2007/04/24
Edmund Burke, anti-war conservative
“But I cannot conceive any existence under heaven ... that is truly more odious and disgusting than an impotent, helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion he can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself to be himself mean and miserable....”
Jessica Lynch, American Hero.
"Lured out of rural West Virginia to join the aggression against Iraq, Jessica Lynch was badly wounded. According to the Pentagon, she was a GI Jane who fought to the last bullet, and then was rescued from Iraqi rapists by brave Special Forces (in an incident taped for broadcast).
In fact, she had not fired her rifle and was being treated well by Iraqi doctors, who were trying to send her back to the Americans. Thank goodness for the Congressional hearings to expose all this again.
This teenager from a poor family, who will apparently never recover from her injuries in Bush's vicious war, had a well-remunerated future ahead of her--speeches, a book, a tv special, maybe even a movie. She was an Official Hero as well as a millionaire, sure to be seated next to Laura at the next State of the Union, and heralded by all the hate media and think tanks.
Instead, as she said on Good Morning America, she refused to go along with the federal script. "I didn't want to be portrayed as this Rambo fighting machine when I knew it wasn't the truth and it was important to me to always come out and tell the truth.!" Lew Rockwell
In fact, she had not fired her rifle and was being treated well by Iraqi doctors, who were trying to send her back to the Americans. Thank goodness for the Congressional hearings to expose all this again.
This teenager from a poor family, who will apparently never recover from her injuries in Bush's vicious war, had a well-remunerated future ahead of her--speeches, a book, a tv special, maybe even a movie. She was an Official Hero as well as a millionaire, sure to be seated next to Laura at the next State of the Union, and heralded by all the hate media and think tanks.
Instead, as she said on Good Morning America, she refused to go along with the federal script. "I didn't want to be portrayed as this Rambo fighting machine when I knew it wasn't the truth and it was important to me to always come out and tell the truth.!" Lew Rockwell
2007/04/20
Os profissionais do cinismo
Rove: ‘I Wish The Iraq War Never Existed,’ It Was ‘Osama Bin Laden’s Idea’
On a visit to Ohio yesterday, White House senior political adviser Karl Rove claimed he never wanted the war in Iraq:
“I wish the war were over,” Rove said. “I wish the war never existed... History has given us a challenge.”
History shows Rove was exceptionally eager in 2002 for the upcoming Iraq war, anxious to reap what he viewed would be the political gains for conservatives leading another military conflict:
In January 2002, Rove told conservatives, “Americans trust the Republicans to do a better job of keeping our communities and our families safe…We can also go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America.
In June 2002, Rove was giving PowerPoint presentations candidates advising them to “focus on the war” in their fall campaigns.
In August 2002, Rove was chairing the White House Iraq Group, whose mission was to “develop a strategy for publicizing the White House’s assertion that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States.”
In September 2002, Time reported that when friends asked whether Bush planned to invade Iraq, Rove was been known to reply, “Let me put it this way: If you want to see Baghdad, you’d better visit soon.”
Former White House counterterrorism director Richard Clarke later wrote that the Iraq “crisis was manufactured, and Bush political adviser Karl Rove was telling Republicans to ‘run on the war.’”
Keynes sobre Versailles
"The death toll from WWI mounted toward ten million, Keynes became angrier and angrier at this civilization-breaking catastrophe, and angrier and angrier at the politicians who could see no way forward other than mixing more blood with the mud of Paaschendale.
At the Versailles peace conference the new democratic German government was treated as a foe rather than a potential ally, and the object became to extract as much in plunder and reparations from Germany as possible. (...) So Keynes exploded with a book called "The Economic Consequences of the Peace". It condemned Versailles. It prophesied doom if the treaty were carried out:
"If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for long that final civil war between the forces of reaction and the despairing convulsions of revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy... the civilization and progress of our generation..." (HB, page 391). " J. Bradford DeLong
Outra coisa certa de Keynes mencionada neste texto (outras erradas porque dão a solução keynesiana como válida):
"He tried to prevent Britain's return to the gold standard in 1925 at an overvalued exchange rate, for by overvaluing the exchange rate Britain's Treasury Minister, Winston Churchill, was willing "... the deliberate intensification of unemployment.""
Este ponto foi comentado por Murray N Rothbard mais tarde (no seu livro "American Great Depression"). Foi Churchill que pretendeu deflacionar a "libra" evocando (nos seus habituais excessos pela honra do Império) ser seu dever fazer recuperar o valor da Libra (versus Ouro) aos tempos pré-WWI.
[Winston's most famous act was to return Britain to the gold standard at the unrealistic pre-war parity, thus severely damaging the export trade and ruining the good name of gold, as was pointed out by Murray N. Rothbard. Hardly anyone today would disagree with the judgment of A.J.P. Taylor: Churchill "did not grasp the economic arguments one way or the other. What determined him was again a devotion to British greatness. The pound would once more 'look the dollar in the face'; the days of Queen Victoria would be restored." Rethinking Churchill, Part 2 by Ralph Raico]
Mas tal como é errado inflaccionar é errado deflaccionar. A cada momento, a quantidade de notas versus ouro (não esquecer que se estava ainda nos bons velhos tempos de padrão ouro - algo deturpado já, mas ainda) num dado momento deve ser dado como adquirido, um novo valor ou rácio de equilibrio atingido ,o importante é não inflaccionar mais.
Entre outras coisas (como a criação do FED em 1913), este foi um dos passos para a Grande Depressão [Ou seja, Churchill está directamente- "intended" umas "unintended" outras - conectado aos piores acontecimentos da história da civilização].
At the Versailles peace conference the new democratic German government was treated as a foe rather than a potential ally, and the object became to extract as much in plunder and reparations from Germany as possible. (...) So Keynes exploded with a book called "The Economic Consequences of the Peace". It condemned Versailles. It prophesied doom if the treaty were carried out:
"If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for long that final civil war between the forces of reaction and the despairing convulsions of revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy... the civilization and progress of our generation..." (HB, page 391). " J. Bradford DeLong
Outra coisa certa de Keynes mencionada neste texto (outras erradas porque dão a solução keynesiana como válida):
"He tried to prevent Britain's return to the gold standard in 1925 at an overvalued exchange rate, for by overvaluing the exchange rate Britain's Treasury Minister, Winston Churchill, was willing "... the deliberate intensification of unemployment.""
Este ponto foi comentado por Murray N Rothbard mais tarde (no seu livro "American Great Depression"). Foi Churchill que pretendeu deflacionar a "libra" evocando (nos seus habituais excessos pela honra do Império) ser seu dever fazer recuperar o valor da Libra (versus Ouro) aos tempos pré-WWI.
[Winston's most famous act was to return Britain to the gold standard at the unrealistic pre-war parity, thus severely damaging the export trade and ruining the good name of gold, as was pointed out by Murray N. Rothbard. Hardly anyone today would disagree with the judgment of A.J.P. Taylor: Churchill "did not grasp the economic arguments one way or the other. What determined him was again a devotion to British greatness. The pound would once more 'look the dollar in the face'; the days of Queen Victoria would be restored." Rethinking Churchill, Part 2 by Ralph Raico]
Mas tal como é errado inflaccionar é errado deflaccionar. A cada momento, a quantidade de notas versus ouro (não esquecer que se estava ainda nos bons velhos tempos de padrão ouro - algo deturpado já, mas ainda) num dado momento deve ser dado como adquirido, um novo valor ou rácio de equilibrio atingido ,o importante é não inflaccionar mais.
Entre outras coisas (como a criação do FED em 1913), este foi um dos passos para a Grande Depressão [Ou seja, Churchill está directamente- "intended" umas "unintended" outras - conectado aos piores acontecimentos da história da civilização].
300 (II)
Ainda assim, é sempre belo quando alguém defende o seu território no seu território. Mas essa é a condição necessária: combater pelo nosso território no nosso território.
Mas como dizia alguém, ainda bem que as guerras provocam tanta destruição, porque senão corriamos o risco de gostar definitivamente de viver em guerra. E mesmo assim...
Mas como dizia alguém, ainda bem que as guerras provocam tanta destruição, porque senão corriamos o risco de gostar definitivamente de viver em guerra. E mesmo assim...
2007/04/19
Scheuer Corrects National Review, Weekly Standard
Via AnWarBlog
Below is the text of a response Michael Scheuer recently sent to National Review regarding their (and others’) misuse of his first book to “prove” a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection. (See here, here, and here.)
Sir,
Mr. A. McCarthy’s blog article referring to the Mr. Joscelyn’s recent reiteration in The Weekly Standard of his apparently controlling fixation on the non-existent, pre-Iraq war, Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection is, I regret to say, ill-informed and perhaps even intellectually mediocre.
Messrs. McCarthy, Joscelyn, Hayes, Feith, Vice President Cheney, and their acolytes either suffer from a misunderstanding or intend to continue deceiving the American people. I did argue that there was Iraq-AQ connection in my first book. I was mistaken and said so in my second book, while leaving my original research in place to warn off future writers from pursuing the incorrect path I had pursued. I admitted my mistake after leading a complete review of CIA’s classified holdings on Iraq and al-Qaeda in early 2003, a review which was ordered after Mr. Feith’s staff published an engrossing but entirely false description of close Iraq-AQ working relationship. At DCI Tenet’s request, we reviewed more than 20,000 documents and 75,000 pages of material — none of which suggested anything that might remotely be called a “relationship” between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Whether Mr. Tenet delivered this message to the president and his cabinet, only he knows. Perhaps Mr. Tenet will clarify this point in his forthcoming book.
In any event, I corrected my mistake in Imperial Hubris based on the far better research material available to me when preparing that book. The fact is today, as it was before March, 2003, that the United States Government held no information prior to the invasion of Iraq that showed a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda of the type Secretary Powell described at the UN or Vice President Cheney has continued to monger about since. Again, there was no data about Iraq-AQ cooperation before the war that could reasonably be seen as contributing to a casus belli vis-a-vis Iraq. I assume that bottom line remains true because the U.S. government has not produced any data that it captured after the invasion of Iraq to definitively document such a relationship.
The question, of course, is why such learned gentlemen as those mentioned above continue to adhere to a demonstrably false claim, or, indeed, why they needed to raise it at all. Saddam had a long and definitively proven record of training and otherwise supporting Palestinian terrorists. If the administration needed a terrorism peg on which to hang the rest of its case for war, it had it in spades without the slightest need to even fabricate a tale about Saddam and Osama. Of course, Saddam’s Palestinian proteges only attacked Israelis, and it would hardly have been practical to leverage the Saddam-Palestinian relationship as a means of persuading American parents to spend the lives of their soldier-children to protect foreigners.
Respectfully,Michael F. Scheuer
Below is the text of a response Michael Scheuer recently sent to National Review regarding their (and others’) misuse of his first book to “prove” a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection. (See here, here, and here.)
Sir,
Mr. A. McCarthy’s blog article referring to the Mr. Joscelyn’s recent reiteration in The Weekly Standard of his apparently controlling fixation on the non-existent, pre-Iraq war, Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection is, I regret to say, ill-informed and perhaps even intellectually mediocre.
Messrs. McCarthy, Joscelyn, Hayes, Feith, Vice President Cheney, and their acolytes either suffer from a misunderstanding or intend to continue deceiving the American people. I did argue that there was Iraq-AQ connection in my first book. I was mistaken and said so in my second book, while leaving my original research in place to warn off future writers from pursuing the incorrect path I had pursued. I admitted my mistake after leading a complete review of CIA’s classified holdings on Iraq and al-Qaeda in early 2003, a review which was ordered after Mr. Feith’s staff published an engrossing but entirely false description of close Iraq-AQ working relationship. At DCI Tenet’s request, we reviewed more than 20,000 documents and 75,000 pages of material — none of which suggested anything that might remotely be called a “relationship” between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Whether Mr. Tenet delivered this message to the president and his cabinet, only he knows. Perhaps Mr. Tenet will clarify this point in his forthcoming book.
In any event, I corrected my mistake in Imperial Hubris based on the far better research material available to me when preparing that book. The fact is today, as it was before March, 2003, that the United States Government held no information prior to the invasion of Iraq that showed a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda of the type Secretary Powell described at the UN or Vice President Cheney has continued to monger about since. Again, there was no data about Iraq-AQ cooperation before the war that could reasonably be seen as contributing to a casus belli vis-a-vis Iraq. I assume that bottom line remains true because the U.S. government has not produced any data that it captured after the invasion of Iraq to definitively document such a relationship.
The question, of course, is why such learned gentlemen as those mentioned above continue to adhere to a demonstrably false claim, or, indeed, why they needed to raise it at all. Saddam had a long and definitively proven record of training and otherwise supporting Palestinian terrorists. If the administration needed a terrorism peg on which to hang the rest of its case for war, it had it in spades without the slightest need to even fabricate a tale about Saddam and Osama. Of course, Saddam’s Palestinian proteges only attacked Israelis, and it would hardly have been practical to leverage the Saddam-Palestinian relationship as a means of persuading American parents to spend the lives of their soldier-children to protect foreigners.
Respectfully,Michael F. Scheuer
2007/04/11
"1,000 Killed, 125K Flee New Somali Civil War"
Com ajuda de quem? de quem?
The Fog of War
"(..) You remember the EFPs right? The IEDs that are so powerful they got a brand new acronym a couple months back? The ones that, as the Monitor notes above, the U.S. government has accused Iran of supplying to the Iraqi Shi’ite militias that America and Iran are both currently backing? (Gareth Porter explains the truth about them here.)
Well, here was also this Reuters piece from Saturday which included the same information. The Post ran the story, but apparently one of their editors (liars) realized this might reveal the holes in War Party claims that these new “EFPs” must be coming from Iran. After all, here, supposedly, is a whole EFP factory just a few miles south of Baghdad.(...)" Washington Post Liars Caught!
Nota: um exemplo típico de "Fog of War" que muitos liberais ignoram, atribuindo sempre comportamentos súbitamente bons, transparentes e eficientes em caso de conflitos quando em tudo o resto lhes chamam incompetentes e mal intencionados.
Well, here was also this Reuters piece from Saturday which included the same information. The Post ran the story, but apparently one of their editors (liars) realized this might reveal the holes in War Party claims that these new “EFPs” must be coming from Iran. After all, here, supposedly, is a whole EFP factory just a few miles south of Baghdad.(...)" Washington Post Liars Caught!
Nota: um exemplo típico de "Fog of War" que muitos liberais ignoram, atribuindo sempre comportamentos súbitamente bons, transparentes e eficientes em caso de conflitos quando em tudo o resto lhes chamam incompetentes e mal intencionados.
Washington Post Liars Caught!
Via anwarblog
Washington Post Liars Caught!
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 in News, War party, Iran, Propaganda, Iraq by Scott Horton
Atrios (Via Lew Rockwell) has caught the Washington Post attempting to lie you into another war.
I had noticed a funny thing to make it into print in today’s Antiwar.com top story from the Christian Science Monitor while reading it on my radio show this morning. Dig this:
The US military also issued a statement on Sunday calling the operation in Diwaniyah, dubbed Black Eagle, a “great success” so far. It said it detained 39 militiamen and killed an unspecified number. It also has uncovered “many large caches of weapons,” including factories that make explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), devices that Washington accuses Tehran of supplying to Sadr’s militia.
You remember the EFPs right? The IEDs that are so powerful they got a brand new acronym a couple months back? The ones that, as the Monitor notes above, the U.S. government has accused Iran of supplying to the Iraqi Shi’ite militias that America and Iran are both currently backing? (Gareth Porter explains the truth about them here.)
Well, here was also this Reuters piece from Saturday which included the same information. The Post ran the story, but apparently one of their editors (liars) realized this might reveal the holes in War Party claims that these new “EFPs” must be coming from Iran. After all, here, supposedly, is a whole EFP factory just a few miles south of Baghdad.
The paragraphs revealing Iraqi EFP-self-reliance were then excised from Post version of the story.
“Red alert! Quick! Get out your Pravda pen™ brand exacto-knives and get to work before some damn blogger catches us admitting the truth in contradiction to one more of our half-baked excuses for war against Iran!”
Too Late. You’re caught, discredited Washington Post liars. From Eschaton:
Washington Post Liars Caught!
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 in News, War party, Iran, Propaganda, Iraq by Scott Horton
Atrios (Via Lew Rockwell) has caught the Washington Post attempting to lie you into another war.
I had noticed a funny thing to make it into print in today’s Antiwar.com top story from the Christian Science Monitor while reading it on my radio show this morning. Dig this:
The US military also issued a statement on Sunday calling the operation in Diwaniyah, dubbed Black Eagle, a “great success” so far. It said it detained 39 militiamen and killed an unspecified number. It also has uncovered “many large caches of weapons,” including factories that make explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), devices that Washington accuses Tehran of supplying to Sadr’s militia.
You remember the EFPs right? The IEDs that are so powerful they got a brand new acronym a couple months back? The ones that, as the Monitor notes above, the U.S. government has accused Iran of supplying to the Iraqi Shi’ite militias that America and Iran are both currently backing? (Gareth Porter explains the truth about them here.)
Well, here was also this Reuters piece from Saturday which included the same information. The Post ran the story, but apparently one of their editors (liars) realized this might reveal the holes in War Party claims that these new “EFPs” must be coming from Iran. After all, here, supposedly, is a whole EFP factory just a few miles south of Baghdad.
The paragraphs revealing Iraqi EFP-self-reliance were then excised from Post version of the story.
“Red alert! Quick! Get out your Pravda pen™ brand exacto-knives and get to work before some damn blogger catches us admitting the truth in contradiction to one more of our half-baked excuses for war against Iran!”
Too Late. You’re caught, discredited Washington Post liars. From Eschaton:
2007/04/03
Brutus e Julio Cesar
"...como é que podemos saber se devemos agir de certa maneira, quando o risco da acção é grande, quando as consequências da acção podem não ser as que esperamos, quando nem sequer podemos ter a certeza de que aquilo que estamos a considerar fazer é realmente o que devemos fazer? Trata-se de questões morais e de questões políticas."
Frase no artigo do Expresso, "O ovo da serpente - Um clássico de Shakespeare que leva 23 actores a palco sob a direcção de Luís Miguel Cintra".
Ou diria eu, Brutus mata César para preservar a República e acaba a acelerar o Império?
O certo é que o autor do texto podia estar a falar de qualquer tipo de intervencionismo, social ou internacional.
Frase no artigo do Expresso, "O ovo da serpente - Um clássico de Shakespeare que leva 23 actores a palco sob a direcção de Luís Miguel Cintra".
Ou diria eu, Brutus mata César para preservar a República e acaba a acelerar o Império?
O certo é que o autor do texto podia estar a falar de qualquer tipo de intervencionismo, social ou internacional.
