NIE Report: Iraq Was No Threat At All...and More.

A little more on intelligence cooking and the nonexistent planning for the postwar environment, from the Houston Chronicle this morning ... by someone who was there:

 

Let's just go back in time for a second. In 1991, the U.S. fought a war against Iraq to get their armies out of Kuwait and away from the Saudi Arabian border. I lived in Arabia at the time and can tell you that the Saudi people were terrified that Saddam was coming across the border and were practically down on their knees begging for help from the U.S. The U.S. came and got rid of the threat which the Saudis could not contain themselves. I would say at the very least, the Saudis owed the U.S. a permanent military base. Instead we get labeled as devils, infidels, and intruders and are asked to leave. How any AMERICAN, much less anybody period can look at that situation and not think America got the raw deal when the Saudis recently asked that America withdraw their troops from the country is beyond me. I think 75% or more of the American public has too short a memory, not enough patience, and too little a knowledge of history and the rest of the world to form intelligent opinions on what is going on in politics and current events. I only wish Americans were a little more worldly than they are. Some people on this message board have a clue, but the majority of you have a 10 year old's view of the world and no idea what is and is not important to our country and I don't say that to be mean, it's just what I see every day whether it be on this board or elsewhere. Americans have had it too easy for the better part of the last 25 years and really are not qualified to analyze situations like the middle east. They think the most important thing in the world is being nice to one another and not offending anybody. I'd like to drop each and every one of you off at a New Delhi train station for a week to give you a little perspective. Outside of America, Australia, several Far eastern countries, and several western European countries, the world is a mean, nasty place where Darwinism is a fact of life. Live in that world for a while and then come back and post these kinds of messages on this board. I can tell you that this is not just my view. Many foreigners have told me that Americans are just too soft. I used to defend Americans against such labels, but I'd say that opinion is pretty damn true.

 

AMerica ain´t as easy as you seem to think for a lot of people.

 

Trust me, it is.

 

Sorry I don´t trust you.

 

At the risk of sounding cliched, part of the reason is our horrible education system. We don't learn about the stark realities of history anymore.

We just learn a bunch of sissy stuff about multiculturalism and a bunch of self-hating Marxism.

I actually read a great book by Robert Kaplan which analyzes America's role in the world in terms of history (going back to Rome, Greece, etc.) and I was suprised to find how little I know. But after 9/11, things are changing.

 

No doubt America's education system is bottom of the barrel. Add to that the fact that parents do not seem to be doing a good enough job either whether it's because both parents work or otherwise. If you have a firm knowledge of history, you can see many parallels between current events and past events and that allows you to form a much stronger opinion on current events. I went to high school in the early 90's and most of my classmates focused on a couple subjects while pretty much ignoring others. They may have focused primarily on math and science if they focused on any subjects. While it's very useful to have a good background in math and science, other subjects like history should not be ignored. I can see that now as an adult (I've always had an interest in history, but if you had talked to me in high school 13 years ago, I probably would have agreed that math and science were important while history and English were much less important).

 

We don't learn about the stark realities of history anymore.

We just learn a bunch of sissy stuff about multiculturalism and a bunch of self-hating Marxism.



I couldn't have said it better myself. While Marxism may be a little harsh, there is simply no doubt that a large segment of our population are in favor of programs and laws that are socialist in nature. Instead of letting people be responsible for themselves, the principle America was founded on in the first place, these people want to create a society in which everyone thinks they are owed something and that will only weaken American society over time. I personally think it has all ready severely weakened our society when you look at all the frivolous law suits that are taken seriously by the courts and govt. programs that are basically nothing more than handouts. Unless something happens to change these trends, America has all ready passed the peak of its greatness and is on the downward slope of its reign as the world's lone super power. The sad thing is I wonder how many people in our country actually think this is a good thing?

 

Why do you hate America so much? France is nice this time of year. Commie. Et cetera.

 

Were the missing 28 pages found?

 

I love America. I'm simply pointing out that it is populated by a bunch of people who don't have the knowledge of history or the rest of the world to intelligently comment on the things that are being commented on in this forum. I know it sounds arrogant and I really stress that I'm not trying to piss people off with what I'm saying. I'm simply hoping that some people will take the time to realize that they really don't know what the hell they're talking about and that they're opinions are based on their experiences as Americans, many of which who have never seen Europe, the middle east, or Asia for themselves and therefore, really don't have the background to comment on events that happen in these parts of the world. You sure as hell don't get the truth from your leaders or your news media so it is up to each individual person to be able to take the facts and analyze them for themselves instead of having media people and politicians slurring the truth to help push their agendas. And this can not happen without either firsthand experience and/or a firm knowledge of history.

 

Batman was being sarcastic Deuce.

 

Cool. I was just being silly, echoing the stupid parrot crap we on the left get from those on the right any time we disagree with our government.

I assume from your post you don't like Bush any more than I do. He'd never been out of the country before running for president and exemplified the type of American you describe above -- oblivious to the rest of the world and too intellectually lazy to care about it. Glad to see we're on the same side there. As far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to stay here. Ashcroft may have something else to say about it. Since you criticized our school system, you're probably on a terrorist alert airport security list. Don't let it get you down. Safety and everything. You understand. 9/11 and all that.

 

Regardless of the missing 28 pages, we know that 19 of the 20 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. More iportantly, we know that until very recently, anti-western ideas were taught in the Saudi schools and since Saudi Arabia keeps totalitarian control over the few western media they allow within their borders, who knows if their claim that the school books have been revised is true. That's not even mentioning what is said in the mosque each day which I could get into based on firsthand experience, but won't today. We know that a strict form of Islam is preached and followed in Arabia, that their laws are based strictly on the words of the Quran and that many things Americans do for fun on a daily basis are taboo according to the Quran and thus under Saudi law. We know that Americans are commonly referred to as infidels by the Saudi people and that view has in the last 7 years finally manifested itself into terrorist actions against American interests in the kingdom, many of which never make the nightly news. We know that in 1996, a poll was conducted in "The Arab News", a Saudi newspaper in which 63% of the people who responded said they favored Osama Bin Laden's jihad against America. I could give you countless other reasons based on the time I lived in Arabia why Americans should view the Saudis as a problem, but I don't want to hurt MacBeth's feelings by eclipsing his average post length.

 

Where the hell have you been Macbeth? Your six hotties left you? Or is the Pornstar telling you she won't be seeing you anymore? Don't telling me you are not posting because of that little thing with Jorge...

The only reason I'm posting here in D&D right now is because I saw your name here... Missed your posts... so welcome back...

By the way, this is my first post here in D&D...

 

Hold on. I'm trying to make sense of two of the claims you made.

So what' s your opinion of this mean, nasty, Darwinian world outside the U.S.? Do you think it's a good thing? If so, we should just leave those countries alone and not try to spread our views, influence, or philosophies over there, because this Hobbesian state is simply the nature of things.

"Letting people be responsible for themselves" is exactly what will produce the Darwinian world you mentioned above, isn't it? Without social safety nets for the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, the disenfranchised, and so on, we'll be right back to the world of "nature, red in tooth and nail." Every man for himself. Is that the world you want to see? And if you do, why chide those Darwinist countries that actually behave this way?

You seem to link frivolous lawsuits, multiculturalism, and Marxism as examples of sissy Americans' sense of entitlement. Are you telling me that the most privileged members of our society don't have any sense of entitlement? Or that our nation, as a whole, doesn't have a sense of entitlement when it comes to world affairs? We feel "entitled" to take a disproportionate share of the wealth, "entitled" to pollute well out of proportion to our actual percentage of the world population ... and since you implied that the Saudis gave us a raw deal, then doesn't that imply that we're "entitled" to the gratitude of the rest of the world for our benevolent involvement. Or maybe you'll make the case that the world community itself is one big Darwinist jungle, and our might makes right.

 

You probably have heard that the threat to the Saudis was to a large degree trumped up by Bush the elder. The satellite pics showing troops gathering at the border were later shown to be false. Using a Russian Satellite photo taken at the same time it's plain to see that there are no troops near the Saudi border.

 

If there was a "D" in front of Bush's name, this would be a totally different situation. He'd be President DBush. Plus, he would have been impeached and removed from office.

And rightly so.