nieminen nothing good can come from wolfowitz.. you choose to love; take him to your bed..

You can only try to control and understand your reactions (in the framework of yourself, which is provided by biological evolution and personal history). And to resist distractions (like responses labeled as hatred).

And that is the path to real understanding and thus love (and things like Znet).

 (My point about jail was in the context of "what would be the best scenario after he has changed and wanted to make the world better".)

Ari-Pekka Nieminen

 

 

paul street wrote : Either way I think Wolfowitz is safe and admit that we'd all be safer if he and his ilk would spend more time trying to discover inner peace and loving kindness and less time scheming up new ways to rob and exploit the world. lol, and could you imagine these republicans applying that same principle of inner peace and loving kindness to saddam hussein... [laughs]...( if they only could had basic sympathy and kindness toward Iraqis life would had been enough..) Naw sorry mr christie, I Vote for it would redeeem him a bit if he would have the basic decency to spare us the unpleasant duty of executing him for his crimes against humanity. mainly i choose humanity against a purvoyeur of death.

Yes I agree: it would redeeem him a bit if he would have the basic decency to spare us the unpleasant duty of executing him for his crimes against humanity. My earlier (previous) comment was a response to Frederic Christie (sp). If I recall correctly FC is a Buddhist and if that's right then I certainly respect part of where he's coming from. I would add that I believe a messianic Straussian like Paul Wolfowtiz is probably beyond self-reform ala Ramsey Clark, though I know this will seem too harsh for a Buddhist tradition saying that it's never too late for someone to discover/achieve bodhichitta etc. Maybe that tradition is right. Maybe I'm too harsh and alienated about the war and imperialism. Or maybe not. I'm sort of agnostic about it all. Either way I think Wolfowitz is safe and admit that we'd all be safer if he and his ilk would spend more time trying to discover inner peace and loving kindness and less time scheming up new ways to rob and exploit the world.

Time are difficult, Wolfowitz suicide is a matter of economics. just think how much money tax payers would be spared by avoiding the cost for his trial and the cost for a possible execution? Calling for suicide is not exactly calling for murder, if you recall at one point of time Israel called for the murder of Arafat and the US called for the murder of Hussein, both these countries succeeded with murderand caused two others countries to be in a state of civil war. And then its not really a matter of important dead, its more a matter of honor for the disgraced, wolfowitz suicide would redeem him [ a bit ] in our eyes........ or not.

This is too squeamish. It's time to get a little more cold hearted. U.S-led sanctions on Iraq killed a million Iraqi children and you are frightened by the elementary request for a single monumental mass murderer --- a high-state war criminal ---- like Wolfowitz to kill himself? I don't follow.

here another Japanese prime minister who " did the right thing"

Wolfowitz believe in a life made of lies.."at any rate he just another neo-con coward "

aseel I'll check it out. One thing I've learned over the years is you simply cannot argue with the American Right. The clown-trolls (generally anonymous) who have haunted this blog (this cyber-thing called "SGTR" is a good example) are just machines of constant reactionary, right-wing assertion. They remind me of those computer images Keeanu Reeves (spelling) had to fight by the thousands in that goofy movie "The Matrix": you kill them again and again and they just keep coming back. It literally doesn't matter what you say or how you say it when "debating" the U.S. Right - evidence and rationality are utterly irrrelevant to them. They have to be defeated annd probably destroyed; they cannot be persuaded.

SGTR , you must get your false news from aliens.. your ignorant idiocy is such that even dead Saddam must be laughing and this mainly because your false pretenses and actions have made you lost Iraq to the ayatollahs... what you did is nothing less than the betrayal of of the people.

The first war has everything to do with the second.  Saddam never coroporated with the international community after he surrendered in '91. He continued his aggressive acts through the funding of terrorism and not coroperating with nuclear inspectors not to mention firing missles at coalitions forces (which didn't make the news that often).  Those transgressions granted the authority to use force as carried over from the first war.  

I know this has nothing to do with the current discussion, but I just have to say this. Has anyone seen the major fight between Rosie O'Donnell and Elizabeth-what's-her-name on the View? About the war in Iraq, the Bush administration, etc, etc...I don't usually watch the View because Barbara Walters gets on my nerves but I downloaded some segments from youtube of their confrontations. And I have to say, how on earth is Elizabeth still on that show!!!! She spews the most hateful, ignorant, reactionary, right-wing, conservative, Christian crap that I have ever heard...she could actually give "SGTR" and "Walt K" a run for their money on this blog. Good God!!! What is wrong with this woman??? She supports the war, the Bush administration, the use of torture...among other atrocities...Rosie keeps telling her till she's blue in the face how illegitimate this war is, give her all the facts, but she still won't listen!!! Other guests on the show have argued with her and presented her with facts but this woman is just pathological!!!! Can we vote her off the show??!!!

Ok, sorry about that...back to discussion...

P.S.- Paul, do you think you can do a piece on her?

This is a stupid discussion. Say there's a law that says I shouldn't torture my children. If I don't torture them, I (inadvertently) obey the law. If I do torture them, then the law is wrong and I'm right. It's nothing to do with adherence or compliance, it merely has to do with what I want. Wolfowitz is motivated purely by what he wants. That is his credo (read Leo Strauss et al.) (Or Perle: "International law gets in the way.") Bloggers be aware that SGTR is as usual merely acting on your passionate committed nature to sidetrack you into irrelevance. But it is a shame that people like him (her? unlikely) are so bent on undoing the real progress made (against all odds) by the human mind (the welfare state, civil rights, the concept of the "other") during the course of the twentieth century. The atavistic urge that characterizes the thinking of SGTR and his ilk is the greatest tragedy of our time. He is himself a shining example of the kind of "triabalism" he deplores in the Middle East. T

"resolutions from the first gulf war"... Beside 678 and 687 from the first gulf war, as I mentioned, which resolutions do you have in mind? Please be even more clear.

The question about the legality of the war hasn't got much to do with "the entire picture", whatever that is. It's a rather technical issue. So where do you find that the 2003 invasion was authorized? Please be explicit. Qoute the relevant resolutions.

Remember that, in accordance with basic morality, under international law the use of force is illegal in principle. It has to be demonstrated that the use of force is legal, not that it is illegal. The burden of proof lies with you (not with Paul for example).

I was very clear, you have to go back to the resolutions from the first gulf war and look at the entire picture.

International Commission of Jurists: THIS ILLEGAL WAR MUST BE CONDUCTED LAWFULLY: http://www.icj.org/IMG/pdf/doc-80.pdf

350 Jurists and Lawyers from 40 countries: International Appeal against the Pre-emptive Use of Force : http://www.peacelawyers.ca/Documents/IALANA_appeal_Fb_2003.pdf

Canadian professors of international law: Military action in Iraq without Security Council authorization would be illegal: http://www.peacelawyers.ca/Documents/IALANA_appeal_Fb_2003.pdf

European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights: Appeal to the European Governments and the UN Security Council -USA plans illegal military attack: http://files.giuristidemocratici.it/Zfiles/20030724192103.pdf

 

You think UNSCR 678, 687 and 1441 authorized the use of force against Iraq in 2003? Read them again. Carefully.

More from that Guardian article: “Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the right of each state to self-defence, including pre-emptive self-defence. On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush reiterated America's "sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad.” SGTR— Wouldn't the absence of WMD's mean that the pre-emptive self-defense legal argument: the main argument for the legality of the war, was bogus? Look at this “moral issue” from a domestic standpoint. Should the police use deadly force, not in immediate self-defense, but simply because they have a few (bogus) tips that someone is guilty of possessing weapons with intent to use them? A police force that killed someone based on a bogus tip would be held accountable, why shouldn't a country's leadership that does the same?

I fail to see why Georges Bush or even Rumsfeld are morally more acceptable than Hussein He was The US best friend after all..

 

here my BOT with znet RSS feeds display about 1000 hits..

The BBC Article clearly states double speak by Kofi.  The headline is attention grabbing, that's for sure, but is misleading.  It also speaks to the legality of the war.

The Guardian article clearly outlines the arguement for legality which is ignored. 

This Perle quote is interesting:

"international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable. He then goes on to speak of French intransigence. 

This goes to the morality to which "PS" speaks.  Something HAD to be done about Saddam Hussein. 

 

PS, will you  be making the same naming requirments for all unregistered posters are just me? The uniformity of law is what democracy is all about my friend. 

 

I am not "requiring" registering of everyone and do not in fact have the power to do so but it is my position that registering and having real names and addresses enhances accountability in comments. People have no idea how ugly some of the commentary this blog has gotten is because much is so offensive I deleted it. Walt K became so personally vicious and threatening in one instance for a while it was hard to believe; I doubt he's through. It's all part of why so few left intellectuals blog here...you have to have some very thick skin. Another option is to simply not read comments; just do your post and never look, but the problem with is that is sometimes people send useful information (look at jdcasten's last post...two useful links to say the least), it's kind of rude (it's sad to sometimes see people knocking themselves out writing "to" Chomsky in the comments section on Chomsky's "blog"...they seem to think the master is reading) and also that you end up tolerating a free space for American fascists like the miserable right wing people and cyber-entities who have trolled here --- some for years. For better or (more likely) worse, I decided to hang in and just kick the crap out of class enemies both "conservative" and "liberal" (e.g. "Jonas")  though I do usually check out of the comments after they go to a second page.  New stuff takes over

Another reason to register is that non-registered names have no protection from copycat posts...from people posting as whatever name you use. 

aseel, i ain't sure SGTR want to listen, i think he is enrooted in some sort of weird patriotism state of mind where he feels that we are bashing his beloved US, or he simply does not care what happens to others.. ( aseel, don't forget to register and retain your name.)

you can say that this war was simply a mistake like all those fake, pseudo-neo-con liberals out there, you can parrot their retarded "quagmire" theory...but, by God, you are not going to sit there and claim that this war has any shred of legality or morality to it. The United Nations itself (and I dare you to cite a higher authority than that) said before the start of the war, that there was no LEGAL premise for this war, and that it would be ILLEGAL, not to mention, IMMORAL, for the United States to act unilaterally, without the approval of the Security Council. That would make it in direct contravention of the U.N. Charter. When the neo-con vultures were bitching about U.N inspectors being allowed into Iraq, Saddam welcomed them with open arms, and the U.S. still went to war. And didn't U.N inspectors find that Iraq had halted its chemical and biological weapons program since 1991, maybe because, oh i don't know, the regime was too busy feeding its starving population and trying to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe caused by the murderous sanctions and bombings!!! There were too many questions unasked...not because there wasn't any information out there, and by that, I mean anything besides the propoganda machine. I mean alternative sources on the internet, alternative views, opinions, RESEARCH and FINDINGS!!!! Those questions were unasked and therefore unanswered simply because those in power (including those gutless so-called "liberals") didn't bother to ask them, questions surrounding the validity of the WMD fantasy, the Iraq/Al-Qaeda connection, (did everyone suddenly forget that Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden weren't exactly the best of friends and that they had opposing ideologies???). And furthermore, u said that public opinion doesn't make something illegal. Is this the West's beloved democracy??? You mean to tell me that the entire international community (and there has never been a global outrage on this scale before) as well as the UN were simply not informed enough about the so-called necessity or "legality" of this war? When a nation goes to war, that war has to be legitimatized, validated and endorsed (it has to make sense legally and morally), FIRST AND FOREMOST in the eyes of the community and, in today's "progressive" world, of the United Nations. This has to override the decision of the powerful few in government to wage a war on another nation, especially when that nation does not pose any sort of conceivable or inagined threat to anyone.... Now just to turn the tables around, the U.S has WMD, has used them occassionally, is the first country to ever use nuclear weapons, spends more than the rest of the world combined on its military (one can only imagine what obscenities it has come up with!!!), has been condemned several times in the United Nations for acts of aggression (for example, proxy wars, supporting and financing corrupt, repressive governments, assassination attempts, sanctions etc...i do not have the time nor the space to list all its crimes, but u get the picture) against almost every country in the Third World, is the world's number one polluter, not to mention of course, the acts of aggression against IRAQ itself....Now given all of the above and much, much more, (and I think this spells out TERRORISM on a more massive scale than anything Al-Qaeda or Saddam is capable of), don't u think Iraq should've undertaken a much-need regime change and occupation of the United States???

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. He said the decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally. BBC and this: International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal. In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing." Guardian What would Kofi Annan and Richard Perle know?

"SGTR" are "you" a self-supervised adult? The war is so illegal (and immoral) it isn't funny.  Domestically, beyond the fact that international treaty law is domestic law, there's the legal as well as moral issue of the openly fraudulent pretexts.  It's actually illegal to lie and trick a nation into war. 

Two plus two really does equal four.  The White Sox won the World Series in 2005 (I still can't process that) and the St.Louis Cardinals won in 2006. No the Cubs did not win either year.

Maybe "you" need to use some profanity. 

Last time "SGTR" --- "you" don't have a name; so "you" can't use mine. Register on the system with a real name and e-mail address and you can call me by name. 

 

actually the though of wolfowitz finally doing the right things amuses me.. its the best way to save taxes money if you consider the impunity he has from pseudo-lawmakers in the US. I am usually against death penalty but there exist some exceptions.. I'd provide him with the gallows rope.. (JD , yep i missed the dudley thingie//)

Paul, I have not insulted anyone and I don't use profanity. I simply ask for references to back up the allegations being made.  The references of course, also need to be credible. The above quote doesn't reference anything. It simply says "the information is out there."  What information? 

There was a website put up by an honest to God meterologist after Katrina.  He claimed Katrina was caused by the Japanese mafia using illicit technology purchased from the Soviets, to create the Hurricane as revenge for Hiroshima.  Because that information was out on the web, does it make it as credible as the information referenced above? The meterologist said his frame of reference, his credentials if you will, was he had been studying weather for 20 some years and couldn't come up with an explaination for the weather patterns that were causing so much destruction.  

The point is, look to who is providing the information. Yes I know, you do look at who is providing the information and that's why people have things like Znet.  That makes Znet just as guilty as the information outlets it is intended to counter-balance.

Paul, if you are going to put yourself into the position of a "mouth piece for the left,"  then you're going to have to put up with people questioning what you saying.  You don't have Jim Jones like authority to say what you must, and ignore what you want. You do have the power to "put me in a corner" like Walt K.  But isn't that taking the cheap way out? 

So again, go back to the UN documents pertaining to the first Gulf War, and you will know why this one is not illegal.

 

"SGTR" register with an actual name or get exiled to your own time out room ala your buddy WK and the conspiracy folk. Two years or more of getting notes saying "Paul" from a cyber-entity called "SGTR" is enough.

I do not believe the human agent behind that label thinks the blog host does not recall "SGTR" asking the same exact question on at least one prior occasion; people answered. "You" disregard the answers and ask again...of course - a transparent game.

New readers who don't know this game and who might be tempted to think the Iraq War's illegality is controversial can see useful; discussions in Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler and Brendan Smith, eds. In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond (N.Y.: Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2005).

As for the notion that nobody knew the WMD (non-) reality before the war, that's just transparent idiocy.  Here ( I have italicized the most relevant passage) are good reflections from political scientist Stephen Eric Bronner (from a Logos article ZNet posted on May 20th):

"The self-serving political manipulation of intelligence by the Bush Administration obviously had disastrous implications. Exiled Iraqis like Ahmed Chalabi also purposely misinformed both their neo-conservative allies in the White House as well as gullible media hacks like Judith Miller of The New York Times. They gave wild accounts not only about their political popularity, and the wonderful reception that the American troops would enjoy, but also about the supposed terrorist connections and military capacity of the Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein. But there is a sense in which this gullibility was self-imposed. "Liberal" supporters of the invasion, furthermore, have taken to manipulating the public outrage over manipulation of information by the Bush Administration. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has claimed that "if we knew then what we know now" no vote on the war would ever have been taken in the Congress. Yet information contrary to that offered by the mainstream media and the bulk of the official intelligence community was all over the web in the months preceding the war. Democrats fearful of bucking the nationalist trend simply did not listen to experts like Scott Ritter, Hans Blix, and Mohamed El Baradei. In reality, whatever the degree to which official and mainstream intelligence was manipulated, critical information was easily available for those willing to seek it. Opposing the war was not very difficult: it demanded courage and a willingness to see clearly rather than "more information." No one asked what interest a secular regime headed by Saddam Hussein would have in making cause with Islamic fundamentalists. No one wondered how it was that a nation spending $4 billion dollars a year on the military would pose a threat to another nation spending more than $400 billion dollars a year. No one questioned how 30,000 bombs could be dropped on Baghdad in the first week of the war with only a few hundred casualties as a consequence. No one suggested that destroying Iraq might leave Iran as the dominant power in the region. It was not necessary to have reams of intelligence reports at one's fingertips to figure any of this out."  

Cut the crap, "SGTR."

My desire for Wolfowitz's suicide is about more than moral revenge. I also think it might be politically useful in a small way.  I'd like to think he will be properly punished by people and institutions inside the imperial homeland but I've got to the honest: he won't.  He won't because those people and institutions aren't even remotely in the ballpark of being up to that job. Not even close.   It's a pathetic situation over here:  our institutions and ideologies produce millions of people as stupid and even --- horrifying to imagine, yes? --- more stupid than this thing that calls itself "SGTR."  Most (United States of) Americans really don't care all that much about the occupation of Iraq at the end of the day.  The world should take note.  

I don't really care what happens to him as long as he's not in a position of world influence ever again. Any punishment on top of that is icing. The fact is if the guy had any moral faculty in the first place he wouldn't have been in the powerful positions he held. He's scum and I'm sure he knows it.

Asseel, you unfortunatelty didn't name facts either.

Public opinion doesn't make something illegal.

The WMD situation was unknown until after the War started which doesn't make the war illegal.

The Downing Street memo has been highly discredited and pertaining to any policy decisions, which doesn't make the war illegal.

The oil companies and defense contracters "laughing to the bank" doesn't make the war illegal.

If you want to know why the war is infact legal, and why infact Iraq suffered through 12 years of sanctions, I challenge you to read the appropriate UN Documents on the UN website.

Not liking the war and thinking the war is "illegal" are two completely different things which should not be confused.  Often they are. 

Ari . I choose to love him if he cease to exist..you choose wise words but hey...jail is not a solution for he like of Bush.

there are still some seriously deluded people who cling to the fancy that this war was not illegal!!!! What higher authority do u need than the officials of this imperial government who lied the nation into this war on false pretenses, and were then shown up in front of the world as the lying warmongerers that they are? Where are the WMD these fools were raving about (unless they mean the WMD they sold to Saddam when he was still their "kind of guy")? Where is this link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda? Where is this democracy, 4 years later, that the "liberators" promised? I'll tell u where it is...in the deep recesses of their paranoid, delusional, pathological, twisted fantasies!!! U asked for authoritative sources...what about the U.N inspectors who found that Iraq doesn't have any WMD, what about certain officials of the Imperial Government, such as Colin Powell, who admitted that this war was illegitimate to begin with, what about the Downing street memo that clearly stated that the U.S and U.K administrations fixed false intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons program around their foreign policy and military strategy? And for God's sake, what about the United Nations and international public opinion that clearly opposed this war from the beginning!! What about all the oil and defense corporations that were laughing all the way to the bank while Iraq burned to the ground? And furthermore, did it never make you wonder how a country decimated by 12 years of sanctions and bombings could be any sort of threat to a superpower like the U.S? I hope this is not too much of an emotional arguement for you...If you want facts, all you need to do is stop listening to the deluge of mis-, non- and dis-information of the corporate (read imperial) media...or at least read between the lines.

Yes, I'm finnish (and live in Finland).

On my note about Wolfowitz and others: I was just pointing out, what I think was obvious, that his suicide wouldn't really change much (or anything) and that a theoretically and philosophically possible change in his mind would. And I mean a huge change, to someone who would want to blog on Znet (from his jail cell, where he would happily move to, understanding that people would not trust him to be reformed, and as an example for the rest.)

All this is of course just utopistic speculation, but I thought to add that to my note about Walt's last name.

And further still, while I'm at it, maybe something vaguely connected to the topic: hatred is just a biological reaction to quickly respond to suffering. The action produced by the 'hate-emotion' is used by the brain to forget the suffering, usually by destroying the object that is seen to cause it. Thus it soothes the mind to think that Wolfs and others are dead and gone. (Wanting them to 'suffer for what they've done', is not only to some extent a biological phenomenon but also a cultural one) But because hatred consentrates itself on destruction, and invades the current mindset completely, it fails to accept anything constructive. (Hating a computer for not working doesn't fix it, usually quite the opposite.) Also: love is not a response, it is the biological basis of human understanding and rational action; with empathy and compassion as tools. Self-control and understanding of the biological impulses and promoting this is key to developing a profoundly new and better world. Wolfowitz and his kind are in a storm of long, slow impulses fuelled by ignorance.

  I could go on, but won't. :)

With friendship, Ari-Pekka Nieminen

Walter K's troll board: http://blog.zmag.org/node/2937

 

What is this, nursery school? We went through this at least once before. It was explained. Maybe this blog is over your head.

Paul, if you want to convince a larger audience the war is "illegal" and the administration are "war criminals," then you need to cite an authority. Mere conjecture is not convincing beyond a purely emotional arguement. 

this gets down to a key question, aseel: which side are we on? Power-worshipping Jonas (who I find bizarre) says that Obama is the "best hope" (the young man never explained why he wanted to work for Edwards instead) and Obama has this grotesque line about "the oppressed's" need to "emphathize with their oppressors" (actual terms in his second bad book) and about ordinary Americans' need to see that hyper-plutocratic war criminals like Cheney and Bush (and Wolfie et al.) are "just like us" at the end of the day (that's also in the book). Obama et al. want us to be dutifully civil and respectful in the face of monumental global criminality and deepening super-inequality. I find that whole approach pathological, cynical and self-interested. I also find it amazingly widespread in "liberal" circles and parts of what passes for a Left in the U.S. It's just gutless.

who think Paul's advice to Wolfowitz is morally repugnant...What kind of punishment exactly do u think would be suitable for a man who orchestrated an illegitimate imperialist oil-invasion that resulted in a million-plus Iraqi civilians dead (over and above of course 1.5 million or so killed by 12 years of U.S/U.N genocidal sanctions and U.S "surgical" bombings of intentionally targeted civilian areas)? A man who would later go on to be the president of another imperialist institution (The World Bank) where he was given yet another carte blance to wreak even more destruction and havoc? A man who, to the eternal shame and disgrace of the United Nations (and it will never be able to live this one down) was kicked out not because of all the above crimes but because he passed on some benefits to his girlfriend?!!!! And u mean to tell me that there is something immoral about Paul's suggestion to Wolfie??? I mean, Jesus Christ, is this even up for discussion??? This "love they enemy" crap has been taken to unhealthy extremes by some truly bizarre individuals on this blog. This, my friends, is reality turned upside down. As i mentioned earlier, suicide would be a picnic in the park compared to what this piece of shit deserves. Personally, I think he should be grateful...

Nieminen ---- ok Finnish, not Polish; I think you are right about that. Nieminen sounds Finnish.

By my experience over years in and around Chicago, there's lots of "Walter's" in the Polish-American community, but yes my good friend from Wayne State is probably partly Finnish-American.

Still, I did a helluva job on my boy, overall. If my politics were different, I'd be an FBI profiler... or play one on tv. Wolfowitz would never recant and will reveal nothing. Reverse justice would call for the use of torture to elicit information from him.

Torture doesn't actually work but that hardly deters U.S. "democracy promoters" from using it against designated enemies of freedom (a category that is broader than advertised).

If Wolfie and his ilk had the slightest hint of moral decency - they would be mentally tortured on a regular basis by images of dead Iraqis. In future months and years, large numbers of predominantly working-class former U.S. soldiers will commit suicide with images of Iraqis they were ordered to murder stuck in their minds. Some such suicides have already occurred I am quite sure.

I wish people would think more about the intimate, dialectically inseperable relationship between empire abroad and class inequality at home. The elite/effete/bourgeois Masters of War (Dylan '63) are unjustly protected from the same degree of felt shame. They "hide behind walls" and "hide behind desks." They "fasten the triggers, for the others to fire." They "sit back and watch, while the death count gets higher." They "hide in their mansions, while young people's blood...flows out of their bodies and gets buried in the mud."

The fact that that line still resonates with imperial and social reality is a wake-up call for revolution it seems to me. It's never too late.

Walt K you obnoxious little dumbass you got bounced.  You also got exposed.  Now you've got your own little place to play in (almost as much fun as atomic collisions) - that time out room Street gave you. Go mouth off at your special little trolling place, Special K. Dude, you are pathetic. 

Walter K must post at Walter K's troll board: http://blog.zmag.org/node/2937

 

Obviously a better thing to hope for is that Wolfowitz+ would truly and completely change and publicly and continuosly reveal everything and would work (from jail) to make things better. Maybe not realistic, but theoretically better than simply dying suddenly.. I don't know, could we vote on the issue? you should remember wolfys' soul is tainted with the blood of the innocents..in his caSe th electric chair seem the best solution.

FYI, interesting article on the role of intellectuals and academic policy wonks in providing a patina of respectability to foreign policy.

'Kauppila' is a finnish last name. 'Walter' is not finnish, and the lack of references to Finland in his home page suggests that maybe one of his grandparents came from Finland (which I think was quite common in the late 1800s and early 1900s) and kept the family name.

 And just a reminder: Obviously a better thing to hope for is that Wolfowitz+ would truly and completely change and publicly and continuosly reveal everything and would work (from jail) to make things better. Maybe not realistic, but theoretically better than simply dying suddenly.

There were no resolution for war, the war itself was against UN charter.. not obeying resolutions is not a call for war.. the US disobey UN resolution for years, it just vetoes them whenever its not favorable to what the fascist US dictate the world.. You now have a general arab insurgency on the hand; i personally won't care a bit for any retaliation against the US.

I've written at length about all this in different issues of my Empire and Inequality Report. You can use the search function off the main site...throw in my name, do not specify  a topic just all for 2006 and all for 2007 and a number of pieces will come up.  I think I'm up to No. 18 on the Report since last November (a number of them dealt with this). Every single one of them has been posted on ZNet. ZNet has been posting at length on oil and the current Iraqi oil law...there's just a huge literature on and off line. Too many people read only the blog and don't read my more substantive pieces off the blog and in print. You have to do the work.

Paul, I know you asked that I not address you by your first name, but it is only appropriate because I am responding to something you said.  Your hatred towards Wolfowitz can be summed by, as you wrote, the "thoroughly illegal, unprovoked oil invasion" of Iraq. 

Going back to 1990 when the issue of Iraq entered the American psyche, please name the authority, as has been asked before, what makes the current U.S. action thoroughly illegal?  The UN resolutions and Hussein's continued flagerant violations  of said resolutions clearly do not make the U.S. action illegal.  You may not agree with the action, but that hardly makes it illegal.  Many months ago David Peterson quoted, and you echoed, something from the Nuremburg trials that did not pertain to this action.

Second, please explain, considering the current state of oil politics within OPEC in relation to Russia production and Chinese and Indian growing consumption, along with known oil reserves and the cost of tapping into those reserves in Iraq, how the invasion was an "oil invasion?"

Thank you.

Did anyone get my Dudley Do-the-Right Thing joke-reference? Maybe my sense of humor is too subtle or idiosyncratic.

Damn - another brutal tail-smacking for Jonas. Just what the Hell is is it with these centrist so-called "liberal" Obama and Clinton types where they just can't handle the ugly truth about the ruling class and the big racist empire? Of course that bastard Wolfowitz has sacrificed his moral right to live. Christ almighty is that actually controversial? Wolfie's perfidy goes way back as somebody pointed out here a few comments back - back at least to Dessert Storm. Little "Jonas" is actually outraged at someone suggesting that a mass butcher like Wolfowitz (shit how about Rummy or Condi or Decider boy and Dick etc.)should die and that it would be best if he'd do us the service of doing the job himself? No wonder he likes Obama.  Makes me sick I tell ya. 

Jonas you shouldn't show your name around here after the whupping you got over your "Obama is our best hope" comments. You just slinked off after that, with good reason. 

Now you have the chutzpah to come back with this outraged nonsense in defense of what... Paul Wolfowitz's right to life?

Let me get this straight: you are actually offended at the notion that a leading criminal war planner like Wolfowitz should do the elementary right thing (kill himself) after he did so much to promote the destruction of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives in the thoroughly illegal, unprovoked oil invasion of Mesopotamia? Are you kidding? Good God but where is your moral compass? Where is your sense of elementary social justice?  Are you a serf or a man? Talk about perverted priorities.   It is you who should be ashamed.

I find your comment pathological and quite consistent with your earlier Obama rant.  

I find your inability to conceive honest, full and meaningful confrontation with power to be morally repugnant.

I can't believe this. Am I the only one who thinks your advice is morally repugnant and horrible? I would not counsel anyone to kill themself. You should be ashamed of yourself, Paul. I've lost the interest to comment further on your posts; this has gone too far.

Cyrano – I might mention that Wolfowitz was merely “accused” of rewarding/punishing US allies, and non allies. I saw it mentioned in a couple of places: Bloomberg Germany NY Times

JD, nice post on wolfowitz.. I don't think punishing countries who disagre with US war crimes being cool.. Wow paul. walter K seem to be someone who need to get laid from time to time.. my bet is he was divorced for sexual incompetence...

Saddam Hussein was hung for his Iraq crimes. There is the question of "intent to kill"—maybe Wolfowitz could plea socialized insanity at his judgment day? There is a serious accountability schism between the "blundering" powerful, and say, a third strike bicycle thief, all over the globe. I personally think Wolfowitz should hire on as a Blackwater mercenary.

Although all taxation is more complex than the income tax alone, you might take a look here: http://www.allegromedia.com/sugi/taxes/ Also, the average profit margin in the US over the past 25 years was 8.3% (capitalists skim about 8.3 cents on the dollar)—as someone not against regulated capitalism, I'm not too bothered by this (This could translate into an 8.3% raise for workers—but then w/o capitalism there might be less competitive production—so that raise might fizzle in the long term). What I would like to see is a more progressive business tax that promotes smaller companies, less monopolies, and no profiteering, plus tax breaks for employee owned and run businesses; not likely, but maybe a more likely goal than “the revolution.” As to Paul Wolfowitz—the Worlfowitz doctrine was an imperialist catastrophe. And I understand that Mr. Wolfowitz rewarded/punished countries at the World Bank, according to how they responded to the Iraq war: a much more serious case of corruption that is quite evil. Although I know many here have a problem with the World Bank, I think it has its good side as well: The IDA (International Development association) gives much needed grants and no-interest loans to the very poorest of nations. The IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) may be more suspect— using the people's money (from lending nations and from nations paying back loans—all invested tax money, no?) as a power leverage for a certain economic ideology is problematic, to say the least: I wonder what sort of science, or small scale experiments were used to justify larger scale neo-liberal “shock therapies” on economies of scale? But the IBRD uses ecological measurements in its “reconstruction and development” efforts that I think some critics mis-recognize as more meddling. What is so bad about demanding that the people's money be invested in ecologically sound economic tracks? That has repercussions for the entire planet, and non-political entities as well— so setting up eco-tourism in developing nations might not be as bad an idea as it might sound on the surface. A global Snidely Whiplash is bound to upset some, but I think it does have power to do good as well.

I think Paris Commuard is right about Wolfowitz and the neocons; they have zero shame and no sense that they've done anything wrong or of course that they should end their wretched lives as the price for the crimes they inflicted against Iraq (among other targets both military and neoliberal/economic).

I do not think it is over the top (as one deleted because abusive commenter charged) to think suicide is appropriate for Wolfowitz and his ilk. I am not a pacifist and I think that death is a fully appropriate and fairly elementary thing to demand of people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz (and...see my "short list" above) who conduct fraudulent wars that kill hundreds of thousands of people (and enrich privileged others at the same time). But it is spiritually traumatic to kill and so terrible perpetrators like the current batch of war criminals would do us a service by doing themselves in instead of making us hunt and put them down. 

Wolfowotiz, Rummy and rest are not upset about killing Muslims of course but perhaps they could derive some suicidal shame from the fact that their hubris may have created an imperial disaster in the obviously super-strategic (because oil-rich) Middle East, with potentially large collateral costs on the world scale.  Of course, I do not tear up over the damage they may have inflicted on the U.S. empire.

James Shannon I do think all or all but a few of the U.S. Senators are themselves millionaires (Obama recently became one through book contracts largely) but of course even if they are somehow proletarians they can't run serious campaigns without corporate-plutocratic sponsorship and corporate media approval.  I also think their educations up through college and law school are critical in innoculating them against democratic sentiments well before they ever see their first campaign contribution from Goldman Sachs or ADM or have their first lunch with a lobbyist. 

I prefer the ones who are honest and candid about the perversion of it all.  The most revolting are those who claim to be pure and above it all - like Obama, who makes a special point of being some kind of reform candidate but who is known to "work the [fund-raising]' phones" ---- that is to call rich campaign funders ---- "like a dog" (see the May 7th issue of Time Magazine). 

 

 

Do a yahoo search for a "Walt K" and you find out that a "Walt K" does photography.  A number of his nice photos are posted online.  He says he lives in Rochester Hills, MI, that he is "male" and "taken" (the gender of the taker is not specified). 

Okay, Rochester Hills is a relatively affluent suburb of Detroit. So that fits my regional hypothesis.  

He also says he's been "teaching astronomy and physics for 34+ years" and makes reference to doing "atomic collisions" (exciting). 

That fits my professional hypothesis.  It also fits my sense that he's fairly advanced in years.

Also says he does "barbershop singing."  Barbershop singing. That explains alot. 

Okay, so what's the most likely academic institution for a physicist living in Rochester Hills? University of Michigan Ann Arbor seems out - the commute wouldn't make sense and he's too goofy to be at UM. 

So it's Wayne State... in inner-city Detroit.  If he's who my profile suggests, he must find his workplace surroundings distateful and relish getting back to Rochester Hills. 

Go to the web site of the Wayne State department of Astronomy and Physics and you see the name, face (condolences to the aformenetioned taker), phone # (work) and e-mail (work) address  of an Experimental Atom Physics Professor named Walter Kauppila  (you have to scroll down to last name K). Bingo. Fits my occupational thesis. Fits my white-ethnic thesis.

Ten to one this is my troll. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

 

Recently read an oped in my local paper regarding the vast fortunes amassed by most of our presidential candidates. Most in congress are also millionaires. These United States are united for one purpose and one purpose only and that is to insure that the wealthy stay wealthy. Government is only about who pays and who receives. The cost shifting from the haves to the have nots that does exist is not based on social justice. Tax policy / government only exists to insure that the rich stay rich as the common man pays the bill. 

The real corruption effecting "life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness" world wide starts in the "corporate board rooms" whom have been given an unbridled right by we the people to steal from the consumer and their employees for the benefit of management and the wealthy stock holder. That is capitalism and that is what we are forced to live with. Guys like Wolfowitz are typical of the systemic corruption that rules the world.

I continue to admire your courage.

 

 

 

Yeah, he's been around for a while. He's about the worst I've had to deal with on the blog, though I was once stalked by a redneck sniper. This is a different bird of stalker/troll. If I had to guess, I would bet that "Walt K" is some sort of academic/professor...he has the snotty know-it-all attitude that is so common in that group. Another tip-off here is obsession with my alleged career and academic "failures" (a recurrent Walt K theme in past and ongoing comments). To have a doctorate but not be employed (as he probably is) as some sort of tenured professor is in his view a great disgace. If he's an academic, he's probably in business, engineering or the sciences. His comments on history and politics reflect too much ignorance for him to be in say, political science or history or sociology. His right-wing politics are outside the liberal liberal arts and social science profile. I'm guessing he's been around for quite a while...he's got that "pissed off old guy" smell about him. The worship of capitalism and the "serfdom" comments in past posts and the "K" tell me the last name is Eastern European and very possibly Polish-American...as does the first name: Walter is common in that ethnic cohort. His past comments on race and urban politics and some of his specific urban references over the years tell me he lives in and/or or works around a major Midwestern city with a big black population (a population he doesn't like very much)....Cleveland, Chicago or --- given his recent reference in a deleted [because abusive] comment to Eight Mile Road and former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young --- Detroit. This puts him at a UIC (Chicago) or Case Western Reserve (Cleveland) or Wayne State (Detroit). If I had to guess, I'd say Detroit...probably Wayne State. Eight Mile Road is a very specific reference. Research question: is there a "Walt[er] last name starting with a K in one of the science (esp. math or physics), engineering or business departments at one of these schools? I'd put money on it and I'd start with the Detroit area.

Speaking of "Walt K," he's been creeping out your blog for as long as I've looked at it (2 years plus)....do you have any idea who this sorry son of a bitch is? Sorry to go off main topic

Nice post.  If he had any self-respect or any moral compass Wolfowitz would get to it and kill himself pronto. I  mean it's at least 650,000 Iraqis his bloody invasion has buried to date. Terrible truth however is is he'd never think about it once.  Wolfie's a true believer - a total zealot.  I sincerely doubt he thinks he did anything wrong.  Take my word for it. These fucking neocons have no shame. I see that piece of shit Bill Kristol on the tube all of the time; he's still talking the same crap. The fact that the guy is even allowed to show his ugly face in public speaks volumes about what kind of country we've become. Build that list of every single low life who led the war charge and do a follow up on them....you''ll see most of them are doing just fine for themselves.  No consequences for lying a nation into a fucking illegal war. No consequences for killing hundreds of thousands.  No consequences for crippling and maiming U.S. GIs and Iraqi kids.  These low-lifes like Kristol will just keep spouting the same old shit  24/7 until we beat them into the ground with a stick.  Let's get started.

Nice job on that unmitigated asshole "Walt K." You appear to have a stalker. He ought to have some fun playing with himself in that little time out room you gave him.

Walt K's customized troll board: http://blog.zmag.org/node/2937

People who respond to anyone writing under this name ("Walt K") need to understand that his comment will not generally stay up more than a day. The context for your comment may therefore be lost. Explanation at http://blog.zmag.org/node/2937

Well don't forget that During the 1991 persian Gulf War, Wolfowitz's team co-ordinated and reviewed military strategy, raising $50 billion in allied financial support for the operation.

http://www.pharmacy-online.ca/

I suppose you think Wolfowitz and the rest of his co-imperialists should be allowed to retire gracefully, or exiled on some tropical island while they ponder their countless crimes, and hopefully someday find redemption. Why don't you ask an Iraqi exactly what should be done with these thugs? I mean, if Saddam's crimes (which, after all is said and done, could not even begin to compare to the atrocities that these goons committed) was punishable by a disgraceful hanging (which, ironically, was his finest hour, as it transformed him into a martyr), I see no discernible or morally acceptable reason why Wolfowitz and his criminal ilk should escape such a fate...to say the least. Don't use that reverse psychology/morality crap on us...it's not going to work. Yes, any moral human being with even a superficial historical understanding of what this government has done (not to mention the long list of crimes of past administrations) will tell you that a quick death/suicide would be merciful compared to what these arch-criminal/sadists really deserve...

Walt, have you ever been raped? I have, and I wanted that person to die violently. I wanted to see him die. But I didn't kill him. I know the difference. I cannot kill, and I believe that people who kill with full knowledge and consent are criminals. Whereas most nations today eschew capital punishment (one of the many modern moral advances that men such as Wolfowitz actively reverse), I do find that Paul's exhortation to W to commit suicide resonates with my sense of right and wrong. And actually Paul is being rather civilized; the course he recommends for Wolfowitz is one that has been taken by far finer men, guilty of far lesser crimes, such as Brutus and Othello. T

Walt K's customized troll board: http://blog.zmag.org/node/2937

 

 

paul wrote these lines to Wolfowitz.. ( these are lines of the week) As you reflect on your options, you have perhaps thought more than once of committing suicide. Please stay with that thought. In your case, it's a good and appropriate idea. I second that line, Mr wolfowitz. If you do comtemplate suicide, think about videotaping it.. some people may like to see the video again and again.

"SGTR (not verified)" do not address me by my first name. I have no idea "what's going on" inside your paranoid mind. A right wing troll (a sorry category of commenter that describes you as well) has been banned from current posts but has been given his own troll board; this is explained at the board.   These are the rules for trolls: if you do not have thoughtful and substantive responses to the subject matter of posts...if you write simply to shoot the messenger and divert from the post's key point(s)...if you make absurd accusations against the author and other commenters (e.g., totalitarianism, racism, "the host wrote my comments" etc...) then you lose commenting privileges. It's pretty straightforward. No mystery. No conspiracy. Nothing to get all "paranoid style" about. 

Hey Paul,what's going on? Not only did you delete my post, you appear to be deleting and/or rewriting posts on the above link. 

Here's a short list of people who ought to spend the rest of their lives in a special Guantamo super-predator wing --- preferably handed over to the Castro government --- for crimes related to the occupation of Iraq: Darth Cheney (imperial arch-terrorist and hyper-plutocrat), Bush II (messianic militarist), Condaleeza "Chevron" Rice, Donald “Shit Happens" Rumsfeld (an open admirer of Al Capone), R. James Woolsey (Defense Policy Board), Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary for Defense at the time of the invasion), Eliot Cohen (Defense Policy Board), Ken Adelman (Defense Policy Board), Colin Powell, Lewis Paul Bremer III (the first U.S. imperial Viceroy of Iraq), John Bolton (the  warmongering Under Secretary of State in March 2003), Rupert Murdoch ( warmongering CEO of the News Corporation), L. Lowry Mays (the imperialist CEO of the warmongering national radio empire Clear Channel), Karl Rove (Bush's political strategist), Richard Armitage (Deputy Secretary of State in 2003), I. Lewis Libby (Cheney's warmongering Chief of Staff in 2003),  Doug Feith (the warmongering oil-imperialist Undersecretary of Defense for Policy at invasion's launch...currently holds a position at Georgetown University), Judith Miller (New York Tmes),  Gen. Tommy Franks (he got a Silver Cross or something like that for leading the invasion),  George Tenet (CIA - currently holds a position at Georgetown University), Henry Kissinger (Defense Policy Board...still walkiing free despite deadly crimes against Cambodia, Vietnam, East Timor, Chile and other parts of the world), Paula Dobriansky (the warmongering petroimperialist Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs in 03), warmonger Newt Gingrich (Defense Policy Board...currently running for president), Nicholas Chabraja (the war-profiteering CEO of General Dynamics), Riley Bechtel (CEO of the leading imperial “defense” contractor Bechtel), Daniel Pipes (warmongering PNAC intellectual), Karen Hughes (PR hack for the invasion), Michael Ledeen (militarist from PNAC and the American Enterprise Institute), Roger Ailes (CEO of proto-fascist Fox News), warmonger and leading moral hypocrite William Bennett (PNAC), Jeb Bush (PNAC), Frank Gafney (Center for Security Policy), Elliot Abrams (National Security Council), Otto Reich (Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in 2003), John Negroponte (arch-terrorist), John Ashcroft (right wing Christian fundamentalist and statist reactionary),  Ronald D. Sugar (CEO of the war-profiteering "defense" firm Northrop Grumman), David J. Lear (CEO of the war-profiteering petro-imperialist company Halliburton), William Swanson (CEO of the war-profiteering  “defense” contractor Raytheon), Phillip Condit (CEO of the war-profiteering imperial “defense” contractor Boeing in March 2003), Vance D. Coffan (CEO of the war-profiteering imperial “defense” contractor Lockheed Martin  when the invasion was launched), Rush Limbaugh (legendary warmongering right-wing asshole), William Kristol (truly pathetic presidential-power-worshpping PNAC intellctual), and Bill O'Reilly (legendary warmongering right wing asshole).  I've left off a bunch. 

Good behavior for this group would mean continung incarceration under the comparatively civilized Marxism-Lenninism of the Cuban government; bad behavior would mean extraordinary rendition to Taliban prisons in Afghanistan.

 

 

 

I hope Wolfowitz and the rest of his miserable kind have the sense to take it...You did forget to include the Chief Imperialist and Warmongerer, George Bush, on that notorious list. However, as much as I would like to see the end of these scums of the earth, I do think suicide is too quick and relatively painless an exit. And it would definitely cheat their millions of victims from the sweet revenge of inflicting on them long, painful, and unimaginable suffering...i'm thinking more along the lines of life-long humiliation and imprisonment, preferably in of their torture complexes (Guantanamo Bay immediately comes to mind) and then a disgraceful and preferably painful death at the hands of the relatives of their victims...what do u think?    

 Any and all "Walt K"s must post at: http://blogs.zmag.org/node/2937