Tony Blaire and the Iraq Inquiry

What a sham! What am I missing in UK politics that makes this necessary or right? To have an inquiry into the justice of the Iraq war? Furthermore how they can get anything out of this beyond a frivilous lawsuit case of their own? 3 years ago I came up with the arguments of what made me go from following the Liberal media to thinking on my own and supporting the war. I was there with everyone else. It's a war for oil. It's his daddy's war, etc and so forth. Bullocks. The UN has had resolutions on the books since before the First Gulf War that justified that war and are easily used to justify this one as well. I did my homework on this one. This is the only set of arguments I've ever presented to decisively change someone's opinion. I encourage you to look into it yourself and ask yourself as I ask myself why this information isn't in the media, yet so easily accessible and would put this damned thing to rest!

Let's be clear: I don't like that we went to war, but I feel it was justified and the only thing we could have done. I think they needed a better after action plan and I think that they presented the wrong case to the UN, but I do think we had every reason to go to war:

I don’t like using blogs or Wikipedia normally, but I did find that it was prudent in this case as their comments (other than opinion) seemed well documented.

I have a variety of sources from blogs, to news to the whitehouse.gov website.

Just based off of the UN resolutions that they had on the books for 12+ years we could have entered Iraq in my opinion.

I don’t know why, but Bush and friends got that mangled when making their case, they should have stood by this argument as it was the strongest for staying in there.

On top of that, I have a couple of articles about Ricin in Iraq on the top. Ricin, as I recall, is a brother type compound to Anthrax.

Enjoy:




Ricin found and confirmed by MSNBC:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3070394/



Ricin tests on farm animals and others:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20030108/ai_n9675974





UN resolutions on Iraq prior to the 2000’s:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect2.html

Specifically:

UNSCR 687 - April 3, 1991

and

UNSCR 678 - November 29, 1990




Editorial on UN Resolution 1441:

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew73.php




U.S. Policy Timeline from CSPAN:

http://www.c-span.org/iraq/timeline.asp




Blog outlining 17 UN resolutions on Iraq with commentary:

http://massdiscussion.blogspot.com/2003/09/m-files-justifying-war-saddams.html



Wiki article on the invasion, specifically linked to the causes of the war including quotes from Bush and Blair:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Casus_belli_and_rationale



Supposed text of the UN resolution unanimously approved on or around November 8th, 2002. There is no resolution number that I saw:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/08/national/main528675.shtml



November 13th, 2002 – Saddam agrees to allow weapons inspectors back in:

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-2249046_ITM



Can find more, but that’s what I’ve got for now.

Google search string was: UN resolutions Saddam




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The important part in the above information is laying the groundwork for the reasons it is necessary. As I put it in my debates with people, I paraphrase the UN Resolutions as "If we so much as think that Saddam may have or try to obtain UMDs, he needs to prove that he doesn't have them or we will." Very simple. Saddam threw out the inspectors, the game he's played since Gulf War 1 and gotten away with because of the UN, because of their Food for Oil, money for oil and so forth. He thumbed his nose at us and we punched him for it, we bloodied him and then killed him for it. Our UN resolutions were our guide. If anything the Coalition in Iraq was the police force holding up the UNs own resolutions.

You want to prosecute someone? Where are the inquiries into Food for Oil and the billions that they gave him to run his government? Where's the prosecution of Kofi Annon on that one? Where's the investigation into why the French, the Germans and the Russians vetoed the war because they had Billions wrapped up in a government that we were about to overthrow. That's why this is an issue, not because Bush was wrong, but because he cost those governments billions of dollars!

Us going to war is preposterous, show me the benefit, show me where the influx of Iraqi oil is? The lowered gas prices? The bloated oil economy like Iran, Russia, the Saudis? We import more oil from Canada and Mexico than we even do from the Middle East.

Around the world in... 30 hours

Ok, so the time frame is a little exaggerated probably, but it was about 27 hours or so with the layovers and the strikes and you'll see, I'll post as much as I can with my battery as it is before I call it quits:

11:40 AM MST 1/20/2010

Forgot the Marriott Laptop
Forgot to tell Whitney that I loved her for the millionth time. Only 999,993 I think.

Pre-flight jitters left just after security. Wish she had seen. Feels silly now, but I guess it's my process.

Should have sent them my emergency contact info sooner. Will need to do that in GA. 11:45 AM

11:54 AM Now in Colorado. 11:54 AM

12:15 PM Now passing Denver. Every minute is a milestone now. This is the farthest East I've ever been. 12:16 PM

12:44 PM MST 1/20/2010
UT, CO, KS, MI, AK, TN, AL, GA, OK (didn't think we would, but skirted the NE corner). 1:16 PM

1:01 PM We flew through Witchita, a seven nation army couldn't hold us back. 1:17 PM 1,006 Mi - getting bored, a billion miles to go. Hope the other flights have more leg room and I can sleep. Traveling has changed a lot. Love the new interactive and airport maps. Convenient. 1:26 PM Not in KS anymore.

2:24 PM 1,600 Mi later in ATL.

3:49 PM MST 5:49 PM EST 1/20/2010
Was paged a few mins ago because I hadn't boarded the plane 30 mins early. No heads up, no PA until they called me in a panic. The people in the ATL airport as well as the French operating the plane are short and pushy. Much different than my experience in SLC. Flight leaves at 6:10 PM EST. We'll be going over the Atlantic to Paris. Then I get to do this again to BLR. I'm sitting in an isle seat next to an Indian Marisha. The plane is bigger, thank goodness as it will be a nearly 8 hour flight. This should be fun and will take me into 12 AM MST on the 21st and 8-10 AM Paris time I think. 3:55 PM



(More to come later, compy needs to sleep until tomorrow. Should be able to post more then since I won't need to spend a whole hour on checking e-mail...)

Complicated.

It's an interesting thing thinking about the trip in a truly 360 degree viewpoint. Ok, maybe it's only as much as 270, but all the same. Past, present, future. Complications and the help.

I have spent a lot longer slacking off on this than I would have liked, but it wouldn't be me unless I left the most important things to the last minute. Everything in my life is like that.

Packing was quicker than I expected. Easier, too, I suppose. I spent two weeks truly getting ready for this, so maybe that's paying off, but it's surprising and maybe a little sad seeing how much I can condense my life into. I'm actually usually amazed that I would leave behind so much if I needed to. A month's worth of travel condensed into three bags.

Backpack having the necessities of life, a pair of books, a change of clothes. Suitcase having my clothes for the trip almost completely (I have a little over a week's worth of clothes, so it's easy to pack everything I normally wear. A computer bag will have two computers and all of my essential paperwork as this thing should never leave my sight!

So much to think about. So much to learn. So much already forgotten. I'm pretty sure that I'm the first person in my immediate family to travel like this. Perhaps my dad has gone out of country, but I don't remember it if it's true. With any luck this will even be the first of many such trips. With any luck and a little divine intervention maybe I can make it to Japan in March. It would be beyond cool.

Anyways, barring death or other catastrophic failure, I'm on the inside of 24 hours. In two days time I'll be in Bangalore and living an adventure one day at a time. Until then...

Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep these newbies rolling...

Yesterday I did Aikido for the first time (it's a form of Martial Arts for a lack of a better explaination if you're not familiar with it). A friend from work came with and we loved it.

The class, students and senseis, are extremely nice and outgoing. Instantly accepted and taken care of as if we were part of the flock. It was amazing. We spent most of our time rolling around on the mat (that's not really a fair example, in Aikido you take turns being the attacker and the attacked to practice all aspects of the battle up to escaping, etc), but when it's so hard to keep focused on the hands and footwork we don't have a lot of options.

Even the junior students were very good and patient teachers. They were able to slow down the movements for us enough to be almost comical, but any faster might have caused serious harm, heh. Aikido even being mostly a defensive art, it would take great skill to drop someone with one of the holds or the like and still not risk breaking an arm.

I recommend it to anyone to find a class in their area and make it happen. You'd be surprised at the people and personalities in this class. One of the people I can only easily describe him as Mr. Magoo. He's five feet tall if that, looks like he could be in his 50s, has a bit of a pot belly and is just as agile, flexible and has the endurance of anyone else. To see him recover from some of the falls is amazing.

There's some stuff on youtube, but last night the topic was how bad it all was. I have an eBook that I was reading that warmed me up to some of the things that I should expect. I suggest if you're interested in Martial Arts this would be a good place to start! Even more than that, most of it doesn't involve strength as much as agility and flexibility, so this may be a good sport to get into to compliment an exercise regiment (like me and P90X).

High Adventure

Stay tuned for more posts. I will be making a trip to Bangalore soon and will likely be posting here more often as a result. Until such time.

Adieu.