Why Bush Should be Impeached [Archive] - Page 5 - Theology Forum

Skeptic

October 10th, 2003, 06:15 PM

My comments in (bold):
======================
Cheney Says Iraq Critics Would Do 'Exactly Nothing'

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S Vice President Dick Cheney charged on Friday that opponents of a U.S. go-it-alone policy on Iraq favored "doing exactly nothing" while the Bush administration was trying to prevent a terror "nightmare."

"Those who declined to support the liberation of Iraq would not deny the evil of Saddam Hussein's regime. They must concede, however, that had their own advice been followed, that regime would rule Iraq today," Cheney said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation think tank. (If Bush had not invaded Iraq, (1) Saddam would be surround by the international forces, (2) the inspectors would have found as many WMD as has the U.S., (3) efforts would be under way to eventually remove Saddam from power, (4) many thousands of people, including our troops, would still be alive, (5) Iraq would still not be a threat to America or the world, (6) America would still have support from allies, and (7) anti-American hatred would not be as great and, therefore, the threat of terrorism would be less.)

His speech represented a sharpening counterattack against critics who say President Bush exaggerated the Iraqi threat to justify war and is now mismanaging the occupation. (The evidence speaks for itself!)

Cheney also rejected criticisms that the United States acted without international approval, and challenged a policy of consensus, as embodied by the U.N. Security Council.

"So often, and so conveniently, it amounts to a policy of doing exactly nothing," he said. (Cheney's invade-or-do-nothing black & white scenario is pathetically simplistic!)

In California, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused the media of emphasizing the negative in post-war Iraq. He said there was a "mixed picture" which included progress, but U.S. forces were dealing with a "very serious low intensity conflict." (In a free country, it's the duty of the press to point out major flaws and ineptitudes on the part of the government and the military. It is wrong for the government to gloss over the negatives and emphasize the so-called "positives" of an unjustified unnecessary preemptive invasion that unnecessarily killed thousands of people, cost tens of billions of tax dollars, and has increased anti-American hatred around the world!)

The two officials' speeches capped an offensive this week by Bush and key aides to combat falling public support for Bush's Iraq policy.

U.S. soldiers continue to die almost daily in attacks in Iraq, six month's after Saddam's ouster, and the United States has failed to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the main reason cited by Bush for launching the war in March.

"I know what is going on there and it is a mixed picture," Rumsfeld said at the Ronald Reagan presidential library west of Los Angeles. "And the part of the picture that is negative is being emphasized while the part of the picture that is positive is not." (It is not the duty of a free press to emphasize so-called "positives" when there are so many serious concerns about the original justification for the invasion and occupation! The duty of the press is just the opposite! Our brave troops in Iraq should not be shielded from the controversy back home. Yes, they should be commended for risking their lives for their country. But, they should also know that a good portion of America now believes their mission was flawed from the start!!)

DEMOCRATS ATTACK CAMPAIGN

Democrats have labeled the new campaign public relations spin. (And rightly so!)

The campaign would probably have only limited impact, Brookings Institution analyst Michael O'Hanlon said. He noted that a prime-time speech by Bush last month did little to build support and this campaign was a lower-profile move. (It's about time America wake up!!)

Cheney compared the debate over Iraq with the early stages of the Cold War against communism, and said the Iraq war was part of a battle to prevent an "ultimate nightmare" of large-scale global terrorism. (Give me a f@@@@@ break! He MUST be kidding! Bush's illegal preemptive invasion of Iraq was the one of the world's "ultimate nightmares" come true!! Again, Bush's invasion did NOTHING to prevent large-scale global terrorism!! If anything, it INCREASED the threat of global terrorism!! Cheney's spin is getting pretty absurd. )

"Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives in a single day of horror," Cheney said. (There is no reason to believe that such a horror would have emanated from Iraq any time soon. Especially, with ongoing UN inspections and observations from surrounding forces. There are many other sources around the world where such horrors are brewing. Take N. Korea, for example. Bush invaded Iraq, not because of a clear and imminent threat of some great horror, but rather because Iraq was a perceived as a military push-over with lots of oil, and a political, economic and strategic opportunity.)

He reiterated U.S. charges that Saddam supported terrorism and aided al Qaeda, accused of the Sept. 11 attacks. (-:chuckle:-)

Cheney last month left open the possibility that Iraq could be connected to the attacks (-:chuckle:-), but Bush said later there was no evidence to support a widespread U.S. public belief in such a link. (duh!)

Cheney dismissed critics of the U.S. decision to go to war without U.N. backing.

"Another criticism we hear is that the United States, when its security is threatened, may not act without unanimous international consent," Cheney said. "Though often couched in high-sounding terms of unity and cooperation, it is a prescription for perpetual disunity and obstructionism." (Who was asking for "unanimous" consent? A majority would have been nice. Now, trying to gain international consent is equivalent to "perpetual disunity and obstructionism"? -:doh:-)

Addressing the failure to find Iraqi unconventional weapons, Cheney said U.S. investigator David Kay had found significant evidence of arms programs. ("Evidence of arms programs" is NOT sufficient reason to preemptively invade a country and kill thousands of people! For Cheney, mere intent to resume such programs would be sufficient to invade. :down: )

He also disputed charges that the Iraq war fueled anti-American hostility and said hostility among militants had long existed. "Year after year, the terrorists only grew bolder in the absence of forceful response from America and other nations." (So much for winning the "war on terrorism", folks. If the Bush administration does not see the connection between (1) invading a country in the absence of any significant threat, and (2) giving relentless blind support to Israel, no matter what military actions they take, with increased anti-American hatred, then we are all in for a very long period of international hatred and terrorism. Bush and his neocons must go!! )

BillyBob

October 11th, 2003, 08:23 AM

Skeptic;
anti-American hatred would not be as great and,

Billy;
There has been Anti Americanism since the birth of America.

Skeptic;
therefore, the threat of terrorism would be less.)

Billy;
Hmmmm, wasn't the 9-11 attack BEFORE we went to Iraq? :rolleyes:

Skeptic

October 14th, 2003, 11:41 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Skeptic;
anti-American hatred would not be as great and,

Billy;
There has been Anti Americanism since the birth of America. So, what's a little more anti-American hatred? :doh:

Skeptic;
therefore, the threat of terrorism would be less.)

Billy;
Hmmmm, wasn't the 9-11 attack BEFORE we went to Iraq? :rolleyes: If U.S. troops continue to be the occupying force in Iraq and the U.N. does not take charge, there will be an increased likelihood of more 9/11s on American soil. Currently, the Islamic holy war for militants is against the U.S. in Iraq.

As I've said before, terrorism will never be defeated through military force. Just like rape will never be defeated by locking up or killing all of rapists. Just like theft will never be defeated by locking up or killing all of thieves. Just like murder will never be defeated by locking up or killing all of murderers. Ever hear of getting at the root cause, instead of temporary symptomatic treatments?

=========================
Published on Monday, October 13, 2003 by the Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)
Terrorists and Engineers of War on Terror are Codependent
by Gwynne Dyer

The six-month anniversary of the fall of Baghdad on Oct. 8 was one of the worst days yet for the occupation forces in Iraq. An attack on a U.S. road convoy killed at least one American soldier, which is the sort of thing that happens most days, but a Spanish diplomat was also assassinated in Baghdad (the Spanish government backed the invasion of Iraq), and a suicide bomber killed eight Iraqi policemen who are collaborating with the occupiers in the courtyard of their own police station. Not Vietnam yet, but getting warm.

Add the failure of thousands of inspectors to find Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and the Bush administration's request for another $87 billion to cover the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, and it's hardly surprising that President Bush's approval ratings with the American public are falling steeply. It begins to look possible that the entire neo-conservative project for imposing a unilateral "pax Americana" on the world may be rejected by American voters in the November 2004 election. Iraq will remain a mess for a long time to come, but maybe we will soon get back to the old world of multilateralism and the United Nations.

That is the hope many people are starting to nourish, but it may not be that simple. There is now a symbiotic relationship between the Islamist terrorists and the neo-conservative directors of the "war on terror" that promises a long political life to the players on both sides. They are, as our Marxist friends used to put it, "objective allies": both seek to undermine the existing global order in order to expand their own freedom of action, and each group's actions justify the existence of the other group, at least in the eyes of its own supporters.

Al-Qaida, for example, sees the overseas adventures of American neo-conservatives as the best possible recruiting tool for its own cause among Muslims worldwide. If Osama bin Laden could decide the outcome of the next U.S. presidential election, he would instantly choose Bush. A rival candidate might pull American troops out of the Middle East or take a more even-handed approach in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and Bin Laden has no interest in stability in the region.

Given that bin Laden does not have a magic wand, what is Bush's best hope of winning a second term despite an ailing economy and the deepening quagmire of Iraq? It is that Americans close ranks patriotically behind him as they did in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. In practice, that means that he needs either another major terrorist attack on American soil or another victorious war against an alleged "terrorist state" or a suspected proliferator of "weapons of mass destruction."

Do the people around bin Laden understand this? Of course they do, and they will help Bush, if they can. Just one major terrorist attack in the United States -- not necessarily another 9-11, which would be very hard to manage, but just a big car-bomb in a U.S. city that kills a hundred or so Americans -- and the domestic political balance would be transformed at a stroke.

Nobody in the Bush entourage would actively wish for a new terrorist outrage in the United States, but they must be aware that it might happen anyway, and that it would be likely to stampede American voters back into the arms of their man. They will also be aware that it might not happen, however, so they must be considering what action they could take themselves to improve the administration's re-election prospects.

Put so baldly, this sounds desperately cynical. Would patriotic Americans in senior positions in the Bush administration really engineer a war in which young Americans would be killed (not to mention numerous foreigners) just to improve their man's chances of re-election?

No, probably not. But senior members of the Bush administration have a short list of "rogue" countries that they would like to attack anyway, for reasons that seem to them as sound as the ones that moved them to invade Iraq. Their assessment of the threat level from these places, and of the urgency with which America should act against them, will be taking place in one compartment of minds where another compartment is simultaneously contemplating the awful tragedy of a defeat in November 2004 that would, in their view, leave the United States horribly exposed and vulnerable.

What all this means is that we are not out of the woods yet. There may well be another terrorist attack in the United States before the next election, or there may be another war. If either happens, then the confrontation between the Islamists and the neo-cons will probably continue almost to the end of the decade, with each reinforcing the other's challenge to the global order that has been painfully built up since 1945. It is not a happy prospect.
=========================

Lucky

October 15th, 2003, 12:20 AM

It's way past my bedtime, and this is already going to be my second attempt to go to sleep. Let me just read Skeptic's last post and that should do it.... :yawn: :grave:

Skeptic

October 15th, 2003, 12:35 AM

Originally posted by Lucky8
It's way past my bedtime, and this is already going to be my second attempt to go to sleep. Let me just read Skeptic's last post and that should do it.... :yawn: :grave: That's right, sleep on it. Maybe in the morning you'll realize I'm right. :thumb:

Skeptic

October 15th, 2003, 10:01 AM

Lucky8,

Now that you've slept on it, can you see that I'm right? :D

Skeptic

October 15th, 2003, 10:44 AM

Just what I've been saying all along.

My bold:
==================
Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda's Ranks, Report Says
Wed October 15, 2003 07:34 AM ET

By Peter Graff
LONDON (Reuters) - War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group's will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report.

The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank's annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington's assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were "over-confident."

The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq.

Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the country from "ripening into a cause celebre for radical Islamic terrorists," it concluded. "Nation-building" in Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than initially planned.

"On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to support it," the report said. (What WMD?)

"On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability," it said.

"The immediate effect of the war may have been to isolate further al Qaeda from any potential state supporters while also swelling its ranks and galvanizing its will."

FAILED STATES

Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at Britain's St Andrew's University, told Reuters the report's findings would drive home the importance of rebuilding Iraq and other conflict zones.

"Military planners and the law enforcement community are fully aware of the consequences of failed states," he said.

"I think it's probably worthwhile for politicians to keep in mind our responsibility to provide sustained and long term reconstruction in war-torn countries, so they don't fly back into anarchy or become incubators of terrorism."

Washington blames al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, for the 2001 U.S. airliner hijack attacks which killed 3,044 people.

A crackdown had netted some al Qaeda leaders and deprived al Qaeda of bases in Afghanistan. But it also "impelled an already highly decentralized and evasive international terrorist network to become even more 'virtual' and protean and, therefore, harder to identify and neutralize," the IISS report said.

It said 18,000 veterans of al Qaeda's Afghan training camps were still probably operating worldwide "with recruitment continuing and probably increasing following the war in Iraq."

Al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are mostly still at large and continue to incite followers over the Internet and through pronouncements on Arabic-language television.

Because of its extreme religious world view, al Qaeda "cannot be tamed or controlled through political compromise or conflict resolution," the report said.

But Western countries need to do more to reach out to Muslim countries and their own Islamic minorities to "eliminate the root causes of terrorism," especially after the Iraq war "almost certainly further alienated Islam from the West."

Efforts should be redoubled to resolve local conflicts, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so regional radical groups such as Hamas do not fall into al Qaeda's embrace, it said.
==================

All the more reason for the U.S. to get out and the U.N. to get into Iraq ASAP!!

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 11:16 AM

Originally posted by Rational Human
He did not lie. He told what information he had and that was that. The fact that perhaps someone in his administration either used or was fed innaccurate information is more likely.

Saddam was a threat and it's about god-damn time that America started walking with it's friggin head-held high again.

America never asked to be the world police force but events of the past half-century has forced us into that role.

If anything, Saddam got us involved by asking us for his support and then going rogue. If anything, it is America's responsibility to tame their wild lions. Amen, preach it brother! Can I say that to an atheist? :think:

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 11:18 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Skeptic;
Those who do not see the parallels between fascism and neoconservative ideologies scare me more than the neoconservatives themselves.

Billy;
BOO! :darwinsm:

Skeptic

October 15th, 2003, 11:24 AM

Answer these:

1. What do you think are the root causes of terrorism?

2. What are the best ways to eliminate the root causes of terrorism?

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 11:27 AM

Skeptic: What do you think are the root causes of terrorism?

BB's assumed answer: Stupidity.

Skeptic: What are the best ways to eliminate the root causes of terrorism?

BB's assumed answer: Nuke all the terrorists.

Skeptic

October 15th, 2003, 11:30 AM

Mr. 5020,

And your answers are ...?

Gerald

October 15th, 2003, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by Mr. 5020
Skeptic: What are the best ways to eliminate the root causes of terrorism?

BB's assumed answer: Nuke all the terrorists. To be more precise: "nuke all the brown people who wear rags on their heads.":rolleyes:

Skeptic

October 15th, 2003, 11:40 AM

Originally posted by Gerald
To be more precise: "nuke all the brown people who wear rags on their heads.":rolleyes: Any serious answers?

You're right, BillyBob would prefer to nuke 'em. What about the collateral damage to non-terrorists?

Essentially, Bush's preemptive invasion of Iraq was equivalent to causing massive collateral damage (thousands of deaths) in order to take out a suspected few terrorists.

Bush has to be held accountable for the unnecessary loss of those thousands of lives in Iraq! :mad:

How about some serious answers to my two questions?

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 12:07 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
1. What do you think are the root causes of terrorism?Islam
Originally posted by Skeptic
2. What are the best ways to eliminate the root causes of terrorism? Exactly what we have done already, except maybe with a little more agression.

Gerald

October 15th, 2003, 12:21 PM

Originally posted by Mr. 5020
IslamIndeed? And how do propose to solve that? The Muslims won't renounce Islam, period.
Exactly what we have done already, except maybe with a little more agression. Details, please. Many on the Christian side have likened Islam to a cancer, but are quite scant on how to go about treating it.

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 12:24 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
Indeed? And how do propose to solve that? The Muslims won't renounce Islam, period.

Details, please. Many on the Christian side have likened Islam to a cancer, but are quite scant on how to go about treating it. I believe it was your idea to take out Mecca and Medina.:chuckle:

Gerald

October 15th, 2003, 12:43 PM

Originally posted by Mr. 5020
I believe it was your idea to take out Mecca and Medina.:chuckle: And do you believe this would be a Good Thing?

Do you truly believe that destroying the Muslims' most venerated sites will shake to the core their faith in Allah, because he was not powerful enough to prevent it?

That's like claiming that the destruction of Rome would utterly poleaxe Catholicism, or that the destruction of Jerusalem would utterly poleaxe Judaism.

Though now that I think on it, I know of no sites that Protestants venerate...:think:

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 12:45 PM

Though now that I think on it, I know of no sites that Protestants venerate...:think:As if that's unintentional.:chuckle:

Gerald

October 15th, 2003, 12:51 PM

Originally posted by Mr. 5020
As if that's unintentional.:chuckle: Something about not keeping all your eggs in one basket, or staying dispersed so as to present less of a target...?

Interestingly enough, Al Qaeda thinks exactly the same way...

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 01:07 PM

Something about not keeping all your eggs in one basket, or staying dispersed so as to present less of a target...?Actually, it's mostly because Christians can't get along.
Interestingly enough, Al Qaeda thinks exactly the same way...You know as well as I do that they don't think. Coming after the US was retarded.

Knight

October 15th, 2003, 01:11 PM

Originally posted by Rational Human
He did not lie. He told what information he had and that was that. The fact that perhaps someone in his administration either used or was fed innaccurate information is more likely.

Saddam was a threat and it's about ***-**** time that America started walking with it's friggin head-held high again.

America never asked to be the world police force but events of the past half-century has forced us into that role.

If anything, Saddam got us involved by asking us for his support and then going rogue. If anything, it is America's responsibility to tame their wild lions. Your going to have to tone down your language.

elected4ever

October 15th, 2003, 01:12 PM

Skeptic"eliminate the root causes of terrorism,"

e4e------First good idea you have had. You can eliminate the problem by shooting all atheist, liberals, socialist, Muslims, hindues, communist, democrats and republicans, catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians(maybe} Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons charismatics and everyone else that disagrees with me. Last man standing wins.

Mr. 5020

October 15th, 2003, 01:19 PM

e4e------First good idea you have had. You can eliminate the problem by shooting all atheist,l liberals, socialist, Muslims, hindoes, communist, democrats and republicans, catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians(maybe} Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons charismatics and everyone else that disagrees with me. Last man standing wins.You agree with anyone?

elected4ever

October 15th, 2003, 01:30 PM

Mr. 5020You agree with anyone?

e4e--- I agree with everyone but everyone don't agree with me. I am an American:D !

Gerald

October 15th, 2003, 01:37 PM

Originally posted by Mr. 5020
Actually, it's mostly because Christians can't get along.True. I find great amusement when different sects go at each other's throats...
You know as well as I do that they don't think. Coming after the US was retarded. If their attack had been repelled, you'd have a case. But they got their shot in, and we've been chasing shadows ever since...

BillyBob

October 15th, 2003, 03:12 PM

Skeptic;
Currently, the Islamic holy war for militants is against the U.S. in Iraq.

Billy;
Of course. Those guys don't want us in Iraq because we can keep a close eye on them. We have shut down Saddam's terrorist training camps, stopped his ability to fund terrorism, we have a couple hundred thousand troops there ready to blow up any terrorist we can find and it is putting a damper on their terrorist activities....

OF COURSE THEY WANT US OUT OF IRAQ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :doh:

Gerald

October 15th, 2003, 03:33 PM

Originally posted by elected4ever
Skeptic

e4e------First good idea you have had. You can eliminate the problem by shooting all atheist, liberals, socialist, Muslims, hindues, communist, democrats and republicans, catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians(maybe} Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons charismatics and everyone else that disagrees with me. Last man standing wins. Or, we could just shoot you, and save a great deal of time and ammunition.

Better yet: we could crucify you...:devil:

ebenz47037

October 15th, 2003, 05:07 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
Answer these:

1. What do you think are the root causes of terrorism?

jealousy

2. What are the best ways to eliminate the root causes of terrorism?

Make the penalty for terrorism harsh and stick to it. In other words, if you sentence them to death for terrorism, don't keep them alive for years on end. And, if an entire nation commits terrorism, bomb them.

Lucky

October 15th, 2003, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
Lucky8,

Now that you've slept on it, can you see that I'm right? :D
Being a conservative/libertarian mix, I'm not the biggest fan of Bush. Some of his actions are downright wrong. (Such as his involvment with the United Nations.) Other things he has done are downright wonderful. Either way, I don't consider him above reproach, nor any human. Many do and many don't. It appears you are trying to persuade people that Bush is a liar among other things. If Clinton can get away with lying, why can't Bush? :chuckle: Sure we all want a president that's honest and full of integrity, but I don't see that happening anymore as we move into darker times. It's sad to think about it like that, but the world is nearing its end. It's becomming harder and harder to ignore the similarity between world events and biblical prophecy. At least I know where I'm going, so I don't need to panic.

Do you know where your going?

BillyBob

October 15th, 2003, 07:27 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
Lucky8,
Now that you've slept on it, can you see that I'm right?

Billy;
No, we can see that you are LEFT! :freak:

Skeptic

October 16th, 2003, 09:50 AM

Originally posted by Lucky8
Do you know where your going? Well, right now, I'm going to work.

After I die, I will be going nowhere, because I will have ceased to exist as me, and I will blend back into the non-living elements from which I sprang. :thumb:

Lucky

October 16th, 2003, 12:22 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
Well, right now, I'm going to work.

After I die, I will be going nowhere, because I will have ceased to exist as me, and I will blend back into the non-living elements from which I sprang.
I think a few posters here would love to see you blend into non-living parts. :chuckle:

If you believe that though, why waste your time on TOL. Why are you going to work? If the only thing you believe in is the here and now, then why not go do a whole bunch of crazy things. Forget work. Become a bank robber or something. Or better yet, live off the public trough. Go shoot people, steal cool cars, etc. If your body is just going to rot when you die, are you doing everything you can to go out in "style"??? If not, what's holding you back? Is it possible deep down inside you're a skeptic to your own beliefs?

Gerald

October 16th, 2003, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by Lucky8
I think a few posters here would love to see you blend into non-living parts. :chuckle:A pity that none of them (not even BillyBob) have the guts to actually do the deed...

If the only thing you believe in is the here and now, then why not go do a whole bunch of crazy things. Forget work. Become a bank robber or something. Or better yet, live off the public trough. Go shoot people, steal cool cars, etc. If your body is just going to rot when you die, are you doing everything you can to go out in "style"??? If not, what's holding you back? Is it possible deep down inside you're a skeptic to your own beliefs? That trick never works, Bullwinkle!

Stop trotting out the tired old argument of "if an atheist was really true to his beliefs, he'd go on a mad spree of robbing and killing, and try to go out with as big a bang as possible."

You mean to tell me that your belief in God is the only thing preventing you from killing your neighbor, raping his daughter and cooking his dog?

(A "yes" answer would not surprize me, as one "Christian" I ran afoul of indicated that his belief was all that kept him from trying to kill me [granted, I had just said something very unflattering about his mother, but still...].)

Lucky

October 16th, 2003, 01:18 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
A pity that none of them (not even BillyBob) have the guts to actually do the deed...

That trick never works, Bullwinkle!

Stop trotting out the tired old argument of "if an atheist was really true to his beliefs, he'd go on a mad spree of robbing and killing, and try to go out with as big a bang as possible."

You mean to tell me that your belief in God is the only thing preventing you from killing your neighbor, raping his daughter and cooking his dog?

(A "yes" answer would not surprize me, as one "Christian" I ran afoul of indicated that his belief was all that kept him from trying to kill me [granted, I had just said something very unflattering about his mother, but still...].)
Pardon me, I didn't realize it was a "trick." I'm rather new to debating atheists. It was just an honest question. I guess it has been used many times then if you say its a "trick." What is the typical response to it?

aikido7

October 16th, 2003, 01:26 PM

Bush should be impeached because he is a liar.

He is crafted to appear as a forceful leader with religious and moral values. He is not.

To Bush, unlike Clinton, he is not dissembling to preserve a superficial image he has created. He is lying to create an institutional subversion of what I consider to be true American values: Honesty, fairness and openness.

Gerald

October 16th, 2003, 02:32 PM

Originally posted by Lucky8
Pardon me, I didn't realize it was a "trick." I'm rather new to debating atheists. It was just an honest question. I guess it has been used many times then if you say its a "trick." What is the typical response to it? It is not a "trick", just a tired old fallacious argument.

I hope you don't plan to make the claim that a person who does not believe in deities cannot behave ethically.

If you plan to do that, I recommend you trot it out over here:

www.iidb.org

And stick around for the fireworks...:bannana:

Lucky

October 16th, 2003, 02:46 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
It is not a "trick", just a tired old fallacious argument.
Whatever the heck it is, what is the usual response?
I hope you don't plan to make the claim that a person who does not believe in deities cannot behave ethically.

If you plan to do that, I recommend you trot it out over here:

www.iidb.org

And stick around for the fireworks...:bannana:
I've been thinking about hitting those forums. Are you the best they could send this way?

Gerald

October 16th, 2003, 03:07 PM

Originally posted by Lucky8
Whatever the heck it is, what is the usual response?Are you making the claim? That someone who does not believe in deities cannot behave ethically?

The usual response to such a claim, after the laughter dies down, is to ask the claimant to present evidence.
I've been thinking about hitting those forums. Are you the best they could send this way? Actually, I discovered IIDB after hanging out on what these boards used to be (i.e., ShadowGov.com).

I put "atheist conspiracy" into a search engine and IIDB came out. Draw from that what you will...

Lucky

October 16th, 2003, 03:35 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
Are you making the claim? That someone who does not believe in deities cannot behave ethically?

The usual response to such a claim, after the laughter dies down, is to ask the claimant to present evidence.
I didn't make any claim. I presented Skeptic with a question. I realize that if it was a claim, I would have to present evidence. But it was not in the form of a claim, it was in the form of a question. So what is the usual comeback to such a question? Surely, if its such a common question for atheists there is already a standard comeback?

(I'm thinking about presenting it as a claim in a new thread. I'm sure I could get quite a few interesting responses if I made such a bold statement.)

Gerald

October 16th, 2003, 03:44 PM

Originally posted by Lucky8
(I'm thinking about presenting it as a claim in a new thread. I'm sure I could get quite a few interesting responses if I made such a bold statement.) By all means, knock yourself out.:thumb:

Delmar

October 16th, 2003, 04:50 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
I hope you don't plan to make the claim that a person who does not believe in deities cannot behave ethically.

If you plan to do that, I recommend you trot it out over here:

Oh why not!

Lucky

October 16th, 2003, 06:02 PM

All those interested in debating whether or not atheists can have ethics, look for the Bullwinkle's Claim thread under "Current Events." I didn't want to hijack this thread anymore than I already did.

Skeptic

October 17th, 2003, 01:44 AM

Originally posted by Lucky8
All those interested in debating whether or not atheists can have ethics, look for the Bullwinkle's Claim thread under "Current Events." I didn't want to hijack this thread anymore than I already did. See my response to this topic there.

Skeptic

October 17th, 2003, 01:52 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Skeptic;
Currently, the Islamic holy war for militants is against the U.S. in Iraq.

Billy;
Of course. Those guys don't want us in Iraq because we can keep a close eye on them. We have shut down Saddam's terrorist training camps, stopped his ability to fund terrorism, we have a couple hundred thousand troops there ready to blow up any terrorist we can find and it is putting a damper on their terrorist activities....

OF COURSE THEY WANT US OUT OF IRAQ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :doh: One reason we have not had more 9/11s, since 9/11, is their focus is on getting the U.S. out of Iraq. Once Iraq is again self governing, then the Islamic terrorists will refocus their attention to the American mainland. This is especially true if Bush is still in office when the U.S. are no longer occupying Iraq. Bush has generated so much anti-American hatred around the world that he should step down as President for the sake of national security!

BillyBob

October 17th, 2003, 07:52 AM

Aikido;
He is crafted to appear as a forceful leader with religious and moral values

Billy;
Oh, you mean like Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Jesse jackson did and still do?

BillyBob

October 17th, 2003, 08:02 AM

Skeptic;
One reason we have not had more 9/11s, since 9/11, is their focus is on getting the U.S. out of Iraq.

Billy;
Yes, for the reasons I stated. I just heard of a Gallup poll that showed 71% of Iraqi's are happy that the Americans are in Iraq. Of course they are! We freed them from a tyrannical, murderous despot. The only surprise to this poll is that the percentage isn't higher than 71%, although the number was 66% a few months ago, so the trend is quite obvious. I find it very revealing that you are taking sides with the wishes of the terrorists and not the citizens of Iraq.

Skeptic;
Once Iraq is again self governing, then the Islamic terrorists will refocus their attention to the American mainland. This is especially true if Bush is still in office when the U.S. are no longer occupying Iraq.

Billy;
Well, I reckon that we will be in Iraq long after Bush is out of office. Roosevelt and Truman are out of office but we still occupy Germany. If you are correct in your assessment that occupying Iraq is what is deterring terrorist attacks here in the US, then that should make you demand that we occupy Iraq for eternity! [you walked right into that one! :doh:]

Skeptic;
Bush has generated so much anti-American hatred around the world that he should step down as President for the sake of national security!

Billy;
:darwinsm: According to you, Bush is the reason we haven't been attacked since 911! :freak:

Silly Neocom.......

BillyBob

October 17th, 2003, 09:04 AM

Poll: Most in Baghdad Want Troops to Stay
By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP)--When Gallup set out recently to poll Baghdad residents, the biggest surprise may have been the public's reaction to the questioners: Almost everyone responded to the pollsters' questions, with some pleading for a chance to give their opinions.

``The interviews took more than an hour to do, people were extremely cooperative with open-ended questions,'' said Richard Burkholder, director of international polling for Gallup. ``People went on and on.''

But many of those Iraqis still have sharply mixed feelings about the U.S. military presence.

The Gallup poll found that 71 percent of the capital city's residents felt U.S. troops should not leave in the next few months. Just 26 percent felt the troops should leave that soon.

However, a sizable minority felt that circumstances could occur in which attacks against the troops could be justified. Almost one in five, 19 percent, said attacks could be justified, and an additional 17 percent said they could be in some situations.

These mixed feelings in Baghdad come at a time when many in the United States are urging that the troops be brought home soon.

Almost six in 10 in the poll, 58 percent, said that U.S. troops in Baghdad have behaved fairly well or very well, with one in 10 saying ``very well.'' Twenty 20 percent said the troops have behaved fairly badly and 9 percent said very badly.

Gallup, one of the nation's best-known polling operations, hired more than 40 questioners, mostly Iraqi citizens directed by survey managers who have helped with other Gallup polling in Arab countries. Respondents were told the poll was being done for media both in Iraq and outside their country, but no mention was made that the American polling firm was running it.

To conduct the poll, Gallup did interviews face-to-face in people's homes chosen at random from all geographic sectors of the city, and more than nine in 10 agreed to participate, at least double the response rate for many U.S. telephone polls. Pollsters in the United States have an increasingly difficult time getting cooperation from people called on the phone.

Delmar

October 17th, 2003, 09:48 AM

sure but what do they know!

Skeptic

October 25th, 2003, 04:43 AM

My bold:

========================
Published on Friday, October 24, 2003 by Knight-Ridder
Poll Shows Most Iraqis Unhappy with Presence of Coalition Forces
by Maureen Fan

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Most Iraqis feel unsafe in their neighborhoods, think the local Iraqi police can protect them better than coalition forces and increasingly view Americans as occupiers rather than liberators, according to a poll released Thursday by the independent, privately funded Iraq Center for Research & Strategic Studies in Baghdad.

Coalition forces have squandered the goodwill that resulted from removing Saddam Hussein from power, with nearly 43 percent of Iraqis viewing them as liberators six months ago but only 14.8 percent feeling the same way now.

More than 60 percent of Iraqis have little or no confidence that coalition forces will improve safety, but at least half (50.1 percent) support the coalition presence in Iraq, compared with 33.1 percent who would like to kick them out.

The sample of 1,620 people in Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Ramadi, Fallujah, Erbil and Suliamaniyah, interviewed between Sept. 28 and Oct. 10, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 points. The results are the third installment in a monthly polling operation run by Sadoun al Dulame, director of the research center.

The survey comes amid increasing attacks on U.S. soldiers in the past couple of weeks. While U.S. officials insist postwar Iraq is improving, there have been more attacks from roadside and homemade bombs as well as an increase in suicide bombings.

The results reflect the challenges of handing over authority to the Iraqis, which Americans say they want to do as quickly as possible, but at a pace most Iraqis think isn't fast enough.

"We expect after three or six months if the same problems continue to exist in Iraq, the coalition forces are going to suffer a lot," said Dulame.

Most Iraqi respondents said there were no current political leaders they could trust. They rated members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, most of whom fared poorly.

Asked which political system they favored, 33.7 percent of the randomly picked respondents said an Islamic government would be best, compared with 30.5 percent who favored democracy and 24 percent who favored a combination of democracy and an Islamic system.

Asked to rate various countries as their favorite political model for a future Iraq, 13.7 percent chose Iran while only 9.6 percent chose the United States.

Dulame said the results didn't mean a majority of Iraqis want hardline clerics to rule them. In fact, religious leaders ranked behind lawyers, writers and other professionals as the best people to lead postwar Iraq.

"Most of the respondents don't know enough to know the nature of such systems so they chose that regime or this regime because they feel or think it is better than the other," said Nabeel al Ani, a professor at Baghdad University's International Studies Center.

"Some of the people have no idea, for example, about the political system in France or Britain or even the United States, but they have at least some knowledge about the political system in Iran, so most of them choose it."
========================

BillyBob

October 25th, 2003, 12:06 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Skeptic;
One reason we have not had more 9/11s, since 9/11, is their focus is on getting the U.S. out of Iraq.

Billy;
Yes, for the reasons I stated. I just heard of a Gallup poll that showed 71% of Iraqi's are happy that the Americans are in Iraq. Of course they are! We freed them from a tyrannical, murderous despot. The only surprise to this poll is that the percentage isn't higher than 71%, although the number was 66% a few months ago, so the trend is quite obvious. I find it very revealing that you are taking sides with the wishes of the terrorists and not the citizens of Iraq.

Skeptic;
Once Iraq is again self governing, then the Islamic terrorists will refocus their attention to the American mainland. This is especially true if Bush is still in office when the U.S. are no longer occupying Iraq.

Billy;
Well, I reckon that we will be in Iraq long after Bush is out of office. Roosevelt and Truman are out of office but we still occupy Germany. If you are correct in your assessment that occupying Iraq is what is deterring terrorist attacks here in the US, then that should make you demand that we occupy Iraq for eternity! [you walked right into that one! :doh:]

Skeptic;
Bush has generated so much anti-American hatred around the world that he should step down as President for the sake of national security!

Billy;
:darwinsm: According to you, Bush is the reason we haven't been attacked since 911! :freak:

Silly Neocom.......

aikido7

October 25th, 2003, 07:45 PM

The honest man has nothing to hide.

Things that make me go hmmmmm....

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&u=/nyt/20031025/ts_nyt/administrationfacessupoenasfrom911panel&printer=1

Delmar

October 26th, 2003, 04:35 AM

I for one do not hold Bush as an example of a righteous man. I have never voted for him and probably won't next time unless Hillary is running against him. I am grateful that he took out Saddam. I am angry that he has not done the same with the father of modern terrorism Yasser Arafat

BillyBob

October 26th, 2003, 05:49 AM

The Israeli's should take out Yassir, and Bush should openly give his approval.

Delmar

October 26th, 2003, 06:18 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
The Israeli's should take out Yassir, and Bush should openly give his approval.

Bush giving the nod is most likley all it would take.

BillyBob

October 26th, 2003, 06:21 AM

Yes, and a day later there would be a funeral.

Delmar

October 26th, 2003, 06:49 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Yes, and a day later there would be a funeral.
Sad to say GW has lacked the wisdom to give that nod:cry:

BillyBob

October 26th, 2003, 06:53 AM

Well, the libs would be pissed if he OK'd it, they love Yassir. They always seem to love the bad guys...:think:

Skeptic

November 10th, 2003, 10:14 AM

=========================
Published on Sunday, November 9, 2003 by the Independent / UK
'No President has Lied so Baldly and so Often and so Demonstrably'
by Andrew Gumbel

The intelligence process is a bit like virginity," says Ray McGovern, who worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years. "Once you prostitute it, it's never the same. Your credibility never recovers.

"Watching what has happened with Iraq over the past several months has been like watching your daughter being raped."

Such is an indication of the extraordinary depth of feeling within the US intelligence community as the Bush administration's basis for the war in Iraq - the weapons of mass destruction, the dark hint of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'ida - has been shown to have been built on air.

Mr McGovern worked near the very top of his profession, giving direct advice to Henry Kissinger during the Nixon era and preparing the President's daily security brief for Ronald Reagan. Now he is co-founder of a group of former CIA employees called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, or Vips for short.

What the Bush White House has done, he believes, is far worse than the false premise that dragged the United States into the Vietnam War - a reported second attack on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin which later turned out not to have taken place. "The Gulf of Tonkin was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and Lyndon Johnson seized on that. That's very different from the very calculated, 18-month, orchestrated, incredibly cynical campaign of lies that we've seen to justify a war. This is an order of magnitude different. It's so blatant."

Mr McGovern accuses Mr Bush of an extraordinary act of chutzpah - taking advantage of his authority as President of the United States to make people believe there must be something to his insistent allegations that Iraq possessed potentially devastating weaponry.

"Many of us felt there had to be something there ... If this had been another country, one would have written a convincing analysis that this guy is lying through his teeth, that there are no weapons in Iraq. But people thought, the President can't say he knows something if he doesn't. That was persuasive, in a way.

"Now we know that no other President of the United States has ever lied so baldly and so often and so demonstrably ... The presumption now has to be that he's lying any time that he's saying anything."

It will, Mr McGovern believes, take a change of president and a change of CIA director to even begin to repair the damage done by what he sees as an overt politicisation of the intelligence business. But even that may not be enough.

"Unless what has happened in the past year and a half is recognised as a scandal, in which the CIA has been badly abused, then there's no hope," he said. "I pin my hopes mostly on the press these days. Turns out, surprise surprise, that even the US press doesn't like to be lied to."
============================

Lucky

November 10th, 2003, 10:25 AM

Originally posted by Skeptic
=========================
'No President has Lied so Baldly and so Often and so Demonstrably'
by Andrew Gumbel...
What's more "baldly" and "demonstrably" then lying under oath like Clinton did?

Gerald

November 10th, 2003, 10:50 AM

Originally posted by deardelmar
Bush giving the nod is most likley all it would take. Then Arafat would be replaced by some other idiot with a gun and a cause...

C'mon folks, this is like fighting the Hydra: "cut off one head and two shall take its place..."

Gerald

November 10th, 2003, 10:54 AM

Originally posted by Lucky
What's more "baldly" and "demonstrably" then lying under oath like Clinton did? Granted, Bubba's actions were pretty boneheaded (He should've just said "Yeah, I did her, and my accusers are just jealous 'cause I'm gettin' more action than they are!" :chuckle: ).

But it does bring to mind the question of which is worse: screwing an intern, or screwing a country...?

HerodionRomulus

November 10th, 2003, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by Lucky
What's more "baldly" and "demonstrably" then lying under oath like Clinton did?

Or Nixon, the "unindicted co-conspirator" who repeatedly said "I am not a crook," yet he certainly was one. His rape of the constitution was far more egregious than Clinton fibbing about a bj to escape the Wrath of Khan....er....Hilary.

Or LBJ lying about the Gulf of Tonkin. In the '64 campaign, (after Tonkin) one of his favorite lines was "I'm not gonna send our boys 10,000 miles overseas to fight somebody else's war."
The result, 50,000 Americans dead, and the fracturing of the country which has yet to heal.

BillyBob

November 10th, 2003, 03:14 PM

Herod;
Or Nixon, the "indicted co-conspirator" who repeatedly said "I am not a crook," yet he certainly was one. His rape of the constitution was far more egregious than Clinton fibbing about a bj to escape the Wrath of Khan....er....Hilary.

Billy;
Clinton did much more than just lie about 'that', he obstructed justice, raped women, murdered US citizens, got impeached, lied to Congress, lied to the citizenry, got disbarred, was involved in illegal business dealings, his business partners went to prison [and mysteriously died], was fined over $800,000 for obstructing justice in the Paula Jones case, led us into a recession, tried desperately to harm business in this country, attempted to federalize the medical proffession......Clinton's adulterous 'bj' was nothing compared to the criminal activities that he was involved in.

Besides, do you really think Hillary cared what Clinton was doing with Monica?

Herod;
Or LBJ lying about the Gulf of Tonkin. In the '64 campaign, (after Tonkin) one of his favorite lines was "I'm not gonna send our boys 10,000 miles overseas to fight somebody else's war."
The result, 50,000 Americans dead, and the fracturing of the country which has yet to heal

Billy;
LBJ might actually be a worse criminal than Bill Clinton, but just barely.

Top 3 worse Presidents in my lifetime:

1.Linden Johnson
2.Bill Clinton
3.Billy Carter

Top 3 Best Presidents of the same era:

1. Ronald Reagan
2. George W. Bush
3. John F. Kennedy

karstkid

November 10th, 2003, 11:08 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Top 3 Best Presidents of the same era:

1. Ronald Reagan
2. George W. Bush
3. John F. Kennedy

Huh! JFK was a democrat.

Zimfan

November 10th, 2003, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Top 3 worse Presidents in my lifetime:

1.Linden Johnson
2.Bill Clinton
3.Billy Carter

"Billy" Carter? I must of missed that one in history class.

P.S. On a serious note, Jimmy Carter was a pretty crappy president.

Lucky

November 10th, 2003, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Besides, do you really think Hillary cared what Clinton was doing with Monica?
I seriously doubt it. We all know that Hillary wore the pants in that family, since Clinton never even had his...

I wonder if Clinton thought:

Uh gee. Dat womin I got hitched to want to be a prezdent somday. So no mater wat I do, she aint evir goin to leaf me, as dat wudn't be gud fir her publik imaj. Mite as will haf a lil fun senz I kan. :hammer:

At least Bush is trying to get important things done, like putting an end to terrorism. Unfortunately, I think he has more critics to deal with than actual terrorists. Heck, even I will critique him. But all criticism aside, now is not the time for a lame duck president. Unless you like getting blown up by Muslims.

Zimfan

November 11th, 2003, 12:00 AM

Originally posted by Lucky
I seriously doubt it. We all know that Hillary wore the pants in that family, since Clinton never even had his...

I wonder if Clinton thought:

Uh gee. Dat womin I got hitched to want to be a prezdent somday. So no mater wat I do, she aint evir goin to leaf me, as dat wudn't be gud fir her publik imaj. Mite as will haf a lil fun senz I kan. :hammer:

Hitlery is the :devil: or at least a friend of his. I shudder when I think of her running for president some day.

Originally posted by Lucky
But all criticism aside, now is not the time for a lame duck president. Unless you like getting blown up by Muslims.

I take it you're not gonna start a reelect Jimmy Carter campaign, then.

BillyBob

November 11th, 2003, 06:52 AM

Originally posted by Zimfan
"Billy" Carter? I must of missed that one in history class.

P.S. On a serious note, Jimmy Carter was a pretty crappy president.

How funny that I wrote 'Billy' Carter! :chuckle: :doh:

BillyBob

November 11th, 2003, 06:56 AM

Originally posted by karstkid
Huh! JFK was a democrat.

JFK was a Conservative compared to todays liberal democrats. He staved off a crisis with the Russians and he enacted one of the biggest tax cuts in history. He realized that letting taxpayers keep more of their money was good for the economy.

[Like Clinton, he had a hard time keeping his pants on and he was probably a drug addict -pain killers]

Mr. 5020

November 11th, 2003, 08:31 AM

How the parties have changed...:think:

Skeptic

November 11th, 2003, 09:47 AM

Originally posted by Lucky
What's more "baldly" and "demonstrably" then lying under oath like Clinton did? I could care less if Clinton's lied about private consensual bj's. I don't care if Clinton was doing animals! And I certainly would not want to hear about that! At least his lies did not result in the unjustified deaths of thousands of innocent people!!

What's far more serious is lying about, distorting, and exaggerating reasons for invading a county that was not a threat to America or other countries. Bush had no hard empirical evidence for WMD or significant Iraqi international terrorism directed toward America.

Lies, distortions, and exaggerations, given the absence of hard empirical pre-war evidence, that result in an unnecessary military invasion of a country, violating international law, and the unnecessary killing of many thousands of innocent civilians, as well as many more Iraqi soldiers (who were not threatening America or other countries), is far more worthy of impeachment than lying about bj's.

Skeptic

November 11th, 2003, 10:06 AM

Originally posted by Lucky
At least Bush is trying to get important things done, like putting an end to terrorism. If Bush were serious about putting an end to terrorism, he would not have unnecessarily invaded Iraq. This invasion not only energized existing terrorists and significantly increased recruitment of new terrorists, but also caused the loss of support by most of the other countries of the world, including our traditional allies. If Bush were serious about fighting terrorism, he would have put more resources toward fighting the root causes of terrorism. Just like killing criminals does to stop crime, simply killing terrorists does not stop terrorism. Killing terrorists does not address the root causes terrorism, which are fear, hatred and ignorance. Here is what Rumsfeld recently stated (my bold):
Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.

taoist

November 11th, 2003, 08:49 PM

BillyBob How funny that I wrote 'Billy' Carter! :chuckle: :doh: HA! Don't even pretend you ever turned down a can of "Billy Beer." (Yes, Zimmy, it actually existed, named after Jimmy's little brother. It tasted like PBR.)

BillyBob

November 12th, 2003, 06:19 AM

I remember 'Billy Beer', but I never tried one. I don't think I ever saw them in the stores.

I bet they are collectors items now. :cheers:

HerodionRomulus

November 12th, 2003, 09:01 AM

deleted redundancy

HerodionRomulus

November 12th, 2003, 09:04 AM

Originally posted by taoist
BillyBob HA! Don't even pretend you ever turned down a can of "Billy Beer." (Yes, Zimmy, it actually existed, named after Jimmy's little brother. It tasted like PBR.)

Hey, don't even insult PBR like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BillyBob

November 12th, 2003, 06:35 PM

Skeptic;
Killing terrorists does not address the root causes terrorism, which are fear, hatred and ignorance.

Billy;
Now why would we want to cater to a bunch of terrorists? :kookoo: Killing them is the best way to deal with killers.

Perhaps you would prefer that they extort us? Do you think that if we met certain demands of theirs that they would stop terrorizing us? If you think that, you are unaware of the real reason we are the target of their terrorism. I suppose that the Italians didn't cave into their extortions, so the terrorists were justified in blowing up a few dozen Italians in Iraq. And what is the reason that the terrorists are killing Iraqi's, Saudi's and Brits?

Zimfan

November 12th, 2003, 10:53 PM

Skeptic

November 13th, 2003, 01:13 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Skeptic;
Killing terrorists does not address the root causes terrorism, which are fear, hatred and ignorance.

Billy;
Now why would we want to cater to a bunch of terrorists? :kookoo: Killing them is the best way to deal with killers.

Perhaps you would prefer that they extort us? Do you think that if we met certain demands of theirs that they would stop terrorizing us? If you think that, you are unaware of the real reason we are the target of their terrorism. I suppose that the Italians didn't cave into their extortions, so the terrorists were justified in blowing up a few dozen Italians in Iraq. And what is the reason that the terrorists are killing Iraqi's, Saudi's and Brits? Here is an interesting article regarding this issue:

=======================
September 23

Whatever happened to root causes?

by Lowell Feld

This week, just over two years after 9/11, a high-level conference on "Fighting Terrorism for Humanity: A Conference on the Roots of Evil " is being held in New York City. The event, organized by the International Peace Academy and the Norwegian Mission to the United Nations, aims to "distinguish the real roots and origins of terrorism" and to "identify the breeding grounds and the origins of hate in order to eliminate them." Discussion will center on a report by an international panel of experts on terrorism, prepared under the auspices of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Distinguished speakers at the New York conference include Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Elie Weisel, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik of Norway.

One speaker who will be in New York this week, but certainly not for this conference, is our own President, George W. Bush. For "Dubya" and his far-right-wing Administration, root causes are words never spoken out loud. Why are these words seemingly verboten by the Bush Administration?

For starters, root causes don't match the Bush worldview because they are complicated and "gray," and that's just not the way Bush or the right wing thinks. On the contrary, Bush and his Christian Right allies tend to see things in simplistic and simple-minded black and white, even Apocalyptic, terms. To these people, root causes are liberal, secular, over-intellectualized, America-hating garbage. And politically they are a threat, because if root causes exist, then 9/11 and the "war on terrorism" cease to fit into the Bush Administration's simplistic good and evil paradigm.

Another major problem for the right wing in looking at root causes is that such an examination might imply that the United States is not the completely innocent victim of maniacal, psychopathic terrorists. Instead, the situation might be a great deal more complicated, with U.S. behavior, both intentional and unintentional, contributing to the terrorism unleashed against it. This goes against the right wing's notion of the United States as a shining city on a hill, an exceptionalist power not subject to the rules that govern everyone else.

Worst of all, if there are root causes of terrorism, and certain U.S. policies contribute to them, the United States would need to reexamine, and perhaps adjust some of its behavior patterns. For instance, the United States might consider cutting its support for corrupt dictatorships around the world, reducing its oil imports from places like Saudi Arabia, changing its policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, even re-examining the U.S- and Western-dominated, globalized, profoundly unequal world economic system.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, even suggesting such things could easily get one branded as a "traitor" by extreme right-wingers like Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell. These were the people, remember, who said that we should "invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity" (Coulter), and who blamed "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians" for 9/11 (Falwell). We proceed here, then, at the risk of earning Ann Coulter's and Jerry Falwell's wrath.

First, the international panel of terrorism experts found the widespread belief that terrorists are "insane" or "irrational" actors to be incorrect. Insane people don't normally travel thousands of miles to crash themselves into buildings unless they have a damned good reason, at least from their own perspective, and the ability to carry out their plan. This requires at least a degree of sanity, planning, and rationality. And, as far as we know, none of the 9/11 hijackers was clinically "insane," none had been released recently from mental hospitals, and none had shown any other signs of emotional "craziness" or "irrationality" of which we are aware. At a minimum, then, at least some of the 9/11 hijackers must have felt that fighting America was a cause for which killing and dying made sense. Perhaps we would benefit from thinking about why that might have been the case.

How about the widespread belief that suicide terrorism is a product of Islam per se? That's a false one too, according to the international terrorism panel, and even -- to paraphrase Ann Coulter -- "slanderous." What is true, however, is that most 9/11 hijackers were adherents of the rabidly fundamentalist strain of Islam known as Wahhabism. This fundamentalist brand of Islam is far from the dominant strain in the Muslim world, but our great ally Saudi Arabia uses part of the oil money we send it when we fill up our SUVs and Hummers in order to export Wahhabism, with its crude anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism, around the world.
What about the liberal notion that poverty and terrorism are linked? According to the terrorism panel, this relationship is "weak and indirect" at best. A more direct link than poverty is income inequality. A world in which 20 percent of the people hold 80 percent of the wealth and consume 80 percent of the resources is not likely to be a stable place to live. It is also not sustainable, environmentally or otherwise. As The Atlantic's Robert Kaplan summarizes, "in the developing world environmental stress will present people with a choice that is increasingly among totalitarianism (as in Iraq), fascist-tending mini-states (as in Serb-held Bosnia), and road-warrior cultures (as in Somalia)." And as Klaus Toepfer, head of the UN Environment Programme, has stated, "desperate people can resort to desperate solutions. They may care little about themselves and the people they hurt."

Finally, how about the Bush/right-wing view that terrorism is the result of a simplistic, mechanical cause-and-effect relationship? Well…no. Actually, according to the panel, terrorists are actors capable of nuance, making choices based on "the limitations and possibilities of the situation" in order "to achieve political objectives."

Several possible root causes of terrorism that the Bush Administration certainly doesn't want to talk about were identified by the terrorism experts' report:

"lack of democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law";

rapid modernization and a "dissolution of traditional norms and social patterns";

hegemony and inequality of power, where one power -- the United States in the current international system -- possesses overwhelming power compared to other actors, and where "the latter see no other realistic ways to forward their cause by normal political or military means";

"powerful external actors upholding illegitimate governments";

"historical antecedents of political violence, civil wars, revolutions, dictatorships or occupation"; and

"failure … by the state to integrate dissident groups or emerging social classes," which leads educated young people with few job prospects to seek alternative forms of expressing their frustration, such as violence and terror.
Lack of democracy and civil liberties is a characteristic of many major U.S. allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, home countries to all the 9/11 hijackers. The U.S. role here is in buying these countries' oil (Saudi Arabia), providing billions of dollars per year in civilian and military aid (Egypt), and by helping to prop up unpleasant regimes that are hated by the local populations.

Rapid modernization and dissolution of "traditional values" is a major issue for many countries, particularly those in the Muslim and Arab worlds. In these countries, people are proud of their heritage, their religion, and especially their language. Many people in these countries feel that they are under assault by U.S.-led, English-language, capitalistic globalization. Sure, Egyptians and Saudis may tune in to "Baywatch" and MTV, and they may even enjoy them, but there is also an underlying sadness and anger at the loss of Arab and Muslim cultural identity.

This anger is exacerbated by the (correct) perception that the United States represents an overwhelming economic, cultural, political, and military power in today's world. With no counterbalancing force, the United States ends up being blamed for many frustrations and grievances, even those with which it has had nothing to do. Many people see no way to stand up to the United States by conventional means, to gain a foothold in the global economy, or even to make movies in their own language. That leads to anger and, in some cases, violent rage.

This rage is fueled even further by perceived U.S. support for nasty, corrupt, authoritarian, violent "anti-communist" regimes and dictators over the past several decades. The United States, a powerful external actor, is also blamed for past wars, dictatorships, and oppression by tyrannical regimes. This is not just a false perception. For instance, in 1991 the United States encouraged Shi'ites in southern Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein following the Gulf War. When they did, tens of thousands of Shi'ites were slaughtered -- predictably -- by Saddam Hussein's forces, while the United States stood by and did nothing. Families of the victims undoubtedly have not forgotten this U.S. inaction.

Finally, the failure of many U.S.-allied regimes to provide their burgeoning, youthful populations with opportunities for economic and political expression is often blamed on the United States specifically and the West in general. This may not be completely fair, but on the other hand, the rich, industrialized nations spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year subsidizing their agricultural sectors, driving many developing countries' farm sectors out of business. Protectionist measures in the textile, steel, and other sectors of industrialized countries also are not imaginary, and there is no doubt that these help to keep imports from developing countries out, removing yet another potential source of economic growth and jobs.

In short, the 9/11 attacks, while in no way morally justifiable, are very much explainable upon careful reflection and study, as the conference in New York City this week proves. In spite of the Bush Administration's desperate denials and delusions, there really are root causes of terrorism, there really are more shades of gray than the right wing's infantile black and white worldview allows, and there really are some problems that can't be solved with a few guided missiles and B-1 bombers.

Unfortunately, the world after 9/11 remains a deeply unhealthy place, with America -- the sole superpower -- still not fully grasping its own predicament. This situation is very unfortunate, because the root causes of terrorism are not going to get any better on their own, and if not addressed forcefully will pose a continuing threat to U.S. national security.

From: http://www.dailygusto.com/news/september/root-092303.html
=======================

Skeptic

November 16th, 2003, 11:07 PM

Anyone care about root causes? Or should we just kill anyone we suspect is a terrorist, just in case they really are?

BillyBob

November 17th, 2003, 04:00 AM

I couldn't care less about root causes, kill them all!

Skeptic

November 17th, 2003, 02:33 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
I couldn't care less about root causes, kill them all! If root causes are not addressed, then our future will be a never-ending killing spree. As long as the root causes of terrorism are not addressed, there will always be a supply of terrorists to kill.

But, I bet you like that scenario, right? As long as there are terrorists to kill, you're happy?

You seem to want an increasing supply of terrorists. Bush is fulfilling your wishes. Whereas I want decreasing supply of terrorists.

Gerald

November 17th, 2003, 02:40 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
If root causes are not addressed, then our future will be a never-ending killing spree. As long as the root causes of terrorism are not addressed, there will always be a supply of terrorists to kill.

But, I bet you like that scenario, right? As long as there are terrorists to kill, you're happy?

You seem to want an increasing supply of terrorists. Bush is fulfilling your wishes. Whereas I want decreasing supply of terrorists. Maybe BB owns stock in the gun industry...

Elena Marie

November 17th, 2003, 05:04 PM

Rapid modernization and dissolution of "traditional values" is a major issue for many countries, particularly those in the Muslim and Arab worlds. In these countries, people are proud of their heritage, their religion, and especially their language. Many people in these countries feel that they are under assault by U.S.-led, English-language, capitalistic globalization. Sure, Egyptians and Saudis may tune in to "Baywatch" and MTV, and they may even enjoy them, but there is also an underlying sadness and anger at the loss of Arab and Muslim cultural identity.

Funny, but isn't this the same thing being said by many people on this very forum? See Purex's post here (http://www.theologyonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=10793&perpage=15&pagenumber=2) for more. So, it's okay for Muslims, but not for Americans? Do I detect a double-standard at work here?

This anger is exacerbated by the (correct) perception that the United States represents an overwhelming economic, cultural, political, and military power in today's world. With no counterbalancing force, the United States ends up being blamed for many frustrations and grievances, even those with which it has had nothing to do. Many people see no way to stand up to the United States by conventional means, to gain a foothold in the global economy, or even to make movies in their own language. That leads to anger and, in some cases, violent rage.

Okay, let me make sure I understand this. The residents of these tin pot countries are mad because they can't compete with us with the tools and structure they have, so rather than figuring out how to fix their situation so they can compete, they decide to kill us all (and don't give me any bull about they aren't out to kill us all--they've said it themselves and I heard it with my own two ears.) And we're supposed to "address their root causes?" How would we do that? Oh yeah, by giving them money, and compromising our own security via allowing cheap (and likely Hep A infected) food imports to run our own farmers out of business, and . . ..?

I don't know who this Lowell Feld fella is, but I can tell from the article that Americans' lives aren't nearly as important to him as the lives of those who have sworn to kill every American man, woman and child.

Sometimes I gotta wonder. . ..

Skeptic

November 17th, 2003, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
And we're supposed to "address their root causes?" How would we do that? Oh yeah, by giving them money, and compromising our own security via allowing cheap (and likely Hep A infected) food imports to run our own farmers out of business, and . . ..?

I don't know who this Lowell Feld fella is, but I can tell from the article that Americans' lives aren't nearly as important to him as the lives of those who have sworn to kill every American man, woman and child.

Sometimes I gotta wonder. . .. And your solution to international terrorism is ...?

Just kill them all? But, you just said: "...they decide to kill us all (and don't give me any bull about they aren't out to kill us all--they've said it themselves and I heard it with my own two ears.)"

Is it simply a case of kill them before they kill us? If so, our future, for generations to come, will be quite bloody. There are better ways.

BillyBob

November 17th, 2003, 05:30 PM

Mr. 5020

November 17th, 2003, 05:40 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
I'm not interested in root causes, what the heck do you propose to do about the 'root cause' of Islam???????Kill 'em.

BillyBob

November 17th, 2003, 05:41 PM

YEAH!!!!!!!!!

Skeptic

November 17th, 2003, 06:10 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
I'm not interested in root causes, what the heck do you propose to do about the 'root cause' of Islam??????? The same as I propose for the root cause of Christianity. Rational dialog and education.

While you're wasting your time trying to understand terrorists, I'll be participating in their extermination. Spoken like a true ignoramus.

How can you truly exterminate terrorists without knowing how they reproduce? Perhaps we should kill them before they are old enough to reproduce? Yea, that's the ticket!! :kookoo:

Gerald

November 18th, 2003, 07:39 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
While you're wasting your time trying to understand terrorists, I'll be participating in their extermination. I'll make you a deal: you wipe out all the Muslims, and I wipe out all the Christians.

Then maybe folks with walking-around sense can get back to work running things...:devil:

HerodionRomulus

November 18th, 2003, 08:18 AM

Originally posted by Mr. 5020
Kill 'em.

Well, at least we know you're not pro-life.

Elena Marie

November 18th, 2003, 02:47 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
And your solution to international terrorism is ...?

Just kill them all? But, you just said: "...they decide to kill us all (and don't give me any bull about they aren't out to kill us all--they've said it themselves and I heard it with my own two ears.)"

Is it simply a case of kill them before they kill us? If so, our future, for generations to come, will be quite bloody. There are better ways.

So what do you propose?

BillyBob

November 18th, 2003, 08:25 PM

Skeptic;
How can you truly exterminate terrorists without knowing how they reproduce?

Billy;
I suppose they don't use the 'missionary' postion! :eek: Do they have a special way of reproducing that I'm not aware of? :noway:

Skeptic;
Perhaps we should kill them before they are old enough to reproduce? Yea, that's the ticket!!

Billy;
:think:

BillyBob

November 18th, 2003, 08:26 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
I'll make you a deal: you wipe out all the Muslims, and I wipe out all the Christians.

Then maybe folks with walking-around sense can get back to work running things...:devil:

:chuckle:

Skeptic

November 19th, 2003, 12:31 AM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
So what do you propose? I tend to agree with Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman:

============================
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT TERRORISM?
By Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, (retired).

October 2001

"Mr. President, you did not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism. You said that we are the target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world.

Baloney! We are the target of terrorist because we stand for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation in the world. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things."

"We are not hated because we practice democracy, freedom, and human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in third world countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. And that hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism, and in the future, nuclear terrorism."

A FEW YEARS AGO, terrorists destroyed two U.S. embassies. President Clinton retaliated against suspected facilities of Osama bin Laden. In his television address, the President told the American people that we were the targets of terrorism because we stood for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world.

On that occasion, I wrote: "Tell people the truth, Mr. President ... about terrorism, not about poor Monica. If your lies about terrorism go unchallenged, then the terror war you have unleashed will likely continue until it destroys us.

"The threat of nuclear terrorism is closing in upon us. Chemical terrorism is at hand, and biological terrorism is a future danger. None of our thousands of nuclear weapons can protect us from these threats. These idols of plutonium, titanium, and steel are impotent. Our worship of them for over five decades has not brought us security, only greater danger. No 'Star Wars' system ... no matter how technically advanced, no matter how many trillions of dollars was poured into it ... can protect us from even a single terrorist bomb. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal can shield us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Piper Cub or a suitcase or a Ryder rental truck.

Not a penny of the 273 billion dollars a year we spend on so-called defense can actually defend us against a terrorist bomb. Nothing in our enormous military establishment can actually give us one whit of security. That is a military fact.

"Mr. President, you did not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism. You said that we are the target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world.

Baloney! We are the target of terrorists because we stand for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation in the world. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things.

"In how many countries have we deposed popularly elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators who were willing to sell out their own people to American multinational corporations?

"We did it in Iran when we deposed Mossadegh because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him with the Shah, and trained, armed, and paid his hated Savak national guard, which enslaved and brutalized the people of Iran. All to protect the financial interests of our oil companies. Is it any wonder there are people in Iran who hate us?

"We did it in Chile when we deposed Allende, democratically elected by the people to introduce socialism. We replaced him with the brutal right-wing military dictator, General Pinochet. Chile has still not recovered.

"We did it in Vietnam when we thwarted democratic elections in the South which would have united the country under Ho Chi Minh. We replaced him with a series of ineffectual puppet crooks who invited us to comein and slaughter their people, and we did. (I flew 101 combat missions in that war which you properly opposed.)

"We did it in Iraq, where we killed a quarter of a million civilians in a failed attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, and where we have killed a million since then with our sanctions. About half of these innocent victims have been children under the age of five.

"And, of course, how many times have we done it in Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin America? Time after time we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the land to be shared by the people who worked it. We replaced them with murderous tyrants who would sell out and control their own people so that the wealth of the land could be taken out by Domino Sugar, the United Fruit Company, Folgers, and Chiquita Banana.

"In country after country, our government has thwarted democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why we are hated around the world.

And that's why we are the target of terrorists.

"People in Canada enjoy better democracy, more freedom, and greater human rights than we do. So do the people of Norway and Sweden.

Have you heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian embassies? Or Swedish embassies. No.

"We are not hated because we practice democracy, freedom, and human rights.

We are hated because our government denies these things to people in third world countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. And that hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism, and in the future, nuclear terrorism.

"Once the truth about why the threat exists is understood, the solution becomes obvious. We must change our government's ways.

"Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so the oil companies can sell the oil under their sand, we must send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children.

"Instead of continuing to kill thousands of Iraqi children every day with our sanctions, we must help them rebuild their electric powerplants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals; all the things we destroyed in our war against them and prevented them from rebuilding with our sanctions.

"Instead of seeking to be king of the hill, we must become a responsible member of the family of nations. Instead of stationing hundreds of thousands of troops around the world to protect the financial interests of our multinational corporations, we must bring them home and expand the Peace Corps.

"Instead of training terrorists and death squads in the techniques of torture and assassination, we must close the School of the Americas (no matter what name they use). Instead of supporting military dictatorships, we must support true democracy; the right of the people to choose their own leaders. Instead of supporting insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror around the world, we must abolish the CIA and give the money to relief agencies.

"In short, we do good instead of evil. We become the good guys, once again.

The threat of terrorism would vanish. That is the truth, Mr. President. That is what the American people need to hear. We are good people. We only need to be told the truth and given the vision. You can do it, Mr. President. Stop the killing. Stop the justifying. Stop the retaliating. Put people first.

Tell them the truth."

Needless to say, he didn't ... and neither has George W. Bush. Well, the seeds our policies have planted have borne their bitter fruit. The World Trade Center is gone. The Pentagon is damaged. And thousands of Americans have died. Almost every TV pundit is crying for massive military retaliation against whoever might have done it (assumedly the same Osama bin Laden) and against whoever harbors or aids theterrorists (most notably the Taliban government of Afghanistan). Steve Dunleavy of the New York Post screams "Kill the bastards! Train assassins, hire mercenaries, put a couple of million bucks up for bounty hunters to get them dead or alive, preferably dead. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." It's tempting to agree. I have no sympathy for the psychopaths that killed thousands of our people. There is no excuse for such acts. If I was recalled to active duty, I would go in a heartbeat. At the same time, all my military experience and knowledge tells me that retaliation hasn't rid us of the problem in the past, and won't this time.

By far the world's best anti-terrorist apparatus is Israel's. Measured in military terms, it has been phenomenally successful. Yet Israel still suffers more attacks than all other nations combined. If retaliation worked, Israelis would be the world's most secure people.

Only one thing has ever ended a terrorist campaign -- denying the terrorist organization the support of the larger community it represents. And the only way to do that is to listen to and alleviate the legitimate grievances of the people. If indeed Osama bin Laden was behind the four hijackings and subsequent carnage, that means addressing the concerns of the Arabs and Muslims in general and of the Palestinians in particular. It does NOT mean abandoning Israel. But it may very well mean withdrawing financial and military support until they abandon the settlements in occupied territory and return to 1967 borders. It may also mean allowing Arab countries to have leaders of their own choosing, not hand-picked, CIA-installed dictators willing to cooperate with Western oil companies.

Chester Gillings has said it very well: "How do we fight back against bin Laden? The first thing we must ask ourselves is what is it we hope to achieve -- security or revenge? The two are mutually exclusive; seek revenge and we WILL reduce our security. If it is security we seek, then we must begin to answer the tough questions -- what are the grievances of the Palestinians and the Arab world against the United States, and what is our real culpability for those grievances? Where we find legitimate culpability, we must be prepared to cure the grievance wherever possible. Where we cannot find culpability or a cure, we must communicate honestly our positions directly to the Arab people. In short, our best course of action is to remove ourselves as a combatant in the disputes of the region."

To kill bin Laden now would be to make him an eternal martyr. Thousands would rise up to take his place. In another year, we would face another round of terrorism, probably much worse even than this one. Yet there is another way.

In the short term, we must protect ourselves from those who already hate us. This means increased security and better intelligence. I proposed to members of Congress in March that we should deny any funds for "Star Wars" until such time as the Executive Branch could show that they are doing all possible research on the detection and interception of weapons of mass destruction entering the country clandestinely (a far greater threat than ballistic missiles). There are lots of steps which can be taken to increase security without detracting from civil rights. But in the long term, we must change our policies to stop causing the fear and hatred which creates new terrorists. Becoming independent of foreign oil through conservation, energy efficiency, production of energy from renewable sources, and a transition to non-polluting transportation will allow us to adopt a more rational policy toward the Middle East.

The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims are good, peaceful people. But enough of them, in their desperation and anger and fear, have turned first to Arafat and now to bin Laden to relieve their misery. Remove the desperation, give them some hope, and support for terrorism will evaporate. At that point bin

Laden will be forced to abandon terrorism (as has Arafat) or be treated like a common criminal. Either way, he and his money cease to be a threat. We CAN have security ... or we can have revenge. We cannot have both.

From: http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/politics/afghan_bowman.htm
============================

BillyBob

November 19th, 2003, 04:39 AM

:darwinsm:

Skeptic

November 20th, 2003, 12:37 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
:darwinsm: So, BillyBob. What do you want security or revenge?

Delmar

November 20th, 2003, 02:49 AM

Originally posted by Skeptic
I tend to agree with Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman:

============================
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT TERRORISM?
By Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, (retired).

October 2001

"Mr. President, you did not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism. You said that we are the target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world.

Baloney! We are the target of terrorist because we stand for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation in the world. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things."

"We are not hated because we practice democracy, freedom, and human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in third world countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. And that hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism, and in the future, nuclear terrorism."

A FEW YEARS AGO, terrorists destroyed two U.S. embassies. President Clinton retaliated against suspected facilities of Osama bin Laden. In his television address, the President told the American people that we were the targets of terrorism because we stood for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world.

On that occasion, I wrote: "Tell people the truth, Mr. President ... about terrorism, not about poor Monica. If your lies about terrorism go unchallenged, then the terror war you have unleashed will likely continue until it destroys us.

"The threat of nuclear terrorism is closing in upon us. Chemical terrorism is at hand, and biological terrorism is a future danger. None of our thousands of nuclear weapons can protect us from these threats. These idols of plutonium, titanium, and steel are impotent. Our worship of them for over five decades has not brought us security, only greater danger. No 'Star Wars' system ... no matter how technically advanced, no matter how many trillions of dollars was poured into it ... can protect us from even a single terrorist bomb. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal can shield us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Piper Cub or a suitcase or a Ryder rental truck.

Not a penny of the 273 billion dollars a year we spend on so-called defense can actually defend us against a terrorist bomb. Nothing in our enormous military establishment can actually give us one whit of security. That is a military fact.

"Mr. President, you did not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism. You said that we are the target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world.

Baloney! We are the target of terrorists because we stand for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation in the world. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things.

"In how many countries have we deposed popularly elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators who were willing to sell out their own people to American multinational corporations?

"We did it in Iran when we deposed Mossadegh because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him with the Shah, and trained, armed, and paid his hated Savak national guard, which enslaved and brutalized the people of Iran. All to protect the financial interests of our oil companies. Is it any wonder there are people in Iran who hate us?

"We did it in Chile when we deposed Allende, democratically elected by the people to introduce socialism. We replaced him with the brutal right-wing military dictator, General Pinochet. Chile has still not recovered.

"We did it in Vietnam when we thwarted democratic elections in the South which would have united the country under Ho Chi Minh. We replaced him with a series of ineffectual puppet crooks who invited us to comein and slaughter their people, and we did. (I flew 101 combat missions in that war which you properly opposed.)

"We did it in Iraq, where we killed a quarter of a million civilians in a failed attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, and where we have killed a million since then with our sanctions. About half of these innocent victims have been children under the age of five.

"And, of course, how many times have we done it in Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin America? Time after time we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the land to be shared by the people who worked it. We replaced them with murderous tyrants who would sell out and control their own people so that the wealth of the land could be taken out by Domino Sugar, the United Fruit Company, Folgers, and Chiquita Banana.

"In country after country, our government has thwarted democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why we are hated around the world.

And that's why we are the target of terrorists.

"People in Canada enjoy better democracy, more freedom, and greater human rights than we do. So do the people of Norway and Sweden.

Have you heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian embassies? Or Swedish embassies. No.

"We are not hated because we practice democracy, freedom, and human rights.

We are hated because our government denies these things to people in third world countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. And that hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism, and in the future, nuclear terrorism.

"Once the truth about why the threat exists is understood, the solution becomes obvious. We must change our government's ways.

"Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so the oil companies can sell the oil under their sand, we must send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children.

"Instead of continuing to kill thousands of Iraqi children every day with our sanctions, we must help them rebuild their electric powerplants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals; all the things we destroyed in our war against them and prevented them from rebuilding with our sanctions.

"Instead of seeking to be king of the hill, we must become a responsible member of the family of nations. Instead of stationing hundreds of thousands of troops around the world to protect the financial interests of our multinational corporations, we must bring them home and expand the Peace Corps.

"Instead of training terrorists and death squads in the techniques of torture and assassination, we must close the School of the Americas (no matter what name they use). Instead of supporting military dictatorships, we must support true democracy; the right of the people to choose their own leaders. Instead of supporting insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror around the world, we must abolish the CIA and give the money to relief agencies.

"In short, we do good instead of evil. We become the good guys, once again.

The threat of terrorism would vanish. That is the truth, Mr. President. That is what the American people need to hear. We are good people. We only need to be told the truth and given the vision. You can do it, Mr. President. Stop the killing. Stop the justifying. Stop the retaliating. Put people first.

Tell them the truth."

Needless to say, he didn't ... and neither has George W. Bush. Well, the seeds our policies have planted have borne their bitter fruit. The World Trade Center is gone. The Pentagon is damaged. And thousands of Americans have died. Almost every TV pundit is crying for massive military retaliation against whoever might have done it (assumedly the same Osama bin Laden) and against whoever harbors or aids theterrorists (most notably the Taliban government of Afghanistan). Steve Dunleavy of the New York Post screams "Kill the bastards! Train assassins, hire mercenaries, put a couple of million bucks up for bounty hunters to get them dead or alive, preferably dead. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." It's tempting to agree. I have no sympathy for the psychopaths that killed thousands of our people. There is no excuse for such acts. If I was recalled to active duty, I would go in a heartbeat. At the same time, all my military experience and knowledge tells me that retaliation hasn't rid us of the problem in the past, and won't this time.

By far the world's best anti-terrorist apparatus is Israel's. Measured in military terms, it has been phenomenally successful. Yet Israel still suffers more attacks than all other nations combined. If retaliation worked, Israelis would be the world's most secure people.

Only one thing has ever ended a terrorist campaign -- denying the terrorist organization the support of the larger community it represents. And the only way to do that is to listen to and alleviate the legitimate grievances of the people. If indeed Osama bin Laden was behind the four hijackings and subsequent carnage, that means addressing the concerns of the Arabs and Muslims in general and of the Palestinians in particular. It does NOT mean abandoning Israel. But it may very well mean withdrawing financial and military support until they abandon the settlements in occupied territory and return to 1967 borders. It may also mean allowing Arab countries to have leaders of their own choosing, not hand-picked, CIA-installed dictators willing to cooperate with Western oil companies.

Chester Gillings has said it very well: "How do we fight back against bin Laden? The first thing we must ask ourselves is what is it we hope to achieve -- security or revenge? The two are mutually exclusive; seek revenge and we WILL reduce our security. If it is security we seek, then we must begin to answer the tough questions -- what are the grievances of the Palestinians and the Arab world against the United States, and what is our real culpability for those grievances? Where we find legitimate culpability, we must be prepared to cure the grievance wherever possible. Where we cannot find culpability or a cure, we must communicate honestly our positions directly to the Arab people. In short, our best course of action is to remove ourselves as a combatant in the disputes of the region."

To kill bin Laden now would be to make him an eternal martyr. Thousands would rise up to take his place. In another year, we would face another round of terrorism, probably much worse even than this one. Yet there is another way.

In the short term, we must protect ourselves from those who already hate us. This means increased security and better intelligence. I proposed to members of Congress in March that we should deny any funds for "Star Wars" until such time as the Executive Branch could show that they are doing all possible research on the detection and interception of weapons of mass destruction entering the country clandestinely (a far greater threat than ballistic missiles). There are lots of steps which can be taken to increase security without detracting from civil rights. But in the long term, we must change our policies to stop causing the fear and hatred which creates new terrorists. Becoming independent of foreign oil through conservation, energy efficiency, production of energy from renewable sources, and a transition to non-polluting transportation will allow us to adopt a more rational policy toward the Middle East.

The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims are good, peaceful people. But enough of them, in their desperation and anger and fear, have turned first to Arafat and now to bin Laden to relieve their misery. Remove the desperation, give them some hope, and support for terrorism will evaporate. At that point bin

Laden will be forced to abandon terrorism (as has Arafat) or be treated like a common criminal. Either way, he and his money cease to be a threat. We CAN have security ... or we can have revenge. We cannot have both.

From: http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/politics/afghan_bowman.htm
============================

....yet democracy continuues to grow throughout the world decade after decade. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the US.

BillyBob

November 20th, 2003, 06:35 AM

Originally posted by Skeptic
So, BillyBob. What do you want security or revenge?

I want it all, baby!

BillyBob

November 20th, 2003, 06:37 AM

quote;
Bin Laden will be forced to abandon terrorism (as has Arafat) or be treated like a common criminal.

Billy;
Arafat han't abandoned terrorism! That is the flakiest article you have posted so far, Skeptic.

Skeptic

November 20th, 2003, 12:28 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
quote;
Bin Laden will be forced to abandon terrorism (as has Arafat) or be treated like a common criminal.

Billy;
Arafat han't abandoned terrorism! That is the flakiest article you have posted so far, Skeptic. Do you mean Arafat has not abandoned terrorism because he has not been able to stop Palestinians from committing terrorist acts? Or do you have hard evidence that Arafat is behind acts of terrorism?

Delmar

November 20th, 2003, 04:54 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
Do you mean Arafat has not abandoned terrorism because he has not been able to stop Palestinians from committing terrorist acts? Or do you have hard evidence that Arafat is behind acts of terrorism?

Arafat is the FATHER or modern terrorism.

BillyBob

November 20th, 2003, 05:18 PM

Yep!!

Skeptic is a terrorist apologist, he even said he will take up arms against the USA! I hope he does, he will have a chance to learn all about Islam while sharing a cell with his pals in Cuba.

Elena Marie

November 20th, 2003, 05:34 PM

"Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so the oil companies can sell the oil under their sand, we must send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children.

"Instead of continuing to kill thousands of Iraqi children every day with our sanctions, we must help them rebuild their electric powerplants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals; all the things we destroyed in our war against them and prevented them from rebuilding with our sanctions.

"Instead of seeking to be king of the hill, we must become a responsible member of the family of nations. Instead of stationing hundreds of thousands of troops around the world to protect the financial interests of our multinational corporations, we must bring them home and expand the Peace Corps.

"Instead of training terrorists and death squads in the techniques of torture and assassination, we must close the School of the Americas (no matter what name they use). Instead of supporting military dictatorships, we must support true democracy; the right of the people to choose their own leaders. Instead of supporting insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror around the world, we must abolish the CIA and give the money to relief agencies.

"In short, we do good instead of evil. We become the good guys, once again.

The threat of terrorism would vanish. That is the truth, Mr. President. That is what the American people need to hear. We are good people. We only need to be told the truth and given the vision. You can do it, Mr. President. Stop the killing. Stop the justifying. Stop the retaliating. Put people first.

Skeptic--

So essentially, you're saying we should support communist dictatorships, ruin our own economy, let two-bit dictators invade other countries at will (specifically, Kuwait in 1991), forfeit our hard-earned position as the world's font of innovation, and lower the life expectancies of our citizens? Thanks anyway.

It would be interesting to see the author of your interview offer some evidence of his position rather than using the tired old "multinational corporations" technique.

BTW, "multinational" by definition means that these corporations are located in two or more nations and necessarily employ citizens of those other countries. So much for being all for the "international community," eh? Or is that only important when it's the UN doing the profitting?

BillyBob

November 20th, 2003, 07:17 PM

EMarie;
Skeptic. So essentially, you're saying we should support communist dictatorships, ruin our own economy, let two-bit dictators invade other countries at will (specifically, Kuwait in 1991), forfeit our hard-earned position as the world's font of innovation, and lower the life expectancies of our citizens?

Billy;
Not only that, he wants Hillary Clinton to be President!!!! :shocked:

Delmar

November 20th, 2003, 07:39 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Billy;
Not only that, he wants Hillary Clinton to be President!!!! :shocked:

EW! gross!!!

BillyBob

November 20th, 2003, 07:57 PM

Oh, it gets worse. He said he wanted to kiss her! :shocked: :noway:

Skeptic

November 21st, 2003, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Skeptic--

So essentially, you're saying we should support communist dictatorships, No. Would you rather support fascist dictatorships? Hey, why not stop supporting any dictatorial policies!

ruin our own economy, No. But is it fair that the U.S. uses such a high percentage of the world's resources, given our population?

let two-bit dictators invade other countries at will (specifically, Kuwait in 1991), No. But is it OK for the U.S. to invade other countries at will (specifically, Iraq in 2003)?

forfeit our hard-earned position as the world's font of innovation, I don't care about whose on top in innovation. What, are we in a contest? As long as the U.S. is on top, everything is OK? Does fairness matter?

and lower the life expectancies of our citizens? Why would I want that? Do you care about life expectancies in other countries?

It would be interesting to see the author of your interview offer some evidence of his position rather than using the tired old "multinational corporations" technique. I need to do more research on this one. However, doesn't it make sense that those who have the power and resources (i.e. those who were lucky enough to have gotten to the top first) are the one's who increasingly call the shots in the world?

For both sides, see: http://globalization.about.com/

Skeptic

November 21st, 2003, 01:41 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Not only that, he wants Hillary Clinton to be President!!!! :shocked: Never said it. Wouldn't want it. Unless the only choice was between Clinton and Bush.

Skeptic

November 21st, 2003, 01:42 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Oh, it gets worse. He said he wanted to kiss her! :shocked: :noway: C'mon, BillyBob! Do you have to tell ALL of my secrets!! :doh:

Elena Marie

November 21st, 2003, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
No. Would you rather support fascist dictatorships? Hey, why not stop supporting any dictatorial policies!

I'd rather tell everyone else to get their own house in order, but when they bring it here, it gets personal.

No. But is it fair that the U.S. uses such a high percentage of the world's resources, given our population?

You know, I've never seen any numbers to support that assertion, but for now I'll take it as fact.

Let's pretend that we quit buying oil from Venezuela. Do you have any idea what that would do to their economy? Let's just say it wouldn't be pleasant.

Most of the minerals exported from Africa have absolutely no purpose outside of the manufacture of electronics, especially computers and other digital equipment. Let's say we decide to stop using computers. Know what happens to Africa?

I've been through this with a goofball who ran one of those utterly useless courses I had to take in college. She couldn't make the argument either.

No. But is it OK for the U.S. to invade other countries at will (specifically, Iraq in 2003)?

Yes, because we were provoked. They have close ties to Osama--we've already demonstrated that.

I don't care about whose on top in innovation. What, are we in a contest? As long as the U.S. is on top, everything is OK? Does fairness matter?

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work and heard that some UN agency is angry at the US because Congress diverted approximately half of what was intended to go to that agency for defense. As if the UN has any right to tell our government how to spend our taxpayers' money. :rolleyes:

Not too long ago we had a scene where African countries were demanding--DEMANDING--that the US ship them antiretrovirals for little or no cost. Who do you think developed those medications? Who developed the polio vaccine? Where do conjoined twins go for surgery? From where does the majority of food aid originate? Who developed the advanced agricultural techniques that allow billions of bushels of wheat and corn to be produced on what was minimally fertile land?

Our innovations have made life much better not only for us, but for millions of others.

Why would I want that? Do you care about life expectancies in other countries?

Yes I do, which is why I don't complain when our government gives our money to people who want to kill us, a.k.a the Palestinians. I'm starting to get irritated with it, though, and might start complaining soon.

I need to do more research on this one. However, doesn't it make sense that those who have the power and resources (i.e. those who were lucky enough to have gotten to the top first) are the one's who increasingly call the shots in the world?

Who would you have calling the shots? The people who don't have a clue? Would you pull some uneducated bushman out of Africa and put him in charge of, oh, the CDC?

For both sides, see: http://globalization.about.com/

I've done this before, through four years of college. I've heard every illogical and irrational thought they have and have already processed it. I don't have to go through it again. But thanks for the link.

BillyBob

November 21st, 2003, 05:54 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
Never said it. Wouldn't want it. Unless the only choice was between Clinton and Bush.

That's what this election is coming to. Hillary has to run.

BillyBob

November 21st, 2003, 06:08 PM

Skeptic;
No. Would you rather support fascist dictatorships? Hey, why not stop supporting any dictatorial policies!

Billy;
Of course not, that is why we removed Saddam from power.

Skeptic;
No. But is it fair that the U.S. uses such a high percentage of the world's resources, given our population?

Billy;
Absolutely! We can afford it thanks to the Republicans maintaining free enterprise. Besides, the countries that we buy the resources from are more than happy to sell them to us. It's called a free market.

Skeptic;
No. But is it OK for the U.S. to invade other countries at will (specifically, Iraq in 2003)?

Billy;
Yep!!! I hope that this is just the beginning. I propose that the US take over the entire Middle East, carve up a nice piece for Israel and keep the rest for ourselves. While we're at it, we can kill a few million terrorists and put an end to their shenanigans.

Skeptic;
I don't care about whose on top in innovation.

Billy;
That's because you are a commie.

Skeptic;
What, are we in a contest?

Billy;
Of course.

Skeptic;
As long as the U.S. is on top, everything is OK?

Billy;
Absolutely!!!!!!!!!! Duh!!! :doh:

Skeptic;
Does fairness matter?

Billy;
Nope.

Skeptic;
Why would I want that? Do you care about life expectancies in other countries?

Billy;
Not particularly. If they want our help, they should succumb to our demands. If they protest us, they should receive nothing from our government.

After all, you want fairness......

Gerald

November 24th, 2003, 10:36 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Skeptic;
Does fairness matter?

Billy;
Nope.
And you claim to be better than me...

Skeptic;
Why would I want that? Do you care about life expectancies in other countries?

Billy;
Not particularly. If they want our help, they should succumb to our demands. If they protest us, they should receive nothing from our government.The best policy is to just take what the other guy has, and not give him any "help".

After all, if you're big enough to take it and hold it, it's yours!

You and I think a lot alike, BB. We'd make a great team. You're a bit more noble, but that's easy enough to correct...

BillyBob

November 24th, 2003, 12:34 PM

Gerald;
You're a bit more noble, but that's easy enough to correct...

Billy;
How do you propose to 'correct' that? :rolleyes:

Gerald

November 24th, 2003, 12:41 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
How do you propose to 'correct' that? :rolleyes: Once you've drunk the sweet nectar from the fountain of corruption, once you've seen the boundless success enjoyed by Those Who Win By Dirty Pool, you'll never go back.

You don't really think that Ken Lay, et. al., are going to hang for what they've done, do you...?:greedy:

HerodionRomulus

November 24th, 2003, 02:45 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
You don't really think that Ken Lay, et. al., are going to hang for what they've done, do you...?:greedy:

Not while George II is around to subvert justice.

BillyBob

November 24th, 2003, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
Not while George II is around to subvert justice.

Oh come on! Ken Lay was Bill Clinton's golf buddy! :doh:

If Clinton were still in the White House, he would have pardoned Lay just like he did all of his other criminal pals!

BillyBob

November 24th, 2003, 02:55 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
Once you've drunk the sweet nectar from the fountain of corruption, once you've seen the boundless success enjoyed by Those Who Win By Dirty Pool, you'll never go back.

Maybe you should consider drinking the sweet nectar of ethical business practices, hard work and a clear conscious. I sleep well at night and still have plenty of money!

Although my business will never make me a billionaire......:think:

You think Ken Lay is looking for a new partner??? ;)

Gerald

November 24th, 2003, 03:23 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
I sleep well at night and still have plenty of money!So do I... :devil:
Although my business will never make me a billionaire......:think:That's 'cause you think too small...
You think Ken Lay is looking for a new partner??? ;) You wouldn't like him; he cheats...

Elena Marie

November 24th, 2003, 04:22 PM

Wonder where Skeptic went?

BillyBob

November 24th, 2003, 04:26 PM

He had to go for a ride...... (http://www.theologyonline.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=674)

Skeptic

November 24th, 2003, 11:24 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Wonder where Skeptic went? I'm here. I have just been preoccupied with recovering from an illness and posting in Origins.

Here's how you should vote (http://www.votetoimpeach.org/).

Elena Marie

November 25th, 2003, 05:25 PM

Hope you're feeling better, Skeptic.

Elena Marie

November 25th, 2003, 05:26 PM

Well Skeptic, if deliberately lying under oath doesn't get one impeached, I seriously doubt acting on intelligence information will.

Why didn't you bother to respond to the last post in which I responded to you?

BillyBob

November 25th, 2003, 05:31 PM

He had to go for a ride...... (http://www.theologyonline.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=674)

Skeptic

November 25th, 2003, 07:29 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
You know, I've never seen any numbers to support that assertion, but for now I'll take it as fact.

Let's pretend that we quit buying oil from Venezuela. Do you have any idea what that would do to their economy? Let's just say it wouldn't be pleasant.

Most of the minerals exported from Africa have absolutely no purpose outside of the manufacture of electronics, especially computers and other digital equipment. Let's say we decide to stop using computers. Know what happens to Africa? Rather than just state, as you seem to be doing, that the U.S. should not overreact in the opposite direction, don't you think we should be doing something about the inequities?

I asked: "But is it OK for the U.S. to invade other countries at will (specifically, Iraq in 2003)?"

You replied: Yes, because we were provoked. They have close ties to Osama--we've already demonstrated that. The U.S. was NOT provoked into invading Iraq.

Iraq did NOT have close ties to Osama, and you have definitely NOT demonstrated that. Even if Iraq did have close ties with Iraq (which it didn't), the invasion that killed many thousands of people was unnecessary and wrong. Bush had no clear hard evidence of an Iraqi imminent thread from WMD, or any WMD at all, for that matter. Even if Iraq did have close ties with Iraq (which it didn't), any such ties were obviously not demonstrated to the world, the U.S. Congress and the American public, and any alleged ties did not pose a significant enough threat to massively invade Iraq. Bush justified the invasion with hearsay, rather than hard evidence, and simply fed us lies, exaggerations and distortions.

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work and heard that some UN agency is angry at the US because Congress diverted approximately half of what was intended to go to that agency for defense. As if the UN has any right to tell our government how to spend our taxpayers' money. The UN has a right to complain about the richest country in the world, the U.S., diverting funds toward an unnecessary unjustified illegal invasion of Iraq, that otherwise could have been used for humanitarian or other just causes.

Not too long ago we had a scene where African countries were demanding--DEMANDING--that the US ship them antiretrovirals for little or no cost. Who do you think developed those medications? Who developed the polio vaccine? Where do conjoined twins go for surgery? From where does the majority of food aid originate? Who developed the advanced agricultural techniques that allow billions of bushels of wheat and corn to be produced on what was minimally fertile land?

Our innovations have made life much better not only for us, but for millions of others. Yea, ... better for those who can afford them.

I asked: "Do you care about life expectancies in other countries?"

You replied: Yes I do, which is why I don't complain when our government gives our money to people who want to kill us, a.k.a the Palestinians. I'm starting to get irritated with it, though, and might start complaining soon. Now, the Palestinians want to kill us? Are you sure you're not living in Israel?

I said: "However, doesn't it make sense that those who have the power and resources (i.e. those who were lucky enough to have gotten to the top first) are the one's who increasingly call the shots in the world?"

You replied: Who would you have calling the shots? The people who don't have a clue? Would you pull some uneducated bushman out of Africa and put him in charge of, oh, the CDC? No. I would have a coalition of highly educated informed individuals from a variety of countries and fields, who are not controlled by special big-money monopoly interests, calling the shots.

BillyBob

November 25th, 2003, 07:43 PM

He had to go for a ride...... (http://www.theologyonline.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=674)

HerodionRomulus

November 26th, 2003, 07:50 AM

Sudan has verified ties to al-Queda,
Sudan has been waging genocide and slavery against it's CHRISTIAN citizens for years,
Sudan is just as brutal and murderous as Saddam was,
yet George II has never mentioned this atrocious country, never took advantage of 9-11 to begin a propaganda campaign against Sudan leading up to an invasion and "liberation" of it's oppressed citizens, both Muslim and Chistian.
Despite an alleged agreement to stop it's oppression and murder, it still continues and the silence from George II is deafening.

Why?
Well, maybe because the Sudanese oil supplies are firmly in the hands of Western concerns, no need to liberate Sudanese oil.

HerodionRomulus

November 26th, 2003, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Oh come on! Ken Lay was Bill Clinton's golf buddy! :doh:

If Clinton were still in the White House, he would have pardoned Lay just like he did all of his other criminal pals!

1. The Enron fiasco came to a head under George II not Clinton.

2. For Clinton to pardon someone, first there has to be a conviction. Lay has not even been indicted.

Gerald

November 26th, 2003, 08:02 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
He had to go for a ride...... (http://www.theologyonline.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=674) What a lovely picture of your mother, BillyBob...

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
1. The Enron fiasco came to a head under George II not Clinton.

2. For Clinton to pardon someone, first there has to be a conviction. Lay has not even been indicted.

1. Ah, came to a head. So? Do you think he was playing it straight while Clinton was in office, just waiting for GW to take command so he could start his illicit practices?

2. Lay should be indicted, I agree. But Clinton would have pardoned him, they were friends and Clinton has a record of covering for his friends. Or murdering them. I guess you have to take your chances with Clinton.

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by Gerald
What a lovely picture of your mother, BillyBob...

C'mon Gerald, you can do better than that. :nono:

Gerald

November 26th, 2003, 08:14 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
C'mon Gerald, you can do better than that. :nono: Okay, your father...:p

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 08:17 AM

:chuckle:

Delmar

November 26th, 2003, 10:39 AM

Skeptic was right Bush should be impeached. He and the party of limited Government just made it a law for my kids to pay for rush limbaughs drugs.

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 01:34 PM

Yeah, I'm pissed about it, too.

HerodionRomulus

November 26th, 2003, 02:07 PM

BB

Who exactly has President Clinton murdered. What is your proof? When was his trial and conviction?

HerodionRomulus

November 26th, 2003, 02:09 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
C'mon Gerald, you can do better than that. :nono:

Sister/Wife :ha: :chuckle:

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 02:09 PM

Vince Foster, to name one of about 40 possible Arkancides.

HerodionRomulus

November 26th, 2003, 02:21 PM

And a very Happy Thanksgiving/Dia de Accíon de Gracias to all.
See ya next week.

BB: Be careful if you drive somewhere. You know what 40 & 65 are like.
Use your turn signal.
:chuckle:

HerodionRomulus

November 26th, 2003, 02:23 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Vince Foster, to name one of about 40 possible Arkancides.

Since Ken Starr and his GOP lynch mob could never prove a thing, and wasted 65 million of OUR money, that means it didn't happen they way you wish it would.

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
And a very Happy Thanksgiving/Dia de Accíon de Gracias to all.
See ya next week.

BB: Be careful if you drive somewhere. You know what 40 & 65 are like.
Use your turn signal.
:chuckle:

:noid:

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 02:45 PM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
Since Ken Starr and his GOP lynch mob could never prove a thing, and wasted 65 million of OUR money, that means it didn't happen they way you wish it would.

And yet, Vince Foster remains....wait, let me check.....yep, he's still dead.

BillyBob

November 26th, 2003, 02:46 PM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
Sister/Wife :ha: :chuckle:

:madmad:

:D

Delmar

November 27th, 2003, 05:09 AM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
BB

Who exactly has President Clinton murdered. What is your proof? When was his trial and conviction?

Yeah plus they couldn't try him for the rape of Juanita Brodrick because the statute of limitations had run out.

BillyBob

November 27th, 2003, 06:19 AM

He did get fined over $800,000 and was disbarred for obstructing justice in the Paula Jones case. He is a murderer and a rapist and is the head of the Democrat Party. I guess we know what they mean by 'Party'.

Delmar

November 27th, 2003, 06:26 AM

I don't tend to enjoy the kind of party where people end up dead

BillyBob

November 27th, 2003, 06:28 AM

Me either. I was refering to rape, not that rape is any better, just imagining what Bill Clinton's idea of a party is.

Elena Marie

November 27th, 2003, 09:15 PM

Hi Skeptic--

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. I always wind up cooking for a battalion.

Originally posted by Skeptic
Rather than just state, as you seem to be doing, that the U.S. should not overreact in the opposite direction, don't you think we should be doing something about the inequities?

Now wait a minute, I'm confused. Way back on page 74 of this thread, you posted an article about why the US is so awful, one of the reasons being:

"We did it in Iraq, where we killed a quarter of a million civilians in a failed attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, and where we have killed a million since then with our sanctions. About half of these innocent victims have been children under the age of five.

So, either we allow trade with these people and be accused of "support fascist dictatorships," or we refuse to trade with them and be accused of "killing a million with sanctions." You can't have it both ways.

I'm beginning to suspect that no stick is bad enough for you to beat the US with, even when those sticks are mutually exclusive.

I asked: "But is it OK for the U.S. to invade other countries at will (specifically, Iraq in 2003)?"

You replied: The U.S. was NOT provoked into invading Iraq.

Iraq did NOT have close ties to Osama, and you have definitely NOT demonstrated that. Even if Iraq did have close ties with Iraq (which it didn't), the invasion that killed many thousands of people was unnecessary and wrong.

The New York Times inadvertently admitted such in the article I posted earlier.

Bush had no clear hard evidence of an Iraqi imminent thread from WMD, or any WMD at all, for that matter.

The State of the Union speech did NOT say that Iraq was an "immenent threat." That's a devious sleight of hand. What was actually said was:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

2003 State of the Union Address (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html)

Even if Iraq did have close ties with Iraq (which it didn't), any such ties were obviously not demonstrated to the world, the U.S. Congress and the American public, and any alleged ties did not pose a significant enough threat to massively invade Iraq. Bush justified the invasion with hearsay, rather than hard evidence, and simply fed us lies, exaggerations and distortions.

The facts seem to argue against you. First the twisting of the State of the Union address, then the claim that "the world didn't believe Iraq had WMDs."

Almost EVERY nation in the UN believed they had WMDs. Even the French didn't argue that they didn't exist. So if it's a conspiracy, you're going to have to include Cirac in the scheme.

The UN has a right to complain about the richest country in the world, the U.S., diverting funds toward an unnecessary unjustified illegal invasion of Iraq, that otherwise could have been used for humanitarian or other just causes.

That's as absurd as me complaining to Bill Gates that he didn't pay my mortgage the two months I was laid up after surgery.

Yea, ... better for those who can afford them.

You're kidding, right? We have poured untold millions into other countries on things like vaccinations, antibiotics, sanitation, etc. Where have you been hiding that you don't know these things?

I asked: "Do you care about life expectancies in other countries?"

You replied: Now, the Palestinians want to kill us? Are you sure you're not living in Israel?

No, I just happened to see them celebrating in the streets on Sept. 11 and demanding more American deaths. That story only played once or twice, however, before the powers that be decided to quit running it.

And I've heard it out of their own mouths.

I said: "However, doesn't it make sense that those who have the power and resources (i.e. those who were lucky enough to have gotten to the top first) are the one's who increasingly call the shots in the world?"

You replied: No. I would have a coalition of highly educated informed individuals from a variety of countries and fields, who are not controlled by special big-money monopoly interests, calling the shots.

What is it with you people? Do you see conspiracies under every rock except your own? Do you [i]really believe that every single person in this country who has worked hard and done well is some kind of stooge for your mythical "evil corporate America?" No doubt that there are bad people in that group, just as in every other group imaginable, but you paint with a mighty broad brush.

Elena Marie

November 28th, 2003, 06:57 AM

Skeptic--

Paul Krugman, hardly a standardbearer for conservative policy, has a most interesting column in today's NYT.

. . ..When I went to graduate school, almost 30 years ago, I initially thought about specializing in development. After all, there is no more important topic in economics than how to raise the standard of living of the world's poor.

But in the mid-1970's, development economics was just too depressing to pursue. Indeed, it might as well have been called non-development economics. No third world nation had made the transition to advanced-country status since 19th-century Japan. Circa 1975 it seemed that the club of nations with decent living standards was no longer accepting new members. . ..

I'm not talking about arid economic statistics; what we've seen over the past generation is an enormous, unexpected improvement in the human condition. . ..

How was this improvement achieved? Whenever I give talks about my latest book, someone asks whether I still believe in free trade. The answer is yes — not because I have any fond feelings about multinational corporations, but because every one of those development success stories was based on export-led growth. And that growth is possible only if rising economies can expand into new markets. Some critics of globalization seem to be nostalgic for the era before the big growth in third-world exports of manufactured goods. I'm not, because I remember the way that era really felt, our despair over the possibility of development.

The Good News
By PAUL KRUGMAN (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/28/opinion/28KRUG.html)

Gives one reason to doubt your above assertion that the US has only benefited the US.

Elena Marie

November 28th, 2003, 07:24 AM

Skeptic--

As far as the Iraq-Bin Laden link, this (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp) might give you something to think about.

A tiny piece of the article:

CRITICS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION have complained that Iraq-al Qaeda connections are a fantasy, trumped up by the warmongers at the White House to fit their preconceived notions about international terror; that links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have been routinely "exaggerated" for political purposes; that hawks "cherry-picked" bits of intelligence and tendentiously presented these to the American public.

Carl Levin, a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made those points as recently as November 9, in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." Republicans on the committee, he complained, refuse to look at the administration's "exaggeration of intelligence."

Said Levin: "The question is whether or not they exaggerated intelligence in order to carry out their purpose, which was to make the case for going to war. Did we know, for instance, with certainty that there was any relationship between the Iraqis and the terrorists that were in Afghanistan, bin Laden? The administration said that there's a connection between those terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Iraq. Was there a basis for that?"

There was, as shown in the memo to the committee on which Levin serves. And much of the reporting comes from Clinton-era intelligence. Not that you would know this from Al Gore's recent public statements. Indeed, the former vice president claims to be privy to new "evidence" that the administration lied. In an August speech at New York University, Gore claimed: "The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction." Really?

Read the article, okay?

Skeptic

November 28th, 2003, 07:10 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
The State of the Union speech did NOT say that Iraq was an "immenent threat." ....

The facts seem to argue against you. First the twisting of the State of the Union address, then the claim that "the world didn't believe Iraq had WMDs."

Almost EVERY nation in the UN believed they had WMDs. Even the French didn't argue that they didn't exist. So if it's a conspiracy, you're going to have to include Cirac in the scheme. The world did not know for sure whether Iraq had WMDs. Many countries believed they did, because that what intelligence agencies suspected. However, the fact remains that, regardless of what people believed or what intelligence agencies said they believed, no clear hard uncontroversial evidence was produced prior to the U.S. invasion!

And, despite Bush's immoral doctrine of pre-emption, the pre-invasion evidence did not show that Iraq clearly had or soon would have substantial WMDs with which to threaten America. What intelligence agencies did provide was suspicions, hearsay, and speculation! No matter who or how many people said they believed there was a threat, it is still wrong for a country to invade another, killing many thousands of innocent people in the process, because of suspicions, hearsay, and speculation!

You're kidding, right? We have poured untold millions into other countries on things like vaccinations, antibiotics, sanitation, etc. Where have you been hiding that you don't know these things? I am for whatever will relieve the suffering of the most people in the shortest possible time. And, if reducing the profits of some pharmaceutical companies is necessary, so be it. Perhaps, when it comes to developing drugs for serious epidemics, governments should sink billions into non-profit efforts to develop and distribute them as quickly as possible.

Do you really believe that every single person in this country who has worked hard and done well is some kind of stooge for your mythical "evil corporate America?" No. But, I think the problems are more serious and widespread than you think.

No doubt that there are bad people in that group, just as in every other group imaginable, but you paint with a mighty broad brush. I think there is more evidence of a long-term threat from unchecked multi-national corporate globalism than there was for a terrorist WMD threat from Iraq.

Elena Marie

November 28th, 2003, 10:30 PM

Hi Skeptic--

Originally posted by Skeptic
The world did not know for sure whether Iraq had WMDs.

Your facts need some checking. We do know that they "had" WMDs. They used them against the Iranians and the Kurds. We do know that at minimum they wanted more, and odds are that they had more when we went in (fourteen months is a long time to hide things.) The UN, that bastion of competence, said that they refused to account for a whole heap of chemical weapons we know they had, because they used them.

Many countries believed they did, because that what intelligence agencies suspected. However, the fact remains that, regardless of what people believed or what intelligence agencies said they believed, no clear hard uncontroversial evidence was produced prior to the U.S. invasion!

See above.

And, despite Bush's immoral doctrine of pre-emption, the pre-invasion evidence did not show that Iraq clearly had or soon would have substantial WMDs with which to threaten America.

Tell that to the dead Kurds.

What intelligence agencies did provide was suspicions, hearsay, and speculation! No matter who or how many people said they believed there was a threat, it is still wrong for a country to invade another, killing many thousands of innocent people in the process, because of suspicions, hearsay, and speculation!

I'm curious. Suppose someone had said in July 2001 that Osama was in Afghanistan planning to fly jets into the World Trade Center. And suppose that George Bush, knowing who was doing the dirty deed and where they were planning to hit, refused to stop them because it's "immoral" to preemptively strike. Would you have called for Bush's head because he failed to act? That's what the Democrats said right after the attacks, and that's why they're going after the CIA as we speak.

Also, did you demand an investigation into Bill Clinton's bombing of a Sudanese aspirin factory waaaaaay back in 1998? Just curious.

I am for whatever will relieve the suffering of the most people in the shortest possible time. And, if reducing the profits of some pharmaceutical companies is necessary, so be it. Perhaps, when it comes to developing drugs for serious epidemics, governments should sink billions into non-profit efforts to develop and distribute them as quickly as possible.

You really don't understand the first thing about economics, do you? Do you have an inkling of an idea how much it costs to develop those medications? Do you know what kind of insurance they have to purchase for the inevitable looney who takes too much of a drug and then sues the manufacturer because the idiot can't read?

No. But, I think the problems are more serious and widespread than you think.

I've been around the block enough times to know what's out there. Yes, there are some bad apples in the bushel, but 99% of them are just regular people who make mistakes sometimes but generally are decent.

I think there is more evidence of a long-term threat from unchecked multi-national corporate globalism than there was for a terrorist WMD threat from Iraq.

And your evidence for this is? You might want to e-mail Paul Krugman with it, since he evidently is so far off the mark today.

I'm finding it harder and harder to take you seriously, Skeptic, but I'm trying.

Skeptic

November 29th, 2003, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Your facts need some checking. We do know that they "had" WMDs. They used them against the Iranians and the Kurds. We do know that at minimum they wanted more, and odds are that they had more when we went in (fourteen months is a long time to hide things.) The UN, that bastion of competence, said that they refused to account for a whole heap of chemical weapons we know they had, because they used them. I'll say it again, when I say Iraq did not have WMD, this does not mean Iraq NEVER had WMD. :doh: We all know Iraq had WMD, prior to 1991! The question is: what clear hard evidence did Bush produce that showed Iraq was a threat just prior to his invasion in March 2003? What clear hard evidence showed us that Iraq just HAD to be invaded in March 2003, rather than give UN weapons inspectors several more months, or even years, to rule out any threatening WMD? If the UN had been given the time it needed, we would now, in November 2003, know that there was (1) no need to invade Iraq, (2) kill many thousands of innocent people, (3) no need for the deaths a few hundred U.S. troops, (4) no need to spend many billions on tax dollars on an unnecessary invasion and occupation, (5) no need to ruin international relations with our former allies, (6) no need to incur even greater anti-American hatred around the world, which (7) increased the recruitment of more terrorist and made American and the world less safe!

I'm curious. Suppose someone had said in July 2001 that Osama was in Afghanistan planning to fly jets into the World Trade Center. And suppose that George Bush, knowing who was doing the dirty deed and where they were planning to hit, refused to stop them because it's "immoral" to preemptively strike. Would you have called for Bush's head because he failed to act? That's what the Democrats said right after the attacks, and that's why they're going after the CIA as we speak. If Bush had known exactly who, where, and what was being planned for 9/11, I would hope that steps would have been taken to stop these plans. I doubt if a major military operation would have been necessary. The CIA has been stopping these things for a long time, without major invasions by our military.

Also, did you demand an investigation into Bill Clinton's bombing of a Sudanese aspirin factory waaaaaay back in 1998? Just curious. I was not following those events, back then. If hard intelligence gave a high probability that the contents of this factory posed a serious and imminent threat, I would have said fine. However, if the intel was as uncertain as Bush's pre-invasion intel, I would have opposed Clinton's bombing.

You really don't understand the first thing about economics, do you? Do you have an inkling of an idea how much it costs to develop those medications? Do you know what kind of insurance they have to purchase for the inevitable looney who takes too much of a drug and then sues the manufacturer because the idiot can't read? If pharmaceutical companies can charge whatever for their products to pay for more research, then a government-funded non-profit project can raise as much or more in taxes to do the necessary research and cover any other costs.

I've been around the block enough times to know what's out there. Yes, there are some bad apples in the bushel, but 99% of them are just regular people who make mistakes sometimes but generally are decent. One of the problems with multinational corporations is that no one country can hold them accountable. I get concerned when more and more power and money is concentrated among fewer and fewer unregulated individuals and entities. What will be the environmental, social, labor and human-rights consequences of global corporations with little accountability controlling a majority of our global resources? Do you know? And when corporations cozy up to government leaders, and vice versa, the potential for harm is magnified. It appears that such a thing is becoming more common, especially with the Bush Administration. Here's an example of a corporation (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2003/0416pentagoncontract.htm) I find it difficult to trust.

And your evidence for this is? You might want to e-mail Paul Krugman with it, since he evidently is so far off the mark today. Not only are the neocon Republicans trying to "starve the beast" (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1111-06.htm) with huge tax cuts for the rich, thereby putting the squeeze on government spending, this encourages more privatization of government services and leads to more governance by corporate America, rather than those we elect to lead us. It seems we are heading to a form of Corporatism (http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism) (see also Fascism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism)).

Delmar

November 29th, 2003, 02:08 AM

I like tax cuts fir the rich. I never got a job from a poor guy!

BillyBob

November 29th, 2003, 07:40 AM

Nice!

Elena Marie

November 29th, 2003, 08:14 AM

Skeptic--

I'm interested in your response to this.
************************************************** ******
Originally posted by Skeptic
Rather than just state, as you seem to be doing, that the U.S. should not overreact in the opposite direction, don't you think we should be doing something about the inequities?

Now wait a minute, I'm confused. Way back on page 74 of this thread, you posted an article about why the US is so awful, one of the reasons being:

"We did it in Iraq, where we killed a quarter of a million civilians in a failed attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, and where we have killed a million since then with our sanctions. About half of these innocent victims have been children under the age of five.

So, either we allow trade with these people and be accused of "support[ing] fascist dictatorships," or we refuse to trade with them and be accused of "killing a million with sanctions." You can't have it both ways.

************************************************** *******

Elena Marie

November 29th, 2003, 09:34 AM

Hi Skeptic--

Originally posted by Skeptic
I'll say it again, when I say Iraq did not have WMD, this does not mean Iraq NEVER had WMD. :doh: We all know Iraq had WMD, prior to 1991! The question is: what clear hard evidence did Bush produce that showed Iraq was a threat just prior to his invasion in March 2003?

Okay, so we all know they existed. Where did they go? It's logic, Skeptic. If they had them, which they did, what did they do with them? They weren't telling the UN inspectors. Why do you imagine that is?

What clear hard evidence showed us that Iraq just HAD to be invaded in March 2003, rather than give UN weapons inspectors several more months, or even years, to rule out any threatening WMD?

You know, if you held science to the same standards you are applying to this situation, you would take the morphing fish out of your avatar.

There was clear, hard logic, coupled with the intelligence to which I posted a link earlier, combined with the intelligence agenicies of most of Europe, coupled with the UN's own admission that yes, they're there.

The UN inspectors are a joke.

If the UN had been given the time it needed,

They had TEN YEARS. How much more time does it take????

we would now, in November 2003, know that there was (1) no need to invade Iraq, (2) kill many thousands of innocent people,

You guys just kill me with this one. We have found many mass graves in Iraq, not to mention the torture chambers and all the other instruments of Hussein's rule. And you want to bemoan the "many thousands," a number which has failed to be confirmed and which I find unlikely. Even this site ( http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm) can't make the case, especially considering that they're lumping the terrorists' victims in with those who really were accidentally killed by US soldiers. They're count is 7900-9700 WITH THE TERRORISTS' VICTIMS INCLUDED. Oh, and they have traffic accidents in there as well. What a bunch of loonies, trying to make a case with a "database" like that.

But it's all our fault. :rolleyes:

Yes, it's sad that civilians had to die. That said, it's also sad that you would have preferred to keep a mass murderer in his comfy position. Just how do you reconcile your love for the oppressed with your support for the oppressor?

Just out of curiousity, did you support going into Yugoslavia?

(3) no need for the deaths a few hundred U.S. troops, (4) no need to spend many billions on tax dollars on an unnecessary invasion and occupation, (5) no need to ruin international relations with our former allies, (6) no need to incur even greater anti-American hatred around the world, which (7) increased the recruitment of more terrorist and made American and the world less safe!

It's funny that you complain about our tax dollars when you seem to support spending our tax money on every other governmental scheme.

I'm all for telling other countries to take a hike when they are so obviously wrong. They don't care one whit about us, and they never have. That's their right, just as our telling them to go jump is our right.

And your last bullet is refuted by the evidence. Have we had another attack on American soil since 9/11? Uh, no. Why do you think that is?

These people have been doing this stuff for a long time. Since you haven't followed the situation very long, you likely don't know anything about the USS Cole, or the African embassies, etc. Go do some research before making these kinds of statements.

If Bush had known exactly who, where, and what was being planned for 9/11, I would hope that steps would have been taken to stop these plans. I doubt if a major military operation would have been necessary. The CIA has been stopping these things for a long time, without major invasions by our military.

The problem here is that the CIA wasn't IN Afghanistan. Kind of hard to do that when you don't have assets on the ground.

I was not following those events, back then.

That explains your lack of historical reference. May I ask your age? I'm venturing to guess that you aren't old enough to remember Desert Storm.

If hard intelligence gave a high probability that the contents of this factory posed a serious and imminent threat, I would have said fine.

Just how do you define "hard evidence?" You keep using the phrase, but you don't give any examples or a definition.

However, if the intel was as uncertain as Bush's pre-invasion intel, I would have opposed Clinton's bombing.

Go here (http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0209/S00110.htm) for a bit more information. It's hard to get a good online source for it, since most of the databases have gone to pay-per-article.

If pharmaceutical companies can charge whatever for their products to pay for more research, then a government-funded non-profit project can raise as much or more in taxes to do the necessary research and cover any other costs.

Why in the name of all that's holy would you want that????? Show me one thing, just one, that the government hasn't royally screwed up. The government is the LAST entity I want to develop pharmaceuticals.

the problems with multinational corporations is that no one country can hold them accountable. I get concerned when more and more power and money is concentrated among fewer and fewer unregulated individuals and entities.

But you're perfectly happy to have a bunch of unaccountable beaurocrats have more and more money and power??? People can and do vote with their feet when it comes to corporations. Your beloved beaurocracy is insulated from any user imput.

This statement gives me cause to think that you are likely in your early 20's. I was like that early on. It's quite a comfortable position to hold, and gives one a reason to feel superior. Been there, done that. Then reality hit and I realized that all that time, I was being fed bulls**t disguised as cream peas.

environmental, social, labor and human-rights consequences of global corporations with little accountability controlling a majority of our global resources? Do you know? And when corporations cozy up to government leaders, and vice versa, the potential for harm is magnified. It appears that such a thing is becoming more common, especially with the Bush Administration. Here's an example of a corporation (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2003/0416pentagoncontract.htm) I find it difficult to trust.

Ah, Halliburton, the Mephistopheles of corporate America. Yes, it's such a horrible thing to have the most experienced people in the most experienced company doing the work, isn't it? We'd much prefer to get the less experienced in there to foul it up.

I'll let you in on a secret, Skeptic. The best company I've worked for to date is Northrop Grumman. I currently work for one of the largest health insurers in the country. My dad is an astronautical engineer with Lockheed Martin and built Cassini. And--better get a stiff drink for this one--my brother-in-law is Exxon's foremost drilling expert. Sorry, I don't fall for the whole "anyone who worked for a major company is automatically ineligible for elected office because they're obviously corrupt" line of thought.

Not only are the neocon Republicans trying to "starve the beast" (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1111-06.htm) with huge tax cuts for the rich, thereby putting the squeeze on government spending,

Too bad the recently announced economic data turns this argument to ash, eh?

this encourages more privatization of government services and leads to more governance by corporate America,

Heaven forbid that the governed should be in charge of themselves. Ever heard the phrase "of the people, by the people, for the people?" Now what document did that come from. . ..

rather than those we elect to lead us. It seems we are heading to a form of Corporatism (http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism) (see also Fascism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism)).

Hmmmmm, when was the last time Lockheed Martin got a voter registration card?? Although one could make the case in light of the NEA. Now there's a corporation that dearly loves to be in the thick of government.

BillyBob

November 29th, 2003, 09:46 AM

Elena Marie;
Okay, so we all know they existed. Where did they go? It's logic, Skeptic. If they had them, which they did, what did they do with them? They weren't telling the UN inspectors. Why do you imagine that is?

Billy;
Oh, don't use logic and expect a reasonable answer from Skeptic. He is a die hard, neocom, partisan hack. All he really cares about is getting the Communist Party [democrat] back in power and deriding Bush.

Elena Marie

November 30th, 2003, 06:32 AM

Bump.

Skeptic

November 30th, 2003, 07:02 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
You guys just kill me with this one. We have found many mass graves in Iraq, not to mention the torture chambers and all the other instruments of Hussein's rule. And you want to bemoan the "many thousands," a number which has failed to be confirmed and which I find unlikely. Even this site (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm) can't make the case, especially considering that they're lumping the terrorists' victims in with those who really were accidentally killed by US soldiers. See:
The Wages of War
Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant
Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict (http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8.html)

According to this report, there were over 10,000 Iraqi people killed during the U.S. invasion.

Over 10,000 unnecessary deaths! Regardless of whether they were combatants or noncombatants, these deaths were totally unnecessary!! And if Bush had given the UN more time, and even encouraged more inspectors - even telling them exactly where and how to inspect - those 10,000+ men, women, and children would still be alive today!!

...especially considering that they're lumping the terrorists' victims in with those who really were accidentally killed by US soldiers...

They're count is 7900-9700 WITH THE TERRORISTS' VICTIMS INCLUDED. What do you mean by "terrorists' victims"? Do you mean victims of terrorists, as in those who were killed by terrorists? Or do you mean the Iraqi soldiers who fought against the U.S. invaders, who were NOT terrorists? Either way, on what basis do you make this claim?

Yes, it's sad that civilians had to die. That said, it's also sad that you would have preferred to keep a mass murderer in his comfy position. Just how do you reconcile your love for the oppressed with your support for the oppressor? Should America be in the business of pre-emptively invading any country with the full might of our military, killing thousands people in the process, in order to remove oppressive dictators from power? No!

=========================
Hearts and Minds - US Style
by Scott Taylor

As American troops exit the former Presidential Palace complex in Tikrit, the last thing they see emblazoned above the arched gateway is the Fourth Infantry Division motto: Strike First.

Since the last of the organised Iraqi military resistance was crushed in late April, these expansive palace grounds have been the headquarters for the US Fourth Division.

As the birthplace of ousted president Saddam Hussein, Tikrit has proven to be a hotbed of Iraqi resistance throughout the US occupation.

I asked my escort Specialist Jack Craig, a military policeman from Minnesota, how he correlated the "strike first" directive with the US military's current policy of attempting to win the "hearts and minds" of the local population.

"Actually, I see 'hearts and minds' as a tactical doctrine. To me, it means that's where we should aim first," said Craig. "Shoot them in the body or in the head, but just make sure you shoot them first."

Dangerous mentality

From his humourless expression, I presumed that he wasn't joking.

"We have two major factors effecting the ability for some of our troops to understand restraint," said Eddie Calis, the civilian security adviser at the US airbase at Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

"One problem is that a lot of our soldiers are ****-scared and want to get out of here alive, no matter what that entails.

"The second and much less widespread issue is that of misplaced patriotism," said Calis, giving as an example one of the soldiers stationed at the Kirkuk airfield will soon be rotated back to America, and who feels that he has yet to fulfil his national duty.

"Every day he complains that he has not yet had the opportunity to kill an Iraqi, and do his bit for the war," explained Calis.

Provoking a shooting

"On several recent occasions he has initiated provocation deliberately with local drivers at the gate, and I only hope that [this soldier] will be sent home before he fulfils his quest at the cost of an innocent life."

However, aggressive and violent behaviour on the part of individual soldiers are not the only contributors to the American alienation of the local people.

In recent weeks, the Kirkuk airbase has come under almost daily attacks by Iraqi resistance fighters.

The increase in hostilities has been attributed to an influx of foreign Arab resistance fighters into the Kirkuk area. In an attempt to apprehend the perpetrators, the US offered a $50 cash bonus to the local police force for each suspect arrested.

Paid to arrest ... anyone

Unfortunately, the post-war Kirkuk police force has been almost entirely recruited from the ethnic Kurdish minority. With little love for their Arab neighbours, the police wasted no time in collecting the promised bounty.

"The very next day the Kurdish police showed up with three badly beaten Arabs - one of whom had been shot in the arm - claiming that they were 'Saddam loyalists'," said Eddie Calis.

Although the reward was paid, the three men were cleared after a brief interrogation.

"They were completely innocent, so we released them immediately. Unfortunately, the image of beaten US captives will not improve our standing and trust with the local Arabs."

The unofficial policy of cash rewards was also quickly revoked, "but the damage was already done," said Calis.

Public relations meltdown

With the US military suffering from such public relations setbacks, the stiffening resistance has taken on almost mythical qualities amongst the Iraqi population.

Explosions and gunfire routinely erupt in Baghdad, followed by the sound of sirens and helicopters. Whether or not these attacks actually target US personnel or cause any casualties is almost irrelevant.

The perception remains that the Americans are suffering serious casualties.

"There are many more dead and wounded US soldiers than they admit to," said Anmar Saadi, a 43-year-old former Iraqi soldier.

Living close to the US-controlled airport and a major highway intersection, Saadi has witnessed numerous attacks against American convoys during the nine months of US occupation.

US media blackout

"Often the attacks I see are not reported in the Western media," said Saadi.

The local media on the other hand often glorify resistance strikes, by detailing how rockets were deceptively deployed by the use of donkey carts and portraying the random ambushes as being part of a well-orchestrated guerrilla campaign.

"At the moment, the Iraqi resistance has the upper hand in this struggle," said Jabar Abu Marwan, a former senior officer with Saddam's Mukhabarat (the Iraqi secret service).

"Both the resistance and the US countermeasures are putting civilians at risk and creating collateral damage. However, while the Americans have failed to win the hearts of Iraqis, the resistance has at least captured their imaginations."

From: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1129-04.htm
=========================

BillyBob

November 30th, 2003, 07:59 PM

Silly Neocom.

Gerald

November 30th, 2003, 08:03 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Silly Neocom. Stupid redneck.

(I'm sorry; calling you a redneck is an insult to rednecks!)

:D

(No hard feelings, BB; you know I had to get a dig in...)
:cool:

BillyBob

November 30th, 2003, 08:31 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
Stupid redneck.

(I'm sorry; calling you a redneck is an insult to rednecks!)

:D

:madmad:

(No hard feelings, BB; you know I had to get a dig in...)
:cool:

:madmad:

I don't care, you friggin Gov'ment slacker. :chuckle:

Gerald

December 1st, 2003, 08:08 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
I don't care, you friggin Gov'ment slacker. :chuckle: Just remember, this slacker has access to all those black Chevy Suburbans...

BillyBob

December 1st, 2003, 09:44 AM

Originally posted by Gerald
Just remember, this slacker has access to all those black Chevy Suburbans...

What are you, the guy who changes the oil in them?

Gerald

December 1st, 2003, 10:35 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
What are you, the guy who changes the oil in them? Nah, I sign them out for the stormtroop...er...Homeland Security personnel...

HerodionRomulus

December 1st, 2003, 02:46 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Why in the name of all that's holy would you want that????? Show me one thing, just one, that the government hasn't royally screwed up. .

1. The Interstate Highway System seems to work pretty good. It's the idiots using it that are the problem. :ha:

Would you prefer to pay a toll everytime you drive down your street to Kroger's?

So, should we privatize the military? It's entirely government run, and the Commander-In-Chief was AWOL during Vietnam, sounds mighty inefficient to me to have an amateur coward in charge. :kookoo:

BillyBob

December 1st, 2003, 03:40 PM

Herod;
So, should we privatize the military?

Billy;
No. It is one of the few organizations that falls onto the federal government's jurisdiction and authority as described in the Constitution.

Herod;
It's entirely government run, and the Commander-In-Chief was AWOL during Vietnam, sounds mighty inefficient to me to have an amateur coward in charge.

Billy;
He didn't look cowardly to me or the soldiers in Baghdad on Thanksgiving. Now, the real conflict is when you have a full blown commie in the White House in charge of the military, such as the case with the previous administration. Shameful. :nono:

Gerald

December 1st, 2003, 03:55 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
No. It is one of the few organizations that falls onto the federal government's jurisdiction and authority as described in the Constitution.Oh, I don't know; allowing corporations to field their own "security forces" could save the government a lot of headaches.

To say nothing of the technological innovation that would likely result...
Now, the real conflict is when you have a full blown commie in the White House in charge of the military, such as the case with the previous administration. Shameful. :nono: Too bad nobody had the werewithal to do something about it at the time.

Two well-placed bullets and Newt Gingrich would've been President...

Elena Marie

December 1st, 2003, 04:43 PM

Hi Skeptic--

I'm running short of time tonight, so I'll have to get more in-depth later.

I was looking forward to your responses to several items, including the one I reposted. Are you short on time as well?

I went to the site to which you linked and discovered that their mission is ". . ..premised on the belief that policy innovation can overcome the practical obstacles to progress toward more cooperative security postures." That's beaurocrat-ese for castrating our military, which I am most uncomfortable with.

With that in mind, examination of their methodology offers some questions concerning the veracity of their calculations. They address this issue:

So, this sizable sample might contain as many as 200 combatants in civilian attire, which is 44.4 percent of the total.

So, applying that percentage to your "10,000" figure, we discover that the actual number of noncombatants estimated is much closer to 5,600. Furthermore, there is no way of knowing that all of those deaths were caused by Americans.

As stated in the article:

This estimate for [total] civilian noncombatant fatalities can be rounded to 3,200 and 4,300, with a mid-point of 3,750. This can also be expressed as "3,750 noncombatant fatalities plus/minus 550" or as "3,750 noncombatant fatalities plus/minus 15 percent".

That is 3,750 more civilian deaths than I would like, but it is an unfortunate fact of war. And in light of other wars we have fought, it is a very low degree of "collateral damage." Do some research on the numbers killed during battle in WWII.

Originally posted by Skeptic
According to this report, there were over 10,000 Iraqi people killed during the U.S. invasion.

You are lumping combatants and civilians in your number, Skeptic.

Over 10,000 unnecessary deaths! Regardless of whether they were combatants or noncombatants, these deaths were totally unnecessary!! And if Bush had given the UN more time, and even encouraged more inspectors - even telling them exactly where and how to inspect - those 10,000+ men, women, and children would still be alive today!!

Are you sure they'd still be alive? How do you know they wouldn't be among Hussein's victims?

I've already addressed the UN/inspectors argument. The UN said they were there, we KNOW they were there, so where did they go? They didn't vanish into thin air--I seriously doubt a mass quantum event. My guess is Syria. We gave them 14 months to ship them out.

What do you mean by "terrorists' victims"? Do you mean victims of terrorists, as in those who were killed by terrorists? Or do you mean the Iraqi soldiers who fought against the U.S. invaders, who were NOT terrorists? Either way, on what basis do you make this claim?

They include Iraqi civilians caught in IEDs, those killed by terrorists while driving with Americans, etc. It seems that we are more concerned with civilian casualties than the Iraqi army.

Should America be in the business of pre-emptively invading any country with the full might of our military, killing thousands people in the process, in order to remove oppressive dictators from power? No!

I wanted to understand how you reconciled your concern for the Iraqi civilian population, and I think I've figured it out. Would it be accurate to say that you care about them when the US Military is accidentally killing them, but not when Hussein's henchmen are killing them? That's what I understand you to mean.

I am on the other side of the fence. I want our military to avoid harming civilians if at all possible, but when push comes to shove, I choose getting the a**hole out of there rather than letting him murder more and more, both Iraqis and others.

I noticed you chose not to address the DoD intelligence memo to which I linked. Why not?

Elena Marie

December 1st, 2003, 04:47 PM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
1. The Interstate Highway System seems to work pretty good. It's the idiots using it that are the problem.

I don't know about that. Most are in disrepair, although it was a good idea.

Should we privatize the military? It's entirely government run,

That's the ONLY government run institution called for in the Constitution, so no, that stays federal. All the rest I'd just as soon see flushed.

and the Commander-In-Chief was AWOL during Vietnam, sounds mighty inefficient to me to have an amateur coward in charge. :kookoo:

Did you go to Viet Nam? Better yet, did you go to Desert Storm? How about Somalia? My dad was in Viet Nam, and my brother in both Somalia and Desert Storm. They have the utmost respect for President Bush.

Elena Marie

December 1st, 2003, 04:49 PM

Skeptic--

I REALLY want an answer to this.

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Skeptic--

I'm interested in your response to this.
************************************************** ******

Now wait a minute, I'm confused. Way back on page 74 of this thread, you posted an article about why the US is so awful, one of the reasons being:

"We did it in Iraq, where we killed a quarter of a million civilians in a failed attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, and where we have killed a million since then with our sanctions. About half of these innocent victims have been children under the age of five.

So, either we allow trade with these people and be accused of "support[ing] fascist dictatorships," or we refuse to trade with them and be accused of "killing a million with sanctions." You can't have it both ways.

************************************************** *******

HerodionRomulus

December 2nd, 2003, 09:43 AM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Did you go to Viet Nam? Better yet, did you go to Desert Storm? How about Somalia? My dad was in Viet Nam, and my brother in both Somalia and Desert Storm. They have the utmost respect for President Bush.

"respect is irrelevant."
Vietnam. No. Didn't go. Wouldn't go.
That's what 2-S deferrments were for. Though there would have been Canada had school not been an option. It was an immoral war fought for the wrong reasons.
In Oct. 1964 myself, my sister and some cousins went to the UT-K campus to see LBJ who was making a campaign stop there. He stood less than 15 feet from me(we got there real early to get a good spot) and promised(part of his standard stump speech)
"I'm not gonna send our boys 10,000 miles overseas to fight somebody else's war." *
I supported and volunteered for Gene McCarthy in '68 though I was too young to vote--it was still 21 back then.

Desert Storm--the war George I lost, too old. Ditto Somalia. Doesn't matter. All war is immoral.

*Politicians will say anything, do anything, kiss anything to get and keep power.

HerodionRomulus

December 2nd, 2003, 09:45 AM

ME Sorry about your roads. Upkeep is the responsibility of the state government. Sounds like your state is not doing it's job.
But hey----it can be fun driving through a sea of orange cones---NOT.

Skeptic

December 2nd, 2003, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
So, applying that percentage to your "10,000" figure, we discover that the actual number of noncombatants estimated is much closer to 5,600. Furthermore, there is no way of knowing that all of those deaths were caused by Americans. Almost all of the deaths were caused by Americans. Even those who where shot by Iraqis. This is because America (i.e. Bush) unnecessarily, illegally, and immorally invaded Iraq. No invasion = no unnecessary killings on either side.

That is 3,750 more civilian deaths than I would like, but it is an unfortunate fact of war. And in light of other wars we have fought, it is a very low degree of "collateral damage." Do some research on the numbers killed during battle in WWII.

You are lumping combatants and civilians in your number, Skeptic. Of course. I want to lump combatants and civilians, because morally I see no difference. The Iraqi combatants were just civilians with guns. The combatants had wives, children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. The combatants and their relatives who died, died unnecessarily, because of Bush's immoral murderous invasion.

Are you sure they'd still be alive? How do you know they wouldn't be among Hussein's victims? The vast bulk of Saddam's victims died prior to 1991. I'm sure he has killed people since then, but not on a scale that would warrant immediate humanitarian rescue by a massive invasion, that killed far more people than Saddam would likely have killed if he were still in power.

I would have supported removing Saddam from power by various means, other than the kind of unnecessary murderous invasion Bush ordered in March 2003. Even if it took a few more years, almost any method of removing Saddam from power would have been better than Bush's invasion - better for Iraqis, Americans, and the world.

I've already addressed the UN/inspectors argument. The UN said they were there, we KNOW they were there, so where did they go? They didn't vanish into thin air--I seriously doubt a mass quantum event. My guess is Syria. We gave them 14 months to ship them out. How did we "KNOW" they were there?
======================
Posted on Sun, Nov. 30, 2003

Iraq scientists say they lied over weapons
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
Associated Press

Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear bomb program, and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein about how much progress they were making before U.S.-led attacks shut the operation down for good in 1991, Iraqi physicists say.

Before that first Gulf War, the chief of the weapons program resorted to "blatant exaggeration" in telling Iraq's president how much bomb material was being produced, key scientist Imad Khadduri writes in a new book.

Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. "It was all like building sand castles," said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of sciences.

Seven months after a U.S.-British invasion toppled Saddam's Baath Party government, Iraqi scientists have grown more vocal in countering Bush administration claims, used to justify the war, that Baghdad had "reconstituted" nuclear weapons development, and that it once was a mere six months from making a bomb.

At best, Khadduri writes, it would have taken Iraq several years to build a nuclear weapon if the 1991 war and subsequent U.N. inspections had not intervened.

His self-published "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," a chronicle of years of secret weapons work and of a final escape into exile, is part of this senior scientist's emergence from a low profile in Canada - intended to refute what he calls a "massive deception" in Washington that led the United States into war.

Months of searching by hundreds of U.S. experts have found no trace of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, just as U.N. inspectors found none before the war. No Iraqi scientists have confirmed the programs were revived in recent years.

Bush administration officials still speak, nonetheless, of a threat from such weapons - of Baghdad's "robust plans" for them, as Vice President Dick Cheney puts it - in defending last March's U.S. invasion of Iraq. They offer no hard evidence, however.

Khadduri, a U.S.- and British-educated physicist, writes that he did theoretical work on nuclear weapons as long ago as the mid-1970s, after joining Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission. By the late 1980s, as the secret bomb program accelerated, he was in a pivotal position as coordinator of all its scientific and engineering information.

The U.N. inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who dismantled the bomb program after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 war, saw Khadduri as a key source and conducted an all-day interview with him earlier this year in Toronto, where he has resided since 1998.

"Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," available via online booksellers, dismisses the U.S. contention that the atom-bomb establishment was somehow resurrected after the IAEA demolished it, U.N. inspectors were stationed in Iraq and Iraqi specialists were scattered.

"Where is the scientific and engineering staff required for such an enormous effort?" he asks. "Where are the buildings and infrastructure?"

The continuing U.S. weapons hunt amounts to no more than "investigating mirages," he says.

An ex-bombmaker still in Iraq is just as dismissive of the unsubstantiated U.S. allegations.

"There was no point in trying to revive this program. There was no material, no equipment, no scientists," former bomb designer Sabah Abdul Noor said in a recent interview at Baghdad's Technology University.

"Scientists were scattered and under the eyes of inspectors, totally scattered. To do a project, you have to be together."

Talib, the newly elected university dean, was an anti-Baathist who didn't participate in the bomb program, but was close to many who did. They vastly oversold their accomplishments before 1991, the physicist said.

"They put a lot of lies on Saddam Hussein," he said in a Baghdad interview. "They took a lot of money out of him through what you call, in English, bluffing." When their installations were finally demolished, it "saved their necks" by burying their mistakes, he said. "They could tell Saddam, `There's nothing left.'"

Khadduri, in his core position in the program, could attest to the overselling.

He writes that when he transferred top-secret documents of bomb program chief Jafar Dhia Jafar to an optical disc in 1991, he found the "blatant exaggeration" in a 1990 report to Saddam.

With its clever wording, Khadduri said in a telephone interview from Toronto, "one could easily have been convinced we had produced a couple of kilograms of enriched uranium instead of a couple of grams" - that is, about four pounds of bomb material instead of a fraction of an ounce.

A bomb would have required some 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium.

In a 1997 summary, the IAEA said there were no indications the Iraqis ever produced more than a few grams of such material. It also said there were "no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance."

Khadduri and others said the design and actual production of a bomb would have been an extremely difficult task.

It was an impossible quest, "all futility," said one of Baghdad's senior nuclear physicists, Hamed M. al-Bahili.

Al-Bahili, who joined the Atomic Energy Commission in 1968 but remained outside the weapons program, said his colleagues inside "all knew they wouldn't achieve results." As for whether the program was later revived, he said, "these American inspectors are wasting their time."

From: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/7382210.htm
========================
They include Iraqi civilians caught in IEDs, those killed by terrorists while driving with Americans, etc. It seems that we are more concerned with civilian casualties than the Iraqi army.

I wanted to understand how you reconciled your concern for the Iraqi civilian population, and I think I've figured it out. Would it be accurate to say that you care about them when the US Military is accidentally killing them, but not when Hussein's henchmen are killing them? That's what I understand you to mean. What concerns me is that my country, America, unjustly and unnecessarily invaded a country, killing thousands of PEOPLE (with and without guns). Those with guns were justifiably fighting off invaders, who invaded unnecessarily and immorally. I'm sure Hussein's killing would have continued on some small scale. But not on a scale that would justify a massive murderous military invasion.

I am on the other side of the fence. I want our military to avoid harming civilians if at all possible, but when push comes to shove, I choose getting the a**hole out of there rather than letting him murder more and more, both Iraqis and others. According to the available evidence, what that a**hole actually did since 1991 did not justify Bush's murderous invasion.

I noticed you chose not to address the DoD intelligence memo to which I linked. Why not? Later.

Skeptic

December 3rd, 2003, 11:09 AM

Elena Marie: So, either we allow trade with these people and be accused of "support[ing] fascist dictatorships," or we refuse to trade with them and be accused of "killing a million with sanctions." You can't have it both ways. If the lives and wellbeing of a country's people are at stake, then I am for allowing trade even with "fascist dictatorships," but would insist on having mechanisms in place to verify that the people get what they need.

Skeptic

December 3rd, 2003, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
I noticed you chose not to address the DoD intelligence memo to which I linked. This addresses it:

=====================
Published on Wednesday, November 26, 2003 by the Los Angeles Times
'Evidence' for Link Is Administration Ploy
by Christopher Scheer

Two weeks ago, a flurry of opinion polls from CBS News and elsewhere showed that Americans were increasingly unhappy with the war in Iraq and didn't believe that it had achieved its aims or made us any safer. The following week, the Weekly Standard, the organ of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, published extensive excerpts of a leaked, top-secret memo sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee the previous month by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, a leading neocon ideologue in the Bush administration. The memo sought to retroactively defend the debunked claims that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden had meaningful ties.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But the leak and publication of the Feith memo, which selectively presented a few dozen raw intelligence items plucked from more than a decade of debriefings by national and foreign intelligence agencies, not only shows a certain desperation on the part of the administration to shore up support for the occupation, but it also fits squarely into the cynical pattern of abusing Americans' trust we have seen since 9/11. That, you will remember, was when the administration made the calculated political decision to exploit American anger and grief as the launching pad for an unrelated and extremely reckless foreign policy hatched up in a pair of right-wing think tanks.

"This is made to dazzle the eyes of [those] not terribly educated" about intelligence methods, said Greg Thielmann, a longtime veteran of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence who retired in late 2002.

For those who have watched this pattern, the modus operandi is familiar: Leak to the media or place in speeches intelligence nuggets of questionable value — aluminum tubes, Nigerian uranium, the undocumented Prague meeting — then retreat when pressed. Keep the story alive in the friendly pockets of the media, like William Safire's column or Fox News. When the factoid's cracks start showing, replace it with a new one. Repeat as needed.

Is this just business as usual for American government? No, it is not.

Despite all our tough talk about not trusting politicians, Americans living in a democracy are always forced to some extent to trust our leaders to not exploit our lack of knowledge by lying to us, especially about matters of national security. This is one reason the intelligence agencies have long-established ground rules for how intelligence is vetted and distributed within the government: to make it less open to political manipulation. Raw intelligence, for example, shouldn't be divulged publicly because it is riddled with unverifiable hearsay. But these best practices have been ignored at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has bypassed the department intelligence agency in favor of an ad hoc, Feith-based system where any flotsam that echoes the White House position is deemed solid.

Feith, who has been playing the cherry-picking role as an amateur intelligence chief for two years, could have just as easily gone into the mountains of intelligence data assembled every year to paint a picture of the much stronger links between Al Qaeda and the Saudi royal house, for example, or the Pakistani intelligence agency — both from nations that are our allies. But the White House position since the first days after 9/11 has been that remaking Iraq was to be the centerpiece of the "war on terror."

Unfortunately for the president heading into an election year, it doesn't wash. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that a full 79% of Americans didn't believe the war in Iraq had made them safer from terrorism. This is why eight months after we took Baghdad, the conservatives continue to leak questionable secrets to justify their actions.

The simple fact is, Al Qaeda didn't need Iraq to pull off 9/11 or any of its other savage attacks, and even if all the anonymous statements in Feith's memo panned out, there still would be no evidence Iraq significantly aided the extremists. We are, whatever the neocons might want us to believe, waging the wrong war in the wrong way.

=====================

HerodionRomulus

December 3rd, 2003, 01:28 PM

Skeptic quoted an LAT article by Scheer which contained this little word-play gem:
"Feith-based system"

I don't know if it was deliberate or not but :chuckle:

Skeptic

December 3rd, 2003, 01:58 PM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
Skeptic quoted an LAT article by Scheer which contained this little word-play gem:
"Feith-based system"

I don't know if it was deliberate or not but :chuckle: It was.

Elena Marie

December 3rd, 2003, 04:47 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
His self-published "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," a chronicle of years of secret weapons work and of a final escape into exile, is part of this senior scientist's emergence from a low profile in Canada - intended to refute what he calls a "massive deception" in Washington that led the United States into war. . ..

He writes that when he transferred top-secret documents of bomb program chief Jafar Dhia Jafar to an optical disc in 1991, he found the "blatant exaggeration" in a 1990 report to Saddam.

With its clever wording, Khadduri said in a telephone interview from Toronto, "one could easily have been convinced we had produced a couple of kilograms of enriched uranium instead of a couple of grams" - that is, about four pounds of bomb material instead of a fraction of an ounce.

Your article contains a logical inconsistency. First they say that Washington "lied," then they say that no, they "lied." Okay, so who lied? And about what?

Let's just pretend for a moment that your article is factual. Based upon what the self-professed liars wrote to Hussein, there was every reason for the US to believe that they were trying to make an atom bomb. Therefore, the "massive deception" wasn't a massive deception on Washington's part, but rather on the Iraqi's part.

What concerns me is that my country, America, unjustly and unnecessarily invaded a country, killing thousands of PEOPLE (with and without guns). Those with guns were justifiably fighting off invaders, who invaded unnecessarily and immorally. I'm sure Hussein's killing would have continued on some small scale. But not on a scale that would justify a massive murderous military invasion.

Okay, so you are against all military invasions. I ask once again: Did you support our going into Yugoslavia? How about Liberia?

Since you did not offer a straight Yes or No answer to my question concerning your baseline position, I'm forced to derive your answer from what little you gave me. My conclusion is that your position on the moral status of killing of civilians depends solely upon who is holding the gun. If it's US soldiers holding the guns, it's wrong no matter what. If it's a dictator holding the gun, it's not that big a deal.

I don't find that a particularly useful position, but you have the right to hold it.

If the lives and wellbeing of a country's people are at stake, then I am for allowing trade even with "fascist dictatorships," but would insist on having mechanisms in place to verify that the people get what they need.

LOL Where have I heard that before??? Oh yes, I know--the UN's Food For Oil program, the proceeds of which went straight into Swiss bank accounts.

How do you intend to "verify" that?

Skeptic

December 8th, 2003, 02:06 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Your article contains a logical inconsistency. First they say that Washington "lied," then they say that no, they "lied." Okay, so who lied? And about what? They both lied. Saddam's officers lied to him about what they had to make it seem like they were doing what was expected. Bush lied to the American public and the world about the threat of WMD, even though the evidence amounted to mere hearsay and suspicions, and the need to act quickly and pre-emptively, in order to make it seem like there was an urgency to massively invade Iraq.

Let's just pretend for a moment that your article is factual. Based upon what the self-professed liars wrote to Hussein, there was every reason for the US to believe that they were trying to make an atom bomb. Therefore, the "massive deception" wasn't a massive deception on Washington's part, but rather on the Iraqi's part. You don't pre-emptively invade a country, kill thousands of people and occupy their territory on the basis of what "self-professed liars" and others say. Pre-emption is only justified when there is lots of hard tangible evidence (not words, hearsay, suspicions) that clearly shows WMD poised to strike. Bush's flawed doctrine of pre-emption to prevent the possible development of WMD in the future is unethical and sets a very bad precedent for the world. But before the invasion, Bush wanted us to believe that the Iraqi threat was imminent. Yes, he also talked about possible future threats, but he also talked about the need to act quickly.

Okay, so you are against all military invasions. I ask once again: Did you support our going into Yugoslavia? How about Liberia? I never said I am against all military invasions. I gave you the prerequisites above. Only when military action can stop a humanitarian crisis, genocide, an imminent threat, or in self defense after an attack on us, is such action justified. In the case of Iraq, there was no crisis, the mass graves were from 1991 and before, there was no hard evidence of WMD, no hard evidence of an active WMD program, and Iraq did not attack and there was no evidence that Iraq planned to attack America or other countries in the near future.

My conclusion is that your position on the moral status of killing of civilians depends solely upon who is holding the gun. If it's US soldiers holding the guns, it's wrong no matter what. If it's a dictator holding the gun, it's not that big a deal. It matters who is the aggressor. In the case of Iraq, Bush and his neocon Pentagon were the aggressors, not Iraqi soldiers. There are lots of dictators holding guns in the world. And if they stay put and do not present an imminent threat to us, then we should not invade their country and kill thousands of people. Preventive invasions, in the absence of real verifiable imminent threats, are ethically wrong and set a very dangerous precedent.

BillyBob

December 8th, 2003, 06:40 PM

Skeptic;
Only when military action can stop a humanitarian crisis, genocide, ......is such action justified.

Billy;
Well, obviously you agree that our invasion of Iraq was justified,
then. We prevented Saddam from further tortures, murders, maimings, tossing people off of buildings, rapes, heheadings, incarceration of children, using WMD against the Kurds.....

Finally we are in agreement! Good for you, Skeptic!!!!!! :bannana:

Skeptic;
.... self defense after an attack on us, is such action justified.

Billy;
Can you say 9-11?

Skeptic;
It matters who is the aggressor. In the case of Iraq, Bush and his neocon Pentagon were the aggressors, not Iraqi soldiers. There are lots of dictators holding guns in the world. And if they stay put and do not present an imminent threat to us, then we should not invade their country and kill thousands of people.

Billy;
:darwinsm:

Skeptic;
Preventive invasions, in the absence of real verifiable imminent threats, are ethically wrong and set a very dangerous precedent.

Billy;
That isn't what you just said. Silly Neocom.

Actually, preventive invasions show our enemies that we don't mess around, Clinton should have tried it, it puts fear into our enemies and is exactly what we want. The reason that Osama attacked us is because he didn't fear us and the reason he didn't fear us is because of stupid foreign policy initiated and perpetuated by the neocoms/commies/liberals/democrats.

Skeptic

December 8th, 2003, 11:48 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Skeptic;
Only when military action can stop a humanitarian crisis, genocide, ......is such action justified.

Billy;
Well, obviously you agree that our invasion of Iraq was justified,
then. We prevented Saddam from further tortures, murders, maimings, tossing people off of buildings, rapes, heheadings, incarceration of children, using WMD against the Kurds..... Do you think it would be justified invading any country, killing thousands of people in the process, where similar atrocities have occurred?

Scattered tortures, murders, maimings, tossing people off of buildings, rapes, beheadings, incarcerations of children, and killing of people from certain ethnic groups, and other atrocities have occurred and is occurring in several other countries.

What about other countries where child soldiers are being used (http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/where.htm)? Should we invade and occupy them, killing thousands of people in the process?

What about other countries where children are incarcerated and executed (http://www.hrw.org/children/justice.htm)? Should we invade and occupy them, killing thousands of people in the process?

What about other countries where people are tortured (http://www.omct.org/list.asp?OrgType=Docs&Type=ALL&Order=Country&Language=EN&Subject=25)? Should we invade and occupy them, killing thousands of people in the process?

Name some countries where soldiers have not raped women. Should we invade and occupy them, killing thousands of people in the process?

What about other countries where beheadings are common? Should we invade and occupy them, killing thousands of people in the process?

Bush Sr. should have taken steps to stop Saddam from killing thousands of Kurds, back in the late 1980s. But, what did he do (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/Intro.htm)?

In the case of humanitarian crises, military invasion of a country is only warranted when such a crisis is on a large scale. And not years after the fact!

Finally we are in agreement! Good for you, Skeptic!!!!!! :bannana: Not in the case of Iraq.

Skeptic;
.... self defense after an attack on us, is such action justified.

Billy;
Can you say 9-11? Iraq had NOTHING TO DO WITH 9-11!

Skeptic;
It matters who is the aggressor. In the case of Iraq, Bush and his neocon Pentagon were the aggressors, not Iraqi soldiers. There are lots of dictators holding guns in the world. And if they stay put and do not present an imminent threat to us, then we should not invade their country and kill thousands of people.

Billy;
:darwinsm: :kookoo:

Skeptic;
Preventive invasions, in the absence of real verifiable imminent threats, are ethically wrong and set a very dangerous precedent.

Billy;
That isn't what you just said. Silly Neocom.

Actually, preventive invasions show our enemies that we don't mess around, Clinton should have tried it, it puts fear into our enemies and is exactly what we want. The reason that Osama attacked us is because he didn't fear us and the reason he didn't fear us is because of stupid foreign policy initiated and perpetuated by the neocoms/commies/liberals/democrats. No country has the right to preventive invasions, which are always based on fear and suspicions. Other kinds of invasions are sometimes justifiable. Invasions are justifiable only if there is clear hard evidence of a real specific imminent threat, and when other viable options have been exhausted.

Skeptic

December 9th, 2003, 08:12 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Actually, preventive invasions show our enemies that we don't mess around, ... So, according to you, it's ok to invade countries that might develop WMD in the future, killing thousands of people in the process, merely to send a message to others that "we don't mess around"?

Let's say I have a neighbor down the street, who many years ago was arrested for making illegal weapons in his garage. And let's say this guy was also convicted of killing someone many years ago with those weapons and, after several years in prison, was released to live back in his home under the condition that he be monitored 24-7 by armed police officers were stationed just outside his property.

According to your ethics, if I felt I had reason to suspect that this neighbor might make weapons again in the future and might kill someone again, I would have the right to take it upon myself to grab my gun, call my buddies to bring their guns, and enter his home with my armed buddies and shoot him, along with his wife and kids, as well as his friends who were visiting, just to prevent any possible future weapon making or use, and to show my other neigbors (who I don't like) that me and my buddies "don't mess around." It's ok for me to instill fear in my neighbors, so they will think twice before the messing with me.

Sounds like something out of an old Western movie. Bush (wishing he could wear his cowboy hat every day) and his buddies suspect that Saddam might do in the future what he did in over a decade ago, even though his military infrastructure and weapons facilities were largely demolished by coalition forces and UN inspectors back in 1991, even though there is no clear lard evidence of currently existing WMD, even though Saddam was surround by forces outside who monitored Iraq closely, even though the UN had many expert weapons inspectors thoroughly combing the countryside for WMD or programs to make them, even though Iraq had not commited mass killings in over a decade, even though the vast majority of the world's nations and people opposed invading Iraq without hard proof that Saddam was a significant imminent threat to America or other countries, even though they had no realistic plan to deal with the consequences of an invasion and occupatioin, Bush and his buddies still send in their vigilantes (troops) to kill thousands of alleged bad guys (people defending against aggressors), convincing them that they are bravely protecting American and British security and freedoms, even though Bush and his buddies privately know better.

BillyBob

December 10th, 2003, 04:53 AM

Neocom;
So, according to you, it's ok to invade countries that might develop WMD in the future, killing thousands of people in the process, merely to send a message to others that "we don't mess around"?

:BillyBob:
We gave them ample warning. Any person who died in Iraq, died at the hands of Saddam.

Neocom;
Let's say I have a neighbor down the street, who many years ago was arrested for making illegal weapons in his garage. And let's say this guy was also convicted of killing someone many years ago with those weapons and, after several years in prison, was released to live back in his home under the condition that he be monitored 24-7 by armed police officers were stationed just outside his property.

According to your ethics, if I felt I had reason to suspect that this neighbor might make weapons again in the future and might kill someone again, I would have the right to take it upon myself to grab my gun, call my buddies to bring their guns, and enter his home with my armed buddies and shoot him, along with his wife and kids, as well as his friends who were visiting, just to prevent any possible future weapon making or use, and to show my other neigbors (who I don't like) that me and my buddies "don't mess around." It's ok for me to instill fear in my neighbors, so they will think twice before the messing with me.

:BillyBob:
That was a stupid analogy. Try to figure out why. :confused:

BillyBob

December 10th, 2003, 04:57 AM

Neocom;
In the case of humanitarian crises, military invasion of a country is only warranted when such a crisis is on a large scale. And not years after the fact!

:BillyBob:
Oh, the murder of hundreds of thousands of people isn't large scale?
Why are you so bent on defending Saddam?

Gerald

December 10th, 2003, 08:05 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Oh, the murder of hundreds of thousands of people isn't large scale?Remind me again why I'm supposed to care? It isn't like they're Americans...

Skeptic

December 10th, 2003, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Neocom;
So, according to you, it's ok to invade countries that might develop WMD in the future, killing thousands of people in the process, merely to send a message to others that "we don't mess around"?

:BillyBob:
We gave them ample warning. Any person who died in Iraq, died at the hands of Saddam. You missed the point. Ample warning or not, we did not have the right to invade Iraq given the lack of imminent threat. And sending a message to others that "we don't mess around" is not a justifiable reason to invade a country and unnecessarily kill thousands of people.

Neocom;
Let's say I have a neighbor down the street, who many years ago was arrested for making illegal weapons in his garage. And let's say this guy was also convicted of killing someone many years ago with those weapons and, after several years in prison, was released to live back in his home under the condition that he be monitored 24-7 by armed police officers were stationed just outside his property.

According to your ethics, if I felt I had reason to suspect that this neighbor might make weapons again in the future and might kill someone again, I would have the right to take it upon myself to grab my gun, call my buddies to bring their guns, and enter his home with my armed buddies and shoot him, along with his wife and kids, as well as his friends who were visiting, just to prevent any possible future weapon making or use, and to show my other neigbors (who I don't like) that me and my buddies "don't mess around." It's ok for me to instill fear in my neighbors, so they will think twice before the messing with me.

:BillyBob:
That was a stupid analogy. Try to figure out why. :confused: I'm pretty stupid, BillyBob. Please explain it to me.

Skeptic

December 10th, 2003, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Neocom;
In the case of humanitarian crises, military invasion of a country is only warranted when such a crisis is on a large scale. And not years after the fact!

:BillyBob:
Oh, the murder of hundreds of thousands of people isn't large scale? I said not years after the fact! The full might of our military should not be used as a tool to punish those who committed crimes against humanity many years in the past, or to remove from power those who might repeat something they did many years ago. Bush invaded and occupied Iraq not because he was greatly offended by Saddam's past deeds. Bush's daddy didn't think the killing of thousands of Kurds was so bad. Bush Jr knew the chance of Saddam repeating the horrors of over a decade ago was unlikely, given that Iraq was surround and closely monitored by other countries and internal UN inspectors. No, Bush invaded Iraq for perceived political, economic and strategic reasons. His prime justification was an alleged imminent threat of WMD, for which he had no convincing clear hard empirical evidence. The "liberation of Iraq" was just a political PR campaign.

Why are you so bent on defending Saddam? Why do you think that, just because I oppose certain uses of our military and the unnecessary killing of thousands of people in an unnecessary invasion, I am defending Saddam? Saddam should have been removed from office, but not by a military invasion that unnecessarily killed thousands of people. If removing one person from power is the only goal, this has been done in a variety of ways throughout history, short of total military murderous invasions and subsequent flawed occupations of a country. Just as the CIA.

What about the other points I made, such as the fact that no hard evidence exists to show that Iraq had anything to do with 9-11?

Elena Marie

December 10th, 2003, 03:23 PM

Originally posted by Skeptic
They both lied. Saddam's officers lied to him about what they had to make it seem like they were doing what was expected. Bush lied to the American public and the world about the threat of WMD, even though the evidence amounted to mere hearsay and suspicions, and the need to act quickly and pre-emptively, in order to make it seem like there was an urgency to massively invade Iraq.

Hi Skeptic--

Please forgive my tardiness in responding. Far too much to do and far too little time in which to do it.

I'm confused on the "act quickly" phrase. Fourteen months passed between the initial announcement that something had to be done about Hussein and the actual event. That's more than a year. Where do you get the idea that it was "quick?"

Furthermore, most intelligence is "hearsay and suspicion." Rarely do we get the absolute evidence you require.

You don't pre-emptively invade a country, kill thousands of people and occupy their territory on the basis of what "self-professed liars" and others say. Pre-emption is only justified when there is lots of hard tangible evidence (not words, hearsay, suspicions) that clearly shows WMD poised to strike.

Would you define "hard tangible evidence?" Because if what the people themselves say isn't hard evidence, I think you're going to have some serious issues with some of your beliefs.

Bush's flawed doctrine of pre-emption to prevent the possible development of WMD in the future is unethical and sets a very bad precedent for the world. But before the invasion, Bush wanted us to believe that the Iraqi threat was imminent.

Like I said many pages earlier, the SotU said no such thing, and I challenge you to present a direct quote. Many in the administration said that they believed--as did the rest of the world--that Hussein was actively pursuing additional bio and chemical weapons, neither of which take rocket scientists to produce. We know they HAD THEM AS RECENTLY AS 1991 and they remain unaccounted for, so it's not like it was an unlikely notion.

In terms of ethics, I find it interesting how pragmatic your ethics appear to be. You do not appear to hold any ethical objections to mass murder in general, but only in specific circumstances.

Yes, he also talked about possible future threats, but he also talked about the need to act quickly.

And after 9-11, I agree with the need to stop this sort of thing before it starts. The best quote I've heard yet is:

"Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late." (2003 State of the Union)

I never said I am against all military invasions. I gave you the prerequisites above. Only when military action can stop a humanitarian crisis, genocide, an imminent threat, or in self defense after an attack on us, is such action justified.

I refer you to yesterday's Morning Edition program on NPR, where they stated that more than 250 mass graves have been found to date in Iraq--which is FAR more than were found in Yugoslavia.

In the case of Iraq, there was no crisis, the mass graves were from 1991 and before,

Your evidence for this claim is. . ..?

You seem to be at odds with Human Rights Watch.

The suspected site probably dates back to the crackdown following a Shi’a uprising in March 1999. Researchers for Human Rights Watch interviewed Settar Khalaf, a cattle herder living near the site who recounted that in spring of 1999, he saw a bulldozer dig three trenches in a remote area where he regularly takes his herd. The following morning he saw several buses and six Ba’ath party cars arrive on the site. Hiding some three hundred fifty meters from the vehicles, Khalaf saw men in military attire exiting from the cars and removing blindfolded and handcuffed prisoners from the buses. According to his estimates, 80-100 persons might have been in the buses. The prisoners were led in a line to the trenches, where they were placed one by one. Seconds later, the men in uniform began shooting at the prisoners with machine guns and pistols for several minutes. Then a bulldozer covered up the trenches.

Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/05/iraq051103.htm)

there was no hard evidence of WMD, no hard evidence of an active WMD program,

You keep saying this, but have yet to address my earlier rebuttal. We know what they had in 1991. We know that they refused to account for much of that arsenal in the TEN YEARS that UN inspectors wandered about the country. Tell me, where did they go?

and Iraq did not attack and there was no evidence that Iraq planned to attack America or other countries in the near future.

Check this out.

American forces have discovered a recently abandoned terrorist training camp on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Irish Examiner (http://breaking.tcm.ie/2003/04/16/story95642.html)

It matters who is the aggressor. In the case of Iraq, Bush and his neocon Pentagon were the aggressors, not Iraqi soldiers. There are lots of dictators holding guns in the world. And if they stay put and do not present an imminent threat to us, then we should not invade their country and kill thousands of people. Preventive invasions, in the absence of real verifiable imminent threats, are ethically wrong and set a very dangerous precedent.

One may argue whether or not Hussein would have succeeded in aiding those who wish to kill every American man, woman, and child, but there's no question that he WANTED to, and that's reason enough. In our legal system, it's called conspiracy to commit murder.

I'd like to apply your logic to another situation. Let's say that a man murders another man. The murderer moves to another state and starts a new life. Let's say he becomes an upstanding member of the community, and never commits another murder.

Your logic says that that murder should not be arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison because he isn't a threat at the present.

I disagree.

BillyBob

December 10th, 2003, 09:07 PM

Skeptic;
I said not years after the fact! The full might of our military should not be used as a tool to punish those who committed crimes against humanity many years in the past, or to remove from power those who might repeat something they did many years ago.

Billy;
Do you realize how wacky that sounds??? Yet you include in every post of yours the accusation that the US killed thousands of people during our recent liberation of Iraq.

My question is:

Do you care about people or not? Or do you only care about people whom you perceive as being murdered by a US President who is the head of a political party which you disagree with?

On one hand, you want Bush impeached for supposedly killing 'thousands' of people while liberating innocent Iraqi citizens from a cruel, evil despot.

On the other hand, you want to defend that same despot's right to murder, rape, torture, maim, decapitate and imprison both adults and children to the order of hundreds of thousands of people.

Which is it? Do you care about people or not????????

BillyBob

December 10th, 2003, 09:12 PM

Skeptic;
If removing one person from power is the only goal, this has been done in a variety of ways throughout history, short of total military murderous invasions and subsequent flawed occupations of a country.

Billy;
Oh, you mean like sanctions and UN resolutions? My, how effective they were, especially when our 'allies' were defying those sanctions and supplying Saddam with illegal weapons and anything else he wanted. Even the head of the UN was on the take!!!

Nope, nothing short of a military action would have changed anything in Saddam's world.

BillyBob

December 10th, 2003, 09:14 PM

Skeptic;
What about the other points I made, such as the fact that no hard evidence exists to show that Iraq had anything to do with 9-11?

Billy;
There is more than enough hard evidence that Saddam was a terrorist and a sponsor of terrorism. That is more than enough justification to remove him, invade his country and hopefully KILL HIM!

Gerald

December 11th, 2003, 07:22 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Oh, you mean like sanctions and UN resolutions?Nope. It would have been more economical to hire the Mossad to send in some assassination teams...

HerodionRomulus

December 11th, 2003, 07:46 AM

Originally posted by Gerald
Nope. It would have been more economical to hire the Mossad to send in some assassination teams...

Certainly this should have been the preferred method but George II was not interested in this option because the regime change might have put someone in who was not a US puppet or who would not give their oil over to the US.

The real reasons for this act of imperialist aggression was to get control of the oil and to vindicate Daddy who lost the first war.

Gerald

December 11th, 2003, 08:28 AM

Originally posted by HerodionRomulus
Certainly this should have been the preferred method but George II was not interested in this option because the regime change might have put someone in who was not a US puppet or who would not give their oil over to the US.

The real reasons for this act of imperialist aggression was to get control of the oil and to vindicate Daddy who lost the first war. I assure you, you're preaching to the choir on that one, as far as I'm concerned...

BillyBob

December 11th, 2003, 05:51 PM

Gerald

December 11th, 2003, 07:50 PM

Originally posted by BillyBob
:darwinsm: Instead of cackling like a ninnie, how about demonstrating that HR's statements are erroneous, hmmm?

BillyBob

December 11th, 2003, 07:59 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
Instead of cackling like a ninnie, how about demonstrating that HR's statements are erroneous, hmmm?

I'm laughing too hard to type! :darwinsm:

Gerald

December 12th, 2003, 08:02 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
I'm laughing too hard to type! :darwinsm: Translation: "I have nothing of substance to present."
:chuckle:

BillyBob

December 12th, 2003, 08:08 AM

No, I just get tired of you commies regurgitating the same old conspiracy theories. I haven't seen you guys provide any evidence for your accusations, just hate speech and wild speculation.

Gerald

December 12th, 2003, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
No, I just get tired of you commies regurgitating the same old conspiracy theories. I haven't seen you guys provide any evidence for your accusations, just hate speech and wild speculation. I'm not a commie, and you are making the mistake of assuming good faith on the part of your government, never a wise move under any circumstances...

BillyBob

December 12th, 2003, 08:16 AM

Originally posted by Gerald
I'm not a commie, and you are making the mistake of assuming good faith on the part of your government, never a wise move under any circumstances...

I know you're not a commie, but Herod is. I have to have some good faith in GW, but I am not trustworthy of our government.

Gerald

December 12th, 2003, 09:49 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
I know you're not a commie, but Herod is. I have to have some good faith in GW...Good faith in Dick Cheney would probably be more worthwhile, as he's the one pulling GW's strings...
...but I am not trustworthy of our government. Given your penchant for tax evasion, I'm sure the government doesn't trust you any further than they could spit...;)

The word you're looking for is trusting...

BillyBob

December 12th, 2003, 03:54 PM

Gerald
Good faith in Dick Cheney would probably be more worthwhile, as he's the one pulling GW's strings...

Billy;
You are such a comedian.

Gerald;
Given your penchant for tax evasion, I'm sure the government doesn't trust you any further than they could spit...;)

Billy;
The government doesn't know I exist.

The word you're looking for is trusting...

Billy;
You can imagine my embarrassment. :o

rfburnhertz

December 13th, 2003, 03:27 PM

Originally posted by Gerald
Good faith in Dick Cheney would probably be more worthwhile, as he's the one pulling GW's strings...

That is an assumption only and not provable.

Though speaking for myself, I would rather Cheney was president and Bush was vice.

On that note..
I'd rather Alan Keyes were president.

Behira

December 13th, 2003, 03:44 PM

None of us have the ability to determine by factual evidence; who lies and who does not when it comes to governments and their politicians. Usually only history proves out what was true or untrue.
Few of us really actually know personally any politian, to determine their character.

Many of us forget exactly what the President said years, months or days ago. We'd have to have a tape recording that we could stop, discuss, and forward.

You can film an event, and have someone tell you what's going on; and find out latter; the moderator didn't tell the facts, or have all the facts. that's the problem with the PA in Israel and their propaganda; much of which they staged for film purposes.

Behira

December 13th, 2003, 03:52 PM

Many of us don't know what a true Republic of Democracies looks like; behaves like. We don't know the constitution or care to, we don't understand or know our history, or care to we just want what we want today.

It used to be that gov't officials saw themselves as public servants; who gave of their time and abilites for the betterment of citizens; now they see themselves as lifetime professional polititians; whose only interest is in futhering their kingdoms, feathering their pockets. Look how decisions are made today by what's good for the party who is going to be in power today and tomorrow.

Jesus said he'd come just like in the days of Noah, when the LORD looked down on the world and saw there was nothing but violence, and corruption, he regretted he made man.

Look at the U.S. alone nothing but violence, on the streets, in homes, in stores, in TV, movies, video games, and corruption is high; everybody is out for the take.

You can believe little about what anyone says; or what you see/hear on TV radio; but you can believe every word in the Hebrew scritpures.
You can believe on every word of Jesus.

Behira

December 13th, 2003, 04:09 PM

We have no King except Jesus. Pray for those in authority over you. It is G-d who holds the hearts of kings in his hand; to turn them like rivers.

Mateo

December 13th, 2003, 04:42 PM

Behira,

You're a unique lady. I wish you would spend more time with us here at TOL. I saw on the other thread some time ago that you have been studying on the millenial temple more since we last discussed it. Stay with it. There is so much there.

Sabbath Peace,

Mateo

Gerald

December 14th, 2003, 05:43 AM

Originally posted by rfburnhertz
That is an assumption only and not provable.It is the only viable conclusion I can draw, based on my observations. GWB just doen't appear smart enough to find his backside with both hands and a roadmap.

Though speaking for myself, I would rather Cheney was president and Bush was vice."Bush and "vice" in the same phrase: very apt. ;)

On that note...
I'd rather Alan Keyes were president.
Alan Keyes = 24-carat screwball :hammer:

Art Deco

December 14th, 2003, 10:11 AM

Originally posted by Behira
Many of us don't know what a true Republic of Democracies looks like; behaves like. We don't know the constitution or care to, we don't understand or know our history, or care to we just want what we want today.

It used to be that gov't officials saw themselves as public servants; who gave of their time and abilites for the betterment of citizens; now they see themselves as lifetime professional polititians; whose only interest is in futhering their kingdoms, feathering their pockets. Look how decisions are made today by what's good for the party who is going to be in power today and tomorrow.

Jesus said he'd come just like in the days of Noah, when the LORD looked down on the world and saw there was nothing but violence, and corruption, he regretted he made man.

Look at the U.S. alone nothing but violence, on the streets, in homes, in stores, in TV, movies, video games, and corruption is high; everybody is out for the take.

You can believe little about what anyone says; or what you see/hear on TV radio; but you can believe every word in the Hebrew scritpures.
You can believe on every word of Jesus.

Amen Bro!

Elena Marie

December 16th, 2003, 02:03 PM

Skeptic?

Skeptic

December 16th, 2003, 09:41 PM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
Skeptic? What?

Skeptic

December 16th, 2003, 09:46 PM

I'll respond to specific posts soon. But I've been kinda busy with work and home stuff. So, it might be a few days. Sorry.

BillyBob

December 17th, 2003, 05:24 AM

Skeptic, why don't you ever post in the Shout Box?

Elena Marie

December 17th, 2003, 03:03 PM

Okay, Skeptic. I've had a bit of a time myself and understand completely.

Skeptic

December 20th, 2003, 05:35 AM

Originally posted by Elena Marie
I'm confused on the "act quickly" phrase. Fourteen months passed between the initial announcement that something had to be done about Hussein and the actual event. That's more than a year. Where do you get the idea that it was "quick?" Fourteen months? We've known for years that Saddam was a bad guy who should be removed from power. However, was there an urgency to march into Iraq in March 2003, kill thousands of people, and occupy their country? Most of the world agreed that Iraq was not a significant enough threat to America or the world to warrant a murderous pre-emptive/preventive invasion.

However, Bush said (my bold):

"He's a threat that we must deal with as quickly as possible."
-- Bush - September 13, 2002 http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/02091319.htm

"We cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to remain in the hands of volatile, unpredictable leaders. Which is exactly why we must act quickly and decisively against Saddam Hussein."

"Some have argued we should wait -- and that is an option. In my view, it is the riskiest of all options -- I am not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein." (fear monger)

"Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?" (wild exaggeration/distortion)

"America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." ("clear evidence of peril"? :chuckle: )

"The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now..." (wild exaggeration/distortion)

---
"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? (So, we should use the same methods as terrorists? What does that make us?)

"If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option." (fear monger)
---

How many countries actually have WMD or are developing them? There are several. And many of those are not exactly friendly to America. We have never trusted "in the sanity and restraint" of unfriendly heads of state. That's why we have various intelligence agencies. There are other countries that have WMD and have used them unjustly. We have not invaded and occupied them. Is this because they don't have huge reserves of oil? :think:

Furthermore, most intelligence is "hearsay and suspicion." Rarely do we get the absolute evidence you require. If a nation is going to pre-emptively invade another sovereign nation and kill thousands of its citizens in the process, there had better be much more than hearsay and suspicions. There had better be solid evidence of a real imminent threat to justify such an ominous action.

Would you define "hard tangible evidence?" Because if what the people themselves say isn't hard evidence, I think you're going to have some serious issues with some of your beliefs. Millions of people SAY there is a God, or that Jesus was the Son of God, but saying so does not make it true. Many people SAY they have spoken with God or that He has given them a sign, but saying so does not make it true. People have SAID Iraq had WMD at the time of the invasion, but without clear hard evidence such as (not highly ambiguous) photographs depicting unmistakable WMD, or material evidence, such as significant WMD components, or chemical/biological tests that could only be accounted for by the recent existence of sizable amounts of WMD, or actual WMD themselves, but just saying so does not make it true. Some of the people that the Pentagon relied upon for WMD info were Iraqi expatriates, like Ahmad Chalabi, who would gain politically from the overthrow of Saddam. Whereas there were former Iraqi nuclear scientists who were telling anyone who would listen that Iraq's nuclear program was abandoned in 1991, but they were not taken seriously. Any suspicious facilities could have been quickly checked out by UN weapons inspectors, using the best available U.S. intelligence. One thing is clear: Bush and his Pentagon buddies wanted intelligence that would support an invasion of Iraq. They looked for the hits, while ignoring the misses. Read this (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0807-02.htm).

Like I said many pages earlier, the SotU said no such thing, and I challenge you to present a direct quote. see above.

Many in the administration said that they believed--as did the rest of the world--that Hussein was actively pursuing additional bio and chemical weapons, neither of which take rocket scientists to produce. We know they HAD THEM AS RECENTLY AS 1991 and they remain unaccounted for, so it's not like it was an unlikely notion. 1991 was a long time ago, and UN weapons inspectors will tell you that most, and possibly all, WMD was destroyed shortly thereafter.

In terms of ethics, I find it interesting how pragmatic your ethics appear to be. You do not appear to hold any ethical objections to mass murder in general, but only in specific circumstances. I find all mass murders highly objectionable! But there are ways of dealing with mass murdering heads of state than invading with guns blazing, killing thousands of people in the process. Remember, Saddam's mass murdering days were pre-1992. This is not to say he did not have individuals murdered after this, but I know of no evidence that this later activity was on a mass scale. Again, Bush did not invade Iraq because he was concerned about Saddam engaging it more mass murdering of his own people. Bush said: "The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now..."

And after 9-11, I agree with the need to stop this sort of thing before it starts. The best quote I've heard yet is:

"Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late." (2003 State of the Union) And after 9/11, Bush and his neocon buddies successfully milked and fed the fear and paranoia that followed. Read my signature at the bottom of this post.

The perceived need to stop acts of terrorism before they start should be the job of the police, FBI, CIA, and other agencies, not the military, unless there is clear hard evidence that military intervention would significantly eliminate or disrupt a terrorist organization, such as al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. However, when this reason is used to justify massive murderous military invasions and occupations of countries, we are on a slippery slope toward unnecessary unjustified invasions. It also makes it MUCH easier to justify an invasion, when the real underlying (but hidden) agenda is politically, economically or strategically motivated. Again, read my signature at the bottom of this post. Giving the power to invade and occupy other countries to stop a suspected future threat is too great of a power to entrust to any leader or governing body, elected or not! Germany did this once, and look what happened:

"The great mass of people ... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one. Especially if it is repeated over and over."
--- Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 10 (1925).

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
--- Adolf Hitler

"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland."
---Adolf Hitler, 1933

"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
--- Adolph Hitler

I refer you to yesterday's Morning Edition program on NPR, where they stated that more than 250 mass graves have been found to date in Iraq--which is FAR more than were found in Yugoslavia. Do you have evidence that any of them were post-1992? There may be a few, but I guess we will have to wait for more empirical evidence to determine the dates of the graves.

You keep saying this, but have yet to address my earlier rebuttal. We know what they had in 1991. We know that they refused to account for much of that arsenal in the TEN YEARS that UN inspectors wandered about the country. Tell me, where did they go? We also know that there are experts who believe that the scientists and weapons builders, in order to cover their @sses, told Saddam that they produced more WMD than they really had. If this is true, then the UN may have been asking Iraq to produce evidence that they destroyed additional WMD they never really had.

One may argue whether or not Hussein would have succeeded in aiding those who wish to kill every American man, woman, and child, but there's no question that he WANTED to, and that's reason enough. In our legal system, it's called conspiracy to commit murder. So, now it's ok to invade any country, killing thousands of people, that is suspected of having WMD where the leader does not like America, out of the fear that he may someday succeed in aiding those who wish to kill every American man, woman, and child?

I'd like to apply your logic to another situation. Let's say that a man murders another man. The murderer moves to another state and starts a new life. Let's say he becomes an upstanding member of the community, and never commits another murder.

Your logic says that that murder should not be arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison because he isn't a threat at the present. I think that Saddam should have eventually been arrested, tried, and convicted for his crimes against humanity. But I don't think that it was so important in March 2003 to go into Iraq, kill thousands of people, just to find bad-boy Saddam and bring him to justice. Of course, now that he has been captured, it will be interesting to see if Saddam is tried by an appropriate international court, or (more likely) be tried by a U.S.-puppet Iraqi regime that will impose the death penalty just because Bush thinks this is the only route to justice for his crimes. Bush would hate to see Saddam tried in an international court, where all of the dirty secrets of past (pre-1991) U.S. support and provision of WMD components to Saddam could be aired to the world. :chuckle:

Zakath

December 20th, 2003, 07:09 AM

A bit of humor from "The Spoof" at http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i1419

Bush To Eliminate Seperation of Church and State, Claims to Be "Divine"
Written by Michael Hunt

Washington DC: Speaking from the White House Press Room, President Bush announced today that the US will do away with the notion of Church and State.

"Jesus came to me in dream last night and told me that he is the true savior, and that he will lead the US to divinity through me" Stated Bush. "From now on the Clergy will replace Senators and Congressmen who are affiliated with the Democratic Party, and in addition to my duties as President, I will become high priest of the United States. To those of you who do not accept Christ as your savior, I direct you to the Patriot act which clearly states that I can have any non-Christian deported and held as an enemy combatant."

Bush later pointed to other examples in an effort to prove his divinity. "In case y'all haven't noticed, I got Saddam, kick started the economy, brought credibility back to the White House, and I lived through an altercation with a pretzel. Damn, if that doesn't mean that I am divine, I challenge you all to give me a reason why I'm not. Not bad for a drunken coke head with an eighth grade IQ huh?"

Bush also announced strict new provisions to be added to the constitution. "From now on, we will have a monarchy, and I will be king. Only those who are born from my seed can legitimately ascend to the throne of the United States.....well, that is unless of course you are part of the noble class that runs Halliburton, or any other top executive from a big US corporation."

Democrats were unable to be reached for comment as shortly following the speech they were rounded up by secret service agents and sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Enjoy! :thumb:

BillyBob

December 20th, 2003, 07:19 AM

If only it were true. :sigh:

Gerald

December 22nd, 2003, 08:04 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
If only it were true. :sigh: You realize, of course, that if all Democrats are rounded up and liquidated, it only means that the atheists and satanists will be completely without competition...:chuckle:

Skeptic

December 22nd, 2003, 09:08 AM

Elena Marie?

Zakath

December 22nd, 2003, 09:52 AM

Originally posted by Gerald
You realize, of course, that if all Democrats are rounded up and liquidated, it only means that the atheists and satanists will be completely without competition...:chuckle:

:think:

Does that mean I should vote Republican?

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 02:19 AM

======================
Dean's truth/Saddam didn't threaten U.S.

Published December 19, 2003

We don't have a dog in the Democratic presidential fight, but we do know that front-runner Howard Dean, like him or not, is getting beaten up unfairly for telling an unpleasant truth: The capture of Saddam Hussein hasn't made America safer. It was an excellent piece of work, it may make Iraqis safer, and it may help protect American forces in Iraq. But the capture does nothing directly to secure the United States from the danger posed by terrorism.

That's because the war on terrorism has nothing to do with Iraq. Saddam was an ogre who can legitimately be charged with crimes against humanity, genocide and assorted other nasty behaviors. But there's no evidence he was an international terrorist, and that's not likely to change no matter how many times the Bush administration says it knows he was.

Dean was merely saying in a different way what many have said before: The invasion of Iraq actually has been a serious distraction from the real war on terror. Resources and international goodwill that would have been useful in fighting Al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations worldwide have been squandered in order to depose Saddam and remake Iraq.

This is what Dean understands: Americans were sold a bill of goods by President Bush. He and all those around him told the American people that Saddam was a dire threat that had to be erased immediately. There was no more time for weapons inspections or diplomatic endeavors because Saddam had acquired some weapons of mass destruction, was dedicated to getting more and might pass some along to his good friends in Al-Qaida. Moreover, the United Nations had wimped out and let Saddam get away with it.

None of that proved true. No links to terrorists have been documented, none of those weapons have been found, and the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, is packing his bags. All available evidence says that, yes, Saddam would have liked to possess chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and someday he might have acquired them again. But the U.N. weapons inspectors actually did a good job through the 1990s in rooting out and destroying what weapons and programs already existed -- and in keeping Saddam from getting more.

Many Americans may support the war in Iraq because they believe it worth the U.S. lives and the U.S. billions to liberate the Iraqi people. That's fine, but making Iraq safe for Iraqis in no way makes the United States safer for Americans.

That's what Howard Dean was saying, and he should be cheered for it, not heaped with opprobrium. He might make a poor challenger to Bush, but in this instance he spoke a truth that bears endless repetition, because it's a truth the Bush administration wants to hide.

From: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4276000.html
======================

BillyBob

December 23rd, 2003, 04:03 AM

The capture of saddam has cut the money trail of terrorism he was once funding. It also made Kadhaffi buckle under. There are dozens more reasons, but your are an unreasonable person so will not not waste much time explaining them to you.

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 09:38 AM

=======================
Libya woos US oil majors
Posted: Monday, December 22, 2003

Algiers
Libya will welcome back US oil companies should Washington lift sanctions against it, Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam said.

Libya hopes its pledge on Friday to abandon weapons of mass destruction may lead to the return of the US oil majors that were once responsible for producing around one million barrels per day of its crude.

"The US has oil advantages in Libya," Chalgam said. "We will try to convince US oil companies to return."

"We currently produce 1.5 million barrels per day and we aim to increase the oil output to 3 million bpd in 2020," said Chalgam, in Algiers for a North African summit on the Sahara scheduled for tomorrow but postponed due to disagreements between Algeria and Morocco.

Five US oil firms were active in Libya before sanctions on investment in 1986: the Oasis Group, a consortium of three companies, Marathon Oil Co, Amerada Hess and ConocoPhillips; Occidental Petroleum, and Grace Petroleum.

Libya is anxious to boost investment for its vital oil sector, cranking up dollar-earning crude exports.

A senior administration official said on Friday it was too early to say when and if the US will lift sanctions. The oil companies themselves have said they would return to Libya should they be allowed to do so.

The three companies in the Oasis Group have asked the Libyan government to extend their existing exploration permits, due to expire in 2005, ensuring that the leases will not be transferred to European companies whose countries have no bans on investment.

Several European oil companies, including Spain's Repsol, French Total, Germany's RWE , Austria's OMV and Italy's ENI already operate in Libya. -Reuters

From: http://www.tradearabia.com/routes/sections/News.asp?Article=62218&Sn=OGN
=======================

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 10:06 AM

My bold:
==========================
Monday, December 22, 2003. 0:41am (AEDT)

Economic progress more important than arms: Libya[/i]

Libya said on Sunday its decision to abandon secret efforts to build an atomic bomb and chemical weapons [b]was driven by a need to develop its economy and boost the living standards of its people.

But Britain, which played a key role in talks that persuaded Tripoli to abandon its arms ambitions, said the fate that befell Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein may have prompted the move. (spin)

Libya's step, which could lead to the end of US sanctions and the return of US oil companies, marks an about-face for Moamar Gaddafi, the country's leader for 34 years.

"We are turning our swords into ploughshares and this step should be appreciated and followed by all other countries," Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem told the BBC, adding that economic progress was more important than arms.

Britain, pivotal in isolating Libya after the Lockerbie bombing 15 years ago on Sunday, drew a comparison with Iraq, suggesting the fortunes of its deposed leader might have been different had Baghdad been more forthcoming over arms.

"We showed after Saddam Hussein failed to cooperate with the United Nations that we meant business and Libya, and I hope other countries, will draw that lesson," Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told Britain's Sky television.

The United States and Britain accused Saddam of developing banned arms, though none have been found since they invaded Iraq in March to topple him, despite fierce opposition from other UN Security Council members.

World praise

Gaddafi's decision won praise from around the world, notably from US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair but also from European and Arab leaders who were strongly critical of their war on Iraq.

It was also hailed by Iran, which Washington has accused of secretly developing an atom bomb and which agreed on Thursday to allow snap inspections by UN arms inspectors.

"Iran welcomes any step taken by any country to dismantle weapons of mass destruction," the Foreign Ministry said.

China said Libya's move demonstrated how effective political and diplomatic solutions could be.

European critics of the Iraq invasion said Tripoli had showed peaceful diplomacy alone could bring about disarmament.

"I find it rich and comical that we should use an agreement with a country we did not invade, which did have weapons of mass destruction, as justification for invading a country that doesn't have weapons of mass destruction," said Robin Cook, who quit as Britain's foreign secretary over Iraq before the war.

Tripoli acted swiftly to show it was serious. A top official met the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Saturday to discuss its proposals to accept strict IAEA nuclear safeguards.

Gaddafi's agents brought down a Pan Am airliner on December 21, 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 270 people and pushing Tripoli deep into isolation. But he has now opened the prospect of an end to sanctions and a return of US oil firms.

Some US officials however said it was too early to say when, or if, Washington would lift its embargo.

Libya was freed of broader UN sanctions this year after accepting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paying billions to victims' families. Washington left its sanctions in place, accusing Tripoli of seeking biological and chemical arms.

While information about Tripoli's weapons capabilities was vague, Britain said it had been close to making an atomic bomb. South Africa is the only other country to undertake to scrap its weapons of mass destruction voluntarily.

Tripoli's announcement was the culmination of secret negotiations with Britain and the United States launched around the time of the Iraq invasion.

US and British officials said talks included secret visits to Libya in October and December to sites where they were shown parts of the country's chemical, nuclear and missile programs.

-- Reuters

From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1014386.htm
============================

Curious that Libya has probably supported terrorism more than Iraq, and we seem to have more evidence of WMD in Libya, yet we did not invade Libya. I guess Gaddafi is more trustworthy than Saddam? Or could it be the oil? :chuckle:

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 10:16 AM

========================
Does Libya sponsor terrorism?

Libya spent more than two decades supporting anti-Western terrorist groups, and for Americans, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi became the public face of terrorism in the 1980s. The United States and the United Nations imposed sanctions on Libya for its role in terrorist attacks, including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. But experts say Libya, strained by the sanctions, has distanced itself from terrorism. Nevertheless, the North African country remains on the State Department’s list of countries that sponsor terrorism because of its refusal to own up to its role in the Lockerbie bombing—an atrocity that still dominates U.S.-Libyan relations.
What terrorist incidents have been linked to Libya?
Among the attacks Libya has been implicated in are the following:

The 1986 bombing of a West Berlin discotheque popular among American soldiers. The attack killed three people, including two U.S. servicemen; U.S. officials hold Libya responsible.
The 1988 murder of 270 people on Pan Am Flight 103. In 2001, a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdul Basset al-Megrahi of murder for his role in the bombing. A second Libyan suspect was found not guilty.
The 1989 bombing of a French airliner over Niger; in 1999, a French court convicted six Libyans for their roles in the attack.
Libyan agents are also thought to have assassinated Libyan opposition politicians living in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. And experts say Libya has backed plots to assassinate the presidents of Chad, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, and Zaire.

What kinds of terrorists has Libya supported?
Qaddafi has provided training, weapons, funding, safe haven, or other support to several Palestinian terrorist organizations and to the Irish Republican Army, the Basque separatist group ETA, and Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front, experts say. In 1999, Libya helped negotiate the release of a group of international hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf Group, a Philippine terrorist group with ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. Libya said it was being helpful, but the State Department warned that letting Abu Sayyaf receive ransom for hostages “served only to encourage further terrorism.”

How did Libya respond to September 11?
That same day, Qaddafi called the attacks “horrifying” and urged Muslim charitable agencies to provide aid to the United States. Libya has reportedly shared intelligence with U.S. officials about Libyan Islamist militants tied to al-Qaeda.

Does Libya have ties to al-Qaeda?
No. Almost all Libyans are Muslims, and the country’s legal system is based on the Koran, but Libya does not subscribe to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law. Qaddafi faces opposition from militant Islamist groups. A 1998 attempt by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group to assassinate Qaddafi led Libya to crack down on Islamist opposition and reportedly issue an arrest warrant for bin Laden. (The State Department placed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which has been linked to al-Qaeda, on its terrorist exclusion list in December 2001; its members are to be denied U.S. visas.)

Does Libya have weapons of mass destruction?
U.S. intelligence reports say Libya has biological and chemical weapons programs and is trying to get nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. Libya reportedly used mustard gas against troops from neighboring Chad during a 1987 border dispute. Libya is also conducting bioweapons research, according to U.S. intelligence, but cannot yet produce large amounts of weaponized biological agents. And Libya has been trying to buy or develop nuclear weapons since the 1970s, though with little success. All these programs have been hindered by international sanctions, experts say.

from: http://www.terrorismanswers.com/sponsors/libya.html
========================

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 10:17 AM

========================
Gaddafi wants all whites out of Africa

Monday, April 23, 2001 at 09:30 JST
TUNIS — Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi urged Africans on Sunday to drive white people out of the continent and make them pay compensation for their exploitation of it.

"The white colonialists have no place in Africa and their presence is unlawful," said Gaddafi, addressing a gathering of African women activists in Tripoli.

Gaddafi, whose remarks were reported by the official Libyan news agency Jana monitored in Tunis, also urged Africans to rid themselves of the white man's cultural legacy, including language.

"This is another battleground before us, to shake off the leftover of the colonialist culture," he said. "Their languages and the colonial culture cannot express our feelings and thoughts, which we can do only by speaking the languages of our forefathers."

Gaddafi urged Africans to take their cue from Libya's experience when it expelled some 20,000 Italians during the late 1960s, and to do the same with whites who are still settling in other African states.

"We Africans demand compensation from them and then send them packing because they colonised us and slaughtered us and made the most of our lands during the colonial era," he went on.

The 59 year old Gaddafi is the driving force behind a project to unify the 53 African nations into one state modelled on the United States of America. He hosted the signing of a declaration by 46 African countries in March announcing the birth of an African Union to replace the four decades old Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

Gaddafi said he was amazed to hear some white farmers in Zimbabwe asking for compensation from President Robert Mugabe, who vowed last week to continue his controversial drive to seize white owned firms for redistribution to blacks.

"Colonialist whites exhausted the African land, turned it into desert, destroyed forests and impoverished its soil," said Gaddafi.

Recalling once again Libya's own experience, he said: "The September First revolution when it took place in 1969 found that 20,000 Italians owned everything in Libya. It expelled them and demanded compensation for the Libyan people." (Reuters News)

From: http://www.intellnet.org/news/2001/04/25/4641-1.html
==============================

BillyBob

December 23rd, 2003, 10:19 AM

Skeptic;
Curious that Libya has probably supported terrorism more than Iraq, and we seem to have more evidence of WMD in Libya, yet we did not invade Libya. I guess Gaddafi is more trustworthy than Saddam? Or could it be the oil?

Billy;
Looks like we don't have to invade Lybia, GW has persuaded Gaddafi to lay down his arms peacefully. Why do you think that is, Skeptic? Hmmmm :think:

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 10:25 AM

=====================
Posted 8/3/2003 11:36 AM

Gadhafi says U.S.-led war on terror strengthens al-Qaeda

CAIRO (AP) — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said the U.S.-led war on terror has strengthened al-Qaeda because Muslims have perceived the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as aggression against Islam and attempts to spread American influence.
In an interview aired Sunday on ABC's This Week, Gadhafi stressed that Libya was cooperating with the United States to fight terrorism and the "common enemy" of al-Qaeda. But he criticized America's foreign policy as colonialist and controlled by Jewish groups.

He also said America's targeting of al-Qaeda's leader — Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden — has transformed him into "a symbol for defending the Islamic world." He did not elaborate.

"As long as America (is) approaching (the war on terror) in such a method ... together with the Israelis ... the more they do that, the more they create an environment or atmosphere for the development of al-Qaeda," Gadhafi said, according to a transcript received by The Associated Press office in Egypt.

Gadhafi's interview with George Stephanopoulos took place Wednesday in Al-Bayda, on the Mediterranean coast about 450 miles east of the LIbyan capital of Tripoli.

Gadhafi described al-Qaeda terrorists as "crazy and insensible people" who have committed attacks on America, Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and other countries. "So all these countries are fighting one common enemy," he said.

Gadhafi, who has been in power for 34 years, said his country has exchanged information with the Americans and arrested some suspected terrorists who entered Libya after the war in Afghanistan.

"There is an exchange of information and an exchange of persons between these respective countries," Gadhafi said.

The Libyan leader also blamed Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi sect of Islam for being behind the emergence of al-Qaeda and other extremist groups and accused "the regime or the system in Saudi Arabia (as being) based on fundamentalism."

Gadhafi said Libya opposed all extremist and radical Islamic movements and invited Western countries to talk with his World Islamic Leadership, which he said he formed to demonstrate "the civilized aspect of Islam."

Current U.S. policy toward Libya is built largely around U.S. and United Nations requirements stemming from the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people over Lockerbie, Scotland.

In 2001, a Scottish court convicted Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi of the bombing and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

When asked if Libya accepted responsibility for the Pan Am bombing and was prepared to pay compensation, as required for the lifting of suspended U.N. sanctions and a U.S. embargo, Gadhafi did not answer directly but said negotiators were nearing a conclusion.

Libya's Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam said in April that Libya accepted "civil responsibility" for the Pan Am's downing and was willing to pay $2.7 billion in compensation in return for the lifting of suspended sanctions and Washington's removal of Libya from its list of states sponsoring terrorism.

But the State Department said last month that Libyan officials still have not met the U.N. Security Council requirement to accept responsibility for the attack.

Turning to ongoing Middle East conflicts, Gadhafi criticized the U.S. approach toward the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, saying it caused people to support al-Qaeda and "say that bin Laden is right."

Gadhafi laughed when asked to comment on President Bush's "road map" peace plan to solve the Palestinian-Israeli situation, saying: "It will not succeed."

He reiterated his theory that the land on which Israel and the Palestinian territories are located was too small for two states, and that the solution was to create one country — Isratine — for both sides to live in.

From: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-08-03-libya_x.htm
=========================

BillyBob

December 23rd, 2003, 10:28 AM

Yeah, right. We're killing them, killing their leaders, killing their money supply and they are stronger?

:darwinsm:

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 10:31 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Looks like we don't have to invade Lybia, GW has persuaded Gaddafi to lay down his arms peacefully. Why do you think that is, Skeptic? Hmmmm :think: We did not have to invade Iraq!

Saddam was cooperating with UN inspectors.

It's about oil and $. What do you think would have happened if GW had negotiated an end to sanctions against Iraq, and the return of US investment? Did GW try this with Saddam? :nono:

Skeptic

December 23rd, 2003, 10:38 AM

Originally posted by BillyBob
Yeah, right. We're killing them, killing their leaders, killing their money supply and they are stronger? Yes!

my bold:
========================
Rumsfeld's war-on-terror memo

Below is the full text of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memo on the war on terror:

October 16, 2003

TO: Gen. Dick Myers
Paul Wolfowitz
Gen. Pete Pace
Doug Feith

FROM: Donald Rumsfeld

SUBJECT: Global War on Terrorism

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror? Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment? Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough?

DoD has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.

With respect to global terrorism, the record since Septermber 11th seems to be:

We are having mixed results with Al Qaida, although we have put considerable pressure on them — nonetheless, a great many remain at large.

USG has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis.

USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking down the Taliban — Omar, Hekmatyar, etc.

With respect to the Ansar Al-Islam, we are just getting started.

Have we fashioned the right mix of rewards, amnesty, protection and confidence in the US?

Does DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip and focus to deal with the global war on terror?

Are the changes we have and are making too modest and incremental? My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.

Do we need a new organization?

How do we stop those who are financing the radical madrassa schools?

Is our current situation such that "the harder we work, the behinder we get"?

It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.

Does CIA need a new finding?

Should we create a private foundation to entice radical madradssas to a more moderate course?

What else should we be considering?

Please be prepared to discuss this at our meeting on Saturday or Monday.

Thanks.

==========================