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posted by Ron at 2:17 PM
Real America
The only thing we have to fear is fear its self. Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror
Sunday, September 18, 2005
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- Name: Ron
- Location: Roswell, New Mexico, United States
A radio broadcast veteran, a father of 2, a son, a brother,a friend and a child of God.
9 Comments:
all your quesions have been answered ron
A Brish Colonel's Assessment of the War, from the London Observer:
"This is a mess of our own making."
Tim Collins told his troops this was a war of liberation, not conquest. Now he says that he was naive to believe it
Sunday September 18, 2005
The Observer
When I led my men of the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment across the border into Iraq we believed we were going to do some good. Goodwill and optimism abounded; it was to be a liberation, I had told my men, not a conquest.
In Iraq I sought to surround myself with advisers - Iraqis - who could help me understand what needed to be done. One of the first things they taught me was that the Baath party had been a fact of life for 35 years. Like the Nazi party, they said, it needed to be decapitated, harnessed and dismantled, each function replaced with the new regime. Many of these advisers were Baathists, yet were eager to co-operate, fired with the enthusiasm of the liberation. How must it look to them now?
What I had not realised was that there was no real plan at the higher levels to replace anything, indeed a simplistic and unimaginative overreliance in some senior quarters on the power of destruction and crude military might. We were to beat the Iraqis. That simple. Everything would come together after that.
The Iraqi army was defeated - it walked away from most fights - but was then dismissed without pay to join the ranks of the looters smashing the little infrastructure left, and to rail against their treatment. The Baath party was left undisturbed. The careful records it kept were destroyed with precision munitions by the coalition; the evidence erased, they were left with a free rein to agitate and organise the insurrection. A vacuum was created in which the coalition floundered, the Iraqis suffered and terrorists thrived.
One cannot help but wonder what it was all about. If it was part of the war on terror then history might notice that the invasion has arguably acted as the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda ever: a sort of large-scale equivalent of the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry in 1972, which in its day filled the ranks of the IRA. If it was an attempt to influence the price of oil, then the motorists who queued last week would hardly be convinced. If freedom and a chance to live a dignified, stable life free from terror was the motive, then I can think of more than 170 families in Iraq last week who would have settled for what they had under Saddam. UK military casualties reached 95 last week. I nightly pray the total never reaches 100.
The consequences of this adventure may run even deeper. Hurricane Katrina has caused a reappraisal of the motives and aims of this war in the US. The storm came perhaps in the nick of time as hawks in Washington were glancing towards Iran and its newly found self-confidence in global affairs. Meanwhile, China and India are growing and sucking up every drop of oil, every scrap of concrete or steel even as the old-world powers of the UK and US pour blood and treasure into overseas campaigns which seem to have no ending and no goal.
It is time for our leaders to explain what is going on. It was as a battalion commander trying to explain to his men why they would embark on a war that I came to public notice. The irony is that I made certain assumptions that my goodwill and altruistic motivations went to the top. Clearly I was naive. This time it is the role of the leaders of nations to explain where we are going and why. I, for one, demand to know.
ยท Colonel Tim Collins gave a celebrated speech to his troops about their mission to liberate, not conquer, in Iraq. He has since left the army.
submitted by Lonna
Well as much as I hate to say this theses Hurricanes are Karmic Lessons that some people have to learn and experience , some more than others and This next one will have to hit Texas ..Im sorry but in the Mystic World we see lots of this .
Light and Love
The Mystic World....
The best world.
Who loves you, anyway? *smile*
This is for The Game and his crowd who crow about how badly John Kerry lost to Bush (NOT) and the Kerry supporters who are p'd off because Kerry lost (did not).
The info is from "17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists" (11/5/04)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-11-05
Assuming there was no election hanky panky (like sure!)
Bush did NOT win in a landslide.
The 3 1/2 mil. margin was the narrowest for any sitting president since 1916.
Kerry NOT Bush got the youth vote (54% to 44%)
Kerry won in Michigan, 6 of the Great Lakes states, the entire NE, the West Coast, and Hawaii.
Over 55 million people voted for "the candidate dubbed the # 1 Liberal in the Senate" (more than the total votes for Reagan, or Bush I, or for Bill Clinton, or for Al Gore.
Granted, Kerry shouldn't have conceded so early. Maybe he did because we were at war and he didn't want to put the country through a protracted election fight like in 2000. Unlike, Bush who took office twice after questionable elections, John Kerry has honor. (He is a class act while Bush has always been the class clown.)
Granted, Kerry could've done things differently and fought harder. He has admitted this. But he and Mary Beth Cahill must have done something right or the election would not have been so close. Plus, look at the vicious attack campaign Bush ran full of lies and smears rather than focusing on the issues. Look at the voting irregularities, the problems with early voting, registration, the many extra votes Diebold's electronic voting machines gave to Bush, and the inadequate numbers of voting machines in predominately democratic precincts, especially Black ones. The exit polls showed Kerry was going to win. I totally believe Bush's people stole the 2000 election and the 2004 election. This is America, people, not some fascist 3rd world nation where democracy means nothing.
The Bushies need to wake up, for God's sake and the Democrats need to stop bashing their guy, Kerry. One of the main reasons, the GOP beats us is that we fight among ourselves. This time we were all united behind one guy, even if the only reason for some is that they didn't want Bush to get in.
I'll vote for whoever gets the Dem nomination, but I'm still rooting for Kerry in '08. They (probably the military industrial complex) killed JFK and Bobby so we'd have to stay in Vietnam. Teddy can't run because of Chappaquidick (plus they'd kill him, too). Who knows if another Kennedy will run again? Kerry is probably the closest we'll ever get to a Kennedy but better. I don't want a swaggering bully who thinks the rich are entitled to everything and has no intellectual curiousity, etc. I want Camelot! Kerry gave me hope, and Bush only fills me with anger and despair. Remember the analogy of the single stick and the bundle of sticks. We must stick together or they'll beat us for sure.
Speaking of Michael Moore-check out his latest letter on his site. Very very good.
www.michaelmoore.com
Well, this is coffee table, so here goes...
Eye on Symbols: GEORGE W. BUSH AND THE SEAL OF ATLANTIS
Check out the other ones on the page too.
Interesting....
Speaking of Atlantis-quite some time ago, one of the off the wall tabloids did a story claiming Bush was the reincarnation of an evil Atlantean emperor. Seems to me that he works for the latter instead (DC).
Not that I normally would look at tabloids which are mostly full of half baked lies, but have noticed the covers and how seldom it is that they dare to make up anything about the Bush Family. Even the tabloids have lost freedom of the press, it seems.
Actually, I've heard the same, but not from a tabloid...
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