The oil fields are under the control of the US military. The french contracts have been cancelled. Those contracts have been given to American oil companies. All industries in Iraq are eligible for privatization except oil. Iraq is no longer a member of OPEC. Do I really need more evidence then that?
"Hypothetically, were the war for oil, would the Iraqis liberation then be completely unjustified?"
No. Just a side effect. It does not change the fact that we were lead to war by lies.
"We're choosing to help Iraq so we can rape them? If their standard of living increases, their economy becomes powerful, and their lives become safer, are they still victims of American rape?"
Yes. To continue our analogy. Both of your neighbors are starving. You choose to feed the pretty one. You move into her house, it happens to contain a lot of stuff that she can't eat but you find valuable so you take take it. Your primary interest however is her pussy. You really want that pussy more then anything else. You feed her and buy her nice clothes that makes her more attractive to you. You have some restrictions on what she can do but by and large she is free to move about. She is now better fed, dresses better, even puts on some more make up. Maybe you get her a job so she won't be leeching off of you. You also lend her a lot of money to buy nice things and a car so she can get around (she does have to pay you back though). Throughout all this you continue to fuck her whever you want and use her stuff. She is not allowed to object to your raping her, her pussy belongs to you. She can fuck other people if she wants but she can't ever refuse you. You on the other hand can fuck whoever else you want. You can even invade other houses and set up similar situations there. Meanwhile the ugly neighbor continues to starve and suffer while you sip martinis on the porch while getting blowjobs from the now prettier, better fed, happier pussy.
"I would argue that a world with tyrannical dictators can not be a peaceful world."
I agree. I also think the the US is uniquely qualified to end tyranny in the world. We are powerful enough to end all opression and depose all tyrants. Too bad nobody in the whitehouse believes that. Too bad they are only interested in liberating people who have stuff they want.
"The fact that the ends may justify the means in a war seems to fall on deaf ears with most Liberals."
That's most likely due to the fact we took courses in ethics and philosophy in collage. We have read the great books and thinkers of our times like Kant or saint augistine for example. A solid education in the classics tend to do that to you.
BTW. War never brings peace. It shuffles the cards around. WW2 stopped hitler but gave birth to communist russia and china. That later on gave birth to the korean war and vietnam and of course the cold war. Which was worse? I'd say it's a push.
"Sometimes you have to bully the bully in order to get him to stop bullying."
In this case we are the bully. We jut beat up a kid and took his lunch money.
I think that the Bush administration has proven itself to be pretty protectionist. MS, Steel, Wheat, Wood products, etc. They definately don't subscribe to the free trade paradigm (except of course when it comes to outsourcing, they are all gung ho about that).
" And so have many of the companies in that list."
No not really. Certainly not to the same extent. Every single one of those companies has shown some restraint when it comes to business. MS has shown none. They believe that they are above the law (by and large they are right). What's worse they also believe that they are above morals and ethics.
"Single sign on sucks because you have to trust someone to hold that information for you."
Single sign on sucks because eventually somebody will steal your identity and have access to your whole life.
"So I'm still left with the same question that I need to ask myself. Should I start looking at different line of work, doing more physical hands-on work?"
Leave. really nothing in this industry is fun anymore. Get a job where you won't be called in the middle of the night or on your vacation. Even if pays less at least you'll get your life back and you'll sleep better at night.
Who knows you might lose weight and live longer too. I figure sitting in front of a PC 15 hours a day isn't really helping your heart all that much.
Have you read those books. Are they full of real information that actually works in the real world. I read IT books all the time and not one of them has ever applied to my real world situations. Maybe the company I work for is unusually stupid but I doubt they are more stupid then your typical PHB.
So before I waste another $50 on a book let me know.
Yea that's it. Keep lying to the bastards so you can cover your ass when they call you on your lies.
If you say it will take you a month to deliver something and under pressure deliver it in two weeks they will automatically presume you are lying to them in everything you say. At that point they will continue to pound your timelines and expect you to deliver things in days not weeks.
And yet you are inside posting on slashdot. How pathetic is that? A millionaire with a house on the lake on a beautiful day posting on slashdot defending his comapany from geeks living their basements.
It's sick and surreal at the same time. Is everybody at MS like you?
"Saddam was actively pursuing a nuclear warhead (several were found, btw), "
This is lie. Just because people keep repeating it does not make it true. HE did not have any program. He wasn't even close.
"that it is widely believed in intelligence circles he intended to use on Israel. "
I don't care. We give israel six to 12 billion a year in foreign aid and it can certainly use that to pretect itself. I don't want to spend another 100 billion on top of that to clear some vague and long range threat to Israel. They could have invaded and occupied iraq just like they occupy the palestenians. They have lots of practice opressing arabs and they seem to enjoy it quite a bit. According to most intelligence reports Israel has over 100 nuclear weapons. They are the second most powerful military in the world. They already take enough of my money to defend themselves and I resent spending another 100 billion just to make them a little safer.
"You can hate his agenda, his methods, whatever else, but he handled this situation... brilliantly. Look, I hate to admit it too, but he did. For as bad an idea as I think this was, he HANDLED it extremely well"
He did o such thing. He totally underestimated the resistance, he had no plans for after the invasion, he still has no exit strategy. He is floundering like a hapless child when it comes to the middle east. Where is the roadmap?
"And if you want to deliver democracy to everybody and free everybody [blah blah blah], go join the Army."
First of all I am a veteran. I did my stint which is more then you can say for half his sissy hawk cabinet. Secondly Bush has no iterest in delivering democracy to anybody. He is going the deliver socialism to iraq not democracy. They will have national health care and public funded education just like most socialist countries in europe.
Of course that's all moot. He just wants the oil, and to speed up the return of Jesus Christ. Anything else is a side effect.
"Btw, Clinton doesn't have the glowing intelligence record you seem to think he has, we lost quite a few lives during his run (Remember Mogadishu? The Embassy bombings (ours and the Chinese)? Kansas?), so you probably want to tone that down too."
Yes. A few people killed in a few dangerous missions is exactly like invading and occupying a country, spending 100 billion a year and getting over 500 soldiers killed and over a thousand maimed. Exactly the same. Yup. No difference what so ever. What is it with you people. 1 != 100 even though they are both numbers.
"In short K Head, we ran over Iraq with a tank because the guy running the place wanted to take his kill-em-all attitude global - and he had the money to do it. If we could've taken his money (and we tried) that would've been good enough, but it wasn't working."
Wrong. He was disarmed. He was inept. He had no weapons. He had no programs. He was being watched like a hawk. We flew over his country anytime we wanted and bombed him almost monthly. He was so weak he could not even attack the kurds or the shiiites that he hated so much. He was a harmless fly who owned oil. We now own that oil. We beat up the little kid and took away his lunch money. Now we are all walking around with a hard on thinking we are all hot shit.
"You seem to be saying that yes, Iraq will (and is) benefiting from our occupation, but that none of it was justified simply because there are countries worse off than Iraq."
No. I am saying that the purpose of us going in there was oil (mostly) the liberation of the iraqis was a mere side effect.
"Am I completely unjustified in giving my neighbor a cupful of sugar simply because there are starving kids in Africa that could use it more?"
Bad analogy. A better one is that both of your neighbors are starving and you choose to feed the pretty one so you can rape her. You let the ugly one die of hunger because you can't get a hard on around her.
"I have little doubt that it might just prove an essential part of world peace (eventually, in won't happen tomorrow or within the decade)."
It won't ever happen. There will never be world peace. This act by Bush has made the world less peaceful not more.
"The US has done a lot of shitty things around the world, but oftentimes the ends justifiy the means."
I believe that you are indeed articulating the position of the Bush white house. Lying, stealing, bribing, handing out fat contracts to friends etc are all accepted if the end is access to cheap oil. It's the halmark of moral bankrupcy of this administration.
"The simple fact that the Iraq war is under such high scrutiny from the rest of the world is a good thing in itself. It will force us to be extra careful, determined, and devoted to it."
The us spends more on it's military then the rest of the world combined. This administration has put the world on notice that he will kill anybody who opposes us any time for any reason that he wants. Nobody can stop us from invading and taking over any country on this planet and Bush has said the is willing to use force to meet his desires. You are either with us or against us. Those are not hollow words. He will kill anybody who gets in his way.
"Microsoft has not made a big deal out of these (at least as far as I've seen)."
you mean besides taking out ads in magazines telling everybody windows is more secure. I guess that does not count in your book as a big deal right.
I am wondering if paying analysts to say that linux is insecure counts as a "big deal" to you?
"That being said, I'm just *waiting* for a sourceforge compromise. That would be a *huge* hit, and it just plain has to happen sooner or later."
It's already happened. It's not a big deal as it seems. Millions of people have the code checked out. It's pretty easy to determine which parts are hacked and which are not.
"It would be nice if a couple of distributions put out basic *up-to-date* HOWTOs of best practices on how to set up minimal, secure servers using their distribution."
Nah. What would be real nice is if the major distros and projects would set a good example by using LIDS, AIDE, Chroots and other off the shelf items as a matter of policy.
What do you mean "worked"?. Clinton's Iraq policy did indeed work in that it accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. The goal being keeping Saddam under control and a non threat to the US and it's interests. Saddam was declawed enough to make him a non threating to the US, it's allies and it's interests. Clinton accomplished this with minimal amount of expenditure of lives and money. His plan worked perfectly and accomplished exactly what he wanted to do. As I said he had no desire to cram socialism down their throats. He felt that saddam was the problem of the Iraqis and it was up to them to do something about it. He really didn't care all that much about your average Iraqi, he was only concerned with US interests.
Bush had different policy goals. He wanted to invade and occupy iraq and was not content to merely contain saddam. His motivations were complex (oil, his father, biblical prophecy, US hegemony etc) but he knew from day one that he wanted to control iraq totally and absolutely. He too accomplished what he wanted even though it cost lots of money and lots of lives.
In the end both Clinton and Bush were looking out for their own interests. The interests of the Iraqis was and remains totally irrelevent.
If Bush had stood up before 9/11 and said "The US will use it's wealth, power and military might to end opression in the world and to destroy all dictators" I would be lining up to give him money and support. If he had said "we will deliver democracy to everybody and free everybody from the chains of opression and bondage no matter what it costs in lives and money" I would walk around my town begging people to vote for him.
He didn't say that because that's never been his goal. He will not lift a finger to deliver freedom to chechnians, palestenians, africans, tibetians, chinese, and the tens of millions of people suffering all over the world because they don't have something he wants.
I am still waiting for somebody (anybody) to explain to me why the Iraqi people deserved socialism more then any other people on the planet. Why they had to be delivered from evil first. It seems to me that your average north korean is and has been much more opressed. The average chechnians is much poorer, the average east timorese has suffered much more death and bloodshed, the average tibetians much more misery and ethnic cleansing. Too bad none of them have oil, too bad the bible makes no mention of them, too bad none of their leaders tried to kill his father.
Sez who. It's responsible for battle ships, ATM machines, banking systems and tens of thousands of other uses. NT can kill more people then GM ever could.
If MS refuses to pay the fine then their property can be confiscated. Just like if you don't make your car payments your car can be confiscated. There is nothing illegal about that. When a judgement is entered against you you must pay. The govt can literally drain your bank accounts at will.
This is why IMHO MS is the number one target of Al quida. One suitcase nuclear weapon detonated in redmond (a soft target) would crush the US economy and severly hurt the global economy.
Charles Krauthammer a well known neocon was preaching to the amen choir at fox TV last week. During their "aren't all special because we hate democrats" love in he suggested that we park an aricraft carrier off the coast of france to persuade them to go along with us.
They all giggled like teenage girls at a sleepover but you could tell he was deadly serious. These people have no boundries. They would bomb france if they felt it would get them something they wanted.
Both people were worried about iraq. That's reasonable. Clinton kept the sanctions in place even though they were immoral and hurt ordinary people more then the iraqi govt. Clinton also kept the no fly zones intact and kept up the overflights. Of course he also cultivated friendly relations with Turkey, Israel and Lebanon to increase the likelyhood of gathering good intelligence.
Here is the difference though. Clinton thought the we could get what we want without invading and occupying the country. He had no delusions of about delivering socialism to iraq which the current administration is desparately tying to do.
Clinton was all for regime change but he insisted that it had to come from inside iraq. He wanted to support dissenting factions in any way he could but he ruled out invation. He felt that the iraqis had to figure it out for themselves and would not appreciate a govt shoved down their throats.
Why is it that people believe any old lie no matter how silly.
He did not have any sort of a program in it's infancy. He used to have lots of chemical weapons (we gave him the knowhow). He used them during the Reagan Admnistration (you may want to read up on that).
After the first gulf war he was ordered to dismantle both his nuclear programs and his stockpiles of chemical weapons. He destroyed the nuclear program under the watch of the weapons inspectors. Both Hans Blix and Mohammed albredaei (sp?) have documented this phase. They also claim that they destroyed all the chemical weapons but not all of the destruction was documented. That's why a second round of inspections were ordered. During those inspections every single scientist interviewed stated that they destroyed the chemicals. They told the inspectors where the destruction took place. The inspectors found evidence of destruction but it was impossible to determine exactly how much was destroyed.
Those are the facts. I know they don't fit everybodies ideology but they are facts nevertheless.
It may be that not all the weapons were destroyed but it's highly unlikely that those chemicals are still viable. Even if they exist they are probably inert by now. If he had them we would have used them.
They also both built concentration camps. Hitler did provide walls and and roof and beds for his prisoners though. Bush just put them in chain link cages and let them sleep on the dirt.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually neither one is punishment. MS stock went UP today. That should tell you how much it hurts MS.
"With what evidence?"
The oil fields are under the control of the US military. The french contracts have been cancelled. Those contracts have been given to American oil companies. All industries in Iraq are eligible for privatization except oil. Iraq is no longer a member of OPEC. Do I really need more evidence then that?
"Hypothetically, were the war for oil, would the Iraqis liberation then be completely unjustified?"
No. Just a side effect. It does not change the fact that we were lead to war by lies.
"We're choosing to help Iraq so we can rape them? If their standard of living increases, their economy becomes powerful, and their lives become safer, are they still victims of American rape?"
Yes. To continue our analogy. Both of your neighbors are starving. You choose to feed the pretty one. You move into her house, it happens to contain a lot of stuff that she can't eat but you find valuable so you take take it. Your primary interest however is her pussy. You really want that pussy more then anything else. You feed her and buy her nice clothes that makes her more attractive to you. You have some restrictions on what she can do but by and large she is free to move about. She is now better fed, dresses better, even puts on some more make up. Maybe you get her a job so she won't be leeching off of you. You also lend her a lot of money to buy nice things and a car so she can get around (she does have to pay you back though). Throughout all this you continue to fuck her whever you want and use her stuff. She is not allowed to object to your raping her, her pussy belongs to you. She can fuck other people if she wants but she can't ever refuse you. You on the other hand can fuck whoever else you want. You can even invade other houses and set up similar situations there. Meanwhile the ugly neighbor continues to starve and suffer while you sip martinis on the porch while getting blowjobs from the now prettier, better fed, happier pussy.
"I would argue that a world with tyrannical dictators can not be a peaceful world."
I agree. I also think the the US is uniquely qualified to end tyranny in the world. We are powerful enough to end all opression and depose all tyrants. Too bad nobody in the whitehouse believes that. Too bad they are only interested in liberating people who have stuff they want.
"The fact that the ends may justify the means in a war seems to fall on deaf ears with most Liberals."
That's most likely due to the fact we took courses in ethics and philosophy in collage. We have read the great books and thinkers of our times like Kant or saint augistine for example. A solid education in the classics tend to do that to you.
BTW. War never brings peace. It shuffles the cards around. WW2 stopped hitler but gave birth to communist russia and china. That later on gave birth to the korean war and vietnam and of course the cold war. Which was worse? I'd say it's a push.
"Sometimes you have to bully the bully in order to get him to stop bullying."
In this case we are the bully. We jut beat up a kid and took his lunch money.
I think that the Bush administration has proven itself to be pretty protectionist. MS, Steel, Wheat, Wood products, etc. They definately don't subscribe to the free trade paradigm (except of course when it comes to outsourcing, they are all gung ho about that).
" And so have many of the companies in that list."
No not really. Certainly not to the same extent. Every single one of those companies has shown some restraint when it comes to business. MS has shown none. They believe that they are above the law (by and large they are right). What's worse they also believe that they are above morals and ethics.
"Single sign on sucks because you have to trust someone to hold that information for you."
Single sign on sucks because eventually somebody will steal your identity and have access to your whole life.
"So I'm still left with the same question that I need to ask myself. Should I start looking at different line of work, doing more physical hands-on work?"
Leave. really nothing in this industry is fun anymore. Get a job where you won't be called in the middle of the night or on your vacation. Even if pays less at least you'll get your life back and you'll sleep better at night.
Who knows you might lose weight and live longer too. I figure sitting in front of a PC 15 hours a day isn't really helping your heart all that much.
Honest question.
Have you read those books. Are they full of real information that actually works in the real world. I read IT books all the time and not one of them has ever applied to my real world situations. Maybe the company I work for is unusually stupid but I doubt they are more stupid then your typical PHB.
So before I waste another $50 on a book let me know.
Yea that's it. Keep lying to the bastards so you can cover your ass when they call you on your lies.
If you say it will take you a month to deliver something and under pressure deliver it in two weeks they will automatically presume you are lying to them in everything you say. At that point they will continue to pound your timelines and expect you to deliver things in days not weeks.
Not true. It's based on teh 5.X freebsd series.
I would not trust MS under any circumstances for any reason. They have lied, cheated and stole way too many times.
Netscape had that. I wonder why the moz never implemented it.
And yet you are inside posting on slashdot. How pathetic is that? A millionaire with a house on the lake on a beautiful day posting on slashdot defending his comapany from geeks living their basements.
It's sick and surreal at the same time. Is everybody at MS like you?
"Saddam was actively pursuing a nuclear warhead (several were found, btw), "
... brilliantly. Look, I hate to admit it too, but he did. For as bad an idea as I think this was, he HANDLED it extremely well"
This is lie. Just because people keep repeating it does not make it true. HE did not have any program. He wasn't even close.
"that it is widely believed in intelligence circles he intended to use on Israel. "
I don't care. We give israel six to 12 billion a year in foreign aid and it can certainly use that to pretect itself. I don't want to spend another 100 billion on top of that to clear some vague and long range threat to Israel. They could have invaded and occupied iraq just like they occupy the palestenians. They have lots of practice opressing arabs and they seem to enjoy it quite a bit. According to most intelligence reports Israel has over 100 nuclear weapons. They are the second most powerful military in the world. They already take enough of my money to defend themselves and I resent spending another 100 billion just to make them a little safer.
"You can hate his agenda, his methods, whatever else, but he handled this situation
He did o such thing. He totally underestimated the resistance, he had no plans for after the invasion, he still has no exit strategy. He is floundering like a hapless child when it comes to the middle east. Where is the roadmap?
"And if you want to deliver democracy to everybody and free everybody [blah blah blah], go join the Army."
First of all I am a veteran. I did my stint which is more then you can say for half his sissy hawk cabinet. Secondly Bush has no iterest in delivering democracy to anybody. He is going the deliver socialism to iraq not democracy. They will have national health care and public funded education just like most socialist countries in europe.
Of course that's all moot. He just wants the oil, and to speed up the return of Jesus Christ. Anything else is a side effect.
"Btw, Clinton doesn't have the glowing intelligence record you seem to think he has, we lost quite a few lives during his run (Remember Mogadishu? The Embassy bombings (ours and the Chinese)? Kansas?), so you probably want to tone that down too."
Yes. A few people killed in a few dangerous missions is exactly like invading and occupying a country, spending 100 billion a year and getting over 500 soldiers killed and over a thousand maimed. Exactly the same. Yup. No difference what so ever. What is it with you people. 1 != 100 even though they are both numbers.
"In short K Head, we ran over Iraq with a tank because the guy running the place wanted to take his kill-em-all attitude global - and he had the money to do it. If we could've taken his money (and we tried) that would've been good enough, but it wasn't working."
Wrong. He was disarmed. He was inept. He had no weapons. He had no programs. He was being watched like a hawk. We flew over his country anytime we wanted and bombed him almost monthly. He was so weak he could not even attack the kurds or the shiiites that he hated so much. He was a harmless fly who owned oil. We now own that oil. We beat up the little kid and took away his lunch money. Now we are all walking around with a hard on thinking we are all hot shit.
"You seem to be saying that yes, Iraq will (and is) benefiting from our occupation, but that none of it was justified simply because there are countries worse off than Iraq."
No. I am saying that the purpose of us going in there was oil (mostly) the liberation of the iraqis was a mere side effect.
"Am I completely unjustified in giving my neighbor a cupful of sugar simply because there are starving kids in Africa that could use it more?"
Bad analogy. A better one is that both of your neighbors are starving and you choose to feed the pretty one so you can rape her. You let the ugly one die of hunger because you can't get a hard on around her.
"I have little doubt that it might just prove an essential part of world peace (eventually, in won't happen tomorrow or within the decade)."
It won't ever happen. There will never be world peace. This act by Bush has made the world less peaceful not more.
"The US has done a lot of shitty things around the world, but oftentimes the ends justifiy the means."
I believe that you are indeed articulating the position of the Bush white house. Lying, stealing, bribing, handing out fat contracts to friends etc are all accepted if the end is access to cheap oil. It's the halmark of moral bankrupcy of this administration.
"The simple fact that the Iraq war is under such high scrutiny from the rest of the world is a good thing in itself. It will force us to be extra careful, determined, and devoted to it."
The us spends more on it's military then the rest of the world combined. This administration has put the world on notice that he will kill anybody who opposes us any time for any reason that he wants. Nobody can stop us from invading and taking over any country on this planet and Bush has said the is willing to use force to meet his desires. You are either with us or against us. Those are not hollow words. He will kill anybody who gets in his way.
"Microsoft has not made a big deal out of these (at least as far as I've seen)."
you mean besides taking out ads in magazines telling everybody windows is more secure. I guess that does not count in your book as a big deal right.
I am wondering if paying analysts to say that linux is insecure counts as a "big deal" to you?
"That being said, I'm just *waiting* for a sourceforge compromise. That would be a *huge* hit, and it just plain has to happen sooner or later."
It's already happened. It's not a big deal as it seems. Millions of people have the code checked out. It's pretty easy to determine which parts are hacked and which are not.
"It would be nice if a couple of distributions put out basic *up-to-date* HOWTOs of best practices on how to set up minimal, secure servers using their distribution."
Nah. What would be real nice is if the major distros and projects would set a good example by using LIDS, AIDE, Chroots and other off the shelf items as a matter of policy.
If they had LIDS in place they would be safe now.
Ya. Only if they some oil or something then we would have gone in and helped them.
What do you mean "worked"?. Clinton's Iraq policy did indeed work in that it accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. The goal being keeping Saddam under control and a non threat to the US and it's interests. Saddam was declawed enough to make him a non threating to the US, it's allies and it's interests. Clinton accomplished this with minimal amount of expenditure of lives and money. His plan worked perfectly and accomplished exactly what he wanted to do. As I said he had no desire to cram socialism down their throats. He felt that saddam was the problem of the Iraqis and it was up to them to do something about it. He really didn't care all that much about your average Iraqi, he was only concerned with US interests.
Bush had different policy goals. He wanted to invade and occupy iraq and was not content to merely contain saddam. His motivations were complex (oil, his father, biblical prophecy, US hegemony etc) but he knew from day one that he wanted to control iraq totally and absolutely. He too accomplished what he wanted even though it cost lots of money and lots of lives.
In the end both Clinton and Bush were looking out for their own interests. The interests of the Iraqis was and remains totally irrelevent.
If Bush had stood up before 9/11 and said "The US will use it's wealth, power and military might to end opression in the world and to destroy all dictators" I would be lining up to give him money and support. If he had said "we will deliver democracy to everybody and free everybody from the chains of opression and bondage no matter what it costs in lives and money" I would walk around my town begging people to vote for him.
He didn't say that because that's never been his goal. He will not lift a finger to deliver freedom to chechnians, palestenians, africans, tibetians, chinese, and the tens of millions of people suffering all over the world because they don't have something he wants.
I am still waiting for somebody (anybody) to explain to me why the Iraqi people deserved socialism more then any other people on the planet. Why they had to be delivered from evil first. It seems to me that your average north korean is and has been much more opressed. The average chechnians is much poorer, the average east timorese has suffered much more death and bloodshed, the average tibetians much more misery and ethnic cleansing. Too bad none of them have oil, too bad the bible makes no mention of them, too bad none of their leaders tried to kill his father.
The lawyer isn't stupid, just a liar. Just like the top execs at MS.
Sez who. It's responsible for battle ships, ATM machines, banking systems and tens of thousands of other uses. NT can kill more people then GM ever could.
If MS refuses to pay the fine then their property can be confiscated. Just like if you don't make your car payments your car can be confiscated. There is nothing illegal about that. When a judgement is entered against you you must pay. The govt can literally drain your bank accounts at will.
This is why IMHO MS is the number one target of Al quida. One suitcase nuclear weapon detonated in redmond (a soft target) would crush the US economy and severly hurt the global economy.
Charles Krauthammer a well known neocon was preaching to the amen choir at fox TV last week. During their "aren't all special because we hate democrats" love in he suggested that we park an aricraft carrier off the coast of france to persuade them to go along with us.
They all giggled like teenage girls at a sleepover but you could tell he was deadly serious. These people have no boundries. They would bomb france if they felt it would get them something they wanted.
Both people were worried about iraq. That's reasonable. Clinton kept the sanctions in place even though they were immoral and hurt ordinary people more then the iraqi govt. Clinton also kept the no fly zones intact and kept up the overflights. Of course he also cultivated friendly relations with Turkey, Israel and Lebanon to increase the likelyhood of gathering good intelligence.
Here is the difference though. Clinton thought the we could get what we want without invading and occupying the country. He had no delusions of about delivering socialism to iraq which the current administration is desparately tying to do.
Clinton was all for regime change but he insisted that it had to come from inside iraq. He wanted to support dissenting factions in any way he could but he ruled out invation. He felt that the iraqis had to figure it out for themselves and would not appreciate a govt shoved down their throats.
I think he was right.
Why is it that people believe any old lie no matter how silly.
He did not have any sort of a program in it's infancy. He used to have lots of chemical weapons (we gave him the knowhow). He used them during the Reagan Admnistration (you may want to read up on that).
After the first gulf war he was ordered to dismantle both his nuclear programs and his stockpiles of chemical weapons. He destroyed the nuclear program under the watch of the weapons inspectors. Both Hans Blix and Mohammed albredaei (sp?) have documented this phase. They also claim that they destroyed all the chemical weapons but not all of the destruction was documented. That's why a second round of inspections were ordered. During those inspections every single scientist interviewed stated that they destroyed the chemicals. They told the inspectors where the destruction took place. The inspectors found evidence of destruction but it was impossible to determine exactly how much was destroyed.
Those are the facts. I know they don't fit everybodies ideology but they are facts nevertheless.
It may be that not all the weapons were destroyed but it's highly unlikely that those chemicals are still viable. Even if they exist they are probably inert by now. If he had them we would have used them.
They also both built concentration camps. Hitler did provide walls and and roof and beds for his prisoners though. Bush just put them in chain link cages and let them sleep on the dirt.
On the same vein. Osama Bin Laden was very generous to the people of Afghanistan. He personally funded the construction of many schools and hospitals.
Sometimes evil people find a soft spot in their hearts for certain causes.