The Prevailing Wisdom versus the Truth

[Selene]

Rodney:

I agree with you that the path chosen by the administration may not have been the best option.

However, this is again with nine (9) years of rear view mirror information.

My choices of action would probably seem much more insane to most folks.

At any rate, I think your analysis is missing one key fact, in that you suggested "...a deep soul searching by our society as to why people have such hate for us,...".

9-11 was not a special demarcation date. These folks hated us way before 9-11.

We have, as the great, semi-free, wealthy and arrogant nation on the face of the earth, always attracted the dislike, approbation and envy of our enemies and our friends.

Of course, that is until they need our protection, help or wealth. They are kind of like the Phillip Reardon's of the earth.

I think we should take a page out the book of Hank's realization and refuse to grant them the sanction of the victim.

Let us see how well some nations do when they have to defend themselves against the growing rapacious Chinese extension of power throughout the world.

I refer you to the following link which concerns the Paracel and Sprately Islands [http://paracelspratlyislands.blogspot.com/2008/01/american-role-in-south-china-sea.html].

The most amusing picture, if it were not so serious, is the Chinese soldiers marching on this rock atoll in front of their little brick shrine claiming this for the great Chinese state.

Additionally, recent expenditures by the Red Chinese military for the development of a multiple warhead missile as well as a land to sea missile capable of destroying our air craft carrier fleet, which coincidentally has a range that reaches Guam which is the perimeter circle that they have chosen to extend their Pacific power thrust to.

I sent the following article to Tony last week. He lives in South Africa. China has been active in Africa since at least the early 60's and they have increased their efforts over the last decade. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/zuma-s13.shtml <<<<this is from the world socialist website.

So my question to you, is what should we do about all this?

Adam

[rodney203]

Thanks for your interest Adam.

I'll just continue on two issues you mentioned.

You mentioned the issue of now having hind site (9 years later)

I tell you, before the second building went down I was already very

fearful (terrified may not be too strong a word) that our reaction

would be emotional, un-thought out, un-reflective, un-measured.

I saw our country descending into the abyss.

Look at the situation from the terrorists point of view: Don't you

think they saw themselves in a win-win situation? Do you doubt for

a second that they assumed we would attack as we did?

You wondered about current seemingly unmanageable

situations worldwide. Well, not being smart-assed, but my last reply

did intend to at least partly address this. It may be possible that after

a long chain of bad choices an individual, a society, or even the world

can work its way into a situation where there are no "good" or "acceptable"

choices left. Provisionally, I can only offer the old "MAD" philosophy

regarding the nuclear threat. And conventionally, well we can still beat

them in that arena, and then there is street-urban-warfare, which seems

to be the modern way to "get things done". When things reach the point

at which they are I really don't have any ready made, clean answers.

The point of living right is to avoid the current situation.

That's my quick and dirty and sloppy reply for the day.

[Selene]

Rodney:

Good points.

I think that your statement about any reaction we made to 9-11 was a lose lose situation for our country. Either way attackers gain.

I heard an interview with a surviving Iwo Jima Medal of Honor winner last weekend on c-span. There are about 120 living Medal of Honor winners left.

He made the point that the American soldier wanted to live and go home, whereas the Japanese soldier wanted to die for his God emperor. This was impossible for the American soldier to get his mind around.

He then, wistfully, said that the current American soldier has the same emotional and psychological difficulty with the current enemy. It is a remarkable interview.

His name is "Woody Williams was interviewed about his life and military service. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service with the 3rd Marine Division in the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima. The National World War II Museum in New Orleans conducted oral history interviews to record the experiences of World War II veterans and those Americans living and working on the Home Front. The location of the interview is not known. The interview was conducted November 16, 2006."

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/223065 << here is the C-span link - it is 2 hrs long, but well worth it.

Adam

[Selene]

Now this old thread has come back to life...

In light of the recent NY Times article concerning the "cover up of weapons of mass destruction wounds" to our soldiers deployed in Iraq and the avalanche of third party corroboration of massive caches of viable WMD's that are allegedly in ISIS's hot hands now, we

are also finding out about 550 tons of Yellowcake that was removed from Iraq through our base in the Indian Ocean and secretly moved to William's neighborhood in Canada.

My, my now what shall we do...

A...

[Jules Troy]

Put icing on it and bring icecream?

[william.scherk]

Now this old thread has come back to life...

In light of the recent NY Times article concerning the "cover up of weapons of mass destruction wounds" to our soldiers deployed in Iraq and the avalanche of third party corroboration of massive caches of viable WMD's that are allegedly in ISIS's hot hands now, we are also finding out about 550 tons of Yellowcake that was removed from Iraq through our base in the Indian Ocean and secretly moved to William's neighborhood in Canada.

My, my now what shall we do...

A...

What part of your apparent alarm/surprise is real and based on fact, and which part is you funning, Adam?

Can you give an example from the 'avalanche' of corroboration for "massive caches of viable WMDs"?

The WMDs in question at the Muthanna complex overrun by the Islamic State comprise remnants of the Iraqi chemical warfare projects preceding the first Gulf War. But the viability of the shells, chemicals (Sarin, Mustard) is not so clear. I'd be interested indeed on corroboration of the 'massive' and the viability ... one of the subjects I follow closely is chemical weapons in the Iraq/Syria theatre.

Here's an excerpt from a Telegraph article back in July, just after IS seized the base. It includes cautions from CW expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon. More of his thoughts on the seizure at the Secure BIo site** (there is a danger of improvised 'dirty bombs' from IS seizures, but scant chance of IS creating WMDs with what's left at Muthanna, in his opinion).

A CIA report on the facility said that 150 tons of mustard were produced each year at the peak from 1983 and pilot-scale production of Sarin began in 1984.

Its most recent description of al-Muthanna in 2007 paints a disturbing picture of chemicals strewn throughout the area.

“Two wars, sanctions and UN oversight reduced Iraqi’s premier production facility to a stockpile of old damaged and contaminated chemical munitions (sealed in bunkers), a wasteland full of destroyed chemical munitions, razed structures, and unusable war-ravaged facilities,” it said.

“Some of the bunkers contained large quantities of unfilled chemical munitions, conventional munitions, one-ton shipping containers, old disabled production equipment and other hazardous industrial chemicals.”

Regarding the yellowcake, is this is a joke? -- meaning, what to do now about the milled uranium put in Canadian hands? Yellowcake was indeed safely removed from Iraq, and the movement was kept secret during the stages of the removal from Iraq's nuclear centre. The fact of the removal hit the news around the time of the last shipment in 2008. Are you worried about what has happened to it since?

______________________

** -- see also his and other expert views and warnings in the National Post, "ISIS capable of making dirty bombs with chemical weapons cache in Iraq, former British colonel warns":

The allegations that ISIS could access chemical-filled munitions heightens concern over use of the weapons, either in Iraq or Syria. “If [iSIS] gained access to the Muthanna bunkers in Fallujah, mustard agent could have been found and used in some capacity in the assault on Kobane,” said the disarmament experts Joe Cirincione and Paul Walker in a report published this week.

The publication of the New York Times investigation followed a report at the weekend by an Israeli research group that ISIS jihadists appeared to have already used chemical weapons against their Kurdish enemies.

The Global Research in International Affairs Centre cited evidence that the group may have captured chemical agents at Muthanna in June and used them in July to kill Kurdish fighters near Kobani with mustard gas or a similar blistering chemical.

Jonathan Spyer, the author of the report, used photographs provided by Kurds in Kobani to suggest that “on at least one occasion, Islamic State forces did employ some form of chemical agent, acquired from somewhere, against the [syrian Kurdish forces] in Kobani”.

[Selene]

We have danced this tune before.

The Bush administration allegedly lied about WMD's in order to go to war in Iraq.

The Bush administration allegedly lied about Yellow Cake being in Iraq and being part of a nuclear program.

Yet, since the NY Times article this month, ex-military folks, both US, Iraqui and Soviet have been speaking out specifically about this "cover-up."

Allegedly, pictures from US troops were transmitted to members of various Intelligence Committees of the US House and Senate as early as 2006.

US soldiers allegedly were wounded by the arsenals and caches when they were employed in IED's.

A...

[Selene]

Thomas Lifson of the American Thinker wrote

The “Bush lied/People died” chant flourished for years as the Left demonized George W. Bush for invading Iraq and finding “no” weapons of mass destruction. Except that our troops did discover vast numbers of chemical WMDs, but the administration kept the discovery -- and the injuries to our troops that handled them -- secret.

The existence of the slur-busting weapons remained largely unknown to the public (but known to AT readers) until the New York Times published a front page story Wednesday, only a day after the New York Post revealed that ISIS fighters had taken over territory where these WMDs were stored. To be sure, these were old weapons, as my colleague Rick Moran is quick to point out, but they remain evidence of Saddam’s WMD programs and stockpiles.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/10/report_rove_kept_discovery_of_iraqs_wmd_secret.html#ixzz3GTDhtqdi
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These facts were suppressed in 2005...

So what genius decided to keep these WMD stockpiles secret? Eli Lake of The Daily Beast reports:
Starting in 2004, some members of the George W. Bush administration and Republican lawmakers began to find evidence of discarded chemical weapons in Iraq. But when the information was brought up with the White House, senior adviser Karl Rove told them to “let these sleeping dogs lie.”
Rove insisted that Bush not respond to his fierce critics during his presidency, allowing their slurs to become received wisdom, not just on WMDs but in general. (snip)
Dave Wurmser—who served at the time as a senior adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on national-security issues—remembers receiving a similar message from Rove.
According to Wurmser, “in 2005-6, Karl Rove and his team blocked public disclosure of these (findings) and said ‘Let these sleeping dogs lie; we have lost that fight so better not to remind anyone of it.’”
Rove declined to comment for this story.
At least part of the Bush administration’s case against Saddam Hussein was based on the fact that he never properly accounted for the chemical-weapons stockpile he had built up in the 1980s. AsSantorum himself said during his 2006 press conference, the Pentagon’s report at the time “proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq.”

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/10/report_rove_kept_discovery_of_iraqs_wmd_secret.html#ixzz3GTAu1CBv
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