I generally agree. The situation in Tibet is tragic. I believe at this point it is beyond hope due to the large numbers of Chinese who have moved there.
The Taiwan situtation is frightening and has indeed been on the edge of disaster for years. However, Tiawan is doing well for itself generally. As long as they remain open to a 'one China' solution, I think the threats will remain threats - particularly as China is increasingly dependent on being a world economic player.
I'm not saying China is a peace loving hippie. I'm saying that they would be more comfortable if they thought only by actually attacking Taiwan would there be a chance for us to mix it up with them. That's better than the world deciding they are dictators with nukes and have to go.
Sadly, I think Tibet is done. Nobody is going to rush to their aid with military force and challenge a Chinese occupation. The major players seem content to pretend it isn't happening.
Btw, I'm comfortable with my position and have logged in. Do you feel your position is so weak as to not want to log in?
You are so weak in your position that you are making such non-sequitur attacks that have nothing to do with the facts at hand.
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Nah, I'm just argueing with several differant ACs right now and it would be easier to follow threads when I know who's answering.
Sure, several of the countries involved had financial interests in Iraq. But I think that being their major motivation is as likely as the US going into Iraq to steal its oil. While a tempting view of global corruption, I don't buy it. Everyone had financial interests involved, but to assume that was they're basis for acting is just too damn depressing.
China's actions are more understandable. They don't want to see the world getting in the habit of attacking dictators with long records of human rights abuses who aren't being super aggressive. They like to think of themselves as safe so long as they don't go attacking people.
Hell, I'm center-left over here. My Republican wife refuses to talk politics with me.
2) I say mistake because it was a decision of high risk global power play. We made the decision to help one bad dude - Iraq, limit the expansion of the bad dude we found more scary - Iran. We later recognized that further support of Iraq was bad idea. Sure, giving chemical weapons to him would be a terrible thing to do, but there was a strong arguement for supplying conventional arms to a secular government resisting radical Islam.
Finally, if you're so intent on saying the US is soley to blame for Iraq's weapons - you should admire the administration's desire to go in and "fix" the mistakes of previous administrations.
3) A handful of countries supported this action in a serious way. It clearly wasn't truly unilateral with Britain's support. I'd also note that many of the countries which supported this action were the ones most recently under tyrany - Eastern Europe. While poorly equipped to supply meaningful help, they did what they could. No, it wasn't close to the true coalition of GW1. Not even close. Not even a little bit. But it was disctinctly more than unilateral. However, if you're looking for things the current administration has done unilaterally, the list is endless. Your unwillingness to concede even the smallest point - like dropping the word "unilateral" suggests you are immune to reason. I think I've conceded several points.
4) I'm not trying to justify the administration's PR, so I won't even to point out your fallicies in describing it. I'm saying there were decent arguements for going to war. You started by asking if there was any way to say there was a real WMD arguement. My response has been that yes there was, but it probably wasn't strong enough on its own to justify war. Other factors are more likely to make a justifiable war. As a center-left type I have my doubts, but I'm still not about to call the administration war criminals.
The US tie to 9-11 was subtle. The administration basically argued that should WMDs be given to terrorists we could have a situation far worse than 9-11. The administration argued that Iraq had relationships with terrorists and that this scenerio was too likely to be accepted.
Some in the administration suggested that Iraq might have relationships with Al Queda - which there is little to no evidence of. This was generally rebuffed by the media and very gently rebuked within the administration. Sadly, Americans generally have a Saddam = bad guy, Osama = bad guy, Saddam = Osama mentality and 69% of Americans believe Iraq was involved in 9-11. If the administration encouraged this view, they did it somewhat quietly. It's really just easier to understand it that way if you don't really follow the news / reality. Pretty sad.
Ok then. What would you do differantly. You're in charge of the US and have just withdrawn from Iraq after the Gulf War. Do you require disarmorment or let that one slide? What about establishing no fly zones? If Iraqi radar lights up your patrols do you allow it to shoot down your planes or fire back? If you went with disarmorment and Iraq doesn't cooperate is that OK, or do you need to impose a sactions regime? What if the profits from the oil you allow to be sold go into the private coffers of rich assholes (Saddam etc) instead of feeding the children? Saddam let inspectors back in - oops he kicked them back out. You know Saddam hates your country (maybe less if you let him off to start with) and your intelligence officals tell you he has WMD - because he still hasn't cooperated with inspectors is that OK? Yikes, kids are still dying, should we drop sactions alltogether and welcome Iraq back into the community of nations?
What should have been done? You've told us what was done was wrong. Give me a better alternative. Ideally one where the Isreal-Palenstine problem isn't solved by sub-par Iraqi missle carrying a random WMD takes out the West Bank. This has been my problem recently. I don't like the war, I didn't really like the sanctions regime either. But it seems like everything we tried before the war was twisted by the Iraqi regime into something really nasty.
By the way, here's the difference. Clinton wasn't trying to kill kids. The sanctions programme had problems that were made much worse by curroption within Iraq. Bush wasn't trying to kill civilians. He knew it would happen, as a result of fighting enemies who use cities for cover, but he wasn't explicity trying to kill them. Furthermore, I suspect (although I don't know him personally) that he is saddened by that situation. Saddam on the other hand intercepted funds for those children and amassed great wealth directly at their expense. Worse, he used chemical weapons against civilians. That's ethnic cleansing type stuff. That's a major war crime, that's evil.
How you can equate the two is beyond me. It's like equating the old man who fell asleep at the wheel and killed a dozen people at a market to someone who intentionally runs people down, kills them, takes their money and floors it to escape. It's like that but the with the old man only driving because he's reacting to the lunatic.
In regards to Unilateral - 75 may be a bit of an overestimate of the countries actually supporting the war when it started. However, we can be more than sure that it was at least 2 and thereby not unilateral.:)
I never claimed the UN did consent. You attacked my assertion that the commonly held believe before the war was that Iraq had WMD. I answered that with a small bit of evidence that suggests I'm right on that. If you think that this is only the result of Powel's presentation, I can go dig up older resolutions. Have I convinced you that there was broad based assumption that Iraq had WMD? If I have we can discuss what was the appropriate way of dealing with that, if not I'm giving up hope of dealing with you in a rational way.
You'll see elsewhere in this thread I've discussed how striking it was that most of the key members of the Sec. Council were against the war.
Btw, I'm comfortable with my position and have logged in. Do you feel your position is so weak as to not want to log in?
Again my general position: WMD was one of the weaker arguements for going to war. Going to war was still not neccassarily the best thing to do. I'm not sure what was. However, WMD arguements were based on fairly decent premises. We knew Iraq had them and hadn't confirmed we'd destroyed them. In the meantime Iraq defied the UN inspection regimes routinely. Several Iraqi defectors told the rest of the world that Iraq had these weapons. Iraq's continued possession of said weapons was unacceptable.
This back and forth is a brilliant comparision of strongly left and strongly right views. It's almost comical.
1) US Puppet Governments: We've done things similar to this, but not very often. I'm not convinced we ever took out someone who was truly democratic though. I think we may have taken out tyrants and replaced them with people who turned into tyrants. This could happen again in Iraq without extreme care. Mostly this happened when we were "saving the world" from Communism. I think we've mostly learned our lesson.
2) The "We supported Saddam arguement" Members of the government did. That was probably a mistake. As noted, we did stop and we've had less to do with him recently than many other countries in the world - notably France and Russia.
3) "Go it alone vs big coallition" We didn't get UN authorization. That's pretty close to going it alone. That said, we did get a few big countries to back us - England, Spain, Poland and many smaller nations. We got enough of Eastern Europe with us to really piss off France, make Chirac look like an ass, and boost the influence of the new EU members while lessening the stranglehold France and Germany had. Still it's striking when most of the permenant members of the UN Security Council are against you.
4) Moral high ground: This was a wonderful exchange. In deciding to go to war or not, one must find the moral high ground. You want to do what's right. I can't see attacking that without showing that the claim is false. Likewise, I see it as slander when someone who is against the war is described as pro-Saddam. That's like calling someone who want to open trade borders with Cuba a Communist sympathizer.
For those who will critique the above as not being a full sentance, please read the resolution. UN resolutions often take the form of a bunch of Recongnizing, Noting,... verbing paragraphs each ending in a comma to give justification to what they Declare later.
"Recognizing the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,"
It would appear that the UN security council who for better or for worse is the best representation of "everybody" was generally under the impression the WMD and deliver mechanisms were in Iraq's possession.
The government amy be overreacting a bit, but I think the steps they take intend to make people feel safer and less terrorized than if they did not take those steps. Also, this doesn't really meet the test of an "attack".
I suspected this is where you are going and I think you have a good point. The steps the gov. has taken may have caused some extra fears. The Patriot act has some really bad parts to it, and I don't think they'll all get extended when its sunset date comes up. Other parts of it are quite reasonable.
In regards to "give up your freedom or risk being blown up" I think this is a real choice for us to make. Freedom restricting policies can somewhat decrease our risks. I think as time goes forward and we better understand these risks, we'll do a better job picking which freedoms to conceed and which to hold on to. I, for one, am more than willing to give up the freedom of carring an AK47 onto an airplane. I'm not ready to submit to a stripsearch to board that airplane. There's an appropriate balance in there. I don't think that our government's being out of balance right now is terrorism itself, just the result of terrorism and a resultant failure of strength among liberals. I also think its fairly temporary.
No country invoked intelligence to the contrary either - except perhaps Iraq. And yes, most other nations wanted an inspections regime, which is what I support further on.
The impression I got at the time, and my things have changed, was that the general assumption was that Iraq had lots of weapons back in the day. We got some in Desert Storm. More were found and destroyed 90s. Inspections were never completed and inspectors were held out of the country. There were probably some left - most of which would be well hidden.
I didn't go out to write a comprehensive arguement for the war. If I did, I would have done the needed research, choosen some better language and probably spell checked. It's unfair to dismiss my arguement altogether because of an early mistake.
Again, the WMD arguement was real, but not the strongest reason for going to war.
Also again, I'm not the best person to defend the war as I have very strong doubts as to wether it was the right course of action.
The US had reason to believe that Iraq had some supply of weapons and perhaps some manufacturing capacity left. Why? Because that's what our intelligence and everyone else's led us to believe. Damn near everyone, Europeans included believe Iraq had some sort of weapons.
Hell, we knew they had the weapons in the mid 90s and Iraq failed to provide any documentation of the destruction of those weapons. While it's possible the Clinton administration's airstrikes took them all out, it seemed unlikely.
Meanwhile the ongoing sactions regime was doing a great job of crippling the Iraqi military and further programs. No fly zones allowed the creation of a healthy semi-autonomous and democraticish Kurdish state. Sadly though, these sactions were allowing the leadership in Iraq to live like kings while thousands of children died of malnutrition and poor medicine. Sponsering those kinds of sanctions is something liberals and conservatives alike should be saddened by. The situation had to change.
I would have prefereed an easing of sanctions coupled by a permenant long-term inspection program. However, that sort of high profile program would be an offront to Iraqi dignity and might have caused resentment if carried on for 20 years. I fully believe that our invasion of Iraq was a good thing for Iraq. I'm not sure it was a good thing for us. For Iraq though, it gives them a chance to build a free(er) country. Whether that works out or not remains to be seen.
Yes, many American, Britain, and allied troops of died. And yes, far more Iraq troops have died. And yes, many civilians died. That's sad. Hopefully though, we will see fewer Iraqi children dieing. And while it now appears that there was not a major threat of Iraq giving WMD to its agents or assorted terrorists, there was a threat percieved.
Now, if you'll permit me, I'll put on a neo-con mask. More important than reducing the threat in Iraq, was taking the stance that if you are developing WMD you might be next. Maybe we come off looking like heros, maybe we look like crazy cowboys out for vigilante justice. Either way, we strongly encourage countries who have big league aspirations to reconsider the WMD approach.
The reform of Libya, which made sizeable strides in the Clinton administration recently took on a very differant tone. It stopped being about past terrorism and a pledge to stop that, and changed to being about them giving up their WMD and revealing where they got them. One could argue they didn't want to be next. By that logic, one could say that we wanted to take out the Iraqi threat, but when there wasn't one, took care of the real Libya threat as a bonus. Frankly, if you trust Libya to protect their weapons from other nasties, you have more faith in them than I do.
That event opened our eyes to how the underground WMD market works. Witness the recent news from Pakistan as it comes to grips with being a major exporter of nuclear weapons technology. We're seeing some "I guess the US means business" reaction from other hotspots as well.
Neocon mask comes off.
It's possible that these developments might have occured without our actions in Iraq. We'll never know. I do agree with you that the Democrats and media need to be more skeptical of what we do and we need serious debate on the matter. I get terribly pissed off whenever I see anyone who questions our foriegn policy having their patriotism questsioned.
However, I think we went into Iraq with relatively noble intentions. We thought they had WMD, even if we were wrong or made the evidence sound a bit stronger than it was. In Iraq, I think our boys have done their best to shoot the people shooting at them and try to avoid hitting civilians. War sucks though, and since we've left the days of two armies meeting in a nuetral battlefied, civilians pay a terrible price. I would argue that describing our actions as war crimes is unfair and wrong.
If you want true war crimes, look to the man who last led Iraq. He gassed e
I'm in the Liberal \ Moderate area. I think that while NPR's news is excellent, more often than not their guest commentators who editorialize are on the liberal side of things. Also recognize that people often mix up NPR with their local broadcaster. The station in Colorado that I listened to seemed less liberal than the one I listen to in Cleveland.
NPR is flat out the best though. I totally agree. An in regards to our flame baiter, I think the Car Talk guys are doing alright financially and I bet they have recieved offers from for profit stations and turned them down.
As the owner of an incorporated business, I take offense to your statement. Sure, we tried to make money, but we played by the rules and didn't do anything terrible. Furthermore, in my work there we encountered many, many non-profit corporations that employed caring good people to help those in need. I would argue these would be good corporations. I would guess that the Salvation army is also incorporated and not terribly evil.
I'd also point out some companies like Ben and Jerry's (prior to selling in particular) which enforced a degree of wage equality and donated a significant portion of their takings to charity. I'm sure you'll respond to a link pointing out that B&J's has a secret lab where they torture kittens, but the point is not about them, but about the large number of benign companies.
I would agree that most companies are fairly amoral. They strive mostly to make money, but most play by the rules to do so. They also give a lot of money to charity, but not so much as to grossly impact their bottom line. In fact, they sound pretty much like good decent working people who are out to make money in order to take care of their families or self and occassionally give some money to the needy.
In this case of Google, I feel they are fully justified in protecting their hard work from some assholes who are trying to rip them off. The point I make elsewhere is that with Google and Froogle and what I'm sure are going to be others in this naming scheme, consumers are becoming used to the idea that _oo_le.com is powered by Google technology and has Google's support. Booble is doubly embarassing then. Firstly, because it is pornagraphic in nature which may damage Google's reputation for being relatively clean. Secondly, because of these reports that the searching technology employed is terrible. If people (remember many people are dumb) associate the two sites, Google stands to lose what its hard working people built up, in the meantime Booble gets to profit from cleverly riding Google's good name. Which of these companies did real work, and which is the freeriding asshole? I'll stand behind Google.
Google in some ways is a very good example of what a for-profit corporation should be. They provide an excellent service. They have refused to take money to worsen that service. They also do their best to prevent their service from being hijacked by people with one agenda or another. They make money and deserve to do so. They haven't been overly litigous, and in this instance are simply protecting themselves. Even if the lawsuit fails, by generating some press that they and Booble are at odds, they have innoculated themselves from the association and thus limited their losses. Wouldn't you do the same to protect your work?
I've taken the time to read some of your other posts and know that this was not the troll it appeared to be. You appear to be stressed, have problems with the legal system and be bitter about corporate life. I (probably delusionaly) hope to moderate your view on corporations somewhat. Most corporations are fairly small and represent people who have risked a lot to try and make a living for their families or help somebody else's. If you have problems with some, don't attack everyone else.
And to everyone else - we all like to support the little guy ripping off the big guy. It just really sucks when you're the big guy and remember what it was like to be the little guy who found a way to succeed fairly.
There may be some small chance that people do in fact mistake it for the original. As google grows it is creating additional "oogle" type spin-offs like Froogle . As people start to assume that this pattern is Google technology, approved of , etc. Having a site out there that seems to fit the pattern and you don't own is an infringment and a liability - particularly if the site is argueably disreputable. I think that right now, if it deals with searching, Google is the de facto owner of www._oo_le.com where you can fill in the blanks. I also think that's reasonable.
Pretty much the answer I was looking for - false or not. I don't think the booster rockets are actually only 144 cms across, but the story I read did have the limit being railroad tunnels which are sized some degree larger than the track width. If the track was wider, they minimum tunnel size would have to be larger as well.
As for the arguement presented that the story is false, I don't have book here in front of me to dispute it. However, I do remember the book going into quite a bit more detail than the web page linked to gave the story credit for. The critical page almost makes some odd leaps. For instance, it claims that because other rail standards were made and could have become the one now in use in the US, the story does not prove the inevitibility of horses -> rocket. That's not the story's point. It simply intends to show how a long ago design decision based around something dated like horses could work its way into something wholey unrelated like the space program.
You're lacking some imagination and history here. Go back to the printing press. Sure we know that bibles were the first big thing to roll off it. The next big thing was erotic prose. I'm not saying that it was responsible for the invention, but it helped wide-spread adoption. This thread of history and technology carries through to DVDs whose coolest features are only taken advatage of by that industry. Any feature films where that change camera angle button does anything?
Bonus points: Tell me how a NASA rocket had its dimensions determined by the standard width of horse back-ends. Hint: The horses were Roman.
What's sad, is that as I read the story a woman who used the word "chandaleer" said she did an internet search on it, got some hints and assumed she was right. If she had simply googled it instead, she would have got, "Did you mean: chandelier " at the top.
Google is my spell checker - it takes less time to load than Word.
You're pretty much right. On this discussion, I'm totally messed up. You have one group of people talking about a criminal case, another group saying he should get reparations from Norway's equivilant of ??AA. The line between criminal and civil has been totally blown apart in the broader conversation and I used that as my frame of reference. Upon further thought, I was wrong to base my arguement on the random trash people were throwing around.
In regards to the other poster, I think he is mixed up. DAs are often political figures who act based on political motives from time to time. ADAs, like your friend are civil servants and should be honored. Hell, that's what I think the situation is anyway - somebody tell me I'm wrong.
True. Had I been more careful, I would have used which and upon. I'm not regex adverse. I was simply curious if there was a common notation for that situation. Regex would not be common. It would only be understood by the Slashdot crowd - and probably only half of them thereby making it less effecient for daily use.
The counter arguement is that paying for court space, judges, jury maintaince etc to support frivolous cases ain't cheap either. Cases where OJ type money is spent are exceptionally rare as a percentage of overall cases and a loser pays system could have a cap on it so that only those fees a "normal" person would rack up would be covered.
I don't think the cost-benifit analysis is as easy as either of you make it out to be.
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I generally agree. The situation in Tibet is tragic. I believe at this point it is beyond hope due to the large numbers of Chinese who have moved there.
The Taiwan situtation is frightening and has indeed been on the edge of disaster for years. However, Tiawan is doing well for itself generally. As long as they remain open to a 'one China' solution, I think the threats will remain threats - particularly as China is increasingly dependent on being a world economic player.
I'm not saying China is a peace loving hippie. I'm saying that they would be more comfortable if they thought only by actually attacking Taiwan would there be a chance for us to mix it up with them. That's better than the world deciding they are dictators with nukes and have to go.
Sadly, I think Tibet is done. Nobody is going to rush to their aid with military force and challenge a Chinese occupation. The major players seem content to pretend it isn't happening.
Btw, I'm comfortable with my position and have logged in. Do you feel your position is so weak as to not want to log in?
You are so weak in your position that you are making such non-sequitur attacks that have nothing to do with the facts at hand.
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Nah, I'm just argueing with several differant ACs right now and it would be easier to follow threads when I know who's answering.
Sure, several of the countries involved had financial interests in Iraq. But I think that being their major motivation is as likely as the US going into Iraq to steal its oil. While a tempting view of global corruption, I don't buy it. Everyone had financial interests involved, but to assume that was they're basis for acting is just too damn depressing.
China's actions are more understandable. They don't want to see the world getting in the habit of attacking dictators with long records of human rights abuses who aren't being super aggressive. They like to think of themselves as safe so long as they don't go attacking people.
Hell, I'm center-left over here. My Republican wife refuses to talk politics with me.
2) I say mistake because it was a decision of high risk global power play. We made the decision to help one bad dude - Iraq, limit the expansion of the bad dude we found more scary - Iran. We later recognized that further support of Iraq was bad idea. Sure, giving chemical weapons to him would be a terrible thing to do, but there was a strong arguement for supplying conventional arms to a secular government resisting radical Islam.
Finally, if you're so intent on saying the US is soley to blame for Iraq's weapons - you should admire the administration's desire to go in and "fix" the mistakes of previous administrations.
3) A handful of countries supported this action in a serious way. It clearly wasn't truly unilateral with Britain's support. I'd also note that many of the countries which supported this action were the ones most recently under tyrany - Eastern Europe. While poorly equipped to supply meaningful help, they did what they could. No, it wasn't close to the true coalition of GW1. Not even close. Not even a little bit. But it was disctinctly more than unilateral. However, if you're looking for things the current administration has done unilaterally, the list is endless. Your unwillingness to concede even the smallest point - like dropping the word "unilateral" suggests you are immune to reason. I think I've conceded several points.
4) I'm not trying to justify the administration's PR, so I won't even to point out your fallicies in describing it. I'm saying there were decent arguements for going to war. You started by asking if there was any way to say there was a real WMD arguement. My response has been that yes there was, but it probably wasn't strong enough on its own to justify war. Other factors are more likely to make a justifiable war. As a center-left type I have my doubts, but I'm still not about to call the administration war criminals.
The US tie to 9-11 was subtle. The administration basically argued that should WMDs be given to terrorists we could have a situation far worse than 9-11. The administration argued that Iraq had relationships with terrorists and that this scenerio was too likely to be accepted.
Some in the administration suggested that Iraq might have relationships with Al Queda - which there is little to no evidence of. This was generally rebuffed by the media and very gently rebuked within the administration. Sadly, Americans generally have a Saddam = bad guy, Osama = bad guy, Saddam = Osama mentality and 69% of Americans believe Iraq was involved in 9-11. If the administration encouraged this view, they did it somewhat quietly. It's really just easier to understand it that way if you don't really follow the news / reality. Pretty sad.
Ok then. What would you do differantly. You're in charge of the US and have just withdrawn from Iraq after the Gulf War. Do you require disarmorment or let that one slide? What about establishing no fly zones? If Iraqi radar lights up your patrols do you allow it to shoot down your planes or fire back? If you went with disarmorment and Iraq doesn't cooperate is that OK, or do you need to impose a sactions regime? What if the profits from the oil you allow to be sold go into the private coffers of rich assholes (Saddam etc) instead of feeding the children? Saddam let inspectors back in - oops he kicked them back out. You know Saddam hates your country (maybe less if you let him off to start with) and your intelligence officals tell you he has WMD - because he still hasn't cooperated with inspectors is that OK? Yikes, kids are still dying, should we drop sactions alltogether and welcome Iraq back into the community of nations?
What should have been done? You've told us what was done was wrong. Give me a better alternative. Ideally one where the Isreal-Palenstine problem isn't solved by sub-par Iraqi missle carrying a random WMD takes out the West Bank. This has been my problem recently. I don't like the war, I didn't really like the sanctions regime either. But it seems like everything we tried before the war was twisted by the Iraqi regime into something really nasty.
By the way, here's the difference. Clinton wasn't trying to kill kids. The sanctions programme had problems that were made much worse by curroption within Iraq. Bush wasn't trying to kill civilians. He knew it would happen, as a result of fighting enemies who use cities for cover, but he wasn't explicity trying to kill them. Furthermore, I suspect (although I don't know him personally) that he is saddened by that situation. Saddam on the other hand intercepted funds for those children and amassed great wealth directly at their expense. Worse, he used chemical weapons against civilians. That's ethnic cleansing type stuff. That's a major war crime, that's evil.
How you can equate the two is beyond me. It's like equating the old man who fell asleep at the wheel and killed a dozen people at a market to someone who intentionally runs people down, kills them, takes their money and floors it to escape. It's like that but the with the old man only driving because he's reacting to the lunatic.
In regards to Unilateral - 75 may be a bit of an overestimate of the countries actually supporting the war when it started. However, we can be more than sure that it was at least 2 and thereby not unilateral. :)
I never claimed the UN did consent. You attacked my assertion that the commonly held believe before the war was that Iraq had WMD. I answered that with a small bit of evidence that suggests I'm right on that. If you think that this is only the result of Powel's presentation, I can go dig up older resolutions. Have I convinced you that there was broad based assumption that Iraq had WMD? If I have we can discuss what was the appropriate way of dealing with that, if not I'm giving up hope of dealing with you in a rational way.
You'll see elsewhere in this thread I've discussed how striking it was that most of the key members of the Sec. Council were against the war.
Btw, I'm comfortable with my position and have logged in. Do you feel your position is so weak as to not want to log in?
Again my general position: WMD was one of the weaker arguements for going to war. Going to war was still not neccassarily the best thing to do. I'm not sure what was. However, WMD arguements were based on fairly decent premises. We knew Iraq had them and hadn't confirmed we'd destroyed them. In the meantime Iraq defied the UN inspection regimes routinely. Several Iraqi defectors told the rest of the world that Iraq had these weapons. Iraq's continued possession of said weapons was unacceptable.
This back and forth is a brilliant comparision of strongly left and strongly right views. It's almost comical.
1) US Puppet Governments: We've done things similar to this, but not very often. I'm not convinced we ever took out someone who was truly democratic though. I think we may have taken out tyrants and replaced them with people who turned into tyrants. This could happen again in Iraq without extreme care. Mostly this happened when we were "saving the world" from Communism. I think we've mostly learned our lesson.
2) The "We supported Saddam arguement" Members of the government did. That was probably a mistake. As noted, we did stop and we've had less to do with him recently than many other countries in the world - notably France and Russia.
3) "Go it alone vs big coallition" We didn't get UN authorization. That's pretty close to going it alone. That said, we did get a few big countries to back us - England, Spain, Poland and many smaller nations. We got enough of Eastern Europe with us to really piss off France, make Chirac look like an ass, and boost the influence of the new EU members while lessening the stranglehold France and Germany had. Still it's striking when most of the permenant members of the UN Security Council are against you.
4) Moral high ground: This was a wonderful exchange. In deciding to go to war or not, one must find the moral high ground. You want to do what's right. I can't see attacking that without showing that the claim is false. Likewise, I see it as slander when someone who is against the war is described as pro-Saddam. That's like calling someone who want to open trade borders with Cuba a Communist sympathizer.
For those who will critique the above as not being a full sentance, please read the resolution. UN resolutions often take the form of a bunch of Recongnizing, Noting, ... verbing paragraphs each ending in a comma to give justification to what they Declare later.
Paragraph 3 of UN Resolution 1441:
"Recognizing the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,"
It would appear that the UN security council who for better or for worse is the best representation of "everybody" was generally under the impression the WMD and deliver mechanisms were in Iraq's possession.
We should judge whether a war was "justified" or not based on all the factors surrounding it, not just those the people in charge chose to emphasize.
We should judge the leaders (and elect or not elect them) based on the veracity of what they emphasized to the public leading to war.
The government amy be overreacting a bit, but I think the steps they take intend to make people feel safer and less terrorized than if they did not take those steps. Also, this doesn't really meet the test of an "attack".
I suspected this is where you are going and I think you have a good point. The steps the gov. has taken may have caused some extra fears. The Patriot act has some really bad parts to it, and I don't think they'll all get extended when its sunset date comes up. Other parts of it are quite reasonable.
In regards to "give up your freedom or risk being blown up" I think this is a real choice for us to make. Freedom restricting policies can somewhat decrease our risks. I think as time goes forward and we better understand these risks, we'll do a better job picking which freedoms to conceed and which to hold on to. I, for one, am more than willing to give up the freedom of carring an AK47 onto an airplane. I'm not ready to submit to a stripsearch to board that airplane. There's an appropriate balance in there. I don't think that our government's being out of balance right now is terrorism itself, just the result of terrorism and a resultant failure of strength among liberals. I also think its fairly temporary.
Please explain how the US government is making "...attacks are specifically targeted at creating a state of terror in a civilian population..."
When you accuse someone of terrorism, please back it up.
No country invoked intelligence to the contrary either - except perhaps Iraq. And yes, most other nations wanted an inspections regime, which is what I support further on.
The impression I got at the time, and my things have changed, was that the general assumption was that Iraq had lots of weapons back in the day. We got some in Desert Storm. More were found and destroyed 90s. Inspections were never completed and inspectors were held out of the country. There were probably some left - most of which would be well hidden.
I didn't go out to write a comprehensive arguement for the war. If I did, I would have done the needed research, choosen some better language and probably spell checked. It's unfair to dismiss my arguement altogether because of an early mistake.
Again, the WMD arguement was real, but not the strongest reason for going to war.
Also again, I'm not the best person to defend the war as I have very strong doubts as to wether it was the right course of action.
I'll bite.
The US had reason to believe that Iraq had some supply of weapons and perhaps some manufacturing capacity left. Why? Because that's what our intelligence and everyone else's led us to believe. Damn near everyone, Europeans included believe Iraq had some sort of weapons.
Hell, we knew they had the weapons in the mid 90s and Iraq failed to provide any documentation of the destruction of those weapons. While it's possible the Clinton administration's airstrikes took them all out, it seemed unlikely.
Meanwhile the ongoing sactions regime was doing a great job of crippling the Iraqi military and further programs. No fly zones allowed the creation of a healthy semi-autonomous and democraticish Kurdish state. Sadly though, these sactions were allowing the leadership in Iraq to live like kings while thousands of children died of malnutrition and poor medicine. Sponsering those kinds of sanctions is something liberals and conservatives alike should be saddened by. The situation had to change.
I would have prefereed an easing of sanctions coupled by a permenant long-term inspection program. However, that sort of high profile program would be an offront to Iraqi dignity and might have caused resentment if carried on for 20 years. I fully believe that our invasion of Iraq was a good thing for Iraq. I'm not sure it was a good thing for us. For Iraq though, it gives them a chance to build a free(er) country. Whether that works out or not remains to be seen.
Yes, many American, Britain, and allied troops of died. And yes, far more Iraq troops have died. And yes, many civilians died. That's sad. Hopefully though, we will see fewer Iraqi children dieing. And while it now appears that there was not a major threat of Iraq giving WMD to its agents or assorted terrorists, there was a threat percieved.
Now, if you'll permit me, I'll put on a neo-con mask. More important than reducing the threat in Iraq, was taking the stance that if you are developing WMD you might be next. Maybe we come off looking like heros, maybe we look like crazy cowboys out for vigilante justice. Either way, we strongly encourage countries who have big league aspirations to reconsider the WMD approach.
The reform of Libya, which made sizeable strides in the Clinton administration recently took on a very differant tone. It stopped being about past terrorism and a pledge to stop that, and changed to being about them giving up their WMD and revealing where they got them. One could argue they didn't want to be next. By that logic, one could say that we wanted to take out the Iraqi threat, but when there wasn't one, took care of the real Libya threat as a bonus. Frankly, if you trust Libya to protect their weapons from other nasties, you have more faith in them than I do.
That event opened our eyes to how the underground WMD market works. Witness the recent news from Pakistan as it comes to grips with being a major exporter of nuclear weapons technology. We're seeing some "I guess the US means business" reaction from other hotspots as well.
Neocon mask comes off.
It's possible that these developments might have occured without our actions in Iraq. We'll never know. I do agree with you that the Democrats and media need to be more skeptical of what we do and we need serious debate on the matter. I get terribly pissed off whenever I see anyone who questions our foriegn policy having their patriotism questsioned.
However, I think we went into Iraq with relatively noble intentions. We thought they had WMD, even if we were wrong or made the evidence sound a bit stronger than it was. In Iraq, I think our boys have done their best to shoot the people shooting at them and try to avoid hitting civilians. War sucks though, and since we've left the days of two armies meeting in a nuetral battlefied, civilians pay a terrible price. I would argue that describing our actions as war crimes is unfair and wrong.
If you want true war crimes, look to the man who last led Iraq. He gassed e
I'm in the Liberal \ Moderate area. I think that while NPR's news is excellent, more often than not their guest commentators who editorialize are on the liberal side of things. Also recognize that people often mix up NPR with their local broadcaster. The station in Colorado that I listened to seemed less liberal than the one I listen to in Cleveland.
NPR is flat out the best though. I totally agree. An in regards to our flame baiter, I think the Car Talk guys are doing alright financially and I bet they have recieved offers from for profit stations and turned them down.
As the owner of an incorporated business, I take offense to your statement. Sure, we tried to make money, but we played by the rules and didn't do anything terrible. Furthermore, in my work there we encountered many, many non-profit corporations that employed caring good people to help those in need. I would argue these would be good corporations. I would guess that the Salvation army is also incorporated and not terribly evil.
I'd also point out some companies like Ben and Jerry's (prior to selling in particular) which enforced a degree of wage equality and donated a significant portion of their takings to charity. I'm sure you'll respond to a link pointing out that B&J's has a secret lab where they torture kittens, but the point is not about them, but about the large number of benign companies.
I would agree that most companies are fairly amoral. They strive mostly to make money, but most play by the rules to do so. They also give a lot of money to charity, but not so much as to grossly impact their bottom line. In fact, they sound pretty much like good decent working people who are out to make money in order to take care of their families or self and occassionally give some money to the needy.
In this case of Google, I feel they are fully justified in protecting their hard work from some assholes who are trying to rip them off. The point I make elsewhere is that with Google and Froogle and what I'm sure are going to be others in this naming scheme, consumers are becoming used to the idea that _oo_le.com is powered by Google technology and has Google's support. Booble is doubly embarassing then. Firstly, because it is pornagraphic in nature which may damage Google's reputation for being relatively clean. Secondly, because of these reports that the searching technology employed is terrible. If people (remember many people are dumb) associate the two sites, Google stands to lose what its hard working people built up, in the meantime Booble gets to profit from cleverly riding Google's good name. Which of these companies did real work, and which is the freeriding asshole? I'll stand behind Google.
Google in some ways is a very good example of what a for-profit corporation should be. They provide an excellent service. They have refused to take money to worsen that service. They also do their best to prevent their service from being hijacked by people with one agenda or another. They make money and deserve to do so. They haven't been overly litigous, and in this instance are simply protecting themselves. Even if the lawsuit fails, by generating some press that they and Booble are at odds, they have innoculated themselves from the association and thus limited their losses. Wouldn't you do the same to protect your work?
I've taken the time to read some of your other posts and know that this was not the troll it appeared to be. You appear to be stressed, have problems with the legal system and be bitter about corporate life. I (probably delusionaly) hope to moderate your view on corporations somewhat. Most corporations are fairly small and represent people who have risked a lot to try and make a living for their families or help somebody else's. If you have problems with some, don't attack everyone else.
And to everyone else - we all like to support the little guy ripping off the big guy. It just really sucks when you're the big guy and remember what it was like to be the little guy who found a way to succeed fairly.
There may be some small chance that people do in fact mistake it for the original. As google grows it is creating additional "oogle" type spin-offs like Froogle . As people start to assume that this pattern is Google technology, approved of , etc. Having a site out there that seems to fit the pattern and you don't own is an infringment and a liability - particularly if the site is argueably disreputable. I think that right now, if it deals with searching, Google is the de facto owner of www._oo_le.com where you can fill in the blanks. I also think that's reasonable.
Pretty much the answer I was looking for - false or not. I don't think the booster rockets are actually only 144 cms across, but the story I read did have the limit being railroad tunnels which are sized some degree larger than the track width. If the track was wider, they minimum tunnel size would have to be larger as well.
As for the arguement presented that the story is false, I don't have book here in front of me to dispute it. However, I do remember the book going into quite a bit more detail than the web page linked to gave the story credit for. The critical page almost makes some odd leaps. For instance, it claims that because other rail standards were made and could have become the one now in use in the US, the story does not prove the inevitibility of horses -> rocket. That's not the story's point. It simply intends to show how a long ago design decision based around something dated like horses could work its way into something wholey unrelated like the space program.
You're lacking some imagination and history here. Go back to the printing press. Sure we know that bibles were the first big thing to roll off it. The next big thing was erotic prose. I'm not saying that it was responsible for the invention, but it helped wide-spread adoption. This thread of history and technology carries through to DVDs whose coolest features are only taken advatage of by that industry. Any feature films where that change camera angle button does anything?
Bonus points: Tell me how a NASA rocket had its dimensions determined by the standard width of horse back-ends. Hint: The horses were Roman.
What's sad, is that as I read the story a woman who used the word "chandaleer" said she did an internet search on it, got some hints and assumed she was right. If she had simply googled it instead, she would have got, "Did you mean: chandelier " at the top.
Google is my spell checker - it takes less time to load than Word.
That was an amazing first paragraph. A full 1/3 of of those words were abbreviations and acronyms.
You're pretty much right. On this discussion, I'm totally messed up. You have one group of people talking about a criminal case, another group saying he should get reparations from Norway's equivilant of ??AA. The line between criminal and civil has been totally blown apart in the broader conversation and I used that as my frame of reference. Upon further thought, I was wrong to base my arguement on the random trash people were throwing around.
In regards to the other poster, I think he is mixed up. DAs are often political figures who act based on political motives from time to time. ADAs, like your friend are civil servants and should be honored. Hell, that's what I think the situation is anyway - somebody tell me I'm wrong.
True. Had I been more careful, I would have used which and upon. I'm not regex adverse. I was simply curious if there was a common notation for that situation. Regex would not be common. It would only be understood by the Slashdot crowd - and probably only half of them thereby making it less effecient for daily use.
The counter arguement is that paying for court space, judges, jury maintaince etc to support frivolous cases ain't cheap either. Cases where OJ type money is spent are exceptionally rare as a percentage of overall cases and a loser pays system could have a cap on it so that only those fees a "normal" person would rack up would be covered.
I don't think the cost-benifit analysis is as easy as either of you make it out to be.