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Iraq

Curveball

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 10/29/2012 - 20:33

 

Sixty Minutes has done this story twice now.

This particular video however is from the BBC series Modern Spies which we, being for the most part guys, really like.

From Wikipedia.

 

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi (Arabic: رافد أحمد علوان‎, Rāfid Aḥmad Alwān; born 1968), known by the Central Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball", is an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program.[1] Alwan's allegations were subsequently shown to be false by the Iraq Survey Group's final report published in 2004.[2][3]

Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build arationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.[1][4] On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity.[5] Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth."

 

 

General Wesley Clark in 2007

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 08/18/2012 - 03:02

 

This one has been going around for a couple of years now, still it's worth going through again.

Increasingly it looks as though Gen. Clark has it right.

What we find to be most interesting is that despite a massive shift from Republican to Democrat control of our elected federal government, there appears no change at all in our foreign policy, or much else for that matter if you are able set your political prejudices aside and really sit down and examine it.

Sort of makes you wonder who's really running things around here.

 

 

Comments on an editorial comment

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 07/19/2010 - 17:50

 

My little editorial inspired pretty close to twenty emails, about that number again in calls, two face to face conversations, and not one lousy posted comment.

Damn!!!!!

Out of probably forty total responses, thirty nine disagreed (mostly strenuously) about that part having to do with returning our troops to our shores, and retiring from providing military for the rest of the world's defense.

My very, very long time friend Terry D. was my single supporter.

Which made me laugh out loud, as I had told my secretary not more than a month ago that I could think of only one issue in over 35 years where Terry and I had not been in complete agreement ..... that exception of course being his first wife.

He did come around to my way of thinking on that one sometime after it was just too damn late.

His defense on this particular subject consists mostly of his accusation that all I had to say amounted to just a lot of "mumbling under my breath" and that had I felt that strongly about it, I should have just manned up and spoke out on the subject, and ..... in light of that fact that I didn't, I need to just shut up.

But I digress. 

My personal chef, Kelly doesn't want nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands as that could result in disaster.

Dougy F. wasn't totally disagreeing, but he did worry that if we scrapped out the offensive weaponry, "we will need it when the rest of the world falls into total chaos."  Then, "after a couple of years we can go in and clean up whatever is left and run it right".

T.G. finds the idea of "surrendering" to Islam to be unthinkable.

Tommy ? believes my plan would leave a vacuum, which as we all know nature abhors, that would likely be filled by the Chinese.

I mostly don't disagree with that one.

I also mostly don't care.

Japan, Russia and India have a lot of history with China.

All three of them will almost instantaneously start to rethink the way they go about their business.

Japan in particular will most likely get after developing a military that can deter Chinese aspirations.

Getting out of Europe is the best thing that can happen to us, if for no other reason than instead of supporting continental economies with American tax dollars, we will be supporting the local communities that are home to our military people.

You guys want a European Union?

Your gonna need to throw in the cost of defending it.

I'll admit to a twinge of guilt with regards to the British.

They are a great friend and ally (pretty much from the day they stopped attacking us).

Leaving them with the French seems cold.

But alas .....

What about Israel?

I'll cheerfully sell them missiles and warheads sufficient to roast anyone, anywhere that might think they want a go.

It's called "mutually assured destruction" and it's been working like a charm .............. so far.

 

Here's the issue as I see it.

We have within our capabilities the power to win any war we fight.

Including this war with Islam (not radical Islam) (or terror) that we are presently involved in.

The way to win it is to decide to win it.

I'll say it again.

 

The way to win this war is to decide to win it.

 

 

Understand now, this means going to war with the intent of killing everybody you can find and breaking everything you see until your enemy surrenders under your terms.

Wanna take Kandahar (Qandahar) Province?

Carpet bomb Kandahar (Qandahar) City.

Kill em all, break everything there (that's about 470,000 people, about 40 times that in sheep and goats), reduce it to rubble, then make that rubble bounce.

When you're finished there, move on up the road to Spin Bolduk.

Can you imagine the uproar?

The UN would be going nuts, people would be screaming about war crimes.

They'd spend hundreds of hours happily debating language for the non binding resolution condemning the action.

Now, just to make the point that you're no longer fooling around, move north to Khost (only about 160,000 people), continue the proceedure.

Every couple days, take the morning off from the bombs, and drop leaflets around the rest of Afghanistan which read as follows.

 

Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

 

Kidding ..... sort of.

Send copies to Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, Mullah Ali Khamenei, the entire Iranian Parliment, Bashar al-Assaad (President of Syria), Hamas and Hezballah.

When the calls come in wanting to negotiate some peace, forget to return them for a couple of days.

Set up the appointment for sometime around the end of next month.

Then stay busy.

You've just won your war.

And here's the best part, not one American mother's son has been lost.

Seem harsh?

I offer a series of letters from the month of September 1864 between Generals Hood, Halleck and William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army and the Mayor and members of the Atlanta City Council prior to the destruction of Atlanta.

These letters should be read by every citizen of this country.

Hell, they should be read by every citizen of the world.

They are reasonably short, to the point and with regards to General Sherman's final reply to Mayor Calhoun (go ahead, just scroll to the end), contain extraordinary wisdom.

Click on the gears.

Do it now, you're not doing anything important.

 

 

Now, it is my strongly held opinion that we are unwilling to do any of that.

And I say, that if we are unwilling to do what's necessary to win, and by win I mean force an unconditional surrender on our enemy, completely on our terms, what the hell is it that we are sacrificing the lives of our children for?

Our thinking here is that by invading someone else's country and keeping our military there to enforce our will, our enemy will soon grow fond of us, and want to become just like us.

Dwell on that one for just a moment.

Let's say just for fun someone else had the military power to successfully invade America with the same thinking.

What would you likely do.

My opinion is that a mess of people would roll over in the beginning, but another group would make it their personal business to kill and/or maim every foreigner they stumbled across ..... and then hide.

That's called Guerilla War.

It works pretty good.

Then what happens is your foreigners start getting frustrated and start killing people indiscriminately.

Which of course would include and subsequently enrage them that had previously rolled over.

Which would ultimately cause unacceptable casualties among the invaders as the formerly rolled over, now join in.

Which would ultimately result in your foreigner's withdrawal after an enormous toll was extracted from everyone.

So .....

Whoa whoa whoa .... wait a minute, isn't that exactly what you're proposing above?

Aren't you advocating indiscriminate killing out of frustration?

Nope, I'm just sayin' that if you want to win this thing, you're gonna have to get brutal.

If you're unwilling to get brutal, your gonna lose, and a bunch of your own will have been sacrificed for nothing.

My idea with regards to war is simple.

I'm disinterested in my enemy learning to like me, admiring me, or wanting to grow up to be just like me.

In this particular instance, I have little interest in walking off into the sunset arm in arm with my Muslim brother.

I think the entire concept of "nation building" is stupid.

After this is over, I'll be glad to do some business if he wants ... and there's a profit in it.

My idea is simply to make sure that everybody understands, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you attack America, we're gonna come by for a visit, f&#$ you up real bad, and then leave.

Here's my ......

Whoa Whoa aren't you gonna piss off them that would have rolled over anyway?

Yup.

The difference here is that there aren't any Americans hanging around town waiting to be killed in retribution.

If I go, I'm "raining death and destruction" and then going somewhere real double tough for my enemy to get at me .... home.

The only guys hanging around to vent on will be the very guys that started the whole mess in the first place.

Poetic, ain't it.

Hey, they're just gonna attack us here.

Maybe, but they're doing that now.

And if/when they do, whether they are successful or thwarted, I would spend some time looking into who's responsible, and/or profited, and when my list is complete, go ape-shit crazy on everything they know.

The notion of "proportional response" should become, as they say, "another casualty of war".

 

The only real edge Islam has is the fact that everybody is pretty damn sure they're crazy.

Print a cartoon, they cut off your head.

Proportional doesn't register in the Islamic mind.

And for that reason, pretty much everybody is scared of em.

I believe it's a good thing when your enemy thinks you're crazy.

Makes em think twice ..... if not thrice.

 

My clear preference is to have my enemy think I'm crazy.

And the best part is, I'm going to have almost all my guys here at home where they belong, playing defense and helping out with thwartation.

 

You get only two choices with any chance of success in this kind of business.

Go to win, or don't even start.

Unfortunately we have attempted the "third way".

Just ask yourself here. "What do we really want?"

What I really want is for Islam to stop attacking the World Trade Center and killing innocent people.

I'd prefer it if Islam would play nice with Israel, but if Islam doesn't want to, the consequences are theirs.

If Israel chooses to make certain of it's survival as a jewish state?

(Should jewish be capitalized?)

Well ..... I can certainly understand that one.

Our decisions up to now have only resulted in the tragic destruction of our very best young people and a colossal waste of our resources.

If you're gonna fight the damn war, the idea is to effect the tragic demise and colossal waste on your enemy, and his resources.

If you're not up to it, leave it alone.

Apologies for the very long post, I'm well rested.

 

Declarations of War

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 06/10/2010 - 15:00

 

Sometimes, I deliberately forget to take my medicine before I go to bed, knowing full well that I will come wide awake between 3:05 and 3:15 AM

Back in the day, I used to wake up making deals, deal making being one of the things I do for a living.

Now days, I usually wake up free of a thought.

I like it.

To my way of thinking, my head empty of noise is a good thing.

So having failed to take my medication last night I came wide awake at precisely 3:12 AM as expected.

Only this time, I was thinking about War.

War with Iran feels inevitable to me.

Paranoid Roany is pretty damn sure that "The Powers That Be" are goading Israel into a war with Iran that's gonna blow up into an ungodly horror in an effort to change the subject away from the absolutely criminal job they've done on our economy.

Evil Roany is pretty sure there's a mess of those Iranian assholes that need killing anyway.

Good Roany on the other hand ........ is uhhhmm ........ well ........ Good Roany ........ you know ...... is pretty much in agreement with Evil Roany on this one.

Which brings me to my point.

In the past, if we were mad at somebody, we'd declare war on the whole damn country.

We declared war on Germany (twice), Japan, I'm pretty sure we declared war on Italy.

Korea was a little different.

That was a "Police Action".

It was authorized by the United Nations Security Council.

Basically, everybody was still sick of war after two "World Wars" so ......... they called it something different.

Same basic theory as "Liberal" and "Progressive".

Vietnam was also different in that it was authorized by "The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" which was not a formal declaration of war, but rather provided then President Lindon Johnson with the authority to do whatever was necessary including the use of military force to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (in this case South Vietnam) without a formal declaration of war.

Close enough for government work.

The "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678" authorized "The Gulf War".

The "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists" got us started in Afghanistan.

Congress authorized the present war in Iraq with the "Iraq War Resolution (formally the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002)".

Ok, so here's my thought.

I don't want to have a war with Iran.

Sure, there's a bunch of guys over there I'd like see dead, and would even cheerfully chip in toward their demise.

But I kind of like a lot of the Iranian people.

I'm on their side, I don't want to hurt em.

Hell, I think a lot of them are heroes.

So, instead of naming the damn thing something that's gonna drag a lot of people that I like into a mess they don't need, like "The resolution to get nuclear weapons the hell out of Iran".

Why not just declare war on the assholes?

Leave the Iranian people out of it.

So, if it's me, I'm naming it "The resolution to kill deader'n Hell; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mullah Ali Khamenei, the entire Iranian Parliament, the couple hundred pricks still around who attacked our embassy, and anyone else dumb enough to want to attempt to defend the above named assholes.  After which we'll be as gone as Keyser Soze and wishing the rest of you (and your children) long, healthy and happy lives."

I know it's long, but it is beautiful in it's precision.

Here's where the beauty resides.

Let's just for fun pretend we're Iranian citizens.  And the word gets out that The United States of America has just declared war on us.

Ahmadinejad is all over the TV about how we must defend our country against the American invaders.  This is scary stuff, and because we're scared, we're getting real damn mad.  Our hearts are in our throats as we prepare to defend our families, our wives, our children, our selves, our country.

Then the word gets out.

The Americans aren't coming after us, they're coming after that dickhead Ahmadinejad.

Aahhhhhhh!!!!

This changes everything.

Now, instead of being scared and madder'n Hell, we're starting to channel Tonto,

"What do you mean we, white man?"

Now, instead of oiling up the AK-47 and running off to some damn barricade to fight, we're oiling up the AK-47 but staying home, just in case one of the assholes decides they want to hide under our bed.

I like to think that (if I thought I could get away with it), I'd pop a cap or two in one of the bastard's asses myself, if only to save a little time.

People should listen to their Uncle Roany.

I got answers.

 

To quote Margaret Thatcher

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 05/04/2009 - 07:04

  

I owe nothing to Women's Lib. 

 The battle for women's rights has been largely won.
 
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd.

I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.
 
Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.
 
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions - he had money, too.
 
To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches.
 
I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.
 
In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.
 
I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
 
I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
 
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

I just owe almost everything to my father and it's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.

I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together.
 
It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.
 
I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.
 
I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job.
 
To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.
 
There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors... I mean it.
 
I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.
 
If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.
 
If you want to cut your own throat, don't come to me for a bandage.

It is only when you look now and see success that you say that it was good fortune. It was not. We lost 250 of our best young men. I felt every one.

It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.
 
It was sheer professionalism and inspiration and the fact that you really cannot have people marching into other people's territory and staying there.

Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.

Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.
 
Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
 
Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists' morale or their cause while the hijack lasted.

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.
There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best. 
We were told our campaign wasn't sufficiently slick. We regard that as a compliment.
 
You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
 

 

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