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Powell Aide Says Case for War a 'Hoax'
PBS recently aired an interview with Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (Ret), Chief of Staff at the Department of State from Aug 2002 - January 2005, addressing some of the skepticism surrounding the pre-war claims made by the Bush administration. Wilkerson claims in no uncertain terms that he "participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council." This is not the first time that Wilkerson has spoken out against the administration and intelligence community.
Everyone outside the US already knows this.
I wonder whether he'll be marked - crazy, unreliable, or simply unpatriotic
I've been watching Wilkerson's speeches and interviews and opinions since early 2005. He's been one of the highest ranking officials to speak about the cabal that is in control of the White House now, but he also has inferred that the cabal has been in power for longer than the currency administration has been. For those who are anti-Bush, do not believe the Clinton was not part of the power party, either.
I strongly believe that the true case for war was to keep the petrodollar in power. I also believe that almost every war and military action we've been involved in since 1913 has been primarily for control of the global currency base, not for oil or trade or communism or any of the usual suspects.
Iran's current oil bourse theories came along just before the power party started beating the war drums against Iraq. I posted today the link to the Cheuvreux Report that reconfirms my crazy tinfoil hat theories about the control of the dollar, and this time from a huge international investment bank. War is the health of the State, said Randolph Bourne. For millenia, war was always about directly controlling others. Yet in the recent centuries, war has been about controlling others indirectly -- by controlling the means of barter between people.
No matter what Bush or Rice or Clinton or Nixon or Kennedy have said, hindsight lets us see what they were really about -- making sure that their peers and families and cronies were at the front of the welfare lines when our Federal Reserve was handing out newly printed paper dollars. To believe anything else is to continue to be a pawn to the system.
a) old news
b) anyone with two neurons to rub together should have figured this out before the shooting started
c) the public at large isn't going to get outraged about this (or anything else) unless gas prices go back up to $3/gal
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's too bad that there are no news organizations left that do any kind of investigative reporting. It would be nice to have this guy's claims analyzed by a third party. Oh well, I guess profits are more important than protecting the People of the US from their government.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Check out the rest of my stuff. The NSA already has!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
War is almost always a hoax, and war other than in self-defense always is.
The only just reason for war is because the alternative would be even worse - that by not going to war we would have doomed even more people to slavery or death. That is almost never the case.
It clearly was not the case here, even if every allegation made against Hussein had been true, although most of them were not. The hypothetical murder of some relatively small number (hundreds or thousands) of people, via a terrorist attack Hussein had little reason and less ability to commit, would not justify the actual murder of hundreds of thousands or millions (keep in mind the long-term effects of depleted uranium, not just on Iraqis, but on US forces as well).
This war and the mindless support US citizens have given it will go down as one of the greatest crimes of modern history, and those who knowingly support it deserve at least as bad as what is coming to them, and probably worse.
But, as is almost always true of almost every war, the innocent - including those in the US - will suffer far, far more.
That of course is one of the many good reasons not to start one.
Nonaggression works!
...there'll be an interview with another crew-cut dude with a dot-mil e-mail address, not retired, who'll say the first dude had an axe to grind and is totally wrong. And he'll be right. And the first guy will have been right, too, well, mostly...
Yeah, but Fox is slanted.
Wait, I thought it was PBS that was slanted.
Hillary's moving to the right!!
But Condi's a snappier dresser.
Act before midnight tonight, and we'll throw in a debate on global warming!
Step Right Up! Choose yer channel, make yer choice!
(Get away from me, Mod, ya bother me...)
So is this enough for an impeachment hearing? People go to jail for murder with less evidence that we have about Bush, Clinton, and Bush, Sr. Do we have enough for Congress to begin a real case? Or is this just dreaming because not enough people in Congress have the balls to go through with it?
Developers: We can use your help.
I really feel bad for him.
He should have either run for President or gotten out after Clinton and not come back.
Bush & Cheney took all the credibility he had built up and wasted it by sending him to the U.N. to tell fairytales.
You can read the speech here but it isn't really worth doing, as so many of the facts provided in that speech have been proven false and were apparently known to be false at the time the speech was given.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
We all know the case for war was bullshit! That's why we voted!
If "we all" knew that, then why did Bush get re-elected?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I for one, am shocked....awed even!
I thought it was pretty obvious that the american public was hood-winked (as it were) with this?
(How it's not an impeachable offense is beyond me)
Error 407 - No creative sig found
dad21 is the same idiot who insisted repatedly that parents were responsible for their children getting kidnapped, because the parents should have watched them 24/7. That's who you're in bed with when you listen to him.
Snopes confirms that it was a hoax.
By "we all" I meant Slashdot.
The other reason Bush got re-elected was because he cheated again. You know, knock a few blacks off the rolls, call in favors from his friends at Diebold, that sort of thing.
Would someone please explain to me what this is doing on Slashdot?
May the Maths Be with you!
Yet another anti-Iraq war person says there wasn't grounds for entering war.
Yet more pro-Iraq war people disagree.
Film at 11.
Note that he claims to not have *known* that it was a hoax at the time that he participated and that some of his superiors were in the same boat.
I suspect this would be the likely defense if there *were* an investigation (which I don't expect) - "It wasn't *me* - I had no idea!"
The part that I find to be *more* damning is where he lists the items that the "intelligence community" *failed* to predict - fall of the Soviet Union, etc. The implication seems to be that the entire system is so flawed that preventing "hoaxes" like this in future will be difficult because it's almost impossible to know what is and is not true and whether or not you have all the data.
He's able to label the Iraq situation as a hoax only in *hindsight*, as he examines data not available to him at the time. This seems similar to the analyses done after 9/11 where there were suggestions (again, in hindsight) that the "intelligence community" should have known and been able to prevent 9/11 from happening. Hindsight's 20/20, after all...
Have fun,
Nathan 'Nato' Uno
http://web.unos.net/
Being the person that wrote the original article that the British dossier plagerized, I knew the case was false and based on outdated data. However, I was told at the time that the Government had data that we in the academic community did not have. No matter how loudly people like me spoke, everyone had jumped onto the WMD bandwagon. Although I can say that we got the last laugh, it is a morbid thought. Amazing isn't it?
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Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940), nicknamed "the fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye," was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. Butler was awarded the Medal of Honor twice during his career, one of only 19 people to be so decorated. He was noted for his outspoken left-wing views and his book War is a Racket, one of the first works describing the military-industrial complex. After retiring from service, Butler became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, communists, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s. Butler came forward to the U.S. Congress in 1934 to report that a proposed coup had been plotted by wealthy industrialists to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
The problem is that politicians could lie and get away with it. Before the war Bush & Co were pretending that we were in danger from Iraq, and now that they've been proven wrong no one called them on the original claims. If I call the police and falsely claim there's a robbery when there isn't, I will be fined for false call. Bush made a false call which caused 2,000+ Americans and unknown number of Iraqis to die - and he just got away with it.
We need some sort of accountability system that would force politicians to pay for their mistakes. Require them to publicly estimate cost of war and take all outstanding costs from their personal bank accounts. Wolfowitz estimated war to cost around half a billion, and so far we ended up with more than $200 billion (yes, two hundreen billion US dollars) of extra costs. If Bush & Co were forced to pay all outstanding costs, they would've estimated the cost of war honestly, and people wouldn't be misled into supporting war.
Same thing for human cost. Require pro-war politicians to gather signatures. It's way too easy to say "I support a war" while sitting at home in front of TV. Make a law that starting a war would require million or so legally binding signatures from people to cover in case we run out of troops. There's always so many vocal pro-war supporters, but when it comes to actually fighting the war we always seem to run out of people. Make war supporters actually carry the cost of war, and they will actually start using their brains first.
Obama 2012: our incompetent asshole is slightly less of an incompetent asshole than the other incompetent asshole !
At least Franklin D. Roosevelt didn't declare war on Mars.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
If "we all" knew that, then why did Bush get re-elected?
You know, over 70% of all Americans supported the invasion on the evening of. To suddenly drop support now is not only morally wrong but also poltically dangerous. For all of you who just simply want to pull troops today just imagine if a country with the resources of Iraq becomes the next Afganistan.
I don't think most rational humans want to see Iraq become a terrorist state. This is why we need to stay the course at this point and why playing politics with the Iraqi war is going to do more damage than good to a potential presidential canidate.
If you don't think this is true then you tell me why Democrats voted against Kerry in droves... The man changed his possition on Iraq a half dozen times, people don't want that.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I've personally always fealt this was the right war, but for the wrong reasons. The Bush administration needed to come up with some reasons to go to war, but they didn't want to admit the truth of why, so they made up these cock-and-bull stories.
I can't really speak to what the Bush administrations true motives were. I suspect, that, mostly, Bush did think that Saddam Hussein was a growing threat to the US and the Western World, and didn't want to give him any chance to acquire any more WMD than he had. Maybe they sexed up the intelligence (which, btw, if they did do, I don't condone).
Why do I feel this was the right war? Perhaps my limited knowledge of history is incorrect, but, it is my current understanding that Europe and the US have played 'chess' with the Middle East for most of the 20th century, and that, to a large extent, Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq because earlier administrations had propped him up. The U.S. has, purportedly, done some very bad things in the region, including: Iran had, at one time, a democratic government. The CIA apparently helped overthrow the democratic government and install a dictator (I don't know that he was a *bad* dictator per se, but still), which lead to the Iranian revolution which installed the current Theocracy we all know and love. It my understanding that the US then propped up Saddam Hussein as a sort of first-line-of-defense against Iran.
Personally, I feel America needs to give the middle east an apology for so much meddling, and get the hell out of their business. But, alas, Saddam Hussein was part of that meddling. And so, to try to get things somewhat 'right' before leaving, we are forced to meddle some more. And that, I feel, is the truest and best justification for the current actions in Iraq. To turn over the future of Iraq to the Iraqi people. As for Iran, as much as I don't like the current government (espcially the hate-mongering, former-terrorist president of Iran) it should also be recognized that, for to some extent, the current government of Iran represents the people of Iran, and outside of defending ourselves against them, we need to let their politics run their own course.
Of course, I may be completely wrong. I can only go by the history that I have learned, and it is within possibility that the history I've been taught is either completely wrong, or incomplete in some critical way.
The sad thing is though, that what history will likely remember is that we entered into this action on bad intelligence and bull-crap stories from Bush & Cheney, LLP. And, because we entered into it the wrong way, with the wrong communication to the Iraqi people, and the rest of the Muslim world, it will probably have the wrong outcome - forcing us to meddle further in Middle Eastern affairs.
That about covers it.
First let me say, I'm a Bush supporter. I'm in the Reserves, and I participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). I was lucky enough to be 1500 miles from the front lines, unlike the rest of my unit, but in any event I was there and I've got the tee-shirt to prove it. When the war first started, I was completely in favor of it. Today, I don't regret that we went in at all, and think in the long run the Iraqi people (and by extension the rest of the Middle East) will be much better off with a participatory democracy than living under the heel of a thug.
Having said all that, it's becoming more and more worrisome to me the degree to which the administration apparently ignored or possibly fabricated evidence. I remember saying at the time that it was a fool's errand to use WMD and/or terrorism as the reason to go to war, and that it seemed more like slick marketing than actual strategery. We had plenty of reasons to go in, and none of them had anything to do with WMDs or terrorism. Like the fact that the Iraqi forces habitually fired on US and UK aircraft patrolling the UN mandated No Fly Zones (considering that just prior to the war, I was working in the Turkish command center that controlled the Northern No Fly Zone and had friends and, literally, family flying over Iraq, yeah, I kinda took it personally).
But apparently someone, somewhere, decided that overt acts of aggression in violation of a cease-fire agreement weren't sufficient reason to justify reopening hostilities. So they decided to use weak or non-existant evidence to justify it, instead. Stupid. Just fucking stupid.
So now here we are, not-quite-three years later. We've spent billions of dollars, have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground, and have thousands of war dead. What's the solution? Well, on the right you have people saying "It wasn't a lie, it was just a mistake." Well, when it comes to something of this magnitude, does it really matter if the root was incompetence or malfeasance? Sure, maybe from a criminal point of view (for instance, I'm not convinced there's a case for impeachment here). But not a whom-do-you-trust-to-run-the-country point of view.
Then on the left we have people like Murtha and Kennedy screaming that we should leave, RIGHT NOW GODDAMNIT!!! That's just insane, we can't leave the Iraqis in a worse position than we found them. That would be like walking away from a car stuck underwater with a woman trapped inside. I mean, what kind of man does that?
So here's what I want to see from politicians: be willing to say "Looks like we screwed up. We completely apologize to the Iraqi people and ask that you forigive us. We promise, to our citizens and the world, that we'll never again invade another country without an individual declaration of war passed by the Congress, ensuring that there will be a full debate before we, as a nation, take the lives of other human beings. We also promise that, now that we're in Iraq, we need to do right by the Iraqis and help them fix all the problems we caused. To that end, we'll follow the policies implemented by the Iraqi National Congress, and be willing to lend whatever assistance they request of us.[1]" Any politician who can say that, consistently, with a straight face, would get my vote.
[1] I know this would be effectively giving the Iraqi government a blank check, but I think that would be worth it to gain some much needed good will.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Here are some current "facts" from the Bush administration that are being accepted without question by the media and most of the US population:
If we withdraw from Iraq the terrorists will win.
This statement seems to imply that unless the USA maintains 100,000+ troops in Iraq for many years then the insurgents will overrun Iraq and set up Bin Laden as a dictator of Iraq. This is obviously false at a number of levels. At a most basic level, the insurgents lack the capability to defeat the Shiite militias. In the broader picture, even if the USA sets up a stable democracy after many year of occupation, there is no guarantee that the Iraqi people will not elect a government with strong ties to organizations that the USA considers to be terrorist organizations. Whether it is a good idea for the USA to maintain substantial trooop levels in Iraq for many years to come is unclear without substantial impartial detailed study. If these studies have been done at all, the results have certainly not been presented to the American people. Instead, we are merely given some simplistic message about how the terrorists will win unless we do what the Bush administration wants.
Social security is broken.
The way social security works is that people who are working pay into the system and that money is used to pay benefits for people who are retired. Strictly speaking, it's not possible for the system to break. The government just transfers the money that is collected from the workers to those receiving retirement benefits. In order to cushion the effect of the baby boom generation, however, the government was collecting more than it was paying out. The problem is that the rest of the government started borrowing against this surplus and now the Bush administration is looking to avoid having to pay it back. Whether the current system is optimal is certainly open to debate but the idea that the system is "broken" is obviously false.
The Bush administrion did nothing illegal in order the NSA to listen in on American phone conversations
From the Bill of Rights in the US constitution:
I'm not a constitutional scholar but that seems to rather clearly state that some kind of warrant is required. Maybe there's a loop hole and maybe there isn't but it is certainly not factual to blatantly assert that it is legal for the US government to listen in on American phone conversations without a warrant.First, to the person who asked why this was on /. ... well, because it's NEWS, first of all, and because if the only thing you know about are circuit boards and frames per second, how the hell are the geeks supposed to take over the world someday? It's good to be well rounded my translucent-fleshed friend.
Secondly, it is true that the intelligence community cannot ever be 100% certain it is right or wrong or does, in fact, have all the data. It's never been pushed as a 100% concept that I am aware of. Intelligence is doomed to fail, but not always. Why is this concept difficult for some people to understand?
For all of you who just simply want to pull troops today just imagine if a country with the resources of Iraq becomes the next Afganistan.
See my other post on this topic to see what I think of withdrawing. But for an example of the kind of country you're describing, there already is one, and it borders both Iraq and Afghanistan.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Don't tell me... the right thing to do is to buy gold... ::rolling eyes::
The reason Clinton got impeached for parsing words, is because the Republicans controlled Congress & they managed to get Articles of Impeachment passed. The Impeachment died in the Senate... because the Republicans couldn't convince 75% of the Senators that it was a good idea.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"I'm sorry for calling you fat - I really meant 'Reubenesque.'"
"Sorry for punching you in the face - next time I'll aim for your gut."
This space available.
Building WMDs on any large scale is a HUGE undertaking. Sure, anyone with a little knowledge can cook up poison gas in their bath tub but to make it on a military scale is very complex you need:
1) Chemical plants (or bio incubator sites) to make tons of the stuff.
2) Railrods or fleets of trucks to bring in precursor chemicals.
3) A source for the precusros, either from overseas or from plants in country.
4) Then you have to develop some sort of delivery system, shells, bombs, planes, boats etc.
5) You need thousands of people to support the operation: scientists, engineers, security people, administrative people etc.
6) Power plants to run the various factories.
7) Then you ned to train people in use of the delivery system.
During WWII the Germans tried to proect ahd hide some of their plants in caves. The locations were usually easy to spot due to the huge infrastructure needed. And even though many of the factories were deep enough not to be damaged by bombs, many of them could effectively be shut down by cutting off access to power or the transportation net. And factor in that there were UN inspectors on the ground as well as electronic survelliance, and the possibility of Sadam developing stockpiles of wepaons on the sly becomes slim to none.
We were definitely lied to.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
This war and the mindless support US citizens have given it will go down as one of the greatest crimes of modern history, and those who knowingly support it deserve at least as bad as what is coming to them, and probably worse.
"One of the Greatest Crimes of Modern History?" Please. I dislike the Bush administration and their idiotic excuses for invading Iraq, but president Jr. isn't even smart enough to commit an attrocity on the level to warrant such a description.
Let's not taint the discussion buy suggesting that the war in Iraq is a criminal enterprise on the level of Hitler, Stallin, Pol Pot, or other individuals who systematically spread terror and death in their wake. It isn't something like the apartite movement of wide spread supression. Nor does it relate to the mass organized genocide that occured in the balkans or Africa in the last decade.
I'm not defending president Jr.'s actions in any way. But let's keep the conversation rational. He is stupid, but he isn't evil.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Ah, never mind that. LeftDot marches on!
Check these guys out. Sweatshop free too!
"the humanity that goes into choosing targets..."
Cost us $400B in direct losses and 1000+ lives so far with no end in sight. Some of that $400B goes to companies closely affiliated with Bush and Cheney. Bush gets blanket immunity from impeachment under the guise of "war on terror", domestic economy goes down the shitter, international relations follow, constitutional rights are infringed upon... Sure beats Clinton screwing an intern. Why was Clinton impeached and this fella is still in the office like nothing happened?
Please explain how WWII was a war fought over global currency? Or please... how about Korea or Vietnam... those 2 countries have tremendous impact on the world's economy. ROFL!!
He didn't get his star.
Seriously.
Possibly, but not every 06 gets their star and it's pretty clear real quickly if you will or will not. Most are neither bitter nor disgruntled - they've had fine careers; reached a level above the "done a good job" retiremnet point (i.e. LT Col or 05); and really acre about the Army (as an instituion) and it's Soldiers.
The telling point was how White and Shinseki were brushed aside because they didn't toe the line and had teh balls to say what they thought it would take to invade and occupy Iraq (every time I heard Rumsfeld talk about how several hundered thosuand was 200k not 300k it reminded me of Clinton's "that depends on what your definition of is is" defence.); it was equally telling how the Army had to go to a retired General to get a new Chief of Staff - a job that any GO would give their right nut or ovary for and the Vice Chief turns them down and umor had it so did several other GOs.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Yet again Slashdot decides to align itself on the Left. Never have I seen an article pro to the war on here. There are plenty of readers who believe in the campaign for this war yet the staff at Slashdot continues to leave us out and leave the realm of technology and place itself into politics. I for one believe the Politics section should be removed if there cannot be articles pro and con to the issues today.
Bringing politicians to account - isn't that what a democracy is supposed to do?
Blame your fellow Americans for the way they voted in the last election. If the "people" don't care about being lied to or don't care about complete idiocy and incompetence they *deserve* to bear all the consequences of the incompetence, mistakes and lies of their leaders.
The American people had a chance to "bring Bush to account" and they gave him a big thumbs up.
ummm - he's retired ... Powell and he work for State, not Defense ... any promotion would involve salary, not a change in rank ...
A lot of these loons subscribe to (or are blackmailed by other proponents) some armageddon/millenialist theory about "greater zion". And, despite all the claims about "free speech", talking down about zionism is against the law in a lot of areas because it will gradually de evolve into you are "anti semite" and "a holocaust denier". I would NOT underestimate the political influence and power of rabid zionists, in Israel, the UK or the US and in a lot of European nations. Zionism is basically a fascist policy of conquering vast areas of the middle east and seizing lands and power from muslims, and it has been supported over and over again by the military forces of the US and UK going back in history over the last century. If you read the PNAC documents you can see that complete total and unconditional support for the zionist state is something that both the clinton and Bush 1 and 2 administrations supported. And I NEVER hear about them being run through the IAEA political wringer as regards THEIR WMD. That just gets ignored, and people wonder WHY islamic nations around them are nervous about it and might want their own counter measures. If you go read a lot of pro zionist political sites, take Free Republic (coincidently also the largest pure bush crimes denialist site) for example as a large and well known place, you can clearly see the sentiment there is pure genocide against Islamics, after you cut through the BS.
How dare you question the motives of someone who agrees with the majority of people here! You can only question the motives of *unpopular* people, silly!
Whatever. This is not news, as Wilkerson has been saying this for months. And it's not interesting, because Wilkerson offers no new facts, only opinions.
It's kinda like Richard Clarke's book: if you look at his actual facts, it does not add up to a serious condemnation of Bush. It's only when you add his opinions that it becomes an attack on Bush. Same thing here: he obviously disagreed with the policy, and he is disgruntled for that and perhaps other reasons, and he is speaking out, but he is not actually giving us new or interesting information.
But that doesn't matter: he agrees with "us" so therefore "we" were right all along!
Reduce the number of election machines at urban polling places in Ohio. Long lines. Turn away thousands of voters for Kerry.
SOP for the Corrupt Ohio Republican Party.
1)After 911 Bush assumed Iraq may have had something to do with it.
2)He then ordered the inteligence guys to find any evidence linking the two.
3)He also told them to turn up any evidence of WMDs to show how bad they are.
4)Every little thing that would normally get ignored as inconclusive or even improbable suddenly became elevated to the level of hard evidence. Possibly not in a single step - a guy reports something to his supperior that he normally wouldn't, and says "well it could be X". It then moves up the food chain gradually changing to "this is X". Now with several hundred small bits elevated to the status of real evidence, you get a very different picture than reality. Different enough to look really bad later when the truth is made clear.
You have to be careful what you ask people to find. I suspect Bush asked for evidence of certain things, and the organisations dutifully produced that evidence. He probably told them not to overlook the slightest thing, and in a large organization the slightest thing got elevated to hard fact.
It's still wrong. You don't tell the intel guys what to look for, you let them tell you what they see.
Actually, Clinton never balanced the budget, that was a myth that was created by the government in power at the time. Rmemeber, Clinton's "balanced budget" came from a few key elements:
Greenspan was inflating the currency base faster than even. The CPI did not keep up with the M3 money supply. This put more money into the economy, inflating consumer prices but also inflating the stock market, causing higher than expected profits which in turn put more money back into the government in the form of taxes. More money gave the government more spending allowances, but inflationary cycles can't last forever before someone realizes that the growth was due to the printing press at the Fed, not real economic growth.
Clinton's regime also used social security income as an income line item, instead of storing it in a non-existant "social security lockbox." That's like asking your boss for a loan against future income, and then calling that loan income even though you'd have to pay it back someday.
Lastly, much of government's real debt was listed as long term liability instead of actually calling it debt, so certain payable line items were taken off the budget books.
Viola, fake balanced budget. If any private individual or corporation balanced their books this way, they'd go to jail.
You're right of course, but why would anyone pay attention to the word of an individual who places career advancement over doing the right thing?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The truth is only now getting out, and that is causing support for the war to drop.
This problem is not caused by a feckless populace. It is not caused by insufficiently patriotic media. It is a problem caused by the administration, when they chose to lie about why they were taking the country to war. On their hands is the blood of 50,000 Iraqis.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6573660441 809242121&q=parenti
The above video try's to explain why the current Bush administration would try to pupotrate these lies.
This site below will give you content that's much harder to find in the main stream media.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/
Why is the rule "innocent until proven guilty" good enough for determining the fate of an individual person, but not of an entire country (and indeed there were thousands of innocents killed)? Oh right, I forgot -they worship a different god.
I am pretty sure that they are actually an LLC, although taxed as a partnership. --
Yup, if he actually had any kind of solid proof (that is: not pandering to those who desperately want to believe him) he would be turning over said proof (which had better amount to something more substantial than his hindsight) as well as himself to any court system of his own choosing. It needs not be an U.S. one, I suggest a european country like Belgium, France, or perhaps Russia? Or maybe instead going to the Republic of South Africa or a south american country like Brazil? But countries like Iran or NK wouldn't give much credibility. The aim of his should be to stand trial for (at best involuntary) complicity in the hoax. That would be something, that could make heads roll if it avoids becoming a showtrial (Venezuela or Cuba wouldn't be much point).
What's more if I was a U.S. resident with such proof I would immediately seek asylum abroad someplace after having moved out of the U.S. and going into hiding (or is he saying that anyone with such proof wouldn't be perfectly "accidented" if the administration really is what he claims it to be?).
It's hard to take him seriously since he's not at least doing those things (I'm sure other actions would be advisable as well).
"Reality" can always be discussed but selfcongruence is a must, at least in my book.
*mods "news" +5 fruitcake*
--
this additional sig includes a portrait of Mohammed in support of freedom of expression, feel free to reproduce it
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
What son, when stepping into his father's footsteps, does not feel the urge to outrun his old man.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
If the president had to sell the war on the cost up front there would have been no support whatever. The cost is now around $ 800 per citizen. If you are a middle class tax payer that is more around 2k per family member. Some are claiming much higher.
But Bush was able to sell the war on a deferred payment plan which includes record deficits and raiding surpluses. If Bush said we are going to war and we are going to tax petro an extra 10 cents a gallon to help pay for it he would have gotten booed of the stage. There should always be a cost for all citizens to go to war as some families are called to pay the ultimate sacrifice.
I swear the most important number on peoples mind is the price of gas at the pump. The president's approval rating inversely proportional to the price of gas that fuel pump.
So they had the WOMD song playing nice and loud as the pretext for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but did anyone watch the Super Bowl pre-show yesterday? And the news of Friday? Sounds like Iran is next on the list on the basis of acquiring nucular weapons and tourchering US citizens and *shock-horror* burning the American flag! OK, so why weren't India, Pakistan and North Korea invaded as they have all gone nucular in the past 5 years? And that is the worst of the three reasons, right?
.. I'm just seculating, but I think I hear those war drums warming up.
And mind you Iran hasn't been oficially invaded yet
In another news story today, Bush announced he will cut the deficit by cutting domestic programs. Is it safe to assume that, after this story aired, PBS will be one of the programs cut?
There are at least three possible explanations.
1. Hoax: intentional falsification of intelligence reports.
2. Honest mistake: Saddam's bluff took in the intelligence community, and every time his scientists lied to him they were lying to Western eavesdroppers.
3. Dishonest mistake: starting with the desirability of a war as a premise, drop any conflicting assessments onto the floor and assume that whatever you want to hear is the truth.
Draw your own conclusions, but read Woodward's _Plan of Attack_ first.
At three dollars a gallon you just made more than half the US trucking industry start to work at a net loss. Independents paying off their own rigs have to park them or start paying out of pocket for the difference and gradually start to go bankrupt depending on how much savings they have. You can go back and research what happened directly after hurricane katrina hit to see that. And they can't just "raise their prices" overnight when these sudden price shocks come. At three dollars a gallon you just made 3/4s of US agriculture non profitable, and again, they can't just "raise their prices" when there is such a limited market. The globalist pirates who control these markets (farmers DON'T by the way) don't care about bankrupting people, that is a plan they constanly strive for, they just have another division take over by purchasing at pennies on the dollar, part of the big push to have just a handful of large international conglomerates. You can see it in energy, agriculture, autos, electronics, whatever, the push is always for consolidation and cartels at an international scale.
Look what happened with the great depression-no buildings evaporated away, no lands poofed, just *ownership* of valuable tangible assets went from the hands of the many to a lot less, way upstream on the economic river where it disappears into paperwork and central banker and lawyer land. The big guys pull this dodge all the time, and the current crop of US and western nation "middle class" folks are about to be nailed HARDER than the last great depression. They don't think it will happen based on a complete economic fairy tale belief system, some religious cult like behavior that it just "couldn't happen" because they "trust" their political/business (it's the same thing) "leaders" - who have to be THE largest single class of outright conmen, thieves and liars on the planet.. I mean, do people just ignore history on purpose?
Anyone who can't see this huge ripoff coming is just not looking hard enough or has fallen into economic cognitive dissonance.
And now $78.12....
'nuff said.
You can start with the little things.... like forcing them to read the bills they sign into law.
http://www.downsizedc.org/read_the_laws.shtml
I expect a big shift in the house membership and a smaller one in the senate (since only 1/3 are participating this year), but this might not be enough for those impeachment requirements. A loss of control due to the above would probably piss off plenty of senators, but the executive would have to attack each of them personally (a doubtful scenario) before they'd vote in favor.
However, a lot can happen in the next two years so, who knows?
This is not my sig.
"I'd prefer to see the squabble of democracy to the efficiency of dictators." --Lawrence Wilkerson
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
So you are comfortable with the notion of killing 10,000 Iraqis 2,000 Americans JUST to make up for your father's death?
Wow.
Video: http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=event&EveI
Transcript (pdf): http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Doc_
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
There would have had to have been a choice.
I don't think most rational humans want to see Iraq become a terrorist state. This is why we need to stay the course at this point and why playing politics with the Iraqi war is going to do more damage than good to a potential presidential canidate.
Would you personally be willing to die to "stay the course"? Would you ask your children to die for this cause? You're assuming that we can win the war in Iraq. If we can't win, then letting more of our bravest and most patriotic citizens die needlessly is equivalent to murdering them.
If anyone in this administration, including the president, lied or ignored evidence in order to push this war on the people, then they should be executed for treason.
You are just slap wrong. You can easily research the growth of power and influence of old established large banking interests and power blocs. It doesn't matter what you may want to call them, but those..individuals.. have a thirst for power over other humans that is pure demonic in nature. Owning the cash is just a means to an end there, they want control, global slavery with them as masters and everyone else as serfs or slaves. That isn't a theory, it is historical data, easily found out. Want a near real time example, research the global "illegal" drugs trade and who is involved with it, you'll see it is various nations political/banking and military interests, many of them dynasties going way way back.
Removing Salami Insane from power: good.
Trying to convert "militant" Islam into a peaceful value system: bad.
CNN, ABC, CBS, and PBS are forever going to say the "weapons of mass destruction" were a hoax. The fact is, if you didn't go to war, no-one would have investigated the claims and they would have said you should have gone to war.
If you went to war, they would have investigated the claims and said you shouldn't have gone to war. The weapons of mass destruction claims are irrelevant now of course.
The current situation is being ignored by all the networks. Trying to reform Islam isn't an issue of hoaxes or weapons of mass destruction or Haliburton. It's simply stupid. The middle east isn't free because a value system which teaches people to blow themselves up doesn't allow it. They shouldn't be trying to install total freedoms in Iraq. They should install partial freedoms like Quatar and China, just enough to keep people's heads from being chopped off for eating the wrong food, and get out.
One thing I've noted lately in frequent debates with conservatives (and I'm not saying that you're one) is that they increasingly rely on "statute of limitations" kinds of arguments. E.g., "That's old news", "You're bringing that up again?", "There you go again!", etc. I hardly ever get the challenge of a point being actually refuted. It's always something to the effect that if they've heard the point before, then it's automagically rendered invalid and out of bounds. Yet, many of them still seem steamed about things like the Civil Rights Act and sometimes even the Magna Carta (if you listen to them on executive power) and the Enlightenment. So, it can't be that they don't have a sense of history...
Yawn. I was not criticizing the things he saw, I am criticizing the things he was talking about that he did NOT see. That is what "opinion" refers to. Like when he asserts Cheney put undue pressure on the CIA, while also admitting he has no actual knowledge that this happened. It's a boring game Wilkerson is playing, but suckers who Want To Believe buy it.
The truth is only now getting out, and that is causing support for the war to drop.
Yeah, let's pull out now... that's a great plan!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Those with an anti-Bush agenda seem to forget that from the late 90's up until the war literally every single one of those I mentioned were in 100% agreement over Iraq's pursuit, aquisition and stockpiling of chemical, biological and nuclear materials with the ulitmate goal of manufacturing WMD's. Maybe they were all wrong (you really think everyone worldwide was so misled?), however if you believe recent reports from certain Iraqi sources about mass movements of materials to Syria just prior ot the invasion then the jury is still out on this. But lying?
This is a lie. And for many of us, becoming anti-Bush (I have been a conservative Republican for 25 years) has to do with the obvious lies of the Bush administration (that we elected the first time) that you insist on propagating. You lie to members of all parties and your lie is often repeated by members of both parties, but it is a lie, even to those who are conservative but no longer have a party to turn to.
Bush won Ohio by over 118,000 votes. But you're right, taking away a couple voting machines at two or three polling spots would easily cause that big of discrepency.
The folks from the Department of State always believe in solving problems through diplomatic means. Diplomacy is their job.
The people in the Department of Defense always defend military action. Military action is their job.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Pehaps this is only sour grapes that the Clinton administration failed to capitalize on setting up a war that would ensure Al Gore's Whitehouse instead of George Bush's. After all, look at how many statements were made about the dangers accumulating in Iraq before George Bush became President:
... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
s /1998_cr/s981010-iraq.htm
February 1, 1998: "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction." - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
February 4, 1998: "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." - President Bill Clinton
February 17, 1998: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Bill Clinton
February 18, 1998: "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser.
February 18, 1998: "If a soldier's life needs to be lost let it start with mine." - an un-named American GI expressing his support for President Clinton's policy on Iraq.
February 26 1998: "A democratic Iraq is certainly in our interest, but it is above all for the sake of the Iraqis that we must replace Saddam." - Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., said in floor speech.
February 26 1998: "Saddam's feet will be held to the fire. We'll see if he complies. If not, we'll thump him." - Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo. and senior Democrat on the House National Security Committee
October 9, 1998: "We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." - Letter to President Clinton. - Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others.
November 10, 1999: "Hussein has
October 10, 1998: Senator Kerry speaks for quite some time about the burgeoning Iraqi threat http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/congres
The president has very little control over the domestic economy.
Uhm.... wrong.
The President has quite a bit of control over the domestic economy. The reason the economy was good under Clinton was because he obeyed one rule with the economy: do not spend more than you make.
There is a direct correlation between a balanced federal budget and the economy. Yes, Clinton enjoyed a false economic boom, but he was doing everything right to *foster* that boom. The national debt plays directly into the confidence of both domestic and foriegn investors, which provides incentive for economic growth. The economy can turn terrible even with strong confidence, that's true; but a good balanced federl budget is a positive influence.
President Bush has helped destroy an already-ailling economy by massively increasing federal spending, while reducing federal incomes. This is terrible for the economy.
Think about this:
Would your family be prosperous for long if you continually spent more than you made?
Or, put another way, what's the easiest way to destroy your finances? A: rack up credit card debt.
The President has made many choices that were against the better interest of domestic economic strength. He doesn't get off the hook so easily.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Regarless of your political leanings, if you "give up" on these terrorist, and let them have their way, you can kiss your butt goodbye, UNLESS, you CONVERT, and do EXACTLY as they say. If you go back in history and read, just for example, some of the political discussion of the period, you will find an almost EXACT mirror image of what is going on today. Talk to them, have a dialog with them, make a "peace treaty" with them. See where that got the world? 6 years of war, untold numbers of death & destruction, and the cold war for over 50 years. Kill them now, kill them over there, and you will prevent a more violent end to rid the world of these terrorist. When (not if, because of the useless UN) Iran gets its hands on a nuke, watch how much the world will bend over and kiss its butt to keep them from using it. And, end the end they will use it anyway. Just like hitler said he wouldn't invade his neighbors after Nevil Chamberlin signed an agreement which he said "peace in our time". You cannot negociate with these idiots, so kill them now, or suffer the death and destruction later.
Unfortunately for him, Powell was a better soldier than a politician. And worse, I don't think he realized until too late that ultimately he was just a token as far as Bush and company were concerned. So lacking in moral fiber, maybe not. I suspect that the current Secretary of State will be quicker on the uptake on this matter and may have much stronger personal leverage on the President, if some of the rumors are true... Unfortunately, it seems that Rice is about as hawkish as Cheney and Rumsfield, so I doubt she'll be leading the charge to get out of Iraq. Finally, I think we'll be seeing her make a run for President before we ever see Powell do so.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html
Look at the 10 year chart. Only gained ~27% over 10 years. My mutual funds did that in under a year and a half. You obviously have only been paying attention to the very near term and not the long term. Gold is rising very quickly now, yes, but over the long term it is a very unwise investment.
Hats off to you, sir. Very well said.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"Slashdot has no responsibility to provide you with a "balanced" view. It is a privately-run website that you may choose to read or ignore, so your beliefs about what should be done are irrelevant."
The same can be (and is) said about Fox news.
I think this is a detestable opinion, however, because Slashdot (and Fox news) STATE, not imply, but STATE that they offer news.
NOT opinions, NOT spin and propaganda, NEWS.
So get out of the news busines, or at least make an attempt to have journalisitic ethics.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
I have a class this semester where the teacher encourages political debate, he is a liberal and I am a neo-con (I love that), so we get into the topic of the war in Iraq, and he says "You know why we went into Iraq right? OIL!" and so I politely responded "See, I just don't see what we have to gain by overtaking Iraq, in terms of oil." to which he responded "That's right, we don't! It's not worth it!". He made my point quite cleary, and quickly realized the quandary he had gotten into so we moved on at that point. The fact that Iraq exports oil is not just a coincidence, it is not a reason for going to war but it WOULD explain why Iraq is so corrupt, that is the only correlation I, myself, can make between the Iraq war and oil.
I looked this up on Snopes and didn't see shit.
-Eod
Is it worth pointing out that the PBS Now program in which the interview appeared is probably the most overtly liberal/left "pseudo-respectable" TV opinion show in the USA? Is it surprising that a senior State Department official has problems with the Defense Department influencing the President? (Gee, do you think the opposite might be true, i.e. that Defense isn't happy with the influence that State has? Gee, have any of you ever tried to get something done in an organization with more than three people?) Just sayin' that a little skepticism might be in order, ya' know...
The case for war?
All that matters is the fact that the war on terror is going exactly according to how it was planned. The plans are all over the internet.
I don't know if it is wise to make a to-do list and show it to the world, then go down the list, but Iraq was just on top of the list.
The problem with this, since everyone knows the script, it makes countries like Iran and North Korea way more radical than they would have been. When you project your every move to the world, it might have the effect of making you seem unstopable but at the same time it alerts the bad guys of your next move.
It sounds like more and more people are starting to evaluate evidence and realize that something has gone horrifically wrong with our country. I only hope more and more people start waking up and doing their own research as well.
The ones that don't wake up chose not to, because for some reason they are too ashamed of admiting they were wrong, which is kinda like that certain monkey everyone knows.
Then on the left we have people like Murtha and Kennedy screaming that we should leave, RIGHT NOW GODDAMNIT!!! That's just insane, we can't leave the Iraqis in a worse position than we found them. That would be like walking away from a car stuck underwater with a woman trapped inside. I mean, what kind of man does that?
If you knew anything about congressman Murtha you would know he is (or was) considered fairly conservative - which is why his speaking out had such impact. Of course, I expect him to be branded a 'leftist' now, especially since that's equivalent to being called a communist these days.
Also, to make your analogy more appropriate, remember that the woman trapped in the car has a gun and wants to kill you.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
The top 1% runs this country. The top 1% always ran this country. The political parties don't mean a damn thing because the top 1% are in both parties. If you think that the Democrats werent set to do the same thing you are completely wrong. The executive powers were defined by Clinton, not Bush. It was the Democrats who were behind the war on terror, just as much as it was the Republicans, because when it was time to make the laws, the Democrats and Republicans worked together.
Now I admit, the Republicans are currently running the show, and perhaps this is due to Republicans wanting absolute power, but it does not change the fact that the top 1% of people control this country, most are conservative, but all of them are of the ruling class.
"In fact it was presented in the firmest language possible that the mobile biological labs and the sketches we had drawn of them for the Secretary's presentation were based on the iron clad evidence of multiple sources."
I'll believe the intelligence community did that as soon as I see the Flying Spaghetti Monster present the documents to me.
The idea that the "intelligence community" presents ANYTHING in the strongest language possible, and has iron clad evidence, should be laughable to you and anyone with a whit of sense.
They're known for equivocation. This guy claiming otherwise should be a red flag regarding his veracity.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
I'm not one to defend Bush - I have no doubt whatsoever that the pretexts for war were a hoax. But I'm not totally convinced that this was a war solely over oil. Sure, oil was a factor. But I'm also sure that many neocons sincerely believed that by bringing democracy to Iraq they could lead the way for widespread democratisation of the Middle-East. When someone is as 'successful' as Bush I'm not convinced that money is the only consideration. I think Bush really did want to go down in the history books as the President that liberated the Middle-East. He believed that the success of post-WWII policies such as the Marshall Plan showed that this was possible. Before the invasion of Iraq many neocons accused liberals of racism for implying that somehow the population of the Middle-East were less amenable to democratisation than the populations of the fascist European countries. Unfortunately I don't think they understood the long tradition of liberty in Europe that made the transition to democracy, even in countries like Spain, a smooth one.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
Clinton had the same bosses that Bush has, I suppose Clinton had a different way of doing things, but the actions Clinton took weakened the congress and strengthened the powers of the President. The actions Clinton took were preparation for the war on terrorism.
Look at the fact that it was Clinton who refused to agree to sign into the international court system. If we had an international court then there would be global oversight but Clinton said no. Always remember that.
"Of course, I may be completely wrong."
You most certainly are. The current problems in the middle east stem from the screw ups of the British "empire" and their failure to clean up after themselves.
That happened long before the US was even a significant player on the world stage, so while there were mistakes, most often they were a response to failed British policies and the fiascos those policies caused.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
"First, to the person who asked why this was on /. ... well, because it's NEWS, first of all, and because if the only thing you know about are circuit boards and frames per second, how the hell are the geeks supposed to take over the world someday? It's good to be well rounded my translucent-fleshed friend."
Then why is the coverage of the "news" on slashbot so one sided?
Well rounded doesn't mean "only the news I agree with".
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
> Secondly, it is true that the intelligence community cannot ever be 100% certain it is right or wrong or does, in fact, have all the data. It's never been pushed as a 100% concept that I am aware of. Intelligence is doomed to fail, but not always. Why is this concept difficult for some people to understand?
What I find alarming is that even after you factor out the Bush spin, it's clear that our intelligence services didn't have the slightest idea what was going on in Iraq.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There's a simple way to show the intel was cooked at the political level, which depends on accepting one simple assumption:
A bureaucrat will never endanger his job.
The key corrollary is that an official who is not a political appointee will never willingly give his opinion of anything unequivocally. Therefore any one-sided opinion that arrives at the political level is given unwillingly.
The administration now says that the the flawed intelligence process did not relay up dissenting assessments to the political level. Flawed the process may be, but this is a type of flaw that can't happen on it own. The natural tendency would be to argue both sides of any case that ends up, barely, on the "right" side of the issue. This tendency to equivocation is institutionalized in the "position paper", which in government always comes in pairs at least. Political appointees are provided with complementary papers arguing each side of an issue, from which he is invited to pick. It's actually not a bad way of doing things, unless the appointee is exceptionally lazy.
The only way the administration could have got intelligence with the particular flaws the Col. is describing would be to make the normal bureauctic behavior a greater career limiting move than being the one who sent the nation to war on false assumptions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This should tell you that its stupid to buy your marijuana from mexico or any other foreign place.
Second, the war on terror is not a hoax, it's real, and its been planned since perhaps before we were alive. My suggestion is to just survive whatever happens, and hopefully we will end up with a much smaller government, although I doubt it because Republicans seem to want big government these days.
Either you are a Christian fundamentalist or a Islamic fundamentalist, but you will have people telling you how to live either way. Get used to it.
Rummy came in with ideas about making the Army more 'joint' and 'deployable' and got rid of his crony Army Secretary for just that reason: he wasn't working hard enough on those things.
The guy wants to transform the Army more than anything else, and when you evaluate his activities 100% through an Iraq lens, you aren't getting the whole picture.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Wilkerson never attacks Bush or the administration. He is always clear that his issues are with the flaws in the current inteligence system, and how it can easily be exploited by the politically motivated.
He gives historical examples of these same politically motivated exploits being used by the Truman(D), Eisenhower(R), Kennedy(D), Johnson(D), and Reagan(R) administrations.
Why some people take this as an attack Against George W. Bush is puzzling.
The system is broken. We have been attacked (9-11), and our two major political parties still cannot see above the political squabling. They both want to capitalize on the tragedy to gain political ascendance over their rivals.
The system is broken. Our leaders have not addressed the threat that America is facing. In order to address that threat, we must fix the system. Our founding fathers gave us the methods and tools. Read your constitution, and apply its lessons. Vote the bums (both D's and R's) out of office.
Indeed.
And occasionally pretty poorly. I was amazed that Powell's cock and bull story before the UN went down so easy. Vague insinuations around a mystery bunker, pictures of (later: artillery meteorological balloon) trucks which were obvious mobile laboratories. Come on! And he had the nerve to mention the aluminum tubes and the yellow cake, when both stories were already suspect.
I don't think most rational humans want to see Iraq become a terrorist state. This is why we need to stay the course at this point
Which course are you referring to exactly?
Are you referring to this course:
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Christian Fundamentalists don't routinely kill people for violating their religious dogma.
I'm talking about current times, not past.
We need a buildup of speculation to prime the pump of investigation. Do you need video of Cheney literally twisting arms? You might get that...
Just as you have inferred from Wilkerson using speculation that he is playing games, the man has inferred something from Cheney spending perhaps an inordinate about of time at Intelligence. Suckers who don't want to believe are everywhere, too.
This guy may just be one of those former suckers.
"...objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences, subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny." -Gould
I think it was Monica that sucked?
[Rumsfeld] wants to transform the Army more than anything else, and when you evaluate his activities 100% through an Iraq lens, you aren't getting the whole picture.
What lens would you have us look through? I see 140,000 troops in Iraq. If that doesn't intrude upon Rumsfeld's "big picture," well, I guess that goes a long way towards explaining why the situation is such a fucking mess in the first place.
Hello all: Please bear with me, I like to say something about the discussions going on so far... Let me start with a historical analogy: the bombing of Coventry, 1940. The attack against Coventry has been known to Prime Minister Churchill in advance. Instead of ordering an evacuation, the Prime Minister decided to withhold information abou the attack because doing so would tip the Germans off that the British Intelligence has cracked the German's encryption code, the Enigma. I cited this example because it shows that there are circumstances when it is comprehensible for Politicians to withold the truth to the public. My next point is in the form of questions. I assert that the American way of life is an expensive one: it as a whole requires much energy to fuel. These energies come in the form of imported oil. Why aren't the oil producing countries in the world (such as Iraq, Iran, etc) benefiting from the American's reliance on oil? Pictures I have seen in these countries show poor living conditions with little public education. Why aren't the people of these countries getting richer from this reliance? Why isn't oil more expensive, price driven ever higher by supply and demand? I think the answer is quite simple. America has the largest, best arms in the world. We are able to dictate the price of oil, bringing it down to a more affordble price by influence (back by arms). In the case of the Iraq war, critics attack the legitimacy of the war by citing intelligence failures. Also, they cast doubts about the true motives behind the war by suggesting that it was an action to secure oil resources. They fault the Bush administration for these. However, we should recognize that we contribute to the administration's decisions as well. Their policies, though underhanded, have defended my quality of life and I am grateful for it. Looking around me, I doubt that people around me would want to give up their cars, their homes, their luxuries so that there are less wars, less destitutes, and less pollution in the world. Let us be more responsible about our world. Let us realize the impact of our lives, and make changes, however small they may be, to make this world a better, fairer place. Thank you for your time. B. Pascal.
So-o-o, Iraqi's were arrested in Kuwait and accused with planning to assassinate another countries head of state, isn't that convenient for the Kuwait state? You must be stupid if you just believe that.
I think much of the US public and media intermix both the causes these two wars and war progression itself. The Afganistan war was direct anti-9/11-terrorism backlash against Al-Caida which was based there at the time. That had the support of the much of the world. A year later the Iraq 2 was promulgated with the implication that it was an extension of the Afgahnistan war. That one had a lots bogus justification and lacked support from most the world. This war was on the neocon agenda since Bush senior stopped short of overturning Baghdad. 9/11 was a convenient excuse to justify it. However history may judge to be a horribly expensive diversion fromt he true conflict.
It is very obvious that the pre-war Iraq intelligence was a sales pitch. The administration simply chose to go to war and made sure that the Congress and the American people went along with it. To accomplished this, they need to make a strong case that Iraq was a national security threat. You not going include contradictions in the intelligence in making that case. Ultimately, the system of check and balances failed with the branch and within Congress. I certainly feel that this administration is one of "shortcuts". If you want a war in Iraq, fudge the intelligence. If you want progress in the "war on terror", torture, detain indefinitely, violate another country's sovereignty, and unconstitutionally spy on your own citizens. If you want to boost the economy, give tax cuts despite rising deficits and funding a reconstruction and a war. The only question on Iraq I have personally is why Iraq. I don't believe it is democracy in the Middle East or Sadamn was a really evil guy. Revenge? Oil? Haliburton?
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
America!
We need a buildup of speculation to prime the pump of investigation. Do you need video of Cheney literally twisting arms? You might get that...
Produce it and then I might care. This has been alleged of Cheney and the rest of the administration for years, and we have no more evidence than Clarke saying he "felt" like when Bush told him to look into something, that Bush was REALLY telling him to manufacture it. No actual evidence, no even actual hearsay! Just feelings. And worse for the people making the allegations, there was not the slightest repercussion from refusing to make things up.
Just as you have inferred from Wilkerson using speculation that he is playing games, the man has inferred something from Cheney spending perhaps an inordinate about of time at Intelligence.
There are many reasons why he might be there, beside trying to put undue pressure on people. This is boring supposition for which I have no use.
Suckers who don't want to believe are everywhere, too.
Right. People who don't believe something for which there is no evidence is a "sucker." Funny how Slashdot normally accuses such people of being "religious fanatics." I guess it is context-dependent.
If this article were linked to on Fark, it would be given the "obvious" tag.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
You're assuming a lot about these terrorists - and you're largely wrong.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. To suggest that they are a different kind of person, or even a different kind of military force is incorrect. Terrorism is no more than warfare committed by those who do not have the resources for traditional warfare. If Al-Qaida had tanks and carriers you can bet they wouldn't be relying on secret suicide missions and bus explosions. Rather, they'd be sending whole battalions into cities and killing everything inside them - like we did in Fallujah.
A good example of the other side of this coin is America's own history. We remember our independance as if we were fighting oppression and tyrrany. In reality, we were fighting taxes and an abusive overseas economy. At the same time we were perpetrating terrible slaughters of native american communities. Some of the earliest American war strategy was developed after we realized that it was much more effective to simply kill native women and children rather than have to bother with their warriors. Or in the Phillipine war - when our generals gave orders to kill every male ten-years-old and over and it was a one-sided massacre for the duration of the war.
So when you say "you cannot negociate with these idiots, so kill them now" you're forgetting a lot of history. Yes we have to stand up to bullies and be wary of those who would grab for power, but don't classify terrorists as anything other than another another group fighting for what they want - just like us.
World Changing - News for Humans, Stuff about our planet
When one reads about modern chemical weapons, one is struck by the almost ridiculous levels of lethality of these agents. Nerve agents like Vx can kill after an exposure measured in miligrams, with volumes comparable in size to a pinhead.
Ever wonder why this stuff has to be so lethal?
It turns out that the biggest problem in chemical warfare is that of DISTRUBUTION. It is very, very difficult to deliver an agent over an area with sufficient concentration to ensure the desired effect. Modern agents are so lethal because it is so difficult to bring a target into contact with the agent AT ALL that it must be lethal no matter how small the exposure - or it just won't work very well. And even then, you're still talking about volumes in terms of tanker trucks, not soda cans.
Planning for chemical strikes during the Cold War involved massed regiments of artillery, and in some cases, special delivery aircraft that resembled crop dusters - and even then, the primary intent behind chemical warefare wasn't the first-order casulties, but rather second-order area denial, and incidental effects from forcing your enemy into his NBCW gear. (If you've never lived in a gas mask and bunny suit before, it's a terrible pain in the ass that greatly reduces combat effectiveness)
The only terrorist attack to make use of chemical weapons picked probably the best place in the world to try it - the Tokyo subway, where you have an enclosed space with a super-high population density. They released 1l or Sarin into this space (in trains!) and killed only 16 people, with most of the injured being from panic/trampling rather than poisoning from the agent.
They would have done much better with plain old ordinary explosives - compare to the death toll during the London subway bombings, which was a target with a much lower population density.
Unless you are capable of fielding a massive delivery system, there just isn't much "mass" destruction with chemical weapons. They are horribly inefficient, and really, not much of a threat at all in real terms. They're really more of a threat to those who would try and use them than the intended targets.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Back when Powell introduced the bogus intelligence information in front of the U.N. and it turned out to be cribbed from 10-year-old studies available on the Internet, it should have been a big red light for Americans. Now even the people who were on the fence then and are having second thoughts now are mostly doing it because they're looking at maybe a $1 trillion cost eventually. They still ignore the depth of corruption in our government. Our legislators routinely take bribes to write laws, in many cases just parroting the legislation as handed to them by corporate lawyers, complete with spelling errors. But we continue to call it campaign financing or the reality of politics, or dismissing the critics as cynical or self-promoting or simply calling them "liberals" as if the term itself invalidates anything they say. The country is screwed up. In my opinion it's beyond saving. All we can do is watch it go down the drain and hope the disintegration process isn't too painful.
I'm sick and tired of Slashdot posting Political headlines on the main page. Most of it winds up being Bush-bashing (admittedly, it's easy to do) or ripping Republicans. Fine, if the Slashdot community wants a politics.slashdot.org, so be it. But this article is NOT "News for nerds." It's "Politics for nerds." Leave it off the main page!
If Bush and Co. lied about going into Iraq then there is no reason to trust the government. If Bush and Co. actually believed some sort of "mistaken" intelligence and started a freeking war based on it, then there is no reason to trust the government especially when it comes to spying and "intelligence".
So the end result is that we should stop trusting government. I don't see a middle ground here and have been libertarian ever since the WMDs failed to materialize and the patriot act was signed.
The American Right increasingly uses the logic of non sequitur and ad hominen in their less than substantive attacks upon the left. Ironic, as well as a further indication of Contemporary Conservatism's continuing plunging fall into the abyss of moral relevance, which began in 1968 when Nixon played his "southern strategy", and openly courted the racist vote.
One ugly godawful thing to have done to the party of Lincoln.
Nixon won, and the GOP has never looked back. Now neoconivving trotskyites speak for contemporary conservatives, and self-confessed American traitors are welcomed with open arms in under the Big Circus Tent of Republican Inclusiveness, the party of nothing, for everybody.
Ever stop to think that maybe some people who wish to harm Americans are reacting self-defensively to previous Administrations' wrongful actions against them? You solution for this is 10 eyes for an eye?
And he spake a parable unto them,
Can the blind lead the blind?
shall they not both fall into the ditch?
--Luke 6:39
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Our "defense" department is only minimally defensive. The fundamental design of our military is offensive and aggressive, built on the projection of power globally.
The primary example of this is the aircraft carrier and its associated air power elements, which allows the US to attack any target in the world within a week if not a day. This advantage subjugates any defenses of a target country.
ICBMs are likewise designed for intimidation and aggression. Whereas the soviet-era ICBM standoff was defense by mutual destruction, now our ICBMs threaten any country not armed with similar capability with instantaneous death.
Our long-range bomber fleet is likewise a power projection (offensive) unit, for the delivery of bombs over distances thousands of miles from our borders
Even ground forces have been reconfigured for maximum mobility, so that full effective ground combat can be waged anywhere in the world in the span of a month. This delay is considered acceptable since that provides a month for our air and sea forces to gain air superiority and soften any defenses.
The implicit reason for this is maintenance and coercion of our economic projects throughout the world, in order to sustain the resource consumption of America's economy. Our overconsumption leads to the reality that we must project power (via offensive threats) in order to "defend" our "security" (availability of resources)
This can only be concluded to mean we are an imperialistic aggressive country. Any pretensions to the contrary is strictly propaganda.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
Bush didn't get >50% in 2000, and Florida has nothing to do with it. Gore won the popular vote. No one contests this. Bush won the electoral vote, which is the one that matters, and that's where Florida comes in.
And neither Bush or Gore got >50%, since Nader and other "third-party" candidates got a few percent. I believe both men got 48% and change.
Your arguments would be more impressive if the facts with which you underpin them weren't wrong. Sort of like the Iraq war itself.
When Bush said Sadam had looked for uranium in Africa he knew it was not true. The director of the CIA told him it was not true prior to giving the speech. So instead of removing the information from the speech he rewords it to be factually true but misleading. He would only have done this if he knew it was a hoax. Also don't forget that he had asked his staff to find a way into Iraq prior to 9/11.
Why am I seeing this leftist nonsense on the front page of Slashdot? I come here to read about technology, not read liberal rants.
For the benefit of those of us who are not in US military intelligence, could someone explain the acronyms:
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Ok, you're an idiot. When, EVER, has a war been one by "killing them all?" I'm so sick of morons like you acting like that is a valid option. Genocide? We just kill everyone that doesn't like us. Cause I'm sure they have no reason whatsoever for not liking us.
Peace ONLY comes through negotiation. And since our current administration is just as clueless as you are, we're pretty much guaranteed to never attain peace. Hell, they don't even want it or they wouldn't have started the war.
Islamic Terrorists do not just want death and destruction any more than you do, moron. Have you ever met ANYONE that simply wanted death and destruction? They want us to stop FUCKING with their countries. Stop supporting "regime change" for whichever ruthless dictator that provides us with the cheapest oil and stop pretending like were some sort of morally superior world-guardian that is the definitive source for what's right. We have conducted so much evil in the middle east for so long, it has finally come back to haunt us. I'm sure the administration feels lucky that we have so many naive morons like you in this country that will believe that terrorist have no reason to do what they do aside from their pure love of death and destruction.
I agree that an idiot like you could never negotiate with the terrorist idiots. WE have brought this on ourselves with our foreign policy. Attempting to deal with it through violence only shows how morally bankrupt we are.
Religious faith is the problem, if you ask me; the idea that the invisible creator of the universe that talks to people in their head created a book and a hell to burn you in if you don't find his book compelling. The thing is, turns out he wrote several books and they all disagree. Well, I'm sure he just wanted us to "kill em all" to sort it out.
Regardless if he is actually impeached, the feelings of the American public should be better reflected by in our elected representation. More people want Bush impeached than did Clinton, and regardless if they have the votes to impeach him, I am ashamed that my representative has not publicly supported it.
Rummy came in with ideas about making the Army more 'joint' and 'deployable' and got rid of his crony Army Secretary for just that reason: he wasn't working hard enough on those things.
The guy wants to transform the Army more than anything else, and when you evaluate his activities 100% through an Iraq lens, you aren't getting the whole picture.
True - the move to BCD and Stryker is to be a more deployable force; White's support of the Palladin (which doesn't fit into the BCD concept) was part of why he was fired; but Shinseki was fully supportive of transformation and the BCD but differed on IRAQ and was marginalized. Transformation will always be an uphill battle - many in the Army aren't convinced that it needs to happen in the way Rummy wants. Of course, he is fast becoming a lame duck so you'll probably see even more foot dragging and resistance.
Is he right? To some degree yes - the near term future conflicts probably won't involve mass tank battles and traditional combat; but as China develops a blue water Navy and flexes its muscles we're likely to see a return to the Cold War concept of power.
The bottom line is Iraq is taking a toll on transforming the force; in people, material, and time.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
ironic that that he was popular with communists, since they are the biggest racket of all, when defined as what the general population thinks is not what is really going on, and that the great communist regimes have slaughtered uncountable lives to give the small, "inside" group power.
i disable sigs
For your archives(the article is disappearing with time's passage):
Speaking of Duplicity
My only comment here is that Henry S. Rowen was one of GW Bush's picks to the "nonpartisan" Silberman/Robb Committee.
You seem bright enough to handle this.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Because it's anti-criminal. Since 80%+ of /. readership is tired of rape, it gets posted.
In response to the article, I think it's the general consensus of everyone involved that he raped us for no good reason. Problem is, now that he has done so, we have to shut the fuck up until our baby is able to enroll in college.
No purpose in punishing the crime? Idiot.
For each year of the war we should cancel the superbowl. I wonder how much support you would have for it then...
Define evil such that Bush does not fit the definition.
You are not asking for a actual definition, as you aren't really asking a question, but I'll bite.
Evil has a deliberate intent to cause pain and suffering to others, or a selfish desire combined with a brutal indifference as to the effects this causes on others.
There is a big differnce in say, Saddam Hussain murdering people who get in his way, and president Jr. using illicit wiretapping to chase terrorists. While he is stupid to think that bypassing wiretapping laws will help the country in the long run, can you really compare the two? If Saddam suspected a terrorist cell opperating, he would simply round up the suspects and anyone remotely connected with them, and have them tortured to death. No, president Jr. is simply a short sighted fool.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince people he doesn't exist.
Pfffft. There is no devil, because he couldn't even beging to compete with what humans inflict on each other on a regular basis. He would be out of a job as evil incarnate before he even got to work in the morning. Our very nature is our worst torment, not some silly guy in a red suit.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Only 30% of the eligible population elected this government.
We don't live in a democracy. We live in a republic. To make politicians accountable, that's the first thing you have to realize.
You also have to realize that citizens of a republic have certain responsibilities. And I'm not talking about the patriotic bullshit that we're told by government schools, media, and other institutions. I'm talking about being an active, capable, independent member of political society. I'm talking about being able to withhold your vote if there are no candidates you agree with, if the only decision is between the lesser of two evils.
We're beyond government "ignoring the Constitution". We're beyond government "breaking the law". We're beyond government turning on it's own citizens. We're way into the realm of applied political science, here. So this is a crash course:
Politicians in the US are using the "anything we can get away with" method to screw us out of our freedoms, our property, and a large chunk of our labor. And they can do so because a large percentage of Americans aren't capable members of the republic. Many of us are dependent upon the empire. We have government jobs, government loans, government housing, business tax breaks, welfare, military pay, military benefits, social security. Each of these things is a chain that binds you to this government and anything it wants to do. As long as you are dependent upon government, this government will act like it owns you. It will tax you, find you work, feed you, house you, and when things get tough, it will send you to die in war. You are their nigger.
So if you and your family can't do that: if you can't live without government hand outs, if you can't eat without a government job and US money, if you can't heat your house without oil extracted at the point of a gun or coal strip-mined with the help of a court order, you are a slave already. You don't get to complain about how your master treats you. That's the first step: become a citizen deserving of freedoms. Be capable of asserting your independence. Take responsibility for being a member of the republic.
And the alternatives should be clear by now. As the president has said: it's us versus them. It's us, peaceful, freedom-loving individuals who are concerned for the future of America, versus them, lying, warmongering sycophants who are in it for themselves. It's those that build and create versus those that take and destroy. And here's how we'll win:
Stop voting. Don't register. Stop using US currency. Stop paying taxes.
Forget about protesting. Forget about democracy. Forget about "working within the system". That's all bullshit to keep idiots occupied. These four steps, taken on a massive scale, will bring down the US government faster than you can say "military coup". And it will do so peacefully, fairly, "democratically" even.
That's how you get your country back. But here's how you keep it:
If you find a politician you agree with, and you think he will win, get a written copy of what he plans to do. Get physical proof of all his political beliefs. Scrutinize it like a lawyer would. Don't fall for any vague crap. This is your contract. You are exchanging your vote, and your sovereignty, for this politician's word. Get it in writing.
Now, when you vote for the politician, and he wins, and he doesn't do what he said he would do, or does anything that is against the contract you have with him, sue him in court. Sue him for damages. Find co-plaintiffs. Demand to be relieved from your contract. Find another politician you can trust. Or, don't, and learn to live without government. But, most importantly, remember:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Is it possible to moderate an entire story "Flamebait"?
Just ask Ireland when they really had issues with terrorism.
Well, AFAIK, the Irish terrorists never were suicidal. But, ignoring that, how and why did the terrorism in Ireland go away? Why did the Baader-Meinhof and the Brigate Rosse disappear? They are no longer in existence because their motivating power, international communism, disappeared. Don't fight the symptoms, fight the cause of the disease.
To stop islamic terrorism, the first thing one must know is that they are islamic. Their acceptance of suicide comes from their religion. Therefore, the only effective way to fight terror is by fighting religion. Not only their own kind of religion, but all kinds of religious fanatism must disappear. The kind of fanatism that drives islamic suicidal bombers is the same kind of fanatism that motivated Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, to avenge the death of his own religious leader, David Koreesh, by bombing a public building. When people become fanatics, any religion is as bad as the other.
If the USA wants to be safe from terror, the first step would be to remove from office all people like the Kansas board of education members that are trying to impose religious fanatism on the school curriculum, and the NASA administrator, or whatever his title is, who is trying to impose religious fanatism on scientific research.
WORD.
Well let's see attempting to kill a head of state. Nothing wrong with that right? We should invite more assassination attempts on our leaders. By let's say doing something really lame like just dropping a few retalitory bombs on them more or less randomly right? Instead of say taking his ass out. Your all a bunch of neutered nancies if you don't get that. People and countries only respect power. They don't respect your lame ass ideoligies there is no such thing as the generosity of the human spirit when it comes to assassination attempts against your elected leader.
If the top 1% actually did run the country, the tax codes would look a lot different. Liberal politicians get elected by people in the bottom 50% to redirect tax bills that they would pay under a flat tax system to wealthier people. The way democracy really works is that the majority of people get what they want for high profile issues, and for lower profile stuff, the people who fund re-election campaigns get what they want.
Vote for Pedro
The problem is, when Sadaam is cooperating, how can you know if he is playing along or whether the situation has really changed. The answer is, you can't. The next question is, how do you deal with that uncertainty. And that's where I part ways with the administration.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why impeach when you well end up with Cheney as President?
"Left" and "right" are not absolute terms, but relative. Also, you can be either "left" or "right" on one issue, but be on the other side of the aisle on others. When it comes to the war, Murtha is definitely on the left side of the aisle now, even if he wasn't before.
As for "leftist" being like a "communist", that's always been the case: the communist party has always been in the far left, politically. If anything, they're the definition of "leftist". Whether being called a "communist" is a perjorative or not is in the eyes of the beholder. I consider it to be, but VI Lenin would probably disagree if he were still around.
Good job linking opposition to the war with being a communist. I don't think the decision on when and where to go to war is an ideological one. And there are probably some conservatives who are against the war, although some will keep quiet out of loyalty to The Party.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Wasn't it clear to pretty much everybody at the time that the WMD issue and the 9/11 connection were never ment seriously? Wolfowitz wanted to get rid of Saddam and establish a foothold in the region, that was public knowledge at least since the New York Times reported on the detailed invasion plans in Spring 2002, way before the weapons' inspectors had submitted their reports. See "A Nation Challenged: The Military; U.S. Envisions Blueprint on Iraq Including Big Invasion Next Year", The New York Times, April 28, 2002.
The only way to get out of the current predicament is to seek a truce with Bin Laden. He has his sleepers right here on our own soil. It's like someone planting land mines in your own back yard and you're about to have a cook out. To stop the lemmmings from attacking, the piped piper must agree to stop playing his flute.
And when the upper hand is on the other foot, you need to know when to hold 'em and when to get the hell out of Dodge. When Darmok and Jalad were at Tanagra, they didn't count their chickens before the fat lady sang, and they didn't bake their cakes before the oven was fully preheated to 350 degrees.
On a more serious note: Suppose we "seek a truce" with Bin Laden. What do you suppose that means? What demands do we have to bow to in order for this to happen? And what happens to everyone else who wants to see the USA crumble? If we negotiate with a terrorist, we've legitimized him. If we seek a truce, that's a sign of weakness, a sign that we've recognized him as an equal and his attacks as a threat we can't control. So let's say Al Qaeda gets a big payoff, an end to US involvement in the mid-east, a televised appearance by Bush saying how great it is that these people have struggled for so long for their beliefs, etc... That might stop the attacks, maybe? Then maybe they'll attack someone else. We'll have funded and endorsed someone dangerous (imagine that!) and then be stuck - either we attack them, ending the truce (but with him now better-funded!) or we don't, to preserve the truce, in which case it'll appear as though we're really endorsing their actions. Then maybe someone else will attack us, hoping to be well paid and legitimized in exchange for a cessation of hostilities.
No, I don't think that'll work at all. I think we need to foster good-will to the extent we can, but at the same time a lot of the civility in the world is based on the reality that rash actions carry consequences. Lots of people are bound to hate the US, but how many are going to bomb a building or attack a carrier? Only those willing to die and/or incur our wrath. Likewise, lots of people want more territory for their country, but how many invade their neighbors? Only those motivated enough to deal not only with resistance from their neighbors, but also whatever UN response occurs. If we give the message that this is no longer true when dealing with the US, we will mark ourselves a target.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Lets see, we don't have universal healthcare, why? because only the bottom 50% wants it. We don't have universal college education, we are removing social security and all social programs, lets face it, if you arent in the top 50%, your vote has no worth.
Sure me one issue that the bottom 50% won on besides social security.
Why would they need to smuggle anything anywhere anyways? Look at Oklahoma city. All you need is to procure right where you are innocent ingredients. Mix them up in non-innocent recipes, and voilà. I'm sure they have chemists to guide operations. That's why the only possibly effective measure against such attacks is infiltration. They won't catch them all, but they make it harder. A big military machinery sucking up all the resources doesn't do much against terrorism. But of course it can be useful to fund the big buddies in the weapons/aeronotics complex that really runs the government. (yeah, I know, and the oil industry guys, but it's not like they are even bothering to hide or anything).
Now you're just being silly. While I don't claim that the US has been justified in supporting any 'rebel' group that it has had a hand in assisting over the years, I think you can generally say that all these 'freedom fighters' pretty much kept their focus on military targets. terrorism is a whole different ballgame.
We're relying on Media Memory to make our opinions! We should be relying on our own!
...so what are you going to do about it?? Nothing! That is what I thought. So shut up and get back to work at your 60 hours a week low paying job while gov spends all of your, your kids, and grandchildren's money.
This does not apply to the upper 2% who own everything in the US (well 99% of everything) and do not have to pay taxes, but then they would not be reading Slashdot anyway.
Truth hurts.
Anyone who actually READ the article instead of just the headline can clearly see that this guy's concerns are mostly with the processes and culture in the intelligence community which have led to multiple failures in intelligence. His use of the word 'hoax' suprised me as much as it seemed to suprise the interviewer. The word 'hoax' implies a deliberate misleading. The only thing he said that implies any sort of deliberate falsification of intelligence is the fact that the VP visited the intelligence agencies on multiple occasions. Unless it is proven that the VP used his position to improperly influence the decisions and reports of the intel community, you can't presume that this happened, regardless of how much one's political viewpoints make one hope or wish this happened. I think his use of the word 'hoax' is simply improper based on the scenerio he described in the interview. Failure seems a more appropriate term. Wilkerson seems sincerely remorseful about his role in the decision making process and delivery of the flawed intel to the decision makers. Perhaps his use of the word 'hoax' here may just be an example of hyperbole in an emotional moment ? Wilkerson's agenda seems to be a call for reformation of the intel community. He paints a very frightening picture of the state of the US intel community! If what he describes in the interview is accurate, I completely agree that a serious overhaul is needed. Accurate intel is absolutely vital to the decision making process of any government. He also seems to be using this interview to promote the idea that transparency is more important than efficiency in the decision making processes at the highest levels of government. I tend to agree with him here also, with the reservation that sometimes decisions need to be made quickly, and in those cases a protracted debate isn't possible. The executive branch of the government is elected by the people, and does have a duty and mandate to make these sorts of decisions. Not every decision can afford the luxury of open debate, unfortunately. (I'm not implying that the decision to depose Saddam was one of these cases.) Also, some decisions may involve secret information, the revelation of which may not serve the best interests of the country. Obviously in these situations, open debate is also unadvisable. Unfortunately, I believe those with extremist views will only focus on the word 'hoax' and run with it, and not pay much attention to what the Wilkerson actually said. It's sad that people today are so polarized that it seems rational evaluation of a given situation or issue is the exception rather than the rule.
There were definitely voting irregularities in Ohio. Whether they swung the election is an entirely different question, but to give you some ideas as to what was going on:
1. Thousands of voter registrations were thrown out by Secretary of State / Bush Ohio campaign manager Ken Blackwell.
2. The time needed to vote varied from around 15 minutes in my suburban district to 7 hours in heavily black districts.
3. There were significantly more votes for Bush in districts using Diebold voting machines. This is the same company that promised the electoral votes of Ohio to Bush.
As far as whether there is corruption in the Ohio Republican Party, here's what's gone on since the 2004 election:
1. The governor has pled guilty to a number of misdemeanor charges relating to bribery and corruption.
2. There is an ongoing scandal regarding money funnelled from the state pension fund into the pockets of Republican donors, via a rare coin dealership.
3. A number of churches are under investigation by the IRS for illegally engaging in campaign activities for Ken Blackwell's run for governor.
It's bad enough that a friend of mine who has been active in Republican politics all his life has started voting for Democrats. Take that for whatever it's worth.
I am officially gone from
A friend told me once that Cheney and/or Rumsfeld and/or some of Bush's cabinet/staff were on PBS expounding upon their necesary plan to invade Iraq. The people may have been on Frontline or another program but the program probably was some interview/discussion format, not an investigative program like Frontline.
/. community recall this particular program and what transpired? I think it must be significant and a shame if it would be forgotten.
I shall endeavor to email my friend and ask him for the specifics as I'm not being the most helpful with my description.
The point is, does anyone in the
To keep coming up with excuse after excuse to support a position that is clearly wrong, a lie or just plain stupid is a good example of a partisan brain. How do I know I am not similarly afflicted? Simple, the rest of the world outside of the USA agrees with me. Why do they agree with me? because they have weighed more evidence than Joe Sixpack USA and they don't care what the difference is between a Democrat and a Republican.
"Liberals and conservatives can become equally bug-eyed and irrational when talking politics, especially when they are on the defensive.
Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them. The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected.
"Everything we know about cognition suggests that, when faced with a contradiction, we use the rational regions of our brain to think about it, but that was not the case here," said Dr. Drew Westen, a psychologist at Emory and lead author of the study, to be presented Saturday at meetings of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Palm Springs, Calif...
In 2004, the researchers recruited 30 adult men who described themselves as committed Republicans or Democrats. The men, half of them supporters of President Bush and the other half backers of Senator John Kerry, earned $50 to sit in an M.R.I. machine and consider several (contradictory) statements (by the candidates) in quick succession...
Researchers have long known that political decisions are strongly influenced by unconscious emotional reactions, a fact routinely exploited by campaign consultants and advertisers. But the new research suggests that for partisans, political thinking is often predominantly emotional.
It is possible to override these biases, Dr. Westen said, "but you have to engage in ruthless self reflection, to say, 'All right, I know what I want to believe, but I have to be honest.' "
- They do not yet have significant WMD. There are several iffy, expensive, and time-consuming steps between initiation of uranium processing and deployment of nuclear weapons.
- They are Shiites and the core of the Iraqi government is Shiite. Invade Iran and more than half of Iraq will for practical purposes meld with Iran against us. This in addition to the stubborn Sunni resistance.
- US forces are barely able to deal with Iraq. Iran would more than double the load.
- We have already given credence to much of al Qaeda's propaganda. Invading Iran would be the single most powerful al Qaeda recruitment propaganda coup to date. They'll be lining up from Indonesia to London, maybe even in Detroit.
- The price of hydrocarbon fuels and feedstocks would skyrocket well beyond anyone's tolerance threshold. While this would send oil companies into profit orgasms never before dreamed of, it would not be sustainable for more than a few weeks, and the economic damage would be spectacular.
- The current US government has dwindling support as it is for military adventure. There would be very little durable, reliable political support for an Iran invasion.
There are undoubtedly more reasons, but I'll leave them to the rest of you.News for Nerds or some reader trying to promote his political views with the help of the slashdot staff?
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
I meant more along the lines of "The claim is so old, what point is he trying to make by bringing it up now?" It being old news has no bearing on its truth.
Your claim that "people and countries only respect power," while true under many circumstances, is a dangerous cliche that doesn't scale well at all. It is a lot like, and usually goes hand in hand with, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," a dumb oversimplification that is more often false than true. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend, it is merely the enemy of your enemy. Overwhelming military force only guarantees destruction, death, and prolonged misery. On rare occasions does a desired political outcome occur at tolerable cost.
Both Saddam Hussein and OBL were enemies of our enemies, and foolish aphorism-driven politicians felt inspired to implement these simple-minded old saws during the '70s and '80s. Now look where we are.Don't believe in such oversimplified little mottos, they are traps.
As a non-American, I find it slightly disturbing that the US is now justifying its Iraqi invasion as 'spreading democracy'. This has traditionally not been a strong point of American foreign policy e.g. the Vietnamese people would have voted for 'Uncle Ho' (Ho Chi Min - Communist leader) had the US allowed those elections to go ahead. Now we're seeing the 'wrong' (for the US, the EU and Israel) result in Palestine.
The danger is that the US will intervene whenever there is a free and fair election result with which it doesn't agree - then we're back with the US installing and supporting their own dictators (Saddam Hussein anyone?) with all of their attendant power abuses simply to keep the 'wrong' people out of (legitimate) power.
History always repeats!
If it was about oil, then we would've "invaded" Kuwait and called a "protectionairy measure".
;-)
Notice we haven't taken any oil from the place yet? Also Bush has repeatedly stated that the US will not take oil from Iraq specifically because he doesn't want to be accused of going to war for oil.
The "war for oil" program doesn't hold water (or oil)
Libertas in infinitum
What did they lie about?
Libertas in infinitum
Did it ever cross your mind that
1) We gave WMDs to him in the past?
2) Other countries did too?
3) He was a MASTER at hiding things in the desert. The place is the size of California. It could be YEARS before they would find them buried there (if we ever do). He was also very good at fooling inspectors by moving them in the front door, and moving the WMD's out the back OR->
3) He moved them out of the country before we got there?
Also if you remember just before we invaded, N Korea unplugged their cameras in their nuclear reactors. My guess (as well as other peoples' who are more in tune than I) is that Iraq had a bomb but no uranium for it. N Korea needed oil due to sanctions. It is highly likely that Saddam and N Korea were about to make a swap.
If that were the case, Saddam would have a working nuke or two. He might not be able to get it to the US, but he might could get it to Israel. Just before this time Israel made a statement that they would not wait on their allies to defend them if they were attacked and would respond with nukes if provoked.
If Saddam was dumb enough to get a bomb to Israel, they would nuke the entire region in retaliatory actions and wouldn't think twice about it. Bush knew this but couldn't allow that to happen. That is why we went to war.
And yes there were many other foreign intelligence agencies that agreed that Iraq had WMDs.
Libertas in infinitum
Don't bother reading the article, you wouldn't want what he actually said to interfere with what you iknow.
I think it will be a long time before we will be able to view these events with any clarity or impartiality. But just to provide a counter point for the discussions here are three articles that site sources that support the claim the contraband weapons did exist and explains what happened to them.
1 22637-6257r.htm
NY Sun article
http://www.nysun.com/article/26514
Middle East Forum
http://www.meforum.org/article/755
Washington Post
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041028-
A gold standard undermines a labor standard because on a gold standard that labor -- the labor of digging up gold -- is then different, differently valued (and possibly more or less valuable), than any other kind of labor. In turn, all other labor is valued in terms of how much gold could have been dug up. In your quip you are just describing a labor standard using gold as a commodity with a value based on labor! This is counter to what Dada wants us all to resist (and supports the comment which you are mocking).
Whether trinkets are better I guess is what is being debated. I don't have an opinion as to whether one is better or not, because when it comes to government coercion they are both the same (whether the government is monopolizing gold-digging or money-printing makes no difference on the end result, control of exchange).
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
... that the clueless morons at Slasdot are in the (small) minority.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
we would live in a modern police state
What the fuck would that be like, exactly? Perhaps 40% of my income going to taxes? Being spied upon? Having my property subject to being seized to build a mini-mall? Being detained randomly for no fucking reason. How about being carted away to detention on a military base and being denied counsel? Being told I can't choose what I put in my own fucking body? Being denied the ability to protect myself with a firearm? How about having federal agents show up at my doorstep with tanks and burn my fucking house down?
Would that be a police state?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
By whom? Who lied? Was it Bush? Cheney? The CIA? Clinton? Kerry? Daschle? Gore? Any of them lie about it? Was it the British, French, Russian, Israeli intelligence agencies? Were they all lying? How about the Iraqis themselves, were they lying? Those with an anti-Bush agenda seem to forget that from the late 90's up until the war literally every single one of those I mentioned were in 100% agreement over Iraq's pursuit, aquisition and stockpiling of chemical, biological and nuclear materials with the ulitmate goal of manufacturing WMD's.
As someone else pointed out, you help spread the lie. Yes, everyone thought that Saddam had some hidden stockpiles of WMD's, but that's not the point. Bush argued that Saddam was engaged in a massive program to produce new WMD's and that he was such a threat that he had to be taken out immediatly. And in both these points Bush was pretty much alone.
Huh, so how do you feel?
Canada was right.
Canada saw that there was no justifiable reason to go into Iraq, that there was no believable evidence of WMD's.
Canada had the balls to do the right thing and not support the American Terrorists.
Funny how so many Americans are now with US and against Bush isn't it?
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Because we knocked one ruthless bloodthirsty dictator, out for another.
We're supposedly putting democracy into this wartorn country, made up of two races of people who hate eachother, however just look at Saddam's Trial. Sure, he's mr. baddy #1, but lets run through the facts.
#1 - he's accused of retaliating against an assassination attempt. Sure, his reaction was over the top, but if the situations were switched they'd be the same way.
#2 - Special "hidden" witnesses proclaiming their hardships - these could easily be someone they pulled off the street and promised land to.
#3 - they are constantly screwing with the rights of the defendents. Even the guy WE sent in to defend Saddam saw major issues with it and protested in court.
We're just going to have Iraq War 5.0 in the next 5 years, or maybe 20 - Anyone else know the turnaround time for "Country Rescued by americans" to "Armed nation of hostiles" ?
Half a trillion in military spending has nothing to do with budget imbalance then? I'm kind of confused there.
I don't think it can be proven that he/they lied.
It's likely that either:
1) The WMDs left the country before we got there
2) They are still buried in the desert somewhere (the place is the size of California).
Libertas in infinitum
One thing that continues to defy explanation to me is how, inspite of the fact that everyone knows the WMD pitch for the war has been a questionable deal all along, Americans still went for Bush in 2004. If your president obviously lied to you -- and a costly lie at that -- then wouldn't it make sense to ditch him if he sought the presidency for a second time?
Democrats, or courts nominated by Democrats, did most of the things mentioned in my previous post.
When the Democrats become corrupted
ha.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The impeachment had to be passed by both houses of congresses. It went through the house of reps but died in the senate.
Hmmm... Pie...
Hrm, i thought i understood the full situation but i decided to do a bit of research and learned i was wrong.
He was technically impeached but not convicted.
"Contrary to a popular public misconception, Clinton was successfully impeached (that is, the House did successfully send him to be tried by the Senate). He was not, however, successfully convicted of any of the charges (which is why he was not removed from office), nor was he given any penalty (beyond the censure of the House of Representatives)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_impeachment
Hmmm... Pie...
we always knew that dubya was lying, but the media never wanted to call him out on it before the war.
check out these stickers...that say 'A True Patriot Questions Our Lying Government'
You can get them here
How does NSA get expert approval for a wiretap?
/dev/yes
#cat
Hey, that's a JOKE
Since he has admitted he did wrong and is clearly a participant, lets execute him.
"Because the fact that he finally decided to speak up at all, ever, is in and of itself an admirable thing."
Why? He's prove that he'll do the politically expedient thing, so explain why it's admirable that he's doing it now?
It's still just the politically expedient move. The fact that you like what he had to say changes nothing. He's shown his motivation isn't doing what is right, it's doing what is popular.
This is another example of the same thing.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Those quotes are
A) taken out of context which makes them worthless
B) About how the IRAQIS will use their own oil resources to reconstruct their own country.
Nowhere in there was any statement claiming the Iraqis will reimburse the US for the cost of the war, and even if there were, THE WAR ISN'T OVER YET, AND NONE OF THE QUOTES GIVE A TIMELINE.
Stop trying so hard.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Here dude! Check it out: http://www.export.gov/iraq/pdf/iraq_development_st rategy_063005.pdf read the first part about economic development.
Those are the Iraqi dinars hard at work. What're you talkin about? That is Bush's BABY right there, he's snuggling Iraq, trying to give them a good home. Give the man a little credit, sheesh. Put yourself in his shoes. Seriously, you need to lighten up and look at things with a rational eye. I would certainly hesitate to think that Bill Clinton would have been so cruel as to steal money from another country! Bill Clinton's problem is he saw too much that could go wrong in Iraq, he fought wars from the air as a matter of policy. I think that is a recurring trend among Democrats, given their base supporters, who cringe at the thought of any American's dieing. That's the simple truth. The rest is just bullshit designed to keep voters grounded in the party. Of course some criticism is good, but this argument is just ridiculous.
So, one guy kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people for the crime of being of a different ethnic group or insulting the dictator's appearance.
The other guy kills hundreds of guilty people as a last resort after they have been caught committing atrocities and other unspeakable acts (including participating in what is described in the first sentence).
They are exactly the same! Of course!
"This argument makes little sense to me. How would having a timetable make terrorists more likely to attack after the US withdraws than not having a timetable? If terrorists are waiting for the US to leave before stepping up attacks, why wouldn't they go into hiding and stop their attacks, then resume once the Bush Administration declares that we've won, packs up their things, and goes home?"
Because the general consensus is that US troops won't pull out until after the Iraqis are sufficiently trained to protect themselves. Coming out of hiding then would be politically stupid, because Iraqi "freedom fighters" who kill legitimate Iraqi policemen would (IMO) have a much harder time justifying their murderous ways.
"The only answer I can come up with is that it's the very presence of the US forces that are provoking the attacks. "
(Smirking) I wonder why that is. First of all, you assume here that US forces are "provoking" attacks. The term is loaded, and I doubt you used it by accident.
Second, US service men are their in Iraq under threat of imprisonment. Stop acting like we marched in with a gang of Viking raiders to rape and pillage, it's not accurate, and it's childish.
Perhaps if you allowed yourself a moment to view the world without your overwhelmingly corrupting bias, you'd realize that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, the terrorists are power hungry despots looking for an opportunity to gain the upper hand in a rapidly developing country.
It's easy to jump on the "blame US" bandwagon. It's much harder to use your intellect to analyze what is actually happening. Now that you've mastered the first, perhaps you could try the second.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
You mean Suckers who will not see. None are so blind...
--
Americans can bury their heads only for so long without coming up for beer.
R. Limbaugh
Yes, irrefutable evidence is good (tapes, smoking guns, notarized photos of Rove designing "Buttzilla.")
Still, there will be those who will not smell the shit, even when it's right there, on their plates. Brave souls are surely joining the critical mass -- witnesses to all the fuck-ups and betrayals. Again, as with Vietnam, so many will first have to eat the shit in order to know for sure. Evolution is sooo slowwwwww!
"...objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences, subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny." -Gould
Still, there will be those who will not smell the shit, even when it's right there, on their plates.
Yes, and on the other hand, there are people who JUST KNOW that Bush's "16 words" were lies based on forgeries, despite the fact that they were based on separate, preexisting, British intelligence.
That is, a lot of times people smell things that just simply are not there.
I had no idea I was also "U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Chief Deputy Democratic Whip" (as referenced in the GGP post), I guess it was me on my U.S. Representative web site that compiled that list of quotes from the administration. Otherwise, if I wasn't also Jan, then I wouldn't have been "The only person making inferences...". Nevermind the fact that I am also obviously slashdot user "NMerriam (15122)", as it was s/he who made the original comment. Damn, I must be schizophrenic. Thanks for the info!
You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth
Actually, no. I have simply inferred (to you and you alone I guess, as it was not my original intent) the W "is just about the worst [president] on earth". It that case, I'd have to agree with myself (but which myself? the Jan myself, or the NMerriam myself? Fuck, this is confusing).
which you know isn't true
Actually, none of the me's are positive about that point.
and you can't offer any support for that argument
(Neverminding the fact that that was not *my* argument) You are so right, I offered absolutely no support for that argument what-so-ever. Silly me, I thought we were talking about W's (and HIS administrations) references to the Iraqi's footing part of the bill. I apologize. Excellent use of the NeoCon-ish-ness "demean your critics, divert the debate and ignore the issues", well played!
I have showed you concrete numbers, yet the OBVIOUSNESS of everything still isn't getting into your skull.
To paraphrase W (and yes, I lived in Texas) - "There's an old saying in Tennessee... well, it's an old saying in Texas, I believe also in Tennessee. Actions [pauses] speak louder then [pauses] government documentation on a National Development Strategy authored more then 2 years after the invasion was 'complete'". Shouldn't that have been done BEFORE the invasion? Or at least very soon there after? Or am I a "dick" to assume some leadership in a war that "we" "choose".
Have there been elections? Yes. Have they represented the population? Depends on if your a Sunni, Kurd or Shiite. We've killed 30,000 of them (W's numbers, not mine), is that considered progress? Guess that depends on if your PWT, KKK, or NeoCon.
You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?
I enjoy a bit of intellectual masturbation every once in a while. Besides, since I don't go to church, I don't have a clergy thinking for me, so I guess that makes me more dumber two.
Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad.
Let's take score, shall we?
You referenced 1 document authored by the Republic of Iraq, Iraqi Strategic Review Board, Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation to support your position.
I referenced the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Associated Press/Ex-President Jimmy Carter, The Washington Post, CNN, San Francisco Gate, and U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky's website (which itself references NYT, Reuters, The Washington Post, House Budget Committee, Congressional Testimony, CNBC, White House Press Briefings, House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplem
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
Lets look at the play by play... An individual makes a comment about Iraqi oil was meant to, in one way or another, pay for the "war"/its repercussions which hasn't seemed to have happened. You comment that no one ever made that claim. I enter the conversation, simply referencing a number of Administration quotes on the matter. Enter your first personal attack ("look at things with a rational eye" and "I would certainly hesitate to think that Bill Clinton would have been so cruel as to steal money from another country!"). I never made mention of "stealing" or "cruel"ity, I simply pointed out that you were in error in your original post (which was "I don't remember Bush ever saying [...] that we would pay for it with Iraqi oil exports"). I took "it" to mean "reconstruction", not "war", I guess you meant "it" differently.
I then explained that *I* understood these comments to mean "reconstruction" (or at least not "war") at the time. I then pointed out that reconstruction efforts have not seemed to be a focal point of the Administration (which is a point you asserted - "...That is Bush's BABY right there, he's snuggling Iraq, trying to give them a good home...."). I then allowed you to take me off the main topic and down the road of the Clinton administration, which quickly became a pissing match of presidents (course I didn't sing Clinton's praises, I just referenced some of W's... shortcomings). I then ceded the point, stating "Now, this is a bit unfair as he was at the helm while America suffered one of it's most high profile disasters, and more money would have been spent by anyone in the office at the time.".
Now I show my cards... My basic belief is that W. is doing more harm then good, and that the America of today is (in my personal view) not the America was was shown to love.
Now it gets interesting. You begin to put words into my mouth ("You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth" you asserted that, not I), pose untrue statements ("The only person making inferences here is you.", "...you can't offer any support for that argument." - an argument you imagined), and personal attacks ("You sound like John Kerry, campaign hero.", "...yet the OBVIOUSNESS of everything still isn't getting into your skull", "You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?", and "You're just some ignorant schmuck."). Then, after you created an argument out of this air and insulted me over it, you claim victory ("Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad."). Um, dude, that was your ground you were holding. Holier, meat Thou.
Now you have won, because you drag me down to your level. I address the points you pulled from thin air and defended them (well ok then, I guess "You're just some ignorant schmuck." was more truth then personal attack). Now, that was stupid.
Now you continue to create arguments out of this air ("nutrageous (sic) conspiracy theories" - I quoted the Administration for the most part, if you see conspiracy theories in those quotes, then they are yours, *not* mine) and frankly, make shit up ("You'd rather sit around with your buddies smoking pot and talking about the temperature that steel girders melt at."). Yo, if you think there was something fishy about the girders, again, your theory, not mine. And as for pot, I've never partaken as I am afraid I may enjoy it. The last thing I wanna do with my life is waste it as a pothead, but thank's for asking.
As for "This is the first National Development Strategy produced by a democratically elected government of Iraq.", where is the reference to the reconstruction plan that preceded the one drawn up by the Iraqis? Granted, I didn't ask that question, but that is what I was getting at. Was there an original plan? Or was there a 2 year and 1.5-ish month period where there was no previous plan in place to disseminate the funds authorized by Congress? Now this is an absurd question, there must have been. But as I referenced articles to the
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
"Democrats aren't liberal. Democrats are center-right. Republicans are right wing. There are no liberals in power in America, and haven't been for decades now"
No. Democrats are left wing, but not far to the left of center. Republicans are right-wing, but not far to the right of center. There's an incredibly large number of liberals (left-wingers) in power in America. They hold large number of governor seats, many very important large city mayor posts, and almost half of each branch of Congress. We even had a liberal in the top political position in the nation until about 5 years ago. 5 years is not decades.
Of course, I am measuring from the political center, only. (If you are far left wing and think that the far left is the center, then just about everything is right-wing to you).
"That's interesting- but in modern America the press is controled by the corporations"
Most of the press is controlled by corporations. This is because the system tends to encourage even very small organizations to incorporate in order to avoid frivolous lawsuits. However, even with this, there are major influential press organs which (as far as I can tell) are not organized into corporations. These included Drudge and indymedia.
"How was Mossadeq a terrorist? He was voted in and supported by the people, that doesn't give the US, who claims to support all democracy, the right to go and install a dictatorship"
He wasn't a terrorist. He was just a fascistic tyrant who was making a typical power grab (a la his Soviet masters) to make the wealth of Iran his personal property. Where there is socialism, there is no justice or freedom.
The Shah wasn't perfect, but looking back he represents a period of calm between Iran's troubles with the prevailing evils of the past many decades: socialism and Islamicism, both of which have no place in government.
"A tyrant who was democratically elected!"
Yes. The most famous tyrant of all (hence the reference to Godwin's law) was democratically elected.
I've seen the principle called "one person, one vote, one election". After election, the winner outlaws the political opposition.
"Why can't you live with someone who others voted for?"
Because the people living under the jackboot of a tyrant can't live with it.
"Do you then think it's fair for Kim Jong Il to assasinate Bush"
Perhaps the other way around, maybe. KJI is the tyrant, not Bush (who is out of there anyway in 2008 due to the strong democratic system).
"And if you're Danish, you tolerate the destruction of your embassies and culture and die for the sake of that tollerance."
Mmmmmm. danish. mmmmmmm
Read it and weep http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0124/p09s01-coop.htm l
They didn't even want to retaliate. They gave Saddam Hussein plenty of time to comply with very reasonable requirements. However, he refused to comply with inspections, he kept attacking peacekeepers, and he kept funding and promoting terrorism (oh, and the inspectors kept finding new WMD materials).
"well there used to be something there, but the Russians took it."
There really was something there; everyone knew it. The question is, where did it go?
"the Australian govt has made it really difficult"
As Malcom Fraser once said "Life wasn't meant to be easy". Sorta sums up the prevailing government attitude really.
Seriously though, what is the preocupation with fucking fertilizer, there are sheds full of commercial explosives dotted all over the bush secured by nothing more than a kmart padlock. What good is the bueracratic bullshit now required to buy a common commodity when we live on an island, big yes, but still a fucking island with less people than Tokyo! I'm sure a terrorist would have the brains to steal it just before they required it and if they don't have that kind of foresight then how can they be considered a serious threat.
I recently watched a doco about how two jewish men (one an escaped forger from Auchwitz) had spent a large part of WW2 pretending to be German soldiers. They found that with the right forms, stamps and a bit of care, they did not have to fight or work they simply kept moving around and minapulating the system, officials happily provided transport, uniforms, food, shelter, weapons, entertainment, ect, all on the strength of bits of paper.
Databases have largely replaced the old forms and stamps but I think with a little care and skill today's secret police would be just as easy to fool. As someone else in the thread pointed out, it is impossible to stop people who are deterimed to kill themselves in a spectacular way.
If your an Aussie (what else could you be with a name like BushPig, eh-bloke), you might be interested in the Alan Jones riots.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.