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 habcycles.comhabcycles.comOpen ↗ 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...

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Tom Sherman

BMark 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 [/B]

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.

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:

daily.misleader.orgctt.aspOpen ↗

Jobst Brandt [email hidden]

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
home.in.tum.deoe quotefixOpen ↗

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.

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.

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.

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?

moveon.orgcaughtonvideoOpen ↗

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 habcycles.comhabcycles.comOpen ↗ Home of
the $695 ti frame