BS: War

Subject: BS: War
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 02:10 AM

Why Do governments send men to war?
Surely in the 21st century there must be a better way?

I heard recently that over 500 American men have beeen killed in Iraq in the last few months, [I think theres around 100 english men killed] Why?
I'm still on the army reserve list, [I could be recalled to serve my country in time of war, but there is NO way I would go to Iraq]
[I am not a coward, I am a trained soldier, and if England were invaded, I would be happy to do my bit, in fasct i would probably be amongst the first to volounteer to defend our country, but I would sooner go to jail than take part in an unjust war.

what do others think?

Why are politicians so keen to go to war?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 02:27 AM

for the same reason that rulers have always sent their men and women to war...greed.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Neighmond
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:19 AM

What a change in the business it would be
What a different situation we would see!
If all politicians were the first sent on missions
Instead of grunts like me!

Chaz

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:39 AM

A life is a high price to pay for anything.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:48 AM

Are politicians so keen to go to war?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:54 AM

Well, I've told this story before, but it hasn't spread very far…

In 1940, when WWII was going pretty good I asked my teacher why does anyone want war?

She said that unjust governments like to have wars because it gets the people to obey them; they'll say anybody who criticises the government is disloyal. I could understand that.

One of my major enlightenments.

So sixty-odd years ago that knowledge was available to a nine-year-old in North Idaho, and in terms he could understand, but it seems it hasn't spread to a lot of the citizenry.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 04:00 AM

Yes , Teribus.

Wars aren't started by anyone else.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 05:42 AM

Are politicians keen to go to war?

No.

But, they are quite willing to send others.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 07:09 AM

In that case why haven't there been far more of them?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 09:06 AM

By the bye, Clint, if, "why does anyone want war?", was your question to your teacher in North Idaho in 1940. Then IMO the answer she gave was an extremely poor one.

GUEST 23 Jan 04 - 02:27 AM's answer to jOhn's question "Greed" doesn't fully fit the bill. National interest is probably a better answer and only then when there is no other alternative.

Going back to the period of Clint's question to his teacher.

In 1939 had Hitler thought that there was any other way of re-uniting East Prussia with Germany he would have opted for that, there wasn't so he fabricated a reason for invading Poland. This was seen as being against the national interests of both France and Britain who delivered their ultimatum to Hitler and, when that was ignored, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

I don't believe, for one minute, that either wanted it, or were, in any way, keen to take that step - but it was the right thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 09:20 AM

"Sooner or later, it all comes down to money..." (Bruce Springsteen)

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 01:45 PM

In that case why haven't there been far more of them?

Wars in my lifetime involving the UK: World War II; Palestine; Korea; Malaya; Aden; Cyprus; Suez; Northern Ireland; Falklands; Kuwait; Kosovo; Sierra Leone; Afghanistan; Iraq. I've probably missed out a few at that. And of course, that's not counting the ones where the UK just supplied arms.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 02:49 PM

Teribus said, "National interest is probably a better answer and only then when there is no other alternative."

Oh, puhleeze. Do you actually believe that shit? Look at the present situation in the US -- substitute "corporate interest" for "national interest" and I will take you seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 06:51 PM

Good God, Y'All!!!

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 08:57 PM

I thought it was a good answer. And I still do. Question was not why do they go to war, but why do they WANT to. Any nation will go to war in self-defense, but authoritarian governments like having an enemy: another country, a group within the country, or an abstraction.

Please don't tell me Hitler was forced to go to war with Poland. Please don't tell me he did it for any reason other than to gain power. And power is, of course, what my teacher was talking about, though she didn't use the word itself.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 04:04 PM

"War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means" (Carl von Clausewitz)

In other words, when a government wants something, and war is seen as practical, and as the most effective way of getting that thing, it goes to war.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 08:34 PM

Here's an angle I hadn't thought of. It's at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3419715.stm:
____

Wars 'useful', says US army chief of staff

The head of the United States army has said that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have provided a "tremendous focus" for the military.

General Peter Schoomaker said in an interview with AP news agency that the wars had allowed the army to instil its soldiers with a "warrior ethos".
......

General Schoomaker said the attacks on America in September 2001 and subsequent events had given the US army a rare opportunity to change.

"There is a huge silver lining in this cloud," he said.

"War is a tremendous focus... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph."

He said it was no use having an army that did nothing but train.

"There's got to be a certain appetite for what the hell we exist for," he said.
____

There you have it. We need wars so we'll develop that appetite. Good ol' General Peter Schoomaker

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 11:22 PM

Wars are usually very good for a declining economy. You need to boost production of arms and other expendables. The unemployed suddenly become employable (if for nothing else than as cannon fodder). The Gov't gets to bring in whatever minority is currently not liked and send them to the front lines while claiming it's not being discriminatory, thereby getting rid of alot of the members of the welfare state. Gov't sepnding can be unlimited without too much in the way of questioning (you want our boys to win the war don't you?). Just call me cinical (however that's spelled)

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 12:03 AM

The Bankers & the Diplomats

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 04:20 PM

War is a device for the consolidation for power. The victor is
powerful, the victim is weak. If a war is sucessful, the
instigator is more powerful. If the war is not, the perpetrator
in a power position is not especially held accountable as a
criminal in the case of Johnson and Vietnam. A lone assassin
can be held accountable but a political official is not. In a war, there are many killed as opposed to most ordinary assassins.
War contrived by corrupt administrations is an investment for
the consolidation of power without the liabilities of the
commonplace assassin.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 04:41 PM

War.
War on drugs. War on poverty. War on illiteracy. War on terrorism.
War on whatever "ism" is being trotted out as society's current ubiquitous boogeyman.
War.
Everything's a friggin' war in their speeches.
Governments love the word, the image, the "let's all get out there and pitch in for home and country" rallying cry of it. It wins support, pumps up nationalism, and drums up the "us & them" mentality needed to further their own agendas.
Why do they want to go to war?
It's a good political tactic, if you have the stomach for it.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Norton1
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 09:27 PM

Money and power -

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 09:39 PM

Adrenalin. Especially for the older farts who don't have as much of it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Metchosin
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 09:59 PM

On the same train of thought Amos, I believe Viagra could truly become the salvation of the world. If they could get it up, maybe the old farts wouldn't send young men to War.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 10:22 PM

Mets!! That's the best idea of heard of in years!! LMAO!

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 11:48 PM

The politicians are just the hired goons of the real people who are keen to start wars. And those people are the war profiteers (usually corporate industry). So the answer is - governments send men (and women) to war for money.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:51 AM

Viagra?   It has stopped me from rolling out of bed----

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: mouldy
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 02:59 AM

Until his untimely death last year, Edwin Starr was booked for my daughter's graduation ball. OK, so he was replaced by the Foundations, and I was lucky enough to hear "Build me up, Buttercup" via her mobile, but I would have given anything to have been able to hear "War" being given the student treatment in the build up to the current Gulf situation, and the period of debate over the legitimacy of the action.

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 08:03 AM

Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skilful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the art of War. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as war, the errors which
proceed from a spirit of benevolence are just the worst. (Clausewitz)

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 11:11 AM

McGrath of Harlow - 23 Jan 04 - 01:45 PM

"Wars in my lifetime involving the UK:"
World War II - Yes we did declare war on Germany
Palestine - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Korea - Yes, we did send troops to support the UN Forces
Malaya - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Aden - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Cyprus - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Suez - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Northern Ireland - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Falklands - Yes but limited to restoration of the Falklands to British sovereignty
Kuwait - Yes as part of a UN Force
Kosovo - No, we didn't declare war on anyone
Sierra Leone - No, we didn't declare war on anyone
Afghanistan - No, we didn't declare war on anyone
Iraq - Yes limited to removal of Saddam Hussein and Baathist Regime.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 03:00 PM

Hi Teribus,


"Greed" doesn't fully fit the bill. National interest is probably a better answer and only then when there is no other alternative."

Greed and national interest have become synonymous, the latter idea
as an obfuscation to the former.

National interest is another form of so-called "patriotism, the refuge
of the scoundrel".

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 01:21 AM

A quote from the History Channel the other night on the changing face of war:

At the beginning of the 20th century, 90% of the direct casualties of war were soldiers. By the end of the century, 90% of the casualties were civilian.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 03:53 AM

It is the politicians and government leaders that declare war.
It is the poor bloody troops who have to actually do the fighting.

Try Kiplings 'A Dead Statesman'

I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

Or more up to date Richard Heller's

'The Minister has all his notes in place'

The Minister has all his notes in place.
No line of truth has etched his handsome face.
The House is sparse; they have heard it all before.
His expert lies massage away the war.

While Serbian artillery take aim,
Decide which new civilains they should maim,
He fills the Chamber high with empty talk,
And here's another child will never walk.

The Opposition make synthetic rant;
He answers with the Foreign Office cant.
Some random shrapnel takes a boys right eye:
The other one is all he needs to cry.

'Next business', and the Minsister displays
A lapdog urge to here officials praise.
A woman fetching water stops a shell.
He smiles: 'That went rather well.'

I saw active service and like many others after we saw the names of comrades who fell or drowned at sea we questioned the need for the Falklands campaign. It was purely political but when you join up at 16 (as I did ) you never really understood politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 04:46 AM

SC:

Thanks for a most excellent post.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 30 Jan 04 - 03:19 AM

Shanghaiceltic --

Very well said.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 02:19 AM

I'm not usually too keen on poems, but that ones good.john

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 06:41 AM

Power, baby, power...that and testosterone..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 08:26 AM

Testosterone may have something to do with pub fights (though hardly the ones between women). But very little to do with the decision to make war.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 08:39 AM

Teribus, please define "National Interest". Give examples.

IMO, one of the causes of war is that one country/faction has something that another country/faction wants. It could be land, resources, the Holy Grail (Crusades - ha!), power over others. In short: Greed.

Another cause is that a country/faction is annoyed by another country/faction and chooses to "teach them a lesson". The annoyance can be real or perceived (terrorism, threats etc). Iraq is such a case ostensibly - though many, myself included, would put it in the first category of greed.

Yet another cause is that the country/faction wants to divert attention from internal problems that they find difficult to resolve.

More often than not there is no single cause, but a mix of the above three.

I agree that sometimes you do have to go to war to defend yourself. But make sure - make BLOODY SURE - that this is the only, and true, reason.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 09:30 AM

I think it is a foul device and would like to see it replaced by large video games.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Megan L
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:33 AM

Nah nah Amos if everyone who wants a war would please step up with a neat little pile of stones, im sure we can find a wee field somewhere where they can belt blazes out of each other and leave the rest of us alone.

Subject: Lyr Add: AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:44 AM

Today its Anzac Day in Australia, with street marches by soldiers and their supports in memory of the Anzacs who were slaughtered at Suvla Bay in Turkey.

Here is Eric Bogle's song about Anzac Day.

THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA
(Eric Bogle)

Now when I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murry's green basin to the dusty outback,
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915 my country said, "Son,
It's time you stop rambling, there's work to be done."
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they marched me away to the war.
And the band played Waltzing Matilda,
As the ship pulled away from the quay
And midst all the cheers, flag waving and tears,
We sailed off for Gallipoli

And how well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water
And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well.
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shells,
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us back home to Australia.
(But) And the band played Waltzing Matilda,
As we stopped to bury our slain,
We buried ours, the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.

And those that were left, well we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me ass over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead.
Never knew there were worse things than dying.
For I'll go no more Waltzing Matilda,
All around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, and maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The legless, the armless, the blind and insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And when our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And I thank Christ there was no body waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.
But the Band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.

So now every April I sit on me porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reviving old dreams and past glory,
And the old men march slowly, all bone stiff and sore
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question.
But the band plays Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all.


Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda.
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billibong
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:02 PM

Back on the theme of war - why?

the latest is that the US and UN have decided to bring back the Baath party in Iraq. The United States and the United Nations' leading envoy to Iraq have decided to exclude most of the Iraqi politicians whom the US-led coalition has relied on over the past year when they select a new Iraqi government to assume power on June 30, US and UN officials said. Last week the coalition moved to allow former Baath party members and military officers to return to government jobs. (Washington's chosen ones face the axe; By Robin Wright and Walter Pincus in Washington; April 26, 2004, Sydney Morning Herald.

And how did this party maintain its power?

..an all-pervasive order of repression and oppression which is sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror, including summary and arbitrary executions; the widespread routine practice of systematic torture; enforced or involuntary disappearances; suppression of freedom of thought, expression and association; and routinely practised arbitrary arrests and detention. Arbitrary arrest and detention remain widespread throughout the country, with people still being taken directly from their homes. Upon arrest, gross mistreatment and cruel torture occur. Tens of thousands of political killings and disappearances remain unresolved from previous years. As socioeconomic conditions have deteriorated, the regime has punished persons accused of economic crimes, military desertion, and a variety of other charges with torture and cruel and inhuman penalties, including the extensive use of amputation.

...I pity the Iraqi people, to have such a regime returned to them.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:44 PM

I don't think they have any choice regarding that, freda. They never should have disbanded the Iraqi army in the first place or put all the Baath Party officials out on the street...for the simple reason that most of the experienced bureaucrats and officers in the country were probably already in the Baath Party.

That was the same situation in Germany when WWII ended, as Patton quickly discovered. The experienced leadership (good, bad, and indifferent) was mostly associated with the Nazi Party, and those people were not all monsters by any means. Most of them were pretty ordinary people who had become part of the prevailing system between 1933 and 1945. Without them, running the country and rebuilding it would be impractical and close to impossible.

That's why the Bush Administration is now "taking a Baath", so to speak, and reversing its earlier anti-Baath policy. It's naive to believe your own propaganda about a hated enemy to the extent that you convince yourself that everyone in the former enemy chain of command is a monster. It only takes a handful of monsters at the top to pervert a system and lead ordinary people astray...note what is happening right now in the USA.

But back to the original question:

"Why Do governments send men to war?"

Well, if it's a war of aggression (which the latest Iraq war certainly was) they usually do it for the following reasons:

A. To secure strategic resources.

B. To secure strategic land positions or outright ownership or control of that land.

C. To secure economic advantage of some kind over over competitor nations.

D. To secure a political advantage at home and abroad, which allows them to drive harder bargains with other nations.

E. To bolster up popularity and patriotism on the home front.

F. To enable their backers to sell more arms and get richer.

G. To distract their public from the domestic problems that really matter.

H. To get revenge for past hurts they imagine they have suffered at the hands of whoever they launch the attack upon.

I. To serve their "God" or their chosen philosophy and ensure that "good" wins out over "evil" (as they define it).

Examine Hitler's record or George W. Bush's or Caesar's or Galtieri's (Argentina) or Thatcher's in regard to most or all of the above motivations for launching a war and it becomes crystal clear. It is to the detriment of their own public and the "enemy" public as well that these wars are launched, but that need hardly be said.

The BIGGEST LIE will be that the war is being fought in "defence of freedom and national security". Almost nothing could be farther from the truth. Killing people is the ultimate violation of their freedom, and greater national insecurity is the result.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 11:02 PM

Human rights violations are associated with particular regimes. These regimes should not be kept in place. Information about the Baath parties human rights violations and methods of control are supported by a range of government and none government organisations.

One of the big problems with interfering in other countries and setting up puppet regimes is the complete lack of political and cultural awareness of the occupying/controlling external power, which leads to critical inhumane decisions to leave sick structures in place. It often comes from a sense of contempt for the country being occupied, a view that they're all corrupt, evil, whatever anyway, so it doesnt matter who you put there.

It does matter.

http://www.why-war.com/

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 11:52 PM

The US is responsible for the Baathists having been in power in the first place. It was done through a CIA backed coup. I don't think the US can really be trusted to make decisions about who should and who shouldn't be running countries like Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:14 AM

If a bee stings you is it at all sane to get angry and follow that bee to it's hive where you proceed to attack that hive with a tree branch???

I think not.

But that is exactly what we did/are in the midst of doing.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:23 AM

Good analogy, Art.

Freda - I'm not suggesting maintaining the old regime. I'm suggesting NOT depriving ALL of its former soldiers and government workers of a livelihood, doing the normal daily work they were trained to do. Under new and better leadership most of those people would not be harmful, they would be extremely useful to building a new society. The same was true in Germany and Japan after WWII ended. Most people wanted to rebuild and start anew, not repeat the errors of the past.

If a foreign power were to take over the USA in a war and kick every single federal, state, and municipal government worker and trained American soldier and security officer out on the street, you would see a hell of a mess...and probably an intractable war of resistance against the occupying power by those dispossessed people.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:53 AM

If you have a racial and religious minority in unchecked power for decades, then the greater population misses out on developing those skills and that experience.

a government is only as good as the people in charge. At the time I got my first government job in 1972, women in Oz had to resign from public service once they got married. There was a view that they didnt have the skills, intelligence or experience to let them into the service, and it took lobbying and legislation to change that.

What process will include Kurds, Shiites, Turkmen, into the new government? What process will sift out the perpetrators from the old regime?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: dianavan
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 01:50 AM

Freda -   "... the US and UN have decided to bring back the Baath party in Iraq."

Who will control the military? Seems that is the sticky point.

It also seems that the U.S. is asking the U.N. for an awful lot, considering they have admitted that it is only going to get worse. And yet they have the audacity to want all foreign troops under their command and they want to deny the authority of the U.N. when it comes to weapons inspections.

Seems that the U.S. just doesn't understand that it may have to take a slightly less dominant role in Iraq. Do they really think foreign troops will accept this? Its not as if the U.S. has a great track record. ...and does anybody trust Bush anymore?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 03:51 AM

good points dianavan ..Who will control the Military...

The U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, invited former Iraqi army officers who served under ousted president Saddam Hussein to help establish a new national force. A coalition spokesman said Bremer was not abandoning a sweeping "de-Baathification" edict designed to purge Iraq of the oppressive political apparatus installed by Hussein. (US asks former Baathist Army Officers to help create force; Karl Vick, Washington Post, 23 April 2004)

About 15,000 personnel from private military firms (PMFs) were operating in Iraq, making them more numerous that even the biggest US ally, Britain, estimated Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. But junior and field ranks in the military were starting to question the role of such "outsourcing," Mr Singer said. The private firms were integral to the operation, but not within the military, and there were no standard operating procedures to guide them or ensure smooth cooperation, Mr Singer said. Private military firms, for example, did not have full or timely access to military and CIA intelligence or to US army communications, weapons, protection, and rescue operations.

"The lack of formally shared information on current threats and ongoing or planned operations is a crucial missing link," he wrote. He quoted one executive as saying the lack of information meant contractors were "flying blind, often guessing about places that they shouldn't go." At least seven contractors for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) have been kidnapped in Iraq.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1089777.htm

The US is reaching out to the Baathists and private contractors because the coalition is weakening.

THE Danish Defence Minister resigned yesterday amid a growing scandal over the intelligence used to justify Denmark's support for the US campaign to oust Saddam Hussein. The resignation came amid continuing violence in Iraq as suicide bombers targeted oil installations, and at least 47 people, including eight US soldiers, were killed in fighting across the country. Mr Jensby, 59, becomes the first minister from a coalition nation to be forced from office over public concerns that the war was based on flawed intelligence. Denmark has about 500 troops in southern Iraq. (Coalition strife as minister quits; By Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent, and agencies; April 26, 2004, The Australian)

No, I agree, i don't think anybody trusts Bush any more.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 04:36 AM

There is still one question that I have yet to see answered satisfactorily: What business is it of the US' (or indeed the UN's) to replace the government of a country thousands of miles away? Or to attempt to bring about its replacement? It can be said for Iraq as well as for Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Greece (remember the CIA-backed Colonels' Junta? no Greek will forget), etc etc. Where there is no immediate threat by that country (at least, no proven one), there can be no excuse.

I don't condone what Saddam did to his own countrymen, but it should be THEY that topple him from power. After all, we all have the Government we deserve, right?

I wonder how people would feel if another country attacked the US simply to replace Bush, because they don't like his regime. After all, Bush is not good for his country either, is he? Not Saddam-level, I grant you, but still undesirable; and you could argue that his policies constitute a threat to the national security of other countries, and are against those countries' national interests.

But no - it's the rule of the jungle, isn't it... The right of the strongest. That's why I say that politics is about negotiation and barter, not ideals. Ideals are more closely linked to revolution, not politics.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 04:39 AM

you nailed it, El Greko.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 09:01 AM

freda underhill - 25 Apr 04 - 10:02 PM
"the latest is that the US and UN have decided to bring back the Baath party in Iraq."

The latest according to who?

El Greko - 25 Apr 04 - 08:39 AM
"Teribus, please define "National Interest". Give examples."

The guiding principle of successive British governments for the last four hundred years (up until the end of the Second World War) has been the belief that it was against our "National Interest" to have any one nation dominant in Europe. Throughout much of that period it was vital to Britain's "National Interest" that the port of Antwerp should not be held by any major power in Europe. The normal stragety employed by successive British governments was to ally Britain to the weaker side in any European conflict in order to defeat the stronger.

In following the above Britain did not seek any territorial gain in Europe. Britain did not seek any advantage in trade in Europe. What it did gain was peace and prosperity within Britain and secured British trade with her overseas possessions, thereby securing a market for British goods, employment for British industry and a guaranteed supply of raw materials. All of which Britain had, but had Britain not acted to protect what were perceived to be her "National Interests" those advantages would not have been secured for long. Greed is just too simple a term, too many other factors come into the equation.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 09:37 AM

teribus, the source article is:

Washington's chosen ones face the axe; By Robin Wright and Walter Pincus in Washington; April 26, 2004, SMH

..and the relevant paragraph:   
The United States and the United Nations' leading envoy to Iraq have decided to exclude most of the Iraqi politicians whom the US-led coalition has relied on over the past year when they select a new Iraqi government to assume power on June 30, US and UN officials said. Last week the coalition moved to allow former Baath party members and military officers to return to government jobs.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 11:20 AM

So freda:

"Last week the coalition moved to allow former Baath party members and military officers to return to government jobs." = "the latest is that the US and UN have decided to bring back the Baath party in Iraq."

Don't think so - not by a long shot

For a start as qualified by Bremer

- Only some will be allowed back NOT ALL.

- Those that are asked will still have the required background checks run on them.

- Those being asked are civil servants and Iraqi Army Officers. Saddam Hussein NEVER trusted his army that is why he created the Republican Guard Units, the Special Republican Guards Units and the Fedeyeen Saddam units.

The "new" regime who took over running East Berlin at the end of the Second World War retained the services of "Gestapo" Mueller to run the police in their sector - why? - Because, although he happened to be a pretty nasty character, he also happened to be a bloody good policeman, who knew his "patch" (Berlin) and it's underworld better than anybody else.

It is what is needed at the moment in Iraq - remember that gesture of Saddam's immediately before the war, when he released all those imprisoned on criminal charges, he failed to release the 603 Kuwaiti's or politicals - he no doubt just had those executed.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 11:29 AM

Good example, Teribus. In this case Britain did not declare war, except in defense of its allies or itself. Fair enough, no problem with that.

But in the contemporary equivalent of the US not wanting a strong Iraq, it chose to go in jack-booted. I do have a problem with that.

National interest cannot excuse unprovoked attack.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: DougR
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:17 PM

John from Hull: if you don't recognize that the world IS at war with terrorism, I doubt anything ANYONE would say, will convince you otherwise.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:38 PM

Doug R:

Who is this "terrorism"?

We cannot go on fobbing off this stupid explanation. A condition is not an enemy. By continuing to talk about it as though it were a thing, we make the problem of terroists and their crimes more impenetrable and unanswerable.

There are individuals, and they are motivated by others in established network and some organized groups. Identifying these is the first business of our intelligence and security people and has been ever since the first WTC attack and the Cole.

Saying we are at war with "terrorism" is like saying we are in a battle against "explosions" -- useless deformation of the language involved.

A


A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 03:02 AM

Amos - 26 Apr 04 - 12:38 PM

IMO you are wrong. "Terrorism" is not a condition, it is a fact, a fact that quite large chunks of this world have had to deal with for much of the last fifty years. Measures taken by individual countries to combat "terrorism" during that period were hampered by other factors, the main draw-back being the polarisation created by the "cold war".

What we are faced with today is nothing new, a wide variety of disparate groups, motivated by loosely connected aims. The whole of Europe faced this in the 70's and 80's.

What 9/11 changed was that the USA itself was struck and virtually over-night the entire perspective changed. When the marker was put down - "You are either with us, or against us" - reinforced by what the world's potential supporters of terrorist saw in Afghanistan, things changed dramatically. The one thing those groups of the 70's and 80's could rely on was that during the "cold war" years the USSR and it's satellites were only too pleased to back them in their efforts to destabilise the west. Al-Qaeda and like-minded groups have no such support. International co-operation over a whole raft measures is being experienced at an unprecedented level. Those groups will continue to plot, they will continue to attack, but their task of remaining at large and undetected gets harder by the day, they have no goal, no aim that their support can see being achieved - time is not on their side.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 09:24 AM

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. -Elayne Boosler-

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 09:41 AM

Terrorism is a word comprising a number of techniques which are used by lots of different types of people, for lots of reasons. Including governments which proclaim their dedication to a "war on terrorism".

The essential feature of terrorism is, making use of violence againse non-combatants as a way of exercising political muscle.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 10:06 AM

Teribus:

Our war is against terrorists. Individuals, networks, hierarchies of people.

I don't think there is any disagreement there. There is no agent, authority, or entity known as terrorism -- it is a practice.

The problem is always one of reducing it to identities. Because that's the only ting that can surrender.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 10:23 AM

Hi Amos,

Like wise, I don't think there is any disagreement here. As you state, terrorism is a practice, in the past it has been practiced by many in the full knowledge that in certain disputes, certain countries would, either, turn a blind eye, or provide a great deal of assistance, officially and unofficially. Since the 11th September, 2001, very few want to practice terrorism and overt/covert support of terrorism by regimes and countries has almost completely vanished, due largely to the fact that the most powerfull country in the world has declared a "War Against Terrorism". Far from being a meaningless phrase, that declaration has been essential in guaranteeing the degree of co-operation required.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 10:46 AM

excerpts from America, America

by Sa'adi Youssef (Iraqi Poet)

God save America
My home sweet home!

I too love jeans and jazz and Treasure Island
and John Silver's parrot and the terraces of New Orleans
I love Mark Twain and the Mississippi steamboats
and Abraham Lincoln's dogs
I love the fields of wheat and corn and the smell of
Virginia tobacco.
But I am not American. Is that enough for the
Phantom pilot to turn me back to the Stone Age!
I need neither oil, nor America herself, neither the
elephant nor the donkey.
Leave me, pilot, leave my house roofed with palm
fronds and this wooden bridge.
I need neither your Golden Gate nor your
skyscrapers.
I need the village not New York.
Why did you come to me from your Nevada desert,
soldier armed to the teeth?

Why did you come all the way to distant Basra
where fish used to swim by our doorsteps.
Pigs do not forage here. I only have these water
buffaloes lazily chewing on water lilies.
Leave me alone soldier. Leave me my floating cane hut and my fishing
spear.
Leave me my migrating birds and the green plumes.
Take your roaring iron birds and your Tomahawk
missiles. I am not your foe.
I am the one who wades up to the knees in rice
paddies.
Leave me to my curse. I do not need your day of doom.

God save America
My home sweet home!

America
let us exchange your gifts.
Keep your smuggled cigarettes
give us potatoes.
Keep James Bond's golden pistol
give us Marilyn Monroe's giggle.
Keep the heroin syringe under the tree
give us vaccines.
Keep your blueprints for model penitentiaries
give us village homes.
Keep the books of your missionaries
give us paper for poems to defame you.
Keep what you do not have
give us what we have.
Keep the stripes of your flag
give us the stars.

Keep the Afghani Mujahideen's beard
give us Walt Whitman's beard filled with
butterflies.
Keep Saddam Hussain
give us Abraham Lincoln
or give us no one.

Now as I look across the balcony
across the summer sky, the summery summer
Damascus spins, dizzied among television aerials
then it sinks, deeply, in the stories of the forts
and towers
and the arabesques of ivory
and sinks, deeply, from cornerstones of faith
then disappears from the balcony.

And now I remember trees:
the date palm of our mosque in Basra, at the end of
Basra
the bird's beak
and a child's secret
a summer feast.
I remember the date palm.
I touch it. I become it, when it falls black without
fronds
when a dam fell hewn by lightning.
And I remember the mighty mulberry
when it rumbled, butchered with an axe ...
to fill the stream with leaves
and birds
and angels
and green blood.
I remember when pomegranate blossoms covered
the sidewalks,
the students were leading the workers' parade ...

The trees die
pummelled
dizzied,
not standing
the trees die.


God save America
My home sweet home!

We are not hostages, America
and your soldiers are not God's soldiers ...
We are the poor ones, ours is the earth of the

drowned gods
the gods of bulls
the gods of fires
the gods of sorrows that intertwine clay and blood
in a song ...
We are the poor, ours is the god of the poor
who emerges out of the farmers' ribs
hungry and bright
and raises heads up high ...
America, we are the dead
Let your soldiers come
Whoever kills a man, let him resurrect him
We are the drowned ones, dear lady

We are the drowned
Let the water come

Damascus, 20 August 1995

Translated by Khaled Mattawa

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 12:37 PM

I think, these days, the word "terrorist" has come to mean "uppity peasant", which maybe is why, when countries like the US profess to be "at war" with it, they forget that they themsleves engage in the very same practice.

The idea (if there is one), that the US has stopped practicing terrorism after 9/11 becomes laughable when one considers the reason the US was so loudly crowing about how the opening stages of its recent invasion of Iraq was to be called "Operation Shock and Awe", and more specifically, the very detailed descriptions the US put out in the media of how many tons of explosives were going to rain down upon Iraq in the first 24 to 48 hours of the operation.

Of course, it's pretty obvious that some people define "terrorism" as anything they do to us. And whatever we do to them is warfare.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 12:49 PM

Come to think of it, Carol, if "uppity peasant" is the right definition, then the US was founded by terrorists, building a new nation of the terrorists, by the terrorists and for the terrorists. But I think perhaps there is more to the definition than that.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 12:58 PM

Maybe "euphemism" would be a better word than "definition", Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 03:27 PM

The important point, all levity aside for a moment, is to notice the similarities between the US' conduct and the conduct of terrorism. Both strike unreasoning fear into civilians and bystanders; both cause despair and desperation among non-participants. Both seem to violate all codes of human decency and civil negotiation. Both appear to leap easily to the employment of excess violence and both destroy far more than they build. Both make it extremely difficult to have a reasonable conversation or build up predictable processes of ordinary life. Both make the environment dangerous and unpredictable.

Both are extreme failures of imagination, intelligence, and commu-nication skills in the first place.

There may be some differences; let me think about it...just rhetorical ones don't count...hmmm...

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 08:11 AM

Sounds about right to me, Frank. Instead of "patriotism", I would say that "Patriotic, 'pre-emptive' war is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings."

"steal a little and they'll throw you in jail, steal a lot and they'll make you a king" - Bob Dylan

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 11:29 AM

I'd say it's not a question of "the similarities between the US' conduct and the conduct of terrorism."

Terrorism is a way of "fighting", and sometimes what governments do is best described as terrorism; and that definitely includes the biggest government of all, the USA government.

In the same way, while some of the stuff that organisations such as the IRA or Hamas has done is properly described as terrorism, some of it is better described in some other way.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 01:25 PM

Unfortunately those that are the leaders in this "war on terrorism" have begun throwing the term around to include those parties, people or things that they do not like. So far it has been used (although supposedly jokingly)to describe the teachers union and just this week the "right to choose" protesters were also "compared" to terrorists who don't care who they kill.

The last is rather ironic because only the right to life folks have killed right to choose folks.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 06:10 PM

Motivations for war are complex and cannot be simplified. I find it quite heartening that everyone seems to have forgotten about nuclear war -- now that's a sort of war whose motives would be difficult to put down to "national interests"...or to decipher at all. And yet, it wasn't so long ago that most people thought unlimited global nuclear war was a distinct possibility.

I think that since Russia became so introverted, it's been fun for the average American to know that his country could take on and defeat the combined armies of most of the rest of the world. Heck, I believe if Canada could become similarly powerful by putting a mere 30% or so of its national budget into weapons, we'd be there in a shot. How we'd laugh condescendingly at those weak peacenik Americans.

But the trouble with keeping such powerful armed forces is that sooner or later, someone's gonna make use of 'em when it's not absolutely necessary; if America had been weaker, Iraq wouldn't have happened. I think the US military is going to have increasing trouble finding funding in the decades to come; the occupation of Iraq has so far cost the US over 3,500 dead and wounded (not-returned-to-duty within 72 hours), zillions of dollars, and has not helped its international reputation -- the number of people ready to become terrorists has increased.

I understand the urge to strike back at, or to pre-emptively strike at terrorist threats. I don't understand the pig-headed insistance on business-as-usual. Terrorists have proven that our societies are vulnerable. Why do we continue to outlaw drugs, thereby giving terrorists invaluable income and smuggling routes. Why does the US continue to support Israel's gradual theft of all that's valuable in its occupied territories and the subjugation of the people there? Why does the US generally continue to act as if it is invulnerable?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 06:20 PM

Sadam's motivations are very interesting.

He knew he'd lose badly. But he couldn't allow himself to give up. Instead of exile, he chose to hurt the Americans by forcing them to defeat him. And his regime and family went along with it; his sons are dead.

Why didn't more Iraqi soldiers surrender more quickly?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 09:57 PM

Why didn't they surrender more quickly? Well, they were probably caught up in the heat of the action. It happens. Or maybe...just maybe...they resented being invaded and conquered by a superpower for absolutely no good or honest reason whatsoever.

I would resent it. Would I fight? Oh yes, quite possibly. Come over the border of Canada with your Abrams tanks and your F-18's and find out...

The USA has been practicing terrorism and colonialism all over the place ever since 1776, so don't be surprised when some of the ragged "savages" out there in the wilderness start shooting back.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 10:04 PM

Many of them couldn't have surrendered any faster than they did. Others held blind regard for Saddam and a hope for a slice of his glory.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 03:01 PM

From the other side of the line, the resistance PR site (Albasrah.net), also to be taken with a good few grains of salt.

A