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E-Mail Hack Exposes Bush Family Pictures, Correspondence
New submitter rHBa sends this article about another high-profile email account breach:
"The apparent hack of several e-mail accounts has exposed personal photos and sensitive correspondence from members of the Bush family, including both former U.S. presidents. The posted photos and e-mails contain a watermark with the hacker's online alias, 'Guccifer.' ... Included in the hacked material is a confidential October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers, and e-mails for dozens of Bush family members, including both former presidents, their siblings, and their children. ... Correspondence obtained by the hacker indicates that at least six separate e-mail accounts have been compromised, including the AOL account of Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush and sister of George W. Bush. Other breached accounts belong to Willard Heminway, 79, an old friend of the 41st president who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut; CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, a longtime Bush family friend; former first lady Barbara Bush’s brother; and George H.W. Bush’s sister-in-law. "
G "dubya" Bush's shower self portrait.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The kid gloves are off. They're handing out actual jail time for people hacking phones/email for nude pics of Scarlett Johansson. If they find him/her, this dude's going to end up in gitmo over some addresses and phone numbers.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Clearly you haven't been reading your Huff-Po this morning.
Oh dear, it appears that someone's privacy has been violated without a warrant. Hey, Bush family, join the club!
I saw this news 8 hours ago on the front page of yahoo. Can we stick to obscure news, or post widespread news in a timely manner?
Sorry for ranting, mod me a troll if you wish.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Just don't try the same trick with Obama. He has no problem drone bombing US citizens.
Riiiight... _hundreds of thousands_ of innocent civilians. Don't you mean millions? Shit, why stop there, make it hundreds of millions!! Of course, al-qaida, the taliban, and the other insurgents who don't give a damn who dies, even fellow muslims should they be in the way, have fuck all to do with it, they should absolved from all blame, right? It was a totally peaceful and harmonious region, free of murder, executions, torture, and war before Bush went in ruined everything. Because after all, -repeat after me- it's all Bush's fault! Bush, and only Bush. It's all his fault. Hell, he invented fault!
This isn't going to end well for the "hacker".
http://michaelsmith.id.au
...guess I've been out of the hacking biz for too many decades, but how are these mailboxes being compromised? I mean, it seems a rather long and arduous task to brute force passwords, especially if there are timeouts/captchas/whatever after so many missed passwords. Are these inside jobs?
I know I get emails daily from friends who have had their email accounts hacked...I simply can't believe that someone is sitting in front of their computer or even automatically generating passwords to hack these accounts.
Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?
Those who lied to the masses about Iraq are easily outnumbered by those who lied to themselves and just accepted the administration's word.
Hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Yes, hundreds of thousands, precipitating from Bush's decision to start a war in Iraq. You Americans seem pretty eager to forget that your prior Administration killed more people than the despot it meant to depose.
There's an object lesson here: there's no such thing as privacy on the Internet.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
not our fault that sunni and shia hate each other. wonder how the hazara are doing in afghanistan? everyone hates them.
Really?
And isn't it "privacy is dead", right? Yet people didn't demand Eric's head and sending to GITMO for saying it and invading our privacy.
So why is it so damn violent here?
Some dickwad got hosed.
If he'd been a burger flipper at McD's, no bugger would care. But because he's the dickhead who killed thousands, you want fucking DRONE STRIKES????
No one has issue with Afghanistan. The OP is more than likely talking about Iraq. Whom we were literally lied to and told they had ties to al-qaida, and then oops we misunderstood the report - but they have "weapons of mass-destruction1!!!!!" oops, we misread that one too, "but sadam is torturing his people!!", oops, turns out they weren't asking for help.. "ohhh.... okay well then I guess we need to stick around to clean up. "
can you imagine having died and learned that was the reason? That there wasn't one, never was, but now more need to die because of the mess we created by being there wrongfully in the first place? Can you imagine that the vast majority of our current debt is because of the massive amount being pumped into the war in iraq? And you're going to defend it?
Nobody wants to see pictures of the Bushes!
I can't help but wonder what's in these pics, our company blocks the link for "adult themes."
And you believe that justifies the senseless carnage your war brought?
Never mind those local conflicts were never any of your business to begin with.
You people will never get it. You will never understand accountability or responsibility for your actions. Where mature adults would feel ashamed and penitent for what their country had done, America is obviously governed and populated by grown-up children who defiantly think they can have their way and never suffer consequences.
Well strictly speaking, while the war is expensive, the debt really isn't from the war primarily. It is just one of the bigger line items. There are a lot of other culprits out there, not least of which was the problems caused by this little old recession we had.
Here's a picture of daddy drunk again...
Here's a picture of daddy throwing up again...
And here's a picture of mommy at *her* house...
but... but... I'm hungry
AOL? No wonder Republicans are losing the technology war to Dems...
That's actually a pretty ridiculous assertion. The administration is going to say what they are going to say, and if they lie to us, precisely what intelligence assets to we have to prove them wrong?
In the end, we only found out that there were intelligence problems because we went there and had a look around ourselves, which is to say, the army did and they found nothing. We wouldn't have gotten that sort of information any other way.
Let's remember, the fact that Saddam did not have WMDs would actually have been less surprising if we didn't already know he had them at one point and used them on the Iranians and the Kurds. In retrospect, I don't see why you think it would have been obvious to the American public that Saddam wouldn't have had weapons that he clearly demonstrated possessing and using in the past. The fact that he did not have them is something that would not have been immediately apparent to the man on the street. It would have been quite another thing if we made that assertion about a country that never possessed and used them in the past.
oil companies (bushie) and weapons manufacturers (Dead eye dickie cheney) are the only Profiteers.... hold on... aren't there a shit boat full of other laws preventing their criminal profiteering, as well as their OTHER CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.?
Consider you both are idiots for getting the wrong Bush in the first place... When H.W. was in office there wasn't anything going on as far as the US was concerned in Iraq.
Just another ahistorical Slashtard looking to lash out at someone, eh?
Goodness, look. It's someone from another country who can act the part of the outraged world citizen because their country couldn't do this shit if they wanted to. It's easy to be righteous from the sidelines.
Said the anonymous coward. Put your name on it or STFU.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
And Many more million seem to forget Obama's administration for numerous more killings, killings of American citizens all this coming from a Nobel Peace prize winner...Along with numerous DOJ shady dealings incoming "Fast and Furious", but hey its ok!
Please please tell me the shoe really did find its target!
Table-ized A.I.
No one has issue with Afghanistan.
I have an issue with Afghanistan. More coalition troops have died in Afghanistan than died in 9/11. And what have we got for it? A dead bin Laden? Even if he would have been able to pull off another 9/11(unlikely), we're losing more lives than we're saving.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
unless there's a shoe-mark on his "southern end".
Table-ized A.I.
it is a ridiculous assertion.
however, there were people on the ground saying he didn't have what we thought he had. And of course we thought he had them, where do you think he got them from, but as it turns out he didn't take care of the toys we gave him, which isn't that much of a stretch to believe if you looked around the country abit beforehand.
And lets also remember, we were not at the time taking about chemical weapons, we were talking about nuclear weapons and an imminent threat to the US. Something Saddam actually didn't have and had never had but yet we were sure he was about to blow us up with one. I am i man in the street, i knew with 98% certainly that saddam didn't have anything but a depleted and decaying supply of chemical weapons that we had given him. The other 2% was the off chance that he actually had a little for himself that he kept ready, turns out he didn't even have that. I also predicted the sectarian violence that fallowed, i was sitting on the couch talking to my dad and i said, "what if we get to Baghdad and we end up standing there like a referee holding back each side, what do we do then". Turns out they didn't know any more then i did.
What we have to show for it is more than a decade without a major terrorist attack on the U.S.
That's actually a pretty ridiculous assertion. The administration is going to say what they are going to say, and if they lie to us, precisely what intelligence assets to we have to prove them wrong?
Were you paying attention in 2003? It was clear then that most of their intelligence was fabricated. Opposition to the Iraq war produced some of the largest protests ever. Lots of people figured out that they were being lied to.
In the end, we only found out that there were intelligence problems because we went there and had a look around ourselves, which is to say, the army did and they found nothing. We wouldn't have gotten that sort of information any other way.
Bullshit. We could have waited for Hans Blix to finish. But Bush&Co knew that he wouldn't find anything that would support an invasion. Therefore he couldn't be allowed to finish.
Let's remember, the fact that Saddam did not have WMDs would actually have been less surprising if we didn't already know he had them at one point and used them on the Iranians and the Kurds.
The fact that Saddam did not have WMDs was not surprising at all.
In retrospect, I don't see why you think it would have been obvious to the American public that Saddam wouldn't have had weapons that he clearly demonstrated possessing and using in the past
Because there was no physical evidence, only fear mongering.
The fact that he did not have them is something that would not have been immediately apparent to the man on the street.
The man on the street should be able to recognize fear mongering when he sees it. When you hear things like "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud", you KNOW you are being manipulated. It was blatantly obvious in 2003.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Correlation != causation
I haven't had a cold since I started taking that homeopathic medicine...
I keep a jar of peanut butter in the bathroom, and there's crumbs under the couch. PB&C now scram kid
That's due to the anti-terrorist rock I painted shortly after 9/11. He's sitting in the front yard, keeping a vigilant eye on the whole of north america, frightening off those evil terrorists.
You can thank me later.
Preferably in cash.
At what cost? Over the past 10 years we lost about 3000 people in Afghanistan. In the 10 years before that, we lost about 3000 people in terrorist attacks. This is a draw at best. And that's if and only if you expect a 9/11 attack every 10 years, which is not historically the case.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why... you can call her Bush, or you can call her Cock. But ya doesn't have to call her Bush Cock.
George jr. is not heard or seen much in the media since he left office, he's figured out how most of us do not like him, if some of us ever did.
George Sr was pretty low profile too. He's had a couple of moments in the spotlight, but there's been 16 more years to spread them out over.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I think maybe you meant to say within the continental boundaries of the United States. Even then it is not necessarily for lack of trying as the Administrations have made claims of various foiled plots.
WTF took so long, anyway?
American here. I've always thought Bush Jr.'s Iraq war was a simple case of "Love me, daddy". "I'll get that Saddam for you. If I do, will you love me then?" A truly disgusting abuse of power. George jr. is not heard or seen much in the media since he left office, he's figured out how most of us do not like him, if some of us ever did. I hope that the world knows that the average U.S. citizen was against Bush from the beginning, when the voting shenanigans in Florida (hanging chads!) led to the outright theft of the office of the presidency. There are a lot of disillusioned voters who could only watch with disbelief what went on then. Many Anti-Bush demonstrations at the White House lawn happened, their effect was nothing changed, the friends of Bush kept profitting from these unnecessary wars. Truly a shameful time to be an American, imo.
It's true, he's a turd. Like father, Like son.. I think that's how the old saying goes. The only thing I wonder is whether or not he was really out to screw his own country or was just incompetent.
Are you the guy in the other thread who "remembers gettng milk home delivered'?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I see. Well I guess I'll just have to stop criticizing politicians since they are all bad I can't criticize any. That's an awesome way to look at things.
Said "Geoskd"...
They're now private citizens, and deserve some regard for their personal privacy. IMHO, they should be left alone and this guy is a dick.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Slashdot is so hypocritical sometimes.
I hear ya, man, it's almost as if there was more than one of us.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Remember that before G.B. sr. became the president he was head of the C.I.A., and you don't lose those connections when you step down. George jr. couldn't run a hair dryer without help from his father, much less a country. Obama inherited a mess, one that isn't easy to ever fully repair. There, imo, should be treason charges brought against so many people from the Bush jr era, from the top on down. It won't happen, of course. Perhaps when documents are released in 50 years, we'll then be able to know the full scope of what went on. All the players will be long dead by then, of course. (sigh) I try to be the best person I can be in my own little life, best I can do.
You are aware that the "shenanigans" in Florida, ie the hanging chads, was the result of GORE & the DEMS trying to steal the election. The manufacturer of the voting equipment demonstrated in court how you get "hanging chads"... you take 10 or more ballots at one time and try to punch through them all. Which side was complaining that they weren't getting all the votes they should have because of "hanging chads"? That would be the side which tried to stuff the ballot and got carried away trying to punch 10 ballots at a time... which was, oh, that's right... Gore & Co. So get off your ignorant high horse. Gore tried and failed to steal the election. There were several recounts after all was said and done... and along with finding that Bush WON even with all those "hanging chads" Gore wanted counted they found that 25K+ registered Democrats voted absentee in Florida while voting in NY & New Jersey...
Yes hundreds of thousands dead: the Iraq Body Count project lists 111,150 to 121,461 from 2003 to January 13th 2013. Their methodology is to use "...media reports of violent events leading to the death of civilians, or of bodies being found, and is supplemented by the careful review and integration of hospital, morgue, NGO and official figures." to quote them. As media access in Iraq over the last ten years could be described as poor and spotty at best, particularly during the periods of heavy fighting, the Iraq Body Count should be treated as the absolute minimum. The Lancet surveys estimate 654,965 (392,979–942,636 95% confidence interval) excess civilian deaths from March 2003 to June 2009. For this survey 1,849 randomly selected households were visited and asked about deaths in the 14 months before the invasion and about deaths since. Death certificates were asked for 87% of the time and when asked for were provided 90% of the time. So hundreds of thousands of civilians is clearly a easonable estimate, we just don't know how many hundreds of thousands.
Iraq was well known to have intense religious rivalries between Shia and Sunnis, after all Hussein was in the Sunni minority and derived considerable power from this rivalry. He augmented it with a brutal secret police that violently suppressed any opposition group including militant Islamist groups. Not only did Al-Qaeda have no operations in Iraq prior to the war, bin Laden even offered his assistance to the Saudis after the Iraqis had invaded Kuwait but was rebuffed. It was not until 2004 that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group declared itself aligned with al-Qaeda. The Taliban are in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan; their rule over Afghanistan was never recognized by Iraq. It was by only three countries: our allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, plus the United Arab Emirates.
We attacked Iraq despite there being no link to 9/11. If we wanted to punish the country responsible for 9/11 we would have invaded Saudi Arabia since 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudis. We didn't attack Iraq because of WMDs. Other countries have active WMD programs and weapons, but the Iraqis had neither. Even supporters of the war have largely stopped trying to use 9/11 and WMDs as rationales for the war and shifted instead to liberating the Iraqis from Hussein. However there are dictators all over the world, some of whom are worse than Hussein. Yet we didn't attack them, we attacked Iraq. The question is why, and only Bush, Cheney, and high ranking members of his administration know the answer.
I can almost hear the armada of drones heading to Anonymous's house.
The next time you see the words "American here", you will now mentally substitute "Cave Johnson here".
Really - even if they were still in office, this is a dick move. Private emails are private emails. I care less about the hacking than the release, to be honest. If there's some actual funny business (like using personal email to avoid public disclosure statutes), then maybe the relevant text, but just releasing a bunch of personal, day to day emails (and all of the petty squabbling that everyone does) is unnecessary. I don't care what names they called each other or what they said "in private" about anyone.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Anon, because I modded you up.
Disclosure, I am very far from being in Bush's camp
Protests:
Lots of people protested what was going on, but from where I sat, it seemed to be more about "I think GW is an arse and a liar"( and I have sympathy for that viewpoint ) ( I.E. partisan politics ) I do agree we were being manipulated, but I agree with the other poster that we could not know ( rather than think ) that that was the case until we had been in there.
Hans Blix && the inspection of Iraq's WMD capabilities:
Waiting for Hans to finish was looking like an endless loop. Saddam didn't have anything to hide, but he was being quite obstructionist, denying access to areas and buildings that needed to be inspected. Honestly, I get that, from a pride and nationalistic standpoint, it didn't mean that he had anything. It is hard to prove he didn't from there also. So, from the viewpoint of "he has them" ( or even, "he might have them" playing the waiting game didnt look like a reasonable way to proceed.
Everybody, everywhere is a TERROR-WRIST!
Let's start putting them in FEMA camps for their protection! FEMA camps? why they're only for housing people during a "emergency", no? And the guard towers, electrified barbed/concertina wire fences is just to insure that the interned are "safe" no?
In the (future) land of the "free", "freedom" will mean that you are kept happily distracted while you are slowly and methodically herded into a slave labor camp where you will be kept medicated while you work for a Chinese company 12 hours a day, 6 days a week until you "retire" and are surreptitiously turned into cat food.
Just a joke?
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I have always thought that bush juniors war did what it intended to do, win the mid term elections.
Some of us are obviously more intuitive than the rest of you. I knew it was lies all along, but had no way to prove it. Maybe one day you'll find the proof you need that your government lied to you about Sept. 11. And then you'll state what? That there was no way you could have known? Writing is all over the wall, jackass.
One of the buildings near the WTC, # 7 I think, smoldered for over 16 hours before collapsing. Conveniently enough, that building held all the documents being held to prosecute all the players in the Enron scandal. No documents means no way to prosecute. And that was a very strongly constructed steel I-beam building, they don't 'collapse' without being purposely detonated. There are lots of questions about this so-called 'terrorist attack', but it would be considered "un-amaerican" to suggest it was all an inside job.
The problem isn't the war, it is in how it is being fought. We didn't go to war in Afghanistan with the intention of beating the country, we went in trying to preserve it and change its leadership to one that wouldn't harbor terrorist bent on harming us.
We certainly could have went in with WWII style annihilation and occupied what was left of the country afterwards. But we made the same mistake the Russians have and attempted to preserve the majority of the country and instal a friendlier government.
I honestly never saw why anyone thought an ad hoc UN weapons inspection team ever had a chance of discovering anything. The only satisfactory thing Hans Blix could have done was succeed in finding them. Not finding evidence of a secret program in a foreign country is not exactly surprising.
I am also not sure why you also think that a country that was actually attacked by terrorists only two years previously was going to be particularly skeptical about fear mongering either. There's nothing like a few airliners crashing into buildings to make the man on the street reconsider if perhaps the world is a little bit more dangerous than they thought.
Sometimes people are right and sometimes people are wrong. And being right or wrong in the absence of your own ability to verify makes you ignorant, but it doesn't make you culpable. If you go down that road, then perhaps we should argue about the culpability of the Iranian people in the actions their religious nut leaders take, or how the Afghan casualties are their own fault for not overthrowing the Taliban themselves because they "should have known" the Taliban were terrorist harboring assholes. It cuts both ways. There are times that a government says something and you're only going to do anything about it afterward.
We certainly could have went in with WWII style annihilation and occupied what was left of the country afterwards
And kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, rather than just thousands of them? And this is a mistake in your eyes?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Aaron Swartz kill himself, it wasn't a government that did it to him. If you can't stand the heat, don't go into the kitchen.
That's what They said. Are you really that gullible?
Poor sod...
I am also not sure why you also think that a country that was actually attacked by terrorists only two years previously was going to be particularly skeptical about fear mongering either.
Because after a crisis is when people are most susceptible to fear mongering. Is this not obvious? Look at what happened after Sandy Hook, a shit load of fear mongering over guns, people crying "something must be done!", when violent crime is at historical lows.
Politicians use crises as cover for power grabs. That is how fear mongering works. Whenever there is a national tragedy, you will find politicians celebrating the opportunity to ram through bad laws and bad policy. It happens every time, so there's no excuse for being ignorant.
I knew from the moment I saw the planes hit the towers on 9/11/2001 that our overreaction would hurt us far more than the attack did, and I was right. I don't see how anyone could possibly expect anything else. If the way this has played out wasn't obvious from day one, you simply have no clue how the world works.
And being right or wrong in the absence of your own ability to verify makes you ignorant, but it doesn't make you culpable.
If you distort evidence to bolster your reasoning, that absolutely makes you culpable. Being honestly wrong is OK. But the Bush administration was never honest in the run up to Iraq, it was blatantly dishonest, and that was obvious to anyone who paid attention at the time.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Slashdot is so hypocritical sometimes.
It's almost like there's more than one person with more than one point of view posting here.
...has absolutely nothing better to do?
When the gauge is how many Americans have died or been maimed because of the war, yes.
Now, if it is a gauge of how many innocent people are killed or maimed, then no and that is largely a reason why we chose to fight that way.
But please, by all means, jump in and change the metrics of the conversation in order to impress your point. I mean it's not like the GP didn't directly compared the loss of US soldiers to the loss of people in the 9/11 attacks or anything. Oh wait, yes he did.
Back on topic, Bush's sister cannot believe that someone actually breached her privacy by hacking into her accounts. She reacted just like the average computer user would, shocked and dumb-founded. Seems like your average American woman, a nice, if somewhat ignorant person.
It was interesting to learn that Fox news correspondent Brit Humes is close to the Bush family, how very 'fair and balanced' of that reporter.
Except the US military gets to train with and test out a lot of new toys. The ability to get familiar with the weapons systems available to us is invaluable to the military.
The war on terror, much like the war on drugs and the war on poverty, is an expensive, unconstitutional mess that is not achieving the goal that was intended. All three have cost numerous lives, trillions of dollars, and civil liberties. Eliminating most if not all of the drug and prostitution laws will create jobs. Even regulation would be better than outright banning such "taboo" activities. The war on terror is treating everyone like criminals and it has put us into several wars such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Let's say the war on terror is won much like the cold war was. Will the US pull its troops out and close the bases, or would they continue to occupy said bases much like the US continues to occupy the cold war era bases?
The whole war on X plan has only achieved three things: lost lives, burning debt, and lost civil liberties. yes blame Bush for the mess we are in and also blame Obama. But also blame Clinton, Reagan, and every other Republicrat and Democan that has been in office.
--
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself.
Because after a crisis is when people are most susceptible to fear mongering. Is this not obvious? Look at what happened after Sandy Hook, a shit load of fear mongering over guns, people crying "something must be done!", when violent crime is at historical lows.
Well you know.... if you look at everyone as being as intelligent as you are, I don't know if that is fair. After all, consider your own statement there. You knew, just as I did, that people would freak out and blame guns. Well how did you know this? Because you knew that the general population would be susceptible to it. The reason they are susceptible to it is because they are not particularly introspective, but they also lack independent sources of information. That makes them ignorant, but again, ignorance is not culpability. Blaming the People for the situation is like smacking a puppy who peed on the carpet. It's just what they do.
If you distort evidence to bolster your reasoning, that absolutely makes you culpable. Being honestly wrong is OK. But the Bush administration was never honest in the run up to Iraq, it was blatantly dishonest, and that was obvious to anyone who paid attention at the time.
Well, I am more concerned about discussing the culpability of the voters, as opposed to the government itself, since that was the original point of the discussion. I can't really account for what happened in the government, and I am very displeased with what happened, but I don't think it was *so* obvious.
If you're inclined to disbelieve, the fact that you happened to be right introduces a sort of confirmation bias when it comes to asking why no one else saw it. You believe you'd have to be guilty of allowing it to happen for *you* to go along with it, but those who don't share your perspective are not going to come as easily to the same conclusion.
What you can argue is that perhaps people should be less trusting in the future, but there's only so far you can go with that when people want the government to take over their health care and other things.
It's easy to second-guess someone with the benefit of hindsight, but many people forget that at the time, although there might not have been definitive proof of WMD, there was also no definitive proof that there was *no* WMD. What's more, Saddam had actually used WMD within Iraq in the past. In addition, Saddam was being anything but forthcoming in providing reassurance that he had stopped development of WMD. As a result, what you had was massive uncertainty, coupled with a demonstrated capacity for actually using WMD.
The worst-case scenario would have been that Bush takes his army and heads home, then six months later, Saddam uses WMD on Tehran and demands unconditional surrender of the surrounding region, incidentally wiping out Israel as a special concession to the Islamic crowd. If this had happened, Bush would have been blamed for millions of innocent civilian deaths, plus allowing Iraq to become a regional superpower ruled by a demonstrated madman. In short, Bush's options were very limited.
Obama is now in a vaguely similar position with Iran. Granted, Iran has not demonstrated prior use of WMD, but hardening of its research areas is strongly suggestive that it is up to no good. Unlike Bush, Obama seems willing to let the universe unfold as it will, so we may get to see what happens when a president does *not* act. No doubt the Left will give him a pass, no matter what happens.
My hands are burned every time I stick them in the fire. Perhaps I could infer that the fire is what's burning my hands? NOPE CORRELATION EXCLAMATION POINT EQUALS CAUSATION LOL LOL LOL !!!
Last month a drone strike killed 24 civilians, with zero enemy combatants present. Bush would get blamed for this kind of thing outright, yet nobody blames obama.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
The kid gloves are off. They're handing out actual jail time for people hacking phones/email for nude pics of Scarlett Johansson. If they find him/her, this dude's going to end up in gitmo over some addresses and phone numbers.
Are you sure we are on the same page?
I thought there was a kickstarter for nude pictures of certain celebrities?
And you don't think that spending a shitload of time, resources and effort on a war with zero return benefit might have had something to do with the recession?
Money is just numbers in a bank, the war pissed away a lot of lives and real resources that can't be recreated by adding more zeros to MIC bank accounts.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
I'm not sure how you can argue that we were lied to. EVERYBODY believed he had WMD's, that would include the russians, the french, the chinese, the british, and many others who independently found evidence of it.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
.......no comment
We also had a housing market bubble that was grown due to bush's "ownership society" legislation pushes.
Sure it was ok to double the value of a house by adding a gazebo and some updated fixtures. And it was even better to remove regulation and offer incentives to build houses that would never be filled. And there's absolutely no reason to look at the mortgage lending practices of banks.
Everyone was making tons of cash and no one questioned the long term effect. enjoy it while it lasts, it's the next guy's problem!
You can even assume from there that there were aftershocks like bankruptcies and mistrust of financial institutions that further contributed to less growth.
Not really. Groupthink is thicker on slashdot than anywhere I can think of, except maybe a stormfront forum.
Product of the karma system. Anon check keeps it from dying completely.
What is this revisionist crap? Powell threw away his political career (and fell on a sword for Bush) because he told obvious lies to the UN about WMD and nobody in the room believed him. Blair etc pretended to believe to get a fake justification for their actions. The WMD stuff came from a fucking PR company FFS!
You are deliberately misleading the kiddies again with another very stupid lie. The links are far more unlikely than that between the Taliban and Kevin Bacon.
Think about it people - a secular government that see religeous extremists as it's biggest threat and has tortured and killed thousands of them teaming up with a bunch of the people they usually round up and shoot?
Nothing wrong with being anonymous. Don't be an idiot.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
in the death count? Why should humans be so special? I'm sure its at least into the quadrillions or quintillions if you do an accurate re-count.
Are you that far divorced from reality? Apart from homoerotic fantasies it was like watching an angry child having a tantrum.
With the claim above, just like the last one, put up or shut up.
Poor little boy. Are you that desperate for attention from me?
Now if I only had mod points. What amazes me is how far people will go to justify their stupidity than just admit they were fooled (i doubt hardly anybody would admit they were stupid or fools... especially Americans; who are #1 on confidence and not much else.)
Have you ever noticed that people who chose to attack others that value their privacy never actually use their real names?
I have been an AC here since user 77xxx was registered, as some of them were my classmates. It was the wisdom of slashdot at the time to not even use a handle, as just one slip and it is as good as giving away your name, along with massive amounts of information that can be gleaned by any clever individual. Now in these times of real surveillance and data mining of civilians, many chose to attack people on the basis of anonymity. I would like to pretend it is the influx of readers that are not the most hard core of IT and development doing this, but it is clear the common culture of the internet has changed. When once anonymity was thought of as wise prudence is now thought of as a coward's shield.
Look - just ditch your baggage and get back to the topic. You are the only one on this site that gives a shit about what you think about me and all I care about in this thread is your lie of the moment.
So put up or shut - the link between Saddam and Taliban. What is supposed to have drawn those opposite poles of ideology and mortal enemies together?
Oh yea, I almost forgot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/world/state-union-iraq-issue-bush-enlarges-case-for-war-linking-iraq-with-terrorists.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_Resolution
Read the reasons on the war resolution. And understand this is not exact but edited by the fine morons slanting everything to their advantage for wikipedia. Here are some highlights in case you can't figure out how to find the link.
Members of al-Qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq.
Iraq's "continu[ing] to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations," including anti-United States terrorist organizations.
Iraq paid bounty to families of suicide bombers.
This one is from the actual resolution itself
Oh, one more thing, it appears that the mass media actually knows Al Qaeda was in Iraq pre9/11 and attempted to blame their killing people after the invasion on Bush failing to act before the invasion.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2008/02/29/nbc-claimed-bush-allowed-al-qaeda-iraq-war-media-now-ignore-pre-war-p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi#Known_attacks
and according to George Tenet's book, July 2001, an associate of Zarqawi had been detained and, during interrogations, linked Zarqawi with al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. Of course I don't have a direct link to the book, but you can find reference to it on one of the links I already posted.
But hey, continue being a delusional moron tolling me. Opps, I have smacked you once again. I hope that doesn't mean you will start stalking me in real life or other sites.
You are spending an awful lot of time following me around and trolling me not to give a shit about what I said. But look at the other post I made troll.
Finally! About 30 posts asking you to put something up about your lies or shut up and you finally give an answer. Propaganda this time, so at least high quality professional level lies, but that's a vast step up from before.
For a lie to be a lie it has to be [1] wrong info and [2] the presenter must know it is false at the time he presents it
First, What Bush said (as opposed to what morons imagine he said) in the speech to congress was in fact true ... Bush did not say Saddam had WMDs, he said that we had reports from the intelligence service of an ally that Saddam was trying to get yellowcake uranium in Africa for his WMD program. This was in fact true. We did have intel from an ally's intel agency to that effect. It's also true that Saddam had a WMD program (though once we took over in Iraq we were able to see that it was not very active at the time) Saddam did HAVE a WMD program which had previously been VERY active and had used chem weapons to massacre Kurdish civilians. That program had also previously obtained yellowcake uranium for a nuclear program, and in fact the US and Canada conducted a joint effort to remove tons of yellowcake uranium from Iraq post-Saddam.
Second, to say that we found no nuclear, chemical, or bio weapons there after we took over and therefore Bush lied is also dishonest. What we found after we had boots on the ground has nothing to do with what we KNEW (not what some dissenting analyst without boots on the ground FELT) before the war. Technically though, even on this point Bush was still not wrong if you presume he said Saddam had WMDs since we did find, disarm, and remove a large number of artillery shells which Iraq had and which were loaded with Mustard Gas (a chem weapon, therefore technically a WMD, which most are not so scared of today but Mustard Gas was an appalling weapon when used in Europe in WWI).
The snarky "Lied us into war" line might get you an approving nod among the stupid (people who get their news from late night comedians) but it only highlights your ignorance to those of us who actually READ (and read the details, not just the headlines)
There's something really twisted in the fevered brains of left-wingers; they're not satisfied attacking the public actions of individuals they oppose and seem willing to commit various crimes to go for any personal "dirt" they can get on the subjects of their hatred. It was not enough when Sarah Palin's government e-mail accounts were dumped out for all to see (and nothing bad was found) so a lefty broke into her private e-mail account and leaked it to the world and lefty newspapers encouraged their readers to help crowd-source the investigation for dirt (they did not find anything). Now a jerk has illegally gone into the Bush family e-mail and dumped it to the world (now we can see dubya's toes in the tub). Can anybody name a single Democrat who's private e-mail account has been illegally accessed (and the contents dumped-out for the world to see) by some right-wing activist? anybody?
One major reason politics has become so toxic is that the left no longer plays by any rules. So far, the right has been holding to some of the old rules... but that's going to change if this crap keeps happening... and people on the left won't like the results. We already know the left could not withstand even a normal, legal and proper investigation into their e-mail (else why would so many in the Obama administration be using phony names on illegal, non-government, e-mail accounts?) There are plenty of right-wingers who are very good with the ones and zeros, but we tend to be busy on stuff that's much more difficult and much more important... if even a few decided it was time to take up a hobby we'd see some balance restored.
In SOME countries, leaders are not blamed or not blamed. They are put on a public trial. But this is rare. When it does happen it's usually only cinema.
Now, imagine every American president (after that we can go on European ones) on trail (ON TV !) because of killing and destroying lives of millions of civilians(directly/indirectly) around the globe. Now.. talk about utopian ideas.
If you want a "citation", sorry. No instant gratification here. Open youtube or wikipedia if by any chance you're actually interested.
Keep trolling bud. Just remember, you can't have me.
Lies, I seriously don't think you know what that word actually means. You certainly aren't using it correctly. Of course that is if you are capable of grasping reality. Perhaps I should report you to the obama SS so you can be put on that list of retards not allowed to own guns before you hurt yourself or someone else.
But this president things the government can mess with everyone.
And they're armed.
But nothing about wanting their safety from government protected by hellfire summary judgement through the whitehouse window.
there's something seriously wrong here with you people wanting death for fucking reading someone's email yet going "Well, I'm annoyed and going to complain" when warrantless email search (and theft within 100 miles of the border!) is done by the government.
Shrub et al shouldn't be doing secret service detail work on their google email account.
And without that information being at risk, this is a non-event.
but according to international law, all who support war crimes, all who advocate war crimes, and those who do the war crimes are guilty of war crimes.
Remember Yu, had to redefine what is a war crime for GB2. That redefinition said you kill the wrong person/coleratal damage is not a war crime. Prior too the redefinition, I, as a military member had too protect the innocent. Not kill them, that i as a military contractor had to protect the innocent, Simple terms, keep them safe. Not now.
That law is recognized by everyone, except the United States. Under B2 we backed out of the Geneva Conventions. Basically unsigned the provisins. No one ascharged us yet, oor bought up the idea that we are guilty of crimes. In war and banking.
Ha.. I forgot this is slashdot where the truth gets down modded if it doesn't make Bush look bad and the troll following you around all butt hurt because it doesn't idolize his idolize his theology gets up modded.
How did I ever forget where I was at.
Apparently, it's only wrong to hack someone's email if they're popular politically. I can only imagine that the response would be dramatically different if it was Bill and Hilary Clinton email instead of the Bush family.
I don't think its a draw we killed many terrorists. This is not a "normal war" The enemy doesn't wear uniforms the hide among women and children in hospitals and schools. So what is the cost of doing nothing? More planes slamming into skyscrapers? this time maybe hitting the white house? or a full sports stadium? What is your answer to this problem? In WW2 we bombed the living piss out of German civilians not because they were innocent civilians because they were the enemy also. They made the tanks,bullets,bombs of war. And if we were able to do the same thing treat them all as enemy removing all there tools of war like we did in WW2.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Except we've known for years that Bush said that it was both retaliation for the attempted assassination of his father and to ameliorate the risk he perceived to his daughters from the Hussein regime. The rest was just political posturing.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
oops we misunderstood the report - but they have "weapons of mass-destruction1!!!!!"
Oops yourself. They did have WMDs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Chemical_Weapons_Recovered
Then our friends at wiki leaks - http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/
The majority of our debt has nothing to do with Iraq. It has everything to do with Obama and the Dems not passing a budget since BUSH WAS IN OFFICE! That's because when you cannot pass a budget they do a continuation of the last one that was passed - that included the 1 trillion bailout. That would seem to indicate that he's spent more money than all of the previous presidents combined. At least number wise. Don't blame the Republicans, the Dems controlled the house and Senate Obama's first two years and they couldn't pass a budget either. They didn't want to.
BTW - let's dispel another myth - China holds all of our debt. In fact they don't. The Japanese hold almost as much or by now probably more than the Chinese.