SLT: The Tea Party's Toxic Take on History

[Mad Mike]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.stm

However, families at this week's ceremony said the money would be used to rebuild homes destroyed by Israel and bring up orphaned children.

"Saddam supports the families of the martyrs, not terrorism," said Ahmed Sabah, 69, whose son was killed by an Israeli missile strike in December.

From the article you quoted.

"Saddam Hussein considers those who die in martyrdom attacks* as people who have won the highest degree of martyrdom," said one.

Saddam's payments

$10,000 per family

$25,000 for family of a suicide bomber

$35m paid since September 2000

PALF figures

*martyrdom attacks = suicide bombing

Edit: Ahhhh, now I understand. You're one of those...

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthread.php?t=321650&page=3

Yes it is, Al Jazeera is a better news source than any of the big 3 news companies here.

:doh:

[jpyaks3]

The above is a blatant lie. I hope you are proud of yourself.

Jundallah or the Peoples Resistance Movement of Iran is a good starting place to look into our ties with terrorist groups in the region.

[bold]Here are some of the groups actions[/bold]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jundallah

2005 Attack on Iranian President

The motorcade of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was ambushed during his visit to Balochistan province, in which at least one of his bodyguards was killed and others injured.[64]

[edit]2006 Tasooki Attack

On 16 March 2006, four days before Iranian new year, Jundallah blocks a road near Tasooki and kills 21 civilians. A thirteen year old student on his way for new year holidays was caught in cross fire.[61][65]

[edit]2007 Zahedan bombing

Main article: 2007 Zahedan bombings

On February 14, 2007, a car bomb and gunfire directed at a bus killed 18 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Guards commander Qasem Rezaei said, "This blind terrorist operation led to the martyrdom of 18 citizens of Zahedan" and attributed the attack to "insurgents and elements of insecurity."[66] Jundallah claimed responsibility for the attack on 15 February.[67]

Iranian security forces also arrested five suspects, two of whom were carrying camcorders and grenades when they were arrested, while the police killed the main "agent" of the attack.[58] Among the arrestees was Said Qanbarzehi, a Balochi, who was hanged in Zahedan prison on 27 May 2007. He had been sentenced to death at the age of 17 along with six other Balochi men—Javad Naroui, Masoud Nosratzehi, Houshang Shahnavazi, Yahya Sohrabzehi, Ali Reza Brahoui and Abdalbek Kahrazehi (also known as Abdalmalek) -- in March 2007,[68] despite the absolute international prohibition on the execution of child offenders.[69] Two days later on Friday, Feb 16 2007, Jundallah bombed a girls school in city of Zahedan and the leader of the group took responsibility for it on the official TV of MEK.[70]

[edit]Mass abduction

Jundallah militants kidnapped 21 Iranian truck drivers near Chah Bahar on August 19, 2007 and brought them to Pakistan. Pakistani forces later freed all of them.[71]

[edit]Police abduction

On June 13, 2008, 16 police in southeastern Iran were abducted and brought into Pakistan.[72] In December 2008, Jundallah announced that it had killed all the hostages.[73]

[edit]Saravan bombing

In a rare suicide bombing in Iran, a car bomb was driven into a security building in Saravan, Iran, on December 29, 2008. The explosion killed four Iranians.[74][75]

[edit]Saravan ambush

On January 25, 2009, 12 Iranian policemen were ambushed and killed by Jundallah near Saravan.[76]

[edit]Zahedan mosque blast

Main article: 2009 Zahedan explosion

A bomb blast on May 28, 2009 rocked a mosque in the city of southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan as mourners participated in a ceremony marking the death of the daughter of the prophet of Islam, which killed 25 people and injured 125 others, less than 3 weeks before the Iranian 2009 presidential elections. The Iranian government promptly accused the United States of having financed and orchestrated the attack in order to destabilize the nation in the lead up to its presidential election. Two days after the attack, three men were publicly hanged for smuggling the explosives used in attack into Iran from Pakistan. The trio were already in prison at the time of attack and had been tried for previous attacks by Jundallah including 2007 Zahedan bombings.[77] Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli said in a statement posted on the internet Friday that "those who committed the Thursday bombing are neither Shia nor Sunni. They are Americans and Israelis."[78] Abdel Raouf Rigi, the spokesman for Jundallah claimed responsibility on a Saudi Arabian state owned TV channel, Al-Arabiya.[77][79]

[edit]2009 Pishin bombing

Main article: 2009 Pishin bombing

On October 18, 2009 42 people were killed in a suicide bombing in the Pishin region of Sistan-Baluchistan, including at least 6 officers in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards such as the deputy commander of the Guards' ground force, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, and the Guards' chief provincial commander, Rajab Ali. Jundallah claimed responsibility [80][81][82].

The United States provides funding

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed another report in July 2008 that US congressional leaders had secretly agreed to former president George W. Bush's USD 400 million funding request, which gives the US a free hand in arming and funding terrorist groups such as Jundullah militants.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96453&sectionid=351020101

A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.

The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html

U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.

Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.

A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context.

Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.

[bold]Here is some more on the links to the United States and Jundallah[/bold]

In February 2007, Dick Cheney traveled to Pakistan and met with then Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. Pakistani government sources said at the time that the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when the two met. In an interview later that month, Cheney referred to the Jundallah terrorists as "guerrillas" to give them legitimacy.

But despite Cheney's efforts to present them as legitimate fighters, Jundallah is a sectarian terrorist organization. It is made of Sunni extremists who hate the Shiites and its goal is to foment a conflict between the two sects of Islam. Because of its Sunni Salafi roots, it is likely that Jundallah is also supported by Saudi Arabia. I will return to this point shortly.

On Feb. 25, 2007, the London Telegraph reported that "America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program. Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the northwest, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the southeast. Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now 'no great secret', according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington."

According to the Telegraph, Fred Burton, a former U.S. State Department counter-terrorism agent, supported the assertion by saying, "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilize the Iranian regime."

In April 2007, ABC News reported that, according to Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials, the Jundallah group, which is "responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005."

According to the report, "U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. The money for Jundullah was funneled to its leader, Abdelmalek Rigi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states." The Iranian exiles are the Mujahedin-e Khalgh (MKO).

In an interview with the National Public Radio on June 30, 2008, distinguished American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh explained how the Bush Administration's policy of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" led the U.S. to support the Jundallah and MKO (the MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department).

A week later, in his July 8, 2008, article in The New Yorker, Hersh quoted Robert Baer, a former CIA clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East. "The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda. These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers -- in this case, it's Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we're once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties," Baer was quoted as saying.

Baer was referring to the CIA providing arms, and Saudi Arabia supplying funds to the Afghan Mujahedin in the 1980s, who were fighting the occupying forces of the Soviet Union. After Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the Afghan Mujahedin branched out into Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In a symposium on U.S.-Iran relations that the author co-organized in October 2008 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Baer repeated his assertions about Jundallah.

Former Pakistani Army Chief, retired General Mirza Aslam Baig, also said that "the U.S. supports the Jundullah terrorist group and uses it to destabilize Iran. Baig was deeply involved when the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) created the Taliban."

In his July 2008 article Hersh also said that the MKO received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the U.S., and that the Kurdish party, PJAK (Party for Free Life of Kurdistan), "which has also been reported to be covertly supported by the United States," has been operating against Iran from bases in northern Iraq for at least three years. PJAK, the Iranian branch of the Kurdish PKK group active in Turkey, has used Iraq's side of Kurdistan as its base to carry out many raids into Iran which have killed many civilians, as well as soldiers and policemen.

[bold]Jundallah also has links to Al-Qaeda[/bold]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/10/jundallah.html

[ analysis ] On Oct. 18, 2009, the Jundallah (God's Brigade) terrorist group mounted two terrorist attacks inside Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province. One was a suicide attack, and the other was an ambush on a car carrying a group of soldiers. The coordinated attacks killed 42 people and injured dozens more. Five senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran's elite military unit, were killed, including Brig. Gen. Nourali Shoushtari, deputy commander of the IRGC's ground forces.

Jundallah was formed in 2003 and is believed to have about 1000 members. Its base of operations is in Pakistan's Baluchestan province. Jundallah is led by Albolmalek Rigi, a Sunni fundamentalist. Jundallah is a Sunni Salafi group, the most extreme sect of Islam, of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda variety, and has links to both groups. Jundallah has been involved in drug trafficking as well.

So we have a connections to a terrorist group that is connected to Al-Qaeda and is receiving substantial funding from the United States government. That is just one of the most recent cases. If we want to go back we can see quite a few more groups we have supported in the region and if we go out of the region there is a laundry list of groups that we have supported that have done far more damage than any of the groups you barely connected to the Saddam Hussein regime. The Hussein regime was terrible enough there is no need to make up bad stuff about it, he was an evil man and he did horrible things I never understood why people need to make stuff up.

[jpyaks3]

From the article you quoted.

*martyrdom attacks = suicide bombing

Edit: Ahhhh, now I understand. You're one of those...

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthread.php?t=321650&page=3

:doh:

First off one of what?

Al Jazeera is a better news station than any of the big 3 stations over here. It destroys MSNBC and CNN and I don't even know if you can call FoxNews a news program but it destroys that too.

Secondly those funds were sent to the families of the people who were killed or killed themselves, they didn't fund the operation they didn't fund in the planning or execution, they simply provided for the families that often had everything they had destroyed because of Israels policy of collective punishment. How exactly is providing for the families after an act has been committed funding international terror? It had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist attack.

[jpyaks3]

Wow. You really have no shame do you? Or are you just that poorly informed?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/03/world/main505316.shtml

It's shameful the length people will go to defend an evil dictator in order to protect their twisted vision of the bush administration being the real evil.

Yes they received payments. No one is disputing that, those payments went to rebuilding the families of the suicide bombers after the act was committed, it wasn't used to fund, plan, or execute the attack in any way and went to helping provide for a family that was now homeless in most cases and without any means to provide for themselves. Can you explain how that is funding terror, trust me no one is suicide bombing for profit and it doesn't go into funding any actual action. How exactly is that funding terrorism?

[visionary]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.stm

However, families at this week's ceremony said the money would be used to rebuild homes destroyed by Israel and bring up orphaned children.

"Saddam supports the families of the martyrs, not terrorism," said Ahmed Sabah, 69, whose son was killed by an Israeli missile strike in December.

Of course...

[visionary]

Yes they received payments. No one is disputing that, those payments went to rebuilding the families of the suicide bombers after the act was committed, it wasn't used to fund, plan, or execute the attack in any way and went to helping provide for a family that was now homeless in most cases and without any means to provide for themselves. Can you explain how that is funding terror, trust me no one is suicide bombing for profit and it doesn't go into funding any actual action. How exactly is that funding terrorism?

So if some rich right-winger were to make a public announcement (and follow through with it) that they're going to pay money to the families of people willing to blow themselves up in the white house....to ahem...help those poor martyrs' families provide for themselves afterward....?

What would you say to that?

[skinfan133]

First off one of what?

Al Jazeera is a better news station than any of the big 3 stations over here. It destroys MSNBC and CNN and I don't even know if you can call FoxNews a news program but it destroys that too.

Secondly those funds were sent to the families of the people who were killed or killed themselves, they didn't fund the operation they didn't fund in the planning or execution, they simply provided for the families that often had everything they had destroyed because of Israels policy of collective punishment. How exactly is providing for the families after an act has been committed funding international terror? It had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist attack.

Ok look, I really, really dislike Israel because it is a unilateral zero-sum state that has screwed the US over on multiple occasions. I could care less what happens to Israel.

now with that in mind you are an idiot. /thread

[jpyaks3]

Ok look, I really, really dislike Israel because it is a unilateral zero-sum state that has screwed the US over on multiple occasions. I could care less what happens to Israel.

now with that in mind you are an idiot. /thread

Look, I am just saying that Saddam's "funding" of terrorism in Palestine is weakly linked at best. You can say its a ****ty thing to do, you can disagree with it, but I don't think you can say that the Hussein regime funded terrorism with those payments to the families of the suicide bombers. If he provided money at any other stage then he funded terrorism but after the act is committed you can't really fund it.

[jpyaks3]

So if some rich right-winger were to make a public announcement (and follow through with it) that they're going to pay money to the families of people willing to blow themselves up in the white house....to ahem...help those poor martyrs' families provide for themselves afterward....?

What would you say to that?

I think it would be a pretty ****ty thing to do but I wouldn't call it funding terrorism. Now if they provided those funds before the terrorist committed his attack or funded in any way the planning through execution stages of the attack then that is funding terrorism.

If the United States had a policy of destroying the homes and livelihoods of the families of suicide bombers and your rich right winger gave the families enough money to live on or get by, that isn't imo funding terrorism.

EDIT: Its definitely a grey area, but it shouldn't be used to say that Saddam funded international terror, the link is tenuous at best.

[skinfan133]

Look, I am just saying that Saddam's "funding" of terrorism in Palestine is weakly linked at best. You can say its a ****ty thing to do, you can disagree with it, but I don't think you can say that the Hussein regime funded terrorism with those payments to the families of the suicide bombers.

or better question, why do I care? What does it matter, but yes, you are right (if for the wrong reasons).

not a direct funding of terrorism, but still a direct link to terrorism, and definitely support for it. (and I'm not imply that is at all a good justification for war)

[jpyaks3]

or better question, why do I care? What does it matter, but yes, you are right (if for the wrong reasons).

not a direct funding of terrorism, but still a direct link to terrorism, and definitely support for it. (and I'm not imply that is at all a good justification for war)

I guess my point in this was that Saddam's funds had no impact whatsoever on terrorism in Palestine. No one becomes a suicide bomber for profit, so linking that to the original claim that Saddam funded international terrorism is not correct imo and misrepresents the situation.

[PokerPacker]

I guess my point in this was that Saddam's funds had no impact whatsoever on terrorism in Palestine. No one becomes a suicide bomber for profit, so linking that to the original claim that Saddam funded international terrorism is not correct imo and misrepresents the situation.

I wouldn't say that's entirely accurate. First off, they live in a different culture than our own. Just like the Japanese focus on honor over life, I'm sure the very fact that there are suicide bombers suggests that they have a different set of values from us. Putting in the incentive that his family will be provided for, I think its fair to say that someone at the end of his rope could be convinced to do something drastic.

[scruffylookin]

Who the hell ever thought the Tea Baggers were smart? It's pretty easy to see the level of intelligence of these people. Let them do their thing. Make fun of them and go about the business of fixing this mess left by the Pubs.

[TradeTheBeal!]

"There is something wrong with believing that you live under an intolerable tyranny just because your side lost an election. There is something wrong with yelling "communist" and "fascist" when you have no idea what either of those things actually are."

Its a shame people didnt apply those same standards while Bush was in office.

Fascism(dictionary.com) - a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

W/Cheney was the closest thing to fascism the White House has seen. Labeling it as such was something many Americans considered as their patriotic duty...as it was a reasonable and fact-based conclusion.

Thank god for term limits.

[Burgold]

Look, I am just saying that Saddam's "funding" of terrorism in Palestine is weakly linked at best. You can say its a ****ty thing to do, you can disagree with it, but I don't think you can say that the Hussein regime funded terrorism with those payments to the families of the suicide bombers. If he provided money at any other stage then he funded terrorism but after the act is committed you can't really fund it.

You're on pretty shaky moral grounds here. The question is would the promise of your family receiving a lot of money be enough to encourage you to murder if you were poor and desperate.

I can see what you are saying, but it really requires mental gymnastics esp. when a neighbor's home received 25,000 less for being part of the same reprisal. If the oonce housed the only difference is one home housed the assassin and the other didn't then you are paying off the murderer and thereby hoping to encourage more murders

[AsburySkinsFan]

"There is something wrong with believing that you live under an intolerable tyranny just because your side lost an election. There is something wrong with yelling "communist" and "fascist" when you have no idea what either of those things actually are."

Its a shame people didnt apply those same standards while Bush was in office.

This I'll agree to. However, I don't see you critiquing both sides, only excusing bad behavior of those on the Right by pointing to other bad behavior of those on the Left.

[JMS]

Look, I am just saying that Saddam's "funding" of terrorism in Palestine is weakly linked at best. You can say its a ****ty thing to do, you can disagree with it, but I don't think you can say that the Hussein regime funded terrorism with those payments to the families of the suicide bombers. If he provided money at any other stage then he funded terrorism but after the act is committed you can't really fund it.

I don't even think it rises to the level of weak. It's really nonsense when viewed in context. It is standing Israeli policy to destroy the homes of the families of suicide bombers, impoverishing them. Israel takes an armored bull dozer and destroys their homes typically a few days after the bombings. Both the EU and the United States through US AID give funds to Palestinians and specifically funds which go to help these impoverished homeless families. This is because the US and EU don't hold the families of terrorists responsible for the actions of terrorism.

Our aid coming after the fact is not a substitute for a destroyed home and in no way can be seen as allowing the families to profit from the crimes of terrorism. The Iraqi Aid pretty much takes the same form as our aid does. It's not enough to pay for the home, all it does is offset the rather draconian Israeli policy somewhat... just like our own aid does.

If you are going to claim Iraq funded Terrorism, as the Bush administration tried to do in the lead up to the war; you would also have to claim the US and EU funded terrorism against Israel. Preposterous.

This is pointed out in Richard Clarks Book. The only instance of Iraqi involvement in Terrorism Clark lays at the feet of Saddam is the attempted assassination of former President Bush senior. After he left office he went to visit Kuwait for a speaking appearance. During this visit the Kuwaiti security service reportedly uncovered a plot to murder him. Clark points out that now a decade after the plot was detected, Kuwait has consistently declined to produce any evidence, witnesses, or documentation of this plot. Clark goes further saying that not many western security experts today believe the plot was ever real.

The fact is Iraq against western targets was never an instrument of Iraqi foreign policy. Iraq was never a sponsor of terrorism. Iraq never had significant ties to Al quada. Iraq was not involved in exporting nuclear secrets to rogue states. Iraq in the time of our invasion did not have a significant nuclear or biological weapons program.... Not that any of these issues was the real reason we invaded. THE FACT IS, Pakistan who we made our partner in the war on terrorism and gave billions of dollars of support too, was guilty of all of these offenses and we knew it, and didn't move to invade them.

[JMS]

This I'll agree to. However, I don't see you critiquing both sides, only excusing bad behavior of those on the Right by pointing to other bad behavior of those on the Left.

Actually I think the "right's" argument can be more easily condensed as...

Bush wasn't conservative, but don't critisze him. I didn't agree with his policies, but don't you dare present what those policies were.

Just because we misuse the terms communist, facist, and socialist; with no supporting material, doesn't give the left the right to present a factual background for using those terms correctly.

[JMS]

You're on pretty shaky moral grounds here. The question is would the promise of your family receiving a lot of money be enough to encourage you to murder if you were poor and desperate.

Your premise is wrong. The Iraqi aid, as the US and EU aid is not greater than the price Israel charges these families for the crime of being related to a terrorist.

What did Iraq give them 20k? Is that going to replace your home, your possessions, or your business; all of which Israel take from these families.

[JMS]

Ok look, I really, really dislike Israel because it is a unilateral zero-sum state that has screwed the US over on multiple occasions. I could care less what happens to Israel.

now with that in mind you are an idiot. /thread

I don't watch Al Jazeera much... But it doesn't seem like he set the bar unrealistically high in saying Al Jazeera was superior to America's news services...

Across the board America's broadcast journalism is poor. If you don't believe me spend a week watching the BBC, it's an eye openner.

Edward R, and Walter both warned us of this; and their warnings were prophetic. You can't treat the news as a business, it's really a trust. The day the networks put the news departements under entertainment was the beginning of the end for commercial broadcast news in this country. It's one reason why Edward R championed PBS news.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Actually I think the "right's" argument can be more easily condensed as...

Bush wasn't conservative, but don't critisze him. I didn't agree with his policies, but don't you dare present what those policies were.

Just because we misuse the terms communist, facist, and socialist; with no supporting material, doesn't give the left the right to present a factual background for using those terms correctly.

I agree with most everything here, but I do believe that using terms like Nazi, tyrant etc are thrown around all too readily by both sides.

[Burgold]

Your premise is wrong. The Iraqi aid, as the US and EU aid is not greater than the price Israel charges these families for the crime of being related to a terrorist.

What did Iraq give them 20k? Is that going to replace your home, your possessions, or your business; all of which Israel take from these families.

Why did you edit the 2nd part? Why give an assassin's family 35,000 and an innocent's family 10,000? Both just lost their homes and posessins. It's an enormous part of the equation. Simple question--

Would you be willing to "sacrifice" for your family?

...and to answer your question, 20,000 probably is a very different figure to you and me than them. Heck, 1,000 bucks means something very different for you and the poor of Apalachia

[JMS]

Seriously. You think the pentagon report was planted (false) info? That's the most moronic, idiotic, and flat out deceitful arguments I have ever heard in my entire life. You have ZERO proof or evidence to support that statement. Your argument is a lie. It's complete bull****.

Are you kidding me?

Actually I have 100% proof. Were they lieing in 2002 in the lead up the Iraq War? Or were they lieing in 2007 when they told us they were lieing in 2002? Either way they were lieing... I personally take them at their word in 2007. That they became part of the Bush administrations propaganda campagne against Iraq. We have countless studies and bi partisan commissions which have come to this conclusion....

We even have the Pentagon's own inspector generals report which comes to the same conclusion.

Pentagon report debunks prewar Iraq-Al Qaeda connection

A declassified report by the Pentagon's acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble provides new insight into the circumstances behind former Pentagon official Douglas Feith's pre-Iraq war assessment of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection — an assessment that was contrary to US intelligence agency findings, and helped bolster the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.

The report, which was made public in summary form in February, was released in full on Thursday by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a statement accompanying the 121-page report, Senator Levin said: "It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon's Inspector General concluded that Secretary Feith's office 'developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,' which included 'conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community.' "

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0406/p99s01-duts.html

The irony of hearing someone accuse a person of cherry picking evidence, only to follow it up with the above argument is more than any rational man can bear. It's staggeringly stupid.

Mike, they lied to us. They fabricated the evidence which you are clinging too; and that's come out in countless investigations...

[JMS]

Why did you edit the 2nd part? Why give an assassin's family 35,000 and an innocent's family 10,000? Both just lost their homes and posessins. It's an enormous part of the equation. Simple question--

Probable spelling.. nothing nefarious, I assure you.

The homes buisnesses and possessions of the families of suicide bombers are targeted by Israel. Iraq has a program to mitigate this. I don't see the IRaqi money as being "profit" an neither does the Iraqi's. What they are given does not rise to the level of penelty which the Israeli's extract.

Let's also not forget... these people are not criminals. They are innocents by just about any countries laws except Israels. These aren't the terrorists. These are the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of terrorists.

Hell George Bush Senior was sitting across the table from Osama Bin Laudin's brother the morning of 9/11. George W. Bush's white house interceeded and allowed Osama bin Laudin's family members to leave the country without even being questioned by the FBI after 911. I think both policies Bush's and Israels are wrong. Holding the families responsible in every case as a blanket policy is criminal. Not even speaking to them, or investigating them is also.

Would you be willing to "sacrifice" for your family?

I don't think either of us would make the exchange which is entailed by what Israel extracts, and what Iraq, the US, and the EU confer back. Which is my point.

...and to answer your question, 20,000 probably is a very different figure to you and me than them. Heck, 1,000 bucks means something very different for you and the poor of Apalachia

Only the poor of Apalachia don't relly on N. Virginia and Southern Maryland for most of their commerse. The Palistinians do rely on Israel for most of their economic activity. They have too Israel controls their boarder with Jordan and Syria and won't let goods in from those countries. Do you know any Israeli who would give up their child, family home, business, and all their posessions for 20k?

If Iraq wanted to promote terrorism, Iraq could have afforded to give those families 500k or 1 million dollars. That's a fraction of the money which goes into a single Israeli airstrike on the Palistinians. 20k is charity. Not charity given to criminalls or terrorists, but charity given to people who were impoverished by a policy which unfairly holds them responsible for the actions of their family member.

[Burgold]

If Iraq wanted to promote terrorism, Iraq could have afforded to give those families 500k or 1 million dollars. That about the level of money which goes into a single Israeli airstrike on the Palistinians. 20k is charity. Not charity given to criminalls or terrorists, but charity given to people who were impoverished by a policy which unfairly holds them responsible for the actions of their family member.

Why pay in gold when silver or even copper would do? You only have to look to America to find people who are willing to kill for less than a million bucks. Heck, we've all read stories where people agreed to murder for a hundred bucks. More, you've admitted that this promise of reward is entering a climate of resentment and anger. That makes the lure of blood money that much more potent.