Plus, all the fried Iraqis you can eat!

Are there ANY Iraqi parents invited to speak also?

I CAN NOT BELIEVE True Majority is inviting Sec Albright to "frame the key national security issues"!!. I STILL HAVE NOT GOTTEN OVER HER STATEMENT about 'half a million Iraqi babies' lives was price worth paying'. It was shocking then and is shocking even now when I think about it. It was still 'Worse', when I learnt, she was on Sen Obama's National Security adviors team.
I KNOW, what she thinks as 'key national security issues' are not how I would look at them. Her isues would probably start another illegal war!
Will there EVER BE A MOMENT OF PEACE for the people of that devastated country ( Iraq ) or another country that may become a victim of USA's displeasure?
WHERE IS YOUR CONSCIENCE AMERICA?

America's conscience was buried at Wounded Knee.

Mike Meyer: Before the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, an Iraqi father was interviewed on NPR, if I recollect correctly, it was "This American Life" by Ira Glass ( I have tried to search on 'google' for the story but without success ---if any one had heard that story and has a link to it, please post. Thanks.) and he was describing how terrified his children were when American and British planes were flying over their house and the house and the earth was shaking under them. It was a chilling account.That father will have thousand questions to ask of THE EXPERTS in their "post-game analysis" ( what is that supposed to mean?).

donescobar: and other expert commenters
Is there anyway 'buried conscience can be made to come alive'?

Maybe defeat/disaster with massive suffering. Worked after the Third Reich. But only maybe.
And, I'm not an "expert." Amateur, in the old-fashioned sense of that word. I admire knowledge, but rarely expertise.

YEE-Ouch! Sizzlin'! (Not the babies. I mean, yeah, the babies. But I was referring to the humor.)

This is REAL HELL ON EARTH.
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18859
Wonder how Sec Albright would frame this as a national security issue!!

I've always said that Madeleine Albright looks like a witch who swallowed a troll.

I guess that's a bit ungenerous, though. To trolls.

Rupa: Will there EVER BE A MOMENT OF PEACE for the people of that devastated country ... ?

I think the answer is yes, and it's because of their extraordinary will to resistance. When the US attacked Iraq in 2003 I said to friends that the Iraqis may (entirely against their will) play a Christ-like role—paying a supreme and awful price that might nonetheless be of great benefit to others in the future, since it was crystal clear that destabilizing Iraq would lead to a military/foreign policy disaster for the United States which would make it much more difficult to sell foreign adventurism in the future (just as Vietnam put a nearly two-decade stop to overt American use of military force). It's still not clear if that's where we'll end up, but the Iraqi resistance has exacted a huge toll from the US military and the Iraqis themselves have countered US designs at every turn (and at every level). So I think, or hope, that they will in fact be free of us some day—and hopefully not too far in the future, either.

Is there anyway 'buried conscience can be made to come alive'?

One way at least: suffering, and the empathy it can create. 9/11 was a horrible event, but it was also the first day that many (or at least some) Americans finally understood just what it is we inflict on other people around the world day after day, year after year. I met some of those people...but I also met other people who turned what they felt into anger, who joined the military or the CIA. It all depends on the person.

And by the way, we're all just interested amateurs here. Personally I like your contributions and your optimism (even when I don't share it). :-)

donescobar:Thanks for your response.
John Caruso: Many Thanks.
And I am an optimist and always hopeful that things will change for the better for the whole humanity in general and then this invitation from "True Majority" comes along and I wonder,what is going on here!

A night with Madam Albright, gives one pause to think of Jacob Marley and the chains WE forge in this life. (she couldn't have done it without MY dollar)

Nearby, the corpse of an airport worker rolled around in the current of a pool created when a U.S. bomb struck a water mains.
"That's 'bubbling Bob'," said one soldier. "Been there a while. I ain't gonna fish him out. Let the Iraqis do it."
   -- "Is This Freedom, Ask Iraqis as Chaos Reigns," David Fox

Why do I love this quote? It is less callous than Albright's murder-inspired statements on Iraq. I use it as a baseline, like tare on a scale.

John Caruso: I've always said that Madeleine Albright looks like a witch who swallowed a troll.

I remember reading a quote from Madeline Albright, back when she was in power, to the effect that women in public life have the advantage of using makeup to make themselves look fresh, whereas men in public life just look tired and old. I always thought that was ironic. No amount of makeup can hide what is in that woman's soul.

9/11 was a horrible event, but it was also the first day that many (or at least some) Americans finally understood what it is we inflict on other people around the world day after day, year after year.

I'm still haunted by the opportunity we had that day to climb down from our exceptionalist perch, and realize that "What we have here is a failure to communicate." We needed to learn to live in the world in an entirely different way, in a spirit of repentance and shared humanity. Even those we had turned into enemies were shocked and prepared to forgive us in that moment. But the opportunity was lost, squandered in new wars.

Here, I've found the quote.

I'm often asked what it's like to be the first female secretary of state. Now that I've had the job for about five months, I have decided that being a woman has several important advantages. One is makeup. If a sixty-year-old male secretary of state has had a bad day, he has two choices—to look like a tired old man, or look like a tired old man with makeup. But wth a little help, I can at least convince myself that I look as fresh as I feel right now.

the woman has some big cahones to be able to give talks in public after admitting to massive war crimes and murder.. wonder how many sleeping pills and uppers shehas to take to get thru the days and nights

"9/11 was a horrible event, but it was also the first day that many (or at least some) Americans finally understood what it is we inflict on other people around the world day after day, year after year.

I'm still haunted by the opportunity we had that day to climb down from our exceptionalist perch, and realize that "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

I had a moment of delusional insanity when I thought 9/11 would lead Americans to empathize with what we've done to others. Instead, to my shock, Christopher Hitchens went on a rampage against anyone who made this point, and even many on the supposed left seemed to agree with him. I thought maybe he'd gone temporarily insane, but no, it was permanent. Some idealistic lefty then wrote a guest article at Salon pointing out American atrocities and not long after, Salon published a piece (I forget the author) by some established journalist which ripped that guy (or woman--I forget which) apart for the sin of moral equivalence.

So much for my optimistic delusions.

Oh, the price is so worth it, to hear one of the great all-time female war criminals in person. Wow, I'd pay a lot to attend.

I want that phrase "We think the price is worth it" on her goddamned headstone.

No One, do you have a link for the Fox article, or is it a book? Thanks

Donald: So much for my optimistic delusions.

I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Different people had different reactions. I was doing talks around the Bay Area after my time in the West Bank and Gaza back in 2002, and I met several people who knew very little about the Middle East but were at the events because 9/11 shocked them out of their stupor. They didn't buy the ridiculous "they hate us because of our freedoms" cant, and they wanted to learn what was really going on in the world and why this country would be at the top of the target list. So the Hitchensians of the world aside, for at least a few people it was the impetus for a lasting change in a better direction. Maybe not as many as we'd like, but also maybe more than we realize.

Also, I had a talk with a friend who joined the CIA just before she headed off to start the new job, and I filled her ear with as much left foreign policy analysis as I could. It really gave her pause—so much so that she was genuinely chagrined, and said that maybe she hadn't thought it through well enough. So a little information can go a long way toward making a dent in someone's world view, especially if they've already had that view jolted from its foundations for some other reason.

cahterine,

It's an article online. I found it, first hit, on a google search. Heres a copy:

http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=279942&Date=5/4/2003

when 9/11 happened, I thought that Americans would go for war, war, war, war, and even more war. I was correct, but I really thought it would be worse by today than it is.

.
But, this ain't over.