Tuesday, June 29, 2004

You wrote, "Reflexively taking an anti-American pose with respect to our country's role in history is both factually incorrect and as intellectually lazy. Blindly following left-wing agitprop doesn't make you smarter than someone who believes their government. "

stop with the bullshit. There are people that take the time to look into the facts. You ASSUME
people are "blindly" doing this or "reflexivley" doing that, but have YOU looked into the facts or made an effort to THINK about what you are saying?

you wrote, "Has the United States made mistakes? Sure. "

Mistakes? WRONGS have been comitted in the service of special poweful interests like business interests.

You wrote, " But we have also arguably done more good for more people than any other country in world history, often by force of arms. Never forget that thanks to America's "history of invasions and occupations", France, Germany, Japan and South Korea are all vibrant, prosperous democracies. "

Lets look at the very first claim. you claim that "thanks to America's "history of invasions and occupations", France [is a] vibrant, prosperous democracy"

So American policy makers felt compelled to do something nice for France? Is that what you argueing?
Look, Germany declared war on the US and the US fought Germany. It would have been dificult or impossible not to have had the side effect of helping France when we were trying to defeat Germany. Your arguement is just odd concidering the facts. If your arguement isn't that the US was intentionally trying to help France, then why even mention it?

As far as how wonderful the US was to France after WWII, take a look at what was done to labor (you know, working people). US polciy makers served business interests and US based Labor Unions and undermined labor in France with CIA opperations using thugs.

On the post-war reconstruction of the Mafia by the U.S. as part of its campaign to destroy the European labor movement, see for example, Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics Of Heroin: C.I.A. Complicity In The Global Drug Trade, Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill, 1991, chs. 1 and 2 (updated edition of the classic work on U.S. government involvement in drug-running, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, New York: Harper and Row, 1972).  An excerpt (pp. 25, 36-38):

In Sicily the O.S.S. [the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the C.I.A.], through the Office of Naval Intelligence, initially allied with the Mafia to assist the Allied forces in their 1943 invasion.  Later, the alliance was maintained to check the growing strength of the Italian Communist party on the island. . . .  As Allied forces crawled north through the Italian mainland, American intelligence officers became increasingly upset about the leftward drift of Italian politics.  Between late 1943 and mid-1944, the Italian Communist party's membership had doubled, and in the German-occupied northern half of the country an extremely radical resistance movement was gathering strength. . . .  Rather than being heartened by the underground's growing strength, the U.S. army became increasingly concerned about its radical politics and began to cut back its arms drops to the resistance in mid-1944. . . .

As Italy veered to the left in 1943-1944, the American military became alarmed about its future position in Italy, and O.S.S. felt that [Sicily's] naval bases and strategic location in the Mediterranean might provide a future counterbalance to a Communist mainland. . . .  Don Calogero [an Italian mobster] rendered . . . services to the anti-Communist effort by breaking up leftist political rallies.  On September 16, 1944, for example, the Communist leader Girolama Li Causi held a rally in Villalba that ended abruptly in a hail of gunfire as Don Calogero's men fired into the crowd and wounded nineteen spectators. . . .  The Allied occupation and the subsequent slow restoration of democracy reinstated the Mafia with its full powers, put it once more on the way to becoming a political force, and returned to the Onorata Societa the weapons which Fascism had snatched from it. . . ."

In 1946 American military intelligence made one final gift to the Mafia -- they released [American mobster] Lucky Luciano from prison and deported him to Italy, thereby freeing one of the criminal talents of his generation to rebuild the heroin trade. . . .  Within two years after Luciano's return to Italy, the U.S. government deported more than one hundred more mafiosi as well.  And with the cooperation of his old friend Don Calogero and the help of many of his former followers from New York, Luciano was able to build an awesome international narcotics syndicate soon after his arrival in Italy.

The study also describes how the U.S. government helped to reestablish the Corsican Mafia in France when the C.I.A. employed the Corsican syndicates to forcibly break Marseille's powerful Communist labor unions during dock strikes in 1947 and 1950.  These actions "put the Corsicans in a powerful enough position to establish Marseille as the postwar heroin capital of the Western world" between 1948 and 1972 (pp. 44-61).

See also, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The C.I.A., Drugs and the Press, London: Verso, 1998, ch. 5; Henrik Krüger, The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence, & International Fascism, Boston: South End, 1980 (on the probable involvement of the C.I.A., Mafiosi, certain Southeast Asians and elements of the Nixon White House in the sudden shift of the U.S. heroin supply route from Marseilles to Southeast Asia and Mexico in the early 1970s).  On the involvement of the U.S. labor leadership in these actions, see footnote 71 of this chapter.

On the U.S. operations in post-World War II France, see for example, Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945, New York: Pantheon, 1968 (updated edition 1990), ch. 4 and pp. 439-445; Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics Of Heroin: C.I.A. Complicity In The Global Drug Trade, Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill, 1991, chs. 1 and 2.

On the enthusiastic involvement of the mainstream U.S. labor leadership in the operations to restore the old industrial order to power in Northern Italy -- in part by reorienting the new Italian unions from their radical-democratic structure to American-style, leadership-dominated "business unionism" -- see for example, Federico Romero, The United States and the European Trade Union Movement, 1944-1951, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989 (translation 1992), especially pp. 16-41, 149.

On the U.S. labor leadership's complicity in the overall U.S. and British post-war effort to destroy unions internationally, see also, for example, Roy Godson, American Labor and European Politics: The A.F.L. as a Transnational Force, New York: Crane, Russak, 1976, especially pp. 52-53, 75, 104, 117-137.  This book, based on internal A.F.L. documents, explains in glowing terms and frames as a great humanitarian achievement in defense of democracy, liberty, and a free trade union movement, how the A.F.L. exploited postwar starvation in Europe to transfer power to its own associates by keeping food from their opponents (pp. 3, 104, 116); employed gangsters as strike breakers to split the labor movement (pp. 120-125); undermined efforts of French labor to block shipments to the French forces attempting to reconquer Indochina (p. 135); split the Confédération Générale du Travail, a major French union in the key industries of coal mining, communications, and transportation, in 1947 as part of its efforts to "restore the internal balance of political power and prevent a shift to the extreme left" (pp. 117-132); and so on.  However, the book skirts the Mafia connection, which is detailed in footnote 79 of this chapter.

Other studies of this topic include: Ronald Radosh, American Labor and United States Foreign Policy, New York: Random House, 1969 (review of U.S. labor leaders' rigid Cold War positions on foreign policy matters, and their active participation in reining in left-wing labor movements internationally); Ronald Filippelli, American Labor and Postwar Italy, 1943-1953: A Study of Cold War Politics, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989; Sallie Pisani, The C.I.A. and the Marshall Plan, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991, pp. 99-100 (on U.S. labor leaders' activities in postwar France); Howard B. Schonberger, Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989, ch. 4 (on U.S. labor leaders' activities in occupied Japan); Fred Hirsh and Richard Fletcher, The C.I.A. and The Labour Movement, Nottingham, U.K.: Spokesman, 1977.  See also, Thomas Braden, "I'm glad the C.I.A. is 'immoral,'" Saturday Evening Post, May 20, 1967, p. 10 ("It was my idea to give the $15,000 to Irving Brown [of the A.F.L.].  He needed it to pay off his strong-arm squads in the Mediterranean port, so that American supplies could be unloaded against the opposition of the Communist dock workers").

Similar attitudes have persisted in the U.S. union leadership until the present.  See for example, Aaron Bernstein, "Is Big Labor Playing Global Vigilante?: The A.F.L.-C.I.O. Spends Millions A Year To Fight Communism Overseas -- Fueling A Bitter Internal Battle," Business Week, November 4, 1985, pp. 92-96.  An excerpt:

Through a group of little-known institutes, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. spends $43 million a year in 83 countries -- often for anticommunist projects that tend to merge with the [Reagan] Administration's foreign policy themes. . . .  Their combined spending nearly matches the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s $45 million U.S. budget.  Some $5 million of the foreign affairs money comes from dues of member unions.  The other $38 million comes largely from two government sources.  One is the Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) . . .  The other is the National Endowment for Democracy (N.E.D.), a congressionally funded foundation started with the aid of conservative Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) to "sell the principles of democracy" abroad. . . .

[C]onservative foreign policies are nothing new for labor: The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has long been proud of the role International Affairs Dept. Director Irving J. Brown and his predecessor Jay Lovestone have played in fighting communism around the world since World War II.
http://www.understandingpower.com/chap5.htm
BUY THE BOOK:

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

I asked Rusty, "Rusty, instead of pointing to an entire article, why don't you quote something from Chomsky that you think is not right to say.
Seems your point is that specific US foreign policies cannot be truthfully described or should not be because doing so "causes terrorism."

The guy can't deal with the facts, look how fucking low this guy stoops. He pulls out the "antisemite" slander, the "conspiracy" nonsence and the "nut'' label.
Yep Rusty uses these tactics. It is disgusting that this guy resorts to calling me "an antisemetic conspiracy nut"
Someone else sees that this guy "Dr. Rusty Shackleford" has problems:
"Seriously, Dr. Rusty: take your hate-mongering to some other fantasy world, and leave the jawas out of it."
http://illovich.com/archives/socialpolitical/i_like_starwars_but.html#000361
Is this Dr. Rusty actually a teacher in Texas?

Monday, June 21, 2004

Rusty writes, "But to believe that Americans are as described by Noam Chomsky is to share in a discourse and worldview that is distinctly anti-American."

not "Americans are," Rusty but specific American foreign policies are. You really have trouble with this point don't you?
Chomsky has never said that it is the cause of all that is bad. You are just playing games. And you really don't want to dome to terms with the evil of the policies. Example, is this an American or a Nazi: "Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us". http://www.representativepress.org/CIASaddam.html

ccwbass seems to think the grievances in the Middle East were "never a topic of contention" until they "magically became one"

ccwbass, "never a topic of contention" until it "magically became one"? WRONG.
Go back 40 years and you find President Eisenhower talking about the campaign of hatred against us in the Middle East and you’ll find the National Security council giving the reasons. People in the region perceive the United States, rightly they say, as supporting oppressive harsh governments which block democracy and development and doing it because we want control of their oil resources. You can find the same things when the Wall Street Journal does analyses of opinion there today. Yeah, we aught to pay attention to that.http://www.representativepress.org/ChomskyInterview.html
mypetjawa (Rusty Shackleford) asks, "If the world was as the Left described it, wouldn't it be just to attack America?
"
mypetjawa (Rusty Shackleford) thinks he has hit upon away to make sure no one can criticizes American or Israeli policies, "The next time you hear an academic use words like colonialism or imperialsm, the next time you hear an intellectual use words that suggest America as the cause of so much suffering in the world, the next time a Leftist speaks of the death of children at the hands of America, don't let them go unchallenged. Remind them of the consequences of their words."

mypetjawa mypetjawa(Rusty Shackleford) is using propaganda techniques.
My responses:
Rusty,
You need to learn basic logic. You write, "If the world was as the Left described it, wouldn't it be just to attack America?"

Maybe you think killing civilians is OK and so it would be "just" but I don't. The problem you have is you can't grasp the concept of two wrongs. In 1831 Nat Turner and other terrorists he led murdered about 60 whites. Children's brains were smashed out of their heads, by some accounts all the victims were decapitated. Now are you going to tell me that since this happened in response to slavery that it must be "just"? Or that since Nat Turner and his fellow terrorists did what they did that we can no longer be against Slavery since that would mean "agreeing with the terrorists"?
Tom Murphy | Email | Homepage | 06.20.04 - 1:22 pm | #

Mud Blood & Beer responded: "Tom: I think you veer off point there a bit. What Rusty (I think) is saying is that the left has declared that America itself is the great evil in the world, and if that is the premise then it could be considered appropriate to eliminate this evil at virtually any cost (because the evil of America is so great). This seems to me an accurate description of the thinking among today's lefties, given everything that's come out of their mouths since 9/11/2001. (Here I mean the real left -- the America haters -- and not mainline democrats, who are simply fools)"

I answered:
"America itself"? No, you are wrapping specific foreign policies in the term "America." There are serious wrongs, just as slavery was one. Your games are like saying it was "anti-American" to be against slavery during the slavery period. You see how wrapping specific policies under the banner of "America" is an attempt to insulate them from analysis and criticism? You don't want to grasp the concept of two wrongs.
I made my point as clear as possible. Pointing out that specific policies by policy makers are wrong is not an endorsement of any act against them. US street thugs don't get away with this "but I am America" garbage, why should US foreign policy makers? Stop the propaganda with the "America itself," we are talking about specific foreign policies.
By your rational we could have never ended slavery since that would have been "giving in to terrorists." And we could not have called slavery a "great evil" since in your mind that would be saying "America itself," we are talking about specific foreign policies.
By your rational we could have never ended slavery since that would have been "giving in to terrorists." And we could not have called slavery a "great evil" since in your mind that would be saying "America itself is a great evil"
Stop trying to protect specific policies by attacking fellow Americans, it isn't right what you are doing.

Saturday, June 19, 2004

Is CNN's Lou Dobbs insane?
CNN's Lou Dobbs show titled their story on Kofi Annan's urging the UN Security Council not to shield American from international prosecution for war crimes an "Outragous Demand"!
here are the details: Annan wants no war crimes exemption for Americans

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the UN Security Council not to shield American peacekeepers once again from international prosecution for war crimes, citing the abuse of Iraq prisoners by US forces.
Mr Annan urged council members not to support a US resolution calling for the blanket exemption for a third straight year. The current exemption expires on June 30.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,257078,00.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States faced an uphill fight on Friday to get an exemption from a new International Criminal Court, with diplomats saying ambassadors were hesitating because of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5460305
By the way, even though the media keeps calling it "abuse" the fact is it is torture. http://www.fair.org/activism/times-torture-update.html
Good point! Actually the media should be covering this and there should be talk of impeachment.

The powers that be don't want this to be the focus so it isn't. email the media http://www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html

COMPARE

June 18, 2004

"This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda."
-- George W. Bush

March 18, 2003
Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
Sincerely,
GEORGE W. BUSH

check the facts: http://usembassy.state.gov/islamabad/wwwh03032001.html

BUSH MUST BE IMPEACHED! (I know I know this isn't about sex but it happens to be important)

call the media and tell them to cover this! http://www.geocities.com/helpkirk/Media.html

http://www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html

you right-wing freaks are dishonest shits if you don't act on this. this isn't a game. if you thought Clinton's lie was important then this is a thousand times more so.

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

my email to a fan of my web site RepresentativePress.org
The fan wrote, "I stumbled on to your site after doing a google search on "9/11 terrorists".......Specifically, looking into whether all the individuals involved in this terrorist act knew this was a suicide mission.

Then I stumble on your site.......What a bunch of crap!!....My suggestion to you is you get serious about seeking some mental health treatment because clearly you're in need....("Bush lied"??------That's psychotic)
"

It appears that all the 9/11 terrorists did know before they got on the plane. Some may have been informed close to the 9/11 date while others like Atta obviously knew for months. In fact Atta wrote four pages of instructions to the others called "Last Night" in which it is made clear that it is a suicide mission.

psychotic or not, what Bush told the public was not the truth although perhaps he is too simple to understand that fact. Yes it is "psychotic" to trick the American people about WHY they are in harm's way but the agendas of the powerful don't often take into account the rights of the common people. There is alot a talk about "our freedoms", the sad fact is the American people are robbed of their freedoms when they are fooled into thinking the terrorists attack us because of ours. The point I am making is that Bush lied to America about why we were targeted and that his lie robs the American people of the freedom to decide for themselves if they want to continue to be put in harm's way over specific foreign policies.


But you ignore the facts about the MOTIVES for the attacks of 9/11. The REASONS the terrorists did what they did.

Many of the terrorists were not strict Muslims, many were drinking alcohol and having sex with prostitutes. What lnked them together was the common goal, the motives.

What you ignore is the fact that the motive has been made clear for years.

The thing that links them and the other attacks and bin Laden together is MOTIVE.

The motive for the WTC attack was made clear by the statement the terrorists made: "We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region."

Did you read this link on my web site?> http://www.representativepress.org/Motivesfor911.html

In addition to that if you look you will see the motives are repeated over and over again. You can read the interviews of bin Laden here: http://www.robert-fisk.com/understanding_enemy.htm

The motives are what enticed the terrorists to join in the first place. Recruiting them was done by appealing to the well know grievances.

"A former member of an extremist Islamic organization which is part of al-Qaeda explained how the organization's recruiters operate on susceptible young men. "Someone approached me in the mosque as I was praying, and started to talk to me about injustice in the Middle East, the poverty, our impotence in the face of Israel. He made me want to listen to him - to find a solution. At first these people don't talk about violence. They concentrate on how much injustice America has caused in the world and how to get rid of this unfairness. They mention Palestine, they call on you to uphold your national dignity, to defend people, and suggest for that you must sacrifice yourself. Then your people will live after you and will always remember you." The young man, himself an Egyptian, speaking in the privacy of a quite courtyard in Cairo, believed this was the way Mohamed Atta was approached." - "Al-Qaeda" by Jane Corbin p125

But there are people who deny the motives in order to serve the interests that want the policies to continue. Bush isn't the only liar, there are many others including Clinton, the media, government officials and intellectuals tell the same lie or play along with it. For example George Tenet quotes HALF of a key sentence from bin Laden's Fatwa, cutting off the part that explains the motives. Tenet obviously does this to focus only on the intention to kill Americans and to suppress the reasons why. http://www.representativepress.org/Intelligence.html )

Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet plays the same ugly game Bush plays, he deceives the American public about motives behind 9/11. See link:9/11 Intelligence Report the second half of the In the REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 ? BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, George Tenet suppresses the second half of a key bin Laden statement. The Second half doesn't say anything like what you claim, it says clearly the MOTIVES:

in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."

Look for my new book coming soon (you can buy a shirt now to promote it) LINK> http://www.cafeshops.com/911motives

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Bush is so pathetic it is unreal.

"I first suspected that Mr. Bush had lost contact with everyday reality last July, when he insisted during a press conference that "we gave [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the [U.N. weapons] inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in."

Even if Mr. Bush watches only Fox News, he ought to have known that the inspectors searched Iraq for six weeks last winter, before they were forced to clear out so bombing could begin. Yet he repeated the same weird claim just last month, in the presence of the Polish president, saying of Saddam Hussein: "It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in." Did Condi forget to tell him about Hans Blix and the inspectors?"

(from the article See What Happens When You Don’t Read? by Joe Conason )

http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8599

Do you guys realize how fucking patheric Bush is? And how much the media is going easy on this moron?

Links to Bush two statements here from the whitehouse.gov web site: http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_representativepress_archive.html#107563421116836893

You wrote, " I also think the removal of saddam hussein will save more lives than the sum total of all the deaths you lay at the feet of America daily on CL. "

How many times does this fucking have to be said to you? Saddam and the US were partners in war crimes, they were teamed up TOGETHER. The US HELPED Saddam carry out gassings. you can't compare Saddam's crimes agaisnt the US's crimes when the US is so responsible for Saddam's hold on power. The bulk of his crimes were comitted when the US supported him. Who is responsible for putting the Baath party into power in the first place? When the US knew he was a murderous thug in the late 50's the CIA still worked with him! The US put the Baath party into power two times in the 60s.


HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THAT REPORTED? EVER?

You wrote, " Spitfire's point is not that the Oil for Food scandal was not reported, it's that it also hasn't been shoved down our throats like the abu ghraib scandal has. "

The oil for food scandal has gotten plenty of media coverage. The problem is you have an increadibly distotorted view of the world. First of all, the media, becasue of its slanted reporting, has allowed people to continue to refer to the abu ghraib events as "hazing". the media (including even Al Franken) were unwilling to make it clear to the public that RAPES occured.

You whole take on things is so off base it is increadible. you can't see that the media has UNDERPLAYED the fact that RAPES took place. and we see the effect, many AMericans can gleefully refer to "hazing" as they remain ignorant about the RAPES.

You wrote, "Its (almost ) industry wide, selective outrage, always based on a preset agenda, ie: the removal of george w bush. Paranoid ? "


more like clueless. The media has played along with Bush so much it is off the wall. the dumb shit has even stated twice that Sadam didn't let the inspectors in so that is why we attacked him. WAS THAT REPORTED IN THE MEDIA?

You wrote, " You may argue that the media is always biased towards bad news, and thats true, but the oil for food thing is at least as big a scandal as abu ghraib, by all accounts ? no ?

Ok, libs, here you go, litmus test:

Google the Oil for Food Scandal, pull up an account of it on line, then read it, and every time you see: U.N or United Nations, insert the word Halliburton (shiver) and tell me that wouldn't be story one, page on, headline , first quarter hour on the hour prime time news story.
"

You really don't have a grasp on the issues. As I said, the UN food for oil scandal has been reported. What I have been pointing out have been things that have been either severly underreported or not reported at all.


Here is something that blows you whole "UN oil for food scandal didn't get reported tey way it should have" theory out of the water. you like the story becasue you think it is something that makes the UN look bad and the US can sit on the side and say "look how bad the UN is". Here is the kicker: the US was involved. DID THE MEDIA MAKE THAT CLEAR TO YOU?

and to my other point which you ignored until I challenged another post of yours about morality. have you seen the media report AT ALL the fact that the US is violating International Law by changing Iraqi foreign ownership laws? have you seen it reported at all?

the examples you bring up have at least been reported, you claim underreported. The example I gave you ignored and then expalined away with the immoral "a state gotta do what a state gotta do". That example of I am giving you have gone UNREPORTED IN AMERICA.

stop and think for a minute, your viewpoint is so scewed it isn't funny. review the facts I pointed out.

you really don't understand how the media works. I give you dramatic examples as proofs. you try to bullshit your way around with claims that someting didnt' get enough coverage but that is exposed as foolish when you see that the US's role in the scandal is what got underreported.

AS for my other example, one more time, the American media hasn't even reported this to the public:


On May 22 2003, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1483, abolishing sanctions against Iraq and recognising the United States and United Kingdom as the country's occupying powers. The resolution called upon the US-UK authority to "comply fully with their obligations under international law, including in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1079563,00.html

The US and UK have already violated these Conventions.

You wrote, " I'll ask the serious liberals on this board (and by the way, I do not intend "Liberal" as an insult LOL ) Do you or do you not agree, that, lets say, the washington press corp, the ones asking the questions at the news conferences are across the board anti bush ? "

you are out of your mind. they let him get away with things so off the wall it isn't funny. Bush is still nuts and the media has really ignored it. TWO TIMES now Bush insanely insited that Saddam didn't even allow the inspectors in so that is why we attacked him. The media is really hiding crazy stuff from Bush:

http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_representativepress_archive.html#107563421116836893