Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com | Fri Sep 27 01:43:11 2002

Heh. You oughta watched Four Corners a couple of months back; a real bunch of colourful characters.

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Fri Sep 27 06:01:20 2002

This is the sort of post where I usually chime in, right...?

Two Iraqis in favor of 'regime change': http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg01661.html http://www.salon.com/people/interview/2002/09/06/salih/index.html

Khazraji is supported by the two main Kurdish parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, and says the allegations against him were invented by Iraqi intelligence: http://www.rferl.org/iraq-report/2002/02/7-220202.html

I don't know Salihi's story, but his book is here (in Arabic): http://www.nahrain.com/d/culture/zilzal/

Chalabi's bank in Jordan was seized by the king, who was allied with Saddam at the time: http://209.50.252.70/p_en/news/archives/00000370.htm

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Fri Sep 27 06:47:25 2002

Let's see, what else do I have? 'Rice says US will rebuild Iraq as democracy', so it's her word against the Sunday Herald's: http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1031119542559&p=1012571727172

Glen Rangwala, cited at the end of the Sunday Herald article as the one who actually did the research, is one of the organizers of the Cambridge-based Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. The sanctions story is one that I haven't figured out yet. Even The Economist once said in an editorial that sanctions on Iraq had killed hundreds of thousands. But somehow I doubt that that is the *purpose* of the sanctions. So what's going on? http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/ http://www.reason.com/0203/fe.mw.the.shtml

Finally, in my opinion it is very likely that Saddam coauthored 9/11 with Osama, the anthrax letters being his contribution and intended as a warning of what the next escalation will bring, and that the Bush administration has worked hard to keep people

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Fri Sep 27 06:50:03 2002

... from piecing this together. If that's true, it means that all the commentators, pro-war as well as anti-war, are missing the big picture. Everyone thinks it's all about sizing up the pros and cons of a 'preemptive strike', but if I'm right, Saddam already made the first strike.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Fri Sep 27 08:10:57 2002

Is there any evidence of Iraq having conducted operations against America (other than during the Gulf War), or of Iraqi agents operating on U.S. soil?

Saddam's a nasty piece of work alright, but there's a big leap from that to being a comic-book villain.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Fri Sep 27 11:18:57 2002

Anyway, Mitch: the main problem with your argument that Iraq has been attacking us, Bush is covering it up for our own good and we must go to war against Iraq without knowing the real reasons except that they are true and just, is that it requires one to place a lot of faith in the integrity and good will of the Bush administration. And the history of Bush and the people he has surrounded himself with does not inspire that sort of trust.

Posted by: gjw | http://the-fix.org | Fri Sep 27 15:06:42 2002

Trust = Patriotism. Or vice versa. I like it that one of the statements in the famous Political Compass test is "I shouldn't have to be proud of my country because I didn't have a choice about where I was born."

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Fri Sep 27 15:31:11 2002

see also: "this is not the time for discussion, this is the time for unity."

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Sat Sep 28 07:21:44 2002

Officially: "The regime has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 in Kuwait." http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2441.htm

Unofficially, Iraq has long been suspected of abetting the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and perhaps the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, by providing operatives and bomb-making expertise. For the evidence, see the work of Laurie Mylroie and Jayna Davis, respectively. Mylroie's work, especially, has been touted by senior figures (Woolsey, Perle, Wolfowitz). http://www.cato.org/events/transcripts/010226et.pdf http://www.cato.org/events/transcripts/011213et.pdf

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Sat Sep 28 19:43:09 2002

The key word seems to be "suspected". And given that the people pushing the allegation have an agenda (taking control of Iraq for strategic/economic reasons), I'm less than ready to believe.

Posted by: sam | http://www.humbug.net | Sun Sep 29 16:46:06 2002

The whole patriotism thing ticks me off to no end. I completely agree with that Political Compass question. I'm a citizen of earth, if anything. _That_ should be where our allegiences are.

If people stopped being so damn patriotic about their countries then maybe we could get some real peace happening in the world. Maybe then we could solve some real problems like the fact that we're slowly but surely destroying the earth, and what are we going to do about it?

Posted by: Ben | http:// | Mon Sep 30 15:04:57 2002

My contacts in the Illuminati seem to be indicating that the US will try and merge (most of) Iraq with Jordan, the King of Jordan is a distant cousin of the last King of Iraq, which makes it all OK I suppose. Give the snoozemedia a few weeks to pick up the crumbs.

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Tue Oct 1 01:46:10 2002

I think the main reason to doubt the theory that Iraq is being targeted opportunistically is the enormous risk that such a war entails. Iraq has doggedly pursued NBC weapons for years, the weapons inspectors have been gone for ages, etc. If Iraq is being targeted for purely strategic reasons (and not because it's believed to have had a hand in 9/11), I am quite sure that those are anti-terror reasons, not secure-the-oil reasons. Before the 1991 Gulf War, I suppose the greatest fear was that Iraq would become the nucleus of a hostile new superpower - a pan-Arab state with Stalinist politics, nuclear weapons, and control of all the oil. If that's less likely today, it's only because so many of Iraq's neighbors have armed themselves as well. The new strategic feature is the existence of terrorists willing to kill thousands and with at least limited access to biological weapons. That's the reality that the 'war on terror' is meant to reverse.

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Tue Oct 1 02:22:04 2002

http://www.stratfor.com/fib/fib_view.php?ID=206509 It would be funny if *Jordan* of all places came out the big winner. It looks ultra-vulnerable, a small country stuck between Israel and Iraq. But Jordan's Hashemite dynasty ran Mecca for a thousand years, the queen is Palestinian, and there was even a Hashemite king in Syria for a few years. No doubt there's a few big thinkers in Washington who hope that a generalized Hashemite restoration will solve all their problems. Apparently this was the British plan in 1918, but then Ibn Saud came along: http://www.nationalreview.com/02sept02/pryce-jones090202.asp

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Tue Oct 1 06:30:36 2002

I dispute the "enormous risk" theory. It is well documented that those most in favour of war on Iraq are "chickenhawks" withg no military experience, and a poor comprehension of the costs and risks entailed; meanwhile, career military personnel have opposed the war precisely because of such risks.

Not to mention that it's easier to take risks when they don't personally affect you, but are presented in statistical/numerical terms (troops lost, probability of terrorist attacks, &c.) Cheney (who some say is running the show) is safely ensconced in his undisclosed location, beyond the reach of any personal danger, which makes planning World War 3 a lot more like playing Civilization.

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Tue Oct 1 10:34:04 2002

Cheney said recently, "The risk of inaction is far greater than the risk of action". So there you have his assessment, right or wrong. Yes, war against Iraq could (in a number of ways) precipitate the terrorist use of WMDs it's meant to prevent, but "the risk of inaction" is greater.

I favor the idea that we *already* have a Cold-War-like M.A.D. stand-off between the USA and the 'terror masters', except that it's nuclear-vs-biological - this is the meaning of the anthrax. The main problem I see for this idea is that the USA went ahead and bombed the Taliban, and no large-scale retaliation-by-anthrax occurred. There are various possible explanations for this, but it does cast some doubt on the "secret M.A.D. theory".

However, if we accept the theory for a moment, it puts all the American saber-rattling in a different light. The USA and the USSR constantly planned for nuclear war against each other; they never actually did it; but all that planning and threatening was a lively aspect of their struggle.

Posted by: mitch | http:// | Tue Oct 1 10:35:51 2002

... Here, I suggest, the mutual ultimate threats are "direct attack on a rogue state" and "doomsday terrorist offensive". Both threats will continue to be threatened and prepared, but so long as a situation of M.A.D. exists, the real struggle will take place on lesser planes, until one side or the other gives in.