I was misled

Tim McNamara said:

Mark Hickey <[email hidden]> writes:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I don't disagree that there might not have been a working
relationship. However, there were plenty of contacts between the
two, looking for ways to cooperate. Now I don't know about you, but
having Al Qaeda and Saddam looking for ways to cooperate make taking
out Saddam seem pretty important to me.

And what objective evidence is there of contacts between Al Qaeda and
Saddam Hussein?

Look it up in the 9/11 commission report.

Quoted message said:

We have GWB and Cheney's repeated "yes, there were"
statements but they offer no actual hard proof. In the absence of
proof, this is nothing more than conjecture. We have sworn testimony
from numerous sources confirming a lack of evidence. And in the light
of a plan for war in Iraq to depose Hussein existing in the hands of
of Rumsfled, Wolfowitz, Vin Weber, etc. prior to GWB being elected,
it appears that in fact what we have is the exploitation of a tragic,
horrible situation to further a specific pre-existing politcal agenda.

Look it up in the 9/11 commission report.

Quoted message said:

Frankly, Mark, I think that America and the world was misled, and
deliberately misled, by a group of liars and sociopaths who found
themselves in the right positions, at the right time, with an
exploitable situation. Part of that situation was the utter failing
of the Congress to do its job, especially the spineless so-called
Deomocrats who were more than happy to roll over and play dead. I
think the entire situation is inexcusable, that 90% or more of the
Congress should be voted out of office, and that the President and his
Cabinet should be investigated and arraigned for criminal prosecution.

You have to believe it's a conspiracy that's been going on for many,
many years - and that cut across every party and political boundary...
and one that included just about every intelligence agency on the
planet. Was some of the intelligence bogus? No doubt. Was Saddam a
danger to the US, US and allies' interests? No doubt. Could Saddam
have disrupted the world economy by stirring things up in the region?
No doubt. Should Saddam have been taken out? No doubt.

The only issue is the timing, and the more we learn about the oil for
food bribery scandal, the clearer that gets too.

Saddam had every chance to avoid the war, and took none of them.
That's either 'cuz he's really dumb (don't recall anyone ever accusing
him of that) or because he WAS hiding something. I guess we'll know
for sure some day.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Pat said:

It's the Republican way these days to try to run down the person saying the
contentious statement by denigrating them in some way and not responding to
what he/she said.

Probably called them 'trailer park trash'. Oh, wait, that was the
other party, different story. And since you agreed that time, you felt
that was fine...

Guess it isn't a unique characteristic to either of the major parties.
Maybe its time to stop reflecting blind obedience to one side or the
other. Maybe its time to ask whether or not the two party system is
producing any answers at all.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Tim McNamara said:

Quoted message said:

My tapirs are ALWAYS well greased before I hitch them to my coach
and six.

Greasing tapirs is illegal in 12 nations under OAS treaties and in 19
states. You don't want to be admitting such behavior on Usenet!

And if I know my tapirs (and I think I do), that is a lot of grease...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 06:43:14 GMT, garmonboezia <cthvlhv@r'lyeh.arg>

Quoted message said:

However, in motion, tapirs are fast and agile, and they also
swim well. Tapirs in captivity sometimes have violent tantrums: a Malay
tapir severed the arm of a keeper at the Oklahoma City Zoo in 1998."

Never grease a tapir with cold fingers.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

This does not belong in the racing forum. Please take political threads
someplace else. I hate to see this forum go the way of others and become
a place for political discussions. Good grief! The tour starts in a
matter of days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quoted message said:

http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1310344&l=42227

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

Tom Sherman said:

Mark Hickey said:

... Just examine how valid the paranoia of the Reagan era turned out
to be (defeated the USSR, created the greatest economic expansion in
history, etc.). But I'm sure to you it was all a great disaster. Sad
world you live in....

Ronald Reagan sent his emissary Donald Rumsfeld to shake Saddam
Hussein's hand and pledge support for Iraq in the war against Iran.
That support included materials used in manufacturing chemical and
biological weapons.
--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

Roosevelt and Truman shook Stalin's hand. And pledged support for Russia
even though Stalin was hard line Communist. We had a common enemy.

And the specious claim we armed Iraq vis-avis with bio-chem is patently
unfounded. Export license to Iraq was never granted for any agent,
equipment or materiel of war. But if you mine your facts from a
bloviator rather than the State Department, there is no limit to your
fabrications.

--

Mark Hickey said:

Tim McNamara said:

Your country is being run by idiots, psychopaths and paranoiacs who
have succeeded in smashing the federal budget, running up the highest
deficits in history, and overstretching our defense so much that they
have instituted de facto conscription. They have declared themselves
above the law and obfuscate and frustrate nearly all attempts at
oversight and scrutiny as provided for in the Constitution. They
have all but repealed the Bill of Rights, except for the 2nd
Amendment, and returned us 50 years into our past into the mentality
of the McCarthy era. They have pursued policies that harm many and
benefit a select few elites. They have made concerted effort to
stifle dissent in the media and among Congress members. Do you find
this even remotely acceptable?

Excuse me for saying so, but you're SO far detached from reality in
the above rant that there's little point in even commenting. You
really ARE far enough to the radical left to make the NY Times look
like a conservative propaganda tool.

Its your country thats detached from reality mate. Tims statement would not
be consider extreme or radical in much of the world.

--
Andy Morris

AndyAtJinkasDotFreeserve.Co.UK

Love this:
Put an end to Outlook Express's messy quotes
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

AndyMorris said:

Mark Hickey said:

Tim McNamara said:

Your country is being run by idiots, psychopaths and paranoiacs who
have succeeded in smashing the federal budget, running up the
highest deficits in history, and overstretching our defense so much
that they have instituted de facto conscription. They have
declared themselves above the law and obfuscate and frustrate
nearly all attempts at oversight and scrutiny as provided for in
the Constitution. They have all but repealed the Bill of Rights,
except for the 2nd Amendment, and returned us 50 years into our
past into the mentality of the McCarthy era. They have pursued
policies that harm many and benefit a select few elites. They have
made concerted effort to stifle dissent in the media and among
Congress members. Do you find this even remotely acceptable?

Excuse me for saying so, but you're SO far detached from reality in
the above rant that there's little point in even commenting. You
really ARE far enough to the radical left to make the NY Times look
like a conservative propaganda tool.

Its your country thats detached from reality mate. Tims statement
would not be consider extreme or radical in much of the world.

What do you think would happen to Michael S'Moores (or Fed Kennedy or Al
Gorged) if he condemned "their" leader in much of the world? *Very* few
countries allow such vitriolic criticism; most just kill/torture/imprison
the offender and that's that.

Bill "reality indeed" S.

S o r n i said:

What do you think would happen to Michael S'Moores (or Fed Kennedy or Al
Gorged) if he condemned "their" leader in much of the world? *Very* few
countries allow such vitriolic criticism; most just kill/torture/imprison
the offender and that's that.

right. so we're not doing too badly as long as we live up to those
standards.

good point bill.

i say we shoot a bit higher.. like maybe the bill of rights and the other
standards by which *WE* have chosen to judge ourselves.
--
david reuteler
[email hidden]

S o r n i:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Its your country thats detached from reality mate. Tims statement
would not be consider extreme or radical in much of the world.

What do you think would happen to Michael S'Moores (or Fed Kennedy or Al
Gorged) if he condemned "their" leader in much of the world? *Very* few
countries allow such vitriolic criticism; most just kill/torture/imprison
the offender and that's that.

Rubbish. Very few countries in the world allow "vitriolic criticism"?
"Most just kill/torture/impriso the offender"? This is siege mentality
that's quite obvious with the uninformed. You obviously haven't been
anywhere much at all.

And that's that.

Jose Rizal _@_._ said:

Tim McNamara:

Quoted message said:

However, I still don't like MoveOn.org's "the sky is falling"
scaremongering tactics and their reactionary oppositionalism.
Indeed, the latter makes them predictable and manipulable.

To be fair, though, your statements below may be seen as equally
"scaremongering" and "reactionary oppositionalism", depending on how
you define that term:

Guilty as charged yer honor. However, I'm posting an opinion which
people may or may not choose to read (after all, after you've read
about four of my political posts you probably have the gist of my
opinions, and may not want to waste any more time on them).
MoveOn.org insists on sending hysterical e-mails to as many e-mail
mailboxes as they can almost every day. That's what annoys me, in
that one cannot participate in their Web site and opt out of this (or
couldn't, anyway- maybe that has changed).

Quoted message said:

One thing that MoveOn.org seems to be able to do is galvanise a
significant number of people into action through their website, and
channel contributions from its sympathisers into tangible
activities. Remember that your enemy's enemy is your friend.

I've never agreed with that old saying.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My politics are not appreciably to the right of MoveOn.org in
general, and indeed I am probably to the left of them on many
issues, but their brand of hysteria turns me way off. Hence I
think their "product" is crapola.

While at the same time you use many terms which are stronger than
much of MoveOn.org's. I don't think you're much different (which is
not a bad thing when it comes to this topic).

Again, the difference is that I don't insist on collecting information
about people and e-mailing them my opinions.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I haven't looked at their Web site for a while, but once upon a
time at least they had no privacy policy and no way to opt out of
getting their spam if you wanted to sign one of their petitions. I
find both of these unacceptable- in this case the same complaint I
have about the newspaper Web sites that require "registration" to
read their Web site content.

This has nothing to do with ideology and what the group is trying to
accomplish in political terms.

Ah, but it does. It's a subtle contradiction of their claims to a
liberalist position. It's the conservatives that support the
intrusion of government into private lives, the attempt to legislate
socially conservative Christian mores into the criminal code and civil
codes, and yet here we have liberals adopting the same technique. You
cannot defeat the enemy if you become like them- that's just an
insidious form of capitulation.

Jose Rizal said:

S o r n i:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Its your country thats detached from reality mate. Tims statement
would not be consider extreme or radical in much of the world.

What do you think would happen to Michael S'Moores (or Fed Kennedy
or Al Gorged) if he condemned "their" leader in much of the world?
*Very* few countries allow such vitriolic criticism; most just
kill/torture/imprison the offender and that's that.

Rubbish. Very few countries in the world allow "vitriolic criticism"?
"Most just kill/torture/impriso the offender"? This is siege
mentality that's quite obvious with the uninformed. You obviously
haven't been anywhere much at all.

And that's that.

You're posting in rich text again, Jose.

Bill "you were doing so well for a while there" S.

David Reuteler said:

S o r n i said:

What do you think would happen to Michael S'Moores (or Fed Kennedy
or Al Gorged) if he condemned "their" leader in much of the world?
*Very* few countries allow such vitriolic criticism; most just
kill/torture/imprison the offender and that's that.

right. so we're not doing too badly as long as we live up to those
standards.

Did I say that? You removed the context of my reply.

Quoted message said:

good point bill.

i say we shoot a bit higher.. like maybe the bill of rights and the
other standards by which *WE* have chosen to judge ourselves.

Agree. It's only the doomsayers who seem to think that's endangered.

Bill "just not buying the paranoia" S.

Mark Hickey said:

Tim McNamara said:

Mark Hickey <[email hidden]> writes:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I don't disagree that there might not have been a working
relationship. However, there were plenty of contacts between the
two, looking for ways to cooperate. Now I don't know about you,
but having Al Qaeda and Saddam looking for ways to cooperate make
taking out Saddam seem pretty important to me.

And what objective evidence is there of contacts between Al Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein?

Look it up in the 9/11 commission report.

You've got yourself an advance copy?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Frankly, Mark, I think that America and the world was misled, and
deliberately misled, by a group of liars and sociopaths who found
themselves in the right positions, at the right time, with an
exploitable situation. Part of that situation was the utter failing
of the Congress to do its job, especially the spineless so-called
Deomocrats who were more than happy to roll over and play dead. I
think the entire situation is inexcusable, that 90% or more of the
Congress should be voted out of office, and that the President and
his Cabinet should be investigated and arraigned for criminal
prosecution.

You have to believe it's a conspiracy that's been going on for many,
many years - and that cut across every party and political
boundary... and one that included just about every intelligence
agency on the planet.

And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was no
unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq posed any
but the most far-fetched threat to the United States. Saddam Hussein
was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a mosquito that the
Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever since the "ragged
ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied Clinton very hard to do
what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough not to make that mistake.

Quoted message said:

Was some of the intelligence bogus? No doubt. Was Saddam a danger
to the US, US and allies' interests? No doubt. Could Saddam have
disrupted the world economy by stirring things up in the region? No
doubt. Should Saddam have been taken out? No doubt.

Sorry, Mark, I have lots and lots of doubt. Was some of the
intelligence bogus- yes, much of it was but even more bogus were the
inept conclusions drawn from practically no evidence at all,
fabricated out of the whole cloth and presented to the UN by Colin
Powell as concrete evidence. Saddam was not a threat to the US proper
and only a minor threat to US interests in other places. He was
pretty much a pariah in the Arab world for a variety of reasons and
wasn't going to get a lot of cooperation there. Iran hated him, the
Kuwaitis weren't going to cooperate and the Saudis know where their
bread is buttered. The notion of Saddam Hussein as a threat to the US
and its interests is smoke and mirrors. Disrupting the world economy?
With what? Rocks and slings? Half-starved infantry? Please pull the
other one, it's got bells. How many Iraqis were involved in 9/11?

Now, the interesting question is "should Saddam have been taken out."
That's not an easy yes/no answer. In terms of American interests, the
answer is "no." There was no reason to take him out. He didn't have
the money to develop a credible threat against us. Should he have
been "taken out" because of his brutality and tyranny against the
Iraqi people? By that standard there are other places we'd need to
invade to topple governments- North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and
Israel. Yet we're not going to any of those places because we have
close ties (Israel and Saudi Arabia), no compelling reason (Iran) or a
powderkeg situation with real perils (North Korea).

I think the question really boils down to "does the United States have
the right and the authority to invade countries whose governments we
don't like, and replace them?" We've done it twice in three years-
with some justification in the case of Afghanistan because of their
proven complicity with Al Qaeda, although we've since botched the job
quite thoroughly and will have a failed state on our hands probably by
the end of next winter unless the opium crop is good. Now, I do not
think that we have the right or authority to engage in toppling other
regimes unless those regimes present a clear and present danger to the
US, and even then I think we have to wait for provocation- after all,
it's illegal for you or I to shoot some drunk in a bar because we
think he's going to plan to hurt us.

Quoted message said:

Saddam had every chance to avoid the war, and took none of them.
That's either 'cuz he's really dumb (don't recall anyone ever
accusing him of that) or because he WAS hiding something. I guess
we'll know for sure some day.

Hussein's situation is easily understood, I think. He was a tyranical
dictator and suffered the situation that all such people end up in.
He ws isolated from reality by those around him, who told him what he
wanted to hear because they thought they'd kill him if they told him
the truth. He thought he had the military strength to stave off the
US and its assistants and acted accordingly. Turned out he was wrong.
He probably thought he *was* hiding something, that he did actually
have WMDs even though, as it turns out, he didn't. In short, he was
living in a fantasy world.

The actions by the so-called "insurgents" are also easily understood,
although we must remember that until today, it is the US and the
coalition that were the insurgents; with a quasi-functioning Iraqi
government this is not as clear cut, and after democratic elections-
if those actually happen- then indeed the groups that are called
"insurgents" in the US media will be insurgents if they continue to
attack their own government. There is still a marked tendency in the
US media to assume that in fact we are in the right, that the weight
of moral authority is on our side, but that's only from one point of
view- and one with a vested interest in self-justification.

I posted a while ago that, while I have no respect for GWB, his
Cabinet or his policies, I'd still be [censored] if Canada decided to
swoop into the US and change our government in order to make our lives
better. I'd be an "insurgent" in that situation, even if Canada had
the backing of the rest of the world- it's my country, my government
and I'll deal with it thank-you-very-much. Fortunately for us, Canada
seems to be a level headed bunch of folks. This is what the Iraqi
insurgents are doing- I am sure they see themselves as patriots and
freedom fighters. There's less excuse for the non-Iraqis who have
entered the country in order to attack Americans and their assistants
more conveniently, however, and I suspect that much of the
"insurgency" is in fact from those people and is just terrorism. It
was to be expected and I am sure no one is surprised that Saudis,
Jordanians, etc. are involved.

gwhite said:

Kyle.B.H said:

While photocopying a portion of a book would perhaps constitute a
violation of copyright law,...

Depends on the purpose. If you're writing a critique, a review or
citing the work then you can reproduce a limited portion.

Quoted message said:

Like so many things, "it depends." There is "fair use" copying very
much allowed by law. Copying entire chapters, or even lengthy
sections is probably not fair use.

Well, you can in general make a copy for your own use- so that you can
read it, for example, while building wheels and not get grease all
over your hardbound copy of _The Bicycle Wheel_. You could copy the
entire book for this purpose under fair use. You couldn't make copies
for others, though, under fair use.

Quoted message said:

Scientific facts and historical data are not protected by copyright.

Well, the facts and data are not protected (there are exceptions to
this, however, as Congress has vastly broadened "intellectual property
rights" in a misguided and muddleheaded way), but the work within
which those facts and data are presented is copyrighted.

Quoted message said:

I don't know the specifics, for your copying.

ISTR that he intimated he got a copy at the library and photocopied
it.

Tim McNamara said:

And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was no
unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq posed any
but the most far-fetched threat to the United States. Saddam Hussein
was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a mosquito that the
Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever since the "ragged
ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied Clinton very hard to do
what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough not to make that mistake.

Patent revisionism. Of course there was no "unanimous idea" at all --
that's an unrealistic standard. However, two presidential administrations,
most leaders and members of Congress, senior members of US and foreign
intelligence agencies, the UN security council, and most responsible nations
in the world had concluded that Saddam maintained some degree of WMD
capability and was working toward expanding it (the latter part remains true
today). Saddam wasn't just a "mosquito" either. We spent literally
billions after the first Gulf War - in the Clinton years mainly - planning
and preparing for war in Iraq as one of two most likely scenarios (the other
being Korea). We had forces deployed and engaged in combat ops, with combat
rules for over ten years in the skies and on the ground in Iraq. Clinton
himself used force on several occasions in Iraq -- ironically his efforts
were what resulted in the booting out of the UN inspectors to begin with in
1998. Dems continue to cry that we should have let the UN handle it, but it
was Bubba who got the UN tossed to begin with. Ultimately people died in
the attacks he authorized, yet he failed to achieve anything. That's a
pretty crappy record.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Was some of the intelligence bogus? No doubt. Was Saddam a danger
to the US, US and allies' interests? No doubt. Could Saddam have
disrupted the world economy by stirring things up in the region? No
doubt. Should Saddam have been taken out? No doubt.

Sorry, Mark, I have lots and lots of doubt. Was some of the
intelligence bogus- yes, much of it was but even more bogus were the
inept conclusions drawn from practically no evidence at all,
fabricated out of the whole cloth and presented to the UN by Colin
Powell as concrete evidence. Saddam was not a threat to the US proper
and only a minor threat to US interests in other places. He was
pretty much a pariah in the Arab world for a variety of reasons and
wasn't going to get a lot of cooperation there. Iran hated him, the
Kuwaitis weren't going to cooperate and the Saudis know where their
bread is buttered. The notion of Saddam Hussein as a threat to the US
and its interests is smoke and mirrors. Disrupting the world economy?
With what? Rocks and slings? Half-starved infantry? Please pull the
other one, it's got bells. How many Iraqis were involved in 9/11?

Your understanding of regional security is pretty scarce. Our military
presence in the 90's was one of the reasons that Saddam wasn't able to cause
major regional disruptions in the Gulf Region. Our national interest there
is well documented and goes back decades. Read up on the "Carter Doctrine"
if you have any doubts. Check out the tanker war period during the Iran -
Iraq war to see the impact instability could have on the world economic
situation. No, Saddam wasn't going to attack the US directly. He was going
to threaten our interests and our allies in the area were he could project
power. Our presence prevented that for ten years, but was becoming
untenable as international resolve waned and sanctions weakened. it was a
poor basis for long-term policy.

Quoted message said:

Now, the interesting question is "should Saddam have been taken out."
That's not an easy yes/no answer. In terms of American interests, the
answer is "no." There was no reason to take him out. He didn't have
the money to develop a credible threat against us. Should he have
been "taken out" because of his brutality and tyranny against the
Iraqi people? By that standard there are other places we'd need to
invade to topple governments- North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and
Israel. Yet we're not going to any of those places because we have
close ties (Israel and Saudi Arabia), no compelling reason (Iran) or a
powderkeg situation with real perils (North Korea).

I think the question really boils down to "does the United States have
the right and the authority to invade countries whose governments we
don't like, and replace them?" We've done it twice in three years-
with some justification in the case of Afghanistan because of their
proven complicity with Al Qaeda, although we've since botched the job
quite thoroughly and will have a failed state on our hands probably by
the end of next winter unless the opium crop is good. Now, I do not
think that we have the right or authority to engage in toppling other
regimes unless those regimes present a clear and present danger to the
US, and even then I think we have to wait for provocation- after all,
it's illegal for you or I to shoot some drunk in a bar because we
think he's going to plan to hurt us.

It's not a question of who we like and don't like, it's a question of what
consitutes a threat to US national security and is pre-emption a viable
policy. 9/11 is a strong argument for pre-emption. To suggest that US
forces are committed on the basis of popularity is just silly. If that were
the case, France wouldn't be such a pain in the ass. We did it in Panaman,
we did it in Grenada, we did it in Haiti shortly after Clinton took office.
Comparing national security policy to a drunken bar fight is nothing but a
straw man, the two aren't even remotely alike. It's a false analogy.

Quoted message said:

The actions by the so-called "insurgents" are also easily understood,
although we must remember that until today, it is the US and the
coalition that were the insurgents;

No, we (along with our allies) were the conquerors who imposed our sovereign
control over the defeated regime. We did it openly with direct application
of military force. There was no "insurgency". To argue that is merely an
effort to argue moral equivilency.

Quoted message said:

with a quasi-functioning Iraqi
government this is not as clear cut, and after democratic elections-
if those actually happen- then indeed the groups that are called
"insurgents" in the US media will be insurgents if they continue to
attack their own government. There is still a marked tendency in the
US media to assume that in fact we are in the right, that the weight
of moral authority is on our side, but that's only from one point of
view- and one with a vested interest in self-justification.

We do have the weight of moral authority. We are seeking to impose
security, prosperity, and democracy in a stable self-governing state. We're
not the ones cutting of peoples heads and bragging about it. It might not
sit well with you Tim, but the Coalition really are the good guys over there
right now.

Quoted message said:

I posted a while ago that, while I have no respect for GWB, his
Cabinet or his policies, I'd still be [censored] if Canada decided to
swoop into the US and change our government in order to make our lives
better.

If the government of Canada was a violent, dictatorial, and threating
regime, that flouted international law and UN sanctions combined with a
history of WMD use both against it's enemies and it's own people then I'd
hope the US would "swoop" in and change governments. Hell I wouldn't want
that [censored] on my northern border!

Quoted message said:

I'd be an "insurgent" in that situation, even if Canada had
the backing of the rest of the world- it's my country, my government
and I'll deal with it thank-you-very-much.

Then you would probably die a martyr for the cause.

Quoted message said:

Fortunately for us, Canada
seems to be a level headed bunch of folks. This is what the Iraqi
insurgents are doing- I am sure they see themselves as patriots and
freedom fighters.

Nice romantic thought, but the average Iraqi has no love for the insurgents
even if they are not all that thrilled with the Coalition presence.
Remember, you're freedom loving insurgents are the ones cutting off heads of
captives on film and bragging about it to the world. They aren't nice guys
and they don't want freedom.
They want YOU and me dead.

Quoted message said:

There's less excuse for the non-Iraqis who have
entered the country in order to attack Americans and their assistants
more conveniently, however, and I suspect that much of the
"insurgency" is in fact from those people and is just terrorism. It
was to be expected and I am sure no one is surprised that Saudis,
Jordanians, etc. are involved.

So which is it? The story is that the Shia milita appear to have been
fighting the US occupation for nationalist motives, but have realized they
are fighting a losing battle. The "insurgents" -- Iraqi or otherwise -- are
shaping up to be either Ba'athis fanatics (Saddam's thugs primarily, a far
cry from freedom fighters) or Muslim whackos who want to destroy western
civilization.

HTH

Tom

I too was misled. By the United Nations. Not in Iraq but in what was
Yugoslavia. And before that in Cambodia. And now in Sudan.

The organic weakness of the UN is it has no "teeth". Dictators bent
on killing are not likely to be influenced by sanctions or
resolutions unless there is ultimate physical consequences to
challenge of these edicts.

Wake up and see what is happening with the UN and what is
happening in Sudan.

The UN has a very bad track record of enforcement in enforcement in
their primary purpose, preservation of life. But when it comes to war,
the problem is the symptom. Reactive. Problem chasing.

The one benefit the myopic reactionaries miss is the exodus of US troops
from Saudi Arabia. With that pump primed, I will retreat to the shadows
and see if the luminaries will expound.

--

tcmedara said:

Tim McNamara said:

And yet the public record does not in fact support this. There was no
unanimous idea that Iraq had WMDs and no consensus that Iraq posed any
but the most far-fetched threat to the United States. Saddam Hussein
was a mosquito on our butts, frankly. And a mosquito that the
Rumsfeld group was obsessed with swatting ever since the "ragged
ending" of the first Gulf War. They lobbied Clinton very hard to do
what GWB did, but Clinton was smart enough not to make that mistake.

Patent revisionism.

Hmmm, something like this?

http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

Greg
--
Destroy your safe and happy lives
Before it is too late
The battles we fought were long and hard
Just not to be consumed by rock'n'roll

W(h)eisse Luft snipes:

Quoted message said:

I too was misled. By the United Nations. Not in Iraq but in what
was Yugoslavia. And before that in Cambodia. And now in Sudan.

Quoted message said:

The organic weakness of the UN is it has no "teeth". Dictators bent
on killing are not likely to be influenced by sanctions or
resolutions unless there is ultimate physical consequences to
challenge of these edicts.

Oh! And who do you think was the extraction dentist? The US as major
witholder of dues and circumventor of the UN seems the closest culprit.

Quoted message said:

Wake up and see what is happening with the UN and what is
happening in Sudan.

The UN is called in on US matters only when some action needs some
form of legitimacy. As you see, that wasn't even possible in Iraq.

Quoted message said:

The UN has a very bad track record of enforcement in enforcement in
their primary purpose, preservation of life. But when it comes to
war, the problem is the symptom. Reactive. Problem chasing.

Who is the UN? It is the member states, the biggest of which flaunts
the UN most of the time.

Quoted message said:

The one benefit the myopic reactionaries miss is the exodus of US
troops from Saudi Arabia. With that pump primed, I will retreat to
the shadows and see if the luminaries will expound.

Take off those jingoistic blinders and look.

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

AndyMorris said:

Mark Hickey said:

Tim McNamara said:

Your country is being run by idiots, psychopaths and paranoiacs who
have succeeded in smashing the federal budget, running up the highest
deficits in history, and overstretching our defense so much that they
have instituted de facto conscription. They have declared themselves
above the law and obfuscate and frustrate nearly all attempts at
oversight and scrutiny as provided for in the Constitution. They
have all but repealed the Bill of Rights, except for the 2nd
Amendment, and returned us 50 years into our past into the mentality
of the McCarthy era. They have pursued policies that harm many and
benefit a select few elites. They have made concerted effort to
stifle dissent in the media and among Congress members. Do you find
this even remotely acceptable?

Excuse me for saying so, but you're SO far detached from reality in
the above rant that there's little point in even commenting. You
really ARE far enough to the radical left to make the NY Times look
like a conservative propaganda tool.

Its your country thats detached from reality mate. Tims statement would not
be consider extreme or radical in much of the world.

Then they'd be equally wrong.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame