Therapeutic
Are these coordinated attacks? I certainly do not know, but some people in Baghdad will think so and they will act based on their reasoning on this coincidence.
In the deadliest attack on a sectarian enclave since the beginning of the Iraq war, suspected Sunni-Arab militants used five car bombs and two mortar rounds on the capital's Shiite Sadr City slum to kill at least 160 people and wound 257 on Thursday, police said.
...
Earlier Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier also had swept through an area of Sadr City, killing four Iraqis, wounding eight and detaining five, police said.The raid was the fourth in six days that coalition forces have raided Sadr City, which is home to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr.
Attack on Baghdad Shiite slum kills 160
Even to suggest some coordination in this is of course heretic. But then one reads such popular comment and starts to wonder:
In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic. The United States had the power to change things for the better, and those who would do the changing -- the fighting -- were, after all, volunteers.
The Lingo Of Vietnam
Within that argument, what might there be that is not allowed to happen?
Posted by b on November 23, 2006 at 19:36 UTC | Permalink
I gotta agree with you on this one slothrop. he so unabashedly admits that he has a severe learning problem...seems almost proud of it.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 23 2006 20:59 utc | 2
U.S. and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier swept through an area of Sadr City
ah yes, the missing soldier raids.
Posted by: annie | Nov 23 2006 21:04 utc | 3
Cohen has his job because of his disability, not in spite of it.
Posted by: Dick Durata | Nov 23 2006 21:05 utc | 4
What we are seeing now is just mere foreplay in the battle for black gold. Nukes are off the table. At the moment Russia is cashing in............. more car bombs and bloody bits spatter the walls of the ME.
Persians v Russians v George Bush (who has crammed intelligence services with acolytes).
Contest?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 23 2006 22:47 utc | 5
"In a post-Sept.11 world..."
Let’s take a few moments and look at some of the details of the horrible event that precipitated the "war on terror" and around which America’s foreign policy has been inextricably wrapped ever since.
One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four "pilots" among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake "pilot" of the bunch, with someone who was there when he was attempting to fly a small airplane saying that Hanjour was so clumsy that he was unsure if he had driven a car before. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports after Mohammed Atta supposedly leaves two rental cars at two impossibly far-removed locations. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn't work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn't work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won't let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you "aren't supposed to think about". Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name ("Hi mom, this is Mark Bingham"), more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn't respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn't happen, not even close. Somehow these "hijackers" must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn't have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were "supposed to see". Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these "hijackers" wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces most no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn't even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying "We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down" attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers' magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be "Muslim hijackers" the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don't laugh) one of their passports was "found" a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously "surviving" the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also "survived" the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be "indestructable" like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn't bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Further making themselves look guilty, the Bush administration steadfastly refused for over a year to allow a commission to investigate 9/11 to even be formed, only agreeing to it on the conditions that they get to dictate its scope, meaning it was based on the false pretense of the "official story" being true with no other alternatives allowed to be considered, handpicked all its members making sure the ones picked had vested interests in the truth remaining buried, and with Bush and Cheney only "testifying" together, only for an hour, behind closed doors, with their attorneys present and with their "testimonies" not being recorded by tape or even written down in notes. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastic far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the "nineteen hijackers" is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.
[long, long link list deleted for bad formating - 11:30pm - b.]
Posted by: Enlightenment | Nov 24 2006 0:52 utc | 6
"enlightenment" would you please not dump single spaced posts? try linking, for instance. take the time. not to mention that single-spaced gazillion line posts telling America to "wake up" about 9-11 are a bit stale and lend themselves to visions of aluminum foil hats shaped like flying saucers...not to say that's you, but just to let you know your effort, at least for me, is undermined by your presentation. shouldn't matter, should it, if anyone really cared. I will not follow any of those urls posted.d..for one thing, most ppl here have seen them already. but it's really rude to come into someone's establishment and take a dump for all to see.
but whatever.
here's something not Therapeutic- second Russian journalist (Litvinenko) died from poisoning, it seems. Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered execution style last month, and now this guy, seem to indicate Putty Put, as Bush called him, still remembers some kgb tactics.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 24 2006 1:12 utc | 7
" but some people in Baghdad will think so and they will act based on their reasoning on this coincidence."
If any of us were in Sadr City, could there be any other conclusion? That the Sadr trend has become the fault line, the fall guy, the scapegoat and that along with Sadr so goes Maliki -- and the Shiites get the U.S. magic carpet to autonomy pulled out -- one more time -- out from under them. There's alot of ways to martyr onself, especially in a culture of martyrs, so my guess is they'd rather go down swinging than kiss the ass of deceit.
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 24 2006 1:24 utc | 8
@ fauxreal...
some folks would not be so quick to implicate Putin...
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10049
Posted by: crone | Nov 24 2006 1:42 utc | 9
crone- raimondo seemed to doubt Livinenko's illness in his article (putting it in quotes) and reputed the claim of thallium poisoning..which was also refuted by the doctors. in fact, as they say in the article above, they don't know what killed him because they don't know what they're looking for..one thing or a combination of things. The guy is dead, tho, so I guess he wasn't faking it.
I also think it's a bit of hubris to think everyone who gets killed who is also Russian is somehow part of a U.S. plot to turn the world against Russia...maybe that's the case, but there is no more proof of that than there is proof of the assumption that Putin's govt is behind it. there is more reason to assume that these deaths relate to Russian issues, if Polikovskaya's death is an indication.
internal Russian politics are beyond my scope, as are many other things. however, this is one interesting bit of information about Politkovskaya from the second link above:
In 2004, she fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan, where many thought she was heading to mediate the crisis. Her colleagues suspected the incident was an attempt on her life.
The article also notes how she was repeatedly threatened because she exposed abuses by the military and the police and incidents regarding Chechnya. Now, why should I assume that her death has anything to do with the U.S.?
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 24 2006 2:01 utc | 10
however, for the sake of openmindedness, let me also include this post about Russians who question who was doing the poisoning..which, even given the questions, would not preclude the idea that this is about internal political issues.
Friends of Mr Litvinenko suspect that the Federal Security Service (FSB) - his former employer - was involved in the "poisoning".
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 24 2006 2:10 utc | 11
@ fauxreal
I'm skeptical about 'everything' anymore... but one think I am convinced of is that US has become highly skilled in black ops... which makes the world even more incomprehensible...
Posted by: crone | Nov 24 2006 2:10 utc | 12
Another Delphic Seer on the Potomac, David Ignatius, has weighed in.
Really need to add his piece in the Post today to Cohen's.
Don't know how these people have the audacity to write this crap.
Posted by: Ms. M. | Nov 24 2006 5:42 utc | 13
It's amazing how quickly the press went from anti-Syrian Lebanese killed to Syria killed anti-Syrian Lebanese. I have no clue who did it, but I do have a clue about the ancient adage: cui bono. Whose advantage is it? This is also a good starting point: who stands to gain from the assassination? Syria really isn't a serious anwer to that question.
Posted by: Brian Boru | Nov 24 2006 6:01 utc | 14
Writing for the Arabic Media Internet Network Jonathan Cook wonders if Syria is the convenient fallguy for Israel. It increases the likelihood of civil war in Lebanon, lessens the power of Hizbullah, and keeps Syria in pariah status potentially relieving Israel of the need to realistically respond to Assad's interest in negotiations for the return of the Golan Heights (and forestalls the likely consequence of Israeli negotiations re Sheeba Farms and the Palestinians).
Posted by: conchita | Nov 24 2006 6:31 utc | 15
"I have no clue who did it, but I do have a clue about the ancient adage: cui bono. Whose advantage is it?"
Were there any foreign students seen anywhere jumping for joy and taking pictures of the scene?
Posted by: pb | Nov 24 2006 7:35 utc | 16
uncle, i have been looking all over for that gene research link!
Posted by: annie | Nov 24 2006 11:08 utc | 19
@annie
well, why didnt'cha say somethin ;-p
Merely a random thought, On the other, re: Israel, but I can envision Poppy and uncle Baker as a last resort, scapegoating everything on Israel, AIPAC etc.. with help from the rightwing Saudi / U.S. intelligence network if and when the levee breaks to save Jr. from hanging in the breeze for war crimes, perhaps isolating it to Cheney's station, even though everyone made a handsome sum. You know, as plan D.
But that is to say, only if the the Armani Democrat's quit their felonious collective whorish behavior of fellating their way to "the chosen people's" wads (pun intended).
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 12:10 utc | 20
further wild speculation and ramblings...
Can't help but wonder what --on such short notice--Cheney's real mission in Riyadh is about ...
one thing is for sure something other than "regional issues", is up...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 12:34 utc | 21
@ Uncle $scam: Thanks for the link to the opensecrets.org/
data. I suspect that the true amount is probably understated
by (at least) an order of magnitude, but have no proof, nor even
a way to quantify such intangible contributions as favorable media
coverage or inclusion in "preferred" investment opportunities.
As to Cheney's visit, one can assume he is up to no good. I wonder if
the recent depreciation of the dollar enters the picture at all (but that may just be a consequence of structural problems and a thin market
during the Thanksgiving vacation).
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Nov 24 2006 15:04 utc | 22
Why on earth would Putin do such a ridiculous thing as get someone to poison Sushi (say) with radioactive material just in time for some ex- or clapped-out Russian Spy to eat in and linger on for a few days in hospital in one of the countries that was bound to make piles of hay from that?
This is stuff for the Beeb watchers who love improbable conspiracies provide they are taloired along the lines of spy novels or plots that no publisher would even look at..now they are all running scared about radioactive threats (Pity Japanese restaurants..) and hissing and laughing at Putin.
The 'spy' did swallow some strange things though:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6175424.stm>bbc
Politkovskaya was a nobody - sorry. Who heard of her in the West before she was killed? Well maybe a few people on this board.
She was killed on Putin’s birthday, what a poisoned gift.
Posted by: Noirette | Nov 24 2006 19:54 utc | 23
Politkovskaya was a nobody - sorry. Who heard of her in the West before she was killed? Well maybe a few people on this board.
UH...
I know of her, perhaps only because I have Russian friends, and took a class on Russian aesopian ideology, Pravda, Glastnos and Perestroika, gulag camps etc.. And because James Woolsey, William Bennett has spoken of her regarding Chechnya.
Was an excellent class btw, the subject syllabus was kick -ass readings...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 20:20 utc | 24
Oh Scam I admire(d) her too - a heroine for sure - but the idea of Putin having her killed is outlandish, she is far more trouble dead than alive.
And even were she to be eliminated, there are less spectacular, easier, subtle, ways. Of course, she may have miscalculated, herself, and provoked terrible fear. If that is the case, which in my imagination I doubt, Putin will have learnt he needs to control his ‘troops’ better. Who knows. But the West making hay out of one or two or three weird Russian deaths amongst ..say tens of thousands...is politics. Next step, babies thrown on the floor...
I read Enlightment’s post with interest. 9/11 now has, apparently, a more or less consensual conspiracy narrative, composed of a list of impossibilities, improbabilities, abnormalities, contradictions and just plain ‘weird’ facts.
The list itself varies from person to person - what shocks or appeals (and what is known) is a bit random. The lists aren’t coherent, don’t provide any kind of overall story, as is to be expected. Most use them to call for a new investigation, as everyone can agree on that, and that is what 9/11 families are calling for.
At the top, the picture is different: conspiracy theorists either concentrate on just one issue (e.g. Steven Jones, demolition), or try and argue and support just one larger theory (the Web fairy, no planes), or remain parsimonious in their speculation (Paul Thompson). Almost none do shoe-work, Hopsicker, on the Florida crowd being an exception, perhaps.
Some are mostly interested in state and corporation corruption - trying to grasp 9/11 from the top down, rather than from the bottom up, without much success.
Technology is helping a little; e.g. You tube now making available the TV footage from the time. DVDs - all of which collect ‘known’ facts and footage together have popularized conspiracy, without adding anything new. Some people have become minor stars, capitalising on their personal experience without doing more (Rodriguez, a good man.)
Missing is what used to be called investigative journalism, though a few do actually occasionally ask living people questions. (Killtown.) Missing is a group who coordinates its efforts - a team of 10 people working together and unafraid to lift up the telephone. Missing are women. Missing are truly professional video analysts. The few threads hanging out there that would provide shocking, irrefutable evidence of fakery or subsequent cover-up - the kind of thing you can’t argue about, as compared to ‘demolition’, NORAD ‘incompetence’- are studiously left in the shade. That is maybe a bit too strong...
9/11 truly is taboo. Or, to put it another way, individuals, ordinary citizens, groups not affiliated to those in power can no longer affect events in a profound way. Hmmm. I think it is not over yet, and Ruppert was wrong.
Posted by: Noirette | Nov 26 2006 18:34 utc | 25
This is stuff for the Beeb watchers who love improbable conspiracies provide they are taloired along the lines of spy novels or plots that no publisher would even look at..now they are all running scared about radioactive threats (Pity Japanese restaurants..) and hissing and laughing at Putin.
what a snarky thing to say...but not unusual. yes, Alex Jones is sooo much more reputable. if you listen to Jeff Sharlet's interview on his shown, for instance, Jones tried to twist everything Sharlet (who does investigative journalism) had to say, and Sharlet tried to correct him, but it didn't fit the narrative.
what the fuck do you actually know about the substance that poisoned him?
all the 9-11 conspiracy lunatics who also discuss the anal probes they experienced as alien abductees are sooo much more reliable as sources... and when varous ideas have been shot down, it doesn't matter. it's like creationism...nothing can sway a belief because it contradicts something someone needs to believe in order to sustain a narrative about the world they live in.
and, of course, the assassinations (11 that were documented by reputable sources) that have happened to Putin's journalistic opponents, the tv stations and newspapers shut down...that's also a big conspiracy against Putin. no matter that a show of power works in any country, and Russia, again, is an entity western europe does not want to offend in order to maintain access to natural gas at reasonable prices.
then, to dismiss on the other thread the issue of dioxin poison...if you read the articles, people did dismiss him, until a doctor in Amsterdam saw his facial boils and recognized the symptoms. but, again, this man opposed the beatific Putin in the beatific motherland...if he were an American leader, however, I wonder if you would defend him in the same way, and if not, why not? how is he any different than any other power broker in any other major nation?
who knows what the truth is in this situation? certainly not you nor I. however, it is ridiculous to dismiss the occam's razor approach in a story just because it has been delivered by british sources...the Guardian as well, btw, which is generally cited as a somewhat reputable source because it is considered liberal (and, in fact, they, as well as the bbc, did reveal the lies behind the Jessica Lynch story...revealed months later in the american press. but then their coverage is okay because it aligns with your prejudices.
it's extremely odd to me that the only sources that are reputable for some ppl are the ones that agree with what they have already decided is the "truth."
how that constitutes anything other than mental masturbation is beyond me. but of course, because I consider a discussion what might have happened an actual useful topic, and the possibility of considering various scenarios a part of such a discussion. I am, apparently, so misguided as to be dismissed.
that is a pure crock of bullshit.
but it's your bullshit, and that's all that matters.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 26 2006 21:46 utc | 26
The comments to this entry are closed.
it is astounding to me cohen has a job writing a column for wapo. he's consistently an idiot.
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 23 2006 19:54 utc | 1