SwiftVets.com

[Rdtf]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147717,00.html

A Critic's Defeatist Rhetoric
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
By David Asman

Not all Marines take pride in the work of their brothers.

Take Scott Ritter (search), a former Marine and United Nations weapons inspector, who has turned into a critic of just about anything the U.S. does in Iraq. Now he’s writing for Al-Jazeera’s Web site, which seems like a perfect home for his defeatist rhetoric.

According to Mr. Ritter, “The highly vaunted U.S. military machine, laurelled and praised for its historic march on Baghdad (search) in March and April of 2003, today finds itself a broken force, on the defensive in a land that it may occupy in part, but does not control.”

Offering no proof whatsoever, Mr. Ritter accuses the U.S. of conspiring with Iraqi assassination squads (search), and that, not foreign terrorists or former Saddam officials, is what started the post-war violence in Iraq: “Having started the game of politically motivated assassination, the U.S. has once again found itself trumped by forces inside Iraq it does not understand, and as such will never be able to defeat.”

As for the enemy, which he calls a “genuine grassroots national liberation movement,” Ritter is generous: “History will eventually depict as legitimate the efforts of the Iraqi resistance to destabilise and defeat the American occupation forces and their imposed Iraqi collaborationist government.”

The only way out, according to Ritter, is for us to fail: “It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis.”

It may be hard for Mr. Ritter to root for the enemy in Iraq, but that’s exactly what he’s doing. Why he’s doing that is another question.

And that’s the Asman Observer

[Rdtf]

Here is the treasonous article:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ADCA48CC-9307-466B-BA18-82724CAA7484.htm


The Salvador option
By Scott Ritter


Tuesday 25 January 2005, 11:49 Makka Time, 8:49 GMT

By any standard, the ongoing American occupation of Iraq is a disaster.

The highly vaunted US military machine, laurelled and praised for its historic march on Baghdad in March and April of 2003, today finds itself a broken force, on the defensive in a land that it may occupy in part, but does not control.

The all-out offensive to break the back of the resistance in Falluja has failed, leaving a city destroyed by American firepower, and still very much in the grips of the anti-American fighters.

The same is true of Mosul, Samarra, or any other location where the US military has undertaken "decisive" action against the fighters, only to find that, within days, the fighting has returned, stronger than ever.

And yet, it now appears as if the United States, in an effort to take the offensive against the fighters in Iraq, is prepared to compound its past mistakes in Iraq by embarking on a new course of action derived from some of the darkest, and most embarrassing moments of America's modern history.

According to press accounts, the Pentagon is considering the organisation, training and equipping of so-called death squads, teams of Iraqi assassins who would be used to infiltrate and eliminate the leadership of the Iraqi resistance.

"If 200,000 children died of leukaemia after the first 100 hour war, how much deeper and multigenerational will be our legacy of death and destruction?"
Tehan Carey, US


Called the Salvador Option, in reference to similar US-backed death squads that terrorised the population of El Salvador during the 1980s, the proposed plan actually has as its roots the Phoenix assassination programme undertaken during the Vietnam war, where American-led assassins killed thousands of known or suspected Vietcong collaborators.

Perhaps it is a sign of the desperation felt inside the Pentagon, or an underscoring of the ideological perversity of those in charge, that the US military would draw upon the failed programmes of the past to resolve an insoluble problem of today.

The Salvador Option would not be the first embrace of assassination as a tool of occupation undertaken by the United States in Iraq.

In the months following Paul Bremer's taking over of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in June 2003, the streets of Baghdad crawled with scores of assassination squads.

Among the more effective and brutal of these units were those drawn from the Badr Brigade, the armed militia of the Shia political party known as the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI.

Although not publicly acknowledged, the role played by the various anti-Saddam militias in confronting the residual elements of Saddam's former ruling Baath Party offered a glimpse into what was, and is, an unspoken element of the US policy regarding de-Baathification - let the Iraqis do the dirty work.

SCIRI's efforts to exterminate Baath Party remnants still loyal to Saddam Hussein, or who stand accused of committing crimes against SCIRI or its sympathisers, attracted the attention of the "black" side of the CPA-run de-Baathification efforts – covert operations run by the CIA and elite Special Operations units of the United States military.

Of all the various players in this deadly game, the Badr militia stood out as the most willing and able to take the fight to the Baathist holdouts.

Tipped off by the CPA's covert operatives, the Badr assassination squads killed dozens of Baathists in and around Baghdad.

But the assassination of former Baathists did nothing to pacify Iraq.

The ongoing resistance to the American occupation of Iraq was not founded in the formal structure of the Baath Party, but rather the complex mixture of tribal and religious motivations which had, since 1995, been blended into the secretive cell structure of the Baath Party.

While the Americans and their SCIRI allies focused on bringing to heel former Baathists, the resistance morphed into a genuine grassroots national liberation movement where strategic planning may very well be the product of former Baathists, but the day-to-day tactical decisions are more likely to be made by tribal shaikhs and local clerics.

The increasing success of the resistance was attributed in part to the failure of the CPA-ordered de-Baathification policy.

History, on the other hand, treats harshly the occupying power which resorts to the use of the tools of terror to subdue an occupied people.

In an effort to reverse this trend, Bremer rescinded his de-Baathification programme, and ordered the Badr assassination squads to stand down.

This change of policy direction could not change the reality on the ground in Iraq, however.

The Sunni-based resistance, having been targeted by the Badr assassins, struck back with a vengeance.

In a campaign of targeted assassinations using car bombs and ambushes, the resistance has engaged in its own campaign of terror against the Shia, viewed by the Sunni fighters as being little more than collaborators of the American occupation.


Having started the game of politically motivated assassination, the US has once again found itself trumped by forces inside Iraq it does not understand, and as such will never be able to defeat.

The Salvador Option fails on a number of levels. First and foremost is the moral and ethical one.

While it is difficult at times to understand and comprehend, let alone justify, the tactics used by the Iraqi resistance, history has shown that the tools of remote ambush, instead of a direct assassination, have always been used by freedom fighters when confronting an illegitimate foreign occupier who possesses overwhelming conventional military superiority.

As such, history celebrates the resistance of the French and the Russians when occupied by the Germans during the second world war, the Chinese resistance to Japanese occupation during that same time, or even the decades-long national liberation movement in Vietnam which defeated not only the French and the Americans, but also the illegitimate government these two occupiers attempted to impose on the people of South Vietnam.

History, on the other hand, treats harshly the occupying power which resorts to the use of the tools of terror to subdue an occupied people.

Thus, while it is fine for a French resistance fighter to blow up a German troop train, it is not acceptable for the Germans to burn a French village in retaliation.


The US military has undertaken “decisive” action against the fighters, only to find that, within days, the fighting has returned, stronger than ever.

History will eventually depict as legitimate the efforts of the Iraqi resistance to destabilise and defeat the American occupation forces and their imposed Iraqi collaborationist government.

And history will condemn the immorality of the American occupation, which has debased the values and ideals of the American people by legitimising torture, rape and murder as a means of furthering an illegal war of aggression.

Ethics aside, the Salvador Option will fail simply because it cannot succeed. In an effort to confront a Sunni-based resistance, the Pentagon proposes that special assassination squads be recruited from the ranks of "loyal" Kurds and Shia.


In the 30 years of Saddam's rule, the Baathist government and its security organs were very successful in infiltrating the ranks of Kurdish and Shia opposition movements.


The Shia and Kurds, on the other hand, have no history of being able to do the same to the Sunni. If anything has emerged as the undisputable truth in post-invasion Iraq, it is that the Iraqi resistance knows Iraq infinitely better than the American occupiers.

If implemented, the Salvador Option will serve as the impetus for all-out civil war. In the same manner that the CPA-backed assassination of Baathists prompted the restructuring and strengthening of the Sunni-led resistance, any effort by US-backed Kurdish and Shia assassination teams to target Sunni resistance leaders will remove all impediments for a general outbreak of ethnic and religious warfare in Iraq.

It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis.As an American, I have hoped that there was a way for America to emerge victorious in Iraq, with our national security and honour intact, and Iraq itself a better nation than the one we "liberated". But it is far too late for this to happen.

The Salvador Option would not be the first embrace of assassination as a tool of occupation undertaken by the United States in Iraq.

We not only invaded Iraq on false pretences, but we perverted the notion of liberation by removing Saddam and his cronies from his palaces, replacing them with American occupiers who have not only kept open Saddam's most notorious prisons, but also the practice of torture, rape and abuse we were supposed to be bringing to an end.

Faced with our inability to come to grips with a popular-based resistance that has grown exponentially over the past year, the best the American policy planners can come up with is to embrace our own form of terrorism, supporting death squads we cannot control and which will only further debase the moral foundation of our nation while slaughtering even more Iraqis.

As an American, I hope and pray that common sense and basic morality prevail in Washington DC, terminating the Salvador Option before it gets off the ground. Failing that, I hope that the programme of US-backed death squads is defeated. That is the most pro-American sentiment I can muster, given the situation as it currently stands.

Scott Ritter was a senior UN arms inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. He is now an independent consultant.

The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position or have the endorsement of Aljazeera.

[Me#1You#10]

Scum. Just...scum.

[Rdtf]

He needs to lose his passport. I am sorry but there needs to be a way of exiling people that do something like this, especially during wartime.

[shawa]

[PhantomSgt]

[Rdtf]

[Snipe]

You wouldn't think that Mr. Ritter is still bent out of shape for getting
a forced out after not getting selected for O4, would you?
_________________
Tin Can Sailor

[PhantomSgt]

[Tom Poole]

Anyone else notice how many times Ritter referred to himself as an American? Is it possible he's become a wannabe? "Me thinks the lady doth protest too much." Everyone knows he abandoned his native country for a few dollars from Saddam and everyone knows his penchant for little girls. Now he's paying for what he did.

[wpage]

It's darn sure time to start prosecuting some of the SOB's. We can't let them off the hook like was done in VN. Hell, I'd like to bring Fonda & friends cases up if possible. The left can go ahead and call me a NAZI or whatever, but I personally consider prosecution of these ******** as an act of patriotism. The leftist can twist it anyway they want, but I'm tired of being peed on and and them calling it rain.

That was done to me before. Are we going to allow it again?

[FreeFall]

I don't trust Scott Ritter, you know he got $400K from Iraqi business man with ties to Hussein to make a movie about Iraq not having WMD? He also flip flopped on what he said to the Senate. See this link:

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor_print/633_0_2_0/

Is Scott Ritter Credible?
By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid | September 12, 2002

"Iraq presents a clear and present danger to international peace and security."


Scott Ritter, the former Marine who resigned his position as UN weapons inspector in Iraq in August 1998, has been seen frequently on television criticizing the Bush administration's claim that Saddam Hussein is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and must be overthrown. Ritter is presented or quoted as an authority on this subject. For example, on Labor Day, former CIA director James Woolsey told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that clearly Iraq has "substantial chemical and bacteriological weapons," Blitzer responded, "Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, he was there. He doesn't believe it."

Scott Ritter was there from the end of the Gulf War until 1998 to help enforce the cease-fire agreement and the UN resolution that prohibited Iraq from possessing or developing weapons of mass destruction. His former boss, Richard Butler, who headed the UN inspection team, recalled later that Ritter resigned because Saddam was not allowing the UN inspectors to do their job. Ritter himself testified that under Saddam's direct orders, the Iraqi government had lied to the Commission about its weapons stockpiles and that "Iraq presents a clear and present danger to international peace and security."

Ritter at the time blamed the Clinton administration, saying they feared a confrontation with Iraq. He criticized it for refusing to support the inspection process with a legitimate use of force. He said that since April of '98, "we had not been allowed to do these tasks, largely because of pressure placed upon the Special Commission by administration officials."

Ritter has made an about face. He now says "Iraq has been disarmed fundamentally. Their weapons programs have been eliminated. Iraq poses no threat to any of its neighbors. It does not threaten its region. It does not threaten the United States. It does not threaten the world." This is the line he was taking as a guest on Phil Donahue's first show on MSNBC last July. Senator James Inhofe, the other guest, charged that what Ritter was saying was the opposite of the testimony he had given the Senate Intelligence Committee. Ritter tried to deny it, but the Senator read from a copy of the transcript, proving that Ritter had just contradicted what he had said under oath. That should have destroyed Ritter's credibility, but Ritter keeps getting time on TV and being cited as an authority on CNN.

We hate to say it, but Scott Ritter has apparently sold out. He received $400,000 from an Iraqi-American businessman with close ties to Saddam for the purpose of producing a documentary called "In Shifting Sands." The Weekly Standard described it as a film that "would chronicle the weapons-inspection process" and quoted Ritter as saying it would "de-demonize" Iraq.

Ritter was welcomed into Iraq in July 2000 to conduct interviews, and he was praised on the official Iraqi Web site. Ritter claims the 90-minute film, which as far as we are know hasn't aired anywhere, is an attempt to be objective, but he said "The U.S. will definitely not like this film."

[gmez2001]

Ann Coulter can add another chapter or two to her book Treason.
One on Scott Ritter and Ward Churchill: these people are all over the place produced by MSM and our Universities by the hour.
_________________
Tin Can Gunline Vietnam
2nd generation Navy

[GM Strong]

Scott Ritter and Ward Churchill both love the notoriety and attention they receive. The rest of the world be damned in their Narcissistic view.
_________________
8th Army Korea 68-69