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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (30692)	10/28/2003 4:49:54 PM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

you may be right, I might be way off alliance between Shiite and Sunni groups is unlikely if the price offered is high enough, HezBollah could be hired as mercenaries they are deadly, vicious, bold, competent, dangerous I fear HB more than any group on earth including the Jamaican Posse and HK Triad and Russia Mafiya / jim

To: TigerPaw who wrote (30692)	10/28/2003 5:38:21 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 89467

How the British bombed Iraq in the 1920s By Henry Michaels 1 April 2003 The US and British governments, and most Western media pundits, have tried to explain the determined resistance of the Iraqi people to the US-led assault by referring to the first Bush administration’s 1991 betrayal of the Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. Once Iraqis are confident that the Allies are serious about occupying the country, the argument goes, they will rise up and welcome them as liberators. These assertions ignore the deeply-felt hostility to decades of colonial and semi-colonial rule by the Western powers, who long plundered Iraq’s oil reserves. During World War I, Mesopotamia was occupied by British forces, and it became a British mandated territory in 1920. In 1921, a kingdom was established under Faisal I, son of King Hussein of Hejaz and leader of the Arab Army in World War I. Britain withdrew from Iraq in 1932, but British and American oil companies retained their grip over the country. One of the most bitter chapters in this history, one with direct parallels to the current military campaign, occurred during the 1920s. In many respects, the air war now being employed in Iraq is an offshoot of a military policy developed by Britain as it clung to its Iraqi colony 80 years ago. Confronting a financial crisis after World War I, in mid-February 1920 Minister of War and Air Winston Churchill asked Chief of the Air Staff Hugh Trenchard to draw up a plan whereby Mesopotamia could be cheaply policed by aircraft armed with gas bombs, supported by as few as 4,000 British and 10,000 Indian troops. Several months later, a widespread uprising broke out, which was only put down through months of heavy aerial bombardment, including the use of mustard gas. At the height of the suppression, both Churchill and Trenchard tried to put the most flattering light upon actions of the Royal Air Force. British historian David Omissi, author of Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919-1939, records: “During the first week of July there was fierce fighting around Samawa and Rumaitha on the Euphrates but, Churchill told the Cabinet on 7 July, ‘our attack was successful.... The enemy were bombed and machine-gunned with effect by aeroplanes which cooperated with the troops’.” The order issued by one RAF wing commander, J.A. Chamier, specified: “The attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle.” Arthur “Bomber” Harris, a young RAF squadron commander, reported after a mission in 1924: “The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage: They know that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.” The RAF sent a report to the British Parliament outlining the steps that its pilots had taken to avoid civilian casualties. The air war was less brutal than other forms of military control, it stated, concluding that “the main purpose is to bring about submission with the minimum of destruction and loss of life.” Knowing the truth, at least one military officer resigned. Air Commander Lionel Charlton sent a letter of protest and resigned in 1923 over what he considered the “policy of intimidation by bomb” after visiting a local hospital full of injured civilians. The methods pioneered in Iraq were applied throughout the Middle East. Omissi writes: “The policing role of most political moment carried out by the Royal Air Force during the 1920s was to maintain the power of the Arab kingdoms in Transjordan and Iraq; but aeroplanes also helped to dominate other populations under British sway. “Schemes of air control similar to that practiced in Mesopotamia were set up in the Palestine Mandate in 1922 and in the Aden Protectorate six years later. Bombers were active at various times against rioters in Egypt, tribesmen on the Frontier, pastoralists in the Southern Sudan and nomads in the Somali hinterland.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: TigerPaw who wrote (30692)	10/28/2003 11:30:30 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Kerry's new book details his philosophy suntimes.com October 27, 2003 BY STEVE NEAL CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST It's a political tradition. On their respective roads to the White House, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton outlined their agendas in best-selling campaign books. Before launching their presidential candidacies, Gen. Wesley Clark, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) weighed in with their campaign books. In A Call to Service: My Vision for A Better America (Viking, $24.95), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) tells his story and gives an indication where he would take the country if elected as the next president. It's a thoughtful book and worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the Democratic presidential race. It has been more than 30 years since Kerry first gained national attention as a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He served in the Navy and was awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star with valor, and three Purple Hearts. Historian Douglas Brinkley is coming out with a book of his own about Kerry's years in Vietnam. In his book, Kerry describes his close friendship with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the former Vietnam prisoner of war and GOP presidential contender. "Neither of us has much use for those in either party who complain that we should keep to our own partisan interests," Kerry writes. "In fact, we have discovered that we share something far more precious than party: a common call to service." Kerry, in making the case against President Bush, laments that Bush has embraced "a Republicanism that's drifted far from its roots as the party of Lincoln and is obsessed with dividing the Union that Lincoln saved." In outlining his differences with Bush, Kerry supports civil rights and affirmative action; making health care accessible to the uninsured; reducing the gap between rich and poor schools, and making our tax system more fair. On foreign policy, Kerry vows that if elected president, he would be a coalition builder. "Democrats can and must offer an alternative to the Bush administration's contemptuous unilateralism and its inability to deploy effectively the tools of diplomacy as it does those of war," Kerry writes. "At the same time, we cannot let our national security agenda be defined by those who reflexively oppose any military intervention anywhere as a repetition of Vietnam and who see U.S. power as mostly a malignant force in world politics." On this issue, Kerry has been on the defensive in recent debates with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. In the Senate, Kerry voted for U.S. military intervention against Saddam Hussein. Dean opposed the war. Kerry's recent suggestion that he voted for the war resolution but didn't favor going to war isn't credible. In this book, he indicates that if elected to the presidency he would be restrained in the use of military force. Although a liberal Democrat, Kerry acknowledges that his party doesn't have a monopoly on good ideas. He says that Ronald Reagan's new federalism had merit. He also says that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on the right track in seeking to reform the armed services, though Rumsfeld did not succeed. Kerry writes about his fight against cancer. He underwent prostate surgery last winter. "My father died of this disease, so I knew I was at risk and received annual PSA screenings," he writes. "It dawned on me while I was lying in that hospital bed what the whole experience might have been like if I hadn't been a senator and, worse yet, wasn't covered by health insurance." His health care plan, Kerry writes, would give uninsured Americans the same level of health insurance that members of Congress have. As Kerry embarked on his presidential campaign, the Boston Globe reported new details about his family history. The Globe disclosed that the senator's paternal grandfather, Fritz Kohn, was an Austrian Jew who changed his name to Kerry and converted to Catholicism before immigrating to Massachusetts. "I didn't know this because my grandfather died when my father was just five years old -- a reminder of how much so much of America's history is buried," Kerry writes. "One thing that hasn't changed for me as a result of this revelation is my Catholic heritage. I am a believing and practicing Catholic." As the title indicates, a central theme of Kerry's presidential campaign is national service. He is seeking to involve more than a million Americans a year in voluntary full or part-time national service positions in the spirit of John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps and Lyndon B. Johnson's VISTA. That would be no small accomplishment. Copyright © The Sun-Times Company