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BK's War on Terror Debate Thread


MikeHunt

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The following thread is devoted to the debate on the war on terror. Place appropriate articles here:

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Real "Freedom Fighters" in Irankind of a long read ( with pictures) ...but very interesting and eye opening. Why isn't the media covering this????

http://www.activistchat.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1424

:read this:

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I don't know. An activist living in San Diego might have inside news, but it's just as possible (and likely) that they are offering a very narrow view. Perhaps not all of the people in Iran are crying out for liberation.

(p.s. - look at that, I kept my 'time to invade' joke to myself)

(p.p.s. - oops)

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I read his post: Shawn suggested that a writer from San Diego might be more an observer; than an expert--he didnt say the pictures were staged--nor did he infer that. I looked at the pictures--What do the pictures have to do with Shawn's comment?

I think there's a large part of the population that would like to be free from religious rule--I think a lot of people outside Iran would like to see that too. But i dont think the people of Iran necessarily want the US to do the liberation, and I certainly wouldnt support that.

The reason the media isnt highlighting this story is the same reason they are no longer covering Afghanistan--the heat is on Iraq and Al Queda

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but it's just as possible (and likely) that they are offering a very narrow view. Perhaps not all of the people in Iran are crying out for liberation.

hmmmm...so again i say....so in other words what you are saying...the pictures are staged...

either the pictures and accounts are real and you believe that the 'freedom fighters' are fighting the opressive Iranian regime ...or you don't.

"If it bleeds it leads"...the media covers whatever sells.

:ph34r:

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Shawn's words...

but it's just as possible (and likely) that they are offering a very narrow view. Perhaps not all of the people in Iran are crying out for liberation.

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All I meant Mike, was that not every person in Iran could fit into the pictures.

You could get a pretty impressive picture of wacko's inside the U.S. that feel the government needs to be put down by force. (Just to temper that, no, I don't mean that people in Iran that do want out of the current system are wackos).

There are hot pockets in almost every country of the world, but they don't always represent the majority.

edit:

Adding on to that, I would also take more heed of their site if it was in the Middle East.

Edited by Shawn
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ok...thanks for explaining yourself better.... you are right ..the Mullahs dont want freedom...nor do their stooges..thats why you dont see any of them in the numerous pictures...LOL

Adding on to that, I would also take more heed of their site if it was in the Middle East.

...the site is run by people that are from the middle east.... Iran..and have contacts with their homeland....please ..again...go to the link...re-read...these are freedom fighters...and they aint blowin up trains. :D

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Hmm.

I went back and read through the couple days of articles since this was first posted.

Then I got a weird idea. I checked Al-jazeera to see how much they match up.

:rofl:

The two don't seem related. Al-jazeera obviously has no super love for Iran:

30 - Iranian conservatives gain clear majority (2/25/2004)

Religious conservatives have secured a clear parliamentary majority in elections that most of their incumbent reformist rivals were barred from contesting.

That is actually a reoccuring theme among the Iranian stories. (the fact they blocked most major rivals from running)

16 - Iran and Libya 'bought nuclear goods' (3/7/2004)

The former head of Pakistan's nuclear programme Abd al-Qadir Khan sold nuclear centrifuge parts to Iran in the mid-1990s and sent enriched uranium to Libya in 2001, according to Malaysian police.

10 - IAEA says Iran, Libya broke nuke rules (3/11/2004)

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Muhammad al-Baradai, has said both Iran and Libya have been guilty of long-term violations of their obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. 

Honestly, as far as I can see, Al-jazeera is none too kind to Iran. Perhaps because of Sunni/Shi'ite relations. However, not one single reference to an uprising.

But...

I can see how they might not want to publish word of civil uprisings in a Muslim country. The only two middle east countries that come up as results for the word "protesters" are Israel and Iraq.

-----

Ah well. I'll try CBC I guess at least one major news agency is covering it.

------------

BTW - Al-jazeera's top storie is out of Pakistan.

Pakistani forces surrounding a group of fighters on the Afghan border, possibly including a top al-Qaida member, have given them a deadline of noon on Friday (07:00 GMT) to surrender, an army officer said.
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Well put, Kooper - the world isnt black or white. Shawn appears to have a different perspective than you do Mike about this author and article, and like the good lawyer he's training to be, he's asking questions about the source. His comments have nothing to do with the pictures contained in the article... No one doubts there is a lack of freedom in Iran, or that there arent people fighting for a just cause. That doesnt mean that eveyone here should read one article and all of a sudden be behind them.

If you're looking for a political fight, you arent going to get it here. At Beatking, we respect each other's opinions... Shawn was nice enough to view the post and to make his observation. You made yours, and we've respectfully read it.

Next.

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good research Shawn.....you know about Al Jizz being a biased propaganda outlet. Their coverage of the Iraq war was laughable. Their 'journalists' were kicked out of Iraq (briefly) for arriving at the scene of terrorist acts ..before they occured. guess they had inside knowlege and needed time to set up their cameras. Considering them a credible news source is like considering Joesf Gobbels a news source during WWII.

...and about this 'shades of black and white' shit....either there is massive internal civil unrest going on in Iran...or there isn't.

That's pretty clear isn't it?

If you don't believe any of the pictures and eye-witness accounts from the link above ...then that is your perogative. Blinded by the light as it were. Let me see if I can find additional information on the situation.

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good research Shawn.....you know about Al Jizz being a biased propaganda outlet. Their coverage of the Iraq war was laughable. Their 'journalists' were kicked out of Iraq (briefly) for arriving at the scene of terrorist acts ..before they occured. guess they had inside knowlege and needed time to set up their cameras. Considering them a credible news source is like considering Joesf Gobbels a news source during WWII.

...and about this 'shades of black and white' shit....either there is massive internal civil unrest going on in Iran...or there isn't.

That's pretty clear isn't it?

If you don't believe any of the pictures and eye-witness accounts from the link above ...then that is your perogative. Blinded by the light as it were. Let me see if I can find additional information on the situation.

Mike, you're totally missing the point. The black and white means your reaction to Shawn's initial post...you see what you apparently are very passionate about and believe 100% of what was posted in your link. Shawn apparently sees it less intensely than you do and is able to step back a couple of paces and view it more objectively. I tend to agree with Shawn's perspective. The tone of some of the reporting, while it may be almost totally accurate, I don't know, carries the feel of biased coverage through the use of exclamation marks and over-the-top phraseology.

You're not getting the concept that different people can look at something and get different perceptions. Thus, the gray shades of reality.

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look ..I understand ..perspective and shades of gray...with all due respect thats not the issue.

1) There is a great deal of civil unrest going on in Iran right ,that is not being covered by the world media. This is a FACT.

( You can choose to view the situation differently and that is your right.)

Maybe all the pictures ..eyewitness accounts...news reports are all biased propaganda...you can believe that if you want to.

These people in Iran are TRUE freedom fighters, as they are fighting for their freedom.

Thats about as black and white as it gets.

*edit...oh, heres a bunch of pictures to look at:

http://www.daneshjoo.org/article/publish/c...togallery.shtml

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Festival of Light and Fire, A Defiance of Ruling Clerics

Iran va Jahan News Services

Mar 17, 2004

The inherent sense of Iranian nationalism has always manifested itself during the darkest hours of Iran's turbulent history and delivered the nation from certain collapse. To date Iranian nationalism remains the most potent weapon against foreign occupiers and the present day ruling clerics.

For the last 25 years of the Islamic rule, the Iranian New Year Nowrooz, and the Red Wednesday fire Festival, which falls on the last Tuesday evening of the Iranian year, have been the battleground between the Iranian culture of joy, knowledge and life and the non-Iranian culture of mourning, ignorance and martyrdom.

When Ayatollah Khomeini tried to ban these celebrations, the uncompromising reaction of the Iranian people forced him into his first unprecedented retreat.

In more recent years, the coinciding of the Arab lunar calendar and the Shiite mourning month of Moharram with the solar Iranian calendar and the new year celebrations, gave the impression to the clerics that they can use this opportunity to ban these pre-Islamic celebrations at least while they fall in the month of Moharram. Instead the celebrations became even more poignant and more symbolic in terms of showing defiance to the imposed non-Iranian culture of the ruling clerics.

Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani issued his decree by stating earlier this week: "The superstitious ceremony of Chaharshanbeh Suri is incompatible with the dignity and understanding of the Muslim Iranian nation".

The Islamic regime's security forces tried to reach a compromise this year by not banning the celebrations but declaring only certain official parks in the cities for lawful celebrations. Yet the people and the youth in particular once again turned the Red Wednesday celebrations into a combat zone for the test of forces.

As the youth jumped over the bonfires the traditional ancient rhymes were replaced with anti-government ones. "toop, tank, feshfesheh Akhoond bayad koshteh sheh" " Cannons, Tanks and Firecrackers We must kill the Mullahs".

In the Haft-Howz, Falakeh Dovvom and Nirooye Havaii, districts of Tehran more than 10,000 people had gathered. Some women openly removed their scarves encouraging others to do so too. In Mohseni Square, the youth fought back the Law Enforcement Forces. At least 20 government forces were reported badly beaten up by the crowds. In Amir-Abad district the people joined the students and more anti-government slogans were shouted. Police patrol cars, which attempted to disperse the crowd, drove away from the scene as the people started throwing home made grenades at them. In Aryashahr, the crowd were throwing pictures of Supreme Leader, Khamenei and Islamic Republic flags on to the bonfires.

Other districts in Tehran like Javadieh, Ferdowsi and Noor similar scenes continued. In some districts the noise prevented the telephone reports from making their reports audible.

Not far from Tehran, in Karaj, the house of the Friday Prayer leader was set on fire copying the similar action by the people in Fereydoon Kenar .

In Yazd, between 7000-8000 people gathered in Atlasi Sq and attacked the known regime agents.

In Booshehr, one revolutionary guard is reported killed.

In Shiraz, the people attacked government agents who were filming them and broke their cameras.

In Kerman, the people were shouting, Referendum, Referendum, This is the cry of nation.

In Sarab, Azarbijan, where the people have a fierce reputation for their fighting capabilities, the local Baseejis were on the run while shouting Allah-Akbar.

As in last year Iran's Kurdistan contained the biggest scenes of celebrations. Huge bonfires were reported from Marivan and Sannadaj, with the youth openly taunting the regime's forces.

Even in many other places throughout Iran where the celebrations were less political, young boys and girls circled around bonfires, held hands and danced to the music. An unthinkable act in the month of Moharram, even in the pre-Isalmic revolution of 1979.

So on a night where the Islamic state run TV even resorted to showing popular American films to encourage the people of Iran to stay indoors, the fire of Zarathustra remained defiant and rekindled.

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Protests continue on the war in Iraq around the world. (The Drudge Report is developing an accompanying story accusing the British government of spying on protesting students for terror links..more details to come).

Sunday March 21, 6:27 AM

Worldwide protests demand Iraq pullout

By Grant McCool

NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than a million antiwar protesters have poured into the streets of cities around the globe on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq to demand the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops.

From Sydney to Tokyo, from Santiago, Chile, to Madrid, London, New York and San Francisco, demonstrators on Saturday condemned U.S. policy in Iraq and said they did not believe Iraqis were better off or the world safer because of the war.

Journalists estimated that at least a million people streamed through Rome, in probably the biggest single protest.

In London, two anti-war protesters evaded security to climb the landmark Big Ben clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, unfurling a banner reading "Time for Truth."

About 25,000 demonstrators gathered in central London, many carrying "Wanted" posters bearing images of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, his main war ally.

In most places, the demonstrators numbered in the tens of thousands, compared with hundreds of thousands who marched in big cities on February 15, 2003, to try and prevent the conflict.

The peaceful protests began in Asia and moved to Europe and the Americas in what organisers billed "a global day of action."

In New York, scene of the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane strikes by Islamic militants, tens of thousands created a sea of signs in midtown Manhattan, many of them criticising Bush, who is running for re-election in November.

Among the signs spotted in the crowd were, "Money For Jobs and Education not for War and Occupation" and "Bush Lies" and "End Occupation of Iraq."

TEXAS PROTEST

Anti-war activists gathered at a park in the small central Texas town of Crawford but out of sight of Bush's ranch there. Others gathered in Fayetteville, North Carolina, home of Fort Bragg, one of the biggest U.S. military basis.

Soldiers, veterans and local residents staged two counter-demonstrations, but there were military veterans and families among the anti-war groups.

"I hate George Bush and everything he stands for and this war of vanity," said Don Marshburn, 72, a disabled Navy veteran from Newton Grove North Carolina. "I'm sick of bombs. It didn't do anything over there and it didn't do anything over here."

About 2,000 protested at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and several hundred in Chicago.

New York's crowd was the largest in the United States on the day, with organisers estimating up to 100,000 protesters. Police did not give an official estimate.

"Hey Hey, Ho Ho, George Bush has got to go," marchers chanted at the rally organised by the United For Peace and Justice coalition of left-leaning groups.

"The thing they all object to is Bush," said demonstrator, Reeves Hamilton, 30. "It doesn't make sense to bomb countries that have nothing to do with September 11."

He said he supported troops going into Afghanistan to fight al Qaeda militants responsible for the attacks, but not the invasion of Iraq, which Bush ordered to rid the country of its purported weapons of mass destruction.

At a campaign rally in Florida, Bush touted Iraq as an "essential victory" in Washington's war on terror and hit back at criticism of his decision to invade without more international support.

BUSH ON THE DEFENSIVE

"I'm all for united action, and so are our 34 coalition partners in Iraq right now," he said. "Yet America must never outsource America's national security decisions to the leaders of other countries."

A year after the start of the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and captured, but no weapons stockpiles have been found.

Concern over the war has been most evident in Spain, where thousands demonstrated a week after voting out the conservative government that sent troops to Iraq. Many Spaniards blamed Madrid's support for the war for the March 11 train bombs, blamed on Islamic militants, which killed 202 people.

Spanish Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. He has called the war a "disaster" and a "fiasco."

Many in Iraq said their lives had improved since Saddam was toppled, but others said guerrilla attacks and lawlessness left them fearful.

Guerrillas killed a U.S. Marine near the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on Saturday, raising to 393 the number of U.S. troops killed in combat or in attacks in Iraq in the past year. The number of non-combat deaths is 183.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040320/3/3ix9o.html

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Whenever someone write's a book, one wonders whether they are doing it for economic or more noble reasons. That said, we now have two bush administration officicials who have gone on record as being critical of the President's policies re: the war on terror. Given the fact that they were in the thick of things, there must be some creedence to what they are saying.

Clarke, the author discussed below, validates my argument/supposition that this administration was hung up on Iraq, as opposed to focusing on the real terrorists. Read the article below and come to your own conclusions...

***

 

Former aide: Bush is doing "a terrible job" on terror

March 21, 2004  |  WASHINGTON -- Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaida threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating America into war with Iraq with dangerous consequences.

He accuses Bush of doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a new book going on sale Monday that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that had faced his father's administration.

"It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier," Clarke told CBS for an interview Sunday on its "60 Minutes" program.

CBS' corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher for Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies."

Clarke acknowledges that, "there's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too." He said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Jan. 24, 2001, asking "urgently" for a Cabinet-level meeting "to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack." Months later, in April, Clarke met with deputy cabinet secretaries, and the conversation turned to Iraq.

"I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things, and I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me," Clarke said. "But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."

The Associated Press first reported in June 2002 that Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions.

The last of those two meetings occurred Sept. 4 as the security council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president. That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush's approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

Almost immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Clarke said the president asked him directly to find whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings.

"Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, 'Iraq did this,"' said Clarke, who told the president that U.S. intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.

"He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection,' and in a very intimidating way," Clarke said.

CBS said it asked Stephen Hadley, Rice's deputy on the national security council, about the incident, and Hadley said: "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."

CBS responded to Hadley that it found two people it did not identify who recounted the incident independently, and one of them witnessed the conversation.

"I stand on what I said," Hadley told CBS, "but the point I think we're missing in this is, of course the president wanted to know if there was any evidence linking Iraq to 9-11."

Clarke also harshly criticizes Bush over his decision to invade Iraq, saying it helped brew a new wave of anti-American sentiment among supporters of Osama bin Laden.

"Bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country.' This is part of his propaganda," Clarke said. "So what did we do after 9/11? We invade ... and occupy an oil-rich Arab country, which was doing nothing to threaten us."

Clarke retired early in 2003 after 30 years in government service. He was among the longest-serving White House staffers, transferred in from the State Department in 1992 to deal with threats from terrorism and narcotics.

Clarke previously led the government's secretive Counterterrorism and Security Group, made up of senior officials from the FBI, CIA, Justice Department and armed services, who met several times each week to discuss foreign threats.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/03/21/clarke/index.html

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Al-Qaida No. 2: We Have Briefcase Nukes

Mar 21, 4:24 PM (ET)

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.

In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market. It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.

In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.

"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said 'Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the interview.

"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.

Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

The U.S. federal indictment of bin Laden charges that as far back as 1992 he "and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons."

Bin Laden, in a November 2001 interview with a Pakistani journalist, boasted having hidden such components "as a deterrent." And in 1998, a Russian nuclear weapons design expert was investigated for allegedly working with bin Laden's Taliban allies.

It was revealed last month that Pakistan's top nuclear scientist had sold sensitive equipment and nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, fueling fears the information could have also fallen into the hands of terrorists.

Earlier, Mir told Australian media that al-Zawahri also claimed to have visited Australia to recruit militants and collect funds.

"In those days, in early 1996, he was on a mission to organize his network all over the world," Mir was quoted as saying. "He told me he stopped for a while in Darwin (in northern Australia), he was ... looking for help and collecting funds."

Australia's Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the government could not rule out the possibility that al-Zawahri visited Australia in the 1990s under a different name.

"Under his own name or any known alias he hasn't traveled to Australia," Ruddock told reporters Saturday. "That doesn't mean to say that he may not have come under some other false documentation, or some other alias that's not known to us."

Mir describe al-Zawahri as "the real brain behind Osama bin Laden."

"He is the real strategist, Osama bin Laden is only a front man," Mir was quoted as saying during the interview. "I think he is more dangerous than bin Laden."

Al-Zawahri - an Egyptian surgeon - is believed to be hiding in the rugged region around the Pakistan-Afghan border where U.S. and Pakistani troops are conducting a major operation against Taliban and al-Qaida forces.

He is said to have played a leading role in orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040321/D81F0G2G0.html

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"I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you disarm, or we will."—Speaking about Saddam Hussein, Manchester, N.H., Oct. 5, 2002

Forgive the hi-jack. Just didn't want to start a thread for something so foolish.

Bushisms

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Well, I consider him a terror, but the Bushisms might be better placed in the Bush-Kerry Presidential election thread :)

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Got it..

"I think the American people—I hope the American–I don't think, let me—I hope the American people trust me."—Washington, D.C., Dec. 18, 2002

At least 50% don't :rofl:

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