| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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Safia Taleb Al Souhail is Advocacy Director for the Middle East and Islamic World at the International Alliance for Justice (www.i-a-j.org), and the publisher of the independent newspaper Al Manar Al Arabi. Al Souhail participated in a delegation of nine Iraqi women who met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on December 2nd 2002, to brief him on the persecution of their communities in Iraq. This perspective is based on the delegation’s remarks. As we watch UN inspectors search Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, I ask, why are there no UN inspectors investigating Saddam Hussein’s crimes against the Iraqi people? Along with hidden caches of biological and chemical weapons, Iraq also has hidden torture chambers, prisons and mass graves. In Saddam’s Iraq, women are especially vulnerable pressure points - victims who can be used to influence other victims. They are harassed, abused, raped, tortured and gassed both for their resistance to the regime and as a means to control their families. For reasons like this, other Iraqi women and I have been organizing to get our voices heard in the international arena. Last December we met with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain to brief him on the Ba'th regime's systematic abuse of women in Iraq, and how our families and communities have been persecuted by Saddam's regime. Zahraa Mohammed is a Shi'a, Feyli Kurd from Baghdad. She described to Mr. Blair how she was imprisoned with her family for three months in 1980, during a mass deportation campaign of Feyli Kurds from Iraq to Iran. Saddam’s regime has conducted three such campaigns, in 1969, 1971 and 1980, in which hundreds of thousands of Feyli Kurds were expelled and lost all their property. Saddam’s agents took away Mohammed’s four brothers and eight cousins, and dumped the rest of her family on the heavily mined Iranian border. To this day, she does not know what happened to her brothers and hundreds of other relatives who have also disappeared. In total, seven thousand young men of the Feyli Kurdish community were taken hostage in April 1980, and twenty-three years later their fate remains unknown. Berivan Dosky, a Kurd from northern Iraq, described how her mother was forced to flee her village in Duhok province in the 1961 Iraqi war against the Kurds, merely two hours after giving birth to Berivan. Berivan herself was later forced to repeat the scenario with her three-month-old son. In 1988, during a chemical attack against the Kurds, Berivan had to make a Faustian choice: She had only one gas mask, and had to decide whether to use it for herself, or give it to her then two-year-old son. She decided neither would wear it; they would either live or die together. Berivan is worried that Saddam will once again use chemical weapons against the Iraqi Kurds who live in the British and American-protected Kurdish safe haven. She asked Mr. Blair to make sure that there are enough gas masks for everyone. Fatima Bahr-al-Ulum is a Shi'a from a respected religious family in Najaf, in Southern Iraq. She listed over twenty clergy members in her immediate family who are in prison; none of them were released in the recent amnesty. Scores of others have been killed. The Iraqi Shi'as have suffered greatly from the discriminatory policies of Saddam's regime, which has massacred over two hundred thousand Shi’as, murdered five of their religious leaders (Al Maraji'), and destroyed their Marsh lands, known as the Venice of the Middle East. All the great Sh'ia religious families in Iraq, like Fatima Ulum’s, have been targeted by Saddam's regime for their opposition to its brutal policies. Layla Kelenchy, a Turkoman from Kirkuk, in Northern Iraq, described how she was expelled from her home during the 1990's as part of Saddam's "Arabization” campaign in which Sunni Arab Iraqis are resettled around the country to disrupt other Iraqi ethnic communities. There are an estimated one million non-Arab refugees within Iraq who have been displaced by Saddam's ethnic cleansing campaign and live in refugee camps or scattered in various cities in Iraqi Kurdistan. Melina Bakhos, an Assyrian poet, told the Prime Minister how Saddam’s regime has destroyed more than two hundred villages, and dozens of ancient churches and monasteries, in her small Christian Assyrian community. Only this summer, his agents beheaded a 72-year-old nun in a Mosul Church. Hundreds of Iraqi women have been beheaded in the last two years under the orders of Saddam’s son Uday. Their heads are displayed on the walls and doors of their houses. Teachers have been beheaded in front of their pupils. These women, and others who were doctors and engineers, were accused of being prostitutes. In reality they were killed because of they were related to opponents of Saddam. My father, Sheik Taleb Al Souhail, was the chief of the almost one million strong Bani Tamim tribe from the central part of Iraq. Our family fled from Iraq after the Ba'ath coup d'etat of 1968, but Saddam's agents still managed to kill my father in his exile home in Lebanon, in April 1994. Although the case is well documented, it was never prosecuted in the Lebanese courts. All our property in Iraq was confiscated by the Ba'ath regime, and several members of the tribe were arrested and executed. My mother and six sisters have remained in exile in Jordan. We receive constant death threats from the regime. Earlier this year, a voice on the phone told me: "Do not think that because you are a woman you will not face the same fate as your father." These stories are a just a tiny sample of crimes that the Ba'ath regime has committed against the Iraqi for the past three decades. It is essential for people of the world to understand that the suffering of the Iraqis will not end as long as the current regime is in power. The British prime minister's agreement to meet us was a heartening and encouraging gesture. We asked the British government to enforce those sections of UN Security Council Resolution 688, passed in 1991, which call upon the Iraqi government to end its repression of the Iraqi people. Resolution 1284, passed in December 1999, also calls on Iraq to cease its discrimination against various Iraqi ethnic groups. And we asked that a UN commission be created to investigate human rights violations in Iraq. There is ample evidence with which to indict Saddam Hussein for genocide and crimes against humanity in the international criminal court. For the past three decades, we have been seeking international support for our efforts to bring about an Iraq within which our children can be brought up in peace and security. Iraq has violated sixteen UN Security Council resolutions, most of which were passed under the rarely used Chapter VII, which makes them legally biding on all UN members to enforce by military means if necessary. What is the point of these resolutions if the member nations of the UN do not show the will to enforce them? Saddam Hussein is himself a weapon of mass destruction. Disarmament is not enough. It may avert a chemical or biological attack, but it would not protect the people of Iraq from arbitrary imprisonment, executions, rape, torture and daily intimidation and deprivation. Saddam’s oppression of Iraqis is the "king of wars." His ongoing war against the Iraqi people must be stopped. The long-suffering Iraqi people deserve to be freed, and to live in a democratic, pluralistic and federal Iraq that is at peace with itself, the region and the world. Source |
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Lybia Oh, and Iraq will chair the dis-armenment commitee |
Is this not exporting our western culture??? |
sounds like your relationship is headed into stormy waters. that'll be tough, but i'm sure you'll both get through it just fine. |
the alphabetical selection of committee chairs just happened to hit the I's. I had heard that Iran is heading someother committee, something like a human rights committe or something ironic group. Complete coincidence. Amusing. |
That is what I am talking about. Where is your rebuf to the opening statements? |
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The Shah of Iran (Put in place by carter) was considered more dangerous at the time then hussien. Policy blunder, yes. Hindsight is always 20/20. |
Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are only two of many examples... and now the US cooperates with several other nations that aren't exactly friendly to get Saddam, pissing off their people... what, or should I say, who, is next? How many other monsters are we going to help create? Or do we care, because we need to plant the seeds for future wars for future politicians to use as a distraction from problems at home? The only way to stop terror is to STOP PARTICIPATING IN IT. |
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kind of like drinking your own piss. the only way to stop drinking your own piss, is to stop pissing. see what i'm saying? in other words, the whole turn the other cheek thing is flawed because it assumes that there exists no man who does not have evil in the core of his heart. the only way to end theft is by keeping your doors unlocked. if a man has five chickens, he can kill one of those chickens. he can wake up with the rise of the sun and walk into his yard and say "Chickens, one of you is going to die this morning. One of you chickens is going to die some come on forward and i will kill you." and the chickes would scurry about the yard. not with any particular passion, though, as chickens do not understand human language and would not be aware of the odds of death being laid out before them. and the man would go out to the shed and grab his axe. he would slowly sharpen the axe. he would go back into the yard and he would grab a chicken. he would take the chicken by the legs and hold it out over the killin block. he would swing the axe and remove the head from the chicken. it would wipe the blood from the axe with his kercheif. he would return the axe to the shed. he would beat off into the dusty wood floor of the shed. he would wipe the jism from his cock with his kercheif. and then there would be four chickens. four chickens scurrying around the yard eating mice and bugs. weeks and months and years will pass. chickens will come and go, die and be buried, killed and be eaten. burnt in the firework incident. mutilated in the lawnmower incident. chickens will be bought and paid for, stolen and adopted. chickens will arrive on spring winds, in aerocars, in the back of the milk truck. chickens will rain to the earth in freakish weather. chickens will be smuggled inside of couch cushions and oatmeal boxes and in the spare tire compartment of buicks. chickens will come and go. but then, in forty or fifty years, he will find himself on the porch, looking at those same five goddamn chickens. on the same kind of day, same summer sun, same summer breeze. a glass of lemondade in your hand put quietly to the wood of the porch. he creeps into the yard, into the center of the oblivious chickens. the stupid fowl. he watches the chickens briefly, and then he says "Chickens. Today you will all die. Not a one of you will live any longer. I will crush your heads one by one with a sledge hammer." and he goes to the shed and he grabs the sledge hammer from the wall. he walks back to the yard. he grabs a chicken and he smashes its head with the sledge. he repeats this four more times. and then there are no chickens. no chickens. and no chickens ever returned. and when the man died he found himself in a booth in a bar in heaven. a beautiful woman is at his side, who he later discovers to be audry hepburn. a man sits down, introduces himself as bob hope. another man with white gloves puts glasses of whisky on the table. pain is the story of the day, my friends. the pain of boundried existences and successful memes and there is nothing that anyone can do about the greed in the hearts of men. nor about the birth of evil people. so we must instead make sure that no evil people can ever diminish our existence. because power, unlike wealth, is not created. it is transfered. and to let your power dimish is to let another's grow. and that other is almost sure to be evil. i'm sure they're van ecking this as i type. |
roosters are not the same as chickens. xoxo, bobby flay |
you don't agree that if the US even got involved LESS in the region that they'd be less threatening? or do you think they will always be after us from now on no matter what? because i believe in the former. so unless you're being ironic... er.. no. |
(Spider, that's a reference especially for you) |
i don't think you understand what you are implying. in order for the US to be less involved in the region, we would need to find an alternative to our dependance on oil. our security is tightly coupled with the strength of our economy. so, in essence, the only way for us to remove our involvement in the region is to remove our financial ties to the region. if this were the case, the GDPs of the arab oil producing nations would be drastically reduced. infrastructure would disolve. governments would collapse. who will they blame when the money runs out? when the poor are turning to religion, the promise of paradise making the torments of reality bearable? of course they're going to blame the US. and the corpus of potential terrorists will grow proportionate to the increase in suffering. |
no reason to sink to such levels to combat such entities. "the whole turn the other cheek thing is flawed because it assumes that there exists no man who does not have evil in the core of his heart." i dont think anyone advocates "turning a cheek" what is it with you and trace assuming that because some of us do not support the action of war, therefor we support inaction? otherwise nate you can justify all kinds tyrrany with your logic. Just because darth vader spoke like a english professor doesnt mean the dark side is anyless dark. and trace because i dont read every little bit of nonsense you post doesnt mean im not able or uncapable of carrying on a conversation about the threat Saddam poses. That was delgated to another thread dipshit. "Respond or shut up on another thread" is essentially what you were saying and you look kinda silly in doing so. |
i support war as a last resort, when all other viable options are exhausted. if you disagree with this, you implicitly support inaction. war is the only recourse to some of the threats of this world. |
maybe THIS is the crux of our disagreement. |
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He was deposed during the Carter administration. Remember "America held hostage, day XXX". The hostage crises created ABC's Nightline. It also helped elect Reagan. |
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Here's what's next, it's the solution to our dependence on foreign oil. |
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i think that if the US is going to be the world leader they need to set the standard and show, i guess you could call it restraint. And genuine pateince. And a willingness to listen. I know you think that cutting down our involvement means we lose power, but i disagree. i think that setting the example and not sinking to the level of terrorists will give the US more power, more respect, and a moral authority it does not really have but claims. It can be done. So yeah, I understand where you're coming from, but I simply disagree. |
the UN and US have both been quite patient with Iraq- when does it end? at what point do you decide that enough is enough? that there have been plenty of iterations through Saddam's PR game? that things will never change via diplomatic channels? |
As well, if an example is set, we wont have bullshit "but they did it too!" things happen like France's deal with the Ivory Coast. And then theres Israel, but that turns everything really grey, and I don't want to go there. as for patience, no, noone has patience for Saddam Hussein. I'm talking about patience about what to do about him. The Bush administation has been pushing one option while pretending to be for others. The amount of time invested in seriously coming up with a solution has been very small. The US gets full credit for wanting to do something about him. No patience for Saddam, but patience for real options to avoid the destruction of possibly hundreds of thousands of lives. As for Saddams PR game, it is frustrating to see him act in defiance whenever he talks, then sense Aziz out there to go along with whatever the UN wants as his fall-guy. But thats the way its going, and if its making progress (and I think it is), we're just going to have to put up with it. I don't know at what point enough is enough, but I'm hoping I'll know when I see it. I know in my heart we are nowhere near there yet. Cheers. |
Here is my last attempt to inject some type of common sense into this. Do you have a car loan or mortgage that you signed? Does this agreement spell out terms, as well as consequences for failing to meet those terms? Does the lendor have responsibilities to you as well as to the committee they report to? If you fail to make your payments for 90 days, don't you get a call? If your response is "I sent in payments, therefore you have no grounds to take my car/home"? Does the lending institution just say "OK then, thank you, have a nice day?" or will they ask you for proof, such as cancelled checks or electronic funds tranfer numbers or copies of money orders? Iraq signed a cease fire agreement in 1991. Included in this agreement was returning the prisonsers from Kuwait, and distruction of chemical and biological weapons. There was a complete list of items that were to be destroyed. Most items on that list have not been destroyed. Yes, you can prove you destroyed it. The inspectors were there to document that destruction. And there will be remains that can be verified. Iraq is in breach of 17 resolutions, including the original agreement that called for the ending of hostilities. We promised the Iraqi people in 1991 that we would help them get rid of Saddam Hussein. The UN is looking less and less like a legitimate peacemaker and more and more like an enabler. The US is appearing to look very weak and unable to enforce it's own treaties. The original coalition is failing to meet their promise they made in 1991. And a large presense of the United States in that region will incite some turmoil, but the response can be quicker and less messy. The middle east is full of trouhle. The US cannot ignore it. Nate is correct, if we pulled out of the oil market, economies in that region will colapse. The US will be blamed for not helping stabilize the region. Money will not solve it. The money has gone to waste on palaces and weapons. Iraq is the second step in getting this shit under control. There is much more to come |
How will a war plan that includes us getting the hell out of thecountry as soon as we can, instead of insuring the country doesn't go all the hell by committing to rebuilding democratic institutions? How will locking the Kurds out of the process help stabilize the region? Nothing I have seen so far shows me this administration has what it takes to get a good outcome out of this. |
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That way they can continue to expand their bureaucracy and influance in all governments. What the UN really wants is to eventually become a world government. Hopefully this won't happen in my lifetime. |
trace "Here is my last attempt to inject some type of common sense into this." I've seen buttloads of common sense on this. where are you looking? Rowlf made all kinds of common sense. If you are saying your point of view is one of common sense, id have to say thats pretty much a load of shit, because you want to treat Iraq like a petulant misbehaving child. Brilliant plan when upwards of a million civilians will die. The middle east is full of trouble because of US meddling for decades. Your elementary equation: "If you fail to make your payments for 90 days, don't you get a call? If your response is "I sent in payments, therefore you have no grounds to take my car/home"? Does the lending institution just say "OK then, thank you, have a nice day?" or will they ask you for proof, such as cancelled checks or electronic funds tranfer numbers or copies of money orders?" assumes, like nate, that running into a problem in the process automatically results in default. No they wouldnt say have a nice day and hang up. Its in a banks interest to work with you just as its in the US's and the world's best interest to not go to war. Collections cost banks money. Also your example is a bit retarded because it doesnt really address or account for the fact that war will result in hundreds of thousands of dead civilians. Further demonstrating my take that most of America has no fucking idea what this war entails. The number of veterans against this war should be a testament to that. |
Seriously? Everyone I have talked to (and no, not just healthy active duty vets, this includes disabled vets as well)think that the US government owes them a debt of honor to finish what was started in 1991. |
You work in an active military institution, its not in anyone's best interest to oppose what is happening so saying you've spoken to vets who support it...well yeah, i would think so given where you work. |
There might be tens of thousands of Iraqy millitary casualties. Especially amoung the Republican Guard. GHWB made a Big mistake in not wiping them out in 91. |
Even my friend who is an officer in Afghanistan is of the opinion that the current military actions aren't justified. Also, stop bringing up Clinton. We aren't talking about Clinton. If Clinton were in office, we would be. He's not. Bush is. The point you are trying to avoid making, trace, it seems to me, is that you really don't feel that the Iraqis have the same right to exist that anyone else does. That's probably why you avoid addressing the civilian toll. But I guess a bunch of dead children will pay off that debt of honor bullshit. There is no honor in war, and if you believe that there is, I feel sorry for you. |
more info more info its not really disputed that well over a 100,000 Iraqi's died in the first Gulf War watcher. Nearly 500,000 people have died since due to sanctions. |
PAY ATTENTION! I said Saddam, not the Iraqis. We AND our alies need to keep up our end of the cease fire treaty signed in 1991. We also need to keep our promise to help the iraqi's get rid of saddam. And speaking of clinton, he's the ass that brought up federal charges against the cia in 1996 for attempting to keep that promise I am for democracy being set up in Iraq. dammit |
any dumbass who thinks this war is going to be successful in killing Saddam without taking 100s of thousands of civilians is out of touch with the realities of war. How many civilians for Saddams head trace? C'mon, gimme a number. and for fucksake just shut up about clinton trace. really. shut up about it. its irrelavent |
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precisely. The plan seems to be very reckless and shortsighted, which is why the world has to come up with many more options since previous resolutions did not work. Its not like there have been 17 completely seperate plans. Take a look at those resolutions and clearly explain the difference, it is basically like getting the same 'past due' note from the bank over and over again. Its very interesting to me that Bush will say 'war is the last option' but has presented war as the only option, seemingly leaving it up to the rest of the world to come up with other options. If 'war is the last option', and the US intends to follow through with that last option if needed, I think it bears the responsiblity to come up with other options itself before a war. Its very apparent the US' "option before war" was to go the UN, hammer out yet another designed-to-fail resolution as an excuse, then go to war. There was never a serious committment from the Bush administration for peace. |
http://www.theonion.com/onion3907/wdyt_3907.html although im sure most have already seen it |
Or better yet, send one of them smart bombs after him. That's what they're for. Killing one little dude at a time. Like, remember how they killed Osama Bin Laden that one time? That was awesome. |
I respond to nate equally. |
But crying about someone talking about clinton and carter and bush sr does not take the mistakes away, or make the subject irrelevent |
Oh wait, this was 1988. Who cares right? Because this is 2003. Just like clinton has sat through 8 years of iraq breaking 17 resolutions. But your right patty, lets go back for more. Because the process is not right. Just the same as a mortgage is 90 days late, we need understanding and work with the Iraqis. You totally missed my alegory. |
You are the ones whom seem calous. Blame the UN sanctions? France's #1 source of oil is Iraq. Is that money feeding the starving? Or building palaces and buying prohibited weapon fuselages? You blame the wrong person, again. Because it is easier for you to hate bush and cry for his ousting, who at most will be in power a total of 8 years, then it is to get a real tyrant and murderrer who has been in power for 45 years out of power. The only way it can be done is with action. Not inspections, santions, or resolutions. |
Oh no hangon - America only involves itself in the problems of other countries when they need/want/use products of that country. Thats not right. |
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And you've always missed the point that we as a country need to be cognizant of the actions and inactions of our foreign policies over the years, and the results of those policies. Nobody is denying that the US has done a lot of good int he world. But you seem to take any criticism of the US as such. Frankly, it's annoying. Look, the US has lost a lot of face over the last 30 years or so, since Vietnam. We've lost a lot of trust. No one here likes that. Some of us are saying that the US needs to be more responsible and earn back that trust, and the actions of the last few administrations have not done enough. |
i see Saddam continuing to play the UN until the UN is united against him. without the threat of war, he won't do anything he doesn't want to do. i think the US has demonstrated that it is not only for war. if it were only for war, we would have gone in by now. it would have been a better move diplomatically (ie Washington's relationship with other countries,) if we'd gone in earlier. the serious commitment to peace was in Saddam's lap. all he needed to do was stop his trickery and come clean. work with the UN. he hasn't. like the sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqis. who's fault is that? ours? or Saddam's? really. there is a post war plan for iraq. we're not going to leave them high and dry, that would be insanity. american post war plans usually include using the USA military budget instead of your own. look at Japan and Germany- prosperity post-WWII. |
a US military-run government in the Arab world sounds like a brilliant idea. Talk about terrorism.....just wait. Our post-war presence there will make the Israeli/Palestinian conflict look like childs play. |
this is an argument for war... |
we've battered the Iraqi people enough. they deserve the benefit of every last drop of doubt from the UN and the world. |
don't you see the possiblities that your views are a product of your cushy lifestyle, and have no bearing on reality? |
i don't think anyone can really guage what the Iraqi people want other than the Iraqis themselves. Its not like they have a civil war going. The Kurds have been sent to their corner, the Shiites to theirs and the rest in the middle. Its not like we are supporting an uprising so I dont know if any of us can say what the Iraqi's really want. US Bombs raining down on them? I'm not so sure. |
I think my head just exploded. |
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Afghanistan is unstable, the enemy still roams and occassionally lobs a grenade or two.The president is a constant target and the mastermind behind the attack that killed 3000 Americans is still on the loose. Yeah we'll be able to steam roll them militarily. Thats easy. Its everything else that will become a problem...and to think we waltz in, manage and tax oil assets to pay for our stay unscathed or even successfully, to me, is an idea out of touch with reality. |
if US performance against Germany is any indicator, it is fucking obvious that we are destined for success in A) getting Saddam B) wiping out the weapons C) installing a pro-west, stable democracy. how did the realities of our inaction affect the rowandan people? you have no argument there. "i don't think anyone can really guage what the Iraqi people want other than the Iraqis themselves" so read what the iraqi people say. i did. read what dan rather had to say about saddam's interview. how saddam asked about public opinion and how saddam is pleased by all these protests and feels public opinion is swaying his way. then he says he will not comply with UN demands to destroy illegal long range missles. he's rough cocking us, patty. he knows what he's doing. he's never going to comply, there is never going to be any fruit from the inspections, there are two choices: leave him, or remove him. if you want to leave him, you might as well be backing hitler. |
I tell you this, if we can go in and remove saddam and leave with a stable government, like Germany/Japan, then I will be the first to say good job. I just don't like the attitude i'm getting off our gov't, they are really not inspiring confidence in me. Right now I feel like it's inevitable that we are going in, so I just want us to do it in a way that leaves as many Iraqi civilians and American soldiers alive as possible, and that includes after the war as well. I'm not pro-war by any means, but we've got a real chance to actually do some good here, even it has to come at the price of a war. I'm just not optimistic that the current administration can pull it off. |
how many of you actually checked the link out i provided? If you had you would know our post Ba'ath party plans. If you haven't, your arguments are baseless |
What do you say about this, which is what I've been talking about? |
trace, I think you'd get more responses if you didnt keep asking the same questions. Nate: you know me. You met me. You paid for my glass of wine. You said my city smelled. Ring a bell? I guess we just disagree. I really do feel the US hasn't really tried for peace. I think it didnt go in earlier because the UN can sometimes be a pushover, and Bush's early hints at war didnt generate a huge response, so why not go for UN approval? But I think this latest resolution ended up taking a lot longer to fall apart than anyone ever expected. Which gave a lot of people a lot of time to think about it and question the necessity. Its pretty clear that the administrations has dropped the ball more than once lately. As much as Saddam carries a burden to try for peace, we knew he wouldnt give in. it was unwise to expect as such and place it in his hands, we should have thought about another plan. It was unwise to impose sanctions hoping Saddam would help the people when we knew he wouldnt. We should have had another plan. Its definitely not our fault, but we should realize it isnt working and try something else. |
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but there is one evil one I will |
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I would not waste my time with hillary. she does not even care about the issues she pushes. |
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but there is one evil one I will" Evil-Lyn, Lady Deathstrike, or Jessica Simpson? |
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i think its hilarious you even entertained the idea of debating with hillary for even a second. |
I loved the figures stated in the article. But, you've obviously forgotten how to read. Or, were never taught. Because, the problem is all those numbers are "estamates". And, most of those include casualties of the Kurdish and Sheite uptrisings. The only real responsibilty the US has in those was to allow Iraq to fly their helecopters after the first war. The numbers also do not include the casualties in Kuwait when Iraq occupied that country. Also, remember one thing. The US cares more about colateral casualties than Sadam. He and his administration don't care who they kill or how they do it. Just as long as they are no longer a threat to Sadam. |
i provided three sources that documented about the same amount of casualties. three sources that are worthy of consideration. live in your shell if you like. of course they are estimates, just like number of dead in WW1, 2, Korea, Vietnam are all estimates as well. there is no way of knowing exactly dumbass. lookit. i know you think you have a grasp on things and i know this is going to reak of arrogance on my part, but im going to say it anyway...your're a clueless, insensitive, ignorant bastard. actually id say your insensitivity comes for your ignorance. regardless. this is well established from your viewpoints expressed here. I know 8th graders who have a better grasp of the world than you. your can't even spell worth a shit. now im not one to rag on people's spelling, but your spelling errors just reak of someone who slept through half their high school career. Im not talking typos. Typos are obvious. Im talking the spelling of "estemate" and "helecopters" as indicators of serious fundamental ignorance when it comes to using the english language. please watcher. try not to be so fucking retarded sometimes. |
Excuse me, i must go and practice my EVIL LAUGH. MU-HAHHA -HA! No, that's not right...hmm-hmm-heh-Heh-HEH-a-HA-HA-HAA-HAAAAAAaaaaaaaa..... yeah, that's a good one.... |
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My fledgling realm is still in the Democratic Socialist state...I haven't been playing long enough to bend the atmosphere of the nation to my will. |
You know why we will never agree? You take joy in standing on the outside and throwing rocks at me. While I take pride in working on the inside making sure you keep the right to throw those rocks. I can tell you that if another 9/11 happens in the US, and you may not have those rights anymore You call yourself a patriot because you protest Bush's stance on Iraq. So did many just like you in 1939. They were protesting the US and Britain's stance on Hitler. They said many of the same things you are saying today. These protests actually delayed the US entering WW2 until 1941. The lesson learned here? Do not allow these demonstrations to deter you from doing what you know to be right. |
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"You take joy in standing on the outside and throwing rocks at me." no. dont flatter yourself. your posts provoke me. Im that passionate about the topic at hand. "While I take pride in working on the inside making sure you keep the right to throw those rocks." This is laughable. If the people you support politicaly remain in power, those rights will be gone. By supporting who you support, you ARE the problem, not the solution. Your inability to see the threat the Bush administration along with that meathead Tom Ridge and professional liar John Poindexter are posing to such freedoms is the problem. We have the same goals trace. "I can tell you that if another 9/11 happens in the US, and you may not have those rights anymore" Why would another 9/11 happen trace? Certainly not because of America's foreign policy???? Nooooooo. Why did the first one happen? War on Iraq is not solving the problem, its expanding it and giving further justification to would-be terrorists to give their life in order to bring harm to Americans and westerners. "They were protesting the US and Britain's stance on Hitler." The protests in the US and Europe can't be compared to the one's today trace. Thats too simple. Hitler was invading sovereign territory left and right. Saddam is not. I would have supported our involvement in WW2 at the time. Our involvement was justified. We were attacked and war was declared on the US by the Axis powers. Our borders and sovereignty were threatened. Do you see the difference? So this angle you want to take is not only illogical, it just doesnt jive. The only lesson i see here is the affirmation that you continually fail to understand the why, and the how of my stance against this war and the current administra and your turning a blind eye to the real and established threat to the Constitution of the United States. The real threat lies within, not abroad trace. |
"working on the inside" outside and inside of what? ------------ "your spelling errors just reak of someone who slept through half their high school career." hilarious! btw, for anyone reading who can't recognize this typo, it's "reek." |
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I have told you why the first one happened. But you choose to be blind to the cause. do yourself a favor and think about it before you blame bush's foreign policy. 1/21/01 inaugration 9/11/01 - 7.5 months. 1/21/92 through 1/20/01. 8 years. Let me hear you blame bush some more. The facts are right before you, and I can drown you in more if you like. Hard numbers, records, documents, everything. Your blaming of the united states and it's foreign policy is further proof of your deep seeded dispising of the united states. You cant even admit it to yourself. You have been fed by the education system, by the media, and have the moronic idea that you figured this out on your own. When you sound just like any other eurocrat I have ever heard. Broken record. Your arrogance keeps you from admitting to yourself the flaws in your thinking. YOUR arrogance is exactly the arrogance that let us to 9/11. Your rush to kiss any foreign ass before protecting any domestic's ass. And your contempt for me and the agencies I represent only add fuel to the fire. And your self assured intelligence blinds you to the truth. I thought maybe the death of 3,000 that morning would have woken people like you up, but instead it pushed you further in your fatalistic attitudes. |
You'd probably post links to Bible code webpages if they had 'information' to back yourself up. So obsessive with being right and yet so unselective in where you get your facts. |
oh come on. if the US hadn't been so arrogant to think that it could do whatever it wants in the Middle East with no retaliation, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. or more specifically, if people had actually been doing their job guarding one of the most heavily protected airspaces in the world, 9/11 would never have happened. Interesting how the investigations into 9/11 have slowed down once they started getting deeper into the intelligence failures? I will never understand how one plane hit and the other tower didnt get evacuated immediately. I will never understand how one tower got hit by a plane and somehow another plane managed to get into the airspace when everyone was watching. It boggles the mind... and it keeps conspiracy theorists very busy. Remember when the news was reporting that the 3rd plane over Pennsylvania was shot down? and how a couple hours later they changed their story and nothing about it has really been said since? I still dont know if it was really shot down, but come on, that would have been the smart thing to do... I wonder if it did get shot down if the government would have admitted it, or is that something you just cant reveal? trace would know, he's the one with the 'top secret information' he's not allowed to reveal here, right? ...i shouldnt have opened this can of worms... i've seen enough "why did this happen" threads to fill a Time Life series. |
Thank you, trace. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view. |
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but you have to admit, you do take pleasure in biting the hand that feeds you |
This is where we part ways. |
because like you, they could not beleive that a terrorist strike had happened, because to you, these international killers are no threat to the united states. You said so yourself. On the plane in Pennsylvania, the truth wants to be let out, but the hell to pay would be worse then anything that could be imagined. Because too many people in this country would scream for bush's head. the fact that the same people who are now dead would still be dead, along with possible thousands more would make no difference. I really wish you all would understand me and where I come from. My first thought was "who cares, how does their opinion of my job, my abilities, my intelligence, my compassion affect me?" But what really kills me is the beleif that I am some kind of callous, hateful warmonger. Our goal at my job is not to secure oil or force western values and beleifs on the arab nation, but to ensure that no one, not in America, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Iraq has to ever watch their own son's testicles burnt right in front of them again. That entire families are never wiped out again because the father spoke out against the "President"'s political agenda. That 8,000 towns folks are not gassed just for a test to see if a chemical works or not. We see the intelligence on this stuff all the time. And no, this is not limited to Iraq. Patrick, you are more right about that then you know. I am sickened by the US's current policy with Saudi Arabia. But again, we only see the intelligence, not the other end of the spectrum. Don't you get it yet? Perhaps not, but I will never loose my point of view, and please beleive me when I pray to God that no one else I work with does. |
what is this dramatic nonsense? if the "hell to pay would be worse than anything that could be imagined," then you must be a real prick for posting about it and letting the truth out, huh? "worse than anything that could be imagined"? really? i guess we'll hear all about it tomorrow now that you've let the truth out, eh? can't wait to see you on television. "worse than anything that could be imagined"? sounds like a teenager's chat room threat. doesn't do much for your credibility. why spread rumors and speculation? you sound like you're crying for personal attention when you post items like this. it undercuts your integrity. if you have information that's too sensitive to post, then you're either violating the terms of your employment or you're full of crap, boy who cries wolf. nobody will hear whatever points you'd like to make. |
Unlike the terrorists of 9/11, Saddam has plenty to lose. He wouldnt risk it. Too comfortable. |
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Case in point: "you do take pleasure in biting the hand that feeds you" You can't get much more paternalistic than that. Spunky, if you've got info about flight 93, then spill. For a guy who values facts, you sure do spout a lot of hot air... |
thank you jack. i make a habit of tripping over myself in glorious fashion. i think my point remains. trace, i cant even begin to read your blather today. its stopped raining, the sky couldnt be more blue and its friday. i will say..... if there is one way to ensure the middle east never has any stability one surefire way to achieve such a point is to install troops in the one part of the world the Koran says must never be occupied by non-muslims. You think the US didnt know this when we decided on a permanent stay in Saudi Arabia? |
Besides a bunch of inaccurate, sensational and illogical tail-chasing? |
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anyone who thinks war with iraq is somehow a defence of civil liberties obviously has their head so far up their ass its not even worth conversing about. |
cyanide, double-crossing sailors, terrorists and booby-trapped sail-boats. what gives. this is dramatic shit? moonie? |
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http://americanpolitics.com/CNNdeadoralive.jpg |
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_______________________ U.S. Diplomat John Brady Kiesling Letter of Resignation, to: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ATHENS | Thursday 27 February 2003 Dear Mr. Secretary: I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal. It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer. The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security. The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo? We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead. We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has “oderint dum metuant” really become our motto? I urge you to listen to America’s friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet? Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America’s ability to defend its interests. I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share. John Brady Kiesling |
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I had to weed through a bunch of leftist web-sites to find a "convincing" source...because several of them even said that they weren't sure if it was the actual letter although the quotes from most of the mainstream press coverage of his resignation matched up...for a few moments I was skeptical |
turkey sez the US military can eat a big fat diiiiiiiick. in this time of uncertaintiy im considering changing my position on the 2nd amendment. the feds shouldnt be the only ones with guns as it becomes more and more clear there will be a revolution within 5 years. as it stands now...the "Federalists" such your self trace, will be on the opposite side of the picket fence as the "Constitutionalists"... Those ruby ridge fuckwads arent so scary anymore. |
trace, did you doubt the validity of Rowlf's post? |
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"Sen. Clinton fully supports the steps the president has taken to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction," said Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines. That puts Clinton (D-N.Y.) squarely at odds with a majority in her own party, where one recent poll found an Iraq attack is opposed by 66 percent of "core Democrats." The statement comes after months where Clinton - who voted for an Iraq attack last fall - has low-keyed her support and sharply criticized aspects of Bush's security policy, sparking speculation she was trying to have it both ways. (NYTimes) |
like every doubts what a cunt hillary is? pfffft nate. thats like shooting fish in a barrel. |
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VOTE FOR J |
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That would be why I never talk politics with them anymore! They drive me crazy. |
Bill and Hillary cannot be trusted by anyone. They use the liberal/democratic basis, but they could care less about any of the issues they pretend to. Hell, Chelsea is nothing more then the product of trying to look like a normal all american family. I respect someone who really backs up what they say and stick to thier guns, even when the odds and polls are starting to slip. Believe it or not, Bush stands behind what he says, and has not backed down. You can see he really believes what he says. |
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trace is right about Chelsea. Theres some real "American Beauty" shit going on there. "Believe it or not, Bush stands behind what he says, and has not backed down. You can see he really believes what he says. " I don't think thats true anymore. At first, when he started pressing the idea of war, maybe. But lately he's been grasping at straws... backed into a corner. I think he might have actually pulled back a little because of public opinion if he hadn't already stuck his dick out too far. Stupid penis politics. |
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then the situation in Oregon then you have Bush telling the states they are on their own. Suuure, Bush stands behind what he says and doesn't back down. Keep telling yourself that. |
Read my lips: No Nation Building! |
um yeah trace. |
not that its possible that you can be on your knees, looking at your wang, but you know, the special someone in your life just might. in short we should just relax about cock size, because the trickery of optics is on ourside. |
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war is a good idea. |
War is peace Occupation is liberation Colonialism is freedom |
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a smoking buddy in my building was telling me about this trilogy of 'Illuminatus' or something like that....supposedly where the Illuminati derive their core philosophy...a secret group the Bush's are supposed to be a part of. Essentially one of the core philosophies is that order is an illusion. its an illusion of the elite, a illusion that is given to the masses. (New World Order?) one parallel was space. yeah it looks all orderly, the stars, planets etc, but of course thats not how it really is. its chaos. you dont control chaos with order. you control chaos with chaos. mankind is inherently chaotic and any illusion of order is just that. which led me back to my remark that they knew what they were doing when the installed christian forces on the one sacred land the Koran forbids non muslims to occupy, that is Saudi Arabia. of course im paraphrasing all of this, and I admit to being no smarter, but this trilogy sounds really fun to read. |
It's right up your alley for sure. |
Ask the Kuwaities |
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The biggest one: A war on Iraq will make the Middle East an oasis of peace and security. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Robert Scheer March 5, 2003 | So the truth is out: George W. Bush lied when he claimed to be worried about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Otherwise, Iraq's stepped-up cooperation with the U.N. on disarmament would be stunningly good news, obviating the need to rush to war. Instead, the U.N. weapons inspectors' verification of Iraq's destruction of missiles, private meetings with Iraqi weapons scientists, visits to locations where biological and chemical weapons were destroyed in 1991, and a series of unfettered flights by U2 spy planes have been met with a shrug and sneer in Washington. The White House line is that even if the Iraqis destroy all their slingshots, Goliath is still bringing his tanks and instituting "regime change." The arrogance is breathtaking. We have demanded that a country disarm -- and even as it is doing so, we say it doesn't matter: It's too late; we're coming in. Put down your guns and await the slaughter. Abraham Lincoln once observed that even a free people can be fooled for a time -- and this, mind you, was long before Fox News existed. And in his chaotic two-year presidency, Bush has pushed the Big Lie approach so far that we are seeing dramatic signs of its cracking: an international backlash, a domestic peace movement, and whistle-blowing from inside our own intelligence and diplomatic corps. "We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of the American people, since the war in Vietnam," wrote John Brady Kiesling, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service in his letter of resignation last week to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Kiesling, who was political counselor in U.S. embassies throughout the Mideast, added that "until this administration, it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president, I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer." And this brave man is not the only one who has caught on. The entire world is astonished that our president is lying not about a personal indiscretion but about the most sacred duty of the leader of the most powerful nation in human history not to recklessly endanger the lives of his own or the world's people. Yet lie he has. The first lie, claimed outright, was that Iraq aided and abetted the Sept. 11 terrorists. There is no evidence at all for this claim. It is also interesting to note that not a single leading Al Qaeda operative has turned out to be Iraqi. The latest to be nabbed, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was living in Pakistan, was raised in Kuwait and studied engineering -- and presumably the physics of explosives -- at a college in North Carolina. The second lie was that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction represent an imminent threat to U.S. security. Despite the most hugely expensive but secret high-tech spy operation in human history -- estimated by most at well over $100 billion a year -- and a vast network of defectors and spies, we have not been able to find their supposed weapons. The third and most dangerous lie is that our mission now is to bring lasting peace to the Mideast by a devastating invasion of Iraq, which will end, as the president outlined last week, in U.S. dominance over the structure of government and politics throughout the region. After abandoning promising efforts by the previous administration to create peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the Bush team now claims that changing Muslim governments around the world will end the downward spiral of violence there. Which leads us to another lie: that this is all good for our ally, Israel -- the claim of the cabal of neoconservative ideologues running our Mideast policy. In fact, however, Israel will be placed in a terribly dangerous position, serving as a fig leaf for U.S. ambitions, further ensuring that it remain forever an isolated military garrison. This construction of a new world order comes from a naive and untraveled president, emboldened in his ignorance by advisors who have been plotting an aggressive Pax Americana ever since the Soviet bloc's collapse. Bush insiders Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld are all members of something called the Project for a New American Century, which has been pushing for a U.S. redesign of the Mideast since 1997. After Sept. 11, they seized on our national tragedy as a way to enlist George W. in support of their grand design. Not only was this reckless scheme never mentioned by Bush during the election campaign, it was the sort of thing renounced as "nation-building," something he would never support. Yet another lie. |
we are on a dangerous path and anyone who can't see this is an idiot. we are destined to dump the very principles of this country reshaping it for the worse as well as alienate ourselves with the rest of the world to an unprecendented level. eitherway, making this country a much more dangerous place. not safer. more dangerous. even a fool can see this. this part of the reason for my potential shift on gun policy. the government is starting to become a threat to my country. the terrorist won on 9/11 not directly because of their plotting but because of the gross war pigs within in our own country who have sought to capitolize on it. |
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/04/n.korea.bombers/index.html reformation, patrick? I dont think a messy war will change the publics mind. The only thing that will change the publics mind is if more rights are taken away 'for their own protection' |
the whole engagement wont be clean. it may be decisive militarilly, but a guerrilla war will erupt. Jockeying for power by Shiites, Sunni's and Kurds, toss in Turkey, Iran, the Palestinian/Israeli matter and sprinkle some good ole al Qaida on top and you have a long, protracted, messy, costly war that goes beyond mopping up Iraq's piss poor military and installing troops in Baghdad. I think it will cost dipshit the election, thankfully. |
only if you take the assertions of idiots at face value. only if you refuse to take the assertions of idiots at face value. |
people seem to be asleep about civil liberties too. Check these people out The released their annual study in October that depicted that 49% of people polled believe the 1st Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. |
You know what I think could really shake things up in the US, get people more interested? Take a cue from Britain and Canada. Blair and Chretien have to be in the house all the time, getting yelled at, forced to respond right away, to adlib, to face accusations from out of nowhere.. you can get a better impression of who your leaders are when they have to actually prove they know whats going on in the country.. Bush doesn't take 'interviews'. Its about time he faced some hard questions, some hard language and see how he reacts. |
John made the same point. |
not to mention that everything that happens in Parliament is on live tv..... those guys have to pull it off every day live, no speech writers. And they have a whole half of the floor that get paid to disagree and question them and tear them apart. And there's an audience too. And then at the end of the day they fight their way through the media on the way to their car. And they have to answer them. They can't fuck up. Wow, and i thought our government was boring. Our guys have balls! They have to know their shit! ... Imagine some guy, somewhere, setting his VCR to tape the passing of a hot new law? It's Must See Bill 268-C! |
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MALL_ACTIVISTS?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT I'm not surprised or anything, buts its kinda stupid this happened... I've been kicked out of malls for less than this... |
Parliament-Funkadelic. After all, the roof will already be torn off the sucker. |
its a mall you dipshit. protest with your wallet. they have the right to make you shop in a god damn bunny suit if they wanted to. i was always kicked out of the mall in middle school because of the looming threat me and my gang..."the punks", posed to "the skins" and then there were "the jocks" who fucked everything to hell and back. if you came in with any kind of sid vicious or sex pistols, gbh, exploited shirt you were outta there. kazoo, sem, go to the museum of my hellish suburban youth you known as Gwinnett Place Mall. (actually, i think at this point Gwinnett country, much to my delight, has been overrun by migrant mexican families.) |
"George Clinton to Drop Da Bomb on Iraq" theres a pic of protestors: "No Blood for Funk" |
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Because if you're watching this like I am, you'll notice her head moving back in forth in typewriter motion, saying each word with awkward pauses in mid-sentence, sometimes squinting. Yes, she is reading a script, and horribly. |
I'm getting frustrated with Bush's mispronounciation of nuclear. |
or "second term." I just can't watch him anymore. It sickens me to hear him speak. He is just not a man I can be proud of as a president. I still can't believe how easily he squandered our global support after 9-11. He's really failing. I bet a lot of folks are wishing McCain had won the Republican primary now...I admit i don't really like republicans, but there are republicans and then there are republicans, you know? Like there are republicans i can have some respect for, like there are democrats I have no respect for (Teddy-boy for example) |
It drives me nuts! We noticed some movie trailer on tv where the guy said "nuke-you-lar" and Spunky looked at me and said "If the President can say it wrong, anyone can say it wrong and it is OK" and I became a brick wall. I HATE that. Drives me nuts. Can you tell this is one of my pet peeves? |
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I am just messing with her, because I know it bugs |
"If the President says that oral sex isn't cheating, then anyone can say it isn't cheating!" |
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if elections held today. heh. he's fucked. not by much,but enough. |
makes the moderates extreme and makes the extremes dangerous. he will push many more people to the election booths in 2 years because of some of his extremes. |
The Iraqis Only this time there will be more then canidate! |
The funny thing about what you said before Patrick is that the exact same thing was said of Clinton. I know TONS of Republicans who went out to vote in this last election to get the Dem's out of office because of what Clinton had done in office. Now the Dem's are saying the same thing about Bush. I think I am going back to my old ways and questioning everything and being dissatisfied any way I turn. I am tired of looking for the lesser of two evils, when any way you turn it's evil in some way. |
considering the man has an excess of 50% approval rating. question: if bush wins a second term, will you realize that just because the media pushes something it isn't necessarily the view of the nation? examine the lack of coverage that is given when important people come out and acknowledge that war is necessary. |
welcome to my world |
I don't think that war is going to satisfy my nagging fears and worries about our nation and our world. I don't think that Saddam will ever do what he says he will, but will always play games, as I believe he is now. I don't know what it would take to do things right. Another sanction isn't going to do shit. War may only make things worse. My neighbor's nephews have already left for overseas, one is already there, the other left yesterday. At Hayley's "square dance" at school they had them do a dance to "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" and I found myself thinking that it was fucked up, not the dance, but them teaching my daughter to sing this song when I am not sure if this is what I want her to know. My family has a long and strong background in fighting in the military during war times and supporting our country. I want to support our country, but I find myself on the opposite side of the fence as them on so many issues today. I feel like a traiter to my heritage and the legacies left before me. I am so fucked up over this whole thing. I haven't talked about it in forever and when I do it is generally very vague, and now I am about to explode. |
my grandfathers fought in WWII...the one who is still alive is utterly opposed to this one. I don't feel as though opposing this war is Anti-American. But I will not rehash everything that's already been said. |
Examine the lack of coverage when the highly conservative Cato Institute comes out against the war. |
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i know, tiggy. i've come to the point where i don't know anything, i'm not privy to the information necessary to make any decision. i just want to see what kick ass new toys the US military has. |
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By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 7, 2003; The extended questioning of the presidential news conference was a regular exercise for all presidents of the recent past. But President Bush has turned the tradition into a rarity, both because of his distaste for the format and his staff's determined message management. Bush went before 94 reporters for his eighth solo news conference last night as part of his effort to prepare Americans for a likely war against Iraq as increasingly insistent opposition from allies and skepticism at home grow. At the same point in their presidencies, President Bill Clinton had held 30 solo news conferences (that is, without a foreign leader at a twin lectern) and Bush's father had held 58, according to research by Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University political science professor who specializes in presidential communication. After two years and 45 days in office, President Ronald Reagan had held 16 solo news conferences, President Jimmy Carter had held 45, President Gerald Ford had held 37, President Richard M. Nixon had held 16 and President Lyndon B. Johnson had held 52. Communications director Dan Bartlett said this White House uses news conferences more sparingly than other types of presidential events, because "if you have a message you're trying to deliver, a news conference can go in a different direction." "In this case, we know what the questions are going to be, and those are the ones we want to answer," Bartlett said. "We think the public will see the thought and care and attention he's given to a lot of the different questions that are being asked about the diplomatic side and the military side and the potential post-Iraq issue. These are all legitimate questions that he has answers for and wants to talk about." The news conference was Bush's second in the East Room or in prime time. The last was Oct. 11, 2001 -- four days after allied cruise missiles and bombers began dismantling the Taliban. Bush's last solo news conference, held in a more casual setting, was Nov. 7, two days after the Republican triumphs in the midterm elections. Bush's aides point out that he frequently takes short bursts of questions from reporters in other settings -- most often, when cameras are allowed in at the beginning or end of a presidential event. The White House said that counting those, Bush has taken questions 216 times, not including one-on-one interviews. Aides said Bush disdains what they call the "preening" by correspondents that he considers an inescapable part of televised news conferences. "The president thinks that sometimes East Room news conferences are more about the reporters and the theater of the moment and less about the substance of the answers," a senior administration official said. "So his inclination is to hold more, informal news conferences where the answers are the story and not lengthy questions on live TV." White House press secretary Ari Fleischer echoes that sentiment, telling reporters that Bush "has been having his fun thinking about who's going to be dressed how, how the hair is going to look." Robert Dallek, a presidential historian at Boston University, said citizens lose an important measure of the president when he is shielded from sustained questioning. "People don't want to just hear from the press secretary all the time," he said. "They want the real thing -- the horse's mouth." To avoid a long buildup, and to give them the flexibility to drop the idea, Bush's aides announce a news conference only a few hours in advance. Yesterday, Fleischer took reporters by surprise at 9:30 a.m. during his routine reading of Bush's public schedule, when he slipped in the fact that at 8 p.m., the president would hold a news conference. Aides said the idea was first discussed Tuesday, and said Bush spent two to four hours preparing, between Wednesday night and yesterday afternoon. Clinton had formal briefing books and Kumar's research suggests some presidents blocked out whole days to prepare. Bush was given a memo consisting of about 50 possible topics with suggested answers. Then his most senior aides gathered around his desk in the Oval Office and fired practice questions at him. Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who was a speechwriter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, said presidents can learn a lot about less-noticed parts of their administrations during the rigor of preparing for a full-dress news conference. Hess said news conferences are often perceived by White Houses as "the matador in the arena, and all the bulls are after him." In fact, he said, they are usually tame affairs, with often flabby questioning and plenty of ways for the president to keep the upper hand. |
"Bush was given a memo consisting of about 50 possible topics with suggested answers. Then his most senior aides gathered around his desk in the Oval Office and fired practice questions at him." "I want to support our President...." --- see, this is what upsets me. Your president is the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet, and yet he's treated like he just won 3rd in the Special Olympics. HE works for YOU. He's not the Queen. He's not special. He's not a fireman or a hero. He's a guy with a shitty job that only an insane bastard would take. He can be questioned, fuck yeah, he should be. He should be dragged through hell on a daily basis because what he does has this unfortunate nature of being able to change the USA and sometimes the whole world. He doesn't have to be supported. He can be replaced tommorow. I'm talking about any president, really, not just W. Sometimes it's like any shot at him hurts the whole country. That if he's mocked or questioned or you lose faith in him, you lose faith in the whole population of the US and all it stands for. Bullshit. He is a servant to the public. you voted for him or you didn't. Why should you even respect him? He's not climbing into a burning orphanage to save a puppy. Just a dude in a tie. Not superman, jesus, or your dad. He's not your damn boss. Why can't Wolf Blitzer say his title without an air of reverence? The president works for Wolf Blitzer. Why is it so taboo to question this leader?? Why must he be spoon-fed baby questions by an army of aides who know more than him? Fuck, it drives me NUTS. |
If your employee happens to be endangering your life, costing you money and your reputation... ? |
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030308.wxnuke0308/BNStory/International |
(2003-03-07) — The United States and the United Kingdom introduced a resolution in the United Nations Security Council today calling for a military strike against France as retribution for any future terror attacks by Saddam Hussein’s regime. The resolution follows the U.S. policy of attacking those who harbor terrorists. In September 2001, on Meet the Press , Vice President Dick Cheney said the U.S. is determined to “go after those nations and organizations and people that lend support to these terrorist operators.” ”…if you provide sanctuary to terrorists,” Mr. Cheney said, “you face the full wrath of the United States of America…we will, in fact, aggressively go after these nations to make certain that they cease and desist from providing support for these kinds of organizations.” Under that policy, since Iraq is classified as a terrorist government, the U.S. would be justified in attacking France, Germany, Russia and others immediately. However, today U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, “We want peace with Old Europe and her allies.” Therefore, he said, the Bush administration has decided to work through the United Nations for a multilateral solution, with a deadline for France and others to stop protecting Mr. Hussein’s terroristic regime. “In any case,” Mr. Rumsfeld said , “If the U.N. won’t act, we will lead a coalition of the willing to make sure they no longer lend support to these terrorists.” |
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The Governments of: Saudi Arabia Syria Libya Iran Iraq Lebonnon France Germany North Korea China Yemen Egypt Turkey The citizens of, through charities: United States UK Australia I am sure there are more, those are just the ones I know for sure about |
USA UK Many others Although maybe that would under "Governments of" I would also add Cuba to your first list. Russia as well. Do they tax now? maybe they should be on the new third list. I assume that they didn't ax when they were communist - or do communists tax? I freely admit my ignorance in this arena. |
another diplomat quits... |
http://www.gooff.com/NM/templates/Breaking_News.asp?articleid=316&zoneid=2 |
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"May you live in interesting times" |
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