Go to War News You Won't See in the Mainstream Media
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- Go to Captured Documents Reveal Extent of Saddam's Support for Terrorism
Damon's not too sure . . .
Understandable since it's knocking the underpinnings from so much of the anti-war rhetoric. 
In light of their extremism, the islamofacist's rejection of secular Islam governments makes sense. But Osama been Hidin also strikes me as a pragmatist and, more to the point, a crass hypocrite. Think of it this way: The man violates basic tenets of the faith he professes by advocating and organizing his brand of wanton violence against the innocent. It stands to reason, then, that we would violate his own prohibitions concerning secular governments like Saddam's if he stood to gain by doing so. And, c'mon - if this sounds implausible, then kindly point out to me how such a theory differs from the behavior you and the other anti-war/anti-Bush people attribute to him.
Your very brief discussion of the Iran-Iraq war is flawed. U. S. support for Iraq began in 1987, after Iran began attcking Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. The Soivet Union was Iraq's chief supporter and supplier of arms; indeed, Soviet weapons and aircraft were part of the Iraqi military to the end. Saddam most certainly did show his dark side when he ordered poison gas to be used to stop Iranian offensives. You will recall too that Iran was then, as it is now, hardly an ally of the United States. (see http://www.bartleby.com/65/ir/IranIraq.html; a much more detailed but somewhat slanted history of the war is available at http://www.iranchamber.com/history/iran_iraq_war/iran_iraq_war1.php).
I just adore your number one top-of-the-list reason to distrust the Weekly Standard - because Vice President Cheney gets thirty copies. 
The very mark of evil, from Wikipedia, the absolute standard-bearer of accuracy. 
As for objectivity, another faithful reader graciously provided a link to that great bastion of objectivity and balanced opinion, Mother Jones, in a comment to another post. Meaning that the truth is somewhere between the two worlds - Mother Jones and Weekly Standard.
posted by
WriterofLight
on March 12, 2006 at 4:53 PM
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BTW...
...I always like to check sources. Here are some selected quotes from Wikipedia about the Weekly Standard, a neocon magazine owned by Murdoch...
Cheney receives thirty copies.
The Weekly Standard, like
The Nation, is an example of
advocacy journalism, a
genre of
journalism which
favors subjectivity over objectivity. In an interview with senior
Standard writer Matt Labash published by JournalismJobs.com in
May 2003, Labash was asked why conservative media outlets had enjoyed recent popularity. Labash responded "Because they feed the rage."
(My bold, but interesting...)
And from the same guy - "We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it actually."
VERY revealing!
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on March 10, 2006 at 2:17 AM
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Well....
...since you ask, I'm not too sure.
David Kay, mentioned at the bottom of page 1, resigned in January 2004, saying he believed the chances of there being any WMDs at all were 'close to nil'.
As for training terrorists, I'm sceptical. Osama has repeatedly said that Muslim leaders who run secular regimes are beyond the pale, as far as he's concerned, and Saddam fought a bloody, nine-year war against Iran (with full financial and military support from the US, incidentally - so that must have been before he became evil) in order to stem the tide of fundamentalist Islam.
Those two facts constitute more than a 'theory' that Saddam and al-Qaeda were on opposite sides of the fence. As I say - sceptical.
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on March 10, 2006 at 2:12 AM
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Nor comments, from the looks of things here!
Note especially the lack of comments from the opposition. C'mon, damon and company, what do you think of all this?
posted by
WriterofLight
on March 9, 2006 at 5:55 PM
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Unfortunately, even at this late date, there'll be little major press coverage on what the documents reveal.
posted by
reasons
on March 7, 2006 at 2:40 AM
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