Why Saddam Hussein didn't deserve your vote

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Nope Mab..that was not what I was saying and you know it.

If you truly believe, for surely you do not know, that the foreign policy of the United States of America, is guided by 'corporate' America and the intent is to 'milk' the resources of third world countries to benefit the 'wealthy' in this country then you surely are in a world of your own.

It is the 'free trade' and the interchange between nations that has lifted many parts of the world, from, 'tribal' to third world.

The 'Outsourcing' of American jobs, is a bounty for third world nations and American labor, a win, win scenario for both. Everyone but 'diehard' isolationists recognize that.

A 'Global' economy is upon us...and many...as the 'flat earthers', before can not envisage a 'new' world where the free market operates to give the benefits of an open economy to all.

Dr. Mab...you are an intelligent man...look down the road, a thousand years and do you not see a 'united earth' wherein all men are free to live as they choose, with their rights protected by a representative government?

And do you not see the time when the petty, medieval conflicts between witch doctors, christian or muslim, finally recedes and the mind of man overcomes faith?

If not..then surely..we have no common ground.

It is the nature of man, his strivings for excellence, his desires to protect his loved ones, his drive to explore and expand, that will take us to the stars.

If you do not have this vision, then what?

amicus

A few minor points. I do not believe our foreign policy demands corporations to loot and plunder to create a permanent oligarchy. Frankly a government isn't smart enough to commit evil of that type, rather a large amount of company's whose board of directors' have a stellar lack of scruples have learned how to exploit politics and the weakness of man to line their pockets at everyone else's expense. They form factories in other countries not to make them a better place, but to take advantage of labor laws that are gloriously lax and to hide their ill gotten gains in tax shelters.

Small question: How does outsourcing help labor? This is not an attack, merely an honest question. I'm having trouble seeing how massive loss of jobs and bargaining power aids the labor class, but maybe I'm missing something. Please enlighten me.

Last bit, I'm afraid we might be in trouble to find common ground. While it would be glorious if we all became kind and wealthy through the free-market, but like communism it expects a lot out of humanity. It expects that mankind is willing to put aside its greed and desire to feel powerful in a spirit of brotherhood. Man is too corrupt to do this and thus we'll always have a dynamic of rich on top and poor on the bottom. Everyone living as they choose truly and honestly requires a utopic anarachy to pull off and that'll never occur.

Faith is also dangerous to remove. Mankind is a dumb creature with fears of the unknown and the more we expand as a culture into solving the mysteries of the galaxy, the stranger, more powerful, and more violent the religions grow. It is a balance between technophilia and technopohobia that will never be overcome.

That you are able to think of man as such a romantic ideal, I commend. It is a very difficult thing to pull off. Me, I've known too many men (...biblically, sorry I had to throw in the pun). We will never have a true democracy, a true anarchy, a true utopia, a true harmony of the classes, or a warless world. Mankind is far too stupid as a species to let this happen.

Anyway, good luck to you in making your dream of a world where mankind isn't man come true. If you succeed I'll bring the communism and anarchy and we can relax to the sound of harmonious freedom.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Nope Mab..that was not what I was saying and you know it.

If you truly believe, for surely you do not know, that the foreign policy of the United States of America, is guided by 'corporate' America and the intent is to 'milk' the resources of third world countries to benefit the 'wealthy' in this country then you surely are in a world of your own.

It is the 'free trade' and the interchange between nations that has lifted many parts of the world, from, 'tribal' to third world.

The 'Outsourcing' of American jobs, is a bounty for third world nations and American labor, a win, win scenario for both. Everyone but 'diehard' isolationists recognize that.

Well, my job was outsourced and it hasn't helped me none, so i don't see how it's "win, win".

But that's beside the point. I really don't want to debate the merits of capitalism vs. anything else. Capitalism is great if you're a capitalist. For the rest of us the best system is probably somewhere in the middle, as most good things usually are.

Anyhow, that's not what I was saying. I was responding to your post where you criticized Shereads for posting a bunch of facts by saying that, basically, we don't know what's really going on in government and so we shouldn't criticize what we don't understand, an argument that, to me, is just the mirror image of clinical paranoia, and just as delusional.

I also have to add that I'm surprised that anyone else is surprised at what was in the article Shereads posted. There's nothing in there except Realpolitik, and there's nothing remarkable about that. It's only noteworthy when you place it in the context of the 'goodguy/badguy' policy which the US seems to have adopted lately and the attempt to claim the moral high ground. We've supported guys who were more good than bad, and guys that were more bad than good, as it's served our own interest, whether that interest is dictated by Big Business or the by the usual misguided philanthropy. That anyone can find the actions of any nation or politician (including the USA) entirely good or entirely bad shows, to me, a level of naivite that borders on the pathological.

---dr.M.

 

[postobitum]

to Lucifer - Al Qaeda and Saddam were happy fuck buddies. I pasted in a section of an articles from The Weekly Standard.com about a memo "dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies."
You can go to the site and read the article in it's entirety.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp[/URL]

And I don't think that GW has been doing any penile compensating, I think he has been making a valiant effort to finally do something about making this country stronger and safer than it has been for a long time.

 

[shereads]

ok, I have one point I would like to make concerning this thread. Before I do, I want to say I am cringing a little here, trying to stay out of the path of flying mud...I sorta see the point of the original post, but I think one thing everyone should keep in mind when comparing Bush admin 2 with Bush admin 1 or even Regan/Bush is this : GWB is NOT his father, or Reagan. GWB has balls. That doesn't neccesarily make him 100% right, but show me a single pres who has been, or anyone for that matter. I am glad he has taken the stance against terror that he has, and I am glad we have gone to war with Iraq. Now that I have left myself open to what will probably be a very messy slaughter, I bid all thee well.

No mud sent your way, posto, just an equation:

If Saddam/Iraq = support of Osama bin Laden/terrorist attacks on USA, then GWB had a valid reason to invade Iraq.

If Saddam/Iraq does not = support of Osama bin Laden/terrorist attacks on USA but Saddam/Iraq = Clear and Present Danger to USA (WMD up and running, as advertised) then GWB had a valid reason to invade Iraq.

If Saddam/Iraq does not = support of Osama bin Laden/terrorist attacks on USA and Saddam/Iraq does not = Clear and Present Danger to USA (WMD up and running, as advertised) then it must follow that GWB either:

a) believed flawed evidence of a Saddam/Osama link and/or WMD up and running, in which case he disregarded the advice of Colin Powell, Richard Clark, the CIA and Ambassador Joseph Wilson

or

b) did not believe the evidence.

If "a" is true, then the president was either duped deliberately by Mr. Chalabi or was duped along with Mr. Chalabi, in which case Mr. Chalabi continues to be paid for "intelligence" despite being either

(1) a liar

or

(2) incompetent

If (b) is true, and the president didn't believe the flawed evidence of a link between Iraq and 9/ll or of a Clear and President Danger as defined under the War Powers Act, then GWB invaded Iraq for one of two reasons:

Reason D: to liberate and bring democracy to the people of Iraq

or

Reason X: for reasons he has chosen not to share with us

If Reason D is true, then the president has done both of these mysterious things:

~ has chosen to single out, for liberation and democracy, the people of Iraq from among all other people living under brutal dictatorships, for reasons that remain unexplained

and

~ has chosen to ignore his campaign promise to bring an end to "nation building" as practiced by the previous administration in Bosnia

If Reason X is true, and the president invaded Iraq for reasons he has chosen not to share with us, wtf?

Whether the reason is D or X, the president did all 3 of these things:

>> lied to Congress, the United Nations and the American people, evidently believing that Reason D would not have been accepted as sufficient reason to grant special executive privileges and suspend certain of our civil liberties as allowed under the War Powers Act (clear & present danger etc.)

and

>> diverted resources from the search for Osama Bin Laden

and

>> diverted resources from the rebuilding of Afghanistan

Regardless of which of the above are true, someone in the Bush administration did both of these things (both documented, neither explained):

<< allowed 100+ members of the Saudi royal family and the Bin Laden family to be smuggled out of the U.S. during the no-fly order that was in affect after 9/ll and turned down requests by the FBI to interview any of them, including a Bin Laden nephew who was the subject of an active FBI investigation for suspected terrorist ties

<< committed treason by exposing the identity of a CIA undercover agent, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been asked by the White House to collaborate the evidence of WMD, but had instead returned a report that did the opposite, and then refused to tell the Congress that the evidence was valid.

Now, if you and Amicus are fine with having a dupe and/or a liar as Commander in Chief, then you're right about one thing: it does take balls. Nothing else, not a sense of justice or perspective or a willingness to listen to the people who are paid to give him their expert advice, but just balls, to be qualified to command the most powerful and well financed military in the history of the world.

I know Amicus doesn't believe in the logic trail, because Amicus has access to TopTopTop MegaSecret Non-Declassified Historiological T-1s which prove that reality is an illusion. Without a doubt, Amicus has faith that when 30-year old documents are not allowed to be declassified, it's because they would redeem the reputations of the people who make such decisions. It seems as if it would be the opposite, but that's because I don't perceive absolute truths.

Posto, I have to ask: did it take balls for GWB to refuse to testify before the 9/ll commission unless his vice president could go with him? Did it take balls for him to refuse to take an oath before giving his testimony? I know it took balls for Bush and Cheney to insist that not even written transcripts of their testimony could be taken, so that no future evidence can ever be said to contradict their testimony. It was clever, too. But don't you wonder why it mattered to them?

It just doesn't add up. Does it?



Welcome to our hell.

 

[shereads]

Reason D: to liberate and bring democracy to the people of Iraq

Oops. I forgot to finish that part of the equation.

If Reason D is why we invaded Iraq, then in addition to lying to Congress, our allies and the rest of us about having proof of the existence of WMD/knowledge of a link between Saddam and Osama, the president also:

has conducted the single must f**cked and misinformed mission in the history of foreign policy.

Which part of this makes our boy presidential material?

 

[shereads]

to Lucifer - Al Qaeda and Saddam were happy fuck buddies. I pasted in a section of an articles from The Weekly Standard.com about a memo "dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies."
You can go to the site and read the article in it's entirety.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp[/URL]

This doesn't indicate that Saddam and Osama were nearly as close as Saddam and Rumsfeld. "Custodial Interviews?" That doesn't sound terribly credible. We have a picture of Rummy and Saddam giving each other high fives, and the documentation that he himself provided of their discussions and agreements regarding illegal arms sales, but we only have some non-confirmable evidence of a friendship between an Islamic extremist and the head of a secular government, that's based on what people yelled out while their toenails were being pulled out.

And I don't think that GW has been doing any penile compensating, I think he has been making a valiant effort to finally do something about making this country stronger and safer than it has been for a long time.

He's done exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted him to do, and correctly predicted that he would do. He's invaded the middle east and confirmed for them all the crap that bin Laden has been telling people for years: that we were coming over soon, in a big way, to screw around with the lives of people in the middle east and to attempt to westernize them.

How it makes us safer to have destabilized the middle east to such an extent that he has no idea how to re-stabilize it, I can't guess. I feel scared to pick up a newspaper these days. it makes my fists clench. Safer? More secure? Really? Because we have Tom Ridge to post different alert colors and later tell us they were based on misinformation?

GWB took the bait. As Dr. Mabeuse posted in this forum well over a year ago, 9/ll wasn't an 'attack' on the U.S. so much as it was a provocation - one of such enormity that only a person of intelligence and character might have resisted it. Osama has us right where he wants us. And GW has only his alleged balls to find a way out of the mess without leaving innocent people with more broken promises and in greater danger than they were before we liberated them.

A high school civics class could have planned this better.

 

[shereads]

Shereads....one must admire your persistence and your uncanny ability to 'not see' or hear what is being said.

Am, I'm flattered that you think I have an uncanny ability, but as much as I'd like to agree, I'm not the only one here who didn't have a clue what you were trying to tell us. My decoder ring was on the blink.

Thank you for clarifying. I think I know now that you were arriving at a point the long way 'round, or as my dad used to say, "going around your ass to get to your elbow."

This most recent post is clear and concise. Thank you.

Since you only draw conclusions based on a full and unobscured picture of history, how do you decide who to vote for?

Oops. I forgot. You don't vote.



That's good, you keep that up. I do vote, and I have only a partial historical record from which to draw my conclusions about the people seeking office. From the available record, I have no choice but to conclude that the Republican presidents of my adult lifetime have played fast and loose with militarizing quasi-friends who soon became our enemies, and that they did as they pleased without regard for the laws that govern the balance of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

The bombing of Cambodia, the withholding of evidence of Pakistan's nuclear development program, the trading of illegal arms sales for hostages to fund the contras, and the presentation of proof that Iraq represented a clear and present danger to the U.S., so that Congress would grant this president the all but king-like executive privileges authorized by the War Powers Act; these are all examples of arrogant and failed efforts to manipulate world events to their liking, by Republican presidents. Every one of these incidents has come back to haunt us or others with tragic repercussions.

That this president, of them all, is the only one to propose that his War Powers ought to apply to an open-ended War on Terror that can never be said to have ended as long as there is a single fringe-group extremist with a shoe bomb; is such a blatant attempt to eliminate the balance of power mandated by the Constitution, that it can only be the work of someone smarter than the world's most famous frat boy/drunk driver/non-newspaper-reading/non-combatant war hawk.

Of course, I base all of this on an incomplete historic record, as you point out, and some of the T-1s are still in a vault buried deep beneath J. Edgar Hoover's lingerie drawer.

But history is all I have to go on. And unlike you, I don't see any convincing evidence that unrestricted capitalism is anything other than simple greed. I'm for a common-sense approach, by which I mean that if I own property upstream from you, I don't get to dump toxins into the water and poison you just because it makes me wealthier. That's one of those truths that are self-evident.

If this fully justified war continues to liberate more Iraqis and more U.S. soldiers for the duration of the second Bush II administration, and beyond, I'll be sure to explain to my young nephew that his life is on the line because Marxism failed. On his behalf, and that of however many free Iraqis are left alive when the dust settles, I thank you for fighting the good fight.

 

[Xelebes]

hmmm...mutters amicus...Lewis J. Carrol...nope not that one, Lucifer....never meant to imply faith to your posts, I know full well, that most leftists/liberals are agnostics...which fits, they do not, in general accept any 'absolutes' and do not have the courage to claim 'atheism' thus the fence sitter position is both preferable and pleasureable for anal retentives...grins...take that with a smile....

I visited Amsterdam...and Heidleberg and Paris and London, on a motorcycle, 30 some years ago...I do admit, although I do not fully understand how these, 'communal' societies continue to exist. I can only refer to the 'brain drain' of european countries some years back, when all the 'creators' of wealth, (the intellects) were abandoning the rat infested ship of social democracy in most western european nations.

They wised up, and confiscated the life savings of any who would leave and made it impossible for them to escape.

Any intellectual, (simply one who thinks) that would advocate government ownership of the resources of a country, and the forced redistribution of wealth, is not worth the Sagan he nursed upon...

So, please, again, I ask...all you budding socialists...tell me the country and the system you admire most and tell me how hard you are trying to achieve citizenship in your chosen liberal haven? Please...defend...your positions..or...can you only attack?

amicus

I'm not Socialist, nor Communist. I'm not a left-wing nut. I am an Anarchist, true to the meaning and not the one that supports chaos and disorder. I'm just giving the anti-thesis to supply-side economics, that is demand-side economics where Sweden and Norway lie. Thoguh, you deem that Socialism anyways, I thought I would make it easier for you and simply include demand-side economic nations with socialist nations.

 

[shereads]

I think you are not aware of the potential damage you might do in terms of claiming to be 'fighting for the america you love' rather than just admitting that you have a political agenda that supports the far liberal left.

Did I forget to admit that? I have a political agenda!

Democracy is wasted on adults who don't have a political agenda. Isn't it?

And you were absolutely right about my agenda supporting the liberal left. I'm not sure how far left I'm leaning, these things being relative. Let's see...I think Greenpeace is kind of cool, but Sierra Club is less embarrassing. I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU, which I joined on 9/12/02 for obvious reasons. (You could almost hear Ashcroft scheming to eliminate some of our pesky Satan-inspired civil liberties. Remember? Plus, you really do get to carry a card.) I'm pro-choice, as accused, and in Ashcroft's case I think abortion should be retroactive.

But you're wrong about my being pro-environment. I hate the environment. All those birds, pooping all over my car whenever I park it under a tree. And trees! One of the major causes of Reagan-era air pollution. I just support the Sierra Club because the scenery is prettier in places where they're active.

And where did you get the idea that I'm anti-war? I like war! I'm down with war. The bigger, the better. I just don't like this war because it makes us look, as a nation, like 200 million mediocre minds with too much money and power for the rest of the world's peace of mind. It's worse than fatal; it's embarrassing.

In a battle of wits between Al Franken and Bill O'Reilly, I back the one whose face doesn't get all pouty as he shrieks, "You shut up!"

So that's me, politically. Does that make me a far-left liberal, or just a liberal? And are liberals really unAmerican? That, I didn't know. Thank you for the heads-up.

Now that you and I are finally sharing, and before we hug, here's where I think we pan out:

My political agenda:

<------


Amicus political agenda:

-------------------------------------> <mushroom cloud>

You have every right to do that but not with impunity.

Damn. Now you tell me.

 

[postobitum]

well sher, I understand, sort of, what you are saying about Iraq and Osama, what makes your equation unclear to me is why, when there is sufficient evidence of a partnership between Osama and Saddam, you choose to take the route that GWB is doing all of this based on unlcear motives, misinformation, etc. It seems pretty clear to me that GW recognized the threat and responded the best way he knew how.
As to being right where Osama wants us, what should we have done then? Obviously you feel that fighting back is not appropriate, maybe we should open negotiations with people who dont give a rats ass about peace. For lack of better words we have been engaged in what amounts to a Holy War with these guys. They are not just going to go away or get bored and put the guns down, and if we had continued to just act outraged over attacks on America and our allies but not actually take any action then I firmly believe that we would not be looking at 9/11 as the worst terrorist attack on the U.S.
I don't know about you but I do not like the idea of facing war inside the borders of this country, and that is what will happen if we don't stop terrorism. That's why my husband and my brother, my friends have joined the Marines and other branches of the armed forces. I haven't seen my husband in almost a year, I have been raising our 16 month old daughter by myself, and I daily live with the possiblity that I could lose my husband, my brother, my friends in a conflict that GWB helped initiate. With all that said, I still firmly support my President. He may not be perfect but he is doing the right thing.

 

[Guest]

My political agenda:

<------

Sher, I just want you to know I still lurk here so that you can make me larf. You crack me up at least once a day.

oodles of huggykissys,

Perdita

p.s. I am neither Left nor Right, just a South (of the border)

 

[shereads]

well sher, I understand, sort of, what you are saying about Iraq and Osama, what makes your equation unclear to me is why, when there is sufficient evidence of a partnership between Osama and Saddam, you choose to take the route that GWB is doing all of this based on unlcear motives, misinformation, etc. It seems pretty clear to me that GW recognized the threat and responded the best way he knew how.

I haven't seen credible evidence of a partnership, posto. Even the Bushsters have been reluctant to call it that, and if the evidence you posted had been unimpeachable, don't you think they'd have presented it when they were struggling to overcome the WMD embarrassment? I read Richard Clark's book, among others among the half-dozen that have been written by people from this administration - a remarkable number of people to all have pretty much the same take on this White House; they can't all be lying, can they? Certainly nobody in the administration has disputed any of their facts. They only seek to destroy their reputations, which hasn't been easy because Clark and O'Neill and Ambassador Wilson all worked for Bush I and got along just fine with him.

Anyway, Clark maintains that immediately after 9/ll, he and Tenet of the CIA were in discussions with the White House about how to respond. At first, the discussions were going in the direction he expected: Osama bin Laden, Al Queda and Afghanistan. But within just two or three days of 9/11, he and Tenet were both surprised to hear the topic change from Osama and Afghanistan to Saddam and Iraq.

Rumsfeld was the first to mention an Iraq invasion in Clark and Tenet's presence. One of them said, "Al Queda isn't in Iraq, it's in Afghanistan."

To which Rumsfeld replied, "There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. There are lots of good targets in Iraq."

Clark thought he was joking.

Posto, think about this: If there had been credible evidence - sufficiently credible to go to Congress and the U.N. with - that Saddam Hussein had ties with Osama bin Laden that amounted to what's being called here, a "partnership," wouldn't the Bush White House have made that the thrust of their argument for an invasion of Iraq? The world was on our side when we went into Afghanistan, because even moderates in the middle east knew we had a right to go after Al Queda.

Taking evidence that Saddam was involved and presenting it to Congress and the U.N. with the urgency and conviction that they had when presenting what Powell already believed was weak evidence of WMD - wouldn't that have been compelling enough to get the country and our allies behind us? Nobody wanted their own city to be next. We had the sympathy of France, Germany, every member of NATO, and even some countries who had never been on our side in anything - right up until Bush changed the subject from Al Queda to Iraq's weapons programs.

Nobody believed that he had immediate capability to attack us or our allies, as Bush said he did. Remember that speech? That a missile carrying chemical or biological weapons could be on its way in under 45 minutes?

Just a week or two ago I heard some conservative apologist on one of the talk shows claiming that the president "never implied that there was an immediate threat, or even stated that weapons existed." She said that he only told us "there were weapons programs, and they could be revived."

Rather than lie about things that are easily proven by playing a videotape of any of the dozens of speeches about WMD, why not just show some of this declassified evidence about the Saddam/Osama partnership? The White House must believe it's bogus, or that its significance is too small to have justified the war, or they would have shown it in defense of the war when no WMD were found, if not back when they went to Congress for approval of the invasion budget.

As to being right where Osama wants us, what should we have done then? Obviously you feel that fighting back is not appropriate, maybe we should open negotiations with people who dont give a rats ass about peace.

If someone is murdered, the criminal justice system doesn't fight or negotiate; it works to find the killers. Period.

If Bush hadn't had balls, as you say, but brains and restraint, and if there hadn't been an Iraq invasion already on the agenda, we might have found bin Laden and broken up Al Queda quietly, and stealthily, and without giving the terrorists the glory Bush gave them when he declared war on them. They aren't just extremists and criminals anymore, they are Warriors who've been challenged to take on the United States.

That's the worst thing to come from all of this, in my view. Instead of weakening terrorism, we've given it the credibility of a nation with leaders and an army. Imagine how differently young people in the middle east must look at Al Queda now, than they did a year ago. Yes, there were thousands who celebrated when the World Trade Center went down. But there were many thousands more in moderate states like Jordan, and in third world countrie outside the middle east, who would never have considered these people as heroes if Bush hadn't openly challenged them. He's made the world infinitely more dangerous by behaving with such arrogance.

What if we had put a fraction of the $200 billion the war has cost us already, behind a stealthy, international effort to find bin Laden and his associates?

We wouldn't have had the brief revenge-rush that a lot of people evidently felt when we attacked Iraq. We would have felt frustrated because we wouldn't have heard a lot of detailed information about what was being done in response to 9/ll, beyond strengthening the security of our borders. But we would have had a far better chance than we do now of announcing a real victory someday soon: that bin Laden was in U.S. custody, and without our having helped his cause by killing civilians in the middle east.

With just a fraction of the billions that have been spent on the Iraq war already, how much stronger could we have made security at our airports, seaports, and even the roads that cross our borders?

The president did the politically popular thing, and fulfilled Cheney's wish list for an Iraq invasion with billions in no-bid rebuilding contracts; but he did the opposite of defeating terrorism. Every time there's a death in Iraq - on our side or theirs - it's a recruitment campaign for terrorists who hate the U.S.

I haven't seen my husband in almost a year, I have been raising our 16 month old daughter by myself, and I daily live with the possiblity that I could lose my husband, my brother, my friends in a conflict that GWB helped initiate. With all that said, I still firmly support my President. He may not be perfect but he is doing the right thing.

You're brave. I wish you and your family all the best, and that your husband and brother will come home safely. I admire them, I really do. And I don't believe for a moment that people who protest a war are less supportive or appreciative of the courage and integrity of the people who volunteer to fight it. They're trying to make the best of a situation they didn't create, and we owe them enormously for that.

My nephew can hardly wait to join the military when he turns 18 in under 3 years, and he all but worships this president. He's a sweet, naive and trusting kid who has a picture of his grandfather in his Air Force uniform hanging on his wall, and who still believes that people in authority can be relied on to tell the truth, and to value the lives of soldiers as they value their own. His future is at stake, as are so many others who are barely teenagers right now.

I don't think we're doing the right thing, and I don't trust this president. I wish I did, for my nephew's sake. But there have been too many lies and contradictions about why we're there, and too many things about the cultural and political climate that should have been anticipated and were ignored. The best hope for our soldiers is an international coalition to take over in Iraq, and I think GWB has zero credibility to put one together. With a reduced U.S. presence, and enough other nationalities to fill the void, maybe tensions would be reduced and we could gradually let the Iraqis take over, but we owe them some measure of security at their borders and a semblance of calm before we walk away.

Anyway, sorry about the rant. I've been reading too many books and articles about this crowd and I'm mad as hell and scared, too.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

to Lucifer - Al Qaeda and Saddam were happy fuck buddies. I pasted in a section of an articles from The Weekly Standard.com about a memo "dated October 27, 2003, was sent from ...

You can go to the site and read the article in it's entirety.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp[/URL]

And I don't think that GW has been doing any penile compensating, I think he has been making a valiant effort to finally do something about making this country stronger and safer than it has been for a long time.

First of all: no mud slinging from me.

I read the article. I would have been happier had it been someplace other than "The Weekly Standard", but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and accept all the findings as fact. The question then is, is this evidence sufficient grounds for war? You'll have to answer that for yourself, but to me it seems awfully shaky. And if this is the best information they've got, then I think you have to say no, this is not sufficient evidence. The fact that Osama met with Iraqi intelligence and (allegedly) requested information on bomb manufacture or inquired after WMD does not justify the full use of the American military to risk life and limb and global good will to go in and remove the boss of the boss of the guy Osama suipposedly talked to.

As Shereads mentioned, I've taken a different view of the 9/11 attacks than most people. I don't think they were trying to hurt us as much as they were trying to provoke an outraged reaction, and in that they were extremely successful. That's how terrorism works. You're not trying to hurt your enemy as much as you're trying to make him react in such a heavy-handed and indiscriminate manner that he makes enemies of people who were formerly neutral. In other words, you're trying to goad him into exactly the kind of response we gave.

We had a lot of Arab sympathy after 9/11. (They're not all bad, you know.) Now, after the invasion and Abu Ghraib, we've made enemies of the entire Arab world. We've made Bin Ladin into a hero and the bunch of psychopaths who comprised Al Qaeda into a respected and formidable foe.

Let's just watch and see if the number of terrorist attacks decreases or increases in the next few months, and then we can judge how successful Enduring Freedom was in making us safer.

As for having balls... I'm sorry, but I fail to see how signing a piece of paper mobilizing the U.S. Army takes any special courage. No one can stand up to us, and we know it. When you've got all these people screaming for revenge and an armed forces champing at the bit, it's probably pretty easy to cave in to the calls for blood. In any case, it's what Osama wanted us to do, and we obliged him.

What would have taken balls would have been to stand up to the pressure of people clamoring for us to do something--anything--and taken the time to figure out how best to fight this thing and do it right. That would have taken balls. Sending other people to die, that doesn't take any balls at all.

---dr.M.

 

[postobitum]

I concede that I am not as well informed or read as you guys, I try my best. Maybe my loyalty and pride in GWB is a little blind, but it is what it is. I'm scared too, sher, I never in a million years thought that where I am and where we are as a country would be like this. All I can say is that I have to go with what I know and what I believe to be right. Just about everyone on this thread has had something to say that has made me think, and I appreciate that. (Can't really say I agree with most of it, but hey ) dr. mab - what you said about goading osama will really have me thinking for a while.... I still don't think we were ever friendly enough with most of the Middle East to call our retalitaion 'making enemies' though. And yeah, Abu Ghraib was a pretty shitty situation that shouldn't have happened.
sher, if your nephew still wants to enter the service when he is 18 I suggest he look into the marine corps for no other reason than I believe they give the best training. If he is willing to put his life on the line like that he deserves to have the best training available. (ex. Marines boot camp is three months, I believe the army's is six weeks, I could be wrong on that though.)

 

[postobitum]

crap, forgot to put this in - I would think that making a decision to 'send other people to die' is probably one of the toughest desicions a person can make, and I do not envy any President who has had to make that call. So yeah, I think it does take courage and stregnth (i.e. balls) to do that.

 

[shereads]

Uh...

Amsterdam is not in Sweden. Nor is it in Norway.

That's what they want you to think. Don't be a fool.

 

[shereads]

So, please, again, I ask...all you budding socialists...tell me the country and the system you admire most and tell me how hard you are trying to achieve citizenship in your chosen liberal haven? Please...defend...your positions..or...can you only attack?

I like the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, IKEA, New Zealand, Australia, Britain and South Florida.

In the United States, I like Montana, California, Wyoming, Idaho, Maine, Vermont and coastal Georgia/Carolinas. (I'm talking scenery right now, not systems of government.)

But this is an admirable country, too, with some built-in advantages: I can use my hairdryer and other appliances without a plug adapter; I speak one of the local languages; I'm a citizen.

I think I'll stick around, right here where I was born.

My country needs more people like me. It's packed to the brim with right-wing flakes whose biggest global concern is that creepy ethnic groups might demand a share of the planet's limited resources before America fulfills its destiny: a stretch Hummer in every garage.

I could post dangerous facts on the internet from the field office in Moscow, but they don't have DSL. Here in the USA, my subversive fact-posting activities can have marximum impact.

But thank you for asking.

 

[shereads]

crap, forgot to put this in - I would think that making a decision to 'send other people to die' is probably one of the toughest desicions a person can make, and I do not envy any President who has had to make that call. So yeah, I think it does take courage and stregnth (i.e. balls) to do that.

Post, I used to think everyone had a conscience, too.

It requires a lot of nerve to lie to take a country to war, and the record leaves us with little room to negotiate a different conclusion than that we, the Congress and the UN were lied to.

If you would lie to send people to war, would their lives be your utmost concern? I don't doubt that GWB feels awful about it on the few occasions when he's actually confronted the fact of what he's done. His visit to a veteran's hospital while on vacation in Texas last month came two days after he was criticized on Meet the Press for disappearing from the public eye at one of the most difficult times in the war - the dismembering of those bodies by the crowd on the bridge. One of the people on the show said, "You can bet this his advisors are trying to get him to a VA hospital or something to show leadership." Kaboom. Two days later, there he was, shaking hands and handing out attaboys at a VA hospital.

He felt bad, I'm sure. But as he did at the press conference, he justifies himself by invoking the name of God and that makes it all okay.

Meanwhile, Cheney who has the apparent conscience of a shark, is probably sipping single-malt scotch in a walnut-paneled den at the Undisclosed Location, and sharing Bush jokes with some of his cronies from Halliburton.

Edited to add: If he felt compassion for soldiers and veterans, why hasn't he proposed adding some of their benefits back and paying for it with a teensy portion of his tax cut? He got an extra $60,000 a year out of it, and Cheney got over $450,000/year. Multiply them by one percent of the country's taxpayers and you might be able to add a few comforts to the VA hospitals. Don't hold your breath.

 

[shereads]

Posto, I'd ask you, before you credit the administration with having had the courage to send people to war...Read the first post in this thread with an eye to the consciences of the presidents involved. Did it take courage for Reagan/Bush to sell military equipment to Saddam Hussein when they knew he had used chemical weapons against Iran?

I don't think that's what it took. I think it required a degree of denial that's impossible for you and me to imagine. But they did it, and the evidence is there in official form. Not in the words of "interviewees" in the custody of military intelligence like that business with Saddam and bin Laden, but in documents from their own files.

 

[shereads]

Sher, I just want you to know I still lurk here so that you can make me larf. You crack me up at least once a day.

oodles of huggykissys,

Perdita

p.s. I am neither Left nor Right, just a South (of the border)

I won't rest until I've brought you over to the Dark Side. Now that Lucifer has arrived, we can begin the battle of armageddon in earnest, and while I know our side is predestined to lose, I think we should make a party of it.

Their side started it!

 

[shereads]

I concede that I am not as well informed or read as you guys, I try my best. Maybe my loyalty and pride in GWB is a little blind, but it is what it is. I'm scared too, sher, I never in a million years thought that where I am and where we are as a country would be like this. All I can say is that I have to go with what I know and what I believe to be right. Just about everyone on this thread has had something to say that has made me think, and I appreciate that. (Can't really say I agree with most of it, but hey ) dr. mab - what you said about goading osama will really have me thinking for a while.... I still don't think we were ever friendly enough with most of the Middle East to call our retalitaion 'making enemies' though. And yeah, Abu Ghraib was a pretty shitty situation that shouldn't have happened.
sher, if your nephew still wants to enter the service when he is 18 I suggest he look into the marine corps for no other reason than I believe they give the best training. If he is willing to put his life on the line like that he deserves to have the best training available. (ex. Marines boot camp is three months, I believe the army's is six weeks, I could be wrong on that though.)

Poor kid wants to be a pilot like his grandfather. He doesn't believe us when we tell him he has to study math and stuff to be a pilot....I may have to kidnap him and take him to Canada with a small troop of Greenpeace tree-huggers dressed as eagle scouts.

It's true we weren't friendly with most of the middle east, but there were people who supported our efforts in Afghanistan - back when we were going to rebuild it. We lost the middle ground as well as the high ground when we went into Iraq.

 

[cantdog]

Tell us this NOW or take the hot lead enema

16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies."
You can go to the site and read the article in it's entirety.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp[/URL]

And I don't think that GW has been doing any penile compensating, I think he has been making a valiant effort to finally do something about making this country stronger and safer than it has been for a long time.

I read it, dude. They interview what are described as "high-level al-Qaeda" in a way which they've told us goes beyond the limits of the Geneva convention. That means pain.

I'd tell them that shit, too. Everyone always does tell their torturers all kinds of stuff without a factual basis.

So forget that. The rest of the picture shows us that perhaps not every employee of the government in Baathist Iraq was a secularist. Some, evidently, maintained contact with Islamist groups. Saddam isn't in there.

There are some stories that on a personal level, Saddam detested the Wahhabis. The al-Qaeda are even more puritanical than the Wahhabis, they criticize the royal family for not acting in an extreme enough fundamentalist manner.

So for me, this doesn't cut it. Especially the torture evidence. They say the practice of shipping prisoners to Syria to be tortured has been "very productive." I imagine they said all sorts of stuff.

That Canadian guy "confessed" to things in Syria, too, but he was just lying to stop the torture.

Safer than what? 11,000 injured soldiers and marines didn't come out much safer. And that's just Iraq. He made a whole lot of other people's children less safe. HE's safe. He hid in his plane, flying around hiding while the hijack bombing went down. He stays in safe places saying "bring it on" while they do just that to other people's sons and daughters.

When it was his turn to do the volunteering, he hid that time too. And torture is a despicable and cowardly thing to do, besides not getting you any reliable information.

Pin a medal on him for sheer guts. Don't use one of the real ones, though, it would be an insult to the men who actually earned them.


Nice to see some references, though.

 

[Guest]

I won't rest until I've brought you over to the Dark Side. Now that Lucifer has arrived, we can begin the battle of armageddon in earnest, and while I know our side is predestined to lose, I think we should make a party of it.

The Dark Side Party? I'm in. Btw, my favourite lipstick is called Lucifer. It's by Chanel and is only available in Europe (or through eBay).

Perdita

 

[shereads]

Well, my job was outsourced and it hasn't helped me none, so i don't see how it's "win, win".

That's pretty selfish, Dr. M. If you can't stop thinking "me, me," how will "win, win" ever come about? I like Amicus' vision of a utopian future where people all over the world are free, and where everyone - not just a privileged upper class - can afford day laborers to keep our lawns looking nice.

 

[shereads]

The Dark Side Party? I'm in. Btw, my favourite lipstick is called Lucifer. It's by Chanel and is only available in Europe (or through eBay).

Perdita

I'll bet Luc can zap some up for you...

I'm working on the party banners. Pix of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld labeled "The Three Stooges of the Apolalypse"