Your video, Fractured Fairy Tales - "The Teeth of Baghdad", has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

For starters, I have to oppose the implied thought that Saddam's reign of terror was preventing this sectarian violence. His rule through the Suni minority to wage genocides against the Kurdish and Shia majority and decades of brutal repression of same all served to make the sectarian hatred and violence worse. Tally up the hundreds of thousands he killed through genocide, the million plus he killed in the Iran-Iraq war and everyone that died by direct execution or deliberate starvation level poverty and compare it doesn't stand out as starkly and objectively a desirable alternative to today.

Now if you ask what would I do differently it depends on what level of power I've got to act with. Ideally, we can go back to first Iraq war and have Bush senior march on Baghdad. This would've aborted one of Saddam's genocides. Equally importantly, this would have kept the Shia Iraqi population's view of America as a liberating force. The standing in the desert and watching Saddam slaughter them thing still carried their mistrust of American forces after Saddam's actual removal later. That singularly stupid move of leaving Saddam in power, at the urging of most of the planet, drove the Shia population of Iraq back to Iran as their sole sympathetic ally.

Next step, after the removal of Saddam, whether we can do it back then, or only a few years ago as it really happened is to truly setup an occupation government. You don't bring stability to a region by immediately trying to transition to a democracy before the shooting has even stopped. The occupation government would be run by somebody with actual knowledge and experience with Iraq, rather than as Bush senior did by sending in a guy with zero experience and a two week lead to brief himself. The task you should place on this leader, is to setup a federated Iraq, with distinct and autonomous Shia, Sunni and Kurdish states. The occupation government would dictate things after taking input from Iraqi's rather than holding them to the tyranny of the majority as Bush and co allowed. The occupation would setup an initial constitution defining what laws and agreements spanned all three Iraqi provinces/states and what extent of autonomy they had to define their own systems of government. The American military's job would be to enforce this very basic constitutional framework. Each Iraqi state/province would be aided in setting up their own governments with a transition plan again dictated not voted upon. The transition plan would define the point in time when each state transitioned from occupation rule to a self determined future and rule of law.

The above plan on the whole would work, but Bush and co couldn't have managed post Saddam Iraq more poorly if they had actively tried to.

If zero time travel is allowed and we are to 'fix' things today, you need a lot MORE power. You need an army the size of America or Russia's and the political will to spend several years doing things the public will hate you for. The end game is still the same as above, a federated Iraq kicked off under a dictatorial occupation. To get there from today though you need to create stability. You need to take an army and march it across the entire country. As each city is cleared of militants you take a census of everybody and keep it because you need it to track down future militants. In entirely hostile locations like were ISIS has full rule, you bomb them into the stone ages before marching the army in. The surviving population is given full medical treatment. Now, as for sorting militants from civilians though, you do NOT use American style innocent until proven guilty justice. Instead, any fighting age males are considered guilty until proven innocent. This level of rule of law needs to remain in place until stability can be restored. You of course guarantee lots of innocent arrests, but your trying to prevent massive numbers of innocent deaths so it's required. As you stabilize the nation you can relax back to innocent until proven guilty and work on re-integrating the convicted.

You'll note that although the methods I'd declare necessary above are by any count 'brutal', they do not extend into Saddam's usage of genocide, torture and rape as the weapons of choice.

".....these pictures were taken by a man who had been on a bus, heading to a job interview, the day Baghdad-style violence, came to South London....Paul Davis, ITV NEWSSPEAK"

*promote the not-so-subtle programming of the complicit cabal of so-called, British newscasters.

Well, I'm about to get down voted into oblivion, but I have to state this as bluntly as possible.

This is the most perverted kind of propaganda that can be trotted out by someone, and it sickens me to see it. Glen is absolutely correct in every fact he points out, and is in that respect, doing nothing but telling the truth and educating his audience with things they likely didn't know before, and should have. It would seem that should be an unqualified good thing then, but it's not.

What makes this offensive propagandizing to me is the absolutely deliberate omission of equally true, relevant and significant facts that Glen can't help but be aware of. His sole purpose for the omission is that it suddenly shifts things from black and white into the gray that audiences don't like as much.

I'll start from the most important point, and the very premise of the talk, why do they hate us? There is a bigger question though that is even more illuminating, and it is why to they(jihadist terrorists) hate and kill their fellow Islamic countrymen and neighbours? The fact here is that jihadi terrorists before 9/11 and even more so since, have killed tens and hundreds of times as many middle eastern muslims than they have white western infidels. Glen points out plenty of reasons people can have to be upset with America over it's past actions, which is legit in itself, but NONE of those reasons explain why these jihadists target there own fellow middle eastern muslims for the exact same violence and retribution America faced on 9/11. The fact this makes plain is that the jihadi terrorists will hate not only us, but everyone who is not willing to join them unconditionally. They are not the misunderstood, historically slighted and unjustly maligned people Glen's talk might lead people to think of them as. They(jihadi terrorists) do not deserve our sympathy or apologies, their countrymen and neighbours that are their biggest victims do.

Glen also goes on to list the deaths from sanctions on Iraq as an American crime. Apparently Saddam's horrific(then American approved) war on Iran, his genocide of the Kurds, his extensive use of chemical weapons in both, his complete seizure of Kuwait and his genocide of Iraqi Shiites are not relevant to the discussion of placing sanctions on his country. In Glen's discussion, despite this laundry list of crimes against humanity, Saddam is entirely innocent and not in anyway to blame for the children starving in his country while he continued to build himself new palaces and kept his personal guard and secret police forces well equipped and well fed. How is one to take this seriously?

Finally, Glen omits a terrifically important American crime in East Timor that Bin Laden listed. No, sadly it's not our tacit support for the pro Islamic genocide of the people there in the past, but it was America's support for an end to that genocidal repression and support for a free and independent East Timor. This was listed near the very top of American crimes. When Zarqawi blew up the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, he was very clear that it wasn't for Iraqi children dead at the hands of American sanctions. It was because Sérgio Vieira de Mello(killed in the blast) helped over see the transition to a free East Timor.

I'm afraid I am beyond disappointed by talks like this, I find them offensive and contemptible.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video US Marines engage insurgents in Baghdad. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

In the video Galloway also goes on to say that he's had several Israeli citizens on his show and who he's on platform with. Galloway specifically states that he doesn't consider every Israeli citizen the problem

2:45 in Gorillaman's video, "I don't debate with Israelis", again at 8:44 and again at 11:08. Galloway only declares that his problem is not with Jewish people, he repeatedly declares that he absolutely will not debate Israeli's.

What is your response to the gorrilaman video which Galloway explains his reasoning.

My response is disgust, outrage and disbelief. Galloway declares that on principle, his boycott of Israel extends to the point of refusing to even engaging any Israeli in debate. I had hoped that much was clear, and if that point isn't agreed let me know. I don't know how Galloway could make himself any clearer but apparently some still don't hear him.

On the face of it, his position on that isn't even what I find most offensive, though I do find it so. I insist it is no different than any other nationality I've mentioned up thread. What is intolerable is Galloway's own past record.

Saddam Hussein committed genocide against his own people not once, but twice. Killing nearly a half million people across the two. George Galloway did NOT refuse to engage Saddam(let alone Iraqis) in debate. In fact, George went to Baghdad and met Saddam, telling him "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability. I can honestly say when I was speaking with my comrades about coming here, each one wished me to extend their fraternal greetings and support."

Bashir al Assad is continuing on the work of his father, brutally repressing and killing his own people. Galloway again went to Damascus, to praise Syria and tell the people how lucky they were to have Assad. He even squeezed in praise for the Iraqi suicide bombers then blowing up Shia mosques and neighbourhoods.

Galloway's moral 'high' road towards Israel is revealing in the extreme when looking at his eagerness to not only engage, but actively praise other war criminals in the region.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^coolhund:
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^coolhund:
If Romney is elected, I will loose all my respect for America.
How anyone can vote someone like Romney after 8 years of Bush, is beyond any of my understanding and tolerance.

So where are you from just wondering? I just can't let this pass. Obama is worse than Bush. I'll say it again...OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH. The only reason why the World...and that is intellectuals and leaders not the population but the only reason why they like Obama better than Bush is because Obama is NICER about being a fucking evil bastard. Bush just said straight up, we don't care what you think. Obama says with a smile that it doesn't matter what you think.
Obama is continuing and expanding the murderous policies from under Bush he's just being nicer about it.

Im from Baghdad and lost my whole family to Bush. Will you now shut up? WTF is that kind of stupid question?
Seriously, I actually supported Bush the first legislation and most of his second. But I learned from my mistakes, and that mistake is huge and something I feel really bad about, because so many people told me that I was wrong before and then I got it in the face when he admitted the Iraq war was a lie and several other unbelievable corruption stuff under his watch, outgoing from republicans. This guy started so much shit, that will haunt us for hundreds of years, and of course Obama cant do shit about it, with the republican obstructionists in the congress. However you see how he tries it, and how he tries to please the republicans at least a little, so they dont block the other 25% of the stuff he actually was able to change. Just look for how long he fought for something essential like Medicare, that many other western countries, WHICH ARE NOT SOCIALISTS, have had implemented for decades and have it working fine.
As I said, Obama is actually trying a lot to make things better, but the president is no dictator. Just look at the republican lies, that were so successful that even democrats believe them now. And people like you who have no clue about politics actually believe republicans claiming Obama is so bad, while THEY are blocking everything he does.
Dont get me wrong, Obama did a lot of crap by himself too, just like every other president before, but to say he is WORSE than Bush... lol... seriously?

Noam Chomsky says he's worse than Bush, has written and presented the evidence that he's worse than Bush. The Most Important Intellectual and US Critic says that Obama is worse than Bush. Go read what he wrote, I can't convince you here.


I would actually believe it, if I watched too much Fox News and believed that there was no economic crash right before Obama went to office and I was blind and stupid enough to not see that other countries dont fare better (not even Germany) and have very similar changes to that what republicans try to blame on Obama.
I just saw some idiot video on Youtube where someone compared the gas prices from right before Obama went to office to where they are now, of course telling that it will rise and rise much higher with ONLY Obama in office. That under Bush they were actually much higher and dropped to such low numbers before Obama due to a massive economic crisis, was left out.

I understand the right wing propaganda very well. As I said, my thoughts were similar some time ago.

>> ^coolhund:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^coolhund:
If Romney is elected, I will loose all my respect for America.
How anyone can vote someone like Romney after 8 years of Bush, is beyond any of my understanding and tolerance.

So where are you from just wondering? I just can't let this pass. Obama is worse than Bush. I'll say it again...OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH. The only reason why the World...and that is intellectuals and leaders not the population but the only reason why they like Obama better than Bush is because Obama is NICER about being a fucking evil bastard. Bush just said straight up, we don't care what you think. Obama says with a smile that it doesn't matter what you think.
Obama is continuing and expanding the murderous policies from under Bush he's just being nicer about it.

Im from Baghdad and lost my whole family to Bush. Will you now shut up? WTF is that kind of stupid question?
Seriously, I actually supported Bush the first legislation and most of his second. But I learned from my mistakes, and that mistake is huge and something I feel really bad about, because so many people told me that I was wrong before and then I got it in the face when he admitted the Iraq war was a lie and several other unbelievable corruption stuff under his watch, outgoing from republicans. This guy started so much shit, that will haunt us for hundreds of years, and of course Obama cant do shit about it, with the republican obstructionists in the congress. However you see how he tries it, and how he tries to please the republicans at least a little, so they dont block the other 25% of the stuff he actually was able to change. Just look for how long he fought for something essential like Medicare, that many other western countries, WHICH ARE NOT SOCIALISTS, have had implemented for decades and have it working fine.
As I said, Obama is actually trying a lot to make things better, but the president is no dictator. Just look at the republican lies, that were so successful that even democrats believe them now. And people like you who have no clue about politics actually believe republicans claiming Obama is so bad, while THEY are blocking everything he does.
Dont get me wrong, Obama did a lot of crap by himself too, just like every other president before, but to say he is WORSE than Bush... lol... seriously?


Noam Chomsky says he's worse than Bush, has written and presented the evidence that he's worse than Bush. The Most Important Intellectual and US Critic says that Obama is worse than Bush. Go read what he wrote, I can't convince you here.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^coolhund:
If Romney is elected, I will loose all my respect for America.
How anyone can vote someone like Romney after 8 years of Bush, is beyond any of my understanding and tolerance.

So where are you from just wondering? I just can't let this pass. Obama is worse than Bush. I'll say it again...OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH. The only reason why the World...and that is intellectuals and leaders not the population but the only reason why they like Obama better than Bush is because Obama is NICER about being a fucking evil bastard. Bush just said straight up, we don't care what you think. Obama says with a smile that it doesn't matter what you think.
Obama is continuing and expanding the murderous policies from under Bush he's just being nicer about it.


Im from Baghdad and lost my whole family to Bush. Will you now shut up? WTF is that kind of stupid question?

Seriously, I actually supported Bush the first legislation and most of his second. But I learned from my mistakes, and that mistake is huge and something I feel really bad about, because so many people told me that I was wrong before and then I got it in the face when he admitted the Iraq war was a lie and several other unbelievable corruption stuff under his watch, outgoing from republicans. This guy started so much shit, that will haunt us for hundreds of years, and of course Obama cant do shit about it, with the republican obstructionists in the congress. However you see how he tries it, and how he tries to please the republicans at least a little, so they dont block the other 25% of the stuff he actually was able to change. Just look for how long he fought for something essential like Medicare, that many other western countries, WHICH ARE NOT SOCIALISTS, have had implemented for decades and have it working fine.

As I said, Obama is actually trying a lot to make things better, but the president is no dictator. Just look at the republican lies, that were so successful that even democrats believe them now. And people like you who have no clue about politics actually believe republicans claiming Obama is so bad, while THEY are blocking everything he does.
Dont get me wrong, Obama did a lot of crap by himself too, just like every other president before, but to say he is WORSE than Bush... lol... seriously?

Reminds me of an old joke I heard around the time we went into Iraq after 9/11:


A U.S. military patrol is driving along a road north of Baghdad and spots a dead Iraqi on the side of the road, lying in a ditch. A few yards up, they spot a U.S. serviceman lying in the same ditch, clinging to life. The squad jumps out and starts to render assistance.

"What happened?" they ask the injured soldier.

"Well, I was patrolling up the road, when that Iraqi jumped out of nowhere and started screaming at me "George Bush is a moron and a fucking asshole!". So I yelled back at him "Oh yeah? Well Sadaam Hussein is a dickhead and a retard!"".

"Yeah? Did you shoot him?" one of the squad asks.

"No. We were in the middle of the road shaking hands when a truck came along and hit us..."

>> ^RhesusMonk:

~05:45 -- "You know this war is going your way when you got Cinnabon in fuckin' Baghdad."
True story, bro.


That's awesome...and now I'm resisting the urge to go get a Cinnabon right the fuck now. I mean jesus christ I NEED one with all the cummy icing!

~05:45 -- "You know this war is going your way when you got Cinnabon in fuckin' Baghdad."

True story, bro.

Some truly amazing comics that have come out during these death throes:

I Kill Giants
Action Philosophers!
Mouse Guard
Crécy
Pride of Baghdad
Power Girl
All-Star Superman
Incredible Hercules

and, yeah, many webcomics.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world. Indoctrinated Democrats have no problem with bossing other countries around and getting our way, we just have to be nicer about it and do it carefully so that we at least LOOK like we're good. Whereas the indoctrinated Republicans believe we are "Special" and should not only do it but do it with complete disregard for what ANY else thinks or says.
This is just a theory based on what I've seen from what our presidents do. Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault.
I mean look at Bush and Obama...Bush locked up people indefinitely and said they deserved it and he does it because they're they enemy. Obama doesn't bother he just assassinates them. If Bush assassinated more like Obama he'd come out and take full credit and say it was AWESOME that he was doing it...Obama not so much, more hand wringing and deflection.
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well. It's just a theory but I like it.


Wow Yogi, we agree on something .

I think your view is pretty much bang on. The only difference between Dem. and Rep. presidents is the reasons they give for acting purely in their own self interests(which very often coincides with making decisions that are in America's self interests).

Where I disagree with Ron Paul's conclusion is about what the answer to all this should be. I don't for a second believe Ron Paul would be any different than all those before him. Instead of selfish wars he'd maybe follow the course of selfish isolationism. Take the recent example in Libya. America had two selfish options, go in or don't. Not going in would mean keeping the President's hands clean and money in America's pocket, and Ron Paul insists that what he'd have done. It also would have meant leaving thousands of Libyan civilians to Gaddafi's death squads. It would mean a Libya still ruled today by Gaddafi, with a newly subdued and less numerous population.

I don't see a clearly white/black obvious ethical choice in most geopolitical decisions, it's always messy. The Iraqi's that hate America the most(the Sadrists) don't hate them for all the things that America did to them, but for America's failures to act. The hate America for it's failure to push into Baghdad in the first Gulf War. In lieu of that they want revenge on the Sunnis. They want to commit their own eviction of all Sunni's from Iraq, or in it's stead to kill them for what Saddam had done with their aid. Was America wrong to stick around in Iraq after evicting Saddam and trying to stand in the middle, stopping a civil war driven by revenge against the Sunnis?

Ron Paul and Chomsky are generally agreed on minding our own business is the only ethical choice. It's hard to make that argument for Libya. It's impossible to make that argument for Rwanda. There are situations in our world were the ethical choice IS to go to war and stop something even more evil than war inherently is. What Ron Paul and Chomsky understand though is that no matter how grave the evil you oppose, your actions will create people who hate you for interfering. War makes it inevitable that your own forces will commit crimes against innocents, and their families will hate you. Ron and Chomsky conclude that means never get involved, I call that cowardice and insist there are situations that demand paying that price and coming to the aid of our fellow man when faced with terrible evils like genocide. In theory, every signatory nation to the convention on genocide agrees with me on this point too.

@Yogi - interesting (and disturbing) observation. In the 5 years I've been living in Thailand, most of the people I've talked US politics with (be they Westerners like Brits, Aussies, etc. or Asians / SE Asians) have exactly the kind of read on US foreign policy that Ron Paul is suggesting we have earned here. Ie., they see beyond the faces of the different presidents calling the shots and notice the long-term track record of going out and meddling, whether that meddling is beneficial or not.

For a long time, I bought into what we hear in the US and was hopeful that, say, the Iraqi people would be appreciative and thankful that we came and "took care of the Saddam Hussein problem". Remember when the troops got to Baghdad and we saw the Iraqis jubilantly tearing down his statue, later discovered to be largely or entirely prompted by US psyops? Then I moderated my position and thought, OK, we got into this, now we've got to see it through to the end for the sake of those people whose lives we have disrupted. That pans out real well when they overwhelmingly just want us to get the hell out...

Anyway, it sort of boggles my mind that Ron Paul would get booed over suggesting a "Golden Rule" approach. Maybe more of our fellow Americans need to get a little more world-wise and see for themselves that we've already got a big backlog of ill-will to overcome from our legacy of unrequested "intervention"...