In case you haven’t seen Oranckay’s post on the photos of North Korean border guards beating a female defector, check it out NOW!!!
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In case you haven’t seen Oranckay’s post on the photos of North Korean border guards beating a female defector, check it out NOW!!!
33 Comments
Yeah, but those footages are probably fake. That’s what the S.Korean press will say. Just wait.
Oh my god, why doesn’t that surprise me??
Sunshine policy and Mr. Roh has to go. This is getting old.
Not a bad article here.
http://english.ohmynews.com/ar.....88rel_no=1
Who cares about this tape? The police here in the US beat people all the time, and we have a free press and the rule of law (more or less). What do you think is going on in dictatorships where the police have unlimited power to do what they want to who they want?
The diehard warmongers are always shouting about North Korean genocide, and the need to start World War 3 immediately to prevent any further deaths. A single case of police brutality doesn’t really add much to their case.
Or maybe, in the age of reality television, the medium is the message.
The North Koreans should immediately concoct tapes of their army helping old ladies cross the street and saving kittens from tall trees. Real World Pyongyang won’t be far behind…
I summon the forces of darkness and Baduk to say something awseome here!
The korea herald, which useally isn’t too biased, although still has a low level of reporting has reported its a fake.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/S.....280028.asp
Experts are doubtful about the authenticity of film footage on the Internet which is claimed to depict two North Korean border guards harshly beating a woman who fled the country.
Free North Korea (www. freenk.net), an Internet broadcast station, posted what it says is part of a 25-minute film on its home page on Monday. It said the film was pictured with a camera secretly installed in a guard post between North Korea and China.
But experts suggested the scenes might have been intentionally created.
The film contains frontal and zoomed-in scenes which are technically impossible to capture when using a hidden camera. The picture is also too clear.
They also pointed out the two men’s long hair, noting that North Korean soldiers are supposed to shave their heads.
The two guards also seem to be conscious that they are being filmed, experts said.
Free NK said the woman escaped from the North to China eight years ago.
The operator said that the complete version of the film will be aired in mid-October by a Japanese broadcaster but didn’t identify the TV station.
A Japanese broadcaster reportedly said it rejected an offer from a Korean to sell a film about North Korea in early September because the prices were too high and it is not sure about the authenticity of the film
Is it fake or not? It seems to me, if it is not fake, then it surely is not a hidden camera.
A hidden camera can’t have that many clear shots from so many different angles. For that reason, I concede it maybe fake. If it is, then this does absolutely no good for helping the shackled North Korean people. This will just bolster the arguments of the lefties who say North Korea isn’t that bad, and that a lot of the stories are lies cooked up by South Koreans with military dictatorship ties of the past.
Antti and all,
I certainly have my doubts since I have a hard time understanding how you could get a camera into the guardpost.
The audio certainly sounds authentic - not the screams so much as the accents and intonation but I guess it could’ve been NOrtherners out to make money off a Japanese TV station.
Meanwhile the fact that the only doubts are coming from “Voice of the People” and that “experts” (plural!?!?) aren’t identified also makes me wonder. I really don’t see what should be so hard for anyone qualified to be called an expert can’t come out and set the record straight, unless expert means “pro-North spin doctor” in this case.
The Korean Terald article is problematic for different reasons; it doesn’t quote any experts either, because it hasn’t talked to any. It’s probably no coincidence that the sequence of the argument is exactly the same as the VOP article. The Herald/Times masterfully translates a lot of articles from news outlets that don’t do their own English, like Hankyoreh and VOP and the like, and I suspect that is what has happened here.
Of course I’m not ready to go out on a limb and say the video is genuine. Well know more if the footage is ever broadcast, but ulitmately it doesn’t matter that much since the scene itself isn’t all that shocking as Nk human rights abuses go.
Did anybody connected to the tape say it was a hidden camaera film? I seem to remember that was the assumption made immediately by the press — whether screaming fake or not —- that it was a given the only way such a tape could be made is if it were a hidden camera.
I think that is an assumption too weak to make — especially to make as a means to form a strong conclusion about the veracity of the scene or not.
We can speculate to death — but one speculation could be that the scene was filmed by a border guard as evidence against the woman — that she had been caught sneaking into Korea from China.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that such a thing would happen. Who knows? It is at least as good an assumption as that the only way the film could be made was by hidden camera…
Also, another possibility — I can remember over the last few years reading in the US news magazines interviews with defectors from the North and some of them were border guards and officers in the regional military and police forces. So, it doesn’t seem to me out of the realm of possibility maybe one of them shot the film then had it smuggled out to give the world a chance to see more of what goes on in Korea. A few years ago the story about chemical weapons being tested on North Korean civilians in a special detention center was broken, I believe, by former trusted people in the center who escaped the North to get the word out……….and those sources were attacked as uncredible too.
One day, the North will collapse and we will learn more of truth through facts.
And until then, people like Voice of the People and the main stream Korean press and the South Korean government (like the human rights commission) will beg everyone to keep an open mind and not rush to judgement and wait for fact and then more fact and then more verification of the fact and then more fact.
Wouldn’t the SK-US relationship be a whole fucking truck load better if the US were given such consideration in the Korean press — instead of the most conservative Korean news source quoting the most leftist political party on the “fact” zero US soldier criminals have been held by Korean authorities in the last 5 years….
Over at my blog http://www.koreasojourner.blog-city.com I put up some notes and images from this fake NK story and the Korean press jumping on how it sure does seem fake and then flash back to 2002 when the Korean media — both the good citizen ones and the state supported ones we are hearing today
I don’t know how true to history this part of the two novels were, but Herman Wouk is well known for being true to history and making a compelling novel in his novels about WWII — “The Winds of War” and “War and Rememberance”. The first book is especially a great read whether you like history or not…
Anyway, one of the many story lines he tells in these two rather long novels is about information smuggled out of Germany and Nazi occupied areas by both Germans and underground nationalists in the conquered territories who tried to get information about what horrors the Nazis were doing to the outside world.
And part of the story is how mainstream influencial people used a rather healthy dose of skepticism to sqaush the impact of the sources or keep them out of the mainstream public sources like the press.
The part I’m thinking about were copied official documents from the SS about the organization of the exterminiation of the Jews. The documents were buried, in part, because the people of influence who could get them publicized on a global scale said you couldn’t trust them to make such explosive charges, because they didn’t look like what you would expect from the Germans —- that the Germans were sticklers for precision, and the copy was bad and it was done using negative over positive copy paper while the German government used positive over negative — and so on. The people trying to get the documents in the press and into considerations by the allied governments said they were secreted away and copied and returned on the sly by a German of importance who was appauled by what the government of his nation was doing and risked his life to get the information out — and what the fuck do you expect from people? for the guy to go to Hitler and ask him to autograph the copies for them?
Wouk, of course, didn’t put it that way in the novel.
This all also reminds me of when the nuke crisis started and North Korea was going out of its way to warn the US and put pressure on the US by saying it had a nuclear bomb deterent, and South Koreans of influence went to incredible lengths to say that the only way we could really put any value in the idea the North has nukes is if Kim Jong Il drove down to Seoul with a nuke in hand and beat President Roh about the head with it……..
The world is a wonderful place….
I had written out a long good post, but it was eaten. So, I’ll just point out the source I was recommding.
If you like historical novels, and you are intrigued with the latest NK news and the call for an opened mind, you might like to read Herman Wouk’s two novels about WWII - The Winds of War and War And Rememberance.
In one of them, one of the historical story lines he dramatizes concerns efforts by Germans + underground forces in Germany and the occupied nations to smuggle out documentation about the evils the Nazi government was doing. Wounk dramatizes well how people of influence in the allied nations argued that such explosive accusations required an even higher burden of proof. In particular, I’m remembering the story line about copies of official documents dealing with the extermination of the Jews which skeptics of influence argued couldn’t be trusted because the German’s were sticklers for detail and precision, and the copies were smudged and they were done on positive over negative paper while the German government used negative over positive. The people who brought the documents to the powers of public opinion that be asked what the f— did people expect - Hitler to personally autograph the stuff? — Well, the way Wounk wrote it, they said the documents were done by concerned Germans in Government who snuck the documents out and hastily made copies and put their lives in jeopardy to get out information to the world about how the Nazis had high-jacked the government and were doing horible things in the name of the German people……
Wounk paints a strong picture of the Allies not wanting to know the truth until they had to face it near the war’s end…..
Winds of War is a particularly good novel to read if you like history or not…
oops…it made it through……
Just want to point the obvious. It’s entirely possible that DPRK guards would be just “stupid” and decided to film the whole thing simply out of the fact that they have never handled a video camera before and in wonderment at seeing the first one they seized from a defector, decided to try it out.
Afterall, US soldiers have known to smile on digital camera cellphones after stacking prisoners in human pyramids. Torturing a helpless woman senselessly is pretty much the North Korean(not to mention most of the world’s) equivalent of stacking men into pyramids. Why not take a souvenir tape? Those guards were probably very proud of their patriotic work. To think otherwise, I assume, must be a projection of our morals on them.
Probably I’m wrong that the guards filmed out of fun factor. But IMHO, this theory should hold as much validity as any opinion that the video is a fabrication.
To digress a little, a previous poster, g_travan noted why should we care about this tape that “war-mongers” use to drum up support for wars? I would like to add that neither should we care about silly pictures of men stacked up in pyramids. I do wonder, however, at what point is enough, enough?
To all you sunshiners out there, quit smoking so much dope and come out of your haze and realize the norks are insane with a very dangerous mindset. Unification is a great goal but not without very careful considerations of all possibilities. DrBedroom
Someone should clue FreeNK into the whole BitTorrent thing. It would be nice to have full data disclosure.
g_travan
Hi. You make some good points, but I personally believe that the North Vietnamese Army was positively heroic when they invaded Cambodia and slaughtered the Khmer Rouge. Going beyond good and evil, it’s neccessary sometimes to kill people for the greater good. On to another point, I think the U.S. Union Army was positively heroic when they fought the confederates. (ooo… now the southerners will hate me…) US peacekeeping efforts in Balkans, I think, is also heroic, as well as US nation building efforts in Afghanistan. I do agree with you though, that I find it unsettling everytime I read some jingoist rattle sabres at the prospect of fighting China.
I believe that at some point, it may become even our moral responsibility to drop some laser guided munitions on these political targets. To put it another, way, it may be immoral for us not to kill some of these people.
The issue isn’t so much that we are good and “they” are evil, but it may be a bluntly a mathmatical issue: # of people killed as a result of Korean War II
Since this problem of means and ends and life and death has never been –can’t currently be– and never will be in the future — solved in the abstract, it must be taken on a case by case basis.
G Travan from US said: “Should people in democracies care about silly videos of black men being beaten near to death by half a dozen police? Should people care that their army is filled with sadists and weirdos, who are tolerated or encouraged in their perverse behavior by their officers?…”
From the context (previous discussion of Abu Ghraib) it seems clear that G Travan means the USA here. So, a discussion of a possible incident of North Korean brutality against their own people is “put into context” by G Travan essentially saying that the US military is inherently evil and therefore none of us (US) is in a position to judge.
So — give us what you think is the logical implication, G Travan. If you really believe this about your US military (I presume you are a US citizen) then what should the US do now?
If the US military is the moral equivalent of North Korean border guards, I would presume you’d want the US to withdraw from the ROK as fast as possible (before the poor Koreans start getting it from both sides). If that’s your implication then why not say so outright?
Pretty good quote from Solzhenitsyn — I’m impressed. He was almost as “down” on the West as he was on his own country. But we all have to live in the world, right here and now — so, tell us what we should do. As a former Army officer myself, I can never agree with your snide implication, but perhaps we can agree on what to do in the “here and now”, at least in regards to Korea.
What the hell are you talking about, Paul H.? When did I say the US military was the equivalent of the North Koreans or inherently evil? I must have badly misspoke if that’s the impression I gave.
Someone said that we shouldn’t care about the Abu Ghraib photos. I said that we definitely should care. The US military has passed sentence on those involved and some justice was had.
I don’t think the US military is evil at all. This is absolute nonsense. The Abu Ghraib photos revealed a disturbing disregard for basic decency condoned by the highest levels of government. But the soldiers are put in an impossible situation, “protecting” hostile natives and being forced to act like Saddam’s secret police to maintain order.
I did not mean that all members of the armed forces are sadist and weirdos. I meant that those involved with the Abu Ghraib incident were sadists and weirdos, and they were allowed to remain in the military by their superiors who knew of their acitvities until the issue became public. One should certainly care about this. If you care about the military, then you shouldn’t dismiss torture and maltreatment of prisoners. Unless you agree with the North Koreans that human rights and decency don’t matter.
I’m not saying because the US has problems with police brutality and military abuses, it is in no position to judge. I’m saying that because such abuses *are* a scandal in the US, we have some moral authority to judge. If we just condoned abuse when it was done by our side, but condemned it when done by the other side, we’d be just like the North Koreans, who are always pointing out America’s flaws but never their own.
As far as US policy towards North Korea and other “rogue” states, I would tend to agree with Pat Buchanan. We must put aside all this childish nonsense about policing the world and fighting for good. By the way, this mentality is much more full-blown among liberals, who are always calling for invasions of Sudan and the Congo. I find it quite disturbing that both the right and the left are so united in support of a crusading role for the US.
I would say it is enough for the US to shun support for terrorist groups and dictators (i.e. Bin Laden and Saddam, who received massive help from the US in the 80’s only to bite the hand that feeds later on). Then it can simply act to protect its own interests without concern for saving the world from itself. The US must do its best not to act in an immoral way, but that’s it. There’s no need to go on a crusade for democracy or human rights or anything else.
So in regards to North Korea, I’d say it would be best to pursue negotiations that reduce the likelihood of war and eschew provocative and useless calls for regime change. Also, the US must admit that the South Koreans have a lot more riding on this than the Americans and allow them more leeway in dealing with their northern brethren.
Asshole alert! Asshole alert! Asshole alert!
g_travan from on Sep 28th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Who cares about this tape? The police here in the US beat people all the time
Thanks for the clarification, G Travan. I don’t agree with Pat Buchanan always but I did see what he said about Korea and agree with him in this area. I think we’ve done all we can do for Korea and it’s time for them to assume all the responsibility for what happens with their own country in the future.
You said: “…The Abu Ghraib photos revealed a disturbing disregard for basic decency condoned by the highest levels of government. But the soldiers are put in an impossible situation, ?protecting?? hostile natives and being forced to act like Saddam?s secret police to maintain order..”.
It’s probably hopeless to try to change the mind of anyone on this but it needs to be said for the record anyway, especially since this liberal ACLU judge in NY state has ordered the government to release more Abu Ghraib photos, under this same moral conceit that affects to be concerned that “higher-ups” knew about and condoned what was going on in the “night shift” at Abu Ghraib.
Based on my own military experience I am absolutely convinced that the sin of the “higher-ups” at Abu Ghraib was one of omission, not commission. They didn’t check up on what these guys were doing because they were wrapped up with all the multitudinous other problems on their plate and it just didn’t occur to them that anyone could actually be so obtuse and morally depraved as to engage in this behavior, much less proudly photograph it and then distribute the photos.
In a different era with a different Army (such as WWII) they would have been right. I suppose sadistic WWII era MP guards could have murdered German or Japanese prisoners, given a lax command environment, but I doubt it would have occurred to such guards back then to pose them naked, force them to masturbate publicly, assume homosexual positions with each other, etc etc. The widespread common knowledge of such depravity is a product of our modern (American cultural) era.
I’ve tried to pay some attention to the details of the intermediate chain of command in that particular Reserve MP Brigade (ie there should have been a lieutenant, a captain, and a lieutenant colonel who made it their business to check up on how things were going with the night shift).
The fact that this evidently didn’t happen means to me that there was serious weakness here; in fact, the female one-star general (MP Bde commander) in one of her many TV interviews mentioned that the lieutenant colonel (battalion commander) for the MP guards was overwhelmed and suffering from nervous exhaustion. She did this in the context of displaying her concern for “taking care of her people”, by proudly saying how she tried to save his job and his career by getting him down to Kuwait for a couple of weeks RR.
I’m absolutely convinced she didn’t know what was going on, and (as she said) it wasn’t necessarily her job to go check up on it personally. But the fact that a battalion level commander was suffering from such a thing is extremely unusual and should have alerted her as to the fact that there were almost certainly serious potential problems down in his battalion.
She should have relieved the exhausted commander and gotten a more capable relief for him, instead of taking weeks to try to “save” him. If unable to get such a relief, her job was to then go to the Army 3 star (Sanchez?) in charge of the US military forces for all of Iraq and alert him to the fact that there were big problems in her brigade and that more resources (personnel) were urgently needed.
That’s what generals are given those stars for, so they can use their authority to shake things up in a hurry (not so they can have access to go on Larry King after the fact) . If you could ever see one do this, you would know what I’m talking about.
When it suits them, civilians affect to be shocked by such forcefulness (ie in the movie Patton). Except when they decide it’s really needed (ie after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, when General Honore shows up and becomes a media darling).
But in other contexts, you could probably find folks who would carry on about what a “martinet” General Honore had been. Perhaps even in this forum; I’d never heard of him but I gather he used to be in the US general officer chain for USFK.
Paul H.
Paul:
“Don’t Get Stuck on Stupid” Honore was Commander of 2 ID when he was here. He was a pistol, but generally well-respected.
Paul:
“Don’t Get Stuck on Stupid” Honore was Commander of 2 ID when he was here. He was a pistol, but generally well-respected.
BTW, FYI, I left a reply to your last in the other thread re Mac.
Paul,
I do not condone the Abu prison incident but, at the same time, I think it is blown out of proportion by the media with the secret agenda, that to pull troops out of Iraq.
It is VietNam all over again.
When the media has this type of agenda, it seeks the evidences to help their cause. After all, what happened in the prison? No one died. No one was maimed. And, these prisoners were not normal citizens as media want to portray. Rather, war criminals who have or might in the future hurt or kill US soldiers and civilians.
The incident is not worth getting Americans’ attention. It is a small matter with no consequence. Just punish those who disobeyed military discipline and move on.
Yet, the media made the story into a crusade so as to gain support to pull troops out of Iraq. The media manipulation is rampant. Recently it came to light that many stories reported during Katrina storm were fabrications. No mass rapings. No mass murders in the convention center or at the superdome. These were just impressions, rather than facts. Yet, the media used these stories to get back at Bush.
People like you and Travan may want to see only one side of the issue because you guys wants US troops out of Korea no matter what consequence may be. Always remember that losing influence in the region may come back and bite the US in the long run.
Paul H., your insight into the operations of the military is very informative. I think that there was a general attitude of neglect towards human rights from the president on down. I’m referring to the way the Geneva Conventions were seen as quaint, and how Rumsfeld personally suggested suspects should be forced to stand for over 10 hours since he did so himself everyday (presumably not as part of interrogation).
I don’t think it was any kind of conspiracy to humiliate Iraqis, but this lax attitude towards humiliation and torture is very troubling.
As for baduk’s rant on the “liberal media”, I’m surprised to see that right-wing propaganda has crossed the Pacific. I personally don’t care about the US having troops in Korea that much. But baduk, you and the gung-ho Koreans have to face the fact: 99% of Americans have no stomach for any more “liberation wars”, especially not in North Korea which could involve China, Russia, and Japan, i.e. World War 3.
I think most Koreans also want to desperately avoid another war. Peace should be the top priority in dealing with North Korea.
The US has already provided a lot of help to South Korea. It’s time for the Koreans to sort out their own affairs between themselves.
G Travan said (ref Abu Ghraib): “…I think that there was a general attitude of neglect towards human rights from the president on down…”
A recently posted WSJ editorial provides an affirmative defense to this charge. And I further note that the WSJ editorial page has in the past not spared Rumsfeld et al in criticism when they felt it was appropriate.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/.....=110007347
Key quote from the above:
“…consider the testimony of Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits: “Our command would have slammed us. They believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going on, there would be hell to pay…”
You guys still believe in this “liberation” crap. Of course, Iraqis are liberated but that was just the by-product of an American defense.
The US went to Iraq to destroy the weapons of mass destruction(WMDs). There were enough intelligence (now debunked but these were reliable at the time)that Sadam had WMDs and he probably would use them against Americans.
Bush had to get rid of Sadam, a threat to American security. I do not believe the president lied to the American public as media portray him today. I do trust Bush that he had some clear evidence that he did not make public that Iraq was a serious threat to the US.
There are many intelligence sources available to the president’s eyes only that he cannot share with the general public. Sometimes just to protect the source and other times, like in Cuban missile crisis, the release of information may create mass hyteria in general population.
Some say that these CIA reports were cooked up by Cheny. It may be true but it may be just another pack of lies from the liberal media. I trust the president with these reports or some other reports, “had to” attack Iraq. I trust in his leadership.
Fighting a possible war in Korea in the future will not be a “liberation” war as some simpletons believe. It will be again for the security and the benefit of the US.
Don’t buy into these “liberation” crap. The Korean war and the VietNam war were for the security of the US, to prevent 9/11 type attack which would have eventually hit the continental US. When the rest of world goes to Communism, would the US have been spared? Did the US stay out of WWII?
So, don’t spread “crap” about we did so much for Korea. Just appreciate Korean soldiers and other UN soldiers who stopped the spread of communism together. And, shake hands with Korean military who are working together with the US in Iraq and will possibly defend Taiwan in the near future to help protect mutual interests of two countries, Korea and the US.
Years from now, college professors will deride this generation for believing a lie about Iraq WMDs. They may even go as far as calling Bush to be a liar.
I disagree.
I do believe in people. I think the president of the US has much more information about the world than an average citizens has. He has projection reports about the future that we cannot even imagine.
I think the job of a president is like a captain who tries to steer the country through massive possible waves. Or, like a mathematician who has to find a solution through multivariable equations that are all linked together.
Sometimes he has to guess, because there is no clear solution. Just attempting a solution may give another clue as to how he can solve the rest of equation.
History professors never get all equations together. Their job is just to solve one part of an equation. Everything fits together for them. Or, in many cases they ignore all other effects to make their solutions fit(an intellectual dishonesty!). In any case, they were not at the point of the history to offer their solutions. Their solutions are back-fitting into an obsolete equation, which passed away.
I believe in Bush. He did the best job at the time. Iraq was the right thing to do.
There is so much hypocracy in fighting a war and the media has to “sugarcoat” the war so that the general public can swallow it.
The fact is that Sadam put human(children) shield around the strategic sites. The US airforce had to bomb those sites. Many children lost arms and legs.
It was difficult to say that we did this to protect the US. That will really kick start an anti-war movement. There are so many idealists in the US who would say that they would rather risk a total destruction than see those children hurt. Interestingly, there were none of these bojos when the twin towers fell.
So, the media, to entertain these dreamers, apply a coat of smear. They say these maiming and deaths were a part of liberation cost.
No, not true. Those injuries were done for the protection of the US. Their leader claimed he had WMDs aimed at the US. And, the US had to take him out. Fearing his demise, he put children out as targets. He is responsible.
The American public cannot swallow the fact that they had to hurt these kids to have a sound sleep at night. So, they believe in a lie that the war was fought for Iraqi liberation.
It was for our good. And, Sadam was a demon to use these innocent children to extend his regime.
Let us not lie to ourselves, even if those lies make us feel good. Lies are lies.
The real truths are:
1. The US went to Iraq to get rid of WMD.
2. In the process of arresting Sadam, the US created an anarchy in the country. (the pottery barn rule)
3. Therefore, it is only responsible course of action for the US to restore the order in Iraq before totally withdrawing troops.
But many child-adults in the US are led to believe
1. The US went to Iraq to liberate people from tyranny.
2. We liberated them.
3. Let’s get out.
There will be many killings and rapes and other acts of anarchy if troops pull out. The liberal media will condemn Bush for causing them. The democrates will chide the president for wasting money for a petty cause, that of liberating foreign people from a dictator(BTW I am a Dem. However, I agree with Rep about foreign policy).
Totally irresponsible. Like bringing a child into this world and refusing to pay for his/her food.
Thanks, Baduk, I had not heard that one before.
WTF is the “Pottery Barn rule”?
Dick Cheny coined the term. It is like a customer who breaks a pottery at a pottery store and have to pay for the item.
“you break it, you buy it”
Since the US invaded Iraq fully knowing the consequence, the lawlessness after Sadam’s removal, she has to pay for the cost of staying and policing the population.
Baduk, I agree with a lot of what you say, even though I’m probably the most liberal person on this comment section.
But I don’t think President Bush was completely honest. It may be unfair for me to accuse him, but I can’t help but look at Iraq in the light of September 11. During the time before going into Iraq, there was a lot of talk about the link between al-qaeda and saddam hussein. Of course, to this day, we have never seen any evidence linking this. (strike one) Of course, as you say, president bush has an obligation as leader of united states to defend america from any threats–WMD is a big threat to America. Now there was a lot of talk going on about how people in the Pentagon hated the people at the State Dept and the CIA. Espeicially in regard to there being no WMD and reports being jazzed up. President Bush made a tough decision call and decided to listen to Rumsfeld rather than CIA, and originally I thought that maybe he was right, but it seems that after all these years, we still have no WMD. (strike two) It is a known that CIA recommended against backing up Chalabi, a favorite of Pentagon and the neocons. It turned out that the CIA was right and the Pentagon was wrong. (strike three) Prior to the war, General Shinseki voiced concerns about the lack of men to rebuild Iraq. It was pretty clear, that president Bush adamantly said that there was no shortage of military resources. After breaking the “pots”, there was a change in the story–namely their claim of , “of course, more is better and we could always use more men and money.” (strike four, if baseball would allow it)
Now I don’t know nothin’ about military affairs(in fact, i know nothing about lotsa things). But I feel to be fair that he has been good in Afghanistan. going back to the issue of Iraq, I wonder, why iraq? And I can only fathom that it must have been a reaction to September 11th. Going beyond reports on WMD and the need to create democracy, it must have always been about September 11th. Only problem is, I have trouble connecting the dots between Osama and Saddam Hussein. So did president Bush view Iraq with the lens of 9/11? Did he make an objective decision? Well, this is the part where I said, it’s unfair of me to demand that president Bush make the “right” decision in light of so much emotional torment at watching 3000 americans die. But, I do think, that as president, this is the sort of thing we have a right to demand. Otherwise, we may as well pick our president through a national lottery system. Another note, I wonder why did Collin Powell leave? He was the only one in the circle of power with combat experience, a highly decorated soldier.
If it’s not about September 11th, the only other conclusion I can make, and this is really my true belief: President Bush saw the need to safeguard America’s oil supplies to ensure the safety of the republic and also the continuance of the american way of life. So in this sense, I do fully agree with you Baduk that America fought in Iraq to defend America, but not quite in the same way.
We cannot ignore the fact that president Bush/Cheney were both oil executives, and prior to September 11th, Dick Cheney was heading a new energy policy for America. There is a nice speech he gave about the need to reconsider nuclear energy–an idea I wholeheartedly agree with, and if Republicans ran on this one issue, I vote for a republican. Of course, then WTC and the Pentagon was attacked. I really don’t think it’s conspiracy theory to say that the war is mainly about oil, and America’s real need for it. I just feel that president Bush isn’t very honest about this. That when push comes to shove, Osama hates House of Saud and we have no other choice but to be allies with the Saudies and that Osama is willing to kill us until the Al-Saud dissapears from the planet.
I assume that, he must have thought that had we succeeded in building a vibrant democratic Iraq, it would have justified every other failures–because it really would justify every other failures if we can accomplish that.
Although I think that President Bush still has a chance to leave that legacy, he can’t do it the way things are done now. For one, I think it’s time for him to admit that he made an error with the tax cuts.
Of course, I’m heavily biased as a Clinton fan.