Here are some (admittedly biased) differences that I can think of. Of course, this is all speculation:
The Iraq war: I agree that it is unlikely that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq. As a result, Saddam Hussein would still be in power supporting over a dozen terrorist organizations and trying to direct terrorist attacks against the US. He would still be developing illegal WMD in contravention of his UN obligations, likely without any UN inspectors in the country (we found over a dozen illegal weapons programs that the UN did not now about, and the only reason he let the inspectors back into Iraq in late 2002 was because we parked 150,000 troops at his doorstep), he would have been able to finance these weapons through the continuing corruption of the Oil-for-Food program. The citizens of Iraq would have no say in their destiny, and instead they would still be living under a brutal dictatorship, and Saddam would probably have killed another 100,000-200,000 of them (based on his 20 year history of killing almost 2 million people). On the brighter side, we wouldn't have lost almost 3,000 of our own soldiers fighting over there, we would have saved some money, and the country would be more stable than it appears right now.
Libya wouldn't have voluntarily given up its hidden WMD programs.
The seed of democracy wouldn't have spread into Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt leading to the most democratic elections these nations have ever seen.
North Korea would have still been pretending to abide by the NPT and accepting international aid and support while secretly working on nuclear weapons and long range missiles. I can't imagine Al Gore confronting North Korea about this, let alone successfully organizing 5-party talks with North Korea like President Bush did.
Iran might not have felt as much motivation to pursue a nuclear program, but its hard to say.
It is very unlikely that Al Gore would have pushed through tax cuts in the face of the economic slowdown that started Q3 2000 and was exasperated by the Sept 11th terrorist attacks. These tax cuts have been responsible for one of the longest periods of economic expansion in decades. Instead, I imagine Gore would have kept the stifling tax rates of Bill Clintons presidency, trying to funnel money into his Social Security "lock box" and compounding our economic problems.
Based on his stance on the environment, I bet Al Gore would have tried to implement the greenhouse gas targets found in the Kyoto protocol even though the US Senate defeated Kyoto by a vote of 95-0 during Bill Clinton's presidency. This would have caused us to have even higher energy prices and would have further restricted our economy.
Many Europeans would probably like us more now, for whatever that is worth.
What I am saying is that in a 2-party election, you would never have a run-off vote where the population is forced to chose between two candidates that each only had the support of ~20% of the country. That is what happened in Iran, and that would never happen in the United States because of our 2-party system.
Simple. A 2-party system makes it impossible for a candidate with less than 20% of the vote to win, like what happened in Iran in 2005. Candidates must moderate themselves to appeal to the largest number of voters.
The results of the Iranian election on June 17, 2005, Ahmadinejad came in second (behind Rafsanjani) winning only 19.48% of the vote. The top 5 candidates were within 8% of each other in the final tally. The large number of candidates forced a run-off election between two candidates that combined received less than 40% of the vote.
I don't claim that the 2-party system is perfect, but it works remarkably well, and IMO it is one of the greatest strengths of our political system. Its a huge moderating force that assures that the largest number of the population will be represented. That is why we end up with moderate leaders like George W Bush and Bill Clinton instead of radical leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Adolf Hitler.
If you feel that neither party adequately represents you, then it is your duty to either work within the party closest to your views to address your opinions, or join another party that does represent your views (like many members of the Whig party did in the 1850's to create the Republican party). If you can't find representation by doing either of these, then maybe you should consider the possibility that you are the radical, and maybe its a good thing that you don't have any power...
From 9-11 commission report: "...The U.S. government, however, never moved against al Haramain or pushed the Saudi government to do so until after 9/11. Terrorist financing simply was not a priority in its bilateral relationship with the Saudis before 9/11.... The Saudi government has also historically provided financial support to al Haramain..," Does that answer your question?
Eh, no. I did not ask a question, I repeated an assertion that came directly from the 9-11 commission report. From page 171, "It does not appear that any government other than the Taliban financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11, although some governments may have contained al Qaeda sympathizers who turned a blind eye to al Qaeda's fundraising activities. Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officals individually funded the organization."
I am no fan of the Saudi government, but you cannot deny the important role they have played in the war against terrorism. They have captured and killed dozens of top al Qaeda leaders in the fiercest battles with the group to happen outside of Afghanistan. Even the al Haramain charity that you cite has been under attack by the Saudi government ever since the US Treasury department identified it as a group that sponsored al Qaeda in 2004.
How come Bush suddenly got religion after 30 years?
President Bush suddenly realized that terrorism was more than just a nuisance that law enforcement needs to react to when 19 terrorist boarded airplanes in September of 2001 and murdered over 3,000 innocent people. You might have heard about that- it's been in the news.
Come on, even when it was PROVEN that the SA Govt. supported terror, Bush didn't raise his voice, let alone raise an army...
That's 6 years of non violence, and was it not for the recent conflict, support for Hezbollah would have weakened to the point where they'd have been removed from government in the next elections.
That sounds like a pretty good motive for Hezbollah to start acting out like they did.
I'd suggest you diversify whatever media you're counting on to keep you informed.
I'd suggest you stop making assumptions about where I get my information.
All (and I repeat all), mainstream journalists covering the Israelo-Palestinian conflict live in Israel (because the living condition in Palestine are unbearable). and thus must obey the Israeli censorship laws. That leads more often than not, to quite biased accounts of the reality.
Indeed- reality was wantonly distorted in the media coverage of this recent conflict. I remember the "mainstream media" being forced to retract photographs because they had been doctored to make the destruction in Lebanon look worse than it was, or Hezbollah minders staging rescues in front of a media that was eager to play along with their propaganda.
Let me ask you this. During the conflict, about Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets into northern Israel, killing dozens of innocent civilians and injuring thousands more. Did you see a single picture of an Israeli parent crying over a dead child, or families cleaning up the rubble from a rocket blast? No? Now, how many of these images did you see published depicting Lebanese civilians mourning their losses? And you have the nerve to sit there and tell me that my media is biased towards Israel? Come on.
My reply addresed Workindev's comment that claimed Russia and China would not oppose an attack on Iran allegedly 'cause they didn't oppose the one on Irak.
And my response was to point out that Russia and China had already voted to authorize the use of military force in Iraq over a dozen times.
I'm not saying that we glorified you, but the USA's image was nowhere near where it's today. Anti-Americanism boiling under the surface is something different from wide-spread open distrust towards the USA.
Okay- fair enough. I still believe that there are bigger issues at play here than trying to make sure that Europe likes us.
As for Iraq: Nobody believed you when you said that Saddam paid Osama (which he didn't),
I'm not sure what you mean by "paid Osama" (Osama was already rich- why would Iraq need to pay him?), but even assuming Iraq had no relationship with al Qaeda, they had still been supporting dozens of other terrorist organizations (like Abu Nidal, the PKK, Carlos the Jackal, etc) for decades. Or do you think that Russia didn't believe us?
nobody believed you when you said he didn't comply with the weapon restrictions
That's strange. In January, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, Hans Blix himself testified that Iraq "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament, which was demanded of it" (Source). So I guess he believed it. In fact, severalothergovernments have also publically stated that they believed this as well. And guess what? They were exactly right. The Iraqi Survey Group found dozens of illegal and hidden weapons programs in Iraq that the UN didn't know about. True, we didn't find the old decaying stockpiles of weapons we thought we would find, but instead what we found was much worse.
almost nobody wanted to help you when you attacked a country that was well under control (partially due to you already keeping them in check).
If Iraq had been well under control, they would not have been supporting international terrorist groups to commit murder, they wouldn't have been gaming the UN Oil-For-Food program to allow them to smuggle any proscribed item that they wanted in the country, and they wouldn't have been developing dozens of illegal and hidden weapons that UNMOVIC didn't know about.
In the process you destabilized the country and possibly the region.
Are you somehow under the impression that the middle east was "stable" prior to 2003?
Also, you're making yourself unpopular with the very people you claimed to have freed, as you a) are an invader, b) have plunged their entire country into conditions even worse then before and c) are effectively taking away their oil resources.
We may be unpopular, and we certainly are invaders, but how can you claim that conditions in Iraq are worse than under Saddam? And how can you claim that we are taking away their oil- "effectively" or not?
Iraq is not a fun place to be right now, and like I said, we all wish it was going better there now than it is. But at least now the Iraqis have a chance to determine their own future, rather than suffer under a brutal and tyrannical dictator. Not only did Saddam directly murder hundreds of thousands of his own innocent civilians (some estimates are as high as 2 million), but he started two bloody wars that cost millions more to die, and countless others suffered and died under his direction because of his refusal to cooperate with the UN to lift sanctions in the 1990s.
So would you rather live like that, or live in an Iraq today that is violent, dangerous, and scary, b
NOPE. S.Arabia. 19 of 21 plane-crashers came from SA. The money came from there. Logically Bush shd have invaded SA. But he didn't.
There is absolutely no evidence that government of Saudi Arabia harbors or protects terrorist. Absolutely none.
NOPE. Iraq was AGAINST qaeda and laden. You could have asked saddam to catch Laden and he would have gladly done it for you.. But NO. You had to invade and oust him and kill 2300 US soldiers as a result of your misbeggotten policy.
I said Iraq supported terrorists, not just al Qaeda, and that is undeniably true. They have been on the US State Department's rather exclusive list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for the better part of 30 years, working directly with and supporting organizations like Abu Nidal, the PKK, Hamas, Mujahedin-e Khalq, Carlos the Jackal, and Hezbollah. They have tried to direct several terrorist attacks against us in the past, and all indications were that they were still trying to in the months following September 11th.
I also reject your characterization of Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda and bin Laden. Although there is no proof of a collaborative relationship between the two, there is plenty of evidence that they had reached out to each other on multiple occasions, including Saddam offering bin Laden asylum and them reaching an "understanding" that al Qaeda would not support activities against Saddam (as detailed in the 9-11 Commission report). In some cases, they did unite together to fight common Kurdish enemies.
US law != international law. Get that right.
Actually, it's quite the contrary. You see, there really isn't a such thing as "international law", and as evidenced by your post, the term is confusing to many people.
International laws aren't laws per se. They are really just a series of treaties, protocols, and conventions among different nations that are only binding as far as nations agree to them. If a nation does not agree to a treaty they are under no obligation to abide by it- that's called sovereignty. There is nothing other nations can do about it aside from trying to "pressure" them to change their minds (often in the form of pointing big guns at them and blowing things up). Take Kyoto, for example. Many nations did agree to the protocol, and so they are now bound by it's greenhouse gas emission targets (whether or not they are actually meeting these targets is a different story, but I digress). However, the United States Senate rejected Kyoto by a vote of 95-0, so no matter how much other nations want us to be, we are not subject to the Kyoto emissions targets. That is our right as a sovereign nation.
Here in the United States, when we agree to a treaty, it actually becomes US law and thus we are bound to abide by it- not because it is an "international" law, but because we have agreed to make it our own law. Our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan were entirely consistent with our obligations under the UN Charter.
I know you are sarcastic... but wanted to clarify it for the lower brethren bro...
Do you really think that they only way that somebody could disagree with you is that they are being sarcastic? How sad.
It was one thing when it was a theory untested by the world. But after basing economies on it for generations, we know it doesn't work.
How in the world can you say that? It has worked-- and worked wonderfully-- every time it has been tried. The longest single period of economic expansion this century was the 105 month period between 1961 and 1969, and this followed the Kennedy tax cuts that dropped the tax rate of the top bracket by some 21%. The second longest period of economic expansion this century was the 92 month period between 1982 and 1990, and this was a direct result of President Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. Tax revenues soared on robust GDP growth while unemployment, inflation, and interest rates dropped. President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts have similarly sparked the last few years of solid economic growth following the economic contraction that started in mid 2000 and was compounded by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Supply-side economics is not fantasy- its proven results.
Yes. Condie&co were cutting slack for Israel to pursue the raids during which hundreds of kids died. It's arrogance in the sense that you allow yourselves to do such things 'cause of your military superiority.
It is not arrogant to try to defend yourself against a constant an unprovoked attack from a cowardly enemy that hides among the civilian population. Israel did not try to kill kids, and the blame for the deaths of any children that were killed in Lebanon lies soley with the group that started the conflict: Hezbollah. There were thousands of innocent Israeli casualties due to the relentless stream of rockets Hezbollah fired into Israel. Why aren't you calling Hezbollah arrogant too?
Which planet are you from? From the wikipedia entry for "2003 invasion of Iraq": "The United Kingdom and United States attempted to get a U.N. Security Council resolution authorising military force, but withdrew it before it could come to a vote after France, Russia, and later China all signalled that they would use their Security Council veto power against any resolution that would include an ultimatum allowing the use of force against Iraq."
I am from the planet where the UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 687 and over a dozen subsequent resolution that explicitly authorized- even required- the use of military force to get Iraq to expose and dismantle it's weapons programs and stop supporting terrorists (among other things). Since Iraq never did either of those, the use of military force was not only authorized, it was obligated Chapter VII of the UN Charter to force complience.
Well, at least the German people liked you a lot more.
You know, I lived in Germany for a few years in the mid 1990s, and there was a festering anti-American sentiment boiling under the surface even then. I still have a lot of dear friends in Germany, but let's call a spade a spade.
Before you started bombing the shit out of countries you don't like for nonsensical reasons,
The reasons we have used force against any countries in the past few years are anything but nonsensical. We took action against Afghanistan because they were harboring and supporting one of the most dangerous criminal organizations of our time that had declared war on us and was murdering thousands of US civilians. In the process, we helped free 25 million people that had been stuck under the tyrannical rule of one of the worst groups of thugs to ever rise to control of a nation, and we gave these people a chance at democracy. Then, we invaded Iraq because they were in blatant violation of a UN mandated disarmament, they too supported over a dozen criminal terrorist organizations and used them to carry out attacks that would further their agenda, and they had repeatedly been caught trying to direct these terrorists to attack the United States or US interests over the past decade. Having learned a pretty strong lesson in September of 2001, President Bush rightfully realized that this is exactly the kind of threat that we can no longer ignore, and he took action. Oh, and in the process we freed another 25 million people from the brutal rule of a dictator and gave them a chance for a democracy. We all wish that things were going better there right now, but that doesn't negate the reasons why we went in in the first place.
showing utter contempt for things like international law or the opinions of your allies.
We have no such contempt for this so-called "international law", and all of our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been strictly within the bounds of our international obligations. And while it would be nice for our "allies" to like us, our need to defeat the murderous forces of radical Islamist fascism and international terrorism are a little more important.
People have always used many terms to describe the USA, but "dangerous" is one that came up only recently.
Oh, I don't know about that. The United States has had the world's most dangerous army for quite some time now.
Herein lies the flaw of the NPT. Countries are technically allowed-- with full support of other NPT signatories-- to develop nuclear technology up to some invisible line that seperates peaceful use from military use. Then, without any penalty from the NPT, these countries are allowed to withdraw from the treaty at any time and complete whatever they want to with no recourse (from the treaty, of course).
So, in that sense, Iran does in fact have the "right" to develop some nuclear technology, but that does not make it the "right" thing to allow them to do.
Tell us, oh wise one: Just how many of those UN resolutions were based in part on intelligence provided by the United States? Hmm?
Are you trying to imply that it was faulty US intelligence that led to the UN Security Council passing these resolutions? Because you could only imply this out of ignorance, here is a brief timeline of events, starting with Resolution 687:
April 1991: The UN Security Council passes 687 that, among other things, requires Iraq to "unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision," of its WMDs, and "all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities". This requirement explicitly carries with it the authorization (given in 678) to use military force to achieve compliance. Iraq was required to submit within 15 days a "full, final and complete disclosure" of all of its weapons programs.
April 1991: Iraq submits its first declaration that is pitifully incomplete and is denounced by the UN.
June 1991: UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors try to stop an Iraqi vehicle carrying nuclear equipment, and Iraqi soldiers open fire on them
June 1991: UN Security Council unanimously passes resolution 699 to confirm to Iraq that UNSCOM and IAEA have the legal authority to carry out inspections.
August 1991: UN Security Council unanimously passes resolution 707 chastising Iraq for their incomplete declaration and demanding full compliance.
September 1991: Iraq blocks UN inspectors from using helicopters. The UN condemns the action.
September 1991: UN inspectors uncover large amounts of documentation about Iraq's attempts to aquire nuclear materials, but Iraqi soldiers immediately confiscate and destroy many of the documents and hold the UN inspectors hostage for 4 days trying to obtain the rest of them.
October 1991: UN Security Council unanimously passes resolution 715, condemning Iraq for their illegal detention of the inspectors and demanding cooperation. Iraq immediately rejects the resolution.
February 1992: The Security Council releases a presidential statement condemning Iraq for their failure to comply and re-affirming that UNSCOM has the authority to conduct inspections.
March 1992: Under pressure, Iraq declares previously some undeclared chemical weapons and missile programs, and claims that they were unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991 in violation of resolution 687, but does not offer any verifiable proof of this.
April 1992: Iraq threatens to shoot down UNSCOM surveillance flights. These threats are condemned in a Presidential statement from the Security Council.
May 1992: Iraq provides another "full, final and complete disclosure" of it's weapons programs, admitting for the first time that they were researching biological weapons- for "defensive" purposes only, of course.
June 1992: After inspectors uncover more hidden programs, Iraq updates its "full, final and complete disclosure" againto include more previously undeclared chemical weapons.
July 1992: UN inspectors are refused access to the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture after the UN uncovered reliable evidence that documentation of more hidden programs were located there. The Security Council condemns the action.
October 1992: Iraq issues a statement threatening the UN inspectors again. The Security Council condemns the action.
January 1993: Iraq refuses to allow a UNSCOM aircraft to take off. UN Security Council issues a Presidential statement condemning this as a "material breach" of 687.
January 1993: Iraq starts sending troops into the DMZ between Iraq and Kuwait
Obviously he failed as an educator as well. If you had even spent 20 seconds learning anything about Iranian history, you would have discovered that the roots of Iran's issues lie a little further in the past.
I didn't say that Carter was the root of the Iranian revolution, but its hard to deny that his incompetence contributed to it. Khomeini himself in a biography written by his brother said that it was our lack of US intervention in the revolution and our pathetically weak response to the hostage crisis that encouraged him to expand his rhetoric and shore up his newly aquired power. Its no surprize that Islamic terrorists were emboldened to start attacking US interests when we couldn't even manage to land a helicopter in the desert to rescue our hostages. That was a huge propoganda victory for the Islamists- one that we are still suffering from today.
Considering that 99.99999999999999999999% of the reason we had an economic crisis in the 1970's stemmed from our overreliance on cheap, imported oil, dumping those long-festering issues on Carter's head have to count as the most disingenious crap I've ever heard.
Doubly so, considering the lengths to which Carter went in his effort to extricate us from a purely idiotic situation where we were funding maniacs who wanted to kill us by buying the oil they made.
What effort? You don't solve the energy demands for a growing economy by putting on a sweater and telling people they aren't confident enough. Carter did nothing but direct a disasterous monetary policy and raise taxes, both which compounded the external factors that were affecting our economy.
had an elected democratic form of government before we decided it wasn't doing what we wanted it to with our oil. Ahem, I meant their oil.
Like it or not, but the Shah was the constitutional leader of Iran before the Mossadegh's dubious rise to power.
Oddly enough, the fact that our nation remains in that idiotic situation can be dumped squarely on conservative heads, as those same people have openly conspired to keep us chuffing away at oil like there's no tomorrow, intentionally lowering efficiency and deriding conservation efforts as (as best I can understand it), "wimpy."
What a load of crap. It takes a lot of energy to grow a modern economy. This isn't the "conservatives" fault, it's a fact of life, and oil happens to be one of the cheapest ways to get it. If you are looking for somebody to blame for our dependence on foreign sources of oil, look at all of the opposition coming from the left at any attempt to increase our domestic oil production.
Bush, on the other hand, took the fruits of the greatest economic expansion of the last 50 years and squirreled it away on pure self-aggrandizement. Eight trillion dollars in debt,
You conveniently left out the fact that our GDP has grown to $13 trillion, and our 65% debt-to-GDP ratio is right in line with historical averages. In fact, I would be worried about the impact on future economic growth if our debt was much less than 60%.
bogus war on phony enemy,
Which enemy is "bogus"? The pre-2003 government of Iraq that was directly supporting dozens of terrorist organizations, developing illegal weapons in contravention of its UN mandate, and had been trying to direct terrorist attacks against us for the better part of a decade? Or the "government" of Afghanistan, which was harboring and protecting al Qaeda? Or how about al Qaeda themselves? Are they bogus too?
no end in sight, a complete wreck of our national credibility . ..
Unfortunately, there is no end in sight, and that is largely due to people like you that steadfastly refuse to admit that we are even at war.
The absolute and correct interpretation of how disastrous this presidency has been is now beginning. Worst administration ever and that has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. It just IS.
I proudly voted for President Bush twice, and I think that history will count him as one of our better Presidents in a while. Certainly not the best, but pretty good.
If you want to see disaster, look at the Jimmy Carter presidency. He is hands down the worst president of my lifetime. His bumbling incompetence contributed to the creation of the first militant Islamic theocracy (Iran) and the birth of modern-day Islamic terrorism, not to mention some of the worst economic policies imaginable. He somehow managed to do so much harm in only four years, but his incompetence is a "gift" that keeps on giving (like from his interview with Der Spiegel the other day- thanks a lot, Jimmuh).
Please site your source for this. Mine is easy; for example at the time, MSNBC reported:
Yet, it was the White House -- not Kerry's campaign -- that distributed four memos from 1972 and 1973 from Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, now deceased, who was the commander of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston where Bush served. The White House obtained the memos from CBS News, which said it was convinced of their authenticity, and the White House did not question their accuracy.
and
Records released this year when Bush's military service re-emerged as a campaign issue contain no evidence that he showed up for duty at all for five months in mid-1972 and document only a few occasions later that year.
I find it pretty entertaining that you would ask for sources after making the bizarre and baseless statements about the role you think Karl Rove played in the forgeries without even attempting to back them up. But anyway, here we go.
You are confusing some things here. It is customary in the White House press room that when a news organization is going to report on something, they inform the White House about it in advance, and the White House then makes the information available to all of the reporters in the pool. This is not an endorsement of the information- it is a courtesy to the reporters in the pool. The White House said multiple times that they made no attempt to authenticate the documents before passing them along to the other reporters, so it is ridiculous to assert that this means the White House agreed with the contents. When asked a few weeks later what the President thought about the "essence of the accusations" made in the memos, the Press Secretary responded that what had been asserted "simply was not the case".
So, to put this in perspective, here is a list of the facts that are known about the President's National Guard service:
He joined the National Guard in 1968, signing a 6 year commitment
By all accounts, he served aggressively for the first four years of his commitment, earning great reviews from his superiors and racking up an impressive number of hours and retirement points
In his 5th year of service, his activity suddenly dropped. He missed a physical and stopped flying. He transferred from Texas to Alabama for a non-flying role, and his records of service that year are spotty.
In 1973, he applied for and was granted an early release so he could attend Harvard Business School. He was given an honorable discharge from the National Guard.
Are you still with me? The President has claimed that he stopped flying because his airplane (the F-102) was being phased out, and he was busy working on the Senatorial campaign in Alabama. The decision was apparently mutual, according to Col. Campenni who flew with Bush in the Guard (see this), because the Vietnam War was winding down and they had a huge glut of pilots. Because he wasn't flying anymore, there was no need to take the flight physical. He finished his time in the Guard by doing just enough to pass, often in bursts of activity surrounded by months of inactivity, until he was granted his early release.
Up until the release of these memos, there was no evidence to contradict this version of events. Nobody was disputing that his service was sporadic in 1972-73, or that he missed a physical and stopped flying, but there was no evidence that he had disobeyed any orders or had failed to meet all of his commitments in the Guard, and nobody could ask his commanding officers because they were all dead. These memos purported to prove exactly tha
What you are doing is not "fact checking". On the contrary, this is one of the worst examples I have seen of partisan conjecture, only you have somehow convinced yourself that this constitutes "fact".
Guess what? Karl Rove is not a political evil genius. He isn't even that good at what he does. He lets too many attacks and assumptions about the President go unchallenged. Your posts are a great example of this. Take this paragraph, for example:
Not really. Nothing in the memos was contested, and all of it had been previously reported (e.g. by the BBC). Bush never even attempted to deny any of it. The people who would know even stated that the information in the memos was essentially correct. So it wouldn't have helped Kerry's team much at all to have the documents, even if they had been legitimate.
Lets take a look at the inventions here that you are trying to pass off as fact.
Nothing in the memos was contested, and all of it had been previously reported (e.g. by the BBC).
Everything about the memos was contested. There isn't a shred of evidence to prove the assertion that George Bush disobeyed a direct order or was AWOL from his obligations in the National Guard. These memos where the only thing that supposedly proved this, and they turned out to be fake.
Bush never even attempted to deny any of it.
Of course he did! He has denied the accusations that he didn't fulfill his obligations with the National Guard, and this is backed up by the fact that he had completed more than the required flying hours and was honorably discharged from service.
The people who would know even stated that the information in the memos was essentially correct.
In this case, the only people that would know were dead.
See, if Karl Rove was a good political strategist, let alone the evil super-genius that you believe he is, people like you wouldn't still be spreading baseless rumors about his National Guard service around as fact.
Seems some minds at Intel are falling back to the dubious position they held regarding home users never needing 64 bit CPUs.
Intel didn't say that home users would never need 64 bits, just that they didn't need it 64 bits at the moment. And guess what- home users still don't need 64 bits. There still aren't any mainstream 64-bit operating systems out there, and even when these OSs arrive, it will take many years for the general public to completely move to 64 bit.
And it wasn't like Intel just sat back and did nothing for 64-bit support. They were developing 64-bit support all along to hedge their bets.
Oh please. The people of Lebanon are suffering now because they have allowed a criminal terrorist organization to grow and thrive in their midst. These terrorists committed an unprovoked act of war against Israel, and followed that up by continuous attacks on Israeli civilian population centers (Hezbollah has fired over 1,400 rockets into northern Israel since the conflict started, resulting in over 1,300 casualties). No other nation or people on this planet would be expected to just accept this, but apparently Israel is.
War sucks. Its messy, mistakes are made, and despite even the best efforts, innocent people die. It is horrible. But lets not forget that it was Hezbollah that started this conflict, and it is Hezbollah that is deliberately trying to kill innocent Israeli civilians. Israel, like every other nation, must do what it can to defend itself, and given the fact that Hezbollah continues its constant attacks against Israeli citizens, and the captured soldiers have still not been returned, Israel's job in Lebanon is not complete.
ING is very good, but not the best in town. Emigrant direct is currently at 5%, HSBC is at 5.05%, Fidelity has a money market account at 5.17%. I think GMAC also has a savings account that beats ING. Recently I have seen some short term CDs advertised for 6%.
I totally agree with you that this type of savings account would be a great option for a student that needs to keep the funds liquid. The return is decent and its about as safe as you can get.
I think that's about the biggest problem with the current US election system. Most democracies/constitutional monarchies I know about have more than two relevant parties while the USA don't.
As a US citizen, I think the two-party system is one of our greatest strengths. At it's core, a two-party system is a huge moderating force, as both parties are forced towards the middle to appeal to the largest number of voters. Candidates cannot merely cater to an extremist minority faction and win an election with a small plurality (as has happened many times in history, including in your country, with negative results). Instead, only the candidates that espouse mainstream values can be elected. The result is a much more stable and predictable government.
Mozy encrypts all data locally using a 448-bit Blowfish cipher before uploading. You can chose your own private key when installing the software- even the free accounts.
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What I am saying is that in a 2-party election, you would never have a run-off vote where the population is forced to chose between two candidates that each only had the support of ~20% of the country. That is what happened in Iran, and that would never happen in the United States because of our 2-party system.
Simple. A 2-party system makes it impossible for a candidate with less than 20% of the vote to win, like what happened in Iran in 2005. Candidates must moderate themselves to appeal to the largest number of voters.
The results of the Iranian election on June 17, 2005, Ahmadinejad came in second (behind Rafsanjani) winning only 19.48% of the vote. The top 5 candidates were within 8% of each other in the final tally. The large number of candidates forced a run-off election between two candidates that combined received less than 40% of the vote.
I'm sorry, but this proves my point.
I don't claim that the 2-party system is perfect, but it works remarkably well, and IMO it is one of the greatest strengths of our political system. Its a huge moderating force that assures that the largest number of the population will be represented. That is why we end up with moderate leaders like George W Bush and Bill Clinton instead of radical leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Adolf Hitler.
If you feel that neither party adequately represents you, then it is your duty to either work within the party closest to your views to address your opinions, or join another party that does represent your views (like many members of the Whig party did in the 1850's to create the Republican party). If you can't find representation by doing either of these, then maybe you should consider the possibility that you are the radical, and maybe its a good thing that you don't have any power...
I am no fan of the Saudi government, but you cannot deny the important role they have played in the war against terrorism. They have captured and killed dozens of top al Qaeda leaders in the fiercest battles with the group to happen outside of Afghanistan. Even the al Haramain charity that you cite has been under attack by the Saudi government ever since the US Treasury department identified it as a group that sponsored al Qaeda in 2004.
President Bush suddenly realized that terrorism was more than just a nuisance that law enforcement needs to react to when 19 terrorist boarded airplanes in September of 2001 and murdered over 3,000 innocent people. You might have heard about that- it's been in the news.
Except no such thing has been proven...
I'd suggest you stop making assumptions about where I get my information.
Indeed- reality was wantonly distorted in the media coverage of this recent conflict. I remember the "mainstream media" being forced to retract photographs because they had been doctored to make the destruction in Lebanon look worse than it was, or Hezbollah minders staging rescues in front of a media that was eager to play along with their propaganda.
Let me ask you this. During the conflict, about Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets into northern Israel, killing dozens of innocent civilians and injuring thousands more. Did you see a single picture of an Israeli parent crying over a dead child, or families cleaning up the rubble from a rocket blast? No? Now, how many of these images did you see published depicting Lebanese civilians mourning their losses? And you have the nerve to sit there and tell me that my media is biased towards Israel? Come on.
And my response was to point out that Russia and China had already voted to authorize the use of military force in Iraq over a dozen times.
Okay- fair enough. I still believe that there are bigger issues at play here than trying to make sure that Europe likes us.
I'm not sure what you mean by "paid Osama" (Osama was already rich- why would Iraq need to pay him?), but even assuming Iraq had no relationship with al Qaeda, they had still been supporting dozens of other terrorist organizations (like Abu Nidal, the PKK, Carlos the Jackal, etc) for decades. Or do you think that Russia didn't believe us?
That's strange. In January, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, Hans Blix himself testified that Iraq "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament, which was demanded of it" (Source). So I guess he believed it. In fact, several other governments have also publically stated that they believed this as well. And guess what? They were exactly right. The Iraqi Survey Group found dozens of illegal and hidden weapons programs in Iraq that the UN didn't know about. True, we didn't find the old decaying stockpiles of weapons we thought we would find, but instead what we found was much worse.
If Iraq had been well under control, they would not have been supporting international terrorist groups to commit murder, they wouldn't have been gaming the UN Oil-For-Food program to allow them to smuggle any proscribed item that they wanted in the country, and they wouldn't have been developing dozens of illegal and hidden weapons that UNMOVIC didn't know about.
Are you somehow under the impression that the middle east was "stable" prior to 2003?
We may be unpopular, and we certainly are invaders, but how can you claim that conditions in Iraq are worse than under Saddam? And how can you claim that we are taking away their oil- "effectively" or not?
Iraq is not a fun place to be right now, and like I said, we all wish it was going better there now than it is. But at least now the Iraqis have a chance to determine their own future, rather than suffer under a brutal and tyrannical dictator. Not only did Saddam directly murder hundreds of thousands of his own innocent civilians (some estimates are as high as 2 million), but he started two bloody wars that cost millions more to die, and countless others suffered and died under his direction because of his refusal to cooperate with the UN to lift sanctions in the 1990s.
So would you rather live like that, or live in an Iraq today that is violent, dangerous, and scary, b
I said Iraq supported terrorists, not just al Qaeda, and that is undeniably true. They have been on the US State Department's rather exclusive list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for the better part of 30 years, working directly with and supporting organizations like Abu Nidal, the PKK, Hamas, Mujahedin-e Khalq, Carlos the Jackal, and Hezbollah. They have tried to direct several terrorist attacks against us in the past, and all indications were that they were still trying to in the months following September 11th.
I also reject your characterization of Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda and bin Laden. Although there is no proof of a collaborative relationship between the two, there is plenty of evidence that they had reached out to each other on multiple occasions, including Saddam offering bin Laden asylum and them reaching an "understanding" that al Qaeda would not support activities against Saddam (as detailed in the 9-11 Commission report). In some cases, they did unite together to fight common Kurdish enemies.
Actually, it's quite the contrary. You see, there really isn't a such thing as "international law", and as evidenced by your post, the term is confusing to many people.
International laws aren't laws per se. They are really just a series of treaties, protocols, and conventions among different nations that are only binding as far as nations agree to them. If a nation does not agree to a treaty they are under no obligation to abide by it- that's called sovereignty. There is nothing other nations can do about it aside from trying to "pressure" them to change their minds (often in the form of pointing big guns at them and blowing things up). Take Kyoto, for example. Many nations did agree to the protocol, and so they are now bound by it's greenhouse gas emission targets (whether or not they are actually meeting these targets is a different story, but I digress). However, the United States Senate rejected Kyoto by a vote of 95-0, so no matter how much other nations want us to be, we are not subject to the Kyoto emissions targets. That is our right as a sovereign nation.
Here in the United States, when we agree to a treaty, it actually becomes US law and thus we are bound to abide by it- not because it is an "international" law, but because we have agreed to make it our own law. Our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan were entirely consistent with our obligations under the UN Charter.
Do you really think that they only way that somebody could disagree with you is that they are being sarcastic? How sad.
Supply-side economics is not fantasy- its proven results.
I am from the planet where the UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 687 and over a dozen subsequent resolution that explicitly authorized- even required- the use of military force to get Iraq to expose and dismantle it's weapons programs and stop supporting terrorists (among other things). Since Iraq never did either of those, the use of military force was not only authorized, it was obligated Chapter VII of the UN Charter to force complience.
The reasons we have used force against any countries in the past few years are anything but nonsensical. We took action against Afghanistan because they were harboring and supporting one of the most dangerous criminal organizations of our time that had declared war on us and was murdering thousands of US civilians. In the process, we helped free 25 million people that had been stuck under the tyrannical rule of one of the worst groups of thugs to ever rise to control of a nation, and we gave these people a chance at democracy. Then, we invaded Iraq because they were in blatant violation of a UN mandated disarmament, they too supported over a dozen criminal terrorist organizations and used them to carry out attacks that would further their agenda, and they had repeatedly been caught trying to direct these terrorists to attack the United States or US interests over the past decade. Having learned a pretty strong lesson in September of 2001, President Bush rightfully realized that this is exactly the kind of threat that we can no longer ignore, and he took action. Oh, and in the process we freed another 25 million people from the brutal rule of a dictator and gave them a chance for a democracy. We all wish that things were going better there right now, but that doesn't negate the reasons why we went in in the first place.
We have no such contempt for this so-called "international law", and all of our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been strictly within the bounds of our international obligations. And while it would be nice for our "allies" to like us, our need to defeat the murderous forces of radical Islamist fascism and international terrorism are a little more important.
Oh, I don't know about that. The United States has had the world's most dangerous army for quite some time now.
Herein lies the flaw of the NPT. Countries are technically allowed-- with full support of other NPT signatories-- to develop nuclear technology up to some invisible line that seperates peaceful use from military use. Then, without any penalty from the NPT, these countries are allowed to withdraw from the treaty at any time and complete whatever they want to with no recourse (from the treaty, of course).
So, in that sense, Iran does in fact have the "right" to develop some nuclear technology, but that does not make it the "right" thing to allow them to do.
Are you trying to imply that it was faulty US intelligence that led to the UN Security Council passing these resolutions? Because you could only imply this out of ignorance, here is a brief timeline of events, starting with Resolution 687:
Obviously he failed as an educator as well. If you had even spent 20 seconds learning anything about Iranian history, you would have discovered that the roots of Iran's issues lie a little further in the past.
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I didn't say that Carter was the root of the Iranian revolution, but its hard to deny that his incompetence contributed to it. Khomeini himself in a biography written by his brother said that it was our lack of US intervention in the revolution and our pathetically weak response to the hostage crisis that encouraged him to expand his rhetoric and shore up his newly aquired power. Its no surprize that Islamic terrorists were emboldened to start attacking US interests when we couldn't even manage to land a helicopter in the desert to rescue our hostages. That was a huge propoganda victory for the Islamists- one that we are still suffering from today.
Considering that 99.99999999999999999999% of the reason we had an economic crisis in the 1970's stemmed from our overreliance on cheap, imported oil, dumping those long-festering issues on Carter's head have to count as the most disingenious crap I've ever heard.
Doubly so, considering the lengths to which Carter went in his effort to extricate us from a purely idiotic situation where we were funding maniacs who wanted to kill us by buying the oil they made.
What effort? You don't solve the energy demands for a growing economy by putting on a sweater and telling people they aren't confident enough. Carter did nothing but direct a disasterous monetary policy and raise taxes, both which compounded the external factors that were affecting our economy.
had an elected democratic form of government before we decided it wasn't doing what we wanted it to with our oil. Ahem, I meant their oil.
Like it or not, but the Shah was the constitutional leader of Iran before the Mossadegh's dubious rise to power.
Oddly enough, the fact that our nation remains in that idiotic situation can be dumped squarely on conservative heads, as those same people have openly conspired to keep us chuffing away at oil like there's no tomorrow, intentionally lowering efficiency and deriding conservation efforts as (as best I can understand it), "wimpy."
What a load of crap. It takes a lot of energy to grow a modern economy. This isn't the "conservatives" fault, it's a fact of life, and oil happens to be one of the cheapest ways to get it. If you are looking for somebody to blame for our dependence on foreign sources of oil, look at all of the opposition coming from the left at any attempt to increase our domestic oil production.
Bush, on the other hand, took the fruits of the greatest economic expansion of the last 50 years and squirreled it away on pure self-aggrandizement. Eight trillion dollars in debt,
You conveniently left out the fact that our GDP has grown to $13 trillion, and our 65% debt-to-GDP ratio is right in line with historical averages. In fact, I would be worried about the impact on future economic growth if our debt was much less than 60%.
bogus war on phony enemy,
Which enemy is "bogus"? The pre-2003 government of Iraq that was directly supporting dozens of terrorist organizations, developing illegal weapons in contravention of its UN mandate, and had been trying to direct terrorist attacks against us for the better part of a decade? Or the "government" of Afghanistan, which was harboring and protecting al Qaeda? Or how about al Qaeda themselves? Are they bogus too?
no end in sight, a complete wreck of our national credibility . .
Unfortunately, there is no end in sight, and that is largely due to people like you that steadfastly refuse to admit that we are even at war.
The absolute and correct interpretation of how disastrous this presidency has been is now beginning. Worst administration ever and that has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. It just IS.
I proudly voted for President Bush twice, and I think that history will count him as one of our better Presidents in a while. Certainly not the best, but pretty good.
If you want to see disaster, look at the Jimmy Carter presidency. He is hands down the worst president of my lifetime. His bumbling incompetence contributed to the creation of the first militant Islamic theocracy (Iran) and the birth of modern-day Islamic terrorism, not to mention some of the worst economic policies imaginable. He somehow managed to do so much harm in only four years, but his incompetence is a "gift" that keeps on giving (like from his interview with Der Spiegel the other day- thanks a lot, Jimmuh).
I find it pretty entertaining that you would ask for sources after making the bizarre and baseless statements about the role you think Karl Rove played in the forgeries without even attempting to back them up. But anyway, here we go.
You are confusing some things here. It is customary in the White House press room that when a news organization is going to report on something, they inform the White House about it in advance, and the White House then makes the information available to all of the reporters in the pool. This is not an endorsement of the information- it is a courtesy to the reporters in the pool. The White House said multiple times that they made no attempt to authenticate the documents before passing them along to the other reporters, so it is ridiculous to assert that this means the White House agreed with the contents. When asked a few weeks later what the President thought about the "essence of the accusations" made in the memos, the Press Secretary responded that what had been asserted "simply was not the case".
So, to put this in perspective, here is a list of the facts that are known about the President's National Guard service:
Are you still with me?
The President has claimed that he stopped flying because his airplane (the F-102) was being phased out, and he was busy working on the Senatorial campaign in Alabama. The decision was apparently mutual, according to Col. Campenni who flew with Bush in the Guard (see this), because the Vietnam War was winding down and they had a huge glut of pilots. Because he wasn't flying anymore, there was no need to take the flight physical. He finished his time in the Guard by doing just enough to pass, often in bursts of activity surrounded by months of inactivity, until he was granted his early release.
Up until the release of these memos, there was no evidence to contradict this version of events. Nobody was disputing that his service was sporadic in 1972-73, or that he missed a physical and stopped flying, but there was no evidence that he had disobeyed any orders or had failed to meet all of his commitments in the Guard, and nobody could ask his commanding officers because they were all dead. These memos purported to prove exactly tha
Guess what? Karl Rove is not a political evil genius. He isn't even that good at what he does. He lets too many attacks and assumptions about the President go unchallenged. Your posts are a great example of this. Take this paragraph, for example:
Lets take a look at the inventions here that you are trying to pass off as fact. Everything about the memos was contested. There isn't a shred of evidence to prove the assertion that George Bush disobeyed a direct order or was AWOL from his obligations in the National Guard. These memos where the only thing that supposedly proved this, and they turned out to be fake.
Of course he did! He has denied the accusations that he didn't fulfill his obligations with the National Guard, and this is backed up by the fact that he had completed more than the required flying hours and was honorably discharged from service.
In this case, the only people that would know were dead.
See, if Karl Rove was a good political strategist, let alone the evil super-genius that you believe he is, people like you wouldn't still be spreading baseless rumors about his National Guard service around as fact.
Oh, how dreadfully embarrassing for me- I forgot Nintendo 64! rolls eyes...
Seems some minds at Intel are falling back to the dubious position they held regarding home users never needing 64 bit CPUs.
Intel didn't say that home users would never need 64 bits, just that they didn't need it 64 bits at the moment. And guess what- home users still don't need 64 bits. There still aren't any mainstream 64-bit operating systems out there, and even when these OSs arrive, it will take many years for the general public to completely move to 64 bit.
And it wasn't like Intel just sat back and did nothing for 64-bit support. They were developing 64-bit support all along to hedge their bets.
Oh please. The people of Lebanon are suffering now because they have allowed a criminal terrorist organization to grow and thrive in their midst. These terrorists committed an unprovoked act of war against Israel, and followed that up by continuous attacks on Israeli civilian population centers (Hezbollah has fired over 1,400 rockets into northern Israel since the conflict started, resulting in over 1,300 casualties). No other nation or people on this planet would be expected to just accept this, but apparently Israel is.
War sucks. Its messy, mistakes are made, and despite even the best efforts, innocent people die. It is horrible. But lets not forget that it was Hezbollah that started this conflict, and it is Hezbollah that is deliberately trying to kill innocent Israeli civilians. Israel, like every other nation, must do what it can to defend itself, and given the fact that Hezbollah continues its constant attacks against Israeli citizens, and the captured soldiers have still not been returned, Israel's job in Lebanon is not complete.
ING is very good, but not the best in town. Emigrant direct is currently at 5%, HSBC is at 5.05%, Fidelity has a money market account at 5.17%. I think GMAC also has a savings account that beats ING. Recently I have seen some short term CDs advertised for 6%.
I totally agree with you that this type of savings account would be a great option for a student that needs to keep the funds liquid. The return is decent and its about as safe as you can get.
I think that's about the biggest problem with the current US election system. Most democracies/constitutional monarchies I know about have more than two relevant parties while the USA don't.
As a US citizen, I think the two-party system is one of our greatest strengths. At it's core, a two-party system is a huge moderating force, as both parties are forced towards the middle to appeal to the largest number of voters. Candidates cannot merely cater to an extremist minority faction and win an election with a small plurality (as has happened many times in history, including in your country, with negative results). Instead, only the candidates that espouse mainstream values can be elected. The result is a much more stable and predictable government.
Mozy encrypts all data locally using a 448-bit Blowfish cipher before uploading. You can chose your own private key when installing the software- even the free accounts.
Good luck with that.