"Shrug. Obviously opinions differ. What matters is intent, and your intent was blindingly obvious."
Sorry Twirlip, but you were just wrong again. Admit it for once. If you do you will make great progress. "Weekend Warrior" isn't derogatory. Its a commonly used term to describe reservists who serve on weekends. Obviously opinions do differ. The U.S. military and I have one opinion which is that there isn't anything derogatory about the term. Your opinion was the one off the deep end...again...or are you going to give the Pentagon a ring and lambast them for holding reservists in, what was your word, "contempt".
"Actually, you're the one who put the words there."
Well no I didn't say anything derogatory about them so there wasn't anything to call me on. Nice try though.
As always I'm your biggest fan. Your missing hundreds of opportunities in the thread on Fahrenheit 911 to call people names. You better hurry on over.
"and that includes the right not to have a film shown if the theatre managers don't want to show it, for whatever reason they choose."
I entirely agree that the theater management does have a right to show or not show films. But its an entirely different thing when politically motivated groups, especially one backing or backed by the party in power, organizes a campaign to PRESSURE theatre managers to not show films that they might well want to show. It is an extremely dangerous path to follow. If it works they can keep doing it and you reach a point that the only point of view that will survive is the one of the party in power. They already succeeded in their campaign against the Reagan bio which was pushed off CBS in to the weeds by this same kind of campaign.
If this continues you will reach a point you may as well stop pretending you are in a democracy and admit you are in a totalitarian state because they also thrive on allowing only one point of view to be expressed. Though I'm not saying the U.S. had reached that point yet certainly.
The party in power, whether it be Democrat or Republican, has no problem getting their view out in this country, since they do press conferences from the White House, Pentagon and State Department every day with press coverage and get nightly news coverage.
Its very important this country nurture viewpoints that oppose that of those in power to keep them on their toes and honest, instead of letting opinionated groups drive them in to the shadows and let the party in power do things that are not in the public interest.
I'm hoping Twirlip will show up soon. He thrives on insisting there is only one point of view, his, that is correct and is allowed to be expressed on Slashdot or anywhere else.
Of course time shifting can also be used to highlight a point that is important that people would miss otherwise.
Take for example a recent CNBC interview where Dick Cheney was caught lying about something he said on Meet the Press earlier which was also a lie about the Al Qaeda Iraq meeting in Praque.
The Daily show caught him at it and showed the video side by side. It was a very effective and legitimate technique for shooting down all the Bush fanboys like Twirlip who insist the Bush administration never lies. The video was replayed on Larry King this weekend when he was interviewing John Daily.
The best right up I've seen on it is on spinsanity.
"During the CNBC interview, Cheney also dissembled in the following exchange about Mohammed Atta, an Al Qaeda member who was allegedly involved in the September 11 attacks (a witness claimed that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in the spring of 2001, a heavily disputed assertion that the FBI and CIA have questioned):"
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
CHENEY: I never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9 of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know.
But as a White House transcript demonstrates, Cheney said in a December 9, 2001 interview on "Meet the Press" that, "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." (our emphasis)
So you're suggesting that we invade Pakistan, our ally, because you don't think they're doing enough?
Once again you resort to putting word in my mouth. If you read my post I said I didn't know how you were going to deal with the tribal areas since Pakistan is obviously unwilling. All I was just suggesting that if the U.S. is going to back up its empty rhetoric, and yours, about the war on terror, and really deal with Al Qaeda it needs to deal with the tribal areas. Perhaps you can work on this and forward a plan to your close friends in the White House.
I guess, if you consider "free as a bird" to mean "in a 6' x 6' cell for the rest of his life without even so much as a show-trial."
Once again I don't know what you are talking about or you once again you don't have a clue what your talking about. Musharraf gave A.Q. Khan a full pardon. He was a ring leader. He'll never see the inside of a jail. I assume you are talking about some other guy who you consider the ring leader who took the fall instead of Khan.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/05/paki st an.nuclear/
Khan is a national hero in Pakistan for giving them the bomb and Musharraf would have threatened his dictatorship if he had jailed him. Pakistan is interesting in that the Islamists you fear so much may very well take control of the government and its nukes and you would once again have to stay awake at night worrying about them nuking your little room.
Once again your hypocrisy is amazing in praising Pakistan. Contrary to Bush's "Freedom and Democracy" BS there is no "Freedom and Democracy" in Pakistan. Musharraf is a military dictator, which interestingly enough applies to many of America's best allies, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for example. They were also allowing proliferation of WMD's. Musharraf knew years before the ring was broken up that Khan had been doing it. He took some steps to slow him down but didn't stop it:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/10/paki st an.khan.ap/
Pakistan is also harboring terrorists, Al Qaeda in their tribal areas and not making a creditable effort to deal with. I'm not saying invade, I think the U.S. dance care is full, but under the "Bush Doctrine" I think you and your buddy Dick Cheney are the ones with no option but to invade. You've invaded countries based on a lot less.
"a radical left-winger"
I'm afraid that is just you name calling again and tagging people as you like to do. I don't think there was anything "radical" or "left wing" in that post or most of my posts here. I am just trying to stick to the facts. I still consider myself to be a true conservative or a libertarian. I want my government as small and out of my life and everyone else's as much as possible while true left wingers want big government taking care of everyone. I want it to defend itself when attacked and against the attacker, and then do it with gusto, and not roam the world starting wars based on lies. Again the only thing you might brand me left wing for, and its really a progressive view, is I'm of the belief that if a government is going to tax it should tax the wealthy who can afford to pay. Of course these right and left labels are hopelessly simplistic in the first place. Lets have a pact I wont call you a right wing "nutcase" if you don't call me a "a radical left-winger" and instead we can focus on the issues instead of all the name calling. I'll also agree to no longer remind you to take your meds though I only do it because I care about you.
As always Twirp..err sorry..Twirlip, I'm your biggest fan. Keep up the good work, Slashdot can never have enough of your insight.
"I'd love to know how fighting a war against Pakistan, our ally in this war, would have captured, killed, or dissuaded terrorists working out of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the Sudan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania..."
I didn't say "against" Pakistan, I said "in" Pakistan. You're not going to make me argue "definitions, semantics and trivialities" are you.
I would have thought, with your vast knowledge of...well...everything that you knew the tribal area in Pakistan is the home base of Al Qaeda. It has been since the Reagan administration helped build them to wage the proxy war against the U.S.S.R. Unfortunately Pakistan's government has been more than a little slow and reticent to even enter these areas or wage a real war against Al Qaeda there. If he tried hard there it might trigger a civil war.
They've put on a couple shows there recently but in my opionion, and this is not a statement of fact or a lie, which is what you will say..you always do... its my opinion that Pakistan hasn't been doing nearly enough in dealing with Al Qaeda within its borders.
You were aware that Pakistan's secret service was one of the Taliban's biggest supporters. The U.S. had to let Pakistan evacuate its agents who were working with them out of Afghanistan when the Taliban collapsed to save your precious alliance.
You were aware that Pakistan was the world biggest nuclear proliferater to Iran, North Korea, etc. I know you lay awake at night worrying about the possibility some Iranian or North Korean is going to nuke your little room. I know you will now retort with what a great job the CIA and Pakistan did breaking up the ring but you will note that the head of the ring is still living in luxury in Pakistan, free as a bird, and a revered hero there. You seem to have something of a double standard on Iraq, who has no nukes and Pakistan whose been shopping them to all your worst nightmares.
Not sure how the U.S. can fight a war in the tribal area but its pretty obvious that Pakistan isn't the best ally the U.S. has ever had, though you keep trying to paint it that way.
"Hey... come to think of it... are you just trying to drive a wedge between us and our ally, Pakistan?"
I know you have delusions of power and that the world is hanging on everything you say here, Twirp, but I am confident that nothing I say here will drive a wedge between nations. Look on the table next to your couch for the brown bottle with the little pills in it.
Revenge was never our motive. That's just silly."
Well lets hop in the old wayback machine to your coup de gras at the end of our last major thread when from your pedastal, on high, you said:
"On little event, one little moment, that the left seems to have forgotten.
You didn't say revenge but thats sure what I thought you were talking about revenge being defined as
1. To inflict harm in return for, as an injury, insult, etc.;
Now que twirp as he further argues "definitions, semantics and trivialities".
In case you haven't figured it out by now, my main motivation at the moment, until I get bored, is to follow you around in slashdot and pick fights with you every time you spew venom at anyone you disagrees with you. Now that I've seen your limited rhetorical quiver its a lot easier. You are getting predictable, Twirp. You need to start mixing it up better.
As always, I'm your biggest fan, Twirp. Take your meds. Luv ya. You can have the last word(maybe) so put on your best poison.
It's crazy liberal talk to the extent that you're trying to argue definitions, semantics, and trivialities instead of meaningful points."
Damn Twirp, you must be a crazy liberal. Who knew.
I just came from a thread where you were arguing the definitions, semantics and trivialities of things like "Weekend Warrior". I've seen a few times where you were "trying your best to poke holes in the periphery of an argument." In the last week I've seen you call people liars time after time based on nothing but "definitions, semantics and trivialities"
"The larger issue remains untouched: the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq is not overwhelming. Every soldier's death is a tragedy, but there's no need to look at the total number and predict doom and gloom."
I imagine some of the families of the dead and the thousands of seriously wounded probably don't appreciate your efforts to trivialize them out of one side of your mouth and praise them out the other.
There is a key difference between murder rates in cities and the dead in Iraq. Murders are extremely hard to prevent. The chicken hawks in the White House went out of their way to get those guys killed in Iraq fighting a war that was extremely optional. If Bush/Cheney had focused on the war against Al Qaeda, and done it right in Afghanistan and Pakistan:
A. 9/11 would have been better avenged B. The War on Terrorism might have been won early C. A lot of brave guys would be alive today or not missing arms and legs, or if they had died in Afghanistan they would have died for a good reason, avenging 9/11. D. Moderate arabs wouldn't have been pushed in to the arms of the extremist out of the swelling hatred of the U.S.
Instead the chicken hawks blew off Afghanistan and Pakistan before the job was done and rushed in to a war that did nothing but pour gasoline on the Arab and Muslim world insuring the war will get worse not better, be longer, not shorter, and get more people killed.
I'm a fan of Twirp in case you couldn't tell. I follow him around worshiping him.
Explore Gaurd and Reserves "It's the way of the Weekend Warrior, but it's also much more than that."
Word Net defines it for just what it is:
weekend warrior...
2: a reservist who fulfills the military obligation on weekends
I knew you would slander me by something like "holding our soldiers in contempt". Soldiers are people, just people, there are good ones, bad ones and a whole range in between. Its ridiculous for you to make them all in to saints, or to put words in my mouth and make it appear like I hate the guts of every one of them. I'll reserve the right to evaluate them on an individual basis, thank you. If they are tracking down Al Qaeda I appreciate their service. If they are stuck in the mess in Iraq I feel for them and don't have anything good to say about the upper end of their chain of command.
In fairness to the reservists Bush called up to full time service can't be called "Weekend Warrior" now. They were when they got called up but now they are active duty so its not really fair the Army keeps calling them reservists. Thats almost a pejorative when they've made them in to active duty. I used the term "drafted" as a sarcastic term for calling up reservists to active duty to fill all the holes in the Army to fight a war in Iraq that wasn't a national emergency. No it wasn't a lie, it was sarcasm. I think you and I both know there won't be a draft until after the election.
You sure seem to parse the words of everyone you are slandering much more closely than yourself.
If I gave two shits about garnering your approval, that might be a tempting offer. As it is... not so much.
OK since once again you can't support what you were saying, which I think WAS slandering Seymour Hersh I'll have to assume you were the one lying until you prove otherwise. I do really want to find the truth in all of your bombast but you make it impossible. If I am wrong I was hoping you would help me see the light.
"Never miss an opportunity to slander people who leave their homes and families and put their lives in danger to protect you from the people who want to blow you into tiny smithereens, do you?"
I don't think I would call it slander to call them "Weekend Warriors". They are reservists. Until Bush drafted them they typically do only serve on weekends and a couple weeks out of the year. Its a common nickname and I imagine they use it themselves. If you think thats slander then the stuff you say will apparently require a new, more extreme word. This particular brigade hadn't been trained on prison duty but were forced in to it anyway. Reservists just don't get as much training as regular army. Its not there fault, its just reality. Another key point about Abu Ghraib is that it had 7,000 prisoners in it due to the overcrowding, because they weren't releasing people fast enough for the numbers being brought in. Military doctrine stipulates an MP brigade should be tasked with no more than 4,000 prisoners so they were both poorly trained and severely over taxed but you prefer to just blame it all on Karpinski and totally ignore the fact that MI's Colonel Pappas was ordering all the abuse and he was getting order from his chain of command.
"From disinfopedia
Is that supposed to be funny, or was it funny all on its own?"
If you looked at the quotes you would see those were a bunch of quotes from major papers on Colonel Pappas. Disinfopedia just collected them all in one place. Once again when you are confronted with reality, from major papers, you just pretend it isn't so and change the subject.
Well at this point I've wasted enough of a Saturday baiting you. I know you are going to have to have the last word, for which you will save your best slander since I'm not going to rebut it, so shoot away. You really should consider taking your meds again. I've grown fond of you and I want to see you get better.
Later dude, until the next thread where you say something insane.
Definitely lying. Definitely, definitely lying. No question about it, definitely lying.
Yes, twirp. Definitely lying. Thank you for finally agreeing with me. If you can't tolerate the Daily show you can probably check it yourself. I can't find official transcripts for the CNBC interview but the text is below and there is video. Hopefully this will shatter your illusion that the people in the Bush administration never lie. Hopefully it wont push you in to another schizophrenic episode now that you have to accept just once that you are wrong.
"During the CNBC interview, Cheney also dissembled in the following exchange about Mohammed Atta, an Al Qaeda member who was allegedly involved in the September 11 attacks (a witness claimed that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in the spring of 2001, a heavily disputed assertion that the FBI and CIA have questioned):"
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
CHENEY: I never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9 of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know.
But as a White House transcript demonstrates, Cheney said in a December 9, 2001 interview on "Meet the Press" that, "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." (our emphasis)
As an aside on a subject from our previous thread. You recall you said the Bush administration had never lied about anything and I cited a video shown on the Daily Show that caught Dick Cheney in a bold faced lie on video tape.
Well the same clips were on Larry King Live last night so I was paying closer attention. In the first inteview which was recent with a lady reporter I don't know sitting in a badly lit office, Cheney claims he never said that the Iraq/Al Queda meeting in Praque had been "pretty well confirmed". Then they cut to his Meet the Press interview some time ago when he was drumming up support for invading Iraq. He said "Its been pretty well confirmed" that the meeting in Prague had taken place. As you recall I though the wording was slightly different so he might get off on a technicality but the wordoing was exactly the same so he was definitely lying in the second interview and may well have been in the first one.
So at least in one instance Cheney was caught lying on videotape. When you are fibbing at the rate they are I guess its hard to keep it straight. I know you are crushed now since you idolize him and you have a potty mouth a lot like his.
"They are not, however, to be found in any context even remotely similar to what Hersch said they were. So that was a lie."
Well if you point me to the exact text of what he said I will be glad to look at it and if you are correct that he lied I will be the first to pat you on the back. I haven't studied his work in the extraordinary detail you apparently have so maybe he is a bold faced liar. But, I've found the stuff of his that I've read to be thought provoking, plausible and he cites a lot of creditable sources unlike yourself. For example you said the Taliban wasn't on the resurgence in Iran and he quoted the Pentagon official who works Afghanistan who said it was.
"Well, it certainly wasn't a typo, because typographical errors get corrected. It was just a lie. One of many perpetrated by your old pal Seymour Hersch."
Again if you point me to the text of the 16 AC-130's statement I would like to review it and if he said that then I will conceede he either lied, made a mistake or there is a typo.
"I think the military has admitted they swept up large numbers of people" and so on."
I can't dig up an online reference for that. I got that from cable news. Here is a different way of putting it that is straight out of the Taguba report.
"The screening, processing, and release of detainees who should not be in custody takes too long and contributes to the overcrowding and unrest in the detention facilities."
Since it says the facilities were severely overcrowded and part of the problem was due to not being able to release detainees who should not be in custody you can deduce people were being picked up that shouldn't have been. So I don't think I will agree with you assertion that I was lying but I will withdraw my earlier statement and replace it with this one which is documented.
"You've got your timeline confused. Operational control over the prison was taken from Janice "It wasn't my fault!" Karpinski after the abuses took place. It was her lack of leadership and discipline that allowed the abuses to happen in the first place. She was ultimately relieved of command over it."
No you are confused again, Twirp, though perhaps I'm at fault for not being crystal clear and providing ever more references. I wasn't talking about when she was relieved of command. She certainly had problems in her command but she was commanding weekend warriors in severely overcrowded, very nasty, prisons so its not surprising.
I was talking about a point earlier in the timeline when MI placed Colonel Thomas Pappas in charge of interrogations at Abu Graib in September, and put him under extreme pressure to get results from the interrogations, right before the worst abuse started. His people were giving orders to the problem MP's and severely clouded Karpinski's chain of command. From disinfopedia:
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Tho ma s_M._Pappas
In the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba regarding the alleged acts of brutality, abuse, and torture at the Enemy Prisoner of War facility at Abu Ghraib and other Enemy Prisoner of War Camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, Taguba said, "'Specifically I suspect that Col. Thomas M. Pappas, Lt. Col. Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary actions..." [2]
Pappas, who "at one time was the chief of the Architectures Division of the Intelligence Center's Futures Directorate on Fort Huachuca," Taguba "has recommended he be given a general officer memorandum of reprimand. Pappas assumed command of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in June 2003, after attending the Naval War College in Newport, R.I." [3]
"Within the Army a general officer memorandum of reprimand is considered a career killer." [4]
Douglas Jehl writes in the May 19, 2004, New York Times that "Officers
Well just the original point that you glossed over as you always do. You said Seymour lied when he said the Taguba report said 60%. Once again I proved to you it did say that. Seymour didn't lie, you did. I don't care that you don't like who and why it was said in the report. You were wrong. I know you hate that. You better take a shower.
I think its been established that military intelligence was given control of most of the problem areas in Iraq's prisons over Karpinski's objections and her MP's were following order from MI outside of her chain of command. Messing up chain of command like that was bad and against military doctrine so its not suprising it went really bad. Its been documented Rumsfeld authorized stripping prisoners and threatening them with dogs, though he rescinded it after objections from professionals in the military, but the ball was already rolling. I'm not sure its Karpinski's fault that MI did just the things Rumsfeld approved and since they were given that much leeway they just kept going. The U.S. did grievous damage to its War on Terrorism when it abandoned the moral high ground and authorized torture.
Nope. We're building roads and schools. They've got a constitution, and they're getting ready for general elections. That's not what I call "war." That's what I call the thing that comes after war.
Well we had all that in Vietnam too. It was a war and an insurgency. The U.S. lost in the end. And before you start I don't want to argue about why. It could happen in Afghanistan and Iraq too unless the Bush administration gets their heads screwed on straight or are thrown out in November though I have zero confidence Kerry would do any better.
Your mouth must be burning from all the lies you're spreading. No shame at all.
Well no. Once again I don't think I'm lying. I'm just referring to the memos the White House itself released this week.
This URL is from Human Rights so control yourself Twirp, don't want you to get all lathered up again.
"The released documents stop in April 2003 and do not cover practices at Abu Ghraib and other military prisons in Iraq, Human Rights Watch said. Even so, they show that in December, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of techniques, such as the use of guard dogs to instill fear in detainees, stripping detainees nude, and the use of painful stress positions, that violate the law. Rumsfeld later rescinded his approval of these techniques on Guantanamo detainees, yet they later featured prominently in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. "
Here is one from PBS if you couldn't tolerate Human Rights Watch:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-j un e04/prisoners_6-23.html
"Defense Secretary Rumsfeld rejected those tactics, but approved 17 others in December 2002. Techniques like forcing a detainee to stand for as long as four hours, forced isolation for up to 30 days, deprivation of light, the use of 20-hour interrogations, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, inducing stress by use of detainee's fears -- for example, dogs, and use of mild physical contact that did not cause injury."
I think the "inducing stress by use of the detainee's fears" is especially important because it would be very easy for MI to build on that. The example cited was "guard dogs" but sexual humiliation, with photos, would fit the same description.
For some reason you keep insisting I provide references but you never do. Its very time consuming having to track down the bullshit your referencing and rebut it too. I did try for a while on the 16 AC-130 gunship "lie" you attributed to Seymour. That does sound out of line or like a typo but I couldn't find it to do any fact checking on it. If he said that he was probably wrong. I did find stuff that referenced an AC-130 gunship.
I know, I know, I just wasted hours arguing with him in another thread but he's so funnnnnny. Its not often you encounter venomous mammals. I was amazed he distanced himself from Ann Coulter since she is a fellow member of his species. She's funnnnny too. I wish he WOULD quote her. They should mate to propagate their species.
I think Twirp has had therapy, per his journal he apparently has the med's he needs he just doesn't take them. You need to take your med's, Twirp.
I told you Twirp can't stand views that aren't in lock step with his unique view of the world. It drives him mad.
who cited MG Taguba's report on the prisons in Iraq by saying, "Sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society." That wasn't an exaggeration, a misstatement, or a typographical error. It was a bald-faced lie. MG Taguba's report said no such thing."
Well it actually says more than 60 percent were no threat to coalition forces and of no intelligence value quoting Brigadier General Karpinski. The Red Cross numbers are 70-90%. There must have been some truth to it considering the LARGE number of detainees they've been releasing lately. I think the military has admitted they swept up large numbers of people and then had no resources or way to assess their threat or value so they just held them for a really long time. They couldn't even keep their Arabic names straight so they couldn't track them. I'm confused why you are calling it a lie though you seem to call everything a lie and everyone a liar, excepting of course yourself.
"Lastly, detainees accused of committing "Crimes Against the Coalition," who are held throughout the separate facilities in the CJTF-7 AOR, can be released upon a determination that they are of no intelligence value and no longer pose a significant threat to Coalition Forces. The release process for this category of detainee is a screening by the local US Forces Magistrate Cell and a review by a Detainee Release Board consisting of BG Karpinski, COL Marc Warren, SJA, CJTF-7, and MG Barbara Fast, C-2, CJTF-7. MG Fast is the "Detainee Release Authority" for detainees being held for committing crimes against the coalition. According to BG Karpinski, this category of detainee makes up more than 60% of the total detainee population, and is the fastest growing category."
In that same article, Hersch painted a bleak picture, predicting that the war in Afghanistan would drag on for years, or even end in failure. The Taliban fell less than a month later.
I think the war in Afghanistan is still going on today isn't it? Of course we already had this long discussion on what constitutes war and you ASSURED ME WE ARE AT WAR. YOU DIDN'T LIE TO ME DID YOU. I guess we just aren't at war in Afghanistan because you decided we won, though I would have assumed that would be the first place you would still be fighting a war on terrorism.
Just because the Taliban and Al Qaeda moved to insurgency didn't mean the war ended. It just meant they realized they couldn't fight from fixed positions and in the open when they didn't have an air force. Pretty much the same thing happened in Iraq. Everyone knows by now you don't fight toe to toe with the U.S. in the open. You offer token resistance and then you melt in to the cities or mountains and start an insurgency because an insurgency ties the U.S. and all its high tech weapons in a knot. The Army simply doesn't have the boots to put on the ground to fight one, let alone two.
Musharraf brought up an article in The New Yorker by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, alleging that the Pentagon, with the help of an Israeli special operations unit, had contingency plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons should the country become unstable.
Twirp, Twirp, Twirp, I'm shocked, you mean to tell me YOU WANT to let, and Bush WOULD let, Pakistan's nukes fall in to the hands of Islamic extremists? I thought you had trouble sleeping at night worrying about this very thing, or was it because you stopped taking your meds. I imagine its possible the Israeli's might not be a part of it but they are a close ally with lots of "special" capabilities. You have to figure the U.S. does have the contingency plan in one form or another. This all being top secret I imagine Bush would be obligated to deny it with gusto and its impossible for a lowly mortal like me to ascertain the truth, though in your om
Re:How does this differ from other efforts?
on
Linux in Iraq
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· Score: 1
"Sorry, but the the federal procurement system is a highly structured process. Politicians have no access to it because these contracts are in the hands of civil servants, who would be risking their careers if they were steering contracts to big political donors."
I don't think you need to look any further than Darleen Druyen to find an example where your statement doesn't hold water. An Air Force civil servent she steered a huge pork laden contract for tankers to Boeing and then took a high paying job at.... Boeing. The only reason she was busted was because independent watch dogs and people with integrity like John McCain hounded this deal relentlessly. The Bush administration wouldn't have said a thing.
Or you could look at the Medicare "reform" bill where the Medicare administrator was actively suppressing the bill's true cost to get it passed while at the same time he was job shopping, with Bush administration consent, with the health care companies set to make a windfall when the bill passed. As soon as it did the Bush administration had to revise steeply up the true cost by something like a hundred billion dollars.
As long as there is a revolving door between government service and government contractors the procurement system is extremely vulnerable to corruption. The obvious Halliburton example is Cheney who as Secretary of Defense, improved the procurement prospects for Halliburton and KBR and then took a job as CEO. Now he is VP and can help them some more especially by stirring up a war in Iraq where they are making windfalls on the logistics and oil field service contracts. When he retires as VP he can go back to Halliburton, or a place like it, where they will hand him a bucket full of stock options for his previous service all on the up and up. George H.W.Bush does something similar with the Carlisle Group, one of Saudi Arabia's major defense contractors. He gives short speeches in return for 6 figure paychecks.
You are correct KBR has been feeding at the Army's trough for so long that its not like Cheney started it. They were doing most of the same things in Vietnam when they were Brown and Root. They are permanently wired for all Army contracts and are so politically and militarily connected in both parties its unlikely to change, though the Democrats have developed a reason to change their support for them in the future thanks to Cheney and Iraq.
It does smack of perpetual corruption but so does most of the Federal government whether it be under Democrat or Republican control.
You might want to read Seymour Hershe's take on Afghanistan. He offers a view different from Twirp's and Twirp hates that. Twirp also hates supporting his rhetoric with URL's, opting instead for his own bombast and calling everyone who disagrees with him a liar.
Seymour writes some good stuff and he is pretty careful to check his facts, unlike Twirp. This a pretty good read on a view that suggests the Bush administration failed in the war on terrorism in the beginning and where it should have really been fought, in Afghanistan and Pakistan and not Iraq.
"A year and a half later, the Taliban are still a force in many parts of Afghanistan, and the country continues to provide safe haven for members of Al Qaeda. American troops, more than ten thousand of whom remain, are heavily deployed in the mountainous areas near Pakistan, still hunting for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed President, exercises little political control outside Kabul and is struggling to undercut the authority of local warlords, who effectively control the provinces. Heroin production is soaring, and, outside of Kabul and a few other cities, people are terrorized by violence and crime."
"Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Collins, a Pentagon expert on Afghanistan, acknowledged that it was only in the past several months that "significant money began to flow" into Afghanistan for reconstruction and security. "We found in the security area we were doing the right thing, but not fast enough," he told me. The resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Collins said, "did not begin until early last year. They began to realize at the end of 2003 that the key is not to fight our soldiers but U.N. officials and aid workers."
"In late 2002, the Defense Department's office of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (solic) asked retired Army Colonel Hy Rothstein, a leading military expert in unconventional warfare, to examine the planning and execution of the war in Afghanistan, with an understanding that he would focus on Special Forces. As part of his research, Rothstein travelled to Afghanistan and interviewed many senior military officers, in both Special Forces and regular units. He also talked to dozens of junior Special Forces officers and enlisted men who fought there. His report was a devastating critique of the Administration?s strategy. He wrote that the bombing campaign was not the best way to hunt down Osama bin Laden and the rest of the Al Qaeda leadership, and that there was a failure to translate early tactical successes into strategic victory. In fact, he wrote, the victory in Afghanistan was not, in the long run, a victory at all."
"In the early summer of 2002, a military consultant, reflecting the views of several American Special Forces commanders in the field, provided the Pentagon with a briefing warning that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were adapting quickly to American tactics. "His decision loop has tightened, ours has widened," the briefing said, referring to the Taliban. "He can see us, but increasingly we no longer see him." Only a very few high-level generals listened, and the briefing, like Rothstein's report, changed nothing. By then, some of the most highly skilled Americans were being diverted from Afghanistan. Richard Clarke noted in his memoir, "The U.S. Special Forces who were trained to speak Arabic, the language of al Qaeda, had been pulled out of Afghanistan and sent to Iraq." Some C.I.A. paramilitary teams were also transferred to Iraq."
"I don't even know how to post something anonymously."
Bullshit again, Twirp. You really need to stop lying and take your meds. Its a check box on the submit page. As long as you've been posting here, you COULDN'T have missed it. I would have thought by now you could have gotten one of your "fans" to post as something other than an AC to salvage some of your credibility though its a little late now. I have pretty high confidence nobody else has been following this ridiculous thread past Wednesday morning. I wish I hadn't.
At this point if you are astroturfing as an AC to try to make yourself look good, and like your a globetrotting, "embedded" reporter for "The Post" I don't care, go for it. Again you, and your AC alter egos, fans or whatever they are, can have the last word. You can declare another huge victory though the only victory you got out of this is I gave up because its a waste of time attempting to debate or talk to you. I've read some of your other posts. You do have interesting, informative and useful things to say, something I doubt you will ever say about me or any of the other people you seem to despise. But you wreck the good things you have to say by mixing in some bold face lies that you can't substantiate, constantly insisting your view of the world is the only right view and there is "no debate", (there is always room for more than one view and debate in a free and civilized world), and the worst is you resort to a LOT of unnecessary name calling. In case your selective memory has already purged that part, "traitor", "nutcase", "fool", "blind".
As for your last post, no I'm not gonna answer it or your AC fans/astroturfing, except here. I said I wouldn't, we already whipped the subject to death. Everytime I call you on a lie you just try to change the subject and make out like its my job to prove your ridiculous BS. David Kay has already knocked the legs out from under your nonsense about WMD's in general, and chemical weapons in particular, in Iraq. I can't do it any better than he did. If Saddam had any usable WMD's he would have used them in the final hours before his regime collapsed. What else would you have WMD's for. What he might have had was hollow "programs" and "desires" and those don't count for anything in a real war or a real world. I'm STILL waiting for you to provide support for your assertion the ISG has found stockpiles of VX precursors in Iraq. Now, que Twirlip, "I AINTCHA MAMMA, prove it yourself."
P.S.
I'm probably wasting my breath here is I'd call myself a true conservative, more than a left wing "nutcase" though both have a lot in common lately, they don't like George Bush's abuse of conservatism because what he practices isn't. I like my government to be as small as possible, non intrusive in peoples lives, and to defend itself only when attacked which was the case after 9/11. About the only left wing view I have is that if a government has to tax it should tax the people that can afford to pay.
Unfortunately Bush and company should have fought this war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It should have used all available force to crush Al Qaeda there instead of figthing it on the cheap, through a proxy and scattering them to the wind. They pretty much already f**ked up this conflict thanks their unrestrained zeal for invading Iraq and abandoning what little moral high ground they had by sanctioning torture. The main accomplishments from invading Iraq were to pour a giant can of gasoline on the Arab/Islamic world and to create a recruiting boon for Al Qaeda and every other arab and islamic extremist group in the world. One thing we do have in common is the desire that Al Qaeda and its affiliates be defeated. One thing we don't have in common is that I think the Bush approach, and apparently yours, is more likely to extend and inflame this problem in to a never ending conflict in which a lot of people will die. I think that is very unfortunate. Later dude, again.
Uh no. Until you stop posting as an AC you still look like 1 Twirlip being pathetic. Are you so ashamed of being a Twirlip worshiper you can't cheerlead without a cloak of anonymity. I can kind of understand that, I wouldn't admit it either.
I thought so Twirp..err..Twirlip. If your fans really want to show their support they shouldn't be using AC since it just makes you look like you are beating your own drum, among other things.
"I what? I don't recall ever telling you that I was going to produce anything. In point of fact, I've repeatedly told you that I AIN'T CHER MOMMA and that it's your responsibility to read for yourself."
You are the one that made the preposterous claim the ISG had found stockpiles of nerve gas precursors. As a reminder since you seem to have forgotten:
"ISG found huge quantities of methylphosphonic difluoride and isopropylamine/isopropyl alcohol solution."
"Add it up and what did Iraq have? Chemical weapons. Which they swore they didn't have."
You can't support this, you know you can't, I know you can't, everyone else reading this thread knows you can't, so instead you put out absurd statements like "I AIN'T CHER MOMMA " and try to duck. Kay's statement, and he wrote this report, directly contradicts your ridiculous claim. Iraqi "programs" and "desires" that didn't produce anything don't equal WMD stockpiles. Your the one ignoring the irrefutable fact that no WMD's have been found in Iraq except for the 1 shell and your the one trying to spin your way out of the fact that you've been lying.
Later dude. You can have the last word now. I will restrain myself from replying, it will be hard, when you post another round of preposterous bullshit. Hopefully anyone else reading this thread realizes by now you can't be believed.
"Nope. Sure isn't. Googling for "ISG interim report"... well, let's just say it produces marvelous things."
You once again missed the point entirely. You were supposed to be producing reports that corroborate your ridiculous claim the ISG had found stockpiles of VX precursors. I know about the ISG interim report, everyone does. David Kay submitted it and then admitted that the stockpiles of WMD's the Bush administration said "we know Iraq has" haven't been found and probably won't be, and then he resigned. Apparently you are the one who hasn't read or comprehended the ISG interim report, or you are choosing to pretend it says something it doesn't in an effort to cling to your delusion that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD and that the Bush administration aren't bold faced liars.
The best Kay had to offer on precursors, from his statement on:
"We continue to follow leads on Iraq's acquisition of equipment and bulk precursors suitable for a CW program. Several possibilities have emerged and are now being exploited."
To my knowledge they haven't found anything with those leads or if they have they are keeping it secret, as you said this report is ancient now. Once again if you have a URL corroborating your preposterous claim the ISG has found large quantities of prescursors POST IT or stop the FUD campaign.
Again from Kay's statement:
"Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed - during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections. We are carefully examining dual-use, commercial chemical facilities to determine whether these were used or planned as alternative production sites."
The fact he says it may have been "entirely destroyed" is because they haven't FOUND ANYTHING, except 1 stray shell from 1991 or earlier.
"We have also acquired information related to Iraq's CW doctrine and Iraq's war plans for OIF, but we have not yet found evidence to confirm pre-war reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW against Coalition forces. Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to receive and follow leads related to such stocks. We have multiple reports that Iraq retained CW munitions made prior to 1991, possibly including mustard - a long-lasting chemical agent - but we have to date been unable to locate any such munitions."
Later dude. Everything you post screams out for a rebuttal but you aren't worth the effort. With this last post you really are starting to look delusional, this part in particular.
"Well, that's not the way I see it, but whatever."
Whether Google has a link to your "reports" isn't subjective. You seem to be the only one thats seen the reports on these huge stockpiles of VX precursors the ISG has found. Google in all its omnipotence hasn't seen these reports unless I'm searching in the wrong place. If you could corroborate even a little of the BS you are shoveling maybe I'd hang in. Instead you tell me to "read the reports" though you are apparently completely incapable of producing any URL's for any of these mysterious reports, only you seem to know about. Are you making these reports up in your head, so thats why only you "see it". Really, posting a URL to your "reports" might salvage some of your credibility. You don't have any left in my book at the moment which is why I'll say again, later dude.
I'm just sorry I wasted all this time arguing with someone who is, to use your word, a "nutcase". Apologies for the name calling, if you have an illness I feel for you, I appreciate its not your fault. I don't normally stoop to name calling but you've been doing it to everyone else throughout this thread so you've reached the point in my book where you deserve it.
"ISG found huge quantities of methylphosphonic difluoride and isopropylamine/isopropyl alcohol solution."
Once again if you just once posted a URL from a reputable source supporting your bullshit I would cut you some slack. Google shows absolutely nothing that supports your claim other than the well known fact one shell dating from the Gulf War was found and they did have lots of it back then. One shell does not equal "huge quantities"
"A ballistic missile with a range greatly in excess of 90 miles"
Once again a gross distortion. At least you are predictable. The limit was 150 km and they could be made to go 180-193 km, in a simulation, with a light payload. A full payload might go 162 km based on UN simulation which may or may not match reality. I don't think the fate of the world hinges on 7 miles. The U.N. was destroying them which is how the inspections were supposed to work, until they were run out of Iraq as Bush rushed to war. You are correct. No one cares except, apparently, you. Another URL and these guys are actually on your side kind of:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/sam ou d.htm
"Uranium that, again, Iraq SWORE they did not have."
There you go again. Making something innocuous sound sinister and engaging in a bold faced lie in the process. On those frequent nights you can't sleep do you stay up nights worrying about Iraq's WMD's. Maybe if you took your meds your paranoia would ease.
500 tons of unenriched Uranium and sludge has been sitting at that site since before the first gulf war. Its not like its ever been a secret or Iraq is somehow in breach of anything for having it. It was a logistical nightmare to move it so it wasn't. The most embarrassing part about this dump is the U.S. left it ungaurded after the second invasion, villagers looted the barrels and poured out the radioactive sludge in them, poisoning themselves and everything in the area.
Slashdot Mirror
"Shrug. Obviously opinions differ. What matters is intent, and your intent was blindingly obvious."
Sorry Twirlip, but you were just wrong again. Admit it for once. If you do you will make great progress. "Weekend Warrior" isn't derogatory. Its a commonly used term to describe reservists who serve on weekends. Obviously opinions do differ. The U.S. military and I have one opinion which is that there isn't anything derogatory about the term. Your opinion was the one off the deep end...again...or are you going to give the Pentagon a ring and lambast them for holding reservists in, what was your word, "contempt".
"Actually, you're the one who put the words there."
Well no I didn't say anything derogatory about them so there wasn't anything to call me on. Nice try though.
As always I'm your biggest fan. Your missing hundreds of opportunities in the thread on Fahrenheit 911 to call people names. You better hurry on over.
"and that includes the right not to have a film shown if the theatre managers don't want to show it, for whatever reason they choose."
I entirely agree that the theater management does have a right to show or not show films. But its an entirely different thing when politically motivated groups, especially one backing or backed by the party in power, organizes a campaign to PRESSURE theatre managers to not show films that they might well want to show. It is an extremely dangerous path to follow. If it works they can keep doing it and you reach a point that the only point of view that will survive is the one of the party in power. They already succeeded in their campaign against the Reagan bio which was pushed off CBS in to the weeds by this same kind of campaign.
If this continues you will reach a point you may as well stop pretending you are in a democracy and admit you are in a totalitarian state because they also thrive on allowing only one point of view to be expressed. Though I'm not saying the U.S. had reached that point yet certainly.
The party in power, whether it be Democrat or Republican, has no problem getting their view out in this country, since they do press conferences from the White House, Pentagon and State Department every day with press coverage and get nightly news coverage.
Its very important this country nurture viewpoints that oppose that of those in power to keep them on their toes and honest, instead of letting opinionated groups drive them in to the shadows and let the party in power do things that are not in the public interest.
I'm hoping Twirlip will show up soon. He thrives on insisting there is only one point of view, his, that is correct and is allowed to be expressed on Slashdot or anywhere else.
Of course time shifting can also be used to highlight a point that is important that people would miss otherwise.
Take for example a recent CNBC interview where Dick Cheney was caught lying about something he said on Meet the Press earlier which was also a lie about the Al Qaeda Iraq meeting in Praque.
The Daily show caught him at it and showed the video side by side. It was a very effective and legitimate technique for shooting down all the Bush fanboys like Twirlip who insist the Bush administration never lies. The video was replayed on Larry King this weekend when he was interviewing John Daily.
The best right up I've seen on it is on spinsanity.
"During the CNBC interview, Cheney also dissembled in the following exchange about Mohammed Atta, an Al Qaeda member who was allegedly involved in the September 11 attacks (a witness claimed that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in the spring of 2001, a heavily disputed assertion that the FBI and CIA have questioned):"
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
CHENEY: I never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9 of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know.
But as a White House transcript demonstrates, Cheney said in a December 9, 2001 interview on "Meet the Press" that, "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." (our emphasis)
So you're suggesting that we invade Pakistan, our ally, because you don't think they're doing enough?
i st an.nuclear/
i st an.khan.ap/
Once again you resort to putting word in my mouth. If you read my post I said I didn't know how you were going to deal with the tribal areas since Pakistan is obviously unwilling. All I was just suggesting that if the U.S. is going to back up its empty rhetoric, and yours, about the war on terror, and really deal with Al Qaeda it needs to deal with the tribal areas. Perhaps you can work on this and forward a plan to your close friends in the White House.
I guess, if you consider "free as a bird" to mean "in a 6' x 6' cell for the rest of his life without even so much as a show-trial."
Once again I don't know what you are talking about or you once again you don't have a clue what your talking about. Musharraf gave A.Q. Khan a full pardon. He was a ring leader. He'll never see the inside of a jail. I assume you are talking about some other guy who you consider the ring leader who took the fall instead of Khan.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/05/pak
Khan is a national hero in Pakistan for giving them the bomb and Musharraf would have threatened his dictatorship if he had jailed him. Pakistan is interesting in that the Islamists you fear so much may very well take control of the government and its nukes and you would once again have to stay awake at night worrying about them nuking your little room.
Once again your hypocrisy is amazing in praising Pakistan. Contrary to Bush's "Freedom and Democracy" BS there is no "Freedom and Democracy" in Pakistan. Musharraf is a military dictator, which interestingly enough applies to many of America's best allies, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for example. They were also allowing proliferation of WMD's. Musharraf knew years before the ring was broken up that Khan had been doing it. He took some steps to slow him down but didn't stop it:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/10/pak
Pakistan is also harboring terrorists, Al Qaeda in their tribal areas and not making a creditable effort to deal with. I'm not saying invade, I think the U.S. dance care is full, but under the "Bush Doctrine" I think you and your buddy Dick Cheney are the ones with no option but to invade. You've invaded countries based on a lot less.
"a radical left-winger"
I'm afraid that is just you name calling again and tagging people as you like to do. I don't think there was anything "radical" or "left wing" in that post or most of my posts here. I am just trying to stick to the facts. I still consider myself to be a true conservative or a libertarian. I want my government as small and out of my life and everyone else's as much as possible while true left wingers want big government taking care of everyone. I want it to defend itself when attacked and against the attacker, and then do it with gusto, and not roam the world starting wars based on lies. Again the only thing you might brand me left wing for, and its really a progressive view, is I'm of the belief that if a government is going to tax it should tax the wealthy who can afford to pay. Of course these right and left labels are hopelessly simplistic in the first place. Lets have a pact I wont call you a right wing "nutcase" if you don't call me a "a radical left-winger" and instead we can focus on the issues instead of all the name calling. I'll also agree to no longer remind you to take your meds though I only do it because I care about you.
As always Twirp..err sorry..Twirlip, I'm your biggest fan. Keep up the good work, Slashdot can never have enough of your insight.
"I'd love to know how fighting a war against Pakistan, our ally in this war, would have captured, killed, or dissuaded terrorists working out of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the Sudan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania..."
I didn't say "against" Pakistan, I said "in" Pakistan. You're not going to make me argue "definitions, semantics and trivialities" are you.
I would have thought, with your vast knowledge of...well...everything that you knew the tribal area in Pakistan is the home base of Al Qaeda. It has been since the Reagan administration helped build them to wage the proxy war against the U.S.S.R. Unfortunately Pakistan's government has been more than a little slow and reticent to even enter these areas or wage a real war against Al Qaeda there. If he tried hard there it might trigger a civil war.
They've put on a couple shows there recently but in my opionion, and this is not a statement of fact or a lie, which is what you will say..you always do... its my opinion that Pakistan hasn't been doing nearly enough in dealing with Al Qaeda within its borders.
You were aware that Pakistan's secret service was one of the Taliban's biggest supporters. The U.S. had to let Pakistan evacuate its agents who were working with them out of Afghanistan when the Taliban collapsed to save your precious alliance.
You were aware that Pakistan was the world biggest nuclear proliferater to Iran, North Korea, etc. I know you lay awake at night worrying about the possibility some Iranian or North Korean is going to nuke your little room. I know you will now retort with what a great job the CIA and Pakistan did breaking up the ring but you will note that the head of the ring is still living in luxury in Pakistan, free as a bird, and a revered hero there. You seem to have something of a double standard on Iraq, who has no nukes and Pakistan whose been shopping them to all your worst nightmares.
Not sure how the U.S. can fight a war in the tribal area but its pretty obvious that Pakistan isn't the best ally the U.S. has ever had, though you keep trying to paint it that way.
"Hey... come to think of it... are you just trying to drive a wedge between us and our ally, Pakistan?"
I know you have delusions of power and that the world is hanging on everything you say here, Twirp, but I am confident that nothing I say here will drive a wedge between nations. Look on the table next to your couch for the brown bottle with the little pills in it.
Revenge was never our motive. That's just silly."
Well lets hop in the old wayback machine to your coup de gras at the end of our last major thread when from your pedastal, on high, you said:
"On little event, one little moment, that the left seems to have forgotten.
September 11.
That's why we're doing this. That's why we're fighting this war."
You didn't say revenge but thats sure what I thought you were talking about revenge being defined as
1. To inflict harm in return for, as an injury, insult, etc.;
Now que twirp as he further argues "definitions, semantics and trivialities".
In case you haven't figured it out by now, my main motivation at the moment, until I get bored, is to follow you around in slashdot and pick fights with you every time you spew venom at anyone you disagrees with you. Now that I've seen your limited rhetorical quiver its a lot easier. You are getting predictable, Twirp. You need to start mixing it up better.
As always, I'm your biggest fan, Twirp. Take your meds. Luv ya. You can have the last word(maybe) so put on your best poison.
It's crazy liberal talk to the extent that you're trying to argue definitions, semantics, and trivialities instead of meaningful points."
Damn Twirp, you must be a crazy liberal. Who knew.
I just came from a thread where you were arguing the definitions, semantics and trivialities of things like "Weekend Warrior". I've seen a few times where you were "trying your best to poke holes in the periphery of an argument." In the last week I've seen you call people liars time after time based on nothing but "definitions, semantics and trivialities"
"The larger issue remains untouched: the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq is not overwhelming. Every soldier's death is a tragedy, but there's no need to look at the total number and predict doom and gloom."
I imagine some of the families of the dead and the thousands of seriously wounded probably don't appreciate your efforts to trivialize them out of one side of your mouth and praise them out the other.
There is a key difference between murder rates in cities and the dead in Iraq. Murders are extremely hard to prevent. The chicken hawks in the White House went out of their way to get those guys killed in Iraq fighting a war that was extremely optional. If Bush/Cheney had focused on the war against Al Qaeda, and done it right in Afghanistan and Pakistan:
A. 9/11 would have been better avenged
B. The War on Terrorism might have been won early
C. A lot of brave guys would be alive today or not missing arms and legs, or if they had died in Afghanistan they would have died for a good reason, avenging 9/11.
D. Moderate arabs wouldn't have been pushed in to the arms of the extremist out of the swelling hatred of the U.S.
Instead the chicken hawks blew off Afghanistan and Pakistan before the job was done and rushed in to a war that did nothing but pour gasoline on the Arab and Muslim world insuring the war will get worse not better, be longer, not shorter, and get more people killed.
I'm a fan of Twirp in case you couldn't tell. I follow him around worshiping him.
"You imagine wrong. It's a pejorative term. I"
v e/ 1,13387,105,00.html?loc=LN
...
Sorry had to break my own rule just a teeny bit.
This is just to good to resist. If "Weekend Warrior" is a pejorative why does the military use it on its recruiting web site:
http://www.military.com/Recruiting/GuardorReser
Explore Gaurd and Reserves
"It's the way of the Weekend Warrior, but it's also much more than that."
Word Net defines it for just what it is:
weekend warrior
2: a reservist who fulfills the military obligation on weekends
I knew you would slander me by something like "holding our soldiers in contempt". Soldiers are people, just people, there are good ones, bad ones and a whole range in between. Its ridiculous for you to make them all in to saints, or to put words in my mouth and make it appear like I hate the guts of every one of them. I'll reserve the right to evaluate them on an individual basis, thank you. If they are tracking down Al Qaeda I appreciate their service. If they are stuck in the mess in Iraq I feel for them and don't have anything good to say about the upper end of their chain of command.
In fairness to the reservists Bush called up to full time service can't be called "Weekend Warrior" now. They were when they got called up but now they are active duty so its not really fair the Army keeps calling them reservists. Thats almost a pejorative when they've made them in to active duty. I used the term "drafted" as a sarcastic term for calling up reservists to active duty to fill all the holes in the Army to fight a war in Iraq that wasn't a national emergency. No it wasn't a lie, it was sarcasm. I think you and I both know there won't be a draft until after the election.
You sure seem to parse the words of everyone you are slandering much more closely than yourself.
Later dude. Its time to take your meds. Luv Ya.
If I gave two shits about garnering your approval, that might be a tempting offer. As it is... not so much.
OK since once again you can't support what you were saying, which I think WAS slandering Seymour Hersh I'll have to assume you were the one lying until you prove otherwise. I do really want to find the truth in all of your bombast but you make it impossible. If I am wrong I was hoping you would help me see the light.
"Never miss an opportunity to slander people who leave their homes and families and put their lives in danger to protect you from the people who want to blow you into tiny smithereens, do you?"
I don't think I would call it slander to call them "Weekend Warriors". They are reservists. Until Bush drafted them they typically do only serve on weekends and a couple weeks out of the year. Its a common nickname and I imagine they use it themselves. If you think thats slander then the stuff you say will apparently require a new, more extreme word. This particular brigade hadn't been trained on prison duty but were forced in to it anyway. Reservists just don't get as much training as regular army. Its not there fault, its just reality. Another key point about Abu Ghraib is that it had 7,000 prisoners in it due to the overcrowding, because they weren't releasing people fast enough for the numbers being brought in. Military doctrine stipulates an MP brigade should be tasked with no more than 4,000 prisoners so they were both poorly trained and severely over taxed but you prefer to just blame it all on Karpinski and totally ignore the fact that MI's Colonel Pappas was ordering all the abuse and he was getting order from his chain of command.
"From disinfopedia
Is that supposed to be funny, or was it funny all on its own?"
If you looked at the quotes you would see those were a bunch of quotes from major papers on Colonel Pappas. Disinfopedia just collected them all in one place. Once again when you are confronted with reality, from major papers, you just pretend it isn't so and change the subject.
Well at this point I've wasted enough of a Saturday baiting you. I know you are going to have to have the last word, for which you will save your best slander since I'm not going to rebut it, so shoot away. You really should consider taking your meds again. I've grown fond of you and I want to see you get better.
Later dude, until the next thread where you say something insane.
Definitely lying. Definitely, definitely lying. No question about it, definitely lying.
Yes, twirp. Definitely lying. Thank you for finally agreeing with me. If you can't tolerate the Daily show you can probably check it yourself. I can't find official transcripts for the CNBC interview but the text is below and there is video. Hopefully this will shatter your illusion that the people in the Bush administration never lie. Hopefully it wont push you in to another schizophrenic episode now that you have to accept just once that you are wrong.
"During the CNBC interview, Cheney also dissembled in the following exchange about Mohammed Atta, an Al Qaeda member who was allegedly involved in the September 11 attacks (a witness claimed that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in the spring of 2001, a heavily disputed assertion that the FBI and CIA have questioned):"
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
CHENEY: I never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9 of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know.
But as a White House transcript demonstrates, Cheney said in a December 9, 2001 interview on "Meet the Press" that, "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." (our emphasis)
As an aside on a subject from our previous thread. You recall you said the Bush administration had never lied about anything and I cited a video shown on the Daily Show that caught Dick Cheney in a bold faced lie on video tape.
Well the same clips were on Larry King Live last night so I was paying closer attention. In the first inteview which was recent with a lady reporter I don't know sitting in a badly lit office, Cheney claims he never said that the Iraq/Al Queda meeting in Praque had been "pretty well confirmed". Then they cut to his Meet the Press interview some time ago when he was drumming up support for invading Iraq. He said "Its been pretty well confirmed" that the meeting in Prague had taken place. As you recall I though the wording was slightly different so he might get off on a technicality but the wordoing was exactly the same so he was definitely lying in the second interview and may well have been in the first one.
So at least in one instance Cheney was caught lying on videotape. When you are fibbing at the rate they are I guess its hard to keep it straight. I know you are crushed now since you idolize him and you have a potty mouth a lot like his.
"They are not, however, to be found in any context even remotely similar to what Hersch said they were. So that was a lie."
..." [2]
Well if you point me to the exact text of what he said I will be glad to look at it and if you are correct that he lied I will be the first to pat you on the back. I haven't studied his work in the extraordinary detail you apparently have so maybe he is a bold faced liar. But, I've found the stuff of his that I've read to be thought provoking, plausible and he cites a lot of creditable sources unlike yourself. For example you said the Taliban wasn't on the resurgence in Iran and he quoted the Pentagon official who works Afghanistan who said it was.
"Well, it certainly wasn't a typo, because typographical errors get corrected. It was just a lie. One of many perpetrated by your old pal Seymour Hersch."
Again if you point me to the text of the 16 AC-130's statement I would like to review it and if he said that then I will conceede he either lied, made a mistake or there is a typo.
"I think the military has admitted they swept up large numbers of people" and so on."
I can't dig up an online reference for that. I got that from cable news. Here is a different way of putting it that is straight out of the Taguba report.
"The screening, processing, and release of detainees who should not be in custody takes too long and contributes to the overcrowding and unrest in the detention facilities."
Since it says the facilities were severely overcrowded and part of the problem was due to not being able to release detainees who should not be in custody you can deduce people were being picked up that shouldn't have been. So I don't think I will agree with you assertion that I was lying but I will withdraw my earlier statement and replace it with this one which is documented.
"You've got your timeline confused. Operational control over the prison was taken from Janice "It wasn't my fault!" Karpinski after the abuses took place. It was her lack of leadership and discipline that allowed the abuses to happen in the first place. She was ultimately relieved of command over it."
No you are confused again, Twirp, though perhaps I'm at fault for not being crystal clear and providing ever more references. I wasn't talking about when she was relieved of command. She certainly had problems in her command but she was commanding weekend warriors in severely overcrowded, very nasty, prisons so its not surprising.
I was talking about a point earlier in the timeline when MI placed Colonel Thomas Pappas in charge of interrogations at Abu Graib in September, and put him under extreme pressure to get results from the interrogations, right before the worst abuse started. His people were giving orders to the problem MP's and severely clouded Karpinski's chain of command. From disinfopedia:
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Tho ma s_M._Pappas
In the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba regarding the alleged acts of brutality, abuse, and torture at the Enemy Prisoner of War facility at Abu Ghraib and other Enemy Prisoner of War Camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, Taguba said, "'Specifically I suspect that Col. Thomas M. Pappas, Lt. Col. Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary actions
Pappas, who "at one time was the chief of the Architectures Division of the Intelligence Center's Futures Directorate on Fort Huachuca," Taguba "has recommended he be given a general officer memorandum of reprimand. Pappas assumed command of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in June 2003, after attending the Naval War College in Newport, R.I." [3]
"Within the Army a general officer memorandum of reprimand is considered a career killer." [4]
Douglas Jehl writes in the May 19, 2004, New York Times that "Officers
What else you got?
.h tm
Well just the original point that you glossed over as you always do. You said Seymour lied when he said the Taguba report said 60%. Once again I proved to you it did say that. Seymour didn't lie, you did. I don't care that you don't like who and why it was said in the report. You were wrong. I know you hate that. You better take a shower.
I think its been established that military intelligence was given control of most of the problem areas in Iraq's prisons over Karpinski's objections and her MP's were following order from MI outside of her chain of command. Messing up chain of command like that was bad and against military doctrine so its not suprising it went really bad. Its been documented Rumsfeld authorized stripping prisoners and threatening them with dogs, though he rescinded it after objections from professionals in the military, but the ball was already rolling. I'm not sure its Karpinski's fault that MI did just the things Rumsfeld approved and since they were given that much leeway they just kept going. The U.S. did grievous damage to its War on Terrorism when it abandoned the moral high ground and authorized torture.
Nope. We're building roads and schools. They've got a constitution, and they're getting ready for general elections. That's not what I call "war." That's what I call the thing that comes after war.
Well we had all that in Vietnam too. It was a war and an insurgency. The U.S. lost in the end. And before you start I don't want to argue about why. It could happen in Afghanistan and Iraq too unless the Bush administration gets their heads screwed on straight or are thrown out in November though I have zero confidence Kerry would do any better.
Your mouth must be burning from all the lies you're spreading. No shame at all.
Well no. Once again I don't think I'm lying. I'm just referring to the memos the White House itself released this week.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/06/23/usint8937
This URL is from Human Rights so control yourself Twirp, don't want you to get all lathered up again.
"The released documents stop in April 2003 and do not cover practices at Abu Ghraib and other military prisons in Iraq, Human Rights Watch said. Even so, they show that in December, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of techniques, such as the use of guard dogs to instill fear in detainees, stripping detainees nude, and the use of painful stress positions, that violate the law. Rumsfeld later rescinded his approval of these techniques on Guantanamo detainees, yet they later featured prominently in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. "
Here is one from PBS if you couldn't tolerate Human Rights Watch:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-j un e04/prisoners_6-23.html
"Defense Secretary Rumsfeld rejected those tactics, but approved 17 others in December 2002. Techniques like forcing a detainee to stand for as long as four hours, forced isolation for up to 30 days, deprivation of light, the use of 20-hour interrogations, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, inducing stress by use of detainee's fears -- for example, dogs, and use of mild physical contact that did not cause injury."
I think the "inducing stress by use of the detainee's fears" is especially important because it would be very easy for MI to build on that. The example cited was "guard dogs" but sexual humiliation, with photos, would fit the same description.
For some reason you keep insisting I provide references but you never do. Its very time consuming having to track down the bullshit your referencing and rebut it too. I did try for a while on the 16 AC-130 gunship "lie" you attributed to Seymour. That does sound out of line or like a typo but I couldn't find it to do any fact checking on it. If he said that he was probably wrong. I did find stuff that referenced an AC-130 gunship.
As for the rest
I know, I know, I just wasted hours arguing with him in another thread but he's so funnnnnny. Its not often you encounter venomous mammals. I was amazed he distanced himself from Ann Coulter since she is a fellow member of his species. She's funnnnny too. I wish he WOULD quote her. They should mate to propagate their species.
I think Twirp has had therapy, per his journal he apparently has the med's he needs he just doesn't take them. You need to take your med's, Twirp.
who cited MG Taguba's report on the prisons in Iraq by saying, "Sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society." That wasn't an exaggeration, a misstatement, or a typographical error. It was a bald-faced lie. MG Taguba's report said no such thing."
Well it actually says more than 60 percent were no threat to coalition forces and of no intelligence value quoting Brigadier General Karpinski. The Red Cross numbers are 70-90%. There must have been some truth to it considering the LARGE number of detainees they've been releasing lately. I think the military has admitted they swept up large numbers of people and then had no resources or way to assess their threat or value so they just held them for a really long time. They couldn't even keep their Arabic names straight so they couldn't track them. I'm confused why you are calling it a lie though you seem to call everything a lie and everyone a liar, excepting of course yourself.
"Lastly, detainees accused of committing "Crimes Against the Coalition," who are held throughout the separate facilities in the CJTF-7 AOR, can be released upon a determination that they are of no intelligence value and no longer pose a significant threat to Coalition Forces. The release process for this category of detainee is a screening by the local US Forces Magistrate Cell and a review by a Detainee Release Board consisting of BG Karpinski, COL Marc Warren, SJA, CJTF-7, and MG Barbara Fast, C-2, CJTF-7. MG Fast is the "Detainee Release Authority" for detainees being held for committing crimes against the coalition. According to BG Karpinski, this category of detainee makes up more than 60% of the total detainee population, and is the fastest growing category."
In that same article, Hersch painted a bleak picture, predicting that the war in Afghanistan would drag on for years, or even end in failure. The Taliban fell less than a month later.
I think the war in Afghanistan is still going on today isn't it? Of course we already had this long discussion on what constitutes war and you ASSURED ME WE ARE AT WAR. YOU DIDN'T LIE TO ME DID YOU. I guess we just aren't at war in Afghanistan because you decided we won, though I would have assumed that would be the first place you would still be fighting a war on terrorism.
Just because the Taliban and Al Qaeda moved to insurgency didn't mean the war ended. It just meant they realized they couldn't fight from fixed positions and in the open when they didn't have an air force. Pretty much the same thing happened in Iraq. Everyone knows by now you don't fight toe to toe with the U.S. in the open. You offer token resistance and then you melt in to the cities or mountains and start an insurgency because an insurgency ties the U.S. and all its high tech weapons in a knot. The Army simply doesn't have the boots to put on the ground to fight one, let alone two.
Musharraf brought up an article in The New Yorker by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, alleging that the Pentagon, with the help of an Israeli special operations unit, had contingency plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons should the country become unstable.
Twirp, Twirp, Twirp, I'm shocked, you mean to tell me YOU WANT to let, and Bush WOULD let, Pakistan's nukes fall in to the hands of Islamic extremists? I thought you had trouble sleeping at night worrying about this very thing, or was it because you stopped taking your meds. I imagine its possible the Israeli's might not be a part of it but they are a close ally with lots of "special" capabilities. You have to figure the U.S. does have the contingency plan in one form or another. This all being top secret I imagine Bush would be obligated to deny it with gusto and its impossible for a lowly mortal like me to ascertain the truth, though in your om
I don't think you need to look any further than Darleen Druyen to find an example where your statement doesn't hold water. An Air Force civil servent she steered a huge pork laden contract for tankers to Boeing and then took a high paying job at.... Boeing. The only reason she was busted was because independent watch dogs and people with integrity like John McCain hounded this deal relentlessly. The Bush administration wouldn't have said a thing.
Or you could look at the Medicare "reform" bill where the Medicare administrator was actively suppressing the bill's true cost to get it passed while at the same time he was job shopping, with Bush administration consent, with the health care companies set to make a windfall when the bill passed. As soon as it did the Bush administration had to revise steeply up the true cost by something like a hundred billion dollars.
As long as there is a revolving door between government service and government contractors the procurement system is extremely vulnerable to corruption. The obvious Halliburton example is Cheney who as Secretary of Defense, improved the procurement prospects for Halliburton and KBR and then took a job as CEO. Now he is VP and can help them some more especially by stirring up a war in Iraq where they are making windfalls on the logistics and oil field service contracts. When he retires as VP he can go back to Halliburton, or a place like it, where they will hand him a bucket full of stock options for his previous service all on the up and up. George H.W.Bush does something similar with the Carlisle Group, one of Saudi Arabia's major defense contractors. He gives short speeches in return for 6 figure paychecks.
You are correct KBR has been feeding at the Army's trough for so long that its not like Cheney started it. They were doing most of the same things in Vietnam when they were Brown and Root. They are permanently wired for all Army contracts and are so politically and militarily connected in both parties its unlikely to change, though the Democrats have developed a reason to change their support for them in the future thanks to Cheney and Iraq.
It does smack of perpetual corruption but so does most of the Federal government whether it be under Democrat or Republican control.
Seymour writes some good stuff and he is pretty careful to check his facts, unlike Twirp. This a pretty good read on a view that suggests the Bush administration failed in the war on terrorism in the beginning and where it should have really been fought, in Afghanistan and Pakistan and not Iraq.
"A year and a half later, the Taliban are still a force in many parts of Afghanistan, and the country continues to provide safe haven for members of Al Qaeda. American troops, more than ten thousand of whom remain, are heavily deployed in the mountainous areas near Pakistan, still hunting for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed President, exercises little political control outside Kabul and is struggling to undercut the authority of local warlords, who effectively control the provinces. Heroin production is soaring, and, outside of Kabul and a few other cities, people are terrorized by violence and crime."
"Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Collins, a Pentagon expert on Afghanistan, acknowledged that it was only in the past several months that "significant money began to flow" into Afghanistan for reconstruction and security. "We found in the security area we were doing the right thing, but not fast enough," he told me. The resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Collins said, "did not begin until early last year. They began to realize at the end of 2003 that the key is not to fight our soldiers but U.N. officials and aid workers."
"In late 2002, the Defense Department's office of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (solic) asked retired Army Colonel Hy Rothstein, a leading military expert in unconventional warfare, to examine the planning and execution of the war in Afghanistan, with an understanding that he would focus on Special Forces. As part of his research, Rothstein travelled to Afghanistan and interviewed many senior military officers, in both Special Forces and regular units. He also talked to dozens of junior Special Forces officers and enlisted men who fought there. His report was a devastating critique of the Administration?s strategy. He wrote that the bombing campaign was not the best way to hunt down Osama bin Laden and the rest of the Al Qaeda leadership, and that there was a failure to translate early tactical successes into strategic victory. In fact, he wrote, the victory in Afghanistan was not, in the long run, a victory at all."
"In the early summer of 2002, a military consultant, reflecting the views of several American Special Forces commanders in the field, provided the Pentagon with a briefing warning that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were adapting quickly to American tactics. "His decision loop has tightened, ours has widened," the briefing said, referring to the Taliban. "He can see us, but increasingly we no longer see him." Only a very few high-level generals listened, and the briefing, like Rothstein's report, changed nothing. By then, some of the most highly skilled Americans were being diverted from Afghanistan. Richard Clarke noted in his memoir, "The U.S. Special Forces who were trained to speak Arabic, the language of al Qaeda, had been pulled out of Afghanistan and sent to Iraq." Some C.I.A. paramilitary teams were also transferred to Iraq."
"I don't even know how to post something anonymously."
.
Bullshit again, Twirp. You really need to stop lying and take your meds. Its a check box on the submit page. As long as you've been posting here, you COULDN'T have missed it. I would have thought by now you could have gotten one of your "fans" to post as something other than an AC to salvage some of your credibility though its a little late now. I have pretty high confidence nobody else has been following this ridiculous thread past Wednesday morning. I wish I hadn't.
At this point if you are astroturfing as an AC to try to make yourself look good, and like your a globetrotting, "embedded" reporter for "The Post" I don't care, go for it. Again you, and your AC alter egos, fans or whatever they are, can have the last word. You can declare another huge victory though the only victory you got out of this is I gave up because its a waste of time attempting to debate or talk to you. I've read some of your other posts. You do have interesting, informative and useful things to say, something I doubt you will ever say about me or any of the other people you seem to despise. But you wreck the good things you have to say by mixing in some bold face lies that you can't substantiate, constantly insisting your view of the world is the only right view and there is "no debate", (there is always room for more than one view and debate in a free and civilized world), and the worst is you resort to a LOT of unnecessary name calling. In case your selective memory has already purged that part, "traitor", "nutcase", "fool", "blind"
As for your last post, no I'm not gonna answer it or your AC fans/astroturfing, except here. I said I wouldn't, we already whipped the subject to death. Everytime I call you on a lie you just try to change the subject and make out like its my job to prove your ridiculous BS. David Kay has already knocked the legs out from under your nonsense about WMD's in general, and chemical weapons in particular, in Iraq. I can't do it any better than he did. If Saddam had any usable WMD's he would have used them in the final hours before his regime collapsed. What else would you have WMD's for. What he might have had was hollow "programs" and "desires" and those don't count for anything in a real war or a real world. I'm STILL waiting for you to provide support for your assertion the ISG has found stockpiles of VX precursors in Iraq. Now, que Twirlip, "I AINTCHA MAMMA, prove it yourself."
P.S.
I'm probably wasting my breath here is I'd call myself a true conservative, more than a left wing "nutcase" though both have a lot in common lately, they don't like George Bush's abuse of conservatism because what he practices isn't. I like my government to be as small as possible, non intrusive in peoples lives, and to defend itself only when attacked which was the case after 9/11. About the only left wing view I have is that if a government has to tax it should tax the people that can afford to pay.
Unfortunately Bush and company should have fought this war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It should have used all available force to crush Al Qaeda there instead of figthing it on the cheap, through a proxy and scattering them to the wind. They pretty much already f**ked up this conflict thanks their unrestrained zeal for invading Iraq and abandoning what little moral high ground they had by sanctioning torture. The main accomplishments from invading Iraq were to pour a giant can of gasoline on the Arab/Islamic world and to create a recruiting boon for Al Qaeda and every other arab and islamic extremist group in the world. One thing we do have in common is the desire that Al Qaeda and its affiliates be defeated. One thing we don't have in common is that I think the Bush approach, and apparently yours, is more likely to extend and inflame this problem in to a never ending conflict in which a lot of people will die. I think that is very unfortunate. Later dude, again.
Uh no. Until you stop posting as an AC you still look like 1 Twirlip being pathetic. Are you so ashamed of being a Twirlip worshiper you can't cheerlead without a cloak of anonymity. I can kind of understand that, I wouldn't admit it either.
I thought so Twirp..err..Twirlip. If your fans really want to show their support they shouldn't be using AC since it just makes you look like you are beating your own drum, among other things.
Why don't you post as something other than an AC and show your support, then?
Only in your twisted little world Twirlip, poseing as an AC.
"I what? I don't recall ever telling you that I was going to produce anything. In point of fact, I've repeatedly told you that I AIN'T CHER MOMMA and that it's your responsibility to read for yourself."
You are the one that made the preposterous claim the ISG had found stockpiles of nerve gas precursors. As a reminder since you seem to have forgotten:
"ISG found huge quantities of methylphosphonic difluoride and isopropylamine/isopropyl alcohol solution."
"Add it up and what did Iraq have? Chemical weapons. Which they swore they didn't have."
You can't support this, you know you can't, I know you can't, everyone else reading this thread knows you can't, so instead you put out absurd statements like "I AIN'T CHER MOMMA " and try to duck. Kay's statement, and he wrote this report, directly contradicts your ridiculous claim. Iraqi "programs" and "desires" that didn't produce anything don't equal WMD stockpiles. Your the one ignoring the irrefutable fact that no WMD's have been found in Iraq except for the 1 shell and your the one trying to spin your way out of the fact that you've been lying.
Later dude. You can have the last word now. I will restrain myself from replying, it will be hard, when you post another round of preposterous bullshit. Hopefully anyone else reading this thread realizes by now you can't be believed.
"Nope. Sure isn't. Googling for "ISG interim report"... well, let's just say it produces marvelous things."
2 00 3/david_kay_10022003.html
You once again missed the point entirely. You were supposed to be producing reports that corroborate your ridiculous claim the ISG had found stockpiles of VX precursors. I know about the ISG interim report, everyone does. David Kay submitted it and then admitted that the stockpiles of WMD's the Bush administration said "we know Iraq has" haven't been found and probably won't be, and then he resigned. Apparently you are the one who hasn't read or comprehended the ISG interim report, or you are choosing to pretend it says something it doesn't in an effort to cling to your delusion that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD and that the Bush administration aren't bold faced liars.
The best Kay had to offer on precursors, from his statement on:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/
"We continue to follow leads on Iraq's acquisition of equipment and bulk precursors suitable for a CW program. Several possibilities have emerged and are now being exploited."
To my knowledge they haven't found anything with those leads or if they have they are keeping it secret, as you said this report is ancient now. Once again if you have a URL corroborating your preposterous claim the ISG has found large quantities of prescursors POST IT or stop the FUD campaign.
Again from Kay's statement:
"Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed - during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections. We are carefully examining dual-use, commercial chemical facilities to determine whether these were used or planned as alternative production sites."
The fact he says it may have been "entirely destroyed" is because they haven't FOUND ANYTHING, except 1 stray shell from 1991 or earlier.
"We have also acquired information related to Iraq's CW doctrine and Iraq's war plans for OIF, but we have not yet found evidence to confirm pre-war reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW against Coalition forces. Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to receive and follow leads related to such stocks. We have multiple reports that Iraq retained CW munitions made prior to 1991, possibly including mustard - a long-lasting chemical agent - but we have to date been unable to locate any such munitions."
Later dude. Everything you post screams out for a rebuttal but you aren't worth the effort. With this last post you really are starting to look delusional, this part in particular.
"Well, that's not the way I see it, but whatever."
Whether Google has a link to your "reports" isn't subjective. You seem to be the only one thats seen the reports on these huge stockpiles of VX precursors the ISG has found. Google in all its omnipotence hasn't seen these reports unless I'm searching in the wrong place. If you could corroborate even a little of the BS you are shoveling maybe I'd hang in. Instead you tell me to "read the reports" though you are apparently completely incapable of producing any URL's for any of these mysterious reports, only you seem to know about. Are you making these reports up in your head, so thats why only you "see it". Really, posting a URL to your "reports" might salvage some of your credibility. You don't have any left in my book at the moment which is why I'll say again, later dude.
I'm just sorry I wasted all this time arguing with someone who is, to use your word, a "nutcase". Apologies for the name calling, if you have an illness I feel for you, I appreciate its not your fault. I don't normally stoop to name calling but you've been doing it to everyone else throughout this thread so you've reached the point in my book where you deserve it.
m ou d.htm
2 /n ews_1n22uranium.html
"ISG found huge quantities of methylphosphonic difluoride and isopropylamine/isopropyl alcohol solution."
Once again if you just once posted a URL from a reputable source supporting your bullshit I would cut you some slack. Google shows absolutely nothing that supports your claim other than the well known fact one shell dating from the Gulf War was found and they did have lots of it back then. One shell does not equal "huge quantities"
"A ballistic missile with a range greatly in excess of 90 miles"
Once again a gross distortion. At least you are predictable. The limit was 150 km and they could be made to go 180-193 km, in a simulation, with a light payload. A full payload might go 162 km based on UN simulation which may or may not match reality. I don't think the fate of the world hinges on 7 miles. The U.N. was destroying them which is how the inspections were supposed to work, until they were run out of Iraq as Bush rushed to war. You are correct. No one cares except, apparently, you. Another URL and these guys are actually on your side kind of:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/sa
"Uranium that, again, Iraq SWORE they did not have."
There you go again. Making something innocuous sound sinister and engaging in a bold faced lie in the process. On those frequent nights you can't sleep do you stay up nights worrying about Iraq's WMD's. Maybe if you took your meds your paranoia would ease.
500 tons of unenriched Uranium and sludge has been sitting at that site since before the first gulf war. Its not like its ever been a secret or Iraq is somehow in breach of anything for having it. It was a logistical nightmare to move it so it wasn't. The most embarrassing part about this dump is the U.S. left it ungaurded after the second invasion, villagers looted the barrels and poured out the radioactive sludge in them, poisoning themselves and everything in the area.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/2004052
Note, once again, me providing URL's which tell something resembling the real story versus your flights of fantasy and exaggeration.