Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Bush's resume

I think it doesn't matter to the House of Saud whether they're in bed with the Bush's or not. They're going to be getting American money either way so they can play as many sides of the fence as possible. Until The United States weens itself off of its dependency on foreign oil (either by drilling Alaska or by alternative fuel sources), The Sauds are always going to have a very powerful trump card with their oil.

APB

sigh? What, you didn't have anything to refute the FACTs that i linked to, so we start with the misdirection and subtle belittling of a postion now? You guys wanted facts from me. I linked you to them. Instead of a factual answer i get "That's what I would expect you to call it." C'mon, APB, i expect better of you than that. Please show it.

And no, you thought wrong. I said what i meant. They were pursuing avenues of greater wmd's. The lauded 9/11 commission may have missed it, but frankly, i don't think they could have found their ass with both hands. They missed quite a few things, as evidenced by some of their interviews from the last few days.

It has now been shown that the MI6 intelligence was correct and they WERE pursuing the yellow paste. Listen to more than the big three media, and no, i don't mean rush limbaugh.

Now as for your link to kerry's website, i did a little exploring, like you wished.

I looked under plans, i wanted to see what he had to say and what i found was...drivel. "I would lead a coalition of the willing..." Really? What coalition? Of who? Maybe france and germany? You know, those two security council countries that defied the vaunted UN and helped a murderous regime to kill hundreds of thousands of its own people with its back door illegal food for oil program? Those countries? Gee, i bet the Iraqi people are crappin' themselves they are so happy to hear that.

Or maybe its the unleashing of the US's full range of power, like the economic power. What form might that take, do you imagine. Maybe...economic sanctions? Well, those have worked out so swell in the past. Lets take some successful examples, like say...Cuba. We all know how Castro is out of power there and food for the average person is plentyful, right?

Look, i am coming off pretty harsh here, but the truth is, it is a harsh, mean, nasty world that we live in. And wanting a pretty pristine life isn't gonna happen. But, when i ask for specifics that refute the facts i have found, i get glittering generalities and belittling comments designed to cover the lack of a real response. At least that is the way it seems to me. I kept expecting to hear the ubiquitous phrase "you people".

Kid Prime, you said...

"Yeah, and we believe in abusing political prisoners held in foreign prisons in limbo without due process, as well as holding Arab-American citizens without due process in Guantanamo Bay. It's really only a difference of degree."

First, no, "WE" don't. Some individuals, of whatever rank, did those things. They were wrong, and are currently being prosecuted for it with more to come down the pike. However, i am not gonna go around with a wailing and gnashing of teeth for barking dogs and making them stand naked when they were trying to kill US soldiers, you know, the "troops" everyone supports. As for the physical rape, torture and murder which has happened, those responsible SHOULD and MUST be punished. THOSE RESPONSIBLE! You wanna wear a hair shirt and go around whipping yourself, go ahead. But i think of the hundreds of thousands in mass graves: men, women, children. Suddenly, i really don't care if some of those people responsible get humiliated.

Now, the old saw of the wmd's. the general outrage sounds something like this..."we wuz lied to. Saddam didn't have them and Bush told us he did. He lied to the american people."

Truth time. Bush believed there were WMD's. Clinton believe there were WMD's. Kerry believed there were WMD's. France, Germany, Russia, the UN security council, Britian...alllllll believed there were WMD's.

They were wrong about it on the scale people thought. Why were they wrong? Faulty intelligence. Why was the intelligence wrong? Remember the Church commission i believe it was, of the 70's? Well, they made it ILLEGAL for the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI, along with all those other agencies...TO SHARE INFORMATION WITH EACH OTHER. But, even so, that only applies to the US. What about all them other lil' ole countries?

So, while all ya'll are wailing and gnashing teeth about why the agencies didn't communicate, why the pieces weren't put together, the reason is, the pieces were never in the same room together. By the way, the great and wonderful Kerry tried to push through a plan that would GUT the agencies even more. One so bad that even ted kennedy himself, that great bastion of liberalism, wouldn't go along with it.

And now, news on the paying for terrorist front...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48822,00.html

I realize that this is from fox, so it is automatic anathama to you, but there you go. Just one of the many items i found. In case you think it is just about Isreal, remember this, those terrorists, those 'brave martyr's', like to blow up little children, women, and men, some of whom have been american, on the streets of Isreal.

As for more on the yellow cake terroism thing, here's a nice lil' link...

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/001447.html

So, not only was Iraq actively seeking the uranium, so were a few other havens for terrorists.

so yeah, i do consider Iraq pursuing WMD's a threat to the US under Saddam Hussein. Bush acted on the information he had. You wanna call that Lying to us, go ahead. But the reality is, no matter how 'flawed' it might have been, for reasons HE DID NOT PERPETRATE, he was acting as best he knew how.

I'll stop here now. I think i have proven what i stated with enough facts to back it up.

I'm not wailing and gnashing my teeth (you used that phrase twice in your last post,) and frankly, I resent your semantic manipulation. It's condescending, and it weakens your argument. If you truly feel like everyone who disagrees with you is "wailing and gnashing their teeth," I'm wasting my time.

The great thing about America is that we get to have different opinions about things, based on our life experiences, relationships, and the evidences we read. I enjoy debating with you, because I feel passionately about making our country which I love the very best it can be, but if you continue to use backhanded condescending remarks trying to demean peoples' opinions which are different from yours, I have nothing more to say, because, frankly, it's not worth my time to debate with someone who calls my opinions "wailing and gnashing of teeth." I read your articles, and I'll be happy to comment on them, but I will not be condescended to.

Rickshaw, as you noted, the torture involved more than barking dogs and making people stand around naked. There have been accounts of physical and sexual torture and murder. And are you so sure that those being tortured were actually guilty of anything? There had been no trials, nor actually any charges that I've heard of. Many innocent people were rounded up. Given the circumstances, rounding up innocents may have been unavoidable. However, recognizing that, one would expect reasonable care to be taken to sort out the innocent from the guilty. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the torturers were pretty indiscriminate. And the whole chain of command right up to the White House should be held responsible for that disgusting criminal behavior.

So damn right I'm going to wail and gnash my teeth over this. I'm ashamed - bloody ashamed - and goddamn angry about it too. This country holds itself out as standing for freedom and compassion and it is supposed to set an example of civilized behavior. Pretty piss poor job it's doing. Torture is never acceptable.

Kid, it wasn't condescending. It was getting a point across. There is a correct and appropriate response to what took place. That is an investigation, and identification of what took place, who did it, and what should be done about it.

That is happening. Yet some folks are like dogs worrying a bone, they cant' accept that fact that s#it happens, and even when it is being pursued, to correct ends, they still react like it is the greatest stain the world has ever seen.

I happen to agree that what took place was pretty damn bad. But there is a limit to how much i am willing to feel guilty for it. It is a reasonable response. I get the impression that many feel that because these abuses took place, that the entirety of the US effort is without merit. This is untrue.

The first time anything good is reported out of Iraq, the next line seems to be about the Prison scandal. America is NOT those individuals. Bush said, and i agree, that they do NOT represent the way most of us feel. They damn sure don't represent the way i feel. I think they should suffer the appropriate punishment.

But i am not willing to negate the effort of Several Hundred thousand men and women that have circulated in and out of Iraq because of them. They did a bad thing, but they are not ME. And they are not YOU. And they do not, obviously from your remarks, represent what you believe. We have shown this to the world. At this point i wont continue to apologize to anyone for what they did. But I would like to see them punished.

There is more to iraq than Abu Gharib. There are the many UNREPORTED stories going on of the rebuilding efforts that are successful. There are the many stories of the citizens that actually ARE happy to see what the US has helped bring about. But...happiness does not sell papers and air time, and it makes the current hated admin look good, so it doesn't get much airplay.

Instead of whoever, go talk to some soldiers that have returned and get their takes on things. Listen to the stories they have to tell. And remember that not everyone that protests america does it from a pure and noble heart over there. Its just possible that some of them have ulterior motives, yes?

I hope that explaines to both you and Semi how i look at it. But now some discourse on the FACTS that i posted would be fine.

And i never said anyone that disagrees with me is 'wailing and gnashing their teeth'. What i said was, the response has become the default response to anything reported good coming out of iraq.

"We are building new schools over there". "What about Abu Gharib?"

"We are getting the electricity going again." "What about abu Gharib?"

"25 million people have been freed from a monster that murdered, raped, tortured, and gased his way across 3 decades of abuse. We have located, with assistance, over 200 mass grave sites, and over approximately 300,000 dead people thrown away in them." "Well, what about Abu Gharib?"

See the difference? If not, you are right, there isn't much point in our debating.

Actually, you used that phrase twice in that post. Yes, once WAS about Abu Gharib, but the other was about intelligence failures that gave us a faulty reason to war in the first place. So I'm sorry, no, I don't see the difference. The semantic implication is very clear.

And you are avoiding discussion about the facts i posted, which you and APB asked for.

I posted them and got very short shrift from APB, and you went off on a tangent about a phrase used to signify an over-reaction to something as i saw it. So, at this point, the semantic arguement clearly seems to be more about avoiding what i posted on the facts, at least to me.

There has been, in my opinion, a lot, and i mean a lot, of useless thrashing about over non-essential matters. Abu Gharib was bad. No one, especially me, disputes it. What i am saying is that it has been a) responding all out of proportion, b) used to divert attention from the positive aspects of what has been accomplished, and c)finger pointing and blame when it is obvious that there was a systemic breakdown in the functional intelligence system due to many factors over several admins.

So, since we both disagree about the use of the term, and further discussion gets us no where, why not respond to the facts i posted links to like you asked for?

Seems reasonable to me. I responded to your posts on topic.

As far as the first link, from what I can tell, it was about Saddam sending money to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, which has nothing directly related to terrorism against the United States as it applies to my original point, where I asked you to supply evidence that Iraq has directly threatened the U.S. in any way that would necessitate a military response on the scale we have seen.

Let's remember that it was Afghanistan which housed Al-Qaida and provided support during the 9-11 attacks. Yet we haven't been occupying Afghanistan on this level for the last year, have we? Clearly, something else is going on.

As far as the new evidence that perhaps Iraq was seeking to buy nuclear materials from Niger, as well as North Korea, Iran, China, and Libya, if we truly care so much about this information, isn't it time to go after the terrorists in these other countries as well? In particular, since Hussein isn't in power anymore, shouldn't we go and destroy these horrible people in Niger who obviously still want to arm the world against us? Why is Iraq so important, yet North Korea, which is much more powerful militarily and much closer to nuclear weapons, not?

As far as APB not responding in this thread anymore, he probably figured he had better ways to spend his time and energy.

You're right about that KP.

It was the weekend after all.

So, Rick, I didn't bother responding individually to the "facts" you posted, and I won't bother responding individually to the concerns you posted afterwards, because it would be a waste of my time. It's not even fun, it's just exhausting. You're going to interpret things your way, I'm going to interpret things my way. I know, I know, I'm hiding from the truth, right? Whatever.

If anyone happens to read this, is genuinely concerned with how they will vote, and is at all interested in my perspective, feel free to send me a message. I'd be happy to discuss things.

'nuff said!

Everybody gave up on you, Rickshaw. I'd say you won this debate hands down.

Whatever.

not so much a debate as a rant... if you can't win with clear facts, you can't say you've won.

unless you've got the Supreme Court in your pocket.

Hi folk. Sorry i was away....I know, some of you wished it would last permanent, lol.

Sorry, Kent, i disproved your arguement earlier. The Supreme Court just did what it was supposed to, not what everyone "feels" they did.

APB, yeah, i would say that you are right in that we both won't change our minds. But i do think you crapped out when you asked for facts and specifics, and then didn't even try to respond other than with a vague, belittling of my position.

KP, I agree. Next up, Niger. But what is this arguement you on the left have of "Well, why aren't we going into Korea, Iran, Niger...blah blah blah....like it invalidates everything we have done.

1st, Saddam needed to go for the SURVIVAL of people of his nation. The UN is currently run by a bunch of amoral (yeah, i know, the hated word Moral is in there.), greedy, willing to let a countries people be slaughtered bunch of governments of other countries, ie..France, Germany, Russia...FOR OIL! You know, what the left accuses bush of.

2nd...different countries call for different solutions. Yeah, lets invade Korea like we did Iraq. They are led by a friggin' nutcase that we KNOW has nuclear weapons because the previous admin, in a deal brokered by the most inept former president we ever had, GAVE THEM NUCLEAR MATERIALS! Gee, no hav'em, no blow'em up. So, you wanna be responsible for getting maybe what, 2..300,000 people of any nation wiped out in one blast? Gee, Bush is using Economic and Diplomatic pressure...That absolute dunce. Oh, wait, thats what everyone says he doesn't do...go figure.

3rd, there were more than just WMD's that figured into the decision, but...its the one point the left has to try and stick it in and break it off, so they use it like Abu Gharib. Never mind 18 resolutions by the corrupt, greedy, and murderous by inaction UN. Never mind that Bush, and the Congress, said we would go after terrorists, no matter the country, NO MATTER WHICH GROUP! Ya'll kinda conviently (sp?) forget that. Doesn't support your arguement, so its something to be glossed over.

4th, if you had read what i posted closely, you would see that i said it was more about funding HAMAS, BUT...under the conditions laid out by the admin and congress, yeah, it ties in to the general culture of Terrorism in the Middle East. Saddam supported it. Isrealies, and just about anyone visiting Isreal, were targets. Americans have died in those Bombings as well, just as i said.

and 5th, democracy is worth fighting for. Freedom is worth fighting for. Safety is worth fighting for. and lest you think i am talking about america, think again. I am talking about one of the biggest reasons we went in...the spread that selfsame Democracy, Freedom, and Safety to the middle east. People that are working, safe, able to feed their families and better themselves and their families in life don't generally run around getting people barely out of their teens to blow themselves and innocents up for some friggin zealot and his jihad.

Wait... why did I have to respond again? I noted that "facts" should include references. You put up references. End of story. Or, wait...my last post was the end of the story. Wait, no, this one is the end of the story.

Is this the end of the story?

C'mon, Rickshaw. Stop bothering people with these facts, er, i mean, "facts" (as though putting quotation marks around the word constitutes a substantial argument). Nobody wants to be bothered with "facts" when there's funny cartoons and pictures to laugh at.

The quotes serve to underscore that I am not debating whether or not these "facts" are true. They are facts, according to Rick. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with it. Generally, when you want to attribute something to someone else, you quote them.

I can't believe you think it's okay to go around saying things like that, even as asides. To suggest by implication that anyone who disagrees with you lacks morality or even worse, hates morality, is offensive in the extreme. That makes me really sad. You can say that I'm reading too much into it, but dude, you can't even make a simple statement without peppering it with venom like that. Why did you even put that in there? It bewilders me. Do you have that much anger?

I'm done here. You can claim "victory" or whatever you need to do to make yourself feel happy. As for me, Lee and I have a goal to register 500 people to vote by the deadline before the election. So take it easy. I'll see you at the polls in November.

I said that, Kid Prime, because the left likes to take shots at those that believe in religion, which is based, like it or not, on certain morals.

How many times on these boards alone have i seen someone attacking those with deep religious beliefs, and hating the "moral" judgements made? Quite a few. And yeah, it was a little bit of a hot button, but then, its okay for folks to fling out things like "religious fundamentalist garbage" at people as if all folks that believe in religion are intolerant asses.

Now, i wont' claim victory, you cant win something like this or lose it, but...this is twice in row you have zeroed in on one particular phrase or statement and used it to avoid talking about the things i showed the evidence of, the proof of, through links.

Which makes me think that you either don't have anything with which to refute what i found, or you are so scared that your position is to weak to defend you go on the "offended" and attack something else to cover.

Now, having said all that we have said here, with some heated exchanges on both sides...i still like you as a poster. You have a point of view that you believe in. I just wish you would back it up more.

Because the truth is, reality lies in between the positions we have talked about. And only open, honest discourse will bring it out.

If only they could get the dosage right.

Uh, yeah, this is a group of people i would put my trust in.

sure.