why are we still over there?

[seanx]

.....besides to make as much money for corporate mercenaries and oil moguls........and other cronies of this administration (such as high ranking Israeli government officials)

....use the war monies to fix the economy and industrial/manufacturing sector so that we won't need to depend on China and other third world countries for all of our imports.....geezus, a third grader could fix this recession

oh yeah, throw a little loot towards our damn education system while their at it........


Study: False statements preceded war
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 29 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

[Mickulz]

I think now it is a simple issue of we created a huge mess and can not leave.

[seanx]

....we've created a mess that is not going to get better as long as we are there, agreed?......so what would leaving mean? civilians dying everyday? it's been happening for the past 4 years, the only thing that would change is Americans wouldn't be dying and could go be with their families again...........

[Mickulz]

Well, here is what could happen:

1) We pack up and leave.
2) Once we leave another dictator comes to power
3) The entire region becomes more unstable than it was
4) The Muslims we HAD on our side will not join us anymore.

It could lead to a rather large war that would escalate. We are at a point where a plan has to be developed for an effective withdraw that keeps results. A Jihad with the Muslims is NOT a good thing.

I do not know the answers to this question. To be honest, while the whole things bothers me, there is not much I can do about it. So I have been studying the past to see where we can learn from our mistakes. I can tell you that this is almost exactly what happened in Vietnam (Democrats trying to pull out and cutting funding). It is not a good situation either way.

There will NEVER EVER be peace in the middle east. There never has been, and there never will be. But it needs to get back to the point where it is tolerant.

Now, if you want to read something locally that will piss you off, check out the post I am about to make called "Your Friends at the DEP".

[seanx]

Anti-war veterans' group: War crimes are 'encouraged'
RAW STORY
Published: Monday January 21, 2008

At an event in Watertown, New York on Saturday, members of Iraq Veterans Against War charged that war crimes against civilians were encouraged by unit commanders.

"The killing of innocent civilians is policy," said veteran Mike Blake. "It's unit policy and it's Army policy. It's not official policy, but it's what's happens on the ground everyday. It's what unit commanders individually encourage."

Veteran Matt Howard concurred: "These decisions are coming from the top down," Howard said. "The tactics that we use, the policies that the military engages, will create situations, create dynamics, create -- ultimately -- atrocity."

Blake and Howard were among four veterans speaking at Watertown's Different Drummer Cafe, in a preliminary event to the 'Winter Soldier' gathering scheduled in Washington, D.C. in March. Named after the 1971 event in which John Kerry read testimony from soldiers on atrocities they had committed, this year's Winter Soldier will feature Iraq War veterans speaking about war crimes they committed or witnessed.

In Watertown, veteran Jon Turner blamed himself as well as the orders he was given. "It was my decision," Turner said. "I made it. Now I have to live with the fact I see someone's eyes screaming at me after I shot them."

Others have previously questioned US attacks that have killed civilians, though not as sharply.

In 2006, a Berlin attorney filed a war crimes lawsuit against erstwhile Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the International Federation for Human Rights, the Republican Attorneys' Association and more than 40 other national and international human rights groups.

Germany's federal prosecutor announced in April of the following year that she would not take on the suit.

'Collateral' deaths in Afghanistan surpassed Taliban killings in 2007
In July 2007, independent tallied show US and NATO troops were responsible for more civilian deaths in the first half of the year than the Taliban militants they were fighting.

The United Nations counted 314 civilian deaths at the hands of Western-led forces by the end of June of 2007, compared with 279 people killed by the Taliban and other militants.

The rate of Western-caused civilian deaths between January and June exceeded the same measure for all of 2006. Human Rights Watch found US and NATO troops killed 230 civilians in Afghanistan last year. In that same year, the group found at least 669 Afghan civilians were killed as a result of Taliban attacks.

Military leaders said the comparison is fundamentally unfair because civilian deaths caused by Western forces are inadvertent collateral damage whereas the Taliban militants deliberately target innocent people.

[freddyv]

seanx said:

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period.

george soros helped to fund this study. they won't disclose the other two sources of funding. from what I understand, these 935 statements boil down to one of two types: 1) weapons of mass destruction in iraq, and 2) an iraq/al qaeda link.

[freddyv]

consider the source on this one:

Interrogator: Invasion Surprised Saddam
Jan. 24, 2008
(CBS) Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.

Piro, in his first television interview, relays this and other revelations to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley this Sunday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Piro spent almost seven months debriefing Saddam in a plan based on winning his confidence by convincing him that Piro was an important envoy who answered to President Bush. This and being Saddam's sole provider of items like writing materials and toiletries made the toppled Iraqi president open up to Piro, a Lebanese-American and one of the few FBI agents who spoke Arabic.

"He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack," says Piro. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." "He didn't believe the U.S. would invade?" asks Pelley, "No, not initially," answers Piro.

Once the invasion was certain, says Piro, Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the invaders for two weeks. "And at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war," Piro tells Pelley. But Piro isn’t convinced that the insurgency was Saddam's plan. "Well, he would like to take credit for the insurgency," says Piro.

Saddam still wouldn't admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did. Because, says Piro, "For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," he tells Pelley.

He also intended and had the wherewithal to restart the weapons program. "Saddam] still had the engineers. The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there," says Piro. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD…to reconstitute his entire WMD program." This included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Piro says.

Saddam bragged that he changed his routine and security to elude capture. "What he wanted to really illustrate is…how he was able to outsmart us," says Piro. "He told me he changed…the way he traveled. He got rid of his normal vehicles. He got rid of the protective detail that he traveled with, really just to change his signature."

It took nine months to finally capture Saddam, but U.S. calculations on where he might be early on turned out to be accurate. Saddam was at Dora Farms early in the war when the known presidential site was targeted with tons of bombs and many missiles. "He said it in a kind of a bragging fashion that he was there, but that we missed him. He wasn't bothered by the fact that he was there," Piro tells Pelley.

[seanx]

On Fox News Sunday today, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked about his claim that 100 years in Iraq “would be fine” with him, he said “it’s not a matter of how long Americans stay, it’s a matter of American casualties.” “And those casualties are coming down,” added McCain.

McCain then declared that “we don’t need to have casualties” because of the “surge,” which he says is “experiencing significant success”:

One of the obligations, unfortunately of being a great superpower, is that we have to take care of the world’s security. But we don’t need to have casualties because we can succeed in this strategy called the surge, which is now, I think experiencing significant success.

Unfortunately, McCain’s claim that U.S. troop “casualties are coming down” is misleading happy talk. In reality, casualties actually increased this past month:


Not only did casualties increase in January, but the number of U.S. troops who “died from hostile action” was higher in January than the total number of casualties in December 2007.

In declaring “significant success” in Iraq, McCain appears to be using the Bush administration calculus that says increasing levels of violence are equal to “signs of success.”