Middle East Meltdown and US Foreign Policy.

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December 30, 2006

SouthAmerica: Tonight I did watch on television on various channels all the material that the American mainstream media had prepared to broadcast on the day of Saddam Hussein’s execution.

They interviewed all kinds of experts and Iraqis who hated Saddam Hussein and in the entire night only the BBC did broadcast a feature that gave an honest picture of what really happened - when they broadcasted the BBC interview of former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Ramsey Clark repeated what I have been saying all along that Saddam Hussein was convicted by a Kangaroo court, which was set up by the United States and when the trial did not go according to the US scripted plan they just changed the judge.

Ramsey Clark said that Saddam Hussein has become a symbol to what happens to you if you defy the United States and don’t want to play ball according to US rules of the game.

The entire world from now on should be sympathetic and should not give a hard time to countries such as North Korea, and Iran because they want to protect themselves against US aggression by developing nuclear weapons.

By the way, this is a lesson not only for Iran or North Korea – this is a lesson to most countries around the world that have a chance to produce such weapons including Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, and many other countries around the world.

The American mainstream media is very slow in connecting the dots – takes forever for them to figure out even the most obvious stuff.

I did not see the entire evening a single person mentioning that Osama Bin Ladden is the new Sunni leader of Iraq. And Al Qaeda has become the main Sunni organization in Iraq.

I will not be surprised if one of the Arab television stations in the Middle East broadcast a tape of Osama Bin Ladden announcing that he is the new Sunni leader in that country.

Osama Bin Ladden is a “legend” in the Sunni Arab world – I guess he has a fan club also among the Shiites from around the world – He is considered a warrior not only because of his accomplishments in Afghanistan against the Russians, but he is also responsible for the 9/11 attack in US soil.

In 1941 the Japanese attacked the US in Hawaii – a long way from the US mainland.

Osama Bin Ladden attacked the United States in New York City and Washington, D.C. and that is almost as if the US had been stabbed on its heart.

All Saddam Hussein did to defy the United States was to get his riffle and shoot few times in the air – But Osama Bin Ladden attacked the US with major airliners full with people who crashed against the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon.

Maybe because of George W. Bush background as a cowboy – he thought that Saddam Hussein’s defiance gesture with his riffle was more dangerous to the United States than Osama Bin Ladden’s airplanes that crashed against the buildings in New York City and Washington D.C.

Anyway, the rest of the world are not as slow as the American mainstream media and the entire world – and the Arab world for sure – knows that Osama Bin Ladden has replaced Saddam Hussein as the new Sunni leader of Iraq – with the compliments of the United States.

Now that the Sunnis in Iraq will be looking for the leadership of Osama Bin Ladden and Al Qaeda it will be easy for Osama Bin Ladden to consolidate his power on that area of the world.

I wonder how long it will take for the American public to catch on to the fact that Osama Bin Ladden is the new Sunni leader of Iraq.

The other major result of Saddam Hussein’s execution is that China and Russia must realize that Kim Jong Ill – the leader of North Korea – has the right to develop nuclear weapons to protect him and his country from foreign aggression and end up being executed by the order of some kangaroo court.

If I were in the shoes of Kim Jong Ill I would send a letter to the Russians and to the Chinese saying that he needs his nuclear weapons in North Korea because he does not want to end up like Saddam Hussein.

The Russians, the Chinese, and the rest of the world for that matter would agree with Kim Jong Ill and be sympathetic to his position.

By the way, please stop bothering us in North Korea about 6 party talk and so on.

I rest my case.


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December 31, 2006

SouthAmerica: I hope that Brazil also will add its name to the list of countries that condemned the hanging of Saddam Hussein.

Most Americans don’t know that because they take for granted today, but a major difference between the United States and the rest of the world has been the respect that Americans have had for the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights – and its sense of justice.

That concept worked well for the United States for about 220 years and survived major depressions, a civil war, and two world wars, and so on….

But since November of 2000 starting with the US Supreme Court election of George W. Bush – all that became obsolete overnight with the Bush administration trashing the US Constitution and Bill of Rights – and the Bush administration has a complete contempt for the International Court in the Hague and also for international law.

The debacle started first with the Bush administration’s unsigning of the agreement to be part of the International Court, followed by the contempt that the Bush administration has shown to the Geneva conventions, and the complete disregard and contempt the Bush administration has shown time after time towards the US Constitution and Bill of Rights – the truth is the Bush administration is turning the United States into a “Banana Republic.”

Regarding its contempt for international law look at the "Kangaroo Court" that the United States established in Iraq to stage Saddam Hussein’s trial according to a script provided by the US – and when the trial was not going accordingly to the screenplay previously prepared – lawyers for Saddam Hussein were blocked from defending him, various lawyers were assassinated during the trial, and judges were changed during the trial at will to get to a speedy verdict that had been decided even before the trial had started.

Because of the massive incompetence of the Bush administration and the people who are running US foreign policy – the US could have stopped Saddam Hussein’s execution if they wanted to, but his execution was part of some crazy plan the Bush administration had for Iraq and the Middle East.

At the end of the day there is one group that will pay a high price for the stupidity of the Bush administration – the US military people who are in the middle of that mess – and Saddam Hussein’s execution will increase the number of body bags returning to the United States to be buried.

One group of Americans that should be very angry about Saddam Hussein’s execution should be the families of Americans with loved ones in Iraq because that hanging will just increased the rage that Iraqis have against the United States occupational forces and that will translate in lots of extra body bags.


PS: I guess Kim Jong Ill did watch what has happened to Saddam Hussein, and he probably got the message:

If you ever give up your nuclear weapons then you will end up like Saddam Hussein.

Your nukes is the only thing that is keeping your country and yourself safe from American aggression.



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'Gruesome.' 'Barbaric.' 'Politicized.' 'Farcical.'
The Nation – December 31, 2006


The Nation -- While much of U.S. media coverage of Saddam Hussein's execution has strained to echo the Bush administration's suggestion that "justice" was done, the international reaction to the hurried hanging of the former dictator has recognized what one of the world's top experts on the Middle East refers to as the "gruesome, occasionally farcical" nature of the process that led to the execution.

"It's tawdry," Rosemary Hollis, the director of research at Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, in London, said of the execution. "It's not going to achieve anything because of the way the trial was conducted and the way the occupation was conducted. Life in Iraq has become so precarious that many people are saying it was safer under Saddam Hussein - it makes the whole thing look like a poke in the eye as opposed to closure or some kind of contribution to the future of Iraq. The purpose should have been to see justice done in a transparent manner... the trial was gruesome, occasionally farcical, and failed to fulfill its promise of giving satisfaction."

Chris Doyle, the London-based director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, was equally dismissive, telling the Guardian newspaper that, "For Bush, Blair and their diminishing brotherhood of diehard supporters, Saddam's demise is their sole concrete victory in Iraq in almost four years. This should have been the crowning glory of their efforts, but instead it may pose yet another risk to their demoralized troops. For Iraqis, some will see it as a symbol of the death of the ancien regime. For some Sunnis, Saddam's death represents the final nail in the coffin of their fall from power. But Iraqis may also see this as the humiliation of Iraq as a whole, that their president, however odious, was toppled by outside powers, and is executed effectively at others' instigation."

Doyle's assessment was shared by Iraqi expatriate Kamil Mahdi, an academic who is now associated with the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Britain's Exeter University.

"It will be taken as an American decision," Mahdi said of the decision to execute Hussein and the way in which deposed leader was killed. "The worst thing is that it's an issue which, in an ideal situation, should have unified Iraq but the Americans have succeeded in dividing the Iraqis."

Critics of the trial and execution of the former dictator did not defend his actions. Rather, they recognized the fundamental flaws in his trial by an inexperienced and clearly biased Iraqi judiciary. And they condemned the rush to hang Hussein by a country employing the widely-rejected sanction of capital punishment.

"A capital punishment is always tragic news, a reason for sadness, even if it deals with a person who was guilty of grave crimes," explained Father Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Vatican, who added that, "The killing of the guilty party is not the way to reconstruct justice and reconcile society. On the contrary, there is a risk that it will feed a spirit of vendetta and sow new violence."

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, while officially welcoming moves to hold Hussein to account for killings and other crimes that tool place during his tenure as president of Iraq, issued a statement that said, "The British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else. We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime."

Another longtime U.S. ally, Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who in 2003 dispatched his country's troops to support the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, condemned the hanging of Hussein as "a step backward in Iraq's difficult road toward full democracy. Describing the killing as a "political and historical" mistake, Berlusconi said, "The civilization in the name of which my country decided to send Italian soldiers into Iraq envisioned overcoming the death penalty, even for a bloody dictator like Saddam."

Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm criticized the hanging as "barbaric," and similar criticism came from officials of Chile, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and the Ukraine.

Speaking for Amnesty International, Malcolm Smart, director of the organization's Middle East and North Africa Programme, echoed concerns expressed by Human Rights Watch and other watchdog groups.

"We oppose the death penalty in all cases as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is especially abhorrent when this most extreme penalty is imposed after an unfair trial," said Smart. "It is even more worrying that in this case, the execution appeared a foregone conclusion, once the original verdict was pronounced, with the Appeals Court providing little more than a veneer of legitimacy for what was, in fact, a fundamentally flawed process."

While Iran, which fought a long war with Iraq in the 1980s, found itself in ironic agreement with the Bush administration's enthusiasm for the execution, most Muslim countries were critical of the timing of the hanging.

The killing of Hussein during the Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, an annual period of religious reflection seem by Muslims globally as a time for showing forgiveness, drew rebukes even from U.S. allies. During Eid, Muslim countries rarely execute prisoners and frequently pardon them.

"There is a feeling of surprise and disapproval that the verdict has been applied during the holy months and the first days of Eid al-Adha," Saudia Arabia's official news agency declared after the execution. "Leaders of Islamic countries should show respect for this blessed occasion... not demean it."

"It had been expected that the trial of a former president, who ruled for a considerable length of time, would last longer... demonstrate more precision, and not be politicized," continued the blunt statement from the Saudis.

Libya cancelled Eid al Adha celebrations and ordered that flags on government buildings be flown at half-mast.

A statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry announced that, "Egypt regrets the fact that the Iraqi authorities carried out the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain, and that it took place on the first day of Eid Al Adha."

From Cairo, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alaa Al Hadidi complained that the execution's timing "did not take into consideration the feelings of Muslims and the sanctity of this day which represents amnesty and forgiveness."


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December 31, 2006

SouthAmerica: I checked the Brazilian newspapers to see the public opinion in Brazil about the execution by hanging of Saddam Hussein.

All the commentary that I found was against the execution of Saddam Hussein.

President Lula said: “ I don’t know if that was a real trial or just an act of revenge”.


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Front-page article about Saddam’s execution:

A Folha de Sao Paulo - December 31, 2006
“Veja repercussão no Brasil sobre a execução de Saddam Hussein”


Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - presidente da República

"Não sei se foi um julgamento ou uma vingança. De qualquer forma, acho que não resolve o problema do Iraque. Acho que a violência vai continuar."….


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No point in wasting any sympathy on that monster Saddam imho.
He has hidden billions stolen from the Iraqui's and yet to be uncovered from secret Swiss bank accounts and other offshore financial holes.
Almost comical to see the contenders for leadership of the Arab world shedding so many crocodile tears !! 3 days of mourning in Lybia etc - sickening but that's politics !!

 

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January 1, 2007

SouthAmerica: After trying to make a connection between Osama Bin Ladden and Iraq since 9/11 – finally the Bush administration is able to deliver Iraq to Osama Bin Ladden.

The United States got rid off Osama Bin Ladden’s archenemy in Iraq - Saddam Hussein – and in that process the United States was able to achieve something really unbelievable – they turned Saddam Hussein a ruthless dictator into a “MARTYR” for the Arab world.

Completely clueless as usual with a single hanging the United States besides turning Saddam Hussein into a martyr and a symbol for the Arab world to look up to, the United States also achieved another US goal – they turned Osama Bin Ladden as the uncontested leader of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq. Instead of having only Saddam Hussein and a local Sunni insurgency to worry about – we start the new year of 2007 with Osama Bin Ladden in charge in Iraq with his Al Qaeda freedom fighters; an organization that has global reach including cells inside the United States as demonstrated by the attack of 9/11 in US soil.

Today finally, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the entire group of incompetent clowns who have been making US foreign since January 2001 were able to elevate Osama Bin Ladden to the position of ultimate and supreme Sunni leader in Iraq and around the world. Today, with Saddam Hussein out of the way Osama Bin Ladden is the new undisputed Sunni leader and warrior in Iraq, and over the years he has become a “Legend” of disproportional stature in the Arab world – but always with the helping hand of the United States; first in Afghanistan and now in Iraq.

As usual the US mainstream media were not able to make that simple connection as yet – as a matter of fact the US mainstream media takes forever to make the most simple connections – most Americans still are not sure if Iraq is in the middle of a sectarian civil war.

If anything the sectarian war in Iraq it will take a turn for the worse in the coming months after the video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging was shown in the Internet showing the Shiites who attended his hanging tormenting and humiliating a man that was to be hanged in a matter of minutes.

First Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by a Kangaroo court set up by the United States then he was humiliated by his enemies to the last second before his death.


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You have a very good read of what's going to happen. My personal belief is that america was ( is being ) used by zionist forces to destabilize the "home" region.

The goal of the destabilization process is to carve Iraq into 3 separate regions giving the Kurds control of 50% of Iraqi oil wealth from which the zionists hope to supply the mother nation with cheap energy. ( http://www.foxnews.com/projects/maps/640x480_iraq_postwar.jpg) A pipeline using Jordan is very feasible since the present Kings mother was a english woman. The current King, his mother and his step-mother queen Noor the mother of the heir to the throne are close to zionist forces. I wouldn't be suprised if the zionists told the kurds that in exchange for international recognition of a free kurdistan, the kurds will have to allow Palestinians from the West Bank to "re-settle" in the new Kurdistan.

The end game will be interesting since it seems the zionists have miscalculated with respect to Iran. All that hot rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear issue hasn't gone anywhere and they lost the proxy war initiated by the zionists in Lebanon. The current shiite regime in Iraq is very close to the Iranian power brokers. The question now becomes wether the zionists will allow the other 50% of Iraqi oil to be carved up by the Shiites or the Sunnis, which brings the Saudis into the picture. The Saudis are fully funding their Sunni brethern in Iraq ( that's why the Saudis will not do anything about the open border problem) to create a buffer between them and Iran. In the long term Saudis know if the Shites do manage to control the 50% of the Iraqi oil, the current Saudi regime will be overthrown and all their useless princes and Kings be-headed.

 

I am not sure if the some of the current members of the US admin are paid off by the Iranians or not. Otherwise, why will someone with sense (well, here lies the catch... with sense) mess with Iraq and literally hand it to the Iranians? I am being sarcastic, but some this batch of busites were also involved in Iran contra. Perhaps, those connections are paying off for the Iranianians. This is pure conjecture, but then sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

 

At last the democrats are getting their act togethor.
More troops for Iraq says Bird Brain. The Democrats should in my opinion make sure their dopey Presidents cant go to war without their consent and shouldn't be able to treat America as their private property just because they won an election ( had more dollars ).
Lets see a bit of strength and courage from a hithertoo much too subservient Congress.
When do the guys in white coats come in and drag poor demented BB off to a sanitarium ? For his safety, yours and ours too ?

 

i know it was not intended, buit it sounds nice that you
call someone a monster and then you talk about ...
just money.

 

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January 11, 2007

SouthAmerica: Tonight I was watching George W. Bush’s speech about his new strategy for Iraq – a way forward.

My impression was that it was a speech of a defeated man – he knows that the United States has lost that war in Iraq and it is just a matter of time for US troops to withdraw from Iraq.

What is amazing to me is that he left out of his speech one of the most important man in Iraq today and he never mentioned to the American public that the supreme Sunni leader of Iraq today is: Osama Bin Ladden.

He mentioned on his speech that the situation in Iraq is not acceptable to him and to the American people – you know how inconvenienced most Americans are regarding the Iraq war - Americans continue driving their SUV’s everywhere and the price of gas is up since March 2003, Americans got so many tax cuts that the wealthiest Americans don’t know what to do with all the money that they have coming out of their ears, and they also have to take care of 2 or 3 houses that they bought on credit and so on…

In the other hand the Iraqis are having a great time in Iraq – they have had no water for the last 4 years, no garbage pick up, they have electric power for 2 hours per day if they live in a good neighborhood, and most Iraqis are lucky if they leave the from door of their houses and don’t get kill by some kind of bombing or by some militia. With unemployment running at 60 percent of the population, and with all the educated people leaving the country (more than 1 million educated Iraqis left their country) – other than that everything else is going well in Iraq.

Today the United States government is looking so “Pathetic” that I wonder how the American people let this country reach such a low point.

George W. Bush does not have a clue about what is really happening in Iraq – besides being engulfed on a nasty sectarian civil war that has been spinning completely out of control for a long time.

About 3 weeks ago one of these generals that the major television and cable channels bring all the time to up date the American people on what is happening in Iraq – I don’t remember if it was CNBC, CNN, or Nightline – but the American general mentioned that by the latest Pentagon estimates there were “23 independent militias” including Kurdish, Sunnis and Shiites fighting among themselves in Iraq and they were all trying to get a piece of the pie. And never mind all the criminal gangs roaming around that are taking advantage of the massive mess in Iraq.

It is sad to see how delusional George W. Bush has become – he actually believe that the government that he installed in the “Green Zone” it is the legitim government of Iraq.

Without US government protection the government of the “Green Zone” would not last even ten minutes.

When George W. Bush mentioned that he was ready to fight his war on terror and I guess he is even willing to spread his mess in Iraq to include also Syria, and Iran - he said he was going after Al-Qaeda and so on.

But he did not say a word about the obvious that the entire world knows about – not only that Osama bin Ladden is the new supreme Sunni leader in Iraq, but also that Osama Bin Ladden and his group Al-Qaeda is training in peace and untouchable by the United States in Pakistan – And Osama Bin Ladden and Al-Qaeda are being protected by the Pakistani government and its 100 nuclear warheads.

First, Osama Bin Ladden helped drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan – and the Soviets were never able to recover from that defeat. And after Saddam Hussein’s execution Osama Bin Ladden took the leadership of the insurgency in Iraq.

Osama Bin Ladden knows that he is winning another war in Iraq – and this time around he is defeating the other superpower. Osama Bin Ladden has a global reach and he can cause a lot of pain to the United States around the world.

The rest of the world must be thinking what happened to the United States – how such an idiot became president of that country?

In a Nutshell: George W. Bush is making the United States look like a “Banana Republic” to the rest of the world.

The only thing I can say is I agree with my friend.

A friend of mine – a Republican – told me that in the last 3 weeks he went to 2 meetings with a group that is planning to go to Washington D.C. do demonstrate and ask Congress to “Impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney”. He also told me that he got a sign that he did put in front of his house which is located on a very busy corner – the sign said “Impeach Bush/Cheney” – the sign lasted less than 24 hours since during the night someone stole his sign. He is replacing that sign with various signs and he will nail them down this time around.


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