[OT] What Is "Terrorism?"

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...8/MN248299.DTL

Pentagon May Punish GIs Who Spoke Out on TV

Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer

Fallujah, Iraq ...

Nearby, Pfc. Jason Ring stood next to his Humvee. "We liberated Iraq.
Now the
people here don't want us here, and guess what? We don't want to be
here
either," he said. "So why are we still here? Why don't they bring us
home?"

I'm still wondering this same question.

What is the U.S. government giving out as the official
reason the soldiers are still there?

And what are the real reasons?
--
Cathy

Bush & the Media Cover up the Jihad Schoolbook Scandal


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook
scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the
Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to
happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western
media that the US government shipped - and continues to
ship - millions of Islamist (that's short for Islamic
fundamentalist) textbooks into Afghanistan. ...


You can read the whole article at:

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

--
Cathy

(Catherine Woodgold) wrote in message ...
Bush & the Media Cover up the Jihad Schoolbook Scandal


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook
scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the
Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to
happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western
media that the US government shipped - and continues to
ship - millions of Islamist (that's short for Islamic
fundamentalist) textbooks into Afghanistan. ...


You can read the whole article at:

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

It is shocking that the USA has been writing, printing, and
shipping school textbooks to Afghanistan for decades which according
to the March 23, 2002 Washington Post "were filled with talk of jihad
and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have
served since then [i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan
secular government in the early 1990s] as the Afghan
school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the
American-produced books..." Yet at the same time, it is not
surprising when viewed in the context of US policy towards Afghanistan
over the last twenty years.

The blood debt of Americans (myself included) to the Afghani
people is enormous. It was the USA which deliberately provoked the
USSR into invading in the first place, according to Carter-era
National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski. In a 1998 interview he gave to the French magazine, _Le
Nouvel Observateur_ (Jan. 15-21), Brzezinski revealed that US covert
military aid to the Afghan mujahideen (elements of what would later
become al-Qa'eda and the Taliban) began six months *before* the
Soviets invaded, not afterwards as Americans had long been misled into
believing. This was done with the calculated hope that it would
"induce a Soviet military intervention" thus leading them into their
own Vietnam-style quagmire. The gambit worked. As a result, tens of
thousands of Soviet boys have died, along with millions of Afghanis,
most of them children. And decades later the country continues to be
a festering pit of human rights abuses, atrocities, ethnic cleansing,
torture, disease, extreme poverty and misery - a monumental tragedy on
a scale as vast as the Hindu Kush.

The Nouvel Observateur interviewer then asked Brzezinski the
obvious question. Did he have any regrets? Here is Mr. Brzezinski's
response:

"Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It
had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you
want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the
border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of
giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years,
Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a
conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup
of the Soviet empire."

The US government, led by the so-called "human rights
administration" of Jimmy Carter, deliberately set the first domino in
motion. And the deadly dominos continue to fall, a generation later.

So it makes sense that for years the USA shipped planeloads of
children's school books calculated to teach an entire generation to
devote themselves to jihad against foreign infidels.

Every American should hang their head in shame - I already am.
We helped plunge that country into a nightmare from which they still
have yet to awake, treating them as an expendable pawn in our Great
Power maneuvers with our now-defunct rival, the USSR; a entire lost
generation of Afghanis has been the price, due in part to our
deliberate attempt to inculate them with Islamist extremist ideology.
And still there is no end in sight.

If there is anyone on this thread who is prepared to argue that
America's Afghan adventure has been a "success" I would be most
intriqued to hear you defend that curious assertion. When I look at
Afghanistan, I see nothing but an ongoing human tragedy - a disaster
area - a metaphorical puddle of pestilent mud left behind in the
bootprint of a rogue superpower's headlong march for global
domination.

Chris (USA)

(Catherine Woodgold) wrote in message ...
Bush & the Media Cover up the Jihad Schoolbook Scandal


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook
scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the
Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to
happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western
media that the US government shipped - and continues to
ship - millions of Islamist (that's short for Islamic
fundamentalist) textbooks into Afghanistan. ...


You can read the whole article at:

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

It is shocking that the USA has been writing, printing, and
shipping school textbooks to Afghanistan for decades which according
to the March 23, 2002 Washington Post "were filled with talk of jihad
and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have
served since then [i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan
secular government in the early 1990s] as the Afghan
school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the
American-produced books..." Yet at the same time, it is not
surprising when viewed in the context of US policy towards Afghanistan
over the last twenty years.

The blood debt of Americans (myself included) to the Afghani
people is enormous. It was the USA which deliberately provoked the
USSR into invading in the first place, according to Carter-era
National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski. In a 1998 interview he gave to the French magazine, _Le
Nouvel Observateur_ (Jan. 15-21), Brzezinski revealed that US covert
military aid to the Afghan mujahideen (elements of what would later
become al-Qa'eda and the Taliban) began six months *before* the
Soviets invaded, not afterwards as Americans had long been misled into
believing. This was done with the calculated hope that it would
"induce a Soviet military intervention" thus leading them into their
own Vietnam-style quagmire. The gambit worked. As a result, tens of
thousands of Soviet boys have died, along with millions of Afghanis,
most of them children. And decades later the country continues to be
a festering pit of human rights abuses, atrocities, ethnic cleansing,
torture, disease, extreme poverty and misery - a monumental tragedy on
a scale as vast as the Hindu Kush.

The Nouvel Observateur interviewer then asked Brzezinski the
obvious question. Did he have any regrets? Here is Mr. Brzezinski's
response:

"Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It
had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you
want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the
border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of
giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years,
Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a
conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup
of the Soviet empire."

The US government, led by the so-called "human rights
administration" of Jimmy Carter, deliberately set the first domino in
motion. And the deadly dominos continue to fall, a generation later.

So it makes sense that for years the USA shipped planeloads of
children's school books calculated to teach an entire generation to
devote themselves to jihad against foreign infidels.

Every American should hang their head in shame - I already am.
We helped plunge that country into a nightmare from which they still
have yet to awake, treating them as an expendable pawn in our Great
Power maneuvers with our now-defunct rival, the USSR; a entire lost
generation of Afghanis has been the price, due in part to our
deliberate attempt to inculate them with Islamist extremist ideology.
And still there is no end in sight.

If there is anyone on this thread who is prepared to argue that
America's Afghan adventure has been a "success" I would be most
intriqued to hear you defend that curious assertion. When I look at
Afghanistan, I see nothing but an ongoing human tragedy - a disaster
area - a metaphorical puddle of pestilent mud left behind in the
bootprint of a rogue superpower's headlong march for global
domination.

Chris (USA)

Chris wrote:

(Catherine Woodgold) wrote in message ...
Bush & the Media Cover up the Jihad Schoolbook Scandal


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook
scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the
Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to
happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western
media that the US government shipped - and continues to
ship - millions of Islamist (that's short for Islamic
fundamentalist) textbooks into Afghanistan. ...


You can read the whole article at:

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

It is shocking that the USA has been writing, printing, and
shipping school textbooks to Afghanistan for decades which according
to the March 23, 2002 Washington Post "were filled with talk of jihad
and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have
served since then [i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan
secular government in the early 1990s] as the Afghan
school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the
American-produced books..." Yet at the same time, it is not
surprising when viewed in the context of US policy towards Afghanistan
over the last twenty years.

The blood debt of Americans (myself included) to the Afghani
people is enormous. It was the USA which deliberately provoked the
USSR into invading in the first place, according to Carter-era
National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski. In a 1998 interview he gave to the French magazine, _Le
Nouvel Observateur_ (Jan. 15-21), Brzezinski revealed that US covert
military aid to the Afghan mujahideen (elements of what would later
become al-Qa'eda and the Taliban) began six months *before* the
Soviets invaded, not afterwards as Americans had long been misled into
believing. This was done with the calculated hope that it would
"induce a Soviet military intervention" thus leading them into their
own Vietnam-style quagmire. The gambit worked. As a result, tens of
thousands of Soviet boys have died, along with millions of Afghanis,
most of them children. And decades later the country continues to be
a festering pit of human rights abuses, atrocities, ethnic cleansing,
torture, disease, extreme poverty and misery - a monumental tragedy on
a scale as vast as the Hindu Kush.

The Nouvel Observateur interviewer then asked Brzezinski the
obvious question. Did he have any regrets? Here is Mr. Brzezinski's
response:

"Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It
had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you
want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the
border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of
giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years,
Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a
conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup
of the Soviet empire."

The US government, led by the so-called "human rights
administration" of Jimmy Carter, deliberately set the first domino in
motion. And the deadly dominos continue to fall, a generation later.

So it makes sense that for years the USA shipped planeloads of
children's school books calculated to teach an entire generation to
devote themselves to jihad against foreign infidels.

Every American should hang their head in shame - I already am.
We helped plunge that country into a nightmare from which they still
have yet to awake, treating them as an expendable pawn in our Great
Power maneuvers with our now-defunct rival, the USSR; a entire lost
generation of Afghanis has been the price, due in part to our
deliberate attempt to inculate them with Islamist extremist ideology.
And still there is no end in sight.

If there is anyone on this thread who is prepared to argue that
America's Afghan adventure has been a "success" I would be most
intriqued to hear you defend that curious assertion. When I look at
Afghanistan, I see nothing but an ongoing human tragedy - a disaster
area - a metaphorical puddle of pestilent mud left behind in the
bootprint of a rogue superpower's headlong march for global
domination.

Chris (USA)
--------------
The death of the whole Afghani people would be superior to leaving
them in thrall to the Taliban.
Steve

(Catherine Woodgold) wrote:

What is the U.S. government giving out as the official
reason the soldiers are still there?

And what are the real reasons?

Here is one real reason.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feat...we_455_01.html


The World According to Halliburton
—By Michael Scherer, Mother Jones



July 23, 2003 Issue

The Mother Jones website is featuring a
fascinating (and frightening) map of the Halliburton empire. Created
by Michael Scherer, this interactive map lets you explore the tax
havens, defense-related contracts, and federal energy subsidies in the
company's global web consisting of offices in 70 countries and annual
revenues of $12.6 billion.

Since Dick Cheney took over as CEO of
Halliburton in 1995, after serving as secretary of defense during Gulf
War I, the company has had tight political connections -- revenues
rose 26 percent in his first year. "Federal investigators looking into
charges that Halliburton defrauded taxpayers said that company
officials "had the upper hand at the Pentagon because they knew the
process like the back of their hand."

Scherer shows that Halliburton continues to
remain well-connected. The tax dollars the company receives -- $2.2
billion in defense-related contracts and generous subsidies for
profitable pipeline projects -- "couldn't come at a better time for
Halliburton," Scherer states, "its share price has collapsed under the
weight of asbestos lawsuits, a federal investigation into its
accounting practices, and a drop in oil prices." And Halliburton adds
insult to injury to the American people by avoiding paying taxes,
Scherer notes. "In 1995, the company had nine subsidiaries in the
Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other countries that serve as tax havens.
By 2002, it had 58."
-- Joel Stonington


http://www.motherjones.com/news/feat...we_455_01.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jul24.html

Deutch Sees Consequences in Failed Search for Arms
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday 25 July 2003

Former CIA director John M. Deutch told Congress yesterday that
failure to
find chemical or biological weapons in Iraq would represent "an
intelligence
failure . . . of massive proportions."

"It means that . . . leaders of the American public based [their]
support for the most serious foreign policy judgments -- the decision
to go to war -- on an incorrect intelligence judgment," Deutch said
during testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence.

The impact, he said, would be felt "the next time military
intervention is
judged necessary to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction
-- for
example in North Korea -- there will be skepticism about the quality
of our
intelligence."

The House panel, along with its Senate counterpart, is holding
hearings on
the handling of intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs amid
complaints by
Democrats that the administration may have exaggerated the threat
posed by
the now-toppled government of president Saddam Hussein to justify war.

Deutch said "it seems increasingly likely" that Iraq may have not
continued its chemical and biological weapons programs after the 1991
Persian Gulf War.
But Deutch and another former CIA director, R. James Woolsey, told the
panel
that they expected U.S. forces eventually would turn up evidence of
chemical
and biological weapons production, perhaps along with stocks of
chemical and
biological agents or weapons.

Former United Nations weapons inspector David Kay, in Iraq to
coordinate
the weapons search for CIA Director George J. Tenet, has been
interviewing
lower-level Iraqi scientists and reviewing tons of documents. He has
been
pulling together outlines of research and development programs and
references to chemical and biological precursors, according to senior
administration officials.

Kay and Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, deputy director of the
Defense
Intelligence Agency who runs the military side of the program, are
scheduled to
return next week to brief the Pentagon and appear on Capitol Hill.

At his Senate Armed Services Committee reappointment hearing
yesterday,
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
that in
recent days U.S. teams had discovered artillery shells with a
different type of
casings. "Whether or not there were chemicals or biological in there,
we don't
know. We have to test that," Myers said.

In a related matter, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked FBI
Director
Robert S. Mueller III to investigate whether Bush administration
officials
identified the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson as a
clandestine
CIA officer, an allegation published on July 14 in a syndicated column
by Robert
Novak.

Wilson, a critic of Bush's decision to invade Iraq, carried out a
CIA-generated mission to Niger in February 2002 to determine the
validity of
intelligence reports that Iraq had sought uranium oxide from that
country for its nuclear program. Wilson's report back to the CIA cast
strong doubt about the
reports.

In the column, Novak named Wilson's wife as an "agency operative
on
weapons of mass destruction," adding: "Two senior administration
officials told
me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger" to carry out the
investigation.

Schumer said the disclosure of the wife's name and CIA
relationship "was
part of an apparent attempt to impugn Wilson's credibility and to
intimidate
others from speaking out against the administration." He called for
the FBI to
investigate Novak's source, because intentionally identifying a covert
CIA
officer is a crime.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan has been asked twice
this
week about charges the information was deliberately leaked to Novak,
and both
times responded that "this is not the way this president or this White
House
operates."

McClellan said he has "no idea" who the sources for the
information were,
and added that "certainly no one in this White House would have been
given
authority to take such a step."

http://www.msnbc.com/news/943801.asp

Body Counts
Uday and Qusay's deaths will not stop the guerrilla war. Why Iraq could
be worse than Vietnam

Newsweek Web Exclusive

Those of us who've covered the Third World's wars are used to looking at
mugshots of the dead, whole photo albums of corpses.

SOME HUMAN-RIGHTS organizations collect them to show the brutally
murdered victims of evil dictators. Some generals collect them (I'm thinking of
a Turkish general in particular) to show, body by body, their victories over
elusive guerrillas. And sometimes the victims in one collection and the
guerrillas in the other are the same. That's the problem with
counterinsurgency: separating "the innocent" from "the enemy."

The new photographs of Saddam Hussein's sons--close-ups of bearded
faces on bloody plastic--look pretty much like any other cadavers dragged
out of a firefight, and better than many. Uday's face was twisted from a
wound slashing across the nose, but not imploded beyond recognition, as
such faces often are. Qusay's was unscarred, grimacing.

For American forces these were all but the baddest of the bad guys. For
most Iraqis, they were a bad dream that seemed never to end. No question of
innocents here. Uday and Qusay were the enemy, full stop, and when they
died, so did even the remotest chance in hell of a Saddamite dynasty.

But let's not make too much of this triumph. The body counting is far from
over in Iraq.

As the death toll for Americans goes up day by day and folks back home
are having to think about what it means to fight what's now acknowledged to
be a guerrilla war, you're starting to hear comparisons with the long,
soul-destroying counterinsurgency in Vietnam. Well, Iraq could be even
worse.

In Nam, there was a government, however feeble and corrupt, to invite us
in. There were structures, including a bureaucracy and an army, that could
be improved, advised, derided or deplored--but which at least existed. In Iraq,
thanks to the American blunders and indecisiveness of the last three months,
there is no army. There are precious few police. And there's barely a
bureaucracy to speak of. The United States has to do just about everything,
but it looks as if it didn't prepare for anything. "People in the
conspiracy-minded Arab world just can't believe you could make such
mistakes," a Jordanian business consultant told me this afternoon. "They see
a great plot to dismember an Arab state or whatever. But they're just
misreading your incompetence."

The Iraqi people themselves were not implicated in the overthrow of the
dictator, any more than they were involved (apart from the bounty-hunting
informant) in killing his two sons. This was a favor the Iraqis did not ask, a
revolution in which they did not participate and a debt of gratitude they do not
feel. Even for those many Iraqis who loathed Saddam and his sons, there is
something humiliating about the spectacle of Uncle Sam arriving on their
doorstep like a deus ex machina to dictate their history. Now they don't want
the Americans to stay, but they're afraid for them to go and leave an even
more dangerous power vacuum. So there are many Iraqis who say
reluctantly that they approve of the U.S. presence.

Winning a guerrilla war requires more than just presence, however. The
response to rebellion has to be clear, direct, very brutal and very invasive not
only for the enemy but for the innocents. And we shouldn't kid ourselves
about this. There is a terrible sameness in the history of effective
counterinsurgencies. As a Guatemalan general once told me after shooting
up the highlands of his country from a helicopter, the people in areas where
insurgents operate need to be taught a simple lesson: we, the government,
can protect you from the guerrillas, but the guerrillas cannot protect you from
us, and you are going to have to choose. It took years, internment camps and
horrific human-rights abuses, but eventually the Guatemalan rebels were
crushed. The Turkish general with his accordion-album photos of Kurdish
corpses won a similar victory in the east of his country. As did the Algerian
generals in theirs. But it's hard to call those triumphs a liberation, which is
what Operation Iraqi Freedom has claimed to be.

So no wonder Washington wants to believe Saddam and his late sons are
the inspiration for those guerrilla attacks that cost the lives of another three
Americans just today. No wonder Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz clings to the idea that paid assassins are at the heart of resistance
to the benevolent American presence. And we should all hope that's the
case, because if it is, then the end of Saddam, which may come soon, could
really mean an end to the war.

But Adnan Abu Odeh, a former advisor to Jordan's King Hussein and one
of the region's real wise men, offers another scenario. He suggests the Iraqi
people see themselves struggling against two enemies now: Saddam on the
one hand, the American occupiers on the other. "Ironically, if Saddam is killed
as well as his two sons," says Abu Odeh, "that will accelerate the process
of seeing the Americans as the real enemy."

The dynasty is over. The dying is not.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/943255.asp

Excessive Force?

BY ROD NORDLAND,
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
July 23, 2003

It was much-needed tangible proof that America was making progress
in the war in Iraq. After several weeks of drooping morale and a
daily, if single-digit body count, the U.S. military on Tuesday
announced its soldiers had killed Saddam Hussein's sons in a ferocious
firefight in their Mosul hideout.

AMERICAN OFFICIALS crowed about it, troops around Iraq high-fived
each other, friendlyIraqis fired their guns in the air in celebration.
Even the stock markets rose on the news.

Certainly only a few diehards mourned the passing of Uday and Qusay
Hussein; the regime's Caligula and its Heir Apparent were if anything
despised and feared even more than their dad. But as details became
clearer of the raid that eliminated what the U.S. military calls High
Value Targets (HVTs) Nos. 2 and 3, a lot of people in the intelligence
community were left wondering: why weren't they just taken alive?

At a news briefing today, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander
of U.S. forces in Iraq, squirmed his way past that question
repeatedly. It was, he said, the decision of the commander on the
ground based on the circumstances and his judgment--"and it was the
right decision." But was it? Who beside the sons might have better
information about the one HVT that really matters, Saddam? "The whole
operation was a cockup," said a British intelligence officer. "There
was no need to go after four lightly armed men with such overwhelming
firepower. They would have been much more useful alive." But Sanchez
insisted it wasn't overkill. "Absolutely not. Our mission is to find,
kill or capture high-value targets. We had an enemy that was
barricaded and we had to take measures to neutralize the target."

U.S. forces were led to the brothers' hideout by a "walk-in," an
informant who came to them the night before to say they were staying
in a posh house in a residential district of the northern city, which
has large numbers of Saddam supporters. Twelve hours later, according
to Sanchez's account, U.S. forces had taken up blocking positions in
the neighborhood around the house, cutting off any escape routes. At
10 a.m., 12 hours after the first tip, a psy-ops team with an
interpreter and a bullhorn called on anyone inside to come out and
surrender. When there was no reply, soldiers entered the house and
began climbing the stairs--only to draw fire from a fortified upper
floor with bulletproofed windows and heavy doors. Three soldiers were
wounded on the stairs; a fourth was hit outside. U.S. troops retreated
and began "prepping the target"--Armyspeak for firing into it. They
used heavy machine guns mounted on Humvees outside, as well as light
cannons and grenade launchers. Then Kiowa helicopter gunships came in
and fired four rockets into the building. By noon, the Americans tried
to enter the building again, only to be fired on again, whereupon they
withdrew. This time they really poured the prep fire on, with
sustained machine-gun fire topped by a total of 10 TOW missiles fired
at near point-blank range. By 1:20 p.m., return fire had ceased and
U.S. forces entered the building. There they found four corpses--the
two brothers and two as-yet unidentified bodies. One of them appeared
to be a teenager, who might be Qusay's son. The only weapons: AK-47s
and pistols.

Against such lightly armed resistance, couldn't a siege or even a
teargas attack have done the job more efficiently, and perhaps
captured the HVTs alive? Sanchez repeated his mantra that the local
commander made the right decision and he wasn't going to second-guess
it. But a total of 200 heavily armed U.S. troops, backed by missiles,
armored personnel carriers and helicopters? An officer at the scene
made the improbable claim to a NEWSWEEK reporter that tear gas might
have hurt neighbors. As it was, there were no reported civilian
casualties with the much heavier weaponry; the house, which belonged
to a prominent local sheik, was set well away from others. "********,"
said one former Special Forces soldier. "A SWAT team could have taken
them. It didn't need a company."

The outcome was well-received abroad, but many Iraqis were not so
sure. "The death of Uday and Qusay is definitely going to be a turning
point," Sanchez said. U.S. officials expressed hope that it would
undermine the opposition U.S. forces have been encountering. But that
same day, two American soldiers were killed in an ambush in
Mosul--raising doubts about whether there would be a letup in the
opposition campaign of picking off U.S. troops. And many Iraqis
expressed doubt about whether they actually got the right guys. Saddam
and his son were well known for using body doubles, and Iraqis have
not seen the evidence themselves.

Many even refused to believe the military's account that the
victims' dental records matched (100 percent match in Qusay's case,
only 90 percent in Uday's, they said), and that four regime figures
had made positive IDs. Sanchez said among those identifying the bodies
was Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, Saddam's personal secretary and the
highest-ranking regime official in U.S. custody. Still Iraqis
expressed skepticism, which Sanchez acknowledged, saying that the
military is considering releasing pictures of the brothers' corpses. A
lot of pro-American Iraqis are saying they'd have rather seen them on
TV, being tried for their crimes. "There was no reason for us to rush
to failure," as Sanchez put it, when he was asked why the raid took so
long. But failing to take a little more time to get them alive may yet
prove to have been just such a failure.

"R. Steve Walz" wrote in :

Thomas Edward Lawrence is dead, and good ****ing riddance.
Now we simply have to rid the world of Islam, and all the
other vicious superstitious sheep-****er religions, like
Baptists and Catholics and Jews.
Steve


Not to mention racists and fascists.

--
################################################## ##############
'I told the priest, "don't count on any second coming...
God got His ass kicked the first time He came down here slumming"'
-- Concrete Blonde
################################################## ##############