"Attacking Iraq - Countdown Timeline"

Very interesting timeline. The lock is at 29 days and counting down, see Nov. 5th.

Attacking Iraq - Countdown Timeline

More evidence showing that the U.S. ignores the U.N. when convenient but attempts to use it for it's own purposes when it needs the world body.

United Nations - In making the case for military action against Iraq for its defiance of UN resolutions, President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have repeatedly argued that the credibility of the world body is at stake.

...

However, a handful of countries, including U.S. allies, are violating scores of Security Council resolutions without facing any threat of military reprisal. Stephen Zunes, an associate professor of politics at San Francisco University, counts more than 90 resolutions being violated by Israel, Turkey, Morocco, Cyprus, Armenia, Croatia, Indonesia, Sudan, Russia, India and Pakistan.

"The main point is that Iraq is not alone in violating UN resolutions," said Zunes, who compiled the list for the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal-leaning Washington-based think tank. "And ironically, in 80 percent of the cases, the violators receive substantial military, diplomatic and monetary support from the U.S."

The two top violators are Israel, which has failed to comply with 32 resolutions since 1968, and Turkey, which has violated 24 resolutions since 1974, according to Zunes' list.

...

Since the early 1970s, the United States has used its veto nearly 50 times, more than the four other permanent council members combined. In most cases, the United States cast the only dissenting vote.

Zunes said the United States, with its frequent use of its veto power and failure to force allies like Israel and Turkey to abide by UN resolutions, appears hypocritical to the rest of the world by threatening Iraq with force.

"The U.S. appears smug and self-righteous by arguing that violations by a country we don't like harm the credibility of the UN," Zunes said. "Meanwhile, we ignore violations by U.S. allies."

Art of Resolution Conflict - U.S. uses the U.N. for it's own purposes.

Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation: "The hypocrisy in this speech -- and in the Bush Administration’s overall national security strategy -- is monumental. If having weapons of mass destruction and a history of using them is a criteria, then surely the United States must pose the greatest threat to humanity that has ever existed. While Bush warns that 'we cannot wait for the final proof.... the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,' his September 2002 National Security Strategy states that 'America will act against...emerging threats before they are fully formed....by acting preemptively.' And his top-secret Nuclear Posture Review, leaked to the New York Times earlier this year, reveals that 'U.S. nuclear forces will continue to provide assurance.... in the event of surprising military developments....Current examples of immediate contingencies include an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors....' It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to predict that if Iraq is attacked by the U.S. it might launch whatever it has at Israel -- itself a nuclear power. Further, while the U.S. is massively expanding its biological weapons research capabilities ­ for example by upgrading its bioresearch facilities at the Livermore and Los Alamos Nuclear weapons labs to aerosolize live anthrax and genetically modify bioorganisms ­ it is blocking a protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would allow international inspectors into U.S. facilities. The Bush Administration’s unilateral headlong rush to war threatens to unleash unprecedented regional instability and potentially catastrophic loss of life. It’s hard to image a more self-destructive course of action."

Analysis of Oct. 7th George W. Bush Speech in Support of War with Iraq

The 6th largest 'unauthorized' nuclear power in the world is in violation of UN resolutions for 30 years, threatens to use their nuclear weapons on neighboring countries, refuses to allow weapons inspectors, arrests those who provide information on their nuclear capabilities while sending spies to the US to keep an eye on us. Iraq? Israel.

[ Originally from misterbaabu. . . You see, Israel is our bitch and as long as they behave and act like a good little U.S. client state we'll be sure to allow them to do whatever they want. --Rek ]

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israel's arms inspector

In a contentious, closed-door Senate hearing today, agency officials refused to comply with a request from the committee for a broad review of how the intelligence community's clandestine role against the government of Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites) would be coordinated with the diplomatic and military actions that the Bush administration is planning. "

Yahoo! News - C.I.A. Rejects Request for Report on Preparations for War in Iraq

Mass convergence in SF against war on Oct. 6th. Be there.

Not in Our Name Bay Area

"Anti-war protestors assemble at the start of a mass rally in London to oppose a military strike on Iraq, September 28, 2002. Joint organizers Stop the War Coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain estimated at least 100,000 were participating. "

Stop the War Coalition

[ Originally from Hijexx ]

Well Rek, you just HAD to go and prod a recovering leftist cynic, didn't ya? :P

...

Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid-September [1990] that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.

But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border -- just empty desert.

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The White House is now making its case to Congress and the public for another invasion of Iraq; President George W. Bush is expected to present specific evidence of the threat posed by Iraq during a speech to the United Nations next week.

But past cases of bad intelligence or outright disinformation used to justify war are making experts wary. The questions they are raising, some based on examples from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, highlight the importance of accurate information when a democracy considers military action.

"My concern in these situations, always, is that the intelligence that you get is driven by the policy, rather than the policy being driven by the intelligence," says former US Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana.

...

"That [Iraqi buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn't exist," [Jean] Heller[The journalist who broke the story --Hijexx] says. Three times Heller contacted the office of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (now vice president) for evidence refuting the Times photos or analysis -- offering to hold the story if proven wrong.

The official response: "Trust us." To this day, the Pentagon's photographs of the Iraqi troop buildup remain classified.

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"This is not a problem unique to George Bush. It's every president I've known, and I've worked with seven or eight of them," [Lee] Hamilton says. "All, at some time or another, used intelligence to support their political objectives.

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The elites in society cannot be subtle any longer thanks to the scrutiny of collective consciousness. I disagree that elites have never enjoyed such incredible control in history.

[snip]

Please do not meme my commentary... Thanks.

[ Clarification: "incredible control" is not necessarily a reference to the level of control as much as it is a reference to the amazing manner in which it is gained now. Before it was so brute force. "Don't follow orders and you get shot." Now it's really crossed a serious threshold where people still feel that they are "free" and have some kind of say in the way the society runs. In fact, they are usually being led around by the nose. As this article quite accurately shows. --Rek ]

In war, some facts less factual

The draft resolution George W. Bush sent to Congress on September 19 might as well have said that, for much of the reasoning underlying the resolution -- the whereases -- seemed to be cover for an over-eagerness to go to war. "

Bush Draft Resolution Rings False

But new deadly challenges have emerged from rogue states and terrorists. None of these contemporary threats rival the sheer destructive power that was arrayed against us by the Soviet Union. However, the nature and motivations of these new adversaries, their determination to obtain destructive powers hitherto available only to the world's strongest states, and the greater likelihood that they will use weapons of mass destruction against us, make today's security environment more complex and dangerous."

Sigh. More righteous BS designed to inspire "patriotism," nationalism, and create justifications for the U.S. government's continued world domination.

Ask yourself: Who really is the Rogue Nation here?

Looking at their bullet points about what constitutes a "Rogue Nation" we have:

- brutalize their own people and squander their national resources for the personal gain of the rulers;

Well, I suppose the first part of this statement doesn't apply for the most part, but you could probably argue that the latter applies to the U.S. Regardless, this is probably a minor point.

- display no regard for international law, threaten their neighbors, and callously violate international treaties to which they are party;

Ah, yes, this definitely sounds like the U.S. with the exception of threatening their neighbors. Mexico and Canada have been well in hand for over a century now so there really hasn't been a need. However, the U.S. seems ready to operate unilaterally, with no regard for treaties or international law at the drop of the hat. Certainly the U.S. categorically rejected the International Criminal Court. Also, numerous U.N. resolutions, particularly those involving Israel and Palestine. See here for additional information:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/UN/usvetoes.html

- are determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction, along with other advanced military technology, to be used as threats or offensively to achieve the aggressive designs of these regimes;

In other words, anyone with a threat to the U.S.'s already established weapons of mass destruction and other advanced technology that have been used to aggressively maintain U.S. inter... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Bush's new manifesto