The job of the editors is to post stories which generate hits to the site. Slashdot plays the self serving FUD game just as well as your favorite evil mega-corp.
Most insightful comment I've seen posted here all day.
There's a damn good argument to be made that Slashdot is best served when the stories are inflammatory and riddled with falsehoods.
We shouldn't need a reason to not give information. Rather, the Goverment should need a reason todemand it.
Yeah, sure. On paper, that makes sense. In practice, requiring people to identify themselves to police officers (as long as such identification isn't self-incriminating) is an important part of promoting the general welfare. And it abridges in absolutely no way anybody's right to privacy, free speech, peaceable assembly, or any of the other expressed or implied civil rights.
We always decried countries where police could demand "papers'' at will for no reason. Now we are, i n effect, one of those countries.
No, we are not. You are not required to carry identification, nor are you required to present it to any police officer. (Exceptions involving things like getting carded to buy beer and presenting your passport at the border are obvious and do not require discussion.)
Which is it am I allowed to read and cite newspapers or aren't I.
Basic reading comprehension is failing us again, I see.
You should read the whole story. Merely reading the headline or the lede is not sufficient. Merely listening to the sound bites on TV is not sufficient. You should read entire stories, get all the facts, and then draw conclusions. Only then can you consider yourself informed on the subject.
This is another instance where your posts are contradicting themselves within the space of a few hours.
Well, obviously I didn't contradict myself for starters. Furthermore, if this is another instance, where was a previous instance?
You keep telling me that I've been refuted, that I've contradicted myself. But you're going to have to show me where these things have happened, because I ain't seein' it.
Maybe it started after your last contact with Presidential security.
My last contact with Presidential security was this afternoon at about 3:45.
How many more references do you need.
Well, given that I have firsthand knowledge that contradicts your Googling, I guess it's fair to tell you that no number of links would be sufficient. I've been there, I've talked to the people involved, I've seen the things you're referring to. You've got it wrong.
How much longer are you going to keep saying stuff that is so easily refuted and continue to pretend like are the definitive authority and always right on every subject.
Refuted? Show me one instance of my being refuted. And no, your little exercise here doesn't count, because I literally deal with what you're talking about every day, and you don't have it right.
What exactly do or did you do for a living?
I think you can figure that out easily enough. I've been posting here for a long time... although I'm starting to think that that might not be a worthwhile use of my spare time any more.
If you can post URL's from the Post supporting your bullshit do it.
No, thanks. It's your responsibility to read. It's not my responsibility to read to you.
I spend enough of my damn time WRITING the articles. It's entirely too much to expect me to email you copies as well.
I'll give you thousands or maybe ten thousand have landed there once we toppled Saddam and left Iraq's borders largely ungaurded and the place in a state of near anarchy.
Ansar al-Islam. Jund al-Islam. Read up on them.
I think I'll wait until someone unbiased actually investigates it, thank you, which is what the people from the 9/11 commission said.
No. "The people" from the 9/11 Commission said, and I'm quoting here, "The Vice President was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have." "The people" was former Secretary of the Navy and Commissioner John Lehman.
That's not all he said, either. Go read.
The Bush administration has made claim after claim and they've proven to be false or forged every time.
There has not been a SINGLE instance of an administration claim turning out to be false or forged. NOT ONE.
Saddam was buying Yellowcake in Niger, based on forged documents
DOCUMENT. One document, according to Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was forged. And yet the evidence of Iraqi deals to purchase uranium oxide in Niger did not consist entirely of that one document. Furthermore, the British intelligence service that provided us with that document stands by its authenticity to this day.
At the very worst, you might say that the authenticity of one document related to uranium oxide purchases by Iraq is in doubt. Okay. No problem. Thing is, though, that this does not trump the overwhelming evidence which is not in doubt.
And, of course, there's that uranium oxide residue which was found on a shipment of Iraqi scrap steel that found its way to Rotterdam back in January. I guess you probably think that was forged, too, huh?
The lead 9/11 hijacker met with Iraqi agents in Prague, per the 9/11 commision he was in U.S. on the day this meeting was supposed to occur.
No. His cell phone was in the US on the day of the meeting. A cell phone that (1) was known to have been used by other conspirators during the lead-up to 9/11, and (2) wouldn't have worked in Europe anyway. What we do not have are voice intercepts that actually link Atta to his phone during the time he's believed to have been in Prague.
Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, definitely. No question about it. They said so themselves, and besides we have found and destroyed stockpiles of same.
In many instances the information was essentially single sourced from defecters controlled by Challibi who were lying to get the U.S. to overthrow Saddam so Challibi could take over.
Whether that's true or not, WE HAVE FOUND AND DESTROYED STOCKPILES OF SAME.
Its awfully convenient that this information just came to light when people have been looking for a link for more than a year to no avail, and the 9/11 commission just embarrassed the Bush administration on the subject.
The information didn't "just come to light." The link between Iraq and al-Qaida prior to 9/11 has been public knowledge since November of 2003, when my good friend Steve Hayes published a lengthy article about it in the Weekly Standard. He's since gone on to publish a book on the subject. One you would benefit greatly from reading. You can probably even find a copy at your public library.
And the only people the Commission embarrassed were themselves, by releasing a preliminary statement that didn't take into account whole bodies of evidence, both classified and unclassified. It was shoddy work, and they know it.
Florida is a LONG glide from Russia for something that effectively drops like a brick.
Which reminds me of something I heard once about the Shuttle Atlantis.
"How would you like," the pithy quote goes, "to try to land a dead-stick glider on a tiny strip of land in the middle of the ocean when the vehicle you're riding in was named after something that disappeared beneath the ocean without a trace?"
If necessary. Whatever it takes to get them to stop.
Make sure they don't have a choice to live as they want?
You can live how you want, but when you start talking about imposing brutal, oppressive, theocratic, totalitarian rule on whole nations of free people, we've got a problem. When you start talking about waging war to destroy the United States of America, we've got a problem.
The fact that many Muslims believe that their religion should have a say in thier government, just throw that out and save the savages?
Basically, yeah. It's not much more complex than that. Are you familiar with the notion of "informed consent?" There are circumstances in which you can say okay to something without it being informed consent. If you're not in your right mind, like if you're on drugs or mentally ill, you're not capable of giving informed consent. If you're underage, you can't give informed consent. And there are certain things that you can't consent to no matter what the circumstances. You can't consent to be murdered, for example.
A person cannot consent to live under totalitarianism. Legitimate government exists with the consent of the governed, and a key aspect of that consent is the ability to revoke it at any time. Under a totalitarian government, you can't say no. You can't vote the bums out. So that form of government is not legitimate, and must not be tolerated.
In other words, if every Muslim in the world got together and said, "You know, Islamism is the way to go," that STILL wouldn't make it right.
BTW, Islamism? What The Fuck is That?
Sigh. I'm sorry to use so many big, scary words. I know they trouble you. Let me see if I can't explain it simply.
If you take Islam, which is a religion, and combine it with oppressive social structures, a totalitarian government, the denial of fundamental rights and liberties, and an expansionist policy that seeks world domination, you get this ideology that we call Islamism.
It's not a "fucking (poorly) made up word," it's just a word that you're not sufficiently educated to have been exposed to before.
I hope that wasn't too scary for you. I know I'm asking you to use your big old brain here, but I hope you'll be able to get through it without too much mewling or whining.
You don't have any support for any of this shit you're shoveling.
Support? READ A GODDAMN NEWSPAPER. These are facts. In fact, go get a copy of the Post RIGHT NOW. Right this very minute. There's information in that you really ought to have... evidently.
Do you think for once you could provide just one teeny little URL to support this bullshit isntead of making us take your word for it time after time.
You want a URL? Use Google that's what it's there for. Why is it suddenly my responsibility to cough up links to stories that YOU SHOULD HAVE READ months and years ago? You have a responsibility to educate yourself about the events of the world around you. That's because you have franchise--assuming you're over 18, an assumption I'm not completely willing to make at this point--and with franchise comes that responsibility.
EDUCATE YOURSELF. I'll repeat myself here: just because you haven't heard it doesn't make it any less true.
People a lot better than you have been looking for proof of ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq and there simply hasn't been any.
Sigh.
Fine.
Since you're so unbelievably unable to READ FOR YOURSELF, I'll read FOR YOU.
Iraqi Officer Linked to Al Qaeda 9/11 Commission Gets New Intelligence on Militia Colonel
The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said yesterday.
Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the new intelligence, if proved true, buttresses claims by the Bush administration of ties between Iraq and the militant network believed responsible for the attacks on the United States.
"We are now in the process of getting this latest intelligence," Lehman said.
Lehman said the information, contained in "captured documents," was obtained after the commission report was written that stated there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. "Some of these documents indicate that [there was] at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," Lehman said. "That still has to be confirmed, but the vice president was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have," said Lehman, a former Navy secretary.
That's a summary of an event that happened just a couple of hours ago. Don't you DARE think that that's the whole story, or that those are all the facts. You get off your LAZY ASS and go READ FOR YOURSELF, so you can be EDUCATED and draw SENSIBLE CONCLUSIONS.
Neither I nor any other member of the media or any employee of the government is going to come to your house with a PowerPoint and a laser pointer. You have a responsibility to READ FOR YOURSELF.
The U.S. has complete control of Iraq and Afghanistan, all of their ministries and all their documents. You would think they could come up with a little teensy bit of evidence of this massive alleged conspiracy between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"I haven't heard of it, so therefore it must not exist." Fool.
Its a given that Iraq supported Palastinians but thats true of every Arab government in the region.
Find me one other "Arab government in the region" that wrote $25,000 checks to murderers.
The U.S. supports Israel as it kills Palastinian civilians, the Arab governments support the Palastinians as they kill Israeli civlians.
Holy fucking Christ. You really are uninformed. Or, as I have believed all along, so colossally stupid that you can't understand the world around you.
Since you're such a supporter of ending evil in this world, I'm sure you didn't vote for Bush in 2000, right?
In fact, I voted for Gore, and I was greatly disappointed in the outcome of the election. I'm still a registered Democrat, come to think of it. I guess you'd call me a 9/11 Democrat.
It's kind of funny how some people bring up that Al-Qaeda was not funded by Saddam (even though the Bush administration would have us believe that), and the response is that Saddam did in fact support terrorism. Funny how the stated fact doesn't get countered, though.
Al-Qaida was not funded by Saddam. At least, there's no evidence that it was, and no suspicion of it. So what? That doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Saddam supported, aided, and assisted al-Qaida, nor does it have anything to do with the fact that Saddam funded other terrorist groups like Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Abu Nidal Organization.
What I mind is being lied to by the President of my country about the reason why we're going to war
If you're going to say that "BUSH LIED!!!" you're going to have to tell me when and how. When did he make a knowingly false statement? For that matter, when did he say ANYTHING which has turned out to be false?
those fuck-heads at GBay
The accepted shorthand is Gitmo. And "those fuck-heads" were at Abu Ghraib, which is in Iraq, many thousands of miles away from Gitmo.
Of course, I do not fault you for not knowing these, you know, BASIC FACTS ABOUT THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN.
What the desenters really want is honesty and a return of pride in their country.
What the "desenters" (please; BASIC LITERACY is a FUCKING REQUIREMENT) really want is to dismantle the Constitution and capitalism. They purport to want to do things like end the war, but they do that just to get naive college kids to sign up to bolster their numbers. Which you fell for, hook, line, and sinker.
What they're complaining about is the administration's policy; they're not calling the troops baby-killers.
No, they're just saying "support armed resistance," which means "kill US troops by shooting them and blowing them up." You're right. That's *much* nicer.
I said Halliburton is getting the money to rebuild Iraq's oil fields.
You said: "With Saddam out of the way spend a bunch of money developing Iraq's oil capacity, most of the money going in to Halliburton's pocket."
You said that "most of the money" from Iraq's oil capacity is "going in to Hallliburton's pocket." That is a falsehood, and when confronted with such, you tried to deny that you ever said it.
Besides, even now you're still wrong! The contract in question does not involve "rebuilding Iraq's oil fields." It involves no new construction of drilling or pumping equipment at all. It includes only putting out fires, capping damaged wells--CAPPING them, meaning STOPPING the flow of oil--and repairing the sabotaged pipeline. No rebuilding at all. No increased production at all.
They have nothing to do with selling the oil, I never said they did, retard.
You said that "most of the money" was "going in to Halliburton's pocket." Which is false. As I've explained.
At this point I really am going to stop wasting time on you.
That's probably wise. The more you write, the deeper the hole into which you've dug yourself. If you bail out now, you can come across simply as a useful idiot and traitor to your country. If you keep going, god knows where you'll end up.
Yes, there are anarchists and communists at those rallies. We generally laugh at them.
I don't know who this mysterious "we" is you're referring to, but the anarchists, communists, socialists, and anti-capitalists are the ones who organize the rallies.
Suddenly the rallies are approaching a million people.
Yeah, I guess 50,000 is "approaching" a million. Sure.
Of course, there were more people at the last Orioles game I went to.
I'd like you to back up your claim that they advocate violence against our troops
"Support armed resistance in Iraq, Palestine and everywhere!" I had to pull out some notes to find it. That was written on a 12' banner at a march in Washington, D.C., about two months ago. That slogan, or something essentially identical to it, was being chanted by a crowd of several thousand that was surrounded by maybe ten thousand more rubberneckers or passersby.
"Support armed resistance" means "kill American troops." Just in case you left your decoder ring at home.
Most of America supported going to war with Iraq, and most of America is disappointed with how the war was implemented. Most Americans believe...
How about talking about what you believe, not about what "most Americans believe?" Because it's blindingly obvious from where I'm sitting that you're wrong about what you think "most Americans believe." So just stick to your own opinions and don't try to put words in other people's mouths.
We have to deal with suicide bombers because of economic and political conditions that we helped create that causes them to believe their life is worth so little.
You're talking about suicide, not murder-bombers. If somebody loses hope and kills himself, that's a tragedy. But when he straps on a Semtex vest and gets on a bus, or when he pulls out a box-cutter and heads to the front of the plane, it's no longer merely tragic. It's absolutely unacceptable.
The system of social and moral ideology that asserts that such behavior is an acceptable response to ANYTHING is a disease that has stricken humanity. It's our responsibility to wipe that disease out. If absolutely necessary, by killing the adherents to that ideology. Otherwise, by convincing them that their attacks will not bring good things to them, but will make their lives ever so much worse.
You seem to have taken a big swig of Bush's Kool-Aid when he said "If you're not with us, you're against us."
Explain how you can be neither? Or both? You can't both advocate and seek to abolish terrorism as an ideology. You can't both advocate the destruction of the United States and seek to preserve it. You can't do both.
Sure sounds to me like Clear Channel Communications was censoring something when they made a list of 160 songs that shouldn't be played after September 11.
You know what "censorship" means. I know what it means. Stop trying to fold, spindle, and mutilate the definition to make people you dislike look bad. That's just childish. Shame on you.
Oh, that's easy
You didn't answer the question. You keep saying that THIS is bad and THAT is bad and THIS is wrong and THAT is wrong and we shouldn't have done THIS or THAT... and I'm fucking sick of it.
THE DECISIONS ARE ALL YOURS. MAKE THEM. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE IN CHARGE?
If you don't have a really, really good answer, I'll thank you to kindly shut the fuck up and leave the policy decisions to people who know more about this than you do.
I know its anathema to you to provide support for all the shit your shoveling but could you please provide a reference.
Uh... we're talking about the Constitution of the United States. Are you kidding me?
It's very short. You can read it yourself. You almost certainly have a copy in your house or place of business at this very moment!
Their is a very specific legal definition of "state of war".
Which is what, exactly?
When a formal declaration of war is issued a whole bunch of international laws kick in.
Like what?
Answers: there is no specific legal definition of "war." War is simply a state of belligerence between two or more nations or quasi-national entities. And what you call "international law" is merely a collection of treaties among nations. If you're referring to the Geneva Conventions, those apply anywhere a state of belligerence exists. There's no requirement for any paperwork to be filed or anything like that.
But, of course, the Geneva Conventions are not laws. They're not even treaties. They're merely conventions. They're not technically binding. No authority exists that can enforce them.
Friend, someday you need to take the blinders off and see the rest of the world.
By all means, educate me. If you can do it without being completely wrong about all of your assertions, I mean.
If you can't support this bullshit stop throwing it out.
But I'm not even saying things that are new information to you. I'm saying things that have been on the front page of every newspaper for two years. The link between Saddam and al-Qaida is on the front page TODAY.
I am not responsible for your ignorance. The fact that you have never heard of it does not make it any less true.
They were. They were asked to move from the secured area to a non-secured area, and they complied.
The Secret Service under the Bush administration has taken to sorting demonstrators.
That's not correct.
If you read the article the "free speech" zone was a half mile away
It was far enough that the President could enter and exit the area without concerns about gunshots from the crowd.
Its not entirely clear from the article but I'm guess the guy either concealed what his sign said so he got in the Pro Bush demonstration area, either that or he snuck in.
I'm not sure where you got that information. It's false. There were no "areas." There was just one area, the secured area where no one was allowed to be.
Security saw his anti bush sign and he was arrested for nothing more than engaging in FREE SPEACH.
No, the Secret Service saw someone standing in a place where he was not allowed to be, so they asked him to move. He refused, became belligerent and hostile, and so was arrested for trespassing.
The key point here is these free speech zones aren't for free speech, they are to suppress free speech.
The key point here is that you are spreading falsehoods. You should be ashamed.
This guy is facing six months in jail because he stood up for his right to free speech
He is facing six months in jail (oh, the tragedy of a totalitarian state) because he became hostile with security personnel who were charged with protecting the President of the United States. He was required to vacate a secured area and he refused, and now he's in jail.
God forbid Bush might accidentally see someone who doesn't agree with him.
The first amendment does not guarantee you the right to get in the President's face. It does not guarantee you the right to approach a secured area in a hostile fashion and remain there unmolested by the President's security detail.
You simply can't stand anyone who disagrees with you.
I have absolutely no problem with people who disagree with me. I have a very, very serious problem with people who are liars or fools.
You resort to a none stop barrage of name calling, "traitor", "fool", "nutcase", "blind", etc.
Nonstop, eh?
Bush uses the Secret Service and the FBI to silence his critics, and when you put people in pens out of sight that is what they are doing.
The policy of providing personal security for the President of the United States is not a new one, nor is it one that anybody with half a brain would want changed.
Now, let me ask you a question. How many Presidential details have you ever personally witnessed? How many Presidential press pools have you participated in? How many Secret Service agents do you know by name? How many members of the President's detail have received Christmas cards from you? How many times have you actually been in the situation?
Please stop spreading lies. Your agenda is already clear; you don't need to try to advance it by lying.
Using your logic I'm guessing your suggest the U.S. invade Saudi Arabia next then because they fund more terrorism than anyone.
The government of the Saudi Kingdom, in cooperation with the US Treasury Department, has done more to crack down on terrorist funding than any other nation in the world. The Saudis recently shut down an entire network of Muslim charities, in fact, specifically because they were sources of terrorist funding.
We don't invade countries just because we feel like it. We invade countries when those countries refuse to join the fight against terrorism. Afghanistan under the Taliban refused. Iraq under Saddam refused. Saudi Arabia did not refuse, and in fact has led the way in many respects.
Is the Kingdom perfect? Hell, no. But they are our ally.
Your arguments aren't even self consistent.
Yeah, that's pretty much wrong, too, you see.
The fact your memory and facts appear consistently very faulty doesn't seem to slow you down spouting things as fact which aren't.
Well, you've yet to correct me on anything, while I've taken you to school repeatedly now. So I guess it's fair to say that I see things a little differently.
Excuse me, but what's the relation with Iraq and all thoses events ?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Also, there's the fact that Qaddafi has gone on record saying that he changed his nation's policy because he was afraid of an invasion by the United States. He was afraid of what happened to Iraq.
Iraq links to terrorisms and bin laden are quite weak
The links to terrorism are absolute and irrefutable. Saddam paid Arab terrorists to murder Israelis. Saddam gave Abu Nidal safe harbor inside Iraq during the 1990's. Saddam gave members of al-Qaida safe harbor inside Iraq in late 2001 and let them stay there all the way through ultimatum after ultimatum until his government fell. Saddam sent a member of his personal militia--the Fedayeen Saddam--to Kuala Lumpur to coordinate a meeting of the al-Qaida terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.
The links are absolute and irrefutable. Why do you deny them? What purpose could you possibly have in denying them? Surely you don't support Islamist terrorism, do you?
Do you know what Saddam wanted to do ? sell is oil using Euro.
Yawn. That old conspiracy theory? That one was debunked years ago. What's next? Are you going to post a link to that French site that claims that no aircraft struck the Pentagon, and that the World Trade Towers were brought down by Mossad demolitionists? How about that book about how the CIA staged the moon landings, or how McNamara killed Kennedy?
Calling people traitors just because they don't see things your way is a little beyond name calling.
I'm calling you a traitor BECAUSE YOU ARE A TRAITOR. You advocate the surrender of the United States in the face of an enemy that wants to destroy us. You advocate, in other words, the destruction of the United States of America. Your position on this is crystal-clear. And that makes you a traitor.
If you want to change this state of affairs, all it takes is a renunciation. All you have to do is say, "I support the victory of the United States over the forces of Islamism who wish to destroy our country and our way of life," or something substantively similar to that. That's all it takes.
Of course, you have to mean it. I'm willing to take your word on that one.
So what's your position? Do you support the United States, or do you support the Islamists?
You seem to be of the Bush "my way or the highway" school.
No, I'm of the "my way, or an acceptable alternative way, but I have no patience for people who have nothing constructive to say or for people who are willing to see their country defeated" school.
Sorry if that leaves you feeling a bit of the cold shoulder.
KBR (Halliburton subsidiary) was given the no bid contract to do the cleanup you describe last march.
Right, that's what I said. Capping damaged wells, cleaning up spills, repairing the pipeline.
And why was Halliburton given that contract, you ask? Because they're the best in the world at it. If anybody else had been given the contract, it would have been a disservice to the Iraqi people to whom that oil actually belongs.
But your position was that Halliburton will be getting money from the sale of Iraqi oil. That's completely false. Every dime from the sale of Iraqi oil goes to the Iraqi oil ministry, until such time as they privatize their oil fields. (Soon, I hope, for their sakes.)
There is barely enough oil production to satisfy demand with Saudi Arabia pumping at the upper end of their capacity.
The OPEC countries are presently pumping at an estimated 21% of their total capacity. The capacity of the Caspian Sea basin hasn't even been tapped yet, and the North Sea fields have been pumping under capacity for nearly a decade now.
And still, worldwide supplies of crude oil regularly exceed demand, which is why OPEC cuts production to keep the price stable. The recent decision to increase production was highly unusual, and therefore noteworthy.
We--globally--have more oil than we can use right now.
If they shut it off oil prices would spiral out of control.
They did shut it off, in 1973, and worldwide oil supplies decreased by a mere 5%. The price skyrocketed for a time, but corrected itself before OPEC production resumed. And that was all of OPEC, not merely Saudi Arabia.
If you think the U.S. can rely on Venezuela for its oil think again.
At 13% of our oil supply, Venezuela is our 4th biggest oil trading partner, after Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Mexico. And that's today.
They still sell oil to the U.S. but are not inclined to do the U.S. any favors.
Favors? What favors? They have oil and need to sell it. We want oil and choose to buy it. What favors?
Iraq is struggling to get its oil production back to the levels it was at before the invasion.
Pre-war, Iraq was pumping around 2.3 million barrels of oil a day. Exports have been around 1.8 million barrels a day recently. Iraqi oil production, in other words, is 80% of where it was before the invasion. Once the Basra terminal comes fully back on line (it was damaged in a sabotage attack last week), that number should climb to 2.4 million, or 105% of prewar levels.
In July, 1990, Iraq produced 3.5 million barrels of oil a day. It's going to be a while before they get back there, certainly.
Actually, the use of the atomic bomb could quite easily be mapped on your definition of terrorism.
Oh, please. Go read a history book before dipping your toe into this topic. I've lost count of how many times some undereducated dilettante tried to call the bombings of Japan terrorism. It just doesn't work.
The purpose of those bombings was not to induce fear in the populace. The purpose of those bombings was to remove the Empire's will to carry out the war to the bitter end. The bombings killed perhaps 300,000 people, if you include EVERYBODY who died of cancer who was anywhere near the two cities. An invasion of the Home Islands would have killed three times that many: a million American soldiers and two million Japanese soldiers, partisans, and civilians.
The difference between the conduct of the end of the war with Japan and the present conduct of the war with Islamism is blindingly obvious. The fact that you have to squint and strain to find similarities, ignoring whole swaths of fact along the way, should be a testament to how bankrupt your argument is.
We found stockpiles of prohibited artillery weapons and prohibited ballistic missiles. We found chemical bombs. We were ATTACKED with chemical bombs just recently. We found binary and multiplex chemical agents. We found bacterial growth media. We found facilities for producing chemical and biological weapons. We found a very large chemical weapon in the back of a van crossing the Jordanian border with Syria; that weapon has been traced to Iraq.
These are ALL things that Saddam's regime was prohibited from having by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire.
If violation of the 1991 cease-fire and defiance of Security Council mandates were our only cause for war, then that cause has been borne out.
Bush told us that Saddam was behind 9/11.
That never happened. Produce a single quote. Produce ONE QUOTE from ANY member of the administration that says Saddam was behind 9/11. JUST ONE.
Saddam supported terrorism. He supported terrorism financially, with payments to murder-bombers. He supported terrorism materially by giving al-Qaida members safe harbor in his country after the fall of the Taliban. And now, after seizing regime records, we know that he supported terrorism directly by using Iraqi Military Intelligence operatives to facilitate the very meeting at which the 9/11 attack was planned in January, 2000. An Iraqi Military Intelligence operative and member of the Fedayeen Saddam personally drove two of the 9/11 hijackers to the site of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur. On September 11, 1991, those two hijackers were aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
Practically all the hijackers were from SAUDI ARABIA. Where is al-Queda funded? Very largely, out of Saudi Arabia.
Yes, but did Saudi Arabia help the hijackers? Does the government of Saudi Arabia provide financial or material aid to terrorists? Or do you advocate that we overthrow OUR ALLY the Saudi Kingdom simply because the hijackers were born in that country?
Arguing that we didn't have cause for war against Iraq but we did against Saudi Arabia is just plain dumb.
So what's left?
What's left? The ENTIRE CASE FOR WAR is left, because you failed to refute any part of it.
Indeed, it is extremely hard to see why Mr Thurmond has picked on Mr Bursey out of all the people in the Secret Service zone. None of the other protesters with him was arrested.
That's because they were asked to move, and they moved.
Neither were any of the several hundred supporters of the president who were holding equally dangerous (but pro-Bush) signs as they stood near the hangar where the president was to speak.
That's because they were asked to move, and they moved.
Is the Economist article biased?
I don't know about bias, per se, but it's certainly incomplete. It left out the part about Bursey's aggressiveness toward security personnel, for instance, which in and of itself is grounds for his arrest, sign or no sign.
You're a fucking fool with his head buried in the sand. You repeatedly deny and question FACTS that have been ESTABLISHED months and months ago. You try to separate the casus belli into component parts--WMD, cease-fire violations, terrorism, aggression--and argue them one by one, but you can't wrap your head around the fact that ALL WERE PRESENT AT THE SAME TIME.
You are a fucking fool with his head buried in the sand. Be ashamed of yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
God bless you, Pave Low, for trying to bring some truth and sanity into this forum.
Your tagline is right on the money as well.
The job of the editors is to post stories which generate hits to the site. Slashdot plays the self serving FUD game just as well as your favorite evil mega-corp.
Most insightful comment I've seen posted here all day.
There's a damn good argument to be made that Slashdot is best served when the stories are inflammatory and riddled with falsehoods.
We shouldn't need a reason to not give information. Rather, the Goverment should need a reason todemand it.
Yeah, sure. On paper, that makes sense. In practice, requiring people to identify themselves to police officers (as long as such identification isn't self-incriminating) is an important part of promoting the general welfare. And it abridges in absolutely no way anybody's right to privacy, free speech, peaceable assembly, or any of the other expressed or implied civil rights.
We always decried countries where police could demand "papers'' at will for no reason. Now we are, i n effect, one of those countries.
No, we are not. You are not required to carry identification, nor are you required to present it to any police officer. (Exceptions involving things like getting carded to buy beer and presenting your passport at the border are obvious and do not require discussion.)
Which is it am I allowed to read and cite newspapers or aren't I.
Basic reading comprehension is failing us again, I see.
You should read the whole story. Merely reading the headline or the lede is not sufficient. Merely listening to the sound bites on TV is not sufficient. You should read entire stories, get all the facts, and then draw conclusions. Only then can you consider yourself informed on the subject.
This is another instance where your posts are contradicting themselves within the space of a few hours.
Well, obviously I didn't contradict myself for starters. Furthermore, if this is another instance, where was a previous instance?
You keep telling me that I've been refuted, that I've contradicted myself. But you're going to have to show me where these things have happened, because I ain't seein' it.
Maybe it started after your last contact with Presidential security.
My last contact with Presidential security was this afternoon at about 3:45.
How many more references do you need.
Well, given that I have firsthand knowledge that contradicts your Googling, I guess it's fair to tell you that no number of links would be sufficient. I've been there, I've talked to the people involved, I've seen the things you're referring to. You've got it wrong.
How much longer are you going to keep saying stuff that is so easily refuted and continue to pretend like are the definitive authority and always right on every subject.
Refuted? Show me one instance of my being refuted. And no, your little exercise here doesn't count, because I literally deal with what you're talking about every day, and you don't have it right.
What exactly do or did you do for a living?
I think you can figure that out easily enough. I've been posting here for a long time... although I'm starting to think that that might not be a worthwhile use of my spare time any more.
You are the dangerous one here.
Okay. Whatever you say.
If you can post URL's from the Post supporting your bullshit do it.
No, thanks. It's your responsibility to read. It's not my responsibility to read to you.
I spend enough of my damn time WRITING the articles. It's entirely too much to expect me to email you copies as well.
I'll give you thousands or maybe ten thousand have landed there once we toppled Saddam and left Iraq's borders largely ungaurded and the place in a state of near anarchy.
Ansar al-Islam. Jund al-Islam. Read up on them.
I think I'll wait until someone unbiased actually investigates it, thank you, which is what the people from the 9/11 commission said.
No. "The people" from the 9/11 Commission said, and I'm quoting here, "The Vice President was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have." "The people" was former Secretary of the Navy and Commissioner John Lehman.
That's not all he said, either. Go read.
The Bush administration has made claim after claim and they've proven to be false or forged every time.
There has not been a SINGLE instance of an administration claim turning out to be false or forged. NOT ONE.
Saddam was buying Yellowcake in Niger, based on forged documents
DOCUMENT. One document, according to Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was forged. And yet the evidence of Iraqi deals to purchase uranium oxide in Niger did not consist entirely of that one document. Furthermore, the British intelligence service that provided us with that document stands by its authenticity to this day.
At the very worst, you might say that the authenticity of one document related to uranium oxide purchases by Iraq is in doubt. Okay. No problem. Thing is, though, that this does not trump the overwhelming evidence which is not in doubt.
And, of course, there's that uranium oxide residue which was found on a shipment of Iraqi scrap steel that found its way to Rotterdam back in January. I guess you probably think that was forged, too, huh?
The lead 9/11 hijacker met with Iraqi agents in Prague, per the 9/11 commision he was in U.S. on the day this meeting was supposed to occur.
No. His cell phone was in the US on the day of the meeting. A cell phone that (1) was known to have been used by other conspirators during the lead-up to 9/11, and (2) wouldn't have worked in Europe anyway. What we do not have are voice intercepts that actually link Atta to his phone during the time he's believed to have been in Prague.
Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, definitely. No question about it. They said so themselves, and besides we have found and destroyed stockpiles of same.
In many instances the information was essentially single sourced from defecters controlled by Challibi who were lying to get the U.S. to overthrow Saddam so Challibi could take over.
Whether that's true or not, WE HAVE FOUND AND DESTROYED STOCKPILES OF SAME.
Its awfully convenient that this information just came to light when people have been looking for a link for more than a year to no avail, and the 9/11 commission just embarrassed the Bush administration on the subject.
The information didn't "just come to light." The link between Iraq and al-Qaida prior to 9/11 has been public knowledge since November of 2003, when my good friend Steve Hayes published a lengthy article about it in the Weekly Standard. He's since gone on to publish a book on the subject. One you would benefit greatly from reading. You can probably even find a copy at your public library.
And the only people the Commission embarrassed were themselves, by releasing a preliminary statement that didn't take into account whole bodies of evidence, both classified and unclassified. It was shoddy work, and they know it.
And what have we learned from this, boys and girls? That's right! That dictionaries don't tell us everything we need to know!
Florida is a LONG glide from Russia for something that effectively drops like a brick.
Which reminds me of something I heard once about the Shuttle Atlantis.
"How would you like," the pithy quote goes, "to try to land a dead-stick glider on a tiny strip of land in the middle of the ocean when the vehicle you're riding in was named after something that disappeared beneath the ocean without a trace?"
Operation Enduring Freedom took place in Afghanistan, not in Iraq.
So, we're to stamp them out?
If necessary. Whatever it takes to get them to stop.
Make sure they don't have a choice to live as they want?
You can live how you want, but when you start talking about imposing brutal, oppressive, theocratic, totalitarian rule on whole nations of free people, we've got a problem. When you start talking about waging war to destroy the United States of America, we've got a problem.
The fact that many Muslims believe that their religion should have a say in thier government, just throw that out and save the savages?
Basically, yeah. It's not much more complex than that. Are you familiar with the notion of "informed consent?" There are circumstances in which you can say okay to something without it being informed consent. If you're not in your right mind, like if you're on drugs or mentally ill, you're not capable of giving informed consent. If you're underage, you can't give informed consent. And there are certain things that you can't consent to no matter what the circumstances. You can't consent to be murdered, for example.
A person cannot consent to live under totalitarianism. Legitimate government exists with the consent of the governed, and a key aspect of that consent is the ability to revoke it at any time. Under a totalitarian government, you can't say no. You can't vote the bums out. So that form of government is not legitimate, and must not be tolerated.
In other words, if every Muslim in the world got together and said, "You know, Islamism is the way to go," that STILL wouldn't make it right.
BTW, Islamism? What The Fuck is That?
Sigh. I'm sorry to use so many big, scary words. I know they trouble you. Let me see if I can't explain it simply.
If you take Islam, which is a religion, and combine it with oppressive social structures, a totalitarian government, the denial of fundamental rights and liberties, and an expansionist policy that seeks world domination, you get this ideology that we call Islamism.
It's not a "fucking (poorly) made up word," it's just a word that you're not sufficiently educated to have been exposed to before.
I hope that wasn't too scary for you. I know I'm asking you to use your big old brain here, but I hope you'll be able to get through it without too much mewling or whining.
Support? READ A GODDAMN NEWSPAPER. These are facts. In fact, go get a copy of the Post RIGHT NOW. Right this very minute. There's information in that you really ought to have... evidently.
Do you think for once you could provide just one teeny little URL to support this bullshit isntead of making us take your word for it time after time.
You want a URL? Use Google that's what it's there for. Why is it suddenly my responsibility to cough up links to stories that YOU SHOULD HAVE READ months and years ago? You have a responsibility to educate yourself about the events of the world around you. That's because you have franchise--assuming you're over 18, an assumption I'm not completely willing to make at this point--and with franchise comes that responsibility.
EDUCATE YOURSELF. I'll repeat myself here: just because you haven't heard it doesn't make it any less true.
People a lot better than you have been looking for proof of ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq and there simply hasn't been any.
Sigh.
Fine.
Since you're so unbelievably unable to READ FOR YOURSELF, I'll read FOR YOU.
The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said yesterday.
Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the new intelligence, if proved true, buttresses claims by the Bush administration of ties between Iraq and the militant network believed responsible for the attacks on the United States.
"We are now in the process of getting this latest intelligence," Lehman said.
Lehman said the information, contained in "captured documents," was obtained after the commission report was written that stated there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. "Some of these documents indicate that [there was] at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," Lehman said. "That still has to be confirmed, but the vice president was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have," said Lehman, a former Navy secretary.
That's a summary of an event that happened just a couple of hours ago. Don't you DARE think that that's the whole story, or that those are all the facts. You get off your LAZY ASS and go READ FOR YOURSELF, so you can be EDUCATED and draw SENSIBLE CONCLUSIONS.
Neither I nor any other member of the media or any employee of the government is going to come to your house with a PowerPoint and a laser pointer. You have a responsibility to READ FOR YOURSELF.
The U.S. has complete control of Iraq and Afghanistan, all of their ministries and all their documents. You would think they could come up with a little teensy bit of evidence of this massive alleged conspiracy between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"I haven't heard of it, so therefore it must not exist." Fool.
Its a given that Iraq supported Palastinians but thats true of every Arab government in the region.
Find me one other "Arab government in the region" that wrote $25,000 checks to murderers.
The U.S. supports Israel as it kills Palastinian civilians, the Arab governments support the Palastinians as they kill Israeli civlians.
Holy fucking Christ. You really are uninformed. Or, as I have believed all along, so colossally stupid that you can't understand the world around you.
Since you're such a supporter of ending evil in this world, I'm sure you didn't vote for Bush in 2000, right?
In fact, I voted for Gore, and I was greatly disappointed in the outcome of the election. I'm still a registered Democrat, come to think of it. I guess you'd call me a 9/11 Democrat.
It's kind of funny how some people bring up that Al-Qaeda was not funded by Saddam (even though the Bush administration would have us believe that), and the response is that Saddam did in fact support terrorism. Funny how the stated fact doesn't get countered, though.
Al-Qaida was not funded by Saddam. At least, there's no evidence that it was, and no suspicion of it. So what? That doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Saddam supported, aided, and assisted al-Qaida, nor does it have anything to do with the fact that Saddam funded other terrorist groups like Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Abu Nidal Organization.
What I mind is being lied to by the President of my country about the reason why we're going to war
If you're going to say that "BUSH LIED!!!" you're going to have to tell me when and how. When did he make a knowingly false statement? For that matter, when did he say ANYTHING which has turned out to be false?
those fuck-heads at GBay
The accepted shorthand is Gitmo. And "those fuck-heads" were at Abu Ghraib, which is in Iraq, many thousands of miles away from Gitmo.
Of course, I do not fault you for not knowing these, you know, BASIC FACTS ABOUT THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN.
What the desenters really want is honesty and a return of pride in their country.
What the "desenters" (please; BASIC LITERACY is a FUCKING REQUIREMENT) really want is to dismantle the Constitution and capitalism. They purport to want to do things like end the war, but they do that just to get naive college kids to sign up to bolster their numbers. Which you fell for, hook, line, and sinker.
What they're complaining about is the administration's policy; they're not calling the troops baby-killers.
No, they're just saying "support armed resistance," which means "kill US troops by shooting them and blowing them up." You're right. That's *much* nicer.
I said Halliburton is getting the money to rebuild Iraq's oil fields.
You said: "With Saddam out of the way spend a bunch of money developing Iraq's oil capacity, most of the money going in to Halliburton's pocket."
You said that "most of the money" from Iraq's oil capacity is "going in to Hallliburton's pocket." That is a falsehood, and when confronted with such, you tried to deny that you ever said it.
Besides, even now you're still wrong! The contract in question does not involve "rebuilding Iraq's oil fields." It involves no new construction of drilling or pumping equipment at all. It includes only putting out fires, capping damaged wells--CAPPING them, meaning STOPPING the flow of oil--and repairing the sabotaged pipeline. No rebuilding at all. No increased production at all.
They have nothing to do with selling the oil, I never said they did, retard.
You said that "most of the money" was "going in to Halliburton's pocket." Which is false. As I've explained.
At this point I really am going to stop wasting time on you.
That's probably wise. The more you write, the deeper the hole into which you've dug yourself. If you bail out now, you can come across simply as a useful idiot and traitor to your country. If you keep going, god knows where you'll end up.
Yes, there are anarchists and communists at those rallies. We generally laugh at them.
I don't know who this mysterious "we" is you're referring to, but the anarchists, communists, socialists, and anti-capitalists are the ones who organize the rallies.
Suddenly the rallies are approaching a million people.
Yeah, I guess 50,000 is "approaching" a million. Sure.
Of course, there were more people at the last Orioles game I went to.
I'd like you to back up your claim that they advocate violence against our troops
"Support armed resistance in Iraq, Palestine and everywhere!" I had to pull out some notes to find it. That was written on a 12' banner at a march in Washington, D.C., about two months ago. That slogan, or something essentially identical to it, was being chanted by a crowd of several thousand that was surrounded by maybe ten thousand more rubberneckers or passersby.
"Support armed resistance" means "kill American troops." Just in case you left your decoder ring at home.
Most of America supported going to war with Iraq, and most of America is disappointed with how the war was implemented. Most Americans believe...
How about talking about what you believe, not about what "most Americans believe?" Because it's blindingly obvious from where I'm sitting that you're wrong about what you think "most Americans believe." So just stick to your own opinions and don't try to put words in other people's mouths.
We have to deal with suicide bombers because of economic and political conditions that we helped create that causes them to believe their life is worth so little.
You're talking about suicide, not murder-bombers. If somebody loses hope and kills himself, that's a tragedy. But when he straps on a Semtex vest and gets on a bus, or when he pulls out a box-cutter and heads to the front of the plane, it's no longer merely tragic. It's absolutely unacceptable.
The system of social and moral ideology that asserts that such behavior is an acceptable response to ANYTHING is a disease that has stricken humanity. It's our responsibility to wipe that disease out. If absolutely necessary, by killing the adherents to that ideology. Otherwise, by convincing them that their attacks will not bring good things to them, but will make their lives ever so much worse.
You seem to have taken a big swig of Bush's Kool-Aid when he said "If you're not with us, you're against us."
Explain how you can be neither? Or both? You can't both advocate and seek to abolish terrorism as an ideology. You can't both advocate the destruction of the United States and seek to preserve it. You can't do both.
Sure sounds to me like Clear Channel Communications was censoring something when they made a list of 160 songs that shouldn't be played after September 11.
You know what "censorship" means. I know what it means. Stop trying to fold, spindle, and mutilate the definition to make people you dislike look bad. That's just childish. Shame on you.
Oh, that's easy
You didn't answer the question. You keep saying that THIS is bad and THAT is bad and THIS is wrong and THAT is wrong and we shouldn't have done THIS or THAT... and I'm fucking sick of it.
THE DECISIONS ARE ALL YOURS. MAKE THEM. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE IN CHARGE?
If you don't have a really, really good answer, I'll thank you to kindly shut the fuck up and leave the policy decisions to people who know more about this than you do.
I know its anathema to you to provide support for all the shit your shoveling but could you please provide a reference.
Uh... we're talking about the Constitution of the United States. Are you kidding me?
It's very short. You can read it yourself. You almost certainly have a copy in your house or place of business at this very moment!
Their is a very specific legal definition of "state of war".
Which is what, exactly?
When a formal declaration of war is issued a whole bunch of international laws kick in.
Like what?
Answers: there is no specific legal definition of "war." War is simply a state of belligerence between two or more nations or quasi-national entities. And what you call "international law" is merely a collection of treaties among nations. If you're referring to the Geneva Conventions, those apply anywhere a state of belligerence exists. There's no requirement for any paperwork to be filed or anything like that.
But, of course, the Geneva Conventions are not laws. They're not even treaties. They're merely conventions. They're not technically binding. No authority exists that can enforce them.
Friend, someday you need to take the blinders off and see the rest of the world.
By all means, educate me. If you can do it without being completely wrong about all of your assertions, I mean.
If you can't support this bullshit stop throwing it out.
But I'm not even saying things that are new information to you. I'm saying things that have been on the front page of every newspaper for two years. The link between Saddam and al-Qaida is on the front page TODAY.
I am not responsible for your ignorance. The fact that you have never heard of it does not make it any less true.
I really don't picture him the sort of man to put up a strawman just to be able to knock it down.
Guess what, Sparky?
I've met plenty of Americans of the 'my country right or wrong' variety
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right." Carl Schurz.
Yes, you're a fool. You're a fool because you don't understand the very sentiment you're decrying.
Would you mind expanding on what exactly is meant by "supporting the troops?"
I've done that already. Why don't you read what I've already written?
The pro Bush protestors weren't asked to move.
They were. They were asked to move from the secured area to a non-secured area, and they complied.
The Secret Service under the Bush administration has taken to sorting demonstrators.
That's not correct.
If you read the article the "free speech" zone was a half mile away
It was far enough that the President could enter and exit the area without concerns about gunshots from the crowd.
Its not entirely clear from the article but I'm guess the guy either concealed what his sign said so he got in the Pro Bush demonstration area, either that or he snuck in.
I'm not sure where you got that information. It's false. There were no "areas." There was just one area, the secured area where no one was allowed to be.
Security saw his anti bush sign and he was arrested for nothing more than engaging in FREE SPEACH.
No, the Secret Service saw someone standing in a place where he was not allowed to be, so they asked him to move. He refused, became belligerent and hostile, and so was arrested for trespassing.
The key point here is these free speech zones aren't for free speech, they are to suppress free speech.
The key point here is that you are spreading falsehoods. You should be ashamed.
This guy is facing six months in jail because he stood up for his right to free speech
He is facing six months in jail (oh, the tragedy of a totalitarian state) because he became hostile with security personnel who were charged with protecting the President of the United States. He was required to vacate a secured area and he refused, and now he's in jail.
God forbid Bush might accidentally see someone who doesn't agree with him.
The first amendment does not guarantee you the right to get in the President's face. It does not guarantee you the right to approach a secured area in a hostile fashion and remain there unmolested by the President's security detail.
You simply can't stand anyone who disagrees with you.
I have absolutely no problem with people who disagree with me. I have a very, very serious problem with people who are liars or fools.
You resort to a none stop barrage of name calling, "traitor", "fool", "nutcase", "blind", etc.
Nonstop, eh?
Bush uses the Secret Service and the FBI to silence his critics, and when you put people in pens out of sight that is what they are doing.
The policy of providing personal security for the President of the United States is not a new one, nor is it one that anybody with half a brain would want changed.
Now, let me ask you a question. How many Presidential details have you ever personally witnessed? How many Presidential press pools have you participated in? How many Secret Service agents do you know by name? How many members of the President's detail have received Christmas cards from you? How many times have you actually been in the situation?
Please stop spreading lies. Your agenda is already clear; you don't need to try to advance it by lying.
Using your logic I'm guessing your suggest the U.S. invade Saudi Arabia next then because they fund more terrorism than anyone.
The government of the Saudi Kingdom, in cooperation with the US Treasury Department, has done more to crack down on terrorist funding than any other nation in the world. The Saudis recently shut down an entire network of Muslim charities, in fact, specifically because they were sources of terrorist funding.
We don't invade countries just because we feel like it. We invade countries when those countries refuse to join the fight against terrorism. Afghanistan under the Taliban refused. Iraq under Saddam refused. Saudi Arabia did not refuse, and in fact has led the way in many respects.
Is the Kingdom perfect? Hell, no. But they are our ally.
Your arguments aren't even self consistent.
Yeah, that's pretty much wrong, too, you see.
The fact your memory and facts appear consistently very faulty doesn't seem to slow you down spouting things as fact which aren't.
Well, you've yet to correct me on anything, while I've taken you to school repeatedly now. So I guess it's fair to say that I see things a little differently.
Excuse me, but what's the relation with Iraq and all thoses events ?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Also, there's the fact that Qaddafi has gone on record saying that he changed his nation's policy because he was afraid of an invasion by the United States. He was afraid of what happened to Iraq.
Iraq links to terrorisms and bin laden are quite weak
The links to terrorism are absolute and irrefutable. Saddam paid Arab terrorists to murder Israelis. Saddam gave Abu Nidal safe harbor inside Iraq during the 1990's. Saddam gave members of al-Qaida safe harbor inside Iraq in late 2001 and let them stay there all the way through ultimatum after ultimatum until his government fell. Saddam sent a member of his personal militia--the Fedayeen Saddam--to Kuala Lumpur to coordinate a meeting of the al-Qaida terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.
The links are absolute and irrefutable. Why do you deny them? What purpose could you possibly have in denying them? Surely you don't support Islamist terrorism, do you?
Do you know what Saddam wanted to do ? sell is oil using Euro.
Yawn. That old conspiracy theory? That one was debunked years ago. What's next? Are you going to post a link to that French site that claims that no aircraft struck the Pentagon, and that the World Trade Towers were brought down by Mossad demolitionists? How about that book about how the CIA staged the moon landings, or how McNamara killed Kennedy?
Yet another nutcase with an Internet connection.
Calling people traitors just because they don't see things your way is a little beyond name calling.
I'm calling you a traitor BECAUSE YOU ARE A TRAITOR. You advocate the surrender of the United States in the face of an enemy that wants to destroy us. You advocate, in other words, the destruction of the United States of America. Your position on this is crystal-clear. And that makes you a traitor.
If you want to change this state of affairs, all it takes is a renunciation. All you have to do is say, "I support the victory of the United States over the forces of Islamism who wish to destroy our country and our way of life," or something substantively similar to that. That's all it takes.
Of course, you have to mean it. I'm willing to take your word on that one.
So what's your position? Do you support the United States, or do you support the Islamists?
You seem to be of the Bush "my way or the highway" school.
No, I'm of the "my way, or an acceptable alternative way, but I have no patience for people who have nothing constructive to say or for people who are willing to see their country defeated" school.
Sorry if that leaves you feeling a bit of the cold shoulder.
KBR (Halliburton subsidiary) was given the no bid contract to do the cleanup you describe last march.
Right, that's what I said. Capping damaged wells, cleaning up spills, repairing the pipeline.
And why was Halliburton given that contract, you ask? Because they're the best in the world at it. If anybody else had been given the contract, it would have been a disservice to the Iraqi people to whom that oil actually belongs.
But your position was that Halliburton will be getting money from the sale of Iraqi oil. That's completely false. Every dime from the sale of Iraqi oil goes to the Iraqi oil ministry, until such time as they privatize their oil fields. (Soon, I hope, for their sakes.)
There is barely enough oil production to satisfy demand with Saudi Arabia pumping at the upper end of their capacity.
The OPEC countries are presently pumping at an estimated 21% of their total capacity. The capacity of the Caspian Sea basin hasn't even been tapped yet, and the North Sea fields have been pumping under capacity for nearly a decade now.
And still, worldwide supplies of crude oil regularly exceed demand, which is why OPEC cuts production to keep the price stable. The recent decision to increase production was highly unusual, and therefore noteworthy.
We--globally--have more oil than we can use right now.
If they shut it off oil prices would spiral out of control.
They did shut it off, in 1973, and worldwide oil supplies decreased by a mere 5%. The price skyrocketed for a time, but corrected itself before OPEC production resumed. And that was all of OPEC, not merely Saudi Arabia.
If you think the U.S. can rely on Venezuela for its oil think again.
At 13% of our oil supply, Venezuela is our 4th biggest oil trading partner, after Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Mexico. And that's today.
They still sell oil to the U.S. but are not inclined to do the U.S. any favors.
Favors? What favors? They have oil and need to sell it. We want oil and choose to buy it. What favors?
Iraq is struggling to get its oil production back to the levels it was at before the invasion.
Pre-war, Iraq was pumping around 2.3 million barrels of oil a day. Exports have been around 1.8 million barrels a day recently. Iraqi oil production, in other words, is 80% of where it was before the invasion. Once the Basra terminal comes fully back on line (it was damaged in a sabotage attack last week), that number should climb to 2.4 million, or 105% of prewar levels.
In July, 1990, Iraq produced 3.5 million barrels of oil a day. It's going to be a while before they get back there, certainly.
Oil out of Iraq's souther terminal
Actually, the use of the atomic bomb could quite easily be mapped on your definition of terrorism.
Oh, please. Go read a history book before dipping your toe into this topic. I've lost count of how many times some undereducated dilettante tried to call the bombings of Japan terrorism. It just doesn't work.
The purpose of those bombings was not to induce fear in the populace. The purpose of those bombings was to remove the Empire's will to carry out the war to the bitter end. The bombings killed perhaps 300,000 people, if you include EVERYBODY who died of cancer who was anywhere near the two cities. An invasion of the Home Islands would have killed three times that many: a million American soldiers and two million Japanese soldiers, partisans, and civilians.
The difference between the conduct of the end of the war with Japan and the present conduct of the war with Islamism is blindingly obvious. The fact that you have to squint and strain to find similarities, ignoring whole swaths of fact along the way, should be a testament to how bankrupt your argument is.
Bush said "WMD". Nobody found any.
We found stockpiles of prohibited artillery weapons and prohibited ballistic missiles. We found chemical bombs. We were ATTACKED with chemical bombs just recently. We found binary and multiplex chemical agents. We found bacterial growth media. We found facilities for producing chemical and biological weapons. We found a very large chemical weapon in the back of a van crossing the Jordanian border with Syria; that weapon has been traced to Iraq.
These are ALL things that Saddam's regime was prohibited from having by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire.
If violation of the 1991 cease-fire and defiance of Security Council mandates were our only cause for war, then that cause has been borne out.
Bush told us that Saddam was behind 9/11.
That never happened. Produce a single quote. Produce ONE QUOTE from ANY member of the administration that says Saddam was behind 9/11. JUST ONE.
Saddam supported terrorism. He supported terrorism financially, with payments to murder-bombers. He supported terrorism materially by giving al-Qaida members safe harbor in his country after the fall of the Taliban. And now, after seizing regime records, we know that he supported terrorism directly by using Iraqi Military Intelligence operatives to facilitate the very meeting at which the 9/11 attack was planned in January, 2000. An Iraqi Military Intelligence operative and member of the Fedayeen Saddam personally drove two of the 9/11 hijackers to the site of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur. On September 11, 1991, those two hijackers were aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
Practically all the hijackers were from SAUDI ARABIA. Where is al-Queda funded? Very largely, out of Saudi Arabia.
Yes, but did Saudi Arabia help the hijackers? Does the government of Saudi Arabia provide financial or material aid to terrorists? Or do you advocate that we overthrow OUR ALLY the Saudi Kingdom simply because the hijackers were born in that country?
Arguing that we didn't have cause for war against Iraq but we did against Saudi Arabia is just plain dumb.
So what's left?
What's left? The ENTIRE CASE FOR WAR is left, because you failed to refute any part of it.
it means that once was/conflict starts then all internal critisism must cease
Of course that's not what it means, and you're a fool if you believe for a second that that's anybody's position.
Indeed, it is extremely hard to see why Mr Thurmond has picked on Mr Bursey out of all the people in the Secret Service zone. None of the other protesters with him was arrested.
That's because they were asked to move, and they moved.
Neither were any of the several hundred supporters of the president who were holding equally dangerous (but pro-Bush) signs as they stood near the hangar where the president was to speak.
That's because they were asked to move, and they moved.
Is the Economist article biased?
I don't know about bias, per se, but it's certainly incomplete. It left out the part about Bursey's aggressiveness toward security personnel, for instance, which in and of itself is grounds for his arrest, sign or no sign.
You're a fucking fool with his head buried in the sand. You repeatedly deny and question FACTS that have been ESTABLISHED months and months ago. You try to separate the casus belli into component parts--WMD, cease-fire violations, terrorism, aggression--and argue them one by one, but you can't wrap your head around the fact that ALL WERE PRESENT AT THE SAME TIME.
You are a fucking fool with his head buried in the sand. Be ashamed of yourself.