I assume you are basing this on Dr Lichtman's claim that "persons living in a county with a substantial African American or people of color population are more likely to have their ballots spoiled or discounted than persons living in the rest of Florida." (cited by the democrat majority in the USCCR report on the 2000 Florida election). This claim is a pretty good example of somebody trying to find evidence to support his preconceived conclusions, and it is thoroughly debunked in the dissenting statement.
Here are the facts:
Election procedures are controlled by the individual County Elections Supervisors. Out of the 25 counties with the highest ballot "spoilage" rates, 24 of the counties were supervised by a democrat, and the 25th was supervised by an independent.
The NAACP, who was called in to represent these minority voters that you claim were disenfranchised, were very clear that they don't allege that anybody "acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group."
Dr John Lott of Yale University did his own study, and he concluded that coefficient on the percent of voters who were black to the number of spoiled ballots was not statistically significant.
Easy there, fellah. DRM can protect YOUR data from other people just as much as it can protect Sony Music's data from you- quit thinking only about entertainment media. The concept of DRM is neither good nor bad- the specific application of that technology can be good or bad.
DRM will be a godsend to corporate security, and can be extremely useful to anybody that wants an easy way to lock down their own data.
The United Nations is a worthless institution that has doomed itself to irrelevancy. In its entire history, the UN has acted in only 2 conflicts:
- The Korean War (and then only because the Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council vote). That war ended in a stalemate, and most of the issues behind the war are still unresolved today - The Gulf War. The UN got off to a good start, but then showed its true colors over the following 12 years in its inability to enforce its own resolutions against Iraq.
The current US administrations, through its actions and words, has done more to harm the UN than any other country has ever done.
This is pure bullcrap. The UN killed itself. Any organization that can't even enforce its own resolutions is worthless. The United State's actions in Iraq this year have saved the UN from itself.
Could it be, perhaps, that no charges have been filed against Mr Lay because there is no proof that he committed a crime? I mean, Arthur Anderson was responsible for the accounting fraud, and they were charged. If you have evidence that Lay actually broke the law, I'm sure the US Attorneys office would love to have it...
There is a demonstrable and proven effort under way to compromise democracy in this country.
I think the word you are looking for is 'alleged'. You see, in normal conversation, when you claim something is 'demonstrable' or 'proven', that means you can demonstrate that your claim is true using irrefutable proof. However, I have only seen you give unproven allegations. Hence the word 'alleged'.
So you just make up the conclusion you want to believe?
No- it was the highly partisan USCCR commission that made up conclusions they wanted to believe. Read the report- there is nothing in there that would support their claim that "countless" African Americans were illegally disenfranchised. The evidence they did give was based on uncorroborated 3rd person stories and questionable statistical surveys.
The Commission did not hear from a single witness who was actually prevented from voting as a result of being erroneously identified as a felon. Furthermore, whites were twice as likely as blacks to be placed on the list erroneously, not the other way around.
Of course, with the passing of the so-called "Patriot" Act (spit), the court order is no longer necessary
No. In fact, the PATRIOT Act does not give law enforcement any new rights- it only gives judges more latitude in what kinds of warrants they can approve. Everything that required a warrant before the PATRIOT act still requires one.
the whole premisse for urgent invasion was that Saddam Hussein had these huge caches of weapons he was ready to unleash on the world at 40 minutes notice.
It is not our fault if Saddam deliberately misled everybody about his weapons capabilities.
Have you read the British dossier? it has been basically completely debunked now, don't you read the news?
It is silly to think that was the only intelligence that we had to support our invasion.
For most of the 12 years he had weapons inspectors on his back which were doing an OK, if not brilliant work, in spite of what GWB was saying.
No! First of all, there were no inspectors in Iraq from 1998 to 2002 because Saddam kicked them out (don't you remember Operation Desert Fox, Clinton's half-assed way of teaching Saddam a lesson because of the inspectors?). That is 4 years that are unaccounted for.
And no, the inspectors were not doing "brilliant work". They weren't even able to the work that they were required to do. They were only supposed to go to Iraq and have Saddam show them proof that he was destroying weapons. But instead Saddam turned that into a hide-and-seek game. The inspectors were intimidated, threatened, spied on, and misled over and over. The last team in Iraq that left in 1998 said that they were never able to actually surprize the Iraqis with an inspection of a suspected weapons site.
No, the reality is simpler. Saddam Hussein never had as many WMDs as the CIA pretended he had, that's all. You've been decieved.
Saddam might have decieved everybody, but even so, the blame still rests solely on him.
And either way, it was our Commander in Chief's responsibility to act of this threat. If a thug on the street threatens you with a gun, you are going to take steps to protect yourself regardless of whether he lied about having a gun or not.
Basically, according the UN Charter there are three types of resolutions that can be passed: - General assembly Resolutions - Resolutions passed under Chapter VI - Resolutions passed under Chapter VII
General assembly resolutions carry the authority of a suggestion- they are not binding or enforceable. Chapter VI resolutions are for cease-fire agreements, and they are also not enforceable by the UN. On the other hand, Chapter VII resolutions are binding and are enforceable (in fact, UN members are required to enforce chapter VII resolutions). Chapter VII resolutions are very rare.
Now, Israel has never been the target of a Chapter VII resolution. Resolution 242 was passed in 1967 under Chapter VI. If you read the resolution, it basically says, "Israel withdraw from occupied territories and the surrounding Arab states quit threatening Israel". Israel is still very much threatened, so they are under no obligation to continue withdrawing from the occupied territories (actually, they have already withdrawn from over 90% of the territories that they occupied following the six-day war, and since resolution 242 didn't require a complete withdrawal, that is probably enough to satisfy their part of the resolution anyway).
Now Iraq has been the target of over a dozen chapter VII resolutions, and ever since April 18, 1991 (when they failed to provide a complete weapons declaration as required by resolution 687), they were in violation of these resolutions.
reason enough to bet bombed into oblivion
If our goal was to bomb people into "oblivion", we wouldn't spent billions of dollars each year developing precision guided weapons.
Don't you think you are being just a little dramatic? I mean, our 6.0% unemployment rate isn't very good, but we have certainly seen a lot worse unemployment in the past. I count 18 years since 1948 with unemployement rates higher than 6.0%, and an average rate of 5.625%. Lets try to keep this in perspective.
Isn't it a bit naff to supply our sworn enemy with illegal weapons of mass distruction? I mean, if you don't want him to have them, just don't sell them to him in the first place!
If we did sell him weapons, it was in the early 80's before he had declared us his enemy. Still pretty stupid of us to do, though. I hope we learn from our mistakes.
However, you might have noticed that all of Iraq's military equiptment was Russian or european. In fact, it was France that sold them a nuclear reactor (one of the reasons Saddam considered Chirac to be a "close personal friend").
Yea, everyone, except the rest of the world outside USA, UK, Spain, Italy and Poland...
You mean when the UN Security Council unanimously passed 17 resolutions that required Iraq to disarm, all of the nations (other than the US, UK, Spain, Italy, and Poland) that voted for the resolutions did so even though they didnt think he had any weapons?
I don't know why it is so hard to believe that Iraq had these weapons- I mean, we even saw him use them almost a dozen times in the past 20 years.
Except that at no time has Iraq ever used weapons against the United States of America.
Are you seriously suggesting that we should have waited for that to happen? Do you think it is acceptable for a Commander in Chief to ignore such a serious threat? I sure am glad you are not in charge of defending us.
On the other hand, America has invaded Iraq not once, but twice, and even now holds it as a 21st century colony.
The United Nations (not the United States) invaded Iraq in 1991. The United States acted with unanimous support of the United Nations. The "second" invasion was really a continuation of the first- Iraq was (and had been for 12 years) in violation of the ceasefire from the first Gulf War.
And if we are holding Iraq as a colony, why would we be pushing them so hard to write their own constitution and hold their own elections? This is part of our vision of democracy in the middle east.
From the actual evidence available, it would appear that the United States is far more dangerous than any Arab state
I see no evidence that would suggest that.
Weapons that actually exist in the real world, compared to the Iraqi weapons - which exist only in the fevered imaginations of certain deranged individuals.
There is no doubt that the Iraqi weapons existed. Why else would the United Nations have passed so many resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm? The world has seen him use the weapons 10 times in the past 20 years! Do they still exist? The fact that we don't know for sure is enough proof that Saddam violated the UN resolutions.
True- you bring up a good point. Saddam and Osama do hate each other. But they have both said publically that they are willing to put aside their differences and work towards the mutual goal of destroying America. IMO you can't ignore that threat.
The UN passed 17 unanimous resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. If you care to read the UN Charter, Chapter 7 resolutions are binding and all members are required to enforce them. The United States was acting in full authority of those 17 resolutions.
Whoah.... keep it up! I also liked your whole "irrelevant" response.
It is irrelevant. Saddam was required to prove that he had destroyed his weapons, and he did not. Without this proof, not only is is reasonable to suspect that he still has the weapons, but it would be irresponsible not to.
And I don't think it is too far fetched to assume that there still are weapons to be found. I mean, it did take us over 6 months to find his air force jets buried in the desert. The guy had 12 years to hide his weapons. You can find some damn good hiding spots in 12 years.
you right wingers are way more enteraining now that when you tried to pretend that a blowjob was Americans #1 enemy.
President Clinton's impeachment was about perjury. It doesn't matter what he perjured himself about, but it is not acceptable to have the head of the Executive branch of the government (responsible for enforcing laws) violating one of the most basic laws in our legal system.
Bush no longer maintains this fiction, it's time to drop it here too.
AFAIK, Bush never claimed that Iraq was behind 9/11. The Whitehouse has, however, claimed that Iraq supports terrorism and poses a threat to the United States- both of which are true.
BTW, if it was due to just the book excerpts why did Time remove the entire article and any reference to it in the table of contents
Jeesh- the Time article has been printed and released for years. The book is still for sale at bookstores. There is no conspiracy to hide this stuff from the public.
This really isn't that complicated, but let me help you connect the dots: - terrorists want weapons - saddam had illegal weapons - terrorists want to kill Americans - so did saddam - saddam had a history of supporting terrorists - therefore, we must act to prevent saddam from supporting these terrorists with his illegal weapons.
It would have been negligent for our Commander in Chief to ignore this threat.
Actually, reading that excerpt, it sounds ALMOST IDENTICAL to the situation now.
No, it doesn't. They didn't go after Saddam then because
#1- they didn't think it was necessary (they thought Saddam would be taken out by public uprisings) #2- he was required by the UN to disarm anyway #3- the costs of going after Saddam (losing the coalition, trouble finding him, occupying Iraq) outweighed the benefits
However, now we see that
#1- Saddam kept control of the country (through very brutal means) #2- he had no intention of complying with the UN (if 12 years isn't enough time to see that, how long should we wait?) #3- The cost of not bringing down Saddam was too great to ignore with the threats of international terrorism
Irrelevant. We know he had them. We have seen him use them. Hell- in a fit of bad judgement we gave him some of the weapons ourselves!
The UN resolutions required him to show the world that he had destroyed his weapons. He never did that. That means that one of the following is true: the weapons are still hidden somewhere, or he got rid of the weapons in secret. I bet it is actually a combination of the two. Either way, he was still in violation of the UN resolutions, and either way it was reasonable for us to believe that he still had the weapons that posed a threat to our national security.
They wrote that in the book to discuss their motivations for acting the way they did at the end of the first Gulf War. Those motivations are not relevant to our current situation no matter when they actually put them on paper.
And if you think that 1998 is so relevent to our current actions, then you might find these quotes interesting:
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
Hmmm, take off your tinfoil hat. Even the slashdot article that discusses this says that Time had to remove the quote because it was an excerpt from a book and they didn't have permission from the book publisher to keep it online. If you want to read that quote, go buy the book.
And also try to keep Bush Sr's comments in context. In 1990, it would have been a very bad decision to try to remove Saddam from power, and Bush Sr explains why. But 12 years later, thanks to Saddam ignoring over a dozen UN resolutions and the US receiving a 9/11 wakeup call, things were very different.
I don't understand your question. Would it make sense? Yes- of course it would. Would this candidate agree (at least publically) that he is blinded by partisanship? Of course not- no politician would. I think the democrat hatred of President Bush goes beyond the Republican's hatred of Clinton. I'm just calling it like I see it.
People are leaving the United States out of disgust and fear.
According to who? Show me some proof that a significant number of people are leaving the US, and that those people are leaving out of "disgust and fear", and that this number is higher now than in the past. I call bullcrap.
Comparisons are being made to pre-war Germany.
Who is making these comparisons? If you believe that, it would benefit you to open up some WWII history books.
The draft commission is coming back online.
No its not.
Suddenly religion is leaking into the government
Bullcrap. The 9th Circuit just ruled this year that the words "under God" in the pledge were unconstitutional. They just remove a 10 Commandments monument from a courthouse in Alabama. Most people in this country, including members of the government and our current President, have always been and will always be religious. There is nothing wrong with that.
like blood out of a bullet-riddled Iraqi
I find it interesting that you are more negative about the US presence in Iraq than the Iraqi's themselves are.
and even more horrifically, most people seem to think that's okay.
Whats not okay? That our current President doesn't hide the fact that he believes in God? Would you like it better if we outlawed all public expressions of faith? Yeah- that sounds great.
And despite vast technological superiority over all enemy nations, the U.S. continues to ramp up weapons development.
Yes. Right now we have 10 democrat presidential candidates that are so blinded by hatred and partisanship that the are hoping our economy gets worse and we fail in Iraq. Why? Because then they have a better chance at winning an election. They have set themselves up so they will succeed only when America fails. We also have a media that, for whatever reason, seems unwilling to report our successes in Iraq. Do you think that is helping?
By law, the decision to remove somebody from voter registration based on the felon list was made by the individual county elections supervisors. If somebody was incorrectly prevented from voting because of the list, it is the fault of the election supervisor of the county where that person lives. Therefore, the blame cannot fall on her. It wasn't her job.
And I would like to emphasis the "if"- there is no evidence that anybody was really affected by this. In fact, when the US Civil Rights commission held hearings on the election, they couldnt find a single person that would testify that they were disenfranchised by the felon list. Several counties didn't even use the list at all.
And it was Kathleen's office that told DBT not to conduct the phone screens that were a part of its unprecidented multi-million dollar contract. It was her office that decided this was "not needed".
It wasn't needed. The law accounted for an imperfect list by putting the responsibility of verification on the county supervisors. After the widespread fraud of the 1996 election (which was what prompted the 1998 statute that created the list), they just wanted to cast as wide of a net as possible to make sure no ineligible voters slipped through.
but most of that is in the.pdf you read the first page of.
Mr Palast is not an unbiased source of information. It only takes two seconds on his website to see how partisan he is, and he does have a vested interest in promoting his crackpot theories.
Slashdot Mirror
Here are the facts:
Election procedures are controlled by the individual County Elections Supervisors. Out of the 25 counties with the highest ballot "spoilage" rates, 24 of the counties were supervised by a democrat, and the 25th was supervised by an independent.
The NAACP, who was called in to represent these minority voters that you claim were disenfranchised, were very clear that they don't allege that anybody "acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group."
Dr John Lott of Yale University did his own study, and he concluded that coefficient on the percent of voters who were black to the number of spoiled ballots was not statistically significant.
Easy there, fellah. DRM can protect YOUR data from other people just as much as it can protect Sony Music's data from you- quit thinking only about entertainment media. The concept of DRM is neither good nor bad- the specific application of that technology can be good or bad.
DRM will be a godsend to corporate security, and can be extremely useful to anybody that wants an easy way to lock down their own data.
DRM is neither good or bad. There are plenty of "good" uses of DRM technology.
The United Nations is a worthless institution that has doomed itself to irrelevancy. In its entire history, the UN has acted in only 2 conflicts:
- The Korean War (and then only because the Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council vote). That war ended in a stalemate, and most of the issues behind the war are still unresolved today
- The Gulf War. The UN got off to a good start, but then showed its true colors over the following 12 years in its inability to enforce its own resolutions against Iraq.
The current US administrations, through its actions and words, has done more to harm the UN than any other country has ever done.
This is pure bullcrap. The UN killed itself. Any organization that can't even enforce its own resolutions is worthless. The United State's actions in Iraq this year have saved the UN from itself.
I don't see any links to Kenny Boy! Why not?
Could it be, perhaps, that no charges have been filed against Mr Lay because there is no proof that he committed a crime? I mean, Arthur Anderson was responsible for the accounting fraud, and they were charged. If you have evidence that Lay actually broke the law, I'm sure the US Attorneys office would love to have it...
There is a demonstrable and proven effort under way to compromise democracy in this country.
I think the word you are looking for is 'alleged'. You see, in normal conversation, when you claim something is 'demonstrable' or 'proven', that means you can demonstrate that your claim is true using irrefutable proof. However, I have only seen you give unproven allegations. Hence the word 'alleged'.
No- it was the highly partisan USCCR commission that made up conclusions they wanted to believe. Read the report- there is nothing in there that would support their claim that "countless" African Americans were illegally disenfranchised. The evidence they did give was based on uncorroborated 3rd person stories and questionable statistical surveys.
To quote from the dissenting opinion:
Of course, with the passing of the so-called "Patriot" Act (spit), the court order is no longer necessary
No. In fact, the PATRIOT Act does not give law enforcement any new rights- it only gives judges more latitude in what kinds of warrants they can approve. Everything that required a warrant before the PATRIOT act still requires one.
the whole premisse for urgent invasion was that Saddam Hussein had these huge caches of weapons he was ready to unleash on the world at 40 minutes notice.
It is not our fault if Saddam deliberately misled everybody about his weapons capabilities.
Have you read the British dossier? it has been basically completely debunked now, don't you read the news?
It is silly to think that was the only intelligence that we had to support our invasion.
For most of the 12 years he had weapons inspectors on his back which were doing an OK, if not brilliant work, in spite of what GWB was saying.
No! First of all, there were no inspectors in Iraq from 1998 to 2002 because Saddam kicked them out (don't you remember Operation Desert Fox, Clinton's half-assed way of teaching Saddam a lesson because of the inspectors?). That is 4 years that are unaccounted for.
And no, the inspectors were not doing "brilliant work". They weren't even able to the work that they were required to do. They were only supposed to go to Iraq and have Saddam show them proof that he was destroying weapons. But instead Saddam turned that into a hide-and-seek game. The inspectors were intimidated, threatened, spied on, and misled over and over. The last team in Iraq that left in 1998 said that they were never able to actually surprize the Iraqis with an inspection of a suspected weapons site.
No, the reality is simpler. Saddam Hussein never had as many WMDs as the CIA pretended he had, that's all. You've been decieved.
Saddam might have decieved everybody, but even so, the blame still rests solely on him.
And either way, it was our Commander in Chief's responsibility to act of this threat. If a thug on the street threatens you with a gun, you are going to take steps to protect yourself regardless of whether he lied about having a gun or not.
That comparison makes no sense.
Basically, according the UN Charter there are three types of resolutions that can be passed:
- General assembly Resolutions
- Resolutions passed under Chapter VI
- Resolutions passed under Chapter VII
General assembly resolutions carry the authority of a suggestion- they are not binding or enforceable. Chapter VI resolutions are for cease-fire agreements, and they are also not enforceable by the UN. On the other hand, Chapter VII resolutions are binding and are enforceable (in fact, UN members are required to enforce chapter VII resolutions). Chapter VII resolutions are very rare.
Now, Israel has never been the target of a Chapter VII resolution. Resolution 242 was passed in 1967 under Chapter VI. If you read the resolution, it basically says, "Israel withdraw from occupied territories and the surrounding Arab states quit threatening Israel". Israel is still very much threatened, so they are under no obligation to continue withdrawing from the occupied territories (actually, they have already withdrawn from over 90% of the territories that they occupied following the six-day war, and since resolution 242 didn't require a complete withdrawal, that is probably enough to satisfy their part of the resolution anyway).
Now Iraq has been the target of over a dozen chapter VII resolutions, and ever since April 18, 1991 (when they failed to provide a complete weapons declaration as required by resolution 687), they were in violation of these resolutions.
reason enough to bet bombed into oblivion
If our goal was to bomb people into "oblivion", we wouldn't spent billions of dollars each year developing precision guided weapons.
That's why there are no jobs in the US anymore.
Don't you think you are being just a little dramatic? I mean, our 6.0% unemployment rate isn't very good, but we have certainly seen a lot worse unemployment in the past. I count 18 years since 1948 with unemployement rates higher than 6.0%, and an average rate of 5.625%. Lets try to keep this in perspective.
Isn't it a bit naff to supply our sworn enemy with illegal weapons of mass distruction? I mean, if you don't want him to have them, just don't sell them to him in the first place!
If we did sell him weapons, it was in the early 80's before he had declared us his enemy. Still pretty stupid of us to do, though. I hope we learn from our mistakes.
However, you might have noticed that all of Iraq's military equiptment was Russian or european. In fact, it was France that sold them a nuclear reactor (one of the reasons Saddam considered Chirac to be a "close personal friend").
Yea, everyone, except the rest of the world outside USA, UK, Spain, Italy and Poland...
You mean when the UN Security Council unanimously passed 17 resolutions that required Iraq to disarm, all of the nations (other than the US, UK, Spain, Italy, and Poland) that voted for the resolutions did so even though they didnt think he had any weapons?
I don't know why it is so hard to believe that Iraq had these weapons- I mean, we even saw him use them almost a dozen times in the past 20 years.
Except that at no time has Iraq ever used weapons against the United States of America.
Are you seriously suggesting that we should have waited for that to happen? Do you think it is acceptable for a Commander in Chief to ignore such a serious threat? I sure am glad you are not in charge of defending us.
On the other hand, America has invaded Iraq not once, but twice, and even now holds it as a 21st century colony.
The United Nations (not the United States) invaded Iraq in 1991. The United States acted with unanimous support of the United Nations. The "second" invasion was really a continuation of the first- Iraq was (and had been for 12 years) in violation of the ceasefire from the first Gulf War.
And if we are holding Iraq as a colony, why would we be pushing them so hard to write their own constitution and hold their own elections? This is part of our vision of democracy in the middle east.
From the actual evidence available, it would appear that the United States is far more dangerous than any Arab state
I see no evidence that would suggest that.
Weapons that actually exist in the real world, compared to the Iraqi weapons - which exist only in the fevered imaginations of certain deranged individuals.
There is no doubt that the Iraqi weapons existed. Why else would the United Nations have passed so many resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm? The world has seen him use the weapons 10 times in the past 20 years! Do they still exist? The fact that we don't know for sure is enough proof that Saddam violated the UN resolutions.
True- you bring up a good point. Saddam and Osama do hate each other. But they have both said publically that they are willing to put aside their differences and work towards the mutual goal of destroying America. IMO you can't ignore that threat.
I remember the UN not condoning the US actions
The UN passed 17 unanimous resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. If you care to read the UN Charter, Chapter 7 resolutions are binding and all members are required to enforce them. The United States was acting in full authority of those 17 resolutions.
Whoah.... keep it up! I also liked your whole "irrelevant" response.
It is irrelevant. Saddam was required to prove that he had destroyed his weapons, and he did not. Without this proof, not only is is reasonable to suspect that he still has the weapons, but it would be irresponsible not to.
And I don't think it is too far fetched to assume that there still are weapons to be found. I mean, it did take us over 6 months to find his air force jets buried in the desert. The guy had 12 years to hide his weapons. You can find some damn good hiding spots in 12 years.
you right wingers are way more enteraining now that when you tried to pretend that a blowjob was Americans #1 enemy.
President Clinton's impeachment was about perjury. It doesn't matter what he perjured himself about, but it is not acceptable to have the head of the Executive branch of the government (responsible for enforcing laws) violating one of the most basic laws in our legal system.
There it is again, the Saddam/9-11 link.
I made no such link.
Bush no longer maintains this fiction, it's time to drop it here too.
AFAIK, Bush never claimed that Iraq was behind 9/11. The Whitehouse has, however, claimed that Iraq supports terrorism and poses a threat to the United States- both of which are true.
BTW, if it was due to just the book excerpts why did Time remove the entire article and any reference to it in the table of contents
Jeesh- the Time article has been printed and released for years. The book is still for sale at bookstores. There is no conspiracy to hide this stuff from the public.
This really isn't that complicated, but let me help you connect the dots:
- terrorists want weapons
- saddam had illegal weapons
- terrorists want to kill Americans
- so did saddam
- saddam had a history of supporting terrorists
- therefore, we must act to prevent saddam from supporting these terrorists with his illegal weapons.
It would have been negligent for our Commander in Chief to ignore this threat.
Actually, reading that excerpt, it sounds ALMOST IDENTICAL to the situation now.
No, it doesn't. They didn't go after Saddam then because
#1- they didn't think it was necessary (they thought Saddam would be taken out by public uprisings)
#2- he was required by the UN to disarm anyway
#3- the costs of going after Saddam (losing the coalition, trouble finding him, occupying Iraq) outweighed the benefits
However, now we see that
#1- Saddam kept control of the country (through very brutal means)
#2- he had no intention of complying with the UN (if 12 years isn't enough time to see that, how long should we wait?)
#3- The cost of not bringing down Saddam was too great to ignore with the threats of international terrorism
Irrelevant. We know he had them. We have seen him use them. Hell- in a fit of bad judgement we gave him some of the weapons ourselves!
The UN resolutions required him to show the world that he had destroyed his weapons. He never did that. That means that one of the following is true: the weapons are still hidden somewhere, or he got rid of the weapons in secret. I bet it is actually a combination of the two. Either way, he was still in violation of the UN resolutions, and either way it was reasonable for us to believe that he still had the weapons that posed a threat to our national security.
They wrote that in the book to discuss their motivations for acting the way they did at the end of the first Gulf War. Those motivations are not relevant to our current situation no matter when they actually put them on paper.
And if you think that 1998 is so relevent to our current actions, then you might find these quotes interesting:
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
Uh- nothing. Who said he did have something to do with it?
9/11 just made us realize that we couldn't afford to let a sworn enemy of the US collect the illegal weapons that everybody agreed he had.
Hmmm, take off your tinfoil hat. Even the slashdot article that discusses this says that Time had to remove the quote because it was an excerpt from a book and they didn't have permission from the book publisher to keep it online. If you want to read that quote, go buy the book.
And also try to keep Bush Sr's comments in context. In 1990, it would have been a very bad decision to try to remove Saddam from power, and Bush Sr explains why. But 12 years later, thanks to Saddam ignoring over a dozen UN resolutions and the US receiving a 9/11 wakeup call, things were very different.
I don't understand your question. Would it make sense? Yes- of course it would. Would this candidate agree (at least publically) that he is blinded by partisanship? Of course not- no politician would. I think the democrat hatred of President Bush goes beyond the Republican's hatred of Clinton. I'm just calling it like I see it.
People are leaving the United States out of disgust and fear.
According to who? Show me some proof that a significant number of people are leaving the US, and that those people are leaving out of "disgust and fear", and that this number is higher now than in the past. I call bullcrap.
Comparisons are being made to pre-war Germany.
Who is making these comparisons? If you believe that, it would benefit you to open up some WWII history books.
The draft commission is coming back online.
No its not.
Suddenly religion is leaking into the government
Bullcrap. The 9th Circuit just ruled this year that the words "under God" in the pledge were unconstitutional. They just remove a 10 Commandments monument from a courthouse in Alabama. Most people in this country, including members of the government and our current President, have always been and will always be religious. There is nothing wrong with that.
like blood out of a bullet-riddled Iraqi
I find it interesting that you are more negative about the US presence in Iraq than the Iraqi's themselves are.
and even more horrifically, most people seem to think that's okay.
Whats not okay? That our current President doesn't hide the fact that he believes in God? Would you like it better if we outlawed all public expressions of faith? Yeah- that sounds great.
And despite vast technological superiority over all enemy nations, the U.S. continues to ramp up weapons development.
And I wouldn't have it any other way. If we relax, it won't take long before somebody gains an advantage.
Something is deeply wrong in the U.S.
Yes. Right now we have 10 democrat presidential candidates that are so blinded by hatred and partisanship that the are hoping our economy gets worse and we fail in Iraq. Why? Because then they have a better chance at winning an election. They have set themselves up so they will succeed only when America fails. We also have a media that, for whatever reason, seems unwilling to report our successes in Iraq. Do you think that is helping?
Sorry, but the blame falls on her.
.pdf you read the first page of.
By law, the decision to remove somebody from voter registration based on the felon list was made by the individual county elections supervisors. If somebody was incorrectly prevented from voting because of the list, it is the fault of the election supervisor of the county where that person lives. Therefore, the blame cannot fall on her. It wasn't her job.
And I would like to emphasis the "if"- there is no evidence that anybody was really affected by this. In fact, when the US Civil Rights commission held hearings on the election, they couldnt find a single person that would testify that they were disenfranchised by the felon list. Several counties didn't even use the list at all.
And it was Kathleen's office that told DBT not to conduct the phone screens that were a part of its unprecidented multi-million dollar contract. It was her office that decided this was "not needed".
It wasn't needed. The law accounted for an imperfect list by putting the responsibility of verification on the county supervisors. After the widespread fraud of the 1996 election (which was what prompted the 1998 statute that created the list), they just wanted to cast as wide of a net as possible to make sure no ineligible voters slipped through.
but most of that is in the
Mr Palast is not an unbiased source of information. It only takes two seconds on his website to see how partisan he is, and he does have a vested interest in promoting his crackpot theories.