Short Peace In A Terrible War

Alfred Anderson died last month at the very ripe old age of 109.

But it was not the Scotsman's many years that made him remarkable at the end of his long life. It was that, to his last days, he well recalled participating in the Christmas Truce of 1914 -- that brief respite from the carnage of World War I that saw soldiers of both sides in the conflict lay down their arms, climb out of their trenches and celebrate together along the 500-mile Western Front.

Anderson was the last surviving old soldier known to have participated in what he would refer to in his later years as "a short peace in a terrible war."

That peace, which was initiated not by presidents or prime ministers, but by the soldiers themselves, serves to this day as a reminder that war is seldom so necessary -- nor so unstoppable -- as politicians would have us believe.

So it comes as no surprise that the Christmas Truce of 1914 is a bit of history that many in power have neglected over the past 90 years.

But Anderson's long survival, and his clear memory, made it impossible to write this chapter out of history.

On December 25, 1914, Anderson was an 18-year-old soldier serving with 5th Battalion, Black Watch, of the British Army, one of the first to engage in the bloody trench warfare that was the ugliest manifestation of a war that claimed 31 million lives. But on that day, there was no violence.

Rather, Anderson recalled in an interview on the 90th anniversary of the truce, "there was a dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see. We shouted 'Merry Christmas,' even though nobody felt merry."

The calls of "Merry Christmas" from the Brits were answered by Germans singing: "Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht."

The Brits responded by singing "Silent Night" in English. Then, from the trenches opposite them, climbed a German soldier who held a small tree lit with candles and shouted in broken English, "Merry Christmas. We not shoot. You not shoot."

Thus, began the Christmas Truce. Soldiers of both armies -- more than a million in all -- climbed from the trenches along the Western Front to exchange cigarettes and military badges. They even played soccer, using the helmets they had taken off as goalposts. And they did not rush to again take up arms. Along some stretches of the Front, the truce lasted into January of 1915.

Finally, distant commanders forced the fighting to begin anew.

Thus, it has ever been with war. As George McGovern, the decorated World War II veteran who would become one of America's greatest champions of peace, "old men (are always) thinking up wars for young men to die in."

But Alfred Anderson remembered, well beyond the century of two world wars and too many lesser conflicts, that the young men of opposing armies often have more in common with one another than they do with the old men who send them into battle.

Once, on a Christmas Day that ought not be forgotten, the young men decided to make a short peace in a terrible war.

The memory of the courage of those who chose, however briefly, to see the humanity in one another, and to lay down the arms of one of the most brutal wars this planet has ever seen, offers hope this weekend, as Christians mark the birth of the Nazarene who was called Prince of Peace. Perhaps, someday, we will make a Christmas truce that lasts not merely through the hours of good cheer on this Holiday but the whole year long.

(Original Link)

How to create an Angry American

Punditman Says:
As 2007 draws to a close, let us all remember who is still in charge of the most powerful nation on earth. Let us not forget who continues to wield unlawful power; how the Congress of the United States is shirking its responsibility by doing nothing about high crimes and misdemeanors; how "weapons of mass distraction" continue to dominate the media; and how, for all these reasons (and more), the world is worse off.

Iraq, Afghanistan War Costs Top Vietnam

December 21, 2007

Iraq, Afghanistan War Costs Top Vietnam

by Aaron Glantz

Congress' approval Wednesday of $70 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mean the twin conflicts are now more costly to American taxpayers than the war in Vietnam. According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Congress has now approved nearly $700 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Using inflation-adjusted dollars, the total cost of those wars has now surpassed the total cost of the Vietnam war (which ran to $670 billion)," the group's Travis Sharp told OneWorld. "It's also more than seven times larger than the Persian Gulf War ($94 billion) and more than twice the cost of the Korean war ($295 billion)." As a result of Wednesday's vote, Sharp said, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will become the second costliest conflict in American history, trailing only World War II. Keep Reading... punditman says...And all signs are that it is full speed ahead. Wait till the cost of these two quagmires eclipses Dubya Dubya Two (WW II) - pun intended.

Brown: 'It's time to talk to the Taliban'

Today, the Prime Minister will announce a major shift in strategy on Afghanistan. Could it mark the beginning of the end of a bloody six-year war? Or is it just spin?

By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
The Independent
Published: 12 December 2007

As the deadliest year in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 comes to a close, Gordon Brown is ready to talk to the Taliban in a major shift in strategy that is likely to cause consternation among hardliners in the White House.

Six years after British troops were first deployed to oust the Taliban regime, the Prime Minister believes the time has come to open a dialogue in the hope of moving from military action to consensus-building among the tribal leaders. Since 1 January, more than 6,200 people have been killed in violence related to the insurgency, including 40 British soldiers. In total, 86 British troops have died. The latest casualty was Sergeant Lee Johnson, whose vehicle hit a mine before the fall of Taliban-held town of Musa Qala.

The Cabinet yesterday approved a three-pronged plan that Mr Brown will outline for security to be provided by Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and the Afghan national army, followed by economic and political development in Afghanistan.

But the intention to engage Taliban leaders in a constructive dialogue, which Mr Brown will make clear in a parliamentary statement today, will be by far the most controversial element of the plan. A senior Downing Street source confirmed the move last night and one Brown aide who accompanied the Prime Minister on his recent visit to Kabul, said: "We need to ask who are we fighting? Do we need to fight them? Can we be talking to them?"

Senior government officials said it was an error to see the Taliban as a unified organisation rather than as a disparate group of Afghan tribesmen, often farmers recruited at the end of the gun, infiltrated by foreign fighters. The aim is to divide the Taliban's local support from al-Qa'ida and militants from Pakistan.

Full article...

punditman says: Now that the British are (apparently) seeing the hopelessness of the current policy of endless war with no light at the end of the tunnel, what does Canada say? Hello, Mr. Harper, are you listening?

The Iran Charade

So They Lied Again

By RON JACOBS

So they lied again. And again. Despite the fact that the Bush administration knew quite well that its very own intelligence estimate stated quite clearly that the Iranian government had halted its work on building nuclear weaponry, Mr. Bush told the world not more than two months ago that Iran was risking World War Three if it continued said work. On Monday, December 3, 2007, a report from Mr. Bush's own government said quite clearly that its intelligence proved that Iran halted nuclear arms work four years ago. Despite this knowledge, the Bush administration and its enablers in Congress have continued to move the United States closer and closer to war with Iran.

Of course, the fact that the White House has been lying for at least four years about the dangers of Iranian nuclear weaponry comes as no surprise to many of the world's citizens. After all, it was this very same administration that invaded Iraq on the basis of lies regarding Iraq's nuclear ambitions and its long lost weapons of mass destruction. What is somewhat surprising is the response to Monday's news from the White House. According to national security adviser Stephen Hadley, everything that the White House has said up to now about Iran's nuclear intentions was not wrong. Indeed, according to Hadley, it only proves that gathering intelligence is "notoriously difficult." Furthermore, in the White House's estimation, this revelation proves that the White House was right and that the US is correct to continue threatening war and encouraging sanctions. You know, just to keep Iran in line. Now, I don't know about you, but this argument sounds very similar to Bill Clinton's line about what constituted having "sex with that woman." In other words, they got caught in a lie and now the Bush White House and its allies in the government and media are using facetious arguments to justify those lies.

Full article...

punditman says:

Bush said in his December 4 press conference: "I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze."

Are we supposed to believe that the President of the United States is not given detailed briefings on important national security developments on a regular basis? Or that he doesn't ask follow-up questions? Or, is it simply the case that he is a bold faced liar?

Well, judging from his record...

Debunking Iran's Nuclear Program: Another 'Intelligence Failure' -- On the Part of the Press?

Iraqi WMD redux: The release of the NIE throwing cold water on oft-repeated claims of a rampant Iranian nuclear weapons program has chastened public officials and policymakers who have promoted this line for years. But many in the media have made these same claims, often extravagantly.

By Greg Mitchell

NEW YORK (December 04, 2007) -- Press reports so far have suggested that the belated release of the National Intelligence Estimate yesterday throwing cold water on oft-repeated claims of a rampant Iranian nuclear weapons program has deeply embarrassed, or at least chastened, public officials and policymakers who have promoted this line for years. Gaining little attention so far: Many in the media have made these same claims, often extravagantly, which promoted (deliberately or not) the tubthumping for striking Iran.

Surely you remember Sen. John McCain's inspired Beach Boys' parody, a YouTube favorite, "Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb Iran"? That was the least of it. You could dance to it and it had a good beat. Not so for so much of the press and punditry surrounding the bomb. Who can forget Norman Podhoretz's call for an immediate attack on Iran, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal last May, as he argued that "the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force -- any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938."

As I've warned in this space for years, too many in the media seemed to fail to learn the lessons of the Iraqi WMD intelligence failure -- and White House propaganda effort -- and instead, were repeating it, re: Iran. This time, perhaps, we may have averted war, with little help from most of the media. In this case, it appears, the NIE people managed to resist several months of efforts by the administration to change their assessment. If only they had stiffened their backbones concerning Iraq in 2002.

For the rest of today and this week, media critics will be offering up all sorts of reminders of the near-fatal claims by many in the press relating to Iranian nukes. Sure to get attention are the scare stories in the summer of 2005 after "proof" of an Iranian nuke program somehow surfaced on a certain laptop, proudly unveiled by officials and bought by many in the media then as firm evidence (and now debunked, like much of the "proof" of Iraqi WMD provided by defectors a few years back).

With much effort, I've already found this beauty from David Brooks of The New York Times from Jan. 22, 2006, when he declared that "despite administration hopes, there is scant reason to believe that imagined Iranian cosmopolitans would shut down the nuclear program, or could if they wanted to, or could do it in time - before Israel forced the issue to a crisis point. This is going to be a lengthy and tortured debate, dividing both parties. We'll probably be engaged in it up to the moment the Iranian bombs are built and fully functioning."

As recently as this past June, Thomas Friedman of The Times wrote: "Iran is about to go nuclear."

Full article...

punditman says:
This shows how much America's mainstream media is part of an elite consensus. Despite their abysmal failings to hold the Bush administration to account before and after the Iraq invasion, on Iran, they nevertheless started following a familiar script of kowtowing to power -- the only one they know.

Nuclear Weapons Bombshell for Bush

TheStar.com - World - Nuclear weapons bombshell for Bush

AP PHOTO

Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility is seen in a June satellite photo.

U.S. spy agencies insist Tehran scrapped arms bid in 2003, despite White House rhetoric

Toronto Star
December 04, 2007

Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON–Iran scrapped its pursuit of a nuclear weapon four years ago, according to a declassified security document released yesterday, contradicting the bellicose rhetoric aimed at Tehran by U.S. President George W. Bush.

Just six weeks ago, Bush linked Iran's nuclear ambitions to a potential World War III, but the National Intelligence Estimate painted a picture of an Iran guided by sober cost-benefit analyses, not the wild-eyed rush to destruction often described by the White House.

Although the report says Iran has left the door open to pursue a bomb, it now estimates it is unlikely to have the wherewithal to develop such a weapon before 2015.

Critics who had been fearful that Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney were weighing military strikes on Tehran stressed yesterday's report now offers an opening for a "diplomatic surge" with the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The National Intelligence Estimate represents the consensus of 16 separate American spy agencies and is provided to U.S. military and political leaders to help craft strategy or respond to perceived threats.

A full report was provided to Bush last week before a declassified version was given to U.S. legislators by Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence.

The review, which represents a complete about-face from a 2005 report on Iran, brought memories to the fore of the botched 2002 intelligence on Iraq which led to the U.S. invasion the following spring.

Full article...

punditman says...
White House to intelligence community: "What? Don't you know yet that we make the intelligence fit our policy, not the other way around?"

Bombs away?

Arms expert Scott Ritter says the U.S. plans to attack Iran. MT asks why he's so sure.

by Curt Guyette and W. Kim Heron

It seems that with each passing week there are more stories raising the specter of George Bush turning Iraq and Afghanistan into a bloody trifecta by attacking Iran.

In mainstream daily papers we see pieces like one by Gannett's John Yaukey, who wrote in early November that "confrontation could be near" because "Iran continues to taunt the United States with its aggressive posturing in Iraq and Lebanon while pushing ahead with its nuclear research ..."

We are also witnessing what appears to be a chilling rerun of the Iraq debacle. Confronted with evidence that calls into question the status of Iran's nuclear program, the Bush administration is shifting its rhetoric.

"The Bush administration has charged that Iran is funding anti-American fighters in Iraq and sending in sophisticated explosives to bleed the U.S. mission, although some of the administration's charges are disputed by Iraqis as well as the Iranians," the Los Angeles Times reported in October. "Still, ... diplomatic and military officials say they fear that the overreaching of a confident Iran, combined with growing U.S. frustrations, could set off a dangerous collision."

Look beyond daily papers — from Seymour Hersh's reporting in The New Yorker to articles in The Nation — and the picture emerges of an administration that is determined to attack Iran.

John H. Richardson's "The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know" in the November issue of Esquire magazine is particularly eye-opening. Richardson, using two former high-ranking Middle East experts who worked for the White House as his primary sources, warns that the Bush administration is "headed straight for war with Iran" and that "it had been set on this course for years."

"It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave," writes Richardson, who details the Bush administration's success at scuttling diplomatic efforts — notably involving then-Secretary of State Colin Powell — to reach a peaceful accord with Iran. "The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline. ..."

With all this in mind, we decided to talk with the man who literally wrote the book on Bush's intentions. Nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's Target Iran was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of impending war ever since.

A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003 invasion, Ritter loudly disputed the Bush administration's claims regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the left at various points. He portrays himself as the straight-shooting analyst unconcerned by who supports him or whom he offends.

To learn what he thinks the future holds for Iran, and the consequences of a U.S. invasion, we recently sat down for a 90-minute phone interview with Ritter. What follows is a condensed version of that conversation.

Metro Times: A year ago, when your book Target Iran came out, you were sounding the alarm about war being imminent. Why do you think that attack hasn't occurred?

Scott Ritter: Let's remember that this is an elective war, not a war of necessity. A war of necessity would be fought at the point and time a conflict is required, if somebody is threatening to invade you, to attack, etc. But an elective war is one where we choose to go to war. It will be conducted on a timescale that's beneficial to those who are planning the conflict.

As far as why it hasn't happened, there's any number of reasons. One, the Bush administration has not been able to stabilize Iraq to the level they would like to see prior to expanding military operations in the region. Two, the international community has not rallied around the cause of Iran's nuclear program representing a casus belli to the extent that the Bush administration would like. They were hopeful that there would be more action from the [United Nations] Security Council. It took a long time to get the issue shifted from the International Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters to the Security Council. And even when it got shifted to the Security Council, the Council took very timid steps, not decisive steps. The Bush administration sort of tied its hands at that point in time. I think you are seeing increasing frustration today at the slow pace.

Also, the need to redefine the Iranian threat away from exclusively being focused on nuclear activity, because now you have the difficulty of both the IAEA saying there is no nuclear weapons program and the CIA saying pretty much the same thing. So the Bush administration needs to redefine the Iranian threat, which they have been doing successfully, casting Iran as the largest state sponsor of terror, getting the Senate resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command a terrorist organization, and creating a perception amongst the American people, courtesy of a compliant media, that talks about the reason why things are going bad in Iraq is primarily because of Iranian intervention.

They have been working very hard to get back on track. I still believe that we are seeing convergence here. The Bush administration is moving very aggressively toward military action with Iran.

MT: Is your conclusion that an attack is imminent based on the administration's statements and actions, like labeling Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, or do you also have sources within the intelligence community and the military and the administration telling you what's going on?

Ritter: I don't have any current sources of the sort you just spoke of. I was plugged in back in 2006 to good quality current information. But I haven't been plugged in recently, so I have to use some sort of analytical methodology as opposed to saying, "Aha, I got it from the horse's mouth." But there's nothing that has occurred that leads me to believe the Bush administration has changed its policy direction. In fact there has been much that's occurred that reinforces the earlier conclusions that were based on good sources of information. We take a look at items in the defense budget, the rapid conversion of heavy bombers to carry bunker-busting bombs on a specific time frame, the massive purchasing of oil to fill up the strategic oil reserve by April 2008. Everything points to April 2008 to being a month of some criticality. It also matches my analysis that the Bush administration will want to carry this out prior to the crazy political season of the summer of 2008.

MT: Last year you expressed hope that if Democrats took control of Congress it might pass legislation that could block the march toward war. Do you see them stepping up?

Ritter: No. They just passed a resolution declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command as a terrorist organization. Unless there is a radical reawakening in Congress, I don't see them passing any sort of pre-emptive legislation of that nature.

Keep Reading (Full interview)...