PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Sociopolitic: September 2006

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Praise for Hugo Chavez


The recent uproar over the comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez before the General Assembly of the United Nations was noteworthy, but not for the reasons most American politicians or media pundits presumed. Far from being the outrage that spineless puppets of the American corporatocracy like Charlie Rangel and Nancy Pelosi claimed, Chavez' denunciation of President Bush as "the devil," and his passionate attack on America's criminal foreign policy was a heroic and courageous act, a pronouncement of rebellion against a mercilessly deceitful, exploitative, and murderous man whose regime (driven by a powerful neoconservative engine) has begun to systematically deconstruct our constitutional democracy at home while continuing to tighten its' far-reaching imperialistic Darth Vader death grip on nations who strategically and/or economically serve the purposes of its insidious figureheads.

Hugo Chavez was merely speaking the truth; a truth not often broadcast on the airwaves or printed on the pages of the increasingly consolidated mainstream media. Chavez hit the nail on the head with his assessment that Bush's speeches and policies are designed "to preserve the current pagaent of domination," and he was right on in referring to Bush's "democracy" as "the false democracy of elites." Chavez spoke the truth to the General Assembly and to the world -- and he spoke it with passion, sincerity and even a little humor.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/20/world/main2025874.shtml

In the hours after his speech Chavez was lambasted by a man who is usually one of Bush's biggest critics, Rep. Charles Rangel of New York. One of the proclamations that Rangel made was this: "If there's any criticism of President Bush it should be restricted to Americans (.)"

Oh really?

Does that mean that President Bush can't refer to President Ahmadinejad of Iran as "evil" or label his country as part of the "Axis of Evil?" If we are going to be even handed Mr. Rankel, then our leaders should not do what you are attacking Hugo Chavez for doing. This would seem to be only fair.

Further, in the statement from his official website Rangel stated that: "Any demeaning public attack against him is viewed by Republicans and Democrats, and all Americans, as an attack on all of us." What I would say to Rep. Rangel is : "Speak for yourself." To view an attack on Bush as an attack on myself I would first of all have to consider Bush as representing me and my interests, which he obviously does not. Further, if we as Americans were to view an attack on Bush as an attack on ourselves as Americans it would have to follow by logic that Bush represents all of us as Americans, which he clearly does not. As Chavez said, Bush's "democracy" is not real democracy, but "the false democracy of elites." Thus, Rep. Rangel's statement actually reveals his hypocrisy. It betrays the fact that his true allegiance is to the power brokers of our country; not to the "American people" he pretends to speak for.

Unlike Bush, Chavez was legitimately elected to his office and actually represents the interests of the majority of the population of his nation. Chavez won 56% of the vote in the 1998 multi-party election and then won a new six year mandate in 2000 with 59% of the vote. Chavez has kept the voters' loyalty since he was first elected and has begun to reverse years of corruption and exploitation of the Venenzuelan masses by previous ostensibly democratic governments who funnelled the country's oil wealth into the pockets of a small group of elites, and in the process kept well over half of Venezuela's 25 million people in poverty.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200510100012

Chavez has nationalized the oil industry in Venezuela and has used the money to finance many social projects which are aimed at empowering the country's poor and providing desperately needed services such as electricity, water and medical care. Through his Misions Chavez hopes to rebuild Venezuela in the image of a "participatory democracy". For example, Mision Barrio Adentro is designed to deliver medical assistance to slum-dwellers and has mobilised 20,000 Cuban doctors, dentists and their assitants. This program is being paid for through cut-price oil sales to Cuba.

Another similar program is Operation Miracle which is providing free eye care, such as cataracts surgeries, to not only Venezuelans but thousands of needy individuals throughout the Western Hemisphere. Mision Ribas provides secondary-school dropouts with a second chance through a two-year course and a small bursary, while Mision Mercal gives twelve million poorer Venezuelans access to cheap or free food.

Chavez also looks to empower his people by putting them in charge of their own programs. Talking about the important Urban Land Committees ( C.T.U.'s in Spanish) Chavez stated back in 2005 while being interviewed on the show Democracy Now! that :

"....... These committees of Urban Land are all over the country. They are in each neighborhood, poor neighborhood. You have a committee. The members of this committee should watch the whole neighborhood. And then they draft the map of the neighborhood. They go house by house and, family by family and they assess all the problems. If they lack running water or if some of the houses are unstable and they could fall down. How many children they have. The schools. the health care system in the neighborhood and so on. So these are the urban land communities." (Democracy Now!, 9/19/05)

As for his open attacks on Bush and the neocons it is essential to keep in mind that Chavez has a history with the U.S. leadership and has experienced the wrath of BushCo firsthand. It was a U.S. backed coup that attempted to remove him from office in April of 2002. For almost 48 hrs Washington was aglow with apparent victory, having ushered aspiring dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga into office after unceremoniously closing the Venezuelan Congress, dissolving the Supreme Court, and booting out the elected provincial governors and mayors. Naturally, this occured with the full support and propaganda streams provided by most of the local newspapers and television networks.

Fortunately, the majority of Venezuelans didn't take it lying down. They fought back. There were protests all over Caracas and a mass of angry citizens stormed the government palace to demand that their President, their leader be restored to his rightful position. With the help of the military guard (who were decidecly pro-Chavez), Carmona and his allies were thrown out and order was restored. This background is significant since it helps us to understand the personal connection Chavez has to the Bush regime. The 2005 statement by televangelist and Bush supporter Pat Robertson that the U.S. should assasinate Chavez obviously raised the stakes and revealed the true hatred that the Right had (and still has) for him. He is after all a man who is undoubtedly the most influential leader in Latin America today, as well as one of the world's most popular and democratic politicians.

Clearly the U.S. continues to see Chavez as a threat to their global hegemony. Perhaps this more than anything else is why politicians such as Rangel and Pelosi were so quick to jump to Bush's defense and in the process attack Chavez. Despite their rhetoric they are obviously still beholden to big business interests and lack the freedom of thought and integrity of action that a man such as Chavez has displayed. The greater fear among many Washington insiders is surely that Chavez' Bolivarian revolution will inspire other Latin American countries to enact similar reforms and thus threaten U.S. dominance in the western hemisphere. This was a fear that was present in regimes going back to Eisenhower, Kennedy and all the Cold War presidents. It is the "viral theory"; the premise that bred U.S. backed coups in Guatemala and Chile. This time however, Chavez has the leverage of oil. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East, and he has used his petrodollars to help other likeminded politicians win elective office. Diplomatically speaking, he has formed an alliance with Iran, while both Spain and Russia are selling Chavez guns and ships. He is working hard to build relationships around the globe, and for the most part has succeeded. When staring down the schoolyard bully it is good to have alot of friends, which Chavez seems to have.

In the past fews days Condeleeza Rice has reportedly dedicated herself to keeping Venezuela off the Security Council. She has made this her mission. Unlike Chavez' mission, which is born of hope, this U.S. mission is born of fear. Fear is a word that Chavez doesn't respond to -- it is simply not in his vocabulary. But this is something that petty, cowardly people like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel will never understand.

Posted by Rogue Scoop at 5:10 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Pope and Islam


The recent speech given by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany should be a lesson to Heads of State, clergy and religious leaders around the globe. It is only through empathic religious tolerance, mutual respect, sensitivity and compassion that the many peoples of our planet will live together harmoniously. It is possible for the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims to find peace with Jews and Christians alike, but the example needs to be set by major figureheads like the Pope. Our religious leaders might add "thoughtfulness" to the list of attributes above, while understanding the importance of choosing one's words carefully, especially when they know that the world is listening.

Despite almost immediate apologies and explanations from the Vatican, Benedict's quoting of a 14th Century Byzantine emperor; that essentially the only thing that Mohammed brought that was new were things "only evil and inhuman," not surprisingly set off a firestorm of protests and angry denunciations in Muslim communities from Pakistan to England.

In Pakistan the parliament unanimously passed a resolution demanding the pope "retract his remarks in interest of harmony between religions."
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060915/ts_afp/vaticanpopeislam

While in England Scotland yard decided over the weekend to increase security around churches and mosques, for fear of violence. Fortunately, so far there have been no incidents of violence in Britain as a result of the comments. (Telegraph.co.uk, 9/20/06).

For her part Germany's "Bundeskanzlerin" Angela Merkel ( perhaps feeling responsible for quelling the flood of anger since the offending remarks took place in her country) defended the pope by saying that his intentions were misunderstood and that he was really only calling for dialogue between the religions.

Whatever the true motivations of Benedict XVI, it seems clear that he lacks the grace and tremendous warmth which made Pope John Paul II one of the more beloved pope's ever.
There is a reason Benedict has been referred to as "God's Rotweiler," and his recent attack on the Holy prophet of Islam only reaffirms that moniker. It is ironic that Benedict's official spokesman has answered the criticism by claiming that the pope respected Islam but was only rejecting violence motivated by religion. As William A. Graham, the Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, was quoted in the Sept. 25 edition of Newsweek; "Historically, there is no more basis for arguing that Islam is irrational than there is for arguing the same about Christianity or Judaism."

The pope's choice of words were uncharacteristically insensitive and prejudicial coming from a personage so widely looked up to and followed as a religious and moral leader. His quote of Manuel II, which demeaned Mohammed and by association Muslims all over the world, contributed to an increasingly onesided and inaccurate depiction of those who practice Islam. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Pope supposed to extinguish hate and spread love? Isn't he supposed to encourage understanding and acceptance rather than spread misunderstanding?

Not that I ever had any illusions about the Vatican's desire to truly work for the betterment of Catholics and mankind. In the modern age, as in the Renaissance the Church seems to be about controlling people's thoughts and actions rather than encouraging spiritual growth. And in this particular case with pope Benedict I have the strange feeling that he was trying to inflame the passions of Muslims. He did that. He also contributed to a growing divide between East and West . Indeed, Graham says that "It is very hard to construe the pope's remarks in a benign way." In an address ostensibly dealing with "faith and reason" one would think the pope could find a way to display a little more of the latter.

Posted by Rogue Scoop at 2:31 PM | | Comments

Thursday, September 07, 2006

U.S. National Security Policy and Pakistan


Glenn Greenwald had a thought provoking diary posted on Tuesday (Is Iran "the most active state sponsor of terrorism"?) on his blog Unclaimed Territory. For me, what was most compelling was not the question of whether or not Iran is truly a threat (I have dealt with the U.S.' demonization of Iran in depth on this blog, and I think effectively unmasked the neocons propaganda and lies in this regard) or the rhetoric and fear mongering continually spewing forth from Bush as regards Iran, but the implications of parts of Bush's recent speech before the American Legion National Convention -- which drew directly from the White House's just released National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (NSCT) document.

In his speech before the American Legion Bush stated that

.... we have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you're an enemy of the United State, and you will be held to account.

In his post Greenwald quoted Section V. of the just released White House (NSCT) anti-terrorism document which says exactly the same thing; if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you're an enemy of the United States, and will be held to account. (www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/print/20060831-1.html)

In light of ABC's recent report that U.S. intelligence suggests that Bin Laden is hiding in Waziristan Pakistan, with the knowledge of the Pakistani government, one would expect pretty serious consequences for Pakistan and their leaders.

Today's Seattle Times reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf met Wednesday in Kabul and signed a "cease-fire" pact aimed at ended clashes between Islamic extremists and Pakistani troops in the border provinces. The pact "requires foreign extremists to leave the tribal area of North Waziristan or take up a peaceable life there (.)" (Seattle Times, 9/7/06). On CNN.com it is reported that "under the deal, Pakistani troops would halt (their) military campaign and militants would halt attacks on Pankistani forces in northern Waziristan and stop cross-border raids into Afghanistan targeting U.S. and Afghan troops. "

This is all good and fine, and both leaders (Karzai and Musharraf) seemed to be pleased with the cease fire, (although Karzai expressed an attitude more akin to "wait and see") however, the complication comes from statements supposedly made to ABC by officials within the Pakistani camp (specifically those made by Maj. General Shaukat Sultan) that Bin Laden would not be subject to capture if he agreed to "live a peaceful life." ABC quoted Sultan as saying he (Bin Laden) "would not be taken into custody ... as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen." (CNN.com, 9/7/06).

Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Mahmound Ali Durrani refuted these comments, saying that General Sultan had been "grossly misquoted in a section of U.S. media today." (CNN.com) The idea that Maj. General Sultan was misquoted was echoed by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry who disputed "a statement attributed to the spokesperson of the president by ABC News that Osama Bin Laden will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a 'peaceful life'." Durrani also added the following statement :

Pakistan is on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his associates. If he is in Pakistan, today or any time later, he will be taken into custody and brought to justice. No amnesty has been granted to Osama bin Laden. (CNN.com)

In response to critics that Pakistan has not done enough to fight terrorism Musharraf has insisted that he would not let his country become a sanctuary for terrorists.

There seem to be at least a couple of problems with this and other similar statements coming out of Pakistan. First, the fact that Pakistani leaders are referring so frequently to what will or will not happen to Bin Laden leads one to believe that they do have knowledge of his whereabouts, and that he is in Pakistan, whether Waziristan or elsewhere. If he were not, then why is there so much discussion about how his capture or exposure will be handled? Second, Pakistan has in the not too distant past been implicated in the moving and hiding of al-Qaeda and its' agents. There is a history here.

In 2003-2004 it was widely rumored that Bin Laden had a safe haven in Pakistan. Dr. Ajai Sahni, who is executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, an anti-terrorism foundation in India, was quoted by Charles R. Smith about the Pakistan connection to al-Qaeda :

The fact is significant factions of the Pakistani army and the Inter Services Intelligence -- with the backing of various Pakistani terrorist groups -- have been actively facilitating the relocation of the al-Qaeda from Afghanistan to Pakistan. (NewsMax.com, 7/26/03)

So, what does all this mean? If U.S. intelligence believes Bin Laden is in Pakistan, as apparently they do, then why don't they coordinate actions to capture him?

Musharraf has said that his country will not become a sanctuary for terrorists, but he doesn't seem to be going out of his way to prevent this. Indeed, he has ruled out allowing NATO and U.S. forces from crossing into Pakistan saying that this would ignite a popular uprising (Seattle Times, 9/7/06). While journalists such as Peter Bergen claim that Pakistan is "a country where the U.S. military is not welcome," the fact remains that Musharraf allowed the United States to utilize several airstrips and Pakistani airspace during Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001; most notably, the air base at Bareder near Peshawar, and the airfield in Pishin just north of Quetta in the Baluchistan Province. (AP, 9/26/01)

If Musharraf indeed does not know of Bin Laden's whereabouts, it is likely that high ranking officials within Pakistan do. Longtime CIA operative Gary Schroen told Henry Schuster of CNN back in 2005 that although he doesn't think Musharraf knows where Bin Laden is, he does believe that members of the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI do know;

I can only speculate, but it is based on almost 20 years of dealing with the Pakistani military and the ISI officers. I think at some level, probably the colonel level, there are officers probably in ISI who know where Bin Laden is. (CNN.com , 5/31/05)

Further, The Albionmonitor reported in March of 2003 that former ISI leaders likely know of Bin Laden's whereabouts:

....two men who most likely know bin Laden's whereabouts are former four-star generals who headed the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and who established close links with the fugitive: Mehmud Almed and his notorious predecessor, Hamid Gul. (http://www.albionmonitor.com/0303a/binladenhide.html)

The same piece states that General Gul was a frequent visitor of Bin Laden in the aftermath of the Soviet/Afghan war and that he probably enjoys more support within the Pakistani army's rank-and -file than Musharraf himself, due to ethnic roots.

Whatever the nature of the ISI's or Musharraf's intelligence on Bin Laden, it will be interesting to see how Bush and the Pentagon respond to news surfacing from Pakistan in the coming weeks. It has been mentioned elsewhere that Washington has close ties to Musharraf, specifically through General Mahmoud Ahmed, who was reportedly instrumental in the coup that brought Musharraf to power in 1999, and in the days just before 9/11 met with then CIA Director George Tenet, as well as the Pentagon and members of the National Security Council and the State Department . It is also significant that General Ahmad reportedly authorized an ISI agent, Saeed Sheikh, to wire-transfer $100,000 to Mohamed Atta's bank accounts in Florida. (Griffin, New Pearl Harbor, p.109).

Without getting carried away into making elaborate correlations, suffice it to say that U.S./Pakistan relations have in the past been more than somewhat suspicious. It is for this reason that Bush's statement to the American Legion that those who harbor terrorists will be "held to account" is relevant. If Pakistan is knowingly harboring Bin Laden, shouldn't they be "held to account?" And what does this mean? Does it mean military intervention, sanctions, or simply a loud public denouncement? If harboring terrorists groups such as al-Qaeda would lead to Afghanistan being bombed into oblivion, one would think that harboring Bin Laden (reportedly the world's most sinister terrorist) would earn Pakistan a similar treatment.

Whatever the implied punishment, I don't suspect we will see Pakistan suffering anything of the sort in the near future, whether they are knowingly harboring Bin Laden or not. If Bin Laden's presence there is confirmed and Bush fails to act on his promise, then I think we as a nation have to ask ourselves why.



Posted by Rogue Scoop at 10:51 AM | | Comments

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Civil War in Iraq : How and Why?


Isn't it about time we started calling a spade a spade? The current conflict in Iraq has been a chaotic quagmire for some time now, and with the release of The Pentagon's quarterly report on the war it is becomingly increasingly clear that the situation will only get worse. Despite the acknowledgement by the Pentagon that the number of attacks and deaths continue to rise(over the last four months Iraqi casualties have risen 51%) , the language being used belies the facts on the ground. While many major media outlets continue to refer to the "chance" or "likelihood" of civil war, the Pentagon report states that "conditions that could lead to civil war exist."

Isn't it time the Pentagon and the major media outlets admit that "civil war" is going on in Iraq as we speak? A civil war that America incited and continues to fuel by their illegal occupation. While Webster's (1999) defines "civil war" as a war between political factions or regimes within the same country, the online Free Dictionary is less specific, defining the term as a war between factions or regions of the same country. Wikipedia's tells us that some historians say that for "civil war" to exist, there must be prolonged violence between organized factions or defined regions of a country (conventionally fought or not).

If we look at Prime Minister Maliki's definition of militia's as organized armed groups who are acting outside the state and outside the law, then the criteria for the Free Dictionary definition as well as at least one of the Wikipedia versions of "civil war" are clearly met. Although the term "prolonged" is open to interpretation, it is a fact that the sectarian violence and violence perpetrated by organized militia's has been going on for some time now (at least since the Samarra mosque bombing back in February).

In an L.A. Times cover story from yesterday Julian E.Barnes ( Pentagon Issues Grim Iraq Report) quotes assistant secretary of Defense for international security Peter Rodman as saying that "the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing." Barnes also notes that according to the Pentagon report the Al Mahdi militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, while having achieved "a measure of tolerance from Iraq's new government" has frequent violent clashes with the Iraqi army. The nature of the "organized factions" referred to in the definitions above are not specified, but religious factions are not ruled out.

Barnes' story also notes that the report describes the "unprofessional, and at times criminal behavior" of the Iraqi national police, who are said to have in some instances aligned with militias. It should be clear from this, as well as reports of the violence perpetrated by sectarian death squads, that we have seen, and continue to see "prolonged violence by organized factions."


One might ask, "why is it important how the current conflict is defined or labelled?" Well, one reasonable interpretation is that by admitting to the presence of a "civil war," U.S. leadership would acknowledge not only their own failure, but the fact that an ongoing occupation would be useless. It could be argued that if a "risk" or "likelihood" of civil war exists, then appropriate U.S. intervention could lessen or eliminate this possibility. If however, civil war is already going on, U.S. actions would certainly have to be part of the problem, especially since this horrible sectarian violence was essentially non-existent prior to the U.S. invasion in March, 2003. This is why the Pentagon report holds to previous Bush administration claims that Iraq is not in an all-out civil war, but in a situation where "conditions that could lead to civil war exist." U.S. leadership can thus justify an ongoing occupation to prevent the looming civil war.

It is significant that many voices within Iraq are calling for an end to sectarian bloodshed and the unification of all Iraqi people against the U.S. occupation. In another L.A. Times article from Saturday (Questions Echo Amid the Din of Explosions) Patrick J. McDonnell and Raheem Salman quote a young Iraqi man who said that "they want us to fight eachother," referring to the U.S powers that be. A man named Mahmoud Sumaidaie was quoted at the Umm Qura Mosque as saying that "all Iraqis must come together and be united."(L.A. Times ,9/2/06)

It seems that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki shares this sentiment that the Iraqi people need to unite. On June 25 he presented a national reconciliation plan to the parliament, in which he sought to establish peace by eliminating militias from the streets, opening dialogue with rebels and reviewing the status of purged Ba'ath party members. Maliki has also criticized coalition forces for deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians and indiscriminate destruction of Iraqi property.

Muqtada al-Sadr in his Feb. 26 speech in Al-Basrah spoke about the need to push U.S. military and foreign military forces out of Iraq. He has made it clear that it is imperative for the Iraqi people to put their religious differences aside in order to achieve the ultimate goal : expelling the American military and American corporate hyenas from their country.

In the aftermath of the bombing of Samarra's Golden Mosque Iraqi President Jalal Talabani stated the need for Iraqi citizens to work together to avoid the danger of civil war and in a separate statement from around this time Talabani stated that one aim of the perpetrators was to interfere with the political process and disrupt formation of a national-unity government.

Some, including the Supreme Leader of Iran Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the United States and Israel for the bombing of the Golden Mosque. Muqtada al-Sadr also made statements to this effect while repeating his plea for Iraqi unification:

My message to the Iraqi people is to stand united and bonded, and not to fall into the Western trap. The West is trying to divide the Iraqi people ( . )
(http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/48/18107)

Dahr Jamail highlighted the former role of current U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte who served as ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005, and who has made a career of promoting sectarian and ethnic violence, widespread human rights abuses, as well overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of people (most notably by his "death squads" in Honduras in the eighties under the Reagan administration).

Jamail also points out that "in the middle of Negroponte's tenure in Iraq, the Pentagon openly considered using assassination and kidnapping teams ... led by the Special Forces." He also quotes John Pace, who is the Human Rights Chief for the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, who said (on the radio program Democracy Now!) in response to an interview question about "death squads" in Iraq that "I would say yes, there are death squads," and added that "my obser-vations would confirm that at least at a certain point last year and in 2005, we saw numerous instances where the behavior of death squads was very similar, uncannily similar to that we had observed in other countries, including El Salvador."

Jamail concludes in the same article in which he quotes Pace, that "what we're witnessing in Iraq now with these death squads and escalating sectarian violence is the product of policies implemented by Negroponte when he was the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq."

Could it be that the most brutal aspects of the "civil war" we're now seeing in Iraq are not primarily the work of radical Islamic elements? Could it be that it was not as stated by most Western media outlets, "Sunni insurgents" who bombed the Golden Mosque and supposedly set off the escalating carnage between rival religious factions in Iraq?

Is it not odd that in the immediate aftermath of the Samarra bombing in February, that despite the outrage of the majority of the Shiite population, top Shia leaders such as Muqtada al-Sadr called for restraint and unity, asking that the Shi'a population not retaliate by bombing Sunni Mosques? Not if Sunni insurgents were not behind the bombing.

So, while it is difficult to argue that the Iraqis are not currently immersed in a conflict tantamount to "civil war," the causes and incendiary forces involved are not necessarily all clearly visible, or what we have been told they are. In examining this case it seems to make the most sense to look for the Cui bono, and ask ourselves the question, "Who benefits the most here.?"

Posted by Rogue Scoop at 11:11 AM | | Comments