That's Change IN WHICH YOU CAN BELIEVE!! If I ever run for president and try to appeal to urban elites, you can be sure I'll at least refrain from ending my campaign slogan in a preposition.
Well, McCain was the one who took the public campaign financing and is barred from raising money for his campaign now. Obama initially vowed to also take the public campaign financing, then chose not to and now has to raise it all himself. Of the two, it seems Obama is much more prone to being bought out or at least influenced by donors. Open Secrets shows Obama accepted far more money from large corporations than John McCain.
Except when the other guy changes his mind, then he's a no-good spineless waffling flip-flopper.
The page length is just slightly less now and the deletions and additions are pretty significant. It's hard to believe Obama just "changed his mind" on all these topics overnight.
My cell phone has a microSD slot, so I might consider *wince* buying music that way. But it would need to be at a reasonable price (I'd have to think more about at what price I would pay for this) and it would have to have music I didn't already have or couldn't acquire easier from other sources. I don't have an iPod (yeah I know, I'm one of those people), so that's not a problem for me. But I'm not sure I want to have a collection of 1GB microSD cards laying around. I have a hard enough time keeping track where my keys are.
At least they're finally trying to make something we want rather than forcing us to buy buggy whips though.
Well, they already wear a rather large and uncomfortable kevlar helmet and I doubt this will replace it in combat. Perhaps this is meant for in-the-rear commo vice while out on patrol. Or perhaps it will be incorporated into the existing helmet and commo systems. This being/., I couldn't be bothered with RTFA and finding out.
The '98 Embassy bombing was carried out by alQueda. al Queda is a Sunni Islamic terror organization with no ties to the country of Iraq
Then why did UBL say he conducted the Embassy bombings in response to UN sanctions against Iraq? Why show such strong support for Iraq when they're not involved? BTW, the Embassy bombings were 7 Aug 98, 2 days after Saddam thew out weapons inspectors. Seems an awfully big coincidence for UBL to attack us so close to Saddam's action, then issue a letter taking credit sayig he did it to support Iraq.
The 95 Oklahoma City bombing was entirely funded and performed by US citizens
Read The Third Terrorist by Jayna Davis. Turns out John Doe #2 was Hussein al Husseini, an Iraqi agent. Nichols went to the Philipines and met with both Al Qaeda terrorists and Iraq intelligence agents. McVeigh was seen with several Middle Eastern men leading up to the attack and was arrested with Iraqi phone numbers on him. The book is worth the read. Or you can google Jayna Davis and read some of her articles based on her book.
One of the perpetrators had a false Iraqi passport, but he was actually from Kuwait.
Common misperception. Ramzi Yousef was NOT Karim Abdul Basit from Kuwait. Yousef was 3" taller than Basit, and interviews with people who knew them both confirmed they are nothing like one another and nowhere near each other in age. With a beard, though, they look enough like each other to pass. Basit was killed buring the Iraq occupation of Kuwait and Yousef's fingerprints were put into his file in order to provide a convincing alias for one of their operatives. Iraq has been known to go to great lengths to cover up their involvement in terrorist acts. In fact, when they pulled out of Kuwait, 50,000 blank passports were missing. Also, Abdul Rahman Yasin, Yousef's accomplice, fled to Iraq using his Iraqi passport with the help of the Iraqi government. He was a smooth character, who, after admitting he helped mix the ingredients to the bomb, talking his way out of FBI custody saying he had to tend to his sick mother in Iraq. In the 2003 invasion we discovered documents showing he was on the Iraqi payroll for the previous 10 years. Try reading The War Against America by Laurie Mylroie for more.
Just a few months ago the Pentagon posted a report on it saying that after combing through all of the documentation they found after disposing Saddam
Funny how people take the government's word when they agree with them, but forget all the coverups and bungles. Remember the Pentagon Papers? Magic bullet theory? The FBI has been caught red handed covering up links between Iraq and the 95 OKC. The FBI refused on several occassions to even listen to Jayna Davis or accept her affadavits, interviews, camera footage, and other evidence linking Iraq to the 95 OKC attack. I'll say it again: REFUSED to even look at it. Given the huge amount of information freely available linking Iraq to numerous attacks, I have to wonder about reports like this and the motives of those involved. I am not some amateur conspiracy nut. I am an intelligence analyst who has tracked terrorism for years.
How can morale be so high when the body count grows
There has been much progress here recently, but even before the Surge and Awakening there were plenty of things to keep morale up. The media didn't report any of it, but we built thousands of schools, mosques, and other facilities and directly saw the fruits of our labor. We've been killing and capturing some really nasty people, some with violent criminal records back in the States. We've provided jobs, cleaned up neighborhods, got the oil industry back online. Things are going much much better here than the media would have you believe.
its clear to all by now that Saddam had no WMDs
It's not clear to those working here. An EOD tech working here lost a friend to a sarin artillery round. Marines found Mustard gas in the Tigris on the initial push into Baghdad, after it was apparently dumped by the Iraqis. There were huge convoys of vehicles leaving Iraq into Syria and Iran for the 8 months we gave Saddam to comply with the UNs demands. The fact that we didn't find much hasn't hurt morale at all. And BTW, we all still get chem suits and gas masks issued here. When I jokingly ask soldiers and Marines why we have them since Iraq never had WMD, they all look at me like I'm an idiot.
had nothing to do with 9/11
They certainly had a lot do with terrorism. They were on the state sponsored terrorism list for 20+ years, and were involved with the 93 WTC attack, the 95 OKC attack, and probably the 98 Embassy bombings.
didn't allow Al-Qaeda operatives any freedom to start building up a power base in Iraq
Iraq and Al Qaeda did in fact work together, though many people seem to think they hated each other more than they hated us. After the 98 Embassy bombings, UBL took credit and stated for all the world to know that he did it to support Iraq, meaning both the ongoing sanctions and Clinton's recent bombing without a UN sanction. KSM was a top Al Qaeda lieutenant and received funding from Iraq. His nephew Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent responsible for the 93 WTC attack and the 94 Bojinka plot. The connections go on and on and a simple google search of Iraq and Al Qaeda will turn up more.
Why is the Iraq war seen as successful?
Besides the above, we don't want to quit or admit defeat. And if we pick up and leave, it's quite possible Al Qaeda and other groups will resume sectarian fighting and we'll come to see our losses as meaningless. Personally, I think it's time to draw down gracefully but be prepared to go back if the Iraqi government asks for our help.
So what you are saying is that PTSD is okay so long as our troops and Marines are happy while they are in theater?
Um, not even close. Your answer was to just not send them to war. My retort was that they're volunteers and by and large want to be there. PSTD is serious and we need to support those who come back with it. I just didn't want this to turn into another "sending our kids to war" argument. They're grown ups who voluntarily signed up in war time. They know what they're doing.
1 of these actions is the result of a misinformation campaign designed to pursue a political agenda in the Middle East
Sadly, somewhat true.
specifically in a country that was of no threat to the USA.
Whoah there buddy! Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Iraqi agents were involved in the 93 WTC attack, the 95 OKC attack, and probably the 98 Embassy bombing. They were far from "no threat."
Yes, *yawn* I am too. Who would have guessed the candidate with no experience and a carefully-prepared thoughtful thousand yard stare would use more spin than a self-described straight shooter?
I was just thinking of that book. I think it was actually quite useful. As a member of the intelligence community, I see many implications of thin-slicing and other things in his book to what we do. I think they're right in the article, too, that we're going to be seeing a lot more of this.
True, for some. There are also some (many people I know personally) who joined/re-enlisted/extended/went back in post 9/11 in order to serve their country in time of need. I know people who gave up college scholarships to enlist in the Marines. I know people who voluntarily came out of retirement to go to Iraq. Also, re-enlistment rates in the Marine Corps have been higher since the war in Iraq started. Each year, they have had to turn Marines away where before the war they sometimes fell short of quotas. The last two years, when the slots opened up at the beginning of the fiscal year on 1 Oct, all re-enlistment slots had been filled by 31 Oct. In pre-war years, it would take all year to fill them usually. After the first 4-5 years, there are plenty of opportunities for most Marinesif they were to get out, especially now with the new GI Bill. With such high re-enlistment rates, I am still left wth the conviction that the vast majority of those serving want to be there. I am in Iraq right now, and I can say that morale is and has been sky high.
Yeah, I'll admit America is a little different in this regard. We grew up on the frontier as a nation, and guns have a special place in our heart. We fought Indians, French, and British with our trusted hunting muskets and rifles. We carried guns in the lawless west for many years. We sold rifles in hardware stores up until recently. We also have right now, for various reasons, quite a lot of inexpensive and easily accessible weapons on the black market. And our culture of self-determinacy and independence is at odds with those who say personal security is the police's responsibility.
That being said, the availability of guns to criminals in Europe, Canada, and other places is increasing and every place where laws were put in place to limit guns the crime rate has gone up. The premise of the book still holds in Europe, though the scale is admitedly smaller.
Buying a box of pencils doesn't require a willingness to do harm to someone.
I have guns and I don't want to harm people. I want to protect myself and my family from those who want to harm them.
Chances are those who buy AK47's have plans to use them for something other than a prop in a school play
No, chances are they are buying them for defense. There are extremely large quantities of "assault rifles" in the US and extremely few illegal uses of them. People buy "assault rifles" because they are easy and fun to shoot, easy to clean and maintain, easy to buy parts for, easy to customize, and are generally inexpensive.
But how many muggings with guns would not have happened without the guns?
How many people could defend themselves or their family from a mugging without a gun? There are over 5 million defensive uses of legally owned firearms in the US every year.
If you carry a licensed handgun, fire it at a mugger for example, wing him, then the bullet carries on through a wall into a baby's crib, you might as well have stood over the crib and opened fire. Intent follows the bullet.
Um, no. Not even close. Accidental killing and murder are not the same thing. And bullets missing intended targets, going through walls, and killing other people is EXTREMELY rare. Most handgun loads will not go through brick or cinderblock walls (using your example of an outside mugging, the bullet would have to first penetrate the outside wall) and there are plenty of loads specifically designed to not go through interior drywall for just this reason.
Shooting at anything in a residential area under any circumstances is only for trained law enforcement.
What about former military (like myself and millions of other Americans), former law enforcement, and other trained civilians? Most states that allow concealed handgun permits require training or prior military service before issuing, so no it is not just for law enforcement.
Buying insurance generates funds to research criminal activity and make communities safer.
And communities that own guns have lower crime. Those that ban gans have higher crime. Been to DC recently?
For more reading, try More Guns Less Crime. It was written by a Harvard economist who started off trying to show bad guns are and after quite thorough research using over 1,000 sources ended up buying a gun to defend his family. If you would like an argument backed by facts and not flimsy emotional appeals, read the book.
I might be more agreeable to this if it were Vietnam and we had the draft. But this is an all volunteer force, 99% of which have either enlisted, re-enlisted, been commissioned, or extended since the war in Iraq began. If they didn't want to be there, they wouldn't be.
The controversy is that the OLPC program started off with the goal of delivering an entirely open source machine, and ended up delivering Windows XP. I don't expect everyone to agree with each other, but at least agree with yourself.
If you have any independent evidence supporting any of your claims, go ahead and cite them.
I did. Two books, both extremely well-researched. You could also try googling it, like I've mentioned a few times. There's tons of information out there if you bother to look.
This claim alone proves you're not an intelligence analyst
Your inability to see the sources I post PROVES this? Wow. For the record, I was trained as an 0231 (Intelligence Analyst) at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center, where I later served as an instructor. I am now a senior intelligence analyst at MNF-I COIC in Baghdad.
(never mind that I doubt there are actually many analysts on the ground in Iraq
Yeah, there's just the MNF-I C-2 shop, MNC-I C-2 shop (each with over 100 analysts), MNF-West Intel shop, MND-Central Intel shop, MND-North Intel shop, MND-South Central Intel shop, MND-Baghdad Intel shop, every Army and Marine division, brigage, and battalion's intel shop, the Baghdad Fusion Center, Tikrit Fusion Center, Basra Fusion Center, etc, plus representatives from every intel agency, not to mention the Brit and Aussie intel shops. But what do I know? I only work here.
Regardless, involvement in OKC, WTC '93 or any other terrorist attack provides absolutely no proof - only suspicion - that they had anything to do with 9/11
Holy shit, man, I never said they were involved in 9/11. Are you seriously this retarded, or do you just have reading comprehension problems? The strongest statement I made was that Saddam may have had foreknowledge, and that I'm still not sure. THAT'S IT! Drop the strawman argument already, fer chrissakes. And the evidence I cited for their possible foreknowledge had nothing to do with the previous attacks. I cited Iraq's involvement in the previous attacks as evidence that they were a threat, not that they were involved in 9/11.
It's a logical fallacy, and only an emotional plea.
We call it pattern analysis. Two Iraqi agents were involved in the 93 WTC attack (I'm sorry you are unaware of this, but the preponderance of the evidence points to this). The WTC is later destroyed. It is worth looking into whether Iraq was involved the second time. Furthermore, KSM was involved both times (his nephew Ramzi Yousef was the Iraqi agent that orchestrated the first attack). KSM has received funding from Iraq in the past. Bringing up Iraq's past involvement is not a logical fallacy, and intelligence analysis does not throw out evidence when building cases unless it is false, regardless of "emotional" reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't tell you how many times I've needed one of those.
It's 'change you can believe in.'
That's Change IN WHICH YOU CAN BELIEVE!! If I ever run for president and try to appeal to urban elites, you can be sure I'll at least refrain from ending my campaign slogan in a preposition.
Well, McCain was the one who took the public campaign financing and is barred from raising money for his campaign now. Obama initially vowed to also take the public campaign financing, then chose not to and now has to raise it all himself. Of the two, it seems Obama is much more prone to being bought out or at least influenced by donors. Open Secrets shows Obama accepted far more money from large corporations than John McCain.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contriball.php?cycle=2008
Except when the other guy changes his mind, then he's a no-good spineless waffling flip-flopper.
The page length is just slightly less now and the deletions and additions are pretty significant. It's hard to believe Obama just "changed his mind" on all these topics overnight.
That's really unfair to retarded children to compare them to recording industry executives.
My cell phone has a microSD slot, so I might consider *wince* buying music that way. But it would need to be at a reasonable price (I'd have to think more about at what price I would pay for this) and it would have to have music I didn't already have or couldn't acquire easier from other sources. I don't have an iPod (yeah I know, I'm one of those people), so that's not a problem for me. But I'm not sure I want to have a collection of 1GB microSD cards laying around. I have a hard enough time keeping track where my keys are.
At least they're finally trying to make something we want rather than forcing us to buy buggy whips though.
I move for that comment to be eliminated!
Just sing Beatles songs in your head. Worked for Dr. Zarkov.
Well, they already wear a rather large and uncomfortable kevlar helmet and I doubt this will replace it in combat. Perhaps this is meant for in-the-rear commo vice while out on patrol. Or perhaps it will be incorporated into the existing helmet and commo systems. This being /., I couldn't be bothered with RTFA and finding out.
Every soldier could use a little zest now and then.
You must be new here.
I will never NEVER get tired of that meme.
So ICANN has choklet kake? Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.
The '98 Embassy bombing was carried out by alQueda. al Queda is a Sunni Islamic terror organization with no ties to the country of Iraq
Then why did UBL say he conducted the Embassy bombings in response to UN sanctions against Iraq? Why show such strong support for Iraq when they're not involved? BTW, the Embassy bombings were 7 Aug 98, 2 days after Saddam thew out weapons inspectors. Seems an awfully big coincidence for UBL to attack us so close to Saddam's action, then issue a letter taking credit sayig he did it to support Iraq.
The 95 Oklahoma City bombing was entirely funded and performed by US citizens
Read The Third Terrorist by Jayna Davis. Turns out John Doe #2 was Hussein al Husseini, an Iraqi agent. Nichols went to the Philipines and met with both Al Qaeda terrorists and Iraq intelligence agents. McVeigh was seen with several Middle Eastern men leading up to the attack and was arrested with Iraqi phone numbers on him. The book is worth the read. Or you can google Jayna Davis and read some of her articles based on her book.
One of the perpetrators had a false Iraqi passport, but he was actually from Kuwait.
Common misperception. Ramzi Yousef was NOT Karim Abdul Basit from Kuwait. Yousef was 3" taller than Basit, and interviews with people who knew them both confirmed they are nothing like one another and nowhere near each other in age. With a beard, though, they look enough like each other to pass. Basit was killed buring the Iraq occupation of Kuwait and Yousef's fingerprints were put into his file in order to provide a convincing alias for one of their operatives. Iraq has been known to go to great lengths to cover up their involvement in terrorist acts. In fact, when they pulled out of Kuwait, 50,000 blank passports were missing. Also, Abdul Rahman Yasin, Yousef's accomplice, fled to Iraq using his Iraqi passport with the help of the Iraqi government. He was a smooth character, who, after admitting he helped mix the ingredients to the bomb, talking his way out of FBI custody saying he had to tend to his sick mother in Iraq. In the 2003 invasion we discovered documents showing he was on the Iraqi payroll for the previous 10 years. Try reading The War Against America by Laurie Mylroie for more.
Just a few months ago the Pentagon posted a report on it saying that after combing through all of the documentation they found after disposing Saddam
Funny how people take the government's word when they agree with them, but forget all the coverups and bungles. Remember the Pentagon Papers? Magic bullet theory? The FBI has been caught red handed covering up links between Iraq and the 95 OKC. The FBI refused on several occassions to even listen to Jayna Davis or accept her affadavits, interviews, camera footage, and other evidence linking Iraq to the 95 OKC attack. I'll say it again: REFUSED to even look at it. Given the huge amount of information freely available linking Iraq to numerous attacks, I have to wonder about reports like this and the motives of those involved. I am not some amateur conspiracy nut. I am an intelligence analyst who has tracked terrorism for years.
How can morale be so high when the body count grows
There has been much progress here recently, but even before the Surge and Awakening there were plenty of things to keep morale up. The media didn't report any of it, but we built thousands of schools, mosques, and other facilities and directly saw the fruits of our labor. We've been killing and capturing some really nasty people, some with violent criminal records back in the States. We've provided jobs, cleaned up neighborhods, got the oil industry back online. Things are going much much better here than the media would have you believe.
its clear to all by now that Saddam had no WMDs
It's not clear to those working here. An EOD tech working here lost a friend to a sarin artillery round. Marines found Mustard gas in the Tigris on the initial push into Baghdad, after it was apparently dumped by the Iraqis. There were huge convoys of vehicles leaving Iraq into Syria and Iran for the 8 months we gave Saddam to comply with the UNs demands. The fact that we didn't find much hasn't hurt morale at all. And BTW, we all still get chem suits and gas masks issued here. When I jokingly ask soldiers and Marines why we have them since Iraq never had WMD, they all look at me like I'm an idiot.
had nothing to do with 9/11
They certainly had a lot do with terrorism. They were on the state sponsored terrorism list for 20+ years, and were involved with the 93 WTC attack, the 95 OKC attack, and probably the 98 Embassy bombings.
didn't allow Al-Qaeda operatives any freedom to start building up a power base in Iraq
Iraq and Al Qaeda did in fact work together, though many people seem to think they hated each other more than they hated us. After the 98 Embassy bombings, UBL took credit and stated for all the world to know that he did it to support Iraq, meaning both the ongoing sanctions and Clinton's recent bombing without a UN sanction. KSM was a top Al Qaeda lieutenant and received funding from Iraq. His nephew Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent responsible for the 93 WTC attack and the 94 Bojinka plot. The connections go on and on and a simple google search of Iraq and Al Qaeda will turn up more.
Why is the Iraq war seen as successful?
Besides the above, we don't want to quit or admit defeat. And if we pick up and leave, it's quite possible Al Qaeda and other groups will resume sectarian fighting and we'll come to see our losses as meaningless. Personally, I think it's time to draw down gracefully but be prepared to go back if the Iraqi government asks for our help.
So what you are saying is that PTSD is okay so long as our troops and Marines are happy while they are in theater?
Um, not even close. Your answer was to just not send them to war. My retort was that they're volunteers and by and large want to be there. PSTD is serious and we need to support those who come back with it. I just didn't want this to turn into another "sending our kids to war" argument. They're grown ups who voluntarily signed up in war time. They know what they're doing.
1 of these actions is the result of a misinformation campaign designed to pursue a political agenda in the Middle East
Sadly, somewhat true.
specifically in a country that was of no threat to the USA.
Whoah there buddy! Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Iraqi agents were involved in the 93 WTC attack, the 95 OKC attack, and probably the 98 Embassy bombing. They were far from "no threat."
Obama has more experience in knowing what actual Americans are going through daily
So Obama has as much experience as the average Joe American because he knows what we're going through. You haven't really convinced me. Sorry.
I am shocked.
Yes, *yawn* I am too. Who would have guessed the candidate with no experience and a carefully-prepared thoughtful thousand yard stare would use more spin than a self-described straight shooter?
I was just thinking of that book. I think it was actually quite useful. As a member of the intelligence community, I see many implications of thin-slicing and other things in his book to what we do. I think they're right in the article, too, that we're going to be seeing a lot more of this.
True, for some. There are also some (many people I know personally) who joined/re-enlisted/extended/went back in post 9/11 in order to serve their country in time of need. I know people who gave up college scholarships to enlist in the Marines. I know people who voluntarily came out of retirement to go to Iraq. Also, re-enlistment rates in the Marine Corps have been higher since the war in Iraq started. Each year, they have had to turn Marines away where before the war they sometimes fell short of quotas. The last two years, when the slots opened up at the beginning of the fiscal year on 1 Oct, all re-enlistment slots had been filled by 31 Oct. In pre-war years, it would take all year to fill them usually. After the first 4-5 years, there are plenty of opportunities for most Marinesif they were to get out, especially now with the new GI Bill. With such high re-enlistment rates, I am still left wth the conviction that the vast majority of those serving want to be there. I am in Iraq right now, and I can say that morale is and has been sky high.
Yeah, I'll admit America is a little different in this regard. We grew up on the frontier as a nation, and guns have a special place in our heart. We fought Indians, French, and British with our trusted hunting muskets and rifles. We carried guns in the lawless west for many years. We sold rifles in hardware stores up until recently. We also have right now, for various reasons, quite a lot of inexpensive and easily accessible weapons on the black market. And our culture of self-determinacy and independence is at odds with those who say personal security is the police's responsibility.
That being said, the availability of guns to criminals in Europe, Canada, and other places is increasing and every place where laws were put in place to limit guns the crime rate has gone up. The premise of the book still holds in Europe, though the scale is admitedly smaller.
Buying a box of pencils doesn't require a willingness to do harm to someone.
I have guns and I don't want to harm people. I want to protect myself and my family from those who want to harm them.
Chances are those who buy AK47's have plans to use them for something other than a prop in a school play
No, chances are they are buying them for defense. There are extremely large quantities of "assault rifles" in the US and extremely few illegal uses of them. People buy "assault rifles" because they are easy and fun to shoot, easy to clean and maintain, easy to buy parts for, easy to customize, and are generally inexpensive.
But how many muggings with guns would not have happened without the guns?
How many people could defend themselves or their family from a mugging without a gun? There are over 5 million defensive uses of legally owned firearms in the US every year.
If you carry a licensed handgun, fire it at a mugger for example, wing him, then the bullet carries on through a wall into a baby's crib, you might as well have stood over the crib and opened fire. Intent follows the bullet.
Um, no. Not even close. Accidental killing and murder are not the same thing. And bullets missing intended targets, going through walls, and killing other people is EXTREMELY rare. Most handgun loads will not go through brick or cinderblock walls (using your example of an outside mugging, the bullet would have to first penetrate the outside wall) and there are plenty of loads specifically designed to not go through interior drywall for just this reason.
Shooting at anything in a residential area under any circumstances is only for trained law enforcement.
What about former military (like myself and millions of other Americans), former law enforcement, and other trained civilians? Most states that allow concealed handgun permits require training or prior military service before issuing, so no it is not just for law enforcement.
Buying insurance generates funds to research criminal activity and make communities safer.
And communities that own guns have lower crime. Those that ban gans have higher crime. Been to DC recently?
For more reading, try More Guns Less Crime. It was written by a Harvard economist who started off trying to show bad guns are and after quite thorough research using over 1,000 sources ended up buying a gun to defend his family. If you would like an argument backed by facts and not flimsy emotional appeals, read the book.
I might be more agreeable to this if it were Vietnam and we had the draft. But this is an all volunteer force, 99% of which have either enlisted, re-enlisted, been commissioned, or extended since the war in Iraq began. If they didn't want to be there, they wouldn't be.
I think you've just discovered the ultimate question!
The controversy is that the OLPC program started off with the goal of delivering an entirely open source machine, and ended up delivering Windows XP. I don't expect everyone to agree with each other, but at least agree with yourself.
If you have any independent evidence supporting any of your claims, go ahead and cite them.
I did. Two books, both extremely well-researched. You could also try googling it, like I've mentioned a few times. There's tons of information out there if you bother to look.
This claim alone proves you're not an intelligence analyst
Your inability to see the sources I post PROVES this? Wow. For the record, I was trained as an 0231 (Intelligence Analyst) at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center, where I later served as an instructor. I am now a senior intelligence analyst at MNF-I COIC in Baghdad.
(never mind that I doubt there are actually many analysts on the ground in Iraq
Yeah, there's just the MNF-I C-2 shop, MNC-I C-2 shop (each with over 100 analysts), MNF-West Intel shop, MND-Central Intel shop, MND-North Intel shop, MND-South Central Intel shop, MND-Baghdad Intel shop, every Army and Marine division, brigage, and battalion's intel shop, the Baghdad Fusion Center, Tikrit Fusion Center, Basra Fusion Center, etc, plus representatives from every intel agency, not to mention the Brit and Aussie intel shops. But what do I know? I only work here.
Regardless, involvement in OKC, WTC '93 or any other terrorist attack provides absolutely no proof - only suspicion - that they had anything to do with 9/11
Holy shit, man, I never said they were involved in 9/11. Are you seriously this retarded, or do you just have reading comprehension problems? The strongest statement I made was that Saddam may have had foreknowledge, and that I'm still not sure. THAT'S IT! Drop the strawman argument already, fer chrissakes. And the evidence I cited for their possible foreknowledge had nothing to do with the previous attacks. I cited Iraq's involvement in the previous attacks as evidence that they were a threat, not that they were involved in 9/11.
It's a logical fallacy, and only an emotional plea.
We call it pattern analysis. Two Iraqi agents were involved in the 93 WTC attack (I'm sorry you are unaware of this, but the preponderance of the evidence points to this). The WTC is later destroyed. It is worth looking into whether Iraq was involved the second time. Furthermore, KSM was involved both times (his nephew Ramzi Yousef was the Iraqi agent that orchestrated the first attack). KSM has received funding from Iraq in the past. Bringing up Iraq's past involvement is not a logical fallacy, and intelligence analysis does not throw out evidence when building cases unless it is false, regardless of "emotional" reasons.