Someone else: hardware/concerts/theaters
You: Too many musicians don't perform in order for that to be fair.
Too many musicians don't perform in order for that to be fair? That's like to many people don't want to work in order for salaries to be fair for those who DO work.
Musicians that don't perform don't deserve a cent.
Particularly composers of electronic music, in which the music cannot be 'performed' live and is most often used in DJ sets at 'concerts'.
Some things just aren't lucrative, as much as we'd like them to be. I'd love to be able to make money touring the world and taking videos, but who's going to pay me to do that? As such, I must turn my attention to other endeavors for which others ARE willing to pay.
Anyone can just claim to have seen someone murder someone else. A witness isn't a proof someone commited murder, it's an allegation.
True, but the allegation of murder is serious enough to warrant at least a quick investigation. The fact that the person seen murdered doesn't appear where he or she normally would lends more weight to the allegation. And a dead body is a body that proves that someone was murdered--the investigation then looks for who.
Murders also (thankfully) happen much less commonly than spam so the relatively infrequent accusation of murder can and should be investigated.
And if a hundred people claim person X commited a crime, like would happen in spamming, well, they still check it out. But their job is a lot easier, no need to worry about the character of their witnesses.
I doubt hundreds of people would be reporting the same spam in the same jurisdiction. The only way this could be handled efficiently is having a central clearinghouse department that receives all the complaints, and even that department would be overwhelmed. And we'd have yet another government organization. Great.
It applies a million times better to computer crime, and people are caught for that all the time.
All the time? Most computer crime is not reported, let alone investigated, let alone prosecuted. You might see an occasional headline of how someone supposedly wrote the virus that destroyed Microsoft computers last week, but that's the exception. Most computer crimes are most definitely not investigated by any law enforcement.
Trying to pretend that the courts won't accept electronic evidence is about the same as claiming they won't accept eyewitness evidence. They indeed do. And it's certain enough to track down, arrest, and more importantly search said spammer, and find physical evidence of the crime in his possession.
Again, you miss the point. I'm not concerned about the spammers. I'm concerned about the potential for abuse.
So you are a disgruntled spammer that is pissed at some anti-spammer. You use your experience to send a bunch of spam out that looks like it was sent by the anti-spammer. People report it and it is investigated. Investigators visit the anti-spammer and rummage through his residence or office, generating suspicion that the anti-spammer is actually a spammer. His reputation is damaged even if nothing is turned up.
Spammers are thiefs. They are also usually computer criminals, having delibrately installed trojans on, at this point, millions of computers.
Great! Then they are already guilty of established crimes and can be prosecuted already. No additional legislation is even necessary.
DVD region coding is bad enough, but at least it doesn't affect the average consumer much here in the US (I don't know about Europe.)
You can always buy your DVD player in Mexico. Virtually every DVD player in Mexico is sold "region-less" because Mexicans live in Region 4 (I think) and that's what Blockbuster rents locally, but many Mexicans do their shopping on the U.S. side of the border where region 1 is sold. So in Mexico you just buy a region-less DVD player and you're good to go.
And if someone kills someone, how can anyone prove he did it?
Police gather evidence and it is presented in a court of law. But to gain sufficient evidence to prosecute a spammer I think you'd need to do what the RIAA is doing, get name/IP matches from ISPs, and then have some officer of the law or the court to review that person's computer for some evidence that he did in fact spam.
Anyone can take any spam and modify the headers and IP addresses to frame anyone they want. Your possession of spam with full headers is not your proof of who spammed--it's your allegation.
And why would you have to go through any legal process? I don't have to sue someone if they steal my stuff, I walk down the police station and tell them, and they arrest the guy.
So you say we should make it a criminal offense and have our police chasing down spammers? I'm against spam, but I don't want our law enforcement tied up in spam investigation--I want them out there catching murderers, thiefs, and maybe even a terrorist now and then. The police are busy enough without having to deal with a flood of spam complaints. Heck, *I* don't even have time to investigate spam anymore--I just block it.
Spamming should be a civil matter. But even that is questionable since even the courts are too busy to be dicking around with a million spam complaints per day.
As you can see, besides defining what spam is the other hard part is enforcing. If you make it a criminal act that the *police* have to enforce there just isn't enough manpower. If you make it a civil violation then you still have the problems of inundating the courts unless some special spam complaint court is established that can dispatch the complaints quickly.
I dunno... spam definition... government regulating what people can and can't send... finding the manpower to enforce it, be it the police on the street or the courts or a special new court...
Me: the law that gives you that kind of recourse has to be very clear as to what IS spam
You: No. You're falling into the spammer's "frea speach" red herring.
No, not at all. I don't want to protect spammers. I want to be sure that no non-spammers get caught in the net, such as mailing lists and just about any other innocent communication that truly isn't spam--but could be considered spam if the law defines it incorrectly.
What makes spam is not the content, but the method.
The method is similar enough for mailing lists and spam, let alone order confirmations, etc. that to operate on method alone is a good reason to be suspicious of legislation that defines spam on that basis. It can catch more than just spam and angry spammers could very easily use the law to sue an innocent non-spammer just to make the law look bad.
Spam is content AND method. And the method is hard to prove anyway. But usually the content makes it clear whether it is spam or not and gives you a very good reason to suspect what method was used.
Anti-spam laws are about harrassment, they have nothing to do with free speech.
So is it about harrassment or is it about method? If I personally contact someone who I haven't talked to in 5 years and he/she doesn't remember me--or perhaps DOES remember me but always hated me and I didn't even know it--can that person sue me because I had the gall to email them to say "hi" after all these years?
Nobody is telling spammers that they are not allowed to speak. We are saying that they are not allowed to harrass people. There is a big difference.
I agree with you 100%. I don't want to hear from the spammers either. My concern is that the law be worded such that spam is defined correctly so that NON-SPAMMERS are not affected. I'm not convinced such a definition is possible, and certainly it won't be a definition that we all agree to.
The most common definition of spam is unsolicited bulk email. This is a very easy test. Is it unsolicited? (Did the recipient ask for it, or is there an existing relationship?) Was it sent to multiple people? If the answer to these questions is yes, then it's spam.
And I tend to agree with that definition. But how can I prove it wasn't solicited? How can the spammer prove it WAS solicited? If I have a mailing list that sends a confirmation email to the user and only signs the user up if he confirms via a link in that email, how can I prove that that process was followed? If someone subscribes someone else to my mailing list and I send that user a single message confirming the opt-in, can I be accused of spamming them with my confirmation message? How can I prove a given spam was sent bulk without going through half the legal process of filing a lawsuit against the spammer? Is the receipt of a single spammny message sufficient legal ground to ask for a court to confirm whether the message was sent in bulk? Could spammers then say they received a couple of emails from me and have the courts sift through MY email just because someone accused me of spamming?
Again, the decision of whether something is spam or not has nothing to do with the content of the message, it has to do with how it was sent.
Again, you said above it was about harrassment. You also say it was about how it was sent--which is very hard for the receiver to prove without filing a lawsuit against the spammer.
My point of view is that spam should be illegal. But if I receive spam it's going to be fairly obvious that it's spam and I sue the idiot--the judge or jury will look at the facts and agree. Whether it is spam or not will be decided in court based on the circumstances. If the law tries to define it then we get into a very real potential of the law considering a certain opt-in mailing list spam, or the spammer alegeding it was opt-in. There are so many potential loopholes that the spammers will find one, and at the same time it runs the risk of calling s
I agree with your analysis. It's called corporate diplomacy. You don't tell anyone what they have to do and expect them to comply, it's human nature to resist. You diplomatically state what you want to happen and say you'll look at it with them after they fix the immediate problem. Makes the other side feel like they haven't been bullied into doing something they don't want to.
I personally think ICANN's letter was perfect. The only question is how Verisign responds and whether ICANN follows up with its threat if Verisign doesn't comply by the deadline. But to-date ICANN is playing this just about as I'd hope they would.
Believe it or not, things have changed just a little in half a century.
In WWII bombing entire cities was part of war. The Germans started it and the Allies did the same with their air raids over Germany--in large part because industrial power was mixed among residential and we didn't have smart or accurate bombs--so you just bombed everything. Hiroshima was just more of the same during WWII. It also ended the war--terrorism tends to provoke it.
Anyway, the point is that what was standard practice nearly 60 years ago in WWII is no longer acceptable today. And at least Hiroshima had a military purpose even then. What military purpose is there in blowing up a busfull of civilians and children?
I'd go so far as to say that terrorism may simply be acts of war with a complete lack of *military* objective.
If Mexico invades Texas and I defend it by attacking soliders, that's war (maybe guerilla war). If Mexico invades Texas and I defend it by walking up to Mexican civilians and blowing myself and them up, I'm a terrorist and that isn't justified even given the fact that Mexico invaded Texas.
If I have anti-spam measures, and I get spam, there should be legal recourse against the spammer, just like if I lock my door and someone breaks in, there is legal recourse against the theif.
Yes, but the law that gives you that kind of recourse has to be very clear as to what IS spam so non-spammers don't get in trouble. It has to be very precise so spammers don't use the law to their advantage by finding a loophole. But such a complete and accurate law (which laws seldom are) must pass 1st Ammendment muster by not inadvertently prohibiting some legitimate communication and trampling on free speech.
It's easy to outlaw theft. This problem is significantly more complex than theft and while any jury can recognize and understand theft, not all juries will be able to completely understand all the aspects of a spam complaint. And, the worst part, what's riding in the balance is nothing less than what the government will and won't let us communicate via email. That's very dangerous territory.
Personally, I would accept a law that reaffirms that spamming is illegal theft of services. "The sending of spam is theft of services, is illegal, and the spammer will be liable for no less than $500 per spam sent." Then leave it to the jury to decide whether the email was spam. Anything that attempts to define spam in legislation is dangerous.
I guess you were against the space race too, because it wasn't "cost effective"?
No, I wasn't against it. But I would've been against requiring all citizens to use space capsules to get to work at a time when it was cheaper to drive a car (and still is, of course). Likewise, I'm not against the use of solar or alternative energy. It's a great goal. I *AM* against the government *requiring* alternative energy before it is economically viable.
The point here is that, hopefully, these guys are going to make solary energy more economically viable--at which point solar energy will be adopted by the masses whether the government requires it or not. As such, the business operating in the free market is making solar energy economically viable and attractive to everyone. What the government couldn't force down our throats capitalism and the free market provide all by themselves.
Funny how the "evil capitalists" eventually do more to help the environment than the environmentalists that run around in circles complaining about evil capitalism and all the consumption in our society--consumption which generates wealth which allows companies such as this to develop technology that, in the end, improves the environment.:)
FYI: most solar cells produce less than 3% electricity/solar energy exposed, some special cells that are very very expensive and used on satellites produce around 5% brand new.
Hmm, that's interesting since the CNN article mentions that most silicon-based solar cells today get 20%. The story here is that you can get 10% and apparently very cheaply. So you are giving up efficiency for something cost-effective. THAT is the kind of environmentalism I can agree with: the understanding and acceptance that a technology must not only be clean to be useful, it also must make financial sense.
The other good side is that hopefully, with time, the low price of these solar cells will drive down the cost of the more efficient solar cells so that eventually we'll get cheap, efficient solar energy. AMAZING how the free market works--even free of governmental regulation.:)
You're all missing the point, this is an enironmental issue not an economic one. You cannot put a price on a healthy envoironment.
Spoken like a true knee-jerk liberal environmental-wacko. You *CAN* put a price on a healthy environment just like insurance companies, as disgusting as it may sound, put a value on human life (I read just today that an average human life is "worth" about $1 million to an insurance company).
You cannot protect the environment without considering the economic impact and social impact. Heck, we could preserve a prestine environment by killing off 5.9 billion humans and immediately ceasing to use fossil fuels. Would we be better off as a result? Of course not and I assume that you realize that.
The disposal of computers is an environmental issue. The creation of a tax to (hopefully) reduce that damage is an economic issue that (hopefully) reduces the impact on the environmental issue. A reasonable evaluation of the economic cost vs. the enviornmental improvement must be made to determine whether it's a good idea. And the state of the economy should be taken into account since a stalled economy will not have sufficient wealth to take care of environmental concerns whereas a thriving economy may have discretionary wealth that can be thrown at the environment.
That's the worst kind of tax... the one that no-one notices.
If these kind of taxes are going to be instituted, they should appear as a completely separate line-item on the receipt. And I'm not talking on the tax line, I'm talking about like how tires are sold in the U.S. Your receipt should read something like:
Taxes that are not very clearly apparent to the taxpayer have a tendency of being misused, increased, and left unchecked by the taxpayer that doesn't even realize it's being collected.
Sorry about the delay in responding. I was in New York City on vacation. Actually stayed at the hotel right in front of Ground Zero. Quite amazing.
At some point you have to say, what has gone on long enough? The UN trying to enforce its rules with uncooperative governments?
Yes. Unless the UN is to be an ineffective body that can be completely ignored. Which would be fine with me. But if the UN is going to act like they are important then they better back up their words with actions.
French leaders should have made decisions totally at odds with public opinion in France (and pretty much everywhere else in the world
Check the list of support again. Most of Europe *did* support the U.S. Granted, not the "major" powers such as France and Germany, but they are only "major" because of tradition.
You then went on to pick apart the reasoning for attacking Iraq. While each of your points is well taken and any single reason would not have been sufficient you ignore the fact that *all* those points applied to Iraq. Your response appears as though each point must, alone, justify the entire attack when in fact all those points taken together is the justification.
Me: Last I heard from the left-wing folks, that was killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children...
You: I agree with those folks; there should have been a better way to undermine Saddam's power without attacking Iraq's people so callously. But invading and occupying the nation as an alternative is just stupid.
Ok, so what was the other way? If you don't want to impose sanctions (which arguably hurt the people more than Saddam) and you don't want to invade, what do you do? Just keep saying "Pretty please, show us the weapons" until he gets tired of ignoring the UN and complies?
bout Saddam hiding his WMD... I don't know what to say. You're so convinced he had them even in the face of evidence to the contrary that you have to make up stories about what he must have done with them.
Please re-read my last post. I said I was not convinced about WMD and am not surprised they haven't found them. I *did* mention that even if he did have them I still wouldn't be surprised that we haven't found them. But to suggest that I am "so convinced he had them" is ignoring my past posts.
My point all along has been the country of Iraq was no threat to us and our military action there was absolutely unnecessary and indeed I believe it was unconscionable.
Perhaps. Of course, a week before 9/11 I doubt anyone would have thought Afghanistan was a threat. And I know you'll say that that was Al Qaeda and not Afghanistan, but they were closely intertwined.
I still believe Bush's actions can be explained by what I mentioned some time ago. 9/11 happened, Afghanistan was hit. He asked his people, "Ok, who else is on the deck that could give us a problem in the next 10 or 20 years." And I'm sure Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were that list. Based on UN resolutions Iraq was the easiest to take care of, especially since the U.S. arguably was enforcing the no-fly zones and over time that was getting tiring for us, too. It's all good and fine that the UN is willing to do nothing while the U.S. and Britain do the daily housekeeping in the no-fly zones, but perhaps the US wasn't interested in staying there and enforcing no-fly zones until Saddam and his sons all died of natural causes?
What will be more interesting is how Iran and North Korea are handled, both by the US and the UN. North Korea has already followed Iraq's lead and booted UN inspectors. Defying the UN seems to be the latest fashion among dictators and just goes to show how useless the UN is if it isn't backed up with force, when necessary.
you just want to support the bush policy and will make any argument that is expedient in spite of contradicting yourself.
Nope. If I were Bush I probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq. I was very unconvinced that the war was necessary back in March and am not entirely surprised we haven't found WMD evidence. I am very much conservative Republican, but am not defending Bush, per se, or his policies. I will, however, defend him when someone wants to blame everything that's gone wrong on him and totally ignore Clinton's (in)actions as part of what lead to the problem--and if you'll go back in the thread you'll see that THAT'S what provoked me to enter this thread, not any particular desire to defend all of Bush's policies.
And although I probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq, I personally *do* believe that the world will be better 10 years from now then it would have been if we had just kept the endless no-fly zones, sanctions, and arms inspections going another decade.
Hans Blix made the statement that he didn't need Saddam's support to continue inspections well before the first shot in the war was fired
It's your argument, not mine. I'm not going to try to dig it up. I certainly don't remember it. I *do* remember suggestings being made in February that they could keep working, keep inspecting, but once again it amounted to the U.N. dragging its feet and accepting Saddam's non-compliance rather than simply demanding compliance with existing U.N. resolutions. At some point you have to say "This has gone on long enough." I think 12 years was plenty of time.
You consider France spineless for listening to her own citizens rather than being bullied by Bush
I consider France spineless because of its history, and precisely because its president listened only to his citizens rather than considering the international implications of his action or inaction. Chirac, as far as I can tell, like Clinton was more worried about what the polls said his people thought rather than doing what needed to be done. The right thing isn't always the popular thing.
You say we went to war to enforce UN resolutions but then when the UN didn't support us you say we went to enforce our interest, which you still refuse to define in any meaningful way
Why was it in our interest to go into Iraq?
Iraq has a history of aggression against its neighbors.
Iraq and its neighbors are in a very sensitive part of the world--politically, economically, and religiously.
The world was convinced enough that Iraq had illegal weapons programs to pass U.N. resolutions demanding inspections to confirm they no longer existed.
Iraq dragged its feet and did not comply with these resolutions for 12 years.
9/11 happened which made the U.S. very keen to anything that could be a threat.
Saddam continued to drag his feet and give every appearance he was hiding something, even in the face of mounting diplomatic and military force being arrayed against him.
Given all of the above and the new reality that just takes some joker with a car to destroy an American city, the U.S. took action.
Now, if it turns out we find nothing and evidence shows there was no WMD programs in 2003 then Saddam will go down in history as the worst poker player ever. But given all of the above you cannot ignore the perceived threat to the U.S. and other countries.
I think it's a more important goal than enforcing UN resolutions that the UN doesn't need our help with.
So, ballpark figure... how many years or decades do you think a violent dictator who from time to time launches WMD programs and attacks his neighbors should be allowed to ignore U.N. resolutions designed specifically to keep that dictator and his WMD programs in check? At what point would you say it is reasonable to say "You know, this just isn't working?" Or do you think such dictators should be able to ignore international demands forever?
Then should we attack Israel and every other country that breaks a UN resolution?
I wouldn't make a blanket statement such as that. International politics are too complicated to have a "one size fits all" policy.
... but we pick and choose which thugs to go after
I agree, we do. And while that might not be the best possible situation, it is the reality. Certain thugs are more of a threat to us, the world, and the world economy than others. A thug sitting on major oil reserves is going to be much more in the world spotlight than a thug growing bananas.
If we were enforcing the UN resolutions why the hell wasn't the UN on board?
Because the UN didn't have the stomach to stand behind the resolutions it had already passed. You can say what you want about Bush's decision to deal with Iraq now, but Iraq *WAS* in violation of the cease-fire that ended hostilities in 1991 and in violation of several U.N. resolutions since then. Any of those would have been sufficient reason to take Iraq to task. That the U.N. was unwilling to enforce its own resolutions just goes to show how little backbone they have--and I'm sure that will not be forgotten by future dictators that have to decide whether or not it's really necessary to pay attention to the U.N.
Look up "Hans Blix" on google if you want more information, but you should know this since you claim to read the news.
Most of his comments to that effect have been SINCE the Iraq war. I respected Hans Blix up until the Iraq war--he limited his comments to the job at hand. Since the Iraq war, however, it has made a habit of criticizing just about everything and it's clear that he was very anti-war. If he was, he should've made the statements he's been making lately back when it would've made a difference. No-one respects France so no-one cared what they said. But some no-bullshit words from Blix could've made a difference at that time. Now I see Blix as being as spineless as France because he apparently didn't speak his mind back in February nearly as much as he has lately.
I can't account for Saddam's twisted thinking but as I said it is not our job to enforce UN resolutions, and the UN wasn't pressing for our assistance here.
No, but it should have. The resolutions were there because the world community felt that the Iraq issue was serious enough to merit sanctions and a weapons inspection program. That's some pretty serious stuff. After 9/11 the U.S. woke up and realized some stuff had to be done, even if the rest of the world was content to drag its feet.
I also don't accept the belief that the U.N. has to request that we use our military for us to use it. Our military is to do OUR work. If that happens to coincide with the U.N., great. If not, well, the U.N. can go build its own military.
... you define Saddam's attacks on his own people as terrorism but suicide bombers attacking the UN building and American soldiers as guerrilla warfare.
Did I define Saddam's attack on his own people as terrorism? I don't think so but if I did, I misspoke. I believe I called it genocide and/or massacre. Either way, people are dying. But in the grand scheme of things from a neutral perspective I'm more willing to accept a conquered nation taking pot shots at the occupying army than the sitting government to anhilate its own citizens. I don't want American soldiers to die, but I can understand why some Iraqis might do that more than I can understand a government killing its own people.
my point is that our involvement in Iraq has increased the threat and power of Islamist fundamentalist organizations who wish to do harm to the US and who wish to institute theocratic goverments in the Middle East.
And my point is that our foreign policy can't be based on fear of what terrorists can or will do. They're going to do their evil anyway. As long as Israel exists and we support its right
... you've left no reason to actually have attacked Iraq. You cite WMD
Iraq was a threat to his own people, his neighbors, the region and by extension the U.S. with or without WMDs. He was in violation of numerous U.N. resolutions, including the cease-fire Sadadm agreed to to end hostilities back in 1991. Simply being in violation of that cease-fire was more than sufficient justification to take action.
Yet as I've said before we haven't even found chemical weapons (hardly a WMD despite the propaganda) much less the bioweapons or the nukes Bush scared us with.
So far, no. That said, the U.N. had been making resolutions and demands for over a decade that Saddam had been ignoring or uncooperative with. Clinton had the opportunity to wrap it up in 1998 when world opinion would have favored a quick resolution, but he didn't act. The fact that a few years have passed doesn't mean the U.N. resolutions had gone away. The fact that Saddam was uncooperative with U.N. weapons inspectors was worrisome regardless of what was known. You'd think he'd want to prove he was clean so sanctions would be lifted and Iraq could get on with normal life.
So I don't see "the whole Iraq" thing as the problem you do -- our intelligence agencies knew their WMD were nonexistent from the beginning and there was no threat to US national security.
Wow, you must have access to information that no-one else has access to. If Congress had that information they would have not given Bush permission to take "all necessary action" in regards to Iraq. And they'd probably be looking to impeach now. So you must have some pretty interesting sources of information to make such a claim. Call your closest Democratic presidential candidate, I'm sure they'd love to have the information you apparently have access to.
Meanwhile, we do nothing about real WMD threats like Pakistan and North Korea.
And I agree we should deal with both of those countries.
but it's not arguable; we've been losing people in Iraq every day, and we would not be losing those people if they weren't in Iraq
Well that's pretty obvious. War has a tendency to be deadly. And most of our troops have been lost in what I'd call guerilla warfare more than terrorism. Terrorism strikes fear (terror) in the hearts of everyday citizens. It bothers me that we are losing soliders in Iraq, but it doesn't strike fear in my heart that I or anyone in my country is at risk. Soliders, yes, but they're involved in war. So it's not terrorism, it's guerilla warfare.
You cite long term costs of not invading Iraq as if they're obvious. I think there was a stronger case for war in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and we had international support.
I agree. We should have finished the job. Perhaps Bush Sr. didn't want to be seen as occupying the country. Perhaps, as has been said, he made a deal with Saddam to let him stay as long as he didn't use chemical weapons on advancing coalition troops. I really don't know. I also think it could've been finished by Clinton in 1998 when there was also world support for it, but Clinton was driven by the polls so he just lobbed some cruise missiles.
Regardless, the right thing isn't always popular domestically or internationally. Iraq was under crippling international sanctions that have now been lifted. Given the option of continuing to strangle a country because of its dictator or just taking the dictator out and letting the country return to normalcy, I think the latter is the better option for everyone.
the worst he did was lie and be a pain in the ass to the UN and inspectors.
So how is the U.N. supposed to know if any particular dictator is just being a pain in the ass or really has something to hide? Saddam *HAD* WMDs, that's common knowledge and accepted. The question is whether or not he got rid of them. Perhaps he did. He should have given the U.N. what they needed in terms of proof rather t
Me: I simply commented that the whole thing wouldn't have even been an issue for the Bush administration if the Clinton administration had done its job regarding Iraq back in 1998.
You: Uhm, then I'm not sure what you're saying. What "whole thing" would not have been an issue for Bush? Terrorism? 9/11? When Iraq was not clearly involved in either?
I'm saying the "whole Iraq thing." The issue of Iraq wouldn't be an issue today if Clinton had dealt with it appropriately in 1998 when the U.N. actually would have supported taking action. Instead, Clinton just sent in his old friends, the cruise missiles, and ignored the problem and left it festering.
I'm not saying Iraq had anything to do with terrorism or 9/11. But just because they don't have ties with terrorism doesn't mean they are automatically our friends or incapable of other types of threats.
why do we not invade other brutal dictatorships that are just as bad and in some cases are greater threats to the US -- e.g. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan?
I agree that we should give North Korea a month to comply or they'll follow Iraqs fate (without the promise of reconstruction). I'm unaware of Saudi plans to develop WMDs or do anything to threaten us that would suggest an invasion is necessary, but I would agree that we should break off relations with them. I also agree that Pakistan should be dealt with as a terrorist--we should've have plowed through them to get to Afghanistan rather than asking for permission. As for Uzbekistan, I'm unaware of what's going on there--but I don't think they represent a global or regional threat so that'd be an internal problem for them.
I don't think we should go around liberating people from every dictator on the planet. But dictators that represent a threat to our national security or put strategic regions at risk, yes.
Me: That approach might not be popular, but I'm certainly not in a position to say it's wrong.
You: You may not be but you would be if you read the news.
My dear sir, can we please have a discussion without being condescending? I read the news daily. You may interpret it differently than I do but let's not get into that kind of mud-slinging.
It's pretty obvious that it has been the wrong approach if our goal is to increase US national security and decrease the kind of Islamic terrorism we saw on 9/11.
How has it decreased U.S. national security? And in the long-run having a non-dictator in Iraq can only increase U.S. security. I might agree that our actions may put us at short-term risk for terrorism--but even that's questionable since 9/11 already showed that we were already at risk of terrorism.
As for decreasing Islamic terrorism are you advocating that we should base our foreign policy decisions based on fear of terrorism? If so, I disagree 100%. We need to do what is right and what is best for this country even if it isn't popular.
The mass graves indicate what happened when the last US invasion went wrong; it was predicted at the time (I actually remember 1991) and most people agree it was an obvious consequence of invading the country and then leaving it completely.
So do I understand that you would have approved of invading Iraq back in 1991 but not now?
The best you can say about the current policy is that we're trying to finish the job.
I don't think that's necessarily bad. At least Hillary Clinton won't have to deal with the mess in 2008.
Terrorism may have complex causes, but to say it happens for "no apparent reason" is just ignorant.
Let me try to restate that. It's not that the terrorists don't have their reason. But the waves of violence in Israel, for example, often just start up when everything appears to be going good. The peace plan in Israel was doing surprisingly well a few months ago until terrorists decided to blow up a bus. I'm not saying that terrorists don't have thei
what is ALSO happening, is that humans are creating the Green House Effect. This is due to our releases of gases into the atmosphere. just because what you describe is true, does NOT mean that the Green House Effect, caused by humans is untrue.
No, but there is still no proof that humans are contributing more than a very small percentage of CO2 to the total output. To start complaining about cars and power plants every time a big storm comes through is to misunderstand the scale of our contribution to CO2 and other green-house gases.
The article itself mentions:
"There's a regional trend in warming that cycles back 150 years," Mueller said in a telephone interview. "I am not comfortable linking it to global warming. It is difficult to tease out what is due to global warming and what is due to regional warming."
People here talking about global warming are just putting spin on a story that has nothing to do with global warming. But they hear about a powerful tropical storm or an ice shelf breaking and, whoa! It's all our fault! Damn CO2.
But it is fair to say that the Clinton Administration had a much more robust antiterrorism policy and took the OBL threat in particular much more seriously than the early Bush Admin
If so, why did the Clinton administration not seize the opportunity to have Sudan hand over Bin Laden when they had the chance on numerous occasions?
Even after 911, investigation shows that the FBI was deliberately dragging its feet about translating important documents in order to appear overworked
This is a bueracratic problem within the FBI that is not Clinton's or Bush's fault, and would have happened under either.
You cite Clinton's "failure to deal with Iraq" and then you admit that Iraq had nothing to do with al Qaeda, 9-11, or terrorism. Why would his dealing with Iraq in 1998 have stopped 9-11?
Uhm, I never said that Clinton dealing with Iraq would have stopped 9/11. The issue of Bush and Iraq was raised by a previous post and I simply commented that the whole thing wouldn't have even been an issue for the Bush administration if the Clinton administration had done its job regarding Iraq back in 1998. A few cruise missile strikes and Clinton thought his job was done. Mostly, I think he was afraid of the hit he'd take in the polls if American lives were lost in combat.
I would argue (and the evidence is quite clearly on my side here) that Bush's handling of Iraq has dramatically increased terrorism; there were no Iraqi suicide bombers prior to April 2003.
Hah hah, terrorism like we're seeing now, no. But there were state-sponsored chemical attacks on entire towns and genocide committed against Iraqi citizens near Basra after 1991 that filled the mass graves that are now being excavated. That's not terrorism? That's brazen state-sponsored terrorism against its own people which I personally think is worse than Iraqis taking shots at what they may consider an invading army.
I'm quite confident that fewer people are dying on a daily basis in Iraq now, although I will admit that the deaths are more visible than they were when they were hidden by a dictator.
And whether or not you think Bush wanted to go after Iraq from the beginning, it was obvious by mid- to late-2002 that attacking Iraq was on America's agenda...
I will agree that by mid- to late-2002 it was obvious we were going to get Iraq. That wasn't the case before 9/11, however. And when 9/11 happened the primary issue was Afghanistan.
Personally, I think 9/11 happened and Bush said, "Ok, Afghanistan is history, obviously. Who else is on the board that is either a problem now or could give us grief in the next decade?" They told him and that's where the Axis of Evil nations came from. And I think he said, "Ok, well, the gloves are off. Screw it. We're going to deal with this before 9/11 happens again." That approach might not be popular, but I'm certainly not in a position to say it's wrong.
And you have a massive increase in chaos, death, and terrorism in the middle east. And some ten attacks on American soldiers per day.
An increase in chaos in Iraq? Probably. Death? Probably not. I'm quite confident that Saddam's government killed more people daily than are currently dying in Iraq. The known chemical attacks in the 1980's and the mass graves near Basra are evidence of this. Terrorism in the middle east? To say that Iraq has caused an increase is to ignore that it comes in waves anyway, and is quite unpredictable. It happens for no apparent reason. The current wave has come after Iraq which makes Iraq a convenient explanation, but it's quite impossible to say that the Iraq invasion caused it.
And a billion-dollar per week price tag, not to mention the $87 billion more Bush asked for.
Yeah, $87 billion more to clean up a country that has been terrorize by a dictator is a waste of money, but spending tens of millions of dollars to topple an aspirin factory makes good financial sense.
Perhaps we should blame the Air Force... Perhaps we should blame the CIA... Perhaps we should realize that someone fucked up in a big
And perhaps we should realize that the problems could just as easily be attributed to a decade of inaction after the fall of the USSR, a failure to adapt to new realities, a failure to use human intelligence sources just because they are less than "reputable". And perhaps we could just as easily attribute it to Clinton who failed to nab Bin Laden when the Sudan offered.
You can point a lot of fingers if you want. The truth is no single person is to blame. A lot of small mistakes were made that lead to a tragedy. Not surprisingly that's usually the case in *most* tragedies. The Titanic, Pearl Harbor, 9/11. Lots of "what ifs"--any of which could have prevented the tragedy, but opportunities were missed.
But if you want to blame a president, keep in mind that just last week CNN reported that planning for 9/11 stretched back to 1996. So if you want to blame a president who should we blame? Clinton who had between 4 or 5 years to deal discover and/or deal with the plot, or Bush who had 8 months?
Personally, I don't think finger pointing is worthwhile when so many things went wrong. But if you're trying to condemn Bush or excuse Clinton I think the facts are against you.
Clinton's administration stopped attempts on: Holland tunnel, Lincoln tunnel, George Washington Bridge, The Pope's life, and Millennium Weekend. He caught the people responsible for: 1993 WTC, 1995 Guard Barracks, 1996 Khobar Towers, 1998 Embassy bombings.
This is law enforcement, not a presidential legacy. Clinton had little, if anything, to do with it.
Where presidential decisions were made he passed on opportunities to take Bin Laden and failed to build a coalition to deal with Iraq decisively in 1998 when the world would have supported such action. His inaction regarding Bin Laden gave him the opportunity to support the 9/11 attacks. His failure to address Iraq when he should have left GWB with a situation that should've been cleaned up by the time he arrived on the scene.
I know Clinton didn't do anything to purposely screw the next president, but some of the saddest and most controversial events during this administration could have been avoided entirely if Clinton hadn't missed very significant opportunities.
He stopped the fighting in Bosnia far more effectively than Bush has done in Iraq.
Of course, the Bosnia intervention was, what, 8 years ago and Iraq was about 5 months ago? Let's see how Iraq is doing in 2011 before we make comparisons between the two. At this stage the two are apples and oranges.
When he left, the CIA and FBI were set up to fight against terrorism.
Yeah, and Bush broke it all in 8 month. All the critiques of problems in the intelligence community that came to light after 9/11 were all Bush's fault. Right. Keep telling yourself that.
That said, I don't blame the FBI's or CIA's failure on either Bush or Clinton. The FBI was more investigative than prevention, and the CIA never really fully adapted to the new post-USSR environment. But if anything, it was made clear in the post-9/11 reports that the CIA was depending less on human intelligence and more on electronic intelligence in part to avoid dealing with individuals or organizations of "questionable moral standing." Where do you think the blame of that should fall?
He was looking for a conflict in Iraq. He wanted Saddam Hussein from day one.
Try re-reading the news for the first 8 months of Bush's presidency. There was no significant talk of Iraq at all. Nothing. Even after 9/11 the target was Afghanistan, not Iraq. If Bush was all hell-bent on taking out Iraq I'm sure some evidence could have been fabricated blaming or linking Iraq to it. Quite to the contrary, Bush has gone on the record as saying no such evidence exists.
They thought he was making the stuff up. They attacked him on bombing a chemical plant in the Sudan.
Ahhh, you mean the site that has long-since been confirmed as being an aspirin factory? Even I was skeptical of it being an innocent factory at the time, but the U.N. itself has long since concluded it was indeed a civil plant producing, apparently, aspirins. I guess Clinton had bad intel, it can happen to anyone. But don't blame the Republicans for jumping on his case. The Republicans turned out to be RIGHT, and the U.N. concluded as much.
Now, Bush invades a country and can't find chemical weapons.
At least the target was a dictator and not an aspirin factory. If mistakes are going to be made I'd rather take out a dictator than an aspirin factory.
If Bush knew there was no threat in Iraq and sent us to war anyway, he should be impeached. But so far there is no evidence of that. There's maybe been some bad intel, or perhaps 5 months just isn't enough time to completely search a desert country the size of California. But in a worst-case scenario we have one less ruthless dictator in the middle east. With Clinton's actions we have one less aspirin factory.
Bush is a miserable failure and September 11th is his administration's fault.
Clinton did a lot of great things for this country.
Like what, exactly? I mean, really, what did he do? What is his legacy? Nothing particularly significant (in a political sense) happened during his terms. So what are all these great things he did?
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You: Too many musicians don't perform in order for that to be fair.
Too many musicians don't perform in order for that to be fair? That's like to many people don't want to work in order for salaries to be fair for those who DO work.
Musicians that don't perform don't deserve a cent.
Particularly composers of electronic music, in which the music cannot be 'performed' live and is most often used in DJ sets at 'concerts'.
Some things just aren't lucrative, as much as we'd like them to be. I'd love to be able to make money touring the world and taking videos, but who's going to pay me to do that? As such, I must turn my attention to other endeavors for which others ARE willing to pay.
True, but the allegation of murder is serious enough to warrant at least a quick investigation. The fact that the person seen murdered doesn't appear where he or she normally would lends more weight to the allegation. And a dead body is a body that proves that someone was murdered--the investigation then looks for who.
Murders also (thankfully) happen much less commonly than spam so the relatively infrequent accusation of murder can and should be investigated.
And if a hundred people claim person X commited a crime, like would happen in spamming, well, they still check it out. But their job is a lot easier, no need to worry about the character of their witnesses.
I doubt hundreds of people would be reporting the same spam in the same jurisdiction. The only way this could be handled efficiently is having a central clearinghouse department that receives all the complaints, and even that department would be overwhelmed. And we'd have yet another government organization. Great.
It applies a million times better to computer crime, and people are caught for that all the time.
All the time? Most computer crime is not reported, let alone investigated, let alone prosecuted. You might see an occasional headline of how someone supposedly wrote the virus that destroyed Microsoft computers last week, but that's the exception. Most computer crimes are most definitely not investigated by any law enforcement.
Trying to pretend that the courts won't accept electronic evidence is about the same as claiming they won't accept eyewitness evidence. They indeed do. And it's certain enough to track down, arrest, and more importantly search said spammer, and find physical evidence of the crime in his possession.
Again, you miss the point. I'm not concerned about the spammers. I'm concerned about the potential for abuse.
So you are a disgruntled spammer that is pissed at some anti-spammer. You use your experience to send a bunch of spam out that looks like it was sent by the anti-spammer. People report it and it is investigated. Investigators visit the anti-spammer and rummage through his residence or office, generating suspicion that the anti-spammer is actually a spammer. His reputation is damaged even if nothing is turned up.
Spammers are thiefs. They are also usually computer criminals, having delibrately installed trojans on, at this point, millions of computers.
Great! Then they are already guilty of established crimes and can be prosecuted already. No additional legislation is even necessary.
You can always buy your DVD player in Mexico. Virtually every DVD player in Mexico is sold "region-less" because Mexicans live in Region 4 (I think) and that's what Blockbuster rents locally, but many Mexicans do their shopping on the U.S. side of the border where region 1 is sold. So in Mexico you just buy a region-less DVD player and you're good to go.
Police gather evidence and it is presented in a court of law. But to gain sufficient evidence to prosecute a spammer I think you'd need to do what the RIAA is doing, get name/IP matches from ISPs, and then have some officer of the law or the court to review that person's computer for some evidence that he did in fact spam.
Anyone can take any spam and modify the headers and IP addresses to frame anyone they want. Your possession of spam with full headers is not your proof of who spammed--it's your allegation.
And why would you have to go through any legal process? I don't have to sue someone if they steal my stuff, I walk down the police station and tell them, and they arrest the guy.
So you say we should make it a criminal offense and have our police chasing down spammers? I'm against spam, but I don't want our law enforcement tied up in spam investigation--I want them out there catching murderers, thiefs, and maybe even a terrorist now and then. The police are busy enough without having to deal with a flood of spam complaints. Heck, *I* don't even have time to investigate spam anymore--I just block it.
Spamming should be a civil matter. But even that is questionable since even the courts are too busy to be dicking around with a million spam complaints per day.
As you can see, besides defining what spam is the other hard part is enforcing. If you make it a criminal act that the *police* have to enforce there just isn't enough manpower. If you make it a civil violation then you still have the problems of inundating the courts unless some special spam complaint court is established that can dispatch the complaints quickly.
I dunno... spam definition... government regulating what people can and can't send... finding the manpower to enforce it, be it the police on the street or the courts or a special new court...
I'll take my Bayesian filter any day of the week.
You: No. You're falling into the spammer's "frea speach" red herring.
No, not at all. I don't want to protect spammers. I want to be sure that no non-spammers get caught in the net, such as mailing lists and just about any other innocent communication that truly isn't spam--but could be considered spam if the law defines it incorrectly.
What makes spam is not the content, but the method.
The method is similar enough for mailing lists and spam, let alone order confirmations, etc. that to operate on method alone is a good reason to be suspicious of legislation that defines spam on that basis. It can catch more than just spam and angry spammers could very easily use the law to sue an innocent non-spammer just to make the law look bad.
Spam is content AND method. And the method is hard to prove anyway. But usually the content makes it clear whether it is spam or not and gives you a very good reason to suspect what method was used.
Anti-spam laws are about harrassment, they have nothing to do with free speech.
So is it about harrassment or is it about method? If I personally contact someone who I haven't talked to in 5 years and he/she doesn't remember me--or perhaps DOES remember me but always hated me and I didn't even know it--can that person sue me because I had the gall to email them to say "hi" after all these years?
Nobody is telling spammers that they are not allowed to speak. We are saying that they are not allowed to harrass people. There is a big difference.
I agree with you 100%. I don't want to hear from the spammers either. My concern is that the law be worded such that spam is defined correctly so that NON-SPAMMERS are not affected. I'm not convinced such a definition is possible, and certainly it won't be a definition that we all agree to.
The most common definition of spam is unsolicited bulk email. This is a very easy test. Is it unsolicited? (Did the recipient ask for it, or is there an existing relationship?) Was it sent to multiple people? If the answer to these questions is yes, then it's spam.
And I tend to agree with that definition. But how can I prove it wasn't solicited? How can the spammer prove it WAS solicited? If I have a mailing list that sends a confirmation email to the user and only signs the user up if he confirms via a link in that email, how can I prove that that process was followed? If someone subscribes someone else to my mailing list and I send that user a single message confirming the opt-in, can I be accused of spamming them with my confirmation message? How can I prove a given spam was sent bulk without going through half the legal process of filing a lawsuit against the spammer? Is the receipt of a single spammny message sufficient legal ground to ask for a court to confirm whether the message was sent in bulk? Could spammers then say they received a couple of emails from me and have the courts sift through MY email just because someone accused me of spamming?
Again, the decision of whether something is spam or not has nothing to do with the content of the message, it has to do with how it was sent.
Again, you said above it was about harrassment. You also say it was about how it was sent--which is very hard for the receiver to prove without filing a lawsuit against the spammer.
My point of view is that spam should be illegal. But if I receive spam it's going to be fairly obvious that it's spam and I sue the idiot--the judge or jury will look at the facts and agree. Whether it is spam or not will be decided in court based on the circumstances. If the law tries to define it then we get into a very real potential of the law considering a certain opt-in mailing list spam, or the spammer alegeding it was opt-in. There are so many potential loopholes that the spammers will find one, and at the same time it runs the risk of calling s
I personally think ICANN's letter was perfect. The only question is how Verisign responds and whether ICANN follows up with its threat if Verisign doesn't comply by the deadline. But to-date ICANN is playing this just about as I'd hope they would.
In WWII bombing entire cities was part of war. The Germans started it and the Allies did the same with their air raids over Germany--in large part because industrial power was mixed among residential and we didn't have smart or accurate bombs--so you just bombed everything. Hiroshima was just more of the same during WWII. It also ended the war--terrorism tends to provoke it.
Anyway, the point is that what was standard practice nearly 60 years ago in WWII is no longer acceptable today. And at least Hiroshima had a military purpose even then. What military purpose is there in blowing up a busfull of civilians and children?
I'd go so far as to say that terrorism may simply be acts of war with a complete lack of *military* objective.
Yes, but the law that gives you that kind of recourse has to be very clear as to what IS spam so non-spammers don't get in trouble. It has to be very precise so spammers don't use the law to their advantage by finding a loophole. But such a complete and accurate law (which laws seldom are) must pass 1st Ammendment muster by not inadvertently prohibiting some legitimate communication and trampling on free speech.
It's easy to outlaw theft. This problem is significantly more complex than theft and while any jury can recognize and understand theft, not all juries will be able to completely understand all the aspects of a spam complaint. And, the worst part, what's riding in the balance is nothing less than what the government will and won't let us communicate via email. That's very dangerous territory.
Personally, I would accept a law that reaffirms that spamming is illegal theft of services. "The sending of spam is theft of services, is illegal, and the spammer will be liable for no less than $500 per spam sent." Then leave it to the jury to decide whether the email was spam. Anything that attempts to define spam in legislation is dangerous.
No, I wasn't against it. But I would've been against requiring all citizens to use space capsules to get to work at a time when it was cheaper to drive a car (and still is, of course). Likewise, I'm not against the use of solar or alternative energy. It's a great goal. I *AM* against the government *requiring* alternative energy before it is economically viable.
The point here is that, hopefully, these guys are going to make solary energy more economically viable--at which point solar energy will be adopted by the masses whether the government requires it or not. As such, the business operating in the free market is making solar energy economically viable and attractive to everyone. What the government couldn't force down our throats capitalism and the free market provide all by themselves.
Funny how the "evil capitalists" eventually do more to help the environment than the environmentalists that run around in circles complaining about evil capitalism and all the consumption in our society--consumption which generates wealth which allows companies such as this to develop technology that, in the end, improves the environment. :)
Gotta love it.
Hmm, that's interesting since the CNN article mentions that most silicon-based solar cells today get 20%. The story here is that you can get 10% and apparently very cheaply. So you are giving up efficiency for something cost-effective. THAT is the kind of environmentalism I can agree with: the understanding and acceptance that a technology must not only be clean to be useful, it also must make financial sense.
The other good side is that hopefully, with time, the low price of these solar cells will drive down the cost of the more efficient solar cells so that eventually we'll get cheap, efficient solar energy. AMAZING how the free market works--even free of governmental regulation. :)
Spoken like a true knee-jerk liberal environmental-wacko. You *CAN* put a price on a healthy environment just like insurance companies, as disgusting as it may sound, put a value on human life (I read just today that an average human life is "worth" about $1 million to an insurance company).
You cannot protect the environment without considering the economic impact and social impact. Heck, we could preserve a prestine environment by killing off 5.9 billion humans and immediately ceasing to use fossil fuels. Would we be better off as a result? Of course not and I assume that you realize that.
The disposal of computers is an environmental issue. The creation of a tax to (hopefully) reduce that damage is an economic issue that (hopefully) reduces the impact on the environmental issue. A reasonable evaluation of the economic cost vs. the enviornmental improvement must be made to determine whether it's a good idea. And the state of the economy should be taken into account since a stalled economy will not have sufficient wealth to take care of environmental concerns whereas a thriving economy may have discretionary wealth that can be thrown at the environment.
If these kind of taxes are going to be instituted, they should appear as a completely separate line-item on the receipt. And I'm not talking on the tax line, I'm talking about like how tires are sold in the U.S. Your receipt should read something like:
Yourband Laptop Computer US$1050
Environment Disposal Fee US$50
Total: US$1100
Taxes that are not very clearly apparent to the taxpayer have a tendency of being misused, increased, and left unchecked by the taxpayer that doesn't even realize it's being collected.
At some point you have to say, what has gone on long enough? The UN trying to enforce its rules with uncooperative governments?
Yes. Unless the UN is to be an ineffective body that can be completely ignored. Which would be fine with me. But if the UN is going to act like they are important then they better back up their words with actions.
French leaders should have made decisions totally at odds with public opinion in France (and pretty much everywhere else in the world
Check the list of support again. Most of Europe *did* support the U.S. Granted, not the "major" powers such as France and Germany, but they are only "major" because of tradition.
You then went on to pick apart the reasoning for attacking Iraq. While each of your points is well taken and any single reason would not have been sufficient you ignore the fact that *all* those points applied to Iraq. Your response appears as though each point must, alone, justify the entire attack when in fact all those points taken together is the justification.
Me: Last I heard from the left-wing folks, that was killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children...
You: I agree with those folks; there should have been a better way to undermine Saddam's power without attacking Iraq's people so callously. But invading and occupying the nation as an alternative is just stupid.
Ok, so what was the other way? If you don't want to impose sanctions (which arguably hurt the people more than Saddam) and you don't want to invade, what do you do? Just keep saying "Pretty please, show us the weapons" until he gets tired of ignoring the UN and complies?
bout Saddam hiding his WMD... I don't know what to say. You're so convinced he had them even in the face of evidence to the contrary that you have to make up stories about what he must have done with them.
Please re-read my last post. I said I was not convinced about WMD and am not surprised they haven't found them. I *did* mention that even if he did have them I still wouldn't be surprised that we haven't found them. But to suggest that I am "so convinced he had them" is ignoring my past posts.
My point all along has been the country of Iraq was no threat to us and our military action there was absolutely unnecessary and indeed I believe it was unconscionable.
Perhaps. Of course, a week before 9/11 I doubt anyone would have thought Afghanistan was a threat. And I know you'll say that that was Al Qaeda and not Afghanistan, but they were closely intertwined.
I still believe Bush's actions can be explained by what I mentioned some time ago. 9/11 happened, Afghanistan was hit. He asked his people, "Ok, who else is on the deck that could give us a problem in the next 10 or 20 years." And I'm sure Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were that list. Based on UN resolutions Iraq was the easiest to take care of, especially since the U.S. arguably was enforcing the no-fly zones and over time that was getting tiring for us, too. It's all good and fine that the UN is willing to do nothing while the U.S. and Britain do the daily housekeeping in the no-fly zones, but perhaps the US wasn't interested in staying there and enforcing no-fly zones until Saddam and his sons all died of natural causes?
What will be more interesting is how Iran and North Korea are handled, both by the US and the UN. North Korea has already followed Iraq's lead and booted UN inspectors. Defying the UN seems to be the latest fashion among dictators and just goes to show how useless the UN is if it isn't backed up with force, when necessary.
Nope. If I were Bush I probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq. I was very unconvinced that the war was necessary back in March and am not entirely surprised we haven't found WMD evidence. I am very much conservative Republican, but am not defending Bush, per se, or his policies. I will, however, defend him when someone wants to blame everything that's gone wrong on him and totally ignore Clinton's (in)actions as part of what lead to the problem--and if you'll go back in the thread you'll see that THAT'S what provoked me to enter this thread, not any particular desire to defend all of Bush's policies.
And although I probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq, I personally *do* believe that the world will be better 10 years from now then it would have been if we had just kept the endless no-fly zones, sanctions, and arms inspections going another decade.
Hans Blix made the statement that he didn't need Saddam's support to continue inspections well before the first shot in the war was fired
It's your argument, not mine. I'm not going to try to dig it up. I certainly don't remember it. I *do* remember suggestings being made in February that they could keep working, keep inspecting, but once again it amounted to the U.N. dragging its feet and accepting Saddam's non-compliance rather than simply demanding compliance with existing U.N. resolutions. At some point you have to say "This has gone on long enough." I think 12 years was plenty of time.
You consider France spineless for listening to her own citizens rather than being bullied by Bush
I consider France spineless because of its history, and precisely because its president listened only to his citizens rather than considering the international implications of his action or inaction. Chirac, as far as I can tell, like Clinton was more worried about what the polls said his people thought rather than doing what needed to be done. The right thing isn't always the popular thing.
You say we went to war to enforce UN resolutions but then when the UN didn't support us you say we went to enforce our interest, which you still refuse to define in any meaningful way
Why was it in our interest to go into Iraq?
Now, if it turns out we find nothing and evidence shows there was no WMD programs in 2003 then Saddam will go down in history as the worst poker player ever. But given all of the above you cannot ignore the perceived threat to the U.S. and other countries.
I think it's a more important goal than enforcing UN resolutions that the UN doesn't need our help with.
So, ballpark figure... how many years or decades do you think a violent dictator who from time to time launches WMD programs and attacks his neighbors should be allowed to ignore U.N. resolutions designed specifically to keep that dictator and his WMD programs in check? At what point would you say it is reasonable to say "You know, this just isn't working?" Or do you think such dictators should be able to ignore international demands forever?
I wouldn't make a blanket statement such as that. International politics are too complicated to have a "one size fits all" policy.
I agree, we do. And while that might not be the best possible situation, it is the reality. Certain thugs are more of a threat to us, the world, and the world economy than others. A thug sitting on major oil reserves is going to be much more in the world spotlight than a thug growing bananas.
If we were enforcing the UN resolutions why the hell wasn't the UN on board?
Because the UN didn't have the stomach to stand behind the resolutions it had already passed. You can say what you want about Bush's decision to deal with Iraq now, but Iraq *WAS* in violation of the cease-fire that ended hostilities in 1991 and in violation of several U.N. resolutions since then. Any of those would have been sufficient reason to take Iraq to task. That the U.N. was unwilling to enforce its own resolutions just goes to show how little backbone they have--and I'm sure that will not be forgotten by future dictators that have to decide whether or not it's really necessary to pay attention to the U.N.
Look up "Hans Blix" on google if you want more information, but you should know this since you claim to read the news.
Most of his comments to that effect have been SINCE the Iraq war. I respected Hans Blix up until the Iraq war--he limited his comments to the job at hand. Since the Iraq war, however, it has made a habit of criticizing just about everything and it's clear that he was very anti-war. If he was, he should've made the statements he's been making lately back when it would've made a difference. No-one respects France so no-one cared what they said. But some no-bullshit words from Blix could've made a difference at that time. Now I see Blix as being as spineless as France because he apparently didn't speak his mind back in February nearly as much as he has lately.
I can't account for Saddam's twisted thinking but as I said it is not our job to enforce UN resolutions, and the UN wasn't pressing for our assistance here.
No, but it should have. The resolutions were there because the world community felt that the Iraq issue was serious enough to merit sanctions and a weapons inspection program. That's some pretty serious stuff. After 9/11 the U.S. woke up and realized some stuff had to be done, even if the rest of the world was content to drag its feet.
I also don't accept the belief that the U.N. has to request that we use our military for us to use it. Our military is to do OUR work. If that happens to coincide with the U.N., great. If not, well, the U.N. can go build its own military.
Did I define Saddam's attack on his own people as terrorism? I don't think so but if I did, I misspoke. I believe I called it genocide and/or massacre. Either way, people are dying. But in the grand scheme of things from a neutral perspective I'm more willing to accept a conquered nation taking pot shots at the occupying army than the sitting government to anhilate its own citizens. I don't want American soldiers to die, but I can understand why some Iraqis might do that more than I can understand a government killing its own people.
my point is that our involvement in Iraq has increased the threat and power of Islamist fundamentalist organizations who wish to do harm to the US and who wish to institute theocratic goverments in the Middle East.
And my point is that our foreign policy can't be based on fear of what terrorists can or will do. They're going to do their evil anyway. As long as Israel exists and we support its right
Iraq was a threat to his own people, his neighbors, the region and by extension the U.S. with or without WMDs. He was in violation of numerous U.N. resolutions, including the cease-fire Sadadm agreed to to end hostilities back in 1991. Simply being in violation of that cease-fire was more than sufficient justification to take action.
Yet as I've said before we haven't even found chemical weapons (hardly a WMD despite the propaganda) much less the bioweapons or the nukes Bush scared us with.
So far, no. That said, the U.N. had been making resolutions and demands for over a decade that Saddam had been ignoring or uncooperative with. Clinton had the opportunity to wrap it up in 1998 when world opinion would have favored a quick resolution, but he didn't act. The fact that a few years have passed doesn't mean the U.N. resolutions had gone away. The fact that Saddam was uncooperative with U.N. weapons inspectors was worrisome regardless of what was known. You'd think he'd want to prove he was clean so sanctions would be lifted and Iraq could get on with normal life.
So I don't see "the whole Iraq" thing as the problem you do -- our intelligence agencies knew their WMD were nonexistent from the beginning and there was no threat to US national security.
Wow, you must have access to information that no-one else has access to. If Congress had that information they would have not given Bush permission to take "all necessary action" in regards to Iraq. And they'd probably be looking to impeach now. So you must have some pretty interesting sources of information to make such a claim. Call your closest Democratic presidential candidate, I'm sure they'd love to have the information you apparently have access to.
Meanwhile, we do nothing about real WMD threats like Pakistan and North Korea.
And I agree we should deal with both of those countries.
but it's not arguable; we've been losing people in Iraq every day, and we would not be losing those people if they weren't in Iraq
Well that's pretty obvious. War has a tendency to be deadly. And most of our troops have been lost in what I'd call guerilla warfare more than terrorism. Terrorism strikes fear (terror) in the hearts of everyday citizens. It bothers me that we are losing soliders in Iraq, but it doesn't strike fear in my heart that I or anyone in my country is at risk. Soliders, yes, but they're involved in war. So it's not terrorism, it's guerilla warfare.
You cite long term costs of not invading Iraq as if they're obvious. I think there was a stronger case for war in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and we had international support.
I agree. We should have finished the job. Perhaps Bush Sr. didn't want to be seen as occupying the country. Perhaps, as has been said, he made a deal with Saddam to let him stay as long as he didn't use chemical weapons on advancing coalition troops. I really don't know. I also think it could've been finished by Clinton in 1998 when there was also world support for it, but Clinton was driven by the polls so he just lobbed some cruise missiles.
Regardless, the right thing isn't always popular domestically or internationally. Iraq was under crippling international sanctions that have now been lifted. Given the option of continuing to strangle a country because of its dictator or just taking the dictator out and letting the country return to normalcy, I think the latter is the better option for everyone.
the worst he did was lie and be a pain in the ass to the UN and inspectors.
So how is the U.N. supposed to know if any particular dictator is just being a pain in the ass or really has something to hide? Saddam *HAD* WMDs, that's common knowledge and accepted. The question is whether or not he got rid of them. Perhaps he did. He should have given the U.N. what they needed in terms of proof rather t
You: Uhm, then I'm not sure what you're saying. What "whole thing" would not have been an issue for Bush? Terrorism? 9/11? When Iraq was not clearly involved in either?
I'm saying the "whole Iraq thing." The issue of Iraq wouldn't be an issue today if Clinton had dealt with it appropriately in 1998 when the U.N. actually would have supported taking action. Instead, Clinton just sent in his old friends, the cruise missiles, and ignored the problem and left it festering.
I'm not saying Iraq had anything to do with terrorism or 9/11. But just because they don't have ties with terrorism doesn't mean they are automatically our friends or incapable of other types of threats.
why do we not invade other brutal dictatorships that are just as bad and in some cases are greater threats to the US -- e.g. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan?
I agree that we should give North Korea a month to comply or they'll follow Iraqs fate (without the promise of reconstruction). I'm unaware of Saudi plans to develop WMDs or do anything to threaten us that would suggest an invasion is necessary, but I would agree that we should break off relations with them. I also agree that Pakistan should be dealt with as a terrorist--we should've have plowed through them to get to Afghanistan rather than asking for permission. As for Uzbekistan, I'm unaware of what's going on there--but I don't think they represent a global or regional threat so that'd be an internal problem for them.
I don't think we should go around liberating people from every dictator on the planet. But dictators that represent a threat to our national security or put strategic regions at risk, yes.
Me: That approach might not be popular, but I'm certainly not in a position to say it's wrong.
You: You may not be but you would be if you read the news.
My dear sir, can we please have a discussion without being condescending? I read the news daily. You may interpret it differently than I do but let's not get into that kind of mud-slinging.
It's pretty obvious that it has been the wrong approach if our goal is to increase US national security and decrease the kind of Islamic terrorism we saw on 9/11.
How has it decreased U.S. national security? And in the long-run having a non-dictator in Iraq can only increase U.S. security. I might agree that our actions may put us at short-term risk for terrorism--but even that's questionable since 9/11 already showed that we were already at risk of terrorism.
As for decreasing Islamic terrorism are you advocating that we should base our foreign policy decisions based on fear of terrorism? If so, I disagree 100%. We need to do what is right and what is best for this country even if it isn't popular.
The mass graves indicate what happened when the last US invasion went wrong; it was predicted at the time (I actually remember 1991) and most people agree it was an obvious consequence of invading the country and then leaving it completely.
So do I understand that you would have approved of invading Iraq back in 1991 but not now?
The best you can say about the current policy is that we're trying to finish the job.
I don't think that's necessarily bad. At least Hillary Clinton won't have to deal with the mess in 2008.
Terrorism may have complex causes, but to say it happens for "no apparent reason" is just ignorant.
Let me try to restate that. It's not that the terrorists don't have their reason. But the waves of violence in Israel, for example, often just start up when everything appears to be going good. The peace plan in Israel was doing surprisingly well a few months ago until terrorists decided to blow up a bus. I'm not saying that terrorists don't have thei
No, but there is still no proof that humans are contributing more than a very small percentage of CO2 to the total output. To start complaining about cars and power plants every time a big storm comes through is to misunderstand the scale of our contribution to CO2 and other green-house gases.
The article itself mentions:
- "There's a regional trend in warming that cycles back 150 years," Mueller said in a telephone interview. "I am not comfortable linking it to global warming. It is difficult to tease out what is due to global warming and what is due to regional warming."
People here talking about global warming are just putting spin on a story that has nothing to do with global warming. But they hear about a powerful tropical storm or an ice shelf breaking and, whoa! It's all our fault! Damn CO2.Reality check.
If so, why did the Clinton administration not seize the opportunity to have Sudan hand over Bin Laden when they had the chance on numerous occasions?
Even after 911, investigation shows that the FBI was deliberately dragging its feet about translating important documents in order to appear overworked
This is a bueracratic problem within the FBI that is not Clinton's or Bush's fault, and would have happened under either.
You cite Clinton's "failure to deal with Iraq" and then you admit that Iraq had nothing to do with al Qaeda, 9-11, or terrorism. Why would his dealing with Iraq in 1998 have stopped 9-11?
Uhm, I never said that Clinton dealing with Iraq would have stopped 9/11. The issue of Bush and Iraq was raised by a previous post and I simply commented that the whole thing wouldn't have even been an issue for the Bush administration if the Clinton administration had done its job regarding Iraq back in 1998. A few cruise missile strikes and Clinton thought his job was done. Mostly, I think he was afraid of the hit he'd take in the polls if American lives were lost in combat.
I would argue (and the evidence is quite clearly on my side here) that Bush's handling of Iraq has dramatically increased terrorism; there were no Iraqi suicide bombers prior to April 2003.
Hah hah, terrorism like we're seeing now, no. But there were state-sponsored chemical attacks on entire towns and genocide committed against Iraqi citizens near Basra after 1991 that filled the mass graves that are now being excavated. That's not terrorism? That's brazen state-sponsored terrorism against its own people which I personally think is worse than Iraqis taking shots at what they may consider an invading army.
I'm quite confident that fewer people are dying on a daily basis in Iraq now, although I will admit that the deaths are more visible than they were when they were hidden by a dictator.
And whether or not you think Bush wanted to go after Iraq from the beginning, it was obvious by mid- to late-2002 that attacking Iraq was on America's agenda...
I will agree that by mid- to late-2002 it was obvious we were going to get Iraq. That wasn't the case before 9/11, however. And when 9/11 happened the primary issue was Afghanistan.
Personally, I think 9/11 happened and Bush said, "Ok, Afghanistan is history, obviously. Who else is on the board that is either a problem now or could give us grief in the next decade?" They told him and that's where the Axis of Evil nations came from. And I think he said, "Ok, well, the gloves are off. Screw it. We're going to deal with this before 9/11 happens again." That approach might not be popular, but I'm certainly not in a position to say it's wrong.
And you have a massive increase in chaos, death, and terrorism in the middle east. And some ten attacks on American soldiers per day.
An increase in chaos in Iraq? Probably. Death? Probably not. I'm quite confident that Saddam's government killed more people daily than are currently dying in Iraq. The known chemical attacks in the 1980's and the mass graves near Basra are evidence of this. Terrorism in the middle east? To say that Iraq has caused an increase is to ignore that it comes in waves anyway, and is quite unpredictable. It happens for no apparent reason. The current wave has come after Iraq which makes Iraq a convenient explanation, but it's quite impossible to say that the Iraq invasion caused it.
And a billion-dollar per week price tag, not to mention the $87 billion more Bush asked for.
Yeah, $87 billion more to clean up a country that has been terrorize by a dictator is a waste of money, but spending tens of millions of dollars to topple an aspirin factory makes good financial sense.
And perhaps we should realize that the problems could just as easily be attributed to a decade of inaction after the fall of the USSR, a failure to adapt to new realities, a failure to use human intelligence sources just because they are less than "reputable". And perhaps we could just as easily attribute it to Clinton who failed to nab Bin Laden when the Sudan offered.
You can point a lot of fingers if you want. The truth is no single person is to blame. A lot of small mistakes were made that lead to a tragedy. Not surprisingly that's usually the case in *most* tragedies. The Titanic, Pearl Harbor, 9/11. Lots of "what ifs"--any of which could have prevented the tragedy, but opportunities were missed.
But if you want to blame a president, keep in mind that just last week CNN reported that planning for 9/11 stretched back to 1996. So if you want to blame a president who should we blame? Clinton who had between 4 or 5 years to deal discover and/or deal with the plot, or Bush who had 8 months?
Personally, I don't think finger pointing is worthwhile when so many things went wrong. But if you're trying to condemn Bush or excuse Clinton I think the facts are against you.
This is law enforcement, not a presidential legacy. Clinton had little, if anything, to do with it.
Where presidential decisions were made he passed on opportunities to take Bin Laden and failed to build a coalition to deal with Iraq decisively in 1998 when the world would have supported such action. His inaction regarding Bin Laden gave him the opportunity to support the 9/11 attacks. His failure to address Iraq when he should have left GWB with a situation that should've been cleaned up by the time he arrived on the scene.
I know Clinton didn't do anything to purposely screw the next president, but some of the saddest and most controversial events during this administration could have been avoided entirely if Clinton hadn't missed very significant opportunities.
He stopped the fighting in Bosnia far more effectively than Bush has done in Iraq.
Of course, the Bosnia intervention was, what, 8 years ago and Iraq was about 5 months ago? Let's see how Iraq is doing in 2011 before we make comparisons between the two. At this stage the two are apples and oranges.
When he left, the CIA and FBI were set up to fight against terrorism.
Yeah, and Bush broke it all in 8 month. All the critiques of problems in the intelligence community that came to light after 9/11 were all Bush's fault. Right. Keep telling yourself that.
That said, I don't blame the FBI's or CIA's failure on either Bush or Clinton. The FBI was more investigative than prevention, and the CIA never really fully adapted to the new post-USSR environment. But if anything, it was made clear in the post-9/11 reports that the CIA was depending less on human intelligence and more on electronic intelligence in part to avoid dealing with individuals or organizations of "questionable moral standing." Where do you think the blame of that should fall?
He was looking for a conflict in Iraq. He wanted Saddam Hussein from day one.
Try re-reading the news for the first 8 months of Bush's presidency. There was no significant talk of Iraq at all. Nothing. Even after 9/11 the target was Afghanistan, not Iraq. If Bush was all hell-bent on taking out Iraq I'm sure some evidence could have been fabricated blaming or linking Iraq to it. Quite to the contrary, Bush has gone on the record as saying no such evidence exists.
They thought he was making the stuff up. They attacked him on bombing a chemical plant in the Sudan.
Ahhh, you mean the site that has long-since been confirmed as being an aspirin factory? Even I was skeptical of it being an innocent factory at the time, but the U.N. itself has long since concluded it was indeed a civil plant producing, apparently, aspirins. I guess Clinton had bad intel, it can happen to anyone. But don't blame the Republicans for jumping on his case. The Republicans turned out to be RIGHT, and the U.N. concluded as much.
Now, Bush invades a country and can't find chemical weapons.
At least the target was a dictator and not an aspirin factory. If mistakes are going to be made I'd rather take out a dictator than an aspirin factory.
If Bush knew there was no threat in Iraq and sent us to war anyway, he should be impeached. But so far there is no evidence of that. There's maybe been some bad intel, or perhaps 5 months just isn't enough time to completely search a desert country the size of California. But in a worst-case scenario we have one less ruthless dictator in the middle east. With Clinton's actions we have one less aspirin factory.
Bush is a miserable failure and September 11th is his administration's fault.
Damn, I've been trolled.
Like what, exactly? I mean, really, what did he do? What is his legacy? Nothing particularly significant (in a political sense) happened during his terms. So what are all these great things he did?