We obviously helped Saddam some during the 80's, but he was doing just fine without us. The bulk of his army equipment (tanks, aircraft, guns) were made in Russia. France sold him a freaking nuclear reactor. The chemical weapons he has used were from Germany or Japan, and NOT the US.
But the fact remains that not only was Saddam required to disarm, he was required to prove that he had destroyed the weapons we knew he had. He didn't. He has also helped enough terrorists in the past to earn himself a position on our State Department list of states that sponsor terrorism. He also hates our guts. If you don't consider that a threat to us, then I am glad that you are not in charge of our national security.
Since sarin and other gasseous nerve agents are worthless as single-instance munitions, they'd have to be stockpiled by the thousands to be considered an effective military weapon.
First of all, thats bull crap. Sarin is one of the most toxic substances on earth. 100mg of Sarin will kill you within a few minutes. The 155mm shell found in Iraq had about 6kg of chemical agent. This single weapon, if properly placed, could kill tens of thousands of people.
And do you think we just found the only chemical shell that Saddam made? Do you honestly think he only made one? Lets ignore the fact that Saddam denied that he had weaponized Sarin in artillery shells- its just another lie that we caught him in. Of course he stockpiled them.
Arguing that he "had" weapons of mass destruction simply because a few random shells have turned up is entirely pedantic given the circumstances of Hussein's regime and the nature of the weapons.
I am not trying to argue that he had WMD- that is an established fact. And I think that it is entirely pedantic of you to assume Saddam didn't have a stockpile of weapons given his 12 year track record of lies and deciet.
Saddam was caught in his lies many times in the past 12 years- if you don't believe me, read any of the 12 unanimous UNSEC resolutions that were passed against him during the 1990's condeming him for this, or even Hans Blix's reports to the UN that detail the history of the WMD searches there. Saddam was a liar, so thats why we didn't consider his "testimony".
And we don't know if this is an isolated weapon that just slipped through the cracks or not. All we know is that Saddam had x number of illegal weapons in 1991, we know that he destroyed y of them, and x > y.
the federal oil reserve is at 98% which is the highest it's ever been.
Yes. Our strategic oil reserves are at record levels (like 660 million barrels in underground salt caves along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico). For obvious reasons, shortly after 9/11, President Bush ordered the reserves to be filled to their maximum levels of ~700 million barrels. This is a good thing.
They were suggesting that it's time the feds step in to ease the prices.
The only people suggesting that are Democrats that are trying to gain a political advantage (like Kerry, who interestingly enough opposed dipping into the reserves 5 years ago). The strategic oil reserve is for national emergencies, and lowering gas prices doesn't count as a national emergency. And our current gas prices are not as bad as they were in the 1970's when you adjust for inflation.
I'm guessing the current administration wants to wait until we are closer to November.
No, no, no. President Bush came out and said this week that he will NOT release any oil from the reserves this year. But Bill Clinton did release some oil from the national reserves in 2000 to try to help out Gore's campaign.
I'm so glad you mentioned Cuba, WMDs and so forth. We made invasion noises at Cuba immediately after Castro showed up, very similar to how we've been making invasion noises at Iraq for some time. Of course Saddam was looking for some way to deter us from invading his country.
The UNSEC unanimously voted 17 times under chapter VII of the UN resolution that Iraq needed to be disarmed. The same can not (and could not) be said about Cuba.
Now, I'm not trying to take Saddam's side in this, I just don't think Bush should've gone in there so soon.
So soon? It took 12 freakin years! We also waited 14 months after President Bush included them in the "Axis of Evil". At any point during that time Iraq could have started to cooperate, but they never did. How long to you think we should wait???
we have already lost the war against terror
What? In 2003, terrorism was at its lowest level since 1969. I'd call that some progress in the war against terror.
The absence in the sample analysed in Sweden and Switzerland of polysulphides and of more than a trace of sulphur indicates that it is not of past US-government manufacture, for all US mustard was made by the Levinstein process from ethylene and mixed sulphur chlorides. That process is also said to have been the one used by the USSR. From similar reasoning, British-made mustard, too, can probably be ruled out, even though substantial stocks were once held at British depots in the Middle East.
In the early nineties, sure. And then nearly all of it was destroyed, correct?
Some of it certainly was. Some more was used against the Kurds. Some more has lost its potency and become useless. But there is still more that cannot be accounted for.
By the U.N.?
One of the problems with the weapons inspectors is that Saddam claimed to have destroyed a lot of weapons unilaterally in the spring/summer of 1991, so the inspectors were left with the task of trying to prove those claims after the fact.
Did he a) have weapons in 2003
Given his track record, the only reasonable assumption was that he did.
b) directly threatened the United States, and did he c) have the technological capability to achieve that threat?
Once again, Iraq has never posed a direct threat to us. The motivations for invading were to prevent them from becoming a direct threat, and to eliminate the indirect threat of his weapons getting into the hands of some of the terrorist organizations that he supported.
So, if I ask Cuba to show me proof that it has no military capability to attack the US, and they don't comply, my only option is to invade the country?
Cuba is not under international orders to disarm with an authorization to use military force to get them to comply, and Cuba has not shown a willingness to use WMDs in the past.
Owning a gun is not a crime.
It is if the UN Security Council has passed 17 unanimous resolutions ordering you to disarm.
Here are the others on that list: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. How many of those countries were involved in the 9-11 attacks? Oh, that's right - none. Something tells me we need a new list.
We are at war against terrorism, not just al Qaeda. Terrorist organizations cannot easily survive without the support of states like those on that list. Incedentally, it looks like Libya might make it off that list soon here because they realized that Bush does have balls.
Sounds like a UN problem to me.
EXACTLY. The UNSEC passed 17 freaking resolutions over 12 years under chapter VII of the UN charter, but they were unwilling to take the steps mandated to enforce them.
We acted unilaterally because?
Because we don't have to wait for France's approval to eliminate a threat to our national security.
And they had used WMDs on foreigners when?
The fact that he had used them showed that he did not care about international law. Same with his invasion of Kuwait.
besides the Iran war where the Reagan Administration trained them and sold them their first WMDs.
The chemical weapons he has used in Iran did not come from us. They came from either Japan or Germany.
Again, if you find the pieces needed to make a bomb inside my house... it doesn't mean that I'm going to make a bomb.
Analogies like that are always so inadequate, but I'll try to work with it. If you had made and used bombs in the past, associated with gang members that carried out bombings, and constantly refused to cooperate with authorities trying to figure out if you have any bombs, and you do this for 12 YEARS, then that is something to be worried about.
Saudis did not see a single bad word out of Bush's mouth.
Again- do you have any special evidence that Bush doesn't have that the Saudi's conspired or planned or otherwise had anything to do with 9-11?
Iraq, besides the two Gulf wars, has killed zero US Citizens. Al Queda killed 3,000, and so far, in a year of occupation, no document has linked Al Queda and the old Iraqi government
There are circumstantial links, but that is irrelevant. We are at war with terrorism, not just al Qaeda, and there is plenty of evidence that Iraq supported terrorists.
Saudi Arabia didn't receive so much as a slap on the wrists.
Um, all of his tanks, guns, and aircraft were Russian, and the chemical weapons he has used were either German or Japanese, but definately not US or British. It looks to me like he was doing fine getting weapons without our help.
Ignorant of what? We did know he had weapons. We did see him use them. He hasn't accounted for all of those weapons we knew he had. How ignorant of me to bring that up.
1. Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction that can be used against the United States?
He had weapons. The world told him to show proof that he had disarmed. He didn't. The only safe assumption a Commander in Chief could make based on that evidence is that he still has the weapons. Anthrax just does not dissappear, after all.
2. Is Iraq planning to use those weapons?
Sometimes I wonder if people are listening to the same President Bush. Both Bush and Blair were very clear that we must act BEFORE Iraq can plan to use the weapons- BEFORE they became an immenent threat. Its too late to act if he already has a gun pointed at our head. Iraq has known terrorist connections- they have been on the State Dept list of Terror Sponsering States for 15 years. We should have acted against that threat a lot sooner than we did.
What about North Korea?
Unlike North Korea,
Iraq was in violation of 17 Chapter VII UN resolutions as well as the cease-fire from the first Gulf War that required them to disarm
Iraq had shown that they are willing to use their WMDs
Iraq had just tried to illegally expand their borders
Iraq is sitting on some of the richest natural resources in the world to finance almost anything that they would like.
There is still a lot of diplomacy that the world can try in North Korea.
What about Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers came from, and home to bin Laden and many terrorist organizations funded by the Saudi Government?
McVeigh was from New York- should we invade New York also? At least Saudi Arabia revoked bin Laden's citizenship. Unless maybe you have some special insider knowledge about the Saudi Royal family?
Bush doesn't have any balls.
I am glad that the man in charge of protecting our national security DOES have the balls to act when necessary.
Well, all we know is that Saddam didn't have them anymore when the US invaded.
Unless you have some inside knowledge here, we do NOT know that. We do not know where the weapons are, hence the term "unaccounted".
You see, this was not a hide a seek game. The cease-fire that Saddam agreed to in Safwan, and the subsequent UN resolutions 678 and 687 were very specific about what Saddam needed to do. He gave the UN proof that some of the weapons were destroyed, and some other weapons have degraded over time and are likely now useless, but nobody (including Hans Blix or Chirac or Shroeder) claims that he complied with the disarmament.
Saddam never opened up for us to "come look". There were a dozen UNSEC resolutions during the 1990's condemning him for his lack of cooperation. In 1998 he completely gave up the pretense of cooperating and forced the inspectors to leave. It took 250,000 troops on his doorstep in 2003 to make him change his mind. And even then, he was unable to account for all of the weapons that UNMOVIC knew he had.
You do realize that it was never a question of if Iraq had WMD's or not. The world saw him use them, for cryin out loud. The only question that remains is what he did with them. He was supposed to show the world proof that he destroyed the weapons. That never happened.
Its a freaking rumor. It probably has little truth behind it.
But then Powell used a Graduate Student's Thesis to justify a war against Iraq in front of the entire world.
No he didn't. Here is the text of Powell's UN address. He didn't mention anything from the UK dossier.
Re:American opinion is no measure of truth
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Ansar al-Islam has mainly targeted the PUK, and since Saddam wanted very much to get rid of the PUK, it is not that far-fetched that he would help Ansar al-Islam.
Re:American opinion is no measure of truth
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· Score: -1, Offtopic
What a dumb question.
Baath party officials smuggled weapons from Afghanistan and delivered them to Ansar al-Islam groups on northern Iraq
Kurdish military seized TNT from Ansar al-Islam that was produced by the Iraqi military
Abu Wa'il was an Ansar al-Islam operative, and he was also an employee of Saddam
Abu Musab az-Zarqawi is an Ansar al-Islam leader, and he received medical treatment from Saddam in Baghdad
After the US invaded Iraq, 8 foreign Ansar al-Islam operatives were taken into custody after a gunfight in northern Iraq. All 8 had valid Iraqi visas, meaning the Iraqi government approved of their presense.
Is that 100% proof that Saddam supported al Qaeda? Of course not, but you are still missing the point. Even if Iraq has nothing to do with al Qaeda, they have supported many other terrorist organisations (like Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the PKK, the Abu Nidal Organization, and Hamas). We are in a war against terrorism, not only al Qaeda.
Re:how in the world does this matter
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· Score: 1, Informative
What in the hell are you talking about?
First of all, Disney is a private corporation- they have nothing to do with free speech. Freedom of speech does not mean that a private entity like Disney is required to distribute every crap-filled documentary that Michael Moore makes.
And your claim about Jeb Bush is even more laughable. Jeb Bush doesn't have the authority to remove ANYBODY from voter rolls. According to Florida law, that responsibility falls on the election supervisor in each county. It was that way in 2000, also. And after all of the hoopla about the felon list in the 2000 election, the USCCR was only able to identify 4 people that were wrongly removed from voter registration, and 3 of them were allowed to vote anyway.
But don't let the facts get in the way of our hate-filled rant.
Once it gets through my door I should be able to use it as I please just as any other form of "Intelectual Property."
Exacactly. I downloaded that linux source code, so now I should be able use it as I please. In fact, I think I will modify it and use it in my own application that I am distributing without making my source code available. If anybody disagrees with that, I will just complain about evil corporations killing fair use.
Why would this "sink" Itanium? They are geared towards totally different markets.
If people really thought that Intel was just going to be caught completly off guard by a successful AMD 64 bit x86 processor, then they don't understand how to make a business as successful as Intel. This should not surprize anybody.
They benefit most from the services that taxes pay for (law, order, financial security (the Fed, SEC), military defense, and more).
Care to explain your reasoning? The largest item in the federal budget is social security ($470 billion). Social security hardly benefits the rich at all. The second largest item in the federal budget is medicare and medicaid ($411 billion). The rich people do not benefit from either of those at all. The third biggest item is the Department of Defense ($388 billion). Bin Laden wants to kill poor americans just as much as he wants to kill rich ones. How about other services? Do the rich use our public highways more than poorer people? Do they need the police more than South Central LA? (Source for budget info).
Also, while they may pay a large chunk of taxes, individually they still pay less taxes in proportion to their earnings than poorer citizens.
This is completely untrue. We have a progressive tax system- the more money you make, the higher your tax rate is. Lets look at the actual numbers:
In 2000, the richest 1% accounted for just over 20% of all taxable income. That 20% of the income paid 37% of all income taxes. If you look at the richest 5%, they account for 35% of taxable income, but they pay 56% of all income taxes.
On the other hand, the poorest 50% of the country accounted for about 13% of the income, but they only paid about 4% of all income taxes. That means that the rich pay a much higher proportion of their earnings to tax than poorer people. Can they afford it more than poor people? Of course- thats why we have a progressive tax system. But exactly how much do we want to punish success in this country?
with a proposition (56) to kill off the requirement for a 2/3 majority to raise new taxes
What bugs me the most is how prop 56 is being advertised. They are throwing out feel-good cliches about budget responsibility and how our legislatures will have to work WITHOUT PAY to pass a budget if they are late (they also claim that the only people that oppose the proposition are the oil and tobacco companies- BULL CRAP). It is all smokescreen for the propositions true purpose- to make future tax increases easier.
Slashdot Mirror
We know he had them, because we gave them to him
We obviously helped Saddam some during the 80's, but he was doing just fine without us. The bulk of his army equipment (tanks, aircraft, guns) were made in Russia. France sold him a freaking nuclear reactor. The chemical weapons he has used were from Germany or Japan, and NOT the US.
But the fact remains that not only was Saddam required to disarm, he was required to prove that he had destroyed the weapons we knew he had. He didn't. He has also helped enough terrorists in the past to earn himself a position on our State Department list of states that sponsor terrorism. He also hates our guts. If you don't consider that a threat to us, then I am glad that you are not in charge of our national security.
Since sarin and other gasseous nerve agents are worthless as single-instance munitions, they'd have to be stockpiled by the thousands to be considered an effective military weapon.
First of all, thats bull crap. Sarin is one of the most toxic substances on earth. 100mg of Sarin will kill you within a few minutes. The 155mm shell found in Iraq had about 6kg of chemical agent. This single weapon, if properly placed, could kill tens of thousands of people.
And do you think we just found the only chemical shell that Saddam made? Do you honestly think he only made one? Lets ignore the fact that Saddam denied that he had weaponized Sarin in artillery shells- its just another lie that we caught him in. Of course he stockpiled them.
Arguing that he "had" weapons of mass destruction simply because a few random shells have turned up is entirely pedantic given the circumstances of Hussein's regime and the nature of the weapons.
I am not trying to argue that he had WMD- that is an established fact. And I think that it is entirely pedantic of you to assume Saddam didn't have a stockpile of weapons given his 12 year track record of lies and deciet.
Saddam was caught in his lies many times in the past 12 years- if you don't believe me, read any of the 12 unanimous UNSEC resolutions that were passed against him during the 1990's condeming him for this, or even Hans Blix's reports to the UN that detail the history of the WMD searches there. Saddam was a liar, so thats why we didn't consider his "testimony".
And we don't know if this is an isolated weapon that just slipped through the cracks or not. All we know is that Saddam had x number of illegal weapons in 1991, we know that he destroyed y of them, and x > y.
the federal oil reserve is at 98% which is the highest it's ever been.
Yes. Our strategic oil reserves are at record levels (like 660 million barrels in underground salt caves along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico). For obvious reasons, shortly after 9/11, President Bush ordered the reserves to be filled to their maximum levels of ~700 million barrels. This is a good thing.
They were suggesting that it's time the feds step in to ease the prices.
The only people suggesting that are Democrats that are trying to gain a political advantage (like Kerry, who interestingly enough opposed dipping into the reserves 5 years ago). The strategic oil reserve is for national emergencies, and lowering gas prices doesn't count as a national emergency. And our current gas prices are not as bad as they were in the 1970's when you adjust for inflation.
I'm guessing the current administration wants to wait until we are closer to November.
No, no, no. President Bush came out and said this week that he will NOT release any oil from the reserves this year. But Bill Clinton did release some oil from the national reserves in 2000 to try to help out Gore's campaign.
Actually, during recent times of divided government, the Democrats have blocked more judicial nominees than Republicans.
I'm so glad you mentioned Cuba, WMDs and so forth. We made invasion noises at Cuba immediately after Castro showed up, very similar to how we've been making invasion noises at Iraq for some time. Of course Saddam was looking for some way to deter us from invading his country.
The UNSEC unanimously voted 17 times under chapter VII of the UN resolution that Iraq needed to be disarmed. The same can not (and could not) be said about Cuba.
Now, I'm not trying to take Saddam's side in this, I just don't think Bush should've gone in there so soon.
So soon? It took 12 freakin years! We also waited 14 months after President Bush included them in the "Axis of Evil". At any point during that time Iraq could have started to cooperate, but they never did. How long to you think we should wait???
we have already lost the war against terror
What? In 2003, terrorism was at its lowest level since 1969. I'd call that some progress in the war against terror.
From the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Um, my evidence that it is a rumor is that its in the "Washington Whispers" rumor column in US News. I thought that was obvious.
Sorry- this post is really long.
In the early nineties, sure. And then nearly all of it was destroyed, correct?
Some of it certainly was. Some more was used against the Kurds. Some more has lost its potency and become useless. But there is still more that cannot be accounted for.
By the U.N.?
One of the problems with the weapons inspectors is that Saddam claimed to have destroyed a lot of weapons unilaterally in the spring/summer of 1991, so the inspectors were left with the task of trying to prove those claims after the fact.
Did he a) have weapons in 2003
Given his track record, the only reasonable assumption was that he did.
b) directly threatened the United States, and did he c) have the technological capability to achieve that threat?
Once again, Iraq has never posed a direct threat to us. The motivations for invading were to prevent them from becoming a direct threat, and to eliminate the indirect threat of his weapons getting into the hands of some of the terrorist organizations that he supported.
So, if I ask Cuba to show me proof that it has no military capability to attack the US, and they don't comply, my only option is to invade the country?
Cuba is not under international orders to disarm with an authorization to use military force to get them to comply, and Cuba has not shown a willingness to use WMDs in the past.
Owning a gun is not a crime.
It is if the UN Security Council has passed 17 unanimous resolutions ordering you to disarm.
Here are the others on that list: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. How many of those countries were involved in the 9-11 attacks? Oh, that's right - none. Something tells me we need a new list.
We are at war against terrorism, not just al Qaeda. Terrorist organizations cannot easily survive without the support of states like those on that list. Incedentally, it looks like Libya might make it off that list soon here because they realized that Bush does have balls.
Sounds like a UN problem to me.
EXACTLY. The UNSEC passed 17 freaking resolutions over 12 years under chapter VII of the UN charter, but they were unwilling to take the steps mandated to enforce them.
We acted unilaterally because?
Because we don't have to wait for France's approval to eliminate a threat to our national security.
And they had used WMDs on foreigners when?
The fact that he had used them showed that he did not care about international law. Same with his invasion of Kuwait.
besides the Iran war where the Reagan Administration trained them and sold them their first WMDs.
The chemical weapons he has used in Iran did not come from us. They came from either Japan or Germany.
Again, if you find the pieces needed to make a bomb inside my house... it doesn't mean that I'm going to make a bomb.
Analogies like that are always so inadequate, but I'll try to work with it. If you had made and used bombs in the past, associated with gang members that carried out bombings, and constantly refused to cooperate with authorities trying to figure out if you have any bombs, and you do this for 12 YEARS, then that is something to be worried about.
Saudis did not see a single bad word out of Bush's mouth.
Again- do you have any special evidence that Bush doesn't have that the Saudi's conspired or planned or otherwise had anything to do with 9-11?
Iraq, besides the two Gulf wars, has killed zero US Citizens. Al Queda killed 3,000, and so far, in a year of occupation, no document has linked Al Queda and the old Iraqi government
There are circumstantial links, but that is irrelevant. We are at war with terrorism, not just al Qaeda, and there is plenty of evidence that Iraq supported terrorists.
Saudi Arabia didn't receive so much as a slap on the wrists.
For what?
Um, all of his tanks, guns, and aircraft were Russian, and the chemical weapons he has used were either German or Japanese, but definately not US or British. It looks to me like he was doing fine getting weapons without our help.
Ignorant of what? We did know he had weapons. We did see him use them. He hasn't accounted for all of those weapons we knew he had. How ignorant of me to bring that up.
He had weapons. The world told him to show proof that he had disarmed. He didn't. The only safe assumption a Commander in Chief could make based on that evidence is that he still has the weapons. Anthrax just does not dissappear, after all.
2. Is Iraq planning to use those weapons?
Sometimes I wonder if people are listening to the same President Bush. Both Bush and Blair were very clear that we must act BEFORE Iraq can plan to use the weapons- BEFORE they became an immenent threat. Its too late to act if he already has a gun pointed at our head. Iraq has known terrorist connections- they have been on the State Dept list of Terror Sponsering States for 15 years. We should have acted against that threat a lot sooner than we did.
What about North Korea?
Unlike North Korea,
Iraq was in violation of 17 Chapter VII UN resolutions as well as the cease-fire from the first Gulf War that required them to disarm
Iraq had shown that they are willing to use their WMDs
Iraq had just tried to illegally expand their borders
Iraq is sitting on some of the richest natural resources in the world to finance almost anything that they would like.
There is still a lot of diplomacy that the world can try in North Korea.
What about Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers came from, and home to bin Laden and many terrorist organizations funded by the Saudi Government?
McVeigh was from New York- should we invade New York also? At least Saudi Arabia revoked bin Laden's citizenship. Unless maybe you have some special insider knowledge about the Saudi Royal family?
Bush doesn't have any balls.
I am glad that the man in charge of protecting our national security DOES have the balls to act when necessary.
Well, all we know is that Saddam didn't have them anymore when the US invaded.
Unless you have some inside knowledge here, we do NOT know that. We do not know where the weapons are, hence the term "unaccounted".
You see, this was not a hide a seek game. The cease-fire that Saddam agreed to in Safwan, and the subsequent UN resolutions 678 and 687 were very specific about what Saddam needed to do. He gave the UN proof that some of the weapons were destroyed, and some other weapons have degraded over time and are likely now useless, but nobody (including Hans Blix or Chirac or Shroeder) claims that he complied with the disarmament.
Good question. If Saddam had actually complied with the UN resolutions, we would know the answer to that question, now wouldn't we?
Saddam never opened up for us to "come look". There were a dozen UNSEC resolutions during the 1990's condemning him for his lack of cooperation. In 1998 he completely gave up the pretense of cooperating and forced the inspectors to leave. It took 250,000 troops on his doorstep in 2003 to make him change his mind. And even then, he was unable to account for all of the weapons that UNMOVIC knew he had.
You do realize that it was never a question of if Iraq had WMD's or not. The world saw him use them, for cryin out loud. The only question that remains is what he did with them. He was supposed to show the world proof that he destroyed the weapons. That never happened.
The story is so silly it's almost unbelievable.
Its a freaking rumor. It probably has little truth behind it.
But then Powell used a Graduate Student's Thesis to justify a war against Iraq in front of the entire world.
No he didn't. Here is the text of Powell's UN address. He didn't mention anything from the UK dossier.
Ansar al-Islam has mainly targeted the PUK, and since Saddam wanted very much to get rid of the PUK, it is not that far-fetched that he would help Ansar al-Islam.
Baath party officials smuggled weapons from Afghanistan and delivered them to Ansar al-Islam groups on northern Iraq
Kurdish military seized TNT from Ansar al-Islam that was produced by the Iraqi military
Abu Wa'il was an Ansar al-Islam operative, and he was also an employee of Saddam
Abu Musab az-Zarqawi is an Ansar al-Islam leader, and he received medical treatment from Saddam in Baghdad
After the US invaded Iraq, 8 foreign Ansar al-Islam operatives were taken into custody after a gunfight in northern Iraq. All 8 had valid Iraqi visas, meaning the Iraqi government approved of their presense.
(source, source)
Is that 100% proof that Saddam supported al Qaeda? Of course not, but you are still missing the point. Even if Iraq has nothing to do with al Qaeda, they have supported many other terrorist organisations (like Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the PKK, the Abu Nidal Organization, and Hamas). We are in a war against terrorism, not only al Qaeda.
What in the hell are you talking about?
First of all, Disney is a private corporation- they have nothing to do with free speech. Freedom of speech does not mean that a private entity like Disney is required to distribute every crap-filled documentary that Michael Moore makes.
And your claim about Jeb Bush is even more laughable. Jeb Bush doesn't have the authority to remove ANYBODY from voter rolls. According to Florida law, that responsibility falls on the election supervisor in each county. It was that way in 2000, also. And after all of the hoopla about the felon list in the 2000 election, the USCCR was only able to identify 4 people that were wrongly removed from voter registration, and 3 of them were allowed to vote anyway.
But don't let the facts get in the way of our hate-filled rant.
Once it gets through my door I should be able to use it as I please just as any other form of "Intelectual Property."
Exacactly. I downloaded that linux source code, so now I should be able use it as I please. In fact, I think I will modify it and use it in my own application that I am distributing without making my source code available. If anybody disagrees with that, I will just complain about evil corporations killing fair use.
Why would this "sink" Itanium? They are geared towards totally different markets.
If people really thought that Intel was just going to be caught completly off guard by a successful AMD 64 bit x86 processor, then they don't understand how to make a business as successful as Intel. This should not surprize anybody.
They benefit most from the services that taxes pay for (law, order, financial security (the Fed, SEC), military defense, and more).
Care to explain your reasoning? The largest item in the federal budget is social security ($470 billion). Social security hardly benefits the rich at all. The second largest item in the federal budget is medicare and medicaid ($411 billion). The rich people do not benefit from either of those at all. The third biggest item is the Department of Defense ($388 billion). Bin Laden wants to kill poor americans just as much as he wants to kill rich ones. How about other services? Do the rich use our public highways more than poorer people? Do they need the police more than South Central LA? (Source for budget info).
Also, while they may pay a large chunk of taxes, individually they still pay less taxes in proportion to their earnings than poorer citizens.
This is completely untrue. We have a progressive tax system- the more money you make, the higher your tax rate is. Lets look at the actual numbers:
In 2000, the richest 1% accounted for just over 20% of all taxable income. That 20% of the income paid 37% of all income taxes. If you look at the richest 5%, they account for 35% of taxable income, but they pay 56% of all income taxes.
On the other hand, the poorest 50% of the country accounted for about 13% of the income, but they only paid about 4% of all income taxes. That means that the rich pay a much higher proportion of their earnings to tax than poorer people. Can they afford it more than poor people? Of course- thats why we have a progressive tax system. But exactly how much do we want to punish success in this country?
Exactly. My emphasis was supposed to show how meaningless that claim is.
with a proposition (56) to kill off the requirement for a 2/3 majority to raise new taxes
What bugs me the most is how prop 56 is being advertised. They are throwing out feel-good cliches about budget responsibility and how our legislatures will have to work WITHOUT PAY to pass a budget if they are late (they also claim that the only people that oppose the proposition are the oil and tobacco companies- BULL CRAP). It is all smokescreen for the propositions true purpose- to make future tax increases easier.