| |
 |
Friday, July 11, 2003 |
Senate Remarks: "A Call for International Assistance, Not Isolation"
|
|
On August 22, 1920, an article written by former Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence appeared in one of the great newspapers of London, the Sunday Times. This legendary British military officer -- better known as Lawrence of Arabia -- began his commentary with a sharp warning about his country's occupation of ancient lands in the Middle East:
"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster."
Colonel Lawrence concluded with an equally sharp question: "How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?" |
11:37:30 PM
Google It!
|
|
about
William Greider
National Affairs Correspondent
 National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple and Who Will Tell The People.
5:40:16 PM
Google It!
|
|
How the Land of the Free Became the Dinosaur in the Tar Pit
By Maureen Farrell, BuzzFlash
July 11, 2003
"From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit – we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on."
– Norman Schwarzkopf, from his 1993 autobiography, "It Doesn't Take a Hero."
"We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater instability."
– George H.W. Bush, "A World Transformed," 1998
"Facing a marked increase in the frequency and brazenness of attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq in the last two weeks, military officials are for the first time speaking more openly about the potential for a long-term fight to quell the resistance to the American presence. Although the term is rarely used at the Pentagon, from every description by military officials, what U.S. troops face on the ground in Iraq has all the markings of a guerrilla war. . . ."
– The Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2003
5:00:27 PM
Google It!
|
|
Just send me home
Even as President Bush speaks of a "massive and long-term" reconstruction, troops on the ground are writing letters to their representatives in Congress pleading to be sent home: "Most soldiers would empty their bank accounts just for a plane ticket home." An officer paints the following picture of troop morale: "They vent to anyone who will listen. They write letters, they cry, they yell. Many of them walk around looking visibly tired and depressed … We feel like pawns in a game that we have no voice [in]."
Meanwhile, although the brass continues to strenuously deny it, many veterans are using dreaded phrases like "guerilla war" and "classic insurgency situation" to describe the developing situation in Iraq.
Posted on July 7, 2003 @ 5:13PM.
4:59:11 PM
Google It!
|
|
© Copyright 2005 The Usual Suspect.
|
|
