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New Reason for War

So, Iraq Begins Destroying Banned Missiles, but now the rules have changed:

Spokesman Ari Fleischer said that to avoid a war, Iraq needed not only to disarm, but also to change its leadership.

Wait a second. Now we are going to war because Bush doesn't like someone? At least the White House is now being honest.

* Condi Rice requested the surveillance operation of Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York; including interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York. This really hampers any ambition she might have toward elective office in the future. Isn't there a law against this?

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Jerome Armstrong on Mar 1 @ 3:44 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Well, I'm glad someone else noticed this new condition for peace.

Posted by: WVUDemocrat on March 1, 2003 04:49 PM

These people are amazing

Posted by: TSE on March 1, 2003 05:00 PM

Saddam was supposed to completely disarm within 90 days from the date of the agreement. That was 12 years ago. Is the lunatic fringe that naive? No, they just say anything to oppose Bush. Even the lunatic fringe knows that Saddam is a time bomb. They would just pass on the problem to the next guy just like Clinton did. We now know how high that cost can be in innocent American lives. Bush knows that its better to pay the necessary cost of war now. I agree with him.

Posted by: on March 1, 2003 05:19 PM

How long till Bush just says he going in for the oil to fix our economy and lower gas prices to below a buck.... and the ratings would go up!

Posted by: JB on March 1, 2003 05:32 PM

They would just pass on the problem to the next guy just like Clinton did.

Just for the record, our President's father and his Republican cronies were the first ones to pass the problem along.

As well as fund and arm him.

Posted by: Matthew on March 1, 2003 06:32 PM

Does anyone else sense the domestic and international tide turning on these lying crusaders?

Posted by: Carl Wiglesworth on March 1, 2003 06:54 PM

Yea Carl, I get that sense, even the Freepers see that this has turned into a fiasco, some still want to believe that things aren't spinning wildly out of control, but the cracks are evident:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/854593/posts

Posted by: JB on March 1, 2003 08:09 PM

Blair gives go-ahead for war without UN
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=259742003

Leaders of the anti-war Labour MPs - who last week rallied 122 party colleagues to oppose Blair and support a claim that the case against Saddam was "not yet proven" - have warned that the mutiny would be much larger if the Government went to war without a second resolution.

Graham Allen, a former Labour whip, claimed that 21 Labour MPs who abstained in the vote on Wednesday would join a revolt if Blair failed to win UN backing , while about 50 who supported the government would change sides.

Blair’s high-risk strategy would also awaken the prospect of ministerial resignations by senior party figures including Robin Cook and Clare Short.

Scotland on Sunday understands that powerful voices in the Bush administration are arguing that an invasion should begin in the next 10 days, as the US loses hope of healing its diplomatic rift with France.

Diplomatic contacts between Paris and Washington DC have grown increasingly frosty, culminating in an acrimonious telephone call between President Bush and President Chirac early last week, which ended with Bush saying firmly: "President Chirac, we will not forgive and we will not forget."

Posted by: JB on March 1, 2003 08:18 PM

Saudi envoy in UK linked to 9/11
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/story/0,1320,906034,00.html

But Turki is not what he seems. Behind him lies a murky tale of espionage, terrorism and torture. For, while Turki has many powerful friends among Britain's elite, he is no ordinary diplomat. Turki has now been served with legal papers by lawyers acting for relatives of the victims of 11 September.

They accuse him of funding and supporting Osama bin Laden. The Observer can also reveal that Turki has now admitted for the first time that Saudi interrogators have tortured six British citizens arrested in Saudi Arabia and accused of carrying out a bombing campaign.

Posted by: JB on March 1, 2003 08:19 PM

I suppose this is a step up---straightforward armed regime change as opposed to assasination (Chile, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq) and supporting military regimes that kill thousands of its own people as we did all over Latin America (30k in Guatemala alone, I believe) and Indonesia and Iran and...the list is long. 200+ armed American incursions since the end of WW2. No more screwing around, starting with Iraq we just say you're in, you're out...except it's not a "we" any more. We have no voice in this, not since the National Security Act of 1947 (or '49?)..did we the people or our congressional reps ever vote or even debate to assasinate the Iranian PM and install and absolute monarch dictator (Shah) as an example? Nope. What some of the clowns on the right who refer to war opposition as the lunatic fringe would have all Americans do is close our eyes to our own history. The wonderful example of our founding fathers has not been our mission to support elsewhere (name just one, right wing fringe)---not with Somoza, not with Faisal, not with Batista, not with the Shah, not with Hussein, not with Noriega, not with a long long list of militaristic thugs and dictators who reported to our secret boys and if they strayed, like Noriega or Hussein, they get taken out. I happen to love our country immensely, our Constitution in particular, and what this clique from Bill Casey on has done is sell out our revolutionary democratic ideals.

Posted by: Al Alessi on March 1, 2003 08:21 PM

US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html

Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members

The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.
Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.


The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia.

Dated 31 January 2003, the memo was circulated four days after the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix produced his interim report on Iraqi compliance with UN resolution 1441.

It was sent by Frank Koza, chief of staff in the 'Regional Targets' section of the NSA, which spies on countries that are viewed as strategically important for United States interests.

The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have been requested by President Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations.

The language and content of the memo were judged to be authentic by three former intelligence operatives shown it by The Observer. We were also able to establish that Frank Koza does work for the NSA and could confirm his senior post in the Regional Targets section of the organisation.
.........................................

This is a "top secret" memo. Someone in the US State Department leaked the document. Condi Rice is running for Governor in California after this! Yea right!!

Amazing what you can learn by reading the news outside the US.
.........................................

Posted by: JB on March 1, 2003 08:26 PM

THis is a top 10 match-up!

......................................
Television viewers across the Arab world were able to see Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, cursing Kadhafi at the summit before Egyptian state television pulled the live feed from the conference hall in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
"Who exactly brought you to power?" the Saudi royal asked the Libyan leader, alluding to suggestions that his 1969 overthrow of the British-backed monarchy enjoyed US support.

"You are a liar and your grave awaits you."

The Saudi leader lashed out after Kadhafi roundly criticised the kingdom's support for the United States at an Arab summit dedicated to US-led war threats against Iraq.

The Libyan leader had charged that Saudi Arabia's King Fahd had been ready to "strike an alliance with the devil" to defend the kingdom after Iraq's 1990 invasion of neighbouring Kuwait.

The exchange prompted a brief walkout by the Saudi delegation and a break in television coverage from the summit until Arab League chief Amr Mussa introduced the closing resolutions.

Posted by: JB on March 1, 2003 08:32 PM

"Is the lunatic fringe that naive?" Right wingers love to toss this phrase around to abase liberalts when it comes to members of the peace movement. Did you not personally know that the numbers of church groups marching against this war has been increasing. Do you not know that members of Bush's own church congregation have been to the marches and protests? Does this mean that W himself is a member of the lunatic fringe?

John Jimenez

http://www.draftgore.com

Posted by: Shadow-Eyes on March 1, 2003 10:28 PM

Any US press coverage of Condigate? I expect if there is, it;ll show up on the talk shows tomorrow. If the Guardian story is more or less accurate, this will be received as a scandal of huge proportions abroad. I expect it would sink any chance of the US sponsored resolution getting a majority in the Security Council.

Posted by: desmoulins on March 1, 2003 11:29 PM

I believe the lunatic fringe does not reside on the left. Quite frankly the lunatics named Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have a lot more sway with our mainstream policies than anyone considered a leftist "lunatic".

Posted by: WVUDemocrat on March 2, 2003 03:16 AM

Re. State of UK Labour Party.
Blair has been on the offensive this weekend, insisting amongst other things, that if the US were not taking the tough line they are, he would be urging them to do so. It still comes down to a question of him saying - you, the public, have to trust me. There is not much sign that this message is catching on.
It is all, domestically, going to depend now on the second resolution. This is unfortunate since, whether the war is legal or not leaves aside the many unanswered questions - what is going to happen afterwards, how will we make sure we secure any putative weapons Iraq may have, not to mention the many innocents who will die.

Posted by: uklibdem on March 2, 2003 07:44 AM

"Any US press coverage of Condigate?"

Nope, a media blackout. Drudge reported it last night, calling it a smear, and implying it was faked.

Posted by: JB on March 2, 2003 10:47 AM

"Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members"

The gullible lunatics repeat any off the wall bullshit story as fact.

Get a clue!!

Posted by: oly on March 2, 2003 10:54 AM

I read about Condigate here and then came across it on the Guardian/UK site. I do believe it is true. Reason, because this is a pro-business administration and business has been spying for years. Originally they used to spy on their competitors, then they started spying on local citizens' groups and environmentalists who were causing them trouble. I swear that I have first hand knowledge of this. It wasn't very high tech always, and for goodness sakes, NSA has the power to spy on every American resident, it just isn't cost-efficient or practical at present to do so.

But to use those resources to check up on the thinking or actions of those key UN missions representing the swing votes at the UN, heck I'm sure they did.

Speaking of press blackout. I do think that it's time that we started trying to get more people to talk back to major network news shows when they take unproved assertions by Colin Powell or Bush and thrust them as fact at any guest that have one who is the least bit critical of the Bush war policy etc. It is going to take some numbers to get through.

Face the Nation this am was a good example, interview with Howard Dean, Bob Shieffer's sidekick talked about the "little vials" and at the end of the program Mr. S gave an editorial: "well I think Sadaam IS a threat".
I don't think anchors or interviewers should editorialize. (Well duh)

Posted by: acorn on March 2, 2003 08:56 PM
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