Tag: Scott Ritter

Dec 03 2010

Wikileaks: We’ve seen this before

  He’s a vocal opponent of current policy. He says the government is keeping secrets from you and lying to you.

 His conservative opponents are apoplectic with anger. They are calling for his head. He has been investigated for imaginary federal crimes.

  But most of all, his opponents are attacking his character. They are accusing him of being a sexual deviant.

 No, I’m not talking about Julian Assange in 2010. I’m talking about Scott Ritter in 2002.

 I’m only mildly interested in the documents that Wikileaks have published.

Like the Pentagon Papers that Daniel Ellsberg released in 1971, the documents that Wikileaks are giving the news media aren’t all that shocking to most of the thinking public.

  The real story here is the official reaction, whether it was Ellsberg in 1972, Ritter in 2002, or Assange in 2010.

  Forget the details of the documents for a moment and look at the government reactions.

Dec 18 2009

Iraq War Inquiry, Day 15, Breaks for ‘Merry Christmas’

We lead off with the ending of the first part of the Chicot {British} Iraq War Inquiry, as we will shortly celebrate the day of the birth of the ‘Prince of Peace’ around the World, or at least that’s the now myth I was taught all these years. Myth because apparently with the birth of Jesus as well as in other religious beliefs Religious Ideology is invoked and we ask to be protected and blessed by God as we all Blow Each Other Up when ever possible and when reasons can be fixed to engage our War Machines. For modern christians?, just like those of old, the religious ideology has been turned on it’s head, Jesus son of God can’t be a ‘Prince of Peace’ not to believers of who cheer on destructive Wars and Occupations of others, for any reason, as they raise the rhetoric of Intolerance, sounds exactly like the other major religious ideologies doesn’t it, coming from the ones who are on the extremist fringes of them preaching their cherry picked religious quotes to justify their hate and intolerances, non religious, towards others they fear, so much for Peace!

Oct 06 2009

Ritter Debunks Propaganda for War with Iran

In the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion any good journalist on the day Powell told the world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction would have been able to debunk Powell’s claims the same day.

Former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter spoke in Tokyo the same day Powell made his presentation at the UN and told the Foreign Press Association of Japan that everything Powell had said that day in the UN was a lie, and it later turned out that Ritter was right. Ritter’s speech that day was covered by Associated Press (AP) on video and wire services.

Every news organization in the world got Ritter’s speech via AP, and virtually none of them published it. Rather the world press simply let Powell get away with his lies that helped lead to an illegal invasion that by some counts resulted in over a million Iraqi deaths, along with the more than 4000 US Troop deaths and tens of thousands of US Troop maimings.

Ritter is now making similar warnings about the drumbeats for war with Iran and debunking the false claims that Iran is well on the way to producing a nuclear bomb, which by the way if Iran did produce and use against Israel would likely immediately result in Iran’s total destruction by Israel with their stockpile of by some counts 200 or more nuclear weapons.

We are being asked by a US Administration, Military Industrial Complex, and world press propaganda campaign, to believe that Iran is suicidal as a justification for attacking them.



Real News Network – October 6, 2009

Ritter on Iran

Scott Ritter challenges idea that Iran is close to producing a nuclear weapon

Feb 10 2009

The Business of War

GRITtv with Laura Flanders

Feb 12 2008

Can we talk about Iraq?

With all the hoopla going on in the MSM regarding the primaries and caucuses it seems like Iraq has fallen off the screen. Of course, conventional wisdom says that the “surge” has succeeded and we’re well on our way to “victory.” Clammyc has a fine diary up over at the Big Orange about Iraq.

Scott Ritter, a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, also has a fine article over on Alternet.org. His views on the situation in Iraq, currently, in the near future, and in the long run, are alarming to say the least. His assessment looks rather bleak indeed.

Hop in a barrel and follow me over the fa-a-a-a-a-alls.

Sep 10 2007

Ritter: What Katie Couric Should Be Asking About Iraq

At Truthdig former UN chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter writes:

There is no reason to believe that the compliant war facilitators who comprise the “anti-war” Democratic majority in Congress will do anything other than give the president what he is asking for.  No one seems to want to debate, in any meaningful fashion, what is really going on in Iraq.

Why would they?  The Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, have invested too much political capital into fictionalizing the problem with slogans like “support the troops,” “we’re fighting the enemy there so we don’t have to fight them here,” and my all-time favorite, “leaving Iraq would hand victory to al-Qaida.”