Thank God for the Asia Times
Jul. 17th, 2003 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arisbeIraq: Schemers have their way
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - With demands for a full-scale investigation of the manipulation of intelligence by the administration of President George W Bush mounting steadily, it appears increasingly clear that key officials and their allies outside the administration decided to use the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as a pretext for going to war against Iraq within hours of the attacks themselves.
I have the sickening feeling that 9/11 might well have been facilitated though not instigated by those who believed this war to be a matter of vital necessity. I say sickening because there seem to be so many who take a great deal of satisfaction in this speculation. I am not one of these. But there are questions I want to see answered.
Iraq's history already written
By K Gajendra Singh
US chief administrator L Paul Bremer unveiled Iraq's 25-member governing council in Baghdad on Sunday. It now looks like the beginnings of the rule by the British Governor Sir Percy Cox in the 1920s, after the British had carved out three provinces of the Ottoman empire after its collapse in World War I. After a long national resistance, King Feisel II - of a British-appointed dynasty - and his prime minister, Nuri-as Said, were overthrown and killed in a 1958 military takeover.
We could do worse than bring the monarchy back. Sunnis themselves, as descendants of the Prophet they are revered by the Shiites. As for myself, my heart goes out to the Assyrians, but they may well be doomed, at least in Iraq; already there are just about as many in North America, including the Catholicos of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East.
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - With demands for a full-scale investigation of the manipulation of intelligence by the administration of President George W Bush mounting steadily, it appears increasingly clear that key officials and their allies outside the administration decided to use the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as a pretext for going to war against Iraq within hours of the attacks themselves.
I have the sickening feeling that 9/11 might well have been facilitated though not instigated by those who believed this war to be a matter of vital necessity. I say sickening because there seem to be so many who take a great deal of satisfaction in this speculation. I am not one of these. But there are questions I want to see answered.
Iraq's history already written
By K Gajendra Singh
US chief administrator L Paul Bremer unveiled Iraq's 25-member governing council in Baghdad on Sunday. It now looks like the beginnings of the rule by the British Governor Sir Percy Cox in the 1920s, after the British had carved out three provinces of the Ottoman empire after its collapse in World War I. After a long national resistance, King Feisel II - of a British-appointed dynasty - and his prime minister, Nuri-as Said, were overthrown and killed in a 1958 military takeover.
We could do worse than bring the monarchy back. Sunnis themselves, as descendants of the Prophet they are revered by the Shiites. As for myself, my heart goes out to the Assyrians, but they may well be doomed, at least in Iraq; already there are just about as many in North America, including the Catholicos of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-17 08:32 am (UTC)The fact that you even admit the possibility is mind-boggling, and sorry - sickening.
Standard operating procedure
Date: 2003-07-17 08:49 am (UTC)No air cover for Washington, even for the Pentagon, even after the Towers had been hit and with at least one rogue plane in the air? Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Somebody must have screwed up big time. I hope to hell it was an accident. But I don't have all that much hope.
Re: Standard operating procedure
Date: 2003-07-17 09:10 am (UTC)I honestly don't think that the fuckup was motivated by the possibilty of a powergrab, rather arrogance let them drop the ball, and very shrewd handlers picked up and ran with it.
Gore Vidal
Date: 2003-07-17 11:29 am (UTC)Re: Standard operating procedure
Date: 2003-07-17 09:30 am (UTC)Standard operating procedure
Would be for those planes to be forced down -- not shot down -- as soon as they got off their flight plans. At least that's the way I understand it.
The radars lost the planes and the planes were not responding to calls, but I guess not enough time elapsed to start the search operation. Anyone who thinks that the air traffic control is a bulletproof system needs a reality check. That system has so many problems, it's scary.
That sort of thing needs to be investigated very, very thoroughly. And this administration isn't doing that.
That in itself does not demonstrate that they facilitated it.
No air cover for Washington, even for the Pentagon, even after the Towers had been hit and with at least one rogue plane in the air? Doesn't make a lot of sense.
To me that just demonstrates their basic incompetence.
Somebody must have screwed up big time. I hope to hell it was an accident. But I don't have all that much hope.
For someone coming from the Soviet Union, the fact that this big government can even function is miraculous. Huge beauracracy like the US government does not simply allow "big time screwups" -- it breeds them.
All IMHO of course.
Re: Standard operating procedure
Date: 2003-07-17 11:32 am (UTC)I agree with you about bureaucracy, though.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-17 09:59 am (UTC)with peace,
Amal
no subject
Date: 2003-07-17 12:28 pm (UTC)"Shock and awe" are the right terms, though. I'm shocked and awed that we've done this horribly hubristic and terrible thing. I don't even know what to call it. If there ever was a time when an administration deliberately *SINNED*, this is it. What else can I think off the top of my head of other than the Gulf of Tonkin and the Trail of Tears?
And, yes. I think we can add the Assyrian Catholics as martyrs who will die for their faith.
I am ashamed of our nation.
I am not ashamed
Date: 2003-07-17 02:24 pm (UTC)There have been other sins. The total war to reduce the South to submission. (The South had sins of its own.) The lies that got us into World War I. The treaty that gave birth to Hitler. The oil embargo that forced Japan to attack. The unconditional support of Israel.
The Assyrian martyrdom has been protracted, and, yes, the Catholics have had a share in the suffering, though my impression is that the Christians of the autonomous Catholicate have suffered even more.
Re: I am not ashamed
Date: 2003-07-18 08:38 am (UTC)Nor mine. I'm a subject of the King.