten years. Attacking her is something I take very personally. If you had read the whole comment, you would have seen that I directed my interest at both sides of the argument and yielded my "powerful tool" at your cantankerous disposition. Take your own advice and view this discussion as serious instead of belittling it with comments such as "...you just look silly and your arguments will be...well just funny." They're ugly, unnecessary and make you look bad.

YouMustBConfused: 3/27/2008, 12:31 p.m.; Suggest removal; If I had my choice...and I do...I will take funny! But silly is in the eye of the beholder and since you dont know me I will listen to your advice and take it to heart. I still have the right to laugh at what is said here...dont I?

candikane: 3/27/2008, 6:38 p.m.; Suggest removal; I assume you are an American and as such, have that right. This topic pains me and I will be grateful if there comes a time when I can grapple with it light-heartedly. Right now, I can't: it feels a bit like doing so is akin to dancing on the graves of the dead. As for Bush, I'm pretty sure he's lied (Harken stocks for one) and he definitely has an unpleasant oafish nature, but I look at it like this: if you have a lying oaf and he tells you that the sky is blue, it doesn't automatically mean that the sky must then be any color other than blue. It just means we have to look at it ourselves and discern the true color because the oaf isn't necessarily credible.

3/28/2008, 12:18 p.m.

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Candikane,
Do non-Americans not have the right to laugh at what they find funny? (or horribly ironic, or absurdly preposterous) Did you think Bush was funny at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2004? The media and some members of congress sure enjoyed it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9EbssUgH...

Dana,
I am continually surprised that so many Americans don't recognize the depth of deception leading up to the attack on Iraq. Our media has really failed us on this, and threatens to do the same with Iran. With all due respect, the DoD is not a reliable source for the "unbiased information" that you claim to seek. I have been thinking about this long and hard, and am thoroughly convinced that the president and his team wanted to attack Iraq and that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" to sell it to the American people. (quoted from british intelligence meeting notes, originally reported in the Britain's Sunday Times. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk...)

There were many analysts at the CIA and among UN weapons inspectors who did not concur with the story the White House wanted to tell. The inspectors were not even allowed to complete what they expected to be insubstantial searches. They only left Iraq because Bush was about to commence bombing. (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/iss...)

A report released recently documents and discusses 935 instances of false statements by 7 senior officials of the administration, including Bush... it opens with this conclusion: "Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
(http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/)

Claims of Saddam arranging to purchase yellow cake from Nigeria was the most outright rubbish - literally fabricated to scare us all into compliance.

I strongly recommend these two films - they are chock full of analysts and inspectors who have been completely shut out of the media.

Hijacking Catastrophe
http://www.hijackingcatastrophe.org/

and

Uncovered: The War on Iraq
http://www.truthuncovered.com/

I am sorry I cannot be more open-minded. Given evidence, however, I would love to be proven wrong.

Reader1, if you're still there... I do thank you for your service, but I also encourage you to raise questions with your friends in the Green Zone about what on earth you are doing there, and how much more appropriate it would be for you to be home - knowing that doesn't make you a wimp, a traitor, or a fool. I did sense your sarcasm following the list of achievements. I'm sorry if you feel betrayed, indeed, I am sorry you have been. I will continue to work to bring you all home as soon as possible.

3/28/2008, 1:57 p.m.

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Anna - If you say something often enough and loud enough, even if it has little merit, eventually people will believe it. Sadly, this is what you are accomplishing.

3.2% with manipulated numbers. I remain unimpressed with these winter soldiers and with your feelings. Thanks for being polite with pretending to want a dialog and thanks for pretending you support the troops. I'm sure it helps them sleep better at night to know that your wonderful work will continue, especially in defense-related areas like nonukesnorth; I know that my husband, and myself feel so much safer with your "support".

I hope you fail.

Reader1: 3/28/2008, 2:18 p.m.; Suggest removal; I am not in the Green zone. And my reasons for wanting us to pull out stem heavily from the fact that I dont care what happens to the people in this region of the world. (YES, I did just type that!)
BUT, people way above my pay grade do care, so we are staying.
Sorry to burst any Obama lovers bubbles, but that socialist wont pull us out of here either.

3/28/2008, 3:56 p.m.

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I have very little hope that any administration will get us out of Iraq, pay retributions, and care for the troops adequately - which is what IVAW calls for. The people who are calling the shots and keeping us there, reader1, don't care about the people of that region either... they are just getting richer and richer the longer we stay.

It's funny (as in ironic), Dana, that you say I am accomplishing great deceit with simple repetition, since that is exactly what that report the War Card clearly demonstrates was done by the Bush Administration. Oh, what I could do with a bully pulpit! That was British intelligence officers who said the evidence was being fixed around the policy, not me, and they had plenty of evidence.

I do enjoy the dialogue, and do want to understand better what justified attacking a soverign nation that posed no threat to us... but you haven't sent me anywhere except the same tired place where all this started - erroneous National Intelligence Estimates. The film Uncovered utterly destroys the "credibility" of that document... I strongly suggest you watch it (I have a copy if you'd like to borrow it).

I never answered about what war in American history was justified - the Revolutionary War, for sure, and the Civil War. WWII as well - but if some of our most powerful investors (like Prescott Bush, GW's grandfather) hadn't been funding the Nazis, it might not have been necessary. Here is a link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep...

cheers, anna

3/28/2008, 4:27 p.m.

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We have different views here, Anna. I am willing to look at the information that you have provided me. You are against anything that may suggest a different end, and that closes the dialog because it's not dialog at that point.

But to me, this is neither here nor there. Whether George Bush lied or not (I don't believe he did yet) the more responsible thing is not to yell and scream about that; the responsible thing is to find a way out that doesn't increase the danger for our men and women. We are IN Iraq. My husband, father to my children, my friends' husbands and fathers are either over there, or going over there and what you are doing is emboldening to terrorists, and I don't like it. It is demoralizing to the troops, and I don't like that either - it increases their chance of dying.

This war TERRIFIES me Anna. But I'm not terrified out of the indignation that you seem to be feeling. I am terrified because this is VERY close to me and my life. If you want to recruit people like me to your end-goal of ending the war, I suggest you use a different tactic. This one doesn't work for me. Claiming atrocities doesn't work for me. Claiming Bush lied doesn't work for me. I don't care. Show me a way to get out that doesn't involve this type of strategy, and I'll be on your side.

3/28/2008, 8:50 p.m.

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Anna: I’m gonna go ahead and redirect you to my previous comment: “This topic pains me and I will be grateful if there comes a time when I can grapple with it light-heartedly. Right now, I can't: it feels a bit like doing so is akin to dancing on the graves of the dead.” So, when you’re done dancing, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSWh6fvsP.... To present a fallen soldier in any other way is degrading and dehumanizing. You wrote, “It’s hard for me to imagine being in the military. Impossible, of course, to do so accurately — but I try.” Try imagining you may die and someone will post your death and your family in a manner similar to the video you sent us to, ME to.

“Do non-Americans not have the right to laugh at what they find funny?” - According to you, no, non-Americans do not have that right. According to you, we should have just kept our noses out of it. We should have just let the Iraqi’s wonderful lives keep trucking along while we took their homicidal, megalomaniacal, evil dictator at his word.

War is atrocious. To argue atrocities is to trivialize the intent. America is who She is because of peaceful ideals. She was created by idealists with the courage and conviction needed to bring about a society that would preserve citizens’ rights through limited governance. She was built on the blood of soldiers and a million tears.

This is a guerilla war. Farmers kill troops. Families in cars kill troops. To say they’re unarmed is to ignore the obvious weapon, the car. I want the liberties that I have available to everyone. I think those liberties are inherent rights that have been stolen by leaders like Hussein. I think that powerful, intelligent women should revere their country because of not only the opportunities She offers, but the security as well. If you, Anna, lived in Iraq during Hussein’s reign, you would have been executed by now. You value their lives; do you value your own? The Winter Soldiers have a means to make amends for “atrocities” perpetrated against innocents; they do it through the law. They do it through chain of command, the way they were taught when they chose to defend their country and the virtues She represents.

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) website that Dana referenced is not DoD run. http://www.fas.org/about/index.html It is a non-profit, non-partisan organization created by American scientists and has 68 Nobel Laureates on it’s Board of Sponsors.

Reader1: Ms. Godduhn’s requests are seditious and dangerous.

Reader1: 3/28/2008, 9:16 p.m.; Suggest removal; Ron Paul in '08!

3/29/2008, 5:27 a.m.

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"Farmers kill troops. Families in cars kill troops." Do you ever ask yourself why so many ordinary Iraqi people are fighting to get us out of their country? Because we have no business being in their country, that's why. We're invaders and occupiers, not liberators. We are spending $11billion a month to fight farmers and families in cars, so we can privatize their oil for US companies. We're the bad guys, not the farmers and families in cars.

I have no doubt that our soldiers are fighting honorably, and that many are making the best out of the hellish situation our criminal government put them in, but that doesn't discount the fact that we are the invaders and occupiers of a nation who wasn't a threat to us. Iraq had no weapons, no connection to Al Qaeda, yet were attacked by our trillion dollar military.

Between Daddy Bush, Slick Willy, and GW, America has killed more ten times more Iraqis than Saddam ever thought of. Their hatred for us is evident when we see farmers and families in cars fighting to get our trillion dollar weapons of mass destruction the hell out of their country.

Dana VanDam: 3/29/2008, 5:34 p.m.; Suggest removal; doris - You and I have different views of bad guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVeUEABXD...

3/29/2008, 6:33 p.m.

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Doris, your logic is wrong. Ordinary people are celebrating our involvement, guerrilla warriors are breaking curfew boundaries and trying to mow down troops with cars. These are ordinary people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SrLahTbx...

Yes, there are tons of things to find on both sides of the argument, but you need to understand war, modern war and strategy before you will ever convince me that we need to get the "hell out of their country." I'm not impressed.

3/30/2008, 2:14 a.m.

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My logic is wrong? What kind of logic or good strategy is it to spend a half a trillion dollars to slaughter over a million innocent people who weren't a threat to us? Do you think we're making friends by dropping millions of bombs on thousands of babies and children? Iraqi people are human beings, who did nothing but have jerk for leader, yet you justifiy blowing them to bits and pieces in the name of strategy? Respectfully, I'm not impressed with your idea of strategy.

I think a better strategy would have been to spend that $500 billion on solar energy systems for 25 million homes instead of slaughtering innocent people for US corporate control of their oil. We'd have a half a trillion dollars in sustainable energy, not to mention 4,000 live soldiers instead of dead ones. We'd also have at least a million less new enemies. Like one general said, "George Bush is making enemies faster than we can kill them."

Military leaders have spoken out against this war in unprecidented numbers, most of whom believe this invasion was absolutely terrible strategy.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/delt...
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/200...

Anna's article was about the Winter Soldiers though, who had the courage to speak out and try to inform the American people about the war crimes they witnessed in Iraq. I believe all Americans should listen to their testimonies. They have fought for the right to be heard. Like Aldous Huxley said, "Lies are powerful, but even more powerful is silence about the truth."

Dana VanDam: 3/30/2008, 4:14 a.m.; Suggest removal; We have a differing view on what constitutes courage. What the winter soldiers have done is not courage. I stand on my earlier posts and my search for unbiased voices. With all due respect, your voice, nor Anna's, is one of these voices.

3/30/2008, 4:56 a.m.

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Nope, I just couldn't let it go. Mea culpa. I find it rather interesting that you would quote Huxley, especially since he was denied US citizenship because he was unwilling to defend America - yet he wanted in, didn't he? Pacifism is impressive in it's unrealistic idealism during times of war, isn't it? So courageous to let someone else fight for you and denounce them in the process.

If you want to convert people to your cause, it may be beneficial to quit screaming about how bad we are, how evil Bush is (especially when you are discussing this topic with people like the proud wife of an AMERICAN SOLDIER)and try a different tactic - one that is not based in rhetoric and hatred, but based in fact. Had you been paying attention to this entire thread, you would have realized that by now. Did you bother to look at anything presented to you above besides Anna's rather biased opinion? Or are you so invested in your hatred that you can't see past it?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

When they stood up to correct their country, Saddam slaughtered them.

Did you see the ORDINARY people toppling what was left of Saddam's evil regime? I did. And they were CELEBRATING as they did it! Regardless of how we got there, we're there. Saddam isn't. And most are thankful - no matter what 3% (with MANIPULATED numbers) wants you to believe.

Now. YOU go tell these people that can vote now and are building their own country without his "leadership" that WE are the evil ones and we want to take it back.

So yes, ma'am. With any due respect, your logic is WRONG.

3/30/2008, 6:17 a.m.

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Doris, here's some Huxley: "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."

What "millions of bombs," Doris? "In his address to the nation... President Bush outlines the purpose of invading Iraq: "to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger." On March 20th..." http://www.time.com/time/2007/iraq/1.htm... So, for there to have been millions of bombs that means at least two million. There have been 1835 days since the onset of the war. Which, by your testament, equates to roughly 1090 bombs per day? Doris, Iraq's about twice the size of Idaho. Prove it. Prove the "millions of bombs." I don't buy it. We're not blowing Iraqis' to bits and pieces in the name of strategy, I never said that. My using the word strategy was in relation to your skewed vision of the Iraq war and its guerrilla tactics. Re-read it.

I don't know how many times I need to tell people that I don't like this war. But I can tell you that I've spent hours upon hours researching it. I can tell you that I will never swallow incredulous garbage. Can you? Bet not. Bet you spent "millions" of hours digesting it.

YouMustBConfused

3/30/2008, 8:56 a.m.

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GOTCHA DORIS!! THEY GOTCHA!! You said "Millions" your points are now invalidated!! Yup, everything you now said is irrelevant. They win! YAAAA....very funny!

Funny if this was'nt such a sad arguement about man-kind.

Doris words like "logic" and "you are wrong" will always be used in this arena. What you need to understand is that there is a large part of this society that bought into all of this mess for very clear reasons. You dont question. It is just that simple. Logic and wrong will not and can not enter into their world.

I saw it during Vietnam. At least society from our mistakes in that war no longer blame the soldier for the decisions of a few powerful men. Hopefully we will learn a couple lessons from this war? I am always an optimist.

3/30/2008, 10:42 a.m.

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Oops, I meant millions of pounds of bombs. Sorry. $500 billion buys a lot of weapons of mass destruction.

Dana, it's odd that you hold Saddam to the Constitution, but not your own government, which is out of control in its pursuit of total, global domination. Did you visit PNAC?
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statem...

Ron Paul, the best representative we have regarding the Constitution, asked 35 questions vital questions that never got answered when the march to invade Iraq took over our country.
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congre...

That Huxley quote fits here as well. The corporate media continually ignores facts and spews what the corporate government tells them to. One miniscule, but gravely important fact they're mandated to ignore, are the coffins of dead soldiers coming home to the nation that sent them to die under false pretenses. Fact: There were no weapons. Fact: Saddam was not connected to 9-11. Fact: Iraqis do not want to be occupied by a corporate superpower.

I love my country, but I fear my government. My Marine Corps dad was a good man, but drank and abused our family. Many of his actions were wrong, but I still loved him because like most troubled humans, he wasn't all bad. By the same token, I love America, yet still hold it accountable for the evil actions it commits. My nation is abusing its power, both at home and abroad. It’s my duty as a citizen to hold it accountable for the lies it tells and the crimes it commits. That’s what makes America great, not being the corporate bully of the world.

Dana, you quote the Constitution as if the world has to abide by America's laws. It’s not our right to invade nations and kill innocent people to force them to obey the laws of our country. By that standard, why aren't we invading China, where they're killing monks and nuns and students who protest their government? Why aren't we attacking Pakistan, a known Al-Qaeda hider and Osama supporter? Why aren't we attacking Saudi Arabia, the Islamic kingdom that provided 15 of the 19 hijackers who murdered 3,000 innocent Americans?

The biggest "why" though, is why aren't we going after Osama, the murderer of 3,000 Americans? Bush said he's not even worried about him anymore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow...

Another video that puzzles me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpQdrBblw...
Three months after 9-11, Bush said he saw the first plane hit the first tower on TV, before he went into the classroom that day. Has he no shame, or has he no brain? Our president is either lying, or so stupid he can’t keep his facts straight. Where is the corporate media on this one?

I’m sorry to sound so angry, but I love my country way too much to let it think it’s ok to commit such heinous actions, even if it claims to be doing them in the name of righteousness. That’s why I support the Winter Soldiers.

DGM

3/30/2008, 11:11 a.m.

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Dana VanDam

You indicated you are the proud wife of a soldier, and I admire you for that, but still does not make you an expert and able to contradict the experiences of these soldiers. Open your eyes, quit being a lemming, turn Fox news off, and quit blindly following the war criminal we call a president. And by the way I spent a career cefenidng your right to spout your misguided views.

DGM: 3/30/2008, 11:28 a.m.; Suggest removal; oops the fingers got out of control I meant defending

3/30/2008, 11:35 a.m.

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Yow, so much discussion. I wish I had internet at home, would get into it more... but must just say:

reader1,

I reiterate that I do not encourage you or anyone to do anything illegal - but rather to consider the legality of orders you are given, including your deployment to Iraq, and disobey them if you think they are illegal.

I wish that were as easy as I make it sound.

3/30/2008, 4:28 p.m.

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It’s neither surprising nor relevant that the majority of soldiers support the invasion, as the majority of volunteers are conservative. I don’t use the ‘c’ word derogatorily. There are pros and cons to all sides of the complex issues we face as a nation.

I think it’s safe to say though, that most liberals believe the Vietnam invasion was unjust and based on lies, as was the Iraq invasion/occupation, and that our government spends too much of our money invading and exploiting other nations for their resources in the name of “freedom” while funneling the cash to war-profiteers like Dick Cheney and his buds in the PNAC gallery. Most liberals would never support those actions outright, by joining the military and becoming a part of the whole sordid scenario. (They’re a part of it in other ways, like over-consuming those exploited resources, including the labor, of the nations we corporately infiltrate.)

Most liberals also believe our representatives should vote to invest our collective money in things that support our own citizens, like truly excellent education for all, from pre-K though graduate school, libraries, community centers and viable health care, instead of a trillion-dollar, offensive military.

So in all actuality, most people who join up are of the conservative mindset from the get-go, and would naturally be less inclined to go against an administration that claims to support their ideals, even in the face of such obvious lies.

Some soldiers remain conservative, but still speak out against the crimes their government is committing and forcing them to commit. If you don't think it takes courage to speak out against something as powerful as the US military, think again. They may very well be in the minority, which makes their testimonies all the more courageous, because to go along with the conservative majority would be a much "easier" route to take.

Again, the Winter Soldiers have literally fought for the right to be heard, and America needs to listen to what they say, even if they’re in the minority. Many military commanders, generals, and diplomats have spoken out against the invasion, but the corporate media marginalizes them and brands them as unpatriotic, rather than listen to and report what they're saying, just as they're doing to the Winter Soldiers.

Did anybody watch the two videos of Bush I posted who could help me understand why he's not looking for bin Laden anymore, or why he said he saw the first plane hit the first tower on TV before he entered the classroom when that was physically impossible, and if he did see it (perhaps on closed-circuit TV or something?), why he went into the classroom at all? These two videos have never been shown on corporate media, even though they implicate grave inconsistencies in the official story of the Commander in Chief of our trillion-dollar military regarding the most grievous and influential event in US history.

3/31/2008, 10:19 a.m.

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Well, again, all of you have proven that you have nothing to offer me but your own misguided rhetoric. The winter soldiers are getting exactly what they need right now - absolution for crimes that aren't crimes, by all of you. They have freedom of speech - which they are using, but not necessarily the freedom to be heard. And, since it is speech like theirs that adds a nice, emboldening effect to terrorists I'm okay with that. To me, they aren't patriots, or courageous, or brave; there are few enough of them that makes me question the truth of what they have to say.

Doris - I wasn't holding Saddam to the Constitution - I was holding you to it. Where are the lies? I haven't found any yet.

DGM - Thanks for your service to our country, but I see you as the lemming here. (And since everything I quoted above came from Fox news, and obviously you read everything, you're right, I'm wrong - I'm such a follower!). I have stated that I would like unbiased information - I have followed the links and watched the winter soldiers. I have stated that I am open to switching "sides" (and Anna offers me a laughtrack over the bodies of dead Americans and an article blaming the Bush family for WWII - this will turn my head - it shows exactly her inability to get past Bush and how stupid she apparently thinks the rest of us are). Covering the same tired ground just won't do it for me. Anti-war propagandists like the winter soldiers just won't do it for me (they've had at least one major liar in their midsts - Jesse MacBeth, Thomas Beauchamp, anyone?). Get these soldiers under oath, get them to sign affidavits, and perhaps they'll have some credibility - until then, I don't trust them. If you want another perspective, go look at vetsforfreedom.org - but hey, I'm sure they're all misguided lemmings too who get all their information from Fox. Give me a break here.

Anna - You have no respect for the pain that others might be going through here unless they support your skewed viewpoint. Keep preaching to your converted, since you obviously have no interest in appealing to those that would seek a new conversation with a new beginning and perhaps a new end. I have no interest in what anyone has to say who would mock American soldier deaths, no matter how "altruistic" they state their goal is.

If there is anyone out there who isn't steeped in all-consuming Bush hatred, and would like to discuss possibilities of getting out of this war without causing further harm, then I am open to a dialog. If you intend to keep aiming these same tired, overused, unsupported opinions at me, or others like me, then there will be no furtherance of anything positive. Just repetition and frustration.

http://www.iraqanalysis.org/info/55

3/31/2008, 1:09 p.m.

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I am infuriated by the way that Bush made fun of the absence of weapons of mass destruction - that makes me the bad guy?? whatever. It is a rather awful video, but it strives to make the point that Bush was committing the disrespect because he just plain doesn't care about our soldiers. (just ask the folks at Disabled Veterans of America: http://www.dav.org/)

Our country is horribly polarized and understanding each other is vital to the decisions we have to make, but that stays completely impossible if we don't communicate, which gets very difficult when we have such contrary sources of information.

I have to go back to something you said a couple of posts ago, DVD...
You wrote:
Did you see the ORDINARY people toppling what was left of Saddam's evil regime? I did. And they were CELEBRATING as they did it! Regardless of how we got there, we're there. Saddam isn't. And most are thankful - no matter what 3% (with MANIPULATED numbers) wants you to believe.

Are you saying 3 % of soldiers say the Iraqis want us out? Check the polls that ask Iraqis!

Actually, I have read about the staging of that event... here is one story:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...

Yes, the proportion of soldiers in IVAW is small - but consider the strangle hold the military puts on dissenters and their families. Existing in the military as a war resister is rarely a viable option. If you don't think you can get out, you keep your mouth shut - especially if you have kids. Maybe do some research on the number of AWOLs during this conflict and their exponential increase over the last couple of years.

Those winter solders speak of cruel and counterproductive situations that many Americans recognize as war crimes, assuming we are beholden to the Geneva Conventions. The big news here is that we are - except that Bush and Cheney think they and everyone under their command is above the law, and yes, we have the most and biggest weapons, and no, we are not members of the International Criminal Court where such crimes would be prosecuted. I don't hate them for any of that, but you are right that I don't like it and I am more than a little afraid for the "soul of our country..."

3/31/2008, 1:31 p.m.

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The GI Rights Hotline is a critical resource for GIs not getting legal information they want from their chain of command.... Demand for this service has skyrocketed in recent years.

A chapter opened in Alaska a couple of years ago, and I understand they get at least a couple of calls a week. The local number is 374-2822 or toll free: 877.447.4487 any calls from the 907 area code are routed here to Fairbanks). online at www.girightshotline.org

This is from the Military Law Task Force:
http://www.nlgmltf.org/

"In 2003, the GI Rights Hotline received 30,000 calls. About 15% of those were from GIs seeking Conscientious Objector claims; 30% were from AWOLs; and the rest ran the gamut from discharge information to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS). This year the calls are coming in at a rate of 3,000-4,000 per month, not including calls directly to member organizations of the GI Rights Hotline."

3/31/2008, 4:46 p.m.

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Sorry Anna. You choose what you post - you chose one of the most offensive videos I have ever seen and then some BS about how Bush's granddad was responsible for WWII, and then expect me to take anything you have to say seriously? You didn't think that perhaps some might see something other than what you see? That some might take offense?

http://www.dav.org/news/news_20080117.ht... WASHINGTON—The Disabled American Veterans applauded President Bush for asking Congress to add $3.7 billion in emergency funds to the Department of Veterans Affairs budget. Also: The DAV thanked the President for his “willingness to provide this increase in funding for veterans programs and services as voted by a bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate and supported by the entire veterans community.” What did you want me to see here, Anna? Apparently I missed it again.

And, no, Anna, I am saying that 3% comprising the "winter soldiers" (if it's that high) may have other motives in what they are doing. At least one has been found to be a liar of the worst kind - there are no affidavits, no oaths to tell the truth - which frankly, to me smacks of dishonesty. Did you bother to look at the vet site I gave you? I highly doubt it - or if you did, you discount them and the good that they see because it doesn't fit your mold. But there IS another side here.

But okay, I'll bite. You get your dream. You see America pull out, admit we're no better than terrorists and Saddam - Bush goes down in flames and we admit that, yes, we're evil, and the rape and torture rooms can't hold a candle to us - yes, we're that bad. What happens then, Anna? How does your dream end? I'll tell you what I DON'T see: I don't see an Iraqi Chapter of the Coalition for Peace and Justice...or a nonukesiraq....

Let me repeat - if you want to change some opinions on this war, and what should be happening, then you will have to change your tactics. Do you think I want my husband in harm's way? Do you think I want more people to die - Americans or Iraqis? Do you think I like any of this? Not a chance. But not one of you has presented credible evidence that I should cease my support of my country and the military that supports us.

seven51: 3/31/2008, 5:11 p.m.; Suggest removal; DVD... So anyone that disagrees with you are evil even war veterans

3/31/2008, 10:16 p.m.

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*sigh* Yes, seven51. That's what I said. It's so apparent in all of what I have written here on this page. Everyone who disagrees with me is evil - not misguided or biased or irresponsible - but evil. Veterans are evil - did you grasp that in my offering a link to vetsforevil.org or was it my asking for facts and validity from the winter soldiers that you question?

I'm not sure what you are referring to seven51.

4/1/2008, 11:02 a.m.

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Dana, I wish I had more time... I do, very sincerely, want you to understand where I am coming from, and how rational (I think) my perspective is. However this conversation ends, please believe that - even if you still think I'm a crazy fool who is threatening our national security with her ignorant and idealistic call for no more war for oil and global "supremacy."

This quote comes from the statement from DAVs national leaders; DAV has issued many press releases over the last several years accusing the federal government (congressional and executive) of shortchanging veterans; of course they thank the president for what they are given.

"Regrettably, America's soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen have not been perceived by their government as a national priority. Year after year, sick and disabled veterans must struggle against heavy odds to make their voices heard by a government that often disregards its obligations to America's brave sons and daughters."

As for my dream... It comes from a life of believing in the possibility of a justice system where perpetrators of crimes are held accountable in pursuit of reconciliation that allows the injured to heal and the perpetrators to reform, much of which the American system does.

Following the withdrawal I described before (well organized, promptly implemented, and concurrent with releasing the thumbscrews we hold over the "sovereign" government of Iraq - allowing Iraqis to take over reconstruction and to retain ownership of their resources) the UN provides peace keeping forces (funded by the US, but not overseen by us) while an impeachment process here reveals and documents the depth of deception leading up to the war (and the whole "global war on terror" for that matter), so that America can again take a leadership role in world affairs on the side of justice.

My dream ends with self determination for the Iraqi people. Do you really doubt that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want peace? Surely we can agree that it is a small minority of any population that actually wants to be at war. And then maybe we can agree the people most interested in going to war usually derive much greater benefit from it than the people who actually fight it, even if we can't agree that that is a motivating factor.

I had not gone to the vets for freedom site for lack of time, but I have now and have to say that I would love to believe them. I don't really think they are lying, but I think they are telling a sugar coated and misguided version of the story that they probably believe themselves, and they are skirting some very important questions. I didn't see any more stringent requirements for stories than I did at IVAW, so I guess its a matter of who we want to believe.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/...

4/2/2008, 9:43 a.m.

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I guess I'm a little late with this, but "Stop Loss" is playing at the Regal... not pro-war, not anti-war, just what's happening to our troops. Here's a news story about the issue and film:

Also visit http://armystoploss.com to find out about what's going on at Ft Richardson outside Anchorage.

4/2/2008, 9:58 a.m.

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Believing people just because you want to believe them is not a rational act, Anna. Isn't that what you have been trying to get across here in these posts? That I shouldn't believe those in power just because they say so? And I am exploring! I'm still disagreeing with your findings, but I'm exploring - I'm open. I want my man home and safe. I want my country safe. I want the world safe.

What do these winter soldiers represent besides a superficial legitimatizing of your already-held view? You discount the good and see only the bad. That is your right, I got it - I still say that what you and these people are doing is irresponsible.

I, too, want world peace. I think it's a wonderful idea. But I also know that countries and leaders that allow these ideals to exist in groups and web pages are not the countries and leaders that most need to be reached. Disarming the "good" citizens while letting the "bad" go unchecked makes no sense at all - the only thing it allows is for surety of world domination by people that don't care about your rights or your ideals. It's awe-inspiring to believe in peace - and I honor you for that ideal - but it's ridiculous to think that it starts here. Maybe that is our major difference. You seem to look at America and see evil and ugly, while I look at America and I see beauty and potential. Have we made mistakes? Sure. Is there evil here? Sure. Does this mean that the country is evil? No. It's the same issue I have with the winter soldiers. Just because they claim to have had experiences with evil does not mean that it is generalizable to the entire military. I lead you back here to my initial reaction to your perspective. There is another side.

I think you, Anna, are an idealist. I also think that your hatred of Bush, clouds your vision in everything else stemming from there. That you don't see a difference in an oath to tell the truth between the two groups is further proof of this. Condemning an entire group of people on statements alone would/should not work in the real world, and I don't understand why it should work here - especially when these people are claiming such "horror" (the "atrocities" are still debatable for me...) and attributing it to the military, chain-of-command, etc. Their claims are not proof, just as the initial winter soldier was not proof. It's irresponsible propaganda, and not much else.

My entire point from the beginning, and I admit to going off track a couple of times, is that there are at least two sides to this. The winter soldiers cannot be and should not be taken at face-value.

4/2/2008, 12:57 p.m.

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The Winter Soldiers should be taken at face value, just as every soldier should be taken at face value. Soldiers are, after all, citizens who have fought for the right to be heard, no matter which "side" they're on or what they have to say. Period. ALL soldiers have the right to be heard!

Dana, did you watch 'Hijacking Catastrophe'? Did you know that not one member of the Bush administration has ever fought in a war and neither have any of their children? That was a huge issue when a Democrat was in the White House, but seems moot when Republicans wage endless war with other people and their children. Bush is shown in military gear all the time, like the preposterous "Mission Accomplished" display of testosterone-poisoning. What has he accomplished? Killing over a million innocent people who were not a threat to us, had nothing to do with 9-11, and possessed no weapons of mass destruction? The truth is, this is just the most grievous failure in a long string of failures GW has "accomplished."

So Dana, if this administration didn't lie us into war, where are the weapons they emphatically claimed Saddam had? Joseph Wilson went to Niger himself and found the story about the aluminum tubes and yellow cake uranium to be false, came back and told Bush, and Bush still used the fabricated information (lie) in his State of the Union Speech that year. (Like Johnson lied about the Tonkin Gulf incident that escalated the Vietnam invasion.) Wilson even wrote an article in the NY Times to inform the American people of the lie directly, and the administration "outed" his CIA wife in retaliation. If they had been Democrats, they'd have been arrested, tried, and convicted of treason.

The Bush administration was not "misinformed," or "mistaken" about the weapons, nor the connection. They lied many times over about the connection between 9-11 and Saddam, and about WMDs in Iraq. Then they changed their story in the middle and claimed they were invading Iraq to "liberate" the Iraqis from their terrible leader, (also a lie). If you read the 100 Rules left by Paul Bremer, you'll see that it's about corporate control over a nation who is not allowed to rule itself, unless it allows US corporate interests to run their country. Read the rules and see for yourself. They have no intention, nor did they ever have any intention of Iraq running itself. This is an invasion/occupation for the control of Iraq's resources, and has nothing to do with liberating Iraqi people, nor their threat to our security, even if our soldiers do “good things” over there.

The Bush administration doesn’t give a rat’s ass about liberating the Iraqi people. They don’t even keep body counts of the "liberated". Over a million lost lives is simply “collateral damage” to them. The Winter Soldiers deserve to be heard when talking about that “damage,” and how it has affected their lives to commit war crimes in America's name.

JoeSmith

4/2/2008, 1:38 p.m.

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"*sigh* Yes, seven51. That's what I said. It's so apparent in all of what I have written here on this page. Everyone who disagrees with me is evil - not misguided or biased or irresponsible - but evil."

He's exaggerating but there is some truth there. I've just caught up on this thread and it really seems like DVD doesn't want to hear anything but what she wants to hear.

"The winter soldiers cannot be and should not be taken at face-value."

More of the same. You don't support the troops. You support the troops that share your viewpoint. How sad.

4/2/2008, 6:22 p.m.

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No, Dana, of course, believing anything for want is not rational - you are quite right. It's not really who we want to believe, but who we can believe. I believe the Winter Soldiers because I have already seen much evidence that this war is illegal and immoral; you believe the Vets for Freedom because you have seen evidence to the contrary. We haven't seen the same evidence, or at least we have very different interpretations. That's all I meant.

I didn't hate Bush when this war started. I still wouldn't say I actually hate him – I’m scared of him and his drunk-on-power attitude. I hate his policies, and think they make me and people I love much less safe, less free, and less prosperous – not to mention the destruction of Mesopotamia, the misery of people of Iraq... I do want him impeached, but am all for Cheney first - cause I sure don't want HIM in charge! (Not that I want Nancy Pelosi - she is plenty complicit.)

I still don't understand why the Winter Soldiers shouldn't be taken at face value if the Vets for Freedom should, and agree with Doris that they all should. I do not doubt that the troops want to be doing good things and sometimes have that opportunity. I just think they were given an impossible task... and I think the people who sent them knew it was not going to be all roses and gratitude, and lied about the motives. I think they should be held accountable. Idealistic, perhaps, but isn't that the bases of our justice system: hold criminals accountable (once you are sure they are guilty). I don't want to admit we are as bad as the terrorist - I want to prove that we are NOT, that we will stop a leader who abuses power and commits crimes against humanity.

Much of my motivation comes from contact with veterans. I have a 'peace table' at UAF each week, with bumperstickers and literature, etc... No veteran has ever approached me and said I was endangering our forces, none has ever complained that I make them feel bad. To the contrary, when veterans or active members come up to the table, they tell me they are glad I'm there, they tell me I am onto something, they tell me they don't understand what we are doing there. Maybe I was presumptuous to find sarcasm in Reader1's "Can I go home yet?" and I'm sorry, Reader1, if I was, but I have talked to a lot of soldiers who resent their assignments, even if they couldn't or didn't speak out or never had to shoot anyone. I feel like I know more about the military, and certainly have more respect for soldiers, now than I used to.

The one that keeps me going, though, when I wonder why I bother, is a memory from the corner of University and Geist years ago... I was holding my favorite "THANK THE TROOPS COURT MARTIAL THE COMMANDER" sign when a man in the passenger seat of a truck caught my eye. He looked a little angry but I met his intent gaze. He held my eye as he raised his right arm and saluted me with a stump as the truck passed by. My vision blurred, but the memory never has.

4/2/2008, 8:12 p.m.

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Dana - I want your man home and safe too. I wish him the best and hope they bring the troops home soon. I appreciate his service. Just wanted you to know that. I can't imagine how you must worry. My earliest memories are of my mom waiting for my dad to come home from overseas.

I'm really sorry to be the bearer of bad news regarding your man's Commander in Chief, but I just can't sit idly by and watch them take this nation to war under false pretenses, even if they've convinced many of the soldiers we're doing the right thing. The soldiers ARE doing the right thing, but their leaders sent them for the wrong reasons.

I have a memory similar to Anna's from the protest in Washington I attended last year when 300,000 Americans marched against the invasion. (That's one in every thousand Americans who came from all over the states.) There was a retired Marine with a Semper Fi baseball cap holding a sign that said, "Send the Twins." He is not a traitor, nor is he supporting the terrorists. He was just another American veteran who had realized what a scam this whole mess is.

There are thousands of veterans and soldiers who believe this war is unjust and not only believe it should end, but that it never should have been waged in the first place.

At any rate, I hope your man comes home safely and soon.

4/3/2008, 4:44 p.m.

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Thank you for your concern. My husband and I are willing to put up with the discomfort - after all, he joined the Army knowing full well the risk, and I married him knowing the same. We'll take any prayers and real comfort offered until this job is done, with thanks and gratitude. I am hoping that it ends with victory.

That being said: We "support" the troops in different ways. I prefer to support them in ways that do not cause morale loss by baseless and unsubstantiated claims of "atrocities" - that are still not necessarily atrocities or crimes. These soldiers have the right to free speech, but not necessarily the right to be heard and the same thing applies to the vetsforfreedom. There are thousands of veterans and soldiers that think we are doing the right thing over there, too, Doris and Anna. Believe it or not, they exist, and in large numbers.

JoeSmith - I have followed every link that has been given to me here. I have researched on my own. I am finding evidence to contradict the great majority of the information presented, some of which I have offered as well. If you think that means I'm the one not open, then so be it. Just because I don't fall over fawning does not mean that I'm not paying attention; it means I disagree. This does not translate to only wanting to hear what I want to hear; it translates to show me proof that is not based in Bush hatred - proof of the claims that are being made - from atrocities to lies. I don't like George Bush. I think that he's failed in many areas. But disliking someone isn't enough to convict them of anything. It is NOT proof. Proof is by nature unbiased and related to facts.

I've seen death in this war. I've seen mistakes in this war. I've seen sorrow in this war. All of which are, sadly, part of ANY war. I have not yet seen evidence of anything illegal, or immoral in this war.

candikane: 4/3/2008, 9:40 p.m.; Suggest removal; Wow, Dana Baby, they've got you four to one, here. Methinks it's because you're more stubborn than the rest of us. Which, is good because we appreciate your voice. Frankly, I'm impressed with your patience in this. I see a whole lot of them trying to turn you and beating a dead horse in the process while you say prove it and mean it. I don't think they see that, though. I think they think you refuse to listen. I know better. Everybody else... this will never end and she will never agree unless you appeal to her logic (nor will I or others like me who form opinions through logic). She will never care what you think or how you feel because she thinks for herself and forms feelings based on those thoughts. And, she knows that just stopping this discussion may sway one single soldier into questioning his involvement, throw him off his game, and therefore end his life. So, I don't care what you think here, guys. Neither does she. We both want what's responsible. (Sorry I'm speaking so much for ya, Babe but this is ticking me off!) Just because you have the right to protest and all the rest of this Anti-American "invasion" BS doesn't mean it's responsible and ya'll should be ashamed of yourselves.

4/4/2008, 12:53 a.m.

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Dana and Candikane, sorry to beat a dead horse, but did you see the video of Bush saying he wasn't looking for bin Laden anymore and doesn't care where he is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow...
Don't you have a problem with the fact that he's not going after the guy who murdered 3,000 innocent Americans, but instead attacked a country who had nothing to do with the crime?

Don't you have a problem with the fact that Bush is best buds with the Islamic king of Saudi Arabia, the nation that supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers who murdered 3,000 innocent Americans? (They still have public beheadings there, some for the crime of being Christian. Why are we not “liberating” them from their terrible Muslim leader?)

So, if we do the math, I see it as: Osama - 1(huge point), Saudi Arabia - 15, Iraq - 0. Bush ignores Osama, parties in Saudi Arabia, and attacks a nation with a score of 0 on the responsibility scale.

That you can't see the logic of my argument, or at the very least, understand why I might question Bush's "strategy," is rather disturbing.

Candikane - I will never be ashamed of questioning a government as criminal as this one. Your personal attacks don't make your arguments any more valid. You have offered nothing to validate yours or Bush’s position, save this, in the article you posted: "Dressed in a flight suit, he [Bush] gives a nationally televised victory speech from the carrier's flight deck and declares that, "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." Are you kidding me?! All dressed-up in his fake military uniform, he claimed the mission to be accomplished! It's been five years, 4,000 dead soldiers, and over a million dead Iraqis since the testosterone-poisoned chicken-hawk claimed, "major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” Don't you question his sanity just a teeny tiny bit?! Again, you have offered nothing in this entire comment page to substantiate your position. Insults and rhetoric are not substantiation. A Pat Tillman Tribute is not substantiation. You claim we offer nothing, when we've posted link after link substantiating our position, yet you offer nothing but BS in return, telling us we should be ashamed of ourselves for questioning an administration we believe to be criminal. I'm comfortable and firm in my beliefs, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree and move on.

I'm going to end my replies with this post and with this quote that I believe to be the real issue here:
"I'd rather surround myself with those who wrap themselves in the Constitution and burn the flag, than those who wrap themselves in the flag and burn the Constitution."

Thanks for an interesting discussion. Dana, I hope and pray your man comes home quicky and safely.

4/4/2008, 2 p.m.

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I am still astounded that you (Dana) "have not yet seen evidence of anything illegal, or immoral in this war." I have not sent any piece of evidence or information that I would expect you to see as proof; rather I hoped to demonstrate that the administration should not be taken at their word, that it seems to millions of Americans that they mislead the country and the world in ways they had the capacity to know about, and that they should be investigated. I would not want them convicted without a proper trial. I do believe in that foundation of American law, unlike the administration.

I don't understand how you can simply dismiss the study of "false statements," the winter soldiers testimony, and the fact that the mission has morphed several times. Apparently we have reached a real impasse. We do not see each other's evidence, we cannot find common ground, except that we all want to war to be over. I take some comfort in that.

May I ask, if I really believe what I've been saying - that the government is guilty of war crimes and abusing the loyalty of our troops - wouldn't it be terribly irresponsible to not say so?

If even half of what I've claimed is true, how will we ever recover without acknowledging the crimes?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/i...

4/4/2008, 2:46 p.m.

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Here, the yang to the Winter Soldiers yin.

De nada.

4/6/2008, 11:19 p.m.

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Anna,

I just can't accept your premise, but even if I did, the winter soldiers' message increases hatred against honorable men and women across the globe, and that's all it does. This is why it is irresponsible - whether you believe what you are saying or not.

We are at an impasse here. I agree 100% with the link given by Reader1 - I ask that you give it a fair shot sometime in the future. Agreeing with the war is inconsequential.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040408...

4/7/2008, 7:14 a.m.

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This came in last week and I had to post it. It's from General William Odom, (retired). Is he a traitor too? Do you believe he would endanger the troops to further his ignorant, "liberal" agenda?

Dana, put the blame where the blame belongs, on the people who instigated this invasion for control of oil. THEY'RE the ones who put your man in danger under false pretenses. Not the millions who speak out against their criminal actions.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...
Also, please check out the Iron Triangle. They're running the Amerikan show with American money. It's disgusting, and no, I will not be silent when it comes to exposing the criminals running this nation.

4/7/2008, 9:41 a.m.

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Doris - You are wrong. You are acting irresponsibly. I disagree with your entire premise. You are not listening to a word that is being said by me or others like me - which is apparent by your use of "liberal" and "conservative" repeatedly throughout your posts - I avoided focusing here, and I avoided it for a reason.

It is undoubtedly your right to be wrong and to use your voice irresponsibly. I just wish you and people like you would quit saying that you are "supporting the troops" when it is obvious to me and people like me that you are not - there is a different agenda here. Agreeing with the war is inconsequential and I am not interested in the blame game that so entices you. What interests me goes beyond this to where your view, unfortunately, doesn't seem to reach.

Take care. Anyone else reading this, please read the link provided by Reader1 and go look up Vets for Freedom as to why I say what I say and believe what I believe. Thank you.

4/7/2008, 11:11 a.m.

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What could possibly make the premise that the war was 'driven by greed and based on lies' acceptable?! I assure you, I find nothing acceptable about it either!

But seriously, what would it take for you to question or criticize the government in a time of war?

They used fabricated evidence (Niger yellowcake), they manipulated and repeatedly misrepresented intelligence (WMD in Iraq, connections to terrorists), they disregarded domestic and international law (invasion of sovereign nation and destruction of that nation's civil infrastructure; lack of provision for that nation's security and humanitarian needs; spying on Americans without legal over-site, sanctioned torture, etcetera), they continue to award contracts to irresponsible corporations who have failed to meet their obligations and "lost" hundreds of millions of dollars, they continue to rewrite Iraq's laws while sustaining heavy fire and claiming that things are improving... Dozens of Iraqis and a US soldier or two die every day with no end in sight...

What would it take for you to say enough is enough?

4/7/2008, 11:49 a.m.

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I urge all of you to pick up a history book and dust it off. Every war is fought over money (wealth). We went after the Barbary Pirates (The US Navy and Marines) to protect trade routes for American business. Go look up the Banana Wars, how US Marines paved the way in Central America for the fruit industry. Read how we took Hawaii.
How Commodore Perry forced Japan to open its harbors to trade.
Its nothing new. If the price of oil were $1.00 a gallon right now I am willing to bet most of the dissenters would be silent.

After typing all that, I think our Gov. has grown too powerfull.

4/7/2008, 1:01 p.m.

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>>>After typing all that, I think our Gov. has grown too powerfull.<<<

I agree with your summary, Reader1.

The Founders, though fallible, believed in free trade with nearly all nations, yet were critical of involvement in the internal affairs of other nations.

The conflict over fruit in Central America has come back to bite us; Americans got cheap bananas, Dole paid zero export tarriffs for a long time (i.e.,exports of bananas from Honduras), the various juntas in charge in that region maintained power via the U.S. as quasi-business partner, as well as pay-offs for the dictators, often disguised as 'foreign aid', and the peasantry worked for pesos, with their land often being seized, or forbidden to own land.

The share-cropping that was dying a painful death in North America, found a home in Central America.. And the corpos LOVED it.. On your and my dime.

Who did the peasantry hold accountable, in part, when the dust kicked up?? And how was it addressed? Blood, CIA, some special forces for added flavor, and a region of the world evolved in which a significant portion of the people there now resent the U.S.

A failure to win hearts and minds, traded for a short-term advantage gained by a few wealthy executives and their share-holders. And America got cheap bananas while Dole got RICH.

(Did I mention that I don't like bananas??) ;^>)

I appreciate your libertarian roots in much of what you've written, Reader1.. The decision to get involved in other nations' inner-wokings is not a simple one.

The U.S. government had set the Kurds and others up for a modern-day 'Bay of Pigs' experience in Northern Iraq years ago, when they were ready to rock, and were left hanging in the ballance, without the support promised. That was one instance that preceded Saddam's putting the hurt on them. And we know whose chemicals he was using back then.

The pics of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam during the Bechtel chemical factory deal is more than telling. Ronnie and George Sr. apparently had different agendas then too, but Saddam was on a relatively short leash at that time.

Yes, the U.S. government has become WAY too powerful. George Washington, the country's purported 'father,' and the original 'GW', spoke strongly against a federal government that would grow too powerful. I suspect that he had good reason, despite his questionable use of the military during the Whiskey Rebellion.

And I agree; Hillary doesn't intend to bring the troops home. I'm not sure of Obama, but I can't vote for a 'D' while the 'Ds' control the Congress too; it runs counter to my belief in checks and ballances in government.

Then there's what was standard store policy when I was a kid; "You break it, you bought it."

The way I see it, GW just bought Iraq, on our dime, 'cause he sure seems to have broken it.

Hopefully it's getting fixed. But as much as it pains me to say it, we now have an obligation to fix what we've broken.

Take care.

4/7/2008, 4:11 p.m.

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Anna,
It's not an issue of "questioning my government". I have many, MANY issues with our government, from this President on down - I agree absolutely that our government is too powerful for example, and I think we should pay closer attention to US instead of anyone else, but that's not the focus for me in the here and now on this topic. How many times must I say that before you get it? My view has nothing to do with Bushlove, or supporting Bush. My opinion on him is inconsequential - he's gone within the year.

Frankly, I don't think it matters how we got there. We can't take it back - all we can do is finish it, and as Dirk says, fix what is broke (I admit I'm not convinced that Iraq wasn't "broke" before all this started, but our presence has had an effect - good according to some, bad according to others - so it's up to us to make it better, regardless). There may be hinkyness here; it's possible - no, it's probable. But that is not the point. Fix it, finish it, win it - this is what I want because I don't see another way out that helps anyone.

For me, this is a question of what to do NOW. I repeat: what you and the winter soldiers are doing increases hatred toward the US and US troops, emboldens those that seek to do us greater harm and doesn't fix anything. This is the end result of your efforts.

I ask you this, who exactly do you think is being hurt in this process? Is it Bush and the powers-that-be? Or is it honorable men and women just trying to do their job? I know the answer, and so do you, which is why I am so vehement in my opposition to you and what you are standing for.

4/7/2008, 4:51 p.m.

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My d'rothers at this point, Dana, (let's say, in a perfect world that began today), would be that U.S. armed forces be brought home. It's nearly impossible for locals to go from identifying a particular uniform or insignia as 'the invader' to viewing that same uniform as 'the rescuer' or 'saviour.' especially if folks dear to you were killed by folks in that very uniform.

Many innocents were killed during 'shock and awe,' as well as the assault on Falluja, where the Marine Corps did their thing that they're known well for doing. Even for those who wanted to see someone, somewhere, de-throne Saddam, lost family is lost family, and many see the stars and stripes insignia as being the source (many rightfully so) of their now-deceased loved one's demise.

It's very difficult for folks to see my left hand as kind and benevolent, but my right hand as lethal and swift, without forming some kind of serious distrust for my body as a whole.

That said, I'd bring home the U.S. military forces ONCE THAT THERE IS A SUFFICIENT INTERNATIONAL FORCE TO DO MOP UP AND SECURITY. (Emphasis added by upper case letters).

It will be difficult to find any large group of serious force to agree to such a task, as it really has become a mess there in many places, and none of us likes to clean up others' messes. Governments included.

Once that's done, an international body of civilian contractors and specialists might take over the tasks of rapid reconstruction. It would be into such related funds that we should contribute.

That said, ANY contractor found to be engaging in corrupt practices there, whether they be from KBR, Halliburton, or ACME of Egypt, should be tried on the most stringent of charges and terms, because abruptly quelling the atmosphere of 'let's get rich off of death' needed to happen LONG ago. Too many of the folks directly tied to this administration have filled their pockets on no-bid contracts, while American and Iraqi kids got bloodied.

On that note, Blackwater should be disnbanded, those who employed them or let contracts to them charged with war crimes, and they should never practice their destruction on the U.S. government's dime ever again, until Hell freezes over.

Folks have asked for constructive ideas, and I'll admit that my proposal is somewhat of a pipe dream for all of the reasons stated above, and more. But that's the imagery that I see in my mind when I ask, "What would help to fix Iraq, and stabilize that country at least for the time being, and hopefully for a while to come?"

4/7/2008, 5:10 p.m.

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But what if it's unwinnable because it is all a lie... wouldn't we be better off to deal with that now than in thirty years? Shouldn't we cut our losses instead of fighting to the death?

What we do now... I said above "they continue to award contracts to irresponsible corporations who have failed to meet their obligations and "lost" hundreds of millions of dollars, they continue to rewrite Iraq's laws while sustaining heavy fire and claiming that things are improving... Dozens of Iraqis and a US soldier or two die every day with no end in sight..." These things are ongoing and they are criminal acts. The next president will authorize the same if we don't stop them.

Of course I agree it is the 'honorable men and women just trying to do their jobs' that get hurt in the process, while the CEOs of the defense, securities, and oil field services industries get richer and richer, making more and more political contributions all the time...

That's exactly why we have to hold them accountable - not because I don't like them!

4/7/2008, 8:30 p.m.

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Dirk - I can't say that I am in agreement with you on all of your beliefs here (I am still processing everything I have at my fingertips), but I appreciate your perspective nonetheless. I absolutely agree that companies found to be guilty of crimes should be prosecuted in our courts. If found guilty, then the strongest punishment possible should be applied - that includes our politicians as well, but the proof has to be there. I don't agree with trying anyone in the court of public opinion. Beyond that, I too would like to see them all come home, but it needs to be done right, whatever "right" might be.

You seem to have a sound idea (although I shudder at the idea of most "international" bodies, but that's a conversation for a different day), one I can get behind, but as long as nothing positive gets out about our efforts now, then there will be no one to aid us in that effort. I understand that much of what you say has in it an inherent belief in ideas similar to Anna's, but I appreciate moving beyond that into the future, even if it's only here on this page, and even if it is for reasons different than my own. I again admit that I struggle greatly with this situation.

Anna - We are at an impasse. I agree with just about nothing that you have to say, from beginning to end. I don't accept any of your premises, from "illegal" to "immoral", from only harm to only more harm (especially since there are at least thousands of troops that disagree with you). But even if I did, as I have said many times now, this does not matter to me. It doesn't matter. You are talking yesterday and I am interested in today and tomorrow. You are talking holding the administration "accountable" while your actions don't affect them, it affects those beneath them. This is what I cannot stomach here. I don't see myself ever being able to, at least not until you find another tactic - the winter soldiers tactic offends me - I refer you, once again, to the article presented by Reader1 for the reasons why.

4/7/2008, 8:53 p.m.

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Well, I see we're still flogging the dog on this subject...

In 1947 one of my uncles was escorted to the Pentagon to receive his medals for his distinguished service as a longtime POW in Europe.
He worked as lifeline for many behind the lines, remained active as a one man resistance, and never let the "enemy" get him down..
Because uncle spoke 5 languages fluently he managed to see and hear more of "the backside" of the war than any other American..
..finally he escaped just before liberation, just to show that he always could....
...well, the meeting at the Pentagon didn't go as planned by all the BigBrass, they were gonna make him the most highly decorated soldier in the war. [Public Relations]

After a big bunch of Generals and Admirals suffered through uncle's 2hour lecture, they all quietly adjourned the meeting and hurriedly excused themselves back to their offices, locking the doors behind them.

From 1950 to 1980 uncle had a long career in a big-5 industry, but began to hit a glass-ceiling in 1966, not being able to advance beyond a regional superintendant. He made a few phone calls back to WARshington DC, and I was there the day the guys from the State Department took him out for a long luncheon meeting, that evening uncle filled me in on what was discussed....
.....[This segment of this message is redacted for reasons of National Shame, Not Security, S H A M E]

....so, even in the "Noble War" as portrayed in the History Channel, and all those old Ronald Regan movies, there are some of us who have expirenced pivotal truths of historical importance that will never be properly told.

....there are many realities in the history of militarism that are just too harsh for most good people to mentally digest.

I have personally witnessed --up close and personal-- more than one PTSD suicide. [friends who couldn't shake it and find peace with themselves]....

...so, everybody here gets a big warm hug from me, and a big kiss on the forehead.... May Peace Forever Grace Your Life

...now here's a viddy from Russian TV >>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkJsDNDVd...
I don't endorse it, just good to see things from around the world sometimes...
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?us...
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?us...
PEACE

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=4...

4/8/2008, 8:52 p.m.

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Perhaps Smedley Butler really was right? Perhaps war is a racket.

This surely looks to my eyes like serious conflicts of interest, as well as some of the most blatant of unchecked hypocrisy.

In my opinion, this is a shameful statement re. what this conflict affords some in controlling positions.

Would one visit an oncologist who invested in the perpetuation of cancer?

It seems to me that the longer this war continues, the more money these folks make, and they're in decision-making positions regarding the conflict from which they profit!

In many professions, similar conduct might literally be considered criminal, or, at a bare minimum, unethical.

Et tu??

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/ex...

4/9/2008, 4 p.m.

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I received this article today, indirectly from the American Free Press. The title is something to the affect of 'Saddam's Exile Deal Could've Saved 6 Trillion Dollars.' What it doesn't include, as it's a story specifically about the -financing- of a war (that was clearly unnecessary and avoidable), is that it could've also saved the lives of 4,000 U.S. troops, the agony of the wounded 20,000+ U.S. troops, The uncounted U.S. troops suffering combat-related mental health crises, and a very large (often debated) number of Iraqi civilians.

blownfuse: 4/10/2008, 1:54 p.m.; Suggest removal; I am thinking of the thousands that died on Omaha Beach on that first day and of the thousands who died the first day at Iwo jima. What is an acceptable price to pay for our freedom and for the survival of our Nation? Truth is we are at war with a culture that wants to destroy us with any means they can create and the media is one of their means. we can either kill them there or they will kill us here.
It is too late to consider pulling out of Iraq. Probably it was a mistake to go in there in the first place but we are there and the time for debate is long past. War profiteers are with us each day because we shop in their stores and we fill our cars with their oil. They are just a part of being at war, always have been and always will be.

4/10/2008, 2:27 p.m.

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Osama didn't crimp my freedom. The USA PATRIOT ACT, The follow-up legislation, the Homeland Security Bill(s), The NSA's warrantless spying, the suspension of attorney-client privledge, the suspension of habeas corpus, Reagan's financial disclosure laws, Bill Clinton's anti-terror laws, and a plethora of other legislation, crimped my and your freedom.

Osama was just a mass murderer. It took spineless, frightened, feeble, partisan politicians to disable 200 years of growing freedom. Politicians who apparently don't deserve the freedom that they were born with.

They don't seem to have been respecting it or using it anyway.

4/10/2008, 3:12 p.m.

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I just started reading a book by Ron Paul that is really just his speeches to the House of Reps during his career. Very Eye opening.

Since WW1 the US Government has been meddling in the worlds affairs, which is exactly what many Founding Fathers urged against. We have maintained bases in Japan and Europe for 60 years. "Protecting" them from communist Russia who we gave money and wheat. For 60 years these nations have prospered under our protective wing and the US taxpayer paid for it.

We gave weapons to Iraq and Iran so they could war. Alliances and aid in the form of weapons with Argentina AND Britain so they could war in the Falklands. The list goes on and on.

We have no business meddling in the internal affairs of any other country. We need to turn our focus inward.

When will it end?

4/10/2008, 5:10 p.m.

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The newest President of Ecuador was recently asked about his intentions to shut down the U.S. military's use of the base there, once the current lease expires. It's a base that the DEA and others have used as a sort of listening post, as well as a base from which to launch Central and South American 'interdiction' efforts.

His reply was, "When the (United States Government) permits Equador to have a military base in Miami, then they may have one here."

Similarly, I've wondered for years what would the average American voter think if Saudi Arabia's King approached our federal government, and said something like, "In our country, alcoholic beverages are illegal. Alcoholism is linked to a great number of social ills, and is forbidden as a matter of religious doctrine. We would like to provide you with 'foreign aid,' and hold you accountable through the U.N. and other bodies, in order to 'facilitate' the spraying of a significant proportion of your wheat, barley, hops, and corn crops, with experimental fungi and toxins, in order to markedly reduce the amount of these grains that are used in the evil production of alcohol."

Yet it seems that folks have fairly few thoughts about the United States government approaching Colombia's government, and offering 'foreign aid,' and other more obvious pressure, in order to achieve much the same thing in regard to their coca crops. Crops, I might add, which have been traditionally used by the cocaleros and others in that region for many generations for applications other than the manufacture of cocaine, which is more of an 'industrialized world' dilemma, than it is a problem for the regions in which it's grown.

It's a funny world, with lots of different codes of conduct for different persons and economic classes, fer' sure.

When you return to the sub-arctic Reader1, assuming that we haven't all been forced to relocate by $100.00/gallon heating oil, I, or someone here, ought to buy you a beer or two. ;^>)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdg...

4/11/2008, 12:59 a.m.

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Here's a reuter's link to an article about the Ecuadorean President's statements re. the base-closing when the lease expires.

He seems to have GW figured out pretty well, I might add.

4/11/2008, 4:20 p.m.

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Reader 1,

I do not in any way intend this to be a dig at you, but I have to answer: it will end when those in uniform refuse to do the bidding of the powers that be - at least when those civilian bosses are out of line. Again, I wish that were as easy as it sounds.

Anna

4/11/2008, 9:34 p.m.

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Yes, Anna. The world will be much safer when the servicemen and servicewomen of America "just say no". And so will Americans. Yeah.

Reader1 and Dirk - I'd love to buy you both a beer. You both have many good points and I do appreciate them. Thanks.

Dirk: 4/12/2008, 1:25 a.m.; Suggest removal; Thanks for the invitation, Dana. I appreciate it.

blownfuse: 4/12/2008, 6:04 a.m.; Suggest removal; America has been involved in the affairs of other nations long becore WW1. Teddy Rosevelt sent squadrons of battleships ("the great white fleet") to oust governments and to quel any threat (real or imagined) to our Nation's interests. Long before that we sent troops into remote regions of the world to protect our financial interests- China,Japan,Hispanola, (just to name a couple places).
This behavior increased as the world continued to shrink. Eventually the CIA was established and "spy-planes' were deployed with powerful cameras to gather intelligence without being detected. Often these actions prevented catastrophic threats to our national security (the Cuban missle crises). After WW1, America slid into an isolationist mode which of course was discarded with the attack on Pearl Harbor (the 20 years that spanned 1920-1940 was the weakest our military has ever been). From that attack, our people realized that the best way to prevent such things from occuring is to maintain a strong military and to "meddle" into the affairs of others.