Did You see the young black girl who was taken prisoner by Iraq? Fear like that is really hard to watch! She is only a army cook. Bet I'm going to be haunted by her face in the middle of the nite! ....kirk

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2003

Answers

She is not "only a cook". She is a voluntary soldier and comrade to others marching into Baghdad. They will avenge all coalition soldiers taken or killed. Instead of being haunted by her face, take comfort in the fact that our voluntary soldiers are willing to do a job so many others cringe at.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2003

Yes Jay, I'm sure she would be very comforted knowing that whatever unspeakable horrors she encounters are the result of being a comrade to those willing to do the bidding of George Bush's cabal, and of course to line your own personal pockets. How could it be otherwise? Such a fetching cause after all.

Hey Kirk, get your priorities straight man! None of that kvetching about haunting faces and such! We gotta job to do!

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2003

EM, Her orientation in basic covered that. Being female, she was also allowed more opportunity to removing herself from military service prior to deployment. Just as you choose the safer life of being an enviromentalist, she chose a life with the potential of hazards as a member of our volunteer military. You would undoubtly find the statements of the female captured in 91 very interesting as she didn't consider her sexual molestation any more severe than the tortures that the other prisoners endured.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2003

I am so glad that you are comforted by that, Jay. I wouldn't want you lying awake at night worrying about her being mistreated any worse than the poor male POW's. I feel better already.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2003

EM,

I,unlike so many, am tolerant of others views and decisions. Some of us choose to be environmentalists , some choose to become entrapaneurs or investors, some choose to become warriors. No I do not like to think of an American soldier or any captured soldier being tortured in any fashion. However, I understand that that is the life that they chose, unlike the Iraqi conscripts.

I am truly sorry that your social faction is not achieving its goals as you would like, but I will not allow your displeasure to diminish the fact that I will respect the warriors for their determination and higher stature toward this situation that few in this day and age can succeed to achieve.

All you and I can do here at home is to go to our respected gatherings and show our support of our views. But no matter if you go to a peace rally or a coalition support rally, send your thoughts and care items to our soldiers.

In your first posting , you referenced the fact that I profit from this. Thats true, as my job is that of a defense contract employee. I also made profits last week in the stock market as many other investors. My income finances my lifestyle and agronomic studies, my stock profits of last week were used to finance a pallet of care package items for the troops. My spare time was spent assisting at pro coallition rallies in my area. You and I arn't that much different as we are both activists for our views. Freedom has a pleasing taste that many in this world do not have the opportunity to savor as you and I do without the help of a few skilled "cooks".

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2003

Well I guess from a strictly intellectual stand point I could never argue if this war or any war is necessary. Shoot maybe they are necessary. However at a very personal level war is a terrible crime against all humanity and putting our young soldiers at risk is nothing less than child abuse. Would we play a lottery where if we lose we are killed? Yet we ask our young people to play all the time. I doubt its volluntary either. They are brainwashed with a lure of goodies to join, then they can't un-join till they are done with you. I read that 80% of the homeless in California are vets from the Vietnam war. A young mind is a terrible thing to destroy.

Ha!! a friend just yelled at me today. "Jesus H Christ Kirk"!!!! If we didn't fight the wars we'd be the slaves of Hitler right now!!!! He might very well be right! But to me, I think when the old farts that run this country all run off to join the service that might be a war to fight! Or fun to watch!

Hey! Here's the game...Lets persuade our youngsters to protect out country so we can all feel free! Lets keep it a secret that they'll lose their freedom tho. Shoot we can even make some profits from it......Somebody stop me!!!!!!>>>>......Kirk

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2003

Kirk,

They are all volunteers. No one is asked, they are offered. They recieve excellent pay and benifits and hazardous duty pay for accepting the job and can quit up to predeployment. Just today , a military mother was interviewed, who declined deployment in favor of a general discharge. She has been told that her service time is transferable to a civil service position.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2003

"I am truly sorry that your social faction is not achieving its goals as you would like"

You don't say? You are 'truly sorry' eh? How is it that you would be truly sorry that the most hideous thing that human beings do to each other is happening as we speak, when you clearly stated some months ago that this is precisely what you were hoping for, in order for you to increase your military-industrial complex connected investment returns? I'm sorry too, Jay, sorry that your opinions on this issue are all clouded by your defense of a value system I find reprehensible, including your touching accounts of care package contributions. And yes, freedom does have a pleasing taste; let's hope we have a shred of it left by the time GW gets his butt kicked out of here. Lord knows our security will never again feel the same, we are forever branded by the world as the arrogant, ugly barbarians that our government has demonstrated itself to be .

Incidentally, your claim that the enlisted can quit up to deployment begs documentation. A general discharge that the woman from the anecdote you provided received is a blot on her record. I know, my partner received one after being set up by homophobes in the air force. I have contacted several people today and none so far has agreed that your contention is anything near the truth. Such a lovely romantic notion you have of service in a war, sitting in your comfortable house, watching the wall street ticker give you your evening jollies. Those people going out to fight for you and your pile of cash, ain't it great to be an american?

You are so right, Kirk; what a damn shame all the wasted lives that will come from this, and for many years to come.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2003

I just wanted to ad, Jay, that I have a lot more respect for you than I do for GW and his cabal. At least you are upfront and honest about your values and motives, instead of making up endless contradictory lies and excuses to cover them up. And I also appreciate very much the fact that you are always civil, and no more condescending than I! :)

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2003

Kirk, Turn the D%$# T.v. off. They want us to feel fear. They are brainwashing us through it. Turn it off and leave it off. There isn't anything we can do about this war anyhow. Go outside, listen to nature, take a walk in the woods, camp out under the stars. I love ya bro! Tren

"The gloom of the world is but a shawdow, behind it yet within our reach is joy. Take Joy." Fra Giovanni

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2003

Yea I know trennie! I just have this terrible feeling about this war. I've decided to really get involved with the peace movement in our area. I know at least I'll feel better if I do. Maybe I'm all wrong and everything will turn out all right. I hope so.....Love ya back...Kirk

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2003

To Dear Kirk

Seeds of Hope

Nature promises us through her seasons.

That summer will fade into fall, And winter will become spring again.

And so too will our human souls, evolve again.

As we pull ourselves through the last blizzards Of our long winter.

In our hearts the sap of new life, Flows again.

Like Dewdrops on a Snowdrop bud. The world re-dawning Within hearts of Love.

Love TRen

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2003

Kirk! Hi! You know I walked into the living room yesterday and found my dear strong husband weeping because he was watching T.v. and a soldier had gotten killed in the war and it was showing his family left behind. This war is getting to everyone. A part of me feels like I am just trying to ignore it if I do not watch the news or keep up. But you know, it is too much, it is enough just to deal with what is in front of me. I am glad that you have found a group that you can work with for peace. That might make you feel like you are at least doing something.

Kirk , I wish you could hear this guy sing this song, he is a black guy and sings this spiritual so wonderfully. I'm not trying to press my religion on ya, you know that . Cause I ain't got one! Hah! But this is just so cool, I'm sharing it with ya. So wild too, that he shares your name.

KIRK FRANKLIN - 911

Album: The Rebirth Of Kirk Franklin

(feat. TD Jakes)

[Daughter:] Hello

[Kirk:] Hey, it's me, Kirk, I need to speak to Bishop [Daughter:] Sure, hold on...

[Jakes:] Hello...

[Kirk:] Hey... I got some stuff I need to talk to you about

Lately, pastor I've been...having all these crazy kind of dreams

It's hard to sleep, I can't eat...scary, you know

[Jakes:] I know what you mean [Kirk:] I mean, every since that Tuesday, seems like life's just

getting real strange

[Jakes:] I hear ya

Anthrax, terrorist attacks and... I ain't even trying to get on no

plane [Jakes:] I feel ya

[Kirk:] ...and you know when I try to pray, there's a voice that telling that God's not real

[Jakes:] You know that's just the enemy

[Kirk:] Yea, but you ain't feelin' me

[Jakes:] No son, I know just know you feel... See, just because I preach and teach don't mean I don't get scared

sometimes [Kirk:] yea, whatever, but you T.D. Jakes

[Jakes:] Well, then I don't make mistakes... [Kirk:] Well... [Jakes:] Now, let me tell you what's on my mind...

When your smile is gone (He cares) [Kirk:] Yea, but I feel so alone (He's there and...)

[Jakes:] Although, your heart is heavy, God said: (every burden I will bear) [Kirk:] See, but you don't know my (my pain)

And I'm getting so sick and tired of all (this rain) I just got laid off, and to top it off the rent's due, so tell me

what I got to gain? [Jakes:] Well, see, trials come to make (you strong) Storms won't last (last long)

[Kirk:] But how can I trust God in all this mess? [Jakes:] Well, see that's the reason for the song

See, wherever you go there's one thing ya got to know God, is right there by your side (weeping may endure for a night) And he told me to tell you everything (everything's gon' be alright)

So thank you for calling...it's always good to hear from you [Kirk:] yea, but... [Jakes:] But I gotta go now [Kirk:] wait a minute... [Jakes:] I got another call on line 2 [Kirk:] But I ain't through

[Kirk:] See I'm sick and tired of all these church folk talking about stuff ain't as bad as it seems See, y'all don't feel my pain... [Jakes:] I don't have pain...? [Kirk:] I don't see how ...you on the cover on Time magazine [Jakes:] See, but you're looking at now and you don't know how I struggled and what I've been through [Kirk:] Yea, whatever... [Jakes:] Now, you crossed the line... [Kirk:] I'm just speakin' my mind [Jakes:] O.K. so let me speak mine, too (Hmmmmmm) I've made some mountains, I've seen some valleys, I've even had to cry sometimes Like when I lost my mother [Kirk:] Your mother? [Jakes:] My mother: [Kirk:] I'm sorry... [Jakes:] No son...that's fine: ...see life is full of ups and downs but God said (the storm won't last long) [Kirk:] But how'd you make it through? [Jakes:] Boy, I thought you knew...it was His (love that kept me strong) When your smile is gone (He cares) [Kirk:] But I feel so alone (He's there and...) [Jakes:] Although, your heart is heavy, God said...(every burden I will bear) [Kirk:] yea, but see...y'all don't feel (my pain) And I'm getting very sick and tired of all this (this rain) Just got laid off, and to top it off the rent's due, so tell me, Bishop, what I gotta gain? [Jakes:] Didn't I tell you trials come to make (you strong) And those old storms won't (last long) [Kirk:] How can I trust God in the midst of all this mess? [Jakes:] See that's the reason for this song Wherever you go there's something ya got to know (God still cares) (weeping may endure for a night) And he told me to tell you (everything's gon' be alright)

[Kirk:] Thank you pastor Jakes: Any time... [Kirk:] I think I can make it now...just tell me what I need to do [Jakes:] Just pray this prayer with me... Say: Father (Father) forgive me (forgive me) I'm sorry (I'm sorry) Please help me (help me) I love you (I love you) I need you (I need you) Hold me (hold me) Jesus (Jesus) My heart (my heart) my soul (my soul) please take (please take) control (control) Right now (Now) now (now) now (now) (right now)

[Jakes:] When you ain't got no smile (he cares) [Kirk:] and even when you feel so alone (he's there and...) [Jakes:] Although your heart is heavy, God said (every burden I will bear) [Kirk:] And even in the midst of all ya (pain) And when you're sick and tired of all the rain (this rain) Remember that the rain won't last always...and in Christ Jesus, you got so much to gain [Jakes:] You see your trials come to make you (strong) And the storms won't last (too long) [Kirk:] Remember my brother, my sister...it's only temporary [Jakes:] See that's the reason for this song Wherever you go [Kirk:] There's something you've got to know

[Jakes:] God is still there (weeping may endure for a night)

[Kirk:] And told me to tell you (everthing's gon' be alright)

Love TRen

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2003

Speaking of POW's...did anyone here happen to watch the show that was broadcast off and on last week about Saddam?? It was on the Discovery Times channel (formerly Discovery Civization). Can't remember the title, but it was about his youth and how he "evolved". This guy is truly WACKO and the tortures he inflicts on prisoners and just about anyone he doesn't like are ungodly! All we can do is hope and pray our troops get home quickly!!!

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2003

Thought this was cool.

[Previous Message] [Next Message]

Date: April 04, 2003 at 10:41:50 From: Deer Runner, Subject: The rest of the Private Lynch story...

All of you have heard by now of the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch from a

hospital in Iraq by U.S Special Forces. When I first heard about it, it

didn't seem like a very big deal. That's what happens in war, after all... However, the rest of the story came out this morning (see the link to the

ABC News story here: http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030404_309.html).

It turns out that the only reason she was rescued is that an Iraqi man, a 32

year old lawyer identified only as Mohammed, was visiting his wife who worked as a nurse in the hospital when he saw Ms. Lynch being beaten in the

hospital by a guard. He was so taken aback that he determined that he would

do whatever he had to to help her. He then walked miles through the desert

to find the advancing American forces to tell them about her. Not only that, he then went back to the hospital several times over the next several

days to funnel the Americans intelligence information that made the rescue

raid possible, drawing maps for them and counting the Iraqi forces!

Of course, he and his family had to leave their home and life after that and

are now in an American-protected refugee camp. When asked why he did what

he did, he said simply "Because I love much". I'm not ashamed to admit that

that brought a tear to my eye when I read it. I wonder how many of us would

have the courage and the capacity for love to be able to risk your life and

move your whole family to God knows where in order to save one young soldier

from an army that is invading your country...

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2003

Thanks for that, Tren. These are the things that can change the world, if only more of us had this man's values. He had nothing to gain for himself, and much to lose; was motivated by pure love, the most powerful force there is.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2003

Oh Trennie forgive me cause I didn't notice your last 3 posts on here!!!! I didn't get the e-mail to tell me. They are wonderful posts and the poem is great as always! Love ya .....Kirk

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2003

But it's ok, cuz we're "liberating" the people of Iraq........

cluster bombs

Like we liberated the people of Afghanistan perhaps?

abuse

Ain't it grand to be the good guys, saving the world from violence and tyranny?

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2003

Hey there, EM,

Been off fighting the good fight: helping to organize peace vigils twice a week, and big marches every month or so, including this p.m.

We're all getting very frustrated, of course, and short fuses are causing friction between us good guys and some real assholes who drive by and shout such empathetic remarks as "Nuke the whole fucking country", "let's turn Iraq into a big parking lot", "get a job", and "Love it or leave it" That last one particularly makes my blood boil. I thought that in a democracy, if you don't like something about a country, you were supposed to attempt to make it better. Apparently these dipshits who spend their after hours time nursing their Buds in front of corporate media stations, or perhaps Rush Limpdick can't figure that out for themselves.

As for Daddy Warbucks' statement, "You and I arn't that much different as we are both activists for our views", I want to tell him that he just gave you a terrible insult! You are head and shoulders superior to him, and he ought to go enlist in the Marines if he's so fucking gung-ho.

JOJ

-- Anonymous, April 13, 2003

Whoa there Joe, good buddy; sounds like you need a hug!

I know how emotionally draining it is to do political work, especially when one is so often on the 'losing' side.

As to 'daddy warbucks,' I don't see him as an activist anyway; activists spend their energy on trying to right the world's wrongs, as opposed to just their own self-interest and comfort.

However, I do see him as just as valuable as everyone else in the world. We all have a roll to fill, gifts to give in our own unique ways. People are complex, and starting fights with people is exactly how wars start, or are allowed to start. Demonize those who disagree, he becomes the enemy, and he is is no longer a precious human being.

So keep up the good fight, Joe! We too are still marching at least once a week. It's a wonderful thing to see the young folks so passionate about something; perhaps apathy is dying? It could happen.

Love ya,

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2003

Thanks, EM, but I think you are WAY too kind!

But I'm definitely in need of a hug :)

JOJ

As far as us all being equally valuable, I think you're having to stretch your mind to believe that. Maybe he's nice to his mom.

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2003

Oh yea Em!!!! Nicely put! We must be careful not to be too militant lest we turn into the thing we most despise! Or sumthing like that! Ha!...Kirk

-- Anonymous, April 15, 2003

All you need is love! (All together now...). And if you are interested, some action. Looks like Syria is next...WHAT THE ?

Hugs to you JOJ. I haven't read much from you lately. But then, I'm not around much these days. Hope you have enough water. I'll be glad to send you some. We have WAY too much rain this spring.

EM, hope you have sturdy shoes!

-- Anonymous, April 15, 2003

Oh yeah, my shoes are sturdy, and my callouses are too!

We need to keep speaking out, if we want to save what's left of our freedom. Doesn't take much for them to whoosh it away, that's been made patently clear!

From a speech by Tim Robbins to the Nat'l Press Club:

A relative tells me that a history teacher tells his 11-year-old son, my

nephew, that Susan Sarandon is endangering the troops by her opposition to the

war. Another teacher in a different school asks our niece if we were coming to the school play. "They're not welcome here," said the molder of young minds.

Another relative tells me of a school board decision to cancel a civics event that was proposing to have a moment of silence for those who have died in the war because the students were including dead Iraqi civilians in their silent prayer. A teacher in another nephew's school is fired for wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on it. And a friend of the family tells of listening to the radio down south as the talk radio host calls for the murder of a prominent anti-war activist.

Death threats have appeared on other prominent peaceniks doorsteps for their views against the war. Realtives of ours have received threatening e-mails and phone calls. My 13-year-old boy, who has done nothing to anybody, has been embarrassed and humiliated by a sadistic creep who writes, or rather, scratches, his column with his fingers in the dirt.

Susan and I have been listed as traitors, as supporters of Saddam, and various other epithets by the Aussie gossip rags masquerading as newspapers and by their "fair and balanced" electronic media cousins, 19th Century Fox. Apologies to Gore Vidal. Two weeks ago, the United Way cancelled Susan's appearance at a conference on women's leadership and both of us last week were told that both we and the 1st Amendment were not welcome at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

A famous rock and roller called me last week to thank me for speaking out against the war only to go on to tell me that he could not speak himself because he fears repercussions from Clear Channel. "They promote our concert appearances," he said. "They own most of the stations that play our music. I can't come out against this war." And here in Washington, [veteran White House correspondent] Helen Thomas finds herself banished to the back of the room and uncalled on after asking Ari Fleisher whether our showing prisoners of war at Guantanamo Bay on television violated the Geneva Convention.

whole article

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2003

How We Lost the Victory

By Ted Rall, AlterNet April 16, 2003

NEW YORK – We wanted it to be true. It wasn't.

The stirring image of Saddam's statue being toppled on April 9th turns out to be fake, the product of a cheesy media op staged by the U.S. military for the benefit of cameramen staying across the street at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel. This shouldn't be a big surprise. Two of the most stirring photographs of World War II – the flag raising at Iwo Jima and General MacArthur's stroll through the Filipino surf – were just as phony.

Anyone who has seen a TV taping knows that tight camera angles exaggerate crowd sizes, but even a cursory examination of last week's statue-toppling propaganda tape reveals that no more than 150 Iraqis gathered in Farbus Square to watch American Marines – not Iraqis – pull down the dictator's statue. Hailing "all the demonstrations in the streets," Defense Secretary Rumsfeld waxed rhapsodically: "Watching them," he told reporters, "one cannot help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain."

Hundreds of thousands of cheering Berliners filled the streets when their divided city was reunited in 1989. Close to a million Yugoslavs crowded Belgrade at the end of Slobodan Milosevic's rule in 2000. While some individual Iraqis have welcomed U.S. troops, there haven't been similar outpourings of approval for our "liberation." Most of the crowds are too busy carrying off Uday's sofas to say thanks, and law-abiding citizens are at home putting out fires or fending off their rapacious neighbors with AK-47s. Yet Americans wanted to see their troops greeted as liberators, so that's what they saw on TV. Perhaps Francis Fukuyama was correct – if it only takes 150 happy looters to make history, maybe history is over.

Actually, they were 150 imported art critics. The statue bashers were militiamen of the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam outfit led by one Ahmed Chalabi. The INC was flown into Iraq by the Pentagon over CIA and State Department protests. Chalabi is Rumsfeld's choice to become Iraq's next puppet president.

Photos at the indispensable Information Clearing House website place one of Chalabi's aides at the supposedly spontaneous outpouring of pro-American Saddam bashing at Firdus Square.

"When you are moving through this country there is [sic] not a lot of people out there and you are not sure they want us here," Sgt. Lee Buttrill gushed to ABC News. "You finally get here and see people in the street feeling so excited, feeling so happy, tearing down the statue of Saddam. It feels really good." That rah-rah BS is what Americans will remember about the fall of Baghdad – not the probability that Buttrill, part of the armed force that cordoned off the square to protect the Iraqi National Congress' actors, was merely telling war correspondents what they wanted to hear. In his critically acclaimed book "Jarhead," Gulf War vet Anthony Swofford writes that Marines routinely lie to gullible reporters.

ABC further reported: "A Marine at first draped an American flag over the statue's face, despite military orders to avoid symbols that would portray the United States as an occupying – instead of a liberating – force." Yet another lie. As anyone with eyes could plainly see, American tanks are festooned with more red, white and blue than a Fourth of July parade. And that particular flag was flying over the Pentagon at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The Defense Department gave it to the Marines in order to perpetuate Bush's lie that Iraq was involved in the 9-11 attacks.

Patriotic iconography is a funny thing. I've known that the Iwo Jima photo was fake for years, but it nonetheless stirs me every time I see it. Firdus Square's footage will retain its power long after the last American learns the truth.

The Phony War Ends, the Phony Liberation Begins

It was a fitting end for a war waged under false pretexts by a fictional coalition led by an ersatz president. Bush never spent much time thinking about liberation, and even his exploitation is being done with as little concern as possible for the dignity of our new colonial subjects.

What a difference a half-century makes! American leaders devoted massive manpower and money to plan for the occupation of the countries they invaded during World War II. What good would it do, they asked, to liberate Europe if criminals and tyrants filled the power vacuum created by the fleeing Nazis? Thousands of officers from a newly-established Civil Affairs division of the U.S. Army were parachuted into France on the day after D-Day, while bullets were still flying, with orders to stop looting, establish law and order and restore essential services.

GWB is no FDR. Three weeks after the U.S. invaded Iraq, Civil Affairs was still stuck in Kuwait. Rumsfeld's war plan didn't allow for protecting museums and public buildings from looters, or innocent Iraqi women from roving gangs of marauding rapists. At the same time thousands of irreplaceable archeological treasures from the National Museum of Iraq were being sacked by thousands of looters, dozens of American troops were hanging around the Saddam statue videotaping, trying to be quotable.

As priceless ancient Sumerian jewelry and Assyrian sculptures were being carried away on donkeys and carts, archeologist Raid Abdul Ridhar Muhammad tried to convince Marines manning a nearby Abrams tank to stop the looters. "I asked them to bring their tank inside the museum grounds," he told The New York Times. "But they refused and left."

"Stuff happens," Rummy said. "Freedom's untidy." He has the same taste in art as the Taliban.

This Administration's policy of perpetual war has become a case study in entropy, the distinctly pessimistic notion that no matter how bad things get we can figure out a way to make them worse. Entropy triumphed in Afghanistan, as the world's worst regime was replaced by dozens of thuggish warlords. The end of Saddam Hussein comes as welcome news, even if it's merely the accidental byproduct of a barely-disguised oil grab. But as Iraq's cities burn and its patrimony is hustled off into the black market and its women wail and the rape gangs rule the night, it's hard to escape the conclusion that we've lost this war as well.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2003

Is it a consequence of being an adult? That I want to puke, that is? I think the world has gone insane.

I did not see the young black girl that Kirk mentions in the very first post. Does anyone know if she was rescued?

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2003

Yes she was Joy. I saw her on the news last week, she and the other resuced POWs were at a medical base in Germany.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2003

Shoshana Johnson

shoshana

You're right, Joy; the world has gone insane.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2003

How and why the US encouraged looting in Iraq By Patrick Martin 15 April 2003 Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

The widespread looting in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk and other Iraqi cities, following the collapse of the Ba’athist regime of President Saddam Hussein, was not merely an incidental byproduct of the US military conquest of Iraq. It was deliberately encouraged and fostered by the Bush administration and the Pentagon for definite political and economic reasons.

Thousands took part in the looting in Baghdad which began April 9, the day the Hussein government ceased to function in the capital city. Not only were government ministries targeted, and the homes of the Ba’athist elite, but public institutions vital to Iraqi society, including hospitals, schools and food distribution centers. Equipment and parts were stripped from power plants, thus delaying the restoration of electricity to the city of 5 million people.

Perhaps the most devastating loss for the Iraqi people is the ransacking of the National Museum, the greatest trove of archeological and historical artifacts in the Middle East. The 28 galleries of the huge museum were picked clean by looters who made off with more than 50,000 irreplaceable artifacts, relics of past civilizations dating back 5,000 years. The museum’s entire card catalog was destroyed, making it impossible even to identify what has been lost..........

whole article: looting

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2003

From this long, important article:

The Silence About Sept 11"

The families of those slain on 9/11 have not taken all of this lying down. They have sued the government of Saudi Arabia for civil damages totaling $1 trillion, accusing them of harboring and aiding the terrorists who took down the Towers. There is profound merit to their claim, as 15 of the 19 terrorists who flew the planes on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, as does Osama bin Laden and the Wahabbi sect of Islam that motivates their jihad. The suit seems logical and reasonable. It is disturbing, then, to consider the legal team hired by the Saudi government to defend against the charges. Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi defense minister, is being represented in court by the prestigious Houston law firm Baker Botts.

The 'Baker' in Baker Botts is James Baker III, Secretary of State to George Bush Sr. and prime fighter for Bush Jr. in the Florida election brawl. Baker also shares another employer with Bush Sr.: Massive multinational corporation The Carlyle Group, owner of the arms manufacturer United Defense, which is making a gold-plated mint off the war in Iraq.

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2003

That was absolutely fascinating and enlightening, EM! Everyone should read it -- there is SO much more to it than just the clip EM posted!

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2003

We need a Deep Throat again.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2003